brentsummerhill

It is Saturday. It is Sabbath. It is a day of rest from labors and focus on God.

The Roman soldiers go about their business, retelling the stories of yesterday.

The Pharisees and Chief Priests conduct their Sabbath rituals with blood stained hands supposing they are done with this man named Jesus.

Those touched by His healing hand, comforted by His tender compassion and instructed by His Kingdom teaching wonder about what was…what could have been…what will they do now.

The remaining eleven of the inner circle seclude themselves in fear. Could they be next?

He had told them that He must die, but would live again. Yet they seemed not to hear or at least not to understand.

How difficult it is to see hope in the darkness of doubt and fear. Second guessing shortens our vision and our memories.

Though death had taken Him away from their sight, a million things were still happening they could not see. And the morrow would prove it.

When clouds of doubt and dismay obscure your vision of His face, trust and know that He is yet there, working, smiling, loving and readying the dawn.

Weeping may endure for a night,
But joy comes in the morning. (Psalm 30:5)

It is Friday. Before the dawn a kiss betrays the Master. Mortals armed with lanterns, torches and weapons presume to arrest the eternal Son of God, yet cannot remain on their own feet.

It is Friday. Jesus willingly surrenders to men who could not take Him and to be bound with fetters that could not hold Him.

It is Friday. Jesus is condemned, mocked and beaten by His own.

It is Friday. Jesus is forsaken. The rooster crows. Peter weeps.

It is Friday. Pilate washes his hands. The Roman soldiers “crown” the King. The crowd cries, “Away with him! Crucify him!”

It is Friday. Jesus bears His cross. Jesus is nailed to His cross. Jesus is suspended between heaven and earth.

It is Friday. Darkness falls. Sin is judged.

It is Friday. It is finished.

God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:14)

O Mighty Cross
O Christ so pure
Love held Him there
Such shame endured
His Sacrifice on Calvary
Has made the mighty cross
A tree of life to me
(from “O Mighty Cross” by David Baroni, John Chisum)

It is Friday. But Sunday is coming.

It is Thursday. Preparations are underway for the Passover. The instructions to the disciples sent ahead are mysterious:

“Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.”

And yet when the disciples came to the city, “they found it just as he had told them…”

Isn’t that the way it always is? Obedience requires faith in what Jesus is telling us. And when we believe and do as He asks, it is always as He said it would be.

By Sunday they will know that everything is exactly as He told them it would be.

…he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”

‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
and to take him at his word;
just to rest upon his promise,
and to know, “Thus saith the Lord.”
Louisa M. R. Stead (1850-1917)

(Scripture quotes are from Mark 14:13-15, 16 and Mark 9:31 ESV)

It is Wednesday. The Scriptures are silent on the events of the day.

Can you imagine a day with just God, you and the people you love? No phone, no internet, no television, no facebook, no twitter. Just a day of quiet reflection on the grace, love and closeness of God.

The strength for trials ahead is gained in quiet moments with God.

Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:34-40

It is Tuesday. It is a contentious morning as Jesus is challenged and questioned by the religious establishment.

In the midst of these exchanges, Jesus distills all the Law and the Prophets to two commandments: love God and love your neighbor.

Jesus taught it. Jesus lived it. Friday will prove it.

How shall we love today?

John 12:20-30:

Now there were certain Greeks among those who came up to worship at the feast. Then they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip came and told Andrew, and in turn Andrew and Philip told Jesus.

Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to Him.” Jesus answered and said, “This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake.

It is Monday and Friday is looming ever larger. And Jesus knows it. “My soul is troubled,” He says. The death He shall die on Friday is more than physical. On the cross He will suffer the wrath of God for our sake.

Jesus understands His purpose in this moment. He knows why He has come to this hour. And knowing, His prayer is not one of self preservation, but Father glorification. He came to die. Die He must. Die He will.

And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself. John 12:32

As he was drawing near–already on the way down the Mount of Olives–the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” (Luke 19:37-40 ESV)

It is Sunday, Palm Sunday. And Jesus must be praised.

He must be praised for who he is. He is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.

He must be praised for his mighty works. No one has ever done such things.

And when the critics demand the enforcement of a noise ordinance, Jesus explains that if his disciples were silent the stones would cry out.

It is Sunday. And Jesus must be praised.

Let the critics be silenced.

Let us praise him!

Sunday, we concluded our sermon from Colossians 3:12-17 with four great hindrances to living out our new life in Christ. There may be others, but these four are commonplace.

The first is judging our spirituality by certain things we do while never considering the kind of person we are. This was one of Jesus’ criticisms of the Pharisees: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.” (Matthew 23:23 NKJV)

We wrongly assume that spiritual maturity is determined by the keeping of certain religious expectations. But while there are valid expectations such as attending church and giving, it is possible to do such things while never becoming what Jesus wants us to be relationally with others. There have been a lot of people attend church but hate the people they attend with.

Second is the thought that sanctification requires nothing of us: “Since we were saved by grace, we will just somehow automagically become like Christ.” Yes, I know that “automagically” is not a word. Microsoft Word has underlined it in red. But it describes the way we sometimes think. The truth is that we will not magically wake up one day and be more like Christ. The text requires our participation in “putting on”, “forgiving”, “letting the peace of God rule”, “letting the Word of Christ dwell” and “doing everything.”

While it is true that in and of yourself “you can’t”, the reality of sanctification is that as you engage your body and mind toward becoming like Christ, the power of Christ in you enables you toward holiness. But you’ve got to choose, engage and do.

Third is the thought that “God made me this way” or “this is just my personality.”

God did indeed make you with certain talents and abilities to be used for His glory, but He did not make you a surly, selfish, curt, uncaring, judgmental, unforgiving, sorry sinner. You get credit for that.

And the fact that it is your personality is precisely the problem. It is your personality and not Jesus’ personality which is what you are supposed to be growing into through sanctification.

In the end we will either try to ignore the changes that need to be made in us toward Christ-likeness, excuse our failure to move toward those changes or actually embrace the Word of Christ and the power of Christ and act toward becoming like Christ.

Finally, the fourth hindrance we mentioned was the thought that it doesn’t really matter. This is the thought that, “I’m saved, not going to hell, going to heaven and nothing else matters.” Really? It doesn’t matter that we are a new creation, that old things have passed away and all things have become new, that we have died with Christ, been buried with Christ and are raised with Christ to newness of life? It doesn’t matter that God was purposeful in saving us and has destined us to conformity to the image of His Son? It doesn’t matter whether or not God is glorified through the life that He procured through the death of His Son? It doesn’t matter whether we experience the goodness of God to the fullness of the joy He intended for us?

Sanctification matters in a million ways! And to think that it doesn’t is to think little of the cross!

At the end of worship we asked two questions:

“As 2012 ends, are you more like Christ now than a year ago?”

“What are you going to do to become more like Christ in 2013?”

Good questions that beg and answer.

As the Lord wills, on Sunday morning, September 2, 2012, we will begin a new sermon series at Faith Baptist Cabot from the Epistle to the Saints at Colossae with a focus on the supremacy of Christ in all things. But before we begin a little background might help.

Somewhere around 62 to 65 A.D., the Apostle Paul sent a letter to the saints in Colossae. The city sat in the Lycus Valley alongside the river Lycus in the area of the old Phrygian kingdom in what is now west central Turkey. At one time Colossae had been an important city situated on an important trade highway from Ephesus to the East, occupying the pass through the Cadmas mountain range to the east. But by the time of Paul’s letter, the city had decreased in importance and size as the neighboring cities of Hierapolis and Laodicea had grown in prominence.

The city of Colossae was inhabited largely by the descendants of the Phrygian kingdom along with an admixture of Greeks with the Greek language and Greek culture. There was also a considerable Jewish population transplanted to the region by Antiochus the Great (225-187 B.C.). The result would have been a culture of confusion with a mixture of mysticism, angel-worship, asceticism, Judaism and whatever other philosophies had crossed through Colossae during its time of prominence.

The church in Colossae was likely founded by Epaphras (1:7). Epaphras may have been converted during Paul’s three year stay in Ephesus, a city one hundred miles east of Colossae. With the mentioning of Archippus in both the letter to the Colossian church (4:17) and to Philemon (1:2), it appears that the central gathering place for the saints in Colossae was the home of Philemon.

As Paul dictates the letter, possibly to Timothy (1:1), he does so while under arrest in Rome. He has not personally visited the city of Colossae and does not know all of its membership personally. However he has heard of their faith and love (1:4), probably from Ephaphras. Epapharas may have visited Paul in Rome and shared with him both the good news of the church as well as certain troubling issues prompting this letter.

The theological trouble in the church was due to the influence of the mixed-up religious culture in which it existed. The heart of the issue revolved around the person of and work of Christ, whether He was in and of Himself sufficient for all things. “These theosophists promised to their followers a deeper insight into the world of spirits, and a nearer approach to heavenly purity and intelligence, than the simple Gospel affords.”  (Utley, 1997)

One need not read far into the letter to find Paul making his point quite clear: Christ is sufficient and supreme over all. “A recurring theme in Colossians is the complete adequacy of Christ as contrasted with the emptiness of mere human philosophy.” (Utley, 1997)

A.T. Robertson sums up the church and Paul’s response succinctly: “These saints and brothers are in Colossae, not a large city and probably not a strong church, but the cause was in peril and that was enough for Paul’s interest to be aroused.”  (Robertson, 1959)

As we consider Paul’s letter nearly two millennia later, its purpose and content could not be timelier. The supremacy and sufficiency of Christ is under constant attack, both secularly and religiously. This inspired epistle reminds us and assures us that in spite of competing philosophies and alternate paths to so-called higher knowledge, Jesus Christ is the very image of the invisible God (1:15). He is sufficient. He is supreme over all.

Works Cited
Robertson, A. (1959). Paul and the Intellectuals The Epistle to the Colossians. Nashville: Broadman Press.
Utley, R. (1997). Paul Bound, the Gospel Unbound: Letters from Prison. Marshall: Bible Lessons International.

Seldom do I wade into the mire of tertiary theological debate on social media. Time for and interest in such matters dissuade me. But recently I found myself sifting through a thread that peaked my interest when I came across this statement:

“The Church cannot save someone, but it saves the Truth that saves all men!”

The boldness of the statement and its implications arrested my attention. Does the Church “save” the Truth and does the Truth save “all men”? I turned to Scripture for references regarding the Church and the Truth and here’s what I found (I know, it’s a lengthy list, but Biblical conclusions can only be drawn from the Bible):

The church is to pray for all men because God wants all men [including Gentiles] to be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth. (1 Timothy 2:1-7)

The church is the pillar and ground of the Truth (1 Timothy 3:14-16), holding up and supporting the Truth for all to see.

The preacher is to be diligent and rightly handle the Word of Truth as he labors amongst those who have strayed from the Truth. (2 Timothy 2:14-18)

The preacher, in the midst of a culture turning their ears away from the Truth, is called upon to: preach the Word when it is convenient and when it is not convenient; convince, rebuke and exhort with all longsuffering and teaching; be watchful (sober-minded, calm in spirit), endure afflictions, do the work evangelist (Gospel work) and fulfill one’s ministry. (2 Timothy 4:1-5)

The saints are to rejoice in the Truth. (1 Corinthians 13:6) The saints are to speak the Truth in love. (Ephesians 4:15) The saints, called by the Gospel, experience salvation by belief in the Truth. (2 Thessalonians 2:13-14) The saints are born again by the Word of Truth. (James 1:18) The saints are sanctified by the Truth. (1 Peter 1:13-25) The saints need to be reminded of the Truth in which they are established. (2 Peter 1:12) The saints are to receive and care for itinerant Gospel workers (missionaries) and so be fellow-workers in the Truth. (3 John 1:8)

True worshippers worship in Spirit and in Truth. (John 4:23-24)

The Truth makes people free. (John 8:32)

The unrighteous perish because they will not receive the love of the Truth. (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)

The Word made flesh, Jesus, is full of grace and Truth (John 1:14); grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. (John 1:17) Jesus is “the way, the Truth, the life.” (John 14:6)

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Truth. (John 14:17)

The Father’s Word is Truth by which the saints are sanctified. (John 17:17-19)

The Word of Truth is the Gospel of our salvation. (Ephesians 1:11-14) The Word of Truth is of the Gospel. (Colossians 1:5)

The grace of God is known in Truth. (Colossians 1:6)

Now one can argue with certainty that the Church guards the Truth through obedience to it and the proclamation of it. But to say that the Church saves the Truth is to imply 1) that the Truth is in peril of being lost if it is not somehow saved and 2) that the Church is in some way greater than the Truth so as to be able to save it. This is simply wrong.

The Church is saved by the Truth. The Church is sanctified by the Truth. The Truth, the Word of God, the Gospel of Christ and Jesus, Himself, need no saving. The Truth is not in our guardianship to be parented and kept as a child. The Truth is in our keeping to be kept through submission to and obedience to it. The Truth is entrusted to us not to be preserved for safe keeping from the world, but to be preached to the world and practiced before the world.

And herein is found the growing divide among the brethren and churches of the associated work in which I participate.

For certain, there are extremists on both sides. Some are for all practical purposes old style “hard-shell” Baptists, meeting regularly and lamenting the culture both religiously and secularly, keeping the ritual but with no heart for Christ and His Gospel and a lost world. Such “practical hard-shellism” eschews evangelism and ignores missions. It views the Truth as in peril and thus to be secured away in a vault.

Yet, on the other side, some have fallen victim to the philosophy that the culture will be won by becoming one with the culture, speaking little of the Gospel while waiting for a church to organically develop. Such a philosophy is convinced the Truth needs help to be cool and relevant.

The truth is that many of us are satisfied with neither extreme. We took to heart what we were taught in seminary. We believed, and still believe, that the Bible is our rule of faith and practice. We diligently desire to rightly handle the Word of Truth. And as we poured through its pages, the Word of Life came to life, capturing our hearts and igniting a passion for the glory of God and the good of the nations through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And for us the Church is not a vault for the keeping of the Truth. It is an assembly, a congregation, a community for living out the Truth. The Church is the gathering of the saints of God in covenant communities around the world to worship God, pledging our allegiance to the King of kings while living out the Kingdom life together in covenant relationship to Christ and one another. The Church is where we hear the Word of Truth read and preached with expositional diligence and with a heart of confession and surrender to its message, convinced that our role is not to rearrange the Truth for modern life, but simply to unleash the Truth through faithful Gospel preaching and Gospel lifestyle in the culture in which we live.

The Church is where we join hearts and hands to lift high the banner of our King, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, carrying it forth into the kingdoms of the world, from the streets outside our doors to remote islands in far away seas so that the peoples of the world might know, love and believe in the King, Jesus. Because, contrary to the quote back at the beginning of this article, the Truth does not save all men. It saves only those who believe in the Truth.

For a growing number of us it is simply not enough to continue to go to Church. We must be the Church. Holding to the ancient doctrines of the ancient Word of Truth, yet pressing forward into the present culture with a passion for Jesus and His Gospel.

For us it is not about the style of music, the name on the sign, the architecture of the building or the dress of those who enter, all which have changed time and again through centuries and across varying cultures. It is about Jesus. He is the Truth. He never changes.

“Praise the LORD, all you Gentiles! Laud Him, all you peoples! For His merciful kindness is great toward us, And the truth of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD!” (Psalm 117)