He Became a Curse!

Dr. R.C. Sproul delivered this message at Together for the Gospel 2008.  This powerful excerpt really captures the dymanic impact it had during his session.  The first time I heard it, I broke down in tears.

Regeneration vs. the Idolatry of Decisional Evangelism

It was about the time I heard this sermon that I was only 90% sure how I felt about the “sinner’s prayer.”  After this sermon, I was 100% sure.  I put the “sinner’s prayer” in the ground, buried it, and put up a tombstone that said “anathema.” Our evangelism is weak, unbiblical, and it is eternally destroying some.  What are we preaching? See for yourself, and examine yourself. What are you preaching?

Preaching to Heart Part II: Watching Pastor Paul at Colossae

“For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you…” Colossians 2:1

There is a great struggle spoken of in this passage.  Pastor Paul writes of it to these believers.  It is a great struggle he has for the church at Colossae and for the believers at Laodicea.  He must be struggling inwardly.  Paul was a man of the heart.  His messages emitted naturally from a newborn heart–a heart suffering for the sake of the church, a heart filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.  His is a heart that received from God a certain calling.  He is as he said earlier, “a minister.”  What is the main focus of his ministry?

“And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which you has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.” Colossians 1:21-23

Here we see that Paul ministers to God’s people for their sanctification.  God is working through Christ to present his people “holy,” “blameless,” and “above reproach” before him.  The main end of the minister’s work, therefore, is help God’s people reach these fruits of sanctification–holiness and blamelessness.  If the minister is not aiming for this, what is he doing?  He is not following the lead of Pastor Paul; and likewise, what Bible is leading him?

More particulary, we see that Paul exhorts the people toward these fruits by way of  three qualities–faithfulness, stability, and steadfastness.  If a minister is not exhorting his people to these three qualities, what is he doing? He is not following the lead of Pastor Paul.

But this is made even more particular.  Look at what the people are told to be faithful to, stable in, and steadfast for:

“not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which you has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven.” v. 23

This clearly demonstrates the way for a people to be holy, the way for a people to be blameless.  The way for a people truly to be God’s people is found in their faithfulness to the gospel, their stability in the gospel, and their steadfastness for the gospel.  Paul says at the end of this verse that he was made a minister of that gospel.  If we say we are ministers of the gospel, are we even preaching it?  If we are not preaching the gospel, we are not ministers of it.  Indeed, we cease to be ministers of anything the Bible has any knowledge of.  We have fallen from our ministership.

Paul says a little later that he is suffering for the church because “[he] became a minister [to it]” (1:24-25).  He then clearly acknowledges the nature of that ministry.  It is a “stewardship from God given to him for [the church]” (1:25).  The minister who calls the ministry his own with no heart-felt knowledge of the stewardship of it, ceases to be the minister the Bible speaks of.  He is a selfish man, building a kingdom, not God’s, but rather his own.

Stewardship signifies reception. If God has called you to this ministry of the gospel, why is there no reception?  You spurn the calling of the Lord, like some disobedient Jonah.  Away to Tarshish, yet God will find you!  A giant fish awaits the called runner. But Paul did not run.  It says in Acts 26:14 that upon the call from the Lord, he had “fallen on the ground.”

Stewardship signifies holding.  The minister of the gospel holds something that is not his own.  He has had something “entrusted” to him (See 1 Timothy 1:11).  It is not his own, yet why do some ministers act as though they invented the gospel?

 ”Man never could nor would have invented and devised a gospel which would lay him low, and secure to the Lord God all the honor and praise.” -C.H. Spurgeon

If any man has forgotten the nature of the gospel as here explained by Mr. Spurgeon, what is he preaching?  The end of the preaching of the gospel is the glory and praise of the Lord God, not the praises of men to the minister.

Stewardship also signifies selflessness.  “the stewardship from God that was given to me for you.”  It is not given by God for the ministers own personal parading prideful pulpiteering!  God has given the minister the stewardship for the sake of others.  Pastor Paul understood that he was given the ministry for the church, not himself.

Stewardship also signfies faithfulness. “…to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.”  Paul refused to do the ministry half-heartedly.  He declared the whole counsel of God!  He made it fully known! This is the faithfulness of the minister.  He knows his mission, and he does it, fully. What mystery has been made known to us! Yet we preach some other thing as though there is no mystery and all people knew of it.  Don’t ever assume your people already know the mystery; and don’t ever think they know it well enough.

“Never be content with your grasp of the gospel. The gospel is life-permeating, world-altering, universe-changing truth. It has more facets than any diamond. Its depths man will never exhaust.” - C.J. Mahaney, The Cross Centered Life

The minister of God also has one proclamation for his people.  “To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.  Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” (1:27-28)

What message do we preach?  Is it Christ and him crucified? For Paul would know of nothing else! (See 1 Corinthians 2:1)  What goofy, moralizing, cream-puff exhortations fill the pulpits of men who preach something other than Christ!  They want growth of church, but they forgot the seed–the gospel!  People may have ears for moralistic exhortation, but their hearts will be far from Christ and closer to their own self-righteousness.  “Stop complaining” is no sermon content!  Even the pagans don’t like complainers.  God’s people will stop complaining when they understand the gospel, when they see that the rock guiding them in the desert is Christ (See 1 Corinthians 10:1-11).

The minister of God also has one process for his people. “warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom.”  The only wisdom Paul knows of he gets from Scripture.  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding” (Psalm 111:10).  Also, Paul knows that his Lord is a truine Lord.  He goes on to say, “Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (2:3).  If a minister wants wise and knoweledgable people with good understanding his process should be to warn them and teach them with this wisdom; that is with this Christ.

The minister of God also has one purpose for his people.  “that we may present everyone mature in Christ.”  That is the purpose the minister of God has for others–their maturity in Christ.  For indeed, he must present them before God!  Will they be mature in Christ?  But yes, they will with God’s help.

The minister of God also has one power for his people.  “For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me” (1:29).  The minister of God knows that two very difficult truths exist together.

1.) I must work, toil, and struggle. (This is our responsibility.)

2.) God gives the strength to endure that toil and struggle. (This is his sovereignty.)

And so, this was the struggle Paul had within him for the church.  He wanted to declare to them the riches of Christ for their joy and God’s glory.  What else is the minister to do?

Working with you to preach to the heart,

Vince R.

The Power of the Cross

A powerful video with one of my favorite modern hymns, The Power of the Cross by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty.

Not What My Hands Have Done

I just wept as I pondered the truths of this hymn; he died for me.  He became a curse! What else is there to preach?

Not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul;
Not what my toiling flesh has borne can make my spirit whole.
Not what I feel or do can give me peace with God;
Not all my prayers and sighs and tears can bear my awful load.

Your voice alone, O Lord, can speak to me of grace;
Your power alone, O Son of God, can all my sin erase.
No other work but Yours, no other blood will do;
No strength but that which is divine can bear me safely through.

Thy work alone, O Christ, can ease this weight of sin;
Thy blood alone, O Lamb of God, can give me peace within.
Thy love to me, O God, not mine, O Lord, to Thee,
Can rid me of this dark unrest, And set my spirit free.

I bless the Christ of God; I rest on love divine;
And with unfaltering lip and heart I call this Savior mine.
His cross dispels each doubt; I bury in His tomb
Each thought of unbelief and fear, each lingering shade of gloom.

I praise the God of grace; I trust His truth and might;
He calls me His, I call Him mine, My God, my joy and light.
’Tis He Who saveth me, and freely pardon gives;
I love because He loveth me, I live because He lives.

-Horatius Bonar, Not What My Hands Have Done

100% Gospel: Jonathan Dodson on “Gospel and Method”

Jonathan Dodson contributed to The Resurgence web blog with these two articles.  I had a verbal “wow” when I read them.  Check out both parts.  I have provided excerpts from both.  Think hard especially about part II.  It is there that I was even more convinced of this simple equation: Preach Word -> Church Growth.

Part I

“Perhaps we need to be debating the strength of the gospel that is being preached, taught, shared, and shown in our churches. Are we incarnating and attracting people to a diluted gospel or a strong gospel? Are we incarnating kitsch gospel or kerygmatic gospel? In the end, what are we calling people to? Is our gospel both missional and communal or inward and individualistic? If it’s the latter, then something is wrong with our gospel. What would happen if we stopped debating methods and started debating gospel—winsomely and charitably?”

Part II

“Each concoction of the 50/50 gospel is actually quite dangerous. They all produce churches that attract people to morality messages, missional activities, and communal experiences. The goal of the church is reduced to converting people to a better way of living, not to a better God to be believing.“

Working with you for the gospel method,

Vince R.

All of Grace and None of Us

When we turn the gospel into a message expressing our worth and proclaim it as a message all about us, we can sing with many fuzzy feelings words that say Christ was crucified thinking ”of me above all.”  We should be uncomfortable with such words because in singing them we imply that God is not concerned with his glory.  In becoming comfortable with such an idea, we will begin to manifest our own glory because of our obedience rather than Christ’s and our worth rather than Christ’s.

I often hear the old cliche:  ”If you or I or he or she was the only person on earth, Christ would have died just for that person.”  Though I appreciate the sentiment, the person who says this has exalted a man.  Rather, if I take that phrase and turn it on its head to make it biblical, then we can add, “and that proves that your sins alone were wicked and black enough to call for the death of an innocent lamb.”  We do not constrain God to save us by our inherent worth.  Rather, he chose to save unworthy rebellious creature like us because of his free and sovereign grace.  As Charles Spurgeon put it, it is ‘All of Grace.’  And understanding this puts the amazing back into grace!

The gospel is not about us; it is about the glory of God.  God did not save us for and because of  us. He saved us for and because of him.  But in this truth, we find all our calling, all our joy, and all our purpose found complete: to glorify God and enjoy him forever.  There is no other point of salvation but God and God alone. Indeed, the cross was the ultimate expression of God’s love, but it was also an expression of so many more aspects of his character.  There, on that hill, we see God’s holiness, justice, righteousness, wrath, glory, mercy, grace, and patience.  The cross of Calvary brings all of God’s attributes into clear focus, for it is there that we find the apex of God’s redemptive work to make himself all in all for his glory and our joy.

Working with you for your complete joy in All of Grace,

Vince R.

The Cardinal Tenants: Luther’s Gospel-Stance

Here I Stand!

After Martin Luther wrestled with Romans 1:16-17, he came to realize that “the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith.”  It was at this divine illumination that he felt himself “to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.”

This changed Luther’s understanding of Scripture.  “The whole of Scripture took on new meaning,” he said.  Hence, we turn to his lectures at the University at Wittenberg. After this divine illumination of Scripture, he began to lecture on the Psalms and Romans from 1513-1516.  He had not yet posted his Ninety-Five Theses, but he would soon get to that.  Note what Luther biographer, Roland H. Bainton, has to say of these lectures:

“The center about which all the petals clustered was the affirmation of the forgiveness of sins through the utterly unmerited grace of God made possible by the cross of Christ, which reconciled wrath and mercy, routed the hosts of hell, triumphed over sin and death, and by the resurrection manifested that power which enables man to die to sin and rise to newness of life.  This was of course the theology of Paul heightened, intensified, and clarified.  Beyond these cardinal tenants Luther was never to go.”-Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, p. 51.

I find in Martin Luther a man worth imitating in a lot of ways (most definitely not in every way! yikes!), but here, I find his refusal to move on from the gospel the one way I want to imitate him the most.  Luther was transformed by the gospel, and so he could not recant. “I Cannot… I will not recant…Here I Stand!” said he at the Diet of Worms.  The gospel is the centerpiece of our lectures, our sermons, our teachings, and most definitely, our lives.  If it’s not, has it transformed us? Let us examine this in us.  Beyond the cardinal tenants of this message, never go!

Working with you to keep the cardinal tenants at the center,

Vince R.

A “Pregnant Man,” Rampant Confusion, and the Only Answer

What's the Difference?

Over the twentieth century, the culture has produced alarmingly unnatural images and revisionist definitions of the identity of the sexes.  Only this year, it produced what many of you have heard as the ‘pregnant man.’  This is not a man.  This is a woman.  Men don’t get pregnant, but the culture would have the term ‘pregnant man’ printed across its billboards, in its magazine articles, and on its Internet websites.  The culture wants you to think that a ’pregnant man’ is truly a natural occurrence.

Friends, I think we can see from this that when there is no biblical worldview, confusion persists and truth is suppressed.  We must notice, first and foremost, that this wave of media-driven confusion and propagation speaks of the signs of the times.  It is people ‘deceiving and being deceived.’

Our enemy is not this woman who had an operation or her partner who I’m not even sure if it is a man or a woman, but it is Satan and his forces.  We do not war against flesh and blood.  We war against the principalities, the spiritual rulers of this present darkness.  They are actual persons who want lives to be ruined by belief in half-truths and lies about manhood and womanhood.

As such, the topic of my discussion is this confusion; it is a confusion about truth.  It is a confusion about what defines a man and what defines a woman.  The culture will not find truth in the way it is going.  The world and its wisdom is not the source of truth.

Jesus Christ is that truth, and he is that way.  Sorrowfully, I assert that the constant hatred that the culture has for people like me who will boldly say that men and women are different will not cease.  It will only get worse.  With a heavy heart, I truly hate what Satan is doing to those lost souls and most certainly what he will do to that poor baby, whose life will echo more and more confusion because her ‘parents’ are just as confused and blinded by the god of this age.

Satan wants confusion.  He wants disorder and anarchy.  He knows that God took disorder and anarchy and made it into the heavens and the earth.  God is the author of order, not the author of confusion.  He has clearly layed out in his word the definition and distinct purposes of men and women.  It all goes back to the created order of God, but sadly, the culture reflects the fall from that order more and more everyday.  Even more tragically, this fallen worldview has crept into our churches, and numerous Christians are just as confused about manhood and womanhood.

Recently, I heard news about a Christian friend, two years younger than I, who just got pregnant out of wedlock.  This is mostly tragic, not because of the sinful occurrence (which is tragic enough), but more so because of the failure of God’s people to help her understand biblical manhood and womanhood long before this happened. By God’s grace, his people will be there to support and love her in this hard and heavy time.  By God’s grace, the baby will be born and stand as testimony to the redemptive power of Jesus Christ in bringing my friend and her partner through this for his glory and for their good.  May they be saved or sanctified during this difficult time.

It is most sad to me that this topic is not being addressed in our pulpits.  Where it is being addressed, it is mostly ambiguous and curt.  “Don’t have sex until your married,” is the message that we hear.  But how to do that, how to keep a pure heart, how young men are to treat young women with respect and honor, work hard, display integrity, and take leadership, and how young women are to model modesty, support and be led by young men, and display virtuous femininity–these are not being taught. I believe that a pastor must be willing to lose his pulpit over this issue.  It is that important to Christian discipleship, Christian sanctification, Christian maturity, and most of all, the propagation of the gospel to a lost world that needs more of the ordered gospel and less of its own seemingly chaotic self.

Nevertheless, the condition of today’s young evangelical Christians reflects this lack of passionate biblical teaching and discipleship.  As a result, hearts are broken in many ways, and they continue to break up into adulthood, where their children will learn the same confusion. 

Mostly, this is due to young men who are more like little boys.  They are passive, uninterested, and predatory in their minds, viewing women as meat to be seduced rather than hearts to be earned.  They would rather wait patiently during the church services, content with the Lord’s work being done by someone else.  They are consumed with want of possessions (trucks and i-phones), want of comparison (viewing their muscles as more indicative of their character than their hearts), want of women (not with respect but with lust).  Chivalry is dying, and passivity is reigning strongly.  Manhood, for them, is not to be considered until marriage, and it is largely ignored before it.  They’ll play video games and watch funny you-tube sequences before they’ll study their Bibles and cultivate a life in the Word.  They would rather not think of fatherhood or leading a young woman spiritually.  ‘That is too hard, and I’m too young to think about that,’ one of them might say.  Yet for some reason, they think that on that day, when they’re married, they’ll be magically able to lead and protect and provide without any prior training or discipleship from their father’s or from older men in their church.  In fact, they despise any godly advice from their elders.  More so, these fathers and older men often don’t even know how to lead them themselves.  It is the fruit of Satan’s subtle work over many years.

On the other side of the gender, young women are more aggressive, in their words, in their actions and in their hearts.  They would be the ones to make the first move and take the initiative in almost all spheres of social life.  They would be the ones to entice young men with their bodies, wearing clothes that fifty years ago only a prostitute would wear.  They would be the ones to view marriage unbiblically, seeking fulfillment in their boyfriends rather than Jesus Christ, their God-friend.  They despise God’s intent for glad and nurturing motherhood, seeking rather to create a career, a name, and a paycheck.  Many view children as burdens and not as blessings.  Abortions, for this reason, are rampant, and corporations (I choose that word specifically) like Planned Parenthood would have them continue to think that way.  Feminism is killing our churches and ruining the lives of our young women.

In many larger metropolises, the public school system would have condoms and contraceptives in the hands of fifth graders, while the parents merely gawk, jaws dropped to the ground.  Or maybe they’re supportive of this usurpation of parental authority which is even sadder.  Parents may wonder just how raped their children’s minds truly are when their daughter has her first period at age eight or their son asks about a woman’s body at an age when, in my day, I was just enamored with my Star Wars action figures. 

Friends, I’m less concerned about lost people acting like lost people.  I’m more concerned because this is so rampant in our own pews.  Regenerate membership is a dirty idea today, and church discipline is a four-letter word.  This is tragic because those lost people just can’t seem to tell the difference between Christians and Agnostics, both of which are just as involved in pre-martial intimacy.

People will not like what I write in this essay.  My younger friends will call me a ‘twenty-year old fossil’ or a hyper-conservative hung-up male chauvinist because of what I say.  Older folks will say that I’m too young to know what I’m saying, and too inexperienced to have any authority to speak this way.  To them all I say, my only authority is God’s own word.

I’m okay with that now.  It once haunted me to consider what people would think of me because of these convictions for which I stand.  My social popularity is not what is at stake.  Rather, their souls are at stake.  This is because this issue, if you read my recent post on whether it’s 4th order doctrine or not, is so important.  It strikes at the core of a biblical understanding of marriage.  We don’t model this because it’s just tradition.  That is a sorry and pathetic reason to want to do marriage and gender roles like this.

The core issue here is that men and women are to relate in such a way that symbolizes the gospel.  A man must look up at his crucified savior with tears in his eyes and then turn to his wife and say, “That’s how I’m supposed to love you.”  A woman is to look at that same cross with tears in her eyes and then turn and look at her husband and say, “I will be there to support and love you the whole way up that Calvary hill.”

For you see, that is why the world hates the biblical understanding of manhood and womanhood.  They hate it because it mirrors the stumbling block of the gospel of God.   Are we preaching the gospel in our marriages and relationships?  That is the heart of the issue.  Is Christ being made much of in this? That is the goal of the entire institution of marriage.

Here is my thesis:  the only answer to the confusion of biblical manhood and womanhood is the gospel.

The once for all propositional truth of justification by faith in Christ alone is the answer to that scared and trembling young woman with that weight in her stomach as she sits in that cold waiting room at the clinic wondering if she’s doing the right thing.

The truth of penal substitutionary atonement is the answer to that facade of bravado as the young man sits next to that girl just as scared and confused and unable to understand what went wrong because now manhood means more than just seducing girls.

The truth of the resurrection with power is the answer to those comfortable young men who don’t know how to lead and so are just as content letting the girls do everything.

Because of an infantile understanding of Christ’s finished and complete work, all other spheres of life will grow weaker and weaker until understanding of truth has vanished and the church looks just like the world. 

God’s gospel will heal all wounds, will order all chaos, and will model servant leadership for young men, and glad submission for young women.

Go back to the old old story, Christians! That will set you rightly. It’s a biblical guarantee.

Working with you to cast down all confusion and to bow humbly before that old rugged cross,

Vince R.

What does it mean to be in “Union with Christ?”

That very title deserves many books and a whole week of seminars from theologians much more qualified than I, but perhaps I could enlighten you with some thoughts I had on this question recently.  What is “Union with Christ?”

First, I propose that the Bible teaches the Gospel is good news for sinners because it tells them of an alien righteousness.  The doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement is central to the message of the gospel.  The doctrine of justification through faith is central to our response to the gospel.    But in addition to faith, repentence must precede and follow it.  While repentence is most defintely a turning away from sin, it must include knowledge of sin.  Then, it must go to contrition for sin.  Then, it must go to confession of sin.  This whole process, which happens only by grace through the movement of the Spirit and by the hearing and seeing of the Word of God, then leaves a sinner totally cast off from all remnants, specks and spots of self-righteousness.  He then searches desperately for an alien righteousness, a righteousness apart from him.

The sinners stands trembling as he recognizes his total guilt and unjustified sinfulness.  He is alone and without help.  But, oh, herein is the good news of the gospel:

“For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing riches on all who call on him.  For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Romans 10:13

That means EVERYONE who does this will be saved.  But one cannot take this verse alone. Why does one call on the Lord?  He must know why, or he will not be saved.  God does not save them who have no need of him.  Or at least, think, feel, act, and live as though they don’t need him.

A man with repentence in his heart can do Romans 10:13 and so be saved.

So then, Jesus says, “repent and believe the Gospel of God.”  Mark 1:15

For, you see, the Gospel of God demands obedience.  Too often the church has thought that God’s Old Testament demand for obedience has somehow dwindled or slackened in the New Testament.  As though, God somehow took “a happy pill” between the Old and New Testaments.  The immutability of God tears down such a heretical idea.  He does not change!

He was, He is and He will always be HOLY!

A holy God demands you to be holy, too.  Thus, when Jesus came, I dare say, he took God’s demand for obedience and made it only more difficult!  No longer is adultery wrong, but even lusting after a woman is adultery!  He made a matter of the heart.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?  I the LORD search the heart and mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” Jeremiah 17:9-10

The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart.  We just plain need new ones.  God give us new hearts!

But here is the gospel!

The difference the New Testament does bring is exactly the meaning of the words “New Testament.”  It brings a “New Covenant.”  Oh, friends, here is the grace of God so wonderfully exposited.  Notice these awesome words I read yesterday in the reading calender:

“And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the (new) covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”  Matthew 26:27-28

My mind immediately went to Jeremiah 31:31-34.  But I remembered, first, that God means for us to interpret the Old Testament Scriptures with the New Testament Scriptures (namely, through the lense of the person of Jesus Christ).  I, therefore, remembered Hebrews 8.

“But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.  For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.  For he finds fault with them when he says:

‘Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.  For they did not continue in my convenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.  For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be thier God and they shall be my people.  And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.  For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.’

In speaking of a new covenant, he made the first one obsolete.  And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” Hebrews 8:6-13 (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

These verses mean that now, in Christ, by the Spirit, for the Father, we can be obedient.  God doesn’t write the law on tablets of stone, he writes it on our hearts!

Notice Ezekiel’s words:

“Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came.  And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has bee profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them.  And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.  I will take you from the nations and gather you into your own land.  I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.  And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.  And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”

That’s the essence of obedience to the gospel: God creates in us what he demands from us. That’s good news!

Only because of the finished work of Christ (his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and intercession) is our obedience righteous.  Before it was stained with sin! Now, It is righteous because we are hidden in Christ.  When the Father sees us, he sees Christ.

“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:3

I love Ephesians 1:3-14.  It is so precious to me.  But the other day I noticed how all the truths of it emphasize the phrase “In Christ” either by the proper noun or the pronoun “him.”  Note the awesome truths of those people whose God is the Lord:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, when he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fulness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.  In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.  In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”

And, again, note Paul’s letter to the Corinthians:

“For all the promises of God find their Yes in him.  That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.  And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has annointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.” 2 Corinthians 1:20-22

Oh my brothers and sisters, are you “in Christ?”  How many times does John, the one whom Jesus loved, exhort us to “abide in Him?”  I leave you with an imperative from God through that apostle’s first letter:

“And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.” 1 John 2:28

Working with you to be In Union with Christ,

Vince R.