"To Him be glory forever": Romans 8

Showing posts with label Romans 8. Show all posts

Saturday, December 14, 2019

Longing For The End

For the past 18 months or so I have been working my way through a series of books, Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in English Translation. There are four volumes in the series, each volume being in the 700-800 page range, and as of this morning I have less than 200 pages to go in volume four. The title may not sound very exciting to the average Christian but I have found it to be a fascinating experience, reading the various statements of faith within the Reformed tradition that were brought forth through the first two centuries of the Reformation.

It has been an interesting reading project but as is my habit in such a project, I am getting anxious to finish as the end draws near. I've got the next book on tap and I look forward to beginning it. I am longing for the end of this reading project. It is a longing I seem to sense with just about any book or reading project I am involved with as the end approaches.

My bible reading plan brought me into Revelation this week. So far I've read from the beginning through chapter 11. There are many symbolic and confusing parts to the last book of the bible, but one thing that we glimpse along the way, and is made clear in its final chapters, is the glorious ending God will one day bring to this world he has created and the people who have lived in it who have had faith in his son, Jesus. Part of the glory is the setting right of all the things that, right now, are not as they should be because of the presence of sin. In Genesis 3 we read of the sin of Adam and Eve, a first sin that has had terrible consequences. Some of these consequences we can see fairly easily and others reveal themselves over time, often tragically so.

Right now Robin has a dear friend suffering from the what is, at root, the downstream consequences of that first sin. Her ordinary state of health has virtually disappeared, without warning. One day everything was as it always was and two days later there are no guarantees as to how things will turn out. Not only is Robin's friend suffering, but also her family and friends.

Robin's friend is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. She has faith in Jesus and while everything else about her situation may be uncertain one thing that she can trust is the faithfulness of her Savior. He holds her and will never let her go. He holds her and nothing will ever take her from his hand. Don't take my word for it. God put those promises in his word, in Romans 8 and John 10.

Thinking about Robin's friend brings up in me a longing for the end. Not a longing that I have to finish a reading project, or a longing for Robin's friend's illness to resolve, but a longing for that day when God will bring all things together and draw all his children to his very presence, where they will worship and enjoy that presence forever. Amen.

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Changes

Six years ago today was our first full day of living in Dulce. My, how things have changed for us since then! Some of those changes are evident in the two pictures. One, of Kat on her bike, the day after we arrived. The other, of our family this past Sunday. Robin takes a family picture in front of church on the first Sunday of September. She took it a week early this year, because we are going to be on vacation. As you can see, not only has Kat grown in six years, but also our family, as we've added Xander and Junior. Nearly two years ago we took the boys in for foster care and recently we were named their permanent guardians. We expected Kat to grow over time but we never expected our family to grow in Dulce as well.

Life is full of many changes, some of which we can anticipate. We can see things coming down the road and plan for them. Other changes catch us by surprise. Sometimes they are pleasant and sometimes they are most unwelcome, to say the least. Changes can come along that leave us gasping for air, or barely hanging on by the tips of our fingers.

God's word never changes. God tells us that himself in Isaiah 40:8.

"The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever."

And that reminder helps us to trust in God's promises, which being based in his word, also do not change. There are quite a few of them but I'm just going to mention one today that comes to mind, one that I am particularly fond of.

In Romans 8: 38-39 Paul ends a powerful personal testimony with these words:

"For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

I have no ideas the changes that will take place in myself or my family over the next six years, or even the next week. But I do know that whatever they may be, for good or for ill, they will not separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus, my Savior and Lord.

And when you have faith in Jesus, that is your promise too. Don't take my word for it, but trust the word of God as he speaks those words to you. Amen.

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Speed Bump

Have you ever driven on a section of road that had speed bump built into it? If you see a warning sign, or the bump itself ahead of time, then you slow down a bit and hardly take notice of it. But if there is no sign, or you are looking some other direction and don't see the bump, or perhaps just don't care, and you hit the bump at full speed or faster, you are instantly very aware of its presence. The purpose of the bump is to make you moderate your speed. That may or may not happen but you can’t deny that it showed itself to be there in the middle of the road.

All people hit a variety of bumps as they go through life. Big bumps, that perhaps result in serious damage to our lives. Or little bumps that gain our attention for the briefest period of time. And lots of varieties of bumps between those to ranges.

There are no religious exemptions to the bumps of life. People who love and worship Jesus hit bumps. People who bow down to anything else as their god hit bumps. People who deny and/or disbelieve in the existence of God hit bumps. Everyone hits them at times throughout their life. But the difference is in how we respond when they happen.

This afternoon I was reading something written by Wilhelmus 'a Brakel who said this about the bumps of the Hebrews as they traveled from slavery in Egypt to the land that God had promised would be theirs:

"However, the least mishap caused them to distrust the Lord and to murmur."

Set free from slavery by God himself, and witnesses to repeated miracles that God did to save and guide his people. And yet, repeatedly, they murmured against God the moment things took a wrong turn, from their point-of-view. You can read the story yourself as you read through Exodus.

The very next sentence 'a Brakel writes tells of God's attitude toward the Hebrews, in the presence of their murmuring against him:

"Nevertheless, the Lord helped them."

The bump never changed the direction of the road they were traveling on. From God's point-of-view the bump was designed to lead them to trust in God's care, rather than to question it.

One of the great blessings of living on this side of history, after the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, is that we see the promises of God to his people with greater clarity. Same God. Same promise to be the God of his people. But the promises being written in such a way that there can be no mistake as to what they mean, like this one from Romans 8:35-39,

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

We all hit bumps in life. Some that are barely noticeable. Some that are bone-jarring, and worse. But the promise of God to hold his children in all things is just that. A promise. Grounded in God's character and received by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. A promise that we never need to doubt.

May the next bump in your life be one that causes you to hang on tightly to the one who is always holding on to you.

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Family Resemblance

It was pretty quiet when I went to the post office. There was only one other person going inside, someone whom I had met but whom I only knew just a little bit over our years in Dulce. We talked briefly and I confessed that I didn't even know her name. I knew her nickname but didn’t feel that it was my place to call her by it. To which she replied, "Just call me by my nickname. Everyone uses that name for me."

My first reaction was to feel honored by being able to freely use her nickname when I would see her again. But what also stood out to me was the close resemblance in the way that she spoke with that of her sister, whom I know much better. In the words she used, and the sound of her voice as she spoke, it was as if I was speaking to her sister.

That idea of family resemblance has occurred to me many times here in Dulce, as I have gotten to know multiple members of families. I see it between fathers and young sons, between fathers and grown-up sons, between mothers and daughters, between adult siblings, and even elderly siblings. It shows itself in the way that people may walk. The ways in which people may talk. It is even evident in facial expressions. In the time I spend with people here I continue to see ways in which people from families resemble each other.

As a pastor I think that the idea of family resemblance is important among those who have faith in Jesus as their Savior and Lord. In Romans 8:29 Paul writes:

"For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers."

There is a lot of theology packed into that verse, but what applies to this blog post is the idea in the phrase "to be conformed to the image of his Son." I believe that phrase teaches that as we live as followers of Jesus we are to be people who grow to be more and more like him.

That growth can take many forms, and I'll just name a few. More forgiving. More patient. More humble. More gentle. More generous. Less angry. Less self-righteous. If you have faith in Jesus this idea of being more like him in your daily life may already be on your radar. If not, then all you need to do is to ask him and he'll give you some guidance in what to be working on.

Looking a bit like my dad is fine, but what I really want is to look a bit more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ. May you also grow to resemble him more and more.

Thursday, May 3, 2018

End Times?

Not too long ago I was talking with man I know casually, a man who is a Christian and who knows I'm a pastor. He was wondering a bit about current events and end times. From his point-of-view there seemed to be a number of things going on in the world that suggested that the end was drawing near.

"End times" is a dicey subject. The Bible teaches of it, but not in such a way as to be crystal clear in all the details. There are a number of different viewpoints, each of which may be valid, without those differences falling outside of saving faith. I am not my friend's pastor, and so I don’t know what his pastor may teach on the subject, or what the faith statement of his church may have to say about it.

Jesus speaks of end times several times, all basically in the same way. In Mark 13:32-33 he says:

“But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come."

If the one I call Savior and Lord doesn't know when the end will come, that is good enough for me. As a husband, father and pastor, he has certainly given me plenty of things to do in his service in the meantime.

But in the same passage he says "keep awake" and so with that thought in the back of one's mind it is easy to read Revelation and to watch the news and wonder if some of the events that will precede the return of the Lord are happening now.

I think that for many Christians their "end times" meter begins to rise whenever anything happens in Israel, or among it's neighbors. But…in my lifetime…there has never been a real, lasting peace between Israel and it's neighbors, or within the countries nearby. Are today's events really any different than what took place in Israel in 1967, or 1973? Or the rise or Islamic nationalism in 1979?

One thing that I do think that the Bible teaches, in a non-specific way, about end times is that things will generally get worse throughout the world. That injustice and evil will increase in ways that are subtle and accepted by a broad swath of people. And in that sense I do believe there is evidence that history is continuing to move towards that time when the Lord returns and history comes to an end. Here are three things that come to mind this morning:

1. The Alfie Evans case. This is an absolute tragedy. Whatever the circumstances may have been from a medical perspective, it was morally wrong for the government of England to intervene against the parents, particularly when another government was willing and able to provide completely for Evan's medical care. A government, which intervenes to bring about death rather than life, is one which may be on the downside of the slippery slope, with no hope for return.

2. The normalization of abortion as "heath care." While in the interview excerpts cited here Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, is vague about the moment life starts, I think that most adults with same basic education about biology would agree that something distinctly human, and distinctly alive, is present at the moment of conception. To have large segments of our population believe that the intentional ending of that life at any point between conception and birth as an act that has no moral difference from birth, something to call "health care", may well be, as in the Evan's case, a sign that our culture is on the downside of the slippery slope, with no hope for return.

3. Attempts in California to regulate free speech. In the time of my childhood we would say to each other "Sticks and stone may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." We said it, and we believed it. Now we have come to a point in time when to write and sell books that would oppose ideas on human sexuality that in less than one generation have moved from nearly impossible to believe in to mainstream must be fought through legislation. Instead of "live and let live" things seem to be moving toward "Let me live and don’t dare tell me that what I'm living is actually a lie."

End times. They are coming, on the Lord's timing. We may not know the specific meanings of some of the events of Revelation, but we do know that for people confessing Jesus as their Savior and Lord, the persecution of those times may be very hard, even to death. But we also know the promises of God to his children, promises that no end times events can alter, and so I'll close with the words of Romans 8:31-39:

"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Life is short. God is good.

We are on vacation, arriving last night in Rochester, MN, where we used to live. We have family here and many friends, and two of those friends from our former church very generously invited us to stay in their home and use it as our base for our visit.

When we arrived last night we were saddened to learn that their neighbor, whom we also know from our former church, was found dead in his home last week. Paul was in his late 50's, roughly our age, and without significant known health issues, and his death was completely unexpected by all who knew him.

For Robin and I this news came on top of the sudden death last week of a leader in our denomination, a man who was a good friend of our congregation and had visited us three times in the past 16 months, most recently in January. Tony was in his early 60's a two-time member of the US Olympic team, and looking as healthy as ever when I saw him last month. Like our friend Paul, Tony had no known major health issues.

For reasons I don’t have answers for, the news of these two deaths brought to mind the passing of our granddaughter, Raelyn, in 2015. Just past her second birthday, Rae died following an accident at home.

The thought that brings these three particular deaths together for me is a phrase that is so very familiar: Life is short. Be its span two years or 62 years, human life is short. Rare is the person who does not desire their life to extend a bit longer. Even among people dealing with painful and/or prolonged illness, the desire for healing and a even just a bit more life is often present.

"Life is short" rarely stands alone. Just saying it is a springboard to something else. Life is short, therefore… If you 'google' "Life is short" you'll will see an amazing number and variety of things that people are encouraged to consider once they come to the conclusion that life is indeed short. These range everywhere from the well-meaning to the inane.

I'm going to suggest a different thought to follow "Life is short," which is that "God is good."

The truth is that whatever happens in this life, including its unexpected and seemingly premature end, God is good.

As Christians, we grieve, but we do not grieve without having hope that is grounded in the promises of God to always hold His children. Of the many places in the Bible that speaks to our eternal hope in God, the closing words of Romans 8 are among my favorite;

Nothing, not even death, separates God from the children He loves.

Rae, Paul and Tony may have desired a life that was a little bit longer. Their families certainly grieve their passing and they may have a place in their hearts that will always hold sorrow for what never came to be.

But I believe that Rae, Paul and Tony are in the presence of Jesus, who gave His life for theirs. Right now they delight in the visible glory of their Savior and Lord.

Human life, even to 100 years, is short when compared to eternity. And by faith in Jesus, a Christian lives in the goodness of God today, and it is a goodness that has no end.