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A Time for Watchfulness

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(Matthew 25:1-13)

Generally speaking, we typically fall into one of two categories when it comes to packing: the minimalist light packer who prides herself in packing only the bare minimum and nothing that would take up unnecessary space, and the packer who brings essentially everything he owns, just in case he might need it. They’re easy to spot in the airport, since one has either a backpack or small carry-on, while the other is stumbling along, looking as if he’s carrying enough luggage for a small family. 

Regardless of which of those two types of traveler you are, no one likes feeling unprepared. Whether we’re light or heavy packers, we still feel prepared as long as we have everything we think we’ll end up needing.

What we can’t anticipate, however, is whether or not everything will go according to plan. Delayed or cancelled flights, missed layovers, lost luggage, reservation issues with car rentals or accommodations – there’s a lot that can go wrong!

The women in Jesus’ parable who were waiting for the bridegroom found that out, too. They undoubtedly thought they were prepared… until the bridegroom took longer than expected in arriving. Then, five of the women without extra oil found out how unprepared they were. On the other hand, five of the ten had anticipated that might be the case, since they brought extra oil for their lamps for just such an occasion. They were actually prepared. They were ready. As a result, they got to experience the wedding banquet with the bridegroom once he arrived.

The story didn’t end so well for the five who ran out of oil. They were not prepared. They were not ready. So, when the time came to accompany the bridegroom to the banquet, they were in the dark. They were out of oil. Then, by the time they caught up after having to find oil to fill up their lamps, it was too late. The door to the wedding banquet had already been shut and guests were no longer being admitted. They unexpectedly found themselves shut out of the party. 

Doesn’t this parable sound like the kind of warning that would be directed more toward those who are at home sleeping in on a Sunday morning, or out and about, or prioritizing other things in life before worship? Does this parable really have anything to say to those who are active in their Christian faith and engaged in their churches?

Yes it does. First, heed Jesus’ warning for watchfulness in your own heart. Second, sound the warning for others before it’s too late. 

If you are active in your faith right now, how far back do you have to go to a time when you weren’t? Each of us has so many different stories about how we got to where we are today in our faith and relationship with Jesus. Some of us have always only known and believed in Jesus. We were brought up in believing homes with Jesus-loving parents – possibly even pastors or teachers in the church – who made sure that Sunday mornings were spent in church hearing about God’s love for us in Jesus, and it’s stuck with us every day since. 

But those stories among us are more likely the exception than the rule. More of us probably have stories that look more like the tangled up ball of Christmas lights we’re looking forward to unraveling after Thanksgiving. Our stories are a little messier, perhaps a little bit of religion here and some wandering there and a whole lot of back and forth for many years. Some who are newer to life with Jesus all together and know a whole lot more mess in their life and are still fresh in their discovery of how sweet Jesus makes life.

So realize by looking back on your life that just because you’re where you are now is no guarantee of where you’ll be in the future if you’re not continuing to keep watch.

As the weather cools just a bit and mornings and evenings make it nice to get comfortable and cozy, don’t ever fall into the trap of getting comfortable with your faith. As Jesus’ parable showed, it can lead to spiritual drowsiness and leave you unprepared.

Yes, you might believe you’re ready, but so did the five virgins waiting for the bridegroom. They were in the right place, but they still weren’t prepared. You can be in the right place, even doing the right things, but still not be prepared for Jesus’ return.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day are a great example of this. They were in the right place, doing the right things, but for the wrong reason. They weren’t prepared. Their hearts were hollow. They weren’t filled with faith. Rather than living thankfully out of gratitude for the forgiveness and salvation Jesus freely gives, their lives were auditions, lived in expectation that their performances would be more than adequate to cast them in at least some role in heaven. Their lives were pretend, not lived in genuine faith. 

Similarly, a person can worship, can serve, can even give, and all of it can be done in unbelief. There’s certain intrinsic value in each of those things, I suppose. They carry some benefit, depending on what a person is looking for. But if not done in faith, with the desire to grow in that faith, then it is all for naught. It isn’t the pleasing fruit of faith that God desires and grows, but is instead like the plastic fruit bowl displayed on the dining room tables of a furniture showroom.  

One of the applications we can draw from Jesus’ parable is the warning that these kinds of dangers are more likely to happen gradually than they are suddenly. In verse five, Jesus made the point, “The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.” Do not suppose, then, that these dangers are only sudden and immediate. They come over time as we let our guard down.

In our congregation, we’ve been a little more intentional about paying attention to those who have been missing out on worship for three+ months, and there are some consistent findings. Guess who’s most likely to be absent from worship for three months? Those who have missed for two months. Guess who’s most likely to miss worship for two months? Those who have missed worship for one month. Neglecting worship becomes so much easier when we allow it to become a pattern.

So don’t. Be in God’s house every week. Be here several times a month. Don’t let one Sunday turn to two, and then three, and low and behold, four months later you haven’t been to church. That’s not being watchful. That’s not being ready. That’s begging to find yourself out of oil when the bridegroom comes. 

While Jesus’ parable deals with those who had some sense and some expectation of the bridegroom’s arrival, how much more urgent is the warning to those not anticipating the bridegroom’s arrival, let alone aware of the bridegroom or the banquet at all in the first place? How many more either through ignorance or indifference have no “save the date” card for Jesus’ return stuck to their fridge? How many don’t know anything at all or know so very little about Jesus’ first coming that they may not have even a slight clue about his second, when he returns on the last day?

Yes, there is surely a place for those gathered in local congregations to look out for each other and make sure they don’t run out of oil before the end, but what of all those who have no lamps and no oil at all? Who will warn them to be ready, to be watching, to be prepared? While we may be wide awake as to our own salvation, do we need a wake-up call to the urgency of warning the lost and the lukewarm all around us? Are we OK being surrounded but the spiritual dead and condemned to hell or can we all detach from our devices for a moment here and there and have a conversation about Christ? Can we alert others to the impending arrival of the bridegroom?

Remember, you have been forgiven, redeemed, and saved for a purpose, and that purpose is not limited to just the joy of the banquet in heaven; that purpose also includes the joy of bringing more wedding guests along with you.

You have been forgiven so that you can forgive others.

You have been redeemed so that you can pronounce redemption to others.

You have been saved so you can point others to their Savior.

By God’s grace, your lamp has been filled with oil; tell others where to fill up their lamps with oil so that they, too, are ready. 

We’re ready for the bridegroom when we continue to make sure our lamps are filled with oil. We don’t ever get to the point of “it’s good enough” with our faith, but we want a growing faith, always filling the lamp with more oil.

Suppose an absurdly wealthy individual who was feeling particularly generous came to you and wanted to write you a check. You only had to name the amount and he would write the check out to you. However, after you gave him the first amount, he said, “more.” So you gave him a bigger number. Again he said “more.” You then gave him a number with a whole bunch of zeros after it. Still he said “more.” How long do you think this would go on before you’d get sick of him saying “more” each time? I don’t know about you, but I would welcome the opportunity to find out!

May we have the same attitude regarding our faith in Jesus. “More.” Never “good enough” or “sufficient,” but always “more.” Trust me, your lamps can hold a lot more oil, so fill them up with more Jesus, more faith. Don’t hold back in asking God for more – he’ll give it eagerly! What Jesus secured for you and me and everyone else with his perfect life of obedience and his death on the cross is more than we could ever exhaust – but let’s at least try to find out!

Fill your lamp with faith. Then fill it up with more, and you’ll be ready. You’ll be watchful. You’ll be like a giddy child, prepared to go with your Savior to the place he has prepared for us when he comes on that Last Day.

A Time to Focus on Future Glory

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(Revelation 7:9-17)

We often need the reminder to make sure we’re living in the present. That reminder can keep us from remaining stuck in the past as we get caught up ruminating on regrets or unfinished business. Such a reminder can also keep us from an unhealthy fixation on the future life we have planned for ourselves that always seems to be just out of reach, always waiting for this to happen or that to fall into place. Those reminders are good for us so that we don’t overlook the blessing of the present, the here and now, the 24 hours that we have on this day, in this place, in this station of life where we find ourselves currently – not dwelling on who or where we were in the past and not pining for who or where we’d liked to be in the future. 

Yet, as we live in this time in between Christ’s first and second coming, we can just as easily get stuck with tunnel vision, zeroing in only on the here and now and losing sight of the “not yet” – the future that God holds out to those who are his. There are three dangers of forgetting the future and living only in the present.

First, focusing only on the present can find us unprepared and not ready for Jesus’ return. Jesus even warned against waiting until the last minute because of such an attachment to the here and now in a number of his parables, such as the bridesmaids waiting for the groom who run out of oil because they aren’t prepared (cf. Mt. 25). We want to be ready for that time.

Jesus’ warning to Christians is that it is extremely dangerous to leave our faith always on the “perennial to-do list, ” as if our good intentions to getting around to it after we finish everything else that we’ve prioritized ahead of it. We dare not let faith be our last concern in this life only to find out after it’s too late that faith is the only concern that matters for the next life, for eternal life. It will simply be too late to discover that reality after the fact. 

A second danger that arises when we perceive heaven or Jesus’ return to be so far off into the future: we leave ourselves susceptible to being overcome by a feeling of hopelessness. The discouragement, the disappointment, and the disillusionment of the daily here and now can capsize us like a tiny fishing boat being tossed about in the middle of a hurricane. We become convinced that there is no end in sight regarding our financial plight. A toxic relationship will never become healthy. My job will never be fulfilling. The chronic pain or sickness is not going to improve. I can’t fix the struggles I’m having with my child. Without reminders about the eternal hope our future holds, each of these challenges can feel like another fifty-foot wave smacking and swamping us over and over again until we finally sink. It’s just a matter of time. 

The third danger that comes when we fail to focus on our future glory may be the most dangerous: instead of holding out for the future glory that is ours in Christ Jesus, we seek out glory in the here and now. For that is what the fall into sin has made us: glory-seekers.

Satan had convinced Adam & Even not to remain content with who God had made them to be in the world God had made for them. They believed there was a level of glory that God was hiding from them, keeping them from attaining a status more in line with his. The fruit was the key. They were deceived into believing it promised them the glory they were seeking. So, unsatisfied with the glory they already had by being created in God’s perfect image, they longed for a greater glory. And the result? The glory they had was smashed to pieces, obliterated into nothingness, gone, along with the gloriously perfect world God had given them. 

We daily pick up where our first parents left off, glory-seeking as if on a treasure hunt that promises untold riches and wealth if we can just secure the glory we seek. “But glory is the last thing I am interested in,” you say. “I dread being the center of attention or being recognized. I would much rather defer to someone else more interested in such things. Glory does not interest me.” So you say.

How then do you justify your workaholism? The paycheck that affords you a new _______, or the successful title, promotion, or recognition, or simply the praise others heap on you for being a hard worker – what is that if not all ultimately about serving your own glory? What of your child’s athletic, academic, or extracurricular achievements, diploma from a prestigious university, or high-paying career? Are those things so often the topic of your conversations for their own sake, or are you simply glory-seeking through your kids? Are you early or on-time for everything because you’re so considerate or respectful of other people’s time, or do you glory in that reputation? On the flip side, are you habitually running late for everything because of one excuse or another, or is because self-glory has you convinced that your time is more valuable and important than everyone else’s? 

If we aren’t interested in glory seeking and self-glory, why then, is it so hard to pay another a compliment? Because it draws attention away from us (or we’re just naturally better at pointing out others’ flaws). Why are we compelled to identify the tiniest shortcoming in a project or job done by someone else? Because we could have done it better. Why is it so hard to apologize or admit that we were wrong? Because our glory, our reputation, our pride, would be damaged. Do we defer recognition because we’re genuinely humble, or because our glory is in wanting to be known and recognized for our humility?     

It is the deceptive nature of this third danger of neglecting to focus on our future glory that makes it such a threat. We actually begin to believe, just as Adam and Eve did, that we can search out and secure some sort of glory this world might offer. But it is nothing more than a mirage.

And if we spend our here and now pursuing a mirage, then the Holy Spirit is being robbed of the opportunities to feed and strengthen our faith. The stronger our faith, the more we yearn to receive a true and lasting glory, a glory that is no mirage, but is a reality secured for us through the Son of God, Jesus Christ. He is our glory, and so it is no surprise to see him at the center of the vision shared with us through the eyes and pen of John in Revelation. Do you wish to see what glory looks like? Look no further than the verses from Revelation 7.

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!” (vss. 9-12).

Now imagine that right in the middle of this glorious scene, this happens: an individual objects to all of the glory being directed at the Lamb and demands that he, too, be recognized for certain highlights in his own life. Absurd!

But as absurd as that is, is it any more ridiculous than any attempt at glory-seeking right here and now? Why should the here and now on earth be any different than the not yet of heaven? Why should be think ourselves worthy of any glory whatsoever when the only mark we hit consistently in our lives is that of unholiness and imperfection? 

What makes this glory depicted in Revelation so remarkable is that it even overshadows and covers our every foolish attempt at seeking self-glory in the here and now. Notice what everyone is wearing: “Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?” I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (vss. 13-14).

A white robe. A white robe made pure and clean by the blood of the Lamb. The blood shed on the cross, the blood given to you in the Sacrament – that blood alone cleanses and purifies you. It washed away your sinful glory-seeking and all other pride along with it. That is the only reason anyone is able to stand in the presence of the Lamb and worship him, and that is the reason this whole scene is punctuated with praise and adoration in the first place – because of what the Lamb has done for all people, including you and me. 

And friends, we wear that robe not just in heaven, but also here and now, through faith in Jesus. We are righteous right now. We are holy right now. We, to a degree, are covered in this glory right now.

Why should we ever foolishly seek an inferior glory that the world holds out to us when we have the superior glory of Jesus Christ to claim as ours not just in the future, but in the present? Here and now. When we are robed in that glory, we get it. We get that serving Jesus is a joy, not a burden. That’s why we long for this scene: “Therefore, ‘they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence’” (v.15).

Yet even now we have the joy of serving him day and night with our whole lives. While we have to wait for the complete joy and bliss of the full glory that waits for us in heaven, we don’t have to wait until then to experience the joy of serving him and others here and now!

And to spur us on toward perseverance and endurance while we serve here, we take to heart the picture of serving God eternally in a world without the worries or woes that plague us here and now.  “‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them,’ nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’ ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes’” (vss. 16-17). 

Yes, we live in the time in between, but that doesn’t mean we live unaware of what waits for us. Quite the opposite. It is precisely because we know what waits for us that we are encouraged. That is why we continue to focus on a future glory that is ours, spurred on even by a foretaste of that glory in the present, as we are God’s glory-bearers here and now. 

A Time for Steadfast Faith

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(Daniel 6:10-12, 16-23)

Those living in California are familiar with the damage that raging wildfires can cause. Those living in Florida have experienced the path of destruction a hurricane can leave in its wake. In other parts of the country, flooding can leave entire communities in ruin. Knowing the potential damage that such disasters can bring is exactly why residents are encouraged to prepare by taking every precaution they can to protect themselves and their property.

But the time to prepare is not during the disaster. A homeowner cutting back the brush around his house and hosing everything down while the wildfire is surrounding him has waited too long. The resident trying to board up his windows as the rain is pelting and the wind is hurling objects all around him has waited too long. Filling up and laying down sandbags as the floodwaters have already begun seeping into the home is a waste of time. No, if a person wants a chance at being able to handle disasters, the best time to prepare and be ready is before it arrives!

That explains why the edict King Darius decreed didn’t derail Daniel after it had been given: he was prepared. There was no emotional tug-of-war internally over the correct course of action for Daniel, no wondering what he should do or how he should handle it. Should he just play it cool for the thirty days of the decree and not be so overt with his faith? Should he pay external lip service to Darius, while internally retaining his faith in God? If he backed down in any way, though, what would that communicate to others about his faith and his God? Would that be tantamount to a denial of his faith?

Daniel’s decision had already been made; he was prepared because his practice had already been established. “Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before” (v.10). The decree was announced, and Daniel… did nothing different. He prayed three times a day, “just as he had done before.”

And it most certainly wasn’t only his practice of praying three times a day that stood out, but his believing lifestyle altogether that was evident to others. It was surely Daniel’s practice of his faith that prompted his envious enemies to craft the specific prohibition against practicing other faiths – they knew such a decree would be a slam dunk against Daniel.

His devout life was even evident to the king, who twice – right before sealing Daniel in the den and then again the next morning – referred to the God Daniel served “continually” (cf vss. 16, 20). This was just typical Daniel, standing out in a heathen culture because he didn’t hide his faith at all. His devotion to God and worship of God was not an occasional observance that others witnessed once in awhile, but the norm. Daniel was ready for any storm in life, because his steadfast practice of faith prepared him for anything. 

During this time in-between, as we conduct our lives between the two comings of Christ – his birth and his return on the last day – can we not only see the importance of being prepared, but also make real changes in our lives to put it into practice? Are there ways, like Daniel, that we can be more grounded in God in the day-to-day, so that when the next bomb drops – literally or metaphorically – we’re actually ready, and not scrambling for dear life as if we don’t have a clue what to do or where to turn?

Most reading this would likely agree that more time in prayer and in the Word of God would be a tremendous blessing in our lives. So why is it that we wait to turn to those things until the wildfires, the hurricanes, and the floods of life start wailing on us? Why are we spiritually trying to board up our windows as Satan starts swinging instead of preparing beforehand? Let’s use this time in-between to prepare, to bolster up our faith so that we are immovable, steadfast, rock-solid in Christ when things turn south.

On Reformation, we recognize and appreciate the “Daniels” God has provided for us throughout history to remind us of the importance of steadfast faith. Martin Luther was one such individual. Once the the Holy Spirit unlocked for him the precious truths of Scripture so that he understood and embraced that his salvation was by God’s grace alone, through faith in Jesus alone, revealed through Scripture alone, there was no turning back. The good news became clear to him: righteousness wasn’t a matter of required obedience that could be earned, but rather a free gift that could only be given through faith in the perfect life of Jesus.

Once Luther came to know and believe these theological truths, his life would be a reflection of them until his dying day. He taught and preached. He wrote and instructed. He debated and defended. He was steadfast, so that when the heavy hand of the Roman Catholic Church dropped on him, he wasn’t about to back down. Steadfast faith stood strong in the face of severe opposition from some of the most powerful authorities on earth. 

Now is the time for steadfast faith. But let’s be more specific so that we understand why so many blessings are attached to that kind of faith. A steadfast faith is only as good as its object. In other words, what really determines the outcome is not just how strong and steady a faith is, but to what, or whom, that faith is directed. In whom is it placed?

A cancer patient might have all the confidence in the world that using a special shampoo will cure his cancer. Someone might be 100% convinced that playing the Lottery using the numbers of her family’s birthday months will ensure that she wins. I could make sure that I have my lucky socks on so that my job interview guarantees I get the job. But you also better be prepared to be let down by that shampoo, those numbers, and the socks. They have zero ability to reward your confidence, your faith in them. 

Did you notice how wishy-washy the king’s faith was in Daniel’s case? How ironic that he would authorize a decree that for thirty days no one could pray to or worship any other god or man other than him, only to turn around and appeal to Daniel’s God to deliver him from the lions! He wanted to cover all his bases, demanding that he alone is worshipped, while allowing for the possibility that if there is by chance another god out there – like Daniel’s, for example – that he could be acknowledged as well. 

That’s not at all an uncommon approach many have to religion and spirituality today, is it? “All religions are basically the same; just change up some of the names and places and a few of the teachings. As long as you have a strong faith in your god, I can have a strong faith in mine, and so can they, and we can all leave well enough alone.” It’s no different than shampoo, lottery numbers, or socks – they’re powerless to do anything, no matter how much you might believe it. 

But finally, only one God saves – Daniel’s God delivered him. That same God – and only that God – delivers all who trust in him, including those who recently joined our church family. Our instruction didn’t consist of a study of world religions so that they could be familiar with everything under the sun that is taught about any given deity or path to spiritual enlightenment and then pick and choose as needed throughout the rest of their lives, depending on the situation. 

No, they learned more about the only true God from the only reliable source in which he has chosen to reveal himself: the Bible. There alone can we find a God who is radically unlike any other god portrayed in other religions. There we find a God who gave himself up, a God determined to make the necessary sacrifice for your salvation. In the Bible we find a God more interested in serving than being served. We see a God who longs for us to rest in and rely on his work on our behalf, rather than trying to run ourselves ragged pretending we could please him or earn his affection with our goodness, as Martin Luther wrongly believed before discovering the good news about Jesus having done it all for him. 

Only a steadfast faith in the Jesus who came to save will not be disappointed. He always delivers – even if not in the manner by which he delivered Daniel – from death. He may deliver that way, or he may allow sickness or injury into our lives and then deliver us through those things. Or, finally, he may use those same trials to deliver us home to heaven. But the true God – Jesus – always delivers. Always. So a steadfast faith in him is not misplaced.

So let’s board up the windows now, let’s fill up the sandbags and clear the brush away from the property, so that when disaster strikes in our lives – which has a 100% chance of taking place at some point – we’re ready. Let’s reinforce our faith to be so steadfast that nothing can shake it. How?

Those joining a local church family are taking an important step in that direction. They are committing to the support, encouragement, and growth that they will both receive and help provide in a congregation. And as we collectively grow closer to Jesus and his life and work becomes more intricately woven into ours, faith is fortified and multitudes of blessings emanate from that kind of faith. As we endure storms ourselves, our faith better prepares us, and our faith-filled friends and church family support and hold us up – and we do the same for others as we all grow together. That is what a steadfast faith looks like, and in a shaky, unsettled, tumultuous world, who doesn’t need that?

Now is the time, as we wait for Jesus to return, to invest more, not less, in our faith. Now is the time to strive for a steadfast faith that is already in place so that when the disasters come, you’re ready, and when Jesus returns, you’re ready. In this time in between, let us join the ranks of the Daniels and the Martin Luthers and let Jesus’ church be a place of refuge and strength, where God’s people strive for a steadfast faith that mirrors our Savior’s steadfast commitment to us. 

A Story of Liberal & Lavish Invitation

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(Matthew 22:1-14)

How can God possibly convince you? What illustration, what picture, would be enough for it to sink in how good it is to be in Christ’s kingdom? What does it take so that your view of Christianity and Christ’s church is so much more than just a social club or service to tap into when you need it, but so much more? Think about what it would take for that to sink in, because God wants you to know how really great it is to be in his kingdom.

So Jesus tells a story. This story shares some similarities with previous stories – parables – we’ve heard from Jesus, but also a few unique elements. One that stands out: the party! “Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son’” (v. 1-2).

Mind you, this is not just anyone in the neighborhood throwing a party – this is a king. This is someone with the resources to put together a spectacular party! Someone in that position, for an occasion like that – a wedding reception for his son – is able to spare no expense in spoiling all of the guests gathered to celebrate his son’s marriage.

The king even makes sure his servants are highlighting his extensive preparations when he sends them out to personally follow up on the invitations he had extended. “Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet” (v.4). He was not throwing some party on the cheap, holding out and hoarding the best of the best for himself sometime down the road, but was planning to serve the best beverages, choicest cuts of meat, and every delectable treat one could ever hope to sample. It was all going to be there!

And it’s all right here – right here in Christ’s kingdom to which we believers belong. That – this – is the kingdom Jesus is portraying in his parable, and while it certainly includes the fullest measure of what is waiting for us in heaven, by no means are the blessings of the wedding banquet off limits to us until then! While the blessings of being in this kingdom are many, I want to highlight just a few that repeatedly seem to top the list for many believers: hope, peace, forgiveness, and love.

A familiar statement popped up again in a recent devotion. I’m not sure who is credited with coining it, but here’s the reminder of one of the great blessings of being in Christ’s kingdom: “Many people see only a hopeless end, but you have an endless hope.”

In a society that has more resources than it’s ever had at its disposal – in terms of stuff, support, treatment, etc. – it seems to take so little for people to slip into hopelessness. Yes, in recent decades we have done a poor job of teaching younger generations the value of resiliency and how to handle adversity, but there’s more to it than that.

If we don’t have the God of hope in our lives, then should it surprise us that so many are feeling hopeless? Let’s not make it more complicated than it needs to be! Paul captured the blessing of hope in the closing thoughts of his letter to the Christians in Rome. To those who had more than enough earthly reasons to feel hopeless, as persecution in the early church raged, he wrote, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13).

Without the “God of hope,” where else would we expect to be hopeful? But with him, hope overflows – a hope that is fueled by the certainty of the full-blown wedding banquet waiting for us in the future. And that hope is related to another blessing of being in this kingdom: peace. 

Will peace exist in the middle east when terrorists stop attacking Israel and Israel stops retaliating? Is peace merely a matter of putting down weapons? Of course not. Fear and terror of what could happen at any moment in the future would continue to exist on both sides.

That’s because peace isn’t found in the absence of war and aggression; it’s found in reconciliation. It is found only when two sides have completely hashed out their differences and restored and repaired their relationship. But as long as something – anything – stands in the way of that, there is no reconciliation, and therefore no peace. 

When we are riddled with guilt over what we’ve done wrong, we don’t need someone to merely brush it off and say that what we did was no big deal. No, we need something more. We need reconciliation. We need assurances that what we’ve done doesn’t stand between us and that person. We only have that in Jesus, who alone is able to assure us that because of his saving work, because of the forgiveness he came to secure for us, no sin or guilt remains between a Holy God and a sinner like me. The assurance Jesus gave to his disciples after his resurrection is also our assurance: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27). You are at peace. Jesus says so, because Jesus made it so. And just as your peace is related to the hope we have, so is your peace the result of another blessing of being in the kingdom: forgiveness.

Notice how beautifully that forgiveness is depicted in Colossians: “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13-14). We have been rescued! We were dominated by darkness, but having been brought into the King’s kingdom, a kingdom characterized by forgiveness.

It’s what sets this kingdom apart from all others. Other kingdoms are established by a show of might or political gamesmanship, but not this one. This one is far more powerful, for it is based on the authoritative pronouncement of God himself to the whole world, that his forgiveness through Christ means he doesn’t hold our sin against us. 

But what should prompt all of this? Why should the likes of any of us be able to rest in the hope, the peace, and the forgiveness that belong to us in this kingdom?

Simply because the God who is love loves you with a love that will never burn out or be bored of you. His is an eternal love, put into action before creation, carried out at Christ’s crucifixion, and continues to all in his kingdom.

Jesus’ disciple John, who preferred to be known not for his great sermons, his special privileges as being in Jesus’ inner circle, or any of his own accomplishments, but to be known simply as the disciple Jesus loved, wrote, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1).

In Christ’s kingdom we have all of these blessings – hope, peace, and forgiveness – because God loves us. In light of these reminders, doesn’t Jesus’ description of the lavish wedding banquet seem like a gross understatement? How could any worldly illustration – even Jesus’ own parable – possibly come close to adequately describing the blessings God lavishes on his people?!?

Yes, Jesus’ story is one of a lavish invitation to a never-ending party that nothing else will ever come anywhere close to imitating. But Jesus’ story tells us even more: everyone is invited. All are welcome! No one is excluded from being invited to the banquet! How liberal is God with his invitation, to exclude no one and include everyone?!?

The details in the parable capture this quite well. The king had already sent out invitations, but he didn’t just sit back and wait for people to show up. Rather, in addition to sending out the invitations, he took the initiative to follow up with all of those who had been invited to remind them of the invitation and urge them to now come and join in the festivities, for everything was ready.

If you’ve ever planned a party or an event – whether it’s been for just a small group or a large one – you know this is no small thing. It’s a lot of effort to make sure all of the details on the invitation are correct. Then, how will the invitations get distributed? Will you mail them with a stamp, send out an email and hope it doesn’t go into their spam, or create an event on social media? Will you invite via a phone call or text message?

There are so many ways to get the word out, which also means so many more ways for the word to get lost, ironically making follow up as necessary as ever! And who of us hasn’t wanted to pull out their hair trying to do that (or from the other perspective, been the ones responsible for causing others to want to pull out their hair because of our lack of response!)? Getting a response from people at a time when ghosting has become acceptable behavior is no easy thing! So see and appreciate what great lengths the king went to in his invitations, sending his servants out multiple times to follow up.

When one goes to such great lengths to plan and prepare a party and thoroughly extend invitation upon invitation, it makes it all the more inexcusable that any should react as they did. Some simply ignored the invitation. Others were preoccupied with other priorities, heading off to work or tending to a project at home. Still others did the unthinkable and murdered the messengers.

Recall that we witnessed this same behavior in the last parable Jesus told of his vineyard. However, this time Jesus included what it looked like to “bring those wretches to a wretched end,” to use the words from the last story of Jesus. He describes it here. “The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city” (v.7).

Yes, there will be punishment for those who reject Jesus’ offer of free and full salvation. While some may conclude that such punishment is unnecessary and that God goes too far and way over the top in carrying out such punishment, they forget that consequence is simply what we brought on ourselves way back at the first sin.

We brought it on ourselves. What’s more, remember that’s the very thing God sent out the invitation to rescue us from! So if we refuse his rescue, then we have just chosen for things to be the way we always deserve – to be punished ourselves for our sin and cut off from God’s grace forever. To those who reject God’s gracious invitation, God will give them what they want instead. 

But for those who do by faith accept his invitation, we notice from this parable that there’s also only one way to get into the banquet: you have to be wearing the wedding clothes.

The king saw one guest who was not properly dressed and he was dismissed – thrown out of the party! He didn’t have on the right fit. The only appropriate dress wear in Christ’s kingdom is Christ’s perfection. His holiness. His righteousness. Anyone who insists on wearing his own good efforts, noble intentions, or positive thoughts and vibes, will end up on the outside looking in. 

So after the invitations went out, who are those left out? Only those who chose not to attend the banquet and those insisting on getting in on their own terms.

So it is with the kingdom of God. The invitations literally could not have been sent out more liberally! They went out to everyone! Not only that, but the appropriate attire – the credit of Christ’s perfect life through faith – is also offered to everyone in attendance. And don’t forget the rich blessings of being in attendance: hope, peace, and forgiveness, all driven by the King’s love for you. How lavish & liberal is the king’s invitation?!?

Who are you in this parable? Wherever you are in life, there is a role depicted in the parable. Are you rejecting the invitation and/or those messengers who bring it? Preoccupied with other things that you don’t have time of the party? You want to come to the party but you insist on getting in on your own terms? Feel like your guilty past means you didn’t make the guest list? All are invited! The servants were sent out repeatedly to others with the invitation? At times we fall into different roles in the parable, but as we wrap up Jesus’ stories, let us make sure we take him up on his invitation. Not only does our eternity depend on it, but we don’t want to miss out on the party – then or now! And it’s so easy for us to miss out if we take for granted what is included in Christ’s kingdom.

The story is told of a family who wanted to travel to America for the chance at a better life. After saving up, they spent all they had on tickets for the family to travel on an ocean liner to America. Friends and family provided bread and cheese for the family of four. Dad figured they could stretch that out to last the ten-day trip and then they’d be much better off after arriving in America.

After six days of cheese & bread sandwiches, their little boy couldn’t take it anymore. Dad mercifully scrounged together enough change for the boy to go to the ship’s store and buy an apple. After quite a bit of time had passed, the boy hadn’t returned and dad, being worried, set out to find him.

As he left the lowest tier of the ship and climbed each level, accommodations became increasingly luxurious. Eventually the father made it into the the grand dining room, where he discovered his son sitting at a table surrounded by an amazing spread of food. “What are you doing?”, dad lamented. “We can’t afford that! I’ll be arrested and we’ll be taken back home!”

As the son replied, he took out the change his dad had given him and returned it, explaining, “Dad, all of the food is included in the price of the ticket. We could have been eating all of this for the past six days instead of cheese bread sandwiches!”

So often that describes how we go through life. We settle for cheese sandwiches instead of tapping into the banquet that God provides for us. Realize how lavish the party is in Christ’s kingdom, and rejoice that you’ve been invited by taking advantage of all of the blessings he provides! Oh, and don’t forget to pass along to everyone else that they’ve been invited, too!

A Story of A Determined Harvester

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(Matthew 21:33-43)

They were a camping family. They knew the outdoors. Their experience level could be considered way above average in terms of handling different types of geography, weather, and wildlife. Being outdoors was almost as natural to them as the daily routine back home, even for the kids.

All of this explains why the parents didn’t bat an eye at giving the okay when their thirteen-year old asked if he could go for a hike, even though they were camping in bear country. When he returned from his hike, everyone was pretty excited when he shared that he saw a bear on his hike, from a safe distance, of course.

The following day his parents again granted him permission to go on the hike, as he was excited by the possibility of seeing a bear again. This time he came back even more thrilled, because not only did he see the bear again, but it had even chased him very briefly this time.

While the parents were certainly a bit more apprehensive about letting him hike the same trail for a third time the next morning, not only were they were both confident in his experience ability to take care of himself, but they also reasoned that after two days in a row, the probability of a third bear encounter a was extremely low.

They were understandably shaken up then, to say the least, when he stumbled back into camp with cuts and scrapes and his clothes all disheveled. Sure enough, once again he had come across the bear’s path, but this time it charged at him and attacked him. He couldn’t get out his bear spray in time to deter the bear, but once he fell to the ground and played dead, eventually the bear became disinterested, left him alone, and wandered off. He was extremely fortunate to get by with only very minor injuries.

What would you think of those parents if they were to let their son go on that same hike a fourth time (let alone the third time!)?

Now, as you consider your answer to that question, how does your view of those parents compare to your view of the landowner in Jesus’ parable from Matthew 21, verses 33-43? Both were knowingly putting others at risk! While the actions of the tenants in Jesus’ story are of course inexcusable, at what point does the landowner bear responsibility for knowingly putting others in harm’s way by sending additional servants – and eventually even his own son! – back to the vineyard? Surely in today’s world he’d be looking at a lawsuit from the other servants or the families of those injured or killed! What justification could there possibly be for such action?

Surely the most shocking element of Jesus’ story is the landowner’s insistence on continuing to send servants after seeing how the tenants treated the servants he sent previously! The landowner appear to be completely irresponsibly, negligent – reckless, even!

But is the “irresponsible landowner” the only view of the vineyard owner can have, or do the details of Jesus’ story possibly provide a different perspective? Consider all the measures the landowner took in the first place. He’s the one who planted the vineyard on his plot of land – it belonged to him, not the tenant farmers. In order to keep the vineyard protected, he built a wall around it, complete with a watchtower to monitor everything. He even had winepress built on-site to make it as easy as possible to press the grapes into wine, so that they wouldn’t first have to be transported somewhere else for that step.

One could say the landowner went to great lengths to set up his vineyard to be successful. And what was the purpose behind all of it? “When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit” (v.34). He simply wanted fruit. That was, after all, the goal. It’s why he got into the business in the first place, so that his vineyard would bear fruit. 

When we keep that in mind, is he so crazy after all for sending additional servants to collect what was his? He simply wanted his business effort to generate a profit. He wanted to see the results of the blood, sweat, and tears he had put into the vineyard.

Moreover, if we put the best construction on the landowner’s continued efforts at sending additional servants, he was giving the tenants multiple opportunities to do the right thing. Each group of servants was another chance for them to realize their mistake, change their ways, and treat the servants well while sending them back to the landowner with an abundant harvest. So not only did the landowner care about his fruit, but also the tenants tending his fruit. He wanted them to do the right thing and serve faithfully in his vineyard. 

What does this parable of Jesus teach us about God? God is a determined harvester. And from that truth, we can draw out two applications for today: 1) don’t belittle the fruit collectors and, 2) do bear fruit. 

Don’t Belittle the Fruit Collectors

“Belittle” is an understatement for how the tenants treated the fruit collectors! Jesus’ parable states, “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way” (v.35-36). The tenants didn’t just tell the fruit collectors to bug off or go fly a kite. They could have just refused to let them into the vineyard at all. But instead they went to the extreme in their treatment, beating, killing, and stoning them. To do so was not just an injustice against the servants who were merely acting on behalf of the landowner, but a direct assault against the landowner himself!

Jesus is clearly addressing his listening religious leaders through this story, as the parable calls out Israel’s past – and present – penchant for persecuting prophets. In that regard, the Old Testament isn’t just a history, it’s essentially a RAP sheet listing the crimes Israel was guilty of committing against the prophets God sent to collect fruit. Again and again God’s people incriminated themselves in their treatment of God’s prophets. In every season of Israel’s history, God patiently sent one prophet after another to speak messages of repentance and promises of comfort for those who turn back to God. And in every season of Israel’s history, God’s prophets were belittled, rarely listened to, but often attacked and even killed.

The culmination of this was unfolding in the present during Holy Week as the prophet Jesus spoke this parable to those who would yet again fulfill it when they would murder God’s only perfect prophet on Good Friday. And, in the verses immediately following this Matthew reading, Jesus’ listeners knew full well that he was accusing and convicting them. “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet” (v.45-46). 

Do we realize how Jesus’ story accuses and convicts us as well? Or do we presume that since we’ve never been guilty of assaulting or murdering a man of God that this cannot apply to us?

But have we belittled those God has sent to serve us with his Word? Have we despised the preaching of his Word and reception of his body and blood by tending to other cares and concerns in this world as of much greater priority? Have we ignored attempts of elders to minister to us by not even responding to their efforts to do so? Have we downplayed when the pastor cares enough to call to our attention that we’ve been noticeably absent from regular worship? Have we ignored invitations to study his Word together and deepen our faith? Assuming you are a member of a congregation, have you forgotten that you were not forced into membership in that congregation, but willingly chose to be under its spiritual care?

Though we may convince ourselves otherwise, we have blood on our hands when we belittle God’s efforts at sending his servants to collect fruit and minister to us. It’s so easy for us to convince ourselves of how unlike those rebellious, stubborn OT Israelites we are, and that we’d never stoop to their level. But are we better or worse off if we learn nothing from their example and exhibit what is the same attitude of heart toward God, but refuse to admit it? 

What does that kind of attitude deserve? At the close of Jesus’ parable, even his enemies determined those tenants ought to get what they deserve: “‘Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ ‘He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,’ they replied’” (v.40-41a). They condemned themselves! And if we confess our guilt of the same sin, then we, too, are condemned. We, too, deserve to be brought to a wretched end! There is nothing more wretched than hell and being eternally separated from God and his love – and we’d have no one to blame but ourselves because we admit that’s the sentence that such actions deserve!

But there is more to Jesus’ story. As with other parables, there is a son. The landowner finally sent his own son, thinking his own flesh and blood would surely be respected. Instead he was rejected. Instead he was murdered.

That, thankfully, was by God’s design. Yes, someone had to get what those wicked tenants – what we – deserve! But the one paying that price was not at all the one who deserved it. The Son, Jesus, died for the tenants. They thought they’d kill him and get the inheritance, but the truth is, Jesus came to die to give them an even greater inheritance: heaven. The Son died to satisfy the Lord’s wrath against rebellious sinners. The Son died to satisfy the Lord’s wrath against you and me. 

So we will never bear it. We will never feel it. We will never experience what it’s like for wretches to be brought to a wretched end, even though it’s the wretched end our own actions deserve. Jesus did that for us. And what does he need from us in return?

Do Bear Fruit

Well, he doesn’t need anything, but we can’t but help give him everything. Our firstfruits. Our best. The harvest he longs to have from those that he took such care to bring into his vineyard. We have no fear of repercussion for our sin, as our punishment has already been carried out. Now we are free to bear fruit. 

And oh, there are so many ways for us to bear fruit, aren’t there? So many ways for us to express the depth of gratitude that God hasn’t cast us out of his vineyard, his kingdom, but lovingly keeps and protects and serves us here. Think of the fruit we can bear individually and together! Think of how God uses that fruit to invest back into his kingdom and build it up!

Rather than simply listing all the different ways we can bear fruit, let us consider how we can participate in one particular way: mission work. God bears so much fruit in and through us as we carry out his mission to make the good news about Jesus known everywhere. He does that through us individually and as we work together as Christians to carry this out (here’s an awesome example!). Your prayers will bear fruit in mission work. Your offerings will bear fruit in mission work. Your lips will bear fruit in mission work, as you tell others about Jesus, or consider full-time ministry to lead and equip others to do so.

However you can, in as many was as you can, bear fruit! God will take our fruit and build and bless his vineyard, his kingdom, through it!

A Story of Spiritual Insincerity

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(Matthew 21:23-32)

Can you imagine how hard it must have been for them? How excruciating to have had to utter the words! Surely it went against ever fiber of their being to have to give such a reply, but after having analyzed it from every angle, the best response the know-it-all religious leaders could give to Jesus’ question was, “We don’t know” (v.27).

How true it was, though! They didn’t know. Hardened hearts were not willing to accept the spiritual things that only the Holy Spirit can reveal, and so they truly didn’t know the answer to Jesus’ question. 

Nor did they wish to, which shows us how stubborn a thing unbelief is to overcome. Each possible response they considered showed them to be in the wrong. Either response would have taken them at least one step in the right direction closer to faith in Jesus.

But unbelief is a stubborn thing. It doesn’t wish to be overcome. It prefers to remain blind. It prefers to remain in the dark. It refuses to be humbled or corrected. So rather than acknowledge it is in the wrong, it offers uncertainty as a suitable middle ground.

We see it today. Nonbelievers are content to live in limbo, refusing to believe one thing or another on the basis of “How can we really know for sure?” Or, they deflect their responsibility in investigating Jesus’ claims or the veracity of the Bible by accusing Christians of believing themselves to be superior to everyone else because they’re so sure they’re right and everyone else is wrong. So they hang out in the middle, shrugging their shoulders like the chief priests and elders, while echoing their disinterested “we don’t know.”

And these are the same ones who want to point out how readily they would believe if they simply had any proof of God’s existence. To them, just as he did to the chief priests and elders who refused to acknowledge the proof right before their eyes speaking to them, Jesus says, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things” (v.27).  

Jesus is never one to waste words, not when he knew his time on earth – as well as theirs – was limited. For that reason he chose to steer the conversation in a different direction. Rather than trying to satisfy unbelieving ears with some sort of appeal that would legitimize his authority, Jesus instead focused on the greater issue that had to change before anything else: the unbelief in their hearts. To address that issue – the biggest issue by far in anyone’s heart, Jesus told a story. 

“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go” (v.28-30). Jesus’ parable is short and to the point. It would seem to be rather straightforward, and especially relatable to anyone with their own kids, or who has ever been around kids, or who has ever been a kid – so yes, relatable to all of us. At the end of the day, a person may have good intentions, but good intentions by themselves don’t yield good results. 

Jesus’ listeners rightly guessed the answer to his follow-up question, “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” (v.31). They knew the son who ended up actually following through with the father’s request was the one who did what he wanted. While the father would have most certainly been irritated, by the son’s initial refusal to do what told him to do, in the end, the father would have been happy to see the son end up doing the work. Perhaps there would be some additional conversation about how out-of-line it was for the son to say “no” to his father in the first place (a conversation that seems to be far too infrequent in our society today), but ultimately the son did the work he was told to do, even if after initially bucking against it.

On the other hand, how disappointed must the father have been when the other son’s initial, “Okay, I will” resulted in nothing but further inactivity! At least if the other son had done nothing, his inactivity would have matched his initial response. But what a different thing it is when expectations are raised, only to be dashed again! What a different thing it is when someone agrees and then doesn’t follow through. 

What exactly was Jesus’ point for his listeners then? What message did he wish to get through the thick skulls of the chief priests and teachers of the law? They knew Jesus’ teachings. They knew Jesus’ claims. They knew that others, too, were aware of what Jesus was calling for from his disciples – to repent and believe in him.

But since their hearts were hard, they rejected Jesus’ invitation, convinced they were already carrying out what the father, what the LORD, had called them to do: obey and embrace the law along with its “do’s” and “don’ts” as a means of satisfying the Father. In essence, they thought their lives were already a reflection of the perfect son who knew what the father wanted and proceeded to carry it out. But they missed that they weren’t at all carrying out what the father had asked: to believe in the one he sent, the Savior, Jesus. 

It was a different story, however, for the tax collectors and the prostitutes. They were the other son. They looked at what the religious crowd was portraying as far as the father’s demands, and they didn’t even bother pretending to say “yes” to such high demands. They knew such expectations were impossible for the likes of them. They knew they had no chance in following through with such lofty expectations, so they just presumed they’d always be on the outside looking in when it came to meeting religious qualifications. 

But when Jesus comes along and shares the exact same message – “repent and believe in me,” there was a different result. The very same ones who in their own minds were the “No way” sons and daughters to the father’s request were quick to follow through with what Jesus called them to do: believe he was the Savior.

Jesus shared their outcome with the chief priests and teachers of the law: “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (v.31).

The chief priests and teachers of the law were doing what they thought the father – God – was asking of them, but in reality they were doing what they in their own self-righteous hearts wished would have been the way to satisfy the father. In that regard, it wasn’t at all the father they were really aiming to please, but their own sense of self-righteousness.  

What does this have to do with us today? After all, when was the last time you came into contact with a chief priest or teacher of the law? Well, actually, we see them anytime we look in the mirror. What do I mean?

In the simplest sense, who can keep track of the number of times we’ve been the son who says “I will” and then doesn’t? We take the time to comment under the prayer request post that we’re praying or we text back the praying hands emoji, but we don’t take the time to actually pray the prayer we promised. We ask someone in need to let us know if there’s anything we can do to help, and when they lay out the specifics of how we could actually help, we fail to follow through. We commit to serving or volunteering in this or that role with a full understanding of what is being expected of us, only to not do what we said we’d do, and instead make excuses or keep putting off what we agreed to get done. It’s not the son in the parable we want to be, but it’s the son we so often are.

We’re that same son even when we do the right things we should do… but for the wrong reasons. Remember, those confronting Jesus did actually focus on obedience and following the rules. They were concerned with doing the right things, and they were sincere about it. But their reasons were sincerely wrong. Their doings and obedience and rule-following were not Christ-compelled gestures of overwhelming appreciation and thanks that stemmed from a vibrant heart of faith overflowing with gratitude. No, their doings and obedience and rule-following were prompted by perfectionist tendencies that believed the lie that peace with God was earned – or even could be earned – by hard work and dutiful effort on their part. As far as they were concerned, the attitude behind that effort didn’t matter. As long as it got done, that’s what God was looking for. 

When instead of joyfully jumping in we resentfully allow ourselves to be “roped in” to service and ministry, we might as well have come clean right from the start and instead been the son who said, “I will not,” because God isn’t looking for a church built on begrudging acts of service. When worship becomes an appearance that must be made to be seen by others instead of an eager acceptance of the King’s banquet invitation to be fed the divine food that satisfies our souls, we are the son who says he will, but doesn’t. When the days sandwiched between Sundays are lived out as if they were our “time-off” from Christian living instead of the actual time to punch in and put in the work of living out our faith, we are the son who says he will, but doesn’t. In so many ways we are the wrong son in this parable!

How much we need a third Son – God’s Son! He alone is the Son who not only said, “I will,” but also carried out the Father’s will perfectly. What’s more, he knew his purpose so well and realized his mission that he invited others to test him as they followed him, listened to him, and watched him carry out his work. His invitation then is still extended to us today – “Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father” (John 10:37).

To those still claiming “we don’t know,” Jesus says, “Fine, put me to the test and see! But if you see me doing what my Father commanded – in a way no one else ever has or ever could, then you have all the reason you need to believe in me!” 

And near the last hours of his, as Satan was preparing to use Judas and Jesus’ enemies to carry out God’s plan and purpose on the cross, Jesus explained why it had to happen: “so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me” (John 14:31).

This is the Son we need, the son we could never be, the Son who did all that the Father commanded – including the covering of our own failures as sons and daughters by giving up his very life on the cross! This is the Son in whom there is no insincerity or deceit, but only perfect obedience, carried out with a perfect heart, filled with perfect love for the Father. This is the Son through whom we have forgiveness and a place with our Father here and now, and home in heaven.  

Because he did, we are on the receiving end of that same perfect love, a love the Father has for us because of the perfectly sincere Son, our Savior, Jesus. There is no place for “I don’t know,” no place for “I’m not sure.” There is only absolute certainty in the perfect sincerity of Jesus, carried out in his perfect life, death, and resurrection, for you. 

A Story of Faultless Fairness

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(Matthew 20:1-16)

Kids love stories. Before they can even identify letters or read words, they are able to pick out their favorite books and have them read to them over and over and over again. As they are able to read on their own, they learn to like different characters and authors and get into book series and appreciate hearing how story lines play out over longer periods of time.

It isn’t just kids who love stories. Everyone likes stories – adults included. Whether they’re romance novels, gripping mysteries, tales of vigilante justice, or historical non-fiction, good stories will be appreciated. It’s also true of movies. While special effects and star power carry some weight, movies that have staying power are popular because of the story. Stories are powerful. Stories are moving. Stories can be life-changing. And so, stories and those who tell them will always have a measure of influence in the world.

Jesus knew the power of stories. Sometimes he referenced true stories from Old Testament history; other times he told another kind of story: a parable. In fact, parables were one of Jesus’ most popular teaching methods. Through parables, he used earthly stories to convey spiritual truths. In so doing, he helped his listeners grasp the important points he wanted them to learn – and in a much more powerful way than just bullet points. It would have been one thing for Jesus simply to tell his listeners to forgive. It was another thing to tell the parable of the unmerciful servant and showcase forgiveness (or the lack thereof!) in a memorable way. It was a story that left a powerful impact. Throughout this series of posts, Tell Us a Story, we’ll hear Jesus tell us a number of stories. May they not only capture our attention, but also our hearts, and may their truths be reflected in our lives.  

The story Jesus tells in Matthew 20 shows how different God’s idea of fairness is from ours. Our fallen world operates with a flawed sense of fairness. How could we really expect anything different? How could we expect two self-serving sides in any negotiation or arrangement to approach it with anything but a skewed sense of fairness? Each side is most concerned with making sure its own best interests are served. When each side has its own subjective idea of what is fair, achieving fairness will be nothing but a pipe dream. Just consider how many different labor strikes across various industries have happened, are happening right now, or are being threatened. Inevitably, employers and employees disagree as to what is fair.

That’s why the surprise of the workers in Jesus’ parable doesn’t surprise us. We’re not shocked to see their shock when the landowner distributes wages at the end of the day. The reason we’re not not surprised or shocked is because we’d likely respond exactly the same way!

No, the surprise comes not in the workers’ reaction, but in the landowner’s decision to pay everyone equally. The landowner determined that those who barely finished tying up the laces of their work boots were going to make exactly as much as those who put in a grueling day’s work. Ironic, isn’t it, that we scream “inequality!” when in reality he gave everyone exactly the same amount. By definition you can’t get more “fair” than that!

So what was the problem? Not with the payment, but with what the laborers felt they deserved. And that is why our sense of fairness will always be flawed. We simply do not apply the same standards to ourselves as we do others. We look differently at others than we do ourselves.

One explanation for this discrepancy between how we judge ourselves and how we judge others is that we draw our conclusions about others on the basis of their actions, while viewing ourselves on the basis of our intentions. So when someone else lies, we conclude that she is of course a liar. She probably lies all the time and hardly ever tells the truth. But if I lie, well, there’s a good reason behind it or I didn’t mean to lie, and I most often tell the truth.

When someone else cuts me off in traffic, they’re a bad driver and likely drive that way all the time. But when I do it, it was simply a very rare case, and I probably had a very good reason behind it. Do you see how hard it’s going to be to maintain any sense of fairness when we naturally tend to tip the scale in our own favor? 

How does that higher view of self on our part factor in to the relationship that matters most – our relationship with God? If we refuse to see how skewed our own sense of fairness is, we will always find it unsettling how a gracious, generous God deals with fallen mankind. Even though by definition, grace is God’s undeserved love for sinners, we nonetheless have our own personal ideas about those who are more deserving of that undeserved love than others. Do you see how nonsensical that is? 

It will always be that way to us as long as we insist on viewing man’s relationship with God being based – even the slightest, itty-bittiest bit – on what man is giving instead of entirely on what he is getting. We simply cannot base our relationship with God on what we give to him, even on our best days.

So although we might think that ideal family-man father or the dedicated single mom or the polite, respectable hard-working young adult all have so much going for them that God should take notice and factor that in to his final assessment of who’s in and who’s out, the Bible has plenty to say about thinking we could on our own give anything of worth to God or show ourselves to somehow be more deserving of grace. “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).

If you want to offer up your dirty, stinky laundry to God in hopes that it’s not as dirty or stinky as the next person’s, you are welcome to try. But at the end of the day, all you’re still offering is dirty, stinky laundry – nothing that would in any way endear God to you anymore, but would actually leave you worse off! So as much as we might try to polish it up or put on a fresh coat of paint or splash some perfume on it, the best we can offer up to God on our own is still nothing but condemning sin.

No, there is no place for our relationship with God being based on what we give. It can only be based on what we get. And in that sense, God’s fairness is faultless, because he treats everyone the same: his undeserved grace is for everyone – no matter when they show up in the work day. So yes, there is grace enough for the death-bed convert. There is grace enough for the death row inmate. There is grace enough for the top-ten list of all-time most wicked, wretched people in history. There is grace enough for your nasty neighbor. There is grace enough for your racist uncle. There is grace enough for the backsliding Christian. There is grace enough for all… so there is grace enough for you. 

If God wants all people to be saved – and he does, based on his own words repeated again and again in the Bible – then the only way that can happen is if he refuses to base salvation on what we pretend we can give him and insists on being the One who gives it to us. What he gives us – all of us – is unmerited, unwarranted, unconditional, unlimited grace. That’s the only way it can be fair. 

That also explains why God is so persistent and committed to making sure everyone is aware of his grace. Did you count how many times in Jesus’ parable the landowner went out to hire workers for his vineyard? Five times! While the number itself is not significant, the message it sends is clear – God continues to make sure his Word keeps spreading. God continues to make sure the good news reaches every ear. God continues to make sure no one misses out so that no one can say, “No one hired us,” that is, that they didn’t know about Jesus and the radical grace God extends through him.

Let us not forget, we are an important part of that. God gathers his church – believers – and uses us to keep sending out the message that God is hiring. There’s more room in his vineyard, his kingdom. There’s more than enough grace to go around. There is more than enough grace to forgive every sin. There is more work that needs to be done in his kingdom, so let us be about that hiring process and bringing others in so that he can lavish them with the grace he eagerly desires to give out. 

Then, let us rejoice – and not resent – when he does. We want to guard against displaying the attitude of the all-day workers in Jesus’ parable, no matter how long we’ve been in the kingdom. When they received their payment, “they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day’” (Mt. 20:11-12).

If their attitude sounds oddly familiar, it might call to mind the attitude of the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son. Just as he resented what he felt was the misdirected forgiveness and compassion of the father to his wayward brother, so those working all day long resented the short-shift workers receiving the same payment as the day-long laborers. If God wants all to experience the full measure of his grace, then let’s throw a celebration every time anyone receives it! 

Because there are still far too many who are outside of the vineyard. Some don’t know about the grace God has in store for them. Others are not interested in the grace God has in store for them. Still others are adamantly opposed to the grace God has in store for them or simply don’t think they need it to manage their way into the vineyard. Whatever the reason, there are still far too many on the outside looking in.

Let’s do what is in our power to do to get them into the vineyard. Let’s tell them the greatest story ever – the reality of the Savior they have in Jesus, a story for all people. Then, let us rejoice – not resent – every single victory that God generously grants through his grace.  

A Quick-to-Forgive Church

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(Genesis 50:15-21)

Joseph’s life has all the makings of an unforgettable revenge story. Jealous brothers plotted his murder. After having tempered their resentment a bit, however, they settled for selling him as a slave instead. Then, despite exceptional performance reviews and a very respectable reputation as a servant in his master’s house, Joseph’s world came crashing down again. He was the victim of vindictive lies and slander that not only ruined his reputation, but landed him in prison. Even in prison, despite his commendable behavior restoring his good name and the assistance he provided to others in his God-given interpretations of their dreams, he was still forgotten and overlooked for a time by those he helped.

Finally, though, the door opened up for him to ascend to the role of the most powerful man in Egypt next to Pharaoh himself! That’s when the opportunity for what surely could have been one of the most memorable stories of revenge presented itself. His brothers found themselves unknowingly in his presence, completely at his mercy while seeking aid for their starving families. Oh, how Joseph could have unleashed his wrath as a result of decades of pent-up spite, bitterness, and resentment! It would have been a story for the ages!

And it was. It still is. But not for the reason we might have expected; not for revenge. Instead, it’s a story for the ages because of something far more powerful than revenge: Joseph’s choice to forgive his brothers. 

As The Church God Wants series wraps up, it shouldn’t surprise us at that God desires that his Church – that believers – be quick to forgive. Forgiveness is both how and why the Church even exists in the first place! The Church is not just the beneficiary of forgiveness, but its executor as well. We receive it and we distribute it. We are filled up with it and we fill others up with it. If there is one thing the Church is to do and be known for, it must always be forgiveness.

Why is that? Because no other group or institution in society bears that responsibility. Your employer is not required to teach or model forgiveness to you. “Forgiveness 101” is not a required course of study in our public schools or higher education institutions. Your kid’s coach or piano teacher is not being paid or volunteering to help your child learn about forgiveness. The government has not established any rules or regulations to foster forgiveness by threat of fine or jail time (which would of course be a bit ironic). Finally, while in many cities you will have no problem finding community centers, homeless shelters, and food pantries, I have yet to hear of anything resembling a “forgiveness facility.” 

You won’t find such things elsewhere because even society – non-believers and believers alike – realizes that forgiveness is really the church’s business. Forgiveness has historically been understood to be the church’s responsibility.

For that reason, those outside the church tend to pay very close attention when those who belong to it – Christians – fail to forgive. Even they recognize that’s what the Church exists to do… even if they don’t fully recognize the how or why, which is of course one and the same: Jesus.

The Church forgives because the Church exists as a result of Jesus’ forgiveness. Remove his perfect life of obedience from the equation and his death on the cross would not have mattered. Take away his death on the cross and the empty tomb would not have been possible. Do away with the empty tomb, leaving a still-dead-today Jesus, and his payment would have been insufficient and death and hell would still reign. 

But, since we have all of those and everything else that we need in Jesus, we have forgiveness. As long as the church has Jesus, she has all she needs to continue as the source of freely-flowing forgiveness. That means we have something both to receive and to give. What is our part in that? Our role involves both hearing and speaking that forgiveness and each case, for various reasons, sometimes that is very difficult and sometimes it comes quite easily.

When it comes to hearing that forgiveness, it can at times be one of the hardest things of all to hear and at other times the sweetest music to our ears. What accounts for the difference? How could forgiveness ever be hard to hear?

When we don’t feel we need it. After all, when a person has “done nothing wrong,” then there’s nothing to forgive. And that would be true… if we could ever actually figure out how to avoid all wrongdoing. Our shortcoming, however, is our failure to see our wrong or identify it as such. If we spent as much time simply owning our sin and confessing it as we do denying it, excusing it, or blaming others for it, then there would be less kicking and screaming and insisting on our innocence and more reconciliation and healing. 

Those are the times when forgiveness is pure music to our ears – when our guilty ears long to hear it and our troubled hearts know we need it. When the law has done its job and exposed me as the fraud I am in so many ways, I am ready to receive the sweet freedom that only the gospel of forgiveness offers. When my stubbornness, my grudge-bearing, my refusal to forgive others, my selfishness, my stinging words, my neglect of God, my reckless spending – when all of this becomes clearly evident and our guilt won’t let go, then we crave the assurance that Jesus gives. Then we soak up his forgiveness. At those times we cannot hear it too much. 

Hearing forgiveness can be hard or easy, depending on how ready our hearts are to receive it. But speaking words of forgiveness can challenge us as well. Sometimes the words are difficult to speak and other times forgiveness seems to ease effortlessly from our lips. Why is that? How could forgiveness ever be hard to speak? When we feel the other person doesn’t deserve it.

But we must stop right there and be very clear about something before we go on. 

It’s only a worldly – and therefore rather limited and virtually impotent – version of forgiveness that attaches any sense of requirement to it. Only the world speaks of forgiveness in terms of the guilty party somehow being deserving enough or sorry enough or pitiful enough for forgiveness. In other words, it’s a limited forgiveness, a conditional one. 

But God’s forgiveness that extends through his Church is not at all like that. It isn’t limited. It isn’t conditional. It isn’t at all dependent on how deserving the recipient may or may not be, because it is entirely grace-based. That means it isn’t ever deserved and cannot ever be earned. So the kind of forgiveness that is withheld because someone has determined the guilty party doesn’t deserve it is not the kind of forgiveness found in the church. 

When we find it difficult to forgive others, it’s because we’re focused on the world’s “forgiveness” and not the Church’s. That happens when we focus on the wrong itself and how awful it was or the wrongdoer himself and how awful he is to have committed it. Where either the gravity of the wrong committed or the degree of wickedness of the wrongdoer himself is the determining factor, forgiveness will always be conditional.

That also means it will be subjective. One person who determines the wrong or the wrongdoer wasn’t really that bad may find it easy to forgive, while another person may struggle mightily with the same sin because of a different personal experience or perception of that sin. So the kind of forgiveness dependent on the gravity of the crime or the wickedness of the perpetrator – a forgiveness not sanctioned in the Bible, by the way – will always be hard to speak. 

Other times, though, words of forgiveness are come easily. When?

When we focus not on the wrongdoer, but on our forgiver, Jesus. Yes, you read that right – when we focus on our forgiver. That is always the best and necessary place to start. I need to put myself at the center of the investigation and lay bare my whole history, my whole track record of sin, remembering all the despicable stuff I’ve done.

Then, when I realize that God has not withheld his forgiveness for any one of my sins, but that Jesus’ blood has covered and washed away every last one, it seems downright laughable that I should stand before someone else and pretend that his wrong is the exception. How absurd that I could accept that my sin should be cancelled but that his sin could not possibly be. Those are the moments when it hits me why Jesus told the story of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18. He wanted to convict me of how ludicrous it is of me to ever withhold forgiveness from someone else until they _______________ (fill in the blank with any requirement you’d like to attach).

No, forgiveness comes so much more easily when I look first at who has forgiven me. When I see Jesus nailed to the cross, imagining a banner with the words, “Paid in full” over him, I see no ground to stand on where I can withhold Jesus’ same payment from someone else. No matter what they’ve done. No matter how much what they did hurt me. No matter how much ongoing damage it causes me. No matter how much I might still be processing it even years later.

When I let go of the burden of trying to pretend the heavy weight of dispensing forgiveness is mine to bear and instead remember that Jesus already carried that weight and earned my forgiveness, then I can freely and fully forgive others. 

That’s why Joseph wept. He had already forgiven his brothers. But he was finding out how hard it can be for that forgiveness to sink in. He had forgiven his brothers 17 years ago, and here they were still terrified that the real punishment they deserved was going to be be exacted upon them after their dad died and Joseph no longer had to “fake” forgiveness. 

But in place of the retribution his brothers expected, they received reassurance. Instead of demanding restitution from his brothers for all the harm they had done to him, he promised to provide for all their families’ needs. No revenge, just forgiveness in its place. Joseph didn’t dwell on the damage his brothers had done to him, but rather on the good God had worked through him. “But Joseph said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.’ And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them” (v.19-21). 

Notice something rather profound in Joseph’s words. He knew full well the responsibility of making sure justice was carried out perfectly was not his, but God’s. “Am I in the place of God,” he asked. Of course not!

However, we are, in a sense, in the place of God today. We are in the place of God when we apply his forgiveness to others who know they need it. We are in the place of God when we withhold that forgiveness from God for those who see no sin in themselves that needs forgiving. God has given that responsibility to his church to forgive, as he has forgiven us. Then alone do we stand in the place of God, as if God himself were the one pronouncing his forgiveness upon a penitent sinner. That is exactly what God wants in us. That is exactly the kind of church God wants – a quick-to-forgive church. May we always be just that, and may others always see that when they look at us. 

A Church Willing to Say Hard Things

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(Galatians 2:11-16)

Your doctor’s office. The boss’s office. Your child’s classroom with the teacher. We don’t typically look forward to being called into any of these places, and with good reason: difficult conversations often follow. Getting called for a consult with your doctor after a recent appointment can mean he has bad news. The boss probably isn’t calling you in to praise or commend you, but to correct or discipline you. Your child’s teacher is not likely in just meeting with you to tell you what a great job junior is doing, but probably to share some concerns. Those can be hard conversations.

Like it or not (most often not!), there is also a place for hard conversations within the church. In fact, that is the kind of church that God wants – one that is willing to say hard things. What exactly does that mean and how do we carry it out?

First of all, realize the reason the church will always need to say hard things, which is sometimes forgotten: every church has in common that it is made up of sinners. That seems like it should go without saying, but sometimes we either get the idea or give others the impression that belonging to a church means we’ve somehow figured out the secret sauce to sinlessness. All the “mostly-good” people gather at church while the “not-so-good” folks out there sin rather nonchalantly as they go about their daily business.

“Sure, we might commit a few minor whoopsies on occasion, but nothing like those major whoppers everyone out there is committing left and right.” But, deny it as much as you will, the hard truth is that the ugly sinful nature that is still a part of each one of us is just as capable of carrying out the ugly sinful stuff we see in the world. So what sets us apart is not primarily the absence of sin in our lives, but the presence of the Savior who forgives it. That is why we gather as the church. 

And it is that Savior and his gospel – the good news of what he’s done for sinners – that both requires us and inspires us to say hard things. When we are discussing hard matters with fellow Christians, we do so in a safe space, because we do so in a space saturated with the gospel. When the gospel as a safety-net beneath us, we have no reason to fear having difficult or even uncomfortable conversations. We have every right to assume that our faith family cares enough about our souls to prioritize those conversations. And we can both speak and hear these hard things because we know that they are gospel-driven and gospel-guided in an effort to be gospel-guarding. That means we can check individual agendas or bones to pick at the door and stay focused on how we can apply the gospel to help God’s church thrive. 

So what exactly are the kinds of hard things that the church needs to say? We see an example in Galatians. Paul was compelled to say a hard thing, and he didn’t shy away from explaining why it had to happen: “they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel” (v.14).

The very gospel was at stake! The message on which the church stands or falls was being compromised. When Paul saw that the gospel was in jeopardy, there was no question – he knew he had to speak up and say a hard thing.

While that reason alone (the gospel coming under attack) is sufficient for speaking up, Paul went a step further to explain what the collateral damage is when the truth of the gospel is at stake: souls are at stake, too.

As much as Paul and Peter (Cephas) were both pillars of the early church, Paul showed his personal care for his brother’s soul. “When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned” (v.11). Paul wasn’t mincing words – if he didn’t address the situation, Peter’s actions could very well have led to his spiritual downfall. 

Do we forget that sin has the potential for doing so much more damage than just a little wrong here or there? We need to think of sin not like that little bit of a beverage that spilled on the counter top and can so easily be wiped up, but more like a semi tanker toppling over and spilling toxic liquid everywhere. Sin doesn’t wish to be contained. It wants to expand its reach until it contaminates everything around it, eventually rendering even faith itself ineffective. Paul had to speak the hard truth to Peter, because he was more concerned about Peter’s salvation than about Peter’s reputation. 

As an example of sin extending its reach to others, Paul recognized how Peter’s sinful actions were influencing those around him. “The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray” (v13). Others viewed Peter’s actions as thumbs up to follow his example, and their collective example then carried enough weight to cause even Barnabas to stumble. See how large the radius of sin’s reach was becoming! Paul had to speak the hard truth to Peter, because he was concerned about the impact his actions were having on the salvation of others. 

How do Paul’s actions relate to us in 2023? Does the church today still need to say hard things? Absolutely. When? What does that look like? As the gospel itself compels us to say hard things, how do we know when those hard conversations need to happen? While there’s no guarantee that saying the hard things will ever be easy, there are a number of things we can consider to guide us in this process. 

First of all, we want to make sure the situation legitimately calls for the hard truth to be spoken. Not every difference or disagreement merits this kind of attention. If we are in the realm of Christian freedom and personal preference, while there certainly may be some discussion around those matters, those aren’t usually the kind that call for a rebuke or a call to repentance. Whether we should have tri-tip or hotdogs for the barbecue does not merit any sort of confrontation. Attending Christmas Eve or Christmas Day worship does not require a rebuke. 

So what sort of criteria does? We look for anyone or anything that might either gloss over the gospel or cast aside the cross by insisting that someone or something else be the central focus. When the gospel is at stake, the church has an obligation to say hard things, because where the gospel is compromised, so is the church. Where the gospel is lost, so is the church. 

Once we are certain of the gravity of the matter, that it is in fact that serious and does require the tough conversation, we do well do run another quick assessment. We want to check our own heart. We might have correctly spotted the need to say a hard word, but we also better make sure that our heart is in the right place to initiae the conversation.

That means it isn’t looking to relish the opportunity to lay into someone else who rubs me the wrong way. That means my heart isn’t approaching this conversation as a means to bump itself up another notch closer to heaven and come away looking more favorable. That means my heart isn’t seizing this as merely a distraction from some personal repair work that needs to be done on me. If any of those things are going on in your own heart, then you’re not the right person to be saying the hard thing.

Another thing to consider: if speaking about spiritual/faith matters and matters of the heart is not normal for you, consider how it might come across to someone else who is not use to hearing you speak about such things. It could possibly cause unecessary confusion if you appear to be bringing it up seemingly out of nowhere.

The wife who has never watched a down of the NFL in her life might leave her husband feeling a little skeptical when she starts making suggestions for his fantasy football draft. A husband who doesn’t realize that Versace isn’t the name of a new Italian restaurant in town is probably going to see a puzzled look from his wife when he starts discussing fashion trends.

So if spiritual matters are not a regular part of your conversation, it might unnecessarily catch someone off guard to hear you speak up with a hard saying. The solution to that is not just to write off ever discussing hard things, but rather to take some baby steps in the direction of making your faith in Jesus perhaps a more natural part of your conversations. 

Finally, Paul spells out in a lengthier description why it matters that we contend for the gospel. “[We] know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified” (v.16). Peter was confusing the good news of the gospel. He was combining a message that is believed for salvation with works that must also be achieved for salvation. To that message of being declared not guilty (“justified”), Peter was adding the need to make sure he stuck with the kosher diet and sat at the right table apart from the Gentiles.

Since he had known previously that his place in heaven had nothing to do with what he ate or where he sat here on earth, it was causing a stumbling block for those around him to suddenly see him revert back to his old Jewish customs. 

When a brother or sister in Christ confuses the gospel in any way at all to imply that any work or effort must accompany the saving work of Jesus’ perfect life, suffering, and death, we have to speak up. We have to have a hard conversation. Their soul depends on it. Other souls will likely also depend on it. The gospel must win, and that means guarding it at all cost.

That’s the church God wants. For that reason, it’s also the church we want to be.

A Self< Church

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(Matthew 16:21-26)

The boss just laid out the plan for the next project at work. The goal was clearly communicated and comprehended so that everyone knew what they were trying to accomplish. All departments understood their specific roles in the project. Each individual team member was provided with the direction needed to help their department succeed and contribute toward achieving success in the specific effort. So it came as a bit of a shock when, after the boss had finished his presentation, one particular employee stood up and simply said, “Yeah, we’re not going to be doing this. This isn’t going to happen. Not on my watch.”

How long do you suppose that employee would remain with the company? Not long at all!

Jesus could have done much more than just fire Peter for his defiant remark. In his Gospel account of the incident, Matthew records for us what had caused Peter to feel compelled to take Jesus to task: “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life” (v.21).

Peter had only a short time ago confessed that he knew Jesus was the One, the Messiah that God had promised repeatedly throughout history. However, Jesus’ explanation of how he would be carrying out his work didn’t align with the political aspirations Peter had for the Messiah. As Peter saw it, Jesus’ suffering and death were not part of his plan, so he had to take drastic measures. “Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!’” (v.22). 

We’re quite used to Peter putting his foot in his mouth. It’s easy to understand why he wouldn’t want to stand by and approve of a plan that involved the suffering and death of his Jesus. He had a heart, after all. He cared about Jesus.

But his objection was actually much more selfish – sinister even. In fact, as Jesus’ response indicated, it was downright satanic. “Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns’” (v.23).     

Whoa! Isn’t that going a bit farther than necessary? Is Jesus doing one of those hyperbole things where he uses an over-the-top extreme to make his point? You hear people joke about temptation from others (“C’mon, just have one more piece of dessert – it’s sooooooo good!”) with a, “Get behind me, Satan,” but Jesus was not at all joking. He was deadly serious. 

Because so is Satan. Peter’s rebuttal to Jesus’ teaching was not just a matter of misguided concern a guy had for his friend. It wasn’t because he had a better plan in mind (as if there could have been one!). Rather, it was an attempt on the part of Satan to thwart God’s plan of salvation. 

Jesus had made it clear that these things (his suffering, death, and resurrection) “must” (v.21) happen. They had to. This was the plan God had in mind to carry out the substitutionary work salvation required. The perfect Lamb, Jesus Christ, had to be offered up as the only sacrifice that could serve as payment for sin. Jesus had to suffer and die. “It must be this way,” he told his disciples. 

So also today, anything that opposes the good news of the gospel – anything at all – comes from the evil one. There is no harmless indifference to the gospel. There are no alternative plans or paths that might work out. There are no religions or false gods that could provide forgiveness and eternal life. There was and there is no other way to a right relationship with God than through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Anything else – anything at all – comes from the evil one.

The scariest part of all of this? Look what drove Peter’s objection: “human concerns.” It wasn’t some deep theological truth that Peter had uncovered that prompted him to rebuke Jesus; it was his own ideas about who Jesus was supposed to be and how he was supposed to proceed.

Peter wasn’t concerned about God’s plans. Peter wasn’t concerned about Jesus’ plans. Peter wasn’t concerned about the other disciples’ plans. No, Peter was concerned about Peter’s plans, and Peter’s plans only. 

Does that same selfish concern that each and every one of us is capable of help you grasp why Jesus explained discipleship the way he did? “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’” (v.24). “You want to be my disciple? You want to follow me? OK, first things, first, we have to get you out of the way. We have to get self out of the picture, or he’ll only serve to provide a platform for the devil to go to work. And the only way to do that is for you to deny the most difficult person on the planet to deny: yourself.” 

I was recently reminded of why this is the most challenging thing of all for us to do by a quote from a little book, What’s Big Starts Small. In it, the author warns about why pride can be so destructive to the growth of our faith. He writes, “But pride offers an objection that makes you the exception” (p.42). That is just another way of saying that self is an expert at pretending it has permission for whatever it wants. “What is wrong for you is clear as day, but here’s why it isn’t wrong when I do it.” 

“Yes, I got a little angry and lost control, but it was justifiable in light of what the other person did.” “Of course the stay-at-home mom shouldn’t be drinking excessively during the day and putting her kids at risk, but my job is 100 times more stressful and a few drinks every night help me relax.” “There is no reason for a guy to ever push a girl around, but our relationship is different and her level of disrespect is unacceptable.” “Blatantly walking a full cart out of the store without paying is one thing, but what I’m skimming from the register is just enough to get me by until things get better and of course I’ll pay it all back.”

Pride – self – makes me the exception. It does the same for you. That’s why Jesus says we must deny it and let it die. “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (v.25). 

But what about the risk of not looking out for ourselves? If we don’t, who else will? How can we be sure that this practice of denying self is going to work out in the end? If we don’t advocate for ourselves, who else will?

I think you know the answer, but let me try to state it a little bit differently than you’re probably used to hearing it. Here is the bottom line: You cannot care about yourself more than Jesus does.

You cannot care about yourself more than Jesus does.

Do you understand? No matter how much you want to buy into the world’s emphasis on the importance of self-care and self-image and self-love and self-esteem and self-discovery and self… etc. – all of that put together into perfect practice will never amount to caring about yourself more than Jesus does. 

If that were not true, it would have been you on the cross and not him.

If that were not true, it would have been you condemned for your sin instead of him.

If that were not true, he would have allowed you to be abandoned and forsaken by the Father and not him.

But since he bore all of that on himself for you, let there never be any doubt that no one ever has and no one ever will care more about you than Jesus. 

So let go of the lie and live free. Shut out the internal pleas to serve self first and everyone else second. Jesus has you covered and now he wants to use you to help make sure everyone else knows they’re covered by him, too.

When we deny self, when we set down self, instead of dragging that care and concern with us wherever we go, then we’ve got free hands. With those hands, we find it much easier to pick up the crosses that are all around us. 

The cross of patient sacrifice in your strained marriage to a demanding spouse is much lighter when you set down self. The cross that comes in the shape of the extra workload you carry at work for the demeaning co-worker who doesn’t miss the opportunity to poke fun at your faith here and there. The cross of confusion over why God continues to permit the chronic pain that you’ve dealt with for years. The cross of abuse and its long-term effects. The cross of addiction that lingers despite the overall progress. The cross of family members struggling with identity and sexuality.

These crosses are not light, to be sure, but we are able to bear them much more effectively when we aren’t also carrying around the weight of self. 

And, we are able to bear them much more effectively when we realize we never bear them alone. We can be confident of this because we know Jesus’ own answer to his rhetorical question at the close of these verses. Jesus asked, “Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” (v.26). Our answer, everyone’s answer, is of course, “Nothing.”

Jesus, though, has a different answer: “Everything.” He literally gave up everything for our souls. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). Only One perfectly denied self. Only One perfectly lost his life. Only Jesus, and Jesus alone is our hope. 

Are you worried about what will happen if you cast off the perceived need to look out for yourself above all else? Worry not, for as much as your old self lies to you about looking out for number one, here is the truth we must remember: You cannot possibly care about yourself more than Jesus does. If that, dear friends, is true – and it absolutely is – then you are freed from yourself. Jesus has you covered. Go and be the church he wants, the self< church.