Spiritual Weapons for the Right and and the Left

1 Samuel 11:6–7 And the Spirit of God rushed upon Saul when he heard these words, and his anger was greatly kindled. [7] He took a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces and sent them throughout all the territory of Israel by the hand of the messengers, saying, “Whoever does not come out after Saul and Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen!” Then the dread of the LORD fell upon the people, and they came out as one man. 

Haven’t we all been asking, like those worthless men in 1 Samuel 10:27; “How Can this man save us?”  Haven’t we been overrun by dragons? Internal and external dragons.

God’s answer for us, is the same as it was to Israel, “by the power of the Holy spirit.” The Spirit’s descent was always a prelude to holy war, just as the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost to equip the church to prosecute its holy war against unbelief in the great commission. Salvation comes down out of heaven to rest upon us and equips us to slay dragons. 

We need the whole counsel of God on this subject. “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Tim. 1:7).  We are used to hearing about the Fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control from Galatians 5. And amen. But these attributes, worked into us through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, prepare us for wielding a mighty sword. Only a well-trained arm can wield a sword effectively. We need the right training to wield the sword of the spirit to slay dragons; “and take…the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). 

How do we slay dragons? With the word of God. “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). This is the prophetic voice. “He made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow; in his quiver he hid me away” (Isaiah 49:2). “Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light” (Hosea 6:5). The Word of God is the Sword of the Spirit. This is the weapon of our warfare. “By truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left” (2 Corinthians 6:7).

We are in great need of a sword and a Christ-like character to wield it. The Spirit provides us with both. The mission of the church is confrontation with the dragons of this world – the sons of that ancient serpent, Satan, as he is called in Revelation 20:2. 

Jesus said to the Pharisees; 

“Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. [32] Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. [33] You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? [34] Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town” (Matthew 23:31–34).

Jesus slew the great serpent Satan, but his children still walk the earth. They still lie and devour and steal and cheat and corrupt. “And such were some of you.” Jesus ascended, knowing there were still dragons to be slain. So, He poured out his power on us in the Holy Spirit. He filled his Apostles’ with the words and they delivered His book into our hands. We are sent now – the prophets and wisemen and scribes – even to be killed, crucified, flogged and persecuted, by obeying god’s will unto death. To pour out our lives fighting the dragons in our hearts and in one another’s hearts. To proclaim Christ’s death and resurrection till he returns, teaching the nations the words of Christ. 

In this mission we are not left defenseless. But the sword we wield is held in hands that are shaped by the fruit of the spirit. We are given weapons with which to fight. Swords and arrows, too. We are called by God to raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord; to fill our quiver with Gospel arrows. The reason for this is that to fulfill the great commission mission, we must be dragon slayers. One of the things I keep hearing among Christians is a concern over the current of culture, and how it threatens to devour our children. Part of the general fear is a fear over the rise of dragons in the land. But what concern is that to dragon slayers? We need to be and we need to raise broad shouldered swordsmen and mighty shield maidens. 

Jesus told Peter, as the first leader of the Apostles “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).

Gates are a defensive position. The gates of hell shall not prevail against us. I don’t care what your eyes of flesh show you, we are on the offensive, if we are wielding the Word of God. No matter what you see on the evening news, the Lord has the enemy right where He wants them. Out in the open, no longer hiding in the dark. Take up the sword, Church, for there be dragons in your hearts and in the land. 

And remember that we are raising dragon slayers who must be armed with the sword of the Spirit; weapons for the right hand and the left. The word of God wielded by the sons and daughters of God – who are loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and self-controlled – because it is not the spirit of the World, but of God that is the seal of our inheritance in Christ. We do not fight like the world. We fight like Christ, in whose scarred hands rests the scepter of the Messiah King, a rod of iron. The Lord equipped Saul by the power of His own spirit and Saul fought with the tactics of his fathers, zealous, wise, forgiving, humble, fierce. And he slew dragons. 

Let us take up the sword, church, and cry to the thrice Holy God – “rend heaven and pour out your spirit again! Give us a deep love and understanding of your word, that we might be strong and well-equipped to slay dragons.” 

Let us attend the Lord’s Service this Sunday and renew our covenant with God – for that is what our worship service is – Covenant renewal. Let us be clothed in Christ’s righteousness and feed at His table.  “For an army marches on its stomach,” Napoleon said.  Let us take up the Sword of the Spirit – weapons enough for both hands – and slay the dragons in our hearts, our homes, our church and our communities. Go. Fight. Win. In the name and power of The Lord Jesus Christ.

And Amen.

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This is My Body, Broken For You

Ephesians 5:15-17 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

That’s the challenge; understand the will of the Lord and walk and act accordingly. But our flesh likes easy, safe, selfishness.

We have our own desires. We have our own wills, and they struggle against the Spirit and our faith every day. 

The mission of the Lord is others-focused. The love of the Triune God faces out. 

The will of the Father is that His children will lay down their lives for others just like our older brother Jesus laid down is His life for you. 

The calling of the Christian Faith is “This is my body broken for you…”

Husbands, Wives, Parents, Masters, servants, friends…this is your calling. Everyone, this is your calling. This is a calling so heavy only the humble can carry it. It will break the backs of the proud. “This is my body broken for you…”

Author N.D. Wilson wrote, “Lay your life down. Your heartbeats cannot be hoarded. Your reservoir of breaths is draining away. You have hands, blister them while you can. You have bones, make them strain – they can carry nothing in the grave. You have lungs, let them spill with laughter…I can be giving my fingers, my back, my mind, my words, my breaths, to my wife and my children and my neighbors, or I can grasp after the vapor and the vanity for myself, dragging my feet, afraid to die and therefore afraid to live. And, like Adam, I will still die in the end. Living is the same thing as dying. Living well is the same thing as dying for others.

You are all dying, right now, by the very fact that you are mortal living creatures. Living well is dying for others. You were given bodies, strength and voices to give away. 

Be as generous as your King. 

Look around. Look around your family. Look around your church. Look around your neighborhood. 

You were not given bodies and redeemed for mere pleasure or self-centered pursuits. Life was poured into you so that you could pour it out in the service of others.  

“This is my body, broken for you…”

It requires prayer and repentance. 

It requires faith and the Lord’s Spirit.

It requires rejecting the easy safe selfishness that our flesh loves so much. 

It requires looking up and looking out. To the condition and welfare of others.

Philippians 2:4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 

Let us confess and ask God to forgive us for our selfishness and ask for the Spirit of God to reveal and lead us in understanding the will of our Lord. 

A Lust for Murder

The ten commandments were given on two tablets. The first tablet covers how to love God. The second tablet covers ho to love our neighbor. The 6^th, 7^th, 8^th and 9^th commandments are simple and brief and they prohibit the most severe acts of violence we commit against one another, beginning with the most severe; you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness. 

The tenth and final commandment is distinguished from those preceding it in both length and object. Instead of prohibiting actions, it prohibits a desire. It is directed toward the heart of man. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:17). The verb covet means desire. This Hebrew word is used to describe Eve’s desire for the prohibited fruit, the desire that instigated the original sin. This covetousness, this desire, is not reserved for special hardened sinners. “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate” (Genesis 3:6).

Desire is at the heart, literally, of every human sin. “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:16–17). 

The desire prohibited in the 10^th commandment is the desire of every human heart. It is the overarching commandment of the second table of God’s law because we unceasingly desire our neighbor’s goods and our neighbors, themselves. This rivalry is at the heart of human social relationships. Our desires, unmet, endanger the harmony and survival of all human communities, marriages, homes, businesses, neighborhoods, churches and nations. 

Look at the news with its unceasing power struggles, the social justice movement, the Marxism, the politics of envy and identity – people desire what others have. This desire, unchecked, is the cause of our strife with one another. Look at your own anger, you own actions toward spouse, children, neighbors, co-workers and fellow Christians, even strangers. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death (James 1:14–15). But this death doesn’t just consume the individual, it leads to violating the 6^th, 7^th, 8^th and 9^th commandment. 

This is the fundamental reality of fallen man and of men and woman being sanctified by the Lord Jesus. Yet, it is contrary to our self-image and understanding and humiliating to admit, so we prefer to deny it outright. The tenth commandment prohibits desiring our neighbors and their goods, attempting to prevent a host of sins that follow these unmet desires – violence we commit against one another. Everywhere we go we find neighbors. They are the model for our desires. Their marriages, their bodies and their belongings. Their emotional, spiritual, economic and social realities are the source of our fleshly desires. When our desire for someone else, something more, someone else’s –  is thwarted  – instead of accepting it and moving on, our desire resists our authority over it and intensifies our longing, expanding into actual violence. “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? [2] You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel” (James 4:1–2).

If we ceased to pursue the desires of this world, we would cease to desire the good of our neighbors, then we would never commit murder or adultery or theft or false witness. If we obeyed the 10^thcommandment, the 6^th -9^th would be superfluous. I want to close with this. You are probably struggling to see this reality of this in your own lives. The framework I’ve described is death to self. We flatter ourselves, knowing that we are not actual perpetrators of real violence. But our Lord stated this reality in clear terms. “And [Jesus] said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. [21] For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, [22] coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. [23] All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:20–23). And Jesus’s standard is the very heart of man, for he knows that our self-deception runs deep enough to satisfy ourselves in our righteousness because of externals, instead of judging the heart. “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).

The desire in our hearts for our neighbor and their goods is not mere death for us, unchecked, it is death to them as well. And we can do this violence to one another in the comfort and hidden place of our hearts. We have to realize how Jesus deals with this fundamental desire of our flesh, that Christ might set us free to have new desires. 

I Don’t Need to Repent of That

A middle schooler sits in PNW history reading, for the first time, about the internment of Japanese Americans during world war II.  He is horrified to learn that 120,000 innocent people were rounded up and imprisoned because some of them might be spies. He thought to himself, “how could the US fight to liberate Europe while simultaneously committing atrocious war crimes against its own people?” 

One of his best friends is a second generation Japanese American. One day after school, at the friend’s house, this young man apologizes to his friend and his whole family, including his grandma, for what Americans had done to their people. 

The family just looks at him in awkward and stunned silence. “but,” his grandmother says, “you didn’t do that…your parents weren’t even alive. And our family was still in Japan, enemies of the United States. But I heard you and my grandson talking about how you were treating your classmate poorly; tomorrow, apologize to him for what you actually did do.” The boys go out to play basketball. 

When we say the United States sinned, what does that mean? The United States isn’t a person. So, who did the sinning? 

When we say that non-Japanese Americans sinned against Japanese Americans who did the sinning? Every non-Japanese american? Against every Japanese American alive then and now? In the case of the Japanese prisoners, US politicians, military officials, local government officials and normal citizens who claimed the businesses and homes of those interred Japanese Americans all participated in particular sins against particular individuals. Specific crimes against Specific people. Who is responsible for those sins? Those war crimes? 

We live in the information age in which we know a great deal about what happened 300 years ago and what is happening 3000 miles away. Meanwhile, we hardly know what is going on 3 houses down our street. When we hear of atrocities, crimes, sins, injustices and wrongs what is our responsibility? 

We are not responsible for the sins of every American or everyone who shares our ethnicity, our language, our creed, etc. 

During the first Crusade, the Christian soldiers marched into the Middle East and promptly slaughtered 30,000 infidels. The problem was, well there are lots of problems with that, but one of them is that they weren’t infidels, they were all Christians who dressed and talked differently than the Germanic soldiers. The first massacre of the first crusade were Christians slaughtering Christians because they looked and talked different. So, you are Christians. Are you responsible for that? 

Does the bible have anything to say about this? Covenantal theology is necessary at this point. A husband is responsible for His wife, a free agent who commits sins. His responsibility does not mean his wife will not answer for her sins, it means he will answer for his sins and her sins. Add children. Add greater and greater spheres of authority and responsibility. 

Hebrews 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. 

Your pastors will give an account for their own sins and yours. This is federal headship, covenantal headship. FDR will give an account for His own Sins and the sins of his administration for Interring Japanese Americans. Mayors, presidents, generals, husbands, mothers, pastors – anyone who has authority and responsibility will give an account for the sins of those in their care. 

We must repent of our worldly thinking. The false belief that the bible has nothing to say about the most difficult questions that face us right now. God’s word is sufficient for the problems of our age, if we have the courage and humility to study it and apply it no matter how unwelcome in the public sphere, we are people of the word. 

Here is an example. Deuteronomy 21:1–3 “If in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess someone is found slain, lying in the open country, and it is not known who killed him, then your elders and your judges shall come out, and they shall measure the distance to the surrounding cities. And the elders of the city that is nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer that has never been worked and that has not pulled in a yoke.

Did the whole town repent? No, the elders and judges of the nearest town repented. How were they responsible? They were covenantally responsible, sice the unsolved murder happened in their jurisdiction. Do we want more justice in our community? Then the mayor and judges of Lynnwood ought to repent, on behalf of the city, for every unsolved murder and cold case on record right now. That is biblical justice. And this is just one example. Let us shape our cries for justice with a biblical standard rather than the standard of academics, sociologists, race-baiting social Darwinists. We have a great deal to learn about how to process the injustices we learn about. Whether through history books or the nightly news. 

The struggle is real though, because our culture does not recognize God, his law or the responsibility leaders owe for the sins of their administration. We are tempted to make justice solely an issue of this age. We want vindication now, but we are not promised vindication now. We ought to cry out against injustice, but all injustice will not be reconciled in this age. We can be neither complacent nor without hope. 

In the age to come all injustices will be dealt with by Christ. If that isn’t our ministry than we have a gospel problem. And if that isn’t enough, then we have a gospel problem. We see here an opportunity to pray for our leaders, but prayer doesn’t seem like enough. It seems futile. We want to grasp the levers of power and reshape this world. 

Being a just person is harder than bewailing the injustice we so readily see in others. There is a great temptation in national or ethical repentance. C.S. Lewis sums it up in his essay on national repentance.

 “When we speak of England’s actions we mean the actions of the British Government. The young man who is called upon to repent of England’s foreign policy is really being called upon to repent the acts of his neighbour; for a Foreign Secretary … is certainly a neighbour. And repentance presupposes condemnation. The first and fatal charm of national repentance is, therefore, the encouragement it gives us to turn from the bitter task of repenting our own sins to the congenial one of bewailing—but, first, of denouncing—the conduct of others.“

National repentance can rob us of the crucial virtue of charity. There is a great deal everyone needs to take responsibility for. But does that include you and I repenting for the trail of tears or wounded knee or the Tuskegee Experiment? Those are all hard and important lessons from history. Those kinds of injustices are happening today and there are covenanted authorities responsible for them. 

How about the Chief of the Minneapolis Police department repenting publicly for the negligent homicide of George Floyd? The Obama Administration repenting for the fast and furious program? Every government official who has supported the murder mills of Planned parenthood? 

Want to address injustice? Pray that those who are in authority would count the cost of their authority and responsibility for which they will give an account? That they would be converted and seek to obey God’s law in their office?  

Pray that we all would stop being distracted by things three thousand miles away and things that happened three hundred tears ago and start concerning ourselves a lot more about what’s going on three doors down the street. 

What are the sins of millennials? Gen X-ers? Baby boomers? Things they actually participated in?  

What are the national idols and what is the spirit of the age with which you and I are actively whoring ourselves with right now? We can’t let injustice across the country distract us from the most important injustices that involve each one of us – those injustices we ourselves commit. Those sins of omission and commission affecting our spouse, children, friend, family, neighbors and our larger communities.

You Get as Much as You Need

Ephesians 3:16 and 19 “that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being…. to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

The ultimate goal of Christ indwelling His people is that they might experience the fullness of God.

But we don’t experience the fullness of God, do we? So, is God a liar? Is His spirit weak and ineffectual? Or, do we experience all of God that we need?

We don’t need him much, so we don’t experience Him much. How much we know of Him, how much His fullness fills us is proportional to our need of Him. We all fall into the need trap. We all know how much we needed Jesus for salvation. To enter the narrow gate. To draw near the Father. In the bloom of our first awakening to God we were all magnificently aware of our need, but now that we are through that narrow gate we get along on our own strength and understanding. The less of Him we need the less of Him we experience.Then we wonder why we lack the kind of fullness described in the New Testament.

Remember Matthew 13:58 “And [Jesus] did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.” 

God’s presence in your day to day life is directly proportional to your need of and belief in Him. Do you need Him to get up in the morning? Do you need Him at work? At the water cooler? In the laundry room and at the homeschooling table? Do you need Him to get your homework done and read to the kids? Do you need Him in the front yard? Do you need Him at the kitchen table and in the marriage bed? Do you need Him to pay the bills?

Do you need Jesus? His power. His dependence on the Father and the Holy Spirit? Do you need His Love? The Fruit of His spirit?

We are the community of need living at the foot of the throne of Grace. Aren’t we? We act self-sufficient, self-willed, all-wise, strong and good. And in that pride of life we draw farther from grace and farther from God Himself.

In reality we are bound together by our need. We are united in our need of Him and our need of one another, because His fullness lives in His Body. We receive as much as we need. So, remember every day how much you need Him.

Every day pray Proverbs 30:8-9 “give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.”

Come to Christ in your need. The more of Him you need, the more of Him you will recieve.

Preaching 101

I

Like any work, preaching is a craft that requires time and failure to get really good at. This thread will discuss what preaching is, what it ought to accomplish and how to develop it as a craft.

Of course, we turn to the Bible to discover what it is preachers are doing.

Nehemiah 8:1–8 And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the LORD had commanded Israel. So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law. And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose…They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading. (ESV)

So how did it work? The preacher stood on a platform before both men and women. He read the word and the people of God listened attentively. The preacher gave the sense of the words and the people understood the words.

This is preaching in a nutshell. Read the text. Explain the text clearly and the audience receives understanding.

Now let’s move into the NT. Let’s look at the master preacher.

Luke 4:16–22 …[Jesus] stood up to read. [17] And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.  And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. (ESV)

What pattern do we see in Luke 4? Jesus is handed the Scriptures from the attendant while standing. Jesus reads the Scripture. Jesus closes the book and hands it back to the attendant. Jesus sits down and begins to preach to them. At first they marvel but Jesus continues even thought he has already dazzled them. He isn’t satisfied with tickling their ears. He preaches the kingdom of God and repentance. Then we read,

Luke 4:28–29 When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. (ESV)

The main thing we need to notice in these examples is how the sermon worked. The Word would be read, and then the preacher would teach the sense of the words, and preach an exhortation based on them.

But notice that Jesus’ conclusion infuriated the crowd, and they sought to kill him. That is why preaching takes a ton of prayer for boldness and wisdom. If it takes no courage to preach then you are doing it wrong, because if you go to the front lines, you can’t be surprised when the enemy starts shooting back at you. Sermons ought to ruffle feathers and mess up hair, because the preacher is a weapon in the hand of God.

Likewise, at the conclusion of Peter’s Sermon on Pentecost, we read,

Acts 2:37–38 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (ESV)

Read the word. Give the sense or the meaning of the word directed toward understanding, so that the crowd responds.

R.L Dabney, in Evangelical Eloquence, says of preaching, “its design is to evoke an act.”

Reading the word of God. Explaining the word of God. Giving an understanding of the word of God. Acting on the word of God.

This is preaching 101.

Run Toward the Machine Guns and Live

John 12:24- 25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

Luke 9:51 “When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”

Jesus set His face toward Jerusalem and didn’t look back. He went towards danger. Towards loss and affliction, persecution and pain. He knew the only way to return to the Father was through death. He couldn’t return to heaven and leave the mission undone. He knew the only way to provide eternal life to His brothers and sisters was going towards the danger – towards death.

On D-day, as the men came off the boats they were ripped up with machine gun fire. Their only option was to press forward and keep moving – toward the machine guns. There was nothing behind them but the sea.

They could run back to the sea and drown or run towards the machine guns and maybe… live. It was counterintuitive to every self-preserving cell in their bodies but the twisted logic was run toward the guns to live. Run toward the impregnable defenses.

Run toward death to live.

But moving forward they could survive and liberate a continent. And the miracle was as each man ran toward death and did his part, Normandy was conquered by the allies.

We need this kind of example. The army has grown lazy and fat with inaction or it cowers in the trenches with now will to move forward.

But Jesus went ahead of us to show us how, to make it possible for us to follow.

By Laying down one’s life in obedience to the Father – dying for righteousness – is eternal life, glory and joy.

You know you lie. You know you covet. You know you curse. You know the loneliness of sin; the despair and the pain of sin.

You know that loving your wife as Christ loved the Church, raising our children in the fear and admonition of the LORD, making disciples of the nations, being Holy as God is Holy – it’s an impregnatable fortress.

You can’t scale its high walls. You are too weak and feeble to claw that elevation.

Getting out of bed, going out the front door, facing your loved ones – it’s like a machine gun of failure and despair.

Jesus Thirsts for Wrath

John 19:28–30 “After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

Psalm 22:14–15 “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.”

John 19:28-30 is a fulfillment directly of Psalm 22:15. Psalm 22 is the most quoted psalm in the NT.

This moment when he speaks of thirst, as in His whole earthly ministry, Jesus is profoundly misunderstood. Physically, at this point, salving his thirst prolongs his life which prolongs his agony and the roman soldiers were all too ready to oblige him.

But Jesus didn’t mean he thirsted for anything in this world, certainly not the cheap swill the soldiers kept there to stave off dehydration. Here at the height of agony, Jesus is resolved and prepared for that cup, which just a few hours before, He Had asked His father to remove in Luke 22:42 “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”Jesus, in the garden of gethsemane, said no father I am not thirsty, but I will drink if it you tell me to. We see here mere resignation.

But Jesus goes on to suffer and suffer, and it isn’t until he asks for the cup of wrath that His father gives it to Him. The Father withholds it. Jesus endures the wrath and condemnation of men and through suffering He is perfected. He thirsts for the end. He knows what is required and so He looks to the heavens and says, “I thirst.”

The cup of wrath and judgment for mankind is mentioned often in the OT.

Psalm 75:8 For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.

Someone had to deal with this cup.John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. (ESV)

Jesus was not forced to drink. His will was not violated. His will, which wavered under a load of dread and misery, came into full strength and utter submission to His Father’s will. Christ’s faith at this moment, asking for that which was His father’s desire but was contrary to every fleshly desire and comfort he knew – to this Jesus submitted willingly. He thirsted for it. He desired to be satiated with the wrath and condemnation of His father because that is what He was born to drink. It is His father’s will and His fathers will is His sustenance.

The psalms are the prayers of the Messiah. The messianic songbook.

Psalm 42:2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

Psalm 63:1O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Jesus thirsted for the end of His earthly ministry which would be the death stroke of death, the destruction of Satan and the obliteration of sin. Jesus asks for that cup and after everything He had endured, His obedience and love for the Father overrules everything else and the cup He feared, that He dreaded, that He wanted to avoid, is lifted to his lips and He drank it off.

There on Calvary, especially there, He submits, and it is a long obedience in the same direction that prepared Him for that moment. Habit over momentary distress. Faithfulness over easy-safe-selfishness.

Christ thirsted for the cup of His calling as the suffering servant– His shame and terror and dread –and He drank it to the dregs because he needed an empty cup. He needed a cup with which to sprinkle cleansing water upon His bride; the living water of baptism. He needed a cup to fill with blessing, cleansing, and salvation.

There was a cup in the upper room in Jerusalem that Paul delighted to call “the cup of blessing which we bless” (1 Cor. 10:16). This is the cup the psalmist alluded to when he wrote, “What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation” (Ps. 116:13). Jesus was offering them this cup when He said, “Take, drink from it” (Matt. 26:27).

The Disciples too, misunderstood. There was a cup of wrath and judgment that was emptied by the thirsty Christ at Calvary.

By the time that cup is passed to us – all the terror and condemnation is gone. We find only life. Only favor. Only grace. Only the wine and water of the new covenant for the whole world. The cup of life and blessing.

Christ thirsted for the cup of judgment so that He could finish it. Drink it all down. Remove it. Washed, he offers the cup of His blood; His grace – to you.

Are you thirsty? We aren’t as thirsty for the cup of blessing as Christ was for the cup of woe. We are self-centered little wretches who mess about with drink and sex and self when limitless joy and goodness are offered to us.

1 Corinthians 10:21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.

Are we thirsty for the cup of blessing? Is the cup of hope and life our habit? Our Joy? Or have we satiated ourselves with the cup of distraction, disbelief and self-satisfaction? Are we as thirsty for the cup of life and Grace as Jesus was for the cup of Wrath and condemnation?

The Redeemer Church Story

You are part of an epic story. A tale with twists and turns, a journey of redemption. It began with the fall mankind, and it has been marked by sin, death, and suffering… but then a triumph that brought forgiveness, life and hope.

Redeemer Church is the place where we tell this story in a thousand ways. It’s a simple story of death turned life. And at the center of this tale is the one who made it possible… Christ, our great Redeemer. The Son of God, who came to make all things new.
The result of sin is death. The Bible makes this clear. And it was our sin. Our own choices. Our own actions filled with lust, hate and selfishness in the beginning of God’s beautiful world that led us far, far away from him. Into a place of hopelessness. A place of death. But the mystery we celebrate, that moment in our story where the unexpected happens, is when… in Christ… we find the unimaginable. We turn our heads, we look around in amazement… and we rejoice. Jesus the Redeemer. He takes the dark, sinful threads of our own stories, and weaves them together to create a picture that is entirely and completely glorious. Unexpected. Undeserved. That very sin that brought us death, Christ took it upon him and paid the penalty of that sin. He shed his blood… he died! However, that wasn’t the end… he rose again! He busted the chains of death because death could not hold him. And life has now come through death. A life like you could never have otherwise known. And a life that could only have come out of the death we created with our own sin. Redeemed by his love! That is beautiful irony! The darkest hours of your life — the things you’ve done that you believed were unforgivable… these are the very things that make up the biggest comeback story you could imagine. Rejoice! It’s very real.

And because of this, we now go into our world and bring the redemption and love that has been given to us. We make, create, bless, serve, give, help and restore–bringing the goodness we have received and pouring it out upon the world. Knowing that the goodness of the Lord will overcome evil, justice will overcome injustice, righteousness will overcome unrighteousness, and Jesus will triumph over the darkness.

That’s what Redeemer Church is all about: telling that story within our lives. We are here to celebrate it. To live it. To proclaim it. Fullness of Christ, fullness of life!

Sailing with Jesus in the Hold

We know that Jesus is our anchor, but that is a metaphor about assurance that only works when there is a storm, or port – the idea that we need to firmly stay put and Jesus holds us in place amidst the tossing seas. Anchors keep ships in one place. And that is a helpful image at times, but if it is the only nautical metaphor we employ for Jesus it gives us the impression that the Christian life is meant to be static and safe.

Ships are made to sail, though. The Spirit is like the wind, going where He will and our job is to learn how to sail. Not play it safe in a cozy cove somewhere. Another helpful metaphor for Jesus, in terms of ships, is ballast. Ballast is weight used to keep a ship steady and upright in the water. Anything can be used as ballast, whatever is in the hold of a ship must be evenly distributed to keep the ship sailing properly; ballast keeps a ship stable.

Imagine a modern freighter where all the containers of Camry’s are on the port side and all the containers of Duracell batteries are on the starboard side. That ship would list and roll. In wooden ships they carried over 3,000 gallons of water and after three months at sea, the weight shifts, so the barrels, the resources, the ballast needs shifting.

When you get the ballast wrong what happens is either the ship is tossed about like a cork in a hurricane or the ship can’t sail properly – it’s sluggish and unresponsive to the rudder or it lists to one side and no amount of wind can get the ship up to top speed.