Avoiding the fool's bargain

While working on my sermon for this week, I was reading Matthew Henry’s commentary on II Chronicles that was written in 1708.  The text tells of Levites who left their homes and land in the northern ten tribes of Israel and migrated south to Judah because their new king, Jeroboam, had replaced worship of the LORD with idolatry in order to keep his people from going to Jerusalem to worship.  Jeroboam’s political decision proved to be utterly disastrous as it started Israel down a road of moral decline that ended in the destruction of the kingdom in 722 at the hands of the Assyrians.  The Levites, seeing that they were no longer welcome, and that they could not continue to serve God as they had done, decided to leave the land that had been given to support them while they ministered.  It was a costly decision for them, one that took away a certain income and left them hoping for the best in a new land.  It was also clearly a wise and brave decision, to choose morality over money, a choice that continues to be put before God's people in our world today as it was when Matthew Henry commented on the decision of the Levites three hundred years ago.  In response to their choice, Henry wrote, “No secular advantages whatsoever should draw us thither, or detain us there, where we are in danger of making shipwreck of faith and good conscience.”  Whether that advantage is money, fame, or influence, it just isn’t worth it.  To risk your reputation, your honor, and your faith in God for such things will always be a fool’s bargain.  

Sermon Video: The Pride of Rehoboam, II Chronicles 10

When Rehoboam, the son of Solomon and grandson of David, ascended to the throne of the Kingdom of Israel, he faced a potentially explosive situation at the very beginning of his reign.  The taxes that had been levied by Solomon felt oppressive to the people and they chose a man who rebelled against Solomon, Jeroboam, to be their spokesman and bring their grievance to the new king.  {Side note: II Kings tells us that Jeroboam had already been chosen as the king of the tribes that would break away by the prophet Ahijah}.

            After taking three days to consider the request, and consulting both his father’s advisors and the men of his own age, Rehoboam answers the request by his new subjects exceedingly harshly.  The arrogance and lack of compassion in his answer, as Rehoboam vows to raise the taxes instead and rule by fear, shutting the door on the possibility that he might rule by wisdom and love for the people, actually drives the people away and begins the rebellion that splits the descendants of Abraham into two nations.

            It would be easy to criticize Rehoboam for listening to his own generation and ignoring the advice of his elders, that flaw is so common in our world in every generation that it hardly needs to be pointed out.  A secondary application of this text that may be overlooked by those who assume that have little of Rehoboam’s power in this world, is the idea of how power and authority are used by Christians.  We’ve all been on the wrong side of somebody with power over us who was willing to use that power for their own ends, and I would imagine that most of us have fallen to the temptation to do the same thing to somebody beneath us.  The example of Christ, to use power with compassion and humility, applies to us all as we all do have relationships where we have power over somebody else and it is up to us to make sure that we aren’t corrupted by that power but instead treat it as an opportunity to be a servant.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

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Sermon Video: Who is the greatest, and who is on our side? Luke 9:46-50

Just prior to his decision to set out resolutely for Jerusalem, Jesus deals with two misconceptions on the part of his disciples.  Both of these questions involve the warped perspective of humanity versus the correct perspective of God.  In both instances, Jesus reveals to his disciples that the viewpoint of God is what they must adapt to because it is the basis of the kingdom of God.

            In the first episode, the disciples are busy arguing amongst themselves about which of them will be the greatest when the Messiah establishes his kingdom.  Forget for a moment that Jesus just told them once again that his future contains suffering; the debate is still woefully misplaced because it focuses on the human preoccupation with appearing great instead of God’s judgment regarding true greatness.  Jesus corrects their error by using a child with no rank, status, or privileges to illustrate that in the kingdom of God greatness will be awarded to those who serve the least in this world.

            In the second instance, the disciples attempt to stop a man who is copying their ministry by casting out demons in the name of Jesus.  Jesus responds to this desire to monopolize the work of the kingdom by declaring the very generous parameter that, “whoever is not against you is for you.”  In working for God, we don’t have the luxury deciding who we want to work with and who we want to be accepting of.  Everyone who is working by the power of the Holy Spirit, for the sake of the Gospel, and the glory of the Father, is on our side.  All of our excuses to exclude those we don’t like or don’t agree with fall by the wayside in light of Jesus’ declaration of unity for all those who follow him.

            It isn’t easy to adopt either of these perspectives.  Our human nature seeks aggrandizement at the expense of others; it is only by the power of God that we can hope to seek the benefit of others in a Christ-like manner.  Likewise, it is clear that those who follow Christ are not united, that divisions have always plagued his Church, but that is no excuse for us to perpetuate the mistakes of our ancestors in the faith.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

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Sermon Video: Unbelief and Betrayal, Luke 9:37-45

When Jesus comes down from the mountain with Peter, John, and James, after having just revealed his own glory, he returns to the reality that vast crowds await his help.  Among the crowd is a man whose son is severely afflicted by demonic possession, evidently in the form of epilepsy.  This man had brought his son to the disciples who were unable to help, evidently because of a lack of faith.  Jesus responds to this situation by revealing frustration at the “unbelieving and perverse generation” that he has to work with before he heals the child.  That frustration from Jesus is not an isolated response from God to finding that faith is lacking, nor is it an isolated response from mankind to lack faith in things in which we believe.  The people of Israel certainly believed in God, but lacked faith in him sufficient to keep them from asking for a golden calf.  Likewise, Americans respond to polls by declaring a belief that God and heaven exists, as well as a belief in the power of prayer, and yet far too many lack sufficient faith to actually take that belief and let it transform their lives.  They believe, but they don’t act, but they lack faith.

            After his success with healing the boy, Jesus immediately tells his disciples about his upcoming betrayal, even while the crowd celebrates by praising God for the healing.  Why now?  Jesus knows that surface admiration is not sufficient, to simply acknowledge God is not the same obeying him.  Jesus knows that his mission will end in betrayal, as had that of many of the prophets of old, but there will be a difference this time.  Instead of a tragic tale that ends in woe, the death of Jesus will be a transformative moment because it will end in resurrection.  Mankind has the capacity to indulge in evil, to reject love, and to betray the Son of Man, yet God has the capacity to overcome that rebellion with divine grace.  As followers of Jesus Christ, we too must embrace love over hate, good over evil, because one day faith, hope, and love will be utterly triumphant over unbelief, despair, and hate because Jesus has proven that light and darkness are not in any way equals.  Darkness is merely an absence of light, it has no life of its own; as Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.”

To watch the video, click on the link below:

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Sermon Video: Jesus is God, Luke 9:28-36

Modern skeptics of the Bible, such as Dr. Bart Ehrman who wrote How Jesus Became God, have asserted that Jesus didn’t think of himself as divine, that his disciples never thought of him as such, and that all such references in the NT are later changes made by the Church.  Aside from the lack of evidence for such claims, there is the additional problem that the entire message of the New Testament, and the Bible as a whole, falls completely flat if Jesus Christ, the long-awaited Messiah, was simply a man wrongfully accused and executed by the Romans.  If Jesus isn’t God, in the same sense that Abraham and Moses spoke to God, Christianity has no reason to exist and all of its teaching are useless.  The disciples did believe in the divinity of Jesus, as did his earliest followers because they witnessed things that could not be explained any other way, among that ample evidence was the Transfiguration of Jesus witnessed by Peter, John, and James.

            The Transfiguration, during a time of prayer on a mountain in Galilee, was not a transformation of Jesus, but rather a revelation of that which was already within him.  As the “Word became flesh”, to use John’s description, Jesus had within himself both all of humanity, except sin, and all of divinity, willingly limited in time and space.  Why such a fuss?  Why would God go to such great lengths when he could have just sent another prophet to share the same message as Jesus?  The answer is simple, no one else could have accomplished the task that the Father required of the Messiah.  Another messenger would not have fixed the fundamental problem that separated humanity from God: human sinful rebellion.  Only by coming amongst us, only by accepting the role of vicarious savior, could Jesus forever open up the path to redemption; only he could do it, and only if he was indeed the Son of God.

            The Church has always taught the divinity of Jesus, those who denied it in the Early Church were opposed, their teachings labeled as heresy.  This belief is absolutely foundational to everything that the Church and Christians think, say, and do.  Jesus is God.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

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