As a Christian, we live in a reality where we are not sinners, yet we have sin.  When God looks at us, He sees only the perfect righteousness of Jesus because we are in Christ by faith.  At the same time, although the bondage to our sin nature has been broken, we still carry sin with us, being called to continually put it to death.  So at any point in time we are being controlled, either by Christ which puts to death sin and brings lasting joy, or by our sin, which pushes us further from God and leads to brokenness, guilt, shame, and destruction.

The Lord is above (Psalm 113:4).  In Him we have victory over all sin (1 Cor 15:57).  In Him there is a fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11).  We are called to self-control, but the self-control is not the type of self-control where we are white-knuckling obedience.  We are called to exercise control by remembering the promises of God – that all the promises of God find their Yes in Jesus (2 Cor 1:20), and so we choose joy over sin.  God, are you my comforter? Yes.  God, do you love me?  Yes.  God, will you always be with me and for me?  Yes.  God, will you sustain me?  Yes.  God, do you affirm me fully?  Yes.  God, do you accept me now and always?  Yes.  Every Yes of God to us is found in Jesus, and so we are controlled by the love of God to pursue God in love.  We are controlled by the love of God to love others, rather than using them to try to meet some emotional or felt need within us.  We love people towards Jesus, because in Him true life and fulfillment is found, and in so doing we remind ourselves of all that Jesus is towards us.

With that in mind, God has a word for us from Thessalonians 4 today.

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 – “Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. ² For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. ³ For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;⁴ that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, ⁵ not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; ⁶ that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. ⁷ For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. ⁸ Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.”

For most, this call above is one of the more difficult callings of God on Christians.  I believe that’s why God uses it as an example as often as He does.  It gets to our hearts in a way that we cannot escape – we have to do business with God as His children.  Will we love Him, and trust Him, or not?  My encouragement as you consider the application of the above scripture in your own life is three fold 1) Do not beat yourself up over the past.  God has dealt with past sin, He is after your heart now.  What does your heart say now about God’s promises over sins promises?  2)  When you sin in this way, you are not only sinning against God but another person, and often persons.  Sin always leads to destruction in the long run, and it creates barriers to your relationship with God.  The same destruction would be true of the person on the other side.  In this way, not only are you failing to love God, but you’re also failing to love others.  3)  We are not to fight this battle, we are to entrust ourselves to God who fights for us.  That may seem counter-intuitive, but ultimately, the only way you will conquer sin is with a changed heart by the Truth dwelling inside us.  The Truth that God is all glorious, all powerful, the source of eternal, infinite, joy, and He is with you and for you.  This is what the Holy Spirit of God in us will remind us of as we walk day in and day out this life.  We have God in us – there is nothing we cannot accomplish through Him.

Stay encouraged.  We are all in this daily walk of faith together, and God is faithful to continue His work in us wherever we are today.  God has grace for you today, and grace for the rest of your days.  He loves you, and is for you, and for your fullness of joy in Him.

 

Grace and Peace,

Adam

 

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”  Matthew 7:13-14

When you think about what it means to live a Christian life, does it seem easy or hard to you?  We see people in church, and in small group settings, where what we see is often only a small glimmer of what is truly going on in those people’s life.  If we compared ourselves to what we see it may be discouraging.  It’s kind of like Facebook, where if you judged people’s lives by what you saw there, you would assume that everyone else were the happiest people, leading the most exciting lives.  It is a lie.  So is the idea that leading a Christian life is easy, or that people “have it together” more than anyone else.

My hope is that each of you belongs to a church and a small group of believers where the facade of perfection is removed.  Living as a Christian day to day is not easy.  If your life is easy, that’s usually a warning sign that you may have drifted from God.  We all struggle, we all have periods of doubts, and we all have brokenness in our lives.  The danger for us as Christians is to relax, and presume upon past belief in Jesus to sustain us.

Living life as a Christian we have one way to enter into God’s Kingdom – Jesus.  He is the narrow gate. Jesus says that He is the “Way”, the Truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him.  (John 4:16).  So Jesus is how we enter into God’s Kingdom, and He is the way we are to walk until God calls us home.  What is the other option?  What is the wide gate and “easy” way?  Proverbs 14:12 – “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”

The reason living a Christian life is hard is because we are called to constantly put to death the sin that is in us.  Our self-will apart from God is the root of sin – pride.  God is calling us to a new way, a new path – He sees our future, He knows what is is good for us, He has demonstrated His love for us by dying for us, and He is simply saying “Trust me”.  We do this by forsaking what seems right to us, and instead we look to Jesus, we go to God in His Word and we submit ourselves to His will, entrusting ourselves to the love of God.  We get knocked around by life, we fall back, but we move forward in the power of God working in us.

My exhortation today is to consider what areas of your life you are not submitting to God.  What desires do you have that you are unwilling to let go of and entrust to God? What fears are keeping you from wanting to trust God there fully?   What has God shown you that would answer those fears, and allow you to trust Him more?  Take all of that to God in prayer, and know that you’re praying to a God to loves you deeply, and takes joy in you coming to Him as much as you want – all the time.  If you have entered by the narrow gate of Jesus into the Kingdom of God, continue following after Him, knowing that He will keep your foot from slipping from the way, even when it is hard.  Our promise is not that life will be easy, much the opposite – we are told it will be difficult.  Our comfort is that we are following a God who is sovereign, knows the beginning from the end, who loves us beyond understanding, and will walk with us, every step of the way.

Grace and Peace,

Adam

There has been a theme among my messages of late.  Love and forgiveness.  Today’s message is written heavily, as a warning for those who fail to root the love of God in their hearts, fail to forgive as they have been forgiven, and instead allow a root of bitterness to grow in their heart.  My hope is that God would pierce all of our hearts to see His love and forgiveness towards us, our sin against Him, and that would push out all anger and bitterness in our hearts.

Let’s begin by acknowledging that every one of us has been wronged by others.  Let’s also quickly move to say that we have also wronged others.  In this world, stained by sin, this will always be so to one degree or another.  Our natural response when someone sins against us is hurt and anger.  Something changes when you become a Christian and follow Jesus though.  We stop looking at people as people, and start recognizing there is a greater spiritual reality at work.

People sin against us, because they’re sinners – that’s what they are apart from Christ.  So for a non-believer to sin against us should come as no surprise to us.  Our heart for the non-believer who sins against us should be rooted in love and forgiveness.  We see their state apart from God, and in compassion we forgive them, asking God to grant them grace and mercy to believe on Him.  Their sin against us may even be the door God uses for the gospel to be preached (by us to them) about why we can forgive them, and may even be what God uses to save that person.  What an amazing story that would be!  I could tell you, there have been times when forgiving others has been difficult for me, but this is exactly what God accomplished.

What do we do with a believer sins against us?  This looks a bit different outwardly, but our heart is the same.  We first make sure that our own heart is rooted in love and forgiveness.  If you cannot confront someone in love, with a desire for their reconciliation to God, you need first to ask for God to move in your own heart to get you to that point.  Then you go to the brother or sister, with a heart rooted in love, patience, and kindness, and confront them with their sin directly.  If the brother or sister acknowledges their sin, then you are called to forgive as you have been forgiven.  Forgiveness is more than just saying “I forgive you”, it is at a heart level truly forgiving the person and releasing them to God, not holding their sin against them, and not gossiping to others about their sin.  Matthew 18:15-19 lays out this process in detail, including what to do if a believer does not acknowledge their sin.  The goal of forgiveness is two-fold, repentance/reconciliation to God for the offending believer, and healing for the offended believer.  Christians can look at their brother or sister in Christ and say in love, your sin is first against God, and because I care about you, I want to see you repent of sin that will bring dishonor to God and impede your relationship with Him.  Second, we can say in love, your sin hurt me, but Jesus died for my sin and your sin on the cross, and so we are not bound by our sin, we are new creations in Christ.  I love you, I forgive you, and my hope is for your renewed walk with Christ.

This is what should happen, and should happen more often than it does in the lives of believers.  So with that said, I now want to turn to the danger of not pursuing a heart of love and forgiveness towards others, and close with an encouragement to pursue forgiveness for past hurts where possible.

The Bible is very clear on what it means for someone to harbor anger and bitterness.  So my burden here is not to explain a lot of scripture, but to choose which passages to pull in because there are so many.

1 John 2:9 – “Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.”

Ephesians 4:26 – “ Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, ²⁷ and give no opportunity to the devil.”

Hebrews 12:14-15 – “ Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.¹⁵ See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled;”

1 John 4:20 – “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

 

Matthew 5:21 – “²¹ “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ ²² But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment;”

God is always looking at our hearts.  Here many will try to play games and tell themselves – I’m not angry with someone, I just never want to talk to them or see them again.  Or others will say, “I forgive”, but yet still exhibit behaviors that betray that statement, by avoiding a person, speaking poorly of them, and not pursuing peace.  We all have done this, so my encouragement here is just to be honest with yourself.  It does you no good to play games with God – He knows your heart.  God loves you, and anger and bitterness will defile your heart, as any other sin.  Wanting to be gentle here, I would say that a heart that is rooted in God’s love and forgiveness for them cannot be at peace with anger and bitterness towards another person.  If you are at peace, God wants you to be pierced by the stark warnings above.

Some of you at this point may be thinking about a specific individual that has wronged you in unimaginable ways.  Your anger and bitterness towards this person may have been brewing for years without your seeking peace and reconciliation.  You may not know what it looks like to pursue forgiveness.  My encouragement for you is two-fold 1) Just talk to a pastor in your church and a group of strong believers you know about what that might look like 2) Pursuing peace and reconciliation does not necessarily mean the restoration of the relationship.  We are called to wisdom.  If a man abuses his children, we may be called to forgive and pursue peace, but we would never recommend immediately that the man be restored fully to a unsupervised relationship with his children.  Each situation is different, and hopefully a pastor and other Christians can offer wisdom in love for the specifics of each situation.

Christian, I know this message was long, and for many – challenging.  My hope is that you believe with me that God will never call us to something that is not good for us.  God is our healer and our comforter.  Confrontation, even rooted in love is seldom easy, but God is for us and with us.  We are called to reject anger and bitterness because of the gospel, and our participation in proclaiming the gospel with Jesus.  We remember that we forgive because we have been forgiven.  We know that at one time we lived apart from Christ, dead in our sins, and so we hope for salvation for the non-believer.  We know that believers are not defined by their sin, but by the righteousness of Christ, so we approach them in love and hope for restoration.  Keep running the race set before you.  Know that you are loved and prayed for.

Grace and Peace,

Adam

 

Following Jesus comes at a cost.  Everyone who has taken seriously the call of Jesus to follow Him; to walk in obedience, to love sacrificially, to leave the world behind and set their hope fully on Him, knows that there is a price to be paid.  It may be paid in comfort, it may be paid in lost friendships, or in a myriad of ways.

Paul was a man who was held in the highest of esteem in Jewish society.  He had risen within society to become a Pharisee, a respected religious leader among the Jewish people.  In most every way outwardly, his life was going well.

After Jesus called Paul, he lost everything.  In 2 Corinthians 11:24-27 Paul says of himself – “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. ²⁵ Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; ²⁶ on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; ²⁷ in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.”

It was with this in mind that Paul tells us – Philippians 3:7-8 – “whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

Following Christ will lead to suffering.  That may not sound like great news, but I’m going to shoot you straight – life will be hard sometimes – often, because we make the choice to follow God instead of what seems right in our own eyes.  Why do we do it?  Look at the verb tense of Paul’s words – “knowing”.  Often as Christians we consider the gospel as past tense rather than present and future.  For Paul, and for us, each day we are given the opportunity to know more of Christ, were true peace and joy can be found.  We give up everything, because we know God, and believe Him to be the source of a greater joy than what the world can offer.  We eagerly participate in this life in the power of the Spirit of God that indwells us, walking the works He has for us daily, looking forward to the day when our faith becomes sight, the partial becomes full.  The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed to us.

God loves you and is for you – keep running strong towards Him today.

Grace and Peace,

Adam

What are we living for?  This world is broken.  We are surrounded by evil, and even have to battle evil in our own flesh daily.  As Christians, we are united in Christ to God and each other, through faith in the gospel.  We are not living for the next 50 years, but the next 50,000,000 – looking to eternity with Christ, where our hope is found.  With that in mind, I want to revisit a message I wrote about a week ago about forgiveness.  Today is somewhat of a part 2 to that message.

I want to state up front that forgiveness and reconciliation is seldom easy.  Someone has wronged us.  We naturally will feel hurt and angry.  Often trust has been broken in some regard.  So what do we do?  Do we lash out in anger?  Do we cut ties with the person who wronged us?  Why does God call us to forgive and reconcile?  Why is this called out in scripture as particularly glorifying to God?

Ephesians 4:30-5:2 – “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ³¹ Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. ³² Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.  Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. ² And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

A few quick observations

1. as Christians, it grieves the Holy Spirit of God in us, when we hold onto anger and bitterness.
2. We’re called to forgive because we’re forgiven by God in Christ
3. In being kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving we’re imitating God
4. We’re called to “walk in love” (ongoing) in forgiveness, as Christ loved us
5. The love of Christ we’re called to is giving up of ourselves (sacrificial)

The foundation of our ability to forgive is Christ.  If the Holy Spirit of God is not in us, it will be impossible to forgive like God calls us to, because it is a type of sacrificial forgiveness that in our flesh we would never seek after.  We forgive not only because we are called to, but that in so doing, we ourselves are seeking the glory of Jesus as imitators of Him.  We seek Christ in our hearts of kindness, tenderness, and forgiveness so that those who we forgive would marvel at our forgiveness and themselves be pointed to the source of forgiveness, Jesus.

This is what we’re here for.  We live not to ourselves, but unto God who ransomed us from death to life through His blood.  Our God sacrificed His honor to be stripped naked, spat upon, tortured, and killed in order that we would be forgiven, and reconciled to God.  When we are wronged (and it will happen often in this broken world), put away the flesh’s desire for anger and bitterness, and instead put on hearts of humility, looking to Christ.  Let the love of God through forgiveness conquer sin both in our own hearts and in the hearts of our brothers and sisters.

Grace and Peace,

Adam

 

 

What does it mean to believe on Christ?  To have Christ in you?  What does that look like outwardly?  The scripture we’re going through today is Ephesians 3:17-4:3, and I believe God will give us understanding towards all of those questions.  This is a good chunk of scripture, but again, Ephesians is so rich and helpful, that I feel its worth our time to go through, and necessary to see the full picture of what God wants us to see here.

Ephesians 3:14-19 – For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, ¹⁶ that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Paul is praying to God that those in the Church of Ephesus would believe on Christ.  Faith to believe on Christ, and sustaining grace for Christ to be strengthened and formed in you, is only accomplished by the grace of God.  We should all be asking for God’s grace and mercy in like manner, for the love of Christ to made known to us and that our hearts would be rooted and grounded in the love of Christ.

Everything God does is from a heart of love.  “God is love”. (1 John 4:16)  “God demonstrates His love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  (Rom 5:8)  How often do you meditate on God’s love towards you in Christ?  God knows our weaknesses – he knows every sin from our past, present, and future – every bit of our sin is an attack on the glory of our holy Creator God.  “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Eph 2:4-5)  Are you just aware of God’s love – like a fact to be known about someone, or has it truly rooted itself in your heart?  Is your heart grounded in the love of God?  Before I move on – let me just tell you, that the answer for all of us is at best “not fully” and perhaps at times “not at all”, and therefore, we all ought to be seeking God for that daily.  

Consider also that Paul ends by saying that if we are rooted and grounded in love, comprehending the depth of the love of Christ, we will be filled with all the fullness of God.  If you want to know what God’s will for your life is, there it is.  It’s not a job, it’s not where you live, it’s not what church you go to, it’s that Christ be formed in your heart, rooted and grounded in His love.  That is the spirit capable of living a life pleasing to God, overflowing His love to a broken world.

Ephesians 3:20-4:3 – “²⁰ Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ² with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³ eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

How is Christ’s love formed in our hearts?  Paul gives us the answer by stating he is praying to God for this above, but also here again Paul restates that this is a work of God, His power at work within us.  You don’t grow in a heart for Christ by being a moral person, going to church, reading your bible, avoiding temptation, or any other outward means.  These are all good things, but unless God is at work in you, unless you call upon Him in humility and dependence to see Christ’s love and root that love in you, your heart will never change.  Those other things will be a burden because they are tasks rather than means of joy, participating in the love of God.

What does it look like to have a heart that is rooted and grounded in the love of Christ?  We have humble hearts, gentle, patient towards others.  We know our sin and failings, and the great love of Christ towards us apart from any merit of our own, and it undoes any form of pride in us.  We root that love in our hearts, so that we can display that love to others.  This isn’t always easy, but we know that the work is not ours to accomplish, but God, so we run to Him and ask for His grace to love as we have been loved.

I’m going to try to land the plane here.  My prayer for you, for me, and all is that we would know that height, the depth of the love of Christ, and have hearts that are rooted and grounded in that love.  Look to Jesus, ask God for grace to accomplish this by His power at work in you, and may it be said of us as Jesus proclaimed “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  (John 13:35)

You are loved and prayed for.

In Christ,

Adam

Ephesians 2:1-8 “you were dead in the trespasses and sins ² in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— ³ among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. ⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— ⁶ and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

I wanted to put all of this passage because it is so rich in right theology and understanding of God’s love and grace, that I can’t help myself.  I need all of this Truth, every day, and I suspect it will likewise be an encouragement to you.

I want to touch on a part of this passage that I glossed over previously.  We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23), but this describes those people apart from Christ as “sons of disobedience”, following the prince of power of the air (Satan), and being controlled by the passions of their flesh and mind.

Three observations:

1. This is an ongoing spirit that is working in someone
2. Their sins are not just fleshly, but of the mind (to choose what is right in their own mind and not submit to God)
3. These people are described as sons of disobedience

In light of the latter part of this passage, and how we were rescued in love by God through Jesus, how should we as Christians understand our relationship with Him

1. We too have an ongoing spirit at work, but it is the Holy Spirit of God – Christ in us
2. We love and obey God not just with our bodies, but also with a humble mind that submits to God’s will (we trust God, even when we don’t understand because we know that God loves us and is for us)
3. We are called the adopted sons and daughters of God, fellow heirs of the Kingdom of God, with our King Jesus.

Brothers and Sisters, my encouragement today is to embrace the call of God in Jesus from a willing and humble spirit.  We are no longer sons of disobedience, but we have a Spirit of obedience, controlled by the love of Christ.  Our King, has secured our inheritance, and is faithful to work in us for our good and His glory until he calls us home.  Keep running the race set before you each day, in the grace God provides.  Know you’re loved and prayed for.

Grace and Peace,

Adam