Reminded to Restore

On the night Jesus was betrayed, Peter was guilty of doing something he believed was impossible:  he denied Jesus three times.  After Jesus rose from the dead, He never mentioned Peter's failure.  He did not bring up the incident as a joke, hint about it to embarrass Peter or shame him, but Jesus did initiate an opportunity for Peter to publicly affirm his genuine love for Jesus.

Three times in the hearing of the other disciples Jesus singled Peter out and asked if he loved Him.  After Peter affirmed twice he did love His LORD Jesus, John 21:17 says:  "He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?" Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, "Do you love Me?" And he said to Him, "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You." Jesus said to him, "Feed My sheep."  The Bible does not say precisely why Peter was grieved, but the fact the question was repeated three times was a reminder of his three denials of Jesus.

Jesus did not remind Peter to humiliate him but to lovingly restore him.  Jesus demonstrated His love for Peter and all sinners--even those who denied He was the Son of God and scornfully condemned Him to death on the cross--by dying on the cross.  God's active, sacrificial love is not expressed in one moment but continuously, persistently and graciously.  Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him because Jesus loved Peter.  The recall of Peter's failure was redemptive and intended for his restoration:  instead of looking back with grief Peter could look back with a smile because Jesus loved him, loved him, loved him.

When we are reminded of our sinful failures and am at our worst, having been forgiven by Jesus the painful recollection of the past is an affirmation of God's love at the present through the Gospel.  This morning I considered the words of the song "At the Cross:"  "I know a place, a wonderful place where accused and condemned find mercy and grace, where the wrongs we have done and the wrongs done to us were nailed there with Him there on the cross."  We are glad to know our sins have been atoned for on Calvary, and it is good for us to know God made a provision for sins committed against us as well.  As we have received the mercy and grace of God, we are thus enabled to extend it to others as Jesus did to Peter--and us.

Love keeps no record of wrongs yet we often do.  Should we be reminded of our past sin, also remember how we have been forgiven by Jesus who continually affirms His love for us.  Sin is always grievous but God's love comes up trumps every time without fail.  Jesus did not desire for Peter to continue to grieve over his past but to rejoice in the love of Christ moving forward.

Carry on His Work

I recently read an insightful quote in Matthew Henry Commentary:  “We are apt to dote too much on men and means, instruments and external helps; whereas God will change his workmen, and yet carry on his work.  There is no need of immortal ministers to be the guides of the church, while it is under the conduct of an eternal Spirit."  While God employs the teaching and testimony of His saints long after He receives them into glory, I agree with the sentiment.  Many times I imagine many have wondered how the church or organisation was to survive after the passing of a much loved leader, but God is able to change His workmen and carry on His work.

One verse Oswald Chambers directed his listeners to take to heart was one that God ministered greatly in his own life were the words of Jesus in Luke 11:13:  "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!"  Knowing the church is God's precious possession purchased with the blood of Jesus Christ, His Body of believers will be sustained by the Holy Spirit now and forever.  I enjoyed the journal entry from October 7 by Chambers during the Great War whilst in Egypt:

"A gem of an experience came after the evening service, a soldier came to see me under deep compunction of conscience, and after a talk we knelt in the deep and glorious moonlight at an old sun-bleached form in the compound and he transacted business with God on Luke 11:13, confirmed by 1 John 5:14-15, and his witness was undoubtedly John 14:27, 'My peace I give unto you.'  One never gets used to the unspeakable wonder of a soul entering consciously into the Kingdom of our Lord.  It was a great joy to experience it all again." (McCasland, David. Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God. Discovery House Publishers, 1993. page 255.

How awesome it is Jesus Christ has gone to the Father but has not left us alone, having provided the Holy Spirit who guides us into all truth and helps us be fruitful in our endeavours for the Gospel.  God's workmen come and go, but the Holy Spirit abides in us and is ever with us.  It is not "new blood" we need in the church:  the blood of Jesus is sufficient to cleanse all sinners and cause them to be born again into God's kingdom, servants of the Most High!  As much as we might want Oswald Chambers or other believers to carry on labouring forever in their posts on earth, the world does not need another Chambers or Spurgeon to spark revival:  the world needs Jesus Christ and believers who may remain nameless, filled with the Holy Spirit, through whom Jesus will be made known.

Wisdom, Redemption and Sin

God's wisdom and redemptive power are attributes of the living, almighty God Who is worthy of praise.  His thoughts are higher than our thoughts and His ways past finding out, yet He has graciously revealed Himself to mankind in the person of Jesus Christ.  He is able to take something intended for evil and use the same thing for eternal good.  Glorious!

Lately I have been studying through the opening chapters of Genesis and considering the fall of mankind into sin and the resulting curse.  Satan was exposed as being a deceiver, liar and murder from the beginning as he coaxed Eve to eat the forbidden fruit in violation of God's command.  Many times as a youth I wondered how life on earth would have been different if sin had not entered into the world.  I can tell you one difference:  without sin in the world God would not have been provided an opportunity to demonstrate His love, grace, mercy, compassion, kindness and goodness.  If everything was always perfect and pain free, grace would not exist and the Gospel would be unnecessary.

Don't get me wrong:  sin entering the world was an absolute catastrophe.  It was a tragedy that could have been prevented if Adam and Eve continued in the fear of God and obedience to Him.  Sin led to separation from the presence of God, multiplied sorrow, conflict, fruitless toil and ultimately death.  These are all bad things, yet God proved Himself a wise redeemer.  To sinners who loved their sin and did not regard Him at all He came down, put on human flesh, walked among us and we beheld His glory.  The glory of God was made manifest in a world of darkness as the Light of the World Jesus Christ, the One who will by His very presence illuminate the new heavens and earth where only righteousness dwells.

God chose sinners--not angels--to be His saints.  Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted, to free slaves to sin from bondage, to exchange beauty for ashes, to give hope to the hopeless and to raise the dead to new life by faith in Him.  The good cannot be seen for how good it is without us first realising how wretched, lost and hopeless we are in ourselves.  There is no need to be washed unless we are filthy; we would not have appreciated an offer of salvation unless we were once irrevocably doomed to destruction.  Without a stark comparison between God and the man created in His image mankind would have assumed we are like Him and can live independently from Him.  But God knew better, knowing all:  thus sin, redemption, forgiveness, salvation and eternal life with God are ours forever by faith in Jesus starting right now.

Renewed to Live

When we change our clothes, an article of clothing is put off before we put another on.  This concept is held forth in the Bible concerning the new man, for after we are born again we are enabled by the Holy Spirit to put off the old man--and the sinful behaviour, pride and self-confidence--and then to put on the new man which resembles Christ in humility, meekness, love and righteousness.

Romans 13:12-14 exhorts believers, "The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. ¹³ Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. ¹⁴ But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts."  Because of the spiritual regeneration which has taken place in our hearts by the power of the Gospel, God intends our lives to align with Him in holiness.  A person can claim they have cast off the works of darkness or put on the armour of light, but our lives speak truer than words alone.  We are called to cast off every weight and sin which easily besets us so we can run with endurance the race set before us.  Those who are drunk and feeding the lusts of the flesh clearly have not cast off the works of darkness, nor put on the LORD Jesus Christ.  It is entirely possible there are genuine children of God who are not living up to their responsibilities before God as His children, making provision for the flesh rather than crucifying its lusts.

Having been born again, Christians are to walk in newness of life.  This is far more than mind games or positive thinking but knowing what Christ has accomplished in His death and resurrection and how we have been filled with the Holy Spirit.  We are to live up to the standard of who God created us to be, not comparing ourselves with others or how we used to be.  Romans 6:5-13 says, "For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,

⁶  knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. ⁷ For he who has died has been freed from sin. ⁸ Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, ⁹ knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. ¹⁰ For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. ¹¹ Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. ¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. ¹³ And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God."

Reckoning ourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus are two sides of the same coin of Gospel truth.  Instead of presenting ourselves as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, we are to present ourselves to God as instruments of righteousness to Him.  Saying and doing are two different things, and knowing what Jesus has done means ours is not a lost cause:  our old man was crucified with Him, and thus we shall also live with Him.  After Paul exhorted believers to cease walking in vanity, alienated from God by ignorance and blind in heart, he wrote in Ephesians 4:20-24:  "But you have not so learned Christ, ²¹ if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: ²² that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, ²³ and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, ²⁴ and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness."

A new detail is revealed in this passage, that the old man is put off and the new man put on by being "renewed in the spirit of your mind."  We have been made new creations in Christ, but we need daily renewal by the Spirit of God as we have fellowship with God, by reading His word and meditating on it, by interactions that edify and sharpen with other followers of Jesus.  This renewal is more than "repaired" or "refurbished" or "like new" as it is renewal not possible in this world but with God all things are possible to those who believe.  It is the making new of something He already made new:  new and fresh and changed for the better again and again.  Rather than seeing it as a cycle of putting off the old man and putting on the new man, it is better seen as an increasing resemblance to our Saviour day by day inside and out.  Though we fall short of God's perfection, let us be aware of His will and desire for us:  to be dead to sin and be alive to God in Christ Jesus our LORD, presenting ourselves as instruments of righteousness to God.