God's Love in Your Language

What’s your ‘Love Language’?

Maybe you haven’t read Gary Chapman’s book The Five Love Languages. In it, Chapman describes five ways that we communicate our love for others: 1) Words of Affirmation; 2) Quality Time; 3) Acts of Service; 4) Gift-giving; 5) and Physical Touch.

Would you consider yourself a hugger? Then ‘Physical Touch’ might just be your love language.

Perhaps you’re a gift-giver – someone who is great at giving thoughtful, heartfelt gifts.

Maybe you say “I love you” with acts of service – fixing your spouse’s car, cleaning your neighbor’s gutters, picking your friend up from O’Hare during rush hour.

Do you feel loved when people listen to you over a cup of coffee, a phone call, or a long walk?

Then ‘Quality Time’ might be your love language.

But if you’re like me, you listen for ‘love’ in Words of Affirmation – words of appreciation, affirmation, empathy, and encouragement.

Now, to be clear, Gary Chapman’s theory that we all prefer one love language over another hasn’t been tested or proven. In fact, as you were thinking about those five love languages, you were probably sensing there was more than one that speaks to you.

Either way, it feels good when your friends, your neighbors, or your spouse speak your love language, doesn’t it? You feel validated. You feel belonging. You feel special. You feel like you’re seen – like you matter to someone.

Chapman’s point is this: if you want to relay “I love you” to someone, you’ll love them in their language.

Acts 2 is all about language. And when we would wonder how the good news of Jesus could possibly be clearly or effectively communicated to such a diverse audience, God the Holy Spirit would do just that. For a brief moment in time – God the Holy Spirit would uniquely and miraculously equip Jesus’ disciples to communicate to this diverse audience God’s love for them in their own language.

The Diversity of Pentecost

The Jewish Festival of Pentecost, or Shavout, “the Feast of Weeks”, was an annual harvest festival marking the end of the barley harvest and the beginning of the wheat harvest. 50 days after the celebration of the Passover, Israelites from all over the Mediterranean world would journey to Jerusalem to present a thank offering to God – the first fruits of their wheat harvest in the form of two loaves of bread. On this joyous day, Jerusalem’s population would swell by the thousands.

But Pentecost didn’t just draw a crowd; it drew a diverse crowd. 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs.

There may have been as many as 15 languages spoken by the diverse crowd of thousands and thousands of worshippers that gathered in Jerusalem for the Festival of Pentecost. These worshippers most certainly were fluent in either Aramaic, Greek, or both, but this diverse group of worshippers had a native language, too – a heart language from their homeland.

Put yourself in their shoes.

You’re in a different country using a language that isn’t natively yours to get around. Can you imagine how frustrating that would be? Trying to communicate or understand what others are saying to you, and yet – even at your best – something always seems to get lost in translation?

And that’s when you hear it: you hear your heart language cutting across all the other noise and commotion.

Your language would get your attention, wouldn’t it? You’d tune in to that message because it would appear that you are clearly part of its intended audience. You’d tune in because it would seem, whatever they had to say, that message is intended for someone just like you.

Can you imagine their reaction when this incredibly diverse crowd heard Jesus’ disciples proclaiming the good news of Jesus in their heart language? They were utterly amazed! But not just amazed. They were perplexed. They’re not only confused about the content of what they heard, but confused about the spectacular way it was being communicated to them. They heard these uneducated, Galilean men declaring the wonders of God fluently in their language and all the other languages of the worshippers who were there! And they ask the obvious: “What does this mean?”

“How does this event speak to me?”

But they’re not the only ones asking this question: we’re asking that question, too. “What does this mean? What does this event than happened at a Jewish harvest festival 2,000 years ago have to do with me living today?”

The 21st century skeptic would answer “absolutely nothing.” Our postmodern world may not dismiss this clearly miraculous event as those other onlookers did – writing it off as just a bunch of guys who’ve had too much to drink. But our world would read a story like this and wonder, “How is any of this still relevant? We’re so far removed from when these events happened! How does this account – or any Biblical account – overcome language barriers between us and the original audience who lived at a time and place radically different from mine? Why should I care about God equipping these men to communicate in different languages? There are dozens of apps I can download that can do the exact same thing! What makes this Pentecost so significant?”

But we’re tempted to respond in a similar way, aren’t we? We’re searching for ourselves in this story. We’re looking for ourselves in the diverse crowd of worshippers and we wonder, How does Pentecost speak to my declining health?

How does this miracle speak to my recent unemployment?

How does this event speak to my self-hatred and poor self-esteem?

How does this speak to my crippling anxiety? How does this speak to my fears about the immediate future?

How does this speak to the grief welling up within my heart?

How does this speak to my inability to love those who have cheated and wronged me?

How does this speak to my regrets and failures?

How does this speak to my feelings of guilt and shame?

How does this speak to the trainwreck that is my ruined life?

The ‘You’ in “Everyone”

And that’s when you hear what sounds like the blowing of a violent wind. You rush to investigate the house where this noise is coming from.

And that’s when you hear something else.

You hear about God’s love for you.

You hear about how God your Heavenly Father would love this fallen world so much he would send his Son to rescue it. You hear about God the Son who became a human being to save you, who perfectly walked every mile in your shoes, who was tempted in every way we are, yet he didn’t sin once – all so that his obedience would be made ours! You hear how Jesus came to be the sacrifice for our sins – to die the death we deserved – so that we who cling to him in faith would have eternal life! Jesus is the very love language of God!  

And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved!

You hear how Jesus rose again from the grave, which verifies he is your Savior and he’s paid your debt in full! You would hear that you, in Christ, are forgiven! You would hear how it is entirely because of God’s unearned, undeserved love that you have been reconciled to him.

God’s Love in Your Language

And before Satan or your sinful nature would try to convince you that you are simply beyond the reach of God’s love, know this:

God speaks his love for you in your language.

That God the Holy Spirit enabled those disciples for a time to communicate the gospel fluently in the heart languages of those in Jerusalem is tangible proof that your God’s love for you didn’t get lost in communication.

That these Galilean men are proclaiming the love of God that is ours in Christ in the language of everyone there is evidence that the message of reconciliation to God through Christ and deliverance from sin and death truly is for everyone. I will pour out my Spirit on all people, says the LORD.

Young and old, men and women, Jew and Gentile.

That undeniably includes you! These words are for you!

You see, we don’t need another Pentecost to receive God’s Spirit, because the Son of God who sent forth his Holy Spirit that Pentecost is the same Jesus who pours out his Spirit through Word and sacrament – who poured out his Spirit at the waters of your baptism to make you a child of God!

The same Jesus who spoke life into a dead man is the one whose language breathes life into us!

The God whose language brought forth this entire universe is the God whose love language creates faith in the hearts of people – even little children!

God’s love language speaks to your anxiety, as he promises that he will never leave you nor forsake you! God’s love language speaks to your guilt, as your Savior assures you that he will forgive our wickedness and remember our sins no more! God’s love language speaks to your fears about the future, as your risen Lord points to his nail-pierced hands and says, “Peace be with you!” God’s love language speaks hope, joy, and peace to every restless mind, every burdened conscience, and every grieving heart. God’s love language speaks to our anxiety when everything seems to be spiraling out of control, and our God comforts us with the reality that he remains Lord of all things – and all things are being worked by him for our eternal good! And he, by his Spirit, will remind you of these promises until the day he takes you home to be with him.

You may be waiting for those closest to you to love you in your language.

But you don’t have to wait for your Savior to do that. He already has!

Your Savior would touch the sick and make them well. Your Savior spent quality time with people just like us, just as he still spends quality time with us every time you open your Bible. Your Savior, the ultimate gift-giver, gave his life into death so that you would be given forgiveness and heaven as your eternal home! Your Savior humbly became a servant to save you!

Your God loves you in your language!

Now those are some words of affirmation.

A Greater Body for a Greater Arena

Just outside the United Center in downtown Chicago stands a 12-foot bronze statue of arguably the greatest basketball player that ever lived.

I’m talking about 14-time NBA All-Star, five-time MVP, and six-time NBA Champion, Michael Jordan.

About a year ago, I finished watching The Last Dance, that Netflix docuseries on the dynasty of the 1990s Chicago Bulls. As I watched, it dawned on me how athletically demanding it was for Michael Jordan to do what he did.

And I don’t just mean the dexterity, the speed, the strength, and muscle coordination your body needs. It also demands mental fortitude.

On the court, other players are constantly trying to get into your head. Off the court, you’re bombarded by cameras, microphones, and people wanting your autograph. You need emotional resilience to be like Mike – because professional basketball will push you psychologically as it will physically. Professional basketball is an arena that involves your entire body.  

So, what does this have to do with Romans 12:1-8? Paul, in these verses, paints a picture of a far greater body called by God to contend in a far greater arena.

This body is the Church – the body of Christian believers – and we have been called to work together toward a far greater, singular purpose.

One Body, One Mission

Paul writes in Romans 12:1. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship.”

That’s right: in a me-first, consumer-driven, made-to-order, on-demand world, Christ calls us to walk a narrow path of lifelong cross-carrying and daily death to self. You and I as Christ-followers are called to live and give self-sacrificially. Not only that, but contrary to our culture that stresses privatization of our spiritual lives, we – in faith – have been grafted by God into a body of believers, where each member belongs to all the others. And like our own bodies, every part has a different function – yet, they nevertheless work unitedly toward a common, singular goal.

As Christ-followers, we strive to live in peace with one another (12:18). We set aside vanity, self-centeredness, and conceit (12:16b). We pursue gospel-harmony with brothers and sisters within our church (12:16a). We share with those of God’s people who are in need, and practice Christlike hospitality with everyone (12:13). We hate evil, and cling to what is good (12:9). We set aside competitive insecurity and jealousy and rejoice in the diversity of gifts God has graciously poured out on his Church (12:3). We together strive to faithfully manage all that we’ve been given – our time, our talents, and our treasures – for the spiritual “building up” of the body of believers and towards the mission of sharing the life-saving good news of Jesus – our God and Savior – with the world (12:4-8).

It’s truly amazing what our God accomplishes through us when we – as a body – work together to be what he has called us to be.

Spiritual Autoimmune Disease

But the fact is, some of you are here today because a church you belonged to at one time in your life failed to be the body God called it to be. So, what happened?

Do you know what an autoimmune disease is? An autoimmune disease is when your body’s natural defense system can’t distinguish between your own cells and foreign cells; simply put, your own body starts attacking itself.

For example, Type 1 Diabetes is where your body’s immune system attacks and destroys insulin-producing cells in your pancreas – meaning you’ll need regular insulin shots to survive. Or how about Multiple Sclerosis, where your immune system attacks nerve cells, which results in cognitive difficulties, vision problems, fatigue, and loss of muscle coordination.

Chances are, you or someone you know struggles with an autoimmune disease. And they’ll tell you how difficult life is – because their body isn’t operating the way it’s supposed to: their body is waging war against itself.

Sadly enough, churches can suffer from autoimmune diseases, too. And I don’t mean Type 1 Diabetes or MS.

I mean when we use our words to tear each other down or run the rumor mill.

It’s when we hold grudges and withhold forgiveness.

It’s when we avoid certain people at church – or when we avoid church entirely.

It’s when we have no shortage of demands of how the church should serve me, while simultaneously having no shortage of excuses for why I can’t serve in the church.

It’s when we serve so as to be the center of attention.

It’s when we see sharing of our gifts and abilities within this body of believers as nothing more than a net loss of time and energy.

It’s when we, as a congregation, settle for merely surviving – not thriving – where we’d rather just maintain what we have, instead of grow what we have.

It’s when our attitude is self-centered, not Christ-centered.

When we start to conform to the patterns of this world, the body of believers suffers – and even wages war against itself.

“In view of God’s mercy…”

So, what sets us free from the patterns of this world – and breaks down all barriers between us? What empowers us to defy the patterns of this world and stand out – giving boldly, even self-sacrificially? What puts the patterns of this world to shame and inspires a greater goodness and a greater love within us? What reduces the patterns of this world to rubble and rallies people of all tribes and all generations behind a common, singular banner for a common, singular identity?

To answer that, we need to go back to Romans 12:1 – to the key operative phrase of that verse: “in view of God’s mercy.” The why behind our living and giving self-sacrificially is God’s abundant love for us in Christ.

Want to hear something awesome? God doesn’t need your time, talents, or treasures. They were never initially ours to begin with: God gifted them to us. Our God’s existence doesn’t depend on how much money we put in the plate – as if he needs to eat to survive; he’s the God who daily puts bread on your plate, because you need him to survive. He’s a God who doesn’t need you – yet he, in love, would relentlessly pursue you because you need him! He would rather have a heaven with you than without you. He’s the God who gives us his best – even when we give him our worst. He’s the God who, to buy us eternal residence in the mansions of heaven, would shed his perfect blood on a cross, to win us forgiveness and an identity that will never perish, spoil, or fade: in Christ, you are God’s family!

That changes how you see other people, doesn’t it? Through the lens of God’s mercy made manifest in Christ and his cross – we see our church family differently, too.

God may not need your time, talents, or treasures; but your neighbor does. Your gifts support the salary of your pastor, so he can be that which you’ve called him to be: a full-time shepherd relentlessly dedicated to Christ and his gospel and completely committed to the mission of the Church. Your gifts not only keep the lights on and the water flowing, but also support new initiatives to reach new people. Your hours of volunteering are used by God to reach communities with the timeless and timely good news of Jesus. New visitors come because you canvassed their house that Saturday morning. Drifting members come back because you cared enough to call them, to write them a letter, or pay them a visit. God delights to give through you!

The Last Dance shows certainly shows what happens when an athlete’s head isn’t in the game, or he sprains his ankle, or sustains a back injury: when one part suffers, the body suffers. But the series also showcases what happens when your entire body is in the game and wholly committed to a single vision: for Michael Jordan, the crucible of professional basketball conformed his entire body into a relentless machine that could seemingly suspend the laws of gravity and dunk from the free throw line.

You are part of a far greater body called by God to contend in a far greater arena. God prides himself with doing the extraordinary with the seemingly ‘ordinary’. May Christ and his gospel always be the why behind what we do – and may we – as one body – continue to carry out Christ’s mission in view of God’s mercy.

The Lie of Greed

Imagine being the owner of a ten-thousand square foot, four-million-dollar mansion – a 22-room, three-story house that looks more like a castle out of Arthurian legend than it does a home built in the 21st century.

Jeff and Maria Decker didn’t have to imagine. That was their home.

Was.

That was until the fire.

While the Decker family was away, their 4-million-dollar castle caught fire. You could see the smoke for miles. Over 70 firefighters tried to put out the fire, but they couldn’t save the house. Everything inside was destroyed. It would cost the Decker Family tens of millions of dollars to rebuild and replace what was lost.

It took years to build their four-million-dollar mansion. It only took a single night to reduce that castle to rubble.

Turns out, ice-cream isn’t the only thing with an incredibly short shelf-life. Sure, our castles full of treasures may withstand a 90-degree day, but there comes a time when even castles can’t withstand the heat. Everything in this world has a shelf-life – our castles included. You don’t have to be the Deckers to know how fast the ‘stuff’ of this world is here today and gone tomorrow.

And yet, we still invest eternal value in ‘things’ that are the metaphysical equivalent to ice-cream.

We anchor our identities in the clothes we wear or the cars we drive. We hinge our happiness on how much money we have or how big our house is. We affiliate our life’s meaning with materialism and our purpose with what we purchase.

But what happens when our wealth is gone, our cars are stolen, and our castles burn to the ground? What eternal value do they really have?

All Kinds of Greed…

That is the question Jesus puts before his audience in Luke 12:13-21.

We’re told that thousands of people were crowding around Jesus – to the point where people were even getting trampled. Everyone had different reasons for wanting to see him. Some wanted to hear him speak. Others wanted to see more miraculous displays of his power as the Son of God. But there was one guy who was pushing his way through the crowds for a completely different reason. And once he got within earshot of Jesus, he let his heart be heard.

“Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

Presumably, this man’s older brother had received all of a certain inheritance from within his family. And this younger brother – the man shouting at Jesus – felt entitled to some of it. Rabbis were often consulted for Scriptural advice on legal issues like these.

But this guy isn’t asking Jesus to lay out what the Bible has to say about dividing an inheritance between brothers; the younger brother is simply demanding that Jesus rule in his favor.

His thinking was, with the endorsement of the most popular rabbi at the time – Jesus – his brother would have no choice but to share with his sibling.

In short, this guy wasn’t running after Jesus; he was running after money, and Jesus was just a stop along the way.

But Jesus hadn’t come to be the arbiter who would arbitrate an inheritance between two bickering brothers; earthly wealth isn’t why the Son of God came. This man needed to be reminded of the dangers of fixating his heart on material possessions – and he wasn’t the only one who needed the reminder.

Jesus sees this man’s struggle with greed as a teaching opportunity – so he turns to the crowd and says to all of them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.”

And we’re like “Yeah! Go get ’em, Jesus! Get after those greedy, self-serving, billionaire pigs!”

But greed isn’t as one-dimensional as you think it is.

Note that Jesus doesn’t say “Be on your guard against greed.” He says, “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.” ‘All kinds’ means there is more than one way to be greedy – and that means this isn’t a warning just for brothers fighting over an inheritance. That means this isn’t a warning just for those in the highest tax bracket sitting large in their ivory towers either.

Jesus is cautioning everyone crowding around him, from the richest tax collector to the poorest widow.

…Proceeds from a Self-Obsessed Heart

To illustrate, Jesus shares a parable. “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’” Now this man isn’t saying he didn’t have any barns; his concern is he already has too much and doesn’t have room for more. His barns were already full. He was rich before his barns were busting at the seams. But he wanted more.

So, he planned to build more barns so he can store more stuff. And he isn’t stockpiling his goods and grain to serve God and neighbor. He isn’t seeking to express appreciation to God in how he manages even more wealth. No, this rich man is stockpiling purely to serve himself.

Every kind of greed proceeds from a self-obsessed heart.

Can you hear how self-centered this rich man is? “This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink, and be merry!’”

Did you catch how many times this man said the word ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘my’, or ‘myself’? This rich man’s heart bleeds greed. He gives no thought of using his God-given abundance to help others, no thought of sharing any of this wealth with his servants, and no thought of even thanking God – the Giver of all that he has – or seeking his advice for what he should do with his insane amount of wealth. All he’s thinking about is ‘me’. “My wealth is so great, there is absolutely no way I will ever be in need. I will never have to worry about anything ever again! I can live it up, retire early, and relax the rest of my life!”

This man’s security, his peace, his comfort, happiness, and joy – he invests it all in his investments. He defines his identity by the abundance of his things. But a man’s life isn’t defined by the abundance of his material possessions, and this man would discover that reality the hard way.

God interrupts this man’s self-obsessed monologue and says, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’”

Everything he had stockpiled for himself would now be enjoyed by others. There was nothing he could do for his wealth after he died – and there was nothing his wealth could do for him after he died, either. To God, his deep pockets were as good as empty, and God had come to collect.

In the world’s economy, he was quintessentially rich; in God’s economy, he was bankrupt. This rich man’s wealth wasn’t enough for him; ironically, it wasn’t enough for God, either.

Notice how God doesn’t define him with all the lavished, prestigious titles the world gave him for his wealth. God defines him as he would anyone who invests eternal value in temporary treasures – who stores up things for themselves but is not rich towards God: God defines them as a ‘fool’.  

All about “I…me…my…myself…”

If your tax bracket suggests you’re rich, it’s incredibly easy to relate with this rich man.

But maybe you’re thinking, “I’m not rich! I struggle to pay my bills every month! I’m thousands of dollars in debt! My salary is so small and my expenses are so high, I have to apply for loans, food stamps, and all other kinds of financial aid! I buy my clothes only at second-hand stores because I don’t have enough money! I don’t even know how I’m going to make my rent next month!”

‘I’, ‘me’, ‘my’, ‘myself’.

Greed comes in many forms.

Greed is investing our hope in money instead of God. Greed is calculating our value and worth according to bank accounts instead of God’s promises. Greed is exchanging the eternal joys of heaven for the temporary joys of materialism. Greed is loving the created more than the Creator. Greed is a lie, a lie that says that happiness, security, our status, and identity are actually found in things and not God.

You don’t have to be rich to buy into the lie of greed, but you don’t have to be poor to be in desperate need of Jesus, either.

Spiritual Debt Requires Spiritual Payment

Whether you consider yourself rich or poor, without a right relationship with God, you have nothing. By nature, you and I were born abundant in sin and spiritually bankrupt – spiritually the opposite of rich.

Financially speaking, we would not even have a balance of “0”.

We could work 24/7 365 days a year, but we couldn’t earn our way into heaven. We could accumulate all the wealth in the world but we still wouldn’t be able to pay God what we owe.

Why’s that?

Spiritual debt requires spiritual payment.

To be rich towards God means our ledger needed to show ‘perfect’ before God. And in light of our sins of worry, doubt, self-centeredness, and greed, God could rightly call us a ‘fool’ and send us away from him forever.

Christ Has Made You Rich

So, when neither gold nor silver could buy us a clean slate, God would with his own blood.

For the sake of saving this world from its foolishness and greed, our God, who is rich in love, sent his Son who denied the wealth of this world and became poor – so that through his poverty we would be rich towards God.

When our world would lose itself over its love of earthly wealth, Jesus would give up his life for us – because we are his treasure.

Christ would leave the mansions of heaven for a time so you would be able to call them your home for an eternity! Jesus took the debt of our sin onto himself and died with it on the cross – and in exchange gave us the wealth of his perfection so we would be rich towards God.

And that Christ rose from the dead assures us of the treasures of heaven to come.

You, in Christ, have a clean slate. Your debt has forever been paid.

Through the reading of the Word and through the waters of our Baptism, the Holy Spirit works faith in our hearts and assures us that we are heirs of God’s riches.

We do not stand empty-handed before God. Because of Jesus, God sees you and says, “My child!” When your money is all gone, your cars are stolen, or your castles burn to the ground, you still have Christ as your treasure. Through Christ, we have access –right now – to the vaults of God’s promises, the richness of his mercy, and the abundance of his grace!

The wealth of this world pales in comparison to the richness we have forever in Christ.

You are not defined by the treasures that are here today and gone tomorrow. You are defined by Jesus – and who he has declared you to be.

The joy that Jesus gives lasts forever, and because of him, all of our barns are already full! So, let the temporary blessings God gives us be just that: temporary blessings. Let Christ be your one and only treasure. Through faith in him, we have everything! Through Christ, we are rich!

No Bait and Switch with Jesus

A few years ago, an older couple walked into a Chrysler dealership – holding in their hands an ad for a black 2016 Dodge Grand Caravan – brand new – for just $25,998 – a “savings of more than $16,000”.

That’s what the ad said.

But what the ad said and what the salesman showed were completely different. A textbook example of a bait and switch.

The salesman told them that black “brand new” Dodge Grand Caravan had nearly 2,000 miles on it already. It was a show car. The dealership had put those miles on the vehicle – but insisted on calling it “brand new”.

The wife cut to the chase and asked if $25,998 was the full price on the car. The salesman said yes (plus tax, of course).

The woman followed up, “Is that all?”

The salesman replied, “Well, we have a documentation fee of $571 – and that’s on top of the sales price.” That’s quite a lot of money to process paperwork.

The salesman then leaves to go get the paperwork, but comes back in saying that black 2016 Dodge Grand Caravan in the ad had already been sold – but he had a red “brand new” 2016 Dodge Grand Caravan he could sell them that day for the exact same price. And when they went to go check it out, guess how many miles were on that “brand new” car? 3,242 miles – and for the same price as the other car!

That is a bait and switch – where you’re advertised one thing, but you’re given something completely different.

But you don’t have to spend an hour at a car dealership to feel the terrible bite of the bait and switch. You feel the bait and switch when that company promises you that promotion, and then they give it to someone else. Or when those friends who said they’d have your back then leave you high and dry. Or when “the man/woman of your dreams” promises to be faithful, but then has an affair.

We’ll partner with all sorts of people and organizations – only to discover all the dirty details buried in the fine print. And when we live in a sinful, broken, dying world, the bitter examples of bait and switch are endless. It leaves us feeling objectified, doesn’t it? – dehumanized to nothing more than an accessory towards someone else’s gain, a prop in someone else’s play, a pawn in someone else’s game: just a means to their end.

The Casualties of Thieves and Hired Hands

That same kind of bait and switch could be seen at the time of Jesus, too. There was no shortage of bogus ‘ads’ buzzing in the streets of Israel.

You had your political movements, radical groups, fanatics, and “false messiahs”.

They all advertised that they had the absolute answers to life’s biggest questions – that their view or their system is what gives life meaning and purpose – that they held the secrets to true peace, hope, and happiness.

One of those groups was the Pharisees. They advertised that they knew the way of salvation – how to be right with God and have a life of meaning and purpose, filled with peace, hope, and happiness.

But their teachings didn’t give life. They robbed people of it.

Where God, in his Word, said that his love for us is unconditional, the Pharisees made it conditional – saying God’s love for us is contingent on how well we can keep God’s commandments.

Where God said his love for us is undeserved, the Pharisees taught Israel’s geography and genealogies put them closer to God’s heart.

They redirected people away from God’s unilateral promises and gave them one to-do list after another.

They circumvented people away from Jesus, God’s promised Savior of the world, and that robbed people of the comfort of the gospel.

So, Jesus calls them out, and compares these false teachers to thieves and robbers seeking to “steal, kill, and destroy” sheep.

That’s how Jesus illustrates them in John 10:1-9.

But in John 10:11-18, Jesus illustrates these false Jewish teachers as ‘hired hands’ paid to watch sheep.

Shepherding was a dangerous business. Not only were there thieves and robbers, but there were wild animals prowling around looking for something to devour. A devoted shepherd was ready to lay down his life for the sheep – because he loved them.

But a hired hand’s conviction didn’t run that deep: for him, shepherding was just a job. If a wolf came, the hired hand would clock out and save his own skin! He won’t die for the sheep. He would rather let the sheep die.

And now we can see the connection between these two comparisons – between the picture of hired hands abandoning the sheep, and the picture of thieves seeking to steal, kill, and destroy the sheep.

Thieves see the sheep as prey; the hired hands see the sheep as a paycheck; neither of them really care about the sheep. To them, the sheep are nothing more than a means to an end. So, it comes as no surprise that, under the ‘care’ of thieves and hired hands, the sheep are manipulated, malnourished, mistreated, or worse.

These comparisons are two pictures of the same profile – the profile of every pusher and peddler of false spiritual teaching. The slogans they sing might sound catchy, and the ‘deals’ they advertise might look incredibly attractive; but any sheep that bites is in for a brutal bait and switch.

The Bait and Switch of Atheism

The salesmen of atheism advertise that there is no god; you define what’s right and wrong, what’s good and evil; you don’t need God for your life to have meaning, value, and purpose. But apart from a divine, personal Creator, what makes me – a cosmic accident of nature – so special?

If I’m nothing more than a machine for propagating DNA, then why does our world talk as if we were intentionally and wonderfully made for so much more? How can I say that words like “good” and “evil”, “right” and “wrong” are relative – not absolute – but then demand absolute justice when a police officer kneels on the neck of a 46-year-old man? Atheism advertises a world without God; what atheism actually offers you, to quote atheist Bertrand Russell, is a life built on the foundation of “unyielding despair”.

The Bait and Switch of Manmade Religion

But a worldview without a god isn’t the only bag of goods on the market. We see hundreds of religions that worship gods of human imagination.

We find belief systems spun in anecdotal subjectivity: a guy has a ‘secret vision’, he records said vision, and starts a religion; they discourage you from investigating it or interrogating it; you’re told not to ask questions, just accept it as fact.

They’ll preoccupy your mind with one to-do-list after another – to-do-lists for how you can get right with God and have a life of meaning and purpose, filled with peace, hope, and happiness.

The common thread with these religions is that it all boils down to you.

Your deliverance, your asceticism, your success, your forgiveness, your rightness with God is completely contingent on your performance, your submission, your introspection, your obedience, your devotion, or your faithfulness.

And that’s when we feel the bite of the bait and switch: if I look for confidence before God in myself, I will never find it.

Such worldviews don’t give people life: they rob people of it.

The Bait and Switch of the Religion of ‘Me’

But I don’t need to look very far to hear the voice of a spiritual charlatan – because there’s one that lives in my heart, and yours, too: our sinful nature.

Our sinful nature sees nothing wrong with saying “me first.”

It sees nothing wrong with objectifying people in my life.

It’s not a big deal if you lie or bend the truth.

It’s okay to compromise conviction for the sake of fitting in.

It’s okay to be impatient, to bear a grudge, to be unloving towards those around you.

It’s perfectly fine to be disrespectful.

It’s no big deal if you gossip or damage people’s reputation.

My sinful nature advertises a religion of ‘me’, where it’s all about my image, my ego, my success, my popularity, and my happiness.

So, we wander off, like sheep gone astray. And then comes the bait and switch.

The ‘sheep-stealers’ show themselves for who they truly are; the ‘hired hands’ crumble under pressure and dissolve when danger comes; those greener pastures are just as gritty as the rest of the best this world has to offer.

And we’re left feeling guilty, broken, afraid, and hopeless.

No Bait and Switch with Jesus

But when the emptiness of this world would chew you up and spit you out, your Savior came to heal your hurt and fix your brokenness.

When our reckless, wayward living would leave us feeling tangled by guilt and shame, Jesus came to set us free and guide us on safe paths of righteousness.

When you feel dejected and downtrodden, when you don’t know how you’re going to get through the next month, the next week, or the next day, your Savior picks you up and carries you through it.

When you feel lost and afraid, he reminds you that you’re not alone and he walks in front of you to lead the way.

You’re not just a number in Jesus’ flock. He knows you by name! And he’s dedicated to bringing you – not just safely through the hardships of this life – but safely bring you home to heaven.

Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep… “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.  I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.”

When thieves and hired hands would see sheep as a means to an end, the Good Shepherd sees sheep as an end of themselves.

Where our sinful world would seek to take from us, Jesus has come to give us life, and life to the full.

When sin, death, and hell showed its fangs, our Good Shepherd didn’t run away: he laid down his life for the sheep.

Our God and Shepherd would face off against the wolves of this world by dying on a cross! And that Good Shepherd rose from the dead! The wolves of death and hell have lost!

There’s no bait and switch with Jesus, your Good Shepherd. He’s the superlative Shepherd. Every sheep who hears his voice in faith will live!

Your Savior is the shepherd who leaves the 99 to look for the lost 1.

He’s the shepherd who walks with the sheep through the valley of the shadow of death.

Only Jesus, the Good Shepherd, can fill our lives with meaning and purpose. Only Jesus, our Savior, could free us from the fear of sin, death, and Satan. Only Jesus, the Good Shepherd, can give us reason to rejoice always. Only Jesus, the Good Shepherd can give peace that lasts forever. And when your life on earth is done, the Good Shepherd will carry you home.

No bait and switch. Believe it.

The Smell of Sacrifice; the Taste of Salvation

There’s nothing quite like the smell and taste of a barbeque, is there?

The smell of baby back ribs glistening with BBQ sauce? That pork brisket you’ve had in your smoker for the past 8 hours? Or the taste of those lightly salted veggie-cabobs turning on the grill?

But the smell and taste of a good barbeque does far more than trigger your tastebuds: the smell and taste of a good barbeque triggers memories.

The smell of a barbeque seems to evoke all the vibes of summer in an instant – leaving you hungering for Spring to come and go already! The taste of barbeque takes you on a nostalgic trip to backyards and block parties past. It conjures up memories of Community Picnics and County Fairs. The smell and taste of a good barbeque impress memories that can last a lifetime.                                           

Exodus 12 drops us in the middle of a barbeque. A barbeque in the land of Goshen – the backyard of Egypt. And like any good BBQ, the smells and tastes of this BBQ were meant to impress lasting memories on the hearts and minds of people.

But this barbeque smelled and tasted differently.

The Smell of Sacrifice

It was a barbeque you must have been able to smell for miles. A nation of millions of Hebrews – all having a barbeque at the same time? The smell of roasted lamb was everywhere.

But the burning flesh of lambs wasn’t all you would smell at this Mediterranean BBQ.

You’d smell blood.

And when hundreds of thousands of households are all slaughtering lambs at the same time and painting that blood all over the doorframes outside their homes, the smell of lamb’s blood was everywhere, too.

It’s a smell that certainly brought recent memories to their minds – memories almost as fresh as the blood dripping outside their homes. It reminded them of the smell of the Nile River, when God had turned it to blood.

That was the first of nine divinely orchestrated plagues they had seen inflicted upon the Egyptians – the consequences for the Pharoah’s refusal to let the Hebrews go. After that came the plague of frogs.

Then the plague of gnats.

Then the flies.

Then the livestock of the Egyptians began to die of illness.

Then boils broke out on both their animals and the Egyptian people themselves.

Then came the hailstorm that brought the breadbasket of the world to its knees.

Then came the locusts.

And finally, then came the plague of total darkness over the land of Egypt.

But with every plague, Pharoah’s heart only continued to be hardened: the king of Egypt would not let the enslaved people of Israel leave.

With every one of these signs and wonders, you can almost see the Israelites salivating for freedom.

“Will this be the plague that finally breaks the camel’s back? Will this be the plague that finally changes Pharoah’s mind? Will we finally be free?”

God, through Moses, warned Pharoah that one final plague was coming: at about midnight, the LORD would pass through all of Egypt, and strike down the first born son of every household – unless that home had the blood of a perfect lamb painted around its door. If, while the LORD passed through the land of Egypt, he saw the blood of a lamb dripping from a house’s doorposts, he would not enter: the LORD and his judgment would pass over that family.

The Taste of Salvation

And here is where the festival of the Passover finds it’s beginning. On the evening of the 15th day of the Jewish month of Nisan, the Israelites would have a barbeque.

They would dine – no longer on the luxurious buffets of Egypt – but on unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and roasted lamb. While they ate, they were to be dressed and ready – not to work the farms and labor in the fields of Egypt – but dressed to leave Egypt forever.

With tied sandals and staff in hand, families who trusted the LORD huddled within their blood-painted homes to eat the LORD’s Passover meal in peace.

That night, they were effectively sinking their teeth into God’s grace.

They could taste the tangible assurance that they would live.

They would inwardly digest the very lamb whose blood would deliver them – not from Egypt – but from God’s judgment.

That blood was a God-given sign for them – a sign juxtaposed against the signs and wonders employed against an unbelieving Egypt. This sign was a tangible sign of God’s grace.

And on the first month of their new God-given worship calendar, they would commemorate their liberation from the bondage of slavery with this Passover meal. That meal was to be a lasting ordinance for them. For generations to come, the smell of blood and roasted skin of lamb and the taste of lamb meat would forever be associated with God’s saving, redemptive love.

Smelling the Need for a Better Sacrifice

But the smell of the blood of animals was meant to remind them of something else, too: these sacrifices served as an annual reminder of sins (Hebrews 10:3) – and that without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22); and yet, the smell of these slaughtered lambs also reminded them that it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats and any other animal to take away sins (Heb 10:3, 4).

Put yourself in the sandals of the ancient Hebrews. Every single year, on the 10th day of the Jewish month of Nisan, you and your family would select your lamb for the Passover; and on the late afternoon of the 14th of Nisan, that lamb was slaughtered for you.

And you would do this again and again, year after year, decade after decade.

Can you smell the blood? The gallons upon gallons of blood from innocent lambs sacrificed for the sins of the people?

This Passover meal reinforced a stark, painful reality of a bondage far worse than the chains of slavery – that being, the bondage of sin and death. This Passover meal beckons us to take a step back and see ourselves and our lives in view of a grander narrative – a narrative that viciously grapples with the existential question “How can I, a broken sinner, possibly be at peace with a blameless, holy God?”

The smell of blood from that Passover lamb was meant to emphasize a desperate need for a greater rescue – not from enemy nations, but rescue from us dying as God’s enemies under the knife of God’s wrath and punishment.

The taste of that Passover lamb was meant to leave the Jews longing for something greater – a greater Passover Lamb, who would – once and for all – be sacrificed for the sins of all the people – whose blood would forever cover over them and bring them peace with God.

And 1,500 years later, the promise embedded in the celebration of Passover is being tangibly fulfilled in real space and time. Except, on this Passover, God would not only provide the Lamb: he would be the Lamb.

Tasting the Assurance of Absolute Salvation

1,500 years after the very first Passover, on the 14th of Nisan (when Passover lambs were slaughtered for the evening meal) another Lamb is being slaughtered outside the city of Jerusalem. But this Lamb changes everything.

Like every Passover lamb, not one of his bones would be broken; but this Lamb would not need to die again the following year. This Lamb would bleed once and for all – never to bleed again – for our sins. This Lamb would endure the fires of hell on the spicket of the cross – so that all who huddle in faith behind his blood will have life and life to the full. This Lamb gives up his body into death – not just for one nation, but for the entire world. This Lamb is Jesus – God veiled in flesh and blood.

There, on Calvary, the promise of Passover finds its fulfillment in the body and blood of Christ.

As Jesus and his disciples finish their Passover barbeque that Thursday, Jesus institutes a new meal, a greater meal, when, with bread and wine, he says “Take and eat. This is my body…take and drink. This is my blood.” Whenever we eat this bread and drink this cup, we not only proclaim the Lord’s death, we are miraculously receiving the same body and blood of Christ, the Greater Passover Lamb!

Why would Jesus intimately link his perfect life, suffering and death to this new meal? Why would he give us his true body and true blood in, with, and under bread and wine? To personally assure you that your Savior died for you. So you can sink you teeth into God’s grace. So that you can inwardly digest the very Lamb whose body and blood delivered you. So you can tangibly taste your salvation.

The Hands of Brutality

March 7, 1965 is a day that history would later call ‘Bloody Sunday’.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been passed into law nearly a year earlier – which banned racial segregation in public places and banned any discrimination on the basis of color, nationality, or ethnic background. By law, it was no longer legal to deny service to someone because of the color of their skin.

But that didn’t mean this law was upheld by the governors and soldiers who were called to uphold it.

And that’s what you saw on Bloody Sunday.

Jim Crow Laws still had a lethal grip in the South – notably in Dallas County, Alabama. Black communities wanted representation in local law enforcement and local government – and that meant they, as citizens, needed to be able to vote locally.

But that right was continually denied – and attempts to register black voters faced serious opposition, notably in one city in Dallas County: Selma.

Black civil rights leaders planned to take their demonstration directly to Alabama’s governor, George Wallace. So, on March 7, 1965, over 600 peaceful demonstrators gathered in Selma, AL – intending to march the 54 miles between Selma and Montgomery.

They got as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge. As they crossed the crest, they saw what waited for them on the other side: a line of state troopers wielding nightsticks; behind them were deputies – some on foot, others on horseback.

The policemen put on their gas masks and marched against the demonstrators – pushing them back, and then suddenly began to rush them.

Some demonstrators were trampled by law enforcement.

Others were knocked to the ground and repeatedly beaten.

Tear gas was even fired at demonstrators who were retreating, and the deputies on horseback rode after them – swinging their clubs at men, women, and children who were gasping for air and screaming for their lives.

17 marchers were hospitalized; 50 were treated for lesser injuries.

Cameramen caught the whole thing on tape. That horrendous footage would be viewed by millions of Americans from their own homes - forcing many to see the systemic, racial injustices that they struggled to see from the viewpoint of their plushy, suburban lives.

Millions of Americans saw the hands of brutality descend upon the oppressed. What they wouldn’t see was a single hand of the oppressed raised against their oppressors. Not a single one of those demonstrators on the Edmund Pettus Bridge fought back. They just took it.

It’s sickening to see such criminal abuse of power – such brutality exercised by those called to uphold justice.

The sad reality is, we don’t have to look too far to see that same kind of criminal abuse of power – such brutality still today.

The Brutal Hands of the World

That’s what you see in Matthew 27:27-31. Matthew tells us the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They strip him, bind him to low stone pillar with his back exposed, and have him flogged. They use a whip made of three leather cords. At the end of these chords were pieces of lead or sheep bone. This kind of scourge wouldn't just break or bruise the skin: it would bite into it – and could bloodily reduce someone’s back to ribbons.

But such a brutal treatment of Jesus wasn't enough.

No, the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, had an agenda. In a failed attempt to placate and appease the crowd, he doesn’t just have Jesus flogged: he has Jesus mocked.

28 …[they] put a scarlet robe on him, 29 and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. 30 They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.

Jesus claimed to be a king, so Pilate would ridicule him as one.

He has his Roman soldiers dress Jesus up like a king – throwing a “kingly” robe on his bloodied back.

The Roman soldiers weave a crown of thorns and force it on his head.

They grab a wooden staff and shove it in his right hand.

They mockingly bow down and praise him. “Hail, King of the Jews!”

They spit on him.

They strike him on the head with the staff again and again.

And this wasn't just a handful of soldiers. No, The Greek word that Matthew uses to describe the size of this Roman company of soldiers might have been as many as 600 men.

This production was complete overkill – a complete mockery of Jesus.

Those soldiers would “take charge of Jesus”, have him carry his cross outside the city, they would nail him to that cross, and crucify him. And while they mocked the dying Son of God, they threw dice for his clothing.

The Brutal Hands of ‘Me’

Such a sight is horrendous to imagine, isn’t it?

It’s sickening to see such criminal abuse of power – such brutality exercised by those called to uphold justice.

But such criminal abuse of power – such brutality inflicted against the blameless Son of God shouldn’t just sicken us: it saddens us.

And it should.

It should sadden us – because such brutal treatment of the blameless Son of God was necessary.

Jesus wasn’t some victim who died as an unfortunate casualty of Roman tyranny or Jewish culture, nor did he merely die because he was rejected by the self-righteous religious elite. Jesus came to die.

God would send his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

He would be pierced for our transgressions.

He would be crushed for our iniquities.

That Jesus was slandered, spat upon, scourged, and slain on a cross rightfully saddens me.

Because that all happened because of me.

My sins before a holy, righteous God demanded atonement. The wages of our sin against a perfect, blameless, justice-demanding God is death. That is why Jesus laid down his life – to suffer and sacrifice himself on a cross. That is why Jesus was like a silent lamb at the hands of his shearers. That is why Jesus was like a lamb willingly led to his slaughter. Without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness.

Jesus had to die because of us: our abusive texts, our abusive gossip, our abusive actions towards neighbors, friends, and family.

Jesus died because of the racist hands of sinful brutality on Bloody Sunday – because of Roman hands of sinful brutality on Bloody Friday.

Jesus died for our abusive hearts. The same sinful hands of brutality that struck Jesus’ face and nailed him to a tree are my hands – and your hands.

The Blameless Hands of Jesus

Why does the Son of God just stand there and endure the brutal hands of those soldiers?

Why does he silently submit to such awful contempt and vulgarity?

Why does he quietly endure the whipping? The crown of thorns?

Why doesn’t Jesus fight back? Why does he just take it?

Because Jesus didn’t come to simply make a statement; he came to be your Savior.

It was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer and to make his life a guilt offering for the world. Where our sinful, brutal hands of injustice had broken our relationship with God and rendered us deserving of the justice of God, Jesus would endure that justice in our place on the cross. The punishment that brought us peace forever with God was placed on Jesus, so that by his wounds we would be healed.

But if that’s all we said about the brutal events of ‘Bloody Friday’, we haven’t said nearly enough.

God didn’t do this for his sake. God, in Christ, would do all of this for you.

Jesus didn’t endure the injustice of men and the justice of God simply because of our sins.

Jesus endured all of that because of his amazing love for you.

God would love those who hated him.

God would die for those who wanted him dead.

When our sinful world sought to strip Jesus of his glory and clothe him in shame, Christ came to strip us of our shame and clothe us in his glory – and clothe himself with our shame!.

If there was footage of that ‘Bloody Friday’, you’d watch the hands of brutality descend upon the oppressed. You wouldn’t see is a single hand of Jesus raised against his oppressors. You would see Jesus stretch out his hands across a beam of wood to die for them - including you and me.

Jesus silently endured the brutal hands of governors and soldiers on that Bloody Friday because his boundless love for you speaks greater volumes. God the Son would endure the holy justice of God the Father to win for you forgiveness, new life, and salvation – all because of his amazing grace and compassion for you.

To rescue our abusive world from sin, from suffering, and death itself, our Savior would stretch out his loving hands across a tree, suffer, and die.

But he wouldn’t stay dead. On the third day, your Savior rose - and left our sins of brutality buried forever.

The scars he bears on his hands are proof of your eternal purchase! You rest redeemed and rescued in the loving hands of your Savior.

Peter, the Transfiguration, and the "Cleverly Invented Story" of Jesus

The spaceships were coming to take them home.

That’s what Marshall Applewhite believed – the founder of the religious cult knows as Heaven’s Gate.

Applewhite believed that he and his partner, Bonnie Nettles, were extraterrestrial agents with “higher level minds” that had come from outer space to unlock the path to paradise. During the 70s and 80s, Applewhite traveled the West Coast to recruit followers, brainwashing them with his charismatic mix of Christian and New Age doctrines with science fiction and UFOs.

Applewhite preached that this time on earth was a season of metamorphosis, where his followers – by living strict, regimented lives – could achieve a “next level” mode of existence – eventually evolving into aliens. He prophesied that this time of ‘metamorphosis’ was coming to an end.

In March of 1997, a particular comet – the Hale-Bopp comet – was nearing Earth’s orbit. Applewhite insisted this was a sign – a sign that an alien spaceship was coming in the comet’s wake to take their souls home. He said it was time for him and 38 of his adherents to leave their bodies – their “earthly vehicles” behind – to board this spaceship and fly off to heaven’s gate.

The police found their bodies not long after.

Applewhite and his 38 adherents had coordinated a mass suicide, mixing phenobarbital with applesauce and pudding, and then washing it down with vodka. Dressed in their monolithic uniforms, they went to sleep, never to wake up.

Applewhite was convinced that, by dying, their souls would be received by this incoming spaceship, and shuttled off to heaven.

But that ship never came.

39 people – 21 women, and 18 men – all died for a cleverly invented science fiction story, a man-made religion, a myth, a lie.

I know plenty of atheists who would argue that Christianity is no different – that the Bible is just a bunch of manipulative fairy tales cooked up by human imagination.

The Apostle Peter knew that objection, too.

Yet, he had every reason, just as we do today, to say with certainty that we do not follow cleverly invented stories…and that, through faith, we too [are] eyewitnesses of [Jesus’] majesty.   

Why Die for a Lie?

Peter had seen the fulfillment of centuries of prophecy unfold before his very eyes.

He had walked out onto the water at his Savior’s invitation.

He had seen Jesus display power over demons.

He had seen Jesus raise the dead!

He had seen Jesus transfigure on that mountain.

Peter writes in 1 Peter 1: 17-18, “He (Jesus) received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.”

He witnessed this same Savior arrested and carted off to be crucified.

He saw the empty tomb.

He had seen the Risen Lord!

He knew that Jesus was the fulfillment of Scripture. He knew Jesus had the words of eternal life. He knew Jesus was the Son of God and Savior of the world. And Peter could not help but share what he had heard and seen with the world. The Savior had come!

But that didn’t mean the world would warmly welcome such a message. Not long after writing this letter, the emperor Nero would execute Peter because of his Christian faith.

Would Peter die for something he knew to be a lie? Was Peter no different than a crazed cult leader like Marshall Applewhite?

I know plenty of atheists who wouldn’t hesitate to make that case – that Peter is just another religious nut job dying for his delusion.

But how does that assessment hold up under scrutiny? What perks did Peter, from a worldly perspective, stand to gain by preaching the message of Jesus?

Last I checked, their faith in Jesus never translated to padded pocketbooks, popularity, nor political power.

In fact, quite the opposite.

The Christian faith got disciples thrown out of synagogues and cast out of communities. Their insistence that Jesus did, in fact, rise from the dead got them beaten and labeled ‘heretics’. Proclaiming Jesus is the Son of God – the only way, the only truth, the only life – meant even being tortured and killed.

Isn’t it more likely someone would endure such suffering for the truth?

Well, yeah! They couldn’t make this stuff up.

Peter says as much. “We did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power.”

Peter’s point is, these events happened!

The Bible doesn’t present itself as some mythological compilation of half-baked narratives and proverbial maxims like other religious texts – written in a vacuum, hidden from interrogation and scrutiny. Both the Old and New Testament writers ‘marry’ their text to history to a degree matched by no other religion. Christianity shamelessly marries the unfolding of salvation to real, historical events, verified not only by archaeological evidence but also by the cataloguing of ancient secular, non-Christian historians.

Peter’s point is that, these are well corroborated accounts internally and externally.

So, maybe the Bible actually is what it claims to be: the true story of the salvation of the world! The very words of God himself!

Cleverly Invented Stories

That’s a tough pill to swallow for people today. In some ways, American culture in the 21st century not only is post-modern, but post-rational, where worldviews are exclusively feeling based, not factually based.

So, go figure, a post-modern people with an already low view of Scripture doesn’t care for its claims to be uniquely and exclusively reliable as a source of absolute truth.

• The Bible says no to the idea that truth is relative.

• It says no to the idea that all roads lead to heaven.

• It says no to the idea of purgatory.

• No, all religions do not all worship the same God.

• God does not operate by Karma.

• You can’t work your way into God’s heart.

• You can’t save yourself.

Truth, by its very nature offends, but our post-modern culture cares more about not offending people than pursuing truth. We’d rather equate “truth” with what’s trendy. We subscribe to worldviews that translate to “Likes” on our social media. We pledge allegiance to things not because they coherently answer any of life’s questions, but because they cater to my desires, my wants, and my preferences.

So, people today dismiss the Bible, feeling it has either too much or to little to say about today.

We might think such low views of Scripture are uniquely outside the church, but the very reason Peter is writing what he is writing is because such an attitude was evidently looking to set up shop in the church.

It certainly is today.

I’ll make time to mindlessly scroll through my newsfeed, but not my Bible.

I’ll binge watch a TV show, but rarely binge read my Bible.

We can quote entire lines from movies or sing entire songs, but don’t ask me to memorize a single verse from Scripture.

Biblical illiteracy seems to be at an all-time high. We’ve lost familiarity with what the Bible actually says – and you can tell by the things we say as Christians.

• “God helps those who help themselves.” Not in the Bible.

• “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” Cute sentiment; not in the Bible.

• “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” Also not in the Bible.

And if we’re not guilty of saying what the Bible doesn’t say, we’re guilty of not saying what the Bible does say.

• “Jesus never said anything about gay marriage?” Have you read Matthew 15?

• “Jesus doesn’t say anything about gender.” Have you read Mark 10?

• “Jesus doesn’t say anything about having sex before marriage.” Have you read Matthew 5?

• “Jesus never said anything about there being a hell, let alone people going there.” Have you read Luke 13?

• “Jesus never said that all my sins are forgiven.” Have you read Hebrews 7? Romans 8? John 3?

Peter writes that “We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” That ‘message’ is the Bible.

We might think, “Easy for you to say Peter. You were there! You witnessed these things with your own eyes!”

But just in case we would see the Scripture we hold in our hands as something less than firsthand experience, Peter lovingly reminds us that what we have is completely reliable.

Because God wrote it.

The Story of God’s Love for You

“Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

True, human beings recorded the words of Scripture – but they were just the pen. God is the author.

This book is God’s great love letter to you – so that you would know with certainty who your God is and who you are because of who your God is. If your God – the God who made you, the God who shaped you and molded you, the God who knows how many hairs are on your head, the God who knows you better than even you know you – wouldn’t that God know what you truly need more than you do? If that God is the same God who died on a cross for YOU to save YOU from your sin, from death and hell – isn’t that the kind of God who would be with you always to the very end of the age?

If that same Jesus loved you so much that he’d march into Jerusalem to be mocked, beaten, whipped and sentenced to death, all to become a curse for you and be rejected by his own Father – all to take away your sin, to win for you forgiveness and make you his – isn’t that a God worthy of our trust?

You hold in your hand God’s precious promises for you!

On the Mount of Transfiguration, God not only points to Jesus as the central figure of Scripture – the promised Messiah who had come to save the world – but God points to the cross as the way he would do it. That same Transfigured Lord would walk down that mountain, to walk up another mountain to die – for you.

Outside of Jerusalem the glory and majesty of God would be demonstrated once again – not in flashes of lightning, but in darkness, not in radiance, but in the shame of the cross.

You see, God constantly prides himself in giving all of who he is in the seemingly small, in the seemingly weak and frail. God glorifies himself in utter humility. God washes away your sins with water. In simple bread and wine, your Savior gives his true body and blood for your forgiveness. God gives of himself through his Word – to strengthen and nourish your faith, to grow you in wisdom, to guide you on right paths, so that you, right now, are able to fellowship with God.

These aren’t cleverly invented stories. And that you hold in your hands the very words of God himself, you, too, are a witness of God’s glory.

You’re Worth the Pain of Rejection

Imagine you’re in a waiting room with two other people.

There’s a small ball on the table in this waiting room. One of the persons waiting with you in this waiting room picks up this ball and throws it to the other person. The other person catches the ball and then throws it to you.

You throw the ball back to the first person, who then throws it to the second person. But this time, the second person throws it back to the first person, and now they continue to toss the ball back and forth – excluding you from the game.

How would you feel?

“Two strangers throwing a ball back and forth without me? Who cares?”

Well, studies would suggest that you do.

You see, this waiting room scenario is actually a tried and tested psychological experiment referred to as The Rejection Experiment. And over the dozens and dozens of times this waiting room experiment was recreated, volunteers repeatedly reported “significant emotional pain.”

What’s even more fascinating is that even after the volunteers were told that the two other people in the waiting room were part of the research team – that the whole thing was staged – that the whole thing wasn’t real – the volunteers still said it hurt.

Rejection Hurts

Rejection hurts, doesn’t it?

It hurts when your friends go out for lunch without you.

It hurts when your dream job denies your application.

It hurts when you ask a girl out and she says no.

It hurts when you swipe right, and he swipes left.

Rejection hurts.

In fact, rejection hurts so much we’ll do all sorts of things to avoid it.

We’ll become less outgoing and less outspoken. We’ll say whatever people want us to say. We’ll compromise our convictions for the sake of fitting in.

When the risk of rejection runs high, we’re tempted to run away, aren’t we? Because we know how much rejection hurts.

And Jesus knows, too.

Pride Devolves into Prejudice

It started off like any other Sabbath day at the synagogue in Nazareth. If you were there, you’d see men, women, and children watching intently as one adult male of the congregation rose to preside as the worship leader – leading the assembly through song and prayer.

You’d see him bring forward a wooden box, open it, and remove from it the Torah scroll – a scroll containing the first five books of the Old Testament – the books of Moses.

You’d hear select portions of the Torah read, and then you’d hear a sermon given on that section of Scripture.

Finally, at the close of the service came the haftorah (הפטרה), a reading from one of the prophetic books of the Old Testament.

It was here at the very end of the service that this Sabbath took a turn for the worse.

The worship leader motions to Jesus to read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. And now, all eyes are on Jesus as he takes center stage to not only read but expound upon the Word of God.

Jesus unrolls the scroll of Isaiah, and reads from chapter 61, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.”

Jesus rolls up the scroll, hands it back to the worship leader, and then says, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Every eye was fastened on their fellow Nazarene as he taught. For the people of Nazareth, this was a big deal. To them, Jesus of Nazareth wasn’t just the rabbi everyone in Israel was talking about: he was the trending celebrity from their hometown – and now he is teaching them the Word of God!

This had to have been – at least, initially – a proud moment for them. They were amazed at how he spoke with such power and authority.

But then suddenly, their amazement turns into scandal; their pride transforms into prejudice.

“This man is brilliant!” they thought. “Where did he get such wisdom and insight into the Scriptures?”

“Hang on a second. Isn’t he just a carpenter? The son of a carpenter?”

“Isn’t he the son of Mary? The brother of James, Joseph, Jude, and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?”

And they were scandalized by him.

Familiarity Breeds Contempt

It was often said that nothing notable could come from Nazareth – and it seems that even the people of Nazareth believed that.

They had seen the miracles he had performed and couldn’t deny there was something other-worldly about Jesus; and yet, for the citizens of Nazareth who had seen Jesus grow up, it seemed inconceivable such awesomeness could come from such lowly, humble beginnings.

And in a way, they were totally right.

Jesus’ power and authority didn’t come from having Jospeh as a foster-father and Mary as a birth mother:

Jesus power and authority was due to the fact that he is God!

This was no ordinary 30-year-old Nazarene standing before them! This was the very fulfillment of the very section of Isaiah they just heard. They were staring at the One who would bind up the brokenhearted – the One who would proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.

The long-awaited Savior was standing right there in that synagogue; but to them he was nothing more than just another townie.

Sadly, Israel’s history was littered with similar cases of such spiritual rejection. Jesus says as much when he says that “A prophet is without honor especially in his own town, among his relatives, and in his own home.”

Familiarity certainly can breed contempt – and these locals felt so familiar with Jesus that for him to claim to be anything but the son of a carpenter was contemptable.

Mark spares us the details, but in Luke’s biography of Jesus, we’re told that the people of Nazareth got so angry with Jesus that they drove him out of town and tried to throw him off a cliff.

But that wasn’t the hill Jesus would die on.

Jesus miraculously maneuvered through the murderous mob that day, but he didn’t walk away unhurt: Jesus walked away rejected.

And these weren’t strangers who rejected Jesus: these were church-going people who should have recognized Jesus for who he truly is – but didn’t.

 “If They Hated Me, They’ll Hate You…”

Rejection hurts. And chances are, the rejection Jesus experienced is a rejection you – as a follower of Jesus – have already experienced.

21st century America loves the Jesus who lovingly made time for the sexually scandalous – but not so much the Jesus who scandalizes us with his “outdated” views on sexuality, gender, and marriage.

Our colleagues are quick to compliment a Jesus who calls out self-righteous hypocrisy – but quick to condemn a Jesus who would dare say the sin of hatred, in God’s eyes, is tantamount to murder.

Our post-modern world, as one pastor put it, “believes the [only] thing we need salvation from is the idea that we need salvation.” So, it comes as no surprise when we, as Christians, are forced out of friend circles or kicked from our communities for putting stock in a story about the Son of God entering this broken, messed up, dying world for the very purpose of saving it.

But such rejection doesn’t just happen outside of churches: such rejection of Jesus can find commonplace inside of churches, too.

We avoid entertaining new, better ways of structuring ourselves to get more of the gospel to more people more often – because someone might demand, “We must keep do things the way we’ve always done them!”

We avoid speaking the truth in love, because we’re afraid that brother or sister who sinned against us won’t like what we have to say.

We’ll hide our excitement for engaging our community with the good news of Jesus – because someone might shoot it down, saying “Oh, we’ve tried that once before.”

We’re afraid to be “all things to all people” because someone in the congregation might not like the changes such mission work demands of us.

Rejected for Your Acceptance

Be it inside or outside the church, when we’re faced with rejection for being a follower of Jesus, we’re tempted to run away.

And Jesus knows exactly how you feel.

And yet, for your sake, Jesus didn’t run away from the pain of rejection: he ran headlong into it.

Even before the eternal Son of God was born in Bethlehem, he knew his earthly mission would intimately entail rejection.

He’d preach the gospel to those who wouldn’t want to listen.

He’d be cast out by those who personally saw him grow up in Nazareth.

He’d be betrayed by a man he lovingly called to be his disciple.

He’d be sentenced to death by men who diligently studied the very Scriptures that painted the very portrait of Jesus.

Yet, such rejection is trivial compared to the agony of rejection Jesus endured as he hung on the cross. On the cross Jesus endured rejection by his Heavenly Father as he bore the sins of the entire world!

Why would he do that?

Why would he endure such painful rejection?

Because of his unrelenting, ever-pursuing love for you!

Your Savior endured the righteous rejection of a Holy God so all who cling to him in faith never will. Jesus would be rejected so you, clothed in his righteousness, would be accepted into God’s own family!

For Jesus, the hill of Calvary was the hill worth dying on – because you were worth dying for!

The sins that threatened to exclude you from the mansions of heaven have been objectively buried with Christ in his death. And three days later, your Savior rose from the grave – proving he has won for you complete and total forgiveness.

You stand accepted – not rejected – before God – not because of who you are, but because of who Jesus is for you.

I know. Rejection still hurts.

And yet, there’s a serene comfort and encouragement knowing that the Savior who tells us that the world will hate us on account of him lovingly and patiently endured the hatred of the world, too.

He loves us that much.

So, when you are faced with rejection for your faith in Jesus, don’t run away from it; instead, run to the God who ran headlong into the same rejection to redeem and rescue you.

Take heart. Jesus has overcome the world.

Christmas: God Throwing 'Guess Who?' Out the Window

Do you remember the game Guess Who?

The game is pretty simple. Two players have a tray with 24 hinged portraits of different people. Each player will select one of those characters, and the opposite player has to guess who that character is. Whoever guesses the correct character first wins.

So, as you can imagine, there are good questions to lead with in the beginning, questions like

• “Does your character have glasses?”

• “Is your character a woman?”

• “Does your character have black hair?”

• “Does your character have a beard?”

The answer to those questions very quickly narrows down the pool of candidates to just a handful. That’s the time to start guessing who the opposite player’s character is. And if you ask the right questions, the game is over fairly fast. After all, there are only 24 characters.

But what if, instead of 24, there were 24,000?

I don’t think Hasbro has it in them to make a game of Guess Who? like that. But if they did, how long do you think a game like that would take? And would you even want to play a game like that?

I suppose, like you would with just 24 characters, if you ask good, reasonable questions you would still narrow down the pool of possible candidates. But whether you’re playing Guess Who? with 24 or 24,000 characters, you ultimately don’t advance due to the questions you ask: you advance through the game entirely on the truthfulness of the opposite player.

They’re the ones who answer “yes” and “no”, and they are the ones who ultimately reveal the character profile to you.

I remember playing Guess Who? with siblings who absentmindedly answered questions “Yes” when they should have said “No”, sending me on a wild goose chase – never arriving at the right answer. And sometimes they’d deliberately give you bad answers just to sabotage the game.

What about with God? Are we playing a game of Guess Who? with him?

And if we are, how many character cards are on the table? 24? 24,000?

Does God have flowing white robes? A big white beard? Is he toned and fair-skinned, like he looks in the Sistine Chapel? Is he all-knowing? All-wise? All-powerful? All-loving? And if you say he is, how do you know?

Guess Who? With God?

There are loads of religions and worldviews that will tell you who God is. Take for example Greek philosophy. Stoic philosophers saw ‘god’ as an impersonal, cold, emotionless deity, more or less a divine algorithm in the sky – not a personal being.

The Platonists would agree. They argued that, if love, according to their philosophy, implies need, and God needs nothing, then “a God who needs nothing cannot love.”

Aristotelianism thought similarly. Like the Platonists, Aristotle did not believe in a personal god who was concerned with the plight of mankind; his god was the removed and Unmoved Mover.

These philosophies portrayed god as this mechanical, distant deity – a god who isn’t presently immanent nor invested in his created world, but infinitely and inaccessibly transcendent, shrouded in total mystery, and unable to be truly known by the natural world, the human conscience, or by revelation.

Then you have the god of Islam – who is all-knowing, and all-powerful, but on their view, he is a person whose love is ultimately conditional and must be earned by complete and total submissive obedience – as loving as a parent who withholds love from his or her children unless they earn or deserve it first.

If you ask Mormons – such as Joseph Smith or Lorenzo Snow, who God is, they’ll tell you “God once was as we are now, and as God is now we will one day be.” To paraphrase, “God was actually a man like us before he was God, and now no longer is man but became God – and we, too, can become gods like him!”

If you ask a Hindu who God is, they’ll respond “Which one?” If you ask the average American, their definition of ‘God’ sounds more like a glorified, idealized version of themselves – some pushover buddy in the sky who only affirms everything we already think and feel, and never challenges or disagrees with us.

Buddhism will tell you there is no supreme creator or deity.

And atheism will tell you there’s absolutely nothing at all.

But they can’t all be right.

God Can’t Be Both Alfred And Anita

Like a game of Guess Who, all these profiles of God could conceivably all be false, but they can’t all be true. No different than your character in Guess Who? can’t simultaneously be Alfred (red hair, bushy mustache, and male) and Anita (white hair, rosy cheeks, and female).

Christian apologist (and once atheist) C.S. Lewis compares playing Guess Who? with God to grade school math: “As in arithmetic – there is only one right answer to a sum, and all other answers are wrong; but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others.” But close doesn’t mean correct. To the question “What is the answer to 2+2?”, “5” is certainly closer to “4” than “22”, but they’re both wrong – no more correct than leaving the question completely blank.

There is not only evidence that shows us God exists – there’s also evidence that shows us what God is like.

If the universe in which we live began to exist, then it must have had a cause. And whatever caused the universe must be something (or someone) beyond the influence or need of space, time, and matter. You could even argue this spaceless, timeless, immaterial being needed to be personal - because they freely chose to create a universe they did not need for himself to be who he is.

What is more, if our universe somehow were the accidental result of time + matter + energy + chance, how do we explain how our universe is finely and precisely tuned for the existence of life?

Doesn’t it seem more likely that a divine, personal, powerful Creator made our universe to be a certain, specific way? Uniquely tailored to facilitate life of all kinds and species?

And yet, there still are many who double down and insist that there is no God, and insist that we live in a world where, “there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” No good. No evil. No right. No wrong. No meaning. No purpose.

Without a divine personal Creator, not only are the inherent value and worth of human beings depreciated, but words like ‘right’, ‘wrong’, ‘good’, and ‘evil’ mean absolutely nothing. We are just biological accidents with delusions of granduer: machines for passing on DNA, and that’s our only reason for being.

How does that sit with you?

Such a statement should offend everyone.

Our lives do have real meaning, value, and purpose. Because we are inherently endowed with meaning, value, and purpose. But how? And why? Science can’t answer that question. And if there is such a thing as ‘good’ and ‘evil’ (and there is), than we are implying that there is a moral law by which we use to define ‘good’ and ‘evil’. And if there is a moral law, than there must be a higher person who is the foundation of what is moral, virtuous, and good – a moral lawgiver. Now, who could that be?

Nature and Conscience Alone Leave us Guessing

And in just a few hundred words, we’ve made a compelling case for God. By observation of the natural world around us and by our conscience, there before us lies a compelling evidence for God’s existence, but also evidence for what kind of God our God is.

We could infer from nature that God is powerful, ever-present, spaceless, timeless, infinite, and immaterial.

We could infer from our conscience that God is personal, righteous, blameless, perfectly just, and perfectly good.

But that’s it.

There’ nothing more that the natural world can show me about God’s nature. There’s nothing more my conscience can reveal about God’s nature.

And if the only revelation we had was nature and conscience, Guess Who? with God ends there.

We’d be left with no comfort that this God loves me and cares about me. We would be left without any assurance this God will work for my eternal good.

We’d be left with fear, wondering and worrying what this God will say to me when I must stand before him – because I know that I’m a sinner – in thought, word, and deed – and he is righteous, holy, and blameless.

I’d be left wondering if I need to do something to save myself.

And I’d be left dreadfully terrified, wondering if I have ever done enough.

Why “Immanuel” is a Game-Changer

Whether you’re playing Guess Who? with your sibling or Guess Who? with God, you ultimately don’t advance due to the questions you ask: you advance entirely on the truthfulness of the opposite player.

He is the one who answers “yes” and “no”.

He is the one who leads you along.

He is the one who ultimately reveals his character profile to you.

We could seek and search all we want but we would never find God – nor would we know with any confidence or certainty that God has been found. We needed God to lead us to himself – just as we needed God to show us himself.

We needed God to reveal himself – his character profile – in another way.

A better way.

An unmistakable way.

We needed the invisible God to reveal himself to us so we could tangibly see who our God is in all his fulness.

When the religions of this world demand you need to get at the level of God – God graciously flips the script, reverses our expectations, and meets us where we are – literally.

Our God pitched his tent at the level of his people – to visibly walk among the people he created. He, Immanuel, visibly dwelt among us.

In the past, God spoke through his prophets and revealed who he was through his Word – be it through promises made, or promises kept. But one promise stood out from the rest: the promise to redeem and ransom our fallen, broken, messed up world.

How would God do that? God would dwell among us.

God, in Christ, Throws ‘Guess Who?’ Out the Window

God the Father loved us so much he would send his one and only Son, Jesus, so we could see who our God is.

Veiled in humility and masked in suffering, God, in Christ, gives dimension to his love that we might see the very shape and contours of God’s undying compassion for fallen humanity.

And your God assures you that those who look to Jesus not only see who God is but see what God has done personally for them! Jesus died for you!

See God’s tenderness as he is born for you in Bethlehem!

See his compassion as he heals the sick and helpless.

See his compassion as he patiently reaches out to the lost and straying.

See your God’s love for you as he carried your sins to Calvary to die for you.

See your God’s promises fulfilled as Jesus rises from the dead.

That Christ is risen vindicates and verifies who he is and what he had accomplished: he is God in the flesh, and he has overcome sin, death, and hell.

This Christmas, we have true words of comfort: God doesn’t make you play Guess Who? with him.

In fact, God throws such a ridiculous game out the window and shows you exactly who he is.

He points you to the character card of Jesus.

Your Savior is not Diet God or God Zero or God Lite. There, born in Bethlehem, is the real deal – the exact representation of God’s being, the very image of the invisible God, the radiance of his glory, all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form.

Jesus is the very visible expression of who our God actually is.

There, wrapped in rags, is the God of Heaven and Earth. There, laid in a bed of straw, is the King of kings and Lord of lords – who is enthroned in splendor. There, sleeping to the lullaby of bleating sheep is the Almighty God whom angels worship and adore. There, in real space and time, is our Savior – who has always been – even before space and time even began. The infinite, majesty of our God now condescends to lowly humility – that he would be born in poverty – not to be cute in a crib, but crucified on a cross. There is your God!

See your God’s love as he dies for you. See your God’s love as he is born for you.

You want to know truly who your God is? Look to Jesus.

So, Who Makes the First Move?

Dan Bacon is a Dating and Relationships Expert who has been supplying men with dating advice since 2005. He runs a popular website titled The Modern Man where guys who are striking out in the dating scene can read of his triumphs with the ladies and pick up some tips on how to step up their game.

So, what is Dan Bacon’s first step in getting women to fall head-over heels for you? Guys need to make the first move.

He argues – in the grand scheme of things – physique and fiscal affluence aren’t the “manly” characteristics that ultimately win the day.

It’s confidence. A confidence any guy can exude simply by making the first move, walking up to a woman, and starting a conversation.

So, does that mean that women are just passive players in the relationship game? That they’re stuck sitting on the sidelines until some guy notices them?

World renown relationship experts, Dr. John Gottman and his wife Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman, don’t think so. In fact, they’d argue it’s quite the opposite.

While they say it’s true that women generally like being desired and pursued, that doesn’t mean women play a passive game in starting relationships. In fact, the Gottmans argue that women make the first move happen. Powerful non-verbals like making eye contact, smiling – and yes, even twirling your hair – are simple, yet scientifically proven effective ways of inviting that guy to make the ‘first move’. 

Either way, whether you tune in to the Gottmans or to Dan Bacon for relationship pointers, their advice for jumpstarting a relationship is – more or less – the same: you gotta do something.

You need to win their attention.

You need to showcase your qualities.

You need to initiate the relationship.

You need to make the first move.

Is that how it is with God? Are we like the girl at the club who twirls her hair in hopes that God will notice? Are we like the guy who must passionately pursue God first, like God is passively sitting on the other side of the bar? Do I need to do something or be something first for God to pursue me?

When it comes to a relationship with God, do we need to make the first move?

Love Out of Left Field

We might get that impression with stories like Genesis 12:1-9. I mean, God comes out of left field, and approaches a guy named Abram with a series of seriously amazing promises: “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

So, let’s ask the obvious:

Why Abram?

Why is he the chosen receiver of such amazing blessings?

Was there some inherent quality to this 75-year-old nomad that made him a deserving recipient of such spectacular promises?

Was it his racial, ethnic profile?

Did he say or do something to warrant God’s affection?

Did Abram make the first move?

God has made you some seriously amazing promises, too. And you don’t have to take my word for it; God tells you so himself in his Word. He promises providence and protection in your life. He promises your guilt and shame fully taken away at the cross. He promises redemption from sin, salvation from death, deliverance from hell, and eternal life in heaven. The list goes on, and on, and on.

We know God makes these promises, but we get this idea that we still have to make the first move - that I’m the reason I believe - that I flung wide the door of my heart and let God come in - that I somehow warrant God to not only make but carry out such promises.

“I’ve cleaned up my act! I say all the right prayers. I go to church every Sunday. I’m a good person! Why wouldn’t God make me these kinds of promises? Why wouldn’t God want to bless someone like me?”

I Couldn’t Make the First Move

Make no mistake: God does desire to bless you.

But it’s not because of you.

I know. There’s a part of you that gets offended when we hear that, isn’t there?

Here’s the thing: we couldn’t make the first move.

In fact, we couldn’t make any move.

The Bible tells us that we were born spiritually blind, deaf, and dumb - born spiritually dead in sin - estranged from and enemies of God.

If we’re sold on ideas of winning or warranting God’s love and affection, the reality is – you and I had nothing but sin to bring to the table. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…”

This dangerous fixation on ourselves will leave us either downplaying our desperate need of nothing short of a total gracious divine intervention, or we convince ourselves that when God moves it isn’t enough – that we’re too guilty to be forgiven, too broken to be fixed, too sick to be healed, too sinful to be saved.

God needed to make the first move. And he did. So that all people, all nations would be blessed.

God Made the First Move

This gracious promise that all nations would be blessed through Abraham’s offspring is not God stating how man must now fix his relationship with God, but how God would step in to fix it on mankind’s behalf!

It was God who reached down and pulled Abram and his family out of a pagan, idolatrous society to preserve their one true faith in the one true God.

It was God who gave Abram the name Abraham, “the father of many nations”.

It was God who miraculously enabled Abraham and Sarah to eventually have a son – even in their old age!

But not because of Abraham. Not even because of Abraham’s faith. But because of the object of his faith: Jesus, the promised descendant of Abraham through whom all nations would be blessed. It was because of God all nations would be blessed through Abraham’s family – including you.

It was God who reached down to you through his Word and brought you to faith.

It was God who, in the waters of your baptism, washed you clean and made you part of his family.

Not because of you, but in spite of you!

It is God who promises you that, in Christ, all of your sins are forgiven forever – that as far as the east is from the west, that’s how far he has taken your guilt and shame away in Jesus.

He promises you that nothing, not even death, can separate you from his undying love.

He promises that he, the same God who created you, the same God who died on a cross to save you, is the same God who is determined to carry you safely through this sin-stricken world: through heartache, through unemployment, through chronic pain and cancer, to the mansions of heaven where you in joy and peace will see your Savior Jesus, face to face.

When it came to your relationship with God, he made the first move – because of who he is: a God of grace, a God who loves with an unconditional love – a love we neither deserved nor earned, but a love he poured out on us all the same.

Abram was a sinner, just like you and me. But just as Abram was blessed by the descendant who would one day be born through his family, we are blessed too!

Jesus, the eternal Son of God, would be born through Abraham’s family, born to bear our sin, to bear our cross, our shame, our guilt – so we would be free.

So we would be his.

So he would be ours.

How can I be sure of all of this? Because God made the first move.