The Core

We have all sung the chorus, “Jesus is the answer for the world today…yadayadayada.”  We have dawned the WWJD slogan by way of T-shirt, ball-cap, or bracelet.  Most of us have used Jesus as a nifty slogan, a somewhat easy answer that solves all of life’s ills.  That sad truth is this…we have reduced Jesus to a slogan when He really is the solution to culture.  He is the solution to all the ills, injustice, pain, and perversion in society.  The problem is not that Jesus is the answer…the problem is that the answer did not come cheap. 

We are heading into Easter full steam, so we need to really think about some things.  First, lets talk about the incarnation.  I mentioned Sunday that this was a huge downgrade for Jesus to become man.  I have to be admittadly careful here because God does everything for the maximization of his own glory, so Jesus was not forced into a bad situation.  Scripture makes us clear that Jesus became man and went to the cross for, “the joy set before Him (Hebrews 12:2).  But, Paul makes it clear in Phillipians that this was a matter of humility.  So the very idea of the incarnation is not a cheap, sloganish idea.  I don’t think I can even come up with a incarnational type slogan.  Jesus became man for us.  Let us not forget that this is a huge part of his atoneing work for us…that, “the word became flesh and dwelt among us…AND WE SAW HIS GLORY”(John 1:14).  WOW!  God allowed man to see His glory in one like us…folks that is what love is.  Love is not some syruppy infatuation with the human race.  God’s love is not some risk takers adventure when a divine being decides to have “faith” in his creation.  God’s love is that he became one of us, while retaining all of who He already was.  If we really process this our brains will explode!  God loves us this much.  SO – the incarnation was not cheap.  It was an amazing grace in action.

Think about this…Jesus obviously laid aside his rights as God.  He demonstrated his divine attributes on more than one occasion, but get this – he never used his devine attributes to bail himself out of his humanity.  What do I mean by this?  When he was tempted by Satan he was asked to deny his humanity each time to bail himself out of the temptation.  Satan said, “your hungry, turn the stone to bread.”  Have you ever wondered what is the problem with Jesus doing that?  It would have been using his divine nature to bail himself out of being 100% human.  Human beings cannot turn rocks in a chicago style pizza, it just doesn’t work that way.  Every time Jesus used his divne attribute it was to point to His message, His authority, the reality of why he came in the first place.  This is cool stuff – it was not cheap for Jesus to lay aside his rights as God.

Now lets turn to the cross.  Believe me, the disciples would really be amazed that we wear crosses around our necks as jewelry.  The cross in the first century was not a pretty thing.  It was a gruesome sight.  I imagine that those who witnessed crucifixions had nightmares.  It was not an easy image to get out of one’s head.  We have turned so many things into mear symbols and we can lose the reality of what really happened.  Now, the nails, the crown of thorns, the scourging, this is important because of the humanity of Christ and the nature of the atonement.  “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin” (Hebrews 9:22).  Christ was the final and perfect sacrifice for our sin….he did what Adam could not do and accomplished the exact opposite.  Adam managed to plunge the world into a sinful state, while Jesus offers himself as a new representative head for all those who are born-again (Romans 5, John 3).  So the physical, blood, sacrifice is important because Christ’s blood is what satisfied the demands of the Father.  But, the spiritual aspect of this is what is really terrifying.  God poured out his wrath on Jesus.  Jesus paid the complete penalty for our sin in our place.  Scripture states that he, “bore our sins in his body on the cross…” (I Peter 2:24).  2 Cor. 5:21 says that. “He who knew no sin became sin on OUR behalf.”  “The Lord was pleased to crush him” (Isaiah 53:10)

Is the phrase Jesus is the Solution to Culture a cheap phrase?  Absolutely Not!

I will try to write a post before midnight…things have been crazy Monday and Tuesday.  Also – copying my notes into wordpress has been a formatting nightmare, I am working on converting all the notes into PDF format and having them available for download at www.habc.net.  Last Sunday’s message will also be available online by tomorrow.  Thanks.

Thanks for you patience.

Does prayer change God’s mind?  This is one of those nifty little questions that people like to toss around when discussing prayer.  The problem is that most folks do not take the time or effort to think what a question is really asking.  So let’s formulate an answer to this question.

In thinking about this one first has to determine, What is prayer?  We defined prayer as communication with God last Sunday and we walked through four different categories of prayer.  I find it interesting that three of those categories are relational and build trust and intimacy with God.  Only one of the categories, supplication, focuses on bringing requests to God.  So prayer is not primarily asking of God, prayer is primarily about intimacy with God.  When we are intimate with God it changes our asking.  Asking is something we do of our earthly fathers and it is also something we do of our heavenly father. 

As a Dad of a three, almost four year old, I get asked many things.  And one thing I am learning is that I have to say no many many times.  Why?  Because my little girl asks of me many things that would not be good for her if I said yes.  I must say no because I love her.  She also asks of me things that do not fit into the plan for the day.  For me to say yes would be disruptive to what must be accomplished.  Now, as a human father I am fallible.  Sometimes I say no when I should say yes.  Sometimes I say yes when I should say no.  Sometimes I act like I am not listening.  But God is not fallible.  He is perfectly wise in all of his dealings with us and he is perfectly good in all of his dealings with us.  So God answers our prayer always according to his character.  He never answers our prayers because he gives in to us or thinks we have a better argument, etc.  God always answers according to his purposes and plan.  We can rest assured that God always hears and responds for our good.

The next word in this question is the word “change.”  We know clearly from the Scripture that God does not change!  Malachi 3:6 says, “For I the Lord, do not change…”  God does not change his in his character or purposes.  He, at times, in the Scripture, does change in his actions towards men.  This does not mean that his will changed or his plan changed or his character changed.  And it certainly does not mean that he was forced into action by prayer.  It simply means that God has ordered things in such a way that he lovingly responds to our prayers when those prayers are in line with his purpose and character.  For example, God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach to them judgement.  Then is vs. 10 it states, “When God saw their deeds, that they turned away from their wicked ways, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.”  Here is an example of God “changing” in his actions towards men.  Now, was this outside of his knowledge, purpose, or character.  Absolutely not!  As a matter of fact, when Jonah was whining about God’s response to the city’s belief God said, “Should I not have compassion on Nineveh?”  God’s actions were in-line with His character and plan.  Why would he go to the trouble that it took to get Jonah to Nineveh had he not intended to show compassion upon them.  This is a great passage to illustrate that God has a plan that will come to pass and at the same time we make real choices, that have real consequences.  This is what happens when a sovereign God determines to interact with his creation.

The final word in this question is the word, “mind.”  The key thought here is that my mind and God’s mind is quite a different thing.  My mind cannot come close to conceiving or understanding an omniscient mind.  So to even reason whether or not prayer changes God’s mind, one must first admit to have no real knowledge of what the mind of God is like.  God says in Isaiah, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.”For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.” (55:8-9) 

 So, to declare that prayer changes God’s mind is quite a statement.  That would suggest that someone knows the reality of the mind of God.  So here lies our answer to this question.  Prayer does not change God’s mind.  God does respond to our prayers and does, at times, change course of action as he relates to us as his creation.  But this is always, always, always in line with His will and His character.

When we think of prayer as communication with God it is so important to understand that God does communicate to us.  I want to share a devotion I read this week.  I think this powerfully illustrates the close relationship between our prayers and the Word of God.
 
The Morning I Heard the Voice of God
By John Piper

Read this resource on our website.

Let me tell you about a most wonderful experience I had early Monday morning, March 19, 2007, a little after six o’clock. God actually spoke to me. There is no doubt that it was God. I heard the words in my head just as clearly as when a memory of a conversation passes across your consciousness. The words were in English, but they had about them an absolutely self-authenticating ring of truth. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God still speaks today.

I couldn’t sleep for some reason. I was at Shalom House in northern Minnesota on a staff couples’ retreat. It was about five thirty in the morning. I lay there wondering if I should get up or wait till I got sleepy again. In his mercy, God moved me out of bed. It was mostly dark, but I managed to find my clothing, got dressed, grabbed my briefcase, and slipped out of the room without waking up Noël. In the main room below, it was totally quiet. No one else seemed to be up. So I sat down on a couch in the corner to pray.

As I prayed and mused, suddenly it happened. God said, “Come and see what I have done.” There was not the slightest doubt in my mind that these were the very words of God. In this very moment. At this very place in the twenty-first century, 2007, God was speaking to me with absolute authority and self-evidencing reality. I paused to let this sink in. There was a sweetness about it. Time seemed to matter little. God was near. He had me in his sights. He had something to say to me. When God draws near, hurry ceases. Time slows down.

I wondered what he meant by “come and see.” Would he take me somewhere, like he did Paul into heaven to see what can’t be spoken? Did “see” mean that I would have a vision of some great deed of God that no one has seen? I am not sure how much time elapsed between God’s initial word, “Come and see what I have done,” and his next words. It doesn’t matter. I was being enveloped in the love of his personal communication. The God of the universe was speaking to me.

Then he said, as clearly as any words have ever come into my mind, “I am awesome in my deeds toward the children of man.” My heart leaped up, “Yes, Lord! You are awesome in your deeds. Yes, to all men whether they see it or not. Yes! Now what will you show me?”

The words came again. Just as clear as before, but increasingly specific: “I turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot. There they rejoiced in me—who rules by my might forever.” Suddenly I realized God was taking me back several thousand years to the time when he dried up the Red Sea and the Jordan River. I was being transported by his word back into history to those great deeds. This is what he meant by “come and see.” He was transporting me back by his words to those two glorious deeds before the children of men. These were the “awesome deeds” he referred to. God himself was narrating the mighty works of God. He was doing it for me. He was doing it with words that were resounding in my own mind.

There settled over me a wonderful reverence. A palpable peace came down. This was a holy moment and a holy corner of the world in northern Minnesota. God Almighty had come down and was giving me the stillness and the openness and the willingness to hear his very voice. As I marveled at his power to dry the sea and the river, he spoke again. “I keep watch over the nations—let not the rebellious exalt themselves.”

This was breathtaking. It was very serious. It was almost a rebuke. At least a warning. He may as well have taken me by the collar of my shirt, lifted me off the ground with one hand, and said, with an incomparable mixture of fierceness and love, “Never, never, never exalt yourself. Never rebel against me.”

I sat staring at nothing. My mind was full of the global glory of God. “I keep watch over the nations.” He had said this to me. It was not just that he had said it. Yes, that is glorious. But he had said this to me. The very words of God were in my head. They were there in my head just as much as the words that I am writing at this moment are in my head. They were heard as clearly as if at this moment I recalled that my wife said, “Come down for supper whenever you are ready.” I know those are the words of my wife. And I know these are the words of God.

Think of it. Marvel at this. Stand in awe of this. The God who keeps watch over the nations, like some people keep watch over cattle or stock markets or construction sites—this God still speaks in the twenty-first century. I heard his very words. He spoke personally to me.

What effect did this have on me? It filled me with a fresh sense of God’s reality. It assured me more deeply that he acts in history and in our time. It strengthened my faith that he is for me and cares about me and will use his global power to watch over me. Why else would he come and tell me these things?

It has increased my love for the Bible as God’s very word, because it was through the Bible that I heard these divine words, and through the Bible I have experiences like this almost every day. The very God of the universe speaks on every page into my mind—and your mind. We hear his very words. God himself has multiplied his wondrous deeds and thoughts toward us; none can compare with him! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told (Psalm 40:5).

And best of all, they are available to all. If you would like to hear the very same words I heard on the couch in northern Minnesota, read Psalm 66:5-7. That is where I heard them. O how precious is the Bible. It is the very word of God. In it God speaks in the twenty-first century. This is the very voice of God. By this voice, he speaks with absolute truth and personal force. By this voice, he reveals his all-surpassing beauty. By this voice, he reveals the deepest secrets of our hearts. No voice anywhere anytime can reach as deep or lift as high or carry as far as the voice of God that we hear in the Bible.

It is a great wonder that God still speaks today through the Bible with greater force and greater glory and greater assurance and greater sweetness and greater hope and greater guidance and greater transforming power and greater Christ-exalting truth than can be heard through any voice in any human soul on the planet from outside the Bible.

This is why I found the article in this month’s Christianity Today, “My Conversation with God,” so sad. Written by an anonymous professor at a “well-known Christian University,” it tells of his experience of hearing God. What God said was that he must give all his royalties from a new book toward the tuition of a needy student. What makes me sad about the article is not that it isn’t true or didn’t happen. What’s sad is that it really does give the impression that extra-biblical communication with God is surpassingly wonderful and faith-deepening. All the while, the supremely-glorious communication of the living God which personally and powerfully and transformingly explodes in the receptive heart through the Bible everyday is passed over in silence.

I am sure this professor of theology did not mean it this way, but what he actually said was, “For years I’ve taught that God still speaks, but I couldn’t testify to it personally. I can only do so now anonymously, for reasons I hope will be clear” (emphasis added). Surely he does not mean what he seems to imply—that only when one hears an extra-biblical voice like, “The money is not yours,” can you testify personally that God still speaks. Surely he does not mean to belittle the voice of God in the Bible which speaks this very day with power and truth and wisdom and glory and joy and hope and wonder and helpfulness ten thousand times more decisively than anything we can hear outside the Bible.

I grieve at what is being communicated here. The great need of our time is for people to experience the living reality of God by hearing his word personally and transformingly in Scripture. Something is incredibly wrong when the words we hear outside Scripture are more powerful and more affecting to us than the inspired word of God. Let us cry with the psalmist, “Incline my heart to your word” (Psalm 119:36). “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18). Grant that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened to know our hope and our inheritance and the love of Christ that passes knowledge and be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 1:18; 3:19). O God, don’t let us be so deaf to your word and so unaffected with its ineffable, evidential excellency that we celebrate lesser things as more thrilling, and even consider this misplacement of amazement worthy of printing in a national magazine.

Still hearing his voice in the Bible,

Pastor John

This morning we discussed the spiritual discipline of prayer, and we applied this discipline using a prayer model. 

Adoration
Confession
Thanksgiving
Supplication

The “ACTS” model has been very helpful to me in my prayer life, especially for times of extended prayer with the Lord.  The progression that exists in this model also helps us pray with the right attitude and perspective.  Are there any stratagies that you use regularly in your prayer life that may help all of us as we pray?  One of my favorite ways to pray is to pray the Scripture!  What are some of your favorite prayer helps?

Frank Turk, aka the Centurion, posted a question that I am quite certain he has an opinion on already.  But, it has caused me the urge to write an article concerning the difference between Predestination and Fatalism.  This is important because I believe there is a HUGE difference between the two concepts.  The starting point is going to have to be definitions.  Language is so abused today we must undergo the tedious task of defining the terms.

Fatalism:   a doctrine that events are fixed in advance so that human beings are powerless to change them.

Predestination:  the eternal plan, by which God has rendered certain all the events of the universe, past, present and future.

Here are the two definitions.  You may ask, what is the difference?  I would argue that the doctrine of predestination does not render human beings powerless.  Predestination, in the scriptural sense, includes God’s revealed will to us that insists and demands that we act in certain ways and do certain things and if we don’t there are real and eternal consequences.  The difference between the two ideas is really a matter of degree or attitude. 

Fatalism lends itself towards immobility and inaction.  It is like the seat-belt argument I used in the sermon on Sunday.  A fatalist would say, “I don’t need to wear a seat-belt, if I die it was meant to be.” 

The idea of predestination should lend itself to a more positive approach, “Since God has ordained my time on the earth, and has blessed me with the gospel, and has demanded that I share it with others, I should thank him for the technology of this car and this seat-belt that has been given for my protection so that I may safely drive and share the gospel for as long as the Lord allows.”

Like I said, this is a fine line.  All mysterious doctrines have fuzzy edges.  But, since we are biblicists, we have to believe this is true.  Let me expound on some other reasons not to live as a fatalist and defeatist.

Lets look at Proverbs 16:9, “The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”  Solomon, being the wisest man (not counting the God-Man Jesus) ever to walk the face of the planet give us great insight in this single proverb into the concept of concurrence.  God cooperates with us, he gives us a very real and tangible role to play.  What we do matters…it matters so much that the Lord establishes our steps.

Listen to what Calvin says on this issue, “Solomon easily reconciles human deliberation(reason, decision making- my addition) with divine providence.  For while he derides the stupidity of those who presume to undertake anything without God, as if they were not ruled by his hand, he elsewhere thus expresses himself, intimating that the eternal decrees of God by no means prevent from proceeding, under his will, to provide for ourselves, and arrange all our affairs.”  I could not have said it any better- LOL

God has fixed the boundaries of our lives, but at the same time he has given us everything we need to care for ourselves.  The Lord has given us the ability to reason and make wise choices for the purpose of lending ourselves to his divine and sovereign plan for our lives.  To fail to use what God has given would be lazy, dishonoring to God, and sinful.

The line may be fuzzy and the truth my be mysterious, but I believe there is a real difference between the two concepts.  Discussion is wide open on this one.

How can God decree a divine plan before the world is created and still hold us accountable for our choices?  This is a good question and a very important concept to consider.  As believers we are not fatalists.  Although we believe that God is working in concurrence with his creation to accomplish all of his divine purposes, we still believe that he has also decreed to work through human means such as prayer, evangelism, preaching, etc. 

 The Biblical witness is clear that God demands things of us and expects us to walk in obedience to his demands.  His doctrine of divine providence is not a license for us to sit on our hands and wait for Jesus to come.  It is a truth that should bring confidence, hope, and unwavering commitment to the call upon each of our lives to expand the Kingdom of God.

Are you struggling with this doctrine?  Please feel free to post any questions or thoughts!  Also, do not forget that you can listen online, order a CD and download message notes at www.habc.net.

When we take a look at who God is,  He seems somewhat unapproachable.  I have often wondered, “Can I really know God?”  The truth is a resounding YES!  I can know God.  God has made himself knowable.

1)  We cannot know God unless he reveals himself to us.  He has revealed himself to us in creation, but we can only truly know him rightly through what he has revealed to us in Scripture.  A question was asked on the blog a couple of day ago – Why did God create us to begin with?  I think one answer to this question is in this truth.  God created us because it glorified him to reveal himself to us.  We are created to know God.  God is happy to reveal himself to us, thus our greatest joy, our all surpassing treasure, and our grandest life pursuit should be to know God!

2)  Although we can know God, we can never fully understand God.  Why can we never fully understand God?  First of all, God is infinite we are finite.  Psalm 145:3, “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.”  Even when get to heaven and are able to bask in the glorious presence of God it will take us an eternity to know and understand God.  When I think of this truth it causes me to shout praises to God that he would even make himself the slightest bit knowable to me.  What a good God we serve.

3)Even though we cannot understand God fully, we can truly know God.  We can know true things about God and we can know him intimately.  Jeremiah 9:23-14, “Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.”

Let us praise God today because he is knowable and has made himself known to us.  We should consider this a precious grace gift, from a great and gracious King.

I will continue the trend of posting a discussion question on Sunday afternoon that will lead into some articles during the week on the subject of the Doctrine of God.  For discussion, if you had just one question that you could ask God what would you ask him? 

Before you post your question think through a couple of items.  1) Has he already given us the answer in Scripture? 2)Is there a particular answer you are hoping for, and what are the implications if God were to answer the question differently than you are expecting?  This is just some food for thought.

Anyway – what are your questions?

I was going to write a diddy on canonicity here today,  but after a discussion I had at lunch yesterday and today I want to give you something to truly ponder for the weekend before church on Sunday.  If you want to talk about the creation of the canon, call me up and we can go to lunch or something.  Today I want to throw out a rather deep concept called the antrhopic nature of Scripture.

What this means is that God, as a transcendant being, had to communicate to us on our level.  We can not reach up to investigate God and would not understand him even if we could. So God had to reach down or condescend to us in order to reveal himself to us.

Let’s ponder this for a second.  God is not bound by space or time.  He is not in need of language.  He completely exists outside of our realm of sensory experience, yet he injected himself into space, time, and used human language to reveal himself to us.  On top of this, the second person of the trinity, Jesus, took on human flesh.  He was tempted.  He loved.  He hurt.  He lived and died.  Believe me, this was not an upgrade for the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace, the Lord of Lords, to become the solution for our sin.  He had to come to us because there is no way for us to reach up to him.

So what are the implications?  1) Grace:  God is truly gracious in revealing himself to us!  2) Mystery:  Although we can know certain things about God because he has revealed himself to us, we are still very limited in our understanding.  3) Gratitude:  We can praise God that He did not stay far from us.  He is not the distant God of the deist.  He is personal and gracious to reveal himself to us in a way that we can know him, although not perfectly.  Thank You God!