Paul’s Hope In The Resurrection
Acts 24:1-27 Lesson 27
Key verse 24:15
“...and I have the same hope in God as these men, that there will be a resurrection of both the
righteous and the wicked.”
Today, Paul stands on trial before Governor Felix. Paul did not try to save himself. Instead, he sought to please God. He also shepherded Governor Felix with the gospel truth. We can learn Paul’s hope in the resurrection of the dead and his shepherd heart for one lost person, like Felix May God bless our study today.
First, Paul Was Imprisoned Without A Charge (1-13).
As we studied, Paul was taken to Caesarea by 470 Roman soldiers. It was a spectacular rescue, demonstrating that God was with Paul. Paul was kept under guard in Herod’s palace. Then, five days after Paul’s arrival, his accusers–the high priest Ananias, together with some elders and a lawyer named Tertullus–came to Caesarea and brought their charges against Paul. Tertullus must have been a famous trial lawyer. He knew how to work the crowd and manipulate the atmosphere in order to achieve his goal. His opening remarks were full flattery. He said, “We have enjoyed a long period of peace under you, and your foresight has brought about reforms in this nation. Everywhere and in every way, most excellent Felix, we acknowledge this with profound gratitude. But in order not to weary you further, I would request that you be kind enough to hear us briefly” (2-4).
Tertullus spoke very eloquently but despite his fancy words, there was no basis to charge Paul. Look at verses 5-8. (We will also include the footnote in the bottom of the page.) “We have found this man to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the Nazarene sect and even tried to desecrate the temple; so we seized him and wanted to judge him according to our law. But the commander, Lysias, came and with the use of much force snatched him from our hands and ordered his accusers to come before you. By examining him yourself you will be able to learn the truth about all these charges we are bringing against him.” When we look at this statement carefully, we notice that there are no facts mentioned. There is no date, place or specific action, but only groundless accusations, laced with loaded words, such as “ringleader.” and “Nazarene Sect”. He sensationalized the rumors to captivate the people, like a good newspaper reporter. What is more, Tertullus implies that if Lysias had not acted so ruthlessly, the whole matter could have been settled peacefully in Jerusalem. But the fact was, they would have killed Paul. Tertullus’ plan worked for as Tertullus spoke, the Jews joined in the accusations (9). He had used the crowd to serve his own diabolical purpose. He was revealing the character of the devil who is a lair and the father of lies and a murderer. (Jn 8:44)
Paul acknowledged Felix’s authority and spoke based on facts. When the governor motioned for him to speak, Paul replied: “I know that for a number of years you have been a judge over this nation; so I gladly make my defense. You can easily verify that no more than twelve days ago I went up to Jerusalem to worship. My accusers did not find me arguing with anyone at the temple, or stirring up a crowd in the synagogues or anywhere else in the city. And they cannot prove to you the charges they are now making against me” (10-13). He had done nothing more in Jerusalem than go to the temple to worship God. Now, because of slanderous lies, he was now branded as a dangerous criminal. As Jesus had been slandered and falsely accused, Paul was also. It should not surprise God’s servants to be hated by the world. In fact, anyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. (2 Tim 3:12) They will be hated. It is not because they did something wrong, but because the devil opposes God’s work. Jesus described his own persecution, by saying: “They hated me without reason” (Jn 15:25). There are some who think they can who think they can do the work of God without any persecution. They think that if they are nice enough and sincere enough then this world will accept their work and understand them. If this was possible then Jesus surely could have done it. We are not better than Jesus.
Second, Paul’s Faith In Jesus And In The Word Of God (14).
If Paul was only thinking about getting out of the situation, he could have stopped speaking after verse 13. But he did not. In verses 14-16, Paul continues with a personal testimony. In doing so, he reveals his faith in Jesus and in the word of God. Look at verse 14. “However, I admit that I worship the God of our fathers as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect. I believe everything that agrees with the Law and that is written in the Prophets....” Paul worshiped God, the God of Israel. He worshiped God as a follower of the Way. Here, “the Way” refers to Christianity. Ultimately it refers to Jesus himself. Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” When Jesus died on the cross, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom (Mk 15:38). This curtain represented the wall of separation between God and men because of sin. Jesus died for our sins. Now we can come to God and have a personal relationship with the living God through the blood of Jesus. Hebrews 10:20-22 says, “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body...let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith....” Jesus is the way to God. Without Jesus no one can come to God.
Paul was not ashamed of Jesus or the ways of Jesus. When Paul said that he was a follower of the Way, he added, “which they call a sect.” This was a derogatory expression of the Jewish leaders to discredit Christianity, referring it as some unrecognized religious organization. They wanted to shame Christians and make them powerless and useless. It was the devil’s temptation. But Jesus had warned his disciples, “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels” (Mk 8:38). Peter said, “However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name” (1Pe 4:16). Paul was not intimidated by the devil’s pressure. Paul clearly identified himself as a follower of the Way, that is, Jesus Christ, though the corrupted said it was a sect. Paul said in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes....” We must not be ashamed of Jesus, or Jesus’ words or the ways of Jesus before corrupted people. We must identify ourselves boldly as Jesus’ disciples. We must boldly go fishing on the campuses of our universities. We must boldly pray in Jesus’ name whenever we eat, at home and in public. We need to identify ourselves as Christians before our friends and family.
Paul also confessed his absolute faith in the Law and the Prophets, that is, in the Bible. Look at verse 14b, “…I believe everything that agrees with Law and that is written in the Prophets.” Paul had discovered that the Law and the Prophets pointed to Christ and found fulfillment in Christ. Paul’s faith in Christ was not based on his personal experience alone, or even on the life and ministry of Jesus alone. It was rooted in the Scriptures. Paul had mastered the faith that Jesus really wanted his disciples to have. (Jn 2:22) Jesus had said in Luke 24:44, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Jesus really wants us to believe, “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures...that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1Co 15:3,4). When we believe God’s promise, rooted in his word, instead of focusing in on our present situation or our visible reality alone, we have faith that pleases God. Thank God that this does not depend on how we feel or on our present situation. What pleases God is that we believe the word of God simply because it is the word of God. May God help us believe the word of God like Paul did.
There are many people who are like Paul, who live by faith in the word of God, despite of hardships and persecutions. Think about our missionaries in the strictly Muslim nations of the Middle East. Because of strict government controls, they cannot go fishing on the campuses. They cannot even go onto the campuses. If they try to share the gospel openly, they will be deported. For them, it is a very real possibility that they may invest their whole lives in the mission without seeing any visible result. Sometimes it seems like they can do nothing. But they have faith in God’s word. They believe that one day God will bring the gospel light to those living in darkness. They may not see it with their own eyes. But they believe it. They struggle every day to overcome discouragement by holding onto the word of God.
We pray that God may make North America a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Sometimes this seems irrational or unbelievable. It seems that this country is drifting towards at liberal atheism. But our faith is rooted in the promise of God (Ex 19:6; 1 Pet 2:9). God is pleased by our faith when we hold onto a personal promise of God. We must believe God’s victory for us in this world and final victory in heaven. Sometimes we despair about school, or the difficult financial situation, or the atmosphere where most people don’t seem to want to get to know Jesus, let alone serve him. May God help us to believe one promise of God from our heart and experience God’s victory. We have ups and downs in life. Our world is ever changing. But our faith in Jesus based on the Scriptures must be constant. With this faith we can study the word of God deeply, building up our Bible material. We can study hard. We can develop our music program. We can strengthen our house churches and train disciples, even in the midst of persecution….all because of our faith in Jesus and the words of God.
Third, Paul’s Hope In The Resurrection (15-21).
Paul goes on to speak of his hope in the resurrection of the dead. Look at verse 15. “...and I have the same hope in God as these men, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.” This hope began to be realized when God raised Jesus from the dead. God proved that he is the almighty, living God and that Jesus is the living Son of God (Ro 1:4). Jesus said in John 5:28,29, “...a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out–those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.” Everyone will be raised from the dead, both the righteous and the wicked. When we believe the word of God, we can have hope in the resurrection.
However, the devil deceives people to think that death is the end of everything. He fills their hearts with the fear of death and controls their lives with this fear. Hebrews 2:15 says, “...and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” The fear of death makes people fatalistic. The fear of death makes people despair. The fear of death makes people powerless. Hedonism and moral corruption are rooted in the fear of death. Selfishness is rooted in the fear of death. The fear of death makes us live by the moto: “Save yourself.” But Jesus unmasked the reality of death. He taught that death is like sleeping (Jn 11:11). When life on earth ends, our souls go to the Lord and our bodies go to the dust. In God’s right time, our bodies will be raised. But they will not be like they were before. They will be spiritual bodies worthy of the kingdom of God. They will be imperishable, glorious, powerful, and spiritual (1Co 15:42-43). There will be no hair loss, wrinkles, deformities, or pot bellies. We will bear the glorious image of Christ within and without. When we have this hope, we can live the way God wants us to live.
How did Paul life when he had resurrection faith? Paul concluded in verse 16, “So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man.” Our deeds will be remembered. All pains borne for the work of God will be recognized. God will crown us with glory and give us eternal life in the kingdom of God. When Paul had this hope, he did his best to live before God with a clear conscience. He lived to please God and to be a blessing to others every day. Resurrection hope is not just a theory. It is very practical. Resurrection hope leads us to struggle hard to keep our consciences clear before God and man. Resurrection hope helps us resist the hedonism of the present culture. Instead of despairing, we can study hard to get all A’s. We can joyfully teach the Bible one-to-one to our friends and classmates. We can live a pure moral life, holding onto a good conscience, trusting in God’s future blessing. We can teach our children the word of God and pray for them like St Augustine’s mother, Monica, or Franklin Graham’s mother, Ruth Graham did. We can deny ourselves as live as shepherds of God’s flock. We can trust God with our future and go as missionaries to a foreign country one day. May God help each of us to have resurrection hope and strive to keep our consciences clear, living before God each day.
Fourth, Paul’s One-To-One Bible Study With Felix (22-27).
After hearing Paul, Governor Felix adjourned the proceedings, saying he would wait for Lysias before making his decision. Most likely he was stalling. It was clear that Paul was innocent, but Felix had no strength to do what was right. A lifetime of moral compromise had rendered him powerless to make tough decisions. He was like Pilate, remaining indecisive, caught in a human dilemma. Several days later he brought his wife and they listened to Paul speak about faith in Christ Jesus. It was a small group Bible study. Felix seemed to like Bible study. He found the truth of God refreshing to his soul. At the same time, he must have liked Paul, sensing his godly concern and his shepherd-like heart towards him. When Paul had hope in the resurrection, he was free, even though his was under house arrest. He was free to minister to Felix and he taught Felix and his wife joyfully. When life dealt him lemons he made lemonade.
But this beautiful 1:2 Bible study came to an end before Felix could accept Jesus. Look at verse 25. “As Paul discoursed on righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, ‘That’s enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.’” Felix was convicted of his sin. Satan used fear to keep him from his Savior , Jesus. Felix, like Herod Antipas (Mark 6:17-18), had taken another man’s wife. Paul’s words were interesting until they focused on “righteousness, self control and the judgment to come.” Felix should have repented. But he postponed until a more convenient time. He is like some who study the Bible until the topics start to touch their own sin problem. Then they say, “Don’t call me. I will call you when I am ready.” Many people will be glad to discuss the Gospel with you as long as it doesn’t touch their lives too personally. I had a weekly Bible study with an atheist for over two years and another for one year. They have one common trait. They both avoided personal application of the Bible. Christians do this too…not just atheists.
The gospel requires a personal decision to repent and believe in Jesus. Parents cannot do this for their children. Shepherds cannot do this for their Bible students. Sooner or later, each person must decide personally to repent and accept Jesus. Those who postpone this decision run a great risk, for we don’t know if we will live through tomorrow. Our hearts may harden beyond recovery. Felix lived in indecision for two years. Then his indecision eventually became a rejection of Christ. Without Christ he could not escape the judgment to come.
As you teach the Bible you will find that some will resist or run. But this is what the Gospel is all about – God’s power to change lives. The gospel is not effective until it moves from principles and doctrines of the Christian faith, into a life changing faith. When someone resists or runs from your witness, do not despair but take heart, for you have succeeded in making the Gospel personal.
In this passage we learn that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. Let’s believe this Bible truth and live before God as followers of the Way, followers of Jesus. With resurrection faith, let us keep a clear conscience before God as we live as shepherds for our people. And may we move from the theoretical to the personal in our Bible teaching and in our practical walk with Jesus.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Acts 22:30-23:35 Message
Take Courage! You Must Testify In Rome
Acts 22:30-23:35 Lesson 26
Key verse 23:11 NIU UBF 1/25/09
“The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, ‘Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.’”
In today’s passage Paul is brought before the Sanhedrin at the summons of the Roman commander. Though Paul appears to be on trial, he emerges as the spiritual victor. Under great duress, Paul testifies powerfully to the work of God and to the Risen Christ. On the other hand, the Sanhedrin members reveal their lawlessness, hypocrisy and powerlessness before the Almighty God. During this difficult time, the Risen Christ appears to Paul to strengthen him by giving him hope and direction. This was the true source of Paul’s spiritual victory. Through this passage, may we learn the secret to Paul’s courageous witness and victorious life of faith.
First, Paul Fulfilled His Duty To God In All Good Conscience (22:30-23:5).
In our previous study, we learned that Paul brought offerings, a “world mission journey team” and news of his third journey to the elders of the Jerusalem Church. Paul hoped that they could see God working powerfully among the Gentiles and somehow the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians could be re-united. At first they all rejoiced at his ministry. But Paul’s presence soon stirred up the Jews who did not accept the Gospel. There was rioting and false accusations flying everywhere. The Jews finally persuaded the Romans to arrest Paul. The Roman commander, in charge of Paul, wanted to find out why Paul was being accused. So he ordered the chief priests and the Sanhedrin to assemble and brought Paul to stand before them. It was like a grand jury formed to get information. Was Paul scared? No way! Paul could see that God was using this chaos as an opportunity to witness for God was using even his enemies to create a platform for Paul to address the entire Sanhedrin, or Jewish ruling council.
Paul was bold and fearless. Look at verse 1. “Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin and said, ‘My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day.’” Paul was bold and fearless. He took the initiative and spoke first. His words are indeed meaningful. He said, “I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day.” Paul was saying that, even though he was a sinner, in need of salvation, he was right with God in that he had completed the mission God gave him, and that his conscience bore witness to this fact.
Let’s think a little bit about what it means that his conscience was clear before God. When God made man, he gave him a conscience. Our conscience is nestled deep within our psyches. God works through our conscience. Our conscience helps us discern and choose what is good. As long as one does what is right before God, his conscience is at peace and he is happy. But when one does evil, his conscience is burdened with guilt. (Ro 2:15). Our consciences affect us even when we are apart from Christ. For example, some young people engage in debauchery and promiscuity hoping to have a little fun to quell their restless hearts. After sinning they think they can forget about it afterward. But soon, terrible guilt settles upon them. In my case, I suppressed my guilty conscience. I claimed that “I was O.K” But my guilty conscience caused me to suffer in other ways. I felt fruitless and useless and meaningless. The root of all this was my guilty conscience. No one can live a happy life in this condition. People try in many ways to drown the voice of their conscience. Some loose themselves in a hedonistic lifestyle, or in their work. If we suppress our consciences too long we are danger of becoming mentally ill, or even commit suicide. Some harden their hearts and become like Judas. A person becomes very dangerous when they no longer hear the voice of their conscience, for they can do just about anything.
But Paul confessed, “‘My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day.” How is this possible? Paul had confessed, many times in his Christian life, that he was a terrible sinner (1Ti 1:15). How then could Paul say he had fulfilled his duty to God in all good conscience? It was only by the grace of Jesus. Jesus is the Lamb of God who shed his blood on the cross for sinners. God made Jesus the sacrifice of atonement for our sins (Ro 3:25). Hebrews 9:14 says, “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ...cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God!” There is power in the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus cleanses our consciences from acts that lead to death. The blood of Jesus enables us to stand before the holy God with a good conscience. The blood of Jesus enables us to serve the living God. This is what we all really want to do. Is it not? This makes us happy. Paul claimed the blood of Jesus as his righteousness. From the moment Paul’s conscience was cleansed, Paul served God wholeheartedly. He discovered his priestly duty to God to preach the gospel to the Gentiles (Ro 15:16). For this, Paul had made three long and dangerous mission journeys. He shared in the remaining sufferings of Christ. In this way, he had fulfilled his duty to God. Now, Paul could stand before God with a good conscience. He also had no problem to stand before the corrupted religious leaders.
Paul was a good shepherd at all times. He deeply understood the agony of the Jewish religious leaders, for he was once one of them. They wore fancy gowns and had positions of honor. They made a tremendous effort to obtain legalistic righteousness. But without Christ, they could only condemn others while living as hypocrites. They did not know God. They did not really know themselves. Their hypocrisy made them miserable. They had no joy of serving God. They had no satisfaction of finishing their mission before God. To them, religious duty was a heavy burden. But they dared not put it down for the sake of their pride and position and their job security.
Paul’s opening statement had shocking effects. The High Priest, Ananias, ordered those standing near Paul to strike him on the mouth (2). Ananias seems to be like some kind of thug. Actually, he was a tool of the devil who wanted to suppress the truth of God. He was supposed to be in charge of this proceeding. But after hearing Paul’s claim that he served God faithfully, with a good conscience, Ananias lost his composure, and became like a brute beast.
How did Paul respond? Look at verse 3. “Then Paul said to him, ‘God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! You sit there to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the law by commanding that I be struck!’” The time for formalities and niceties were over for these guys. Paul was so sincere before these people. He brought an offering. He brought a world mission team. He tried his best to befriend them and do what was right before God. But still these men rejected Paul. Actually they were rejecting Jesus. That is pure evil and stubbornness. How evil they were! How maddening they must have been to Paul. Paul was sure that Ananias would be judged by God. According to the historian Josephus, when the Roman army invaded Jerusalem, Ananias was killed by his own people. In this part we learn that one man who has fulfilled his duty to God, in all good conscience, is more powerful than the religious establishment. We can be people of good conscience when we accept the blood of Christ and give our lives to fulfill God’s holy mission he has called us to, in our lives.
Second, Paul’s Hope In The Resurrection Of The Dead (6-10).
Paul turned their attention away from him and towards Jesus and the Gospel. Look at verse 6. “Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, ‘My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. I stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead.’” Paul knew the Sanhedrin well. It was made up of two major parties: Sadducees and Pharisees. They seemed united in their attack on Paul, but they disagreed strongly on their religious beliefs. The Sadducees believed in the five books of Moses. Based on their understanding of these books they said that there was no resurrection and that there are neither angels nor spirits. But the Pharisees acknowledged them all. When Paul identified himself clearly as a Pharisee and declared his hope in the resurrection of the dead it caused a dispute to break out that threw the Sanhedrin into chaos. Some Pharisees began to side with Paul, saying, “What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?” The dispute was so violent that the commander had Paul removed by force. In this way the trial ended.
At first glance, it may seem that Paul was playing politics with the Sanhedrin. However, Paul meant what he said. He stripped away all pretext and revealed the core matter of this trial. There was no legal charge against Paul. He was on trial because of his hope in the resurrection of the dead. There was no reason for him to be on trial. In fact, he was on trial only because enemies of the gospel had conspired against him.
Paul was eager to make the hope of resurrection the topic of discussion. Nowadays people don’t like to think too much about the resurrection. Today a friend said that he wanted to travel and see as much as he could, and do as much as he could before he passed on to the “next”. That is as close as some people get to thinking about the resurrection. Thank God for Easter, where we will focus deeply on the resurrection. What did Paul believe about the resurrection? Well he believed what all Christians must believe. Paul believed that Christ rose from the dead on the third day, according to the Scriptures. He believed that Christ’s resurrection was the first fruits, and that all who believed in him would also be raised from the dead. Paul believed that he himself would be raised from the dead and transformed into the glorious image of Christ. Paul believed that Christ’s resurrection proved God’s power to destroy all unrighteousness and restore the kingdom of God. Paul looked forward to a new heaven and a new earth and eternal life in the glorious kingdom of God. Because he had this hope, Paul freely committed his life to God’s mission. Because he had this hope, Paul was willing to suffer to preach the gospel. Because he had this hope, Paul was bold and courageous even in the face of death.
Peter also had this hope. He said in 1 Peter 1:3,4, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade–kept in heaven for you....” Those who believe the resurrection of Christ can see the kingdom of God. They have a living hope in the kingdom of God. Before having resurrection hope, most people cling to their lives in this world as though it were everything. They become very stingy with their time and money. They do everything to ensure a better life in the world for them and their family before they die. But the resurrection of Christ gives us a living hope beyond this world. We have eternal life in the kingdom of God. This translates practically in our lives. It means we can be generous with our time and money. We can love others from our hearts without worrying about ourselves. We can serve God with no reservation. It was because Paul had hope in the resurrection that he could boldly enter Jerusalem, be ready to be bound and be ready to die for the name of Jesus. If there was no resurrection, Paul’s attitude would have been different. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:32b, “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’” Even Paul would have been a hedonist if there were no resurrection of the dead and that is what most people are choosing to do today.
We Christians serve Christ sacrificially because of our hope in the resurrection. However, sometimes we expect tangible blessings from God. Surely, God blesses our lives on earth abundantly. God is blessing Tim and Andrew with the means to get a degree and a mission during their student lives. God is blessing Jay and Carrie with a new apartment and a new baby. Kathleen has been blessed with a new job position and hope and vision for the future. There are many benefits in this life as we serve Jesus. But there is guarantee that we will be blessed physically in this world. This cannot be our ultimate hope. Our ultimate hope, and absolute guarantee from God is the resurrection from the dead and eternal life in the kingdom of God. This hope makes us courageous and strong. With this hope, both Peter and Paul gave their lives to pioneer Rome. With this hope, we can give our lives to establish a 120 1:1 discipleship ministry at NIU and to establish America as Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation.
Third, “Take Courage! You Must Testify In Rome” (11).
Paul’s strategy turned the tables. Now the Sanhedrin members were on trial before the gospel. God gave Paul spiritual wisdom to win the victory. But still he must have been under great stress. God needed to come and encourage him. Look at verse 11. “The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, ‘Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.’” According to the Risen Christ, Paul needed to take courage. Why? Paul must have been drained spiritually and emotionally. Paul had risked his life to serve God in Jerusalem without seeing the desired result. Jewish and Gentile Christians were not any closer together. The unconverted Jews did not repent; they became more anti-Christian. Paul was a prisoner in a Roman barracks, not knowing what would happen next. The stubborn and vicious religious leaders would never give up. The power of their hatred was deadly. Already, their pressure was being felt around Jerusalem. Moreover, Satan was always looking for the chance to accuse Paul. He may have felt a sense of loss and failure. This is the very moment that God’s servant can fall into fear and sorrow. This happened to Abraham after he rescued Lot, (for those of us who have studied Genesis.)
When Paul was vulnerable, the Risen Christ visited him to impart new spiritual courage in his heart. At the right time, the Risen Christ stood near Paul. Paul was not alone. The Risen Christ, the King of kings, his Savior and Lord was with him. The Lord spoke to him, “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.” At the words of Christ, “Take courage!” the swelling tides of darkness that threatened Paul’s heart were completely repelled, and dissipated like a mist. Bright heavenly sunshine came into Paul’s heart. The word of Christ assured him of God’s love and made him strong, strong enough to face the challenge ahead.
Then the Risen Christ said, “As you have testified about me in Jerusalem....” As we know, Paul had been burdened with the problem of his own people, the Jews. He knew his trip to Jerusalem would be dangerous. Yet he made it for the sake of helping his people see the work of God. Although his purpose was great, his action in Jerusalem did not seem to be much. But the Risen Christ accepted it. The Risen Christ said that Paul testified about him in Jerusalem. It was as though the Risen Christ said, “You did it! Your mission is was accomplished. Now leave the rest up to me.” Paul would continue to pray for his own people, the Jews. But he could have peace in his heart, knowing that he did everything he could for them and that it was accepted by the Risen Christ. Sometimes we feel that what we have done to pioneer is too little. Jay and Carrie may think that the year they spent in Ecuador as missionaries was too little a time to effect change. But God accepted it all. “As you have testified about me at NIU and in Ecuador..”
The Risen Christ concluded, “...so you must also testify in Rome.” When Paul started for Jerusalem, he had really wanted to go to Rome (19:21). In Romans 1:13a he said, “I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now)....” Though Paul was eager to go to Rome, he was always prevented from doing so. Now the Risen Christ gave him clear direction and a promise that he would testify in Rome. It was the desire of Paul’s heart. It was time for Paul to pray for Rome, go to Rome, and testify about Jesus in Rome. Paul’s passion to preach the gospel in Rome ignited once more. New vision gave him new strength. He was fully restored in spirit to serve God’s purpose. Here we learn that gospel workers need the encouragement and direction of the Risen Christ. When we are weak or vulnerable, we must depend absolutely on the Risen Christ. When we need clear direction, we must pray until we hear the Risen Christ, “Take courage! As you have testified about me thus far to many Bible students from various backgrounds,, so you must also testify at NIU and to the people of DeKalb, even one day to the DEAR area, Dekalb, Elgin, Aurora, Rockford.”
Fourth, God Sends Paul To Caesarea Under Roman Protection (12-35).
The next day, forty very zealous Jews formed a conspiracy and made a plot to kill Paul. People get this way when the Gospel disrupts their status quo. Paul was revealing their lack of faith and convicting them of their sins. To them he represented the growing Christian church. He represented Jesus before them. And they did not like it. Spiritually speaking, they were the incarnation of Satan.
However, God uncovered their plot through Paul’s nephew. The Roman commander was made aware of it. When we think of early great works of God, we often think of the work of the apostles. But the church could have died if it hadn’t been for the unsung heroes, the men and women though some small committed act stood up for Jesus. Paul’s nephew was one such hero, for he saved Paul’s life by telling officials of the plot. Here, I want to make a special plug for the children among us. It is easy to overlook children, assuming that they aren’t old enough to do much for the Lord. But look at this passage, a young boy played an important part in protecting Paul’s life. God can use anyone, of any age, who is willing to yield to him. Jesus made it clear that children are important in Matthew 18:2-6. Let’s give children the importance that God gives them and pray for our children to grow as servants of God.
What happened next? The commander arranged for Paul to leave for Caesarea with an escort of 200 soldiers, 70 horsemen and 200 spearmen. In all, 470 well-trained Roman soldiers ensured Paul’s safe passage to Caesarea. In Caesarea Paul was handed over to Governor Felix. The letter from the Roman commander explained that there was no charge against Paul, but his case was too controversial to be settled in Jerusalem. Paul was kept under guard in Herod’s palace to await the arrival of his accusers and a trial by Roman officials. Here we learn that God protects his servants he really protects them, even with ten soldiers for every one enemy that is against him. And that the Sovereign God leads his servants where he wants them to be, despite of the hardships. Though our of faith may lead us into some precarious situations, or lives are in the hollow of God’s hand until he accomplishes his purpose in our lives.
Today we learn how to be Jesus’ witnesses. We must have a clear conscience through Jesus’ blood. We must have resurrection faith. We must depend on Jesus for courage, direction and protection.
Acts 22:30-23:35 Lesson 26
Key verse 23:11 NIU UBF 1/25/09
“The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, ‘Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.’”
In today’s passage Paul is brought before the Sanhedrin at the summons of the Roman commander. Though Paul appears to be on trial, he emerges as the spiritual victor. Under great duress, Paul testifies powerfully to the work of God and to the Risen Christ. On the other hand, the Sanhedrin members reveal their lawlessness, hypocrisy and powerlessness before the Almighty God. During this difficult time, the Risen Christ appears to Paul to strengthen him by giving him hope and direction. This was the true source of Paul’s spiritual victory. Through this passage, may we learn the secret to Paul’s courageous witness and victorious life of faith.
First, Paul Fulfilled His Duty To God In All Good Conscience (22:30-23:5).
In our previous study, we learned that Paul brought offerings, a “world mission journey team” and news of his third journey to the elders of the Jerusalem Church. Paul hoped that they could see God working powerfully among the Gentiles and somehow the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians could be re-united. At first they all rejoiced at his ministry. But Paul’s presence soon stirred up the Jews who did not accept the Gospel. There was rioting and false accusations flying everywhere. The Jews finally persuaded the Romans to arrest Paul. The Roman commander, in charge of Paul, wanted to find out why Paul was being accused. So he ordered the chief priests and the Sanhedrin to assemble and brought Paul to stand before them. It was like a grand jury formed to get information. Was Paul scared? No way! Paul could see that God was using this chaos as an opportunity to witness for God was using even his enemies to create a platform for Paul to address the entire Sanhedrin, or Jewish ruling council.
Paul was bold and fearless. Look at verse 1. “Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin and said, ‘My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day.’” Paul was bold and fearless. He took the initiative and spoke first. His words are indeed meaningful. He said, “I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day.” Paul was saying that, even though he was a sinner, in need of salvation, he was right with God in that he had completed the mission God gave him, and that his conscience bore witness to this fact.
Let’s think a little bit about what it means that his conscience was clear before God. When God made man, he gave him a conscience. Our conscience is nestled deep within our psyches. God works through our conscience. Our conscience helps us discern and choose what is good. As long as one does what is right before God, his conscience is at peace and he is happy. But when one does evil, his conscience is burdened with guilt. (Ro 2:15). Our consciences affect us even when we are apart from Christ. For example, some young people engage in debauchery and promiscuity hoping to have a little fun to quell their restless hearts. After sinning they think they can forget about it afterward. But soon, terrible guilt settles upon them. In my case, I suppressed my guilty conscience. I claimed that “I was O.K” But my guilty conscience caused me to suffer in other ways. I felt fruitless and useless and meaningless. The root of all this was my guilty conscience. No one can live a happy life in this condition. People try in many ways to drown the voice of their conscience. Some loose themselves in a hedonistic lifestyle, or in their work. If we suppress our consciences too long we are danger of becoming mentally ill, or even commit suicide. Some harden their hearts and become like Judas. A person becomes very dangerous when they no longer hear the voice of their conscience, for they can do just about anything.
But Paul confessed, “‘My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day.” How is this possible? Paul had confessed, many times in his Christian life, that he was a terrible sinner (1Ti 1:15). How then could Paul say he had fulfilled his duty to God in all good conscience? It was only by the grace of Jesus. Jesus is the Lamb of God who shed his blood on the cross for sinners. God made Jesus the sacrifice of atonement for our sins (Ro 3:25). Hebrews 9:14 says, “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ...cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God!” There is power in the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus cleanses our consciences from acts that lead to death. The blood of Jesus enables us to stand before the holy God with a good conscience. The blood of Jesus enables us to serve the living God. This is what we all really want to do. Is it not? This makes us happy. Paul claimed the blood of Jesus as his righteousness. From the moment Paul’s conscience was cleansed, Paul served God wholeheartedly. He discovered his priestly duty to God to preach the gospel to the Gentiles (Ro 15:16). For this, Paul had made three long and dangerous mission journeys. He shared in the remaining sufferings of Christ. In this way, he had fulfilled his duty to God. Now, Paul could stand before God with a good conscience. He also had no problem to stand before the corrupted religious leaders.
Paul was a good shepherd at all times. He deeply understood the agony of the Jewish religious leaders, for he was once one of them. They wore fancy gowns and had positions of honor. They made a tremendous effort to obtain legalistic righteousness. But without Christ, they could only condemn others while living as hypocrites. They did not know God. They did not really know themselves. Their hypocrisy made them miserable. They had no joy of serving God. They had no satisfaction of finishing their mission before God. To them, religious duty was a heavy burden. But they dared not put it down for the sake of their pride and position and their job security.
Paul’s opening statement had shocking effects. The High Priest, Ananias, ordered those standing near Paul to strike him on the mouth (2). Ananias seems to be like some kind of thug. Actually, he was a tool of the devil who wanted to suppress the truth of God. He was supposed to be in charge of this proceeding. But after hearing Paul’s claim that he served God faithfully, with a good conscience, Ananias lost his composure, and became like a brute beast.
How did Paul respond? Look at verse 3. “Then Paul said to him, ‘God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! You sit there to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the law by commanding that I be struck!’” The time for formalities and niceties were over for these guys. Paul was so sincere before these people. He brought an offering. He brought a world mission team. He tried his best to befriend them and do what was right before God. But still these men rejected Paul. Actually they were rejecting Jesus. That is pure evil and stubbornness. How evil they were! How maddening they must have been to Paul. Paul was sure that Ananias would be judged by God. According to the historian Josephus, when the Roman army invaded Jerusalem, Ananias was killed by his own people. In this part we learn that one man who has fulfilled his duty to God, in all good conscience, is more powerful than the religious establishment. We can be people of good conscience when we accept the blood of Christ and give our lives to fulfill God’s holy mission he has called us to, in our lives.
Second, Paul’s Hope In The Resurrection Of The Dead (6-10).
Paul turned their attention away from him and towards Jesus and the Gospel. Look at verse 6. “Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, ‘My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. I stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead.’” Paul knew the Sanhedrin well. It was made up of two major parties: Sadducees and Pharisees. They seemed united in their attack on Paul, but they disagreed strongly on their religious beliefs. The Sadducees believed in the five books of Moses. Based on their understanding of these books they said that there was no resurrection and that there are neither angels nor spirits. But the Pharisees acknowledged them all. When Paul identified himself clearly as a Pharisee and declared his hope in the resurrection of the dead it caused a dispute to break out that threw the Sanhedrin into chaos. Some Pharisees began to side with Paul, saying, “What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?” The dispute was so violent that the commander had Paul removed by force. In this way the trial ended.
At first glance, it may seem that Paul was playing politics with the Sanhedrin. However, Paul meant what he said. He stripped away all pretext and revealed the core matter of this trial. There was no legal charge against Paul. He was on trial because of his hope in the resurrection of the dead. There was no reason for him to be on trial. In fact, he was on trial only because enemies of the gospel had conspired against him.
Paul was eager to make the hope of resurrection the topic of discussion. Nowadays people don’t like to think too much about the resurrection. Today a friend said that he wanted to travel and see as much as he could, and do as much as he could before he passed on to the “next”. That is as close as some people get to thinking about the resurrection. Thank God for Easter, where we will focus deeply on the resurrection. What did Paul believe about the resurrection? Well he believed what all Christians must believe. Paul believed that Christ rose from the dead on the third day, according to the Scriptures. He believed that Christ’s resurrection was the first fruits, and that all who believed in him would also be raised from the dead. Paul believed that he himself would be raised from the dead and transformed into the glorious image of Christ. Paul believed that Christ’s resurrection proved God’s power to destroy all unrighteousness and restore the kingdom of God. Paul looked forward to a new heaven and a new earth and eternal life in the glorious kingdom of God. Because he had this hope, Paul freely committed his life to God’s mission. Because he had this hope, Paul was willing to suffer to preach the gospel. Because he had this hope, Paul was bold and courageous even in the face of death.
Peter also had this hope. He said in 1 Peter 1:3,4, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade–kept in heaven for you....” Those who believe the resurrection of Christ can see the kingdom of God. They have a living hope in the kingdom of God. Before having resurrection hope, most people cling to their lives in this world as though it were everything. They become very stingy with their time and money. They do everything to ensure a better life in the world for them and their family before they die. But the resurrection of Christ gives us a living hope beyond this world. We have eternal life in the kingdom of God. This translates practically in our lives. It means we can be generous with our time and money. We can love others from our hearts without worrying about ourselves. We can serve God with no reservation. It was because Paul had hope in the resurrection that he could boldly enter Jerusalem, be ready to be bound and be ready to die for the name of Jesus. If there was no resurrection, Paul’s attitude would have been different. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:32b, “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’” Even Paul would have been a hedonist if there were no resurrection of the dead and that is what most people are choosing to do today.
We Christians serve Christ sacrificially because of our hope in the resurrection. However, sometimes we expect tangible blessings from God. Surely, God blesses our lives on earth abundantly. God is blessing Tim and Andrew with the means to get a degree and a mission during their student lives. God is blessing Jay and Carrie with a new apartment and a new baby. Kathleen has been blessed with a new job position and hope and vision for the future. There are many benefits in this life as we serve Jesus. But there is guarantee that we will be blessed physically in this world. This cannot be our ultimate hope. Our ultimate hope, and absolute guarantee from God is the resurrection from the dead and eternal life in the kingdom of God. This hope makes us courageous and strong. With this hope, both Peter and Paul gave their lives to pioneer Rome. With this hope, we can give our lives to establish a 120 1:1 discipleship ministry at NIU and to establish America as Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation.
Third, “Take Courage! You Must Testify In Rome” (11).
Paul’s strategy turned the tables. Now the Sanhedrin members were on trial before the gospel. God gave Paul spiritual wisdom to win the victory. But still he must have been under great stress. God needed to come and encourage him. Look at verse 11. “The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, ‘Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.’” According to the Risen Christ, Paul needed to take courage. Why? Paul must have been drained spiritually and emotionally. Paul had risked his life to serve God in Jerusalem without seeing the desired result. Jewish and Gentile Christians were not any closer together. The unconverted Jews did not repent; they became more anti-Christian. Paul was a prisoner in a Roman barracks, not knowing what would happen next. The stubborn and vicious religious leaders would never give up. The power of their hatred was deadly. Already, their pressure was being felt around Jerusalem. Moreover, Satan was always looking for the chance to accuse Paul. He may have felt a sense of loss and failure. This is the very moment that God’s servant can fall into fear and sorrow. This happened to Abraham after he rescued Lot, (for those of us who have studied Genesis.)
When Paul was vulnerable, the Risen Christ visited him to impart new spiritual courage in his heart. At the right time, the Risen Christ stood near Paul. Paul was not alone. The Risen Christ, the King of kings, his Savior and Lord was with him. The Lord spoke to him, “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.” At the words of Christ, “Take courage!” the swelling tides of darkness that threatened Paul’s heart were completely repelled, and dissipated like a mist. Bright heavenly sunshine came into Paul’s heart. The word of Christ assured him of God’s love and made him strong, strong enough to face the challenge ahead.
Then the Risen Christ said, “As you have testified about me in Jerusalem....” As we know, Paul had been burdened with the problem of his own people, the Jews. He knew his trip to Jerusalem would be dangerous. Yet he made it for the sake of helping his people see the work of God. Although his purpose was great, his action in Jerusalem did not seem to be much. But the Risen Christ accepted it. The Risen Christ said that Paul testified about him in Jerusalem. It was as though the Risen Christ said, “You did it! Your mission is was accomplished. Now leave the rest up to me.” Paul would continue to pray for his own people, the Jews. But he could have peace in his heart, knowing that he did everything he could for them and that it was accepted by the Risen Christ. Sometimes we feel that what we have done to pioneer is too little. Jay and Carrie may think that the year they spent in Ecuador as missionaries was too little a time to effect change. But God accepted it all. “As you have testified about me at NIU and in Ecuador..”
The Risen Christ concluded, “...so you must also testify in Rome.” When Paul started for Jerusalem, he had really wanted to go to Rome (19:21). In Romans 1:13a he said, “I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now)....” Though Paul was eager to go to Rome, he was always prevented from doing so. Now the Risen Christ gave him clear direction and a promise that he would testify in Rome. It was the desire of Paul’s heart. It was time for Paul to pray for Rome, go to Rome, and testify about Jesus in Rome. Paul’s passion to preach the gospel in Rome ignited once more. New vision gave him new strength. He was fully restored in spirit to serve God’s purpose. Here we learn that gospel workers need the encouragement and direction of the Risen Christ. When we are weak or vulnerable, we must depend absolutely on the Risen Christ. When we need clear direction, we must pray until we hear the Risen Christ, “Take courage! As you have testified about me thus far to many Bible students from various backgrounds,, so you must also testify at NIU and to the people of DeKalb, even one day to the DEAR area, Dekalb, Elgin, Aurora, Rockford.”
Fourth, God Sends Paul To Caesarea Under Roman Protection (12-35).
The next day, forty very zealous Jews formed a conspiracy and made a plot to kill Paul. People get this way when the Gospel disrupts their status quo. Paul was revealing their lack of faith and convicting them of their sins. To them he represented the growing Christian church. He represented Jesus before them. And they did not like it. Spiritually speaking, they were the incarnation of Satan.
However, God uncovered their plot through Paul’s nephew. The Roman commander was made aware of it. When we think of early great works of God, we often think of the work of the apostles. But the church could have died if it hadn’t been for the unsung heroes, the men and women though some small committed act stood up for Jesus. Paul’s nephew was one such hero, for he saved Paul’s life by telling officials of the plot. Here, I want to make a special plug for the children among us. It is easy to overlook children, assuming that they aren’t old enough to do much for the Lord. But look at this passage, a young boy played an important part in protecting Paul’s life. God can use anyone, of any age, who is willing to yield to him. Jesus made it clear that children are important in Matthew 18:2-6. Let’s give children the importance that God gives them and pray for our children to grow as servants of God.
What happened next? The commander arranged for Paul to leave for Caesarea with an escort of 200 soldiers, 70 horsemen and 200 spearmen. In all, 470 well-trained Roman soldiers ensured Paul’s safe passage to Caesarea. In Caesarea Paul was handed over to Governor Felix. The letter from the Roman commander explained that there was no charge against Paul, but his case was too controversial to be settled in Jerusalem. Paul was kept under guard in Herod’s palace to await the arrival of his accusers and a trial by Roman officials. Here we learn that God protects his servants he really protects them, even with ten soldiers for every one enemy that is against him. And that the Sovereign God leads his servants where he wants them to be, despite of the hardships. Though our of faith may lead us into some precarious situations, or lives are in the hollow of God’s hand until he accomplishes his purpose in our lives.
Today we learn how to be Jesus’ witnesses. We must have a clear conscience through Jesus’ blood. We must have resurrection faith. We must depend on Jesus for courage, direction and protection.
David and Goliath
David And Goliath
1 Samuel 17:1-58 Lesson 10
Key verse 17:45b
“…but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel.”
Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:7 & 8a: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award top me on that day.” In these verses Paul is saying, as a victor of life in Jesus, that life is a continuous battle, and that there is a victor and a looser. Today’s passage is about David and Goliath. David was the youngest of the eight sons of Jesse, and he was a shepherd boy. He fought a duel, against Goliath, a giant of a man, and won the victory over the champion. There are many stories of faith in the Bible that inspire us to overcome our fears and to be filled with faith to meet our daily challenges. But in the Bible, this story of young David is most beautiful and powerful because it teaches us that indeed “faith is the victory we know that overcomes the world.” Like David, we also must fight many good fights during our lives of faith. I am certain that if we learn to see Goliath through his eyes – we would conquer all our fears at once; and what is more – put our fears to death and walk victoriously in the faith which saves us. May God bless you.
Part l: A Boastful Man, Goliath (1-16)
There was a war between the Philistines and the Israelites. The Philistines were a godless people at war with the people of Israel. In those days, warfare was a kind of face to face confrontation. In a battle or a war, the spirit of an army was the most important factor in the victory, and the spirit of an army largely depended on its leader. Symbolically, the Philistines were the cohorts of Satan and the enemies of God’s people, bent on destroying them. From the Philistines then, we also learn how Satan fights against God’s people and what strategy he uses in conquering them.
Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Socoh in Judah. They pitched camps at Ephes Dammin between Socoh and Azekah. Saul and his Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines. The Philistines occupied one hill and the Isrealites another, with the valley between them. Nobody wanted to attack the other, because the army that did would have to face an upward battle to rach the other army and so they stood where they were. A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. He was over nine feet tall. Yao Ming, the Chinese Basketball star is 7’6” and weighs about 300lbs. Leonid Stadnick of Ukraine is 8’5” and weighs over 440lbs. Still growing he refuses to get measured. Due to his weight he broke a leg and has constant knee pain. Maybe Goliath had constant knee pain. He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing 125 pounds. It was like wearing Tim on your back. On his legs he wore bronze greaves and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. His spear was a like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed 15 pounds. It was like having a two by four with a large turkey at the end of it. It could have pierced a car door. Goliath was a champion who was strong, well disciplined and well equipped with arms. He became a great champion by defeating innumerable opponents through much fighting and bloodshed. There was no soldier as fierce as Goliath. He had never been defeated as a champion. Still today, his name, “Goliath” carries with it connotations of fear and terror.
He began to use psychological tactics against God’s people. Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become our subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.” (8b,9) Goliath challenged the ranks of Israel to fight a duel so as to decide which side should be subject to the other. The peoples’ whose champion lost, would be subject to the victor’s people. Challenge and response – this was the way the people fought in ancient times.
But what was the response of Israel? They did not dare to respond to the challenge. On hearing Goliath’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified. The definition of dismayed is, “To disable with alarm…to depress the spirits of or courage of.” (Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 1945) They were caught by fear. This terrifying challenge did not stop after one incident. For forty days Goliath came forward every morning and evening, took his stand and shouted, saying, “This day I defy the ranks of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.” (10) Day after day, the hearts of the Israelites were more and more filled with fear and terror. Finally, they lost their spirit. They were paralyzed by fear. They were no more the armies of the living God. Practically, they were the slaves of fear.
Goliath’s strategy in warfare was to plant fear in the hearts of his opponents by intimidating them with his loud, angry cries, which welled up from his “champion spirit.” In doing this, he won the victory over the Israelites without fighting. The Israelites lost the war before the fight because of their fear. In reality, the enemy of the Israelites was not Goliath, the champion. Their real enemy was the fear in their hearts. Franklin D. Roosevelt once said in 1933, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” He was speaking about the difficult economic situation of the 1930’s but the principle remains the same…if a person wants to have a victorious life, he must make up his mind to overcome his fear of his Goliath’s. Otherwise his life will be continuous waves of defeat, trembling in fear.
There are many kinds of Goliath’s in the world that make us fearful. Living in this age of high technology we still have many fears, fears of cancer, pollution of nature, population explosion, global warming, economic collapse, terrorism, may be our Goliath’s. Perhaps the fear of future insecurities is most terrifying for some. Fear is the gift of Satan to people until they do nothing with their lives except pursue worldly security to calm their fears, and turn away from God. People are also intimidated by the Goliath of change. Many people realize their desperate need to change their ways or their lives. But the Goliath of change makes them fearful that if they changed they would lose everything, even the fun out of their lives. Many young people are afraid of being kicked out of their peer group in which they enjoy their sinful pleasures. Some are fearful of missing opportunities in life if they follow Jesus. They are fearful to give up the little they have in order to receive all the benefits that are in Christ Jesus. In fear people doubt one another. In fear, they reject each other. They are even afraid of the word of God, the Bible. Because of the Goliaths of this world, people tremble in fear day and night. One after another, they ignore Jesus and leave the work of God. What can people do in their fears except to give into their emotional feelings. In fear, they are driven to do ungodly things. In fear, they lose the spiritual battle of life and become useless to God and to God’s work. As long as we harbor any kind of fear we can ever live a victorious life of faith. Indeed, fear is our enemy.
What is the root of fear? It is unbelief, which comes from a cut relationship with God. Let’s remember Genesis. Cain rejected God’s counsel, thinking that he would be free is he lived in his own way. But this was not so. He was overcome by fear. At the moment he ran away from God, he confessed, “My punishment is more than I can bear…whoever finds me will kill me.” (Gen 4:13-14) There are many descendants of Cain in this world. With no apparent reason they tremble in fear day and night.
Why are people so fearful with no apparent reason? Fear does not come from without, but from within. Paul explains in Romans 8:15, “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received a Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’” It is a spirit within a man that makes him a slave to fear. When a man’s intimate relationship with God is broken, the Spirit of God leaves him. (Gen 6:3) Simultaneously, evil spirits occupy his heart and make him fearful, until finally he dies because of fear. One who is possessed by evil spirits is miserable all the time because of fear, no matter who he may be.
Let’s think of an example from the New Testament. Paul’s spiritual son, the gentle and quiet Timothy, was in Paul’s eyes the right person to serve God’s flock around the world. Indeed, Timothy had many godly qualities. He was honest, faithful and sincere. But Timothy had a problem believing that he was the right one to serve God’s purpose. From time to time, he was harassed by the Goliath of leadership. This Goliath made him fearful such that he could not progress spiritually. Every time he decided to do something for the glory of God or the good of others or the church, suddenly Goliath appeared and intimidated him to give up. Goliath said to him, “No one respects you as a leader. You have no leadership qualities.” Timothy struggled a lot with this Goliath. But he overcame his fears through God’s word in 2 Timothy 1:17, “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” Satan gives us the spirit of fear when we have to do something, by faith, to the glory of God. But we must listen to God who gives us a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline that overcomes all fears. Indeed, God helps us in fearful times of struggles. We must therefore ask God’s help to conquer these fears. We must ask God to help us to overcome our fears in our hearts, fears that are both hidden and apparent.
Part ll: A Man Of God, Young David. (17-51)
Let’s learn how to win victory over Goliath from young David. David was the youngest among the eight sons of Jesse. He was also a shepherd boy and stayed home when his brothers were drafted by Saul. One day, David was sent to the front lines by his father to deliver food to his brothers and 10 cheeses to the commander. When he arrived, the armies were drawn up in battle positions. David greeted his brothers, and as they stood there talking, Goliath came out to shout his usual defiant insults. Saul and all the Israelites were once again dismayed and terrified.
First, David had a spirit of victory. Even though David was young, he loved God and he was full of holy anger. He said, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” (26) To David, who had faith in God Almighty, Goliath looked as if he were nothing. He saw Goliath as if he was a mosquito, noisy and irritating. On the other hand, he saw the armies of the living God as all powerful. David saw Goliath not as a living adversary but as a defeated foe. David was indeed full of a spirit of victory that conquers all God’s enemies. When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him say this, he could not understand this boy David and got mad. He said, “I know how conceited you and how wicked your heart is.” (28b) Maybe Eliab thought he should have been anointed by Samuel, instead of David.
Second, David had faith that takes initiative. When he was sent to Saul, David said to him, “Let no one loose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.” (32) David was determined to fight this Goliath, and he took the initiative to start the fight. David’s first reaction was not to cower or let someone else fight the battle. His first reaction was to fight against this enemy of God. David had initiative – a fighting spirit to challenge all God’s enemies and subdue them. His words is verse 32, “I’ll do it,” tell us that he was always ready to serve God’s purpose in his life. He was always ready to be the first to do what is necessary to glorify God. He could take such initiative because of his faith in God. How comforting this young man must have been to Saul. There are times when God calls us to take the initiative in things and not wait for others. When we do we are well on the way to have victorious spirit, like David.
Third, David had faith in God’s deliverance. Saul saw him and said, “You are only a boy.” (33) He meant, “Your spirit is good, but you are too young to fight him.” At this point, David, in order to convince him, gave him an overview of his life as a shepherd. Read verses 34-37a, “But David said to Saul, ‘Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and liked it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord has delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” In these verses, we learn two things from David. First, he talked about how courageous he had been. He mentioned dangerous wild animals who had attacked his flock and how he had fought them, risking his life. But he did not claim the glory for himself. He confessed that it was God who delivered him from danger. He knew that it was a dangerous and fearful thing to fight Goliath, but he was sure that the Lord, who had delivered him from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear would deliver him from the hand of the Philistine. (37) This was faith in God’s deliverance. By faith in God, he overcame his fear and he could boldly respond to the challenge of Goliath, stand firmly and fight.
If we are going to have faith in God’s deliverance, we need to experience God’s deliverance. That is only possible when, in difficult situations you step out in faith and obey what God wants you to do. Then, when God delivers you, you have a spiritual experience. You can draw upon this experience again and again to meet future challenges by faith. Don’t let student life go by without experiencing God’s deliverance as you live as a shepherd of God’s flock. Don’t let your young married life or your financial difficulties stop you from gaining spiritual experiences of God’s deliverance when you obey God in the midst of it all.
Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord will be with you.” (37b) In a helpless situation, King Saul could not but depend on David who had faith in God Almighty. What did David do in order to prepare to fight Goliath? At first, he tried on Saul’s armor, but he took it off because he was not used to it. Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine. Meanwhile, the Philistine looked David over and saw that he was a boy, ruddy and handsome, and he despised him. Jokingly he said to David, “Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks.” He was overconfident about his skill. He never expected anything unusual to happen.
Fourth, David had faith that honors God’s name. Look at verses 45-46, “David said to the Philistine, ‘You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.’” This is David’s confession of faith. He said, “…I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel…” David should fear this giant. But he could overcome his fear when he faced him with the faith that he was fighting him in the name of the Lord Almighty. He had faith that he was God’s ambassador with all the power and authority of God to conquer the enemy in the name of the Lord and for his honor. Indeed, this kind of faith overcomes fears and conquers enemies.
Fifth, David had faith that the battle is the Lord’s. Read verse 47 again. David had faith in God to fight this Goliath. And his faith came from a conviction that this battle, and all battles for that matter, are the Lord’s battles and therefore, they must surely glorify God. As a loyal soldier in the Lord’s army, he had a duty to fight Goliath in order to honor and glorify the Almighty God. There was no choice to fight. It was his duty. With this faith then, he overcame all his fear and the victory was assured.
What was the result? As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly with total concentration toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag, he took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown into the ground. David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine’s sword and drew it from the scabbard. After he had killed him he cut off his head with the sword. David triumphed over the Philistine. The secret of his victory lay in his faith in God Almighty. He was only a young man, but he had no fear in his heart, and God granted him victory.
What was the outcome? Look at verses 50-58. Let’s read verses 51b-53. “ When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran. 52 Then the men of Israel and Judah surged forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath [g] and to the gates of Ekron. Their dead were strewn along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron. 53 When the Israelites returned from chasing the Philistines, they plundered their camp.” David’s courageous faith encouraged everyone around him. It made all the difference. For 40 days things were at a standstill. And all at once the army was emboldened. Here we see the power of one. It takes the faith of one person possessing the spirit of victory in their hearts to enliven the hearts of all God’s people.
Through this passage we see that unbelief is the cause of fear and defeat, and that faith is the secret of victory. When we depend on our strength and skill, we loose our battles. But when we depend on God, to overcome our fear and fight, surely victory will be ours, even though we may be young. May God give us a victorious spirit and a victorious life when we determine to have faith in God in the face of our many “Goliaths” and stand and fight by faith.
1 Samuel 17:1-58 Lesson 10
Key verse 17:45b
“…but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel.”
Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:7 & 8a: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award top me on that day.” In these verses Paul is saying, as a victor of life in Jesus, that life is a continuous battle, and that there is a victor and a looser. Today’s passage is about David and Goliath. David was the youngest of the eight sons of Jesse, and he was a shepherd boy. He fought a duel, against Goliath, a giant of a man, and won the victory over the champion. There are many stories of faith in the Bible that inspire us to overcome our fears and to be filled with faith to meet our daily challenges. But in the Bible, this story of young David is most beautiful and powerful because it teaches us that indeed “faith is the victory we know that overcomes the world.” Like David, we also must fight many good fights during our lives of faith. I am certain that if we learn to see Goliath through his eyes – we would conquer all our fears at once; and what is more – put our fears to death and walk victoriously in the faith which saves us. May God bless you.
Part l: A Boastful Man, Goliath (1-16)
There was a war between the Philistines and the Israelites. The Philistines were a godless people at war with the people of Israel. In those days, warfare was a kind of face to face confrontation. In a battle or a war, the spirit of an army was the most important factor in the victory, and the spirit of an army largely depended on its leader. Symbolically, the Philistines were the cohorts of Satan and the enemies of God’s people, bent on destroying them. From the Philistines then, we also learn how Satan fights against God’s people and what strategy he uses in conquering them.
Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Socoh in Judah. They pitched camps at Ephes Dammin between Socoh and Azekah. Saul and his Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines. The Philistines occupied one hill and the Isrealites another, with the valley between them. Nobody wanted to attack the other, because the army that did would have to face an upward battle to rach the other army and so they stood where they were. A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. He was over nine feet tall. Yao Ming, the Chinese Basketball star is 7’6” and weighs about 300lbs. Leonid Stadnick of Ukraine is 8’5” and weighs over 440lbs. Still growing he refuses to get measured. Due to his weight he broke a leg and has constant knee pain. Maybe Goliath had constant knee pain. He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing 125 pounds. It was like wearing Tim on your back. On his legs he wore bronze greaves and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. His spear was a like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed 15 pounds. It was like having a two by four with a large turkey at the end of it. It could have pierced a car door. Goliath was a champion who was strong, well disciplined and well equipped with arms. He became a great champion by defeating innumerable opponents through much fighting and bloodshed. There was no soldier as fierce as Goliath. He had never been defeated as a champion. Still today, his name, “Goliath” carries with it connotations of fear and terror.
He began to use psychological tactics against God’s people. Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become our subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.” (8b,9) Goliath challenged the ranks of Israel to fight a duel so as to decide which side should be subject to the other. The peoples’ whose champion lost, would be subject to the victor’s people. Challenge and response – this was the way the people fought in ancient times.
But what was the response of Israel? They did not dare to respond to the challenge. On hearing Goliath’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified. The definition of dismayed is, “To disable with alarm…to depress the spirits of or courage of.” (Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 1945) They were caught by fear. This terrifying challenge did not stop after one incident. For forty days Goliath came forward every morning and evening, took his stand and shouted, saying, “This day I defy the ranks of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.” (10) Day after day, the hearts of the Israelites were more and more filled with fear and terror. Finally, they lost their spirit. They were paralyzed by fear. They were no more the armies of the living God. Practically, they were the slaves of fear.
Goliath’s strategy in warfare was to plant fear in the hearts of his opponents by intimidating them with his loud, angry cries, which welled up from his “champion spirit.” In doing this, he won the victory over the Israelites without fighting. The Israelites lost the war before the fight because of their fear. In reality, the enemy of the Israelites was not Goliath, the champion. Their real enemy was the fear in their hearts. Franklin D. Roosevelt once said in 1933, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” He was speaking about the difficult economic situation of the 1930’s but the principle remains the same…if a person wants to have a victorious life, he must make up his mind to overcome his fear of his Goliath’s. Otherwise his life will be continuous waves of defeat, trembling in fear.
There are many kinds of Goliath’s in the world that make us fearful. Living in this age of high technology we still have many fears, fears of cancer, pollution of nature, population explosion, global warming, economic collapse, terrorism, may be our Goliath’s. Perhaps the fear of future insecurities is most terrifying for some. Fear is the gift of Satan to people until they do nothing with their lives except pursue worldly security to calm their fears, and turn away from God. People are also intimidated by the Goliath of change. Many people realize their desperate need to change their ways or their lives. But the Goliath of change makes them fearful that if they changed they would lose everything, even the fun out of their lives. Many young people are afraid of being kicked out of their peer group in which they enjoy their sinful pleasures. Some are fearful of missing opportunities in life if they follow Jesus. They are fearful to give up the little they have in order to receive all the benefits that are in Christ Jesus. In fear people doubt one another. In fear, they reject each other. They are even afraid of the word of God, the Bible. Because of the Goliaths of this world, people tremble in fear day and night. One after another, they ignore Jesus and leave the work of God. What can people do in their fears except to give into their emotional feelings. In fear, they are driven to do ungodly things. In fear, they lose the spiritual battle of life and become useless to God and to God’s work. As long as we harbor any kind of fear we can ever live a victorious life of faith. Indeed, fear is our enemy.
What is the root of fear? It is unbelief, which comes from a cut relationship with God. Let’s remember Genesis. Cain rejected God’s counsel, thinking that he would be free is he lived in his own way. But this was not so. He was overcome by fear. At the moment he ran away from God, he confessed, “My punishment is more than I can bear…whoever finds me will kill me.” (Gen 4:13-14) There are many descendants of Cain in this world. With no apparent reason they tremble in fear day and night.
Why are people so fearful with no apparent reason? Fear does not come from without, but from within. Paul explains in Romans 8:15, “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received a Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’” It is a spirit within a man that makes him a slave to fear. When a man’s intimate relationship with God is broken, the Spirit of God leaves him. (Gen 6:3) Simultaneously, evil spirits occupy his heart and make him fearful, until finally he dies because of fear. One who is possessed by evil spirits is miserable all the time because of fear, no matter who he may be.
Let’s think of an example from the New Testament. Paul’s spiritual son, the gentle and quiet Timothy, was in Paul’s eyes the right person to serve God’s flock around the world. Indeed, Timothy had many godly qualities. He was honest, faithful and sincere. But Timothy had a problem believing that he was the right one to serve God’s purpose. From time to time, he was harassed by the Goliath of leadership. This Goliath made him fearful such that he could not progress spiritually. Every time he decided to do something for the glory of God or the good of others or the church, suddenly Goliath appeared and intimidated him to give up. Goliath said to him, “No one respects you as a leader. You have no leadership qualities.” Timothy struggled a lot with this Goliath. But he overcame his fears through God’s word in 2 Timothy 1:17, “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” Satan gives us the spirit of fear when we have to do something, by faith, to the glory of God. But we must listen to God who gives us a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline that overcomes all fears. Indeed, God helps us in fearful times of struggles. We must therefore ask God’s help to conquer these fears. We must ask God to help us to overcome our fears in our hearts, fears that are both hidden and apparent.
Part ll: A Man Of God, Young David. (17-51)
Let’s learn how to win victory over Goliath from young David. David was the youngest among the eight sons of Jesse. He was also a shepherd boy and stayed home when his brothers were drafted by Saul. One day, David was sent to the front lines by his father to deliver food to his brothers and 10 cheeses to the commander. When he arrived, the armies were drawn up in battle positions. David greeted his brothers, and as they stood there talking, Goliath came out to shout his usual defiant insults. Saul and all the Israelites were once again dismayed and terrified.
First, David had a spirit of victory. Even though David was young, he loved God and he was full of holy anger. He said, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” (26) To David, who had faith in God Almighty, Goliath looked as if he were nothing. He saw Goliath as if he was a mosquito, noisy and irritating. On the other hand, he saw the armies of the living God as all powerful. David saw Goliath not as a living adversary but as a defeated foe. David was indeed full of a spirit of victory that conquers all God’s enemies. When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him say this, he could not understand this boy David and got mad. He said, “I know how conceited you and how wicked your heart is.” (28b) Maybe Eliab thought he should have been anointed by Samuel, instead of David.
Second, David had faith that takes initiative. When he was sent to Saul, David said to him, “Let no one loose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.” (32) David was determined to fight this Goliath, and he took the initiative to start the fight. David’s first reaction was not to cower or let someone else fight the battle. His first reaction was to fight against this enemy of God. David had initiative – a fighting spirit to challenge all God’s enemies and subdue them. His words is verse 32, “I’ll do it,” tell us that he was always ready to serve God’s purpose in his life. He was always ready to be the first to do what is necessary to glorify God. He could take such initiative because of his faith in God. How comforting this young man must have been to Saul. There are times when God calls us to take the initiative in things and not wait for others. When we do we are well on the way to have victorious spirit, like David.
Third, David had faith in God’s deliverance. Saul saw him and said, “You are only a boy.” (33) He meant, “Your spirit is good, but you are too young to fight him.” At this point, David, in order to convince him, gave him an overview of his life as a shepherd. Read verses 34-37a, “But David said to Saul, ‘Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and liked it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord has delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” In these verses, we learn two things from David. First, he talked about how courageous he had been. He mentioned dangerous wild animals who had attacked his flock and how he had fought them, risking his life. But he did not claim the glory for himself. He confessed that it was God who delivered him from danger. He knew that it was a dangerous and fearful thing to fight Goliath, but he was sure that the Lord, who had delivered him from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear would deliver him from the hand of the Philistine. (37) This was faith in God’s deliverance. By faith in God, he overcame his fear and he could boldly respond to the challenge of Goliath, stand firmly and fight.
If we are going to have faith in God’s deliverance, we need to experience God’s deliverance. That is only possible when, in difficult situations you step out in faith and obey what God wants you to do. Then, when God delivers you, you have a spiritual experience. You can draw upon this experience again and again to meet future challenges by faith. Don’t let student life go by without experiencing God’s deliverance as you live as a shepherd of God’s flock. Don’t let your young married life or your financial difficulties stop you from gaining spiritual experiences of God’s deliverance when you obey God in the midst of it all.
Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord will be with you.” (37b) In a helpless situation, King Saul could not but depend on David who had faith in God Almighty. What did David do in order to prepare to fight Goliath? At first, he tried on Saul’s armor, but he took it off because he was not used to it. Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine. Meanwhile, the Philistine looked David over and saw that he was a boy, ruddy and handsome, and he despised him. Jokingly he said to David, “Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks.” He was overconfident about his skill. He never expected anything unusual to happen.
Fourth, David had faith that honors God’s name. Look at verses 45-46, “David said to the Philistine, ‘You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.’” This is David’s confession of faith. He said, “…I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel…” David should fear this giant. But he could overcome his fear when he faced him with the faith that he was fighting him in the name of the Lord Almighty. He had faith that he was God’s ambassador with all the power and authority of God to conquer the enemy in the name of the Lord and for his honor. Indeed, this kind of faith overcomes fears and conquers enemies.
Fifth, David had faith that the battle is the Lord’s. Read verse 47 again. David had faith in God to fight this Goliath. And his faith came from a conviction that this battle, and all battles for that matter, are the Lord’s battles and therefore, they must surely glorify God. As a loyal soldier in the Lord’s army, he had a duty to fight Goliath in order to honor and glorify the Almighty God. There was no choice to fight. It was his duty. With this faith then, he overcame all his fear and the victory was assured.
What was the result? As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly with total concentration toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag, he took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown into the ground. David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine’s sword and drew it from the scabbard. After he had killed him he cut off his head with the sword. David triumphed over the Philistine. The secret of his victory lay in his faith in God Almighty. He was only a young man, but he had no fear in his heart, and God granted him victory.
What was the outcome? Look at verses 50-58. Let’s read verses 51b-53. “ When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran. 52 Then the men of Israel and Judah surged forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath [g] and to the gates of Ekron. Their dead were strewn along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron. 53 When the Israelites returned from chasing the Philistines, they plundered their camp.” David’s courageous faith encouraged everyone around him. It made all the difference. For 40 days things were at a standstill. And all at once the army was emboldened. Here we see the power of one. It takes the faith of one person possessing the spirit of victory in their hearts to enliven the hearts of all God’s people.
Through this passage we see that unbelief is the cause of fear and defeat, and that faith is the secret of victory. When we depend on our strength and skill, we loose our battles. But when we depend on God, to overcome our fear and fight, surely victory will be ours, even though we may be young. May God give us a victorious spirit and a victorious life when we determine to have faith in God in the face of our many “Goliaths” and stand and fight by faith.
A New Creation in Christ!
A NEW CREATION IN CHRIST JESUS
(Sunday, the Fourth of January, 2009)
2 Corinthians 5:1-21 By Jay Irwin
Key Verse 5:17
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
Happy New Year!!! We wanted to start out 2009 by pondering what it means to be a new creation. Of course, around the New Year season lots of people are looking for ways to make a new start and turn over a new leaf in life. They want to start fresh, and not continue on in whatever they may have been entangled in or tied up with in the previous year. But, this is what we want also, isn’t it? Well, if indeed it is what you want, then it would help us to search out these scriptures today carefully in order to receive from God, His way of making things new for each of us this year. Even more than our desire to start things off newly, there is God’s desire to reconcile us to himself and make us into new creations. Let’s see how God can make us each into a new creation in Christ Jesus. Before we begin, let’s pray.
Part I, Our Eternal Hope in the heavenly kingdom
Verses 1-5 say, “1Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” When the passage talks about “our earthly tent” its symbolic of where we are now living, our physical body. Yet, when it says, and “a building from God”, this refers to where we will be living in the future, in our resurrection body. Throughout our life on earth, we live in physical bodies made of the dust of the ground. These bodies are merely physical, weak, and temporary; we will not be here forever. Deep down we wish that our souls were clothed with our heavenly dwelling, our resurrection body, that which is spiritual, strong, and eternal. What we are eagerly hoping for is to be in heaven with Christ. And indeed, we who have been given the deposit of the Holy Spirit will be with Christ in eternal glory in the kingdom of God. That is the place that we are looking forward to earnestly.
In verse 6-10, we are assured of this heavenly hope because of our faith and the deposit of the Holy Spirit. We are confident of our hope in the heavenly kingdom because we know that our final destination is with Christ in heaven. We don’t have to guess or wonder where we will go after we die because our faith in Jesus’ promise gives us great confidence: “3…if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” While we wait, this heavenly hope moves our hearts to please God and be used by him to do his good work. We have this goal to please God in all we do because of God’s great love for us revealed through this real and living hope.
Part 2, A New Creation in Christ
Now let’s search the second part of this chapter to find out what it means to be a new creation in Christ. Verse 17 says, “17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” When a person becomes a new creation, there is a radical and complete change that takes place in his or her life. There is clear evidence of the newness that God has brought about inside of that person. This change however is a work of God, not of man’s efforts or decisions. But before we think about what it means to be a new creation, let’s first think about the first part of the verse that says, “…if anyone is in Christ,…” Then, we’ll think about “…a new creation.”
To be in Christ means to have been brought out from sin and the world. Before anyone is in Christ, he or she is God’s enemy. We are not in Christ automatically when we are born or by going to church all our lives, instead we are born in sin and we are of this dark world as objects of God’s wrath. The Bible says that our sins separated us from God and because of our sin our relationship with God was broken. Simply put, we were dead in our sins and cut off from God. This is the condition of anyone who is not in Christ.
Where do you find yourself today? Would you say that you are in Christ? This question is a very important question that each of us must answer before starting the New Year. May we not wait any longer, but come to Christ, and be found in him. Accept his love and forgiveness, and as the passage says in verse 20, “…Be reconciled to God!” No one can become a new creation unless they are first reconciled to God through Christ. Let Jesus mend your broken relationship with God and bring you back into close fellowship with Him. If it is not already, we ought to make it our number 1 goal, to allow Christ to reconcile our relationship to God. This requires simple child-like faith. To be in Christ means to believe in Jesus’ grace of sin forgiveness. We trust that Jesus forgives our sins because he died on the cross, shedding his blood to cleanse us and to wash us white as snow. Jesus is our city of refuge, in him we can come and hide from the avenger. Jesus is also our ark, in him we can be safe from judgment and preserved from all harm. When we are in Christ, then we can be made into a new creation through the powerful work of God.
Now that we’ve learned how we can become a new creation, let’s think about what it actually means to be a new creation? As we mentioned, it means radical and complete change. This radical change can be seen by a changed hope, a changed mission, and a changed identity.
First, a changed hope. Look at verse 4, “4For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” Before we were made anew in Christ, we lived with lowly earthly hopes. Most people only hope for things like a pay raise at work, a new video game, or even for the weekend (TGIF). Some people are very hopeful on Friday’s, but despair on Sunday nights because they have to go back to work or school the next day. There are also more noble hopes like the hope of marriage, of getting a new house, or the hope of being successful and accepted by family, friends, and coworkers. All these hopes are not necessarily sinful, but often times such earthly hopes disappoint us, and do not last. During these troubling economic times, many are despairing and have no hope. Since so many have earthly hopes in political leaders or money, they will be disappointed if these things don’t deliver what they promise.
Yet, as we saw in verses 1-8, the hope of a new creation is a heavenly hope. When a person has been reconciled to God, forgiven of their sins, they are a new creation; there is a fundamental change from hoping for earthly things to hoping for heavenly things. Paul’s hope and the hope he was trying to remind the Corinthians of was the heavenly hope to someday be with God and to be clothed with their glorious resurrection bodies. Our heavenly hope is eternal in nature and will not disappoint. The changed hope runs deep in our hearts and gives us full assurance of what we are longing for and expecting from God, that is, to someday be with Jesus in glory in heaven. The gospel fills our hearts with these heavenly hopes that endure through bad times and good times and help us to carry on without despairing.
Second, a changed mission. Look at verses 11-15. Verse 15 says, “15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” The direction that we were going in our lives before being a new creation was self seeking. We lived for ourselves and not for Christ. We did not know the love of God for ourselves or for the world, so we just lived to please ourselves and follow the desires of the sinful nature. Some people before being saved passionately devote themselves to noble causes like the cure for cancer or fighting world poverty and starvation. I’m sure most of you have heard of Bono, the famous U2 lead singer, is living for the “do the red thing” cause, to find a cure for AIDS in Africa. He is donating and speaking and traveling and dedicating himself fully to this mission. Yet, even such noble causes can still be entirely motivated from the old self. Not even the nicest guy or girl in the world can make himself into a new creation. Serving noble causes make people look like their life direction is on target. But this is not always true. We must be recreated from the inside out, and our mission comes from heaven. We first must be directed by the Spirit of God to live for Christ and for him alone, otherwise, we might get to the end of our lives and find out that we served a mission that’s end was the glory of men rather than the glory of God.
Look at verse 15 again. It says, “… that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” The changed mission is the new life direction to live for Christ who died for us and was raised from the dead. When we have been created anew by God, then we have the desire to live fully for Christ and His gospel. Living for Christ means persuading men to turn from their sins to God’s grace and mercy. It means being crazy for Jesus and allowing God to make his appeal to the world through our lives. It is to preach the gospel in all we do, sharing our testimony with others and leading them to the Savior. What mission and life direction do you have for this coming year? Is it to live for you or to live for Christ? May our answer be a bold and firm “for Christ” There is an old saying that goes something like this, “Only one life to life, twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” May what we do for Christ be the new direction of our life as a new creation in Christ, until we reach our heavenly home.
Third, a changed identity. Verses 16-17 says, “16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” Once again, before we were in Christ, our outlook was worldly, which meant that whatever we saw we saw through the lens of worldly ways of thinking. The world’s point of view is that people are valuable based on their family background, the intelligence, their looks, their bank account, or their career. Do you look at yourself and others from a worldly point of view or a Christ-like point of view? Do you make judgment calls based on how talented or attractive you are? What do you pay attention to when you see yourself or others? In Christ, we have a new identity, so we should not see ourselves or others with a worldly outlook, but instead also see them as a new creation in Christ.
When Jesus called Simon, he changed his name to “Peter”, which means rock. This was to give him a new identity, to be a strong man of God, rather than one who was unstable. Later, he went and preached the gospel fearlessly to the Jews and many were saved through their ministry. Also, Jesus changed John the apostle’s name from a son of thunder(one who always judged and condemned others) to “the apostle whom Jesus loved.” Later, John wrote such beautiful and poetic words by saying, “10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” Our Lord also fundamentally gave the apostle Paul a new identity as well. Paul was once named Saul, he was an ultra-religious, self-righteous, Pharisee who murdered Christians. But when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, he met Jesus personally, and God gave him a new identity as a servant of Christ Jesus to preach the gospel to the Gentiles.
In the same way, our identity is to live as ministers of the gospel of reconciliation called by God to lead men back to God and unite all people under Christ. Yet, the ministry of reconciliation is not easy to serve. It means that we have to learn to say sorry first. Usually, we wait around for others to apologize to us, but when we have a broken relationship we should follow the example of our Lord Jesus who took the first step to forgive us even while we were still sinners and enemies of God. Recently, a leader in UBF demonstrated the essence of this hard process of reconciliation by simply saying, “sorry” to Carrie and I for some problems we had had in the UBF ministry. We realized that this leader showed real Christ-like character when he apologized to us. Through this we could see that God is changing the UBF ministry more and more into a Christ-centered ministry of reconciliation, one that works to serve the gospel which has the power to mend any broken relationship.
Personally, this passage really spoke to my heart as I wrote this message because I could see how much I had digressed as a Christian over the past year. The year of 2008 was a very hard year for me spiritually. Even though years ago, God had done a great work in my heart, making me into a new creation in Christ, I found that I had gone back to all my old ways. In my life testimony I would always share how God saved me from my sins of lust and addiction to pornography and video games. However, last year I got entangled again with these sin problems. My relationship with God and my wife and others was broken, and there was no peace in my heart. I suffered greatly, but I did not go to God and cry out to him or call on his name. This hurt even more. In addition, I had broken relationships with many people in UBF for just leaving without saying much of anything despite all the love and grace that had been invested and poured out into my life. I was living for myself not for Christ, and played video games and committed shameful immoral sins. God convicted me though as my marriage started to have problems. I realized my need to return to God, repenting of my sins, and devoting myself once again to the words of God and deep Bible study. God allowed me to have 1:1 with Pastor Kevin where I could repent and be reconciled to God. After our first Bible study I felt like a new creation, like the breath of God had been breathed into me newly and I was alive again. This showed me that I need to be a new creation everyday through giving my heart to Christ and serving the ministry he’s called me to, namely preaching the gospel to people.
But from this passage, I could give thanks to God because I realized that God has the power to make all things new and to renew my heart and inner man for this new year. The same God that made me into a new creation in Christ years ago, can still today forgive my sins and reconcile me to himself once again. I accept his grace and love and pray to give my whole heart to his ministry of reconciliation. To me this means going to the NIU campus and inviting students to Bible study in the new semester. It means helping my family members to be reconciled to God through Christ as well. It also means me learning to say sorry first in my relationship with Carrie when I’m wrong and we argue.
In conclusion, let us each pray that to start off the new year, we would be reconciled to God through Christ, and that in this way we would be made into new creations. I pray that we can have a new identity in Christ. We are not just a teacher, a paperboy, a forensic expert, an administrative assistant, or a Geek (squad agent), but rather we are new creations in Christ Jesus. Let us give our hearts fully to God’s ministry of reconciliation by preaching the gospel and making efforts to restore broken relationships. Let’s remember our Lord Jesus who gave up his life make us a new creation, living with heavenly hopes, a clear mission and direction in life to live for Christ not ourselves, and a changed identity as ambassadors of Christ preaching the gospel to the world.
One Word: A new creation in Christ
(Sunday, the Fourth of January, 2009)
2 Corinthians 5:1-21 By Jay Irwin
Key Verse 5:17
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
Happy New Year!!! We wanted to start out 2009 by pondering what it means to be a new creation. Of course, around the New Year season lots of people are looking for ways to make a new start and turn over a new leaf in life. They want to start fresh, and not continue on in whatever they may have been entangled in or tied up with in the previous year. But, this is what we want also, isn’t it? Well, if indeed it is what you want, then it would help us to search out these scriptures today carefully in order to receive from God, His way of making things new for each of us this year. Even more than our desire to start things off newly, there is God’s desire to reconcile us to himself and make us into new creations. Let’s see how God can make us each into a new creation in Christ Jesus. Before we begin, let’s pray.
Part I, Our Eternal Hope in the heavenly kingdom
Verses 1-5 say, “1Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” When the passage talks about “our earthly tent” its symbolic of where we are now living, our physical body. Yet, when it says, and “a building from God”, this refers to where we will be living in the future, in our resurrection body. Throughout our life on earth, we live in physical bodies made of the dust of the ground. These bodies are merely physical, weak, and temporary; we will not be here forever. Deep down we wish that our souls were clothed with our heavenly dwelling, our resurrection body, that which is spiritual, strong, and eternal. What we are eagerly hoping for is to be in heaven with Christ. And indeed, we who have been given the deposit of the Holy Spirit will be with Christ in eternal glory in the kingdom of God. That is the place that we are looking forward to earnestly.
In verse 6-10, we are assured of this heavenly hope because of our faith and the deposit of the Holy Spirit. We are confident of our hope in the heavenly kingdom because we know that our final destination is with Christ in heaven. We don’t have to guess or wonder where we will go after we die because our faith in Jesus’ promise gives us great confidence: “3…if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” While we wait, this heavenly hope moves our hearts to please God and be used by him to do his good work. We have this goal to please God in all we do because of God’s great love for us revealed through this real and living hope.
Part 2, A New Creation in Christ
Now let’s search the second part of this chapter to find out what it means to be a new creation in Christ. Verse 17 says, “17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” When a person becomes a new creation, there is a radical and complete change that takes place in his or her life. There is clear evidence of the newness that God has brought about inside of that person. This change however is a work of God, not of man’s efforts or decisions. But before we think about what it means to be a new creation, let’s first think about the first part of the verse that says, “…if anyone is in Christ,…” Then, we’ll think about “…a new creation.”
To be in Christ means to have been brought out from sin and the world. Before anyone is in Christ, he or she is God’s enemy. We are not in Christ automatically when we are born or by going to church all our lives, instead we are born in sin and we are of this dark world as objects of God’s wrath. The Bible says that our sins separated us from God and because of our sin our relationship with God was broken. Simply put, we were dead in our sins and cut off from God. This is the condition of anyone who is not in Christ.
Where do you find yourself today? Would you say that you are in Christ? This question is a very important question that each of us must answer before starting the New Year. May we not wait any longer, but come to Christ, and be found in him. Accept his love and forgiveness, and as the passage says in verse 20, “…Be reconciled to God!” No one can become a new creation unless they are first reconciled to God through Christ. Let Jesus mend your broken relationship with God and bring you back into close fellowship with Him. If it is not already, we ought to make it our number 1 goal, to allow Christ to reconcile our relationship to God. This requires simple child-like faith. To be in Christ means to believe in Jesus’ grace of sin forgiveness. We trust that Jesus forgives our sins because he died on the cross, shedding his blood to cleanse us and to wash us white as snow. Jesus is our city of refuge, in him we can come and hide from the avenger. Jesus is also our ark, in him we can be safe from judgment and preserved from all harm. When we are in Christ, then we can be made into a new creation through the powerful work of God.
Now that we’ve learned how we can become a new creation, let’s think about what it actually means to be a new creation? As we mentioned, it means radical and complete change. This radical change can be seen by a changed hope, a changed mission, and a changed identity.
First, a changed hope. Look at verse 4, “4For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” Before we were made anew in Christ, we lived with lowly earthly hopes. Most people only hope for things like a pay raise at work, a new video game, or even for the weekend (TGIF). Some people are very hopeful on Friday’s, but despair on Sunday nights because they have to go back to work or school the next day. There are also more noble hopes like the hope of marriage, of getting a new house, or the hope of being successful and accepted by family, friends, and coworkers. All these hopes are not necessarily sinful, but often times such earthly hopes disappoint us, and do not last. During these troubling economic times, many are despairing and have no hope. Since so many have earthly hopes in political leaders or money, they will be disappointed if these things don’t deliver what they promise.
Yet, as we saw in verses 1-8, the hope of a new creation is a heavenly hope. When a person has been reconciled to God, forgiven of their sins, they are a new creation; there is a fundamental change from hoping for earthly things to hoping for heavenly things. Paul’s hope and the hope he was trying to remind the Corinthians of was the heavenly hope to someday be with God and to be clothed with their glorious resurrection bodies. Our heavenly hope is eternal in nature and will not disappoint. The changed hope runs deep in our hearts and gives us full assurance of what we are longing for and expecting from God, that is, to someday be with Jesus in glory in heaven. The gospel fills our hearts with these heavenly hopes that endure through bad times and good times and help us to carry on without despairing.
Second, a changed mission. Look at verses 11-15. Verse 15 says, “15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” The direction that we were going in our lives before being a new creation was self seeking. We lived for ourselves and not for Christ. We did not know the love of God for ourselves or for the world, so we just lived to please ourselves and follow the desires of the sinful nature. Some people before being saved passionately devote themselves to noble causes like the cure for cancer or fighting world poverty and starvation. I’m sure most of you have heard of Bono, the famous U2 lead singer, is living for the “do the red thing” cause, to find a cure for AIDS in Africa. He is donating and speaking and traveling and dedicating himself fully to this mission. Yet, even such noble causes can still be entirely motivated from the old self. Not even the nicest guy or girl in the world can make himself into a new creation. Serving noble causes make people look like their life direction is on target. But this is not always true. We must be recreated from the inside out, and our mission comes from heaven. We first must be directed by the Spirit of God to live for Christ and for him alone, otherwise, we might get to the end of our lives and find out that we served a mission that’s end was the glory of men rather than the glory of God.
Look at verse 15 again. It says, “… that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” The changed mission is the new life direction to live for Christ who died for us and was raised from the dead. When we have been created anew by God, then we have the desire to live fully for Christ and His gospel. Living for Christ means persuading men to turn from their sins to God’s grace and mercy. It means being crazy for Jesus and allowing God to make his appeal to the world through our lives. It is to preach the gospel in all we do, sharing our testimony with others and leading them to the Savior. What mission and life direction do you have for this coming year? Is it to live for you or to live for Christ? May our answer be a bold and firm “for Christ” There is an old saying that goes something like this, “Only one life to life, twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” May what we do for Christ be the new direction of our life as a new creation in Christ, until we reach our heavenly home.
Third, a changed identity. Verses 16-17 says, “16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” Once again, before we were in Christ, our outlook was worldly, which meant that whatever we saw we saw through the lens of worldly ways of thinking. The world’s point of view is that people are valuable based on their family background, the intelligence, their looks, their bank account, or their career. Do you look at yourself and others from a worldly point of view or a Christ-like point of view? Do you make judgment calls based on how talented or attractive you are? What do you pay attention to when you see yourself or others? In Christ, we have a new identity, so we should not see ourselves or others with a worldly outlook, but instead also see them as a new creation in Christ.
When Jesus called Simon, he changed his name to “Peter”, which means rock. This was to give him a new identity, to be a strong man of God, rather than one who was unstable. Later, he went and preached the gospel fearlessly to the Jews and many were saved through their ministry. Also, Jesus changed John the apostle’s name from a son of thunder(one who always judged and condemned others) to “the apostle whom Jesus loved.” Later, John wrote such beautiful and poetic words by saying, “10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” Our Lord also fundamentally gave the apostle Paul a new identity as well. Paul was once named Saul, he was an ultra-religious, self-righteous, Pharisee who murdered Christians. But when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, he met Jesus personally, and God gave him a new identity as a servant of Christ Jesus to preach the gospel to the Gentiles.
In the same way, our identity is to live as ministers of the gospel of reconciliation called by God to lead men back to God and unite all people under Christ. Yet, the ministry of reconciliation is not easy to serve. It means that we have to learn to say sorry first. Usually, we wait around for others to apologize to us, but when we have a broken relationship we should follow the example of our Lord Jesus who took the first step to forgive us even while we were still sinners and enemies of God. Recently, a leader in UBF demonstrated the essence of this hard process of reconciliation by simply saying, “sorry” to Carrie and I for some problems we had had in the UBF ministry. We realized that this leader showed real Christ-like character when he apologized to us. Through this we could see that God is changing the UBF ministry more and more into a Christ-centered ministry of reconciliation, one that works to serve the gospel which has the power to mend any broken relationship.
Personally, this passage really spoke to my heart as I wrote this message because I could see how much I had digressed as a Christian over the past year. The year of 2008 was a very hard year for me spiritually. Even though years ago, God had done a great work in my heart, making me into a new creation in Christ, I found that I had gone back to all my old ways. In my life testimony I would always share how God saved me from my sins of lust and addiction to pornography and video games. However, last year I got entangled again with these sin problems. My relationship with God and my wife and others was broken, and there was no peace in my heart. I suffered greatly, but I did not go to God and cry out to him or call on his name. This hurt even more. In addition, I had broken relationships with many people in UBF for just leaving without saying much of anything despite all the love and grace that had been invested and poured out into my life. I was living for myself not for Christ, and played video games and committed shameful immoral sins. God convicted me though as my marriage started to have problems. I realized my need to return to God, repenting of my sins, and devoting myself once again to the words of God and deep Bible study. God allowed me to have 1:1 with Pastor Kevin where I could repent and be reconciled to God. After our first Bible study I felt like a new creation, like the breath of God had been breathed into me newly and I was alive again. This showed me that I need to be a new creation everyday through giving my heart to Christ and serving the ministry he’s called me to, namely preaching the gospel to people.
But from this passage, I could give thanks to God because I realized that God has the power to make all things new and to renew my heart and inner man for this new year. The same God that made me into a new creation in Christ years ago, can still today forgive my sins and reconcile me to himself once again. I accept his grace and love and pray to give my whole heart to his ministry of reconciliation. To me this means going to the NIU campus and inviting students to Bible study in the new semester. It means helping my family members to be reconciled to God through Christ as well. It also means me learning to say sorry first in my relationship with Carrie when I’m wrong and we argue.
In conclusion, let us each pray that to start off the new year, we would be reconciled to God through Christ, and that in this way we would be made into new creations. I pray that we can have a new identity in Christ. We are not just a teacher, a paperboy, a forensic expert, an administrative assistant, or a Geek (squad agent), but rather we are new creations in Christ Jesus. Let us give our hearts fully to God’s ministry of reconciliation by preaching the gospel and making efforts to restore broken relationships. Let’s remember our Lord Jesus who gave up his life make us a new creation, living with heavenly hopes, a clear mission and direction in life to live for Christ not ourselves, and a changed identity as ambassadors of Christ preaching the gospel to the world.
One Word: A new creation in Christ
Sunday, January 11, 2009
New Years Message
LOVE THE LORD OUR GOD
Deuteronomy 6:1-13 Shp Kevin Jesmer NIU UBF
Key Verse: 6:5 1/11/09
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
I thank God for the opportunity to reflect on God’s work in the previous year and find some clear direction for the new year. This is not just your average New Year’s resolutions. Most, almost all people, do not carry through with their yearly resolutions. These are spiritual resolutions, they are prayers and vows to the Almighty God and we can keep them because, God, the Creator and the Sustainer of the whole universe, sustains and upholds us and leads us according to our key verses. This Sunday we will hear about the wonderful grace of Jesus in peoples’ lives in 2008 and the hope and vision they have for themselves, in Christ, for 2009. We can pray for each other according to these key verses. We will also learn our ministry key verse, and the direction or our ministry in the coming year. As you probably guessed the NIU UBF ministry key verse is Deuteronomy 6:5, ““Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Let’s learn what that means for us in the coming year. May God help us to love him with all our heart and with all our souls and with all our strength in 2009.
What is God asking of his people? Let’s read verse 5 together, "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." First, this verse is an imperative command. The word “Love” in this verse comes from the Greek word “agape.” This means the love of God. “Love the Lord…” It is not an option. Nor is it a nice suggestion. It is not a hobby that we do if we have time or if is convenient. How can someone command someone else to love you? It is like saying, “Hey. You...You have to love me.” That is not going to fly with a lot of people. But God can make such demands on us. Why? Because we were made by God in his image. We are the creatures and God is the Creator. It is our duty to love our Creator God with all our heart. As children must love their parents and obey them, we must love the Creator God. God’s “love language” is obedience. God is moved by obedience and he acknowledges those who obey him as those who love him. Jesus said in John 14:23, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”
Second, don’t wait for the right feeling. How can we love God whom we do not see? It is easy to love Uma, our mini Pomeranian. It is easy to love our family members and friends, (most of the time). We can see them. We have recognizable feelings of love. But God is invisible. How can we love him when we don’t have feelings of love for him in our hearts? This love is not primarily a feeling, but a decision to put God first in our thoughts, words and deeds. It begins by not waiting for a feeling but deciding to love God from our hearts.
To what degree or what intensity does God want us to love him? Look at verse 5 again, "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." What God wants is not a partial outpouring our love to Jesus. Expressing our love to Jesus should be a wholehearted expression. It involves giving our all and our “everything” to him, without holding back, in loving devotion.
Where does this love for God emanate from? It comes from our heart and our soul. The heart is the center of our emotion and the seat of our love. It is the source of our passion. We must maintain our hearts as a place that generates a pure love God. So Proverbs 4:30 warns, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” God gave us one heart. He could have given us many hearts like he did to earthworms. If we had more than one heart, then we could surmise that it would be alright to give one heart to him and one heart to someone or something else. But we have only one heart to give and we must give it undividedly, with passion. If we love the world, or harbor sin in our hearts, or yield to the devil’s temptation, our hearts become as cold as ice and we cannot love God from our hearts.
Loving God with all our soul is kind of abstract. But think of it this way. Our soul is our life. And so we must love God with all our life. Our souls are made in the image of God. Our soul is the very essence of who we are. Our soul is the part of us which communes with God. Our souls long to dwell with Jesus in his kingdom forever. When we love God with all of our souls it means that you love God with all of your life and yearn to be with God and dwell in his presence, taking the necessary means to do so.
How is this love expressed? We must love our God with all our strength. Here, strength includes our spiritual and physical strength. It is not easy to love God with all of our strength. This goes beyond the “touchy/feely” things of the heart and the soul. It starts dealing with the practical. It deals with the concrete. It is where the tire hits the road. However we are called to express our love to God, it must be done with all of our strength. If you are musician practice music and singing to the point of memorizing. If you are a student, study until you feel you can not study any longer. If you are called to prepare the word of God, do it with your whole heart knowing that souls depend on it, even yours. If you have to support yourself, then work with your whole heart. When we love the Lord with all of our strength there is no room for a “that’s good enough” attitude or a “I’ll wing it” attitude. It involves self denial and faithfully offering up your very best to Jesus…very practically.
How can we love God like this? (1Jn4:10,19; 3:1; Eph3:17b-19) It is all because of the grace of Jesus. We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19) 1 John 4:10 reads, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for[a] our sins.” Because of our sins, we were destined stand before the judgment seat of Christ. (Heb 11:27) On our own we would surely have to taste eternal condemnation. But God loves us so much that he sent his One and Only Son, Jesus Christ in order to save us from our sins. Jesus gave his all…born in a manger, living a sacrificial life as a shepherd throughout his whole lifetime, suffering and dying on the cross, to bring us the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Jesus did it because he loved his Father in heaven with all his heart and soul and strength. He did it because he loved us with all his heart, soul and strength. And so, we must love him with all our also. Deuteronomy 6:5 may sound burdensome to some. We may feel convicted of falling far short and we do. The Bible says that by our own effort, we will all fall short of God’s standard. So how should we respond to this fact? We should never give up trying to love God. We can only repent and ask God’s mercy. Then he cleanses us by the blood of Jesus and helps us grow by his grace. However, God still wants us to accept his standard, accept his grace and to grow in the image of his Son, Jesus. This is in fact, the way to complete happiness. (Deut 6:10-12) Wherever we are, whatever we do, when we love God completely, we are offering spiritual worship to God. Our expression of love to him has absolute meaning and gives us real satisfaction.
In setting our resolutions for 2009, it is important to involve expressing our love to God. We must do it with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Love God with a heart felt passion. Love God with all of your life and come near to God to love him and be loved by him. And find ways to practically show love for God in the way he has called you. When you show love to God, do it with all of your heart. When we strive for excellence in our expression of our love for Jesus, Jesus is pleased.
NIU Ministry Prayer topics: 1) Acts and Jonah messages 2) 30 1:1 Bible studies 3) 20 regular Sunday attendants 4) two 1 Samuel Bible Schools 5) 12 disciples of Jesus in 2009 6) Double our ministry by 2010. 7) Participate in world mission. 8) Tim and Andrew to grow as shepherds 9) Jay and Carrie to grow as housechurch. 10) Be a club on campus. 11) All students to get A’s for God’s glory 12) A new Bible house 13) Web site development. 14) “each one to teach one”
Deuteronomy 6:1-13 Shp Kevin Jesmer NIU UBF
Key Verse: 6:5 1/11/09
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
I thank God for the opportunity to reflect on God’s work in the previous year and find some clear direction for the new year. This is not just your average New Year’s resolutions. Most, almost all people, do not carry through with their yearly resolutions. These are spiritual resolutions, they are prayers and vows to the Almighty God and we can keep them because, God, the Creator and the Sustainer of the whole universe, sustains and upholds us and leads us according to our key verses. This Sunday we will hear about the wonderful grace of Jesus in peoples’ lives in 2008 and the hope and vision they have for themselves, in Christ, for 2009. We can pray for each other according to these key verses. We will also learn our ministry key verse, and the direction or our ministry in the coming year. As you probably guessed the NIU UBF ministry key verse is Deuteronomy 6:5, ““Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Let’s learn what that means for us in the coming year. May God help us to love him with all our heart and with all our souls and with all our strength in 2009.
What is God asking of his people? Let’s read verse 5 together, "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." First, this verse is an imperative command. The word “Love” in this verse comes from the Greek word “agape.” This means the love of God. “Love the Lord…” It is not an option. Nor is it a nice suggestion. It is not a hobby that we do if we have time or if is convenient. How can someone command someone else to love you? It is like saying, “Hey. You...You have to love me.” That is not going to fly with a lot of people. But God can make such demands on us. Why? Because we were made by God in his image. We are the creatures and God is the Creator. It is our duty to love our Creator God with all our heart. As children must love their parents and obey them, we must love the Creator God. God’s “love language” is obedience. God is moved by obedience and he acknowledges those who obey him as those who love him. Jesus said in John 14:23, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”
Second, don’t wait for the right feeling. How can we love God whom we do not see? It is easy to love Uma, our mini Pomeranian. It is easy to love our family members and friends, (most of the time). We can see them. We have recognizable feelings of love. But God is invisible. How can we love him when we don’t have feelings of love for him in our hearts? This love is not primarily a feeling, but a decision to put God first in our thoughts, words and deeds. It begins by not waiting for a feeling but deciding to love God from our hearts.
To what degree or what intensity does God want us to love him? Look at verse 5 again, "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." What God wants is not a partial outpouring our love to Jesus. Expressing our love to Jesus should be a wholehearted expression. It involves giving our all and our “everything” to him, without holding back, in loving devotion.
Where does this love for God emanate from? It comes from our heart and our soul. The heart is the center of our emotion and the seat of our love. It is the source of our passion. We must maintain our hearts as a place that generates a pure love God. So Proverbs 4:30 warns, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” God gave us one heart. He could have given us many hearts like he did to earthworms. If we had more than one heart, then we could surmise that it would be alright to give one heart to him and one heart to someone or something else. But we have only one heart to give and we must give it undividedly, with passion. If we love the world, or harbor sin in our hearts, or yield to the devil’s temptation, our hearts become as cold as ice and we cannot love God from our hearts.
Loving God with all our soul is kind of abstract. But think of it this way. Our soul is our life. And so we must love God with all our life. Our souls are made in the image of God. Our soul is the very essence of who we are. Our soul is the part of us which communes with God. Our souls long to dwell with Jesus in his kingdom forever. When we love God with all of our souls it means that you love God with all of your life and yearn to be with God and dwell in his presence, taking the necessary means to do so.
How is this love expressed? We must love our God with all our strength. Here, strength includes our spiritual and physical strength. It is not easy to love God with all of our strength. This goes beyond the “touchy/feely” things of the heart and the soul. It starts dealing with the practical. It deals with the concrete. It is where the tire hits the road. However we are called to express our love to God, it must be done with all of our strength. If you are musician practice music and singing to the point of memorizing. If you are a student, study until you feel you can not study any longer. If you are called to prepare the word of God, do it with your whole heart knowing that souls depend on it, even yours. If you have to support yourself, then work with your whole heart. When we love the Lord with all of our strength there is no room for a “that’s good enough” attitude or a “I’ll wing it” attitude. It involves self denial and faithfully offering up your very best to Jesus…very practically.
How can we love God like this? (1Jn4:10,19; 3:1; Eph3:17b-19) It is all because of the grace of Jesus. We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19) 1 John 4:10 reads, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for[a] our sins.” Because of our sins, we were destined stand before the judgment seat of Christ. (Heb 11:27) On our own we would surely have to taste eternal condemnation. But God loves us so much that he sent his One and Only Son, Jesus Christ in order to save us from our sins. Jesus gave his all…born in a manger, living a sacrificial life as a shepherd throughout his whole lifetime, suffering and dying on the cross, to bring us the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Jesus did it because he loved his Father in heaven with all his heart and soul and strength. He did it because he loved us with all his heart, soul and strength. And so, we must love him with all our also. Deuteronomy 6:5 may sound burdensome to some. We may feel convicted of falling far short and we do. The Bible says that by our own effort, we will all fall short of God’s standard. So how should we respond to this fact? We should never give up trying to love God. We can only repent and ask God’s mercy. Then he cleanses us by the blood of Jesus and helps us grow by his grace. However, God still wants us to accept his standard, accept his grace and to grow in the image of his Son, Jesus. This is in fact, the way to complete happiness. (Deut 6:10-12) Wherever we are, whatever we do, when we love God completely, we are offering spiritual worship to God. Our expression of love to him has absolute meaning and gives us real satisfaction.
In setting our resolutions for 2009, it is important to involve expressing our love to God. We must do it with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Love God with a heart felt passion. Love God with all of your life and come near to God to love him and be loved by him. And find ways to practically show love for God in the way he has called you. When you show love to God, do it with all of your heart. When we strive for excellence in our expression of our love for Jesus, Jesus is pleased.
NIU Ministry Prayer topics: 1) Acts and Jonah messages 2) 30 1:1 Bible studies 3) 20 regular Sunday attendants 4) two 1 Samuel Bible Schools 5) 12 disciples of Jesus in 2009 6) Double our ministry by 2010. 7) Participate in world mission. 8) Tim and Andrew to grow as shepherds 9) Jay and Carrie to grow as housechurch. 10) Be a club on campus. 11) All students to get A’s for God’s glory 12) A new Bible house 13) Web site development. 14) “each one to teach one”
Sunday, December 14, 2008
2008 Christmas Preparation Message
CHRISTIAN KOINONIA
1 John 1:1-10 Christmas 2008
Key Verse: 1:3 NIU UBF 12/7/08
"We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ."
Every Christmas my mind scans the Bible, trying to find original passages to preach about, concerning the birth of Jesus into the world. We have had messages from Isaiah. Micah, and the Gospels. This year I came to realize that 1 John chapter 1 was an excellent passage to think about the meaning of Jesus’ birth into this world. 1 John 1 concerns Jesus coming in the flesh. And isn’t that we are celebrating this Christmas season? Are we not celebrating the fact that Jesus, came into this world as a tiny baby in a manger to save people from their sins? So let us mediate on this passage and come to understand more deeply, the meaning of this season.
1 John was written by John the Apostle. John was the brother of James. They were sons of Zebedee. When God called them on the shores of the Sea of Galilee they left their boat and nets to follow Jesus. John felt a special closeness to Jesus, calling himself "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (Jn 21:20). He felt like this, but we all know that Jesus loved all of them equally. Later on, John wrote John's Gospel. In his senior years he pastured God's people in Ephesus. In his late eighties, he was exiled to the Isle of Patmos, a Roman quarry, where he wrote the book of Revelation.
John had authority to write about the truth of Jesus. Look at verses 1 and 2. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.” John had personal experience with Jesus. John and Jesus were tight. John was an eyewitness to Jesus' life and death and resurrection. He had followed Jesus for 3 ½ years during his earthly ministry. John knew Jesus the man. He saw him and heard him and touched him. And he loved Jesus. He was changed into an apostle of love. He also came to believe and know that Jesus is the eternal Word of life, the Son who was with the Father from the beginning.
These three letters, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John were written to believers who were being confronted by false teachers--especially by those with Gnostic ideas. 1 John was written to dispel doubts and plant assurance that Jesus was God. He presents God as light, love and life. He describes in simple and practical terms what it means to have fellowship with God. John wanted to get the believers back on track, showing the difference between light and darkness and to encourage the church to grow in love for God and for one another. When we keep all of these things in mind, everything in this chapter fits together and it makes perfect sense why we must study it for Christmas.
Part l: Jesus Is God Who Came In The Flesh
First, what do we know about this Gnosticism that plagued the early church? The Gnostics taught that flesh is evil and spirit is good. This is an unbiblical idea, and it leads to the denial of the true humanity of Christ. In practical life, those who embrace Gnosticism fall into one of two extremes: They either become ascetic to the point of mistreating their bodies, or they throw off all moral restraints, saying that it doesn't matter what we do with our physical bodies as long as we believe in Jesus, for the body is corruptible and perishing anyway. This is incredibly false teaching.
The Bible teaches that God created man-- body and spirit--and said, "It is good." Jesus is God. He is the Word who became flesh and made his dwelling among us (Jn 1:14). The idea that spirit is good and all matter is evil should be abhorrent to Christians who know that Jesus is God incarnate. John once wrote in John 1;14, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Many Christians were becoming uncertain of this Biblical fact that there was now two or three generations separating them from the beginning of the Christian church and also due to the hard work of, and bad influence of these false teachers. This false teaching would have enormous consequences on their concept of God, their knowledge of his love and the character of the church.
The Bible teaches that Jesus is God. Contrary to Gnostic teachings, Jesus is the Word who became flesh and made his dwelling among us (Jn 1:14). He preached the word of God to our hearts. He served people day in and day out, practically and with prayer. He raised up his 12 disciples as the future spiritual leaders of the world. After pouring out his life, Jesus went on to died on the cross. He was very God and very man, who shared in all of sufferings. Hebrews 4:15 reads “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.” He experienced all that we experienced and overcame. We can band together with Jesus for Jesus truly understands us. Jesus understands Tim and Andrew’s hard studies because he spent many years as a young man mastering the Old Testament Scriptures. Jesus understands my kids, who have to do chores, because he was a carpenter’s apprentice. Jesus understands those who have lost a father, because Biblical scholars believe that Joseph died before Jesus began his ministry. Jesus understands those who are tired because he stayed up many nights praying and teaching the Bible to his disciples. Jesus understood all of us who are tempted by sin, because he was tempted every, but struggled and overcame victoriously.
Part ll: Deep Meaningful Koininia (1b-10)
Jesus really wants to have a relationship with us. Verse 1b reads, “… —this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.” This brings to mind what John had written in the opening verses of his Gospel. John 1:1-3 reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” John describes Jesus as the Word. We use words to communicate. Jennifer was using words in her forensics competition on Saturday to try to convey her ideas to the judges. I am trying to communicate about God’s love to you with words. I am not sure how successful I am at it. We use words to communicate and to have relationships with others. God really wants to communicate with us. Sin broke communication with God. But God in his love tried his best, in many different ways, to speak to our hearts. But we, in our darkness, would not open the door to let him and listen to him. God did not give up. Finally he went to the extreme to establish a relationship. He sent his one and only Son, Jesus into this world as the living Word of God. Through Jesus, our Heavenly Father is breaking through the barrier of sin and is communicating his amazing love into each of our hearts. He is establishing deep and meaningful fellowship with us. This fellowship we call Koininia.
So what is this "fellowship" or "koinonia" that God went to such great lengths to establish? Let’s read verse 3 together, “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” Fellowship has deep meaning. It is described by the Greek Word, Koininia. This word has become associated with our spiritual fellowship with God and with others believers. John and the apostles proclaimed what they had seen and heard so that we might know Jesus and have fellowship with him, and have fellowship with all believers down throughout history.
Jesus demonstrated this koinonia during his earthly ministry. He ate with sinners and tax collectors. (Mk 2:16). Jesus spent years serving the disciples and giving them discipleship training. (Mk 3:14). Jesus served and served and served some more, even giving his life as a ransom for many. (Mk 10:45) How beautiful is Jesus’ serving life. We have a great opportunity to serve others this Christmas by inviting them to our Christmas service and offering so that wheat can be trained into North Korea to help feed starving people there. Maybe we can find some other practical ways to serve others around NIU and DeKalb this Christmas.
The early church knew God’s heart and understood his insatiable desire to have koinonia with us. This understanding manifested itself into practical living. Look at the beautiful fellowship they had in Acts 4:32-35, “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. 33With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. 34There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.” These early Christians were bound together by some common threads.
First, All the believers wanted to know Jesus. They knew the grace of Jesus very personally and deeply. This love of God caused them to want to know Jesus. Paul was one who knew the grace of Jesus. One of the motivating forces in his life and ministry is expressed in Philippians 3:10, “I want to know Christ and the fellowship of sharing in his suffering becoming like him in his death.” All Christians, experience Koininia through their desire to know Christ.
Second, they had commitment to God and to one another in unity. Unity of our fellowship is achieved when we all walk with God. (Ge 5:21-24), It can happen when we make a commitment to those who do the will of God. (Mk 3:31-35). Koininia does not have to occur in large groups in a mega church setting. It is more profoundly manifest through small groups. In Matthew 18:20, Jesus said, “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” In fact much of the work of God going on in the 10/40 window, the frontlines of world evangelism, is happening though small house churches. Think about China and the Middle East. A Christian revolution is happening in Iran through small house churches of 3-4 people. (Voice Of The Martyrs Nov, 2008) You can be a member of a 10,000 person church and still have no fellowship with others. You could have five people and have deep and meaningful Koininia.
Proclaiming the word of God is very important in forming Christian koinonia? (1b; 3; 1Thes 1:8a; 2Thes 3:1; 1Co 1:18) Let’s read verse 1b; “…—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.” and verse 3, “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” “Proclaim” is repeated many times. Christian fellowship is not just having coffee together. (although this is important and necessary at times.) It involves proclaiming the word of God together as a team. Christian fellowship happens when we proclaim God’s word. When we proclaim the Gospel we have fellowship. To proclaim is a very positive thing. It means to go out of your way to proclaim what you believe as true. Proclaiming the gospel involves the sharing in the remaining suffering of Jesus. Some Christians in other countries suffer in unimaginable ways in order to proclaim the gospel. We have our own unique forms of suffering. Tim and Andrew are in the midst of their exams. But they took time out to prepare for the Sunday worship service. Tim lost his part time job at a bagel shop in order to worship God in Sunday. Sharing in the suffering of Jesus is the most fundamental meaning of Christian fellowship. God has called us here to proclaim his word among campus students though 1:1 Bible study. I doing so together, we are experiencing some great Koinina.!
Living in Koinina is a lifestyle. Look at verses 5-7, “5This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all[b] sin.” False teachers were saying that they can still live in the light and also walk in darkness. The body is going to be destroyed anyway, so who cares? (This is what the Gnostics say.) Walking in the darkness is walking with the devil and walking selfishness. Darkness is the darkness of sin. It is a lifestyle. Sin breaks our fellowship with God and with others. It makes us fatalistic and dark, and robs our lives of meaning. Sin is at the root of most broken relationships with God and with each other. When we are selfish, proud, self centered and thankless and arrogant we can never have fellowship. (even with our pets.) We must overcome and struggle to overcome the darkness of selfishness and pride and struggle to live by the word of God.
The good news is that we don't have to live in the darkness of sin. God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5) God is perfectly holy and pure and he alone can guide us out of the darkness of sin. If we repent before him, he exposes our sin, and the blood of Jesus his Son purifies us from all sin. We can walk joyfully with God in his light. Walking in the light is also a lifestyle. Walking in the light is walking in the truth of Jesus and walking in the footsteps of Jesus. This is fellowship, walking together in the same lifestyle, walking together in the footsteps of Jesus. It involves life together. It involves struggling, laughing, and yes, even crying together. There can be nothing more solid, meaningful, and intimate than this. (Learning, struggling together, having communion, sharing in Jesus’ suffering together.) Common life is a good opportunity to learn the lifestyle of walking in the light. It is also a decision and so let’s decide to walk in the light.
If the darkness of sin hinders Koinina, how can we overcome? Look at verses 8-10, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.” John is countering another claim of the false teachers. Gnostics claimed that people had no natural tendency towards sin. They thought, that in their spirits, they were incapable of sinning. It is a self deception. Practically speaking, they refused to take sin seriously. They felt they had no need to confess and repent. But the truth is that in life, we are always capable of sinning and fall into it constantly. That is why confession is so important. John makes it very clear what confession is. Confession is not just listing our sinful activities. Look at verse8. First we acknowledge sin as sin. This is the first step in bringing us closer to Jesus. Sin brings shame, guilt, and when we confess and repent, humility of heart. We break down our pride and accept the love of God and experience God’s mercy. We taste God’s forgiveness and his grace. This strengthens our fellowship with God. Our foundation of fellowship with God and with each other is confession, repentance and forgiveness.
God wants us to have Koinina to make our joy complete. Verse 4 reads, “4We write this to make our[a] joy complete.” How can our joy be complete? It is linked to proclaiming the Gospel. The most unhappy times in our Christian lives is when we are not proclaiming the Gospel. Lately my joy has been made more complete through my Bible study with Jay and Casandra. I thank you all of your co-working in proclaiming the word of God together here as a team.
Koinonia brings unity among us. God’s desire for our unity us revealed in Jesus’ prayer, “That they may be one as we are one.” (Jn 17:11) God wants to glorify his name though his unified people. The hardest thing in life is maintaining our fellowship with Jesus. If we maintain this Koininia then Jesus’ name is glorified. Through our unity with God and with one another the world will know that Jesus Christ is Lord. One of the most damaging things to our Christian message is not atheists or Islam. It is our own disunity. They must know our unified message, our unified life and our unifying love.
John does not stop telling us how important it is to build up fellowship with Christ and unite with one another. The deepest desire of Christians is to fellowship with God and with one another. There are three C’s in finding and maintaining koinonia, communion, community, and commitment. God wants us to have fellowship with him and with each other. John invites us to walk with Jesus in the light of his love and truth. He wants us to know the real joy of fellowship with God and fellowship with one another, receiving the word and proclaiming it together.
1 John 1:1-10 Christmas 2008
Key Verse: 1:3 NIU UBF 12/7/08
"We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ."
Every Christmas my mind scans the Bible, trying to find original passages to preach about, concerning the birth of Jesus into the world. We have had messages from Isaiah. Micah, and the Gospels. This year I came to realize that 1 John chapter 1 was an excellent passage to think about the meaning of Jesus’ birth into this world. 1 John 1 concerns Jesus coming in the flesh. And isn’t that we are celebrating this Christmas season? Are we not celebrating the fact that Jesus, came into this world as a tiny baby in a manger to save people from their sins? So let us mediate on this passage and come to understand more deeply, the meaning of this season.
1 John was written by John the Apostle. John was the brother of James. They were sons of Zebedee. When God called them on the shores of the Sea of Galilee they left their boat and nets to follow Jesus. John felt a special closeness to Jesus, calling himself "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (Jn 21:20). He felt like this, but we all know that Jesus loved all of them equally. Later on, John wrote John's Gospel. In his senior years he pastured God's people in Ephesus. In his late eighties, he was exiled to the Isle of Patmos, a Roman quarry, where he wrote the book of Revelation.
John had authority to write about the truth of Jesus. Look at verses 1 and 2. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.” John had personal experience with Jesus. John and Jesus were tight. John was an eyewitness to Jesus' life and death and resurrection. He had followed Jesus for 3 ½ years during his earthly ministry. John knew Jesus the man. He saw him and heard him and touched him. And he loved Jesus. He was changed into an apostle of love. He also came to believe and know that Jesus is the eternal Word of life, the Son who was with the Father from the beginning.
These three letters, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John were written to believers who were being confronted by false teachers--especially by those with Gnostic ideas. 1 John was written to dispel doubts and plant assurance that Jesus was God. He presents God as light, love and life. He describes in simple and practical terms what it means to have fellowship with God. John wanted to get the believers back on track, showing the difference between light and darkness and to encourage the church to grow in love for God and for one another. When we keep all of these things in mind, everything in this chapter fits together and it makes perfect sense why we must study it for Christmas.
Part l: Jesus Is God Who Came In The Flesh
First, what do we know about this Gnosticism that plagued the early church? The Gnostics taught that flesh is evil and spirit is good. This is an unbiblical idea, and it leads to the denial of the true humanity of Christ. In practical life, those who embrace Gnosticism fall into one of two extremes: They either become ascetic to the point of mistreating their bodies, or they throw off all moral restraints, saying that it doesn't matter what we do with our physical bodies as long as we believe in Jesus, for the body is corruptible and perishing anyway. This is incredibly false teaching.
The Bible teaches that God created man-- body and spirit--and said, "It is good." Jesus is God. He is the Word who became flesh and made his dwelling among us (Jn 1:14). The idea that spirit is good and all matter is evil should be abhorrent to Christians who know that Jesus is God incarnate. John once wrote in John 1;14, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Many Christians were becoming uncertain of this Biblical fact that there was now two or three generations separating them from the beginning of the Christian church and also due to the hard work of, and bad influence of these false teachers. This false teaching would have enormous consequences on their concept of God, their knowledge of his love and the character of the church.
The Bible teaches that Jesus is God. Contrary to Gnostic teachings, Jesus is the Word who became flesh and made his dwelling among us (Jn 1:14). He preached the word of God to our hearts. He served people day in and day out, practically and with prayer. He raised up his 12 disciples as the future spiritual leaders of the world. After pouring out his life, Jesus went on to died on the cross. He was very God and very man, who shared in all of sufferings. Hebrews 4:15 reads “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.” He experienced all that we experienced and overcame. We can band together with Jesus for Jesus truly understands us. Jesus understands Tim and Andrew’s hard studies because he spent many years as a young man mastering the Old Testament Scriptures. Jesus understands my kids, who have to do chores, because he was a carpenter’s apprentice. Jesus understands those who have lost a father, because Biblical scholars believe that Joseph died before Jesus began his ministry. Jesus understands those who are tired because he stayed up many nights praying and teaching the Bible to his disciples. Jesus understood all of us who are tempted by sin, because he was tempted every, but struggled and overcame victoriously.
Part ll: Deep Meaningful Koininia (1b-10)
Jesus really wants to have a relationship with us. Verse 1b reads, “… —this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.” This brings to mind what John had written in the opening verses of his Gospel. John 1:1-3 reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” John describes Jesus as the Word. We use words to communicate. Jennifer was using words in her forensics competition on Saturday to try to convey her ideas to the judges. I am trying to communicate about God’s love to you with words. I am not sure how successful I am at it. We use words to communicate and to have relationships with others. God really wants to communicate with us. Sin broke communication with God. But God in his love tried his best, in many different ways, to speak to our hearts. But we, in our darkness, would not open the door to let him and listen to him. God did not give up. Finally he went to the extreme to establish a relationship. He sent his one and only Son, Jesus into this world as the living Word of God. Through Jesus, our Heavenly Father is breaking through the barrier of sin and is communicating his amazing love into each of our hearts. He is establishing deep and meaningful fellowship with us. This fellowship we call Koininia.
So what is this "fellowship" or "koinonia" that God went to such great lengths to establish? Let’s read verse 3 together, “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” Fellowship has deep meaning. It is described by the Greek Word, Koininia. This word has become associated with our spiritual fellowship with God and with others believers. John and the apostles proclaimed what they had seen and heard so that we might know Jesus and have fellowship with him, and have fellowship with all believers down throughout history.
Jesus demonstrated this koinonia during his earthly ministry. He ate with sinners and tax collectors. (Mk 2:16). Jesus spent years serving the disciples and giving them discipleship training. (Mk 3:14). Jesus served and served and served some more, even giving his life as a ransom for many. (Mk 10:45) How beautiful is Jesus’ serving life. We have a great opportunity to serve others this Christmas by inviting them to our Christmas service and offering so that wheat can be trained into North Korea to help feed starving people there. Maybe we can find some other practical ways to serve others around NIU and DeKalb this Christmas.
The early church knew God’s heart and understood his insatiable desire to have koinonia with us. This understanding manifested itself into practical living. Look at the beautiful fellowship they had in Acts 4:32-35, “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. 33With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. 34There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.” These early Christians were bound together by some common threads.
First, All the believers wanted to know Jesus. They knew the grace of Jesus very personally and deeply. This love of God caused them to want to know Jesus. Paul was one who knew the grace of Jesus. One of the motivating forces in his life and ministry is expressed in Philippians 3:10, “I want to know Christ and the fellowship of sharing in his suffering becoming like him in his death.” All Christians, experience Koininia through their desire to know Christ.
Second, they had commitment to God and to one another in unity. Unity of our fellowship is achieved when we all walk with God. (Ge 5:21-24), It can happen when we make a commitment to those who do the will of God. (Mk 3:31-35). Koininia does not have to occur in large groups in a mega church setting. It is more profoundly manifest through small groups. In Matthew 18:20, Jesus said, “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” In fact much of the work of God going on in the 10/40 window, the frontlines of world evangelism, is happening though small house churches. Think about China and the Middle East. A Christian revolution is happening in Iran through small house churches of 3-4 people. (Voice Of The Martyrs Nov, 2008) You can be a member of a 10,000 person church and still have no fellowship with others. You could have five people and have deep and meaningful Koininia.
Proclaiming the word of God is very important in forming Christian koinonia? (1b; 3; 1Thes 1:8a; 2Thes 3:1; 1Co 1:18) Let’s read verse 1b; “…—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.” and verse 3, “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” “Proclaim” is repeated many times. Christian fellowship is not just having coffee together. (although this is important and necessary at times.) It involves proclaiming the word of God together as a team. Christian fellowship happens when we proclaim God’s word. When we proclaim the Gospel we have fellowship. To proclaim is a very positive thing. It means to go out of your way to proclaim what you believe as true. Proclaiming the gospel involves the sharing in the remaining suffering of Jesus. Some Christians in other countries suffer in unimaginable ways in order to proclaim the gospel. We have our own unique forms of suffering. Tim and Andrew are in the midst of their exams. But they took time out to prepare for the Sunday worship service. Tim lost his part time job at a bagel shop in order to worship God in Sunday. Sharing in the suffering of Jesus is the most fundamental meaning of Christian fellowship. God has called us here to proclaim his word among campus students though 1:1 Bible study. I doing so together, we are experiencing some great Koinina.!
Living in Koinina is a lifestyle. Look at verses 5-7, “5This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all[b] sin.” False teachers were saying that they can still live in the light and also walk in darkness. The body is going to be destroyed anyway, so who cares? (This is what the Gnostics say.) Walking in the darkness is walking with the devil and walking selfishness. Darkness is the darkness of sin. It is a lifestyle. Sin breaks our fellowship with God and with others. It makes us fatalistic and dark, and robs our lives of meaning. Sin is at the root of most broken relationships with God and with each other. When we are selfish, proud, self centered and thankless and arrogant we can never have fellowship. (even with our pets.) We must overcome and struggle to overcome the darkness of selfishness and pride and struggle to live by the word of God.
The good news is that we don't have to live in the darkness of sin. God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5) God is perfectly holy and pure and he alone can guide us out of the darkness of sin. If we repent before him, he exposes our sin, and the blood of Jesus his Son purifies us from all sin. We can walk joyfully with God in his light. Walking in the light is also a lifestyle. Walking in the light is walking in the truth of Jesus and walking in the footsteps of Jesus. This is fellowship, walking together in the same lifestyle, walking together in the footsteps of Jesus. It involves life together. It involves struggling, laughing, and yes, even crying together. There can be nothing more solid, meaningful, and intimate than this. (Learning, struggling together, having communion, sharing in Jesus’ suffering together.) Common life is a good opportunity to learn the lifestyle of walking in the light. It is also a decision and so let’s decide to walk in the light.
If the darkness of sin hinders Koinina, how can we overcome? Look at verses 8-10, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.” John is countering another claim of the false teachers. Gnostics claimed that people had no natural tendency towards sin. They thought, that in their spirits, they were incapable of sinning. It is a self deception. Practically speaking, they refused to take sin seriously. They felt they had no need to confess and repent. But the truth is that in life, we are always capable of sinning and fall into it constantly. That is why confession is so important. John makes it very clear what confession is. Confession is not just listing our sinful activities. Look at verse8. First we acknowledge sin as sin. This is the first step in bringing us closer to Jesus. Sin brings shame, guilt, and when we confess and repent, humility of heart. We break down our pride and accept the love of God and experience God’s mercy. We taste God’s forgiveness and his grace. This strengthens our fellowship with God. Our foundation of fellowship with God and with each other is confession, repentance and forgiveness.
God wants us to have Koinina to make our joy complete. Verse 4 reads, “4We write this to make our[a] joy complete.” How can our joy be complete? It is linked to proclaiming the Gospel. The most unhappy times in our Christian lives is when we are not proclaiming the Gospel. Lately my joy has been made more complete through my Bible study with Jay and Casandra. I thank you all of your co-working in proclaiming the word of God together here as a team.
Koinonia brings unity among us. God’s desire for our unity us revealed in Jesus’ prayer, “That they may be one as we are one.” (Jn 17:11) God wants to glorify his name though his unified people. The hardest thing in life is maintaining our fellowship with Jesus. If we maintain this Koininia then Jesus’ name is glorified. Through our unity with God and with one another the world will know that Jesus Christ is Lord. One of the most damaging things to our Christian message is not atheists or Islam. It is our own disunity. They must know our unified message, our unified life and our unifying love.
John does not stop telling us how important it is to build up fellowship with Christ and unite with one another. The deepest desire of Christians is to fellowship with God and with one another. There are three C’s in finding and maintaining koinonia, communion, community, and commitment. God wants us to have fellowship with him and with each other. John invites us to walk with Jesus in the light of his love and truth. He wants us to know the real joy of fellowship with God and fellowship with one another, receiving the word and proclaiming it together.
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