Obeying the Gospel

Today at Calvary Chapel Sydney I taught through Romans 10.  After Paul emphasised God's election of believers by grace through the Gospel, I enjoyed considering the emphasis on man's responsibility to believe in Jesus Christ.  Paul wrote in Romans 10:14-15:  "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? ¹⁵ And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!"  In teachings of this passage I have heard many emphasis our need to go, a missional thrust of application.  The flow of the passage in context, however, shows God is the One who faithfully sends His messengers to bring the message of salvation through the Gospel so people can hear and believe in Christ.

Paul continued in Romans 10:16-18:  "But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our report?" ¹⁷ So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. ¹⁸ But I say, have they not heard? Yes indeed: "Their sound has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world."  Paul spoke of the message of the Gospel having gone out to all the earth!  People heard the Gospel but did not obey it by submitting themselves to Jesus as Saviour.  God's will is the save people, He provided salvation through Jesus, and sent the Good News through the whole world.  The only way people exercise saving faith is by hearing and believing the word of God He has graciously provided for us.

When I was a kid and within Christendom to this day, there are efforts being made to reach people who are unreached with the Gospel--often in lands and languages foreign to us.  I applaud these efforts and praise God He has continued to send people to far away places to people He loves and desires to save.  Let us not forget that to every Christian couple who have a baby, that little one does not know God.  There are hundreds and thousands of babies born every day in our cities and nations who have never heard the name of Jesus except as an expletive.  This work of spreading the Gospel to every person needs to be done again after it has already been done, for the population of the earth continues to multiply.  Praise the LORD this is His work to accomplish His plans to save, and He is the One who sends us.  It is not a church or a mission board who does the sending, though at times they are His instrument, but God sends forth labourers into His harvest.  As we have received the Gospel and believed it, so we should obey it and share it with all:  to love one another as Jesus loves us.

The Giver and Gift

When I was a boy, I heard a story from a classmate that appalled me.  While it was still dark on Christmas day, my classmate's younger brother, about 4 years old, opened up all the gifts that were wrapped under the Christmas tree.  His parents awakened to find the living room completely littered with paper.  This act of sabotage prevented the joy of both giver and receiver of the gifts.  So what did they do?  The parents promptly sent the boy to his room under a vow of secrecy and re-wrapped all the presents so they could properly exchange gifts all together.  This was one of the unwritten rules of Christmas for children:  never open a gift unless it is yours and you are given permission by your parents to do so.  I shuddered to think of the consequences I would have faced for such a brazen transgression.

Because the boy who opened the presents was very young, it is likely he did not fully understand the unwritten rule.  Maybe due to immaturity he lacked self-control.  If he was malicious in tearing up all the wrapping paper out of rebellion, spite or anger,  I suspect the consequences would have been more dire.  This situation with opening presents before the giver gives permission recently came to mind as an illustration of what fornication (sex outside of marriage) is like before God.  People who know God has provided sex to be enjoyed solely within a marriage relationship can choose to open this gift before the appropriate time.  People who would never dream of being so rude to open birthday or Christmas presents early may not think twice before transgressing before God in the area of sex before marriage.  1 Corinthians 6:18 reads, "Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body."

There is a difference between opening presents early and choosing to give away your virginity before marriage, for sin committed cannot be undone or taken back.  But for those who are born again followers of Jesus Christ, all sin can be repented of, forgiven by God and forsaken!  I exhort those who have sinned in the passed or presently engaged in ongoing sexual activity before marriage to do what the parents of the boy did:  re-wrap the gifts, and wait for the appropriate time after marriage.  God has given people the gift of sex to enjoy in marriage, and we can honour him by waiting to receive that gift from His hand.  Give Him the pleasure of acknowledging we appreciate Him and all He has provided in a spouse and the physical intimacy He has designed.  We thank Him by choosing to wait fox sex until He joins us as one flesh in marriage.

God is not a God of second chances but new beginnings.  Rather than lamenting over bad decisions that cannot be taken back, we can rejoice with every new opportunity God gives us by His grace to honour Him by doing what pleases Him today and going forward.  May we honour God who gives us all that pertains to life and godliness more than His gifts.

Our Need to Unlearn

In a sermon I heard, the preacher spoke of Simon of Samaria who came to faith in Jesus after being a practicing sorcerer.  For a long time he held the people of his city spellbound by his supernatural abilities, and he duped them into thinking he wielded the power of God.  After Simon believed in Jesus, was baptised and continued with Philip the evangelist in fellowship, he saw when visiting apostles laid hands on people they were filled with the Holy Spirit.  He foolishly offered Simon Peter money so he too could have the power to lay hands on people so they could receive the gift of God.  Acts 8:20-21 tells us Peter's fiery response:  "But Peter said to him, "Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money! ²¹ You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God."

It is very possible this idea of offering money for power carried over from Simon's life when he was a sorcerer, for power was always on offer--for a price.  In Acts 19 after the fear of the LORD Jesus Christ fell on the people of Ephesus, those who repented of their witchcraft and confessed Jesus as LORD brought their books of magic together and burned them, and the value of those books combined was 50,000 pieces of silver.  Satan is willing to exchange power for a price (always a wretched deal), for he offered the cities of the world to Jesus if He would bow and worship him.  Because of his background, it is likely Simon imagined it was perfectly legitimate to offer money for a supernatural ability like a magician does for a new trick.  Peter rebuked Simon for offering money when the Gospel and the baptism of the Holy Spirit is freely offered by God to all who trust in Jesus.  Simon had a lot to learn.

Simon, like all people who come to believe in Jesus, also had a lot to unlearn.  This is one of the great challenges that faces all Christians, for we naturally carry into our Christian life oversized baggage full of assumptions, hearsay, misunderstandings, the emphasis of one truth to the neglect or negation of another equally important truth, falsehoods and even heresies.  A person who spent time as a spiritist or was a member of a cult has a crooked foundation of thinking laid that does not automatically disappear by the addition of faith of Jesus Christ.  Believers who spent their childhood or their adult life attending churches that had a legalistic style can be influenced by a legalistic lens in their reading and interpretation of the Scriptures, judgments they make about scores of things, and their daily decisions.  Adding knowledge by reading God's word does not by itself remove rubbish ideas we assumed were correct because they are the only thing we have heard or known.  Having been born again by faith in Jesus, we must grow to be dependent on the word of God by the power of the Holy Spirit to observe the scripture, understand what it means, and how to apply it personally.

Praise the LORD He is the One who transforms us, and the light of the Gospel brings countless sins and our errors to light.  God also uses fellow believers to exhort and even rebuke us when bitterness or pride rises up within us, when we crave the spotlight and grab for power like Simon did.  Our journey of being sanctified day by day more into the image of Jesus means we need to keep changing for good, and this means the old ways of living and thinking must be identified and thrown out so we can be better aligned with our LORD Jesus.  People who have had genuine faith in Jesus for decades can still be influenced by assumptions, habits and ways of thinking that are unbiblical.  God forbid we should be like those Paul described in 2 Timothy 3:7, those who are "always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."  This suggests an unwillingness to lay aside old falsehoods combined with unwillingness to obey the Gospel.  Unless we put what we learn of God's word into practice by faith in Him, we will not grow spiritually.  Jesus is the Truth and has given Himself to us, and by following Him faithfully in submission to Him we embrace our sanctification.  Though progress may seem slow, we have all assurance God is faithful to complete the work in us He began by His grace.

The Wonder of God

One thing I love and appreciate about God is He is immutable and consistent.  Being eternal and above all God is not susceptible to influences of modern society, and His wisdom does not shift with the times.  In God and His word there is an objective clarity and permanence that is not found in anyone or things of this world.  A person's opinions can shift like the breeze, and their conduct can resemble a chameleon that adjusts to their environment.  I respect people who take a stand on God's truth, and I find their insights by God's grace endure the test of time.  It is encouraging to know there are many great thinkers whose intelligence far exceeds my own who were not ashamed to make the living God and His word central to their thoughts and perspective.

I have been reading G.K. Chesterton's In Defense of Sanity lately, and he is exceptionally brilliant.  I am glad that some of the time I understand what he means and enjoy his sense of humour that crops up often.  Though most of his writings in the book hail from the early to mid-20th century, I like that he applies the timeless wisdom of God to the consistent nature of fallen humanity.  As God is always holy, righteous, just, loving and good, in contrast man remains predictably sinful, conceited, arrogant and proud.  Rather than talking down to anyone as being "holier than thou," Chesterton thinks thoughts through with a copious use of paradox and sound reason.  Though the current events and hot-button topics of his day are quite different than ours, his philosophical approach and clever logic has not aged a day.

I was particularly intrigued concerning a few observations he made about sceptics, and despite our modern education and the information available at our fingertips it seems sceptics have only multiplied.  I found this quote very useful to consider:  "The best that can be said for the sceptic is that he cannot say what he means, and therefore, whatever else he means, he cannot mean what he says." (Chesterton, Gilbert Keith. In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton. Ignatius Press, 2011. page 337)  With the abundance of information today, there is the real risk of misinformation, whether it be malicious or accidental.  In this world full of deceptions, half-truths and agendas, the Bible remains a bastion of truth we can count on to reveal God and His wisdom for us.  It is truly a joy to look upon God with wonder.

On the topic of pride and sceptics Chesterton mused:

"It is a weakness; for it is simply settling down permanently to believe what even the vain and foolish can only believe by fits and starts, but what all men wish to believe and are often found weak enough to believe; that they themselves constitute the supreme standard of things.  Pride consists in a man making his personality the only test, instead of making the truth the test...It is pride to think that a thing looks ill, because it does not look like something characteristic of oneself...But the self as a self is a very small thing and something very like an accident.  Hence arises a new kind of narrowness; which exists especially in those who boast of breadth.  The sceptic feels himself too large to measure life by the largest things; and ends by measuring it by the smallest thing of all.  There is produced also a sort of subconscious ossification, which hardens the mind not only against the traditions of the past, but even against the surprises of the future.  Nil admirari becomes the motto of all nihilists; and it ends, in the most complete and exact sense, in nothing." (Ibid, pages 348-349)

It is good when we measure things by ourselves to discover we are frighteningly small, for this is God's grand design in revealing Himself as almighty and over all.  It is in knowing we are nothing in light of a city, nation, this planet or the universe--a temporary blip of life here one day and gone the next--that God's loving pursuit and sacrifice for our salvation and eternal relationship with Him is magnified.  The best of men see themselves in the worst light, and we are all granted the capacity by the warm light of God's grace to humble ourselves before Him and others.  God did not put forth the challenge for people to prove their worth by ascending to heaven and to knock on His door:  He implores us to bow the knee right where we are before Him in faith, worship and adoration.  The love of Christ constrains us to remain consistent in our awe and gratitude towards Him.