I have no blog, per se, this week, but I do have a follow-up to something presented last week.
http://www.tangle.com/view_video?viewkey=667377c5dd3cf6e2e5db
The attached link, to Tangle.com, provides a video with a brief story on Brit Hume’s reasons for his remarks featured in last week’s blog. It also gives a little background on Hume’s testimony.
I promise to update the blog shortly with my usual stuff, but until then, I hope you’re inspired by Hume’s remarks.
Any English or Journalism major will tell you there are six important questions you need to ask when writing or investigating a story. They consist of five W’s and one H:
These six questions, whether in news style, research, or any investigation, form the basics tools of information-gathering. They represent a formula for getting the “full” story on something. For a report to be considered complete it should answer all six questions. So, if we’re going to give the full story, if we’re to be able to relate what we believe to others, we must be able to answer the five W’s and one H of the Gospel.
The first of the six questions is:
Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”
Acts 9:4-5
Who are the main characters involved in the above passage? Jesus Christ and Saul of Tarsus. Saul was on his way to Damascus, on orders from the High Priest to arrest some followers of a new Jewish cult, when he is stricken by a bright appearance, causing him to fall to the ground and hear a voice call out to him. Saul is confused and asks an important question (the same question we must answer if we are to understand the full story of the Gospel): “Who are you, Lord?”
If we are to have any success in sharing our faith with others, we must answer that same question for ourselves. Who is Jesus Christ to you? Your answer to that question colors your clear understanding of the Gospel and the ministry of Jesus Christ. Well, you might say, “Jesus is my Savior”. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” He is God’s only begotten Son.” He is the Lamb of God, who takes away my sins.” All of those are accurate enough, but it’s not enough to just say words, you must know, in your heart that He is exactly Who Scripture says He is, the Son of God, our Lord and Savior. He was fully man, so He completely understands everything you struggle with as a person. He understands hunger, fatigue, lust, temptation, etc. But unless this is a settled matter in your heart; unless your knowledge of this comes from an unshakable conviction of the truth it contains, than you do not truly know who Jesus Christ is. So, I again ask the question: Who is Jesus Christ to you?
Now we move on to the next question we must answer to understand the full story of the Gospel:
So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
Saul next question is, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” We must answer this question too, if we’re ever to fully understand the Gospel fully. What does Jesus Christ want you do with your life? He sent Saul on into Damascus, blinded. Jesus may want you to stop seeing things as the world does (blindness) and see things, perhaps for the first time, as He sees them. See the sin in your life, as He sees it. Feel the pain it causes, as He feels it. Speak out about the lifestyles you see around you, regardless of what it may cost you.
An example of this kind of courageous behavior was displayed when on a recent panel discussion on Fox News, commentator, Brit Hume made the following statement regarding the predicament pro-golfer, Tiger Woods, finds himself in:
“The extent to which he can recover, it seems to me, depends on his faith. He is said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So, my message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’”
A great many people immediately declared this the most outrageous thing they’d ever heard and denounced it as evidence of everything from chauvinism and bigotry to outright stupidity.
Mr. Hume simply shared what he thought Jesus Christ wanted him to do (i.e. testify to the truth of the Gospel). What does Jesus Christ want you to do?
Our next question to consider is:
Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked Him privately, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign when all these things will be fulfilled?”
Four of His disciples ask Jesus “When will these things be?” Jesus just described the destruction of Solomon’s Temple, and they basically ask when it will happen and when will Jesus usher in the Kingdom they so long for. We must ask ourselves when we trusted Christ. It’s important to know when you yourself trusted our Lord, not to the day or hour, but that it happened. The Gospel tells us Jesus will destroy sin’s reign over our lives, but we must ask the question when. When will we start living like we’re dead to sin? When will we start acting as we should toward our family, friends, or the world? And if we’ve not trusted Christ as Savior, then we must ask ourselves when will we?
The fourth of our six questions is:
And they came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water. And they ceased, and there was a calm. But He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and marveled, saying to one another, “Who can this be? For He commands even the winds and water, and they obey Him!”
In this passage (and in the other Gospel accounts of this event) the disciples ask a couple of questions: Don’t you care that we are perishing? Who are you that you’re able to control the natural elements? The question we need to consider though is the one that Jesus asks: “Where is your faith?” The disciples had heard Jesus teach about the power of faith and even observed Him heal Peter’s mother-in-law. They walked so close to Him, yet didn’t understand what it meant to have faith. “Oh, ye of little faith,” is how it’s translated elsewhere. Jesus asks them (and us) where does your faith reside when you’re afraid, when you’re overwhelmed, when you’re pushed to your limit? Is your faith in Jesus (Philippians 4:13) or is still in yourself? You can’t begin to share your faith until you’re completely certain as to where is your faith resides.
The last of the five W’s is:
Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.
Note the question Jesus asks of the rich young ruler, “Why do you call me good?” The young man wanted to be sure he had eternal life, in case he’d left something out. He comes to Christ and calls him “good teacher” (a formal greeting, not a true estimation on his part). He had an intellectual recognition of Christ as an instructor, but Jesus asks him if he recognizes the true Lord standing before him. He was underscoring that man’s goodness isn’t comparable to God’s absolute and undefiled goodness. Jesus was asking if he could see the Messiah, the Lord, standing before him. If we’re to be effective in sharing our faith, we must understand why Jesus Christ is the only One Who can save us from our deserved fate. Why do you call yourself a Christian? Have you truly, unreservedly, totally given your life over to Him as your Master, or are you still holding something back. Why is Jesus the only One capable of bringing you salvation?
Now we move to our final question:
Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
Nicodemus asks “How can a man be born…a second time?” Jesus has told him he must be born from above to get into the Kingdom. In effect Nicodemus asks: “How can I be born again?” And that is the final question in our investigation of the full story of the Gospel that we must be able to answer. We must be able to explain that one must accept the fact that we deserve nothing more than death and eternal separation from God. We must be able to believe that God sent His only Son, out of His magnificent love, to die in our place. We must confess (agree with God) that we are sinners, and can do nothing, of ourselves, to escape our fate. It is Jesus who saves us.
Have you ever been slapped into attention by a particular topic from the Bible? I have! The topic was forgiveness. In the short span of about two days, I heard two of the godliest men I’ve ever had the privilege of learning from teach on that very topic. You can’t ignore that kind of divine poke in the ribs! This all led me to begin considering forgiveness in light of a particular perspective.
If we know in our heart that we are right (scripturally, morally and intuitively), what rights do we have? Consider some the answers I found:
I and My Father are one.” Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, “Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?” The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.”
While ministering in Jerusalem, the Jewish authorities attempt for a third time to stone Jesus. He had just asserted that He and the Father were one; in effect, claiming His deity. What He’d said was most certainly the truth, but how did the authorities of the day respond to such truth? They sought to kill Him. Did Jesus remain and assert His right to be right?
Therefore they sought again to seize Him, but He escaped out of their hand. And He went away again beyond the Jordan to the place where John was baptizing at first, and there He stayed.
Jesus withdrew and went into a place beyond the Jordan River. Jesus understood God’s timing. He knew that standing toe-to-toe at this point in time, even with the certainty of His authority, would be manifestly unproductive. Sometimes, even when you are right, it’s better to withdraw rather than press your point. I didn’t like that as a solution. You see, when I am right, I can be so very good at being righteously indignant. However, I was compelled to consider these passages a little further.
Where did Jesus go? He withdrew to Perea, where John had preached and baptized Him before Jesus opened His public ministry. I found it ironic that Jesus went to a place identified with a special defining moment in His ministry. He returned to Perea, where His public ministry began, just before He would, for the last time, turn His face toward Jerusalem and His ultimate death. Like Elijah, Jesus went to a place of beginnings. Just beyond the Jordan was a place of descents or endings. How ironic, or was it? You see Jesus did nothing apart from the perfect Will of God.
If we name Christ as our Lord, we are to follow His example. Paul urges just that in 1 Corinthians 11:1 when he challenges us to imitate him (Paul), as he also imitates Christ. In Matthew 16, Jesus calls us to follow His example in very dramatic terms.
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
What Jesus demands from His disciples, and from us, is total commitment. This was a call to full surrender, a call to life-or-death devotion to Christ. In light of this, I had to return to my initial question: Do we have a right to be right? What rights do we have? If God were to ask, would you give up your right to be right? Would God ever do that?
He does every time He calls us to forgive and reconcile with another brother or sister in the Lord. When it comes to forgiveness, we have no rights to stand on. We are not in ourselves worthy of forgiveness. God’s forgiveness of us through Christ demands that we forgive others. End of argument. The right to be right collapses before the matchless power of grace, because grace brings responsibility and obligation. Jesus put no limitation on the scope to which we are to forgive each other. The reference to “seventy times seven” in Matthew 18:22 is not a limitation, but rather an illustration of going way beyond what we think is humanly possible.
To what lengths are you willing to go to forgive and be reconciled? Would you be willing to walk away from a situation before your right to be right led you to commit sin? Would you be willing to give up your right to be right? Which is more important: being right or being obedient to the gracious command of our Lord?
Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
You never know how well a house is built until it is tested by the weather. Rain reveals the character of a roof.
Friends of mine in Houston experienced this first hand as the remnants of a hurricane dumped sizable amounts of water on their homes and businesses. Wind and cold temperatures reveal how well a house is insulated. Anyone who has sat next to a drafty window in a windstorm knows this. Heat and sun reveal the quality of the paint and outer siding.
All of these are external elements. What isn’t necessarily seen is the foundation. Whether it’s solid or insubstantial, it will ultimately reveal if you have a secure and lasting dwelling on your hands.
Similar arguments can be said to apply to our relationship with each other as members of the body of Christ. You never know how strong a relationship is until it is tested by the pressures of living. The seasonal rains of sorrow and pain can reveal how well a relationship will withstand conflict. The wind and cold of those times when you’re not speaking to each other reveal how well a relationship is insulated against the selfishness we are all capable of at times. The heat and sun of the day-to-day pressures of life reveal the quality of a relationship to the viewing public, who seem to always be looking for our Christian paint to start cracking and peeling off.
Then there are those little things that creep into a house or a relationship that reveal its security.
You may have the best Schlage or Kwikset locks on all the doors, but until the typical pests like ants, cockroaches, rodents, etc. challenge a house, you don’t know its true internal integrity. We’ve fought with ants before; they are a given where I live (the running joke is that the old Indian name for our community roughly translates to “built upon ant hills”). I look at them like the occasional irritations that come into our lives and friendships. You certainly don’t like them around, but aside from the inconvenience, they really are dealt with fairly easily and quickly. However cockroaches and rodents are something else. They multiply quickly. They do much of their damage in secret, but inevitably begin to drop evidence of their existence in the little messes they leave behind.
At one point we were attacked by cockroaches and rodents at the same time. We called the exterminator out and he set the traps and sprayed, but we share a common wall with our neighbor, so all we may have done was chase the little critters next door. The same situation can also occur in relationships, especially if as Christians we remember we share a common wall with brothers and sisters in the Lord.
And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
If we let things into our lives that do not glorify the Lord, we obviously harm ourselves, but there is still great potential to damage our relationships within the Church. Each believer is a part of His body! Even upon confession and removal of a private sin from our lives, our previous actions may have succeeded in introducing our little pest into our friends’ lives. The Bible is specific in how we are to deal with sins in our lives (1 John 1:9). And there is no privacy with sin as far as God is concerned (Luke 12:2-3). Sin has significant consequences. And all sin is against God and the Church, Christ’s body. David understood this when he cried out after being confronted by Nathan about his sin with Bathsheba.
Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight—that You may be found just when You speak, And blameless when You judge.
All our relationships, as believers, are to be examples of Christ-likeness. Do you really want to invite rats and cockroaches into your homes? Then why would we invite those things into our relationships that are just as secretive and just as destructive?
Take some time to examine the foundations of your relationships, especially with those you hold near and dear to your heart. Are they strong enough to the storms of weather life and all the natural assaults that will come along? How do we react when the trials come? Do we worry? Do we get angry? Do we take our lives into our own hands instead of committing them to Him, who should always be in control anyway? How do we handle sinful things that want to creep into our relationships? Are we hospitable to them or do we aggressively drive them out before they get a foothold? Christ uses these times in our relationships to help us recognize whether our foundations are upon sifting and changing sand or solid, immovable rock.
Ron’s Sermon Archive
A Year Ago…
James 4:13-15
A year ago, I started this blog (actually a year and four days ago, but then that would sound like I was trying to hi-jack the Gettysburg Address).
In that time span my family has expanded, geographically (my eldest, her husband and daughter moved to Arizona).
My youngest moved back in with us. I’m still working at AT&T. I still serve as an elder at Grace Baptist Church, where we have a new Pastor (Pastor David Hegg).
I gave up teaching the Awana Journey 24/7 group at our church, but still get to drop in once in a while. When my son-in-law left last year, I took on the responsibilities for leading our Among Friends ABF on Sundays.
Early in the year, the teaching team for our ABF and I went to the Christian Ministry Training Association (formally GLASS) convention in Pasadena.
My wife, Barb, and I went to Maui for a vacation, where I took my first helicopter ride.
Life continues pretty much as it has for the past few years for me and my family. My prayers continue to be for the well being and success for my two daughters and son-in-law, for health and safety for my granddaughter as she grows up and trusts Christ, and for the health and blessings of my wife. All in all, I’m blessed. By His grace, I’ll be here next year, assessing my life, as He has seen fit to give it to me.
GB&G2U