GIVING GLORY AND STRENGTH TO GOD?

Psalm 29 begins with these words: ” Give unto the LORD, O you mighty ones, Give unto the LORD glory and strength.” (New King James Version)

Sounds fine… until you stop and think about it. How can anyone give glory and strength to God who is already infinite in these things?

I see at least three possible answers to this.

Firstly, the word 'give' can also mean ‘ascribe’. If we ascribe glory and strength to God, we don't actually give Him anything but we acknowledge the strength and glory that He already has. 

Secondly, it can mean that our praise to God somehow enhances Him in the eyes of others around us. As we testify of the goodness and power of God in our lives, there’s a sense in which His glory and strength grow into hearts that may not have acknowledged these things before. Hence - more glory for God.

“For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God (2 Cor 4:15).”

But thirdly, it can also mean that we bring the best of our glory and strength and lay it all down before Him. Not that our glory and strength adds anything to God, even if we are, as David suggests, “mighty ones”. We bow in awe before this God. Rather than big-noting ourselves, we give our best to Him in an act of adoration and worship.

People of this world seek and love glory, the admiration of others. The promise of God is infinitely better because, in Christ, we get to be partakers of His glory in the final wash-up of all things (1 Pet 5:1,4).

THE THING ABOUT FRUIT

Jesus had a thing about fruit. He was always looking for some. He once said: “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit (John 15:2).”

The morning after His dramatic entrance to Jerusalem, riding on the colt of a donkey, Jesus saw a healthy looking fig tree by the side of the road. Hoping to find some fruit, He went over to it but alas, there was none to be found. Only leaves. So Jesus cursed the tree and it quickly withered away (Matt 21:18,19).

I always thought that was something of an over-reaction, especially since it was not even the season for figs (Mark 11:13).

Fruitlessness in people made Jesus really angry but He often expressed this anger vicariously, in parables.  In Luke 13:6-9, the owner of a vineyard gets angry with a fig tree that bore no fruit for three years. “Cut it down. It's just taking up space in the garden.”

In another parable, the wicked vinedressers, the owner sends servants to collect the fruit but they kill the servants and refuse to hand over the fruit. The parable ends with the landowner destroying those vinedressers and employing new ones who would give him the fruit when it was due (Matt 21:33-41).

Fruitless fruit trees and trees that only bore bad fruit are harshly judged in Scripture. John the Baptist said: “And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire (Matt 3:10).”

God has every right to expect our lives to produce good fruit, especially when all we have to do is to abide in the good vine that is Christ (John 15:4).  If we do not produce good fruit, God says that the Kingdom will be taken from us and given to others who will produce fruit (Matt 21:43).

I suspect that we sometimes read the gospels through a salvation lens, as if salvation was the only thing that mattered. But a more honest reading shows that God is looking for fruit. Next week, God willing, we will consider more about what it means to bear good fruit for the Kingdom of God.

GRUESOME AND POINTLESS?

The death of John the Baptist, as recorded in the gospels, comes across as especially gruesome and pointless.

If anyone should go down in history as a fearless, strictly faithful man of God, it was John. But we find him languishing in prison until, one day, without warning, a soldier comes to the prison, pulls out his sword and – just like that – slices off John’s head. If that’s not bad enough, John’s head is then placed on a food-serving platter and presented trophy-like at a birthday party.

Why? Because a pretty young girl with a vengeful, scheming mother performed a dance for an unscrupulous, power-crazed would-be king.

A holy man’s life snuffed out for little more than a party trick.

Why would God allow such a travesty? Doesn’t God look after His own? Is life so cheap? Jesus tried to make some time to mourn for John when He heard the news (Matthew 14:13) but, on this occasion, He was unable to escape the crowds who needed Him.

If anyone deserved an honourable burial, with trumpets, eulogies and great fanfare, it was John. But it was not to be.

I think also of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who, just a few weeks before the death of Hitler and the end of the Second World War, was hanged, and his naked body disposed of like so much rubbish from the kitchen.

The Bible does not promise that our good deeds will receive due recognition in this life. Nor does it promise that we will receive honour from men.  Rather, it promises honour and rewards in a Kingdom that is yet to come.  An honest reading of the Bible, therefore, steels us for persecution and ridicule, while simultaneously filling us with a supreme, all-conquering hope for a glorious future, ushered in with the words: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

The Bible thus provides the ideal balance of solemn warnings for this life and promises for a future life.  Servants of God find in its pages both the courage to face incredible difficulty and abundant reason to live positively.  We learn to appreciate the grace and comfort of God’s presence along the way and the sense that none of it is ever in vain.

THE POWER OF UNITY

“Come, let us build us a city and a tower whose top reaches into the sky, and let us make a name for ourselves.” So said the people who built a great city and a massive tower on the plains of Shinar, later called Babel (Genesis 6:4).

God created man to be creative, so imagination and initiative were not the problem here. The problem was that their great plans were all about their own glory, and because they didn’t want to obey God’s command to go into all the world. They wanted to stay together, patting themselves on their collective backs for their great achievements.

But these people had discovered an important principle – the principle of unity.

“And the Lord said, Behold, they are one people and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do, and now nothing they have imagined they can do will be impossible for them (Genesis 11:6 – Amplified version).”

Virtually unlimited potential awaits any group of people who share a common purpose and a united way of speaking.

The story of Babel always gets me thinking about the disciples of Jesus on the Day of Pentecost. They were “all with one accord in one place (Acts 2:1).” Totally united as one. The Holy Spirit came upon them, with fire and with strange new tongues, with the result that they were equipped to go into all the world with the Gospel.

The disciples had the same sort of unity, but they were living for the glory of God, not the glory of man. They did what the men of Babel were unwilling to do and, eventually, went into all the world as Spirit-filled, tongues-speaking missionaries.

Of course, the person who says: “I’m an individual, I’ll do whatever I please” is acting in the opposite spirit. Whether in church or in society as a whole, God calls for unity in obedience to His commands. Rampant individualism works against the collective progress of any group. One accord unity, on the other hand, allows for great strides toward truly great achievements.

SKELETONS IN THE GENEALOGY

The first chapter of the New Testament (Matthew 1) lists the genealogy of Christ, going back as far as Abraham. Normally, in the ancient world, such lists would only mention the men, but Matthew lists five women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba (obliquely referred to as “she who had been the wife of Uriah”) and Mary.

None of these women bore their children in what could be considered normal circumstances. Tamar became pregnant to her father-in-law, Judah, after posing as a prostitute. Rahab was described as a prostitute in Jericho (although Josephus calls her an inn-keeper). Ruth was a widow from a foreign nation. Bathsheba bore her son as a result of adultery. And Mary? Well, she bore her first son while she was still a virgin!

Rahab, by the way, could not have been the actual mother of Boaz, there being some 400 years gap in the history. This is an example of a genealogy that lists ancestors. We might read it as “Salmon was the ancestor of Boaz by Rahab”.

There are lots of theories as to why Matthew would omit famous Hebrew matriarchs like Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel and include Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba instead. Here’s my theory.

Matthew’s inspired purpose in writing his gospel was to show that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ. But His mother was not even married when He was conceived. How could that be from God?

No problem. There were plenty of unusual marital situations among the ancestors of Jesus. God is well able to outwork His purposes, even through strange and diverse circumstances. Perhaps Matthew included these women to answer Jews who questioned the credentials of Jesus to be Messiah.

And the lesson for us? Mistakes, abuse, adversities, these things cannot prevent God from working His will for us. He is well able to make: “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

THE MANGER AND THE INN

The Christmas story has always captured our imagination. And no wonder. The coming of Jesus into the world is the defining event of all history. But a beloved story such as this, told and retold over vast centuries, in varying nations and cultures, is likely to attract embellishments.

Most people these days know that the gospel never specifies how many Magi came to see the baby Jesus. We assume there were three because three gifts were mentioned. We also understand that the “wise men” came to a house rather than a stable (Matt 2:11) and that the visit occurred some considerable time after Jesus had been born.

But Kenneth E Bailey, in his book “Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes”, questions other aspects of the popular version of the nativity story.

Luke 2:6 says that, while Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem, “the days were completed for her to be delivered.” This seems to suggest that the birth wasn’t as urgent as is often portrayed.

Also, when Luke writes (2:7) that there was no room “in the inn”, he does not use the word for a commercial inn, pandocheion, as in the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:34). Instead, he uses the word kataluma, which simply means a lodging place or guest chamber.

Bailey makes the point that typical middle eastern homes, then and even now in some places, would often have one main room, a guest room, and an attached section into which the family would bring their ox or donkey at night. Jesus may well have referred to this in Luke 13:15, when He said: “Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it?” In other words, you bring your animals out to water every day, including the Sabbath. Apparently, no-one in the synagogue that day was able to deny Jesus His point.

By the way, the word for ‘stall’ in 13:15 is phatne, the same word that is used for ‘manger’ in Luke 2:7. The manger, where Jesus was laid was thus more likely part of the house where Mary and Joseph were being lodged. And incidentally, there is no mention in the Bible account of a stable.

The picture we are left with is that Mary and Joseph would have been staying with relatives, but not in their kataluma guest room, which would have been already full. According to Bailey, it would be unthinkable for a descendant of David, coming to David’s home town, would be denied basic hospitality among relatives.

Does any of this change the importance and relevance of the Christmas story? Not at all, but it does remove some of the sentimentality of the common version we hear. The point is that God sent His Son into the world to save us.

Emmanuel, God is with us.

JESUS IN THE SERVANT SONGS

First, an apology. This post, by its very nature, is much, much longer than normal. Perhaps one day I will get around to publishing my Isaiah sermons in book form. I have previously shared the following in various contexts but it seemed appropriate to share it here as well.

In Isaiah, we find four special passages which have come to be known as the Servant Songs.  They are found in 42:1-6, 49:1-6, 50:4-9 and 52:13-53:12.  (It would have been better if chapter 53 had started three verses earlier!)

There are 66 chapters in Isaiah and I found 66 facts about Jesus in the four Servant Songs. Here they are, roughly in order of fulfilment. If this isn’t testimony to the inspired brilliance of the Bible, I don’t know what is!

What do we know about God’s Servant (Jesus) from Isaiah’s Servant songs?

 

1.        He is God’s Servant – 42:1, 49:3,5,6, 52:13, 53:11 (Matt 12:18, Phil 2:7)

2.        The Chosen One – 42:1 (1 Pet 2:4)

3.        In whom God’s very soul delights – 42:1 (Matt 3:17, 17:5)

4.        He was called by God from the womb – 49:1,5 (Luke 1:31)

5.        He was righteous and called in righteousness – 42:6, 53:11 (Heb 1:9)

6.        He represented Israel – 49:3

7.        And His commission was to bring Israel back to God – 49:5 (John 11:52)

8.        He was given as a covenant to the peoples – 42:6 (Matt 26:28)

9.        And as a light to the nations – 42:6, 49:6 (Acts 26:23)

10.      He brought justice to the nations (NLT) – 42:1,3,4 (Matt 12:18)

11.      And was, in Himself, God’s salvation to the ends of the earth – 49:6 (Acts 13:47)

12.        When He was growing up, He did not appear unusual in any way – 53:2 (Mark 6:3)

13.      But God placed His Spirit upon Him – 42:1 (Matt 3:16)

14.      He awakened each morning to God’s Word – 50:4

15.      And His speech was with all the wisdom and learning of God – 50:4 (Luke 4:22, John 7:46)

16.      His mouth was like a sharpened sword or arrow, initially concealed – 49:2 (Rev 19:15)

17.      He was gentle, not shouting in public – 42:2 (Matt 12:16-20)

18.      He wouldn’t crush the weak or quench the smallest hope (NLT) – 42:3

19.      He encouraged the weary – 50:4 (Matt 11:28)

20.      He was never violent to anyone – 53:9 (Heb 7:26)

21.      Nor did He deceive anyone – 53:9 (1 Pet 2:22)

22.      He could have been discouraged by His apparent lack of success – 49:4 (John 1:11)

23.      But he committed the reward and results of His ministry to God – 49:4 (1 Pet 2:23)

24.      So He was upheld and strengthened (NLT) by God – 42:1,6 49:5

25.      The Lord helped Him and held His hand – 42:6, 50:7,9

26.      So that He did not fail or become discouraged – 42:4 (Heb 12:2)

27.      He was glorious in the sight of God – 49:5 (Matt 17:5)

28.      He set Himself with determination to fulfil all God’s will – 50:7 (Luke 9:51)

29.      And achieved success through His wise dealings – 52:13

30.      He did not rebel against God’s instructions – 50:5 (Heb 5:8)

31.      Nor did He turn away from God’s will – 50:5 (Heb 10:7)

32.      He was despised and rejected by men – 53:3 (Matt 27:39-44)

33.      Acquainted with sorrow and grief – 53:3,10 (Matt 26:37,38)

34.      He remained silent before His accusers – 53:7 (Matt 26:63, 27:12)

35.      He was denied natural justice – 53:8 (Matt 25:65,66)

36.      He gave His back to those who would beat Him – 50:6 (Matt 27:26)

37.      He was struck on the face – 50:6 (Luke 22:64)

38.      He was spat upon – 50:6 (Matt 26:67)

39.      Yet He was not ashamed or confounded (NLT) in His trials – 50:7

40.      He went meekly to His death, like a lamb – 53:7 (Acts 8:32)

41.      He was numbered with transgressors (two thieves) – 53:12 (Mark 15:28)

42.      He was smitten by God, bruised and afflicted – 53:3,7,10

43.      People were astonished at Him – 52:14 (Matt 7:28, 27:14)

44.      His appearance was marred more than any man (NLT - so disfigured one would scarcely know he was a person) – 52:14

45.      He bore our griefs and pains in His own body – 53:4 (1 Pet 2:24)

46.      He was wounded for our transgressions – 53:5,8 (Heb 9:12-15)

47.      His punishment brought peace for us – 53:5 (Rom 5:8-10)

48.      And His stripes (from being whipped) were for our healing – 53:5 (1 Pet 2:24)

49.      The iniquities of all God’s people were laid on Him – 53:6,11 (Tit 2:14)

50.      He ‘sprinkled’ many nations with His cleansing blood – 52:15 (1 Pet 1:2)

51.      He justified many – 53:11 (Rom 5:19)

52.      And accomplished all God’s purpose – 53:10 (John 6:37-40)

53.      God was and is glorified through Him – 49:3 (John 13:32)

54.      He was cut off from the living – 53:8 (Matt 27:50)

55.      Pouring out His soul unto death – 53:12 (Heb 2:9)

56.      He was buried like a criminal (NLT) – 53:9

57.      And placed in a rich man’s grave (NLT) – 53:9 (John 19:38-42)

58.      But He prolonged His days (ie. He was resurrected) – 53:10 (Acts 13:30, Rev 1:18)

59.      He lived to see His descendants (all those who accept Him as their offering for sin) – 53:10 (Heb 12:2)

60.      He was satisfied with what He had accomplished (salvation for the multitudes) – 53:11 (John 16:21)

61.      He was rewarded with great honour – 53:12 (Phil 2:9)

62.      And exalted very highly – 52:13 (Phil 2:9,10)

63.      Kings were silenced before Him – 52:15

64.      Distant lands beyond the sea waited for His teachings (NLT) – 42:4, cf 49:1 (Acts 28:22)

65.      He caused the nations to see and understand new truth – 52:15 (Rom 15:20,21)

66.      And He made intercession for the transgressors – 53:12 (Luke 23:34, Rom 8:34, Heb 7:25)

(Note: feel free to share this, but with due acknowledgement, please.)