The Trinity--Definite Convictions Series

            There are many things in life that we don’t totally understand and can’t totally explain, but we know they’re very important—things like:

·         What your health insurance covers

·         How your retirement plan works

            For most Christians, the doctrine of the Trinity falls into a category like this. We barely have the foggiest idea of how to explain it, but we know it’s very important, and we know we’re supposed to believe it, so we do. Today, I hope I can take a bit of the mystery out of this doctrine for you as we look at the second section of our statement of faith, which says this:

We believe in the eternal Triune God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each Person being equal, yet there not being three gods, but One. (Gen 1:26a; John 10:30; John 1:1,2; John 14:16; Deut 6:4; John 15:26; 2 Cor 13:14; Acts 5:3,4)

            Before we look at a couple of the specific words of this statement, let’s make sure we have a basic idea of what we’re actually claiming when we say that God is a Trinity. One of the best ways to clarify this claim is by comparison. For example, consider me—I am one being with one mind. I am not two beings or three beings—there is only one of me (even when I wish I could be in two places at one time!). Also, there is only one thinking part to me, not multiple thinking parts.

            In contrast to this, when we say God is a Trinity, we’re saying that God is one being with three minds. God is only one existing thing, but within that one existing thing there are three minds—or three persons we could say, these three persons who refer to themselves as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

            As Christians, we make this claim because it’s the only way to make sense of everything that the Bible says about God. The Bible is quite clear that there is only one God—not many gods or several gods, but one God. In Deuteronomy 6:4, Moses states, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” God Himself declared this in Isaiah 44:6 and 8: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god… Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.”

            And yet the Bible also assigns the same divine powers and honor to three distinct Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each of them is called “God” in different passages, and they are consistently given the same honor, yet we know they’re distinct because we also read about them communicating with each other and performing different actions at the same moment in time.

            So when we put all of this together, we come up with the doctrine of the Trinity—that God is only one being, within which there are three distinct minds. Now some people have said that this claim is just a bunch of nonsense. Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses have all said that its impossible for God to be one being with three minds because that statement is self-contradictory, they say.

            But in reality, that accusation simply is not true. A truly self-contradictory statement would be something like, “George is a married bachelor.” That’s a contradiction because a bachelor, by definition, is not married.

            But you can probably see that the claim that God is one being with three minds simply is not like that statement about George. It’s true that we can’t understand completely what God must be like, but that’s no reason to say that it’s impossible for God to be one being with three minds.

“eternal”

            Let’s take a closer look now at just a couple of the words in our statement of faith. First, our statement correctly says that the Trinity is eternal. Each of the three divine Persons has always existed. There was never a time when only the Father existed, then the Son came along later on, then the Holy Spirit after that. No—each of them has always existed.

“each Person being equal”

            Next, notice how our statement says, “each Person being equal.” There is a true equality between the three divine Persons even though they have played different roles in their interactions with Creation. For example, it wasn’t the Holy Spirit who was born into the world as Jesus, it was the Son. And it wasn’t the Father who then came to live within us, it was the Holy Spirit. But nevertheless, they all have the same traits and abilities, and they are all equally worthy of our worship.

Monday Matters

            Once again now in this series, we need to talk about how this doctrine relates to the matters that concern us in daily life. It can be very tempting for us to think that the doctrine of the Trinity has very little relevance to our daily troubles. Sure, we understand that faith in God and obedience to Christ are very important, but why does it matter if we know that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all equally divine? Let me briefly point out two ways in which this doctrine is important and relevant for us.

1. The Savior who died for me was nothing less than fully divine.

            The doctrine of the Trinity teaches us that Jesus – God the Son in human flesh – was equally divine with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. He was not on some kind of lower-level – he was fully divine, and so we don’t need to doubt if his sacrifice is truly able to save us.

            This truth is highly relevant to our daily lives. Once we come to acknowledge that we have sinned against God, all of life becomes burdensome and meaningless until we come to know that we have found forgiveness. If Jesus were on some lower level than God, then there might always be some room for us to doubt whether his sacrifice was truly enough to save us. But since he was fully divine, that fact should silence any concerns that we might have about whether his sacrifice was truly enough. The knowledge that Jesus is God is part of the knowledge that can put to rest our troubled consciences and satisfy the intense longing that we have to know we are forgiven.

2. The Holy Spirit who now lives within me is fully divine.

            The New Testament teaches this great truth that the Holy Spirit now lives within every child of God. He does so much to teach us and guide us and comfort us and reassure our hearts, and the doctrine of the Trinity reminds us that all of these things are done for us by someone who is no less than fully divine.

            And so, as we learn more about all that the Holy Spirit does for us, we don’t have to have any doubts about his ability to actually accomplish those things. Can he truly transform me from the inside out? Yes he can! Can he help me so that I no longer fulfill the sinful desires inside my heart? Yes he can! He has nothing less than divine power to transform our lives, so we can have total confidence in his abilities.

            Though the doctrine of the Trinity will always remain a bit mysterious to us, the basic claim of this doctrine is not difficult to understand, and this doctrine also gives us great confidence in the things that God has and will accomplish for us. This doctrine reminds us that God is truly unique – He is unlike any other being that we know. He truly is in a class by himself – God in three persons, the blessed Trinity!

The Harmony Between God's Greatness and Goodness--Attributes of God Series

            Perhaps you remember this common meal-time prayer from your childhood: “God is great, God is good, thank you Lord for this food.” A very simple prayer, but with very profound truth. In fact, you may not have realized it, but a number of the psalms in the Bible follow that same pattern of emphasizing God’s greatness and His goodness. These two truths aren’t just arbitrarily thrown together; they balance each other out and give us a well-rounded picture of just who God is. Each of these concepts serves to heighten the other and keep them in their proper context.

            Psalm 113 is a psalm that follows this pattern. Psalm 113 draws both of these ideas together and reminds us that while God dwells in majestic splendor above the heights of heaven, He is still concerned with the plight of man and involves Himself in our lives. For this reason, God is richly deserving of our praise!

I. Praise God for His greatness  vv. 1–4

            The psalmist begins with a call to worship or praise [READ v. 1–3]. And by the time the psalmist is done with v. 3 we’re thinking, “Okay, we get the point. We’re supposed to praise the Lord.” The repetition here, of course, is for the rhetorical effect of emphasis—we are supposed to react to this call, and in a very specific way. The psalmist is calling us to praise. But what does it mean to praise?

            You’ve probably heard of a person called an appraiser. I think virtually every county has an appraiser, and a lot of cities do, too. The appraiser’s job is to declare how much your property is worth so the government can collect personal property taxes. He “ap-PRAISES” your property; he states how much is it worth. So when we praise God, we are declaring how valuable he is to us.

            Now you may have noticed in these verses that several times the psalmist mentions praising God’s name. This may strike you as a little strange because we don’t think of names the way Old Testament Jews did. We use names mainly just to tell people apart, but Jews had a different concept of what a name meant. To them, a person’s name represented their character, their personality. It stood for who the person was. That’s why we see some Old Testament characters having their names changed after significant events that shaped their lives. For example, Abraham’s names originally was Abram, but after God gave the promise that He would have many children, God changed his name to Abraham, which means “father of a multitude.” This name was better suited to what Abram would become.

            So we see that what the psalmist is pointing to here is God’s essence, His character. He is calling us to praise God for the things that make Him God.

                       

            But a big question remains unanswered in the psalm thus far: “Why is God worthy of such praise?” The psalmist is going to give us two answers, the first of which we find in v. 4. The first reason for praise is God’s greatness [READ v. 4] A common religious idea in Old Testament times was that deities were localized. In other words, each nation had its own god and his power was confined to that nation. The psalmist of course flatly rejects any such notion about Yahweh, the God of Israel, because He is high above all nations. His power is not limited in any way and He shares His throne with no one, especially not some carved image of stone like these other nations worshiped. God is to be praised from every nation of the Earth because He is truly the God of every nation of the Earth, whether men bow the knee to Him or not.

            But not only is He above the nations, but in fact the world and the universe itself cannot contain His glory. Solomon touched on this idea in 1 Kings 8 during his prayer of dedication for the temple. He said in 1 Kings 8:27, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house which I have built?”

            Herein lies the first reason for the psalmist’s call to praise, because God is so great. Mankind is dwarfed by the majesty and power of God, and such a being who cannot even be contained by the universe should strike fear into our hearts and wonder into our souls.

II. Praise God for His goodness  vv. 5–9

            But there is another reason why we should praise God, and it is an important balance to the first. We should praise God not only for His greatness, but also for His goodness, which is His care and concern for mankind, and this is the key point of the psalm. The psalmist dwells on this for five verses. Not only is God great, but He is also good, and this is important because if God were only great, He would be no better than all of the other so-called “gods” out there.

            Many other religions believe in a “god” who is great, but no other religion has a god who is good. Islam certainly preaches about a god who is great and mighty and powerful, but he is not good—certainly not in the way that the Bible describes goodness. In Islam, the will of Allah reigns supreme, and there are no restrictions on it. He doesn’t have to be fair to you—he can literally choose to do whatever he wants. You could serve him faithfully your whole life, and he could still condemn you Hell simply because he chooses to do it. That’s why martyrdom is so attractive to those who are engaged in terrorism—they feel like that sacrifice gives them a guarantee of going to Paradise.

            The psalmist mentions God’s greatness again in verse 5 to set up a contrast with v. 6 [READ vv. 5–6]. Though God cannot even be contained by the universe, the psalmist here says that God stoops down to see what is taking place. God is concerned about what is going on and from other passages we know that He is working out a plan for His glory.

            Now this is not a normal thing for rulers to do. Think about all the dictators you know from history; how many of them have been concerned about the day to day affairs of their people? Even leaders in a system of government like ours. You may find them at a hospital when the cameras are rolling, but when the TV lights go off, where are they? There are some exceptions, but most rulers lose touch with and lose concern for the individuals they rule.

            Not God though! He is concerned with people and what goes on in their lives. You know I started out this sermon talking about the prayers of little children. Do you know that we can learn this lesson from their prayers as well? Sometimes adults don’t pray about certain things because we feel like they are trivial matters to burden God with. But when a child prays, what do they pray for? Their dog who is sick, the doll that they lost. Kids pray for every little thing you can imagine because they believe that God cares, and you know what? He does! God is great, but He stoops down to see our lives because He cares.

            But not only does He care, He gets actively involved. In vv. 7–9, we see that He raises the lowly up. God doesn’t just care about the rich and powerful, He cares about the lowest members of society. [READ 7–9] In ancient Israel, the two groups that the psalmist mentions, the poor and barren women, were looked down upon. They were stigmatized by society simply because of their condition, and the status of the poor that the psalmist mentions here was one of destitution. He makes reference here to the ash heap, which was essentially the town dump. Every good sized town would have a landfill outside the walls of the city where they would burn their trash and their human waste. People who had nowhere else to turn would live at these landfills, begging for the scraps of food that people brought out and huddling into the ash at night to stay warm. You can imagine that these people were not highly esteemed.

            But look at God’s actions! God, who is so great, looks down from above the heavens, sees people in absolute destitution, and is moved with compassion to raise them to a position of prominence. He sees the barren woman in her grief and is moved to grant her children. Now these examples should be taken as proverbial. In other words, they express a general truth of life. God doesn’t take every poor person out of their poverty, and He doesn’t give children to every barren woman. He has his own plans which ultimate are good and perfect, even though we don’t understand them. But this is God’s character—to be moved with compassion by the needs of people. And we clearly see from this the goodness of God.

            God’s goodness stands with His greatness to make Him the God that He is. These two aspects of God’s nature are not contradictory, they are complimentary. If God were only great, He would not be concerned about mankind, but if He were only good, He would not have the power to act on His concerns. These truths should draw out a complimentary response from us. His greatness makes Him worthy of our worship and adoration, while His goodness makes Him worthy of our love and devotion. We can see clearly now why the psalmist calls for such a response of praise, and our hearts can respond appropriately.

God's Pervasive Presence--Attributes of God Series

            1 Kings 20 records the details of a war between the people of Israel and their northern neighbors, the Syrians. The children of Israel were victorious in the first battle, much to the dismay of the Syrians, and later on, as the Syrian leaders gathered for coffee at the local café, they tried to figure out why they had lost. One of the leaders said, “Aha! Why didn’t we think of this before? They beat us because they had home-field advantage! Their god must be a god of the hills, so next time let’s fight them down in the plains, and our gods will give us the victory.”

            After that conversation, the Lord sent a prophet to the king of Israel, who said, “Because the Syrians think I’m only the god of the hills and not the god of the plains, I’m going to give them all into your hand.” In that moment, God wanted to make a crystal-clear distinction between himself and the so-called “gods” of the other nations—the God of Israel, the God of the Bible, cannot be assigned to one location as if His power were only operative there. Rather, the testimony of Scripture is that our God—the true God—is in all places. He is king in all places and every place at the same time.

            In other words, God’s presence is pervasive—He is in all places at once. This characteristic of God is often called His “omnipresence,” and today, I want to look at this idea so that we can understand our God in better detail, and think about some implications of God’s pervasive presence in His creation.

Where is this idea found in Scripture?

            The clearest expression of this idea is also the most moving and memorable. It is found in Psalm 139:7-12. In this psalm, David had just stated how thoroughly God knows him, and now we read that part of the reason for that knowledge is that God is everywhere. I know in years past, I have read these verses as if David was trying to run away and hide from God—probably because of the word “flee” in v. 7—but upon a closer look, these verses don’t have to be understood that way. In fact, it seems that just the opposite is the case—David sees God’s presence as comforting and reassuring [READ Ps. 139:7-12]. Notice how David considers various factors like distance, speed, and even a condition like darkness and concludes that none of these things can separate us from God. He is with us!

            But how can God be with you in your house and also with me in my house at the same time? It’s important for us to remember that God does not have the limitation of a physical body like we do. John 4:24 states that God is spirit, which means that He doesn’t have flesh and bones like we do. My body can only be in one place at one time, but since God doesn’t have the limitation of a physical body, that is one reason that he can be omnipresent.

“You’ve got some ‘splainin to do!”

            We should clarify at this point just what we are claiming when we say that God is “omnipresent.” As much as it pains me to say this, since I love these movies, the Star Wars movies have popularized some ideas that some people have wrongly associated with God. People have been tempted to draw parallels between God and “The Force” in the Star Wars movies, but we really don’t want to make that connection.

            In Star Wars, The Force is a kind of power that flows through humans and rocks and trees and spaceships and everything that exists. That idea is actually based on a religious belief called “pantheism,” which comes from religions like Buddhism and Hinduism. But when we say that God is omnipresent, we should not be thinking that God is somehow inside the wood that makes up my pulpit, or that He is somehow inside the pew that you’re sitting on.

            What we are actually claiming is that God is aware of all that is happening in every corner of creation and that He is active in every corner of creation—all at the same time. When we say that God is omnipresent, that should be the idea that we have in mind, rather than some notion that God is inside the carpet or the drywall or the lightbulbs.

Unique Reminders of God’s Presence

            Now, God does, at times, give unique reminders of His presence to specific people in specific places. One familiar example of this kind of act of God is the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night that accompanied the people of Israel during the Exodus, when they fled from their slavery in Egypt. That pillar wasn’t visible from every place on the planet! It was in a specific location, and from time to time it would move to a new location to show the people where to go.

            In such moments, when God offers a unique reminder of His presence, He does so to teach people important lessons. Think about what the children of Israel should have learned from that pillar of cloud and fire. God wanted to teach them lessons like:

·         “I am here to guide you”

·         “I am here to protect you” (like when Pharaoh chased after them)

·         “I am here to provide for you” (giving them light and warmth by night).

            Of course, the greatest example of God making His presence known in order to teach us was the Incarnation, when Jesus added a human nature to His person. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known (NET Bible).”

Some Implications of God’s Omnipresence

1. His knowledge about me is first-hand knowledge

            I am repeating this thought from my sermon on God’s omniscience, but I think it bears repeating here. Since God is personally aware of everything that is going on in creation, then He personally knows everything that is going on with me. I think this observation is comforting, because so many of our problems with each other are either created or exaggerated by misinformation—for example, someone hears a piece of gossip about you and they start to act differently around you. Perhaps they’re less friendly or less open with you—all because they heard something about you that didn’t reflect the truth.

            But we don’t have to worry about any such issues with God! He doesn’t have to seek information about us from some other source—He sees us, so He has direct knowledge about us. This thought is also the second implication.

2. God always sees what is happening to us and what we are up to

            Many situations in life can move us to think, “God, where are you?” Though it may not feel like God is always with us, that is only an appearance; it is not the reality. God sees all that is happening to us. He sees when people sin against us; He sees when people are kind to us. He sees it all!

            He also sees what we are up to, and this thought should be a powerful reminder for us as we make choices in life. The temptations we face always look more appealing when we think that no one will see what we’re doing and no one will find out about what we’ve done. We can hide things from each other, can’t we? And when we’re only thinking on that level, our temptations look far more appealing. But when we remember that God is always with us and He sees us at all times, we are reminded that we can’t hide anything from Him.

            You may remember a children’s song that tried to teach us this lesson when we were young. It goes like this: “Oh be careful little eyes what you see, oh be careful little eyes what you see, for the Father up above is looking down in love, so be careful little eyes what you see.” That little song reminds us that God is watching us, and it contains such an important reminder when it says that God is “looking down in love.” God is watching, yes, but He’s watching in love! He is not like some grumpy piano teacher who’s waiting to slap you on the hand any time you play a wrong note. Remembering that God watches us in love will help us think accurate thoughts about God, and it still leaves us with the awesome realization that we will one day answer to God for everything that He has seen us do.

3. I am never alone—God is always with me!

            When God asked His people to carry out some task in Scripture, He always reminded them that they would not be alone—He would be with them. When Moses was preparing to lead the people of Israel toward their first attempt to conquer the Promised Land, God said to him, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest (Exodus 33:14).”

            When the people rebelled before their first attempt, and God prepared Joshua to lead the second attempt, the Lord told him to remember what he had been promised, to remember God’s commands, and he wrapped it all up by saying this: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9).”

            When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, and He told His disciples on the night before He died that He would be going away, He said, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you (John 14:18).” And when He gave those men the Great Commission to make disciples of all the nations, He said, “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20).”

            We are not alone as we seek to carry out the tasks that God has for us. When you’re going around town and you see that person that you know you should forgive, you are not alone. When you walk into the office to co-workers who do not share your faith, you are not alone. When you are facing down the temptation that has tripped you up a hundred times, you are not alone. The Lord your God is with you wherever you go!

Why Do We Have a Time for Self-Examination Before the Lord's Supper?--Understanding the Lord's Supper series

You may have noticed that we kind of have a routine here at church. We are not a liturgical church, which means that we don’t have certain prayers or Scriptures that we repeat every week, but we still have a routine. We do about the same number of songs every week, and we have our announcements and offering at about the same time, and the sermon is about the same length (provided that Pastor Tim doesn’t get long-winded!).

Now there’s nothing wrong with routine as long as we understand and remember why we do the things we do. But routines have a way of becoming ruts, and when we get stuck in a rut and mindlessly go through the motions, then we have a problem. It’s like the story about the man who won a beautiful ham as a prize at his job. He proudly brought it home to his wife, and she started to prepare it for dinner. As she did, she took a knife and cut off the end of ham. The husband nearly flipped out when he saw this. He said, “That’s my prize ham! Why did you cut the end off of it?” The wife replied, “That’s the way my mother always cooked ham.” So she calls her mom and asks, “Why did you cut off the end of a ham before you cooked it?” And her mom said, “That’s the way my mother always cooked ham.” So they contact grandma and ask her about it, and grandma says, “I don’t know why you two do it, but I never had a pan that was big enough for a whole ham!”

So as we deal with things in church that might become routine, we want to make sure that we understand what we are doing. One routine or tradition that we have in church is celebrating the Lord’s Supper, or Communion. We don’t celebrate the Lord’s Supper every Sunday, but I try to schedule it about every six weeks. This ceremony is one of those routines that could become a rut, so its very important that we understanding the meaning behind this important memorial of Christ’s death.

So, for the next several times that we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we’re going to talk about what it means and answer some questions that may come up as we think about this ceremony. The question we’re going to deal with today is, “Why do we have a time for self-examination before the Lord’s Supper?” Where do we find this in Scripture and why do we do it?

Why don’t you turn with me to 1 Corinthians 11? When you think of passages that would talk about the Lord’s Supper, you might naturally think of the Gospels, since they record the life of Christ, but actually, what we do today in the Lord’s Supper comes mostly from 1 Corinthians 11. In that chapter, Paul wrote to the church in Corinth about some problems that they had in their celebration of the Lord’s Supper and he told them how to properly observe this ceremony.

So our teaching for the Lord’s Supper comes out of the context of problems in that church. As we look at this passage, we’ll see what the problem was and how Paul told them to correct it.

I. The Problem—Divisiveness and Selfishness in the Congregation (11:17–22)

First, let’s look at vv. 17–19 [READ vv. 17–19]. Here, Paul puts his finger on the basic problem—divisiveness. The church in Corinth was a fractured congregation. They lacked unity in their relationships, and this seems to have been the result of rampant selfishness in the congregation. As you read through this book, you discover that the people were being selfish in many different ways. They were being selfish in the expression of their sexuality. Some people were engaged in sexual immorality, and apparently some husbands and wives were also being selfish in this area of their marriage. The people were selfishly taking each other to court in lawsuits; they were selfishly using their freedom in Christ without concern for those who had a weak conscience; they were selfishly using their spiritual gifts to build up their own pride. All of this led to a very divided congregation.

Now in v. 18, Paul seems to acknowledge that the reality of their situation may not be quite as bad as the report he has heard about them. But nevertheless, he says that he believes it, because with these attitudes present in the church, he acknowledges that factions and divisions were inevitable. But as only God can do, we see at the end of v. 19 that even these divisions could have a positive result, because they would reveal who was living with a godly attitude and who was not.

Now—sadly—in the next few verses we learn that their selfishness was on full display in their celebrations of the Lord’s Supper [READ vv. 20–22]. Here’s the background to what Paul was describing in these verses. It was common at that time for churches to celebrate the Lord’s Supper in the context of a meal that was known as “the love feast.” This meal was like the carry-in dinners that we enjoy here, and the Lord’s Supper would be celebrated as part of it.

As with our carry-in dinners, the people would all bring something to contribute to the meal, but as we can see in these verses, the people in Corinth weren’t sharing their food with each other! Can you imagine that? They would all bring what they could bring, but then they would just eat it themselves! And the result, Paul says, is that some people were going hungry, and some people were getting drunk!

What a ridiculous scene this must have been, and it was all a result of the pervasive selfishness that existed in their congregation. As a result, Paul basically said in v. 20, “You can’t really call this mockery the Lord’s Supper!” They were disregarding the Lord’s desire for them and the attitude of the One whom the remembrance was all about.

So in vv. 23–26, Paul goes on to remind them what the Lord’s Supper was all about, and the attitude that was displayed by the Lord was the right example for the people to follow.

II. The Right Example—The Lord Jesus and His Sacrificial Death (11:23–26)

Let’s read vv. 23–26 [READ vv. 23–26]. Obviously, there is much in these verses that we could talk about, and we will over the next several times that we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, but today, notice several things that remind us how unselfish the Lord Jesus was.

First, Paul notes in v. 23 that Jesus did and said these things “on the night when he was betrayed.” Remember, Jesus’ death came about through an act of betrayal from a close companion. Undoubtedly, this added some emotional grief to everything else that Jesus suffered, but did you realize that Judas was actually present when Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper? He was still in the room; he took part in all of this! Luke 22:21 records that after Jesus said and did these things with the bread and the cup, he said, “Behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table.” Judas was still there! The Lord allowed Judas to participate in this moment that would memorialize the death that he was about to cause! And remember, shortly before that, on the same night, the Lord Jesus washed Judas’s feet, as he did for the rest of his disciples.

Clearly, Jesus continued to show love to Judas even though he knew what Judas was about to do. He continued to extend compassion and consideration to Judas until the moment that Judas left to do his wicked deed. What an example of selfless love, and this was an example that the Corinthians had disregarded in the way that they observed the Lord’s Supper.

Second, notice the reminder in Jesus’ words that His death was for us. After He had broken the bread, He said, “This is my body which is for you.” Jesus’ death was both for our benefit and in our place. It was the culmination of the most unselfish act in history—when God came into our world as a man, and served us and taught us, and then died in our place to pay the penalty for our sins. His great love for us led Him to do this, and we should follow His example to show love to our fellow believers. A preacher from the early church named John Chrysostom reminds us, “that the Master gave up everything, including himself, for us, whereas we are reluctant even to share a little food with our fellow believers.”

Clearly the Corinthians were not honoring Jesus in their celebration of the Lord’s Supper. This problem needed a solution, which we find in the rest of this passage.

III. The Solution—Examining our Hearts for Selfish Attitudes and Acts (11:27–34)

Because of the way in which they had been treating each other, Paul instructs the Corinthians to have a time for self-examination before they partook of the Lord’s Supper. This step would help them avoid some of the serious consequences that they were facing because of their sin. Let’s read through the end of the chapter [READ vv. 27–34].

As you can see, God considered their mockery of the Lord’s Supper to be a very serious matter. He had brought illness upon some of them because of it, and some of them had died as a result! According to Paul in v. 31, the way to avoid such discipline from the Lord is to judge ourselves—to confess our sins and repent of them and thus deal with them ourselves, so that the Lord does not have to deal with us in discipline.

So we can see there in v. 31 and back in v. 28, Paul instructs us to examine ourselves before we partake of the Lord’s Supper. But what exactly should we be looking for when we examine ourselves? The key is found in v. 29, where Paul says that we must “discern the body;” or we might say “acknowledge the body” or “recognize the body” (your translation may read “the Lord’s body”). The Greek word speaks of rendering a legal decision, which would give someone the justice they deserve.

So what Paul seems to be talking about here is not the physical body of the Lord Jesus, but the spiritual body of Christ—or in other words, the church; the members of the congregation. Paul had already mentioned the spiritual body of Christ in this book, and he was about to launch into a long discussion of it in chapter 12.

Thus, during this time of self-examination before the Lord’s Supper, our primary focus should be to assess our relationships with our fellow Christians, our fellow members of the body of Christ. Certainly it would be appropriate to confess our secret sins to the Lord during that time—those sins that no one else knows about—but first and foremost we should consider the way we have acted toward other members of the church and determine if we have anything that we need to make right with them. This idea is similar to what Jesus said in Matthew 5:23–24—“If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

We cannot pretend to offer God pure worship if we have sinned against His children—our brothers and sisters. This lesson today is just another reminder that my Christian life is not just about me and God—it is about me, God, and others. The Christian life is a communal life; accepting Christ makes me part of a community to which I must be rightly related if I am going to honor God.

So in our time of self-examination before the Lord’s Supper, this is primarily what we are assessing—our relationships with our fellow believers. It could be that we will remember something we have done for which we need to ask forgiveness, and if that’s the case, then it would be best for us to refrain from taking the Lord’s Supper until we have had a chance to make that right. Thus, with this lesson, the Lord’s Supper becomes a reminder not only of our bonds with Christ, but of our bonds with each other as well.

Holiness--Character in a Class by Itself

There are many things that men do not understand about women, but one of the most confusing is why women insist on having things around the house that aren’t meant to be used. Let me take you on a mental tour of a house and I’ll explain what I mean. We can start in the kitchen or the dining room, where we will often find plates that are not meant to be used, and glasses and silverware that are not meant to be used, and sometimes these things will be housed in a cabinet that is never to be opened. Some of these things you received from your mother or your grandmother, who also did not use them, so these items have been NOT serving the family very well for three generations.

Then we can move into the living room, where we might find candles that are not meant to be burned, or a coffee table that is not meant to hold your coffee. It is just there to hold the candles that are not meant to be burned.

Then we’re off into the bedroom, where we find pillows that are not meant to be used. A man wonders what they are doing on the bed, then, but apparently they are there so that guests don’t have to see our real pillows.

Then we come to the bathroom. Heaven help a man when he enters the bathroom! If you’ve ever wondered why a man takes so long in the bathroom when he visits your house, its because he has no idea what he is and is not supposed to use. A man will start to wash his hands, and he will encounter bars of soap that are not meant to be used. These will often have a bow of twine around them, and they will be in a basket with washcloths that are not meant to be used. And then a man will turn toward the towel rack, where he will encounter a collection of decorative towels that are not meant to be used, and so in despair he will simply leave the bathroom with wet pants after he has dried his hands on them.

Now ladies, I’m going to let you in on a little secret—we actually like the fact that you decorate the house. Those things make us feel at home. So even though we may not decorate ourselves, we’re glad that you do!

Now believe it or not, all of those decorative items around the house can actually help us understand the concept of holiness. Those items are special and unique; different from other items that are meant for ordinary use. Keep that in the back of your mind, because it will shine some light on our subject today.

Today we are going to take a look at the word holiness, or we could just say the word “holy” since those two words express the same concept. This word is found in a very significant passage of 1 Peter 1, so we’re going to wrap things up by applying the word “holy” in that context. In fact, let’s read that passage now so we can get an idea of where we’re going [READ 1 Peter 1:13–16]. You can see how significant the idea of holiness is in this passage, so let’s take some time to find out what it means.

I. What does the word “holiness” mean?

The concept of holiness receives its fullest development in the Old Testament, so that’s where we will be looking to get an idea of what it means. If you were to look up the words “holy” or “holiness” in a concordance, you might be surprised to discover that one of the first things you would find is that…

A. Non-living things can be called “holy”

Holiness is not a concept that belongs to living things alone. In fact, if we look at the first time that the word “holy” is used, we discover that a piece of ground can be holy. In Exodus 3:5, Moses has just approached a bush that he saw from a distance that was on fire, but was not being consumed by the flames. All of sudden the voice of the Lord calls to him and says, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

So we find here that a non-living thing can be called “holy.” We also find numerous example of this elsewhere:

an assembly Ex. 12:16
a day of the week Ex. 16:23, 20:8–11, Ex. 35:2
a nation of people Ex. 19:6
clothing for the priests Ex. 28:2, Ex. 29:6
the flesh of sacrifices Ex. 29:33–34
water Num. 5:17

As we look at examples like this, we find one that gives us a great clue as to what it means to be holy. Turn with me to Exodus 30:31–32. In this passage, the Lord is giving Moses guidelines for making an anointing oil that would be used to anoint the objects in the tabernacle, and in vv. 31–32 he says [READ vv. 31–32]. Notice in v. 32 how God emphasizes that this oil had a special purpose and a special formula. The people were not to use this oil for just any old purpose, nor were they to make any other oil just like it. It was to be special—the only oil of its kind. So here we have a clue about what it means for something to be holy—a holy object is something is different, special, the only one of its kind.

B. God is referred to as “holy”

With that idea in mind, it should be no surprise to discover that God is referred to as “holy” in the Old Testament. If you’ll flip back just a few pages to Exodus 15, we’ll see Moses describing God’s holiness in 15:11 [READ Ex. 15:11] And the expected answer to these questions is—no one! There is no one like the God of the Bible! All of the other gods are just powerless, impotent idols, but God is different—he is the only one of His kind!

We see this same idea again in 1 Samuel 2:2 when Samuel’s mother Hannah says, “There is none holy like the Lord; there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God.”

So we’re starting to get an idea of what the word “holiness” means—it refers to things that are different, special, one of a kind. Non-living things can be called holy, God is referred to as holy, and finally we need to note that…

C. God’s people are commanded to be “holy”

We’ll look at just one Old Testament example of this. In Deut. 7, as the people of Israel were about to enter the Promised Land, God told them that they were not to be like the people who were living there at the time. He said they were not to intermarry with those nations, nor were they to serve their gods, and he gave the reason why in Deut. 7:6—“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”

So here we have this same idea again—they were a holy nation because they were different, they were special, they were one of a kind. There was no other nation like them on earth because they had been chosen by God, and he commanded them to be holy. And as we read in 1 Peter 1 earlier, we too are commanded to be holy.

So what does it mean to be holy? To sum it all up I would say it this way: the basic idea of holiness is the idea of something that is in a class by itself. The oil in the temple was holy because it was in a class by itself—it was dedicated for use in worshipping God. God is holy because he is in a class by himself—he is utterly and completely different from all of the other so-called gods. He is also different from sinful mankind, which means that God is separated from sin.

And this is where the idea of holiness really hits home for us, because as we read in 1 Peter, since God is holy, we are commanded to be holy as well. We are called to be different in our behavior—different from those who don’t know God or worship him. So how are we to do this? Peter gives us two insights in 1 Peter 1:13–16 to help us get a handle on holy living.

II. How are we to live holy lives? (1 Peter 1:13–16)

A. By embracing a different hope (v. 13)

Peter mentions several things for us to do in v. 13, but grammatically the real command is found at the end of the verse when Peter writes, “set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” If we are going to live differently from the world around us, we must have a hope that is different from the world around us. The idea of “hope” here speaks of our sense of anticipation—our longings and desires for what is to come down the road. Peter is telling us to place our deepest longings for the future upon the completion of our salvation that we will receive when Christ returns.

Too often we stop short of such a hope, don’t we? We allow our deepest longings for the future to revolve around getting married or having children or retiring, but when we do we become spiritually short-sighted. We lose sight of Christ’s return because we’ve focused our deepest longing upon something else.

I’ll never forget the time that I heard a Christian girl say, “You know, I can’t wait for Jesus to return, but I hope I can get married first.” That might sound a little funny to us when we hear it like that, but deep down in our hearts, are we saying the same thing? “I can’t wait for Jesus to return, but I hope I can have kids first.” “I can’t wait for Jesus to return, but I hope I get to enjoy a few years of retirement first.” If these lesser things are the object of our deepest longings for the future, we won’t live holy lives because we’ll be embracing the same hope as the world around us, and this hope will mold our priorities until we look just like the world.

We must embrace a different hope, and according to Peter, it all starts with a change of mind. At the beginning of v. 13 he says we must “prepare our minds for action.” The Greek literally says we must gird up the loins of our minds. This refers to the ancient practice of gathering up the bottom of your robe and tucking it into your belt when you were getting ready for work or some other sort of activity. You would pull it all in tight so there wouldn’t be any loose ends to trip you up.

If you can picture the analogy, that’s what we need to do with our thinking. We need to grab hold of our thoughts about the future and pull them in; we need to grab hold of our thoughts about our purpose in life and pull them in; we need to grab hold of our thoughts about life and love and sex and money and family and everything else and pull them all in so that we have a singleness in our thinking where everything—everything—is seen in light of Christ’s return. And by doing this we can stay “sober” or “self-controlled” as Peter says in the next part of this verse.

If we want to be holy, we must embrace a different hope than the world around us, and that hope must be a deep and fervent longing for the return of Christ, because that is a hope that the world will never embrace. But if we will embrace that hope, we can live lives that are different—lives that are in a class by themselves—lives that are godly and pure.

And according to the rest of this passage, we are to live holy lives…

B. By following a different pattern (v. 14–16)

Notice what Peter writes in vv. 14–16. He gives a pattern to avoid and a pattern to follow [READ vv. 14–16]. He tells us first to avoid the pattern of life that we were compelled to live before we knew Christ. He is writing to people who were converted as adults and he’s telling them not to go back to their old way of life. Some of us today know what that’s like, and even for those of us who believed as children, we still feel and understand those desires. But we are not to let sinful desires set the pattern for our lives.

Remember—holiness is about being different, being set apart from sin and devoted to God. If we are going to be holy we must follow a different pattern than the world—the pattern that has been set for us by our Father. Peter calls us obedient children, and as children of God we are now called to bear the family resemblance. Just as a child learns to imitate the way his parents walk and talk, we are to imitate the way that our Father acts. We are to imitate his character that we see revealed in the Bible. We are to imitate the life that Jesus lived when he walked on the earth.

And the end result is that we will lead lives that are different from the world around us, lives that are special, unique, one of a kind, oriented away from sin and toward the glory of God. We have to be commanded to live like this today because it is no longer natural for us. Ever since the human race was plunged into sin, we have been tainted by rebellion through and through. But as we seek, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to live lives that are different from the sinful norm, we will find the life that God always intended for us to live.

So what is holiness all about? It’s not about living off on a mountain top somewhere all by ourselves. It’s not about living in a monastery. It’s about having a character that’s in a class by itself—a character that is patterned after the character of God. And if we will embrace a hope that is different from the world around us, and follow a different pattern for life, we can fulfill God’s command to be holy as he is holy.