Worship: Temple, Priest, and Sacrifice, Part 2

Posted on July 1, 2012 by David

From the simple and small plank sided buildings painted white to the grandest cathedrals I thrill at church buildings (more the older than the modern). Their architecture often depicts the beliefs and social status of their builders. These “houses of God” inspire reverence before God. The small country church in its simplicity reminds me of my humility before God. The cathedral reminds me of the awesomeness of God. This is when I long to be a much better artist with words, able to describe more poetically and visually these houses of worship and their influence on my heart. My mind is picturing so many churches which I have either visited or have only seen in pictures. One in particular comes to mind. Oh how I wish I could paint it with words fitting the picture I remember. It was, and perhaps still is, the meeting house of a Presbyterian congregation, on Belmont Blvd. in Nashville. It was in walking distance of the campus of Lipscomb University. As a student at Lipscomb this Presbyterian church building was a favorite place for myself and some friends to visit. We went there to pray, not on Sundays, but at night, any night. The doors were never locked. In the dimly lit sanctuary I sat in the balcony looking over a simply and beautifully decorated sanctuary. The silence, the architecture, the dim light, all enhanced a sense of God’s presence as I reflected on life and faith, and prayed. The tabernacle in the wilderness, Solomon’s temple, clap board churches, and cathedrals, have always been associated with worship of God.

It was likely the temple in Jerusalem Peter pictures as he encourages the readers of his first letter to faithfully live for Christ in the midst of difficult times. As you come to him, the living Stone–rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him–you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:4-5). I thrill at Peter’s picture. Also I am humbled by it. I learn place and architecture is not what makes being with God’s people being in the house of God. When you are part of a gathering of God’s people you it is the people are the house of God, the temple of God. More than being in the temple you are part of it, one of the living stones with which Christ builds the temple of God. Gathered with God’s people, you and every Christian present are God’s holy priesthood serving God in his temple. Serving God at his temple, as priests of God you offer worship to God, spiritual sacrifices which are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ the high priest. I picture all the various types of churches and the temple in Jerusalem. Then I look around me when gathered with Christians and am thrilled and humbled for I am in the midst of God’s temple, a part of God’s house, of his holy priesthood, offering sacrifices to him. You see, the temple of God is God’s dwelling place by his Spirit, built by Christ (Ephesians 2). God is present. No building of brick, mortar, and steel, no architecture designed by man, can compare. When with God’s people, I am standing before God in the most holy place!

The image of God’s people as the temple of God is used, as here, of a congregation of God’s people or God’s people the world over. This image is also used of the individual Christian. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? (1 Corinthians 6:19). When I apply Peter’s words to the individual Christian, to myself, it is one of my favorite descriptions of a Christian. When you see a Christian walking down the street, he is the temple of God, the priest of God in the temple serving and worshiping God, offering spiritual sacrifices to God. Applying Paul’s exhortation in Romans 12:1-2, (discussed in my previous post), the picture becomes more thrilling and humbling. A Christian is the temple of God. She is the priest of God in the temple serving and worshiping God. And the sacrifice she is offering to God is the living sacrifice of her body. Peter’s application of his words to life present a similar picture of the spiritual sacrifices to be offered by God’s priests within his temple.

Peter’s first audience was experiencing trials of many kinds because of their faith in Christ (1 Peter 1:6; 2:19-25; 3:9, 13-14; 4:12). Peter is encouraging them to faithfulness in the midst of those trials. He is encouraging them to be faithful as God’s temple and priesthood in worshiping God and declaring the praises of God. The picture of temple, priest, and sacrifice, is the picture of Christians faithfully serving and worshiping God. As I understand Peter’s application, quoted below, those spiritual sacrifices offered by God’s holy priesthood in God’s spiritual house are the lives Christians live in this world.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.  (1 Peter 2:9-12)

What Paul (see previous post) and Peter help us understand is that worship does set the agenda for how we deal with all the situations and relationships of life. The issues of life are issues of worship. The issues of life are issues of offering our bodies as living sacrifices, as worship to God. The issues of life are issues of offering spiritual sacrifices as worship that is pleasing and acceptable to God, that declare God’s praises. Those sacrifices offered in worship are everyday choices and living, abstaining from sinful desires, and choosing and doing what is pleasing to God.

Remember Peter’s image as you live your home life, as you walk down the street, as you are on the job, when you gather with other Christians. Remember you are the temple of God, and in the temple you are the priest whose responsibility is to serve God in the temple with worship, offering spiritual sacrifices to God’s glory and praise.

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Worship: Offering Up Living Sacrifices to God, Part 1

Posted on June 30, 2012 by David

Worship is the praise, the devotion, and the reverence we give to that which is the center, the most important thing of our lives. Worship is the response of who we are, heart, mind, bodies, words, and actions. Worship is the response of the whole self. Who or what we worship affects the way we live life. “What I worship sets the agenda for how I deal with all the situations and relationships of life.”1 This principle is seen in the apostle Paul’s description of the rejection of God by the Gentiles in Romans 1:18ff.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised. Amen. (Romans 1:21-25)

They worshiped creation instead of the Creator. Creating their own gods they made idols and bowed down before them. This worship set the agenda for how they lived their lives in pursuit of their selfish passions. What agenda for life is set by the worship of the God of Scripture, of the Father of Jesus Christ?

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God–this your true and proper worship (Romans 12:1).

The picture Paul paints is a familiar picture to the people of his day. Every city in the Roman Empire had temples to various gods. Herod’s temple, the temple of God, still stood in Jerusalem, worship still continued there, sacrifices were still offered. Exhorting Christians to a way of life Paul paints the picture of a worshiper offering a sacrifice to God at the temple. The picture comes to mind of the worshiper coming to the temple bringing the animal to be offered. The animal is slain, butchered according to what portions are to be laid on the altar as a burnt sacrifice and what portions are to be eaten and/or given to the priests. Sacrifices were offered in worship, offerings of thanksgiving and of praise.

Paul uses the language of worship at the altar of God to call Christians to worship God, the Creator, the one true God, the God revealed in Jesus Christ. The worship of the people of God is to be a response to God’s mercy toward them in Christ.

Using the language of sacrifice Paul pictures the worship of disciples of Christ as each disciple offering up a sacrifice on the altar, a sacrifice to God. Not an animal slain and burned on the altar. The sacrifice offered by the Christian is a living sacrifice. It is a sacrifice, not burned up, but a sacrifice that never ceases being offered. The worship offered by Christ’s disciples is a living sacrifice, their very bodies used to glorify and praise God. Paul’s picture is that of approaching God in worship, bowing down before him or standing with hands raised in praise, as the sacrifice is laid on the altar. What an image of the words my mouth speaks or the thoughts of my mind or the use of my appendages and of the organs of my body! Sacrifice laid on the altar. Worship offered up to God.

Bodies offered to God as living sacrifices. In Romans 6 Paul uses resurrection and slavery to make his point of using our bodies for the doing of good, for righteousness. Put yourselves instead at the disposal of God; think of yourselves as raised from death in life, and yield your bodies to God as implements for doing right (Romans 6:13 REB). As you once yielded your bodies to the service of impurity and lawlessness, making for moral anarchy, so now you must yield them to the service of righteousness, making for a holy life (Romans 6:19 REB).

Such worship, living sacrifices offered up to God, certainly sets an agenda for the lives of disciples of Christ. Their lives, the offering of their bodies, are to be holy, and pleasing and acceptable to God. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2). Christians are called to offer to God the worship of lives filled with God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will.

____________

1 Paul David Tripp, “The Way of the Wise” in The Journal of Biblical Counseling (Spring 1995), 42.

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The Depth of the God We Worship–Romans 11:33-36

Posted on June 17, 2012 by David

As the apostle Paul comes to the end of his discussion of God’s plan of redemption in Christ he breaks out into praise. Stott describes Paul’s words as “an astonished exclamation.”1

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Who has ever given to God that God should repay him?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” (Romans 11:33-36 NIV1984)

As translated above Paul speaks of the depth of the riches of God’s wisdom, and the depths of the riches of God’s knowledge. There is disagreement on how best to translate the first half of verse 33. The ESV translates, Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! This latter appears to be the better translation (see the commentaries).

Oh, the depth–the “inexhaustible fullness”, the “superabundance.”2

Oh, the depth of the riches…of God!

One reason for my preference of the ESV (also NRSV) translation is Paul’s use of God’s riches elsewhere. The riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience (Romans 2:4). The riches of his glory (Romans 9:23). The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him (Romans 10:12). The riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us (Ephesians 1:7-8). God, who is rich in mercy (Ephesian 2:4). This grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8). I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being (Ephesians 3:16).

From the inexhaustible riches of God come his blessings upon us in Jesus Christ. God’s love, mercy, and grace, salvation and hope in Christ, come from the inexhaustible riches of God.

Oh, the depth…of the wisdom…of God!

The wisdom of God is hidden in Christ (Colossians 2:2-3). It is displayed on the cross (1 Corinthians 1:18ff). God’s wisdom is unfolded in his saving purpose in Christ (Ephesians 1:8; 3:10). It is this wisdom of which Paul writes in Romans 1-11. It is this wisdom of which Paul is in awe, the inexhaustible wisdom of God.

But we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength (1 Corinthians 1:23-25).

Oh the depth…of the knowledge of God.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand (Psalm 139:6, 17, 18).

God’s knowledge of the past, present, and future, his knowledge of all things, including you and me, is inexhaustible.

How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!

God’s “decisions are unsearchable, and his ways inscrutable.”3

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

This is the God in whom I place my faith through Jesus Christ. He is the God creation proclaims. It is this God who reveals himself in Scripture and in his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet there is more to God who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20).

“Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?”

How can we finite human beings “penetrate into the infinite mind of God? His mind and his activity are altogether beyond us.”4 We are able to know only what God reveals of himself. Even with his revelation God is still beyond our full understanding. There is no advice we can give to God. We have no wisdom or knowledge to add to his inexhaustible wisdom and knowledge. There is nothing we can give to God to add to his inexhaustible riches, to make God indebted to us.

For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

“God is the creator, sustainer and heir of everything, its source, means and goal.”5 He is the Almighty God, the Everlasting Father!

My faith, worship, and life are all in response to God, to who he is and what he has done and is doing in Jesus Christ. This God whom Paul praises in Romans 11:33-36.  There is a paradox here for me. Paul’s praise present the very frustration I have concerning God and the negative, tragic, and heartbreaking events of life.

Why? There are so many question and doubts, so much hurt and anger. God, why don’t you do what I want? Why don’t you do what I think I know is best? Why the suffering? Why is death so often filled with such pain and too soon? Why is there such hatred? Why does it all go on and on, again and again?

I (certainly we) want to know the depth of the riches and of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God. If I (we) could only search his judgments and know his mind! Here is the paradox, if I understood all there is to understand of God, if there was no mystery, God becomes god. The understanding I likely want is that of god as he fits into my image of what god is to be. What a small god that is! A god whom I could not trust. Yes, the inexhaustible mind of God in the midst of the dark times of life is challenging and often frustrating. Yet, the fact God is greater than I am able to fully comprehend, inexhaustible in his riches, wisdom, and knowledge, is a pillar of strength for my faith and my assurance of hope that beyond the dark clouds the Son shines.

It is difficult for the heart and mind to comprehend the dark nights of life’s struggles and tragedies. Where is the purpose? Why? I remember God’s love in Christ, his grace and mercy abounding out of his riches. In Christ I am assured that the depth of the riches, of the wisdom, and of the knowledge of God are shaped by his righteousness, justice, goodness, and love. In the darkest night with its fears, doubts, and anger, I look to Christ and see the depth of God and I trust.

____________                                                                                                                                 1 John Stott, Romans, God’s Good News for the World (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 309.                                                                                                                                   2 Jack Cottrell, Romans, Volume 2, CD version (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996), 299.            3 Stott, 310.                                                                                                                                             4 Ibid.                                                                                                                                                       5 Ibid., 311.

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The Grand Miracle–God with Us

Posted on December 26, 2011 by David

Since almost the beginning of time humankind “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles” (Romans 1:23). Influenced by the nations around them and their time in ancient Egypt Israel at times in its history wanted to, and did make idols. Aaron, priest of Yahweh, gave in to the cries of the people at Sinai and made a golden calf. Aaron “built an altar in front of the calf and announced, ‘Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD’” (Exodus 32:5). The calf, Aaron proclaimed, represent Yahweh!

Centuries later the prophet Isaiah rebuked Israel for wanting to do the same. “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on his scales and the hills in a balance? To whom, then, will you compare God? What image will you compare him to? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy and spreads them out like a tent to live in. ‘To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?’ says the Holy One. Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing” (Isaiah 40:12, 18, 22, 25,26).

Solomon was under no illusions concerning God as he built the Temple. “Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in front of the whole assembly of Israel, spread out his hands toward heaven and said: ‘O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below–you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way. But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built” (1 Kings 8:22-23, 27).

“Will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you.” Yet there is this outrageous claim by the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. God, in the person of his Son, the Creator of all things, the one whom “the heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain,” came in the flesh, as a human being. He was conceived in the womb of a woman. Jesus of Nazareth, born like any other human baby, grew, lived, and died. He, his disciples claimed was God, the Son of God, in the flesh! Jesus was God dwelling on earth!

The apostle John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:1-3, 14).

Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, wrote of Jesus, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death–even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:6-8).

Max Lucado vividly captures the mystery, the awe, of the coming of the Son of God in the flesh.1 “The omnipotent, in one instant, made himself breakable. He who had been spirit became pierceable. He who was larger than the universe became an embryo. And he who sustains the world with a word chose to be dependent upon the nourishment of a young girl. God as a fetus. Holiness sleeping in a womb. The creator of life being created.”

One writer expressed his struggle with the outrageousness of the claim of Christianity. “The virgin birth has never been a major stumbling block in my struggle with Christianity; it’s far less mind-boggling than the Power of all Creation stooping so low as to become one of us.”2

C. S. Lewis calls the incarnation, God coming in the flesh, Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, the grand miracle. “The Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated, eternal, came into nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing nature up with Him.”3

God with us, in the flesh, if this wasn’t outrageous enough, there is the commonness with which the Son came. “He came, not as a flash of light or as an unapproachable conquerer, but as one whose first cries were heard by a peasant girl and a sleepy carpenter. The hands that first held him were unmanicured, calloused, and dirty. No silk. No ivory. No hype. No party. No hoopla.”4

With a human heart Jesus knew joy and sorrow, acceptance and rejection. With a human, as well as a divine, heart he ached for a lost and dying world. The Son of God, as man, experienced the power of temptation at a level of intensity no other man has experienced. He felt the pain of the soldier’s whip and the spikes impaling him on the cross. Jesus died, knowing the Father’s wrath for our sins inflicted upon him. He knew humiliation–the Creator of all, surrendered his sovereignty for the shame of the cross, inflected upon him by his enemies. The Son of God, who was with God, equal with God, one with God, voluntarily relinquished his glory to the power of the Enemy. He “made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant” (Philippians 2:7). “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9).

The biblical texts are abundant testifying to God’s initiative and to the willingness of Christ. God gave. God offered. God sent. Christ was a willing sacrifice on the cross. Father and Son both willed the Son’s coming in the flesh and the Son’s death on the cross. They both freely gave of self and sacrificed self. In his gospel (19:37), the apostle John applied to Jesus the following words of God through the prophet Zechariah. “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son” (Zechariah 12:10). This was God’s experience for us–suffering and grief.

How often do we try to understand what God went through for us? Do we comprehend the relationship of God’s love for us to the difficulty, the pain, and the grief over the death of his Son whom he loved with a love beyond our experience? The text does not describe the events that terrible day when Christ died as such, but I cannot help but understand the darkness during the crucifixion of Jesus and the convulsion of the earth as the heart of God grieving.

It is vitally important for us to remember every day and season of the year that at the very core of our faith is this outrageous truth, Immanuel, God with us!

“The omnipotent, in one instant, made himself breakable. He who had been spirit became pierceable. He who was larger than the universe became an embryo. And he who sustains the world with a word chose to be dependent upon the nourishment of a young girl. God as a fetus. Holiness sleeping in a womb. The creator of life being created.”5

“The Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated, eternal, came into nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing nature up with Him.”6

Sometimes I wonder, if this day had not become the tradition it became over the centuries, would I be as inclined as I am at this time every year to focus on and be renewed with the awe, wonder, and mystery of the incarnation, of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, God with us, the grand miracle?

___________________

1Max Lucado, God Came Near (Portland, OR: Multnoman Press, 1987), 25.     2ChristianityTodayLibrary.com, 12/4/2000.                                                                                 3C. S. Lewis, “The Grand Miracle” in God in the Dock (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970, 1997), 80.                                                                                                                                  4Lucado, 26.                                                                                                                                    5Ibid., 25.                                                                                                                                       6Lewis.

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Thoughts on the Sovereignty of God

Posted on December 4, 2011 by David

The sovereignty of God, how he acts in his creation, is a subject with which I have wrestled during my forty-one years of ministry. My struggle with God’s sovereignty became more keen during my grandson Sully’s thirteen month battle with leukemia ending in his death on August 1, 2008 at fifteen months old. There are a number of opinions and a host of variations of these as to God’s sovereignty and the exercise of his sovereignty. What follows is not a study of any particular text or group of texts in Scripture. Rather it is my heart speaking, sharing what I believe. These beliefs on the sovereignty of God I shared in a post on July 19, 2009 on my site in honor of Sully, www.caringbridge.org/visit/sullivanbubbyfarrar. Here is my faith from my heart, trying to be rooted in Scripture, still questioning, still struggling, but ever trusting God’s compassions are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness.

First, things happen. There is suffering that is simply the result of the natural processes of life in this physical world. You misstep and fall off a ladder. Gravity makes you fall. The concrete below is much harder than your body. The processes which bless us with sunshine and rain, warmth and cold, also cause hurricanes and tornadoes. Sin brought a brokenness into creation, an oppressive bondage to decay (Romans 8:20-21). Diseases of all kinds are the result of this brokenness and decay or are simply a result of the natural processes of life or both. People inflict pain and suffering on other people, purposely or through carelessness or thoughtlessness or accidentally. War, crimes, anger, and hatred injure and kill, physically and emotionally, the intended victims and the innocents in the way. Modern medicine works so many wonders. I am alive today because of modern medicine’s advances. Yet by those very advances we are placed in situations where life and death decisions are made that once were not options. Sometimes as we fight for life, as we make those heart-wrenching, no-one-should-have-to-make decisions, the unintended result is more suffering. (No one has the right to judge anyone who is put in this position and the decisions made.) We make choices with our lives, in everyday situations, sometimes very neutral and benign decisions such as which street to use to reach our destination. Occasionally such benign choices result in circumstances that strike our lives with horrible disaster.

Second, God does not micromanage everyone’s life. Not everything is the result of God’s purpose, plan, and will. Some are comforted to believe God always has an intended purpose in a child’s cancer or a child’s death. I am outraged if that is true. I do believe God is able to redeem such suffering through the suffering of Christ.

Third, Satan is real. As in the biblical story of Job, Satan does actively cause pain and suffering in this world.

Fourth, God gives us the freedom to live. He doesn’t shut us up in our bedrooms to keep us safe. With this freedom is risk, but it is necessary to our growth as human beings.

Fifth, God may indeed at times purposely bring or allow bad things to happen to a person to accomplish discipline or growth or repentance, whatever is needed to preserve that person’s faith. As I hope it is clear above, I do not believe this is the normal way in which God works. I am very slow to attach this to any particular event in a person’s life. All any of us is able to know with certainty is that now is happening, whether death or disease or cure. We do not know the behind the scene cause or reason. Job never knew why. Hebrews 12:1ff comes to mind.

Sixth, I know God loves us with a love unlike any other.

Seventh, I know God has a definite purpose for my life and for yours—that we might place our faith in Jesus Christ, crucified and resurrected and come to knowledge of the salvation which is in Christ.

Eighth, I know God has a definite purpose for those who come to such faith—to conform them to the image of his Son and bring them to eternity.

Ninth, I know, whatever the causes, God will use the circumstances of our lives, good or evil, to accomplish his purpose for us and to glorify his name (the redemption mentioned above).

Tenth, I know, whatever happens, God’s love never forsakes us. For this and also point six through nine Romans 8:28ff is foundational to my understanding and belief.

I continue to question, to struggle, but I continue to trust God’s compassions are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness.

 

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Forgiving God?

Posted on October 20, 2011 by David

(This is the tenth and final entry of a series on forgiveness. The purpose is twofold. First to help us understand and be as patient as God with the grief, anger, and doubts of those who are going through a darkness in their lives we have not experienced. Second, I speak especially to those who have known the depths of the blackest darkness of tragedy, suffering, and loss in their lives. God is a longsuffering God with us. Thank you Lord for your grace and mercy.)

Lewis Smedes tells the story of a tailor who leaves his prayers and, on the way out of the synagogue, meets a rabbi. “Well, and what have you been doing in the synagogue, Lev Ashram?” the rabbi asks. “I was saying prayers, rabbi.” “Fine,” the rabbi responded, and did you confess your sins?” “Yes, rabbi, I confessed my little sins,” the tailor replied. “Your little sins?” the astonished rabbi asked. “Yes, I confess that I sometimes cut my cloth on the short side, that I cheat on a yard of wool by a couple of inches.” “You said that to God, Lev Ashram?” “Yes, rabbi, and more. I said, ‘Lord, I cheat on pieces of cloth, you let little babies die. But I am going to make you a deal. You forgive me my little sins and I’ll forgive you your big ones.’”1

We recoil at such boldness. God can be blamed? God does wrong for which he needs to apologize? God needs our forgiveness? Quickly we respond, God does not sin. We do not always understand the reasons for bad and tragic events. God, however, does no wrong. We will quote James, “God cannot be tempted by evil” (James 1:13). And there is what the writer of Hebrews says about Jesus, “who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet was without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Again James writes, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17). If God does wrong or has something for which to apologize, is he God? The prophet Hosea wrote, “The ways of the LORD are right” (Hosea 4:9). God does no wrong. Blame cannot be rightly cast in God’s direction. There is never a need to forgive God.

Yet…

There are so many questions when tragedy strikes our lives. We want to know why there is such suffering and injustice in our lives. Crying out for answers some answers come. So often there are no answers or explanations which satisfy the heart. At such times we cry out with the Psalmist and with Jesus, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:46)

Elie Wiesel was fifteen years old when he, with his family, were taken from their home in Sighet, Transylvania, and imprisoned at Auschwitz in 1944. In 1958 his book Night  was first publiched. At age fifteen he was a Jewish boy who desired to attain the depths of faith in and understanding of God. At age fifteen he was thrown into a darkness so black, so terrifying. His words penetrate the reader’s heart with the depths of darkness possible within the human race. In the face of the crematorium, where Elie witnessed babies being thrown into the flames, men started to pray. Looking back at that day the young man, Elie Wiesel, who survived the darkness, writes, “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?”2

Wiesel writes of one young boy who “had a delicate and beautiful face–an incredible sight in this camp. (…His was the face of an angel in distress.).” He was placed in solitary confinement, tortured, and condemned to death. Elie Wiesel and thousands of others watched as this young boy was hanged. “All eyes were on the child. He was pale, almost calm, but he was biting his lips as he stood in the shadow of the gallows….the boy was silent. ‘Where is merciful God, where is He?’ someone behind me was asking.” The signal was given, the young boy and two men were hanged. “We were weeping.” “Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out, swollen and bluish. But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing… And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes….He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguished. Behind me, I heard the same man asking: ‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where is He? This is where–hanging here from this gallows…’ That night, the soup tasted of corpses.”3

This was not an answer of faith, “God is with this poor boy. His suffering will not be in vain.” Rather it was a cry of faith dying, of God dying. Where is God? What answer is there to give this cry of the heart? To a boy of fifteen in the blackest darkness what answer from the intellect can satisfy his heart? Do not be so quick to shake a finger of rebuke. There are those times when the darkness of evil, the darkness of suffering and tragedy, is so black that the person of strongest faith cries out against God, accuses God, and demands God answer.

Jeremiah has been called the weeping prophet. His personal suffering at the hands of his own people was harsh. He grieved as he watched his beloved nation, Judah, ravished by the fierce army of Babylon. The darkness was so black Jeremiah cried out, “Cursed be the day I was born!…Why did I ever come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow and to end my days in shame?” (Jeremiah 20:14, 18). Jeremiah blamed God. “The LORD is like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel” (Lamentations 2:5).  The prophet held God accountable for the suffering of Judah. He also held God accountable for his own suffering. “He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light; indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long. Even when I call out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer. He pierced my heart with arrows from his quiver. So I say, ‘My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the LORD’” (Lamentations 3:2, 8, 13, 18).

God said of Job, “There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil” (Job 1:8). Then tragedy struck. Job lost all his wealth and more tragically all his children. He continued to praise God. Then Job was struck with a painful disease covering his body in sores. His wife said to him, “‘Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!’ He replied, ‘You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?’” (Job 2:9-10).

With time Job’s suffering became intolerable. His friends accused him of deserving the evil that happened to him. In response he defended himself and began to question God. There was no logical reason for what happened to him. It was not fair or just. Job challenged and accused God. “Therefore I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul” (7:11). “As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made me taste bitterness of soul” (27:2). “Then know that God has wronged me and drawn his net around me. Though I cry, ‘I’ve been wronged!’ I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice. His anger burns against me; he counts me among his enemies” (19:6, 7, 11).

The pillars holding up life collapse under the weight of suffering and pain. A body is ravished by disease or accident. A marriage disintegrates. A job is lost and a new job not found. Childhood nightmares come to life after years of being locked up. A child dies. Some of us, like Jeremiah, cry out wondering how God could become like an enemy. Others, like Job, complain that God has done us wrong. There is no justice in what has happened. The darkness can be so black that like Jeremiah and Job we may question the very reason for our existence. Why, if this is what life brings, why were we ever born? There are those times in life when the hardship, the suffering, and the pain is so great, the darkness so black, the person even of the strongest faith will cry out from his heart against God with a complaint for which there is no satisfying answer.

You might tell me such complaint against God is sin. After all the text says concerning Job’s initial patience and praise of God, that he “did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing,” “Job did not sin in what he said” (Job 1:22; 2:10). Sin? Yes, when such complaint leads to unbelief and no return.

Yet…

As I read the whole story I am taught that such complaint is not necessarily sin. It is human. It is the cry of a broken and crushed heart. In his compassion God listens. He bares his chest for us to beat with our fists, his arms around us, his heart feeling our grief, hurt, and anger. When the heart cries out with such complaint, there is a need to forgive God. Not forgiveness in the sense of forgiving God for wrong he has done. The truth is God has not done anything wrong. Even so, the heart feels wronged. The heart is filled with resentment and bitterness. At such times if we do not forgive God, that is, if we do not let go of the resentment and the bitterness we may stumble from faith to doubt, to unbelief. To forgive God is a healing of the heart as the resentment, bitterness, and blame are let go. With such healing we again find it possible to trust God.

Jeremiah’s heart was dark with depression. All that he hoped from God was gone. He laid the blame for all his suffering at the feet of God. As he complained, as he accused, he also remembered. “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him’” (Lamentations 3:21-24).

God was silent for what seemed such a long time as Job defended himself and as he challenged God to justify what happened to Job and to his family. God finally spoke. He did not explain to Job why so much tragedy happened. What God did was bring Job back to the reality of Job’s humanness and of God’s divine glory and power. Job responded, “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know” (Job 42:3). A friend translates Job 42:6 (and I see the possibility), “I melt before you and am consoled over my dust and ashes.” Job humbled himself before God. He let go of the bitterness and the resentment. Job let go of his presumed right to judge God. He was consoled, comforted in the dust and ashes of his life by his encounter with God. God brought Job back to his faith, to his trust in God’s sovereignty, righteousness, holiness, wisdom, and love. He still didn’t understand why it all happened. Yet he trusted God.4

Augustine tells of a vision of seeing a little boy at a beach scooping up the ocean thimbleful by thimbleful and emptying it out on the sand. Then he sees an angel who tells him that this boy will have emptied out the entire ocean long before Augustine has exhausted what can be said about God.5

Hardships and sufferings challenge our understanding of and trust in God. In the darkness of the night we struggle to see him. As the eyes of our hearts see anew his power and sovereignty revealed in creation, in Scripture, in His people who care for us, and in Jesus Christ, we come back to trusting him as we are humbled before him. Remembering his love and compassion for us in the past and especially in the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we are not consumed by the darkness. The assurance of God’s love renews us. The certainty of hope in Jesus Christ sustains us. Confident God understands, even though we do not, we come back to trusting him.

Hear the enemies of Christ mock him as he hung on the cross. “Where is God now?” Someone answers, “He is here, nailed to the tree.” With tears we realize he is on that cross. It is God who is suffering, bearing all the suffering and darkness. It is God who takes his last breath and cries out, “It is finished!” On the slab in the tomb is the body of God in the person of his Son. How awful is the darkness! Yet, on Sunday morning, another answer is given to the question, “Where is God now?” The answer is heard, “He is not in the tomb as you can see. He is risen.” The light overcomes the darkness.

He is risen! We remember. We believe. In spite of the darkness in our lives we know God’s love never forsakes us. Hope in Christ is true and certain. Still we do not understand when the darkness overwhelms us. Yet in Christ we know God has not wronged us. God is not to blame. In Christ, our fellow sufferer, God is with us. He does not need our forgiveness, but we need to forgive. He listens with patience and compassion. We let go of the anger, the bitterness, and the resentment. We stop judging God. Now we are able to bow in humility before our Lord and Savior, even if we do not understand why the darkness, we trust God; we trust the Light he sent into the darkness, the Light who is his Son, the Light of his love.

This is what we hear in the words of Job. “I melt before you and am consoled over my dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). Hear the words of Jeremiah. “Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22-23). Forgiveness, humility, renewed faith and trust, we also hear from the young Jewish boy who lived through the blackest night. Forty-two years later we hear his words as he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. “But I have faith. Faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”6

___________________                                                                                                      1Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive & Forget, Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve (New York: HarperOne, 1984, 1996), 82.                                                                                                     2Elie Wiesel. Night. Translated by Marion Wiesel. (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006), 32-33.                                                                                                                                          3Ibid., 63-65.                                                                                                                              4John Mark Hicks, “Forgiving God: From Praise to Bitterness to Comfort,” http://johnmarkhicks.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/forgiving-god-from-praise-to-bitterness-to-comfort.                                                                                                        5Peter Kreeft, http://www.peterkreeft.com/home.htm.                                                6Wiesel, 120.

Posted in Forgiveness, God, Suffering and Faith | Tagged | 4 Comments

Forgiving Yourself

Posted on September 30, 2011 by David

(This is the ninth entry of a series on forgiveness.)

“Do you dare release the person you are today from the shadow of the wrong you did yesterday?                                                                                                                                           “Do you dare forgive yourself?                                                                                                     “To forgive yourself takes high courage. Who are you, after all, to shake yourself free from the undeniable sins of your private history–as if what you once did has no bearing on who you are now?                                                                                                               “Where do you get the right–let alone the cheek–to forgive yourself when other people would want you to crawl in shame if they really knew? How dare you?                           “The answer is that you get the right to forgive yourself only from the entitlements of love. And you dare forgive yourself only with the courage of love. Love is the ultimate source of both your right and your courage to ignore the indictment you level at yourself. When you live as if yesterday’s wrong is irrelevant to how you feel about yourself today, you are gambling on a love that frees you even from self-condemnation.”1

The love which gives us the courage to forgive ourselves is the love of God in Jesus Christ. “Love comes from God….This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins….There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment…” “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”2

Peter was emphatic. Though all others forsake Jesus, Peter was never going to forsake his Lord. “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.” Jesus told Peter, “This very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” Boldly Peter answered, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”3 Later that evening Peter showed his courage and his determination to never forsake Jesus even to the point of death. That evening Peter also lost his courage and determination and denied even knowing Jesus.

Soldiers and others came armed to arrest Jesus the fateful night in the garden. Peter drew a sword and began to defend his Lord. He was willing to go to prison or to die for Jesus. Jesus stopped Peter and told him to put away the sword. Then Jesus willingly surrendered. Peter was confused. With sword in hand he was willing to stand up for Jesus, to remain loyal to Christ even if it cost him his life.4 Without a sword, passively watching as Jesus willingly allowed himself to be arrested, Peter didn’t know what to do.

Peter followed as Jesus was led away. Close enough to see what was going to happen. Far enough behind so as not to be noticed. Jesus was taken to the home of the high priest. Peter went into the courtyard where other onlookers were gathered. He could see Jesus and the authorities interrogating him. False witnesses were brought to testify against Jesus. False accusations were hurled at Jesus. Peter watched as he stood by a fire. He quietly watched, no effort to defend Jesus now. Then three different people thought they recognized Peter as one of Jesus’ disciples. Three times Peter denied being a follower of Jesus, denied knowing Jesus. “Woman, I don’t know him.” “Man, I am not!” “Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”5 Notice Mark’s account of the third denial. “Peter began to call down curses on himself, and he swore to them, ‘I don’t know this man you’re talking about.’”6 Then, as Jesus had said, a rooster crowed.

What follows is one of those poignant moments in Scripture. “The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: ‘Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.’ And he went outside and wept bitterly.”7 Jesus’ eyes met the eyes of Peter, a penetrating look, heart meeting heart. The eyes of Jesus pierced the heart of Peter as Peter’s guilt penetrated his soul. The boast of loyalty even to the point of death was empty, meaningless. He denied Jesus, three times. I can see Peter beating up himself, hating himself. Hear Peter berating himself, “How could I? Why did I? How can God ever forgive me? How can I forgive myself? I’m a coward. I am not worthy of forgiveness.”

Judas was so overwhelmed with guilt and unable to forgive himself. He hung himself.8 Could Peter possibly forgive himself?

More than once the risen Jesus appeared to Peter alone, and to Peter and the other apostles. One of those appearances is recorded in John 21. Two times Jesus asked Peter, “Do you truly love me?” A third time Jesus asked, “Do you love me?” Three times, certainly Peter’s mind went back to those three times he denied Christ. Peter made no bold statements. Humbly he answered, “Lord, you know that I love you.” Each time Jesus asks Peter to care for those who would follow Jesus. Jesus was assuring Peter of his love for Peter. He was giving Peter the opportunity do face his own guilt. Jesus was assuring Peter of his forgiveness of Peter and his confidence in Peter. Peter was also being helped by Jesus to forgive himself.

Peter never forgot what he did. The remembrance at times certainly pricked his heart. Yet Peter was able to forgive himself. He could not have preached the gospel he preached without forgiving himself. His words describing the grace of God in Jesus Christ, his understanding of the gospel, reveal a man who knew forgiveness. Peter wrote, “In his great mercy God has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”9 Peter’s guilt, any thought he had of unworthiness of God’s forgiveness and of his own forgiveness, was overcome by the love of the resurrected Christ.

Remember Saul of Tarsus, better known as the apostle Paul. He described his pre-Christian self as a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man.10 He violently opposed the followers of Jesus, arresting, jailing, and sending them to their deaths.11 Yet Christ showed him mercy. Forgave him. Called him and trusted him to be His apostle to the ancient Roman Gentile world. Paul remembered, how could he not remember what he had done when he persecuted Christians. Often he shared his story, how he persecuted Christians and how Christ called him to salvation and ministry.12 On one occasion he wrote, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–of whom I am the worst.”13 He remembered but not with guilt. As you study the writings of Paul it becomes obvious he forgave himself. What enabled him to do so was the love of God and of Jesus Christ. Christ loved him, died on the cross for even him, accepted him, and called him to live for Christ. With that memory he was able to forgive, to accept, and to live with, himself. Paul rejoiced, “The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”14 The following words of Paul were written by a heart filled with love and forgiveness, not with guilt, “Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by grace you have been saved.”15

Jesus was guest for dinner at the home of a Pharisee by the name of Simon. A woman, uninvited, came in behind Jesus. She bowed down at Jesus’ feet, weeping. She had a reputation as a loose and sinful woman. Her tears fell on Jesus’ feet. She wiped them with her hair. Simon said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is–that she is a sinner.”  You can read the exchange between Jesus and Simon concerning this woman. Jesus knew the woman’s sinful and broken life and knew her heart. Simon judged her unforgivable. Jesus reached out to her in compassion, mercy, grace, and love. He said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”16

How often do people carry the burden of past sins and guilt? Even when they have repented, sought forgiveness, and received forgiveness, they still carry the shame and guilt in their hearts. Not forgiving themselves they carry the heavy weight of unresolved guilt, self-blame, self-conviction, and self-condemnation. “How could I? Why did I? How can God ever forgive me? Even if he did, how can I forgive myself? I’m not worthy of forgiveness. She says she forgives me, but that can’t be true. How can she forgive me?”

What a burden to bear! Not forgiving oneself hinders relationships, keeps a person from experiencing the blessing of the gift of forgiveness from God and others and the blessings of reconciliation. Not forgiving oneself hinders efforts to change behavior. After all when a person is unforgivable what’s the use?

Peter, Paul, and the unnamed woman reveal the love, mercy, and grace of God and of Christ. The point of the grace of God is that he knows us. With full knowledge of our weakness and sins, God forgives and accepts us in Jesus Christ. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for   us.”17 Consider Paul’s pre-Christian life. His unbelief, blasphemy, violence, yet Christ forgave him. Note Paul’s explanation in 1 Timothy 1:15-16. “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.” “If Christ forgave me, and he did,” Paul is telling us, “Christ can and will forgive you.”

When we honestly approach God in repentance and ask forgiveness in Jesus Christ, God forgives us and accepts us. Who are we to deny forgiving ourselves? Do we know ourselves better than God? Is God’s love not greater and more honest than our lack of love for ourselves?

God forgives us. Does that not reveal to us that we are forgivable?

Forgiveness of yourself, living with yourself (with your past failures), you need to go to God and to the person you wronged. Go with confession and honesty, with repentance. Do not make excuses or duck blame. Go in the reality of what you have done. With regret and sorrow, accepting responsibility, ready to do whatever might be required of you, in humility ask for forgiveness. Trust God’s promise of forgiveness. Accept God’s forgiveness and forgive yourself. When you receive the gift of grace and forgiveness from the person you wronged, you receive permission to forgive yourself.

What if the hurt is so deep the person you wronged refuses to forgive you? What if you waited too long and the person is no longer in your life? Trust and accept God’s forgiveness of you. In God’s grace forgive yourself. Live kindly and patiently toward the person you wronged. You cannot force or manipulate him or her into forgiving you. Accept his refusal to forgive you a consequence of what you did. As far as it is within you live with a repentant heart and life. As far as it is within you live in peace toward the one refusing to forgive you.

Christ came into this world, lived, died on the cross, and is now at the right hand of God, all to save sinners. Remembering the love of God in Christ enables us to forgive ourselves and to accept ourselves as Christ forgives and accepts us. Forgiving ourselves and learning to love ourselves as Christ loves us helps us to learn how to give grace to others and to forgive others.

“Do you dare release the person you are today from the shadow of the wrong you did yesterday?                                                                                                                                       “Do you dare forgive yourself?                                                                                                     “To forgive yourself takes high courage. Who are you, after all, to shake yourself free from the undeniable sins of your private history–as if what you once did has no bearing on who you are now?                                                                                                               “Where do you get the right–let alone the cheek–to forgive yourself when other people would want you to crawl in shame if they really knew? How dare you?                             “The answer is that you get the right to forgive yourself only from the entitlements of” the love of God in Jesus Christ. “And you dare forgive yourself only with the courage of” God’s love and grace freely given to you. The love of God in Christ “is the ultimate source of both your right and your courage to ignore the indictment you level at yourself. When you live as if yesterday’s wrong is irrelevant to how you feel about yourself today,” you are trusting in the love of God and the love of Christ “that frees you even from self-condemnation.”18

___________________                                                                                                            1Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive & Forget, Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve (New York: HarperOne, 1984, 1996), 71.                                                                                                            21 John 4:7, 9-10, 18; 1:9                                      3Matthew 26:33-35; Luke 22:33                      4Matthew 26: Mark 14; Luke 22; John 18        5Luke 22:57, 58, 60                                            6Mark 14:71                                                            7Luke 22:61-62                                    8Matthew 27:1-5                                                    91 Peter 1:3; 2:24                                                101 Timothy 1:13                                                     11Acts 8:57-8:3; 9:1-2; 22:1-5; 26:9-11      12Acts 22; 26                                                           131 Timothy 1:15                                              141 Timothy 1:14                                                     15Ephesians 2:4-5                                        16Luke 7:36-50                                                       17Romans 5:8                                            18Smedes with some changes by DQF.

Posted in Forgiveness | Tagged | 1 Comment

The Depth of God

Posted on September 28, 2011 by David

“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” (Romans 11:33-36).

That is the very frustration we have concerning God and the negative, heartbreaking events of life. We want to know why! So many questions and doubts, so much hurt and anger, God why don’t you do what we want? Why don’t you do what we think we know is best? Why the suffering? Why the death? Why the hatred? Why does it all go on and on, again and again? We want to know the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. If we could only search his judgments and know his mind!

The words of the apostle Paul paradoxically depict the very reality of God that gives us comfort, strength, and hope in the midst of the darkest night. “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). God’s love assures us that the depth of the riches of God’s wisdom and knowledge are shaped by his love. Though we find it so difficult to understand the dark and tragic side of our lives, God’s love in Christ assures us of the righteousness, justice, goodness, and love of God’s judgments and purpose.

If we understood all there is to understand of God, if there was no mystery, would God be God? Likely the understanding we want is that of a god who fits our image of what a god should be like. What a small god that is.

As frustrating as the mystery of God can be, the fact God is greater than I am able to comprehend is a foundational strength for my faith and assurance of hope.

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On The Other Side of Forgiveness

Posted on September 17, 2011 by David

(This is the eighth entry of a series on forgiveness. Repentance.)

HONESTY. Forgiveness is honest, severely honest. None of us want to be on the other side of forgiveness. We do not want to be the target of the severe honesty with which forgiveness comes. The honesty we must face when we are the guilty party, the one who has offended, who has hurt another by our words and/or actions, is an honesty from which we seek to hide. When confronted with a wrong, a sin, we have committed against another what do we humans typically do? Immediately we come to our own defense. We find excuses. We push back, certainly the offended person must share the blame if not the whole blame. Or we simply deny any wrong doing, even if we know we are in the wrong. When confronted with the honesty which is essential to the dynamic of forgiveness we respond with self-defense and self-preservation.

The honesty of forgiveness calls the guilty to repentance. Repentance is an old biblical and religious word which we do not use much in everyday speech. Literally it means to turn around, to go in the opposite direction, to do an about face. The idea is a change of heart and a change of behavior. A key text in helping me to understand the dynamic of repentance is Psalm 51. The heading of this psalm describes it as a psalm of David, King of Israel. It was written when the prophet Nathan came to David and confronted him with the adultery he committed with Bathsheba. David had tried to hide his sin from others, from himself, and from God.1 Confronted with his sin David wrote this song of confession and prayer for forgiveness. David’s words are addressed to God and concern his relationship with God. What is learned in this psalm gives us insight into the dynamic of repentance both toward God and toward the person we have offended and wronged.

GIFT. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin” (Psalm 51:1-2). Confronted with the reality of his sin and guilt, David does the only thing he can do. David pleads for forgiveness from God. David asks for forgiveness. He does not demand he be forgiven. Forgiveness is a gift of mercy and grace. When approaching a person we have wronged we have no right to demand forgiveness. Note also David acknowledges his guilt. Being on the other side of forgiveness obligates us to acknowledge our guilt, to accept responsibility for what we did.

GOD. “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (Psalm 51:4). David used Bathsheba to satisfy his own desires. He disregarded her person and well-being, in both the adultery and in the killing of her husband Uriah. What especially brings David to his knees is his realization that in sinning against Bathsheba and Uriah he sinned against God. When David used and defiled Bathsheba he was using and defiling God. In taking Uriah’s wife and having Uriah killed, David robbed and killed God. David is not minimizing the wrong committed against Bathsheba and Uriah. Rather he recognizes what he did was all the more contemptible. We hear such deep pain, anguish, and guilt as David grieves sinning against God.

We cannot separate our relationship with people from our relationship with God. In our relationships with people we find our opportunity to serve and praise God or to despise and reject God. For the Christian who is on the other side of forgiveness this makes his willingness to come to the person he wronged in repentance and asking for forgiveness all the more important. Repentance to those we have wronged is taking seriously our relationship with God.

GUILT. “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (Psalm 51:3-4). We automatically want to shift to self-defense and self-preservation. We minimize the hurt done or find excuses or put blame on the person we hurt. When we are on the other side of forgiveness asking forgiveness, claiming to be sorry, and professing change, we must do so with acknowledgement of our guilt with no defending or excusing. “I did it. What I did was wrong.”

REMORSE. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17). David’s remorse for his sin is heard throughout the psalm. Repentance not only says, “I am sorry.” Repentance feels sorrow with a genuineness of heart, a genuine sorrow, regret, and remorse for what we did or said. An offender can be sorry for a number of reasons. He can be sorry because he was caught. There is sorrow for the offender’s own loss and pain. “Look at all that I am suffering because of what I’ve done.” The offender is sometimes sorry because he failed to be what he wanted to be, which is a higher motivation of heart than the other reasons for sorrow. Yet with all of these the offender is responding out of self-centeredness. His concern is himself. There is little real concern for the hurt he caused another.

What I hear in David’s words is sorrow for the pain and grief he caused God. His sorrow and humility, his broken spirit and broken and contrite heart, came from his sorrow for offending and breaking the heart of God. Repentance is sorrow for the pain and loss your sin has caused in the other person’s heart and life. Repentance is being pained and grieved for the other person’s sake and for God’s sake.

RESPONSIBILITY. “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (Psalm 51:4). David gives no defense or excuse. We do not hear from David, “I’m sorry. But if you hadn’t…” or “I’m sorry, but you just have to understand that’s the way I am.” David accepted full responsibility for his actions. He didn’t blame Bathsheba or circumstances or God. There are no pleas of defense on the basis he was powerless to resist sin. David was ready to accept whatever consequences God judged to be worthy of such sin.  Accepting full responsibility, accountability, and consequences, this is repentance. This is what we are to do when we are on the other side of forgiveness.

CHANGE. “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). Repentance is turning away from our offensive behavior. It is making a change, an about face, in attitude, in words, and in behavior. The prophet Ezekiel shares God’s call to and response to repentance. “But if a wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die” (Ezekiel 18:21). God forgives the repentant sinner who lives the change repentance brings. The apostle Paul called people to repentance. “I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds” (Acts 26:20).

Repentance goes beyond saying, “I’m sorry.” The offender who repents ceases the offensive behavior. She makes a commitment to ceasing such behavior and never doing it again.

RESTITUTION. “Surely you desire truth in the inner parts, you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you. Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness” (Psalm 51:6, 13-14). With repentance, with the desire to be forgiven, comes a willingness, a desire, to do whatever can be done to heal the damage done. Forgiveness is canceling the debt. Repentance involves making good on the debt as much as is possible.

“I began telling people that they should change their hearts and lives and turn to God and do things to show they really had changed” (Acts 26:20 NCV). The change of heart and life is a change of attitude toward the person we wronged. It is the change of behavior toward that person. Unselfishly and humbly we commit to doing what is good and right toward the person we wronged. Doing whatever is needed, what is possible to do, we seek to heal, to undo, the hurt that was done.

TRUST. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions” (Psalm 51:1). When the guilty come unselfishly and humbly, asking forgiveness, and repenting, he trusts the grace of the wounded. When the guilty repents he doesn’t turn the tables. “I said I was sorry. You better forgive me or God won’t forgive you.” When guilty we do not have the right to demand and cannot demand that the wounded put the offense aside, and go on as before the offense occurred. To be repentant is also to be patient with the person we wronged. We must patiently and compassionately seek to understand the depth of the hurt. The reality is that forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation, takes time. The less serious the offense the less time forgiveness will likely take. The more serious the offense the more time forgiveness and reconciliation (if it is possible) will likely take. A repentant heart is ready to unselfishly and humbly do what is needed and asked.

LEARNING. Repentance is more than eating humble pie. It is unlearning the self-centeredness, the self-importance, and selfishness, that need to always be right and to always win. We need to unlearn the selfishness that leads to our doing things to hurt others and to damage relationships. Repentance is dying to self and living for God. It is taking seriously our relationship with God. It is learning to live toward others in ways that imitate Christ and please God.

“Never act from motives of rivalry or personal vanity, but in humility think more of each other than you do of yourselves. None of you should think only of his own affairs, but consider other people’s interests also. Let your attitude to life be that of Christ Jesus himself. For he, who had always been God by nature, did not cling to his privileges as God’s equal, but stripped himself of every advantage by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born a man. And plainly seen as a human being, he humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience, to the point of death, and the death he died was the death of a common criminal” (Philippians 2:3-8 JBPHILLIPS).

_______________                                                                                                                    1See 2 Samuel 11 and 12 for the account of David’s sin and repentance.

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Remember No More

Posted on September 14, 2011 by David

(This is the seventh entry of a series on forgiveness. Forgetting.)

I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remember your sins no more (Isaiah 43:25). Forgive each other, just as in Christ God forgave you (Ephesians 4:32).

Forgiveness means to remember the sins forgiven no more. Forgiveness forgets the sins forgiven. “What sin? I don’t remember you doing anything wrong!” This is the popular conception.

The Gospels do not record all the events of the life and ministry of Jesus. There are events and teaching which are recorded, but not in all four Gospels. One of the events found in all four Gospels is Peter’s denial of Jesus. David, the beloved King of Israel, the psalmist, the man after God’s own heart, who of us does not know about David’s adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Bathsheba’s husband (2 Samuel 11)? God has an interesting way of remembering sins no more. Peter and David’s sins are recorded for all to read and know throughout the centuries.

What I understand God to be saying is that forgiveness isn’t forgetting. “What sin, I don’t remember you doing that.” Rather, forgiveness is not remembering our sins against us. Notice what the psalmist writes in one of his songs.

He (God) will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities…as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us (Psalm 103: 9, 10, 12).

God does not treat us as our sins deserve. He separates our sins from us, from his attitude toward us, and from his behavior toward us. God treats us as though we have not sinned. The apostle Paul writes of God placing our sins upon Jesus on the cross and placing the righteousness of Christ upon us. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Forgiveness is to remember the sin no more. To remember no more is to let go of the sin’s, of the offender’s, hold on you. It is to let go of the bitterness, the anger, and the desire for revenge. To remember no more is to set the sin aside, canceling the debt, and not holding the debt over the head of the offender. When the person who was wronged is able to remember no more her attitude and behavior toward the offender are no longer colored by the wrong done against her. To remember no more is to not treat the offender as he deserves. It is to so separate the sin from yourself and the offender as to enable you to “be kind and compassionate” toward the offender (Ephesians 4:32). To remember no more is to be able to love the offender with the love of Christ. Such love “is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13:5).

Lewis Smedes writes, “We can dethrone the memory; we can refuse to let it control our lives…we can purge its poison from our soul.”1 Jim McGuiggan writes of meeting “people who are just like God in the matter of forgiving and forgetting wrongs–people who with severe mercy deal with wrongs and are done with them–permanently! These people wouldn’t dream of tormenting us with the past or spreading our shame abroad.”2 Charles Morgan writes, “I said a foolish thing; I wish I could unsay it. But you alone can unsay it by not remembering my foolishness when you remember me.”3 To remember no more–I like the way Karyl Huntley puts it. “You know you have forgiven someone when he or she has harmless passage through your mind.”4

God’s promise in Christ is this, “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Hebrews 8:12). Whatever the sin I have been forgiven, when God thinks of me, he thinks not of my sin, but of the delight of my being his child. He sees me in the righteousness of his Son. What a cost God paid for forgiveness! What a cost had to be paid for my sin! Jesus Christ died on the cross. He bore God’s wrath against my sin. God inflicting his wrath upon his Son. God inflicting his wrath upon himself. God’s mercy and grace are costly to himself. How humbled and driven each of us should be to live in relationship with others in a way to bring praise to our Father by forgiving as he has forgiven us.

____________                                                                                                                       1Lewis B. Smedes. “Keys to Forgiving” in Christianity Today (December 3, 2001), 73.        2Jim McGuiggan. Jesus, Hero of Thy Soul, Impressions Left by the Savior’s Touch (West Monroe, LA: Howard Publishing, 1998), 169.                                                                      3Ibid., 152.                                                                                                                                  4Larry James. “Forgiveness…What’s It For,” http://www.CelebrateLove.com/forgive.htm.

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