Monthly Archives: November 2010

Luke 6:[24] “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

[25] “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.

“Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.

[26] “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

The health and wealth Gospel is a dreadful piece of work. It is the belief that God’s will for the believer is, among other things, for him or her to be rich and healthy. It is in error on almost all that it teaches and from the emphasis it gives in its teachings appears to not understand the fundamentals of the Christian faith. It misunderstands the joy of the Christian life. It is worldly in that it ties happiness to possessions, and faith to receiving the natural desires of the heart. It loves the gifts of God more than God Himself and hides it all behind a veneer of “God wants the best for you” while missing almost completely what that “best” is. It is an insult to countless hundreds of thousands of believers around the world who are poor, sick, homeless, and hungry. Words such as “prosperity”, “wealth”, “riches”, are almost always defined in a material sense. Promises relating to such things are seen to mean material goods and sometimes it may even be suggested that to take them otherwise is to not believe the Bible, or at least not to understand it “literally”. There is no particular blessing to being poor.

It doesn’t seem to be able to recognize a metaphor and is guilty of what I like to call the Nicodemus syndrome. Poor Nicodemus thought new birth meant climbing back into his mother’s womb. He thought like that because he was so materially minded, the phrase “new birth” was beyond his ability to understand.

In Luke 6:24-26 Jesus pronounces woes upon those who are rich, happy and popular. He cannot mean that riches, happiness and popularity are never the possession of the faithful. But He certainly does mean that they are not the marks of faithfulness.

Believers are those who know great riches in Christ (Ephesians 3:8), have had their hunger for righteousness satisfied (Matthew 5:6), have their happiness in knowing Christ (Philippians 4:13). They find their happiness in knowing Christ (Philippians 4:11-12) and know that it is better to know Christ than to be popular in the world (Matthew 5:11-12). This is real wealth and real happiness. It is for all who are in Christ and it is far better than anything that anyone can receive outside of Christ, no matter how much money that is or how healthy it makes him.

Luke 6:20-23 -

[20] And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

[21] “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.

[22] “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! [23] Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

Is this the same sermon as the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7? There are many similarities but enough differences that it may indeed be a whole different occasion.

Verses 20-23 are Luke’s account of the Beatitudes. The first four of these beatitudes relate to those who suffer in some way and yet who can rejoice because of what awaits them in the future. Those who are poor are in the Kingdom of God. Those who are hungry will be satisfied. Those who are sad will rejoice. Those who are opposed have great reward in heaven.

The word “blessed” appears at the beginning of each of these sayings. Those who are poor, hungry, weeping and opposed can all know blessing. One way of translating this word “blessed” is “happy” and that is very appropriate. It is deeper than mere happiness but not less than what we normally think of as happiness.

In the midst of poverty, tears, and persecution there can be a deeper happiness that none of those things can eradicate. Some have criticized the Christian faith for its emphasis on eternal happiness in the midst of a miserable present. This is not what Jesus is indicating here. He is saying that there can be real happiness now even if the poverty, hunger, tears and persecution are a part of their lives. That real happiness is because of the great things that God does for them now and has in store for them because of their faith. Their current situation does nothing to erase those great blessings.

Happiness. How many people are happy? And how many professing believers are as miserable as everyone else simply because they think that happiness is related to possessions, pleasant circumstances, health or money? Christians need to be showing the world that no matter what our circumstances are we are blessed and we are glad for our blessings.

I tell my church the story of the time I met a man in Malawi, South Central Africa, with no fingers, no toes and no eyes, due to leprosy. The day we met we asked him how he was feeling and he replied “I am content in Jesus.” This is a perfect example of what Jesus is talking about. I am sure that he would have liked to be completely healthy, to be able to see and be mobile and care for his family. But the fact that he could not did not destroy him or make him charge God with wrong. His attitude condemns me and probably most people who have more material goods and health than he ever could have imagined. He died several weeks ago and got to really see the truth of what Jesus was saying. And one day he will have a new body and his contentment will be off the scale.

We should cultivate this sense of blessedness that Jesus says is ours because of His work for us and our faith in Him. It is real. It is powerful. It is not pie in the sky when you die by and by. It is a faithful God telling us why we can be happy no matter what our circumstances are. What a God.

Psalm 115:[1] Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!

Not to us, not to us … . Such a phrase may indeed be needed for the poetry in Hebrew to sound the way the author wanted it to sound. But in the providence of God the repetition of this opening phrase of the Psalm is one of the most needed messages to all people, including believing Christians today.

Not to us. We are so prone to want to gravitate attention to ourselves. What we need to be reminded of is that if the attention is to get to us then it will not go to the One who really deserves it. It will be denied in many circles in the evangelical camp, but there is a palpable arrogance among those who call themselves Bible believing Christians.

The reason why the opening phrase of Psalm 115 is repeated is because we need to be constantly reminded not to grab for the glory that belongs to God alone. How do we know what glory belongs to God and what belongs to us? It is a pretty complicated formula, so pay close attention – God should get it all, you should get none.

There is hardly a believer who wouldn’t agree with such a statement and there is hardly a believer who wouldn’t defend his own arrogance. We say things like “that’s not pride, that’s the wise use of our gifts”, “this is simply an accurate appraisal of the situation”. “That’s not arrogance, it is just a matter of being right.” Jesus taught us things that serve as arrogance meters. Consider the following:

1) Matthew 6:1-17 – When you do good for others, or pray, or fast, don’t let others know you are doing it. Corporate prayer and fasting and charity work are not wrong, but can you do these things and be content to let no one know about them?

2) Luke 14:7-11 – When you are invited to a banquet, take a seat in an inconspicuous spot. Don’t be anxious to be seen with prominent people

3) Luke 14:12-14 – When you hold a banquet invite those who cannot repay the favour. This means, at the very least, that we get to know people outside our own social setting.

4) Luke 10:17-24 – Rejoice in undeserved grace and mercy given you more than your accomplishments for the Kingdom. It is easy to think that we are the reason for growth, when growth happens.

The sad reality in this is that even when we know these things we still get carried away with ourselves. We can justify violating the principles. We can forget that people do not need to hear or see us. We can do good for very bad reasons, even while we know that they are bad. Our hearts are so deceitful that we can deny that the pride and arrogance and self-centeredness and love of praise, are there. It is truly frightening. It is worth considering the repetition of these words in Psalm 115. Not unto us. Not unto us. How they need to be believed and how they need to be practiced.

The way to truly mean and practice “not to us” is by getting to know God better. What humbled Isaiah was a visit to the heavenly temple of God (Isaiah 6:1-6). The prayers of Paul for the churches he wrote was that they know God better. (Ephesians 1:15-23, 3:14-21; Philippians 1:9-11; Colossians 1:9-11.) One cannot grow in intimacy with God and keep one’s pride. And it will make us most happy when He not us gets the attention and the praise. True happiness and contentment lie in knowing Him as He is and deflecting all praise to Him, who alone deserves it.

Luke 6:[6] On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. [7] And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him. [8] But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. [9] And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” [10] And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. [11] But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.

Another Sabbath controversy. Luke has told us of one when Jesus and His disciples picked grain, rubbed it between their hands and ate. Now he tells us of a healing on the Sabbath.

We are told that the man’s right hand was withered. Why do we need to know it was the right hand? Not every detail of a story is relevant to the account except that it gives it some context and prevents the story from becoming boring. Is that what Luke is doing here? I don’t think so. His right hand is withered. The right hand is the hand of power. It is the hand for working. It is more serious to have one’s right hand crippled than one’s left. No offense here to south paws, but it is just a fact that most people are right handed and Luke’s point is that this is not a minor matter. This is serious because the man is unable to work and provide for himself and his family. Jesus is not performing cosmetic surgery.

This is an important point when we consider the complaint of the Pharisees. They do not care about the man’s ability to work or provide for others. They care more about their own preconceived notions of what it means to be holy.

Verse 7 tells us that the Scribes and Pharisees watched to see if Jesus would heal on the Sabbath. What gave them the idea that He might? Because He had broken the Sabbath before (as far as they were concerned) and they knew that Jesus had such a heart of compassion that it would be hard for Him to pass this man by. They knew Jesus’ compassion. They knew that He might heal.

But it never entered their minds to think about the crippled man. The man is incidental to them. He is no more than a catalyst to enable them to take Jesus to task for breaking their rules.

How we can be like these Pharisees! We too, can use people and see them as no more than an opportunity for us to get ahead or show ourselves to be better then we really are. We can help people so that others will know how helpful we are. We can correct people so they will know how right we are. We can talk to people so they will know how much we know. We can drop names on people so they will know how well connected we are (would someone please kill the phrase “my good friend …”). We can quote authors and poets, crack jokes, help them, pray with them, pray for them, all with sinful motives. It just goes on and on.

There is good reason Jesus said not to let our right hand know what the left hand is doing. And it all stems from this, that we see ourselves as better than others and desire them to see us.

How great a teacher was Jesus!! He truly loved those He taught and helped. And when He drew attention to Himself it was because He deserved it. He is the Son of God and it can never be pride to draw people’s attention to Him, even if you are Him.

Our goal is to draw attention to Him, not us. Let us never see others as an opportunity to prove something about ourselves. Let us see them as people made in the image of God whom God has placed in our lives for their good and His glory. Be such a person of integrity and compassion that when there is opportunity to do good, people will be watching you, expecting you to do something.

Luke 6:[1] On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. [2] But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” [3] And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: [4] how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” [5] And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

When Jesus was accused of breaking the Sabbath those who accused Him were wrong. Jesus did not break the Sabbath. But Jesus did not argue that. He let them think He had, and argued the point that sometimes it was lawful to do so. Stunning.

His point in this instance is that people are more important than the rigid requirements of the Law. The example He gives is that of David eating the shew bread in the Tabernacle when he was hungry. This was not permitted, but it seems that what Jesus is saying here is that this aspect of the Law was never meant to be held to the point that God would deny human need. There are times, rare as they may be, when the law gets in the way of doing a greater good. When that happens, then the law must bow to that greater good.

Evil hearts will use this to justify all kinds of sin. The young virile man could argue that his need for sex justified his sexual activity. The thief could argue, as Solomon himself seems to do, that poverty forced him to steal (Proverbs 30:8). Many Christians, almost on a daily basis, reason that they are the exception to the general rule and that they are justified in their lying to keep out of trouble, fudging the figures on their income tax forms because their taxes are too high, rudeness because that is all people in our culture seem to respond to. The list is endless.

Can we argue for such things on the basis that Jesus said David did a good thing in eating the bread reserved for priests? Not at all. People who look for loopholes in the rules have no intention of obeying them anytime. Jesus is arguing for a principle that helps the needy, not justifies the guilty. It is also probably significant that the law Jesus is accused of breaking is the Sabbath, and the law he quotes David breaking is ceremonial.

Having said all that, we should not lose sight of what Jesus says. The Law was not a hammer to beat people. It was a rule to help people. It was for their good. There were rare occasions when it was right to step outside of it. But they remained rare. The Pharisees, of course, never recognized such a thing. If they had been running things they would have let David starve to death rather than allow him to eat. David’s priest let him eat and there is not a hint in the OT account that anything wrong had been committed. Jesus backs the Pharisees into a corner and they know it. They have no choice but to let Him go on His way. To condemn him would be to condemn David and the priest who let him eat.

At the very least this account tells us to be a thinking people. We must not use the Bible to beat people to death, nor must we run willy nilly into disobedience. Knowing what is the right thing to do in some situations takes a wrestling with the Scriptures that far too many believers are not willing to exercise. Before we make these difficult decisions we need to know our Bibles. We need to be in close relationship with God and we need to be obedient. This account from the life of Christ is a wonderful encouragement to become better students of the Scriptures and diligent searchers after the very mind of God. What a privilege it is to pursue such things.

Psalm 106:[19] They made a calf in Horeb

and worshiped a metal image.

[20] They exchanged the glory of God

for the image of an ox that eats grass.

[21] They forgot God, their Savior,

who had done great things in Egypt,

[22] wondrous works in the land of Ham,

and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.

[23] Therefore he said he would destroy them—

had not Moses, his chosen one,

stood in the breach before him,

to turn away his wrath from destroying them

God would have destroyed the people of Israel in the desert had Moses not interceded for them in prayer. The event that Psalm 106 refers to is found in Exodus 32 and is the account of the people making a golden calf to worship while Moses is receiving the law on Mount Sinai.

What a mystery prayer is. God works out everything after the counsel of His own will and at the same time answers the prayers of His children and changes things from what they would be because of those prayers. God was going to destroy the Israelites and keep the covenant made to Abraham, through Moses. Moses prays and God relents.

This is not Moses twisting God’s arm. This is God being faithful to His own word to hear and answer the believing prayers of His people. It is not a matter of God changing His mind. It is a matter of God doing as He said He would in working through the prayers of His people. This is one of the most comforting and encouraging truths that we have been given.

Prayer is not a waste of time. It is not us trying to twist the arm of some despot who is going to do whatever he is going to do regardless of what we want. Not at all.

Prayer is going to the only great sovereign God and petitioning Him to hear us knowing that He works through the prayers of his children and that what we do on our knees can effect people and things all over the world because God has been pleased to answer according to His will.

Would the things brought about through prayer have happened if we had not prayed them? There is no such thing as “what if” when it comes to living for Christ. We did pray and God did answer. Let that be a great encouragement to you and let it send you to your knees constantly knowing that God hears and answers. He relented for Moses. The fervent prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much (James 5:16-18).

Live a holy life and ask God for what is good and right. He will give good things to the righteous when they seek Him.

Luke 6:[1] On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. [2] But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” [3] And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: [4] how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” [5] And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus has been accused of breaking the Sabbath and He has responded by reminding them that David was permitted to violate the law when he was hungry. But that is not where Jesus’ arguments ended. He has one more thing to say on the subject: “…the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath”. In other words, “I can do whatever I like”. This comment by Jesus would have infuriated anyone who did not believe that Jesus was The Son of God. He is stating that He is over the Sabbath as its Lord. This means that it is His invention and as He brought it into being He has the right to put it to an end or keep it going. This is a statement that He is God indeed. The Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments and to claim to be Lord over the commandments is to claim that One is greater than the Law. This is a clear evidence that Jesus considered Himself to be God in the flesh. And He was. He is.

No Pharisee can teach or lecture Jesus about proper observance of the Sabbath, or proper obedience to any law. He is the Author of them. He knows what He meant when He wrote them and He knows, as a human being, how best to keep them. This is part of the marvel of the incarnation. The eternal Son of God lived here. He knows what it is like to experience pain and weakness. He knows what it is like to be tempted to sin. And He knows what it is like to be taught twisted ideas about how to please God.

In Mark’s account of this encounter with the Pharisees we are told that Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. God’s laws are for our good. None of them were meant to put us in a straight jacket and keep us from enjoying life. God knows what is best for us and He knows better than to let us destroy ourselves with all the wrong things. It is sin that ruins us, not the laws of God.

The Pharisees want Jesus to abide by rules that hurt and damage and will lead to a sense of self righteousness and away from God. Jesus came to save people from their sin, including the sin of legalisms and self righteousness. Real liberty is only found in Him and obeying His commands is what all those who truly love Him will gladly do.

Luke 6:[1] On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. [2] But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” [3] And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: [4] how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” [5] And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

As Jesus travelled around Galilee, Pharisees, who usually hung around Jerusalem, followed Him, listening to His teachings, watching Him and assessing Him and His work. They are waiting for Him to trip up. Their attitude will prove to be more of jealousy and a desire to keep control than a defence of the truth. It is hard not to imagine Jesus seeing these inspectors and doing things for the purpose of correcting them in public. Jesus has the disciples walk through a field of grain and pick it, rub their hands together in order to separate the wheat from the chaff and then eat the kernels of grain. He knows these Pharisees well enough to know that this will provoke a challenge.

The Law prohibited work on the Sabbath. The Jewish leaders over the centuries had added commentaries to the law so that people could really know how to keep it. “Work” was given a very broad definition and what Jesus and His disciples did here was considered threshing grain.

When the Pharisees ask why Jesus and His followers are breaking the Sabbath, they are not being entirely correct. What they are breaking is not the Sabbath, but the common understanding of what the Sabbath regulations meant. And what happened is what often happens – the tradition became more important than the law itself. Jesus has not broken the Law. He has broken the tradition that had developed.

What the Pharisees did with the Law, especially the Sabbath Law, is what people still do with the rules that God gives the church. The Bible says not to get drunk and people turn it in a commandment not to drink at all. The Bible says not to forsake the assembling of ourselves with the people of God and people turn it into guilt trips about being at some church function five or six nights a week. The Bible says to flee from ungodliness and we turn it into a matter of never associating with anyone who does not believe as we do. Over time, our rules become more important than the ones laid down by God.

At some point there will be a reaction against this kind of legalism and the result will be a style of Christianity that has no rules at all – not even God’s. People are pendulum swingers and we travel from one extreme to the other. Excessive rules give way to no rules at all. Grace becomes a licence for immorality and licentious living. Nothing is seen to be wrong.

The worst case scenario is two kinds of Christianity – one that says that we are saved because we keep the rules – which is nothing other than an abandonment of the Gospel because of self righteousness; and one that says we are saved by grace and there are no rules. This is immorality dressed up in religious garments. Neither of these two extremes have anything to do with the Gospel. They are both wrong and they both condemn people to hell. They both need to be abandoned.

The solution to these twin evils is the biblical Gospel. We are saved by the free unmerited grace of God in Christ and empowered by that Gospel to live a holy life. Probably the best summary of it is Ephesians 2:8-10.

[8] For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, [9] not a result of works, so that no one may boast. [10] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

The very fact that most believers know Ephesians 2:8-9 and not verse 10 is an indication of the problem. We are saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, which is a gift in itself. This grace will always, always, always, produce holy living which is where verse 10 takes us – “created in Christ Jesus to do good works which He had prepared beforehand that we should walk in them”.

Do not trust your works – that is a denial of grace. Do not think that there are no works to do – that is a denial of grace. We must not be Pharisees and invent our own rules and call them the Word of God. And we must not abandon all rules in the name of correcting the Pharisees.

Luke 5:[33] And they said to him, “The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.” [34] And Jesus said to them, “Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? [35] The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” [36] He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. [37] And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. [38] But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. [39] And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”

Yesterday we noted from Luke 5 that Jesus expects His followers to fast now that He has left and will one day return. Here are just a few observations about fasting that I hope you find helpful.

1. We do not fast to earn points with God. We can earn nothing from God and fasting does not make us holier or special.

2. We fast with purpose

a. Luke 5 – fast for the return of Christ. Do you want Jesus to return? Do we mourn the fact that the world is a mess because it needs Jesus? Do we long for an end to all that sin has done to the world?

b. Isaiah 58 – Fast for the sake of sharing with others. In other words, we give up something for the sake of giving it to someone else so that they can use it.

c. Matthew 9:15 Fasting is mourning. Fast as a mourning for sin. Going without food is not a pleasant experience. Hunger hurts, even for us who have never really been hungry but only eat late occasionally. We are willing to endure the absence of food because we want something more – holiness. Sin bothers us so much that we take time to go without food for the sake of petitioning God to be free from sin. Of course this means that since we are mourning for our sin, it will lead us to repentance. We pray repentantly and get up from our prayer and fasting and make things right with those we have sinned against.

d. Fast as a spiritual discipline of forsaking, for a brief time, necessary food because there is something more needful.

e. Matthew 6:16-18 Fast secretly. Don’t blog about it, make it known, or speak of its great value to others. Don’t look sad or complain about being hungry. Why? Because we are so prone to bragging about almost everything we do. Don’t use fasting as an opportunity to draw attention to yourself. This, of course, applies to every spiritual act we can perform.

f. Acts 13:1-3 Fast with others. Agreeing with others to fast does not mean that you are not doing it secretly. The privacy principle that Jesus laid down is to keep us from bragging about our fasting. And a group can keep this principle as well as a person. Individualism is a curse upon the church. None of us can do good all by ourselves and we need the encouragement and support of others. It is one of the reason why God saves into communities of believers called churches.

g. We can fast from things other than food. A fast from television, blogging, and other legitimate activities, for the sake of prayer, can be of great value in the lives of believers. It can help break the addictions to some of these activities.

h. If there are medical reasons people have that prevent them from fasting they should practice some other form of fasting.

Fasting is not a magic wand. It does not force God to do what we want. But it does demonstrate to Him that we are serious about our commitment to Him. It helps demonstrate it to us as well.