The Jesus Society

Growing in Intimacy with God - Does God Talk To Us?

How do we learn to lean into God, to experience him more fully, and to come to rest in his love for us? To relate to God not just as a distant King who we’ve read a book about, but as a real, present, loving Father who “walks with us and talks with us and tells us we are his own.” Because for me, everything God wants to do in us and through us hinges on an unfolding relationship and growing intimacy with God. That's the subject of today's show, and in particular, we're going to talk about what communication looks like in the relationship between us and the Father.

If we’re going to develop real intimacy with God, there has to be communication, and that communication has to be both ways. And that’s often where we as Christians stumble. Because we understand talking to God. But it doesn’t always seem like God talks to us. Or maybe some of us don’t believe God talks to us. I’ve spent much of my adult life as part of a denomination that largely denies that God speaks to us. He spoke to us in creating the Bible, and that’s the only way he speaks.

So, what about this idea that God talks to us? Should we expect it? Does Scripture affirm it? Yes. There are loads of examples of God talking to individuals, and there just seems to be the overwhelming expectation on the part of the biblical writers that God speaks to his people. For example:

1. Ps. 4:1 — “Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer.”
2. Ps. 16:7-8 — “I will praise the Lord who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand.” This is parallelism. The Lord counsels me; my heart instructs me.
3. Ps. 17:6 — “I call on you, O God, for you will answer me; give ear to me and hear my prayer.” Again, there’s the expectation of an answer.
4. Ps. 28:1 — “To you I call, O Lord my rock; do not turn a deaf ear to me. For if you remain silent, I will be like those who have gone to the pit.”
5. Matt. 4:4 — “Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
6. John 10:1-18 — The sheep follow him because they know his voice. Hearing God is about relationship with him. Calling his sheep by name = personal. He created us to encounter him.
7. John 14:15-18 — The Spirit (Counselor) - “you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” You can’t know him if he’s silent and invisible.
8. John 16:12-13 — The Spirit will speak and guide you.

Okay, so Scripture affirms both God’s willingness to speak to us and the expectation of his people throughout history that he will. Speaking words is one form of communication, but God can speak to us without words, too, just like we do.

So take a few minutes and think: How many different ways in can you think of in Scripture that God has communicated with people? Here are a few:

1. Audibly (Paul on the Damascus Road — Acts 9:1-9)
2. Through a donkey (Balaam’s donkey — Num. 22:21-39)
3. Through a burning bush (Moses — Ex. 3)
4. Writing on the wall (Daniel 5)
5. Through other people
6. Through prophets (Agabus re. Paul’s imprisonment)
7. Through his Word (which is the plumb line for hearing God in other ways)
8. Dreams/visions (Paul/Man from Macedonia — Acts 16:6-10)
9. Through creation (Psalm 19:1; Rom. 1:18-20)
10. Through confirmation from two or more sources saying the same thing

How about some more modern ways? What other ways have you experienced in your own life where you felt like God was speaking to you? Where he got your attention in a way that felt like time stopped for a minute and revealed something brand new to you that changed the way you saw yourself or the world around you.

1. Music (God used the song Desperado to get my attention one time)
2. Books
3. Movies
4. The Bible (the first time I ever "heard" God speak to me I was reading Ps. 139)

The point is that God is endlessly creative. He has every means of communication at his disposal to communicate with you. So we shouldn’t expect that it’s only gonna happen in just one way.

So what are some of the barriers to hearing from God?

1. The first one is disbelief. If you don’t believe God speaks to you, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t or won’t. He’s not limited by your disbelief. But it does mean you won’t recognize it as God.
2. Another barrier is simply the lack of training & examples. If no one guides us, how can we learn? Only once in my life have I ever seen a church that put forth any real effort to help its people learn how to discern the Lord’s voice for themselves. And that leaves people uncertain, unsteady in their faith, feeling like they should be able to hear from the Lord, but because they can’t, it must be because they lack faith, or they’re not good enough in some way. And it can really end up undermining people’s faith.
3. "The UFO Syndrome” -- If you saw a UFO, would you tell anyone about it? Maybe not because of the fear of ridicule). Why is it that when we speak to God we are said to be praying, but when God speaks to us we are said to be schizophrenic? Why does it seem like such a bizarre thing to admit to people that we might actually hear from the Lord who created us?
4. Some people get derailed by the fear that maybe it’s just all in our head. But why on earth should we expect the voice of God to arise from outside us when he has placed his own Spirit within us??!! Paul talks in both Gal. 5:25 and Rom. 8:16-17 about the Spirit living inside us and that we’re to “walk by the Spirit” and be “led by the Spirit.” How do you think that works? We should expect God to speak to us from within. We should expect that God’s “voice” is going to probably come from within and is probably gonna sound a lot like our voice.
5. But that leads to the fear of being unable to distinguish our voice (or the enemy’s voice) from God’s voice. Well, discernment is something we struggle with sometimes, isn’t it? And it’s definitely healthy to want to make sure we’re discerning things correctly. “Do not believe every spirit,” we’re told in 1 John 4:1, “but test the spirits to determine if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” Discernment is a skill we’re supposed to grow in. But just because something requires spiritual discernment doesn’t mean we should avoid it, or disbelieve in it. It means we need to be careful, yes, and mature in our thinking, but we don’t reject it simply because it’s not easy.

Here are a few book recommendations that have helped me tremendously in learning to discern God's voice in my own life:

1. Armchair Mystic: How Contemplative Prayer Can Lead You Closer to God, by Mark E. Thibodeaux SJ (2001, updated 2019)
2. Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God, by Dallas Willard (2012)
3. Walking with God: How to Hear His Voice, by John Eldredge (2016)

Dallas Willard says, “Today, there is a desperate need for large numbers of people throughout our various social groupings who are competent and confident in their own practice of life in Christ and in hearing his voice. Such people would have the effect of concretely redefining Christian spirituality for our times. They would show us an individual and corporate human existence freely and intelligently lived from a hand-in-hand, conversational walk with God. That is the biblical ideal for human life.”

Arthur F. Miller says something that has helped me tremendously. He says, “How does [God] so communicate with you? How will you know? Because God has designed your frame and understands how you are put together, and how you function, what you notice and what you ignore, what you read, what you hear, and what gets your attention. Because the Spirit of God is resident within you and has a job to do as you do yours — leading, nudging, instructing, guiding, opening new doors, reminding, questioning, affirming, prodding, sometimes engineering circumstances — strange, extraordinary things happen. If you need a knock on the side of your head, or a sense of God’s love that will take your breath away — that will happen in God’s time and in a way only you will understand.” - Arthur F. Miller, Jr.

Thanks for spending time with us today. Please like and subscribe, and tell others about the podcast, if it's been helpful to you.

And remember, you are greatly loved.

 

Music Provided by Nathan Longwell Music

The Story of the Bible - Part 8: Letting God Have His Way With Us

We;'ve been talking about how in the Kingdom of God that Jesus inaugurates in the New Testament, God is restoring Israel (and that includes all those who align themselves with and follow Israel’s new King Jesus). And she is now to be God’s representatives on earth, mediating God’s love and peace to the world around us, being a light to the nations and inviting people to taste and see that the Lord is good, and to live in fellowship with God and his people.

So this week, we start with a question, and that is: “What gives God any hope at all that his Kingdom people, who are called the church, will do any better job of living his kingdom vision and being a light to the nations than Israel did?”

One really good answer is that we have something Israel didn’t have — we have the Holy Spirit within us. So what does the Holy Spirit actually do within us that helps us become who God wants us to be in the world? If we’re going to be the agents of blessing and redemption in the world that God wants us to be — a kingdom of priests — the King’s ambassadors — we have to be different people than we are. Because we’ve all been twisted and broken, to greater or lesser degrees by the corruption and decay in the world around us. We’re all products of that.

And so first and foremost, we need to be transformed. And this isn’t really a secret in the Bible. For example, in Eph. 4:20-24, Paul says, “Now that you have come to know Christ . . . take off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.”

He also says in Rom. 12:1-2 — “Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”

So, how does the Spirit help us with all that? So back in Ezekiel 36:25-27, there’s an interesting passage. It’s one of those “restoration of Israel” passages that we’ve talked about. And it’s one of the earliest references to God placing his Spirit inside man. And it says this: “I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances."

So, according to God, the giving of his Spirit to us will causes us to keep the law. And the law, as we’ve come to understand, is summarized by Jesus as what? Loving God and loving neighbor. So the Spirit will help us to keep God’s law by helping us love God and love our neighbor more and better.

In the New Testament, Paul will say in Rom. 8:12-14, “So then, brothers and sisters, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh, because if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons.”

So the point of all this is that the Spirit Changes our Chooser. He changes our will. That’s what he wants to do within us — to move our hearts and wills into alignment with God’s. But here’s the thing — he doesn’t force that on us. We can resist the Spirit. 1 Thess. 5:19 will say, “Do not quench the Spirit.” In Acts 7:51, Stephen will say that the Jews “are always resisting the Holy Spirit . . . .” So if the Spirit is trying to change us from within, we need to orient our lives so as to cooperate with him. So how do we do that?

We do that by becoming abiders and cleavers. In one of my favorite passages in the gospel of John (John 15:1-11), Jesus uses the word “abide” 9 times. Some translations translate that by the word “remain.” I like “abide,” simply because I’m old and the word resonates with me. The point of the passage is the same — Jesus is telling us all to stay close to him. Dwell in him. Live in him. He is the source of life, and for his life to flow through us, we must remain connected. There is a very intimate life-connection being discussed in this passage. Kingdom living is first and foremost relational.

Also in that passage, Jesus talks about bearing fruit (the word “fruit” is used 6 times). Now, Jesus doesn’t define what kind of “fruit” he’s talking about here, but it MUST be related to his kingdom vision. So what could he be talking about in terms of fruit? He could be talking about the fruit of a changed life — “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things” (Gal. 5:22-23).

He could also be talking about the fruit of replication — inviting others into God’s kingdom as participants in his Kingdom vision. “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age,” he'll say in Matt. 28:18-20). So which one is it? I think both.

Also, I want us to see that this fruit is not produced by an act of will. See v. 4 (“Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.”). In Scripture, God Himself produces fruit in us/through us. Paul makes that quite clear in 1 Cor. 3:6-7, where he says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” And notice — Jesus pictures fruit-bearing as a natural outgrowth of abiding in him (Jn. 15:5 — “The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit . . . “). So, our job is simply to abide. To stay connected to him. To lean in closer and closer to him. His job is to bear fruit through us. God will empower it. Said another way, our focus is intimacy. Because intimacy empowers ministry. We have one job, folks!

So if we’re going to create a culture of Christlikeness, we need to learn to abide. Said another way, we need to learn to “cleave to the Lord.” The word “cleave” is from the Hebrew word dabaq, and it’s found in lots of places in the Old Testament. It’s found, for instance, in the familiar passage in Genesis 2:24, where it says that “a man leaves his father and mother and is joined with (or “bonds with” or “clings to” or “cleaves to”) his wife, and they become one flesh.”

But one of the more interesting dimensions to this idea of “cleaving” is that it describes how underwear fits to the body. Betcha didn’t see that coming? But I kid you not. In Jeremiah 13:11, the Lord says, “Just as underwear clings to one’s waist, so I fastened the whole house of Israel and of Judah to me.” The point there is THAT is how closely the people are to cleave to the Lord, Jeremiah says. We are to cleave to the Lord, to be affixed to the Lord, to adhere to the Lord. To get connected to him, to learn from him, to rest in his love for us, to see how he operates.

So we will only be formed into Christlikeness to the extent that we cleave to the Lord. Because again, our job is intimacy. Cleaving. His job is to transform us. And again, transformation is not our work. It’s his work, that he does in us, as we cling to him. He transforms us as we develop greater connectedness to him. Again, we have one job!

And because you cannot give what you do not have, we can only encourage others to be formed into Christlikeness as we cleave to the Lord ourselves — as we listen to his words, as we commune with him in prayer, as we become focused on the Lord, and as we learn to follow the living God.

And to me, this highlights the importance of being discipled ourselves by spiritual fathers and mothers in the church. The foundation of all education is emulation, not information. The foundational ingredient in our spiritual development is to be connected to God so that we can know God, so that we can emulate God. The goal of education is emulation.

So everything from here on out in the Kingdom is about becoming better abiders. Better cleavers. Communing with Jesus at a deeper level so that he, through the Holy Spirit within us, can change us. Growing in both our understanding and our experience of his love for us. And letting our experience of his love transform the way we interact with him AND with the world around us.

 

Music Provided by Nathan Longwell Music

The Story of the Bible - Part 7: What REALLY Happened on the Cross?

So we’ve been talking about the story of the Bible, and we started with the premise that God’s goal in creation and everything that follows is to draw people into fellowship with himself so that they could experience his love in the fullest possible way. And we traced the contours of the Old Testament to see how the big pieces of the story fit within that overarching goal.

We’ve now arrived in the New Testament where Jesus announces that the time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand. We talked last week about what the Kingdom is — a new society in the world — a Jesus Society — in which God’s redeemed people will function as agents of blessing in the world, demonstrating what life with God looks like and how it impacts the way we treat one another, and serving as what Paul calls “ministers of reconciliation,” inviting others into that.

But there’s a piece of all this that we haven’t talked about. And we’ve arrived at the point where we need to talk about it, and that is the subject of sin and atonement, and Jesus’ death on the cross.

The Gospel is that Jesus’ death on the cross is the culmination of Israel’s story, and we just can’t treat it as something unconnected from the story of Israel in the Old Testament.

We first have to set the discussion, because for many Christians, when they think about the death of Jesus, they think about their own personal story: “I’m a sinner, and Jesus died for me so that when I die, I can go to heaven.” It's okay to start there, but we have to move well beyond that point, because in the New Testament, the death of Jesus is the moment when history changed.

Part of the difficulty with all this is that in many churches, the idea of atonement is hooked into the idea that we need to go to heaven when we die and that’s the end of it. But the New Testament idea is that God intends to make a new creation — the new heavens and the new earth — with us as renewed human beings. THAT is a subject we'll explore further in a later episode.

But one of the great statements about the meaning of the cross is in Revelation chapter 5:9-10, which says that the lamb was “slain, and he purchased people for God by his blood from every tribe and language and people and nation. And He made them a kingdom and priests to our God . . . .” In other words, we are redeemed not just to hang around being saved and waiting to go to heaven when we die, but to be renewed human beings with renewed human vocations and a renewed agenda.

But the New Testament also makes it clear that the death of Jesus really did win the victory of God over the dark forces of sin, corruption, and death. But the way that was achieved was through Jesus dying on behalf of and in the place of sinners.

And we have to talk about this idea of Jesus taking the punishment that we deserved. And we have to be very careful about how we talk about that. Because we can talk about that in ways that are pretty damaging. I’ll just tell you that a lot of young people hear us talking about Jesus taking the punishment that we deserve, and what they hear is that there is this big angry God who is very upset with us all, and he’s got a big stick and he’s about to lash out. But thankfully, his own son stands in-between us and God, and takes the beating for us, and somehow that makes it all right, and whew! — we all get off. And sadly, they think that’s what the gospel is, and they’re struggling to know whether to believe it or not.

And I want to say that if that is what people are hearing, then we’ve got some serious work to do, because we’ve taken John 3:16, which says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son . . . ,” and what some people have heard is, “For God so hated the world that he killed his only son . . . .” And in a world with the realities of child abuse and domestic violence and things like that, some people think all this sounds too much the bully in their own lives. So we’ve got to be really careful about how we talk about all this. Because that is not the message of the Bible, and it’s certainly not the message we want to present.

The truth of all this is that what happens on the cross is the sovereign act of love on behalf of the Father himself. The death of Jesus reveals the love of God. Paul says in Romans 5:8 that “God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Jesus the Messiah died for us.”

And we have to see that Father and Son are on the same page here. This beautiful community of love that we started all this off with back in Episode 2 — Father, Son, and Spirit — cooked up this plan together to redeem man.

 

And we also have to understand sin in all this. Sin is a failure, rather than the breaking of rules. It’s a failure to be who God made us to be and to reflect his image. And whenever we’re tempted to sin, what’s actually happening is that there’s something that we’re supposed to be doing and being that will honor God in the world, and in our family, and in our own lives. And sin draws us away from that, and presents us with a cheap alternative, which we can rightly call an idol. And when we worship those idols, which we all do to a greater or lesser extent, whether it’s money, power, sex, whatever — and of course repentance is always a turning away from those idols — but when we give in to those idols, we give them power over us, just like Adam and Eve gave power to the serpent in the garden.

And that power causes us to sin. And every time we sin, we are increasing the grip of those powers on us and on our lives. And we call that bondage.

So the way to break the power of those dark forces that we have invoked by worshipping those idols, is for sin to be punished and to be dealt with decisively. And Jesus dying for our sin releases the grip of the powers. And that is the central thing of the crucifixion.

So what do we actually mean when we say that “Jesus died for our sins, or on our behalf?” Interestingly, the very first night I ever sat down with a minister when I was trying to sort out what it meant to be a Christian, that was my burning question. I’d been hearing that phrase all my life: “Jesus died to save us from our sins.” But no one had ever explained what that meant. It was something Christians just said, but I’d never really heard it explained. And it seemed to me that if I was going to be a Christian, I ought to at least understand THAT. And so that was my first question to a minister named Sperry Hogue in the fall of 1990 in western Pennsylvania. And that discussion started me down the road I’m still on today.

So the clearest passage in Paul about all this is Romans 8:1-4. Paul says, “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and death, because God has done what the law couldn’t do, since it was weakened by the flesh.” And “by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as a sin offering, he condemned sin in the flesh.”

So what this says is that there is no condemnation on us because God passed the sentence of condemnation ON SIN. And notice — it’s interesting that Paul doesn’t say that God condemned Jesus. He says God condemned sin in the flesh of Jesus. And that’s an important distinction, I think.

And in the context of Romans 7-8, if we're careful in our reading of a very difficult passage, we see that God gave the law in order to draw sin onto the one place where it could be condemned. And that one place where it could be condemned is to Israel’s representative (Jesus, the Messiah), who is therefore the world’s representative. So Jesus dies as the representative substitute, taking the condemnation of sin on himself. But it’s sin that’s condemned, not Jesus.

And the result of that is that we don’t have to be in bondage anymore. Which is why, at the end of Romans 8, Paul says that “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” And he says, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And so when Jesus goes to the cross, it is definitely substitutionary atonement, but it is in the service of God’s larger agenda of defeating the powers of sin and darkness and death.

And I think I can use a movie illustration to help just a bit here, although I’ll admit it’s far from a perfect illustration. No illustrations are. But it's a scene from the movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. Harry Potter represents Jesus, and Voldmort represents Sin and maybe Satan. And in the scene in question, late into the movie, Harry goes off into the Forbidden Forest to face Voldemort, and he knows he’s going to have to let Voldemort kill him. And when he walks into that clearing, Voldemort sees him, and a wry smile forms across his face, because this is exactly what he wanted. He’s about to kill Harry, something he’s long dreamt of doing. “Neither can live while the other survives,” the prophecy said. And as he raises his wand to launch the killing curse, Harry doesn’t move; he makes no attempt to defend himself. Voldemort speaks the words, launching the killing curse toward Harry, convinced that his enemy is once and for all, about to be destroyed.

But there’s something Voldemort doesn’t know. And that is, that a piece of himself — a part of Voldemort’s own twisted soul — lies within Harry. Well, the explosive curse knocks Harry and Voldemort both to the ground. And when the dust clears, and all is revealed (which takes a while in the movie), Voldemort hasn’t, in fact, killed Harry. Harry is sort of “resurrected.” And the only thing Voldemort has killed is a part of himself. And from that moment on, while Voldemort is still alive and able to wreak havoc, he is weakened, he is vulnerable, and his end is certain.

I’m sure that illustration falls down at one point or another. But I think the main points are in tact. At the crucifixion, what ultimately has been condemned is sin. Jesus is resurrected, the enthroned King of Israel and of the world. Sin and Satan are still at work in the world, but they just don’t have the power they did — at least not for Christians. And their time is short and their end is certain. And now that sin is condemned, new creation can begin. And the energy of the Spirit can now take hold. And we’ll talk about the Spirit’s work next week.

Far too often, the gospel has only been presented as a judicial verdict. You were guilty and now you’ve been pardoned. And there is certainly some truth to that. But that fails to tell the whole story. Because, there’s much more that has been changed. Jesus takes our sin and shame in himself. He lets the light of God, which we call wrath, consume sin in the likeness of sinful flesh so that it’s forever dealt with.

And now, when I live in him, I am reconnected to God through what the cross accomplished. So it’s not just that I got a get out of hell free card and I get to go to heaven when I die. Because the gospel is relational, not just judicial. What the cross was meant to do was reassert the relationship between you and God. Which is exactly what God wants.

_____________

Resources for today’s show:

N. T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062334395/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_cagMEbVQRY647)

 

Music Provided by Nathan Longwell Music

The Story of the Bible - Part 6: The Kingdom Society of Jesus

Last week we talked about the restoration of Israel. And that's a concept that we find in a lot of Old Testament passages. For instance, Amos 9:11-15, where God talks about a day when he “will restore the fallen tent of David.” He says, “I will repair its gaps, restore its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old.” And again, language like this is all through the prophets. And I want to suggest that the restoration of Israel is linked to Jesus’ announcement that the Kingdom of God has come.

On today's episode, we're going to look at Luke 4:16ff, when Jesus comes to his hometown (Nazareth) and begins his public ministry. And I want us to look at this passage, because this is a passage that is often held up as a classic passage announcing Jesus’ Kingdom vision. So Jesus goes into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, they give him a scroll of Isaiah, and he unrolls it to the place he wants to read from, which as it turns out is Isa. 61:1-2, and he begins to read. And when he finishes reading from Isa. 61, we’re told that “He closed the book, 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 the people respond, we're told, by speaking well of him "and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips; and they were saying, ‘Is this not Joseph’s son?”

Now, Isaiah is writing in his day about the future return from Babylon and a rebuilding of the ancient ruins of the cities that had been destroyed. And from Israel’s perspective, they were being held as prisoners in a foreign land by people the psalmist refers to as “captors” and “tormenters” (Ps. 137:3). So Isaiah speaks in Isaiah 61 to these downcast, captive people, and he says everything we just heard Jesus quote in Luke 4. Now here’s the important part here: In the context of Isa. 61 that Jesus quotes, who are the captives? The captives are the Israelites, and the promise is that they’re gonna return from Babylon and the Lord’s gonna rebuild.

The Lord is once again going to show favor on Israel. He’ll “give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair. And they will be called righteous trees, planted by the LORD to glorify him. They will rebuild the ancient ruins; they will restore the former devastations; they will renew the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations” (Isa. 61:3).

Now, in Luke 4, as Jesus stands in the synagogue and reads this passage, the message that anyone present that day would have heard Jesus saying is that God’s finally gonna restore Israel and things are gonna be good again. Okay? And part of what they’d be thinking — probably — is that Rome will be overthrown. So when Jesus says, “Today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled,” they’re pretty excited about this. And they’re saying good things about him and about “the gracious words that are falling from his lips.”

But Jesus isn’t done talking. And what he’s about to say isn’t going to be nearly as well received. In vv. 23-27 of Luke 4, Jesus is going to shift focus and talk about God’s interest in the Gentiles (which hearkens back to Genesis 12). But this is not new stuff. This is in the Bible, according to Jesus. And he reminds them of two stories from the Old Testament that show God’s interest in outsiders: The story of Elijah & the widow of Zerephath (1 Kings 17:8-24); and the story of Elisha & Naaman the Syrian (2 Kings 5:1-19).

So the point Jesus is making in Luke 4 is that God has always been interested in non-Jews. BUT in making that point, Jesus implies that when God was helping the non-elect, He was ignoring the elect. And that is what they can’t tolerate. When you’re in the elect (and this is sadly sometimes true of Christians also), one of the strange ideas that pop into your head sometimes is that God is only involved with you. But see, election is not about you having a claim on God, which is what we sometimes think, but about God having a claim on you! Anyway, in Luke 4, Jesus says, “The restoration of Israel is here, but it’s going to include the Gentiles. And at this, they want to kill Him.

We cannot forget what God’s doing here. So in the restoration of Israel, God is re-creating Israel as she was always supposed to be — a kingdom that is all-inclusive. Those already in Israel who want to stay with God’s program and accept Jesus as their King are welcome, but he’s inviting Gentiles in as well. And they will all collectively be called Israel. The restored Israel. The new Israel. Think of it this way: Israel is being given a new King. Now, some Jews will accept and follow this new King Jesus. But some Jews will not accept the new King. And those Israelites who do not accept Israel’s new King don’t get to be part of Israel anymore. 

And of course, that makes sense, right? This new King is chosen by God himself. And in fact, this new King IS GOD HIMSELF! And if you’re unwilling to submit to the rule of Israel’s King, you don’t get be part of Israel anymore. Because again, God is trying to build this beautiful, loving, holy community through which he can share his love with people. But in order for that to work, everyone’s got to be on the same page. You can’t build a community of peace and love when the folks in the community don’t accept the one in charge.

And so going forward, all those who call themselves Israel are the ones who agree with and align themselves with what God is doing in Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the new King of Israel. It’s no longer based on DNA. And in fact, it never was, as we talked about last time. And Paul will say in Rom. 9:6 that “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” And Jesus will call this people The Kingdom of God.

So to bring all this together, when Jesus arrives, the Jews are expecting a messiah and a messianic kingdom that would restore Israel to what she was supposed to be. Now, to some extent, they had lost sight of what Israel was supposed to be, which is in part why they didn’t recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

In the person of Jesus, God will reveal himself to earth. The Law instructed Israel about God, and about what loving God and loving neighbor was. Jesus demonstrated God to Israel, and he showed them how to love God and love others. And here’s the thing — God had never given up on the idea of blessing the nations and bringing all mankind into his fold. Because remember, that’s why he created us all in the first place! AND, he had never given up on Israel. Israel was always part of God’s plan. They were always going to be “the apple of his eye” (Zech. 2:8). They were always going to be “a people for his own possession” (Deut. 7:6; 14:2; Ex. 19:5). They were always going to be a “kingdom of priests” (Ex. 19:6).

But in the New Testament Kingdom of Jesus, some of those people would be ethnic Jews who accept and swear allegiance to Jesus as Israel’s Messiah, but some would also be Gentiles, who also accept and swear allegiance to Israel’s Messiah. And together they comprise the Israel of God (Gal. 6:16). And that's you, and that’s me. The children of Jesus, the Messiah King are the continuation, the fulfillment of Israel — God’s chosen people, a royal priesthood, a people for God’s own possession (1 Pet. 2:9).

Okay, so, what is this Kingdom of God as envisioned by Jesus. What’s it supposed to look like? Why is this declaration such good news? Because it affects people in the here and now.

See — and we really need to come to grips with this — Jesus didn’t just come so we could all go to heaven when we die. He cares very much about what’s going on in the world today! Jesus’ prayer in Matt. 6 that we call “The Lord’s Prayer” is significant in that it grounds his hopes on the earth — “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Jesus really sees the Kingdom as a new society in the land. A Jesus Society!! And this new kingdom society will be marked by the way its citizens are to live and interact with one another and with the world.

And see, this is what God has always wanted — a people for his own possession that will finally function as agents of blessing and compassion and redemption in the world. So the Kingdom of God is God’s dream for this world come true! So in Luke chapter 7, John the Baptist is in prison; Jesus is free. And John sends two disciples basically to ask Jesus if he really is the One they were all expecting. Was he really the Messiah? Jesus doesn’t answer his question directly, but what he says is revealing, particularly the last line. Jesus says to John’s disciples in Luke 7:22-23, “(22) Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor are told the good news, (23) and blessed is the one who isn’t offended by me.”

So again, the things he points out that he wants John to see as proof that he is the one he claimed to be are the very things he announced in Luke 4: the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf here, and the poor hear the good news.

So when Jesus said “kingdom” he envisioned a society characterized by a people who would live with God and with others in a way that embodied the will of God in a new kind of society. And one of the places where the rubber met the road was in how we treat one another and how we care for one another, especially the most vulnerable among us. And that’s why, in Matt. 25:31-46, when Jesus talks about his return, he’ll talk about separating the sheep from the goats. He’ll put the sheep on his right and the goats on the left. And Jesus’ litmus test in this passage for who will inherit the Kingdom and who won’t are things like feeding the hungry, quenching the thirst of the thirsty, taking care of strangers, clothing the naked, tending the sick, and visiting those in prison.

So what is the Kingdom of God? Kingdom, in Jesus’ view, is a society empowered by love. It is a society that cares for others. It is a society shaped by justice. It is a society dwelling in peace. It is a society flowing with wisdom. And it is a society that follows its King (Jesus).

In the Kingdom, we build relationships that create family — God’s family. We teach virtues that prevent poverty and heartache. We provide care and relief for the world. We rescue those in trouble. We provide soul care — healing and hope for fractured souls and fractured relationships.

Everywhere God’s people go, things are supposed to get better. More peace. More hope. More love. More freedom. THAT is the Jesus Society!

The Story of the Bible - Part 5: Did God Give Up on Israel?

Today, we’re back looking at the Story of the Bible and the Kingdom of God. And the piece we need to give some attention to next is the idea known as the Restoration of Israel. We’ve seen what Israel was supposed to be in the world — a people that would function in the world as a kingdom of priests, mediating God’s blessings to the world and showing them what life as a community of people under the reign of God looked like. Sadly, Israel didn’t always do that as well as they could have. They repeatedly became self-focused, unfaithful to their God, oppressive to the most vulnerable among them, and didn’t always cast a great reflection of God to the world. But God hadn’t given up on Israel. He was about to renew and transform Israel, restoring them not to what they were, but to what they were always supposed to be, so that they would fulfill their destiny.

And the Jews of Jesus’ day were expecting it. They were expecting a restoration of Israel that the Messiah would inaugurate. There were some key pieces to what the Jews in Jesus' day were expecting, things found over and over again in the Old Testament, particularly in the prophets. When God restores Israel:

1. The Holy Spirit would be present

2. There would be a Davidic King

3. All twelve tribes of Israel will be represented

4. It will involve a gathering together of Jews from all parts of the world; a kind of a reunification of Israel.

5. There’s would be a strong connection with Zion or Jerusalem.

6. And then finally, you’ll have a testimony to Gentiles.

These things show up in a lot of messianic passages throughout the prophets, for instance in Isaiah 11:1-13. You can also see these themes very well in Ezek. 37 (the valley of dry bones) and other places. Peter and Paul in the New Testament will quote a number of other Old Testament texts that bring some of these things to light. And you see these things in Acts 2 on the Day of Pentecost when Peter will quote from Joel chapter 2:28-32.

What’s happened a lot throughout church history, is that many people have looked at Pentecost and seen it as the end of Judaism and the beginning of Christianity. But that implies a discontinuity between Judaism and Christianity. But the restoration of Israel suggests not discontinuity, but continuity.

Christianity is not the end of Judaism; it is the fulfillment of Judaism. Christianity — those who trust and follow and give their allegiance to Jesus, the new King of Israel — IS the renewed, restored Israel. And as Paul will remind us all in great detail in Romans 9-11, who comprised Israel was NEVER based on blood and DNA. Being Israel was always based on faith and covenant and not heredity.

Paul will say in Romans 11 that Christianity is a cultivated olive tree. And the root of that olive tree is a Jewish root, and Gentiles are grafted in and sustained by that Jewish root. So there is now one olive tree — Jewish and Gentile — tended by Israel’s King Jesus.

So there’s great continuity between what God was doing in Israel in the Old Testament and what he’s about to do in the New. And this idea of the restoration of Israel is a very big deal in understanding that. So, when we come to the gospels, and read passages like Luke 2:25-32, we need to read them with all of that background in mind.

The restoration of Israel is a huge part of God's ultimate goal to bring people into his holy community of love so they could experience the fullness of life with him, and through that, change the world.

I hope you'll all stay safe this week. By all accounts, the next two weeks are likely to be pretty rough. Practice good social distancing, but pray. Invite the Father into your frustrations and fears. And take care of people who may not be doing as well as you are. Check on the elderly and the poor.

Thanks for listening, and remember, you are greatly loved.

 

Music by Nathan Longwell Music

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Finding Peace in the Midst of Fear

On today's episode, I wanted to take a break from our look at the Story of the Bible to talk about what I suspect some of you are feeling today. Word just came out that there are over three million Americans unemployed due to Covid-19. Several people I know are either among them or have family members who are struggling with coming to grips with this new reality and the financial uncertainty it brings on their families. And as is true during any period of fear and uncertainty, we usually find our ourselves with questions about God. Where is he? Will he be there for me? Am I to blame for my own circumstances? Those are all common questions.

In response to that fear and uncertainty, I want to tell you about a time in our own lives, on the heels of the real estate collapse in 2008, when we went through a very similar situation, with the same anxiety, fear, doubt, and frankly, terror. It was an absolute white knuckle ride for our family. But what we learned during that time and the way the Lord carried us and provided for us and changed us is something that none of us would trade for anything in the world. The Lord gave us an absolute gift during the struggle - not by sparing us from the struggle or the fallout from it - but from carrying us through it and revealing himself to us in completely new ways.

We've had some hard times since then, including some way more difficult than that. But because of that journey and the things we learned about God, we have never faced difficulty with that kind of anxiety and fear again. The Lord is a rock that we can lean on, and the secret sauce of living with a "peace that passes understanding" is trust.

I hope that what we talk about in this episode will be a blessing to you, especially if you find yourself on shifting sands due to the Coronavirus and face an uncertain future. Lean into God. Look for him in the midst of the difficulty you're facing, and he really will show up and carry you through . . .

Because you are GREATLY loved!

The Story of the Bible - Part 4: What's the Big Deal With Israel?

On today's show, we're talking about Israel: Who they are, why they are, and what their role is in the world. And we'll also talk a bit about the purpose of the Law of Moses in Israel's history. It's probably not what you think. And in so doing, I'm going to give you some thoughts that should help you read the Law more profitably.

We'll be talking about Israel's role as a light to the nations and as a kingdom of priests. All of this is preparing us for Jesus' Kingdom announcement in the gospels.

On another note, please stay safe during the pandemic. I talk briefly at the beginning of the show about the situation we're all facing, and while you certainly don't need another talking head giving advice (in fact, you probably need fewer people doing that), I do offer a few simple suggestions, mostly pertaining to how we need to continue to be Christ's body during all this mess while praying it ends soon.

Please stay safe. I'm praying for all of you!

Shalom!

The Story of the Bible - Part 3: Blessed To Be A Blessing

On today's episode, we’re going to begin to trace the story of Israel. Understanding Israel's role in God's purposes in this world is foundational for understanding Jesus and the Kingdom of God. We can’t just jump from Genesis 3 to the Gospels and think that once we understand the sin problem we can move straight away to the solution, which is Jesus. There is a story going on, and in God’s plan, it was always his intent that a transformed Israel would transform the world. And what we're trying to do here over these first few weeks is sketch the big pieces of that story. And we’re going to start today with the story of God calling Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3.

Resources for Today's Episode:

Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative. This is one of my favorite books. Wright is an Old Testament scholar, but mercifully, doesn't write like many scholars. In other words, it's a relatively  easy read, and well worth your time.

The Story of the Bible - Part 2: Creation & Chaos

On today's episode, we’re going to continue unpacking my understanding of the Story of the Bible and the Kingdom of God. Last week, we talked about how God created you you and me that he could love us. That is his purpose in creation. And as we said last week, as the story of the Bible unfolds throughout the Old Testament and into the New, that journey will take a lot of twists and turns. But that is always the direction God is moving.

Today, we're going to talk through the first three chapters of Genesis - Creation, Garden, and Turmoil. And in the process, we'll learn some things about God, and some things about ourselves.

Music provided by Nathan Longwell Music (nathanlongwell.com)

The Story of the Bible - Part 1: Why God Created Us

Today, we're going start unpacking my understanding of the Story of the Bible and the Kingdom of God. Everything we’re going to talk about in this podcast flows out of an understanding of who God is and what he’s trying to do in the world, so we’ve got to start there. We'll be looking at Jesus' prayer in John 17:20-26. At the end of his life, what were his hopes and dreams for his followers & how does that grow out of the Father's own hopes and dreams for the world?