HOLY WEEK AND THE RESCUE FROM WRATH

This week is Holy Week where we celebrate and reflect upon the final week of the life of Jesus from His entry into Jerusalem to His last supper, to His betrayal and arrest to His trial and crucifixion to his death, burial, and resurrection. Therefore, I wanted to get us thinking about Jesus and His death.



Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones was a great preacher at the Westminster Chapel in London for 40 years. The year before his death in 1981when he was 81 years old Christianity Today asked him, "Do you have any final word for our generation?" He answered simply by quoting 1 Thessalonians 1:10, "Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come." Oh what a difference it makes when one believes in the wrath of God with trembling and with tears. There is seriousness over all of life, urgency in all our endeavors, and a flavor of blood-earnestness that seasons everything we do and makes sin feel more sinful, and righteousness feel more righteous, and life feels more precious, and relationships feel more profound, and God appears weightier.



Paul was overjoyed that the Lord from heaven is “Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonian 1:10). But he warned that “for those who…don’t obey the truth…there will be wrath and fury” (Romans 2:8).



What Is God’s Wrath?

Simply put, God’s wrath is his settled hostility toward sin in all its various manifestations. To say it is “settled” hostility means that God’s holiness cannot and will not coexist with sin in any form whatsoever. God’s wrath is his holy hatred of all that is unholy. It is his righteous indignation at everything that is unrighteous. Paul says, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness…for those who don’t obey the truth there will be wrath and fury” (Romans 1:18; 2:8). Wrath is what happens when holiness meets sin! Wrath is what happens when justice meets rebellion! Wrath is what happens when righteousness meets unrighteousness! Wrath is what happens when perfect good meets pure evil! As long as God is God, he cannot overlook sin. As long as God is God, he cannot stand by indifferently while his creation is destroyed. As long as God is God, he cannot dismiss lightly those who trample his holy will. As long as God is God, he cannot wink when men mock his name.

There are four characteristics of the wrath of God:

The final wrath of God will be eternal having no end. In Daniel 12:2 God promises that the day is coming when “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” Jesus spoke of the eternity of God’s wrath in numerous ways. In Mark 9:43-48, he said, “And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, 48 where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.” Notice that twice he calls the fires of hell “unquenchable” that is, they will never go out. The point of that is to say soberly and terribly, that if you go there, there will be no relief forever and ever.



Second, in Matthew 25 he told the parable of the sheep and the goats to illustrate the way it will be when Jesus comes back to save his people and punish the unbelievers. In verse 41 he says, “Then [the king] will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’” And to make crystal clear that eternal means everlasting he says again in verse 46, “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” So the punishment is eternal in the same way that life is eternal. Both mean: never ending. Everlasting. It is an almost incomprehensible thought.



Oh, let it have its full effect on you. Jesus did not intend to speak this way in vain. After the teaching of Jesus, the apostle Paul put the eternity of God’s wrath this way in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9: “The Lord Jesus [will be] revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”


Finally, the great apostle of love, the apostle John, who gives us the sweet words of John 3:16 (Even there he uses the word perish to those who do not believe), used the strongest language for the eternal duration of the wrath of God: “And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night” (Revelation 14:11). And Revelation 19:3, “The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.” These are the strongest phrases for eternity that Biblical writers could use. So the first thing we must say about the wrath of God at the end of the age that comes upon those who do not embrace Christ as Savior and Lord, is that it is eternal, it will never end.


The final wrath of God will be terrible, indescribable pain. Consider some of the word pictures of God’s wrath in the New Testament. When the Bible uses symbols such as hell-fire some people minimize it by saying that it is only a symbol. I don't know about you, but it seems to me that if they are symbols than that means that the reality is worse than fire, not better. The words the bible uses like “fire” are not used to make the easy sound terrible, but to make the exceedingly terrible sound something like what it really is. Jesus says in Matthew 13:41-42, “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”. Then he adds at least three more terrible images of God’s wrath besides fire. He pictures it as a master returning and finding his servant disobeying his commands, and he “will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 24:51). The wrath of God is like cutting someone in pieces. Then he pictures it as darkness: “The sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12). The wrath of God is like being totally blind forever. Finally he quotes Isaiah 66:24 and says “Their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48). In Revelation 6:15-16, the apostle John adds that the wrath of God—indeed the wrath of Jesus himself—will be so terrible that every class of human beings will cry out for rocks to crush them rather than face the wrath: “Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb."



Then we have a picture of horror that is the final one of the Bible, namely, the lake of fire. It is called the “second death” in Revelation 20:14, “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.” Revelation 20:15 makes that explicit: “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” Then verse 10 adds, “They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” The final wrath of God will be terrible, indescribable pain and it will last forever. There will be no escape.


The final wrath of God will be deserved, totally just and right.



Paul labored to show this in the first part of this letter to the Romans. “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18). Wrath does not come without good reason. It is against sin. It is deserved. Understanding sin is the foundation that upholds the preciousness of the gospel, not vice versa. I have found the difficulty that most people have in understanding the wrath of God is related to an incomplete and inadequate understanding of both how awful sin is, how glorious God is and the infinite chasm in between. We do not see what a great evil is in the least sin. If we could comprehend God's holiness and what it means to be holy, pure, perfect, upright, and untainted by the least sin, we would have a better idea of why God hates sin so much. Paul gives us the evidence of why mankind deserves and is under the just wrath of God:

• The truth of God is known (Romans 1:19-20).


• The truth is suppressed. And the fruit is ungodliness and unrighteousness.


• And on that comes wrath (Ephesians 5:6; Colossians 3:6).

He says it even more explicitly in Romans 2:5, “Because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” We are responsible. We are storing up wrath with every act of indifference to Christ. With every preference for anything over God. With every quiver of our affection for sin and every second of our dull affections for God. Then he says it once more in Romans 3:5-6, “If our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world?” Nothing was clearer for the inspired apostle than that God is just and God will judge the world in terrible wrath.



Perhaps some of you readers might think that your sins do not deserve this kind of wrath. I ask you to ponder these four things:



1. First, it was one sin alone that brought the entire world under the judgment of God, and brought death upon all people (Genesis 2:17; Romans 5:12). And you have not committed one sin, but tens of thousands of sins.



2. Second, consider James 2:10, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.” Not only have you sinned tens of thousands of times, but each one had in it the breaking of the entire law of God.”



3. Third, consider Galatians 3:10, “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’” The wrath of God’s curse falls on us for not obeying all that is commanded. One failure and the curse falls.



4. Finally, consider that any offense and any dishonor to an infinitely honorable and infinitely worthy God, is an infinite offense and an infinite dishonor. Therefore, an infinite punishment is deserved. In short, the punishment fits the crime. It is fair, it is just, it is deserving. There are only two things I ever receive from God: Justice or mercy. Eternal life or God's wrath and fury. These are the two alternatives. This leaves one last point to make. And oh, how crucial it is! How precious it is! How infinitely beautiful it is!


The final wrath of God is escapable through the curse-bearing death of Christ, if we would take refuge in him. God’s wrath is escapable right now. No one has to spend eternity under the wrath of God if they will receive God’s Son as Savior. Why is that? How can that be? Because Jesus Christ is our wrath bearer. He is the Propitiation for our sins! (Romans 3:25; Hebrews 2; 17; 1 John 2:2; 4; 10). Because God so loved the world that he sent his own infinitely valuable Son to absorb the infinite wrath of God against all who take refuge in him (John 3:16). A holy God unleashed on Him all the fury of divine anger that we deserved. Listen to this precious statement from Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.'" God‘s love sent his own Son to absorb His wrath and bear the curse for all who trust in Him. Christ bore the curse of God’s wrath for all who come to him and believe in Him. The redemptive wrath of God, unleashed at the cross, means we need not face eternal wrath in hell. When we put our faith in Christ alone, we escape the wrath to come.



The Bible asks, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation...?" (Hebrews 2:3). The unstated answer to this question is that there is no deliverance from God's final, eternal wrath if we do not believe in Christ. But, in the truest sense of the word, He is the Savior come to rescue us from the wrath to come



Oh how we need an overwhelming conviction of the reality of the glories of heaven and horrors of hell that make our lives and our mission and our evangelism utterly serious, earnest, and intense. If we are to love God and love sinners, then we cannot treat the awesome realities of sin, judgment, and eternal punishment lightly, nor can we truly love if we don’t speak of the cross of Jesus that rescue sinners from wrath! Spurgeon said, ““Think lightly of hell and you will think lightly of the cross. Think little of the suffering of lost souls, and you will soon think little of the Savior who delivers you from them.”



Oh how much heaven and hell are at stake every day and everywhere! May the horrors of wrath and hell and the glory of heaven cause us to ache for the souls of others. May we dedicate ourselves to live to the glory of Christ and to stop the carnage of hell by rescuing lost sinners proclaiming “Jesus saves us from the wrath to come!”



Pastor Bill

WHEN GOD CALLS YOU TO DO SOMETHING THAT ONLY HE CAN DO

" Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth." 7But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a youth';for to all to whom I send you, you shall go,and whatever I command you, you shall speak. 8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD." 9 Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, "Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. 10See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down,to destroy and to overthrow,to build and to plant." 11And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, "Jeremiah, what do you see?" And I said, "I see an almond branch." 12Then the LORD said to me, "You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it." 13The word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying, "What do you see?" And I said, "I see a boiling pot, facing away from the north." 14Then the LORD said to me, "Out of the north disaster shall be let loose upon all the inhabitants of the land. 15For behold, I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, declares the LORD, and they shall come, and every one shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its walls all around and against all the cities of Judah. 16And I will declare my judgments against them, for all their evil in forsaking me. They have made offerings to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands. 17But you, dress yourself for work; arise, and say to them everything that I command you. Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them. 18And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land. 19 They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, declares the LORD, to deliver you." Jeremiah 1:6-19 ESV

A friend of mine named Don Rogers once told me that God never calls us to do something that He cannot do. For example, in August 1745 the young missionary, a young missionary named David Brainerd was at a low point in a continuing saga of low points in his ministry. He wrote in his journal that it was the time of least hope, the least rational prospect of seeing God work among the Indians. His was constantly ill, completely exhausted and overwhelmed by the many trials and hardships in trying to minister to the Indians. He battled severe despondency over his consistent failures in attempting to reach the Indians for Christ. He writes, “I had little reason for hope that God had made me an instrument in the saving conversion of any of the Indians…my spirits being now so extremely sunk. And I do not know that my hopes in reaching the Indians had ever reduced to so low ebb.”

He found a place to pray that few of us would choose…under a bush in two feet of snow during subzero temperatures. He was not a masochist. He was a man obsessed with the plight of the Crossweeksung Indians. God made them Brainerd's calling and the focus of Brainerd’s compassion, and there under a bush, he poured himself in prayer on their behalf. Cold, exhausted, discouraged, and ill, coughing up blood, Brainerd was startled by a new strength, he rose and ran to the village, where he beheld one of the most marvelous sights in church history.


He came back to the village and spoke to the Indians of the love and compassion of God in sending His Son to suffer for the sins of men. The next thing you know all of the Indians were crying out in tears and mourning for Christ to wipe their hearts clean and for Jesus to have mercy upon them. The Spirit of God mightily moved among the Indians. Indians were being converted on a daily basis and hundreds of Indians became converted to Christ.

Was it because of David Brainerd? Brainerd writes, “Surprising were now the doings of the Lord, that I can say no less of this day than that arm of the Lord was powerfully and marvelously revealed in it… God appeared to work entirely alone, and I saw no room to attribute any part of it of this work to any created arm.” In looking back upon this experience Brainerd concluded, “This was the very season where God saw fittest to begin His glorious work in! And thus He ordained strength out of weakness, by making bare His almighty arm at a time when all hopes and human possibilities most evidently appeared to fail."

I write this account to encourage you about you and your calling by God. Do you relate to David Brainerd? Here is a man who would be least likely to succeed in missionary endeavors who was used by God in such a way as to be considered one of the most inspiring and influential missionaries who ever lived.

What was the secret of His success? That God called him to do something that he could not do that only God could do! Long ago, God asked a young Jewish son of a priest named Jeremiah to do something that he could not do that only God could do. When he heard the call, he refused. I think that we all can understand why. If we are asked to do something that we know that we cannot do,in the natural, it is foolish to accept the assignment, for it soon becomes an embarrassment to everyone.

The job Jeremiah refused was to be a prophet. The work of the prophet is to proclaim the Word of God in application to the present times. The prophet called people to live well, to live rightly for God. A prophet was called to let people know who God is and what He is like, what He says, and what He is doing. A prophet woke people up from their apathy and sleepy complacency so that they could see the great and stunning reality of God and His purposes for us here on this earth. Often times a prophet angered people by awakening them from their safe, comfortable, easy, and secure self centered little worlds. A prophet ripped off disguises, then dragged heartless attitudes and selfish motives out into the open where everyone could see them for what they are. A prophet makes God and His world significant and important, important because He is God, and important God is actively, right now, desiring to use us. A prophet makes it difficult to continue With a sloppy or selfish life.

So young Jeremiah is called and he knows exactly what God is calling him to do; something that he could not do! Yes God had called him. Yes it was important, but Jeremiah refused. It is as if Jeremiah said, "God you obviously do not understand me or know my abilities. I don't do being a prophet. I am prophetically challenged" He reasoned that God did not understand. He was young. He was not qualified. He had not done well in the God courses in school, and he hadn't been around long enough to know what he was talking about. He said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth."

Each one of us are well experienced in pleading inadequacy to God, others, and ourselves in order to avoid living at the level God wants us to live and has called us to. Oh how pathetic our excuses sound! "I am only a youth; I am only a housewife or mother; I am not well educated; I can't speak well; I don't have enough time; I don't have enough training; I am an introvert; I don't have confidence; I have to many character flaws; I'm dumb and unintelligent". Remember what Moses said? "Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent" (Exodus 4:10). Do you ever think that? "God is asking to much of me." "He knows that I can't do this or handle this."

The truth is that if we are really honest with ourselves,, we are always inadequate. That is the foundational understanding we need in order to be used by God. Life, in fact, is too much for us. This business of living in awareness and response to God, to live for His glory, to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, to live in caring attentive love to the people with us, and to do that for 70 to 80 years with joy and perseverance seems to exceed our capacities. We aren't smart enough; we don't have enough energy; we can't concentrate adequately. We are apathetic, fragile, weak, and fickle. Not all the time, to be sure. We have spurts of love, passion, risks of faith, moments of heartfelt caring, and extraordinary courage; but invariably we slip back into laziness, selfishness, or greed. That is why a ruthless honesty before God and ourselves will always leave us shattered by our inadequacy.

There is an enormous gap between what we think we can do and what God calls us to do. As long as God calls me to do only what I think I can do (i.e.control, manipulate, contain, play it within my own self made safety nets) I am fine. In short, as long as God calls me to operate within my own self imposed limitations and abilities all is well. But oh, how often our ideas of what we can do or want to do are small and trivial in comparison to God's idea of what He can do in and through us! God does not call us to do only what we can do, He calls us to do what He can do to us, for us, in us, and through us! God's ideas for us are divine, supernatural, extraordinary, and utterly disproportionate to who we are!

God's call to Jeremiah to be a prophet parallels His call to us each one of us to be the particular person that He has called us to be. The excuses we make are reasonable; often they are logical statements of fact, but they are excuses all the same and are disallowed by our Lord, who says: " "Do not say, 'I am only a youth';for to all to whom I send you, you shall go,and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD....Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down,to destroy and to overthrow,to build and to plant " (Jeremiah 1:9-10).

The three pairs of verbs (pluck up, break down; destroy and overthrow; build and to plant) are all-involving. The life of faith is a life where we do not run or try to escape because it is too much for us; we plunge into it because it is God who commands us and equips us. Augustine said "command what you give, and give what you command." It is not our feelings that determine our level of participation in life, nor our experience that qualifies us for what we will do and be; it is what God decides about us. God does not send us into our callings because we are qualified; He chooses us in order to qualify us for what he wants us to be and do: "I have put my words in your mouth. . . . I have set you this day over nations."

If you read eight verses down the page you will see what God does for Jeremiah. Jeremiah is no longer inadequate. "And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. They will fight against you;but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you" (Jeremiah 1:18-19). Everything that we know about Jeremiah shows that this in fact happened. In a forty-year public ministry through the most confused and chaotic decades of Israel's entire history, Jeremiah was invincible. Inwardly he was in great agony many times, but he never swerved from his course. He was mocked cruelly and persecuted severely, but he never deviated from his position. There was enormous pressure on him to change, to compromise, to quit and to hide. He never did it.

How did Jeremiah make the transition from the weak, waffling, wavering, self disqualifying, excuse-making "Ah, LORD, I am only a youth" to the "fortified city, iron pillar, bronze walled" career of accepting the assignment as prophet? God did it! God did a work to him, for him, in him, and through him. God called him to do a work that only God could do and God did it! If God did it for Jeremiah, He will do it for you.

Remember David Brainerd? David Brainerd prayed “Oh, that I might be a flaming fire in the service of the Lord. Here I am I Lord, send me; send me to the ends of the earth ... send me from all that ¬is called earthly comfort; send me even to death itself if it be but in Your service and to promote Your Kingdom" Oh how God answered that prayer!



David Brainerd's and Jeremiah's lives are a vivid, powerful testimony to the truth that God can and does use weak, sick, moody, pain-wrecked, discouraged, beat-down, lonely, struggling saints, who cry to him day and night to empower them to be able to do supernatural things that only God can do. When you understand this extraordinary God and the extraordinary work that He desires to do through your working you can begin praying a prayer like this: “Lord, let me make a difference for you that is utterly disproportionate to who I am". This is how I pray each and every day of my life. This is a prayer that any one of you who feel passionless, loveless, weak, inadequate, can pray boldly without fear of presumption.



The wording of the prayer contains a disclaimer: "I am not great. But you, Lord, are very great. So in your astonishing sovereignty and glorious omnipotence you can flood me with love, passion, and power and let my little life make a difference far beyond all my little powers. GOD WILL DO FOR YOU WHAT ONLY GOD CAN DO. For His glory and your joy. AMEN!

Pastor Bill

ALIVE TO GOD, OTHERS, AND LIFE

"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their measuring line goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamberand, like a strong man, runs its course with joy..."
Psalm 19:1-5 ESV

I beleive that the greatest spiritual discipline there is, is the discipline of awareness, of spiritual sight. I call it being alive to God, alive to others, alive to His creation, and alive to life.. Are you? Do you see? We often times are not alive because we are so busy, driven, goal and future oriented that we completely dead to all that is around us. Others of us spend so much time focusing in ourselves that we miss the sacred moments of grace and life all around us. We are not alone. Jacob said, "Surely the Lord was in this place and i did not see (Genesis 49:16).

T.S. Elliot wrote,
"Earth is crammed with heaven and every bush is the dwelling place of God,
but only those who see take off their shoes,
the rest just sit around and pluck blackberries."

We miss so much every moment don't we? Oh how we waste and lose so many precious moments in this short life while just sitting around plucking the blackberries of boredom, familiarity, ingratitude, self preoccupation, and spiirtual dullness. Oh to see and live!

Are you alive, amazed, astonished at God, His creation, and life? James 1:17 tells us, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." God offers us one of the greatest gifts—amazement at what we see.

I am so thankful for men such as C.S. Lewis, John Piper, and his mentor Clyde Kilby(A friend and contemporary of C.S.Lewis), who have been given to us by God to awaken our sense of sight.They have taught me there is always more to see in what I see

John Piper says of Clyde Kilby that he,

"Pled with us to stop seeking mental health in the mirror of self-analysis, but instead to drink in the remedies of God in nature. He was not naive. He knew of sin. He knew of the necessity of redemption in Christ. But he would have said that Christ purchased new eyes for us as well as new hearts.His plea was that we stop being unamazed by the strange glory of ordinary things"

The Psalmist tells us that every day God is speaking through the ordinary things of His creation (That is , if you can ever call creation ordinary!)."Day unto day pours forth speech, and night unto night declares knowledge." The observation here very simply is that knowledge of God can in one sense come through nature, day and night. At night, the night sky speaks. In the day, the day sky speaks. Or to be precise, speech pours forth. Nature does not whisper—it shouts, and it shouts continually.

How many of us are impressed with watching on HD big screen televisions the series from the BBC called Planet Earth? We were all impressed with the amazing photography of the world of nature.I have heard so many enthusiastic oooohs and ahhhhs from people who watched this series. What is ironic to me is that we will watch it and then an hour later walk outside into a three dimensional drama ten million times bigger,graphic,more unpredictable and suspenseful, and hear not a single exclamation. Why?

Clyde Kilby, gave this answer (quoting John Piper):

The fall of man can hardly be more forcefully felt than simply in noting what we all do with a fresh snowfall or the first buds of spring. On Monday they fill us with delight and meaning and on Tuesday we ignore them. No amount of shouting to us that this is all wrong changes the fact for very long . . . Only some aesthetic power which is akin to God's own creativity has the capability for renewal, for giving us the power to see.

He thinks the reason we pay so little attention to God's omnitheatre is that we are fallen, sinful creatures. And I agree, because I cannot imagine that the angels in heaven get tired of God's beauty or that God himself grows weary of the beauty of his Son. There is in heaven an ever renewed energy of perception and enjoyment. But fallen man is plagued with the proverb: "Familiarity breeds contempt."

But surely redemption means that we will be freed from that proverb. If we aren't, there can be no such thing as heaven but only a hell of increasing contemptuousness. And since our redemption has already begun in this age, Christians ought to have better eyes than people in general for seeing the knowledge that every day and night pours forth. We ought to be the kind of people who walk out of the house in the morning with the same sense of suspense and expectancy with which we turn on our HD's and watch Planet Earth!

C.S. Lewis is also one who was so alive and aware of life all around him. John Piper writes:

Lewis’s keen penetrating sense of his own heart’s aching for Joy, combined with his utter amazement at the sheer, objective realness of things other than himself, has over and over awakened me from the slumbers of self-absorption to see and savor the world and through the world, the Maker of the world. And this sense of wonder at what is—really is—has carried over into doctrine, and the gospel in particular...Lewis gave me, and continues to give me, an intense sense of the astonishing “realness? of things. He had the ability to see and feel what most of us see and do not see. He had what Alan Jacobs called “omnivorous attentiveness.”


Don't you just love that phrase "omnivorous attentiveness"? What this can do for you is amazing. What would my life be like if I wake up in the morning and to be aware of the firmness of the mattress, the warmth of the sun’s rays, the sight of my beautiful wife next to me, the sound of the birds singing, the coldness of the wooden floor, the wetness of the water in the sink, the sheer being of things (quiddity as C.S. Lewis called it). What if I was not just to be aware but full of wonder and amazement that water is wet; that the sky is blue, that the trees in my back yard are green, that the sound of the birds is melodic. None of this had to be. If there were no such thing as any of those and one day some one showed them to you, you would simply be astonished.

Oh how we need to become alive to life! To look at the sunrise and with say with an amazed smile, “God did it again!” I want to see what is there in the world—things which if we did not have them, we would pay a million dollars to have, but having them, ignore. I want to be convicted of my callous inattention and inability to enjoy God’s daily gifts. I want God to awaken my dazed soul so that the realities of life and of God and heaven and hell are seen and felt. I want to God to effect my eyes in such a way that life and this extraordinary world is a precious gift.

Finally, C.S.Lewis has awakened me to seeing people with new eyes. Sometimes, we get so "familiar" with those we know or are close to, that we stop "seeing" them and having gratitude for them. Often times this awakening happens after someone who we knew has died. But I want to be alive now to people and especially my family, friends, and fellow Christan's. I want to rise above my petty complaints and see people—at least from time to time—as the staggering wonders that they are in the image of God.

Listen to what C.S. Lewis says about seeing people that has helped me so much:

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. . . . There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors."

My prayer for you and me is that God will give us fresh, new eyes to see him, others, and His world with childlike awe and wonder for what is right in front of our eyes. May we stop picking blackberries and take off our shoes because every moment is truly sacred and we stand on holy ground.

Clyde Kilby resolved:

"I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what Lewis calls their "divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic" existence."


Learning to see,
Pastor Bill

REMEMBERING THE AWESOME BEFORE OF YOUR LIFE

"The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, 2to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. 3It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month. Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,and before you were born I consecrated you;I appointed you a prophet to the nations."
Jeremiah 1:1-5 ESV


How has your life turned out so far? Are you becoming the person Christ chose and redeemed you to be? Are you growing old or are you growing up? Are becoming better or bitter? Some people as they grow up become less. Other people as they grow up become more. I meet people who just get softer, wiser, more loving, gentle, more effective, happier, full of life, and at are peace. Oh how I long to become like them. Sadly, I meet others who as time goes by just get hard, bitter, cynical, bored, grumpy, angry, and died long ago in spirit. Is your life on the decline or on the ascent? Life does not have to be an inevitable decline into dullness; for some it is an ascent into excellence. It was for Jeremiah. Jeremiah lived about sixty years.

How did he do it? How do I do it? One of the supreme tasks for me as a pastor is constantly speak and reaffirm of the kind of life into which we can grow, to help us set our sights on what it means grow into the fullness of Jesus Christ, to mature, whole, and complete. Not one of us, at this moment, is complete. In another hour, another day, we will have changed. We are in process of becoming either less or more. What are we becoming? Less or more?

John said, "Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). We are children; we will be adults. We can see what we are now; we in Paul's words, to arrive at "mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13). We are not meant to deteriorate. We are meant to become.

The name Jeremiah means either "the LORD exalts"; or it may mean "the LORD hurls." On the day that their son was born, Hilkiah and his wife named him in anticipation of the way that God would act in his life. In hope they saw the years unfolding and their son as one in whom the Lord would be lifted up: Jeremiah—the Lord is exalted. Or, in hope they saw into the future and anticipated their son as a person whom God would hurl into the community as a javelin-representative of God, penetrating the defenses of selfishness with divine judgment and mercy: Jeremiah—the Lord hurls. Jeremiah's life was radically influenced and governed by God's action. Jeremiah lived for sixty years. For sixty years and more he continued to live into the meaning of his name.

How did Jeremiah do it? How can we live a full, fruitful, glorious, meaningful, and ever progressing life? It is found in the first words that God spoke to Jeremiah that become God's word to each one of us:

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations" (Jeremiah 1:5).

YOU ARE KNOWN BY GOD!
Before Jeremiah knew God, God knew Jeremiah: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you." The reality of our lives begins with God's knowledge of us. Long before we knew or had any interest in God, God subjected us to the most intensive and searching knowledge. Before it ever crossed our minds that God might be important, God singled us out as important. Before we were formed in the womb, God knew us. We are known before we know. This realization has a practical result: no longer do we run here and there, panicked and anxious, searching for the answers to life. Our lives are not puzzles to be figured out. Rather, we come to God, who knows us and reveals to us the truth of our lives. My identity does not begin when I begin to understand myself. There is something previous to what I think about myself, and it is what God thinks of me. That means that everything I think and feel is by nature a response, and the one to whom I respond is God. I never speak the first word. I never make the first move. God is always previous. Jeremiah's life didn't start with Jeremiah. Jeremiah's salvation didn't start with Jeremiah. Jeremiah's truth didn't start with Jeremiah. He entered the world in which the essential parts of his existence were already ancient history. So do we.

YOU ARE SET APART BY GOD
The second item of background information provided on Jeremiah is this: "Before you were born I consecrated you." Consecrated means set apart for God's side. It means we are chosen out of this fallen world for something important that God is doing. What is God doing? He is saving; He is rescuing; He is blessing; He is providing; He is judging; He is healing; He is revealing. There is a spiritual war in progress (Ephesians 6:10-20; 1 Timothy 6:11), and
Jeremiah, before he was born, was enlisted on God's side in this war. He wasn't given a few years in which to look around and make up his mind which side he would be on, or even whether he would join a side at all. He was already chosen as a combatant on God's side. And so are we all. No one enters life as a spectator. We either take up the life to which we have been consecrated or we traitorously defect from it.

The bible calls Christians "saints." It is the same word in Greek, hagios, which means set apart or separated from for God and His use. Christians are all saints regardless of how well or badly they live. The word saint does not refer to the quality or virtue of their acts, but to the kind of life to which they had been chosen, life on a battlefield. It is not a title given after a spectacular performance, but a mark of whose side they were on.

YOU ARE GIVEN BY GOD FOR OTHERS
The third thing that God did to Jeremiah before Jeremiah did anything on his own was this "I appointed you a prophet to the nations." The word appointed is, literally, gave". God gives. He is generous. He is lavishly generous. Before Jeremiah ever got his act together he was given away by God. That is God's way. He did it with his own son, Jesus. He gave him away. He gave him to the nations. He did not keep him on display. He did not preserve him in a museum. He did not show him off as a trophy. "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (3:16).

God also gave Jeremiah away. I can hear Jeremiah objecting, "Wait a minute. Don't be so quick to give me away. I've got something to say about this. I've got my inalienable rights. I have a few decisions about life that I am going to make myself." Imagine God's response: "Sorry, but I did it before you were even born. It's already done; you are given away."

Giving is what we are meant to do best. it is the secret of the blessed life (Acts 20:35), says our Lord. It is the action that was designed into us by God before we were ever born. God gives Himself. He gives away everything that is His. He makes no exceptions for any of us. We are given away by God to our families, to our church, to our neighbors, to our friends, to our enemies, and to the nations. The very nature of a God known, God chosen, God consecrated life, is a life for others. That is the way His Kingdom works.

Jeremiah sets the pattern. He lived for sixty years from a foundation of remembering and reflecting upon the awesome before of his life, and he lived out of this background. It is not easy to live this way if we have short memories, if we consider everything through the prism of our current feelings and circumstances. It takes a radical change to consider the vast before of our lives. But oh dear reader, if we would live well, it is absolutely necessary. Otherwise we will live feebly and tentatively, blind to the stupendously liberating glory that we are known, chosen and given away by God.

May you begin living as KNOWN by God, CONSECRATED by God, and GIVEN by God for others.
May you remeber and have hope that the best days of your soul and your life lay ahead because of your BEFORE!

Pastor Bill

THE ONE THING:MAGNIFY THE LORD IN YOUR BODY!

"For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:19-21)


There is a 1991 movie that many of you have probably seen called "City Slickers." Mitch, played by Billy Crystal ,and his two friends from New York City are middle-aged, middle-class guys trying to rediscover the purpose of their mundane lives. Curley, played by Jack Palance, is a tough-as-leather trail boss who is not particularly reflective or philosophical. In one scene, Curley, the old crusty cow boy, is talking with the city folk about life. They are confused and have made a mess of their lives. One has had an affair with a grocery checker and conceived a child. The other is experiencing a mid-life crisis and ended up being gored in the backside by a bull. The third has multiple relationships that are going nowhere because he is flaky and superficial. They ask Curley for some advice on life.

Curley: “You city folks. -- You spend 50 weeks a year getting knots in your rope and you think two weeks here will work them all out. You just don't get it.” Curley holds up one dirty, black-gloved finger to them. With a squint in his weathered old face and a cigarette dangling from his lips, he says to them, "Life is about one thing." "It’s this," Palance says, holding up a single finger. "The secret of life is your finger?" asks Crystal."It’s one thing," Palance replies. Mitch: “What thing?” Curley: “That's what you have to figure out.”

The Apostle Paul was like that old cowboy Curley, because he too was often asked and spoke of what life was all about. He too lifts up his finger to us and says life is only about one thing. Nobody had a more single-minded vision for his life than Paul had. In Philippians 1:20 we see Paul's single passion in life was"that ... Christ will be MAGNIFIED in my body, whether by life or by death." In life and death Paul’s mission is to magnify Christ-to show that Christ is magnificent, to exalt Christ, to glorify Christ, and to demonstrate that He is great. That is why we live. Life is not about living for ourselves, elevating ourselves, exalting ourselves, promoting ourselves, or drawing attention to ourselves. That kind of living is empty and meaningless. We exist to make Jesus appear in the world as what he really is-magnificent.

The Psalmist said in Psalm 34:3: "0 magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together," Psalm 69:30 "I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving." This was the heart cry of every Old Testament saint. Mary said in Luke 1:46 "My soul magnifies the Lord." And now it is the longing of every true Christian. "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Paul said that his aim in life and death was "that ... Christ ... be magnified." The word "magnify" literally means to make large. To magnify or glorify God, in common language means to make God look as He truly is. We may think, “Christ is the Almighty God, Creator of the universe. How can I possibly magnify, exalt or glorify Him?” Magnify has two distinct meanings. In relation to God, one is worship and one is wickedness. You can magnify like a telescope or like a microscope. When you magnify like a microscope, you make something tiny look bigger than it is. A dust mite can look like a monster. It is a delusion to think that we can magnify God like this. In reality pretending to magnify God like that is wickedness. But when you magnify like a telescope, you make something unimaginably great look like what it really is. God has purposed that the believer is to be a telescope to bring the truth about Christ into view for the unbeliever. Through us Christ is magnified to a skeptical, unbelieving world.

The whole duty of the Christian can be summed up in this: feel, think, and act in a way in your life and in your death that will make God look as great as he really is. Be a telescope for the world of the infinite starry wealth of the glory of God. Let us catch this purpose and it will revolutionize the kinds of questions we ask in our daily lives.

Paul’s tells us the way that we magnify God: “in my body” This is incredible! This is your life! Another place Paul said, “You are not your own, you were bought with a price. So glorify God with your body” (1 Cor. 6:19-20). If you are a Christian you are not your own. Christ has bought you at the price of his death. You now belong doubly to God: He made you (Isaiah 43:7), and he bought you for His glory. His means your life and your body are not your own. It is God’s. Paul knew that Christians are “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). This body of yours is wonderfully chosen by God to be used like a telescope to make Him seen, treasured, and loved to a world that is dark and blind. Therefore, glorify or magnify God in this body”.

So if this world is going to see Christ they will see Him in our lives. This means that we may either magnify Christ or bring shame to His name by our attitudes, our words, and our behavior in our circumstances, relationships, trials, temptations, work, play, decisions; in short every aspect of our life. That is why I will tell people "don't waste your trials", "don't waste your cancer", don't waste your time", "don't waste your church service", and most of all "don't waste your life". A life that does not magnify the Lord is a wasted life.

Every situation, circumstance, trial, test, relationship, decision that you face begs the question "How can I magnify Christ?" How do you use your eyes? How do you use your ears? How do you use your tongue? Your hands? Your feet? Your countenance? How do you use your body? What about your personal appearance? Paul's passion was that his tongue will speak warmly of his Savior. He will exalt his name in testimony, in prayer, and in preaching. His knees will bend before the great, high and holy Lord. His hands will be zealous in serving the cause of such a Friend. His feet will run messages for the Lord. His eyes will see his glories everywhere and his likeness in all his people. His ears will hear his word and in His heart there will be a melody of praise to him. Always in his body he will exalt Christ. Oh reader, be encouraged, be focused, Let Christ be Magnified Through You! “Now! Always!" says Paul.

I pray that you will have a dissatisfaction with any kind of life less than this! May we be stretched to live our best, awakened out of dull moral habits, shaken out of petty, trivial business. Paul counted the cost . He weighed out the options. His voice and life cried out passionately and full of purpose "I WILL MAGNIFY THE LORD IN MY BODY WHETHER I LIVE OR WHETHER I DIE!

Pastor Bill