Tempting Hypocrisy

Jesus leveled some of his most severe criticism against hypocrites. The Pharisees, who presented themselves as guardians of the law of God, had actually supplanted the law by layering on top of it their own interpretation, which, though at times incredibly rigorous, resulted in the real law being obscured. Ironically, their scrupulosity allowed them to neglect the demands of the actual law, which is to love God with all of one’s being and the neighbor as oneself. It’s much easier to spend time assiduously setting aside tithes of all of one’s herbs than to take seriously the divine command to love. In truth, their purported piety was nothing more than hypocrisy. 

Hypocrisy was not just a problem for the Pharisees. It also threatened Jesus’ disciples. He told them to “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (Luke 21:1). This suggests that hypocrisy can stealthily permeate a people as leaven permeates dough. Jesus understood how tempting it is to settle into hypocrisy. The pride, self-righteousness, feeling of superiority, and freedom to judge others crouches at the door as sin did for Cain. But the community of Jesus was not to let it in. They were to diligently pursue true righteousness, righteousness defined by the true law of God.

The church needs to remain aware of the threat of hypocrisy. As people who have been given a high moral standard by which to live, it is tempting to put on a good show rather than trying to actually fulfill the moral demands (it's interesting to note that the origin of the word hypocrisy comes from the ancient Greek theater; it's the term used for an actor, one who plays a part). Is this because the church is not a safe environment in which people can mess up? It might be - but it shouldn’t be. The church should be the one place in which people recognize that believers are learning what it means to put off the old self and put on the new (Ephesians 4:22-24). We should encourage authenticity and honesty about our struggle with sin. And in relation to our neighbors, we should not preach moral demands at them that we are not willing to pursue ourselves. There is nothing more embarrassing to Christians, or more dishonoring to Christ, than to have someone publicly inveighing against immorality who is then discovered to have been doing the very things he has condemned. The damage to the reputation of the church can feel irreparable.

So how can we guard against hypocrisy? We make a commitment to honesty, humility, repentance when convicted, and thankfulness when pardoned. We covenant with one another to live with these commitments so that we do not become a people in which hypocrisy, leaven-like, corrupts the community. With God’s help, we can be who we are supposed to be.

An Unfriendly Gospel

When one thinks of John the Baptist, one envisions this wild-eyed man with unkempt hair, dressed in animal skins and carrying a staff. His preaching is fiery, maybe even angry sounding — like some street corner preacher come to save the world, starting in Times Square. He may have been a number of those things, but what seems incongruous to modern sensibilities is that he was one who came preaching “good news” (Luke 3:18). John the Baptist was first and foremost a gospel preacher.

But his message and method are so unfriendly. He calls people names. He demands that they live ethical lives lest they face the wrath of God. And his description of the one who would follow him, the one for whom he is preparing the way, is not in the least appealing. That one comes prepared to consign people to eternal torment, like chaff burning with “unquenchable fire” if they do not repent of their sins. That’s gospel preaching? Where’s the love?

It’s Luke’s description of John as one who came “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” that helps us understand why his message was good news. He was laboring to “prepare a people” for the Lord. He warned of the one who was coming with a “winnowing fork is in his hand,” who would baptize either with the Holy Spirit or with fire (the Holy Spirit for those who heeded the call, and fire for those who did not), and people in need of righteousness could be prepared for that day by having their sins forgiven. Letting those under the wrath of God know that God has provided salvation is, indeed, good news. To suggest that they need not fear God’s wrath, or that the way of escaping judgment is though a heroic effort of self-improvement, is to substitute a false gospel for the true. It would be the most unloving message that one could ever utter.

John the Baptist’s method might not be suitable for every situation, but the substance of his message is. No one escapes the Day of Judgment. And what needs to be known about that day is summed up in the words, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). But the one whom John heralded was the one whose shed blood atoned for sin so that all who are his can say “there is . . . now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). That is the gospel. That is good news.

Pentecostal Preaching, Part 2

Peter stepped into the God-given moment. Through faith in Christ, he and John had healed a lame man who came daily to the temple to beg for alms. The incident caused a great stir and Peter preached to the gathered crowd. While the circumstance of the sermon was different than the first he had preached, the content reflected the same commitments: it was biblically driven, had Christ as its subject, was courageous in its pronouncements, and called for the people listening to be intellectually honest (see previous post). It was solid pentecostal preaching. There is an additional component to pentecostal preaching, however, that shows up in these seminal sermons: the call for repentance.

What is repentance? In the words of one commentator, it’s a “spiritual about face.” This definition is helpful. Peter is bold to point out to his listeners that they had conspired and “denied the Holy and Righteous One . . . and killed the Author of life.” The first thing, therefore, that the crowd needed to repent of was their antipathy toward Jesus. No longer could they regard him as they had. The categories they had placed Jesus in that allowed them to dismiss him as a charlatan had to be renounced. His divine messiahship had been vindicated in the phenomena that were taking place and a “spiritual about face” was called for.

So, added to the characteristics of what constitutes pentecostal preaching is the call for repentance. But it’s important to note the order of repentance that Peter summons. The first thing that anyone needs to do is abandon their condemning conceptions of Christ. This is primary, for it’s only when a person in is union with the “Author of life” that calls for moral reformation make any sense. To repent of moral failures but not be brought into fellowship with Christ accomplishes no eternal good. A cleaned up pagan is in no better position before God than a thoroughly debauched one. What unbelievers need to do is “repent and be baptized . . . in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of [their] sins.” 

Though it might seem self-evident, Christ needs to be kept front and center as we bear witness to him. It’s Jesus that people need to know. Once that is settled, calls to live in a manner that is pleasing to God can follow.

Converting Potential Energy to Kinetic Energy

Potential energy and kinetic energy. The difference between the two is evident in the terms used. Potential means energy that is ready to be used but is yet to be released (think a drawn bow string, taught, ready to send the arrow into the air). Kinetic describes energy that is on the move (think a released bow string that has sent the arrow flying).

This image, borrowed from physics, is helpful for understanding the work of the church in making the gospel known. Paul describes the gospel as “the power of God for salvation” (Romans 1:16). He understands the potential of the gospel to radically redefine and redirect the life of a fallen human being, and has dedicated himself to the task of converting it, through proclamation, into “kinetic energy,” as people hear and believe the good news. The results can be exciting, as when those in Thessalonica “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,” and were persuaded to “wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers . . . from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10).

Each Christian has had potential gospel energy converted into kinetic gospel energy through having, by the grace of God, ears that heard when the message was preached. Subsequently, each Christian becomes a new repository of potential energy just waiting to be released. By prayer and study, motivated by love and undertaken with humility, we draw the bow string back, making it ready to be released by the Holy Spirit, sending along the good news to neighbors, co-workers, friends, and relatives.

Let’s rededicate ourselves to the task of converting potential gospel energy into kinetic gospel energy by praying for the Holy Spirit to awaken us to opportunities to let go the bow string. The energy is there, it just needs to be released!

Rational Miracles

Miracles, by definition, are phenomena, welcome phenomena, which stand outside the bounds of what is expected, normal, or natural. They don’t have a scientific explanation and so are attributed to divine intervention. For the materialist, therefore, a miracle is an impossibility, and to believe that they occur is irrational. No matter how extraordinary a phenomenon, it must have a rational, scientific explanation.

Given their presuppositions, I don’t know how materialists would have explained the healing of the man who sat day by day at the Beautiful Gate (Acts 3). Everyone familiar with the Beautiful Gate knew him to be one who had been lame from birth, who was brought to the location so that he could beg for alms. When it came to pass, therefore, that he was suddenly able to stand and leap about they couldn’t deny that it was he or that he was now completely healed. But what brought this about? Why was he suddenly able to walk? The explanation given by Peter wouldn’t have satisfied the materialist. It wasn’t scientific. It wasn’t rational.

Well, actually, that’s not completely true. The healing might not have been scientific, but it was totally rational, for it was done in the name of Jesus.

Prompted by the healing, Peter offers the incredulous onlookers a string of titles and adjectives for Jesus, when put together, provide a perfectly rational explanation as to why the man was healed “by faith in his name.” Jesus, the one those listening had “delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate,” was the “Holy and Righteous One” who had been glorified (ascended and now seated at the right hand of God, as attested to by the outpouring of he Holy Spirit) by the “God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers,” who was raised from the dead and shown to be the “Author of life.” He was the “servant” of God, the “Christ” who “suffered” as “foretold by the mouth of all the prophets,” who himself was the one of whom “Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.’” He was the object of “all the prophets [had] spoken” about the age to come in which the covenant that God made with Abraham that “’in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed,’” would be realized. Given the reality of who Jesus is, it makes perfect sense that Peter and John, ministering in the power of Jesus could heal the man in the name of Jesus.

The hope is that the materialist (or anyone else for that matter) would reason backwards from the miracle and come to the conclusion that “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). For some who listened to Peter that was the case. And for those in any age who hear the testimony for themselves, and are willing to weigh the evidence, a perfectly rational response will be to repent and believe.

The Big Issue

When the followers of Jesus began to speak “as the Spirit gave them utterance” in languages not their own, those who heard them were perplexed. Jesus' disciples were mostly made up of Galileans, a people not known for their erudition. Yet, here they were telling “the mighty works of God” in the tongues of others. A strange occurrence.

The New Testament is full of strange occurrences. People are raised from the dead. Incurable diseases suddenly vanish. Demons manifest. Angels appear. Voices come out from clouds. Who is at the center of all these strange goings on? Jesus, who himself walks on water, causes violent storms to obey his voice, and feeds multitudes with the first century equivalent of a “happy meal.”

All of these phenomena attest to the reality of who Jesus was – God in the flesh. And what was taking place on Pentecost only confirmed this truth. Jesus had promised that he would send the Holy Spirit when he returned to the right hand of his Father. With the Spirit’s arrival, the logical conclusion was that he was where he said he would be. This has ultimate significance.

The founding pastor of Neighborhood Church, Roger Fulton, was fond of saying, “Jesus is the big issue.” What was he implying? Jesus cannot be ignored. The record of his existence is present in the Bible and it calls for a decision. Is he a charlatan, a failed revolutionary, a mystic, or perhaps just an ordinary man upon whom people have projected their own longings? Roger’s assertion is reflected in the response of some of those who witnessed the fruit of the Spirit’s blessing. They wondered, “What does this mean?” The right question! And one that reveals people with humble and teachable hearts. Peter’s answer cut such to the quick: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

As Roger intimates, this same question needs to be asked by all. Brushing away the biblical testimony with a dismissive equivalent to “they are filled with new wine” is inexcusable – and spiritually fatal. The teachable ones on Pentecost had their eyes opened to the truth of Jesus and their own folly. They pleaded, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter’s answer sufficed for them and will suffice for contemporary penitents: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

He is the big issue. What's your decision?

To Seek and to Save

Events that had been planned from eternity were about to unfold. Jesus, knowing that the “days drew near for him to be taken up,” had “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). That determination had brought him into proximity of the place that symbolized God’s presence among his people. Soon, despite the accolades that will accompany his entrance into Jerusalem, he will be rejected by the “righteous,” who should have been able to see him for who he was. They will remand him to be humiliated, tortured, and finally executed. Spiritual blindness was a persistent problem for Israel; now the malady would prove decisive. In a stroke of divine irony, however, a blind man will recognize him and an unrighteous man will welcome him.

Jesus proclamation that the “Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10), reveals that the heart of his mission was to wrest from men and women any sense that they have no need of him. Men like Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, and Zacchaeus, a despised tax collector in the employ of Rome, were persuaded of this need, and when they heard that their savior was passing by, they laid hold of him.

Jesus’ encounters with these two men serve as a fitting exclamation point to his ministry prior to Holy Week. He had proclaimed his purposes early on in his hometown of Nazareth (see Luke 4:18-21) and he had been faithful in demonstrating that, as proclaimed, he had come “to seek and to save the lost.” That explanation of his work within the context of these two final encounters, places his entire enterprise within an eternal frame. The confession of Bartimaeus and the contriteness of Zacchaeus reveal faith in Jesus that saves them not only from earthly bondage but from eternal judgment as well.

Just after these encounters and prior to his ascent to Jerusalem, motivated by the misapprehension of many as to what was about to take place, Jesus relates a parable that warns of the consequences of not grasping who he is. The message: understand now and live accordingly, for when I return it will be too late. We are in that time period right now. It extends from the moment of his ascension until his reappearing. Pray that, like Bartimaeus and Zacchaeus, you will have ears to hear when the good news about Jesus is made known to you. The faith that will be engendered will result in eyes that will see him as the savior of the world.

What's in a Name?

What’s in a name? Most names have a meaning. How about yours? My name, Kirk, means church. It’s pretty ironic that I ended up working in a church for the past 25 years. Sometimes destinies are bound up in names, at least that seems to be the case biblically. It's certainly so for the one whose birth we anticipate during the Advent season.

In Matthew’s account (1:18-23), we learn that the baby who is to be born to Mary is to be named Jesus, the meaning of which is “God saves.” The name will have particular significance for the child, as he will “save his people from their sins.”  But Matthew also sees in the birth of the child the fulfillment of a word given by God through the prophet Isaiah that the child born of a virgin is to be named Emmanuel, which means “God with us” (Isaiah 7:14).

What’s in a name? In this case, the identity of the perfectly suited mediator between a holy God and sinful human beings. We needed a thoroughly righteous man to accomplish what we could not do -- live a sinless life -- and so be our champion, who at the same time was powerful enough to bear the eternal wrath of God. Only the heavenly named redeemer would do.

God knew that we could not save ourselves. If we were going to be rescued he would have to do it. And wonder of wonders, our savior is a baby, sent from heaven to be for us Jesus, Emmanuel. Advent is intended to be a time when we reflect upon the circumstances that prompted the loving and gracious act of God sending his Son. May our hearts be humbled and filled with gratitude.

A Changed Man

Onesimus, a slave, had run away. When he fled he took something of value from his master's home: money? jewelry? He probably thought he had made a clean get away, traveling many, many miles to the city of Rome where he could live out his days, and his freedom, in anonymity. But things did not go as planned. He was now on his way back to his master to face the consequences of his flight and thievery. What's remarkable about his return is that he was going back not under guard, or in chains, but of his own volition. He was going back because he had come to a new understanding of his obligations to his master. How had this change come about? What made a man, who had decided it was best to flee his circumstances, now decide to face them? It was the presence of God's redemptive power in his life. While in Rome, he had met the apostle Paul, who shared with him the gospel of Jesus Christ. By the grace of God, Onesimus came to faith and he was a changed man, a new creation.

The brief story of Onesimus, which is the subject of Paul's letter to his friend Philemon, is a powerful example of what can happen when a person who comes to faith in Christ embraces the process of change that God intends to take place in the lives of his children. That process involves (at the very least) the renewing of the mind (so that we understand the will of God), the practice of repentance (when something we formerly thought acceptable is discovered to be outside of God's will), the participation in the life of the community of God's family (for mutual provocation and support in the process of change), and, most importantly, the resource of Jesus himself (who unites himself to us when we confess him as Lord; see Ephesians 4:17-24).

As the story of Onesimus illustrates, change is possible. We need not respond to the circumstances of life with the same default responses that exhibited themselves when we were governed by our old nature. With God's help, utilizing the means he has provided, we can put off the old self and put on the new and face the challenges of life with faith.

True Justice, True Obedience, True Repentance

The second of two foolish and fatal decisions by King Saul brought a severe consequence. While the first was the loss of a royal dynasty, the second -- the loss of the throne itself.

Saul had been charged by God to carry out divine justice against the Amelekites, who had acted cruelly toward the Israelites as they came up from Egypt. Saul’s obedience to the command, however, was incomplete. As a result, God instructed Samuel to go to Saul and tell him that he was no longer fit to rule over God’s people. The exchange between Saul and Samuel is one of the most pitiful in Scripture. Rather than offering true repentance, Saul offered excuse piled on top of excuse. Saul’s heart proved to be, as the law had warned, “lifted up above his brothers” (Deuteronomy 17:20).

The punishment meted out against the Amelekites and their king, Agag, is a true picture of what we would be subject to apart from the love of God that placed his own Son between his wrath and us. Yet, somehow Saul thought better of God’s sentence of utter destruction against the sinner. Saul’s failure to recognize the grace that had been extended to him and the condemnation that followed this self-delusion offers a warning against such presumption. We have what we have only by the grace of God. The only appropriate response in the light of God’s mercy is to present our bodies “a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.” And rather than offering pious sounding religious intentions, as did Saul, we need to see that true obedience to God’s will is what constitutes our “spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1).

Parsing the Language

This past Sunday, in both services, we took up the very current topic of same-sex marriage. This was prompted by our President's endorsement of same-sex marriage and my being forwarded an email in which a fellow believer was asking many thoughtful and timely questions. This subject is important and is particularly important to him as he is involved in the theater and, as a result, has many good friends, whom he dearly loves, who are gay or are supportive of gay marriage. I attempted to respond to his comments and questions, hoping to shed some biblical light on a contentious topic. The audio file of the sermon and a PDF file of the email with my interspersed responses is available at sermonaudio.com/ncgv.

For the purposes of this post I would like to stress just one point. I have read several articles in which opinions from within the pale of Christianity are offered either for or against same-sex marriage. On the supportive side are sentiments that express Jesus' love for people who were on the "outside." In fact, similar notions were hinted at by President Obama, who self-identified as a Christian in making his remarks. I concur that Jesus' love for those whom the religious leaders deemed unrighteous is evident in numerous ways, from the sitting at table with "tax collectors and sinners," to expressing deep approval for a "sinful woman" who was unabashedly offering worship at his feet. Time after time he stepped into the midst of sinners and affirmed their humanity and worth. But we should not mistake his willingness to love such people as approval for their sin. He says to the sinful woman spoken of above, "Your sins are forgiven." To the thieving Zacchaeus he announces that "salvation has come to your house." To the woman caught in adultery he assures and warns: "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more."

Jesus declared that he came to heal the unrighteous. He preached about sin and the need for repentance. He promised that he would shed his blood for the remission of sins. In these, and numerous other ways, he made his mission clear: he had come to be the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. One gets the impression from advocates for same-sex marriage, however, that the only thing that needs to be done by the church in the name of Jesus is to welcome people in the door with open arms. The expectation of repentance is never expressed. Such indifference to sin is not honoring of the person and work of Jesus nor of the gospel that he preached. Homosexuals are not any more sinful than others, but neither are they any less sinful. We all need, through the power of Christ, to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus that we might be saved.