Who did Jesus Come to Save?

For a great many years now men have argued about the efficacy of the atonement work of Christ on the cross. One side says Jesus died for all people. The other side says Jesus died for only the elect. Smarter men than I can present great arguments for both statements. Reading through the Gospel of Mark this morning it occurs to me that maybe we are arguing over the wrong issue. There is a story in Mark in which Jesus answers that question but with a different spin. Let us take a look at what the “experts” were saying in Jesus’ day.

Mark 2:15-16
And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.  And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

The scribes wanted to know why in the world would Jesus hang out with the scum of the earth. You see they believed they were the good people. They were those who supposedly followed the law and were the ones the Messiah should come to. 

But Jesus turned their world upside down. The Gospel’s are filled with stories of Jesus against the Pharisees. They were constantly trying to trap him and He was constantly turning it all back on them. Listen to how Jesus answered their question.

Mark 2:17
And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus died on the cross for sinners. He died on the cross for the lost. We could argue for 2000 years about whether or not the atonement is for the elect or for all but the fact of the matter is it we are missing the point. The more important point is that the work on the cross has no effect on those who think themselves righteous.

I’ve studied it all out for years and quite honestly if you had to label me you would call me a Calvinist. I’m not a fan of labels but call me whatever, I don’t really care. I just read the Bible and believe what it says as best as I believe the Holy Spirit has taught me. But on this topic I think we should be more concerned about sharing the truth of the Gospel to ALL unsaved people. And the truth of the Gospel is that we are all sinners who fall short of the glory of God and because we are all sinners we must humble ourselves and confess to God that we are hopeless without the blood of Christ to cloak us in pure, unadulterated holiness that only He can provide.

So here is the conclusion of all this; if you think you are good enough to face your maker without Jesus then you might as well say Jesus work on the cross is ineffective because it won’t save you.  The Bible teaches that and that cannot be argued by anyone who claims the Bible to be true. I leave you with an OT reading that has both the good news and the bad news. At one time I thought I was ok with God because I simply believed He existed. I was blind but now I see. We must share this truth to others who think as I once did.

Isaiah 57:12-21
I will declare your righteousness and your deeds, but they will not profit you.  When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you! The wind will carry them all off, a breath will take them away. But he who takes refuge in me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain.  And it shall be said, “Build up, build up, prepare the way, remove every obstruction from my people’s way.”  For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite. For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry; for the spirit would grow faint before me, and the breath of life that I made. Because of the iniquity of his unjust gain I was angry, I struck him; I hid my face and was angry, but he went on backsliding in the way of his own heart.  I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners, creating the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace, to the far and to the near,” says the LORD, “and I will heal him.  But the wicked are like the tossing sea; for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up mire and dirt.  There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.”

Have You Forsaken Jesus?

“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” If you are familiar with the Bible, particularly the Gospels, then you recognize this as the final words of Jesus just before His death. If you are even more of a Bible expert you will recognize that Jesus was actually quoting Psalm 22:1 in which the psalmist also said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The psalmist added this, “Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?”

David wrote that Psalm. David was a man who knew the pain of feeling alone and abandoned. He knew the feelings of betrayal. Certainly one can feel the desperation in the words of Psalm 22. Most of us will not escape this life without feeling lost and abandoned. Maybe today you feel that way. Maybe the memory of those times is still fresh in your mind. I know those feelings. I sure hope my last words on earth are not “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I pray yours are not either.

But they were the final words of Jesus. You see the reason Jesus uttered those words is because He was paying the penalty for sin. The penalty for sin is separation from God. And the truth is even one single sin will bring separation from God. That’s just the truth of scripture. God is holy. God is so holy He cannot be in the presence of sin. We cannot stand in front of Him if sin is upon us. Sin stains us. According to scripture all of us are sinners. Romans 3:23 “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We’re all guilty. We hung Jesus on the cross. Each and every one of us.

But the Gospel means good news and the good news here is that Jesus was willing to utter those words on the cross. And because He was we have hope. But we can never forget the fact that in order for us to be saved Jesus had to be willing to accept punishment for what we have done. One of my favorite passages of the Bible is Philippians 2:8 which reminds us of what Christ did saying that He, “being found in human form humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

But then another passage intrigues me. Isaiah chapter 53 is a beautiful reading that prophesied the coming of Jesus and what He would do, and how He would be received and treated. But one passage just amazes me.

Isaiah 53:10
Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief…

The King James renders that as “it pleased the LORD to bruise him.” There is a great lesson here for us. God’s will pleases God. Yet read through Isaiah 53 in the detailed description of what Jesus faced.

Isaiah 53:2-5
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.  He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.  Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.  But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Watch the movie The Passion of the Christ sometime and you will get a glimpse of the pain Jesus suffered. And as previously stated He suffered it because of us. And why?

Isaiah 53:6
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Yet God was pleased to let His only Son, whom has been with God through all eternity having never, ever been separated from, not only take our punishment in terms of physical beatings and abuse, but for the first time ever in eternity Jesus and the Father were spiritually separated. Thus Jesus had to cry out in anguish like we’ve never known, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani.”

That my friend is how much God loves us.

So today let us not take for granted our salvation. We were bought and paid for. God the Father and Jesus the Son deserve our complete worship. They deserve more than the lip service we give them. More than the weak worship we offer Sunday mornings when most of us think standing in a room singing songs and clapping hands and tapping our toes to the beat of a band is all the worship we need.

My prayer is that one day I will be a true man of worship. I look forward to the day I will fall in front of the Almighty God and worship Him in true spirit and truth void of my selfish desires and sinful nature. But until that day we must get serious about worshipping God. We must learn to fall down in front of Jesus, the Lamb of God and be sure that He never has to ask us again, “Why have you forsaken me?”

Glory Be to God. And to Him alone.

At What Fire Do You Warm Yourself?

Peter the great disciple of Jesus is one of my favorite Biblical characters. Jesus seemed to like him too. I like Peter because I can look at his life and have hope in my own because except for Judas, Peter failed Jesus the most. When I look at Peter I see a lot of me there. I think if we are honest with ourselves we will all see that like Peter, we let Jesus down as well.

Though Peter did a lot of great things for the kingdom, wrote two of the books of the Bible, and would actually be martyred for his faith, yet he is probably most known for being the one who denied Christ three times. If it wasn’t bad enough that he denied Christ, he had bragged how he would never do that to Jesus. Yet he did the very thing he swore he would never do. I can relate.

So what happened to Peter? How did such a strong willed guy, a guy so full of bravado that he would pull out a sword in the presence of an angry mob of armed people and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant, wimp out later and deny Christ?

Peter made some mistakes and I think as we look at the story in Matthew 26 of Peter’s denial we can learn how to avoid the same mistakes and be better and more faithful disciples.

The first thing Peter did wrong was he did not listen to Jesus. Look at Matthew 26:57-58, Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered.  And Peter was following him at a distance, as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and going inside he sat with the guards to see the end.

While it seems to be an act of loyalty and support to follow Jesus as they took him away this was not what Jesus had instructed. First of all Jesus told Peter that he was going to deny Jesus 3 times and then when they came to arrest Him, Jesus made sure that He secured the release of the disciples as we read in John 18:8-9, Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he. So, if you seek me, let these men go.”  This was to fulfill the word that he had spoken: “Of those whom you gave me I have lost not one.” Jesus had also quoted Zechariah 13:7 that said the sheep would be scattered when the shepherd was struck. The instructions Jesus kept giving the disciples were to watch and pray lest they fall into temptation. Yet Peter walks right into the camp of the enemy where he got himself into a very tough and dangerous position.

But Peter didn’t stop there. Where does Peter end up in the enemy’s camp? Mark 14:54 tells us, “Peter had followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest. And he was sitting with the guards and warming himself at the fire.”

Not only was Peter right in the middle of the enemy’s camp he went to warm himself at the fire. Oh, often we go where we shouldn’t go and end up warming ourselves at the fire of the enemy. This, my friends, is the act of stepping off the path we should be on that results in what I would call self-temptation. We all do it. For the alcoholic it’s going to the party saying, “Oh, I won’t drink. I just want to see my friends.” To the one with a porn addiction it’s looking at that website with just a pretty girl on it thinking I’m good, I just want to observe her beauty. It’s meeting that co-worker of the opposite sex for an innocent lunch when you are married and things are a little cold at home right now. What it is Christians, is lighting a match while standing in a puddle of gasoline. It’s dangerous.

Then Peter makes the third mistake; He stayed in his sin. Jesus warned Peter. Peter should have left after failing the first time denying Jesus. But no, like us so often, he stuck around and did it three times. The cock crowed three times. Peter had clear opportunity to get out of his own mess and limit the damage but he stayed and each denial was a little stronger than the last. That is how sin works. It is like a cancer. It replicates and grows until it destroys and untreated will kill us.

The lesson for us in all this is simple. Do what Jesus says. The Bible was written and given to us to read and to follow. There are multitudes of warnings about sin in it. Peter knew it was coming yet he still fell into the trap and he would weep bitterly because of it. But the good news is that Jesus gave us instructions on how to avoid sin.

First of all Jesus told the disciples and us, to watch and pray. Be vigilant in seeing where you are and where you are going. If you do slip up and end up in the enemy’s camp then flee. Don’t hang around to warm yourself at the Devil’s fire. But if you fail and wind up in the wrong place listen to the crowing of the cock. Don’t stick around for him to crow three times. If you are a Christian God’s Holy Spirit is inside your heart. Listen to your heart not your mind and your flesh.

The story of Peter looks bleak and sad. It seems to infer we are going to fail. Peter meant well. He thought he was being loyal and faithful in following Jesus but what Peter did was he followed his own idea of what he thought was best. Sometimes even in what we think are good intentions are really our own stubborn and prideful ideas. Scripture tells us to test all things and hold on to what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21). God gave us His Word. We must use it as our litmus test in all things.

The story of Peter has a happy ending. You see in spite of all his screw-ups Jesus would later on meet with Peter and restore him to His discipleship. Peter would finally learn the lesson and go on to be one of the greatest disciples and would use Peter to build the church. He will do the same for us if we repent when we fall into sin.

But we need to learn the lessons Peter learned. Pray always without ceasing, watch for the return of Christ and be busy doing what He has told us to do, not what we want to do, and take no confidence in the flesh. Read the Word of God and make it your roadmap to life. Do this and you won't get burned in the enemy's fire.

What Will You Do In 2016?

What will you do in 2016? Most of us look at New Year’s Day as a new beginning. We view it as kind of a clean slate thing where we can just forget last year along with all its mistakes and problems. New Year’s resolutions are always popular. And sadly just like last year I need to lose weight, get into better shape, and eat better. How many of you can relate? But let’s be honest, we usually don’t do very well with the whole resolution thing. I’ve been losing the same ten pounds since I first put on that weight on many years ago.

So does that mean we should approach 2016 with a “who cares” attitude? Absolutely not, especially if we call ourselves Christians. There is very simple but basic command in the Bible that tells us exactly what we should do with 2016.

1 Corinthians 10:31
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

It’s a very simple command. Whatever we do in life we should do to the glory of God. But what exactly does that mean? How can we literally live out 2016 to the glory of God?

First of all let’s step up and see what context this statement comes from. 1 Corinthians was written by Paul to the church at Corinth. Corinth was a center of sin and carnality. The church there had its problems in this area. The truth is the church today is very much like the one in Corinth. Carnality resides heavily today, but let’s not forget something very important; we are the church. You see if the church is carnal, then it is because we are carnal.

You see the problem with the church and even with ourselves is that we have stopped making Christ the center of our lives. We care more about our comfort, our preferences, and quite frankly, political correctness than we do letting Jesus be Lord. In our supposed attempt to spread the Gospel we have changed it. We have made Christianity a “feeling” religious experience in lieu of the relationship between the Holy God and His restored creation. We seek more to entertain people and to offer them a “better life” than to bring to the experience of complete surrender Jesus so often calls us to in scripture.

Far too many Christians walk around flaunting their “freedom in Christ” to do whatever they want by telling us God is love so it’s all good. Look back at the beginning of chapter 10 of 1 Corinthians and we get a better view at Paul’s instruction.

Before Paul spoke on Christian liberty, he spoke about the idolatry of Israel. His words were a warning.

1 Corinthians 10:6-11
Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.  Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.”  We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.  We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents,  nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.  Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.

Twice He says these things were examples for those who would come after them.

Then Paul really says it clearly in 1 Corinthians 10:14, “Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.”

Idolatry is anything; let me say that again, anything that we give attention to that takes away from giving God what we should.

Now that we have been warned Paul feels comfortable in telling us about the freedom we have in Christ.

1 Corinthians 10:23-24
“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.  Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.

The historical context in the rest of 1 Corinthians speaks about the things they could eat even though they had been sacrificed to false idols. But the spiritual lesson speaks right to us today. There are things we are free to do that maybe certain legalistic churches have historically condemned people for. That was and is wrong. But that doesn’t mean we should just run around as Christians doing anything we want. That simply does not line up with the entire teachings of the NT. I strongly urge each and every Christian to study God’s Word with passion and to learn about what it means to be Christ’s. You will find that it means we become bondservants. We choose to be His slave. We are not bound to the law but we are bound to Him freely having chosen to be.

Paul then says this.

1 Corinthians 10:31
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

He finishes up by warning us against offending others by our exercise of Christian freedom. This doesn’t mean we don’t offend others with the truth of scripture at times, it means if eating a certain food would offend a brother than don’t do it in front of them. Personally I am that way with alcohol. Because of the damage it has done to my family I stay away from it and avoid social environments that include it. Many people think I am judging them or trying to impose my beliefs about it on them. I am not. It is just a painful reminder of terrible things in my life that to this day are still having secondary effects in my life. So I don’t want to be near it. This is an example of those Christians who are free to have a drink choosing not to do so around me in simple honor of being caring towards my desires. We should never use our freedoms to cause hurt to others. Nor should we use it to excuse the things that are clearly spoken against in scripture. The best attitude we could have is to say that we are free not to do the things we are free to do. And especially if they do not bring glory to God.

So Happy New Year to all of you. What changes will you make in 2016? I think Paul would say this, whatever you do, have you asked yourself is it going to bring honor and glory to God? If not, maybe you should resolve not to do it. I say we make 2016 the year we will do all to the glory of God. He is worth it.

Praying God’s blessing on all of year in 2016.