Holiness--Character in a Class by Itself

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I. What does the word “holiness” mean?

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

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

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

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

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

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

B. God is referred to as “holy”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Righteousness--Satisfying the Highest Standard

Do any of you like to learn about the history and meaning of words? I have to admit—I’m kind of in that category myself. I like learning about words and their history and how they’ve changed over time. Most words tend to change their meaning a little bit over the years, and this is particularly true of words that get picked up as slang words. When a word catches on as a slang word, it usually ends up with a meaning that barely resembles its original meaning.

Such is the case with the word that we are going to study today, the word “righteous” or “righteousness.” Some of you might remember when “righteous” was a fairly popular slang word. Well, I did a little homework on this and found some interesting information. Apparently some of the slang synonyms of “righteous” include: awesome, cool, sweet, gnarly, rad, and tubular. One website had some examples of “righteous” being used in a sentence to help us get it right. Apparently after you finish a nice Italian dinner you can say, “Oh, man, that lasagna was righteous!” Or if you find yourself in a group of surfers you could say, “That wave was righteous man! That so totally rocked!” Or if you’re a fan of action movies you could apparently say, “Did you see Chuck Norris kick those guys in the head? That was righteous!”

Well, to some people, the word “righteous” might be nothing more than a slightly out-of-date slang word, but in the Bible it is a very significant word that we run across quite a bit. In the New American Standard translation, the words righteous, righteousness, or righteously occur 619 times! That means that if we don’t understand this word, then we’ll be lost throughout a fairly large portion of the Bible. And what’s more, this word plays a very important role in passages that talk about our standing before God. So today I want to spend a moment defining this word from the Bible and then we’ll apply it in an important passage that deals with how God looks at us and our sin.

I. What does the word “righteous” mean?

A. Synonyms of righteous

One of the best ways to get a quick handle on what a word means is to look at its synonyms. The Bible provides us with several synonyms for the word “righteous,” many of them in describing the character of God. Deut. 32:4 is one verse that describes God as righteous and gives us several synonyms to help us understand what that means [READ Deut. 32:4] You can see that we have several synonyms here that describe God’s character and the actions that flow from his character. He is called “upright,” which is the opposite of crooked; he is called “faithful,” which means that he is trustworthy and honest. Also, the idea of justice is mentioned twice—the verse says that His ways are just and He is without injustice. So the things that he does are fair. If we measure his actions by the standard of justice, we find that his actions line up exactly. Thus, a basic summary of this verse gives us the idea that righteous character is character that meets the standard of justice.

This idea also comes through in verses that use the word righteous as a virtual synonym for “innocent” [READ Deut. 25:1]. The righteous person in this verse is the one who had not violated the standard of law; he is the innocent party. Other verses convey the same idea. In 1 Kings 8:31–32, Solomon is saying a prayer of dedication for the temple in Jerusalem and he says, “If a man sins against his neighbor and is made to take an oath before Your altar in this house, then hear in heaven and act and judge Your servants, condemning the wicked by bringing his way on his own head and justifying the righteous by giving him according to his righteousness.”

Or you may remember that when Jesus was on trial before Pilate, Pilate’s wife “sent him a message saying ‘Have nothing to do with that righteous Man; for last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of Him’”[Matt. 27:19]. Jesus could be called righteous because he had not violated the standard of law—he was innocent of all of the charges that were being brought against him.

So I believe that the synonyms of the word “righteous” start to give us a basic definition for this word—“righteousness” is character that meets the standard by which it is judged. It is character that conforms to proper standards.

B. Descriptions of righteous people

I think this definition becomes even more evident when we look at descriptions of righteous people that are found in the Bible. One of the first people described as “righteous” is Noah. Genesis 6:9 says, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God.” This is not to say that Noah had never sinned, but by the standard of pursuing a relationship with God, Noah was apparently the only one who met the standard, and so God spared him from the flood.

Luke 1:6 is a great example as well. In that verse, Luke talks about the parents of John the Baptist and says, “They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord.” Again, this doesn’t mean that they had never sinned; it simply means that they lived according to God’s law and took the proper steps when they did sin. So their lives matched the standard that God laid out in his law.

C. A word picture of righteousness

Finally, we also have a word picture of righteousness to help us understand this term. In the Old Testament, the picture of having clean hands was used as a synonym for righteousness. For example in 2 Samuel 22:21, David sings a song of praise to the Lord and he says, “The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands He has recompensed me.” David repeated the same idea in Psalm 18:20. You might also remember in the New Testament when Pilate washed his hands after he turned Jesus over to the people. That was a symbolic way for Pilate to claim that he was innocent with regard to Jesus’ death.

We have a very similar word picture in English when we talk about someone being caught “red-handed.” The idea is that the person who is caught is guilty and we know they’re guilty because we caught them in the act. And so we say that we caught that person red-handed.

So the word picture of having clean hands communicates the idea of innocence, the idea that someone has not violated the standard of judgment. So if we could pull all of this information together, I think we could come up with a good definition of the word righteous. Since the idea behind this word is the idea of meeting a standard, I think we could say that righteousness is character that meets God’s standards. Thus, righteous actions are actions that line up with God’s standards. A righteous person is someone who meets God’s standards.

But you may notice a little problem at this point—the rest of the Bible tells us that on our own, we haven’t met God’s standards; we have fallen short of them. Romans 3:10 says, “no one is righteous—not even one.” So what can we say then? Is there any hope for us? How can we be righteous in the eyes of God?

II. How can we be righteous in the eyes of God? Romans 4:1–8

This is a question that Paul answers in Romans 4:1–8. Turn there with me if you would. In this passage, Paul uses the example of Abraham to illustrate how we can be seen as righteous in the eyes of God [READ 4:1–8]. This passage is loaded with bookkeeping terms, or accounting terms. Picture in your mind your bank statement or your credit card statement. In one category you have your debits—all of the withdrawals you’ve made or the charges that you have on your credit card. In another category you have your credits—all of the deposits you’ve made or the payments you’ve made. Now think about this in spiritual terms for a moment—picture that debits category. The debits category contains all of the sinful things you’ve ever done; that’s a big category. And then picture your credits category. What Paul is telling us is that when we place our faith in Jesus Christ, God pulls up our account and writes the word “righteous” in the credits category, so that now in his eyes, we have met his standards. Even though we haven’t earned it, God gives us that status as a free gift.

This is so important for us to understand—when you place your faith in Jesus Christ, God looks at you and says, “You have met my standards. On the basis of what my Son has accomplished for you, I accept you according to my standards.” It is so important for us to understand this because it really colors the way that we look at our relationship with God. Far too often we feel like God demands that we earn his love and acceptance, and that’s because of the way that we usually relate to one another. In human relationships, we often use our love and acceptance like bargaining chips to manipulate the behavior of others. We hold back our full love and acceptance from each other because as long as we do we feel like we still have something to dangle over the heads of others to get them to do what we want.

And it is so easy to think that God is doing the same thing when we pick up the Bible and read his commands. So what we have to realize is that when we place our faith in Jesus, we are fully and completely accepted by God. That means that his commands for us must serve some other purpose. In fact, his commands for us show us the way to live out the meaning of life; they show us how to fulfill the purpose for which we were created, which was to be God’s representatives in this world. Because when we follow the commands of God, he receives glory from our obedience, and we fulfill our created purpose, and then we get to enjoy all of the things that come from that, like inner peace, joy, fellowship with God, and so many other things.

So even though we in ourselves are not righteous, we can still be seen as righteous in God’s eyes by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. But being declared righteous is not the same as actually living a righteous life. That is the great struggle of the Christian life—becoming what God says we are in Jesus Christ. So…

III. How can we pursue righteous behavior in our lives? 2 Timothy 3:16

Fortunately, God has given us a tool that will train us in righteousness if we will allow it to shape our minds and our hearts. It’s called the Bible. In 2 Timothy 3:16–17, Paul writes, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” If we are going to try to meet some kind of standard for living, we have to know what the standard is and how to get there, and that is what the Bible reveals to us. It spells out the standard in God’s commands; it gives us a living, breathing picture of the standard in what it records about Jesus; it tells us how God has given us His Holy Spirit to empower us to live up to that standard. So if we are going to live righteous lives, we’ve got to follow the advice of our trainer! We must allow the Bible to shape our opinions and attitudes; we must choose to act in the way that it tells us to act rather than just follow our own desires. And when we do, it will shape our character after the pattern of Christ’s character, which will allow us to live out the status of righteousness that we now enjoy in Jesus Christ.

I believe the last word on righteousness should be that of Paul from 2 Cor. 5:21 where he describes the great trade-off that Jesus accomplished for us in his death. Paul states, “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” On the basis of Jesus’ death, God offers us the free gift of salvation, and everyone who will receive it can rest assured that they are accepted according to God’s standards. Because we have no righteousness of our own, God offers to credit the righteousness of Christ to our account so that we might be forgiven. Praise be to God for His indescribable gift!

Sovereignty--God's Royal Reign

Have you ever listened to someone talk about why they don’t like to fly in an airplane? I, for one, kind of enjoy it—I feel like I get to sit back and relax while I’m travelling somewhere. But I know a lot of people really don’t enjoy flying, and they have a lot of different reasons for that opinion. For some people, it might be the fact that they’re afraid of heights—they don’t like to think about being thousands of feet up in the air. Other people just feel too confined when they’re in a plane—they don’t like sharing an armrest with the person next to them or going into those tiny restrooms on the plane.

But one reason that I’ve heard from people a number of times is that they don’t like to fly because they’re not in control of the plane. They feel much safer in a car because they’re in control of the vehicle. But in a plane, they don’t know what’s going on in the cockpit; they don’t know what all of those strange noises are; they don’t know if the pilot is actually paying attention!

So for people who feel this way, the feel uneasy because they are not in control of the plane. You know, sometimes I think life can make us feel the same way. Life offers us many, many reminders that we are not in control. We are not in control of the people around us, we are not in control of the economy or the stock market or the weather or the future or even the present day, and these reminders can make us feel very uneasy. We feel unsettled because we can start to feel helpless in the face of all of these things, and when we realize that we are not in control of all of these things, deep down we want to know that someone is. We know we’re not in control, but if we have the reassurance that someone is, it can go a long way toward bringing rest to our souls.

The word we are going to study today teaches us that God is in control of all things. Today we are going to study the word “sovereignty.” We’ll take a look first of all at what the word “sovereignty” means and then we’ll look at a couple of aspects of God’s sovereignty.

I. What does the word “sovereignty” mean? Dan. 4

The word “sovereignty” refers to the power or authority that someone exercises over a certain area, like a kingdom or a nation. This is illustrated well in Daniel 4—why don’t you turn there with me? In Dan. 4, King Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, has an unusual dream about a large and mighty tree. In the dream, this tree was cut down and stripped of all of its foliage and fruit, but its stump was still left in the ground. Eventually, King Nebuchadnezzar had Daniel interpret this dream, and Daniel revealed that the tree represented the king. The fact that it was cut down meant that Nebuchadnezzar was going to lose his power for a while, but the remnant of the stump meant that the king would regain his power after a period of time.

The fulfillment of this dream is recorded beginning in v. 28 [READ Dan. 4:28–32]. So we see here in v. 32 that the king’s sovereignty was removed from him, and we can see exactly what that means—his authority and power was taken away from him. And in this case, his reason was, too, because he started acting like an animal!

But then we have the rest of the story beginning in v. 34 [READ Dan. 4:34–36]. So now the king’s sovereignty has returned—he has lost his sovereignty at first, but then he regained it, and its not hard for us to see what that means: he lost his power (when he went insane) and then he got it back. During that period he didn’t have authority over the kingdom, but eventually he regained his authority.

So the word “sovereignty” is not a difficult word to define. Again, it refers to the power or authority that someone exercises over a certain area. Now when we read the Bible, we read over and over again that it is God who exercises sovereignty over all of creation. God is pictured as a majestic and glorious king over all of the universe. Let’s take a moment to see how God is pictured in His sovereignty.

II. How is God pictured in His sovereignty? Ps. 103:19–22

A. God’s sovereignty is a settled fact

Verse 19 says [READ v. 19]. Just a few verses prior to this, David mentioned how quickly we as men pass away [READ vv. 15–16]. But God and His sovereignty stand in contrast to this; His throne is established in the heavens. You know, sometimes when you walk into a building you’ll see a cornerstone or a plaque that says, “Built: 1932,” or “Est. 1932.” Well, if God’s throne had a plaque like that it would say, “Est.—eternity past!”

God’s position of authority in the universe is established; it is set, fixed, and it includes all things. There have been religions in the past that have taught that our universe is ruled by two gods—one that is good and one that is evil, and these two gods are in constant competition with one another. But the Bible won’t allow us to believe any notion like that, because it clearly declares that God’s sovereignty is over all. There isn’t a corner in this universe where God doesn’t have control, and there isn’t a being in this universe over whom God doesn’t have control. His sovereignty rules over all!

B. God’s sovereign will is carried out by mighty angels

Look at vv. 20–21 again [READ vv. 20–21]. Here King David mentions a group of beings that carry out the Lord’s commands. Like any king, God has servants in His presence who wait to carry out His every command. They are at His beck and call, and David says they are mighty in strength. Apparently, they are strong enough to carry out whatever it is that God asks of them.

In fact, the word “hosts” is a military term that pictures these angels as warriors. Whenever you see God called “Lord of hosts” in the Old Testament, the idea is that God is the commander of a vast and mighty army that stands ready to carry out his orders.

Think about this in human terms for a moment—a king really doesn’t have much power unless he has control of an army. Kings and presidents get overthrown all the time when the army turns against them. But with an army under his command, a king’s authority is reinforced.

So it is with God—He has authority, He has sovereignty and His sovereignty can be seen among the ranks of angels who stand ready to do His will.

C. God’s sovereignty is displayed in His creation

In verse 22, David reminds us of God’s power as creator [READ v. 22]. What a powerful reminder for us of our place in this universe! No matter how great we might think we are, we are still simply the works of God’s hands. We didn’t bring ourselves into existence—God did! Nor are we the product of any process of evolution. We were designed and we were brought to life by God, and we are still dependent upon Him for the necessities of life at every moment.

Oh, we can curse God and speak against Him, but the breath that we use will be a breath that He has allowed us to take! We can oppose Him or run from Him, but the energy we use will be energy that He has allowed us to have. Lest we ever be tempted to think that God is not Lord of all, we need only to remember that God is the creator of all things, and He sustains us in this world according to His good pleasure.

So this picture of God in His sovereignty should keep us from ever thinking that we are on the same level as God. We should never be so foolish as to think—as Satan did!—that we can ascend to the same level of power and authority as God, because as David said, “His sovereignty rules over all.” God created all things and He rules over them according to His will.

So God is sovereign, but how does God exercise His sovereignty? What does that look like in our world?

III. How does God exercise His sovereignty? 1 Tim. 6:15

A. By controlling and ordering the events of history

Let’s start reading back at v. 13 so we can get the complete thought here [READ vv. 13–15]. The important idea for us to focus on is at the end of v. 14 going into v. 15, where Paul says that God will bring about the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ at the proper time. Paul is talking about the moment that Jesus will return to this world, and he is affirming that God is in control of the timing of that event. The New American Standard translation says God will bring that event about “at the proper time.” I think the NIV has a better translation here—it says that God will bring it about “in His own time.” Or if we really want to bring this into everyday language we could say that God will bring it about when He is good and ready! It’s God’s decision, because He is in control of how history plays out!

Now there is a teaching in some Christian churches today that says that God doesn’t really know what’s going to happen in the future. Those who teach from this perspective would say, “God knows everything that might happen tomorrow, but He doesn’t know what actually will happen tomorrow; He knows all of the possibilities, but He doesn’t know which possibility will actually play itself out.” I think this teaching is a misguided attempt to answer questions about how our choices play into God’s plan, because it seems clear that this verse here tells us that God is in full control of everything that will happen in the future. Let us never reject that truth simply because we cannot understand it!

Now lest we be tempted to think that God’s plans for the future might actually be bad and harmful, Paul tells us something very important in v. 15 when he says that God is “blessed.” Now sometimes when we say that someone is blessed, what we mean is that they are fortunate or lucky. But the word that Paul uses here actually carries the idea of being happy or contented. So, as one of professors in college loved to say, God is a happy God. He is not grumpy or angry or vengeful as many people tend to think He is. It is true that He shows wrath toward sin, but that is not His basic frame of mind. God is a happy God, and so we can be encouraged to know that such a God controls the events of history. We can rest assured that God’s plan is a good plan—it is not based on evil motives or intentions, but instead it flows out of a heart of love.

B. By ruling over those who have power within history

In the last part of v. 15, Paul describes God as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. His meaning is very clear—with respect to anyone who can be called a king, God is their king; or with respect to anyone who can be called a lord, God is their lord. Anyone in human history who has held power has received only because God has allowed them to have it.

This is the consistent teaching of Scripture with respect to those who are in power. In Romans 13:1 Paul said, “There is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.” When Jesus was on trial before Pontius Pilate, He told Pilate, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above.” Even King Nebuchadnezzar back in Daniel 4 had to acknowledge “that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on whom He wishes and sets over it the lowliest of men” (Dan. 4:17).

So what this tells us is that every ruler in this world, whether good or evil, is under the sovereign power and control of God. It may puzzle us why God allows certain leaders to come to power, but they can never—not for a single moment!—act in a way over which God has no control. Proverbs 21:1 says, “The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes.”

So once again we can rest assured that our happy God, who controls the events of history, also rules over the movers and shakers of history—those who rule over tribes or nations or kingdoms. Even though such leaders might reject God, they cannot change the fact that God is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, who orders all things for our good and for His glory.

So how are we to respond to all of this? I think Ravi Zacharias said it well in an illustration from his autobiography. Allow me to read it for you in closing:

"If you travel to the north of India, you will see the most magnificent saris ever made, and Varanasi is where the wedding saris are handwoven. The gold, the silver, the reds, the blues, - all the marvelous colors threaded together are spectacular. These saris are usually made by just two people- a father who sits on a platform and a son who sits two steps down from him. That father has all the spools of silk threads around him. As he begins to pull the threads together, he nods, and the son responds by moving the shuttle from one side to another. Then the process begins again, with the dad nodding and the son responding. Everything is done with a simple nod of the father. It's a long, tedious process to watch. But if you come back in two or three weeks, you'll see the magnificent pattern emerging.
This is an image I always remind myself of: we may be moving the shuttle, but the design is in the mind of the Father. The son has no idea what pattern is emerging. He just responds to the father's nod.”*

And so it should be with us. Since we know that God is in control, our response should one of humble obedience to His will. Even though we can’t see the whole plan that he has for our lives, we know that He is good, and the plan that unfolds will be beautiful if we simply do what He has called us to do in His word.


*Ravi Zacharias, Walking from East to West, (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2006) 27.

Reconciliation--Moving From War to Peace

Shortly before the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, he warned his disciples that until the end of this period of human history, there would be wars and rumors of wars (Matt. 24:6). History has shown that Jesus was no false prophet—war has been the norm rather than the exception throughout human history ever since that time (and even before then as well). In fact, a convenient way for historians to trace the history of a kingdom or a nation is to move from one war to the next!

Late last year, I had the opportunity to tour the Museum of French Military History in Paris while I was visiting some missionaries, and let me tell you, it was a huge museum because France has a lot of military history! The French have been almost constantly at war with someone throughout their entire existence as a nation. In fact, most of the European continent has been a battle zone since the times of the Roman Empire.

Even the relatively short history of the United States has been characterized by war. I think we had a couple of decades in the 1800’s where we were at peace, but the last 115 years in particular has seen war after war after war! We can trace our history from the Spanish-American War to World War I to World War II to the Korean War to Vietnam to the Cold War to the Gulf War and now to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With this kind of track record in the world, its no surprise that so many people are willing to give up almost anything for peace. But so far in history, the story of humanity has been a lack of peace. And while this has been true of human beings’ relationships with each other, the same could be said for our relationship with God as well. According to the Bible, when we are born, we all receive the desire for sin that first tainted humanity when Adam and Eve rebelled against the Lord. So at least initially, our relationship with God is characterized by a lack of peace.

But is there any hope of resolving this situation? Can we find peace with God that will restore our relationship with Him? Today we’re going to discover this hope as we look at the meaning of the word “reconciliation.” This is a great theological term that describes one of the things that Jesus accomplished for us in His death and resurrection. So today we’ll take a look first of all at what this word means, and then we’ll take a look at the implications of this idea both for our relationship with God and our relationships with other people.

I. What does the word “reconciliation” mean?

As we look at what the word “reconciliation” means in the Bible, what we find is that it has the same meaning as it does when we use it in common conversation. This isn’t always the case with these theological words. More often than not, if we still use the word in normal conversation, we use it with a slightly different meaning than the Bible does. But that’s not the case here, which makes it easy for us to understand what this word means.

The word “reconciliation” describes the restoration of peace in a relationship that has been broken. And so, we might speak of a husband and wife being reconciled after they’ve worked through some differences in their relationship, or we might talk about two old friends being reconciled when they patch things up after a fight.

So when Scripture says that we are “reconciled” to God, it means that our broken relationship with Him has been repaired; we have been restored to the relationship of peace and friendship that humanity once had with God prior to the Fall. We can see this clearly in Colossians 1:21–22. In these verses Paul writes, [READ vv. 21–22]. In v. 21, Paul describes a time when we were alienated or estranged from God, which means that we were separated from Him, and we were actually hostile to Him in our minds because of our desire to do evil deeds.

But notice that Paul says this condition is formerly true of us, and the difference is that in v. 22 Paul states that we have been reconciled to God through the death of Jesus Christ. So now for those who have accepted Jesus, we are no longer alienated or separated from God; we are no longer far from Him, but now we are near to Him. And we no longer have hostility in our relationship with Him—instead, we now enjoy peace and friendship.

What a wonderful reversal of fortunes! Friend, let this fact sink into your soul—God feels no hostility toward you! Some believers still feel like God sits in heaven eagerly waiting to punish them for something, but nothing could be further from the truth. As Paul put it in Romans 8, God is “for” us—He is on our side! When God looks at you, He looks at His own child, with eyes of compassion and love. When He looks at you, He doesn’t see the tattered rags of your sin—He sees the robe of righteousness that Jesus has supplied for us.

And notice from these verses who it was that took the initiative to restore our relationship with God. Was it us, or was it God? It was God, wasn’t it? God broke down the barrier that divided us. This belief is one of the central doctrines that makes Christianity different from all the other religions in the world. Every world religion believes that there is something in the human condition that makes us estranged from the divine being (whatever they believe that divine being is). But in every other religion, the responsibility is on us to make peace with the divine being; we are responsible to somehow bring ourselves back into harmony with the divine.

But friends, that idea is a lie from Satan, who is a deceiver and the father of lies. He has turned the truth upside down to hide from us the fact that there is nothing we can do to repair our relationship with God. Our sin is so offensive to God that there is nothing we can do to remove that offense. But God in His infinite love took the initiative to restore our broken relationship with Him by sending His Son to pay for our sins by dying on the cross so that we could once again have peace with God.

That is the glorious idea of reconciliation, that God has picked up the pieces of our broken relationship with Him and has made it whole once again. So we have seen what the word “reconciliation” means, and we have seen that it really captures well the work that Jesus has done in our behalf. But we also see in Scripture that our reconciliation with God is supposed to lead us to be reconciled with others. So the second question we need to deal with today is this:

II. What does our reconciliation with God mean for our relationships with other people?

A. Our relationship with other believers should also be one of peace and friendship (Matt. 5:21–24)

If our relationship with God is now one of peace and friendship, our relationship with God’s children should be the same. According to Scripture, when we accept Christ, God adopts us into His own spiritual family. This makes us spiritual brothers and sisters with everyone else who believes in Jesus. And just as you don’t want hostility in your family, God doesn’t want hostility in His family either.

Let’s take a look at what Jesus had to say in Matthew 5:21–24 [READ vv. 21–24]. Now there is much that we could say about vv. 21–22, but I want to focus your attention on His command in vv. 23–24. Jesus was speaking to Jewish people at a time when they still offered animal sacrifices, and he tells them that if they are in the middle of offering a sacrifice, and they remember that they’ve done something to offend a brother, they should stop what they’re doing, make things right with their brother, and then they can offer their sacrifice.

What this tells us is that God considers living at peace with each other to be more important than performing acts of worship. This should be no surprise, because God said this through the prophets over and over again in the Old Testament. God was often upset with the people of Israel because they were sinning against each other and then performing acts of worship as though nothing was wrong.

In our society today, we’ve come up with numerous ways of handling conflict that we think are acceptable. Perhaps one of the most common methods we use to deal with conflict is simply to avoid other people. If we do something that offends someone else and our relationship becomes strained because of it, often times we just avoid each other. And we justify this behavior by saying, “Hey! We don’t get into fights anymore! He has his circle of friends, and I have my circle of friends, and we just keep our distance from each other.”

Friends, let’s not think that God is deceived by our little charade. If we choose to simply avoid someone after we sin against them, what we’re really avoiding is God’s clear command to confess our sin to them and ask for forgiveness! We should seek for reconciliation with someone if we have sinned against them. It is certainly true that they might reject our efforts to make peace, but their response is on their own shoulders. Our choice must be to seek for peace when we have sinned against others.

But sometimes, divisions in the body of Christ are much more superficial. The idea of reconciliation teaches us that…

B. Our cultural and racial differences should not disrupt our peace and friendship with other believers (Eph. 2:14–16)

Sometimes differences in the body of Christ come up over things as petty as racial differences. But the idea of reconciliation reminds us that in heaven we will be part of a choir from every tribe, tongue, and nation that will be singing the praises of our Lord.

Notice what Paul writes in Ephesians 2:14–16. In these verses he is talking about how the death of Jesus abolished any wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles. There was a lot of racism that existed between Jews and Gentiles at this time, but for believers there is to be no room for racism whatsoever because of our reconciliation in Christ [READ vv. 14–16].

In our corner of the world, we encounter people from several different minority groups who have immigrated here to the United States. Anytime cultures collide like this, there is going to be some uneasiness as people get to know each other, but I’m sure we all hear emotions expressed at times that amount to nothing more than sheer racism against another group of people. Friends, we need to make sure that no such hatred exists in our hearts. We cannot allow something as superficial as race to cause us to be hostile to others—especially if someone from another race embraces the Lord Jesus as we do. There should be no such divisions in the body of Christ, and we must make sure that we never feed such divisions by our own words and actions.

In fact, from a biblical perspective, it would be best if we stopped talking about different races of people at all, because there is only one race—the human race. According to the Bible, all humans are descended from Adam and Eve, and then again from Noah and his wife after the Flood. We may have different languages and cultures and nationalities, but we are not from different races. So let’s make sure that we do not perpetuate racial distinctions, particularly within the body of Christ.

Finally, as the Bible speaks of reconciliation, it reminds us that we have a mission to accomplish.

C. Our mission is to bring other people into a relationship of peace with God (2 Cor. 5:17–21)

Since we now have peace with God, we are given the privilege of calling all other men to lay down their arms and receive the King’s offer of a pardon. Let’s read what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17–21 [READ vv. 17–21].

God the King has not only gladly welcomed us back into His kingdom, but He has also made us His royal ambassadors, His representatives to all those who are not at peace with Him. And what a great honor this is! Theoretically, God could have allowed angels to spread the Gospel. He could have sent a hundred million angels out into the world to pay a personal visit to every man, woman, and child on Earth.

But who better to deliver the King’s terms of peace than us, the very ones who used to be on the wrong side of the conflict? Remember, we were alienated from God and hostile toward Him in our minds, but He reconciled us to Himself, and now He has sent us back to our fellow rebels to tell them that the King offers peace, to proclaim that the King will not only accept them back into the kingdom, but will welcome them into the royal family!

Friend, if you have never accepted God’s terms of peace, I pray that you will today. You must understand that you were born into this world in a state of hostility toward God because of the sin that has tainted all of us. Your relationship with God is broken, but God sent His own Son to undergo in your place the punishment that you deserve by dying on the cross. God then raised Him from the dead to show that the price for sin had been paid, and that there was now hope of eternal life for those who would place their faith in Jesus as their Savior. Those are the King’s term of peace—if you will accept Jesus as your Savior, your relationship with God will be restored; you will be reconciled to God, to live no longer as His enemy, but as His child and friend. If you will accept Jesus, you can know that peace in your life today, and know that you will be warmly welcomed into heaven after this life.

Revelation--Bringing Good Things to Light

When I was a kid, I never really enjoyed staying home from school sick, because that was a guarantee that my mom wouldn’t let me play outside later that evening no matter how good I felt by then. But one thing that I loved about staying home from school was getting to watch “The Price is Right.” That show is the best! I can still remember lying on the couch in the living room thinking, “Wow! All those poor souls at school are probably doing some boring worksheet right now, and I’m at home watching ‘The Price is Right.’”

The best part of that show was right after someone would win the initial pricing game. They call those four contestants up to the stage for that initial game, and then someone wins and gets to go up on the stage with Bob Barker. And that’s when Bob really starts to build the suspense. He directs their attention to a set of doors off to one side that are closed, and he says, “Wouldn’t you like to see what’s behind those doors?” And sometimes he would drag it out while the contestant is standing there in agony, just dying to see what’s behind those doors. And then Rod Roddy’s voice would come over the speakers and say, “It’s a new car!” and the doors would fly open and the crowd would go crazy, and there would be a brand new car, just waiting to be won.

Now I want you to keep in mind this picture of the doors opening up to allow the contestant to see the prize, because that picture will help us understand the idea behind the word that we’re going to look at tonight—the word “revelation.” As we continue in our series “Breaking Down Bible Words” we’re going to approach this word the same way that we have approached the others—first, we’ll define the word revelation and then we’ll talk about what the idea of revelation means for us.

I. What does the word “revelation” mean?

We can see what the word “revelation” means by looking at its root word—reveal. When you reveal something, you are uncovering something, you are bringing something that was hidden out into the open. So the idea behind the word “revelation” is the idea of unveiling or displaying something that was previously hidden. Think again of when those doors opened on “The Price is Right”—the prize was hidden from the contestant; the contestant didn’t know what it was until those doors opened to reveal what was behind them.

We can see this idea of revelation in a couple of familiar stories in the Old Testament. Turn with me if you would please to 1 Samuel 3. Here we find the story of Samuel as a little boy when he first heard the voice of God [READ 3:1–7]. Here we see the first part of this idea of revelation. Samuel was confused here because the Lord had never spoken to him before. Prior to this, he had not had any communication with the Lord. But now God was speaking to Him for the first time, and you probably all know that God went on to have a conversation with Samuel about Eli the priest and Eli’s family, so that by the end of the story it says down in v. 21, “And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, because the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord.” So here we have the other part of this idea of revelation—God had been unknown to Samuel but now He was known, he had revealed Himself to Samuel because He had spoken to Him.

We see this same idea again over in the book of Daniel. Turn with me to Daniel 2. You probably know this story—in this chapter, King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream but he doesn’t understand what the dream is supposed to mean, so he calls upon his magicians and his sorcerers and commands that they tell him what the dream was and then interpret it for him. Well, the magicians and sorcerers try to tell the king that his request is impossible and that they couldn’t possibly know what the king had dreamed. And that point, the king became furious with the magicians and sorcerers and issued a decree to have them all killed. That’s when Daniel and his friends enter the story [READ Dan. 2:17–19]. So here we see the idea of revelation again—the dream and its interpretation had been hidden from Daniel. He didn’t know what it was any more than the magicians and the sorcerers did. But God revealed this information to him so that it was no longer hidden from him. And after this, Daniel went before the king and gave him the information of this revelation that he had received.

So these stories illustrate the meaning of the word “revelation”—something that was once hidden has now been unveiled or revealed. Now its important for us to recognize at this point that the concept of revelation tells us that there are limits to human knowledge. Not only are there things that we simply do not know—there are things that we cannot know unless God reveals them to us. And we have to admit that there are some things that God has simply chosen not to reveal to us. Let’s think about a couple of these things for a moment. First, we know that God has not chosen to tell us the precise reasons for all of the suffering that we face in life. Many times throughout our lives, we will grapple with difficult, painful events and we won’t know exactly why these things are happening. Now God has told us a lot about suffering in a general sense. We know that pain and suffering were introduced into this world by sin, and we know that suffering and adversity can help us grow spiritual in astounding ways, but we simply don’t know why God allows an earthquake to strike Haiti. We don’t know why God allows us to contract cancer, or why he allows two members of a family to die in an accident while the other two are spared. We cannot know these things unless God chooses to tell us.

Second, we know that God has not chosen to tell us some of the precise details about our future. God doesn’t tell us exactly where we’re going to go to college; he doesn’t tell us how long we’ll be working at one job, or how long we might have to wait before another one comes along.
Transition—So what are we to make of all of this? If this is true, then what does the idea of revelation mean for us?

II. What does the idea of revelation mean for us?

A. It drives us toward humility before God—Matthew 11:25–27

When we realize that there are things that we simply cannot know unless God reveals them to us, it reminds us that we are and must be dependent upon God. This idea is a powerful antidote to pride. If we understand truth about God, it is only because He has allowed us to understand it. Turn with me to Matt. 11:25–27. Here Jesus is talking about a divide between those who do believe in Him and those who don’t [READ Matt. 11:25–27]. Notice that Jesus points out here that the truth about who He is has been hidden from those whom the world considers to be wise and intelligent. In contrast, it is those who are as infant, lowly and dependent, who receive the truth about Jesus.

Do you ever find yourself getting frustrated with people who just can’t seem to see the world from a biblical perspective? Perhaps there’s a social or political debate that you can think of where the biblical perspective seems so clear to you, but other people just can’t seem to understand it? In such moments, we need to guard ourselves against becoming proud because its so easy for us to think that other people are just stupid, and an arrogance can start to creep in to our lives that makes the truth look very unattractive.

Friends, we must remember that if we can understand biblical truth, it is only because God has allowed us to understand it. It is not because of any great thing in us, or any degree of wisdom that we possess—it is only because God has broken through the blinding power of sin and given us eyes to see and ears to hear, as Jesus so often called for in the gospels.

So what does the idea of revelation mean for us? First, it drives us toward humility before God. And second,

B. It gives us confidence in the source of our faith—Galatians 1:11–12

Think about this for a moment—if we can only understand spiritual truth by God’s revelation, then spiritual truth must come from God Himself. There are many people today who try to say that Christianity is just a man-made religion, that it is not really divine truth. But the idea of revelation contradicts such a belief. Let me direct your attention in particular to what the apostle Paul says about the source of His teaching. Turn with me to Gal. 1:11–12 [READ Gal. 1:11–12].

This is a very important point to note, especially in light of the things that people teach about Christianity and the apostle Paul today. If you watch television specials about Christianity or Christian doctrine, you’re liable to hear something like this: “While Jesus was alive, he taught a simple, ethical message about loving each other and turning the other cheek. But after he died, Saul of Tarsus saw the dedication of the early Christians and recognized an opportunity to become their leader. So Saul became the apostle Paul and he hijacked the simple message of Jesus and turned it into a full-blown religion with all sorts of doctrines and dogmas that took Christianity in a whole new direction.”

Or in other words, to sum all of that up, what these critics are saying is that Christianity did not come from God, it was essentially the brainchild of the apostle Paul. But notice that Paul claims that precisely the opposite is true—he didn’t twist the teaching of Jesus, he received his message by a revelation from Jesus!

The idea that Christianity is a man-made religion doesn’t make any sense. Christianity does not bear the marks of a man-made system of belief, particularly when we think about what Christianity teaches about God. If you want to see what man-made gods look like, look no further than the gods of Greek and Roman mythology. Those so-called gods are just human beings on an exaggerated scale! They have all of the same problems that we do!

But how could anyone dream up a God like the God of Christianity? How could we, who celebrate our birthdays every year, conceive of a God who has no beginning? How could we dream up a God who is a Trinity? How could we who are filled with hate invent a God of such love that He would die for the very creatures who spurned Him? Why would we make up a God who commands us to control some of our natural desires, like desires for revenge or fame and glory? Why would anyone make up such a God, and who would believe the person who did? The only answer that makes any sense is that the God of the Bible is real and we know about Him because He has told us what He is like.

So the concept of revelation gives us confidence in the source of our faith. The message of the Bible is a message that truly is from God. It is not a myth, it is not a legend, it is truth that has been revealed to us by God. So when we choose to believe in doctrines like the virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus, or the doctrines of heaven and hell, we can know, as Peter said, that we are not following cleverly devised fables, but the very truth of God.

In light of all that we have discussed, we can be so thankful that God has decided to reveal His truth to us. We would know nothing about God unless He had revealed Himself to us, and we can be so thankful that He did, particularly after the human race fell into sin. Even then He did not leave us in the dark, but he continued to reveal Himself to us, eventually even sending us His own Son to show us what he is like. All of this speaks to the tremendous grace of our God and His persistent love for us.

Redemption--Paying Freedom's Price

I would like to ask you to use your imagination with me for a moment. Imagine that you are at home in your bed, and you’re lying awake trying to get to sleep—except you’re not in the home that you live in now. Your home is a thatch-roof hut, with a dirt floor and small gaps in the roof that allow moonlight to shine in on your bed. You’re trying to go off to sleep, but the heat from the eighth-straight day over 100 degrees won’t allow you to get comfortable just yet. So you just listen to the sounds of the night—you can hear some kind of activity down at the river (probably some animals), and you hear the sound of something that almost sounds like footsteps approaching your hut.

Then suddenly your home is glowing from the light of torches, and as you turn to look toward the door you see men coming at you quickly and grabbing hold of you. You try to fight but then you feel a sharp pain in your head, and then nothing.

When you come-to some time later, you still don’t know exactly what’s happened, but you know its bad. You’re lying on your back, and its too dark to see anything, but you can tell there’s a board about six inches in front of your face. You can’t see anyone else, but you can hear their sobs and smell the odors that arise when people are kept in tight quarters. You can feel a slight rocking motion that tells you that you must be on a boat.

Well, after what feels like an eternity in this condition, the brightness of daylight suddenly floods the room, and men come down a ladder into the room and start forcing all of you to climb up one by one. You emerge onto the deck of a ship where you’re chained together with the person in front of you and behind you, and then you’re forced to march off of the ship into a crowd of people who look like they’ve gathered to see some kind of spectacle. And all of sudden it dawns on you—you’ve been kidnapped, and you’re about to be sold as a slave.

Imagine the feelings that would hit you in that moment—fear, despair, perhaps anger or rage. Your freedom has been stolen from you, and now you are in bondage, with seemingly no hope at that time.

Now imagine that as the bidding for you begins, one man steps out of the crowd, outbids all of the others, and buys you. After the man pays his money, he walks over to you. He doesn’t look like an ogre but you’re still not really sure. And then this man says to you, “I want you to know that I didn’t buy you to make you my slave. I bought you to set you free. I paid that price for you to buy your freedom, so don’t worry about what’s going to happen to you now. I bought you to rescue you from all of this, and not only to rescue you, but to help you as well. In fact, if you’re willing, I want to adopt you as my own child. I’ll provide for you, take care of you and watch out for you. I’ll teach you and train you and show you how to thrive in this new place. What do you think?”

What would you be feeling at that moment? What would you think of that man? I want you to keep this picture in your mind—this picture of freedom from slavery—because it’s the picture that lies behind the word that we’re going to talk about today. Today, we’re going to be looking at the word redemption. This is a beautiful word that conveys a beautiful idea about what Jesus has done for us. So we’ll take a quick look at what the word redemption means, and then we’ll talk about what it means that God has redeemed us.

I. What does the word “redemption” mean?
The word redemption conveys a picture like the scenario that I had you imagine in your mind a moment ago. Redemption is the act of paying a price to free someone from slavery or debt. We can see this very clearly in the way that the word is used in the Old Testament. First of all, this word was used in everyday life when someone was buying back some land that they had to sell [READ Lev. 25:25–27].

Second, this word is also used frequently to describe what God did when he delivered Israel out of Egypt. God used this word in his first encounter with Moses to announce what he was going to do for the people. In Exodus 6:6 the Lord commanded Moses to, “Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.” Notice the phrases that are parallel to the word “redemption:” bring you out from under the burdens, deliver you from bondage. That’s the idea that we’re talking about with the word redemption.

The people of Israel also used this word to describe what God had done for them in freeing them from Egypt. In a prayer to God in Psalm 74:2, Asaph writes, “Remember Your congregation, which You have purchased of old, Which You have redeemed to be the tribe of Your inheritance.” So both God and the people of Israel understood that deliverance from Egypt in terms of redemption.

Third, the Old Testament also introduces the idea that we need to be redeemed from our sins. Psalm 130:7–8 says, “O Israel, hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is lovingkindness, and with Him is abundant redemption. And He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” So the idea here is that our iniquities (or our sins) have placed us into some kind of bondage, some kind of slavery or debt that we need to be released from, and it is in fact the Lord himself who can redeem us.

Now please notice that this is different from the way that we often use the word “redemption.” If you follow sports you’ll often hear people talk about how a team has a chance for redemption when they play a team that beat them earlier in the season. Well, that’s really closer to the idea of revenge than the biblical idea of redemption.

So again, the biblical idea of redemption is the act of paying a price to free someone from slavery or debt, and the New Testament tells us that this is exactly what Jesus did for us when He died on the cross. God sent His Son into the world to redeem us, but what exactly does that mean for us?

II. What does it mean that God has redeemed us?

A. He has set us free from our slavery to sin and our debt to Him—Col. 1:13–14
Follow along with me if you would as I read these verses [READ Col. 1:13–14]. Take a closer look at the language of these verses. The first part of v. 13 speaks of spiritual slavery. First Paul writes that God rescued us, which tells us that we were in danger. Without Jesus, we are only fooling ourselves if we think we are safe and secure, because in reality we need to be rescued. And rescued from what? The domain or power of darkness. Darkness is a word picture for sin and the separation from God that it brings, and before we accepted Jesus we were under the domain or under the power of sin. We were in bondage to it, but by redeeming us God broke the chains of sin and cast them from us, making us free to come into the kingdom of His beloved Son, into a new domain with a new Lord—one who rules over us for our good and not for our destruction.

So God set us free from our slavery to sin and he also set us free from our debt to Him. We see this in the last part of v. 14 when Paul writes that through Christ’s redemption we have also received the forgiveness of sins. The idea of forgiveness brings up the concept of a spiritual debt that we owed to God, and Col. 2:13–14 tells us that our debt has been forgiven [READ 2:13–14]. Now friends I know that people get excited on The Dave Ramsey Show when they get out of financial debt, so I think we can get a little bit excited when we can look to Jesus and say, “We’re debt free!” “Jesus paid it all—all to Him I owe—sin had left a crimson stain—He washed it white as now!”

By redeeming us, God has set us free from our slavery to sin and our debt to Him. But what’s more…

B. He has purchased us to adopt us as His own sons—Gal. 4:4–5
Turn with me to Gal. 4:4–5 [READ Gal. 4:4–5] I imagine many of you are familiar with the old Westerns where one man would save a town from a group of bandits. The plot usually goes like this—one day in a small, out-of-the-way frontier town, a renegade gunslinger comes riding in. Now the gunslinger is really just passing through on his way to another town until he crosses paths with a beautiful, eligible female who tells him that the town is oppressed by a gang of outlaws. But the gunslinger still isn’t totally convinced to take on the outlaws until he discovers that it’s the same group of bandits who left him for dead 10 years ago. So a final showdown is set-up for high noon wherein the gunslinger kills all of the bad guys and liberates the town from their oppression. The townspeople then want to make him their mayor, but he refuses, and when the beautiful, eligible female begs him to stay, he tells her that his heart is far too restless to be tied down, so he kisses her and then rides off into the sunset.

Well, it makes for a great story that the gunslinger freed the townspeople, but have you ever realized that afterward, he leaves them to fend for themselves. Yes they’re free, but they’re still unprotected from future threats. Now friends my point is this—when God redeemed us, He not only set us free, He also stuck around to take care of us. In fact, Gal. 4 says here that God adopted us into His own family. Like the man in our opening story, God not only purchased us out of slavery, but He went on to make us part of His family, so that now He has promised to be a Father to us—to provide for our needs, to protect us, to teach us and train us to be like our spiritual brother, Jesus Christ. What an incredible act of grace that God has performed for us—to receive us into His own family.

So how are we to respond to all of this? What should our attitude be toward God?

C. He is worthy of our utmost honor and respect because of the price that He paid for us—1 Peter 1:17–19
Turn with me to 1 Peter 1:17–19 [READ 1 Pet. 1:17–19]. When I was in high school, we always had a fundraiser that was called “senior slave day.” This was a day where the seniors would sell themselves as slaves to underclassmen to raise money for their party on the night of graduation. This was always a great time and it was always fun to see how much the underclassmen were willing to pay to buy one of their friends in the senior class. Every senior wanted to go for a high price because it was a badge of honor.

Well spiritually speaking, we have a badge of honor in the price that God was willing to give to redeem our souls. Peter stresses that we were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold—this is the best that the world has to offer, and yet in the end it just tarnishes like everything else. Oh no—God didn’t give something as invaluable as silver and gold. He redeemed us with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. God was willing to send His own Son into the world and to have His Son shed His blood to redeem our souls. And Peter says that remembering Christ’s precious blood should lead us to conduct our lives in the fear of God, which is an attitude of the utmost honor and respect.

So where does all of this leave us today? First, we can rejoice in the freedom from sin that we have in Christ. Jesus has set us free so that we don’t have to give in to our sinful desires anymore. Sin is no longer our master and we no longer have to live under its command.

Second, we can remember that rather than a harsh master we now have a loving Father in God. Our heavenly Father loves us and has promised to take care of us, and He has shown us the right way to live and helps us walk in it. And because of the tremendous price that He paid to make all of this possible, we should show Him honor as our Father and redeemer.