Advent: Holding Fast

Abraham had been waiting a long time. God promised him a heritage that would bless “all the families of the earth,” but fulfillment of the promise had not been realized. What at first seemed like an extraordinary gift had become a source of frustration and disappointment. In the face of the delay, Abraham’s faith had faltered more than once and he made decisions that had unwelcome consequences. Finally, a propitious wind blew and fanned the flames of his faith and he was transformed. The promise settled into his soul and he was able to heed and trust the word of God, even a command that seemingly negated everything God had previously spoken.

Abraham’s Advent experience is instructive. He had his own period of waiting that placed huge demands on his ability to hold fast to the word that God had spoken. And though he is remembered for his willingness to raise his knife over the promised heir to slay him, convinced that God had the power to raise him from the dead, such bold believing was not always his. He lost confidence and settled for shortcuts and man-made solutions. 

His wait, however, turned out to be a mere 24 years. How long has it been since the church received the promise that Jesus would return to judge the world and gather to himself his own? Nearly 2000 years. 2000 years is a long time. Long enough to cause a soul to doubt that he's ever going to return. Long enough to drift from the teaching that promised reward on that day for the faithful, the “one who overcomes.” Long enough to convince a disciple that deferred gratification is not as sensible as immediate gratification.

This Advent, let’s ask God for the grace to hold fast to our confession of faith without wavering, believing that the one who came and gained the victory over the deceiver and the evil he unleashed is coming again to bring full restoration to all that he has made.

A Paradoxical People

A church is a paradox; a paradox made up of paradoxical people. It is an entity that is at once infinitely indestructible and incredibly fragile. It is strong because an infinitely strong God has brought it into being and is at work in it. It is weak because it is made up of people who are subject to the maladies that attend universal sin. Possessing no inherent power to do what God wants us to do, we must look to God’s power and grace.

That being said, the weakness that can often hobble a church is not to be accommodated. Paul’s letters are full of exhortations that, in one way or the other, enjoin us to walk away from the old self and toward the new. The old “belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,” while the new is “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-23). In the opening sentences of his letter to the Philippians he puts it this way: “it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:9-11).

As his letters readily attest, the local church is the venue in which much of this growth is to take place. For instance, the above prayer ties the ability to approve what is excellent, which leads to a maturing walk “filled with the fruit of righteousness,” to ever-increasing love among the saints at Philippi. Why is this so? If those in a church can discover what it means to love, idolatrous self-interest will give way to God honoring interest for the other. We then begin to look like Jesus who “made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant” so that we could be saved from our sinful, self-absorbed selves (2:7).

Remarkably, Paul is confident that this will be realized in the church in Philippi because “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (1:6). But it involves embracing the challenge to “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” (2:12). It seems that if we will respond with faith, seeking to “approve what is excellent,” we can become a little less paradoxical, possessing a strength that will be “to the glory and praise of God” (1:11).