Go Your Own Way

God gives every person the freedom to go their own way.  It's not just a refrain from a catchy Fleetwood Mac song, but a gift of God provided for every person who lives on this planet.  The way we live our lives has a clear correlation with where we are headed for eternity:  heaven or hell. Sorrow, pain, sickness, and death are all products of sin's presence in the world.  Adam's rebellion caused separation from God, and every human being save Jesus Christ who has walked in this world has contributed to the miserable consequences of it.  God is the only one who can set things right again, and this was clearly demonstrated in the life of Jesus Christ.

As Jesus left Jericho, there was a blind man named Bartimaeus who sat by the way, begging.  When he heard it was Jesus who passed by that way, he cried out with a loud voice "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"  The more people "shushed" him the louder he screamed for mercy from the Son of God, the Messiah promised by God to save His people from their sins.  Having heard his cries and knowing his heart, Jesus stopped and commanded blind Bartimaeus to be called.  Mark 10:50 says he cast away his garment, which is very significant.  Even as a busker opens his guitar case to collect donations, his garment was laid across his lap to collect alms he received.  Hearing Christ had called him, Bartimaeus immediately cast aside his covering, money, and comfort in exchange to respond to the call of Christ.

Mark 10:51-52 says, "So Jesus answered and said to him, "What do you want Me to do for you?" The blind man said to Him, "Rabboni, that I may receive my sight." ⁵² Then Jesus said to him, "Go your way; your faith has made you well." And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road."  Because Baritimaeus had placed his faith in Christ, Jesus healed the man.  Jesus simply said, "Go your way; your faith has made you well."  I imagine Bartimaeus had fanticised for years over what it would be like to see.  Having received his sight, Bartimaeus was free to do as he pleased and Jesus released him from any obligation.  But do you see where Bartimaues went?  He followed Jesus.  The way Jesus went became Bartimaeus' way.  Jesus is the Way, the Truth, the Life, and having received his sight Bartimaeus only cared to follow after His LORD and Saviour.

We don't read Bartimaeus ever went back for his coat or his alms:  in Christ he had discovered all he needed.  Despite his physical blindness, with eyes of faith he recognised Jesus as the Son of David, the promised Messiah.  Once his eyes were opened, he fixed them upon Jesus and followed Him wherever He went.  This is a beautiful picture for all those who have responded to the call of Christ through the Gospel.  We were blind beggars steeped in sin, yet Jesus has opened our eyes to see Him as the Light of the World.  We are free to go our own way.  Which way will you choose?  Many people were healed by Jesus, but not all of them were saved.  Faith in Jesus made Bartimaeus whole.  True faith in Christ results in a life where Christ's way becomes our way.  Christ's way is an exclusive way all who will be saved must choose for themselves:  the way of the cross, humility, dying to self, obedience to God, and serving others.  It is the way which leads to victory, power, and heavenly glory for eternity.  All other ways lead to death and eternal destruction in Hell.

Jesus said to His disciples in John 14:1-7:  "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. ² In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. ⁴ And where I go you know, and the way you know." ⁵ Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?" ⁶ Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. ⁷ "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him."

The Grace of Giving

"So we urged Titus, that as he had begun, so he would also complete this grace in you as well. ⁷ But as you abound in everything--in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all diligence, and in your love for us--see that you abound in this grace also. ⁸ I speak not by commandment, but I am testing the sincerity of your love by the diligence of others. ⁹ For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich."

2 Corinthians 8:6-9 

At Calvary Chapel Sydney we are studying through 2 Corinthians on Sunday mornings.  Paul reminded the Corinthians of their initial desire and interest to give to others in need.  Despite their willingness to give, their good intentions for a year had not been acted upon.  Paul commended them for their great faith, speech, knowledge, all diligence, and love, yet they stopped short of excelling in the grace of giving.  Following through in giving according to their good intentions was a test of the sincerity of their love.  Jesus was cited as the standard for giving, One who chose to become poor to make others rich.

God continually supplies new tests for His people to take.  Each exam is designed by God to challenge us individually.  God has a way of combining familiar material with bits completely foreign to us.  There are often portions we have been exposed to before, yet it doesn't mean we will always perform well.  God is wise to include bits we are unprepared for to draw us closer to Him in repentance, to remind us we do not know everything, and as an impetus for us to humbly seek Him for the answers on future exams.  I don't enjoy being tested, but God uses tests to show His love and care for us, to affirm we are His, to give us an opportunity to grow, and to do well where we have always failed before.

Like sitting an exam at school, completing it is an exercise of the will.  No one can make you sit a test.  No one can force you to read the questions, pick up the pencil, and fill in the correct answers.  God will not force you to sit an exam He provides.  Sometimes passing a test is required before we can move on to another test!  But it is folly to avoid a test God supplies, because not sitting an exam is the surest way to fail.  We do better to score poorly on a test than to refuse to try!  Our poor scores reveal our need to learn and grow.  If we refuse to sit God's tests we will never know through experience where our weaknesses are.  God's tests are not completed in classrooms, but in our interactions with Him and others through our words, attitudes, thoughts, and actions.  I have never scored perfectly on a test God supplied for me because I am not perfect.  God gives us encouragement through small improvements, and should our "success" go to our heads He will give us the most basic test again so we might fail miserably and recognise our need for complete dependance on Him.

How fitting it is for us to seek to excel in the grace of giving, even as our Saviour gave Himself freely as a sacrifice for sin.  Jon Courson wrote in his Bible Application Commentary:  "Born in a borrowed cradle, Jesus preached from a borrowed boat, rode into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey, ate His Last Supper in a borrowed room, and was buried in a borrowed grave.  He who made everything laid it all down and entered into total poverty that I might be rich...To the person not in love with Jesus, giving is a difficult, painful, arduous, burdensome task.  He who loves Jesus, on the other hand, welcomes the opportunity to demonstrate his love." (pg. 1132)  Are you willing to take the "sincerity of love by giving" test?  Whatever test God sets before you this week, see that you do all in your power to pass by the riches of His grace.

Jephthah and His Daughter

Our introduction to Jephthah in scripture is he was a mighty man of valour, but this fact is largely overlooked.  He was a son of a harlot, and for a season was cast out of his family but later asked to return.  Like the elders of his hometown, it is high time for the church to receive Jephthah back again as the man of faith he was.  It seems most references to him in sermons are negative, and he is touted as the poster boy of rashness, a power-hungry or even ignorant man whose folly outweighs any virtue.  It is ironic God does not say one negative thing about Jephthah in the Bible.  In fact, the exact opposite is true.  After discussing the faith of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and Rahab, the writer of Hebrews wrote in Hebrews 11:32-34:  “And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: ³³ who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, ³⁴ quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.” 

Of all the righteous men and women who could have been listed in what is often called the “Hall of Faith,” Jephthah was one selected by the Holy Spirit.  We human beings tend to focus on outward faults, but God looks upon the heart of faith in God which is accounted by Him as righteousness.  There is much to be learned from the mistakes of others, but to relegate Jephthah to a byword when God provides him as a prime example of faith is a massive error.  Through Jephthah and especially his daughter we are blessed with a foreshadowing of Jesus which greatly challenges and enriches us, all for the glory of God.

Jephthah was a man of Gilead called by men to be their captain.  He came to terms with the elders who sought his leadership and Judges 11:11 reads, “Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them; and Jephthah spoke all his words before the LORD in Mizpah.”  Whatever Jephthah said, he spoke in the hearing of the LORD.  Regardless of what men may contrive of Jephthah’s motives – for who among us knows fully his own heart and it is not written – the Spirit of God came upon Jephthah (Judges 11:29).  Judges 11:30-31 says, “And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD, and said, "If You will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, ³¹ then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD'S, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering."  The verse begins with a connecting word which continues the thought.  The Spirit came upon Jephthah, and he made a vow.  There was a clear connection between the two.  It was common for people to keep their prized animals in their homes, so this was not as strange as you might think.

Was Jephthah rash to make such a vow?  I don’t know.  But what happened after God did grant Jephthah the victory is the part everyone remembers.  After he returned from the slaughter of the enemy, his one and only child – his precious daughter - came out to greet him celebrating and dancing with her tambourine.  When he saw her, he immediately tore his clothes and cried out in anguish:  “Alas my daughter!  I have given God my word and I cannot go back on it!”  The daughter of Jephthah (her name is not provided us in scripture) did not scold Jephthah or charge him with wrong.  Judges 11:36-38 says, “So she said to him, "My father, if you have given your word to the LORD, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, because the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the people of Ammon." ³⁷ Then she said to her father, "Let this thing be done for me: let me alone for two months, that I may go and wander on the mountains and bewail my virginity, my friends and I." ³⁸ So he said, "Go." And he sent her away for two months; and she went with her friends, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains.”

Before the LORD Jephthah promised to offer up the first thing which came out of his house as a burnt offering to the LORD, never expecting it to be his only child whom I suspect was in her teen years.  She said, “If you have given your word to the LORD, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth.”  God had fulfilled His part in the matter, and she urged her father to do to her according to his promise.  There are tears in my eyes as I consider the faith and love of this young woman.  It is one thing to say such a thing, but the revelations in the next verse blows me away.  Judges 11:39-40 says, “And it was so at the end of two months that she returned to her father, and he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed. She knew no man. And it became a custom in Israel ⁴⁰ that the daughters of Israel went four days each year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.”

Jephthah’s daughter came back.  Let that sink into your soul.  She could have run, knowing what awaited her.  Even as Isaac was bound by Abraham on the altar on Mt. Moriah, and Abraham took up the killing knife, her father would do to her.  But this time there would be no voice from heaven, no ram caught in the thicket.  Two months earlier she said, “Do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth.”  Did you see the difference in verse 39?  After she returned, “he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed.”  Dear friends, they did it together.  He did not do anything “to” her; Jephthah kept his vow before the LORD “with” her.  I wept many tears when I understood this.  I see the man sobbing, weeping at his loss as she waited bound.  Perhaps as his resolve faltered at the prospect of offering his only daughter as a sacrifice, she with gleaming eyes guided the knife to the spot.  He had given his word to God, and it must be finished.  God had not commanded human sacrifice, and the death of any human being is not God’s will.  But this picture has been included for a divine purpose.  Such a display of reverence and faith is not easily swept aside, for it points directly to Jesus Christ.

Even as Jephthah’s daughter returned with the knowledge she would be offered as a sacrifice, so Jesus Christ came as the Lamb of God to be a sacrifice for sin.  Jephthah’s virgin daughter bewailed her virginity two months with her friends, and Jesus wept knowing what awaited Him on Calvary.  Hebrews 5:7-9 says of Jesus, “…who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, ⁸ though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. ⁹ And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him…”  Jesus was God the Father’s only begotten Son, the One in whom He was well pleased.  God had promised a Saviour, a Messiah, and kept His word.  Jephthah’s daughter was remembered four days in Israel every year, and we remember the death of Jesus Christ when we obey Him in celebrating Communion together.

We do not fault Abraham for binding Isaac to the altar and picking up a knife with the intent to slay his only son in obedience to God:  should we fault the faithful Jephthah for doing the same?  God doesn’t.  The context makes it clear Jephthah followed the leading of the Holy Spirit upon him in this very singular event in history which points to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.  I cannot fault Jephthah with wrong before his God before Whom he spoke and stands to this day.  It appears the people at the time did not fault this man who willing to pay such a high price to keep his word to the LORD, for he remained a judge until his death.  Jephthah was a valiant man, a man of faith.  When I read of his precious daughter I see a picture of my willing Saviour, and I feel unworthy to read the words – because I am.  We all are.  Who among us would demonstrate the faith of Jephthah, his daughter, or my Saviour?

You Belong to Jesus

This week at Camp Kedron we will be exploring our own identity with the question:  “Who am I?”  Ultimately the only way people can know themselves in truth is by first knowing the God who created them.  I am more than a name, a body, a mass of cells without meaning, but an eternal soul breathed into a body God knit together in the womb.  Since God created man He alone supplies the wisdom and power to be the man He created me to be.  God said to His chosen people in Jeremiah 29:11:  “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Knowing we belong to God is fundamental in understanding our identity as Christians.  The reality is, however, we can try to find a sense of belonging in far less than God Himself.  We can substitute our accomplishments, goals, relationships, our job, or even being a member of a church.  I recently came across a Scripture Union handout of being a disciple of Jesus based on the Sermon on the Mount.  It was broken into six separate studies in the following order:  belonging, witnessing, God’s Word, relationships, prayer, and possessions.  Admittedly that first one is the concept rarely discussed these days.  In our highly individualistic and increasingly independent society, most people overlook the simple fact we belong to God.  Man expends great effort to try to belong instead of realising in Christ he already finds acceptance and belongs.

All created things belong to God, but most are not aware of this fact.  Our understanding of our identity has direct results in our decisions and desires.  As I heard pastor Steve Mays say, we do not fight for victory, but we fight from victory.  Lack of knowledge leads to us working and praying futilely for what is already ours, and therefore we never progress into practically experiencing what God has already freely provided.  We can try our best to fit in with a particular group, not understanding we have been made in God’s image and we have been accepted into the beloved through Christ by faith.

We will never experience the future God desires for us until we seek and trust God.  When our eyes are opened to see God we see ourselves in truth.  After being exposed to the wisdom and power of God, Job saw himself as vile and Peter asked Jesus to depart from him because Peter recognised his own sinfulness.  “The best men,” Spurgeon quipped, “see themselves in the worst light.”  It is the Light of the World Jesus Christ and the scriptures which illuminate the darkness of our hearts clearly, and lead us to God who awaits us with open arms and joy unspeakable.  How good it is to know we belong to God and live accordingly!