Sheep Before Shearers

Sheep before their shearers are silent. I have never experienced such things in person so I did the next best thing–I looked up a video on YouTube about it.

Here is Walter Peak shearing a sheep and demonstrating the silence of the lambs before the shearers. It’s actually called “the sulks.” Watch it, what a great illustration of Isaiah 53.

To get a fuller explanation of shearing sheep in Isaiah 53, take a listen to my sermon from Sunday. Good stuff and it’s supposed to mark our lives too!

Begging Answers

The Bible is large. As I said earlier, mine has 1,566 pages. That’s a lot of information.

Most of our Biblical knowledge is boiled down stuff we’ve heard other people tell us. Most of us have not read the Bible enough to know what it says itself.

Everytime you read the Bible you should have questions and you should seek to answer those questions from the Bible, the rest of what you actually read in it.

If you ask another person you will get one of two things:

1) An over-simplistic answer. “Why did Christ die on the cross?” “Because He loves us.” Now, that answer is not wrong, you can use verses to back it up, but it is simplistic. That’s part of it, but not the whole thing.

2) An over-complicated answer. “Why did Christ die on the cross?” “It all starts with creation and involves the outer reaches of the cosmos in the unfolding of the materialization of the inner workings of God. . . .” Four days later the answer rolls on still not ever touching on the cross.

We need to be careful that when we seek answers we do not settle for over-simple answers, nor should we go for overcomplicated answers that miss the simplicity that is in Christ.

Theology is great. But if your theology causes you to know less, it’s not helping.

Conjecturing on Abraham

Here are a few goofy thoughts I had about Abraham that I will float out for peer review!

1) Ham was the son of Noah that settled in the land of Canaan. The “ite tribes that Israel was later to kick out of Canaan come from Ham. Abram was called to go into the Land of the Canaanites and when he was given that charge, God changed his name from Abram to AbraHAM. Hmmm.

2) Canaanites were bad people and they were all related to Ham. Pork was bad, so is that why they call it ham?

3) Hebrews 11:17 says ”Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son” Isaac was his only begotten? Really? I understand it’s the only true son with his true wife, but still, that seems to be playing fast and loose with “only begotten.”

Two Gospel Facts

The Gospel is a huge subject. According to my Bible, God wrote 1,566 pages about it. That being said, allow me to share two basic facts you should get from the Gospel:

1) You are more sinful than you could ever imagine.
2) You are more loved than you could ever imagine.

We are not compared to other people or their depth of sin; we are compared to our perfect Father in Heaven. We are all continually falling short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no, not one. In my flesh dwells no good thing.

If I were told to be as perfect as my earthly father, I might have a shot and you might too. But to measure up to God? No way. We’ll never make it.

The first sin of Adam and Eve was to eat a piece of fruit. That’s it. They ate fruit and the whole earth fell into sin. They didn’t murder anyone, they didn’t have an abortion, nor commit homosexuality, fornication nor did they start the holocaust.

They ate fruit.

Not listening to God in any degree is sin and sin deserves death and God’s wrath. We are filthy, sick, sinners. More than we’ll ever imagine.

This depresses us. We get bummed out. Our self-esteem is ruined. We’re in the dirt, grovelling, smelling worm feet. We can’t lift our heads. We’re broken, defeated, guilt-ridden.

But God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that we who believe might not perish but have everlasting life. The Son takes away our sin. We, who couldn’t come anywhere near God, are loved!

Why? I have no idea, but we are. I know this because God says so. You are loved more than you could ever imagine. You must believe both points. They are contradictory, but both are true. Lay hold of them, herein lies salvation.

Typical Christian Compassion

Christians are about as compassionate as a box of molten lava, which is like a box of rocks, only burniery. Here’s a typical, albeit completely made up, scenario:

BOB: I got laid off from work. This was a horrible time, we have medical bills to pay.

CHRISTIAN JOE: Pray man, you have to pray. God will provide.

BOB: Yeah, I’m just worried because our son has to go back in for more surgery next month.

CJ: Cast your cares upon Him. He’s the great physician.

BOB: I know, but the lesser physicians charge a lot of money and without my job I don’t have insurance.

CJ: Well brother, God uses these times to test our faith, to make us stronger.

BOB: It’s tough though, you know? Wanting to provide for your kids and not being able to. It’s tough.

CJ: I know this place in Colorado that provides cheap health care to people. You should check them out.

BOB: Do they do brain surgeries for free?

CJ: Not sure. But I know this guy that had a broken finger and they fixed him right up. Only cost $50. You should call them.

BOB: I’m worried about all this. What am I going to do?

CJ: Just pray. Pray and spend time in the Word. Quit worrying that shows lack of faith.

I could go on. You know the scoop and you know I’m not making stuff up. We’re so quick with advice, magic cures, superstitious Jesus will put you on a magic carpet ride to happiness with Disneyland afterwards.

Life is rough. Chrsitians, in general, don’t want to hear about it. If you want to whine, don’t go to them. They don’t want to be brought down man, they’re living high on Jesus.

In the end, this is American churchianity I’m discussing, not true Chrsitianity. American Christians deny reality, living in a pain free bubble of happy thoughts. They barely even listened to your concern before they spewed forth their advice and pandering verses.

Oh Christians, be like your Savior. A Savior who listens, feels compassion, is moved with compassion to help. What good is it to pray or give advice if you don’t do anything?

Herein lies the problem: American Christianity is about being not doing. We talk. We advise. We pander. We lecture. The Lord does the doing, not me, shut up and go to Him. Here’s a quarter, call someone who cares.

Love is patient, love is kind. Try it sometime.

Pitfall of Doctrine

Doctrine is teaching from Scripture. Without doctrine we are lost. That being the case, one would think you could never have too much doctrine!

But an out of proportion stress on doctrine can be dangerous.

Substitutionary atonement is a great doctrine, crucial to the Christian faith. But if all you do is hash and rehash the atonement you’ll fall into pits, or at least ruts.

Messages on the substitutionary atonement are very well received. It’s nice to think good thoughts about forgiveness, about God’s love for us. No one has a problem with these themes.

But talking about finer points of doctrine, examining theological nuance, arguing over words and the meanings of words, discussing what everyone from Athanasius to Calvin to Lewis to Yancey said on the subject and endless into the wee hours of the night discussion of Pauline soteriology can completely miss the point.

Practice is also vital. Substitutionary atonement has a very practical side to it: we are saved to walk in newness of life. Christ was our substitute death He is now our substitute life–no longer I who lives, present your bodies a living sacrifice, we were buried with Him and we are raised up with Him, etc.

Everyone likes the atonement/salvation bit, not so much when we talk about practice and the reality of whether the atonement actually happened for you.

I know the Bible wants us to do more than talk doctrine because it does more than talk doctrine. It is highly practical, demanding say in all facets of life. Bible churches are some of the worst offenders of this. Pastors of Bible churches lead the offense. I am one of those. Let our moderation be seen before all men.

Substitutionary Atonement

Yesterday I preached a sermon about “substitutionary atonement.” It is a basic doctrine of Christianity, fundamental. I would go so far as to say anyone who denies this doctrine is not technically a Christian. I am pleased with this sermon. I think it is the best I can do at explaining this crucial doctrine.

The sermon makes the following points:

* The fact that we do sin, although A problem, is not THE problem. THE problem is that we are in sin, we are sin, we have a sin nature.

* I am superior to chickens and chickens know this.

* Even if you could stop sinning from this day forward, or do more good than bad, you still have not solved the problem of your sin nature nor the problem of Adam’s sin.

* The Church errs when it picks a pet-peeve sin to pound on–homosexuality, abortion, rock music, etc–because it misses the point of the inherited sin nature, makes the Church self-righteous and teaches that stopping that one sin is more vital than salvation from sin itself.

* The virgin birth is a necessity for substitutionary atonement, you’ll have to listen to find out why.

Story of American Fundamentalism

Kevin Bauder, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary, is in the midst of writing a series of articles about the formation of American Fundamentalism. I am finding it fascinating.

A recent article I read addresses sentimentalism and how it affected fundamentalism. I urge you to read this one and if you find it interesting check out the archive of articles and subscribe to the new ones. Good stuff. Here’s a sampling from the article on Sentimentalism?

“The new sentimentalism, however, completely changed the way that people saw God. God was no longer complicated. He was no longer terrible in His holiness. He was not a God who hid Himself or who left His children weeping in perplexity. Rather, His fundamental attribute became niceness. God was now thought to be the quintessence of fair-mindedness. Such a God would never barge into an unresponsive heart.”

Love Profits Me

Christians often define love as “self-sacrifice for the benefit of another with no desire for personal gain.” In general I don’t think this is bad, probably not heretical. At the same time, it might be wrong.

1 Corinthians 13 says things like “I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”

The implication is that only by loving others do we actually gain a profit! In other words, love is actually the only way your self can gain!

Does this not make love self-serving? If we love someone so we profit, isn’t this more like capitalism than selfless sacrifice?

Indeed. Who are you kidding? At one point have you ever done something for someone else with no thought of how this makes you look good, feel good, make friends, influence people, gain trust, etc?

Even Christ Himself did not sacrifice Himself on the Cross with no thought of personal gain. He endured the cross for the “joy set before Him!” It was because He was cast down at the cross that He was exalted on high for eternity.

A person who thinks they are loving someone else with no thought of personal gain is closer to being a Pharisee than being like Christ.

Profiting From Love

1 Corinthians 13 is pretty rough. You can be a martyr and if you don’t have love it profits nothing. Ouch.

In analyzing what I do, how often is pure love my motivation? At some point this exercise becomes nothing but insipid introspection, which, although Paul never said it, also seems to profit nothing.

At the same time, we should examine ourselves. There is a role in our neighborhood that my wife and I took on ourselves voluntarily and, I think, motivated by love, that has now become a burden.

You would be hard-pressed to convince us we were now doing this role out of love, but rather we do it out of having no alternative. Does this mean all we do for this dear, dear neighbor is now worthless?

Perhaps. But I also know we only started it because of love, it was the right thing to do. We also keep doing it because it’s the right thing to do even though love does not look or feel like it once did.

I think we are accountable to do the right thing, even if we have twisted motives. When we do good, evil is present with us, there will be bad motive at some point.

Waiting for purity before moving is a sure way to guarantee you will do nothing, which is also less than profitable. Ah yes, so it continues.