Monthly Archives: June 2009

1 Thes. 2:9-12 (ESV)

For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. [10] You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers. [11] For you know how, like a father with his children, [12] we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

Paul, in writing this letter to the Thessalonian church, reminds them of the kind of ministry he had with them. He calls them to remember how bold he was when he came to present the Gospel; he reminds them of his purity of motive, God centeredness, gentleness, and hard work for God on their behalf (Verses 1- 10). He then calls them to recall how he was like a father to them (verse 11).

If someone said to you “I will treat you as a father treats his son”, would that comfort or terrify you? It is a sad truth that many people do not have great memories of their fathers. Tragically, many Christians have let this horrifying reality colour their concept of the very institution of fatherhood itself. There were, no doubt, bad fathers in Paul’s day who got drunk, beat their children and wives, gambled away the paycheck and generally did little fathering beyond procreation. But this did not stop Paul from using an analogy about fatherhood to impress upon the Thessalonian Christians how much he cared for them. And it should not stop us. There are many bad fathers in the world, but we will not allow them to redefine what fatherhood is all about. To be “like a father” to people is a good thing. We should not allow those who have abused the institution to prevent us from seeing the good thing that it is.

Paul does not leave us in doubt regarding how he was like a father. What he says about how he was a father to the Thessalonians is teaching us about the kind of fathers we should be.

He exhorted them – the word exhort here means “call to one’s side”. It is a form of the word used for the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. Fathers should come along side of their children. They should be there with them. They should have their hands on the shoulders of their young ones helping them along as they learn how to tackle life with all its blessings and problems. Don`t bark orders from a sofa. Be with your kids.

He encouraged them. He was there with them giving comfort and assurance. He urged them on when they thought life was handing out more than they could handle. He urged them to persevere when things got tough. He instructed them so that when he was gone they would be able to do for themselves what he had trained them to do. This is fatherhood.

He charged them. The word here means “testify”, or “witness”. He told them what was right. When he saw them going astray he was not reluctant to let them know what the right way was. He showed them what the Bible said, told them how to obey it, how it related to a multi-religious culture, told them to guard themselves against the temptations that could lead them astray. All this and more.

And Paul compared all that to fatherhood. God has not left us without witness. And he will not abandon you to yourself as you tackle the most important job that can be tackled. God gives grace and mercy to help the Christian father in times of need. The times of need often seem insurmountable. In Christ, parenting need not be a crap shoot. He is a great God and He will enable you to parent as you submit yourself, as a believer, to Him. Get into the Scriptures and see.

Psalm 78:1-8 (ESV)

A Maskil OF Asaph.

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;

incline your ears to the words of my mouth!

[2] I will open my mouth in a parable;

I will utter dark sayings from of old,

[3] things that we have heard and known,

that our fathers have told us.

[4] We will not hide them from their children,

but tell to the coming generation

the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,

and the wonders that he has done.

[5] He established a testimony in Jacob

and appointed a law in Israel,

which he commanded our fathers

to teach to their children,

[6] that the next generation might know them,

the children yet unborn,

and arise and tell them to their children,

[7] so that they should set their hope in God

and not forget the works of God,

but keep his commandments;

[8] and that they should not be like their fathers,

a stubborn and rebellious generation,

a generation whose heart was not steadfast,

whose spirit was not faithful to God.

Salvation is not hereditary. There is no spiritual DNA that is inevitably passed on from one generation to the next. Every true conversion to Christ begins as an act of pure grace. God has no grandchildren. He has children.

That said, it needs to be pointed out that while faith is not hereditary it often travels in family lines. The reason is obvious. God honours the faithfulness of his people. He keeps his promise to give the desire of the heart to those who delight in Him (Psalm 37:4). God has answered countless prayers of countless Christian parents regarding the conversion of their children.

Those who have a passion for God will demonstrate that passion everywhere and are not going to keep quiet about it in the home. Those passions that are such an integral part of one’s life are going to be caught by the children of those who have them. Passions are like that. We see this all the time in pastors with sons in the ministry, athletes with children who excel at sports, doctors begetting doctors. It is not just the sins of the fathers that get passed on to the next generation. The commandment that promises the passing on of sins to the third and fourth generations also promises steadfast love to thousands of generations of those who keep His commandments.

In the piece of Scripture before us today we see this principle at work. There is no indication that conversion of the children taught is guaranteed but there is no doubt that where there is a great passion for God in the home it will get passed on to the next generation.

We see it most strongly in verse 4. “We will not hide … the glorious deeds of the Lord … and the wonders that he has done”. A Christian parent should never see himself as under a duty to evangelize his children. He should, rather, see that he has the inestimable privilege to talk to those he loves the most about the wonders that have captured his heart. Verse 4 does not say “we will tell our children about God.” It says “we will not hide… the glorious deeds … and the wonders…” . Who considers the deeds glorious? Who sees the work of God as glorious wonders? The father who walks with God, who knows God. No one ever has to be told to speak about what he finds glorious and full of wonder. It would pain him not to tell of such things.

The key to being a good father and growing children who will believe is to have a very large “wow” factor when it comes to God and His works. The smaller our God is to us the smaller He will appear to be to the children we are trying to influence for Him.

Fathers – is there anything that prevents you from getting to know God better and to be enraptured with all that He is? Have you become enamoured with lesser things at God’s expense? This is idolatry and you can be sure that such attitudes will be passed on to your children. Do not let anything take God out of the supreme place of receiving heart felt worship from you. It is why you are made. It is the formula for passing on to the next generation the truth about a glorious God.

Pray in a greater knowledge and love for God (See Ephesians 1:15-23 and 3:14-21). Repent of the sin of relegating God to less than first place. It is the sin of idolatry. Thank God that he will use you to pass on His great wonders to your children and go at it in the strength that God gives to all His children who are serious about their obedience to Him.

Deut. 6:1-9 (ESV)

“Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rules that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, [2] that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. [3] Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

[4] “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. [5] You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. [6] And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. [7] You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. [8] You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. [9] You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

God continues in the theme of keeping the covenant to Abraham through the faithful transmission of God’s Word from fathers to children. Having said that Abraham will “command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness …”, Moses now says basically the same thing when he rehearses the law with the people of Israel as he prepares to leave them and die. “You shall teach them diligently to your children…” is the command to the people of Israel. And he tells them how. They shall talk of the things of God constantly with their children. This means that they shall relate everything to God and his ways. A flower by the side of the road, a nutritious meal at the table, a starry night, a horrifying crime in the neighbourhood. These and everything else that we encounter in our daily lives are opportunity for a father to teach a child about God, salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, the world as his creation, the horrors of a world gone away from the will of its Creator, the providence of God. And the Gospel. We need to open our eyes and see the need for, the results of, the opportunity for the Gospel in our everyday lives. And we need to be diligent in passing all that and more onto our children.

We will do this when we have, as the text says, these words “on our hearts”. When the Word of God is on our hearts then we will not neglect to pass it on to our children. And we shall not be satisfied with a passing note of thanks at a meal or a quick prayer before the children go to bed. We shall be diligent in presenting the Scriptures to our children. We will live Bible based, Gospel centered lives. Fathers will not leave this God given task to be the sole responsibility of their wives.

The law of Moses cannot save. And there is much in it that simply has been abolished by the Gospel. We do not need to teach that different types of fabric must never be blended or that children should be executed for cursing their parents. But we can tell our children why God made such rules in the first place. We should teach our children how the Law of Moses fits in with the overall plan of Scripture and if we do not know we better find out.

Fathers – study the Bible so that you can pass it on to your children. Show your children, through your behaviour, that you value the Scriptures more than T.V., more than the latest episode of whatever, more even than the next game. Make sure your children see you reading the Bible and good books. Make sure you pray with your door open so that they can see you at it. Invite them to your devotional times in the morning. Ask them questions out of the text. Pray aloud for the salvation of your children in their hearing. Diligently teach these things to your children. Have the Scriptures on your heart. Permeate your home and your life with the Word of God. Make the daily worship of God the default position of your life together as a family so that they will be amazed when they hear that not all families live like that, when they begin to interact in the world that you begin sending them into so very young. Fulfill the Great Commission, first and foremost in your home.

17The LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, 18seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”

In the text from which the above quote comes, God has decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for its sin and is about to tell Abraham what His plans are. The reason that He is about to let Abraham in on His plans is that He has chosen Abraham to be the father of a great nation.

This Sunday is Father’s Day and this piece of Scripture addresses the issue of fatherhood very directly. It is simply an astounding thing that God says about Abraham. God openly says why He chose Abraham – so that Abraham can teach his children the ways of God.

Abraham was chosen by free and undeserved grace. He was an idol worshipping stranger to God and God simply called him to the worship of Himself. And He promised to make him the father of a vast nation numbering people from all the nations:

1Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

God chooses Abraham with a plan to save people from all over the world, throughout all the ages. Paul will say 2000 years later that all who believe in Jesus Christ are the spiritual children of Abraham (Galatians 3:7). We are told in Romans that Abraham was justified by faith, not works (Romans 4:1-4) and that if anyone is ever going to be saved it will be by faith, not works as well. And then Paul tells us in Ephesians 1:4-5 that the redeemed are those who are chosen from before the foundation of the world.

Putting all that together we get this: Before the world was made God determined to save a vast number of people from every corner of the world. He chooses Abraham to be the beginning of this vast nation because Abraham will be the ancestor of Jesus Christ. The descendants of Abraham are not physical but spiritual, through faith in Jesus Christ.

And then this. This great eternal plan will come to pass only if Abraham is faithful to teach his children the ways of God, and teaches them to keep passing it on. The means by which God brought Jesus Christ into the world to save it from its sin was fathers faithfully teaching God to their children. It is still the way that God works.

This does not mean that only people whose fathers were believers can ever be believers. But it does mean that all fathers have a responsibility from God to teach their children the Gospel.

And the mind warping encouragement is this: that when fathers faithfully do this, they are being used by God to fulfill a plan forged in eternity past, brought into being at the call of Abraham, sealed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Never demean the simple, unseen, unknown, uncared about in the world, work of explaining the Gospel to your little ones. It is part of God’s plan to keep His promise to Abraham over 4000 years ago.

Sorry – no posts today.

Galatians 3:29 – [29] And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise

We are heirs of God according to a promise. The promise was made to Abraham 4000 years ago. We are heirs, not through biology, and certainly not through keeping the Law, but through spiritual renewal. All those born again are heirs of the promise. God makes the promise and God sees to it that it will be fulfilled.

The promise is made to all of Abraham’s descendants and we are his descendants if we believe in Jesus Christ. And we believe in Jesus Christ if we are the called according to His grace. This is a great marvel. God makes the promise and then God sees to it that those called to inherit the blessing contained in the promise, meet the requirements. The ultimate requirement is sinless perfection and He met that one for us as well.

Faith in Christ gets us to be counted as righteous as Him. This is a wonder far beyond words. It should stun us and it should set us on a hilltop proclaiming it. The Good News of the Gospel should so galvanize us to Him that we are living in a constant state of utter amazement. Meditate on this “I am the recipient of the promise made to Abraham 4000 years ago. I am included in this inheritance because I believe in Jesus Christ and am completely in it through Him alone. I have faith because He set His love upon me even before He called Abraham”.

The more we examine what the Bible says about the Gospel the more stunning it becomes. Why does this not excite us more? Why does this not put us to be delivering this message whenever possible? O Lord, help us to be an evangel in great faithfulness, in great joy, and in honour to you.

Proverbs 21

1 (ESV) The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.

The Lord turns the heart of the King wherever He wishes. Some will want to add that He turns the hearts of willing kings, or faithful kings, or obedient kings. But this is not what the verse says and it is not what the verse means. God turns the hearts of the rulers of the world to do what fits His purposes.

When political leaders rule in their wickedness and ignore God’s ways and abuse and hurt people and lead for their own political reasons God is not asleep. The rulers of the world talk like they are the ones who have the power. We talk at election time of putting people into power. The ones we put into power, the leaders of our nations and cities, are not the ultimate power. And neither are those who elect them. Sometimes voters talk and act like they are the ones who hold the futures of their leaders in their hands. This reminds us of another proverb -

Proverbs 16:33 (ESV)

The lot is cast into the lap,

but its every decision is from the Lord.

All human power is borrowed power. It can only be used legitimately when it is used in accordance with the will of the One who has lent it to them. But what if they do not?

Even if a ruler is wicked God will turn his heart to serve a far grander purpose – see Acts 2:23. Evil does not thwart the purposes of the Almighty. He wants rulers to rule well, but let us never think that if they don’t that they force God into plan “B” (See Psalm 2). Why do Kings change their minds? Why do rulers do good? Because God is at work.

There is little more comforting than this: the world, for all its chaos and unimaginable wickedness, is heading to the end for which God intended it and the Kings of the earth are tools in God’s hands to get it there. We can sleep tonight. Evil cannot ultimately win anything at all.

Galatians 3:27-29 (ESV) – For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. [28] There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. [29] And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

It is possible for a person to be the recipient of believer’s baptism and not be a believer. The New Testament talks much about false faith – faith that is not a genuine faith in Jesus Christ. Such false believers are often baptized (See Acts 8:9-24). They are either fooling themselves or practising deceit.

Paul is not speaking here about such people. He is speaking to those who have truly put on Christ and therefore have been truly baptized into Christ. It is unlikely that Paul knew every Christian in the Galatian churches that he is intending this Letter to go to. But even though he did not know them he knew this – they had all been baptized. Conversion and baptism are inseparable in the New Testament.

If you said to the Apostle Paul “What should we do about believers who are not yet baptized”, he would not be able to process the question. A non-baptized believer is simply not, in Paul’s mind (and the ‘mind’ of the whole New Testament), a possibility. And if you are a believer who has not been baptized you should be. It does not contribute to you being saved, but it is an act of obedience and brings with it, blessing from Christ.

Paul is not saying in the opening words of this verse (27) that believers do not receive Christ until the have been baptized. Neither is he saying that baptism somehow deploys the Spirit of Christ through baptism.

He is saying that all believers have been baptized into Christ and nothing more is necessary. We must not forget the context of this whole letter. Salvation is not faith plus anything. It is faith alone in Christ alone. It is not a matter of ethnicity, social standing or gender – it is a matter of faith in Christ. Keeping the Law does not add to your relationship with Christ – all who have been baptized are in Christ. They have put on Christ. To add to this is to deny the Gospel. Belonging to Christ makes you a descendant of Abraham – not keeping the Law, not gender and not social class. What a glory the Gospel is.

Psalm 126:1-6 (ESV)

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,

we were like those who dream.

[2] Then our mouth was filled with laughter,

and our tongue with shouts of joy;

then they said among the nations,

“The Lord has done great things for them.”

[3] The Lord has done great things for us;

we are glad.

[4] Restore our fortunes, O Lord,

like streams in the Negeb!

[5] Those who sow in tears

shall reap with shouts of joy!

[6] He who goes out weeping,

bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,

bringing his sheaves with him.

What a great Psalm to read at this time of year as we work at getting our gardens in and as those who farm for a living get their fields planted with the hope that this will be a good year and the crops healthy and the profits large.

The Psalmist looks back on better days for Israel and asks God to do now, in a time of distress, what He did for the people before. The basic message of the Psalm is that the God who has shown mercy in the past, can be trusted to do so again (See Psalm 85:1-6).

It is also a statement of faith. Verses 4-6 claim with confidence that though there are tears now, these tears are merely seed that will produce the fruit of joy.

Planting seed is hard work. Some of the seeds never germinate, some get eaten by birds before it ever sinks into the ground. Some are dead and will produce nothing. The work is back breaking and will be accompanied by much difficulty. The farmer is willing to do all this because he knows that the seed will produce food for him and others.

This is an obvious picture of the work of evangelizing the lost. The parable of the sower is hard not to bring into the picture painted here (Matthew 13:3-9, 19-23). If God sends us out with the Gospel it will bear fruit. He shall lose none of all that He gives to the Son (John 6:39). Doing God’s work in God’s way shall not return to Him fruitless. He is not sending us on a fool’s errand. Gospel work is fraught with tears and pain and there is much that tempts us to give up. But we need to remember that the Gospel is fruit bearing work. If we do good and do not faint we shall reap at the right time (Galatians 6:9-10).

Do not give up. Persevere. Trust in the God who cannot lie and who sees to it that the Word shall not return void but shall accomplish all that He intends it to (Isaiah 55:11). What a work to be involved in. We plant, another waters, and God gives the increase (I Corinthians 3:5-9).

But it would be wrong to see in this Psalm just a reference to giving the Gospel. There is much work to be done for God in the work that He gives us to do. And they all demand patient care and hard work and the hope that we serve a great God who cannot break His word to us. Let us do good to all, especially tose who belong to the household of faith for in due time we shall reap if we faint not. That text of Scripture comes with a warning as well as a promise. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows is what he shall reap (Galatians 6:7-8). The point in all this is that God is faithful. He is faithful in His promises to give fruit to those who work hard for Him. He is faithful in keeping His promises to those who have worked against His ways.

Today, plant seed that has God’s promise upon it for great fruit because He Himself is in the work that you were faithfully performing. The joy that produces will be reward enough for oyu, even though God promises more.