Category: Christology

This I Believe (The Creed)

We sang “This I Believe” in our men’s group. The song is based on the Apostle’s Creed and the linked version is from Hillsong.¹

Both the Apostles’ creed and “This I Believe” say I believe many times.

Is that just a list of facts to believe? You may have heard the statements in the Apostle’s Creed as cold intellectual truths. I know I used to. But there’s quite a difference between assenting to cold facts and saying “Yes!” to a truth that our life depends on.

If someone says, “Atlantic City is the capital of New Jersey,” not much is at stake in whether that is true or not. ²But what if I were driving a fully loaded 18-wheeler towards an old one lane bridge across a deep gorge. Can it support me and my load? To go across that bridge is to trust it with my life.

That second kind of belief, trusting with our lives, is the kind of belief sung about in “This I Believe.” Full-bodied genuine Christian belief is much deeper than simply saying “Yes” to some facts, and “This I Believe” takes what might only remain as head knowledge and transforms it into wonderful warm praise.

How do we get that kind of heartfelt belief? In certain circles you are ordered to believe each point in the Apostle’s Creed … or else. You must persuade yourself to believe and confess each of the points or you are in trouble.

But that attempt at self-persuasion is futile because we can only truly grasp these truths by faith. And that faith is itself a gift from God. In Ephesians 2:8-9 it says For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

We have been rescued from sin and death by faith in what Jesus accomplished in being crucified on the cross for our sin and then brought back to life. And as we follow Christ today, we continue by faith. By faith, we trust our lives to the God who gave us the creed’s truths:

I believe in God our Father. I believe in Christ the Son. I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the resurrection, that we will rise again. I believe Jesus rose again. I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord.

The preceding truths all focus on our personal relationship with God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But now consider these truths:

I believe in the saint’s communion and in your holy church.

Here, we have union with Christ —– we join the faith and life of everyone who has ever loved Jesus —- in the unity of the Holy Spirit. God is invisible and we demonstrate our belief in this unseen God by loving real life people. Real life people whose flaws start to disgust us — until we look in the mirror!

That’s when the great theological truths of the apostles’ creed stop being only abstract and cerebral. God is the God who changes us. The creed comes alive as we live out the Lord’s command to Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDeA-SAlklU
Atlantic City is not the capital, Trenton is

Before Easter: How ticked off did Jesus get?

Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists. Others slapped him and said, “Prophesy to us, Messiah. Who hit you?” (Matthew 26:67-68)

In our men’s Bible study we wondered whether Jesus would have felt seriously ticked off at those clowns who were hitting him. Was he furious? How badly would he want to retaliate?

Or was Jesus so far above all our own normal reactions, so ethereal, with a beatific look on his face, that he blessedthe spitters without one second of hesitation, even as the saliva dripped down his face?

We know that Jesus was a real man who underwent the same temptations we did. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

So there was something real about Jesus resisting the temptation to bust their heads when he had the chance to retaliate. He had real gut reactions to things. Yet he did learn how to control his reactions: Picture him learning to handle the situations he faced while working as a carpenter — like how to ask for payment from someone who had not paid their bill on time without blowing his top and screaming at them and getting red in the face and yelling “Don’t you realize who I am ??”

His training consummated with being able to deal with the people who wanted him dead. He knew ahead of time that he would get outrageous, lying, unjust opposition. Yet he knew that death was an important part of God’s plan for him and for the world. So he was thoroughly convinced that the spitters and mockers were part of God’s will. Because of that deep conviction, he could take what they dished out without lashing out and busting their heads.

Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him (Hebrews 5:8-9) His obedience led all the way to Jesus’ death on a cross. And this life of submission and restraint is our rescue. We are thankful that Jesus put up with beating and mockery without taking revenge into his own hands. For on Easter he was raised from the dead bringing us eternal salvation!

How Can I Be Both Perfect And a Screw-Up?

Matthew 5:48 says: Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

But at the same time Romans 3:10-11 says:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.

What? The Bible tells me to be perfect, but then it tells me I am a perfect screw-up? How can both things be true?

To answer, I must tell you how much I love the cation words. These are several rhyming words that describe what Jesus did, what Jesus is now doing, and what Jesus will do. Let me start by giving you “cation” word #1 for today: It’s justification. Justification says you do not bear the full penalty for your screwups or moral failure since Jesus took all your blame on the cross! Since Jesus now stands in your place, you can claim this stunning verse:

I lead a blameless life;
deliver me and be merciful to me. (Psalms 26:11)

What? Blameless? Yes, I am: Christ set me right with God. And his righteousness comes from outside of me, not based on anything I ever did. In Romans 3:22 it says:

This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

But despite this, I still screw up. What happens when I do sin? Do I just laugh and blow it off since I have already been declared righteous? I don’t think so.

Sam, a missionary pastor who gave a sermon at our church, is a mature Christian who’s served the Lord faithfully in his international organization for decades. Yet, he confessed that he really started to lose it in a discussion at a recent meeting that degenerated into a futile argument.

I admired Sam for being man enough to admit his foul-up in front of our whole congregation and for how quickly he got the meeting back on track by rapidly repenting and asking forgiveness.

Why was Sam able to react correctly?

His reaction leads to our other “cation” word today: sanctification. This means becoming more like Christ over time. Ephesians 4:24 talks about progressively growing in sanctification: put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Because I’m striving to walk as a mature man of Christ, I am not planning to yell on the phone at anyone ever again. I am not planning to lust ever again.

But what if I do?

I trust that the Lord will lead me to repent and ask forgiveness more quickly than I ever have before. And that he’ll continue to replace an impatient urge to get my own way with more of the good attitudes that Jesus gives.

I am glad I am not alone in this process of achieving change. I’m in a good men’s fellowship group called Battleground at my home church that is a huge help in this.

Our motto in Battleground is that we seek an authentic experience of God’s word, meaning that we want to not merely put Bible verses into our heads, but to allow those words to change us to reflect the character of Jesus. We confess when we fall short of that and we rejoice when we see the Lord at work building that into each other.

This quote from John Piper gives a great description of what we strive for in Battleground. Each of us is:

a godly man,
who knows he is a sinner, pardoned for God’s name’s sake,
justified by grace, trusting God’s mercy,
depending on God’s Spirit, taking refuge in God’s protection,
delighting in God’s beauty, keeping God’s covenant,
and therefore walking in integrity and honesty and uprightness.¹

What John Piper described cannot be achieved in isolation. In strong fellowship God gives us a solid way to care for and encourage each other to grow to be more like Christ.

May you have fellowship in a group like that, too.
Amen.

¹ https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/can-anyone-really-be-blameless

A Post From Leviticus??

It may surprise you to see that today’s devotion starts from the book of Leviticus.

Leviticus is often viewed as a book that’s full of puzzling and outdated rules, but amazingly it can spur our passion to follow our Lord God today. I’ll warm up by giving you one command from Leviticus that is appealing for people of a certain age……….

Stand up in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:32)If you are old enough for young people to stand up for you, this is a nice command. (Of course on a more serious note, think how our culture venerates youth and discriminates against talented older workers.)

But now on to today’s main point. Many ceremonies described in Leviticus seem quite strange to our 21st century eyes. But there’s one ceremony that points straight to the heart of what Christians believe. In talking to the people of Israel, God says: On the tenth day of the seventh month atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you…. from all your sins. The …. high priest is to make atonement. (Leviticus 16:29,30,32)

And in verse 34 God says: “This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: Atonement is to be made once a year for all the sins of the Israelites.”

Can you imagine having your sins pile up for a full year……and then having an annual cleanup? It’s good to get rid of sin but still …. something about this remedy is defective.

Speaking of defective, I vividly remember one episode on the original Star Trek. It’s called The Changeling.Here the Enterprise crew meta space robot called Nomad. Nomad approached and then probed some crew members, and was not pleased with what it found. Indeed, in its robotic voice, Nomad would exclaim: “This unit is defective,” and the consequences were rather dire…. say goodbye to that crew member.

But now, let’s hear what Leviticus says about defective units. Here, someone is not allowed to approach God’s altar:

No man who has any defect may come near; he must not come near to offer the food of his God.^…. because of his defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary. I am the LORD (Leviticus 21:18,21,23)

This passage focuses on people with physical defects like crushed testicles, but aren’t we all defective when we stand on our own before the Lord? Yes, but are we hopeless?

No, we have hope because God chose to come in the flesh. Born a baby, Jesus grew up to become the man who lived the one and only perfect Christian life. He then was crucified to become the perfect, once for all sacrifice for our sin.

Jesus’ death and resurrection tore the curtain before God’s altar in the temple so that we can enter God’s presence. And now, free from sin, God no longer views us as defective units! We are presented “without defect” because of what Christ has done……….. What a joy!

Now to him that is able to keep you from falling, and make you appear in his glorious presence, without defect, and full of joy: (Jude 24)

Once we are freed from defect, what happens next? Do we just sit back and chill out? I don’t think so. See my next post.