Berean Community Church Blog

Instead of being engaged in life—fighting as a king, he was apathetic (no passion) with respect to his calling.  Instead of battling the enemy, he invited the enemy of his soul to betray him.  Instead of charging ahead in the things of God, he wondered into the field of compromise that crushed him. 

Pastor Kevin delivered a great message yesterday on Philippians 2:11-18.  I was really challenged by this passage: 

Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world. - Philippians 2:14-15

I must confess, I am a grumbler and a questioner.  Neither of these qualities are the marks of a joyful follower of Jesus Christ.  So, I have something to work on (imagine that).  I see two major reasons why I grumble and question.

Reason #1.  I also fail to see that all things come from God and are for my good, even the trials and sufferings (small as they usually are).  I fail to believe the promise of Romans 8:28 which Christ's death and resurrection purchased for me:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

If I really believed this moment by moment, I would recognize that even my little trials and sufferings are from the hand of God intended to bring about good for me.   

Reason #2.  I think that I deserve to have things better than I do at any given moment.  I lose sight of the fact that God has lavished his mercy and grace upon me in sending his Son to die for my sin and save me from eternal hell.  I don't deserve things to be better; in fact, I deserve things to be much, much worse.  If only I had John Newton's perspective every minute of the day, "I am a great sinner, but Christ is a great savior."  I used to regularly respond with the phrase "Better than I deserve" whenever anyone asked me "How's it goin'?" or something similar.  I have fallen out of habit and have resorted back to the typical non-answer "Good."  I think the former answer helps shape my perspective that because of Jesus I have all that I need to be happy and I deserve none of it.  So why grumble or question? 

Not to mention, the response "Better than I deserve" is often met with "Huh?" or "What do you mean by that?" which gives you the perfect opportunity to testify to the grace and love of God in Jesus Christ   Just try it.

The next day a harmful spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he raved within his house while David was playing the lyre, as he did day by day. - 1 Samuel 18:10

A while back I posted on reading hard things in the Bible.  This passage from 1 Samuel is one of those hard readings.  God clearly sends an evil spirit, or "harmful" spirit as the ESV translates it, to Saul that makes him do crazy things and try to kill David.  The question that I always hear get asked is, "Doesn't this make God evil if he sends evil spirits to people?" 

I had a thought this morning that I thought was helpful.  You be the judge. 

Deuteronomy 32:4 says, "The Rock (referring to God), his work is perfect, all his ways are justice; a God of faithfulness and without iniquity; just and upright is he."  God is not evil.  He is perfectly good.  But in many places in the Bible, God seems to clearly use evil as a tool to accomplish his good purposes.  Two other biblical examples that come to mind are Job and Jesus Christ: 

And the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, all that he (Job) has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand." - Job 1:12

"…for truly in this city there were gathered together against your (that is, God's) holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your (that is, God's) hand and your plan had predestined to take place." - Acts 4:27-28

The fact that God uses evil as a tool does not make God evil the same way that a tool in the hand does not impart its properties to the hand (or the owner of the hand).  In fact, tools are often employed because we LACK in ourselves the necessary qualities to completely accomplish a good task for which that quality is necessary.  Pounding nails into wood requires hardness.  But my hands are soft, not hard.  So I take up a hammer, which is hard, to pound in nails.  But my hands remain soft.  They, nor I, have not taken on the quality of hardness that the hammer alone possesses and no one would ascribe to me the qualities of the hammer.  Neither does God take on the qualities of evil spirits or evil people when he uses them as tools in his hands to accomplish good tasks.  

Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly, saying, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live." And he went with him. - Mark 5:22-24

Jesus just went! He didn't consult his calendar or the disciples to see what was on the schedule for that day.  Jesus saw a person in desperate need and he went.  I wonder if there were other people who had expectations for Jesus that day?  No doubt he risked the possibility that those other people might feel shafted for his decision to go see Jarius' daughter instead of meeting their needs.  I am also sure that there were plenty who did not understand why Jesus chose to do this act and neglect other possible loving acts that he could have done instead.  

My friend Ryan and I are meeting bi-weekly for coffee and discussing John Piper's Desiring God together.  We just finished chapter 4 this morning.  Chapter 4 is titled "Love: The Labor of Christian Hedonism."  In this chapter, Piper puts forth the following definition of love:

Love is the overflow of joy in God which, gladly meets the needs of others.

The observation that Ryan and I had regarding this definition of love that ties into Mark 5:22-24 is that there seem to be a lot of barriers in our lives to gladly meeting the needs of others. My life is so packed with obligations and desires that I feel must be fiercely protected.  When faced with an opportunity to meet another's needs I almost immediately start calculating in my head the pros and cons of action.  Inevitably, by the time I come to a conclusion, the opportunity has passed or I've talked myself out of it.  Jesus didn't seem to have that problem.  He just went!

Here is an example that I gave from recently in my life.  Last Thursday evening I was driving to class and as I was stopped at a light I saw a young girl (13-14 years old) walk by in shorts and a t-shirt in the cold rain.  She looked miserable.  She could have used a ride.  I wanted to roll down my window and offer to run her home.  Immediately I thought of a handful of reasons NOT to do this.  If she was smart (like I'd want my daughter to be) she would probably decline, if not scream and run away!  How would this look to others?!?!  If she said yes and got in someone might call the police on their cell phone and report my license plate number.  Would my wife approve of me picking up a young girl on the street?  How would her parents feel when she got home that a stranger gave her a ride?  Maybe she comes from a violent home and they'd beat her for it?  Regardless, she needs to learn a lesson about how to dress appropriately for the weather!  Any of these could be true.  Yet the opportunity to demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ to this young girl could have been worth all of this risk.  "I am giving you a ride because I love Jesus!"  A simple statement like that could have changed her life forever.  But the risk was too great and when the light turned green, I continued on my way.

Here's a closing paragraph from chapter 4 of Piper's book:

"My desire to feel the power of God's grace conquering the pride and selfishness in my life inclines me to behavior that demonstrates the victory of grace, namely love. Genuine love is so contrary to human nature that its presence bears witness to an extraordinary power. The Christian Hedonist pursues love because he is addicted to the experience of that power. He wants to feel more and more of the grace of God reigning in his life."

I say, Amen. 

Do you believe that to be true?  I'm not necessarily speaking from a language point of view. Modern translations have been incredibly helpful in bridging the language barrier. There may still be many awkward phrases but we can at least get the jist of what is being said.  

I'm more talking about the fact that the Bible says things that are hard for us to read and have them make sense with what we know (or want to believe) about God. For example, this morning I was reading this in Deuteronomy 22…

“If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst."

A virgin who is raped and does not cry out for help should get treated the same as her rapist?!?! What do you do with that? Honestly, when I first read this, I was offended. Now I have a choice of what to do with this:

1. Pretend I didn't read it and move on.

2. Chalk this up to "old testament stuff" which doesn't apply in the 21st century.

3. Refuse to move on until I can satisfy myself that this passage has a good and useful (relevant) place in the Bible and is consistent with God's revealed character and purposes.

I encourage #3. But beware, this is hard work! You may not even be able to do it in a single sitting, or maybe a lifetime. I could not let this passage go until I could satisfy myself that God is saying something about Himself and His people that is consistent with the rest of Scripture. I believe that God honors this kind of wrestling and inquiry. It is OK to question God's Word as long as you are willing to pursue it and hunt God down in the midst of it. Do not become a hardened skeptic; rather, be a teachable student who wants to learn what God has to say. 

So when you run across these kinds of passages, don't retreat! Do not drift into unbelief. Acknowledge the difficulty of the text and start doing battle with it. God will not mind if you are initially offended or concerned about what the passage is saying as long as you are ultimately willing to trust Him and let Him guide you through it to understanding.

I wrestled with this passage in Deut 22 and believe that I have an understanding of it that is satisfying and consistent with the character of God and the story of Israel. I won't get into it here. But I am grateful that God would not allow me to skip over this text as I would have much rather done!

~Jayson~