2003-06-13
Good Morning Cherished Believers,
In the description of who will inherit the Kingdom, Christ has delineated a lifestyle that can and should be lived this very day and for all to come. This lifestyle is indeed a matter of faith followed by apostolic action. A truly faithful person recognizes His utter dependence on God and is willing to allow Christ to be the Master of his life. While those who are slaves of the flesh might say this is trading one form of slavery for another. So be it! Peter’s contention that slavery to God leads others to life-saving faith shouldn’t be ignored. 1 PET 2: 15-16, “For God wants you to silence the ignorant talk of foolish people by the good things you do. Live as free people; do not, however, use your freedom to cover up any evil, but live as God’s slaves.” What is this freedom while being God’s slaves? Christ answers that question in JN 8: 32, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” Making this kind of freedom through slavery to God available to us was so important to Christ that He paid for it with his blood shed on the cross. 1 PET 1: 18-21, “For you know what was paid to set you free from the worthless manner of life handed down by your ancestors. It was not something that can be destroyed, such as silver or gold; it was the costly sacrifice of Christ, Who was like a lamb without defect or flaw. He had been chosen by God before the creation of the world and was revealed in these last days for your sake. Through Him you believe in God, Who raised Him from death and gave Him glory; and so your faith and hope are fixed on God."
Christ reveals who is the greatest and who is the least in the Kingdom in MT 20: 26-28. “If one of you wants to be great, he must be the servant of the rest-like the Son of Man, Who did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life to redeem many people.” This notion is furthered in JN 15: 13, “The greatest love a person can have for his friends is to give his life for them.” How very opposite this perspective is from that of kings and despots like Saul or Saddam Hussein, isn’t this? In MT 5: 19 we learn more traits of the least and the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. “So then, whoever disobeys even the least important of the commandments and teaches others to do the same, will be the least in the Kingdom of heaven. On the other hand, whoever obeys the Law and teachers others to do the same, will be great in the Kingdom of heaven. From this we can begin to gain insight into the need for humility to be the obedient servant, the slave of God who has real freedom from knowing and living the truth Christ teaches us.
MT 5: 20 gives us a basis of comparison that is very useful in helping us to understand exactly what Christ means by this kind of servanthood. “I tell you, then, that you will be able to enter the Kingdom of heaven only if you are more faithful than the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees in doing what God requires.” We need to understand what His objection was to these human teachers and Pharisees. For background, these were Jews who thought of themselves as very faithful and correct in their interpretation of the Law. They were members of the ruling class, some of whom were on the Jewish ruling council called the Sanhedrin. They enjoyed political power in the traditionally Jewish community and were given considerable political freedom by the Romans in Christ’s time. These teachers and Pharisees were very legalistic in their approach to their faith. Later, their hypocrisy would the subject of Christ’s dialogue with them in the temple during the last week of His earthly life. MT 23: 2-3, “The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees are the authorized interpreters of Moses’ Law. So you must obey and follow everything they tell you to do; do not, however, imitate their actions, because they do not practice what they preach.” Paul also criticized their hypocrisy later in the history of the early church in RO 2. The problem was their propensity for getting hung up on form at the expense of practicing the content of God’s teaching. Of course, their most serious problem was their refusal to recognize the Messiah when He was right there with them.
The question each of us as believers must ask is: If we were to find ourselves in heaven, which would we be, the greatest or the least? We must go before our Lord and ask Him to help us evaluate our own lives to accurately answer that. No one can help another person with that except Christ Himself, because He is the omniscient One Who has the authority to be the Judge. We certainly shouldn’t wait until the Lord comes to take believers to the meeting with Him in the air [1 THESS 4: 13-17] to be asking that question. Even a pastor can’t answer that question. If a good and faithful pastor is asked for this kind of help, he will tell his parishioner to go to the Lord in heartfelt prayer and to engage in study of God’s word for it. The amazing thing about the Scriptures is that although their human authors wrote them down long before any of us were even born, the help for us is in them and from prayer anyway. Even if the Lord doesn’t answer our question right when we ask it, we know that if we obey His teaching and endure in faith which leads to apostolic action, our case will be adjudicated in heaven with righteousness, compassion, and justice. The bottom line is that we must be the servant of others, God’s slave who yields leadership of our lives to Christ. And thus, we can enjoy the magnificent freedom which comes from knowing and living the truth of Jesus Christ!
PRAYER: O Lord, You lead us into the refiner’s fire. Like ore contaminated by impurities but containing some metal of great value (like silver or gold), we must be tested by the challenges You allow Satan to send our way. As human history goes on, the flesh-led world becomes increasingly evil. But, You promised us that if we live according to the faith that Christ has given us, there is no test that is too great for us to pass [1 COR 10: 13]. Our redeeming Savior has given us the Parable of the Two House Builders in MT 7: 24-27. “So then, anyone who hears these words of Mine and obeys them is like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain poured down, the rivers flooded over, and the wind blew hard against that house. But it did not fall, because it was built on rock. But anyone who hears these words of Mine and does not obey them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain poured down, the rivers flooded over, the wind blew hard against that house, and it fell. And what a terrible fall that was!” This is only one example of the refiner’s fire to which all believers are subjected. In Your wisdom, You inspired Paul to write in 1 COR 3: 12-13, “Some will use gold or silver or precious stones in building on the foundation; others will use wood or hay or stubble. And the quality of each person’s work will be seen when the Day of Christ exposes it. For on that Day fire will reveal everyone’s work; the fire will test it and show its real quality.” Since the issue of the refiner’s fire comes up in both the OT and the NT, it is clear that You want us to attend to it with the conduct of our lives. As our awesome, loving, righteous, just and compassionate God, we would be fools not to choose to live the lives that Your Son has prescribed for us. Our desire is not to waste a drop of the blood He shed for us on the cross. To that end, we dedicate ourselves to loving, trusting, obeying, and following Him. To You belongs the glory for the faith life we have, His Atonement, the gift of Your spirit indwelt in us, and the hope of resurrection to the glory You have promised to share with us. In Christ’s name, amen.
There is still more to say about the refiner’s fire and what Christ has to say about hypocrisy. The consequences of the latter if persistent are devastating. That will be the subject of my next message. My very wise husband has said, “you can tell a lot about a person by the kind of friends he has.” I believe that strongly. The Lord God selected some people we wouldn’t ordinarily consider qualified for the tasks He had for them. Yet, His omniscience allows Him to see what by human standards we cannot see. That is why people like Abraham (who was raised in idolatry), Moses (who claimed to not be qualified by virtue of a speech impediment), David (who had the blood of a warrior and the stain of past capital sin on him), Jeremiah (who claimed he was too young), John the Baptist (who was unkempt and dressed in animal skins), and Paul (who was not handsome and had a history of persecuting believers) all were chosen. They all shared the ability to be obediently faithful, and thus, to carry out important tasks for God. The best chance we can have to keep our faith strong is to: 1) spend daily time in the word; 2) have an active prayer life; and 3) seek fellowship with other believers who teach us by their example how to be a better person. When we are willing to do these things, God will shower us with blessings and give us comforting hope that we can look forward to an eternal life of bliss and fellowship with each other and most importantly, with Him.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn