Get in the Boat

I am currently studying the Book of Matthew. I just studied the end of Matthew 6 where the Lord tells us to not worry about anything, but to trust the gracious, sovereign provision of God and to seek God’s kingdom above all else. Very timely (as always). One of the references took me to the account of Jesus calming the storm in Matthew 8. I was struck by several things in this passage and how I can relate them to my current “storm.” At Re-Connect at Rolling Fields this evening, someone felt led to read this same passage. I think God is trying to tell me something. :)

And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.
And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” Matthew 8:23-27

Here is my mini-exposition:

1. Jesus led the disciples into the boat (“His disciples followed Him"). Jesus Christ is sovereign. He upholds everything, both the good and the bad, by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:3). He knows the plans He has for His children and He works all circumstances for their good (Jeremiah 29:11; Romans 8:28). He led the disciples into this storm for their good and for His glory. He wanted to reveal Himself to them in a way they would not have seen had He not brought them into the storm. The Lord is doing the same thing in my life. He has allowed certain circumstances into my life to unsettle me so that He can give me more of Himself (what a glorious thought!).

2. Jesus slept on the boat. His faith in God was perfect. He knew the storm was coming, but had perfect peace. His disciples, however, thought He was unaware, unconcerned and unavailable. Even though Jesus was with them, they were afraid. I am no different than these disciples. I am not trusting God even though He is with me (Matthew 28:20). My focus is on the storm instead of Christ. I feel that God is unconcerned and unavailable as the waves toss and swamp the boat I am in.

3. Jesus is in complete control and wants to test their faith. When the disciples cried out to Jesus, He came to their rescue. He rebuked the winds and waves with a word (a word!). He brought peace in the midst of the storm. Then He rebukes His disciples for their lack of faith. The Gospel of Luke records Jesus as saying, “Where is your faith?” (Luke 8:25). Jesus is asking me the same question.

4. The disciples saw Christ for who He was. “What sort of Man is this that even the winds and sea obey Him?” The answer: this is no ordinary man. This is God in the flesh. How can they not trust Him? How can I not trust Him?

We just started a sermon series through the Book of Colossians at RF, called “The Supremacy of Christ in All Things.” It couldn’t have come at a better time for me personally. I desperately need to be reminded and refocused on Christ’s supremacy. The sermons have reminded me that my purpose is to make much of Christ. Even in these trials, I am to make much of Christ. Shamefully, I have allowed other things to distract me from His glory and beauty. But these things can’t satisfy me. Only Christ can do that. At the end of his sermons, Pastor Andy has been asking us “The Question of the Day.” Today’s question: What do you need Christ to be for you? I need Him to be my Strength. I am weary with battling the flesh and battling the enemy. I am weary with waiting. I am wearing with unanswered questions. I am weary with deferred hopes. Quite frankly, I am wearing with trusting (which is a sin that I am confessing regularly to the Lord). BUT Jesus Christ is my Sustainer. He will complete His work in me and He will see that I persevere through this period (and the many more than I am sure will come). I need Him to be my Strength and He is my Strength. And I just need to rest in that.

    “Behold, God is my salvation;
        I will trust, and will not be afraid;
    for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song,
        and he has become my salvation.” Isaiah 12:2

Lessons Learned in the Dark :: Vulnerability

Where is your faith? That is what the Lord keeps asking me and, honestly, it’s nowhere to be found. I am having trouble trusting, trouble believing and I am not really sure why. I have been in this spiritual funk for several weeks now and I hate it. I read some of my former posts and journal entries and feel so far removed from the girl who wrote them. (How’s this for vulnerability?)

Apparently, I am in the Master’s refining fire once again. He is preparing me for overseas service, I am sure, and, boy, does He have His work cut out for Him because I am a sinful mess. Not that He’s surprised, but I am. I am worse than I thought (as we always tend to think better of ourselves than we actually are; sin is deceitful like that). One of the lessons of 2011 that continues into this year, and probably will continue until the day I die, is vulnerability/transparency/dependence upon others. This is not my favorite lesson. It is extremely hard on my prideful, independent self, but it is very necessary.

In fact, we are called to this. Whether in a church family or in ministry or with family and friends, we are to be sharing ourselves with others. Now, granted, you have to use wisdom in what you share with whom, but in order for any relationship to grow deep, there must be mutual sharing done among the two parties. The Apostle Paul lived out this principle and it can be seen in his New Testament letters. At times he was very vulnerable, even with those he had never met face to face.

So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.
1 Thessalonians 2:8

The Lord has brought circumstances into my life in such a way as to force me to rely on other people in a spiritual and emotional way. You see, I am not one to express my emotions. It was never really encouraged growing up, so I learned to shut them in or express them in solitude. This has continued into adulthood, but sometimes now I just refuse to feel the emotion/pain/whatever. But it’s still there. I deceive myself at the time into thinking that all is well and that I am unaffected, but eventually the pain comes back around at an unexpected time and then I have to deal with it. So, the Lord is teaching me to be honest and open with my emotions. He is teaching me that it is okay to cry in front of others. It is not a sign of weakness, but an expression of the emotion at hand that needs to be released. And Christ has allowed much in my life in the past 15 months that has needed release (just ask my brothers and sisters at Rolling Fields Church :).

On top of the tears, I am learning to share my struggles and to confess my sins before others. The healing and freedom that comes from that is amazing. The Lord is showing me the sisters He has placed into my life for this very purpose: for us to be completely vulnerable with one another in such a way that it spurs us on towards Christlikeness. God created us for community and while we should always go to Him first for everything, He places His children in local congregations for them to help each other along in this walk of faith. The journey was not made to be done alone. This is why we need each other.

The very sweet lesson in this has been the body of Christ – my brothers and sisters in the Lord who have prayed for, encouraged, comforted, listened to and even rebuked me when necessary as I laid my heart and tears before them. I am learning that they are there for me no matter what and that they are indeed my family as Christ says they will be (Mark 10:29-30). I am very thankful for them.

This lesson continues and I know there is much good to be gleaned from it. Just before I wrote this post, I was encouraged by a sister in the Lord and fellow blogger who was recounting how the Lord met her in her troubles with 2 Corinthians 4:16-18. I needed this verse as well.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

The Wrath and the Blood, part 2

In the last post, I talked about God's wrath - His holy anger - against us because we constantly reject Him and His law. God's wrath has been building up against us and He says He is weary of holding it in (Jeremiah 6:11). But in His wrath, God remembered mercy (Micah 5:15) and in His compassion, He has atoned for our sins (Psalm 78:38). He did this by sending His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to live and die in our place, to take the punishment we deserve.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Romans 5:6-11

Jesus Christ left the glory and honor of heaven in order to take on human flesh and live the life we are created and called to live (but we don't, Romans 3:23). He perfectly obeyed every single one of God's commandments. He perfectly loved God and others. He was the perfect Man and He was the perfect sacrifice (the sacrifice that all the sacrifices of the Old Testament were pointing towards). Then He died the most gruesome death, bearing the weight of our sins and absorbing the full weight of God's wrath against us. His slaughter means the appeasement of God's wrath. His slaughter saves us (Isaiah 53:4-7). The Lord Jesus knew this was His calling, His purpose. It was planned before the foundations of the world (Ephesians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:20; Revelation 13:8). The cup of God's wrath was given to Him to drink and He drunk every drop of it. When He was in the garden praying fervently to the Father because He knew His time of sacrifice was near, He asked the Father to remove this cup from Him if it was possible, but it wasn't (Mark 14:6). He didn't dread the beatings. He didn't dread the whip of cords. He didn't dread the nails and the cross or the mockings. He dreaded the alienation from God (Matthew 27:46). He had always been in perfect fellowship with the Father and for the first time, God the Father would turn away from His Son while His Son took on the sins of the whole world. I cannot even imagine the spiritual weight of this. Sometimes the Lord allows me to see a glimpse of the ugliness of my sin, but it's just a glimpse...and it is extremely ugly...and Christ bore all of it. He refused to numb the pain (Matthew 27:34) and bore it all and then He declared it was finished (John 19:30). The wrath of God against His people for their sins was completely absorbed by the perfect Son of God. He delivers us from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). He bought us with His blood. That was the price and He paid it (1 Corinthians 6:20). In full.

This is really good news. This is the reason we celebrate Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. This is what we will be celebrating for all eternity. And it will never grow old.

   And they sang a new song, saying,
    “Worthy are You, O Christ, to take the scroll
        and to open its seals,
    for You were slain, and by Your blood You ransomed people for God
        from every tribe and language and people and nation,
    and You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
        and they shall reign on the earth.” Revelation 5:9-10

The Wrath and the Blood, part 1

Today is Good Friday. It seems to be an occasion that is barely noticed anymore. I admit myself that Easter weekend snuck up on me and I have not had the time I usually do each year to concentrate more fully on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This event that stands at the pinnacle of history is something we believers need to be thinking about on a daily basis, not just during the time that we call Easter, but I think it is good that we have this designated time of the year that focuses our hearts and minds on the event the originated and defines our faith.

I have lately been thinking about God’s wrath (anger) against sin and sinners. It is not something that we Christians like to talk about. We prefer to talk about God’s unconditional love and His rescue of us, which is all true and good, but it is not the full story. In our zeal to proclaim God’s love shown in Christ to the world, we forget to tell the whole story, to describe the full nature of God as He has revealed in His Word. Before people can truly appreciate what Jesus Christ did on the cross, they have to see their need for His work. They have to see their need for a Savior and, in order for us to see our need for a Savior, we have to know what we need saving from. Yes, we need saving from our sins. Yes, we need saving from hell. Yes, we need saving from ourselves. But, most of all, we need to be saved from God. Now, I know that fact alarms people. We tend to depict God as this lovey-dovey teddy bear that winks at the wrong by His tolerant, “unconditional” love. God is love, yes. God is good, yes. God longs for all people to know Him, yes. But God is also completely holy and just. While He is a very personal God, He is completely other than us. He is perfect; we are not. Already we have a problem. His purity cannot look on our impurity (Psalm 5:4). He is the standard of perfection (Deuteronomy 32:4). He makes the rules, but we break them…every single day. We all know we’re not perfect. It’s even become a part of our everyday lingo, “Look. Nobody’s perfect.” Nobody, that is, except for God. And Perfection cannot dwell with imperfection. And the bad news is there is nothing we can do about it. Once you’re not perfect, you can never become perfect. Once you’ve made one mistake, it’s over. 

That’s bad news, but it gets worse. Not only does our imperfection, our sins, our breaking of God’s law, separate us from God (Isaiah 59:2), but they kindle His holy anger against us (2 Kings 22:13). We are constantly breaking God’s law (the ones written in His Word and the one written on our consciences) and what does law-breaking require? Punishment. God is infinite in being and we have infinitely offended Him; therefore, we deserve infinite punishment. God is not only love, but He is just. Someone has to pay the price for the wrongs that we commit. We cannot outdo the bad things we have done by trying to do enough good things. God declares that our righteousness deeds are as filth to Him (Isaiah 64:6). If you look at the other religions of the world, they are trying to do exactly like – earn their salvation by keeping “the rules” and doing as much good as they can in this lifetime. Christianity is different. There is no cosmic scale because, the truth is, we could never earn our way into God’s favor. We don’t deserve His forgiveness and He would be right to annihilate us because we offend Him every single day (Psalm 7:11). We are storing up wrath for ourselves (Romans 2:5). His anger burns hot against us (Exodus 32:10; Jonah 3:9). The power of His wrath against us all apart from Christ (Ezra 8:22), yet, we do not consider this (Psalm 90:11). Even though God’s wrath has been revealed to us, we suppress the truth (Romans 1:18). We do not want Him or His ways (John 1:10-11).

God’s wrath in the Bible is described as a cup, one that is full to the brim with His anger (Isaiah 51:17, 22; Matthew 26:39; Revelation 14:10). It’s a cup that must be drunk in order for God’s justice to be satisfied, but it’s a cup we cannot endure. It’s a cup that means our destruction. BUT there is a remedy. Blood.

Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Hebrews 9:22

The news hasn’t got much better has it? I mean, this sounds a little messy. Whose blood? Well, it has to be perfect (that rules us out). This passage in the Book of Hebrews is talking about the sacrificial system described in the Old Testament part of the Bible. You know, those books that most people like to skip through that has all the detailed rules and sacrificial how-to’s and temple blueprints and many things we find dreadfully boring to read and non-applicable to us. Well the truth is those passages are very applicable to us. Every Word of God is profitable (2 Timothy 3:16-17). These passages are telling us something – something about God, about ourselves and about our relationship with Him. God told His people they had to make sacrifices every single day on behalf of every single person; and then on top of that at a special time once a week; and then on top of that at a special time once a month; and then on top of that at a special time once a year. That’s a lot of sacrificing. That’s a lot of animals. That’s a lot of blood.

 The once a year time was called the Day of Atonement and on that day, the man appointed as the high priest would go into the Most Holy Place, symbolizing God’s presence, and offer a sacrifice for all the sins of all the people (including his own). This was to stay God’s wrath for another year. And the day after the Day of Atonement, the daily sacrifices continued because “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin” (Hebrews 10:4).

"What do you think the sovereign God of the universe, the Judge of all was doing when He ordered this system? He was making the children of Israel stare at an animal about to have its life extinguished. He was making them smell it and see it and hear it. He was making them watch its throat cut and its blood spurt out and to watch the blood being caught in a vessel while the animals eyes started to glaze over. The children of Israel had to watch an animal twitch until it stopped twitching and then they saw the priest go into the Most Holy Place and “without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.” Why in the world did God choose this mechanism? It’s known only to His own sovereign determination, but its crudeness seems to be the very central part of it. God is making sinful humanity, even the sinners who are part of His covenant people, stare at this thing and see it and smell it and hear it and know that its crudeness is just a hint of the infinite horror of the offense of sin." Dr. Mohler, “The God Who Saves,” 2011 Expositors Conference

But this sacrificial system does not satisfy God’s wrath, it just abates it for a season. There is a better remedy, a permanent one. God’s saw that we could not save ourselves, so He accomplished our salvation. He provided a way to satisfy His own wrath. It’s still bloody. It still requires a sacrifice. But this time the blood is His own. (Acts 20:28). More on that in the next post.