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Luke 7:31-35

31 “To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? 32 They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another,

“ ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;

we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’

33 For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ 34 The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ 35 Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.”

            Have you ever felt that, no matter what you do, people are just not willing to give the gospel you present a fair hearing?  Does it ever seem to you that you cannot be holy enough or laid-back enough or cool enough or brainy enough or whatever they seem to want enough to get them to take a fair look at Jesus?  Guess what:  This is not a new thing.

            Jesus pointed out that the generation around him simply was not going to at all be satisfied with the people God sent them.  John the Baptist came from God.  John was very strict, not drinking wine and not feasting.  The religious people of John’s day said that John had a demon.  They thought that nobody could actually live the way John lived without something being wrong.  He was over-the-top, and that even for the Jews.

            Then comes Jesus to the people.  Jesus was, according to this passage, far more laid back than John.  Jesus drank wine and ate at feasts.  The religious leaders accused Jesus of being a glutton and a drunk.  Now, Jesus never overate or drank too much—he never sinned—but the religious leaders looked for some way to criticize him.

            Think about this point as it might apply to your particular style of evangelism.  Are you thinking that you will win the lost to Christ if only you hang out with them and do what they do?  Are you thinking that taking an interest in their favorite sport or having a couple of beers with the guys after work will open up your opportunity to witness?

            Or perhaps it is the other way.  Are you thinking that you are going to live a life of such austerity, such outward holiness, such blatant religious fervor that the lost will not be able to help but take notice of you.  Maybe you will shake your head at them when they waste time at a ballgame or watching TV.  Maybe you will turn up your nose at them when they order a beer.  Maybe you will show them your piety by grimacing at their foul language or poor choices in clothing.

            What we should learn from Jesus is that neither of these two approaches will win anybody to Christ.  The hearts of the lost are dead to God (Ephesians 2:1-3).  Those hearts are always going to find a way to criticize your actions.  If you are laid back, they will call you a hypocrite, saying you’re just like everybody else.  If you are too good, they will call you judgmental, holier-than-thou, and they will declare that you make them uncomfortable.  In either case, they may be right about you.  Or, in either case, they may just be looking for a way to get out of facing the command of God to believe in Jesus.

            So, what do we do?  We live for Jesus as God would have us live.  If that means that you are free to be a little more laid back while not crossing any biblical lines into sin, then great—live to the glory of God.  If that means that you are a little more reserved as fits your bent and your understanding of the Scripture, great—live to the glory of God.  Live as God would have you live, and as you live, as you go, tell others about Jesus.  Present the true Jesus and the true gospel to the lost in plain speech, pray, and leave the results to God.  Only God can bring the dead to life.  Only God, not your clever lifestyle choices, will save a soul.

            By the way, I’m not here trying to write against contextualization.  Speak in terms that your friends can understand.  Try not to cloud their perception of Jesus by using terms that are not central to the gospel.  Try not to make them think that Christianity is about any commands that are not clearly part of the gospel.  Do what you can to remove superficial hurdles between them and their thinking about the gospel.  But do not think that your choosing to dress like them or not like them, to act like them or not like them, to live near them or not near them will have anything to do with changing their hearts.  God will change hearts.  We need to live to his glory and be sure that we share a very real, very clear gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

2 Kings 23:19, 25

19 And Josiah removed all the shrines also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which kings of Israel had made, provoking the Lord to anger. He did to them according to all that he had done at Bethel.

25 Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him.

            Josiah was king over the land of Judah.  Note that fact, the land of Judah.  Josiah was of the line of David which, since the time of Rehoboam, only ruled over the southern kingdom, Judah. 

            How fascinating is it, then, to see Josiah tearing down pagan altars in Samaria, the capital city of what had previously been the northern kingdom?  Josiah did not stay within the borders that had been laid out by Jeroboam and Rehoboam around three hundred years before.  Nope, Josiah was going way further back.  Josiah was acting like the king over all of God’s people, and he was cleansing the land in places that had not been ruled by a king from the tribe of Judah since the time of David and Solomon.  Josiah was thinking very big.

            How could Josiah think this way?  God had given the land to his people.  Josiah knew this fact.  God had told his people to take the land and put away the idols.  Josiah was obeying God.  It did not matter how many hundreds of years it had been since a Judean king had ruled over the hill of Samaria.  Josiah was going to set things right.

            How did God respond to Josiah’s zeal?  Historically, the acts of Josiah did not change much.  God’s judgment was already coming down on Judah.  So, Josiah died at a young age and those who followed him were not faithful to the Lord.  But, God did allow verse 25 above to be written about Josiah.  Speaking of this bold king, God inspired these words: “Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him.”  That is a glorious epitaph.

            What about you?  How big is your vision.  Are you content to try to follow God from within the proper socially-prescribed circles?  Is your faith limited to the boundaries that most of our society would place on it?  Are you trying to do in God’s name only that which others say is possible?  If so, perhaps you need to take a lesson from Josiah.  Josiah had a big vision of what it means to follow God.  Josiah went beyond the bounds.  Josiah went beyond the borders.  Josiah tried the impossible, and he heard the Old Testament’s form of “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” because of his faithfulness to the Lord.

“

Accuracy is, of course, the only attribute of the news that trumps speed in importance. So it must have been with unreserved horror that the editor of an English newspaper a little more than a hundred years ago opened his printed and distributed paper to find in it a most embarrassing unintentional typographical conflation of two stories: one story being about a patent pig-killing and sausage-making machine and the other about a local clergyman, the Rev. Dr. Mudge, who was being presented with a gold-headed cane. A portion of the famously-mangled story reads as follows:

Several of Rev. Dr. Mudge’s friends called upon him yesterday, and after a conversation the unsuspecting pig was seized by the hind leg, and slid along a beam until he reached the hot-water tank. . . . Thereupon he came forward and said that there were times when the feelings overpowered one, and for that reason he would not attempt to do more than thank those around him for the manner in which such a huge animal was cut into fragments was simply astonishing. The doctor concluded his remarks, when the machine seized him and, in less time than it takes to write it, the pig was cut into fragments and worked up into a delicious sausage. The occasion will be long remembered by the doctor’s friends as one of the most delightful of their lives. The best pieces can be procured for tenpence a pound, and we are sure that those who have sat so long under his ministry will rejoice that he has been treated so handsomely. 

“

(From: Mark Dever, 9 Marks of a Healthy Church, 79.)

            In his chapter on the gospel, Mark Dever points out that general belief is not the central key to saving faith in Christ.  What matters, what truly matters, is that the one who believes believe in an accurate, authentic, clear gospel.

            We live among a people who have many different beliefs about what it means to be saved.  Some people thing God is simply not willing to punish sin.  Others think they are not so bad.  Still others assume that they will have a chance to make things right with God later in life or after they are dead.  Some think they will be good enough to earn God’s grace.  Some think they can give to a church or serve in the community to earn a pass into heaven.  

            Christians, it is crucial for us to see to it that those around us—our friends, neighbors, and families—know the one true gospel.  They must see that the only way to be made right with God is not through good deeds, but through a genuine, life-changing, soul-entrusting faith in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.  If we are to do this, we must be committed to two things.  First, we must be committed to being certain that we personally have a solid grasp of the content of the gospel.  Second, we must make it our priority to take that gospel to every person in our community and to see to it that it gets to every people group in the world.  Will you make it your priority to know the gospel and then go and share it with a lost world?

Revelation 4:6-7 (ESV)

6 and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.

And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: 7 the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight.

            One of the best illustrations that I have ever heard to describe the role of God’s creation is that we are as mirrors, reflecting to one another the glories of our Creator.  As human beings, it is our purpose in life to show the universe aspects of the glory of our Lord.  Other people, angels, or the creation itself should be able to look at us and see us reflecting glimpses of who God is and how wonderful he is.  No, we will never perfectly mirror the infinite, but we can show tiny reflections of some of God’s attributes.

            This morning I was listening to Hershael York working through a series overviewing the book of Revelation (a series I’m enjoying quite a lot).  In that series, I listened to Dr. York reading the verses above, and was again struck by the glorious pictures in this passage.  My mind has since been working through how these verses also show us some of the mirroring of God’s glory.

            The four living creatures around God’s throne in the book of Revelation are mysterious beings.  Are they angels?  They don’t look like any angels we see in other passages.  They are, well, creatures.  God made them and gave them a purpose.  I would put forward, though tentatively to be sure, that their purpose is to reflect to us aspects of the work of Christ in redemption.

            The four faces of the creatures have been interpreted in a variety of ways.  The one that makes the most sense to me would show us four aspects of the person of Christ.  The lion could represent Judah, kingship, Messiah.  The ox could represent humble servanthood.  The man could represent humanity as Christ took on true human form to save us.  The flying eagle could represent deity. 

(at this point, let me say that there are several other good options available to you here, so let’s not get dogmatic.  One example is people saying that the lion is for wild beasts, the ox is for tame beasts, the man for humanity, and the eagle for flying creatures—all four categories over which God reigns as supreme.)

            What is also fascinating, if you go with my look at the four beasts, is that we see those four purposes paralleled in the four gospels.  Looking at Matthew, we see the genealogy of Jesus arguing for his kingship or his being Messiah—the lion.  Looking at Mark, there is no genealogy which may indicate the humble servanthood of Christ who laid down his rights to rescue God’s children—the ox.  Looking at Luke, we see the genealogy of Jesus taking us all the way back to Adam, establishing Jesus’ humanity—the man.  John’s gospel has no genealogy, but begins with and regularly asserts the deity of Jesus—the eagle. 

            Could it be that those four creatures around the throne of God have faces that are eternally reminding us of the person and work of Jesus Christ?  He is the Messiah, the humble servant, the God who became man, and the man who is still God.  Maybe so.  And if this is the job of those creatures, even their only job, what a glorious role they have.  Forever, they fly near the throne of God, show the universe the person and work of Christ, and declare God to be triply holy and worthy of all praise.  If this is the purpose of these creatures, they fulfill their roles well, and they must be overjoyed to eternally see and savor the glory of the Lord.

            So, taking my little foray into symbolism to another level, how about you?  What kind of face would be on you as a sign of who God is?   If people were to look at your life, would they see a creature that shows them some of God’s love, his grace, his compassion, his purity, his kindness, his mercy, etc?  What do you show the world about your Creator?  It is certain that God has made you in his image.  You are to be a mirror of his glory.  You will be most happy, most fulfilled, when you are busily showing the universe around you the awesome beauty of our God.

Luke 5:8 – But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

            In Luke 5, we see a glorious miracle of Jesus, and we see a proper human response from Peter.  What has my attention is that Peter’s response is so very different than the response of most people today.

            When Peter saw the power of the Lord Jesus, he bowed before Christ and said what we see above, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”  Peter saw the power of Jesus, and he recognized that he was in the presence of the Holy God.  Peter was terrified.

            Think about the conversations that you have with those who do not know God.  If you talk about God, many of them assume that they are standing pretty well before the Lord.  They assume that God is just so darn nice that he would not ever be upset with them for who they are or what they do.  The one thing that you never hear in these conversations is fear that being in the presence of the Almighty might lead to their doom.

            Now, think about the conversations that you have with Christians.  You know what is missing?  The same fear that Peter had before Jesus is missing.  Yes, as children of God, we have been forgiven and have been made clean in Christ.  Yet, is it not appropriate for us to also recognize that we are forgiven sinners, not forgiven good people.  We deserved God’s wrath.  We are allowed to enter the presence of God in Christ with freedom and confidence (Eph 3:12), but we also must come into God’s presence with right reverence and gratitude for being welcomed as unworthy but graciously forgiven sinners.

            People are not saved by God’s grace without first grasping that they were worthy of and in danger of God’s wrath.  It is this holy fear that drives us to our knees, crying out to God for mercy.  Once we are saved, however, let us not forget.  Let us remember that God is holy and we, by nature, are not.  Yes, we have been made holy in Christ, but we still have done nothing and will never do anything that would make us earn God’s favor.  We are sinful.  Christ is holy.  Let us love his grace as we remember his greatness and our need.