Love and Respect For God

“I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory. For this reason I kneel before the Father, …” Ephesians 3:13-14

This is a curious segment of scripture. Briefly, there is the connection between what Paul had just been writing about (salvation in Jesus) and the discouragement his friends felt at his suffering. In fact, suffering *for* them. I may come back to this. But for the moment, I am drawn to Paul’s prayer.

I am struck by Paul’s description: “I kneel before the Father.” Kneeling is an act of respect and submission. Father is a term of family and connection.

As much as bold and confident access that we have with our Father God (see my previous post), he is worthy of worship and honor. Seriously, God is to be literally (really literal, not fake “literal”) worshipped and given unshared highest honor.

That is, while we have access to our Father, there ought to be nothing flippant about our relationship with him. We may, in fact, be even angry with God and express that fully and with great vigor. But eventually (if our relationship is healthy), we calm down recognize our loss of perspective and move on.

Just as we should respect our good earthly fathers, no matter how good our relationship with them is, we should not only be loving to our parent but also respectful. Both love and respect are important to healthy relationships. With our relationship with God, our closeness and intimacy (that has become a ‘weird’ word in the early 21^st century) still do not diminish God’s place and role as Creator and Judge.

I am reminded of my friend whose father was a major executive of a big corporation. When my friend worked in the mailroom during the summers, he occasionally would deliver mail to his dad’s office. He had “privileged access” to that office that even direct-report Directors did not have. For my friend, Dad was still Dad; he was hardly ever Executive Vice President Mr. Smith. But that didn’t mean my friend would address his dad in any context using a nick-name or “Hey, you!” Good relationship, instant access, and lots of appropriate respect.

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I can seek out God’s presence, but I cannot treat him as if he were not God. While I am human, the apex of God’s creation, God still remains God!

A Stream In The Desert

I came across this devotional this morning and it is something that should be shared. It is weak on exegesis, strong on sentimentality, but the conclusion is solid…

“The Lord caused the sea to go back … all that night.” (Exod. 14:21)

In this verse there is a comforting message showing how God works in the dark. The real work of God for the children of Israel, was not when they were awakened and found that they could get over the Red Sea; but is was “all that night.”

So there may be a great working in your life, when it all seems dark and you cannot see or trace, but yet God is working. Just as truly did He work “all that night,” as all the next day. The next day simply manifested what God had done during the night. Is there anyone reading these lines who may have gotten to a place where it seems dark? You believe to see, but you are not seeing. In your life-progress there is not constant victory; the daily, undisturbed communion is not there, and all seems dark.

“The Lord caused the sea to go back … all that night.” Do not forget that it was “all that night.” God works all the night, until the light comes. You may not see it, but all that “night” in your life, as you believe God. He works. – C.H.P.

1 Streams In The Desert, Cowman, 167, "June 4" (1978, Zondervan).

God Is Moral And We Are Not

I recently was studying Genesis chapter three and came across a thought. I'm putting it out here to generate comment.  

Over a couple of decades, I've tried to understand the word, "moral." Here is a working definition which captures what I know of this word. Moral means, “knowing the difference between good and bad." Dictionary.com seems to agree when it defines moral as an adjective meaning "of, pertaining to, or concerned with the ... distinction between right and wrong."

Are we all OK with that definition?

So, we get to Genesis three and morality is the presenting issue. The serpent - who we later are told is an embodiment of God’s angelic adversary, “Satan” or “Lucifer” – brings this characteristic before Eve in chapter three, the first five verses. The serpent asks Eve about the one restriction placed on her and Adam. He then tells her that she is missing something; she is missing “morality.”

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?"

 ² And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,

 ³ but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'"

 ⁴ But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die.

 ⁵ For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Gen 3:1-5 ESV)

By the definition we have above; is God “moral?” Sure – and the serpent affirms that: God knows good from evil. God being moral is a good thing. Remember, at this time God had declared that all was "very good."

But, at this point in time, are humans “moral?” No – that’s exactly the point that the serpent is making. Humans are not, yet, moral – is that a good thing or a bad thing? It’s a good thing because, again, God had described the situation as “very good”.

But Eve is deceived (2Cor 11:3) into thinking that “morality” will make her more wise. She eats the apple – gives some to Adam and he eats. Are their eyes opened to “morality?” Yes.

What’s the result? It is not good.

I’m going to mess with you a bit.

Is “morality” a good thing?

In my reading of the text, there were two options presented to Adam and Eve. One was “obedience” to God’s clearly revealed will. The other was the promise of “morality.” As it turned out, which was the better option? Obedience to God’s clearly revealed will is always better than “morality.”

Not obedience to ungodly man-made rules.

Not obedience to an ungodly philosophy of life.

Not obedience to ungodly dogma or ideology.

Not obedience to some obscure or bizarre interpretation of God’s word.

Obedience to God’s clearly revealed will.

Humanity does not use morality well, at all. Our consciences are unreliable (Rom 2:15; 1Cor 8:7 1Tim 1:5, 4:2; Tit 1:15; Heb 10:22). In fact, we genetically pre-disposed to do very badly at morality. That is because we are born broken and act accordingly. 

The problem is that while God being moral is a good thing, human “morality” is always messed up and many times creates judgmental attitudes, oppression, legalistic rules and regulations, and sometimes even monstrous evil.

Yep, we learned about good and evil. But we are so small that when we try to do good, we accomplish evil instead.

I think of a five year old child in grandpa’s tool shed. He looks at the shiny and powerful chainsaw. He knows he can probably start it up – he’s seen it done. Does anyone think that’s a good thing for the child to do?

Only when we get God’s help do we have a chance at doing morality well. Why? Because he is God and we are not. 

So now, humanity is “moral.” 

Yay.

Comments, questions, concerns?

The Man Who Is God - Deleted Scenes

Here’s another blog about ‘deleted scenes;’ thoughts that came to me as I was preparing this sermon but didn’t make the ‘final cut.’

The sermon was about Jesus, the Man who is God. Please go to the church’s website, download the sermon, give it a listen, and then come back to see what I did not put in ….

***

As to this text that says that “all the people were being baptized…” I hope it is obvious, contrary to some preachers (and even teachers!) that “all” does NOT mean “all” all the time. We can see that in even the raw fact being that Jesus, at that moment, had not been baptized. Clearly Luke is engaging in some hyperbole to emphasize the fact that John was a Very Big Phenomena!

***

Let’s get this heresy on and off the table very quickly. Some will say that it was this time that Jesus was “possessed” by God and became Messiah. “See? Only now does the Holy Spirit come into Jesus’ life!” This misses the point, ignores scripture, and is contrary to what orthodoxy has taught for two thousand years. This is not the first time Jesus experienced the Spirit. This is the Spirit’s anointing for Jesus to now commence his public ministry.

***

Tradition tells us that Jewish men were not to commence their professional ministry careers until they had attained to their 30^th birthday. Priests had to wait (Num. 4:3), Joseph was 30 when he served in Pharaoh’s court (Gen. 41:46), and David was thirty when he became king (2Sam. 5:4). Interestingly, Jesus seems to honor that tradition and wait for that time in his life.

***

There is a lot of debate about the two genealogies of Jesus contained in Matthew’s and Luke’s gospel. After a point, the genealogies diverge. One very common way to reconcile them is to suggest that one shows Jesus’ biological genealogy from David through to Mary to confirm that Jesus had royal blood, so to speak. Then, so goes this argument, the other line is from David to Joseph, Jesus’ adoptive father, to show that Jesus had a inherited right to sit on David’s throne. The problem with that is to come up with this solution, you have to mess with the black and white text of the Bible. You see, Mary is not mentioned in either genealogy while Joseph is mentioned in both. There may be other solutions to this problem, but it seems to me a Very Bad idea to make up words and insert them into the Bible to solve a problem.

***

Sometimes we can forget that the people that made up Jesus’ family were real people, living real lives, and experiencing joys and pain:

Ø Adam – tossed out of paradise because he messed it up

Ø Seth – conceived out of profound grief over the first homicide; even his name means, ‘substitute’

Ø Lamech – lived under the curse of his forefather in fear, and continued his father’s homicidal ways

Ø Noah – the first case of alcohol abuse, profound embarrassment with ugly results

Ø Nahor and Terah – confused understanding of God

Ø Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah

Ø Salmon – married the former prostitute, Rahab

Ø Boaz – he and his wife, Ruth, had a beautiful romance

Ø David, son Nathan (named after the prophet)

Ø Joseph – a middle-aged guy swinging a hammer for a living, suddenly faced with a girlfriend who claims to have had visions of getting pregnant by means of God

Ø … and you thought you had a weird family!

***

So why did Jesus have to be tempted? Well, the first thing to consider is that temptation happens all the time and it seems reasonable to conclude that Jesus had been tempted, and resisted, many many temptations before this episode. It seems to me that these temptations are all directed at Jesus’ role as Messiah.

Additionally, part of Jesus’ task was to undo the work of Adam. Remember that Adam faced temptation and failed. Jesus faced these huge temptations and came out a victor. Jesus is a victor over sin!