Tag: Providence Reformed Church

All Things?

pastortravislv

When reading about God, we need to be careful not to miss the way that the Lord has allowed himself to be described. After all, inspired, inerrant, holy Scripture tells us the exact truth of who God is and what he is like. And, if we are not careful, we will let ourselves skip past the descriptions of God in one part of a sentence in order to get to the verb. We like to read about the actions of God. But we must not miss his attributes.

Note how God is described here. Ask yourself if you are willing to believe what God says about himself. Because, if you believe it, you accept a serious doctrine.

Ephesians 1:11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,

God is here called “him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Believing this requires the acceptance of the sovereignty of God in a significant way. God works all things according to the counsel of his will—all things, God’s will.

Of course, this is not a new thing in Scripture. We can look other places to see a similar truth claim (cf. Psa. 115:3; Rom. 8:28). But, ask yourself, “What changes in my worldview if I accept the fact that God works all things according to his will?”

Before you let yourself become discouraged, this is not to say that God enjoys evil. Nor does it mean that God is declaring all things to be good things. But, if we grasp that God is purposeful and not random, and Scripture is clear that God is not and has never been random, then we can trust that God has purpose even for our greatest pains and the darkest evils of history. It is a logically flawed view that declares that if God is all good and all powerful, he must eliminate all evil. In truth, the God who is all good, all powerful, and all wise has the ability to have a purpose for all things, good and evil, that is beyond our limited ability to comprehend. And that same God can use all things without himself being tainted by the evil of the actions of mankind.

What the truth that God works all things according to the counsel of his will does declare is that no event on earth, no event in the universe, no great good, no terrible hardship, nothing happens apart from the ultimate and sovereign will of God. Every cubic inch of the universe is under God’s power. Nothing is beyond God’s control. Nothing, absolutely nothing, thwarts God’s will. Life and death, kingdoms rising and falling, harvests and disasters, salvation and damnation, all things work in accord with the ultimate will of God to his ultimate glory. Yes, these include things in which God takes no pleasure. But they never include things that God is powerless to change. God is he who works all things according to the counsel of his will. And such a God is the one we are far better to serve than to think we could ever oppose.

Striking a Scoffer

pastortravislv

I want to share with you a place where I find myself corrected by the word of God in my read through the Proverbs. This one is interesting, because it is nuanced. It all involves how we speak and write.

One of the things that I try to do in my communication is to write and speak with gentleness and kindness. I find myself uncomfortable with some of the things I read on blogs or social media threads that appear to me to be harsh or aggressive. And, for the most part, my view there is not changed. But something I read in Proverbs has caused me to stop and be sure that my own way of thinking is informed by the word of God.

Proverbs 19:25

Strike a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence;
reprove a man of understanding, and he will gain knowledge.

The point of this parallelism in Proverbs is to compare the scoffer and the prudent. Wise men learn from reproof. Men of understanding will get it when you make a clear, respectful, fair, gentle argument. But the scoffer, that person requires something else.

What is a scoffer? The scoffer is the person who mocks the things of God. This person is not at all interested in really understanding the claims of the word of God. Nor is this person interested in fair and civil discussion. This is the Internet troll. This is the ill-intentioned person who only looks for ways to make fun of truth and who utterly refuses to be civil toward a righteous argument. It is the person that Psalm 1 declares that the blessed man will not sit with.

While the thrust of the proverb here is to say that you want to be a man of understanding, learning from simple reproof, the opposite is also true. The scoffer may learn from being struck. No, I’m not at all promoting violence here. But what I am recognizing is that, in some cases, the gentle and reasoned response that I most prefer may not make a dent. Instead, there is a place for a sharper, verbally rougher argument.

No, I still do not want to ever become an Internet troll. Nor do I think that we gain much ground in most cases by writing or speaking harshly. But there is a place when we realize that we are dealing, not with an honest interlocuter, but with a scoffer. In that instance, to make an impact, with humility toward the Lord, we need to write or speak with an edge.

The reason that I think this is nuanced is that, for the most part, I believe that people who write with an edge do so far too often. Many enjoy how pointed their own wit is. Many like to crush opponents. Many come off as purely mean-spirited. Many are not able to speak the truth in love. We do not want to be like that. But we must not be so weak that we cannot breathe fire when the situation demands it. For the good of the scoffer, for the good of others watching the conversation, and for the glory of God, we sometimes must hit hard with truth.

Why Some Rage Against the Lord

pastortravislv

One thing to love about the book of Proverbs is that it contains nuggets of wisdom that show up from time-to-time. Even though I’ve read this book many, many times in the past, there often seems to be something I have not seen before. Here is one.

Proverbs 19:3

When a man’s folly brings his way to ruin,
his heart rages against the Lord.

Nothing about that verse, in times past, has stood out to me. Perhaps it was not as pithy to me as other proverbs. Perhaps it is the fact that this verse is not an antithetical parallel—those often catch my attention for some reason. But this verse contains a simple truth that we need to have in mind.

The first line gives us a circumstance. A man’s folly has brought his way to ruin. It is significant that we understand that the man in this proverb has done something through his own foolishness to hurt himself. His life choices and his refusal to follow the ways of the Lord have brought him to brokenness.

What happens when this takes place? There are really two options. There are those, blessed of the Lord, who recognize it when they have ruined their own lives. If the Spirit of God is at work on the heart of such a person, their ruination can be the point that drives them to their knees in surrender to the Lord. Such a person, by the work of the Spirit, sees their sin, sees its consequences, sees their inability to run their own life, and repents. This, of course, is a good thing leading to salvation.

But there is another person out there. This is the person who is not given by God the gift of repentant faith. Instead, this person is allowed by God to be exactly what they want to be. And such a person, when his choices lead to his downfall, doubles down on his godlessness. Instead of recognizing that it was his own folly that hurt him, such a person rages against the Lord. HE will become aggressive against God and the things of God because he has not gotten from life what he wanted. He believes that God has treated him wrongly.

Wisdom requires that we recognize that what the proverb here describes is a real thing. And we should learn from it. We should learn that it is foolish to rage against God. It is especially foolish and dangerous to rage against God when the suffering we are facing is the result of our own refusal to obey the commands of God. While God does not promise us lives full of health, wealth, and prosperity, his word and his ways are good. Following his law does not lead us to self-destruction. Obedience to the Lord might lead us to persecution, but that will certainly not be a life ruined by our own folly.

And, if you find yourself tempted to rage against God, it would be wise to examine yourself honestly. It is possible that you are facing hard circumstances that have nothing to do with your own failure. We live in a fallen world, full of sin, full of sickness, full of people who would harm us. That is true. And we do often suffer because of things that have nothing to do with us. But, if we are honest, we also know that we often suffer because of choices we have made, self-destructive choices that lead to our sorrow. In all of those instances, raging against the Lord will not help. But coming to him in repentance and faith seeking grace, that leads to life.

When God’s Word is not Your Authority

pastortravislv

I was having a conversation with someone recently about Christianity, and I found it sad to continually need to speak to the difference between a biblical Christianity as opposed to so much else that is out there. That led me to think about how sad it is that so many organizations and groups put on the word Christian as a title even when they clearly oppose the fundamentals of the faith.

Then I read through a few chapters in Judges, and I saw a thread that helps me understand how in the world this has happened in the modern world.

In Judges 17-18, we read a very dark, very ugly story. A man named Micah steals money from his mom. When he gives it back, his mom blesses him. That actually makes some sense. Mom is proud of her boy being honest. But look what she tells him to do with the money.

Judges 17:3 – And he restored the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother. And his mother said, “I dedicate the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son, to make a carved image and a metal image. Now therefore I will restore it to you.”

Wait a minute. She said that she dedicated the silver to the Lord. Thus, she is saying that what she is doing is something she fully expects the God of the Bible to be pleased with. But in her next breath, she says that the silver should be used for the fashioning of a carved image. She would call her religion faithful. But she is violating two clear commands of God.

Exodus 20:4-6 – 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

God is absolutely, abundantly, crystal clear. He forbids those who would worship him doing so through the fashioning of images. This woman has commanded her son, as an act of worship, worship she believes is of the Lord, to do what God says never ever do.

Exodus 20:7 – You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

Because the woman uses the name of the Lord in her pronouncement, she is also violating this, the third commandment. She shows us a perfect example of what it means to take the Lord’s name in vain. She is using the name of God in a way that is false. She is calling something of God that is exactly opposite. She is using the name of God in an empty and meaningless way.

The story gets worse. Micah finds a Levite wandering around the countryside, not staying put and serving the Lord as he should have done. The Levite is not holding fast to the word of God or teaching others the law as he should have done. And Micah invites the Levite to serve him as a priest. The Levite is happy to help. And now he has joined Micah in his idolatry.

Judges 17:13 – Then Micah said, “Now I know that the Lord will prosper me, because I have a Levite as priest.”

Micah thinks that his sin will lead to his prosperity. Why? He thinks that having a Levite as priest is enough to guarantee him God’s blessing. He has no worry about the commands of God.

In chapter 18, men from the tribe of Dan have failed to settle in their allotted land. They want to take a spot for themselves, and they send out an armed force. ON the way, scouts discover Micah’s house and the idols therein.

Judges 18:14 – Then the five men who had gone to scout out the country of Laish said to their brothers, “Do you know that in these houses there are an ephod, household gods, a carved image, and a metal image? Now therefore consider what you will do.”

What should be the response of the men to this? They should go in with their swords drawn to destroy those idols and to execute those who are polluting the land of Israel with their violations of the word of God (cf. Deut. 13:1-18). But what do they do instead? They go in, take the idols and the Levite with them, and set him up as their own priest to those idols in their new tribal home.

Then, as the story closes, we get a revelation that ought to knock us over.

Judges 18:30 – And the people of Dan set up the carved image for themselves, and Jonathan the son of Gershom, son of Moses, and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land.

Woah. The Levite who played priest for the Danites, the one who helped Micah and his household worship idols, the one who was wandering the countryside instead of serving the Lord and teaching his word, he was a grandson of Moses. It is possible that he was a great or multiple great grandson, as we do not always record every single generation in a verse like this one. But, either way, this man was a direct descendant from Moses, the Moses, Ten Commands and parting the Red Sea and delivering the law of God Moses. Yet this man pretended that his worshipping of idols was somehow pleasing to God.

And again, to tie this all together, I ask, “What happened?” Why did this happen in the Old Testament? And I add to that question this one: Why do things like this happen in the church today? Why are people who claim to be Christians so easily able to promote things that are in direct violation of the word of God?

The answer is in the sinfulness of the human heart. But the answer is also in the book of Judges.

Judges 17:6 – In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

The problem is that everyone was doing what was right in his own eyes. The problem is that nobody was standing up and holding to the authority of the written word of God. No king was in the land to tell the people that they are to submit to the law of God. And so, corruption crept in.

And the very same is the problem in the broad swath of people in our land who use the word Christian as a label. If they are not holding to the word of God as the ultimate and final authority for all things related to faith and practice, for all doctrine, for all our lives, they will be just like the people who are doing what is right in their own eyes. That leads to foolish ideas. It leads to people who would bow to a statue and call it worshipping God. It leads to people who would violate the command of God and, with a straight face, declare that violation of the law of God to be the thing that pleases God.

What is your authority for what you believe and how you live? Is it Scripture? Or is your authority your own opinions? Is your authority the word of God or some teacher or collection of teachers? If you wish to be genuinely Christian, you must find your authority in the word of God rightly and clearly interpreted and applied.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 – 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Why So Weird?

pastortravislv

I had a conversation recently that brought up the question of why some believers are so very weird. I’m not talking here about why believers are weird to the world. The lost world will never understand why we follow the ways of the Lord regarding all sorts of issues related to worship and even basic morality. But that does not answer why some believers can get so very strange, slipping way out into left field in their doctrine and practice.

Proverbs 18:1-2

1 Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire;
he breaks out against all sound judgment.
2 A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,
but only in expressing his opinion.

These two verses at the beginning of Proverbs 18 do a great job of showing us what is a danger that some believers face. Isolation is deadly. Cloistering together with only a few believers can often produce an echo chamber leading to very dangerous thinking. Believers need other Bible-believing believers to help them to examine their thoughts and their doctrine to be sure that nobody is driving the car off a cliff.

Of course I do not assume that there is no danger in following the crowd. In America, the modern church produces a whole lot of bad doctrine and bad thinking. I’m surely not suggesting that believers need to be influenced by prosperity preachers or megachurch strategies. We need to be sure that our influence is genuinely biblical.

What I am saying, however, is that we need to be careful that we are in contact with other believers who love the word and who have the right and the ability to challenge our thinking when we suddenly develop a “new” way to understand something. If the only voice you hear is your own when you propose a new way to keep the Sabbath, to think about roles in marriage, to discuss the standards for baptism, or something similar, you are likely to walk into some strange territory. We need to hear the voices of believers from the past who helped develop solid confessions of the faith. We also need to hear the voices of trustworthy believers in the present, especially if they see us wandering off into weirdness for weirdness’ sake. And even our local churches need interaction with other local churches to make sure that we, as a group, have not gone somewhere novel.

This is true in big doctrines, and it is true in day-to-day living. Isolation is deadly for the believer. God designed us to be united together in a community, a family, a body called the local church. You need to be thinking and praying and living alongside other believers. You need to see people who hurt in different ways than you do so that you can learn compassion. You need to be around people who are smarter than you, or who are smart in a different way from you, so that you can learn from their experience and study. You need to hear solid arguments and not merely your own voice.

Why Blessing?

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Bless me. Bless him. Bless them. Our prayers are full of cries to the Lord for his blessings. WE ask God to bless food, medical care, or tired moms. We ask for God to bless our churches, our outreach, and our services.

But here is a question: Why? What reason do we give to the Lord for why we want to be blessed? Is our desire simply that things will be easy for us? If so, that is something we should recognize. Is our desire that God bless us for another outcome? If so, we should realize that too.

This morning, I was reading through Psalm 67. It’s short, so I’ll just include it here. What got my attention is the reason that the psalmist asks for blessing. He has a very clear reason, repeatedly mentioned in the psalm, for why he wants God to do his people good.

Psalm 67

1 May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us, Selah
2 that your way may be known on earth,
your saving power among all nations.
3 Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!
4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you judge the peoples with equity
and guide the nations upon earth. Selah
5 Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!
6 The earth has yielded its increase;
God, our God, shall bless us.
7 God shall bless us;
let all the ends of the earth fear him!

The psalm opens with a cry for blessing in verse 1 and follows immediately with the reason, “that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.” With the word “that,” hear the reason. It is a so that or an in order that sort of concept. Bless us. Why? So that your way and saving power may be known all over the world.

In verses 3-4, we see that an apparent result of the nations knowing of the glory and way of God is that the peoples will praise God and the nations will be glad.

Then, in verse 7, we see something similar, just without the explanatory term. The psalmist concludes, “God shall bless us; let all the ends of the earth fear him!” So, on the one hand, we again see the blessing of God on the people of God. What is the result? On the other side, the result is that the nations will fear, rightly reverence and honor, the Lord.

So, why ask for God to bless you. Be careful here. It might seem that the answer is simply that we are going to want God’s blessing for evangelism. And that is almost right, though it is incomplete. The psalmist is not saying that he wants God to bless the people of God with earthly ease so that others will see that ease, want that ease, and then come to God to get that ease. That type of thinking is the mistake behind a great deal of church outreach in the 21st century. Many churches put forth the blessings of God as the carrot to try to draw people into the church.

What I think is missing in the idea of asking for blessing so that people will be drawn to the blessing is that this can quickly become about the benefits given by God more than about God himself. If you pay attention to the psalmist’s reasoning, he is asking for God’s blessing so that God’s ways, the fear of him, the glory of God might spread. The psalmist is asking for the people of God to be blessed by God so that the world around might see and understand the glory, the goodness, and even the justice of God. The idea is that, when people see God and his glory on display, God will draw to himself a people, thus making the nations glad in him.

Now, go back and ask why we ask for blessing. I’m not at all saying that it is wrong for us to pray for God to bless our families with health and even ease. I am not opposed to praying that God bless a doctor with wisdom to care for a patient. The point that I am making is that, when we think most biblically, our request for blessing is going to be motivated by the glory of God. We want God to bless so that in that blessing, he might display his attributes both to us and to a watching world. We want the glory of God to shine over all the nations. We rejoice as we experience that glory. Our souls are filled and satisfied when we know the majesty of God. And so we pray for blessing in order that the main goal of the magnification of the glory of God be accomplished. Results of that glory include our joy and the spread of the gospel to the nations.

Jesus Fulfills the Law and the Prophets

pastortravislv

When Jesus walked up the mountain with Peter, John, and James in Matthew 17, something glorious and supernatural occurred. Jesus displayed for the disciples to see his divine, kingly glory. Jesus was transfigured, shining bright with holiness. And, in an interesting piece to the story, Moses and Elijah appear and talk with the Savior.

Matthew 17:3 – And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.

When you think about this scene, keep this fact in your mind. In Jesus’ day, the Old Testament of the Bible was often referred to as the law and the prophets. The law was even sometimes simply called Moses, since Moses wrote the books of the law, the first five books of the Bible.

Suddenly, with Jesus, the disciples see two other figures. Moses and Elijah arrive on the scene. This is truly an amazing and holy moment. Moses, the Old Testament figure most connected with God’s law and Elijah, the Old Testament figure most connected with the prophets, are both standing with the Son of god and having a conversation.

How fitting is this? Jesus came to earth and would perfectly fulfill the law of God. Jesus came to earth and perfectly fulfills the prophecies of the coming of the Christ. All of Scripture points to Jesus. All the law and the prophets are perfectly completed in the person and work of the Son of god. And here God shows us that a reason to love Jesus is that he is the one to whom all Scripture points. He is superior to Moses. He is superior to the prophets. Jesus is God in flesh.

The Unpardonable Sin: Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit

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Matthew 12:31-32 – 31 Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

In this passage, Jesus gives the most dire warning we have ever heard him give. Simply put, the Savior lets us know that a person can come to a point where the forgiveness of God is no longer available to him or her. A person can push so hard against Jesus and toward their sin that they leave themselves eternally destined for hell just like the devil.

These two verses have been discussed for centuries, and many people find them very confusing. Jesus presents to us here the possibility of committing an unpardonable sin. We must be aware of the significance here and be sure to be under the grace of God.

So, what is this sin? Jesus says that some people will utter things against him that can eventually be forgiven. But some can blaspheme the Spirit of God in such a way that, no matter What, they will never be forgiven. But how does this work? Since Jesus and the Holy Spirit are persons of the holy Trinity, how can blasphemy against one not be the same as the other? It gets a little complicated.

Here is an important rule of understanding the Bible. When a passage of Scripture is unclear, you must allow the clearer portions of Scripture to help you interpret it. Since the Bible is inspired by God and without error, the clearer passages will shed light on those which seem dim to our understanding.

The Bible is clear that any person who repents of his sin and entrusts his soul to Jesus will be saved. The Bible is also clear that no person is saved who refuses to trust in Jesus for that salvation. This is clear in all of the teaching of the New Testament, and it must be the light by which we understand the confusing concept of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as the unforgiveable sin.

What, then, is Jesus pointing at here? He is obviously aiming at what the Pharisees about whom he is speaking are doing, or are at least in danger of doing. They have seen Jesus perform miracles, acts of God’s grace and kindness. However, instead of praising Jesus for those miracles and coming to him in faith, the Pharisees are saying that Jesus and his works are from the devil. They are looking at the Son of God, the ultimate good, and they are calling him Satan, the ultimate evil. This is the blasphemy that is unforgiveable, to determine that God is ultimately evil and not good, and so therefore to oppose him.

But, this still leaves the question of how Jesus can say that words against him can be forgiven but blaspheming the Spirit cannot. The best resolution to that difficulty I can pose has to do with the difference between those who are misunderstanding Jesus in his earthly ministry and those who are actually seeing it and calling the work of God the work of the devil. Jesus is truly God and truly man. During Jesus’ ministry, here where Matthew is writing, people are only gradually beginning to see who Jesus is as the man Jesus travels around and preaches the gospel. To speak out against him could be forgiven. How? Forgiveness comes to all who repent of their sin and trust in Jesus for mercy. But, for the one who ultimately and finally decides that God himself is evil and that Jesus, God the Son, is evil and that the Spirit of God by whom Jesus did his miracles is evil, there is no other hope of salvation.

Also understand that this blasphemy is not a simple blasphemy. It is not a single speaking of evil but an unrepentant and unchanging set of one’s self against the Spirit of God in the person of Christ. After all, Peter denied ever knowing Jesus. Paul used to persecute Christians, believing that following Jesus was evil. But both men were forgiven when they repented and believed. But to blaspheme the Spirit is to place yourself in a determined position of declaring God to be evil and not good. It is to have a heart so hardened by sin as to stand in opposition to God until death.

I have heard people ask if they have committed the unforgiveable sin. I have known some people to be very worried about this because of the way that they have spoken out against the Lord in the past. But I will say this to you with confidence: If you are afraid that you have committed this sin, you have not done so. No person who has gone so far as to place themselves under the eternal wrath of God is going to care about whether or not God might forgive them. They will shake their fist at God until they die and enter into eternity under his wrath. But no person who desires God and who desires to be forgiven in Christ will have committed this sin.

At the end of the day, Jesus is speaking to us to show us that to oppose him is tremendously dangerous. Do not set yourself against God. See the danger, turn to Jesus, and find life in his grace.

Simplicity in the Gospel

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Matthew 11:25-26 – 25 At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

Just after telling people that they are in deep trouble with God for not responding to the revelation of God they have been given, Jesus speaks aloud a prayer to his Father, a prayer of gratitude. He is thankful for the fact that God, the Lord over all, has done two things.

First, God has hidden the truth of the gospel from the smartest of the smart. Second, God has made the gospel available to people with childlike minds. And the Savior tells us that this glorifies God.

Jesus thanks the Father that he has hidden the truths of the gospel from the wise and understanding. Something about the ones that the world thinks are the best and brightest goes against the gospel message. The Christian faith is not for the super-smart, self-sufficient scholarly types. For God’s own reasons, those who are most praised for their brains in this world are the least likely to be the ones who come to faith.

1 Corinthians 1:18-21 – 18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

Similarly, we know that the most successful, the rich and the famous, have always been among the slowest to believe.

Matthew 19:23-26 – 23 And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” 25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” 26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Why is all this so? Is it because there is something inherently wrong with Christianity so that it only draws the uneducated, the foolish, the outcast? No, the faith is not dumb. But the wisdom that the world celebrates and the success that the world seeks after is going in an opposite direction of the truth of God. It is when we think we are smartest that we are making our gravest mistakes. It is when we think we are strongest that we are in most danger of falling.

Instead of making the gospel only for the extra bright and super successful, God has given the gospel to little children. God has made the plan of salvation gloriously uncomplicated. You do not need a PhD to grasp it. You do not need some sort of special secret knowledge to believe it. You do not need to be of the wealthy, ruling class to get into the kingdom of God. No, God has sent salvation to the simple, because this is the most glorifying thing he could have done.

Let us be a people who thank God and praise him for his choice. He glorifies himself in a sweet, kind way. He does not focus his grace only on the strong and powerful. He focuses his grace on weak ones like me. Only a God secure in his own glory and power and position could do such a thing. And we should be truly grateful.

God With Us

pastortravislv

It is interesting to see how Matthew’s gospel opens as it closes. There are so many things that parallel between the birth of Christ and his death and resurrection. God’s fingerprints are all over this story in a way that I doubt very seriously a common tax collector had the art to put together on his own.

For example, angels show up both at the time of Jesus’ birth (chapter 1) and again just after his resurrection (chapter 28). Just after Jesus’ birth, a wicked king schemes to kill him (chapter 2). Of course, in chapter 27, Jesus is put to death by command of a Roman official. At the garden of Gethsemane, the disciples run just before his death (chapter 26). Just before Jesus’ public ministry, he calls the disciples to himself (chapter 4). The devil tries to tempt Jesus with “If you are the Son of God” (chapter 4) while the crowds at the cross do the same thing (chapter 27).

It is as if God is showing us that Jesus’ story is a glorious and complete accounting of the life of the Son of God. Putting those bookends, those parallels in the first and last chapters show us that God has been carrying out a clear plan all along.

The one that caught my attention today was in one of the clearest parallels that we can find in chapters 1 and 28.

Matthew 1 :20-23 – 20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(which means, God with us).

Matthew 28:20b – And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Jesus will be called Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus said he will be with us to the very end of the age. We see promise and fulfillment. We see prediction and completion. We see the Lord Jesus take upon himself the mantle that was promised by an angel and which we must have as truth if we are to live in this world.

Jesus is God with us. Because he lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death, and rose from the grave in victory, he can be with us. We have hope and life because of the presence of Jesus. We can face the world because of the presence of Jesus. We can obey the commands of God because of the presence of Jesus. We can seek forgiveness for our sins and restoration to fellowship with God because of the presence and the intercession of Jesus.

Let those beautiful bookends give you courage today. God is showing you that part of his purpose in the Gospel According to Matthew is to let you know that Jesus is God and that he lives present with his people forever. We are not alone if we are in Christ. We are not defeated, regardless of what this world throws at us. We have hope for eternity because of the actual presence of the Savior right now.