How do you treat your elders? Do you respect your aging parents, your frail grandmother, your annoying aunt with dementia? Do you consider them an inspiration, an inconvenience, or both? HONORING YOUR PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS IS IMPORTANT TO GOD! Here are just a few key examples: · The first commandment of the “Big 10” reads: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” Exodus 20:11 · Moses sternly warns the Israelites. If they fear God, they will respect their seniors: “You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord. Leviticus 19:32 · The Apostle Paul promises God’s favor for honoring elders: “Honor your father and mother (this is the first commandment with a promise), that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Ephesians 6:2-3. Joseph and Ham are two Bible characters that shed light on honoring parents. Joseph took care of Jacob. Ham disrespected Noah. Jacob was not a model father. The patriarch’s past was tainted with deception, favoritism, human trafficking and rape. His eleven sons lied to their father for decades about the death of Joseph, Jacob’s favorite son. However, Joseph honored his father even if Jacob was far from perfect. He summoned his aged father to Egypt. He forgave his brothers and reunited the family. He protected and provided for Jacob in his old age. Even Pharaoh the pagan ruler, knew how to revere Joseph’s elderly father. Jacob died in Egypt, full of years. The Egyptians honored Joseph’s father. They took forty days to embalm Jacob. His family and friends carried him back to his homeland: “So Joseph went up to bury his father; all Pharaoh’s officials went with him—the senior courtiers of his household, all the senior officials of the land of Egypt, all Joseph’s household, his brothers, and his father’s household…the great entourage mourned his death with bitter sorrow.” Genesis 50:7-8 Joseph truly honored Jacob. Conversely, Ham dishonored his father Noah. He suffered dire consequences from his blatant disregard for his father’s dignity as recounted in Genesis 9:18-23: “The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now Ham was the father of Canaan. Noah, a man of the soil, began to plant a vineyard. When he drank some of the wine, he got drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers who were outside. Shem and Japheth took the garment and placed it on their shoulders. Then they walked in backwards and covered up their father’s nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so they did not see their father’s nakedness. When Noah awoke from his drunken stupor he learned what his youngest son had done to him. So he said, “Cursed be Canaan!” Ham’s moment of disrespect caused dire consequences for his offspring for generations! No one is perfect. All of us are fallen and fallible. The longer we live, the more mistakes we make. We must honor our elders because it is the will of God. It is our privilege. So what do we learn from a historical perspective? “The Romans made use of their elderly and had faith in their wisdom and experience,” Cicero wrote “…there is assuredly nothing dearer to a man than wisdom, and though age takes away all else, it undoubtedly brings us that.” Do other cultures honor their elders? In Chinese and Japanese cultures, filial piety, a virtue of respect for one’s father, elders, and ancestors from Confucian philosophy – is highly valued. Japan holds a national holiday every year on the third Monday of September to honor and show appreciation for the elderly. “Respect for the Aged Day” is a paid holiday from work where grandparents receive gifts and share a meal with their families. Indian and Native American families deeply value the wisdom of their elders. Multiple generations of Mediterranean and Latin families live under one roof. Pulitzer prize winner Jared Diamond observes: “Our American culture cherishes the values of independence, individualism and self-reliance. Older adults suffer as they inevitably lose some of these traits. Our work ethic implies that if you’re no longer working, you’ve lost the main value that society places on you” causes depression and low self-esteem. Retirement means losing social relationships, which, coupled with America’s high mobility, leaves many old people hundreds or even thousands of miles away from longtime friends and family.” So how do we honor our elders? How do we bless and encourage them? I have watched my sister Kathy honor our aging parents for many years. My Mom has mid-stage Alzheimer’s and my Dad had multiple strokes with vascular dementia before he died two years ago. These are the invaluable lessons I learn from her. BE OBSERVANT My Dad, “Poppa,” was extremely independent. He did not want to admit he had trouble taking care of his home, paying his bills or driving his car safely. Kathy allowed him to do as much as he could and praised him for his competency, but prepared to oversee more challenging tasks. Now she supervises the nurses who provide 24-hour care for my Mom. BE INCLUSIVE Kathy celebrates everything and everyone. She is the consummate hostess. Mom and Dad came to every birthday party, anniversary and holiday. One of my most treasured possessions is the photo Kathy staged with “Cutie,” “Poppa,” and all of our extended family just weeks before his death. BE INQUISITIVE My parents were wise, godly people. Kathy brought her grandchildren over to their home and encouraged them to ask every question on their young minds! She bought a toy box full of books and puzzles to play with “Cutie and Poppa.” The great-grandkids listened with glee as Poppa recounted his adventures. BE ENCOURAGING My parents grieved over relocating from their family home in Dallas to the smaller East Texas town where my sister lived. She comforted them and worked tirelessly to involve them in church and community events. Daddy loved the Saturday morning Farmer’s Market when he was alive. Kathy took time out of her busy schedule to enjoy apricot fried pies with him! BE PATIENT Cutie now asks the same questions over and over again. “Where’s Poppa?” After 63 years of blissful marriage, Mom keenly senses the loss of her Other Half. Instead of getting frustrated, Kathy gently reminds her that Poppa is in heaven. She patiently finds Mom’s purse for the 67th time after mom moves it. BE PRAYERFUL Kathy is a prayer warrior. She constantly prays for Cutie to have God’s peace in the loss of her husband. She prays for each one of Mom’s caregivers. She prays for wisdom and strength to love own children and grandchildren more each day. I can’t tell you how much I admire my sister for honoring my parents! “…For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘I tell you the truth, just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did it for me.’ Matthew 25:35-40

Where is God when genocide, rape, and starvation are part of everyday life? Many Christians have great difficulties answering this question, often overwhelmed with the scope of evil in the world. I’d like to try my hand at an answer. Actually, I want to give five answers to this question. This may be a little forensic for some. You may not like these answers, but they at least address the issue from a theologically biblical perspective, which is my objective. First, we should recognize that there are four reasons why people sometimes ask this question. They are seeking comfort because of a terrible trial or injustice They are seeking answers to why there is suffering and injustice in the world if a good God exists They are seeking to blame God for suffering and injustices when he doesn’t appear, from their perspective, to take corrective action, or They are seeking to demonstrate that God does not exist since a so-called good God could not, from their perspective, exist and allow such terrible things to happen All of these may be boiled down to a single question: Is God just? These questions apply to everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike. Even believers struggle with the issue of God’s justice. When bad things happen to good people we sometimes shake our fists at God and ask, “Is this how you treat your servants?” Many Christians go through their experience and wind up with the standard answers that we’ve all heard before: God is disciplining us, or God is punishing us, or God is teaching us a lesson, or God’s way are mysterious, etc. For a few people these pat answers may be enough but they really don’t tell us anything that addresses the issue: Is God just? The unbeliever hears these answers and usually turns away because these answers seem simple and unconvincing. They really don’t tell us much about God or about why he does what he does.Job was a man who questioned God’s justice. After having his family killed, his home destroyed, his wealth obliterated, and his health ravaged he wanted an answer from God about why he allowed what he did. God’s answer? It’s brutal. So let me paraphrase it: “Who do you think you are?” (Job 38-41). Ouch. Not exactly the answer most of us are looking for. In fact, the Apostle Paul followed a similar theme when he answered questions about God’s justice in Romans 9:14-15, and 20, “There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion…Who are you, O’ man, who answers back to God?’ "I know that these scriptures may not exactly be satisfying—we often don’t like God’s choices. But when you read those chapters of Job, Romans, and others you come away with something significant—our first answer. God is not obligated by man’s injustices. Another way to say this is that God is sovereign. Theologically speaking, God has made choices about what he will and won’t do as he superintends our history. He is rolling out his plan for humanity. For some there is grace and mercy and for others there is suffering and trial, and for most there is both. God is the author of the book, so to speak, and he’s is writing his story to accomplish the end that he intends. In one sense we might say that we are writing the story with him through the choices that we also make. Let’s expand upon God’s obligations. God cannot be obligated to do anything except that for which God has promised to act upon in covenant. Man is responsible for his own injustices. However, there are times when God can be called upon to act, in one sense we might be able to say that God is obligated to act— when we call upon him to act according to what he has promised to do. A good example of this is found in the books of Nehemiah and Daniel. In Daniel 9 Daniel read the promise in the book of Jeremiah where God promised to repatriate his people back to Israel after a 70-year exile. Daniel noted that the time was at hand and prayed for God to fulfill his promises, which he did. Nehemiah had a similar experience in Nehemiah 1.We may ask God to do something that he has not spoken about in scripture, but we have no guarantee that he will act. We can only fall upon his mercy. God is sovereign (whether we like it or not) and has chosen, thru his sovereignty, to act on man’s injustices thru judgment, forgiveness, and Christ’s death. This is one that man tends to forget. We see injustices going on and wonder why God does not put a stop to it, why he does not give us a solution. When this happens we fail to remember that God has already acted through Christ. Injustice is nothing more than a form of sin, no matter how terrible it may be. God has acted once and for all through the unjust execution of his son to pay the penalty for all sin no matter how small or great. When we surrender ourselves to Christ we come into agreement with him about our sin and the process of transformation begins. Man’s failure to act upon what Christ has done does not make God unjust. The scripture records that there will one day be a reckoning for all who have lived. Those who have rejected Christ and opted to continue in sin will be judged (Revelation 20:11-15). Those who have accepted God’s solution through Christ will receive eternal life. It’s no more simple than that. Full justice, the kind we want for the victim, may be delayed, but it will definitely happen. But forgiveness brings eternal life. God is available in the aftermath of whatever evil to provide comfort, meaning, and recovery. For those who have surrendered to Christ there can be great meaning and comfort through suffering. The fruit and the lessons learned will last beyond this earthly life into eternity. It is true that a non-believer can find comfort, meaning, and recovery without submission to Christ. In such cases man creates his own meaning. There’s no denying that. But it cannot have an eternal effect. It is temporary only until the day of death. Sadly, no one will find comfort or recovery in the judgment. We should also remember that Christians are called to bring comfort to the suffering of others just as God has brought us such comfort. II Corinthians 1:3-5 states, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.” God is available in his people’s response, even though his people fail and are not perfect. The scriptures teach that man is designed as God’s image on earth and is therefore the responsible agent to act on God’s behalf to perform justice. God is not obligated to act if we fail to act—he has ALREADY acted by making us his agents (II Corinthians 5:20). In other words, WE are the answer. We have the knowledge, the capability, and are assigned to act on God’s behalf. Therefore, if we fail or do not act then the responsibility for failing to correct any injustice lies solely with us and not with God since we are his agents. As an example: the injustices done during apartheid? Man’s actions, man’s responsibility, man’s guilt, man’s missed opportunity. If good parents teach their children honesty and a child steals, are the parents responsible or the child? So it is the same with God and his people.As mentioned earlier, God is not obligated by us to do anything. But he chose to act in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. This is his solution. We may not like the solution and wish for something else. The reality is that there is no “Plan B.” Therefore, protesting God’s take on justice doesn’t really do us any good. Just as Adam blamed God for his own sin so too we sometimes do the same. But what’s the point? Just as Christ suffered and provided a solution, so too we are to do the same. We may fail from time to time but that doesn’t absolve us of our responsibility as those created in God’s image. Man’s injustice is always man’s fault. But we have everything we need to act and to take responsibility for our collective actions. Thus, I think, the question we should be asking is not, “Where is God when such and such happens?” Rather we might consider this: “Where are we?” guywithabible.com Used by permission.

Share 0 I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve said something and then heard my 28-year-old son say, “Filter, Mom!” In truth, remembering to filter what goes on in my head before it comes out of my mouth has always been a struggle for me. I tend to speak much more than I should in some situations and then not say enough in others. Often I’ve missed the blessing of hearing what others are saying in both instances. However, besides the obvious fact that I miss things, what is the ultimate responsibility I have in my words? Are their consequences far greater than what I may or may not miss? The truth, of course, is yes. As believers, we know that God’s Word is very explicit when it comes to the importance in how much we say and when: When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent. (Proverbs 10:19) There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. (Proverbs 12:18) As I see it, we struggle from both aspects of using our tongues to uplift and edify those around us. Either we are so busy talking and saying what we think that we don’t measure our words against the situation into which we are thrusting them, or we aren’t saying enough, instead protecting ourselves or our feelings from the inevitable threat of pain in exposing some part of us. It is vitally important that each of us look at this issue, not only as it pertains to our relationship to our Father, but also how it pertains to the issue of our relationships with each other. After all, Jesus plainly told His disciples in John 13:35, By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. Yes, we are to display love to all people, but love cannot be trusted if it is not first given in the family, both the immediate family as well as the church family. It’s very difficult, dare I say impossible, to love our families if we don’t have relationship with them. Learning to use our words will go a long way to facilitating those relationships and thereby give us ample opportunity to show love. Relationship requires pretty much one thing—taking one’s self out of center and being willing to place someone else there. Sometimes that is going to mean putting a muzzle on our mouths, recognizing that saying everything we think is neither loving nor wise. Even if what we are thinking is correct or valid, love takes the other person’s feelings into account. Speaking our minds is often the most loving thing to do, but it is just as often the most loving thing to do to keep our thoughts to ourselves. On the flip side of that coin, we many times are in protection mode when it comes to communicating. Having conversation with another person in regards to feelings and accountability requires vulnerability, which consequently means taking the chance that our own feelings may be hurt. It’s not easy to communicate when we may have to sacrifice the protective barrier so many of us have painstakingly erected around our hearts. Additionally, sometimes we don’t communicate simply because we don’t think to do so. We’re too busy, or we’re too devoted to our jobs or our studies or ourselves….Whoops! Did I just write that? Yes, I did. When we don’t think to build up our relationships by talking to each other simply because we’re too busy to think about it, guess who we are actually thinking about? It’s certainly not others and it’s not their hearts. Essentially our “busy-ness” is being consumed with self. We can come up with all sorts of justification for keeping our words to ourselves, but at the end of the day, relationship is nigh impossible without it. Marriages collapse because of a lack of communication. Parent/child relationships are non-existent because one or more aren’t talking. Churches split and friendships are severed when no one communicates. Even corporations have dissolved when executives don’t communicate with their employees or vice versa. Relationship requires communication, and communication requires more than two people who are essentially taking turns talking. James wrote, Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness that God requires. Relationship also requires commitment, commitment to another person and that person’s needs outside of what we perceive as either ours or something more important. Would Jesus have ever seen Himself as too busy to communicate with those in His family? One situation in particular comes to mind that demonstrates our Savior’s propensity toward relationship over even ministry and His job, for lack of a better term. Remember when Jesus was teaching His disciples and the ruler came and bid Him come and bring his daughter back from the dead? Jesus was on His way to raise the dead to life—a fairly important task by any standard—but when a woman touched His garment who had suffered for twelve years with hemorrhaging, He stopped everything to speak to her. (Matthew 9:18-22) Even His mission to save and heal and bring life to the dead could not thwart His devotion to relationship with His children. It shouldn’t for us either. Are there people in your life to whom you haven’t selflessly given loving communication? Is it a spouse or a child or a friend or a fellow brother or sister? Take the words of the psalmist to heart and meditate on them: -When you are struggling with saying too much: Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. (Proverbs 17:27) -And when you are struggling to remember to say something: Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad. (Proverbs 12:25) After all, how can we say we love our family if we don’t know them, and how can we know them if we don’t both talk and listen to them? www.debwaterbury.com . Used by permission.

The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, the literal physical bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead is so critical to the Christian gospel that all four gospel writers – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – give us an account of the resurrection and provide for us multiple evidences of its reality. The resurrection is a historical fact, as the Lord Jesus was a historical person, died an actual historical death, rose from the dead in real history and in physical form, though a glorified physical form. This is so critical to Christianity that the evidences are piled up by the gospel writers, and then even enhanced by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15. As you come to the book of Acts which describes the apostles proclaiming the gospel, you find that they preached the resurrection of Christ. The resurrection is absolutely critical to Christianity. It means that God was satisfied with the sacrifice for sin that Christ offered. It means that He conquered death, not only for Himself, but for all of us who put our faith in Him. In His resurrection is our resurrection, as in His cross is our forgiveness. The resurrection was presented by the writers of the Old Testament in a number of ways. Our Lord Jesus Himself spoke of His resurrection to His apostles. But in spite of what the Scripture said, in spite of what our Lord said to them on surely many, many occasions, and specifically that He would die and He would rise again on the third day, in spite of that His followers did not believe He would rise. In fact, they were stubbornly resistant to the testimony that He was alive; and yet when He appeared to them, all doubt was dispelled, and they went forth confident that Christ was alive from the dead, preaching a risen Christ and preaching resurrection. Before they saw Him, however, the disciples were trapped in fear and doubt. They were anything but bold. We find them in the 20th chapter of John and the text that we come to this morning locked in a room with the door barred for fear that they were going to be arrested with the possibility of execution, the same that had happened to the Master. They are fearful, they are frightened, terrified of the consequences that could fall on them. The last thing they expect is a resurrection. They don’t believe in a resurrection. They don’t even believe the testimony of eyewitnesses who were credible and known to them. Why is it then that they preached the resurrection all the way to the death? Why is it that they preached the risen Christ against hatred, opposition, and eventually gave their lives as martyrs for the gospel of the resurrection? Anyone who denies the resurrection would have to come up with some other supernatural,inexplicable, massive event that transformed them from frightened, coward, disappointed disciples into bold,relentless, fearless preachers of Jesus Christ. If it wasn’t a resurrection what was it? No other possible miracle has ever been suggested, especially when we recognize that they preached the resurrection. There had to be an event that transformed them. They say the event that transformed them was the resurrection, and they preached that,which is testimony to its reality. John was exiled on the Isle of Patmos, the rest of them were martyred for preaching the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But at the time we meet them in our text this morning in John, chapter 20, they are still devastated, verse 19: “When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ When He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord.So Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.’ And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.’ “But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples were saying to him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails,and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.’ “After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut,and stood in their midst and said again, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then He said to Thomas, ‘Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.’ Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.’” This is the appearance of the Lord to the disciples. Judas is gone, eleven remain. The first appearance was only to ten, because Thomas the straggler was not there. What had happened already on the day of resurrection? Go back to Luke 24 just so we get the full picture. Our Lord comes out of the grave early in the morning at dawn, and Luke records for us that the women arrive at the tomb. They find the tomb is empty, the stone is rolled away, the grave clothes are lying there. They are perplexed, verse 4 of Luke 24. “Two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing.” We know these are angels. “And as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the angel said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’ And they remembered His words, and returned from the tomb and reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest of the disciples. Now they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James; also the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles.” All credible witnesses, well-known figures, followers of Jesus, indeed, were these women. But to the apostles,“These words” – verse 11 – “appeared as nonsense, and they would not believe them.” So averse were they to the idea of a resurrection that they wouldn’t believe the most credible people in their circle of human relationships. “Peter” – always spontaneous – “got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, saw the linen wrappings only, went away to his home wondering what had happened.” Again, not sure whether he actually believed in a resurrection. We know, however, from later in this chapter, and we know also from 1 Corinthians 15 that the Lord made an appearance to Peter, a personal appearance to Peter, to convince him as the leader. So the women have gone to the grave, the tomb is empty, the grave clothes are lying there. There’s no explanation. The women are told by two angels He has risen. These who give the testimony are messengers from heaven. This is God’s word on what happened to the Lord Jesus. The women believe, they rush to the eleven apostles, and they are met with the idea that they are speaking nonsense. In the meantime, of course, we know the Lord appeared personally to Mary Magdalene. A little later that day we pick up the story in verse 13 of Luke 24. Two disciples, not apostles, but two of the followers of Jesus were on their way seven miles to the town of Emmaus. They were talking to each other, walking and talking. In verse 15, “Jesus Himself approached them” – this is the risen Christ – “began traveling with them. Their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him.” That’s always the case after the resurrection until He identifies Himself. He is in a physical form, but it is a transcendent form. It is a kind of physicality that is capable of dwelling forever in heaven. It is a physical body fit for another dimension, another realm, so they don’t immediately recognize him. Their eyes are prevented from recognizing Him. So they walk and talk with him. Eventually, as you know, they say how sad they are, because the one they had hoped would be the Messiah is dead. And, finally, our Lord explains to them that this is what the Old Testament promised. “O foolish men” – verse 25 – “slow of heart to believe in all the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things to be the sin-bearer, and then rise and enter into His glory?”Beginning at Moses with all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. He gave them a messianic interpretation of the Old Testament which applied to Him. They still don’t know who He is. “He approached the village with them. He acted as if He was going to go further. They urged Him” – in verse 29 – ‘Stay with us, it’s getting toward evening; the day is now nearly over.’ So He went in to stay with them. When He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He began giving it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight.” So now the women have seen Him, that is at least Mary Magdalene. The women have heard from the angels.Perhaps Peter has seen Him. Two on the road to Emmaus have seen Him. These two have burning hearts, verse 32: “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, and while He was explaining the Scriptures to us.” They not only were burning in their hearts because they were with Him, but because now the whole Old Testament made sense. “They got up that very hour” – verse 33 – “returned to Jerusalem, found gathered together the eleven and those who were with them, saying, ‘The Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon.’” Somehow they got that word. “And they began to relate their experiences on the road and how He was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread.” Simon was there. Must have himself tried to explain that he had seen the risen Christ. This would give validity to the testimony of the women and the eyewitness account of Mary Magdalene. And now these two have rushed there in the evening of the resurrection day itself to declare that they have spent time with the Lord. And as they rush in to declare their experience of seeing the risen Christ they are met with the same kind of questioning. But while they are there giving their testimony, Luke 24 – look at the next verse, verse 36: “While they were telling these things, He Himself stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be to you.’ But they were startled and frightened and thought that they were seeing a spirit or a ghost. And He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit doesn’t have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. While they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement, He said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ They gave Him a piece of broiled fish. He took it and ate it before them.” That’s His arrival. Now let’s go to John 20 and pick up the same exact scene. He has appeared to Mary, the angels have declared His resurrection to the other women, He has appeared to Simon, He has appeared to the disciples on the road; now it is time to appear to the eleven, verse 19 of John 20: “When it was evening” – picking right up where we left off in Luke – “on that day, the first day of the week,” – resurrection day – “and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews.” Just to let you know, they were afraid that they also could be arrested and led to the same fate that had befallen the Lord. When it says the door is shut, the Greek word is actually barred or locked. We would say that they were padlocked inside. And the reason was, they were afraid of the temple police that acted on behalf of the Jews.They were the force that arrested criminals. They knew that since their Master had been executed as a criminal they could be next because of their association with Him. They are in fear, they are terrified; they are locked up in this room. In that situation the text simply says, “Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’” How did that happen? Well, He rearranged the molecules in His resurrected body to go right through the wall the same way He had rearranged the molecules in His resurrected body in the grave to go right through the linen clothing, the linen wrapping. Now I know what the skeptics say. They say, “No, that’s not true. He met a janitor who had a secret key and let Him in.” Somebody else suggested, “No, He found an open window and crawled through the window.” Somebody else said, “No, the truth of the matter is He was in the room before they got there and locked the door.” All ridiculous efforts to discount the resurrection. The fact is they were locked up in a room and Jesus immediately stood in the middle of the room. He didn’t say, “Shame on you for your doubt.” He said, “Peace be with you.” That would be the right thing to say, because the trauma must have been literally shocking. If those on the road to Emmaus were traumatized by His presence,imagine how these men were traumatized, and also other disciples who were there when He stood in the midst of a room that was barred and locked. He is not a spirit though, He is not a phantom. You might think that if He could move through walls. But to make sure you don’t think that verse 20 says, “When He had said this, ‘Peace be with you,’ He showed them both His hands and His side” – as Luke records. He is not a phantom; He is not a spirit; He’s not an apparition. This is not a hallucination. This is an actual physical bodily resurrection. And to demonstrate that He shows them His scars,and as we read in Luke 24, verses 42 and 43, He ate broiled fish. This is really Jesus in bodily form, a glorified body, a resurrected body, but a body nonetheless. In heaven in the scene in Revelation, chapter 5, where you see the throne of God and the cry is, “Who is going to take back the earth from the usurper Satan? Who is worthy to come and destroy Satan and all the demons and all the ungodly, and take back the world? Who has the title deed and the power?” And no one comes. And John starts to weep because there’s no one to do that. And, finally, someone appears and it’s none other than the Son of God, but He appears as a Lamb, as though it had been slain, a scarred sacrifice. Even in heaven He will bear those scars. Even in heaven He will be one who has evidence of having been slain. And, of course, the end of verse 20: “The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” It’s all clear now; they rejoiced when they saw the Lord. I can’t even begin to describe what that may have been like, what that conversation was like, what that joy was like. It’s pretty understated; they rejoiced. That’s a pretty understated way to describe those men reacting to the fact that they believed Jesus was dead and He shows up alive coming through the wall. Incredible joy, trying to sort it all out, undoing all the móros, doubts that they had cultivated in the hours since His death, and substituting in their place indescribable joy. They rejoiced when they saw the Lord. “So” – verse 21 – “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you.’” He calms them down again. The first time He calm them down because they were traumatized, now He calms them down because they’re exploding, they’re erupting in joy. “Peace be with you. Calm down. I know this is an exhilarating moment like none that ever any human could experience, but calm down.” “Why? Why?” “I have something to say to you.” Calming them down seemed to be pretty much routine. He said in verse 19, He said it in verse 21, and eight days later He says it again in verse 26, as we shall see, “Peace be with you.” It is a greet, it is shalom, but it’s more than that. Even eight days later they’re still shaken by these circumstances, and they haven’t seen Him for eight days,as we’ll note. They still don’t know where this is all going. It’s all having a very difficult time registering in their minds. But our Lord has something to say to him, and what He says is profound and simple. We often talk about the fact that what someone says before they die is important. Usually people don’t trivialize at the moment of their death. What people say in their last breath is something that’s dominating their thoughts and dominating their hearts. But think about this: What is the first thing Jesus said to His disciples after He rose from the dead? How critical is that? He has one simple message. It is so simple, it is so straightforward that it just occupies three little verses,and yet it is a profound sermon: “Stop all the rejoicing. Stop being traumatized now. Stop rejoicing, calm down and listen.” This is His first post-resurrection sermon, and it’s a mandate. Essentially, it is the first articulation of the Great Commission. Later on when He ascended into heaven He reiterated that Great Commission as recorded in Matthew, chapter 28, verses 18-20. He talks about the Great Commission at the end of Luke as well. But here is the first declaration of the Great Commission. It touches all of us, because we are in the flow of fulfilling that commission. Now we all know the Matthew account: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I’ve commanded you; and lo, I am with you always.” That’s the Great Commission: go to the world, take the gospel, baptize believers, and then edify them in the truth of Scripture. We all know that. But here is the initial revelation of the Great Commission. It has three parts. Number One, verse 21: “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” This is the first phase, the first element, the first feature of the Lord’s commission:“I am sending you into the world as the Father has sent Me.” It’s just a simple but profound statement. Why did the Father send Jesus into the world? He didn’t send Jesus into the world to bring about social justice.He didn’t send Jesus into the world to improve people’s economic condition. He didn’t send Jesus into the world to elevate our understanding of godly morality. He didn’t send His Son into the world to make people’s circumstances better. He didn’t send Him into the world to raise the economic standards. “The Son of Man is come” – He said – “to seek and to” – what? – “save the lost.” That’s why He came. He had no other purpose; His purpose was salvation. The Father sent the Son to seek and save the lost, to provide the sacrifice necessary in His death, and the triumph necessary in His resurrection, to bring salvation to all God’s chosen people through all of redemptive history. I don’t know if you think about your life this way, but you should. “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you. The Father sent Me for gospel evangelistic purpose, I send you for the very same.” That’s why you’re here. You’re not here for anything less than that. You’re here for the purpose of fulfilling the very task that was originally given to Christ. When Luke begins the book of Acts he says, “The ministry that Jesus began was now carried on by the apostles,”and it’s continuing to be carried on by us. He said, “I have not come to call the righteous to repentance, but sinners. I sent My Son into the world to save sinners,” says the Father. And the Son says, “And now I send you to do the same.” Back in chapter 17, the night before, in His great high priestly prayer, our Lord says the same thing, chapter 17, verse 18: “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And in order for them to be effective, you have to sanctify them” – verse 17 – “in the truth; Your word is truth. I send them as a people sanctified in the truth to do the very thing that You sent Me to do.” Jesus didn’t assault any human institution. He didn’t come for educational purposes; He didn’t come for philanthropic purposes; He never engaged in any effort to remedy social issues. He came into the world to seek and save lost sinners, and bring them salvation, and that is why all believers exist in the world today. Everything we do, whether it’s our ministry, our worship, our study of Scripture; whether it’s our spiritual testimony as we shine as lights in the world, has as its objective to put on display a transformed life, transformed by God through the gospel so that the gospel has credibility when we proclaim its truth. If you say Christ changed your life, you’d better have a changed life. If you have a changed life, somebody says, “You’re very different and it’s very obvious. Why?” and you explain, “It’s Jesus Christ,” then that makes the gospel credible. Everything we do in our lives, everything we do in our lives is to let our light shine so that men can see the good works, glorify God who is in heaven who transformed us to such good works, and then take that as an opportunity, shining His lights in the world to preach the gospel of light. We forget this. One writer said, “Christians are like a whole lot of people with colds; they’re all sneezing at each other, but nobody gets it because everybody’s got it.” We’ve got to find the people who haven’t got it, that’s our mission field. What’s your plan? What’s your strategy? Where are you going with your commission? That’s why you’re here. Yes, you’re here to worship, because worship is part of your witness. Worship is part of your spiritual maturing process, part of your sanctification. Yes, you’re here to learn the truth. Yes, you’re here to serve. Yes, you’re here to love. All of that is manifest evidence of a transformation that makes the gospel believable. But what’s your gospel plan? What’s your gospel strategy? We are the continuing believers who carry into this generation the very same commission. The Lord sends us the same way the Father sent Him; and it also entails some sacrifice and rejection, along with acceptance and usefulness. That’s the first thing. Second thing in this short sermon – first thing is, “I’m sending you the same way the Father sent Me.” The second aspect is, verse 22: “When He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” Absolutely critical. This is a great task. This is a formidable task. When Christ came into the world the Father sent Christ. Do you remember this? When the Father sent Christ into the world and He began His ministry, the Holy Spirit came upon Him at His baptism and launched Him into His ministry. He actually said, “When you reject Me you blaspheme the Holy Spirit,” because in His incarnation, in His self-emptying, He submitted Himself to the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. As the Father sent Jesus into the world, Jesus sends us. As the Father empowered Jesus with the Holy Spirit, Jesus empowers us with the Holy Spirit. He is our Spirit-filled model. Throughout the evening before, in John 14, 15, and 16, He kept saying to the disciples, “When I go, I will send the Spirit. When I go, I will come back in the form of the Holy Spirit. It is better for you that I go, because then the Spirit will come, and He will lead you into all truth, and He will teach you all things concerning Me.” In Acts, chapter 1 and verse 8, He says, “When the Spirit comes on you, you’ll received power, and you’ll be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. You can’t do this without the Holy Spirit.” But the way in which He says this is so interesting: “He breathed on them.” That’s a powerful gesture. That’s a creative gesture. If you go back into Genesis, chapter 2, you remember that when God had created Adam it says, “He breathed into him the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.” That’s the expression of God’s creative power. In that famous valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37, which is a picture of the future corpse of Israel lying like dry bones in the desert, you remember God shows up and says to the prophet, “Breathe on them.” And the breath of God comes and all the dry bones come alive, and that is the future salvation and resurrection of the nation Israel. And in the great new covenant passage of Ezekiel 36, we hear that God is going to cleanse us from our sins and He is going to give us a new spirit, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the breath of God. The Holy Spirit is God in us. The Holy Spirit is the source of power: “You’ll receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” Here, our Lord shows them a symbol of this, notice it: “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” That did not happen then. That did not happen then. We know that, because of clear revelation. Down in verse 26, they were still fearful, they were still hunkered down, they were still hiding, they were still locked up, and our Lord comes back and says, “Peace be with you.” They still didn’t have a constant peace like He had promised in chapter 14, verse 27: “My peace I give you. My peace I leave with you, not as the world give I,but this is the peace that comes from God.” They didn’t have that peace. If they had had the Holy Spirit who is love, joy, peace, they’d have had that peace. Over in chapter 21, they still are confused up in Galilee when Jesus appears to them, and they don’t yet know that it was Jesus. Their recognition factors aren’t good. And, of course, He promised, “When the Spirit comes He will show you the things concerning Me.” Down in verse 12 you see they’re ambivalence, chapter 21. They’re right there, “Jesus talks to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ None of the disciples ventured to question Him saying, ‘Who are You?’ knowing that it was the Lord,” and yet there was some ambivalence in that knowing. They’re still a little confused, and the confusion is because they have not yet received the Holy Spirit. They have been promised the Holy Spirit, but they have not yet received Him. Then, of course, in chapter 1 of Acts, He says, “When He comes you’ll have power.” He comes in chapter 2, the first few verses. He descends on all the believers there, including the apostles and disciples, and they are turned into fearless, bold preachers of the truth, who confront the leaders of Israel, who confront the world, and who go through the book of Acts preaching the death and resurrection of Christ: “It is the Holy Spirit who empowers us.” So the first thing our Lord post-resurrection wants us to know is you have a commission. Your commission is you’re in the world for the sake of preaching the gospel. Second, “You’re not in your own strength going to be able to do this, so I’m giving you the Holy Spirit.” Paul in Romans 8:9 says, “No believer is left without the Holy Spirit. He that doesn’t have the Sprit is not God’s.”If you are God’s, you have His Spirit in you. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, we know that. So our Lord’s commission then is to evangelize in the power of the Holy Spirit. Then the third element of this brief sermon is really critical, and might be a little bit remarkable at first reading,verse 23: “If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.” That verse has been misinterpreted and cast in stone in the Roman Catholic system. They have made it apply to the Pope, popes, and cardinals, and bishops, and priests. That, obviously, is not an accurate interpretation. Our Lord is talking to apostles, but not just apostles. There were other people there with them as well who were followers of Christ, and He says to all of them, “If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.” And you say, “Well, wait a minute. How can that be possible?” Mark 2:7, “Who can forgive sins but God?” Or Daniel 9:9, “To the Lord God belong compassion and forgiveness.” We can’t go around forgiving people’s sins,that’s what the priests think they can do, and they can’t do that. We can’t do that, no, not on our own authority,not on our own authority. Well you say, “Well then how does it work?” All you have to do is follow the ministry of the apostles and you’ll see it. In the 10th chapter, for example, of the book of Acts, we have the testimony of Peter. Listen to what he said,verse 42: “God ordered us to preach to the people, and solemnly to testify that this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead.” He’s talking about Christ. “Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.” Did you get that? Peter says, “We have been commissioned, we have been sent, we have been ordered to preach.And what are we to preach; that everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ receives forgiveness of sin. So if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, then I can say to you, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ If you reject the Lord Jesus Christ, I can say to you, ‘You’re still in your sins, your sins are retained.’” Same thing in 13th chapter of Acts, verse 38. Here we have a similar testimony, Paul on his missionary journey: “Therefore let it be known” – verse 38 – “to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the law of Moses.” What does that mean? All violations of God’s law, all sins. Again, you have Peter saying, “We can tell you your sins are forgiven if you believe.” Here is Paul, “We can tell you your sins are forgiven if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Just to remind you, the Great Commission in Luke 24 is this: “When you go, you preach repentance for forgiveness of sins. You proclaim that in Jesus’ name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. And I’m sending you forth in the power of the promise of My Father.” That’s the power of the Spirit, it’s all there. “I’m sending you in the power of the Spirit who was promised by My Father to preach forgiveness.” Do I need to remind you that the gospel is the message of forgiveness. How do we lose that? We have the right to say to someone what Jesus said in John 8:24, “If you do not believe in Me, you will die in your sins, and where I go you’ll never come.” I can say this. I can say to any soul, “Your sins are forgiven or your sins are retained based on what you do with Jesus Christ. That’s not on my authority, that’s on God’s authority; I’m just the messenger.” Anyone who is repentant and desires the forgiveness of sins by trusting in Christ receives forgiveness. I’ve said that to people many times throughout my life, countless times. I don’t have that on my own authority. I don’t have the authority to forgive anybody’s sins. But I have been called to proclaim the message of forgiveness based upon the authority of God’s word in Scripture. This speaks to the issue of, “What is the gospel?” The gospel is not about social justice. The gospel is not about a better life, it’s not about prosperity, it’s not about solving your problems, it’s not about feeling good, it’s not about fulfilling your dreams and ambitions; nothing to do with any of that. The gospel is about forgiveness based on repentance and faith in Christ. So you say – I was doing a Q&A with the students at The Master’s University this week and the question came up, “How do you evangelize someone?” and I said, “Well, the most direct way is to go right to the issue of forgiveness. If somebody says to you, as sometimes they will to me, ‘What do you?’ or, ‘What do you teach?’ My answer is pretty simple. I have a great job; I tell people that all their sins can be forgiven if they will repent and trust Christ. ‘Are you interested?’” I mean that cuts to the issue. It’s not about a better life, it’s not about a happy life. It’s not about, “Are you lonely?” It’s not about, “Would you like to be fulfilled?” It’s not about, “Would you like somebody on your side that’s bigger than you?” It’s about sin and judgment and hell, and whether or not you’re interested in forgiveness which is available only through Jesus Christ. Look, I’ve had people turn and run, because they’re not interested in forgiveness. The gospel is for people who are desperately interested in forgiveness, and that’s where you go with this. The Lord came into the world not to change anybody’s social strata or to make them feel better about the tough life they live in this world. He came to preach repentance and forgiveness. That’s what He preached: “Repent. Repent. Be forgiven.” This is our calling: “Go to the world.” Just the way the Father sent the Son, the Son sends us. “Go to the world in the power of the Spirit” – that’s the power Jesus operated in – “and preach what Jesus preached: ‘Believe in Me and your sins are forgiven. Reject Me and you’ll die in your sins and perish.’” That’s our calling. Well, just to close out the passage, Thomas missed that sermon. Let me tell you something; it’s a bad thing not to be in church. “But” – verse 24 – “Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus” – which means twin, he had a twin – “was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples were saying to him, ‘We’ve seen the Lord!’” But, again, it’s so important that this account is here, because it speaks to the fact that the disciples would never have manufactured a resurrection. Not only do you have the testimony of the people on the road to Emmaus, not only do you have the testimony of Peter, not only do you have the testimony of Mary Magdalene and the women who talked to an angel; now you have the testimony of ten of the apostles, and Thomas doesn’t buy it. “He said to them, ‘Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, put my finger into the of the nails, put my hand into His side, I will not believe.’” That is so important, because that is saying, “I’m not going to believe unless Christ is physically bodily alive.” “After eight days” – that’s the next Sunday – “His disciples are again inside, Thomas with them. The doors having been shut,” – and again He comes through the walls – “say, ‘Peace be with you.’” They’re still struggling, probably with Thomas. “Then He said to Thomas,” – I love this; talk about personal care – ‘Reach here your finger,’ – I think he probably took his finger, pressed it into His nail prints – ‘now reach here your hand;’ – he pushed it into the scar in His side – ‘stop unbelieving and believe.’” That was enough for Thomas. “He said, ‘My Lord and my God!’” That is the final evidence of a literal resurrection. The other disciples, according to Luke, as I read earlier, had already touched Him; now the straggler has his opportunity. How much does the Lord care that He gives this one doubting Thomas what he needed to believe.“Thomas said, ‘My Lord and my God! I’m convinced.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Because you’ve seen Me, you have believed,’ – rather a statement than a question – ‘Because you’ve seen Me, you’ve believed. Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.’” And that, dear friends, encompasses all of us. First Peter, Peter says, chapter 1, “Whom having not seen, you love.” We haven’t seen the risen Christ, but we have experienced the risen Christ in His power and His presence. We love Him. Peter says, “Though you haven’t seen Him, you love Him. Though you don’t see Him now, do you believe in Him? And you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible, full of glory, receiving or obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.” We believe unto eternal salvation. We believe in the one we haven’t seen. Why do we believe? Because we believe in the record of Scripture. Why do we believe the Bible? We believe the Bible, because the Spirit of God has given us not only faith in Christ, listen, but faith in Scripture. We weren’t argued into believing the Bible, we were led by divine power into believing the Bible. “And we walk” – says Paul in 2 Corinthians 5 – “by faith, not by sight.” I don’t need to see the risen Christ to love Him. I don’t need a vision of Him. I don’t need Him to appear to me. Well, you say, “He appeared to Thomas.” Yeah, not because that’s the only way that we can be saved or sanctified,but because that’s the final evidence of a literal physical resurrection. It wasn’t just for Thomas, as personal as it was, it’s for all who will ever read the record. We have a risen Christ, a risen Christ whom we love and whom we believe, whom we experience in our lives on a regular basis, who has transformed us so that our lives are different. They are only explained by a supernatural miracle called the new birth, and as those who have been born anew. We have been called to a commission empowered by the Holy Spirit to confront the world withrepentance and forgiveness as an escape from eternal judgment. That’s why we’re here. Father, we thank You again for the visions that flood our hearts and minds as we contemplate these marvelous texts of Scripture, these eyewitness accounts of the risen Christ. Thank You, Lord, for giving us this revelation.Thank You for its glory, the glory of Scripture, the transcendent truthfulness of it that shines forth. We ask, Lord, that You will cause us to live our lives in a gospel way. Use us to bring others the message of repentance and forgiveness, salvation and eternal life. Father, now do Your work in every heart we pray, for Your glory. Amen. www.gty.org . Used by permission.

All religions: Hinduism, Islam, New Age, Mormonism, Scientology-have some truth and beauty but are not the same. Christianity is far different because a holy, mighty God freely gives the gift of salvation apart from our works. Find out how this unconditional love can change your life. Preached at www.lifechurch.tv. Used by permission.

Luke describes the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem at the beginning of that last week of his earthly life: As he was drawing near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest! (Luke 19:37, 38) Palm Sunday: Today and To Come There is no doubt what was in the disciples’ minds. This was the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy given centuries earlier: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. (Zechariah 9:9, 10) The long-awaited Messiah had come, the king of Israel, and not just of Israel but of all the earth. Jerusalem would be his capital city. From here he would rule the world in peace and righteousness. What a day this was! How their hearts must have pounded in their chests! And must not their hands have been sweaty like warriors in readiness just before the bugle sounds the battle! How would he do it? Would he whip up the enthusiastic crowds and storm the Roman praetorium—a people’s revolution? Or would he call down fire from heaven to consume the enemies of God? Would any of his followers be lost in the struggle? The tension of the moment must have been tremendous! The Pharisees had a double reason for wanting this kind of welcome silenced. On the one hand, this Jesus was a threat to their authority, and they envied his popularity (Mark 15:10). On the other hand, they feared a Roman backlash to all this seditious talk of another king (John 11:48). Therefore they say to Jesus, “‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples.’ But he answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out!”‘ (Luke 19:39, 40). No, he will not rebuke them for this. Not now. The hour has come. The authority of the Pharisees is done for. If the Romans come, they come. He will not silence the truth any longer. To be sure the disciples’ understanding of Jesus’ kingship at this point is flawed. But hastening events will correct that soon enough. In essence they are correct. Jesus is the king of Israel, and the kingdom he is inaugurating will bring peace to all the nations and spread from sea to sea. The book of Revelation pictures the final fulfillment of Palm Sunday in the age to come like this: I looked and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9, 10) The entry into Jerusalem with waving palms (John 12:13) was a short-lived preview of the eternal Palm Sunday to come. It needed to be said. If the disciples hadn’t said it, the rocks would have. I like to think of all our worship in this age as rehearsal for the age to come. One day we, who by God’s grace have been faithful to the Lord, are going to stand with innumerable millions of believers from Bangladesh, Poland, Egypt, Australia, Iceland, Cameroon, Ecuador, Burma, Borneo, Japan, and thousands of tribes and peoples and languages purified by Christ, with palms of praise in our hand. And when we raise them in salute to Christ, he will see an almost endless field of green, shimmering with life and pulsating with praise. And then like the sound of a thousand Russian choruses, we will sing our song of salvation, while the mighty Christ, with heartfelt love, looks out over those whom he bought with his own blood. Had Jesus taken his throne on that first day of palms, none of us would ever be robed in white or waving palms of praise in the age to come. There had to be the cross, and that is what the disciples had not yet understood. Back in Luke 9, as Jesus prepared to set out for Jerusalem from Galilee, he tried to explain this to his disciples. In verse 22 he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” And in verse 44 he told them, “Let these words sink into your ears; for the Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men.” But verse 45 tells us, “They did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them that they should not perceive it; and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.” Therefore, their understanding of Jesus’ last journey to Jerusalem was flawed. They saw him as a king moving in to take control. And he was. But they could not grasp that the victory Jesus would win in Jerusalem over sin and Satan and death and all the enemies of righteousness and joy—that this victory would be won through his own horrible suffering and death; and that the kingdom which they thought would be established immediately (Luke 19:11) would, in fact, be thousands of years in coming. And their misunderstanding of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem results in a misunderstanding of the meaning of discipleship. This is why this is important for us to see, lest we make the same mistake. Jesus’ Resolution to Die In Luke 9:51–56 we learn how not to understand Palm Sunday. Let’s look at it together. “When the days drew near for him to be received up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” To set his face towards Jerusalem meant something very different for Jesus than it did for the disciples. You can see the visions of greatness that danced in their heads in verse 46: “An argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest.” Jerusalem and glory were just around the corner. O what it would mean when Jesus took the throne! But Jesus had another vision in his head. One wonders how he carried it all alone and so long. Here’s what Jerusalem meant for Jesus: “I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem”(Luke 13:33). Jerusalem meant one thing for Jesus: certain death. Nor was he under any illusions of a quick and heroic death. He predicted in Luke 18:31f., “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written of the Son of man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon; they will scourge him and kill him.” When Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem, he set his face to die. Remember, when you think of Jesus’ resolution to die, that he had a nature like ours. He shrunk back from pain like we do. He would have enjoyed marriage and children and grandchildren and a long life and esteem in the community. He had a mother and brothers and sisters. He had special places in the mountains. To turn his back on all this and set his face towards vicious whipping and beating and spitting and mocking and crucifixion was not easy. It was hard. O how we need to use our imagination to put ourselves back into his place and feel what he felt. I don’t know of any other way for us to begin to know how much he loved us. “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). If we were to look at Jesus’ death merely as a result of a betrayer’s deceit and the Sanhedrin’s envy and Pilate’s spinelessness and the soldiers’ nails and spear, it might seem very involuntary. And the benefit of salvation that comes to us who believe from this death might be viewed as God’s way of making a virtue out of a necessity. But once you read Luke 9:51 all such thoughts vanish. Jesus was not accidentally entangled in a web of injustice. The saving benefits of his death for sinners were not an afterthought. God planned it all out of infinite love to sinners like us and appointed a time. Jesus, who was the very embodiment of his Father’s love for sinners, saw that the time had come and set his face to fulfill his mission: to die in Jerusalem for our sake. “No one takes my life from me (he said), but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18). Jesus’ Journey Is Our Journey So Jesus sets out for Jerusalem, and it says in the text that “he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but the people would not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem.” It doesn’t really matter whether this rejection is just because Jesus and his companions are Jews and Samaritans hate Jews, or whether the rejection is a more personal rejection of Jesus as the Messiah on his way to reign in Jerusalem. What matters for the story is simply that Jesus is already being rejected, and then the focus shifts to the disciples’ response, specifically the response of James and John. James and John ask Jesus, “Lord, do you want us to bid fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (verse 54). Jesus had already named these brothers “sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17). Here we get a glimpse of why. I take this passage very personally because my father named me after one of these sons of thunder. And I think I probably would have said what John did here: “Jesus, we are on the way to victory. Nothing can stop us now. Let the fire fall! Let the judgment begin! O, how Jerusalem will tremble when they see us coming!” Jesus turns, the text says, and rebuked them (verse 55). And they simply went to another town. Now what does this mean? It means, first of all, that a mistaken view of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem can lead to a mistaken view of discipleship. If Jesus had come to execute judgment and take up an earthly rule, then it would make sense for the sons of thunder to begin the judgment when the final siege of the Holy City starts. But if Jesus had come not to judge but to save, then a radically different form of discipleship is in order. Here is a question put to every believer by this text: does discipleship mean deploying God’s missiles against the enemy in righteous indignation? Or does discipleship mean following him on the Calvary road which leads to suffering and death? The answer of the whole New Testament is this: the surprise about Jesus the Messiah is that he came to live a life of sacrificial, dying service before he comes a second time to reign in glory. And the surprise about discipleship is that it demands a life of sacrificial, dying service before we can reign with Christ in glory. What James and John had to learn—what we all must learn—is that Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem is our journey, and if he set his face to go there and die, we must set our face to die with him. One might be tempted to reason in just the opposite way: that since Jesus suffered so much and died in our place, therefore, we are free to go straight to the head of the class, as it were, and skip all the exams. He suffered so we could have comfort. He died so we could live. He bore abuse so we could be esteemed. He gave up the treasures of heaven so we could lay up treasures on earth. He brought the kingdom and paid for our entrance and now we live in it with all its earthly privileges. But all this is not biblical reasoning. It goes against the plain teaching in this very context. Luke 9:23, 24 reads: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it.” When Jesus set his face to walk the Calvary road, he was not merely taking our place; he was setting our pattern. He is substitute and pacesetter. If we seek to secure our life through returning evil for evil or surrounding ourselves with luxury in the face of human need, we will lose our life. We can save our life only if we follow Christ on the Calvary road. Jesus died to save us from the power and punishment of sin, not from the suffering and sacrifices of simplicity for love’s sake. Notice verses 57 and 58 (this is Jesus’ way of correcting James’ and John’s misconception about the glories of discipleship): “As they were going along the road, a man said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”‘ Why does Jesus tell a would-be disciple that he has no place to lay his head? The answer is simple enough for a child to see: because he expects disciples to be like him, and he wants them to know it is costly; the Calvary road is not the road of material prosperity. Now that doesn’t mean disciples have to sleep standing up, but it does have something to say about how many places you’ve invested in to lay your head; and how much comfort and luxury you seek to surround yourself with. Brothers and sisters, with 16,000 hidden people groups still waiting to hear the gospel, and millions of children starving through no fault of their own, and many people in our own country hard-put because of joblessness and emptiness, it is unconscionable that disciples of Jesus Christ can go right on pursuing the American dream. What excites me about Bethlehem Baptist Church are the signs in many of you that you have an alternative dream—a dream of breaking loose from the shackles of this self-serving, consumer culture in which we live—a dream of doing something radical. Something radically loving with your house, something radically loving with your portfolio and your income, something radically loving with your free evenings, something radically loving with your job. Some of you are discovering such wonderful freedom from the love of things. And hand in hand with that comes an amazing freedom from vengeance. The more secure you are in God rather than things, the less inclined you are to return evil for evil and the more open you are to nitty-gritty involvement with those who are least lovely and most needy. The more this happens, the more striking and fruitful will be the witness of this church to Jesus. I close with a personal word about where we are at Bethlehem. We have just come through seven weeks of messages aimed largely at unbelievers. I have prayed earnestly that people would be saved. I gave invitations every Sunday morning. I don’t know to what eternal use God may put those messages yet. I know that for myself they were a great nourishment. Jesus Christ is all the more precious now: his truth, his taking away my guilt, his giving me the hope of eternal life, his gift of authenticity, his presence in my family, and his all-satisfying spiritual beauty. I love Jesus Christ, and O, how I want to follow his footsteps on the Calvary road in every part of my life, and bring others with me. But for all that, my heart tells me now that it is a mistake to preach to unbelievers in our worship services and to give regular invitations. One of the most important reasons is this: this pattern builds into the mindset of Christians the idea that church services are where people get saved, and preachers are the people who win them to the Lord. I think both of those ideas are wrong and self-destructive in the long run. Church services are for praising God and for empowering saints to live lives of radical love in the world. If we praise the Lord from our hearts and if we live all for love instead of retaliation or luxury, we will be the most compelling invitations that Christ can give. If Christ set his face to go to Jerusalem, we ought to help one another week after week to set our faces like flint against the allurements of riches and retaliation and follow the King of kings on the Calvary road. www.desiringgod.org . Used by permission.

Share 0 Recently, John and I did a joint question-and-answer session on marriage. As the session closed, this big question came up. “After more than thirty years of marriage is there anything that you would have done differently?” This one fell to me to answer. I took a deep breath and confessed, “I would have allowed John the right to make more mistakes, and I would have loved him more fearlessly.” It was as though a ripple traveled through the crowd. From where I sat I saw men and women hurriedly wipe away tears; there were many deep sighs and silent nods. Fear is the greatest rival of love…equal in intensity and deadly in its capacity to corrupt. I refused to love John fearlessly because I was afraid. In an attempt to protect myself, I began to reclaim large portions of the real estate of my heart. In the first few years of our marriage, I learned that John had brought a struggle with porn into our relationship. (John and I have been very open about this.) Forgetting how merciful John had been with me when it came to my past, I pulled away from him. Somehow Jesus’s admonishment to forgive as we have been forgiven had disappeared with the revelation of John’s sin. I lived in fear and shamed him as he struggled to get free with little or no support from me. This was not approached as our challenge…it was his. Part of the reason I did not help was because I was beginning to feel the weight of my own past bear down on me and consequently believed I didn’t deserve any better than what I was experiencing. On some level judging him made me feel safe. If he didn’t change, I didn’t have to forgive him. One night, in all of my anger and brokenness, I cried out to God, “I will forgive him when he changes.” As far as I was concerned, all trust was broken between John and me, and I didn’t want to be disappointed yet again. God answered my declaration with a question: “Do you trust me, Lisa?” “Yes.” “Good. I need you to forgive John so he can change.” He even gave me the words to say: “I believe you want to change and I forgive you.” This was in stark contrast to my normal script, which read, “I will believe you are sorry when you change.” This way of thinking was so far removed from anything I had known that I knew it was God leading me. When I extended this unconditional mercy to John, the healing began for both of us. He was able to move out of the darkness of shame and into the light, where he found freedom from his bondage. This shift in perspective was a turning point. I could trust the unchangeable God. Fearless love is not based on the performance of a person but on the loving faithfulness of God. When I confess my sins and struggles to the Father in Jesus’s name, I am never shamed. He believes my future will be better. God is love. Love is eternal. Love never fails. Nothing entrusted to love is ever lost, and nothing birthed out of love well ever die. But there are some places that love does not grow; love cannot flourish in the company of its rival, fear. Fear has an end—actually, fear is a dead end. Fear is an ungodly spirit that leads to torment. Fear advises from its seat in the shadow of doubt, while love draws its wisdom from the light of faith. If you heed the counsel of fear for too long, you will fail. Perhaps you’ve struggled to love those around you despite their shortcomings. If you’re like me, it can sometimes be a struggle to give love until you see change. But I want to encourage you to give love before it’s deserved or warranted. It is only when we embrace God’s fearless, undeserved, unfathomable love for us that we are changed—and it is only when we extend this fearless love to others that we give them room to do the same. Beloved, embrace the unrivaled love of God and watch your world transform around you. www.messengerinternational.org . Used by permission.

All the best stories have it. The right setting. The climactic action. The memorable characters. And the greatest story forever told is no exception. Steven Furtick surveys the panorama of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, connecting the dots of a plot woven together since the dawn of time. The story centers around one perfect character and one climactic event-the death and resurrection of Christ. Preached at Elevation Church. Used by permission.

was thanking the Father today for his mercy. I began listing the sins he’d forgiven. One by one I thanked God for forgiving my stumbles and tumbles. My motives were pure and my heart was thankful, but my understanding of God was wrong. It was when I used the word remember that it hit me. “remember the time I…” I was about to thank God for another act of mercy. But I stopped. Something was wrong. The word remember seemed displaced. It was an off-key note in a sonata, a misspelled word in a poem. It didn’t fit. “Does he remember?” Then I remembered. I remembered his words. “And I will remember their sins no more.” 1 Wow! Now, that is a remarkable promise. God doesn’t just forgive, he forgets. He erases the board. He destroys the evidence. He burns the microfilm. He clears the computer. He doesn’t remember my mistakes. For all the things he does do, this is one thing he refuses to do. He refuses to keep a list of my wrongs. When I ask for forgiveness he doesn’t pull our a clipboard and say, “But I’ve already forgiven him for that five hundred and sixteen times.” He doesn’t remember. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” 2 “I will be merciful toward their iniquities.” 3 “Even if you are stained as red as crimson, I can make you white as wool.” 4 No, he doesn’t remember. But I do, you do. You still remember. You’re like me. You still remember what you did before you changed. In the cellar of your heart lurk the ghosts of yesterday’s sins. Sins you’ve confessed; errors of which you’ve repented; damage you’ve done your best to repair. And though you’re a different person, the ghosts still linger. Though you’ve locked the basement door, they still haunt you. They float to meet you, spooking your soul and robing your joy. With wordless whispers they remind you of moments when you forgot whose child you were. That horrid lie. That business trip you took away from home, that took you so far away from home. The time you exploded in anger. Those years spent in the hollow of Satan’s hand. That day you were needed, but didn’t respond. That date. That jealousy. That habit. Poltergeists from yesterday’s pitfalls. Spiteful specters that slyly suggest, “Are you really forgiven? Sure, God forgets most of our mistakes, but do you think he could actually forget the time you…” As a result, your spiritual walk has a slight limp. Oh, you’re still faithful. You still so all the right things and say the right words. But just when you begin to make strides, just when you wings begin to spread and you prepare to soar like an eagle, the ghost appears. It emerges from the swamps of your soul and causes you to question yourself. “You can’t teach a Bible class with your background.” “You, a missionary?” “How dare you ask him to come to church. What if he finds out about the time you fell away?” “Who are you to offer help?” The ghost spews waspish words of accusation, deafening your ears to the promises of the cross. And it flaunts your failures in your face, blocking your vision of the Son and leaving you the shadow of a doubt. Now honestly. Do you think God sent that ghost? Do you think God is the voice that reminds you of the putridness of your past? Do you think God was teasing when he said, “I will remember your sins no more?” Was he exaggerating when he said he would cast our sins as far as the east is from the west? Do you actually believe he would make a statement like “I will not hold their sins against them” and then rub our noses in them whenever we ask for help? Of course you don’t. You and I just need an occasional reminder of God’s nature, his forgetful nature. To love conditionally is against God’s nature. Just as it’s against your nature to eat trees and against mine to grow wings, it’s against God’s nature to remember forgiven sins. You see, God is either the God of perfect grace…or he is not God. Grace forgets. Period. He who is perfect love cannot hold grudges. If he does, then he isn’t perfect love. And if he isn’t perfect love, you might as well put this booklet down and go fishing, because both of us are chasing fairy tales. But I believe in his loving forgetfulness. And I believe he has a gracious terrible memory. Think about this. If he didn’t forget, how could we pray? How could we sing to him? How could dare enter into his presence if the moment he saw us he remembered all of our pitiful past? How could we enter his throne room wearing the rags of our selfishness and gluttony? We couldn’t. And we don’t. Read this powerful passage from Paul’s letter to the Galatians and watch your pulse rate. You’re in for a thrill. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ Jesus have put on Christ.” 5 You read it right. We have “put on” Christ. When God looks at us he doesn’t see us; he sees Christ. We “wear” him. We are hidden in him; we are covered by him. As the song says, “Dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.” Presumptuous, you say? Sacrilegious? It would be if it were my idea. But it isn’t; it’s his. We are presumptuous, not when we marvel at his grace, but when we reject it. And we’re sacrilegious, not when we claim his forgiveness, but when we allow the haunting sins of yesterday to convince us that God forgives but he doesn’t forget. Do yourself a favor. Purge your cellar. Exorcise your basement. Take the Roman nails of Calvary and board up the door. And remember…he forgets. 1. Hebrews 8:12 RSV 2. Psalm 103:12 3. Hebrews 8:12 RSV 4. Isaiah 1:18 TLB 5. Galatians 3:27 RSV Taken from www.maxlucado.com. Used by permission.

When Jesus paid the ultimate price on the cross to extend mercy, He never intended for us to keep it to ourselves. Discover the freedom found in forgiveness and the greater story your scars can tell. Sometimes the strength for your next season comes from the pain of your past. For the Seven Mile Series, go to www.elevationchurch.org. To purchase the book with this series, go to sevenmilemiracle.com.

Most people are obsessed with the future. They worry, they wonder, they obsess about possible scenarios. And some, in desperation, seek to learn what is ahead by seeking fortune-tellers or astrological forecasts. Divination, or fortune-telling, is an age-old practice. The “diviner” uses various props to receive his knowledge, including palmistry, cartomancy, mirror gazing and psychometry. Some knowledge may come from demonic beings, and some is merely educated guessing and trickery. In his book, The Fakers , Danny Korem writes that six tools in the con artist’s tool bag are often used: 1. Observation of sensory clues. 2. Prior knowledge of subject obtained secretly before reading. 3. Ability to think on one’s feet and change direction of the reading without hesitation or detection. 4. Understanding of human nature. 5. Utilization of the cards or any other apparatus to pick up sensory clues or change the direction of the reading when off-track. 6. An element of luck and a keen sense of playing the odds so that a well-placed guess my produce spectacular results. When we seek to see the future through fortune-telling it is an abomination to God, because he fails to seek God’s direction for our lives. Satan has accomplished his purpose when they reject God’s Word. In (1 Chronicles 10:13,14) God’s punishment of Saul for seeking out a medium is recorded: “So Saul died for his trespass which he committed against the Lord, because of the word of the Lord which he did not keep; and also because he asked counsel of a medium, making inquiry of it, and did not inquire of the Lord. Therefore He killed him, and turned the kingdom to David, the son of Jesse.” Is this passage about Saul our only warning against seeking a fortune-teller, even for fun or out of curiosity? The Lord calls the word of the diviners a lie (Ezekiel 13:8) and cuts them off from cohabitation with Israel (Ezekiel 13:9). “Therefore thus says the Lord God: “Because you have uttered falsehood and seen lying visions, therefore behold, I am against you, declares the Lord God. My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and who give lying divinations. They shall not be in the council of my people, nor be enrolled in the register of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord God.” ESV The law of Moses made fortune-telling punishable by death (Leviticus 20:27) “A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them.” ESV Its existence always filtered into Israel through the pagan cultures around them (Ezekiel 21:21). For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination. He shakes the arrows; he consults the seraphim; he looks at the liver. Jeremiah calls divination a deception (14:14) And the Lord said to me: “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds.” ESV Isaiah says God will make them into fools (44:25). “…who frustrates the signs of liars and makes fools of diviners, who turns wise men back and makes their knowledge foolish” ESV In the New Testament times, divining was a lucrative business at Philippi (Acts 16:16). “As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling.” ESV Paul took authority over the demon that inspired the girl’s practice and cast it out (16:18), which shows us that not all divination is educated guesswork, but may be a result of demonic influence. “And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.” Is it important or even necessary to guard our hearts and minds from the persuasion of the world? Yes, it is. What some people considered unthinkable at previous times in their lives is what they so often bend toward in their moments of weakness. Jesus gave us some guidelines for protection in the Sermon on the Mount. “The lamp of the body is the eye,” He said. “If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23). Our behavior needs to be guarded by the light of God’s Word, which also means we need to be careful about what we allow to enter our body through our senses-especially the eyes and the ears. Trust your future to the God who made you. Jeremiah 29:11 is a precious promise. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” The future belongs to God, and the safest place to be is in the center of His will.” ESV The Occult: The Authority of the Believer Over the Powers of Darkness by Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, pp.42-44. Used by permission.

As Americans, we live in a sanitized and antiseptic culture. Everything is clean, orderly, and has its place. Even our suffering. Most Americans don’t experience extreme brutality like Jesus experienced for us. And that got me thinking again about suffering. What is suffering? More specifically, what does it mean to suffer for the sake of Christ? Immediately, we can put aside notions of suffering from sickness, accidents, or bad relationships. Everyone experiences some measure of physical and emotional suffering for various reasons. What I am referring to, specifically, is the biblical call to suffer for the Gospel, for the sake of Christ. But let me narrow it down further. I don’t mean suffering such as your teacher telling you that you can’t read the Bible during recess or forbidding you from writing about Jesus as the subject of an essay. Nor do I mean restrictions on speech that Americans regularly complain about regarding public expressions of religion. What I mean is the kind of suffering that Jesus, Paul, and the Apostles went through. The kind of suffering the early Christians endured. The kind of suffering Christians in the Middle East, Asia, and parts of Africa experience. To illustrate it graphically, I mean flesh tearing, hot iron branding, knife slashing, bone breaking, skin burning, bullet riddled suffering for the sake of sharing God’s love and forgiveness with the very people causing your suffering. In a word, I’m talking about nothing less than being brutalized for the sake of the Gospel. That is what Jesus suffered. When we think of suffering, what do we think of? In our sanitized and antiseptic culture we don’t think about horrible gut wrenching extreme pain. I think we don’t even think of this about Jesus. We intellectually know that he suffered for us. We may even know it in the seat of our emotions. But the brutality of Jesus’ suffering is frankly, beyond most of us from understanding because that kind of suffering is not within our normal frame of reference. When I first began reading the Bible as a young Christian I went through the Gospels and my first thought was, “Is that it?” I’ve read novels that had more captivating portrayals of suffering than I read in the Bible. So why didn’t the Gospel writers give us a more descriptive account of Jesus’ suffering? Because in the day in which they lived and wrote nobody needed a description of that kind of suffering. They lived with it, everyday, as their Roman masters brutalized their people. Now, 2,000 years later, sitting on my comfortable couch reading my Bible on my iPad while sipping a soft drink, I’m completely divorced from what true suffering—the kind that Jesus experienced—really means. Until I see it in movies like The Passion or Son Of God. Even then, I’m only moved emotionally. I can empathize, but only part way because I, myself, have never experienced suffering in that way. And yet… There is a terrible truth in scripture that we gloss over because at some level we pray dear God please don’t let that be me. It is the revelation that God has called us to suffer. On purpose. This does not mean that he allows suffering on some passive level. It means that for some of us he calls us to endure true brutality for the sake of the Gospel. This means extreme suffering and victimization at the hands of the very people that God has called us to love and forgive—just like Jesus did. Yes. It’s true. God calls the Christian to suffer in this way. Remember Jesus’ words in Acts 9:16 about the Apostle Paul, “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” Paul suffered greatly, many times, over many years, for the sake of the Gospel. He was victimized and brutalized over a message of love given to a people that would have rather stoned him to death. Jesus himself said that we would suffer with our victimizers thinking they would be doing God a favor (Matthew 10:16-23; 24:9; Mark 13:9-13; John 16:2). The reality in all of this is that God, from eternity past, pro-actively and intentionally, foreordained the suffering that some Christians will endure. So what does that tell us about God. Is God cruel? Why does he foreordain the suffering of some? Does he have the right? To answer the last question first, yes, God has the right to foreordain our suffering. Jesus’ suffering, as horrible as it was, was foreordained by God. With him as our example Jesus says, “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master” (Matthew 10:24). Is God cruel? At first we might think so. But we are told that our sufferings, even brutalization, is but a “light momentary affliction preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (II Corinthians 4:17). This was how Jesus viewed his suffering. “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame” (Hebrews 12:2). We are also told that in the kingdom to come that our life on earth and all that we suffered will never, for trillions times trillions of never-ending years ever come to our minds ever again (Isaiah 65:17). When we begin to get a true grasp of how extreme Jesus’ suffering was we cannot help but wonder, why did he have to die that way? We watch a movie about Jesus’ suffering. We are emotionally moved beyond words for what might be a 10-15 minute depiction on screen. But Jesus’ suffering lasted for hours. Why did he have to suffer so much for so long? Because, I think, of the scope of the redemption he was winning for us. He was paying for the sins of billions of people throughout all history for all time. A mere stabbing, or stoning, or beheading, as horrible as they might be, wouldn’t illustrate enough what had to be suffered to pay for the sins of so many. Are we willing to suffer in the same way Jesus did? Is there some part of you, hidden deep inside that says to God, “I am willing to suffer as you did if it will bring you glory.” Can you say with all your heart, “Lord, I don’t want to suffer that way, but if it will bring you glory then do that in me which will bring you the most glory, no matter what that is.” A few years ago a missionary came to my office to talk with me about his fear of moving to China. He had been there more than once, teaching English and ministering the Gospel to his students. He left the country for a while but believed that God was telling him that the next time he went to China he would give his life for his faith in prison. In our three-hour conversation he expressed his fears and doubts. I shared a brief passage from Revelation with him and suddenly he slipped off his chair, arms raised, his knees hitting the floor yelling, “God is speaking through you right now!” After a short while we finished our conversation and he left, determined to go to China, take whatever risk was necessary for the Gospel, and give up his life. I never saw him again. It is true, we are a sanitized and antiseptic people. If we want to truly follow Christ in every way then we must be willing to endure suffering for his name’s sake. We must take the attitude that we are really in the business of saving lives for eternity. Our sacrifices and suffering here will be minor compared to the eternal weight of suffering that will be endured by the lost. And what can we experience now that might compare with that? Nothing, I think. Yet, there is still that secret part deep inside of me that says, “I hope I never have to go through that.” guywithabible.com Used by permission.