A New Confidence for a New Year

            As the father of a toddler, I’ve been hearing the song “Jesus Loves Me” quite a bit lately. In fact, Adrianna wants to hear that song at bedtime every night, so I hear it at least once a day! The first line of that song makes a very important claim, one that many people today would reject. That line says, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” That may seem like just a simple children’s song, but its actually making an astounding claim—that we can know that a statement is true simply because the Bible says it is.

            That is a very significant claim, and its one that most people today would reject. In fact, many Christians are not willing to give whole-hearted approval to the claim that we can know that a statement is true simply because the Bible says it is. It is not popular in the culture at large to place that kind of confidence in the Bible; thus, it can be tempting for us to hesitate to place our full confidence in Scripture.

            So, should we be willing to say, “this I know, for the Bible tells me so?” Do we have good reasons to be so confident about what the Bible says? Today, I hope to convince you that the answer is “yes!” We’re going to look at a few of the most commonly asked questions about the Bible, and in my opinion we will find some very satisfying answers. These answers will take the form of an acronym that spells out the word MAPS, so that this little memory device will help you remember these answers whenever these questions might come up.

Let’s begin with a question that is common to virtually everyone who doubts the reliability of the Bible.

How do we know the Bible hasn’t been changed over the years?

            Virtually everyone who wants to challenge the reliability of the Bible will claim either that the Bible was deliberately changed at some point in the past or that it has simply picked up thousands of errors as it was copied over the years and thus can no longer be trusted. You will hear this claim from atheists on the one hand all the way to Mormons and Muslims on the other! So how do we know the Bible hasn’t been changed over the years? The answer is the word manuscripts. The “m” in that word gives us the first letter of our acronym.

            Manuscripts are the ancient, handwritten copies of the Bible that we have discovered through archaeology. These manuscripts are copies of the original writings that were meticulously copied and handed on from person to person and group to group. For the Old Testament, these manuscripts were copied by a group of Jewish scholars known as the Masoretes. These scholars took their work seriously—they knew how many letters were in each line, how many lines were to be on each page, and if they made a mistake they threw out the whole thing. Their work was so precise that when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered around 1950, they confirmed that the Masoretes work was nearly flawless.

            In the case of the New Testament, archaeologists have uncovered literally thousands upon thousands of manuscripts—far more, in fact, than any other ancient work of literature. The New Testament, as you might know, was originally written in Greek, and if we consider only the Greek manuscripts that we have found, we have over 5,000 manuscripts to work with—which is about 8 times more than the number of manuscripts that have been found of any other ancient book (#2 on the list is the Iliad by the Greek poet Homer). Archaeologists have found some copies of the New Testament that date to within 35 years of when the Book of Revelation was written. If that sounds like a long time, its not! In this field of study, 35 years is like a couple of days.

            But, if we also count the manuscripts that we have found that were copied into other languages, like Latin, we have over 24,000 manuscripts to work with! Manuscripts of the Bible have been found all over the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe, and when we compare them to each other, we find that the text of the Bible has always been consistent—there is no evidence at all of any sort of vast conspiracy to corrupt the Bible.

Now as far as the question of errors and mistakes in copying, it is true that these individual manuscripts have copying mistakes in them—a misspelled word here or there, or a word accidentally left out of a verse (you would make mistakes, too, if you were copying the entire New Testament by hand!). But, when we compare all of these manuscripts together, it is easy to spot these mistakes and ensure that they don’t creep in to our copies of the Bible today. The copy of the Bible that you hold in your hand is the result of painstaking work to compare all of the copies of Scripture we possess in order to root out the copying mistakes that were made. So you can confidently say that your Bible is not filled with mistakes and errors; instead, it contains precisely what the original authors of Scripture wrote with their own hands.

How do we know the events written about in the Bible actually happened?

            The answer to this question is the word “archaeology,” which gives us the letter “a” in our acronym. As archaeologists have done their work over the years, they have repeatedly found that the historical details recorded in the Bible are accurate and true. For example, archaeologists recently discovered coins from ancient Egypt that bore the name and image of the biblical character Joseph from the book of Genesis. One coin apparently also made reference to the dream that he interpreted for Pharaoh.

            We could mention thousands of other discoveries as well. Many cities and towns mentioned in the Bible have been found. Some of them are still being lived in, like Jerusalem, which still contains artifacts like the aqueduct built by King Hezekiah of the Old Testament or portions of the Temple in which Jesus walked and talked (perhaps you’ve heard of “The Wailing Wall”). All of these discoveries reveal that the people and places of the Bible were real people and real places.

            Let’s compare this for a moment to another religious book—the Book of Mormon. That book makes all kinds of claims about people who supposedly lived in North America many years ago and who became the ancestors of modern-day Native Americans. Archaeologists have never made a single discovery that backs up the story of the Book of Mormon. In fact, you won’t find maps in the back of the Book of Mormon like you do in the Bible because they can’t be produced! Mormons just have to guess about where those people supposedly lived because we haven’t found any proof that they actually existed.

            This observation raises serious doubts about everything that’s found in the Book of Mormon. If it can’t get the facts of history straight, why should we trust anything else it says? Perhaps you can see then how archaeology gives us confidence in the Bible. To paraphrase Jesus, since the Bible is accurate about earthly things that we can confirm through disciplines like archaeology, then we have good reason to trust it when it tells us about heavenly things—like the character of God and salvation.

How do we know that the Bible is more than just the writings of human beings?

            It is certainly true that the Bible didn’t just fall from the sky into our hands. The words of Scripture were actually written down on paper by human beings. But if that’s the case, then how can we claim that the Bible is anything more than just the opinions of human beings? Does it actually bear the mark of a divine origin?

            Yes it does, and we can see this in two ways, which will give us the last two letters of our acronym. The first mark of divine origin is predictive prophecy, which gives us the letter “p.”

            You might be familiar with the fact that the Bible has made certain predictions about future events, but what you may not realize is how specific some of these prophecies are. In general, the Bible’s prophecies are clear enough that their interpretation is obvious, and they could easily be proven wrong if they didn’t come true. Let me give you an example of what I mean—if I said, “We’re going to get an inch of snow tomorrow,” by the end of the day tomorrow it would be easy to prove whether or not my prediction had come true. But if I said, “A wintery sky will arise,” it would be more difficult to tell whether or not my prediction came true. What does a “wintery sky” even mean? Does it mean cold winds? Cold air temperatures? Also, it wouldn’t be particularly noteworthy to predict a wintery sky in December! Such a prediction wouldn’t show any special insight on my part.

            Most so-called “prophets” over the years have given only vague prophecies like my wintery sky prophecy. Nostradamus is a great example of such a prophet. Every so often, you’ll see a supermarket tabloid declaring that Nostradamus predicted some kind of world event, but when you read the so-called “prophecy,” its so vague that you could interpret it in a dozen ways.

            The prophecies of the Bible are very different. Many of them are very specific, and the fact of the matter is that they have come true. Some of the prophecies even give the specific names of kingdoms and people. [READ Daniel 8:20–22] [READ Isaiah 44:24–28]

            We can also look at the numerous prophecies that were fulfilled by the Lord Jesus. By some counts there were hundreds of prophecies that his life fulfilled, with such specific details as the name of his birthplace, the content of his personal character, and the treatment that he would receive in his crucifixion, burial, and resurrection.

            The fact that the Bible has accurately and specifically predicted future events before they took place is a powerful proof that it is supernatural in origin. It could not possibly be a merely human book because human beings do not have the ability to predict the future with such accuracy.

            The second mark of divine origin is statistics, which gives us the letter “s” in our acrostic. The unique circumstances behind the way that the Bible was written simply defy all odds. The probability that we would even have a book like the Bible is all but impossible. Consider this: The Bible was written over a period of more than 1500 years on 3 different continents by 40 different authors from at least 19 different walks of life, yet it contains one continuous storyline and no contradictions. Most of these authors did not know each other and they were not working in collaboration.

            It is not as though the authors of the Bible got together in Jerusalem one day and came up with a plan for their writing. They worked independently of each other, yet their writings show complete agreement with the writings of all of the other authors. If we didn’t have a book like the Bible, I doubt we would believe that such a book could even exist.

           I believe we can see that the Bible is worthy of our utmost confidence. From this information, I believe that we can be confident that when we build our lives upon the Bible, we are building on a solid foundation. We can truly stand tall and proud when we say, “this I know, for the Bible tells me so!”

God Has Remembered!--Christmas 2012 First-Person Sermon

(Note: this sermon is a first-person sermon in which I speak as if I am the character from the Biblical story. In this sermon, I spoke as Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist).

            Baruch Adonai Elohe Yisrael! Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for allowing me to be with you today. My name is Zechariah, which means “God has remembered.” What an appropriate message for the story of my life! Many of you probably don’t know me very well, but you probably know my son John, who became known as John the Baptist because of his ministry. I am so proud of my boy, and I am honored that God chose to preserve the story of his birth in Luke 1. More than anything, that story is a testimony to the faithfulness of God, which teaches us that He will always keep His promises. That is the lesson that I hope you will take with you today.

            As Luke records in his Gospel, my story took place during the days that King Herod reigned over Judea. Our nation was part of the Roman Empire at that time, but with such a vast territory, the emperor needed people to govern for him, so he placed Herod over the land of Israel and gave him the honorary title of “king.” In your language today, you might say that we had a love/hate relationship with Herod. He made some extensive renovations to enhance the beauty of the Temple in Jerusalem. As a priest, I was very happy to see the Temple maintained, but Herod only did these things to take attention away from his atrocities. He was a blood-thirsty man, and if even his own wives or children appeared to be a threat to his power, he did not hesitate to have them executed. It was said at that time that it was better to be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son!

            With such a man in power, you can imagine that we were dying to hear something—anything—from the Lord just to know that He hadn’t forgotten about us. He had not spoken to us for 400 years, since the time of the prophet Malachi. Now, He had clearly been at work to preserve our nation because He did some miraculous things for us during those 400 years. In fact, those events are what Jewish people today celebrate during the holiday of Hanukkah. But we wanted to hear from Him as in the days of old to have that personal contact with Him again. Little did I know that God was planning to speak to us again, and He was planning to start the conversation with me!

            Now, I am rather embarrassed to repeat this, but Luke records that my wife Elizabeth and I “were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statues of the Lord (Luke 1:6).” Please don’t get the idea that we were perfect, because we were far from it. We were simply careful to follow God’s commands, and when we failed, we were careful to make amends as the Law of Moses called us to do. We just loved God for all that He had done for our people and for the promises He had made about things that were still to come.

            We did carry a tremendous sorrow in our hearts, however, because God had never blessed us with a child, and at the time that Luke picks up our story, we were well beyond our child-bearing years. If our barrenness wasn’t bad enough by itself, we also had to deal with the attitudes of our friends and family. Since the Scriptures said that children were a gift from God, our people reasoned that if you had no children, then God must have been punishing you for something. We should have known better from the stories of Abraham and Sarah and Samuel’s mother, Hannah. They were all godly people who were childless for a long time, so we should have known better, but you know how a mindset can become entrenched once it takes root in a culture. It was devastating to deal with other people’s assumptions that we were hiding some kind of terrible sin because we had no children.

            That was the greatest sorrow of my life, but the greatest honor of my life was serving as a priest in God’s Temple. At that time, there were far more priests than were needed in the Temple on a daily basis, so apart from the major festivals like Passover when we were all on duty, we were on a rotation to work in the Temple for two weeks each year. Even with that schedule, there were still more of us on hand than were absolutely necessary, so for some of the tasks that we all wanted to perform, we would decide who got to do them by casting lots, which would be like rolling a pair of dice, or what you do today when you flip a coin or draw straws.

            One of the tasks which every priest longed to perform was entering the Temple to burn incense at the time of the regular morning and evening sacrifices, and on one of the days of my rotation, I was chosen for this task! I could hardly believe it when my name was called. This was literally a once-in-a-lifetime honor for a priest, and now my day had come! I was so excited I could hardly remember the prayer I was supposed to recite in the Temple, so started to rehearse it in my mind. Some of the other priests helped me prepare the spices and put on the proper clothing, and before I knew it, I was opening the door to enter the House of God!

            Normally, this process did not take long. The priest would stoke the fire that was burning under the altar of incense, and then he would cast the spices onto the altar and come back out to speak a blessing over the people who were gathered outside to pray. But in God’s plan, this day would not be an ordinary day.

            I knew I shouldn’t delay once I entered the Temple, but I almost couldn’t help myself. I wanted to take in all the sights of this place where few people would ever set foot, but I did my best to stay focused on the task. As I walked toward the altar, I was looking down at my feet so I wouldn’t trip and drop the spices, so you can imagine my shock when I came to the altar and looked up, and there, just beside the altar, was a magnificent being clothed in white, looking at me. I was so startled I almost dropped the spices after all of my careful walking!

            A dozen thoughts ran through my mind before this man spoke. Who was this? I knew instantly that he was no mere man, but I had never heard other priests speak of angelic visitors in the Temple. More than anything I was just frightened. Perhaps God really was displeased with me for some reason, and He had sent an angel to do something about it.

            But then he spoke to me and said, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.” Now, if you had asked me to guess what an angel might say to me, that would not have been on my list! He said my prayer had been heard and my wife would have a son, but I must confess, I hadn’t prayed that prayer in a long time. Years had passed since we last prayed for a child, but God had heard that prayer, and now, in His perfect time, He was granting us what we had asked.

            But then, the angel went on to tell me that my child would have a very special role to play in God’s plan. He said John would be great before the Lord, and would be filled with the Holy Spirit even while he was still in the womb! And he would go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah to prepare people for the Messiah’s arrival. Those were words from the prophet Malachi! The last promise God made to us before 400 years of silence was that He would send Elijah to us to prepare us for the Lord’s coming, and now the angel was telling me that in some way, my son would fulfill that prophecy.

            I could hardly believe what I was hearing, and I hate to say it, but I didn’t believe what I was hearing. How could Elizabeth and I have a son? We were too old; it just seemed impossible. I hope you will not judge me too harshly for my lack of faith, and most of all I hope you will not follow my example and doubt what the Lord has said. I would be happy if my story inspires greater faith in you, even if that means my error will be told over and over.

            After I expressed my doubt, the angel identified himself as Gabriel, the messenger of God. I remembered him from the book of Daniel, and already I began to realize the error of my ways. I had asked for a sign to prove the angel’s word, and I got one alright! He told me I would unable to speak until the day that his message began to come true, and from that moment I lost my ability to speak.

            By that time, I had already been in the Temple longer than normal, which created a stir among the people outside, so imagine their surprise when I came out and couldn’t tell them what took me so long! After numerous attempts at making signs, they finally figured out that something miraculous had happened (I always could imitate wings pretty well, so I think that finally tipped them off that I saw an angel!). It wasn’t until I finally got my hands on a writing tablet that I could explain things in detail.

            Well, since you’ve probably heard of my son, John, you know that everything played out just like the angel said it would. Elizabeth became pregnant, and during her pregnancy we received a visit from her young cousin Mary, who told us about her own miraculous conception. How incredible it was that God had chosen our family to bear not only the Messiah’s forerunner, but the Messiah himself! We were not an important family. We had no wealth, no power. My wife and I had the stigma of being childless, and Mary’s family was from Nazareth in Galilee. I think your term for them today would be “hillbillies.” Yet God chose us for such a special honor. It just goes to show you that God doesn’t look at people through the same kind of prejudice that we are tempted to use.

            When our son was born, we named him John, as the angel had instructed me. With that step of obedience, I regained my ability to speak, and all of our neighbors were amazed by everything that was taking place. As Luke records, they all began to wonder, “What then will this child be?” And who should be empowered to speak up and answer their question but me—the one who had been unable to speak for so long! The Holy Spirit filled me, and allowed me to give God’s commentary on the situation.

            It was only proper to begin with a statement of praise to God, so I said, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.” The Old Testament prophets just loved that image of a horn, because for animals who had them, horns were the means of victory over enemies. In the Messiah, this is exactly what God would provide for us. And the Lord was doing this work through a descendent of David, just as He had said.

            The Lord was being true to His word, so I continued: “as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant.” The Lord gave me just the right words, and how I smiled at that word “remember.” That was the meaning of my name, and every time my name was spoken, it was a proclamation that God remembers! He remembers His holy covenant, or His promises to His people.

            And where did His covenant begin? With “the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.” God’s promises to my people began with our ancestor Abraham. He promised Abraham a whole nation of descendants, and He told him that his descendants would be enslaved, but that He would save them. My people had to endure 400 years of slavery before they were delivered, but God remembered His promise.

            Later, He told David that one of his descendants would be the Messiah, but we had to wait 1,000 years before Jesus was born. And remember, when Gabriel spoke to me, his message ended a period of 400 years of silence from God. It is so easy to think that God forgets because He doesn’t work by our timetable, but my name—my very life—is a testimony that God remembers His promises, and He will not fail to fulfill them.

            Finally, the Lord moved me to speak about what my child would become: “and you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways.” I remember thinking about the verse from Isaiah 40 that my son would claim for his own: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord!’” And here is why he would do it: “to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins.” Everyone who knew the Old Testament understood that our greatest need was to be forgiven of our sins. My people had no enemies but those who were allowed to trouble us because of our own sins against the Lord. That’s why God empowered the Amalekites and the Philistines and the Edomites and the Egyptians and the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the Persians and the Greeks and now the Romans. Above all else we needed a final sacrifice, one which could wipe our slate clean before the Lord forever, and we knew that somehow the Messiah would provide it.

            This salvation would come “because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” How lost we were—like travelers wandering in the dark! But the Messiah would bring light to show us the way, to lead us safely through the valley of the shadow of death.

            How I wish I could have seen more of His earthly life with my own eyes, but I passed away before His ministry began. But I know what He did because I’ve seen Him in heaven. He is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! He provided the final sacrifice for sin through His death on the cross, and He rose from the grave to display His victory over sin, to provide forgiveness for all who will acknowledge their sinfulness to God and accept the payment that Jesus has provided.

            I know that as I speak to you today, the world has been waiting almost 2,000 years for Jesus to fulfill His promise to return. But let my story remind you that God remembers! He is not forgetful; He does not drag His feet. He is patient with us to give us time to repent. Do not doubt the Lord’s Word; just think of my name and be reminded that God has remembered!

God's Unrivaled Power--Attributes of God Series

            Dr. Seuss once wrote a book called “Yertle the Turtle.” In this story, Yertle the Turtle is the king of the little pond where he lives. He is the king over everything that he can see, but one day, he decides that he can’t see far enough, and his kingdom really deserves to be much bigger. So he commands other turtles to come and stand on top of each other so that he can stand on top of them and expand his view. After spending the day enjoying his new view and the power that is supposed to come with it, Yertle is enraged when the evening dawns and he realizes that the moon is still higher than he is.

            This story is a good analogy for our position with respect to God. No matter how much power we may think we have or how much power we may actually have in this world, we are all still looking up at God! God’s power is truly unrivaled, and when He decides to act, there is no power anywhere in all of creation that can stop Him.

            This attribute of God is often called “omnipotence,” and today we’re going to discuss what this means and how it should be comforting and inspiring for us to know that God’s power reigns supreme.

How is God’s Power Proclaimed in the Bible?

1. Through titles

            Throughout Scripture, God is referred to as “the Almighty,” which is a pretty easy word to understand. God has ALL the MIGHT He needs to do whatever He wants to do. In Genesis 17:1, God appeared to Abraham and said, “I am God Almighty.” Perhaps you have heard the Hebrew phrase el shaddai—that phrase means “God Almighty.” That title was especially meaningful in a time when most people believed there was a god of the rivers and a god of the lakes and a god of the mountains and a god of the plains and so on. This title proclaimed that Jehovah, the God of Israel, was supreme over all.

            At the opposite end of the Bible, we read in the book of Revelation that the people and angels in heaven refer to God as the Almighty (Rev. 19:6, 21:22). So from the first book of the Bible to the last, that title runs throughout to proclaim God’s unrivaled power.

2. Through direct statements

            Some verses simply state that God is all-powerful. Here are just a few examples:

·         Psalm 115:3—“Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.”

·         Job 42:2—“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”

·         Daniel 4:35—“All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’”

            You can probably think of other verses like these because such verses are very popular because of the comfort and confidence that they bring to us.

3. Through rhetorical questions

            On a number of occasions, people used rhetorical questions to say, in effect, “Isn’t it obvious how powerful God is?” When Sarah laughed at the idea that she would have a baby at the ripe old age of 90, God said, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Gen. 18:14). And when Paul was declaring Christ’s resurrection to a Jewish leader, he said, “Why do you think its incredible that God raises the dead?” (Acts 26:8). Even a humanly impossible act like that was no challenge for God.

4. Through His actions

            The reason that the rhetorical questions we just read can work is that God has put His power on full display through His actions. The greatest example of God’s power was in the creation of the universe back in Genesis 1-2. Remember—when God began to create, He didn’t just take “stuff” that already existed and make planets and stars and air and water out of it. When God began to create, nothing existed but Him, and the Bible tells us that He simply commanded things to exist, and they did! That’s why Paul could say, “Why do you think its incredible that God raises the dead?” We’re talking about God, after all—the one who just speaks things into existence.

            The miracles of Jesus also display His power as God. Let’s just think for a moment about the miracle recorded in John 5. In that story, Jesus encountered a man who had been unable to walk for 38 years. He asked the man if he wanted to be made well, then he simply told him to stand up, pick up his bed, and walk—and he did!

            Think about the extreme makeover that this man’s body experienced. His muscles would have been severely atrophied after 38 years, so he probably instantly received new muscle mass. His bones would have been frail from not supporting any weight for all that time, but they instantly became strong. His circulatory system was immediately capable of sustaining him in a standing position. Think about that—have you ever stood up quickly after you’ve been lying down? You get light-headed because your circulation has to catch up. Imagine standing up after lying down and only sitting up on occasion for 38 years!

Miracles like that are an amazing display of power, and they show us that God truly is almighty—He can do anything He chooses to do!

What Does it Mean that God is Almighty?

            We need to spend a little time discussing what it means that God is almighty, because some people have enjoyed challenging this idea with questions like, “Can God make a rock so big that even He can’t pick it up?” or “Can God make 2+2=6?” or “Can God make an elder board so stubborn that even He can’t make it act?” (A little joke among pastors!). So what does it mean that God is almighty? I think we can clarify this idea in two ways.

1. God can do whatever is possible to do

            If something can possibly be done, God can do it if He chooses. Keep in mind that the idea of possibility extends beyond what is merely possible for humans. Even though something may be impossible for us, it is possible for God as long as it is a real, logical possibility.

            Some things are not real possibilities, like making 2+2=6, and so God cannot do something like that. This really isn’t a limit on God’s power, however—its actually just a limit on what is real. I like what Charles Ryrie said about questions like this. He said, “We might as well ask if a nuclear explosion could make 2+2=6.” A question like this isn’t really about how much power something has—its about what sort of actions are real possibilities. So just remember—if something can possibly be done, God can do it if He chooses.

2. God cannot do something that is outside of His nature

            Your nature simply refers to what you are. For example, I am a human being, so I have a human nature, and if you think about it, my nature puts limits on what I can do. I can’t fly like a bird because its not in my nature to do that; I can’t see through a wall because its not in my nature to do that; or, as a male, I can’t give birth to a child because its not in my nature to do that. These things aren’t really limits on my power or strength; they’re just the boundaries of what I am.

            Likewise, God cannot do something that is outside of His nature. So for example, Hebrews 6:18 says that it is impossible for God to lie. Lying is outside the boundary of who God is, and so its not in His nature to do that.

These are some helpful clarifications to keep in mind when you think about God being “almighty.” They may seem a little abstract or philosophical right now, but I know that with just a little bit of thought time, you can understand these ideas. Just bring them to mind again and let them sink in. For now, let’s spend the remainder of our time talking about some implications of God’s unrivaled power

Implications of God’s Unrivaled Power

1. God has no true rival

            By “rival” I mean someone who is on an equal footing and could actually keep God from achieving something that He chooses to do. God certainly has enemies—such as Satan and his demons—but they cannot match His power. In fact, in the book of Job and in the temptation of Peter we discover that Satan has to ask for permission before he can act. Now, the reason that God gives him permission is another sermon for another day, but we can see clearly through this observation that even God’s greatest enemy is no match for His power.

2. God has power over everything that happens to me

            Nothing happens in our lives because God was somehow unable to stop it. We will never hear God say in Heaven, “By the way, sorry about that car accident. I tried my best to stop it, but I just couldn’t do anything about it.” We will never hear anything like that!

            While this doesn’t answer all of our questions about why God allows things to happen, it is comforting to know that we’re not simply at the mercy of fate or chance or karma or anything like that. Everything that happens to us is under God’s control, so there is a purpose behind everything that we face. One part of that purpose is to give us opportunities to express faith in God so that we might earn a greater reward from Him someday. There are likely other purposes as well, but we should be encouraged just to know that everything that happens to us has already passed through the hands of a loving God, so there is a reason for it.

3. God is able to keep His promises

            God is fully capable of doing whatever He chooses to do, so nothing can keep Him from fulfilling His promises. As humans, we sometimes have to deal with broken promises from other humans because we don’t have that kind of power over our circumstances. Perhaps you promise your child that you’ll make it to their ball game, but car problems keep you from getting there, or a broken fence allows the cattle to get out and you have to round them up.

            When we receive promises from each other, we have to allow for things like that, but with God, we don’t have to entertain any doubts about whether He will keep His promises. And so, His promises become a tremendous source of comfort and a solid foundation on which to act in our lives. They are a bedrock on which to build, and that is because of God’s unrivaled power.

            When we consider the ability that God has to do whatever He chooses to do, it is all the more amazing to think that He chose to send His Son to die for us. God has provided us with forgiveness of our sins because He chose to do so, which tells us of His tremendous love, mercy, and grace. God has exercised His unrivaled power for our undeserved benefit, and we praise Him for this today.

Why Should I Obey? Moving Beyond "Because I Said So"--Parenting Series

            If you’ve ever tried to do something difficult, you know that its not quite enough to know what to do and how to do it. You have to have a good answer for the “why” question—why should I do it? You have to have some compelling reason to put out the effort.

            Many people, for example, have a vague desire to get in better shape. They know what to do and how to do it, but they lack a compelling reason to do it until they are diagnosed with heart disease or diabetes. But we probably all know people who have had a health scare, then all of a sudden their motivation kicks into high gear, because now they have a crystal clear answer about why they should make certain changes.

            Over the last few weeks in this parenting series, we’ve been talking about the need to teach our children not only what they should do according to the Bible, but how they can do it and why they should do it. Until we have answered all three of these questions for our kids, we have not engaged in fully biblical parenting. Now by God’s grace, He can overcome whatever is lacking in our parenting efforts—in fact, He does all the time because none of us are perfect—but our desire must always be to be fully biblical in our role as parents.

            So we must communicate the what, how, and why of the Christian life to our kids. These three aspects form a very powerful dynamic in our lives which will empower us to follow God. Think about parenting, for a moment, like coaching. Telling our kids what they should do is like explaining the basic rules of the game; telling them how they should do it is like explaining the skills and strategy that will allow them to succeed; and telling them why they should do it gives them the drive and motivation to succeed against all obstacles.

            Now we’ve already learned that to teach our kids what they should do, we should teach them the commands of Scripture. These are the basic ground rules for life. To teach them how they can do it, we should point to them to the Gospel. We also learned how a couple of New Testament authors built on this idea. For Paul, pointing our kids to the Gospel revolves around teaching them about the resources that they have “in Christ.” For John, it revolves around the idea of abiding in Christ.

            Today we’re going to add the third side to this triangle, so to speak—the “why” question. When we think about teaching our kids why they should obey us, it is here that we think about that classic conversation that ends with “because I said so.” As the conversation goes, we ask our children to do something and they ask us “why?”—perhaps two or three or a half-dozen times! And normally with a tone of exasperation we say, “because I said so!”

            Now believe it or not, that is a perfectly legitimate answer. It is also a true statement—your kids should obey simply because you have asked them to do something. But why is that? Who made you the boss? This is really the direction that we must go in answering the “why” question—we must point our children not to ourselves as the final authority, but to the one who is the final authority, God Himself.

            Our position of leadership and authority over our children comes from God. We do not have this position simply because we’re stronger than them or because we’ve been alive longer than them and therefore should be wiser than they are. Perhaps our children should have a sense of gratitude, since we have raised them, but ultimately we as parents should remember what Jesus said to Pontius Pilate in John 19:11—“You would have no authority…unless it had been given you from above.”

            So ultimately, teaching our children why they should obey us is a matter of teaching them why they should obey God, since He is the one who has commanded them to obey us. Pointing our children to God as the final authority is very helpful for at least two reasons. First, it keeps us from putting our parenting efforts in terms of a power struggle or a “battle of the wills” between us and our children. Sometimes our children are all-too-willing to jump into that battle because they’ve seen us in action, and they know that if they push the right buttons, they may come out on top! But instead of setting ourselves up as the final authority, we need to point them to God—the One with whom they really must come to terms. Instead of your will versus my will, its your will versus God’s will, and even kids understand that that’s a very different situation.

            Second, when we point them to God, we play the role of our child’s advocate rather than their adversary. As we point them to God, we can explain to them that no one is exempt from obeying God—not even mommy and daddy! We’re simply teaching them to obey God because that’s what we’re required to do, too! This idea sends a powerful message to our kids that we’re all in the same boat. We can teach them that even mommy and daddy and don’t get to play by a different set of rules. Through this process we begin to focus their attention on God, and then we can give them the good news of the Gospel and teach them how the Gospel empowers them to obey.

So teaching our children why they should obey ultimately revolves around teaching them the basics of why they should obey God. In the rest of our time this morning, I’m going to give you a basic answer to this question so you will know what kind of ideas you should pass along to your children.

Why Should I Obey God?

1. To avoid the negative consequences of disobedience

            A. Punishment from those in authority

                        1) Parents

            When we punish our children for disobedience, we give them a very concrete example of the negative consequences of sin. If we are consistent in this, it becomes very clear to them that disobedience brings punishment, but obedience allows them to avoid punishment—and may even bring with it a reward, which we will discuss more in a moment.

            Kids can learn this lesson from their earliest days. If there’s one thing I’ve learned with my daughter, its that she is always capable of understanding more than I think she can. I am confident that that’s true of kids in general, so start training them from their earliest days. When they start crawling and they start touching things that you don’t want them to touch, a firm “no” and a swat on the hand will do. And to help them learn how to avoid that punishment, touch their hand to the object again and say, “no.” Don’t swat their hand if you’re the one who’s touching their hand to the object, but touch their hand to it and say “no” a few times, and they’ll get the picture.

                        2) Legal authorities

            As our kids get older, we’ll have the chance to teach them that some actions are not just sinful, they are also illegal, and they may have to face punishment from the courts if they do certain things. They may have to pay a costly fine or spend time doing community service or even spend time in jail. But all of these consequences can be avoided by obeying God, because God commands us in Romans 13 to obey the government, unless the government commands us to disobey Him. So in most circumstances, if we obey God we won’t find ourselves on the wrong side of the law.

                        3) God

            Hebrews 12 states that because God loves us, He Himself may discipline and punish us when necessary. Far from being an expression of hatred, this is actually an expression of love. Hebrews 12:6 says, “the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” Then v. 10 says, “he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.”

            So God’s discipline can help us learn the hard way, but its still preferable to learn the easy way by obeying God in the first place! If we choose to obey, we will not only bear fruit for God, but we will avoid some of these negative consequences as well.

            B. Psychological suffering (guilt, anxiety, etc.)

            When we disobey, we will commonly experience troubling emotions until we confess our sin. In Psalm 32:3-4, King David wrote than when he failed to confess his sin “my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.” What a sad situation, and what a situation to avoid by choosing to obey rather than disobey!

            C. Shame at the moment of Christ’s return

            Christ’s return to this world should be a moment that we highly anticipate, but we might actually feel shame and embarrassment in that moment if we are not following Him closely. In 1 John 2:28, the Apostle John writes, “Little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.” What a sad thought, to think that that glorious moment might actually bring the sting of shame into our hearts rather than a shout of celebration. But this can be avoided if we choose to obey, and when we fail, if we choose to quickly seek forgiveness from God and others.

2. To enjoy the pleasant results of obedience

            A. The knowledge of bringing glory to God

            This is the idea of giving God the honor and recognition that He deserves. We can certainly do this in our own lives, but we can actually inspire the people around us to give greater honor to God as well. Matthew 5:16 says, “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” If we are grateful to God for all that He has done to save us and bring us into His own family, we should desire to see that He receives the honor and recognition that He deserves, and we work toward that goal by obeying Him.

            B. The normal fruits of obedience

            The book of Proverbs lays out for us the normal outcomes of a wide range of choices. Now God may have other purposes at work in our lives at times—such as in the book of Job when God allowed that godly man to go through a time of suffering—but in general, when we choose to obey God, we will enjoy good things such as greater confidence, peace of mind, stronger friendships, stronger marriages, prosperity, long life, productivity, and many other blessings such as these. Obedience puts us in the position to receive these blessings rather than the bitter fruit of disobedience.

            C. The reward of an honored position of service in Christ’s future kingdom

            According to Scripture, when Jesus returns to this Earth, He will establish a kingdom over which He will reign for 1,000 years. When He does, He will reward His faithful followers with honored positions of service for Him. The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis actually gives us a great way to pass this idea down to our children. The first book in particular—The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe—puts this lesson front-and-center in the plot (many of you may have seen this movie). When the great lion, Aslan (who represents Jesus) takes back control of Narnia from the White Witch (who represents Satan), Aslan gives authority to rule Narnia to human beings—the four Pevensie children, whom the book calls “the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve,” which points us back to Genesis 1-2 and the plan that God had for us in the first place to have authority over this world under Him.

            The plot of that story is thoroughly biblical and thus provides us with a great tool that we can use to teach our children about this powerful motivation to obey Christ.

            These ideas that we’ve discussed today form the essence of the answer to the question that our children have about why they should obey. The core principle is to point them to God as the final authority over their lives. The best way to do that is to model that kind of attitude yourself. Certainly we can communicate these ideas with our words as we have the opportunity, but nothing is more powerful than a living example of these lessons.

            Think about this—when Jesus was born into the world, God had already spoken to people through words for thousands of years. But in Jesus, the apostle John says that “the Word became flesh.” Jesus became a living example of everything that God had spoken to mankind for thousands of years.

            In a similar way, we can become a living example of these lessons for our children, and our example will far exceed any words that we ever speak. Over the last few weeks, we have learned for ourselves what we should do, how we can do it, and why we should do it. Let us embrace these lessons for ourselves and then our children will see clearly the path that they should embrace.

How to Obey God: According to John--Parenting Series

            Its fascinating the way that living in a certain place can shape you in so many different ways. It can shape the way you think by shaping your values and the opinions that you hold or the goals and dreams that you have. You probably wouldn’t dream about becoming a rodeo champion if you grew up in the city, for instance.

            It can shape the way you talk as well. It may shape how fast you talk or what kind of vocabulary you use. You may say “soda” rather than “pop,” or even “soda, don’t ya know.” You might say “warsh” rather than “wash,” or use words like “perti’near.”

            The place you live may shape your hobbies, your habits, your wardrobe, and even the way you drive! In Kansas City, it wasn’t too hard to spot the people who weren’t used to “city driving.” They were usually the ones the rest of us were “politely gesturing” at.

            Today, we’re going to continue talking about how to obey God so we’ll know what kind of ideas we need to pass along to our kids as they grow up. We’re going to look at a word picture from the Apostle John. His word picture draws on this whole idea of finding a home somewhere and allowing it to shape your life. This word picture comes directly from the Lord Jesus, but the Apostle John is the only New Testament writer who took this idea and ran with it.

According to the Apostle John, how can we obey God’s commands?

            For John, the answer to this question is “by abiding in Christ.” The idea of that word is to remain somewhere, to stay there, to make yourself at home and put down roots and drink up the life of the place that you have chosen to call home. As I said, John took this word picture from Jesus, and Jesus placed it in an agricultural context by talking about how a branch draws its life from the vine to which it is attached.

            This idea is very similar to what we learned from Paul last week, but Paul used images taken from the world of law and the courtroom. Jesus and John, however, drew on this image taken from something that the people were involved in all the time—gardening. Its an image that I think all of us in an agricultural setting can really appreciate.

            John records Jesus’ teaching on this whole idea of abiding in John 15. Why don’t you turn there with me, please? I’d like to read vv. 1-11 and talk through them just briefly, then we’ll take a closer look at the blessings of abiding in Christ and the means of abiding in Christ. This passage is from the night before Jesus was crucified. As He was speaking in chapter 15, He was probably walking with His disciples from the upper room where they ate together to the Garden of Gethsemane where He was ultimately arrested. As they walked, they would have likely been passing some vineyards, so Jesus uses that setting to make a spiritual point.

            Let’s read and I’ll offer some brief comments [READ v. 1]. Jesus probably called Himself the “true” vine in contrast to the leaders and the people of Israel. In the same way that we use the bald eagle as a symbol of our country, the people of Israel used a vine as a symbol of their country. This picture was taken directly from the Old Testament, and it was supposed to mean that the nation was bearing God’s fruit in the world. But since they had rejected Jesus, they had rejected God, and so Jesus says that He is the true vine—the one who is truly bearing God’s fruit in this world.

            Let’s continue [READ v. 2]. I think “lifts up” is a better translation here than “takes away” for the branches that are not bearing fruit. I think Jesus is referring to the practice of elevating the vines on a trellis of some kind. In other words, I think the picture is of tender care rather than removal.

            Moving on…[READ vv. 3-6]. Some interpreters read v. 6 as a statement about false Christians or sinning Christians being thrown out into Hell for failing to abide in Christ. In my opinion, this cannot be because of the audience to whom Jesus is speaking. He is speaking these words only to the 11 faithful disciples. Judas had already left to commit his betrayal, so Jesus was speaking only to His faithful followers, whom he said in v. 3 were “already clean.” Thus, the command to abide is for those who are already clean! So abiding is not a way to become clean in the eyes of God, but the way to live as someone who already is clean.

            Let’s finish the passage now [READ vv. 7-11]. This is such a beautiful section of Scripture. You may have already noticed some blessings that Jesus connects with the idea of abiding. Remember that the idea of abiding is the idea of making a home somewhere and taking on the life of that place, just like a branch has its home in the vine to which it is attached and draws its very lifeblood from it. In our lives, we’re talking about finding a home in Jesus and letting Him shape the way we think and act and live—shaping our goals and motives and desires and dreams and the choices we make. Just as the branch simply produces the fruit of the vine, we are to produce the spiritual fruit that God desires to produce in this world. It’s the same idea that we learned from Paul last week, only through a different word picture. We are simply supposed to live out the life of Christ.

Let’s take a closer look now at the blessings of abiding.

1. Bearing much fruit for God (v. 5)

            Look again at v. 5 [READ v. 5]. Its interesting that Jesus said apart from Him we can do nothing—nothing of any spiritual value. We tend to think that the choice to allow Jesus to work in us is like the choice between thriving and just getting by. We think, “Yeah, I know I could thrive if I got to know Jesus better, but I’m getting along okay in my spiritual life.” Well, according to Jesus, the choice is not between thriving and getting by—the choice is between thriving and nothing!

            If we are not allowing Jesus to do His work in us to change us, we will not accomplish anything of spiritual value. If we’re not living out the life of Christ the way that a branch carries the life of its vine, we are accomplishing nothing of spiritual value. But if we allow Jesus to shape us the way that the town we live in shapes us, we will bear much fruit for God.

2. Effective prayer (v. 7)

            Look again at v. 7 [READ v. 7]. Now I confess, when I read a statement like this, I’m the first person to start putting boundaries on it. I think, “surely it can’t mean ‘whatever you wish.’” Then, because I studied Greek in seminary, I think, “surely this is a mistranslation,” so I look at the Greek and it says, “whatever you wish!”

            Now of course, there are two conditions attached to this statement, and we’ll talk more about them in a minute, but let us allow verses like this to move us to prayer. In our parenting efforts, a verse like this should encourage us to pray about anything and everything that we desire for our kids. Are you trying to potty-train a child? Pray about it! Are they having a hard time with math? Pray about it! Are they struggling with motivation? Pray about it! Pray about anything and everything that you desire for your children.

            As you make your home in Christ and draw your lifeblood from Him by allowing His word to have a home in you, it will change the way you pray so that your prayers will become more effective. James 4:4 tells us that one of the reasons that we might not receive what we ask for is that we may ask for something with the wrong motives. But if we allow God’s Word to have a home in us, as this verse says, it will refine our motives and help us pray not only for the right things but for the right reasons as well.

3. Bringing glory to God (v. 8)

            This means that we will enhance God’s reputation and fame. God is already great and wonderful, but our behavior doesn’t always put His greatness on full display. But if we abide in Him, our lives will display His greatness [READ v. 8]. A “disciple” is an apprentice, someone who learns from a master. When we bear the fruit of God in our lives, it shows others that we have learned from Him, and they learn more about what He is like being seeing His fruit in our lives.

4. The knowledge of abiding in God’s love (v. 9-10)

            [READ vv. 9-10] God’s love for us does not change, but our knowledge of it can. If we sin against Him, we put a strain on that relationship, and if we start to experience His discipline, its very easy for Satan to tempt us to think that that discipline is an example of hatred rather than love. But if we obey God, Satan will have very few opportunities to make us doubt God’s love for us, and we will have our eyes open to the examples of God’s love that are all around us.

5. Fullness of joy (v. 11)

            [READ v. 11] By staying connected to Jesus, our joy will reach its fullness, but our joy will be drained if we do not stay connected to Jesus and bear His fruit. The negative consequences of our sin will make life feel like wearisome drag, a mind-numbing exercise in futility where we begin to question our purpose in life. But when we stay connected to Christ—when we make our home in Him—He begins to work in us and through us and we will receive joy from that relationship and from what it produces. That joy will keep building and building until it practically radiates from us!

Now if these are the blessings of abiding, what are the means of abiding? How do we do it?

1. By giving Christ’s words a home within us (v. 7)

            Christ tells us in v. 7 to let His words abide within us—to have a home in our hearts. Obviously, this revolves around knowing what He has taught, so we must study His teachings and internalize them.

            Does God’s Word have a home in your heart, or is it more like an occasional visitor? Have you made a home for yourself in God’s Word, or do you just drop in every so often? Think about the idea of living somewhere versus visiting. If you’re only visiting a place, it doesn’t shape your life the way I that mentioned at the beginning of the sermon. If you visit New England sometime, you won’t really develop a New England frame-of-mind; in fact, you’ll probably feel just a little uncomfortable until you get back home.

            Where you make your home will shape who you are. If you make your home in Christ and His teachings, they will shape who you are. Then, we fully abide in Christ…

2. By obeying the commands of Christ (v. 10)

            Once we’ve learned what Christ asks us to do, we must simply choose to do it. When we do, God’s power will work in our lives to produce His fruit, just as the life of the vine flows through the branch to produce its fruit. This may seem far too simple—just knowing Christ’s commands and then choosing to obey them—but this is really all there is to abiding in Him. There is a big temptation for us to make the Christian life seem far more complicated because then we can shift the blame for our sins onto something beside our own choices. So we may tell ourselves that there must be something that we still lack—perhaps some emotional experience with God or something that we didn’t receive in our upbringing—and then we can place the blame for our sins on those things.

            But in reality, abiding in Christ is just a matter of learning what to do and choosing to do it. That’s not to say that its easy to obey Christ, its just not complicated—that’s all! Its not easy because we have sinful desires that pull us in the other direction, but if we will choose to obey Christ, the fruit of holiness will flourish and leave little room for the weeds of sin to thrive.

            Perhaps you can see how this idea of abiding is similar to what we learned from Paul last week. To Paul, we are Christ’s ambassadors, living with His very identity upon us and living out His life in this world. To John, we are like branches that Christ, as the vine, as sent out into the world to bear His fruit. The result is the same, only the pictures are different, but that’s helpful because they resonate with us in different ways.

            The world of nature all around us provides us with many opportunities to pass this idea of abiding onto our kids. As they work with us in the garden or on the farm, or as we take walks together, we can pass this lesson down to our kids and shape the way that they think about themselves and their purpose in this world. By molding that self-image and sense of purpose, we will set them up for a very fruitful life, indeed.

How to Obey God: According to Paul--Parenting Series

            A triangle is one of the strongest shapes to use in construction. Its three sides support each other in a powerful way to bear the weight of other objects. A few weeks ago as we talked about the subject of parenting, we looked at the what, how, and why of our task as parents. We determined that we must also give our children the what, how, and why of their responsibility to obey both us and the Lord. We can think about these three parts—the what, how, and why—as three sides of a triangle that will help our children bear the weight of the pressure that the world places upon them to live an ungodly lifestyle.

            The “what” question, you may remember, is answered very simply by all of the commands in the Bible—particularly for us, the commands of the New Testament. These commands make up the standard for living that we are supposed to pass along to our children.

            Now, as I stated a few weeks ago, I don’t think the “what” question is our greatest challenge as parents. We know pretty well what God’s commands are. It’s the “how” and “why” questions that really trip us up. Today, we are going to begin to take a closer look at the “how” question—how can we successfully live out the commands of Scripture? Once we can answer this question for ourselves, we can then pass this lesson along little by little to our children. Today, I will offer you a basic answer to this question, then we’ll take a closer look at how the various authors of the New Testament build upon this answer.

How Can We Successfully Live Out the Commands of Scripture?

            The basic answer to this question is “by constantly reminding ourselves about the message of the Gospel.” This is the path to spiritual success for each one of us, so it is the path on which we want to set our children as well. We want to continually point them to the Gospel, then after they hopefully accept Christ as their Savior, we want to keep pointing them back to the Gospel as well.

            Now this focus on the Gospel may seem a little odd because we often think of the Gospel as being a message about our future. We think of the Gospel as being the good news that by placing our faith in Jesus we can go to heaven rather than hell after we die. That is certainly good news, but how does that help me in the here and now? That’s kind of like Social Security—it’ll be a nice benefit once I retire, but it doesn’t help me pay my bills right now!

            What we have to realize is that the Gospel is not just a message about our future—it is a message about our past and our present as well. The Gospel is the good news that I am no longer defined by my past, with all of its sinfulness and dysfunction. Instead, I now have a vibrant relationship with God in the present that will simply reach its fullness in the future when I live with Him in heaven. When we think of the Gospel in all three tenses—past, present, and future—we will begin to see the power that it gives us to have spiritual success today.

How do the authors of the New Testament build upon this basic answer to the question about successfully living out God’s commands? In the rest of our time today, we’ll look at how the Apostle Paul expounded on this thought, and I have no doubt that we will be encouraged by what we see.

According to the Apostle Paul, How Can We Obey God’s Commands?

            For Paul, the path to spiritual success is all about recognizing the resources that we have “in Christ.” I put that little phrase in quotation marks because it is one of Paul’s favorite phrases. Paul wrote 13 books of the New Testament, and in those 13 books he uses phrases like “in Christ” or “in Christ Jesus” around 170 times. He constantly wrote about the new identity we have in Christ and the new power that we have in Christ. In many of his letters, he spent the first half writing about all the theology of this “in Christ” idea, then he shifted gears for the second half and said, “Now let me show you what this looks like in daily life.” We can summarize what Paul had to say about our resources in Christ by looking at them with respect to each of the three persons of the Trinity.

1. We have a new relationship with God the Father

            First of all, we are at peace with Him, according to Romans 5:1. We used to be enemies of God—according to that same passage—because we were in rebellion against Him. We were hostile to Him because we knew that He disapproved of our sinful lifestyle. But now that we have confessed our sins to Him and accepted Christ by faith, we are at peace with God. We have a peace treaty in Jesus Christ, and now God is our ally rather than our enemy.

            Along the same line, we no longer face God’s condemnation, according to Romans 8:1. God has rendered His verdict about us, and His ruling is that all the demands of His law have been met by Jesus, and His innocence has been placed on our account through faith. We have been sent out of God’s courtroom never to return again! Our lives will be evaluated by God someday, but we won’t be like defendants in a courtroom. We will be like a diver, or a gymnast, or a figure skater—standing before the judges to see if we’ve won the prize. We may receive a greater or lesser prize based on our obedience to God, but we won’t bear the eternal penalty of our sins because that matter was settled when we accepted Christ.

            Third, we are now God’s adopted children (Rom. 8:15; Eph. 1:5). God has committed Himself to do all the things for us that a father is supposed to do—He provides for us, protects us, loves us, and disciplines us. We no longer relate to God primarily as our judge, but as our Father. There is intimacy and affection in our relationship with Him.

2. We have a new identity as Christ

            This is a life-changing idea when you understand it. I said we have a new identity as Christ for a reason—according to Paul, when we accept Christ, on a spiritual level His history becomes our history. We are united to Him spiritually so that we become part of His story and actually share in His destiny. This spiritual unity is so complete that Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Notice all the details of Christ’s history that have now become our spiritual history:

·         We were crucified with Him (Galatians 2:20)

·         We died with Him (Romans 6:3-7)

·         We were buried with Him (Romans 6:3-7)

·         We were resurrected with Him (Romans 6:3-7)

·         We have been seated with Him in heaven (Ephesians 2:4-6; Colossians 3:1-4)

·         We will be with Him in His future glory (Colossians 3:1-4)

·         We will reign with Him in His earthly kingdom (1 Corinthians 6:2; 2 Timothy 2:12)

            When we placed our faith in Christ, we were placed into His story, so that we are now literally living out the life of Jesus. Let me offer a couple of illustrations to help you understand this idea. You may be familiar with the witness protection program, which relocates people who serve as witnesses in a trial who may be in danger because of their testimony. When a person enters that program, they go through a complete and radical change of identity. They receive a new name and a new background and are moved to a totally new location. Their old identity just sort of dies out, and everything they do is now done under their new identity.

            This illustration gives us a very helpful way to think about our new identity in Christ. Spiritually, my identity as Tim Erickson has died out! As Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

            Here’s another helpful illustration—some of you will remember the old TV show “Quantum Leap.” In that show, Scott Bakula’s character, Sam Beckett, would leap around through time and space into the body of a different person for each episode. While he was in that person’s body, he was living out their life, and normally he would solve some kind of problem for them. His own identity as Sam Beckett faded into the background every time he leapt into a new person, and that person’s identity became the focus.

            If you want to think of your relationship with Christ that way, that’s fine too! We have leapt into the story of Christ, so that we are now supposed to live out His life in this world. We are so closely identified with Jesus that Paul says we are now His ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20). An ambassador is someone who is authorized to speak for another person with that person’s same authority.

            Ambassadors in Paul’s time had a more important role than they do today. Today, if President Obama wants to speak to a world leader, he can just pick up the phone and talk to him. Back then, communication was obviously more difficult, so when an ambassador was sent to a far-off country, he was given the authority to speak as if the king himself were right there doing all the talking! The ambassador literally stood in the place of the king.

            My friends, this is the role that you and I occupy today for Jesus! Jesus is not physically here in the world right now; He is in heaven, but He has sent us out as His ambassadors, to speak for Him and share His message with others. This is an amazing concept, and it gives such meaning and purpose to our lives. We are living out the life of Christ!

But we don’t have to just muster up our own power to live His life!

3. We have a new power through the Holy Spirit (Romans 8)

            In Romans 8:1-4, Paul writes about the new power that we have through the Holy Spirit to obey God [READ Rom. 8:1-4; in v. 2 when Paul mentions “the law,” he is talking about a power inside of us; in vv. 3-4 he is talking about the Old Testament Law].

            In essence, Paul is saying that the Holy Spirit, who now lives in us, gives us a power to obey God’s commands that we did not have in our sinful state. Before we accepted Christ, we did not have the power to obey God on our own. We were in bondage to the influence of sin, and it had the power to boss us around. But now, we have been set free from sin’s influence by the power of the Holy Spirit.

            One of my professors in seminary explained it this way. He had been in the military as a young man, and he would tell us that if his old drill sergeant marched into the room and started barking out orders, he just might obey him because he had been so thoroughly conditioned to respond to that voice. But in reality, he could stop himself and say, “Wait a minute! I’m a civilian now. I’m not under your authority. You don’t have the power to boss me around anymore!”

            That’s what our relationship to sin is like. Sin used to have the power to boss us around, and we were helpless against it. But sin doesn’t have the power to boss us around anymore! We don’t have to sin “yes” to our sinful desires ever again! Now those desires are still appealing to us because sin is like that old, familiar voice that calls us to come back to old habits; sin is like that old drill sergeant who we were conditioned to obey.

            But now, the Holy Spirit lives within us and His power is available to us! Sin is no longer our master—Jesus is! And the Holy Spirit will empower us to obey Jesus when we make the choice to do so.

            These ideas from Paul are part of the answer to the question of how to live an obedient life. These are ideas that we must first embrace ourselves, and then as our kids grow we can plant them in their hearts as well. Remember the pattern from Deuteronomy 6—first of all, love God yourself and internalize His truth, then just teach your kids to do the same thing.

            Obviously, when our kids are young, they won’t fully grasp these concepts, but we can start to introduce them on a simple level from a very young age. Kids like to play make-believe, right? We can tell them how God has a very special role for them to play—that they are actually playing the part of Jesus in this world.

            Kids like to daydream about having super-powers. We can tell them that they have a super-power in their heart—the power to do what’s right. We can explain that this may not seem like an impressive super-power at first, but this is when we emphasize the “why” of obedience, like the possibility of avoiding bad consequences and receiving a blessing instead.

            So this is the gist of the “how” question—point your kids to the gospel, then after they hopefully receive it, keep pointing them back to it all the time!

Guardrails for the Parenting Task--Parenting Series

            Many of you know that Carmen and I recently had the opportunity to minister at a Bible college in Jackson, WY. We decided to make the 15-hour drive this year rather than fly, and much of the time we were in areas that I wouldn’t exactly call “pretty.” But as we got closer to Jackson, we were driving directly through the mountains, which offered some breath-taking views. It also offered a few moments which made me think, “Man! That would have been a nice place for a guardrail!” Every so often, the road ran along the edge of a hill with a substantial drop-off, but there wasn’t a guardrail there to keep you on the road.

            Last week, as we studied the commands of Ephesians 6:4 and Colossians 3:21, we encountered a guardrail that is designed to help us safely reach our destination of biblical parenting. It was put in place to keep us from veering off into dangerous territory. This guardrail was most clearly expressed in the first phrase of Ephesians 6:4, which says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger.”

            Today, we’re going to discuss some ways in which we commonly find ourselves on the wrong side of that guardrail. There are ways in which we can behave that are violations of that prohibition, and if we realize that we have veered off into dangerous territory, then we can make the changes that are necessary to correct our course.

In what ways might we violate the prohibition of Ephesians 6:4?

            As we answer this question, let’s consider a general guideline, and then we’ll talk about some specific behaviors that are more common. Our general guideline is very simple—any sin would be a violation of this prohibition. If we sin against our children, we would be tempting them to get angry and would be pushing them in that direction. So anything that the Bible calls a sin is off-limits for us in our relationships with our kids.

            This is obvious when we stop and think about it, but the problem is that we don’t always stop and think about it. We don’t tend to place biblical commands in the context of our relationship with our kids. Think about the command in Colossians 4:6, which says, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Normally when we hear a command like that, we’ll think about that in terms of speaking to our neighbors or co-workers, and maybe we’ll think about it in the context of marriage, but we rarely get around to thinking about it in the context of speaking to our children.

            In my opinion, we might fail to connect these dots because we have an incorrect view of parental authority. Its easy for us to think of ourselves like dictators in our own homes, and thus we get to play by some different set of rules. We can also embrace a bizarre pragmatism which says that as long as I get my kids to “obey,” anything I do to reach that goal is okay.

            That mindset is not what parental authority is all about. We’re much more like middle management in a corporation—our task is to take whatever comes from corporate headquarters (God) and implement it on the local level (the home). Our parental authority is set within the bounds of God’s commands, so we have no freedom to violate them just because we have some authority in our homes.

            Now on a practical level, I think we might fail to connect these dots because when we’re at home, we want to relax and let our guard down. We don’t want to keep our spiritual guard up, so we actually become easy targets for temptation because we’re not on the lookout for it.

            Certainly we do want our homes to have a relaxing atmosphere, but the way to create that atmosphere is to keep your spiritual guard up, not let it down. When we all let our spiritual guard down, that’s when we create the environment in which everyone is walking around on eggshells because someone is liable to blow up at any moment! So we must ask the Lord to help us keep our spiritual guard up at all times, even when we are at home.

Now what are some common ways in which we might provoke our children to anger? This is not a complete list by any means, but I do think we can focus on three areas.

1. Sins of Speech

            We may sin through the words we say in several ways.

            a. In content (Matthew 5:22)

            Sometimes we just choose our words very poorly when we speak to our children. They might make a particular choice sometime, and in a moment of exasperation we may say, “How could you have been so stupid?” Obviously, that’s not a good tone of voice, but the choice of words itself is sinful. In Matthew 5:22, Jesus says, “whoever insults his brother will be liable to the [court], and whoever says, ‘you fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”

            Words that are insulting and degrading have no place in our communication with our children. They violate the basic dignity that our children possess as human beings, made in the image of God. According to James 3, this is what makes sins of speech sinful—we are tearing down something to which God gave His own resemblance, so to speak. So everyone deserves a basic level of respect from us, and that includes our children.

            b. In manner (Colossians 4:6)

            Sometimes its not what you say, but how you say it—right? Our body language and tone of voice can express all kinds of sinful attitudes—anger, impatience, rudeness, arrogance. All of these are sinful attitudes that we are to put off.

            Consider the command I mentioned earlier from Colossians 4:6—“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt (that means ‘palatable’), so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Again, we are sometimes tempted to think that we have a different set of rules in the home because we as parents are the authority, but we don’t! We don’t get a pass on the way we speak to our kids just because we have authority, so we must watch the way we say things.

            c. In timing/location (Proverbs 15:23)

            We may cause our children unnecessary embarrassment by dealing with something publicly that should be dealt with in private. We may need to take our children out of a public setting to deal with something right away, but that is different from speaking to them or punishing them out in the open. Not only could we cause unnecessary embarrassment for our kids, we will probably also make them less inclined to hear what we have to say. Proverbs 15:23 says, “To make an apt answer is a joy to a man, and a word in season, how good it is!” Saying the right thing at the wrong time can make the right thing come across the wrong way!

2. Sins of Action

           

            a. Dealing with our children in anger (James 1:19-20)

            We can easily provoke our children to anger if we deal with them in anger because they’ll simply be taking their cues from us!  In those situations, they’re just reflecting our own behavior back to us. If its okay for you to act that way, then it must be okay for them to act that way—at least that’s how they’ll look at it.

            James 1:19-20 says, “let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” Anger can be appropriate when we are angry on behalf of God. That’s why James says to be “slow to anger”—we’ve got to sort out those feelings and assess them. All other anger is the anger of man, which James says does not produce the righteousness of God.

            Its important to note that this anger does not produce God’s righteousness in us or in our children. Sometimes anger appears to work because it can force our kids to shape up out of fear, but don’t confuse that for godly character in them. Once they reach the point where they are no longer afraid of you, you will quickly discover that they have not developed godly character.

            Anger toward our children often arises from selfish goals and motivations. James 4:1-2 is very informative on this point: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder (and remember, in Matthew 5, Jesus said anger is just as serious as murder). You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.”

            So why do you snap at your kids? Because you are coveting something and their behavior keeps you from having it, so you get angry. Perhaps you want peace and quiet—no matter what anyone else wants—but the kids are making some noise, so you get angry. Perhaps you wanted other people to think you’re a perfect parent, but your kids do something that embarrasses you, so you get angry.

            If you are quick to get angry with your kids, that is a dead giveaway that their behavior is obstructing some kind of sinful goal that you want to pursue. Their behavior may be sinful, but for your heart, that is irrelevant. Remember—you are called to implement God’s standards in your home, and God says, “let all bitterness and wrath and anger…be put away from you” (Ephesians 4:30).

            b. Playing favorites between siblings (or comparing them to each other) (James 2:1; Eph. 5:1)

            You might be familiar with how poorly this behavior worked out in the book of Genesis. Isaac and Rebekah played favorites and nearly drove Esau to murder Jacob; Jacob should have known better, but he played favorites, too, and nearly got his favorite son killed! Even if you never incite homicide in your family, remember—Jesus said that anger is just as bad.

            Asking your kids why they’re not more like their siblings is also unproductive. I’ve never heard of a situation where a child said, “You know what, Mom and Dad, you’re right! I should be more like my brother. Thanks for pointing that out to me!” Besides, we’re pointing our kids toward the wrong standard when we compare them to their siblings. Ephesians 5:1 says, “be imitators of God, as beloved children.” If Johnny isn’t exactly like Timmy, that’s okay—if Johnny is imitating God. That’s the real example that he should follow.

            c. Disciplining in unjust ways

                        1) Enforcing inconsistent standards/standards that change arbitrarily

            Have you ever played a board game with a child who switches the rules all the time—just making up any old rule whenever it suits him? We play along with that behavior sometimes, but its very frustrating, isn’t it? It doesn’t make the game very enjoyable.

            Well, imagine if that’s how your child feels about your home—he never knows exactly what the rules are or whether they will be enforced on a certain day, and he gets punished for breaking rules he “should have known,” even though they were never explained to him before. That’s going to create a very frustrating situation in your home.

            When it comes to the rules of your home, the most important lesson for your children to learn is that you mean what you say. Its not even necessary to have a lot of rules—after all, you can’t anticipate everything that may come up. It is most important for your children to learn that when you announce a rule, you will enforce it fairly and consistently. That lesson will teach them to respond to your authority when you have to address other situations that come up.

                        2) Disciplining without just cause (for accidents or without establishing who deserves what)

            Sometimes as a parent, you may come into a situation where its easiest to just exercise “the nuclear option”—where everyone in a five-mile radius gets a spanking! Maybe your kids are fighting or something was broken, and when you come upon the scene, the easiest thing to do is just rain down fire from heaven on everyone.

            Well, it certainly could be true that each child involved deserves discipline, but you need to establish that fact first. After all, you can’t effectively instruct your child if you don’t know exactly what he or she did—and punishment without instruction is not biblical discipline. Proverbs 29:15 says, “The rod and reproof give wisdom.” When you punish your child, you need to make sure he knows why he is being punished and how he can avoid further punishment in the future.

            Honestly, I think it is better NOT to carry out a punishment than to punish without just cause. If your child knows he is being punished unfairly, your punishment will not have its desired effect. In his heart, your child will not yield to your authority—he will chafe under it because he knows he is being treated unfairly.

                        3) Using excessive physical force which leaves lasting physical damage

            Spanking is somewhat controversial today, but it is a decidedly biblical method of discipline for our children, and I believe parents should make use of it when they deem it necessary. But the physical force that we use must be minimal and controlled. Any level of force that leaves bruises, welts, or broken skin is almost certainly too much.

            Also, when spanking is carried out in anger, it is no longer a biblical expression of discipline. We must make sure that we are in control of our emotions before we ever begin the process of spanking. After all, we are trying to teach our children self-control through our discipline, so we must model it for them.

3.  Sins of Omission

            This phrase refers to actions that we should do, but fail to carry out. It is based on the teaching of James 4:17, which says, “whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” What examples of this category of sin may come up in our parenting?

            A. Failing to speak words of praise or words of correction

            Parents have long recognized the power that our words have to shape our children, but its not uncommon to find one of two extremes among parents. Some parents are so afraid of raising children who are “soft” or conceited that they rarely, if ever, speak words of praise to their kids. Other parents are so concerned about their child’s self-esteem that they rarely, if ever, speak words of correction.

            Both of these approaches are unnecessary extremes that do not match scriptural teaching about our speech. The book of Proverbs praises the value of correction and teaches us to offer it in a thoughtful way that will increase the likelihood that it is received well. The same book also stresses the power of kind words to nourish the soul.

            Using words of praise and words of correction is a must for all parents. There is little to fear about going to extremes as long as you include both types of speech. Correct when necessary, and praise when appropriate, and your child will receive the benefits of correction and praise without facing the drawbacks of unbalanced communication.

            B. Failing to confess our sins and ask for forgiveness

            As human beings with a sinful heart, we will at times sin against our kids—we have already talked about many such scenarios today. When we do, it is vital that we confess those sins to them and ask for their forgiveness. We’re not fooling anyone when we refuse to admit when we have actually been wrong. We’re not fooling God, we’re not fooling our kids, and we’re really not fooling ourselves, either, since we normally face guilt when we refuse to confess our sins.

            Some parents seem to think that confessing their sins to their children is a sign of “weakness” that will cause their kids to think less of their parental authority. I am convinced that the opposite is true—confessing your sins is a sign of spiritual strength which will endear you to your children.

            Only parents who exercise control through fear and intimidation must maintain an aura of perfection at all costs. On the contrary, when we follow a biblical model of parenting, confessing your sins is a powerful way to teach your children that we all have to play by the same set of rules—God’s rules! No one is exempt from obeying Him—not even Mom and Dad. This lesson points our children toward their proper and ultimate authority, which is where we want to direct them anyway!

            C. Failing to show our children physical affection

            This issue may be a greater struggle for fathers. As men, we’re not so much the touchy-feely type. We’re a little less like mama cats, and a little more like male rams; we would just as soon hit someone on the football field as hug someone. But physical affection is very important. Sometimes, a simple hand on the shoulder can communicate more than our words could ever say.

            I’ve been told that physical affection is especially important between fathers and daughters as girls are entering the teenage years. Most girls are already extremely self-conscious about their body at that point in time, so if Dad stops giving her hugs or kisses, it can apparently exaggerate her confusion and insecurity. A father’s continued affection can be just the point of stability that a girl needs to deal with the changes that are taking place.

            We’ve covered almost a “dirty dozen” today as we’ve discussed some common ways in which we might provoke our children to anger. It may seem at this point that it is much easier to fail as a parent than to succeed, but please remember that these warnings today are the guardrails for the parenting task. As you’re driving down the road, its not the guardrails that deserve your focus—it’s the road and the destination. The best way to avoid the guardrails is not to focus on them, but on the road ahead. The guardrails are only there to bump us back in the right direction.

            As parents, we do not need to live in fear of failure. Rather, we can thank God for the parameters that He has put in place which help us instead to enjoy the scenery as we grow closer to Him, and bring our children along for the adventure.