The Holiness of God

Text: Isaiah 6:1-6

Introduction

Thank you for the invitation to preach this morning, and to moderate your congregational meeting following the service. It is a deep privilege to preach the holy, inerrant Word of God to God’s people.

I want to speak with you this morning about an attribute of God that I do not think we reflect upon often enough in our churches in these last days - the holiness of God. I think many of us, given our natural inclinations to be focused on our immediate concerns and needs, forget about the radical, complete holiness of God. Now, I want to be clear: I think if you were to ask most believers about God, many of them would quickly and even eagerly agree that God is holy. But the issue is not that there is a God and that one of his attributes is that he is holy. The issue is that we have lost the immensity of God’s holiness. Part of our forgetfulness of God's holiness is a function of how we live in today’s 24/7, Twitter and Facebook culture. Another reason why we downplay the holiness of God is through a deliberate forgetfulness. We dare not think too deeply about God’s holiness. Why? That will become clear in our discussion of Isaiah's vision. My hope for this sermon this morning is that you will have an increased appreciation for the holiness of God. And I even hope that this picture of God’s holiness might restore in you a reverential fear of the Lord. That may sound strange, that I want you to fear the Lord. But that is a good thing, because of what the bible teaches about this fear.

• Psalm 110:10 reads: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding.”
• Proverbs 22:4: “The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life.”
• Psalm 25:14: “The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.”

Let’s begin.

Context

First, a bit of context. Our text this morning begins on an ominous note: “In the year king Uzziah died.” Uzziah was one of the better kings of Judah. If any of you are familiar with 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles, you would know that many of the kingships of Judah and Israel were utter disasters. There weren’t many standouts after David and Solomon (both of whom had their own problems). But Uzziah was one of the better kings. His reign was long - 52 years. The country had prospered under his reign. But there were problems near the end. Idolatry had reasserted itself in the nation, and pride, a pride build on the prosperity of Uzziah’s reign, drew the eyes of the people away from God, and caused them to disregard his holiness. Even the King himself fell prey to the sin of pride. This is how the writer of 2 Chronicles 26:16 puts it, “But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.” That is, Uzziah took upon himself a job that was, according to the law of God, specifically set apart for the priest alone. As punishment for this disobedience and sin, the Lord afflicted Uzziah with leprosy while he was still inside the temple. Leprosy made one utterly unclean to be before the presence of God in the community, let alone inside the temple! The priest were so freaked out by this that they rushed the king away. Uzziah was never healed of his leprosy, and spend the rest of his days separated from the people, living in his own house, with his son Jotham ruling in his name.

The king, however, was still beloved. And people loved the prosperity they enjoyed. The death of the King was likely viewed as a catastrophe. The end of an era of relative peace and the beginning of deep uncertainty and decline. And it is in the midst of this upheaval that Isaiah receives his vision of God.

[1] In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. (Isaiah 6:1 ESV)

I was reminded during my preparations in a sermon by RC Sproul on this very text that there is a significant irony in this verse. King Uzziah has died, and and Isaiah sees the Lord. That word, capitalized as it is in your bible, comes from the Hebrew word Adonai which means the sovereign Lord, the one who really is king. The earthly king is dead, but now the One who is sovereign over that earthly king and over every other earthly king appears! And he is elevated above everything. He is “high and lifted up,” overseeing his universal realm. King Uzziah certainly had large, ornate robes with long trains of magnificence that marked his office as king. God’s robe is of such significant size that it filled the whole temple. Isaiah is communicated to his readers, to you and me, that this Lord in this first verse is of massive authority and importance.

[2] Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. (Isaiah 6:2 ESV)

The seraphim are angels which have a fiery appearance. They stand before the throne of the Almighty. They have six wings. And each set has a purpose. Two of the wings are used to cover the eyes, because even these perfect angelic beings must protect their eyes from the stunning, white hot glory of the Lord. With two wings they cover their feet, the feet likely being a euphemism for their less noble parts. And with the remaining two wings, they flew. Angels are messengers of God. And these angels have a particular message which they now communicate to Isaiah in the vision, and to us through this Word from God. As they flew,

...One called to another and said, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:3 ESV)

Holy. Holy. Holy. You need to know something about Hebrew to understand the weight of the angelic message. When we write something, and we want to emphasize a word or a phrase or a sentence, we employ all kinds of techniques. Word processing programs make it easy to change to bold or italic typefaces for emphasis. We underline things. We add exclamation points. But written Hebrew had no punctuation. There were no typewriters or word processors. So when a Hebrew writer wanted to emphasize something, he used repetition. By far, most forms of repetition in the bible are doubles. A word or phrase is repeated. Only in very rare circumstances is a word or phrased repeated three times for superlative emphasis. Holy, holy, holy is to be heard by us as: This God is the most holy God. Holy above all else. Most holy. Beyond any holiness we can imagine. What is holiness? Holiness is otherness. To be holy means to be distinct and set apart from all impurity, sin, and uncleanness, perfectly beautiful in the splendor of this holiness. God’s holiness so pure, so bright, that even the angels must cover their eyes. And his holiness and glory are such that God’s glory fills the entirety of his creation, the earth.

This manifestation of a holy God causes even inanimate things to spontaneously quake at the announcement:

[4] And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. (Isaiah 6:4 ESV)

So here is Isaiah. What happens to him when he encounters this perfectly holy God in this astonishing throne room vision with the fiery angels around?

He realizes that he is toast. He’s convicted of his sin. God then converts Isaiah, cleansing him of his uncleanness. Finally, God consecrates Isaiah into kingdom service.

The Thrice Holy God Convicts

[5] And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5 ESV)

 When you encounter the holiness of God, this is actually the normal response. You are utterly undone. Isaiah actually uses a phrase “Woe is me!,” which in essence means in his sinful state he is accursed. He is a man of unclean lips, dwelling among a people of unclean lips. And if you know anything of the bible, you will know that that which is unclean cannot abide in the presence of the holy Lord God of hosts, and that the penalty for seeing the Lord is death. And here he is - filthy mouthed and unclean.

This is precisely the awareness that is awakened in the heart of a dead sinner when they are granted by the Holy Spirit with the gift of faith. You are given sight. For the first time, you see God for who He really is. And in the light of his holiness and glory you see who you really are. And the gap between the two is unbridgeable by you. Isaiah knew, in that moment, how serious his situation really was. He was truly lost, only worthy of destruction and doom for his impurity and his sin.  This is the reality you are awakened to when God moves. What is interesting is that you don’t ever get experience this reality if you’re an unbeliever. It doesn’t dawn on you. It really only comes to those who are awakened to the truth by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Loved ones, has the knowledge of God’s radical, world-shaking holiness ever gripped you? Have you been awaked to this reality, of God’s perfect holiness and your own wretched sinfulness? Have you ever been shaken to the core by the truth that God is real? That He is utterly holy? That He demands perfect holiness from those whom He has created? Do your realize that you are commanded to be perfect, even as He is perfect? Have you been awakened to the reality that being a good person isn’t near good enough, because the demands of the God’s just and holy law are to be kept perfectly, without any regard to your own pride and self-righteousness?

If you have, and I pray that you have, then you will realize that there is nothing you can do but cry out to God in mercy. Isaiah cried out:

“Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

What happened next?

The Thrice Holy God Converts

Isaiah was shown grace.

[6] Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. [7] And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” (Isaiah 6:6-7 ESV)

The solution to the holy, holy, holy God and sinful human gap is that God crosses over to us and purifies us. The glowing hot coal from the altar is brought by one of the seraphim. He takes it from the altar with tongs, but carries is over in his hand and touches the lips of Isaiah, burning away and cauterizing all of Isaiah’s impurity. The guilt is removed from him. And Isaiah’s sin is atoned for. And this was not the result of anything Isaiah did. This is the result of what God did for him.

And this is the gospel this morning. We were lost in sin. Utterly lost. Blind to it, even. And God the Holy Spirit descended down. You heard God’s Word for the first time as God’s Word thanks to this movement of the Holy Spirit. And you were awakened. God became real to you. And your sin made you aware of your own peril. And you cried out for mercy. And God gave it, in the person of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ. The Son of God descended from glory to live with a fallen people in a fallen world. He lived the perfect life demanded under the law on your behalf. He died the death you deserved because of your sin. This sinless One bore the full weight of God’s wrath for your sin. He bore the curse of God, and in so doing, purchased your release from bondage to sin. He freed you from the curse. And by faith in Him, your sin has been removed, washed away in your baptism, and you have been raised to new life in Christ and are now considered one of the saints. You do know what the world saint means, don’t you? It means you are now considered by God to be a “Holy One.” You have been clothed with Christ. You have been grated the perfect righteousness of Christ. It is credited to your account purely by faith, so that you have no room to boast. It was all of God. It was pure grace? And why did he do it? Because he chose you in His love for you to receive mercy and become one of the children of the living God.

And when that happens, you are freed for joyful, loving service to your Savior. You develop an itch to proclaim the glory of His grace. You are granted a servant’s heart, after the heart of the Lord, who came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.

The Thrice Holy God Consecrates

I’m not just saying that. It’s in the bible. It comes right from how Isaiah responded to the purifying grace of God.

[8] And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” (Isaiah 6:8 ESV)

Beloved, it is only the gospel that creates a heart that can serve others freely without any second guessing or need for self-approval by others. This holy God’s grace kills your pride. He slays your ambition and gives you a passion for the glory of the Holy God who saves to the uttermost.

Isaiah saw the glory of God. He recognized that he was lost. He was convicted of his sin. Isaiah then received grace and mercy in his conversion and cleansing. Finally, Isaiah was consecrated for service and eagerly volunteered to be sent by God to deliver what would be a very controversial message - that Judah was to be judged through his preaching. The hearts of many many people would be hardened in judgment, but God promised that He would preserve a remnant who would be saved by a suffering servant, the Son of God, the Messiah, the same Jesus whom has saved you.

Oh what a great, great God we have! That we would so graciously choose us and save us for Himself, making us co-heirs with His Beloved Son, Jesus. He is indeed, holy, holy, holy! Let all the saints declare His holiness and live in the light of his holiness. I leave you with this exhortation from Hebrews 12:

[12] Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, [13] and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. [14] Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:12-14 ESV)

Amen.

Given by Christopher D. Drew
at First Presbyterian Church
Beaver Creek, Minnesota
Copyright © 2015

Baptism into Death and Life

Døpefont i Nidarosdomen (ca. 1915)

Text: Romans 6:1-14

Introduction

Those of us in the Reformed theological circles believe that the sacrament of holy baptism is to be administered upon the children of believing parents as a sign of the new covenant to those born into the community of faith. Under the old covenant, this covenant sign was given in the rite of circumcision. Under the new covenant, the sign is baptism. And so we gather today to welcome Malachi into the covenant community of the faithful by this administration of this sacramental sign, trusting God through His grace working in and through Connie, Eric, and all of your, that Malachi will come to personally know, trust, and declare faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Of course one of the things that is clearly indicated by the administration of this sign to infants is that it is tangible symbol of how God’s grace works in our life. We are known and claimed by God before we are made aware of this claim. The helplessness of the infant mirrors our inability to achieve salvation under our own power.

But one of the truths about baptism is given even greater poignancy when administered to infants - that baptism in a very real way a death and burial. Before we get to the resurrection and glory, there must be a death and burial. That is a huge part of our text this afternoon, and a key to unlocking our passion for serving the Lord today.

Exposition

In our text today, Paul is answering a sharp criticism of the gospel of grace that he was known to preach. Paul himself alludes to this criticism earlier in 3:8

[8] And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. (Romans 3:8 ESV)

The allegation is that Paul was teaching what we commonly refer to as “cheap grace.” A grace that forgives sinners and let’s them basically do whatever they want. In fact, the allegation was that Paul’s preaching would enable something even worse: If God’s grace were magnified by the presence of significant sin, wouldn’t not even more sinning bring about more grace? So sin away! God’s grace will be poured out.

In fact, in the verse just precede our text, Paul writes these words:

[21] Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, [21] so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign in righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Believe it or not, this is still an issue today with many people, and it may come a surprise to you. People still criticise the gospel of grace because they believe it will lead, not to holiness, but to lawlessness. Long ago, a term was coined to describe this kind of lifestyle: Antinomianism. Anti meaning “opposed to” or “against.” Nomos is the Latin word for law. So antinomianism means anti-law. If we really are justified by faith alone in Christ, and all of our sins are washed away, past, present, and future, then we have no fear of our sin (true). All of this is true. The error of antinominism then rears its head. If it’s all forgiven anyway, then let’s have some more sin!

Like any other heretical doctrine in the church, there is just enough truth there to convince some people. God forgives us entirely by his grace. But he forgives us with a purpose, the purpose of making us like Himself, glorious in holiness.

This is attested to in several other passages in the New Testament. For example, Paul, writing to the church in Thessalonica, knew that the sexual temptations of that pagan culture loomed large. Therefore, he wrote to them:

[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. (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 ESV)

In 2 Thessalonians 2:13, Paul says:

[13] But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. (2 Thessalonians 2:13 ESV)

Did you see that? You are saved by grace and are being saved through your sanctification, the work of the Holy Spirit whereby not only are your sins washed away and not counted against you, you are progressively advancing to actually kill off sins that still beset you and actually live in holiness. Sanctification isn’t independent of our justification, our declaration in our baptisms that we are not counted guilty of our sin. Sanctification is the fruit of our justification. Holiness is the fruit of real God-given forgiveness. And holiness is commanded by God. And we have been empowered for it by Christ.

The law, which the Jews pursued with great vigor in order to be considered righteous by God, actually reveals the depth of our depravity in sin and our helplessness before a holy and just God. Everyone thought that God could be persuaded by us to grant us entrance into the kingdom. But that’s not how salvation works. Salvation is granted as a gift from a holy God to unholy, God-hating sinners who, when they are shown just how bad their situation is, and just how costly it was God Jesus to grant them forgiveness. And then, out of love and adoration of that Savior, the newborn Christians strives to live a life of holiness totally for His glory. If you do not understand that basic distinction between the function of the law and the function of grace, then you do not really understand what the gospel is about and what baptism really represents.

And even if we know this to be true, we sometimes forget. We need a reminder. The Romans needed a reminder, as well. And so that is what Paul gives them. He reminds them of the centrality of the gospel of grace by reminding them of what? Baptism.

Remember what 5:20 read:

[20] Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, (Romans 5:20 ESV)

So then, Paul, you think it’s okay then to do whatever we want. Right? Right?

Wrong!

[1] What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? [2] By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? (Romans 6:1-2 ESV)

Paul answers the objection of his Jewish opponents head on, suing the strongest possible objection “By no means!” And then he says how can anyone who is dead to sin still live in it? To be dead to sin means that sin has no power over you any more. He’s stating here that sin, for the Christian, should be impossible.

And then Paul says:

[3] Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? (Romans 6:3 ESV)

That is a huge statement. When the sacrament of Holy Baptism is administered in a few moments, I want each of you to be thinking of these words. When we are baptized, we are baptized into the death of Christ. That is why the death represented in baptism is so crucial. Our death in Christ’s death is a death to sin. When that happens, sin loses its ability to enslave us. Before we have faith, sin is, for all practical purposes, our owner. But if we have truly died with Christ, we have died to sin. It perished with Jesus when he was crucified.

[4] We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4 ESV)

Having become dead to sin in baptism, we are raised from the dead, the world of sin which brings death, and are granted to walk “in newness of life.” The old life, characterized by slavery to sin, is gone forever. Wiped away by God’s grace.  We are now, in that grace, inexorably united with our Savior.

[5] For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. [6] We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. [7] For one who has died has been set free from sin. [8] Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. [9] We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. [10] For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. [11] So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:5-11 ESV)

So let’s sum up what this text is telling us about baptism. It represents:

• Our death to sin (which is equated with freedom from slavery to sin)
• Union with Christ.
• Our adoption into the Father’s household.
• Hope for the future.
• Eternal life with God.

Application

There is also a command in our text, a command to live in accordance with this new nature we enjoy in union with Christ of King:

[12] Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. [13] Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. [14] For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:12-14 ESV)

And so Paul fully and finally answers the objection that grace means lawlessness. No. Grace means freedom from our old master, sin, and newness of life in joyful compliance with our new master, whose name is “The Lord is Our Righteousness” (Jeremiah 33:15). Gospel freedom doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want. It means that increasingly what you want will be in full accord with what God intends for you, your holiness.

So as you witness this baptism this afternoon, I beg you to please reflect on the reality of your own baptism and everything that baptism signifies. When tempted to sin, remember that you are dead to sin by the grace of your baptism. Think of this as a great mental check on temptation. You’re sitting in front of the computer. You see an ad. You are tempted to sin. At that moment, discipline you mind. “I am dead to this because of my baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection.” When you heard a rumor and are tempted to share it. “I’m dead to this because of my baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection.” I will show my love for the Savior through my desire to honor Him by living for Him in Holiness. As you parent your baptized children, parent them in the grace you have received in baptism, and raise up your children in the knowledge of that grace. Preach this gospel to them, trusting that the Holy Spirit will grant to your children the true freedom offered by Jesus.  As the writer of the Hebrews said in 12:14:

[14] Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14 ESV)

You are not your own. You were bought with a price. Baptism shows this. Glorify God in your body. Commit yourself to live in the light of your baptism, so that God may be glorified. As Paul says, you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus [6:11].

Amen.

Given by Christopher D. Drew
at Salem Lutheran Church
on the occasion of the baptism of Malachi Dennis Hullstrom
Jackson, Minnesota
Copyright © 2015

Matthew #17: You Are Salt and Light

Sermon Text: Matthew 5:13-16

Introductory Comments

The Sermon on the Mount moves now from the beatitudes, which we finished last week, to a couple of clear declarations by Jesus about who the disciples are. Disciples of Jesus are salt, and they are light. We should note that Jesus does not say that the disciples should be salt and light, or ought to be salt and light. Disciples are both these things. So the big questions you need to ask yourself, the question that stands over this text for all disciples of Jesus, including me, is this: Am I living as the kind of person I actually am in Jesus Christ, or am I not? Let that question settle in your minds as we begin to unpack each of these terms.

One of the things Jesus is very, very good at is using the most familiar things to illustrate eternally important truths about who humans are, and in his case who his disciples are.

Disciples Are Seasoners

Let’s begin with verse 13:

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

Several years ago there was a trend in the publishing business where writers would present histories of commodities, things like gold, coffee, sugar, and such. I happened to buy one of these books, a very interesting book called “Salt: A World History” by Mark Kurlansky. You might be thinking: What on earth could be so interesting about the stuff that we sprinkle on our food using little shakers or packets to give food some ping? Salt merits a “world history?” In fact, it really does, and the short little book makes the case very well. Did you know, for example, that there were times in human history when salt was worth more than gold by weight? More than just a seasoning for food, salt was at times a medium of exchange (money). It’s used as a preservative. The phrase, “that person is worth their salt” refers to a time when salt was actually used to pay salaries, a word that is derived from the word salt.

Beyond its uses in the world, salt is essential to human life. If you sodium levels get too low in your body, a condition known as hyponatremia, you might suffer from nausea, confusion, fatigue, muscle weakness or cramps, even seizures. That is why products like sports drinks contain salts. If you work out and just drink a bunch of water, you might dilute the salt content of your body too much, and so these drinks include salts to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

So salt is critically important for a variety of reasons. We may take it for granted, but salt is an essential element of flourishing human life.

This means that Jesus is making a very important statement about the disciples. When he calls them “the salt of the earth,” he is telling them that they, like salt, are an essential component of human life and flourishing. That has radical implications for those of us who are disciples of Jesus Christ. We are granted, by virtue of our discipleship, an extremely important position in the world. Dale Bruner thinks referring to the disciples as salt means that Jesus, “is very fond of us."¹

When Jesus says, “you are” that is a plural you. The disciples are the salt of the earth. Because he is referring to the disciples as an assembled group this scripture today refers to the church. The church collectively, and individually, has a high calling by Jesus. You all are of critical importance to the world. The world might view the church as a relic of a bygone era, but Jesus has established it as the means of human flourishing for the world.

Salt, as I’ve said, has lots of applications. For example, salt seasons food that is bland and tasteless. Disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ are the seasoning that gives flavor to bland and tasteless lives. At the conclusion to his letter, Paul gives the Colossians directions about how to behave toward those who are outside the faith. Colossians 4:5-6 says

Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Do you know anybody who has ever complained that they just can’t find meaning in their lives, or that their lives are boring? This isn’t the case with the Christian, who has been made eternally alive in Christ and who has a passion to bring that same vibrancy of life to others. That is what it means to be salt. To be salt of the earth means that Christians have a global calling to be the salt that brings flavor to tasteless lives.

Jesus knows what he’s doing when he equates his disciples with the incredibly valuable commodity of salt. Being the salt of the earth is way more than just doing good things for people, being salt brings life to people. A human being will die without adequate salt in the body. Similarly, people will suffer eternal death unless the church is what our Lord says she is, the salt of the earth, the means of sustaining eternal life in people that would otherwise only know eternal destruction. To be the salt of the earth means to bring the message of salvation and hope and joy to those who don’t know where to find them, who are lost apart from the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is clear what happens if we don’t live as the people we are created to be. If we aren’t salt of the earth, if we say that we are followers of Jesus and yet do not live as the salt of the earth, then we are, as Jesus says, “no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” It is when we do not live as the people we are that we become useless in the world. The church today struggles to find meaning and relevancy in the world. It would do better to remember what it already is, salt of the earth. This truth should permeate our own church and our own lives. If we are the salt of the earth, then life will not be boring for us. Bruner speaks truth when he says, “Salt does not exist in itself.” Salt is useless if it just sits there. If we are not living as the salt of the earth, the earth will simply not be interested in the church at all.

You Are the Light of the World

Jesus now uses another metaphor to call his disciples into action, in Matthew 5:14-16

“[14] You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. [15] Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. [16] In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Our Lord Jesus also declares that his disciples “are the light of the world.” We were warned about uselessness in the previous verse, but now Jesus grants to us the assurance that, if we are truly his disciples, we will be put to kingdom use.² We are the light of the world. And the one who is the source of that light won’t hide it under a basket, but will place that light high up on a stand, where its rays might shine to the greatest extent.

God did not save you and then forget about you. He saved you for a purpose that is outside of yourself.

Our Light Is A Reflection of Jesus’ Glory

As the light of the world, we are to let our light shine, unbounded by constraints or worries about what others might think, so that when the world sees us and the good things we were saved to do, they will desire to give glory to the Father. When people look at the church, at any local congregation of believers, we should not be surprised, but rather hope that they ask some questions: “What is with these people? They are doing good things, but they’re not seeking credit for them. They don’t seem to care if nobody notices the good things they do? What’s up with that?”

Earlier this year, Sara and I attended a conference on Missions held in Minneapolis. There were several pre-conference talks on the schedule, and since we live in Minnesota we arrived early and were able to take in several of these presentations.

One of the first presentations was by a man named Jeff Vanderstelt who is big into missional communities and their role in planting new churches. Every member of Jeff’s church has to make a firm commitment to mission in his or her lives and have to plan how that is going to happen.

One day, Jeff and his fellows were meeting with a married couple that stated that they wanted to be salt and light in their communities, but then some reasons came out for why this wouldn’t be possible. The husband was a full-time student, and the wife worked to support the family and their three children.  The woman, in particular, had concerns that in order to be effective in mission, she would need to quit her job and become a stay-at-home mom of three.  There just wasn’t space in the schedule to participate in most of the mission activities of the community.

In response, Jeff and the group with asked the question: What would it take to allow you to quit your job, become a stay at home mom, and do the work of mission for the glory of Christ?

The mom looked back, wondering what was up. “What do you mean?” she asked. “We mean, how much money would it take to allow you to quit your work and take up a mission opportunity for Jesus.” The woman couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She told them what it would take. Immediately, the people in attendance make concrete financial commitments until the total number was achieved. Then they gave her the money.

What happened next is very interesting. This woman began telling others about how this amazing thing had happened, that her church friends had secured a way for her financially to throw herself more deeply into the mission of the church. People were happy, and wanted to know how such a thing was possible. When she told them what happened, there were lots of quizzical responses, especially from nonbelievers. They wanted to know why anyone would part with their own financial resources to allow someone else to quit their job and take on a life of mission for Jesus. All of those questions allowed the woman to tell them about Jesus, about how Jesus Christ produces people with these capabilities and capacities and empowers them to serve him.

Jeff Vanderstelt concluded this story by saying that is how others should see our lives. If we are salt and light, people will wonder what on earth is going on. What is with these people? What makes them tick? Why do they do the things they do? The only answer that makes sense is that it is the gospel that makes these kinds of people. It is Jesus who calls people from dead, tasteless lives and saves them, through his sacrificial death on a cross, and then gives them a commission and empowers it with the Holy Spirit so that we can be his missionaries, proclaiming his word and showing his love to a broken down, bland world shrouded in darkness. Disciples are salt and light, and live in such a way that the only answer for why they live together and love each other as they do is because of what Jesus has done for them.

A big, big problem for the church today is that people, when they see the church, too often see a pale image of the bland, dark world they already live in. The answer isn’t to work harder or to promote ourselves more. The answer is to remember what we already are in Jesus Christ.

Believers, disciples, followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, you are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You don’t need wonder about this, because your Lord has established this truth by his own word. Maybe you’re wondering what the next step it. Let’s talk about that. There are so many ways God can make use of your in your roles as salt bearers and light bringers. You are already qualified for the work because you believe in Jesus and have the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Christian discipleship all about becoming what you already are. That means you are free to take some risks. You’re free to walk away from a job, free to turn off the TV, go outside and tell someone about Jesus without fear. You’re free to volunteer in one of the church’s helping ministries. You’re free to teach children about the bible. You’re free to stand up here on a Sunday to help lead the worship of our God and King. You’re free to prepare and deliver food to saints and others who have need. You’re free to give generously to the ministry and mission of the church. You’re free to sponsor a child through World Vision or a similar ministry. You are after all, salt and light. You were made to bring zest and flavor to the lives of others. You were made to reflect the very glory of God to others. You were saved for this. Let’s get to it. Amen.

¹Bruner, Frederick Dale. Matthew: A Commentary. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub., 2007. 188.
²Ibid.

Given at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Minnesota
December 4, 2011
2nd Sunday in Advent
Copyright © 2011 by Christopher Donald Drew

Matthew #16: Blessed Are the Persecuted Ones

Scripture Text: Matthew 5:10-12

Introductory Comments

This week, while so many in our country were enjoying Thanksgiving and shopping, great blessings of liberty granted by to us as undeserved gifts from God, I spent some time in preparation for this sermon looking through news stories posted at a website of the organization “The Voice of the Martyrs” (at www.persecution.org). Before I share them, I want to let you know that these difficult stories are not something we are used to hearing. But I think we need to hear them, because Christians globally are part of the same body. 1 Corinthians 12:26 says, “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” When a member of the body of Christ is persecuted, we ought to know about it.

Kenya - Last Saturday, Nov. 5, suspected extremists sympathetic to al-Shabab threw a grenade into a church elder’s home outside Garissa, Kenya, killing 8-year-old Winnie Mwenda Mutinda and 25-year-old John Kikavu. Three others in the house were seriously injured. The church’s pastor, Ibrahim Makunyi Kamwaro, told Compass Direct News that the three injured Christians are now in stable condition after undergoing treatment. … Despite the threats and attack, the church continued its worship service the next day.¹

Burma - A young Christian in Myanmar was forced to choose between faith and family recently when her relatives demanded that she recant her faith. On Sept. 19, 2011, 21-year-old Ying was preparing to leave for classes at an underground seminary when her relatives locked her in the house. They threatened to disown her, beat her and withdraw support — including food — if she continued to attend seminary or church. In addition, they threatened to send her to a remote village with no known Christians if she did not recant her faith. Instead of giving in to their demands, Ying ran away from home and left her family behind²

Nigeria – Muslim extremists carried out new attacks on villages in Nigeria’s Plateau state in September, killing more than 100 Christians, including entire families, according to Compass Direct News.³

China – In another example of the ongoing crackdown against house churches in China, house church pastor Shi Enhao was sentenced to two years in a labor camp last month. Pastor Shi, who serves as deputy chairman of the Chinese House Church Alliance, was charged with “illegal meetings and illegal organizing of venues for religious meetings.” The charges stem from the fact that Pastor Shi’s house church of several thousand meets in different sites around Suqian city.⁴

The website has page after page of news alerts and updates from across the globe. Some of the stories are much more violent that the sample I’ve chosen. You may also remember, from an earlier sermon, my mention of Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani who still, as far as we know, continues to languish in an Iranian prison cell under a death sentence, separated from his family, for the crime following Christ. The much-lauded, so-called “Arab Spring” in places like Egypt and Libya has, tragically, often brought more rather than less persecution upon disciples of our Lord Jesus.

This week, my wife Sara lent me her copy of a novel entitled Safely Home by Randy Alcorn, strongly encouraging me to read it. The novel is about the extreme persecution of Christians in China. While a work of fiction, the novel nonetheless includes accounts of actual persecutions in that country – persecutions that are never known about or reported because of media lockdowns in that country, and because of our country’s willingness to turn a blind eye to these things for the sake of tapping into the explosive economic growth in that country – growth that is, among other things, supported through the deployment of prisoners as slave laborers.

It is interesting to me, then, that on this first Sunday of Advent God would, in his providence, give us this text from Matthew for the sermon. Traditionally, the first Sunday in Advent is devoted, not to the first, but to the second coming of our Lord Jesus, the final Advent when he will come in final judgment, bringing eternal punishment for those who reject him and eternal vindication for those millions of Christians who, because they do not enjoy the religious liberties like those of our own country, suffer intensive persecution for the sake of their faith in Jesus Christ, Lord and King of all the nations.

One Beatitude? Or Two?

Our text is frequently counted as two separate beatitudes, but many scholars believe verse 11 to be a flushing out of the beatitude in verse 10. And as I have read and prepared for this sermon, I lean toward this interpretation. Why? The two verses are very similar. Both speak of persecution. Both speak of blessing and reward for suffering persecution. It seems clear, however, that verse 11 answers three questions about verse 10: First, what is the persecution Jesus is speaking about? Second, what is the “righteousness” which incites the persecution? Third, who are the ones being persecuted?

What Kind of Persecution?

In verse 10, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The blessing is limited in scope to those who are persecuted. What kind of persecution is this? The answer, I believe, is given in verse 11: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”

To be persecuted is to be reviled by others, which means being criticized in a deeply angry, insulting way. These persecuted ones are people against whom all kinds of evil are charged, falsely. One of the earliest examples of persecution in the ancient church was the false charge that Christians engaged in ritual cannibalism. This was probably the result of misunderstanding what was happening at the Lord’s Supper and references to the body and blood of Jesus. Christians were also accused of atheism, which may seem very strange, but the source of the charge was the Christian refusal to worship the state-sanctioned gods of the Roman Empire. Any such refusal was considered to be a declaration that the gods did not exist, when in fact Christians were worshiping the only God in existence. Many suspected that ancient Christians were immoral libertines, engaging in incest and orgies. We live today in an almost 180-degree environment, where orthodox Christian are now maligned for holding to old-fashion, fuddy-duddy sexual ethics, which happen to be biblical, while false idol of sexual libertinism is now celebrated by the world.

What Is the Righteousness that Incites the Persecution?

Persecution will come, says Jesus, for “righteousness’ sake.” What is this righteousness that incites persecution? What kinds of pursuits are righteous? We can only know of righteousness through God’s revealed will for us in the Scriptures. Christians need to be lovers of God’s Word, but they need to know that adhering to the Word as truth will bring persecution. We guard ourselves against false piety and false interpretation by consulting the Word with other faithful, orthodox believers.⁵

But something deeper can be said to answer this question from verse 11. In verse 10, those who are persecuted are persecuted for “righteousness’ sake.” I think Jesus tells us what this means in verse 11. There, he makes things very personal.

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”

The “those” in verse 10 are called “you” in verse 11. The “you” in verse 11 is explicitly the disciples, and in this reading today that includes all of you who are disciples of Christ. You will be reviled, persecuted, and evilly slandered because of your relationship to Him, Jesus. Jesus says this persecution will come “on my account.” This is really why I think there is a linkage between verses 10 and 11. We know from the bible that no one, including Christians possesses any righteousness in themselves. Paul, in Romans 3:10, quotes the psalmist when he writes

as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.

So what is the righteousness that is pursued and, as a result of being pursued, brings persecution? It is the righteousness that is Jesus Christ. Paul explains this in 1 Corinthians 1:30:

And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Christ is our righteousness. Christ is our righteousness because we do not have any righteousness of our own. This is the essence of the gospel. If you acknowledge before God your sin, confess it, and acknowledge that Jesus is Lord and your only hope of righteousness, you are saved. The reason you are saved is that by faith in Jesus, His righteousness is imputed to you, it is credited to your account and you are totally free from condemnation for sin.

But it is this very relationship to Jesus as Lord that will invite persecution. The implications are huge: Persecution is a marker of being a disciple. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you will be persecuted for it. Why? Because if you are a follower of Jesus, and not just a fan, everything else in life takes second place. If Jesus is the object of your love and affection and loyalty, that means your nation isn’t, and that will invite persecution. If Jesus is your first love, that means your families are not, and that will invite persecution (remember the daughter who ran away from her home?). If Jesus is your love, then his Word, his commandments and expectations will always come first, and not those of the world, and that will invite persecution. If Jesus is your highest treasure, that means other gods and religions and spiritualities are not, and that will invite persecution. This has always been the case.

Bruner remarks that "Christians are only supposed to get into trouble for the right reasons."⁶ Jesus is the right reason.

My Desire for Our Church

One of the reasons I opened with the stories of persecution is that I wanted to awaken in you a desire to stand with those who are persecuted. This is the responsibility, I think, of those who enjoy a much greater degree of freedom to worship than many millions of our brothers and sisters. I desire us to be a people who, while not persecuted, have the passion for Christ of the persecuted, the compassion of the persecuted, the drive of the persecuted, the perseverance of faith of the persecuted, the risky lives of the persecuted, the audacity of the persecuted. My hope is that God will use the promise of this blessing in this message to set all of us free from our complacency and our need to live in constant comfort and with approval from others to live for the approval of the only One in the universe whose approval actually matters, Jesus Christ.

I want to remind you of the promise of Jesus of the great rewards that await those who are faithful amid persecution. The rewards for those women and men are amazing. We ought to rejoice that God has created such people, people whose faithfulness to Christ has ignited gospel revival. May we also receive such grace.

Our Response for Those Persecuted

What can we who do not routinely experience extreme persecution to do in solidarity with persecuted brothers and sisters do? There are several things.

First, we should always remember persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ in our prayers. We should pray for their safety, for the perseverance of their faith, for their families, that beatings and torture will not weaken but actually strengthen their faith, and for the continued spread of the good news of the gospel.

Second, in many countries there is a shocking shortage of bibles. One of the paramount pleas of the persecuted, underground churches is for copies of God’s living Word. We have so many bibles sitting on shelves here in the United States. Perhaps someone could organize a drive to get bibles to brothers and sisters who are starving for God’s Word.

Third, and this is from our text, we ought to rejoice! We need to sing God’s praises for his power and might in creating such faith in the hearts of the persecuted. As we look over the lists of those who are martyred for the faith, even as the tears may flow, sing praises to God for faith and for faith’s reward, the eternal inheritance of the kingdom of God for those who are in Christ Jesus.

And on this first Sunday in Advent, let’s us pray that the second coming of our Lord might come soon. The writer of Hebrews had this to say to his listeners:

But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners [we are those partners today] with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For,

“Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back,my soul has no pleasure in him.”

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. (Hebrews 10:32-39 ESV)

Our Lord Jesus Christ said:

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:10-12 ESV)

Rejoice and be glad, brothers and sisters. Lord Jesus, come soon! Amen.

¹http://www.persecution.com/public/newsroom.aspx?story_ID=NDQ1
²http://www.persecution.com/public/newsroom.aspx?story_ID=NDMy
³http://www.persecution.com/public/newsroom.aspx?story_ID=NDMw
⁴http://www.persecution.com/public/newsroom.aspx?story_ID=NDA3
⁵Bruner, Frederick Dale. Matthew: A Commentary. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub., 2007. 181.
⁶Ibid.

Given at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Minnesota
November 27, 2011
First Sunday in Advent
Copyright © 2011 by Christopher Donald Drew

Matthew #15: Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Sermon Text: Matthew 5:9

Introductory Comments

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

You could not get through this past week, I think, without concluding that the world needs more peacemakers. We’ve got multiple wars going on, families have disintegrated, our politics are deeply conflicted. We recently learned about the horrible crimes committed, aided, and abetted at the Penn State, as clear a demonstration as I could think of that our culture has a deeply confused, even missing sense of what is fundamentally right and wrong. This kind of moral confusion has even made its way into the churches, as it often does, introducing conflicts in the one institution where we are called upon by our sovereign Lord to be a people of peace, and who said to his disciples in John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

So it should come as a great assurance to us that God is a God of peace, and that he grants peace to those who believe in the Son, Jesus Christ. And it should not come as a surprise that those who God calls to be peacemakers should be richly blessed by our Lord in today’s text.

But what is this peace that is behind Jesus’ blessing of the peacemakers?

Biblical Peace Is Comprehensive in Scope

The word “peace” has a much broader meaning than the contemporary meaning. The word your English bible translates “peacemakers” is derived from the Greek word for peace, a word that is commonly used to translate the Hebrew word shalom, a word you might be familiar with. This peace, biblical peace, is not just an inner peace experienced by individuals. Neither is this a peace that is simply the absences of all conflict or war. I’m reminded of that funny scene in the Sandra Bullock movie “Miss Congeniality” where she plays a character who goes undercover as a beauty pageant contestant in order to foil a bomb plot against the pageant. During the Q & A part of the pageant, each candidate comes up and dutifully tells the audience what they think is the single most important thing the world needs. “World peace.” Bullock’s character takes the microphone and answers the question, “What is the single most important thing the world needs this way, “That would he harsher punishment for parole violators, Stan.” Crickets. Anticipation. Disbelief from pageant watchers everywhere, until Bullock’s character continues by restating the mantra “… AND, world peace.”

The biblical view of peace, or shalom, is very broad. Bruner defines it as “a situation of comprehensive welfare,” and I think that’s a pretty good definition.¹ Biblical peacemakers are concerned with far more than their own sense of inner calm, or ensuring that there’s no violence exhibited anywhere on earth. Those two things are both good and important, but I think they are actually products of the peace the bible speaks about. Biblical peace is a situation where everyone in the community lives in a just relationship with everyone else. What does such a peace look like? I think such a biblical peace would be like that which was present in the Garden of Eden before the fall of Adam. The man and the woman were at peace with God, they were at peace with each other, and they were at peace with the creation. Everything was in proper relationship with everything else.

What Happened to Shalom?

But the fall of Adam destroyed that shalom, and the result has been a broken world where disaster is commonplace. After Eve and Adam ate the fruit of the tree from which the Lord commanded that they not eat, God confronts fallen humanity with these words in Genesis 3:16-19:

To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

In this passage, you can see how the sin, which began with an individual deception, resulted in something much larger. The one-flesh union of the man and the woman is embroiled with conflict. The earth is cursed. Death came to be because of human sin. This first sin, like all sins, had communal consequences and cosmological consequences, because sin is, first and foremost, a rebellion against God.

So we live world that is not just filled with fallen sinners, but the world itself is a fallen place. We don’t live in peace with anything. We are constantly butting heads with people, exhibiting prejudice and malice toward others who think differently from us, and we suffer the tragedies of a fallen creation. The shalom which was intended by God for humans from the beginning of creation was shattered by our sin. And because we have inherited that sin, we are all, individually and collectively, responsible for the marring of shalom, of God’s peace, today.

What Do the Peacemakers Do?

The bible teaches us that it is God’s desire, shown first to us in Christ, is to restore shalom in His creation. And so, people who answer the call to work for this kind of world are granted blessing by our Lord Jesus Christ. What to peacemakers do? They work to bring restoration to the relationships disrupted because of our sin. Peacemakers live in such a way as will bring about (1) restoration of people to a right, just relationship with God, (2) with each other.

Restoring Right Relationships with God

To restore a right relationship with God is to do the work of evangelism with people everywhere. Jesus commands the following at the close of this gospel:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:16-20).

To make disciples means proclaiming the good news of the gospel of Jesus so that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, sinners might be gathered into God’s kingdom. True peace is only possible if there is peace between God and human beings. Such a thing is possible in Christ, who suffered the penalty that was due to us for our sin so that we might know the peace of being right with God, of having no fear of judgment at all for any sin we have, are, or will commit. Having a right relationship with God is essential for the establishment of shalom on earth. People who do not have a right relationship with God in Christ will not know the kind of peacemaking that is at the core of this blessing. Peace with God comes at great cost, the cost of the life of his precious Son. Having been granted such a gift frees us from worry and fear, and enables and empowers our own peacemaking work. To say that an evangelist is a peacemaker may seem unusual, but I think it is true. Evangelists are all about proclaiming the message that Holy Spirit uses to bring people to God through the sacrifice of his Son. By working to bring people to faith in Christ, God’s kingdom shalom breaks further into the world. Paul, writing to the Romans, says this in Chapter 5:1

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Those called and claimed by faith in Jesus have the absolute, rock-solid assurance of salvation at the Last Judgment, and therefore know true peace.

Promotion of Social Righteousness

One of the great ends of the church, as stated in our constitution, is the “promotion of social righteousness.” What does this mean? It means to have a passionate concern for injustice in the church and in our society. Peacemakers come to the aid of those who are victims of unjust relationships between people. They have a passion for the poor, the destitute, the emotionally shattered, and the physically abused. Peacemakers work to bridge gaps between hostile groups, as God has reconciled us to Himself through the blood of Christ. Listen to these words from Ephesians 2:13-16:

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

Those “who once were far off” refers to the Gentiles, to those who were not of the tribe of Israel. With Christ and his perfect fulfillment of the law, all of the barriers of the law that formerly distinguished between these groups were broken down so that there would be one people from all the nations of the world. What is the root of this new reconciling work? Jesus. “For he himself is our peace.” Because salvation in Jesus can be found no matter what your race, nationality, or economic background, there can be true peace between people. This knowledge empowers the peacemaker for the work and the calling of bringing people together. So peacemakers work on the sinful barriers that separate people today – racism, poverty, hunger, thirst, violence, abuse – all of these things sinfully separate people from one another. Peacemakers work to bring people together, as God reconciles has reconciled sinners through the cross. They put themselves out there for the most helpless in our society, the disabled, the unborn, the unwanted. They are empowered to do this work by the Holy Spirit, and when this happens, God’s peace continues to grow and flourish in the world.

Exhortation

The hope of the gospel is the hope of those who do not, at present, know any kind of peace. This shalom peace is to be first demonstrated to the world by the church, with the promise that it will ultimately be fulfilled when Christ comes to redeem the whole creation, the whole cosmos, according to this plans for permanent, eternal peace and joy.

People who have been reconciled to God through Christ and given the gift of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit do not have the luxury of pawning off the responsibilities of peacemaking to others. Pastors can’t pawn it off on members, and members can’t pawn it off on pastors, and churches can’t pawn it off by simply writing checks. Christians who have been so graciously grafted into the kingdom of peace in Christ will, over time, grow in their peacemaking ability and engagement.

The Blessing – To Be Called Sons of God

The blessing for peacemakers is that they will be “called sons of God.” People who do this kind of work will be blessed by becoming adopted joint heirs with the naturally born Son of God, Jesus. To be “called” sons of God does not mean simply having a title, it means you are “called” as in “brought in to the divine family.” You are granted a seat at God’s table in the Kingdom of Heaven. Some people, when texts like this are read, might mistakenly believe this blessing is only for men, but this would be totally wrong. What this means is that for all who are peacemakers, male or female, will be treated as “sons” of God, meaning they will be joint recipients of a divine inheritance granted to Christ for his victory over sin and Death. Those joined to Christ, who do the work of peacemaking, will receive everything Jesus has received from his heavenly Father, which is nothing less than the kingdom of God:

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ (Matthew 25:34-40 ESV)

All our peacemaking activities must be conducted as if we were serving our Lord Himself. You cannot love Jesus without loving those whom he calls “least of these my brothers.” To claim that you love Jesus and then to ignore totally the injustices of society is total hypocrisy.

Notice that those who engage in Godly peacemaking do so almost without noticing it. That’s how you know God is at work in you. You’ll be surprised at your generosity with the poor and stranger. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Amen.

¹Bruner, Frederick Dale. Matthew: A Commentary. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub., 2007. 177.

Given at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Minnsota
November 13, 2011
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Copyright © 2011 by Christopher Donald Drew

Matthew 14: Blessed Are the Pure in Heart

Sermon Text - Matthew 5:8

Introductory Comments

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

The beatitudes continue this week with Jesus giving his blessing to people who are pure in heart. The blessing they receive is “they shall see God.” We need to address the same fundamental questions here that we have with the other beatitudes: What does it mean to be “pure in heart” and what is the nature of the blessing? As we do this, we’ll see the thing in this beatitude that will shape much of the way Jesus will later speak to the religious leaders of his day, the Pharisees and scribes. I conclude this is the case because Jesus does not say to those listening, “blessed are the pure.” Instead, he says, “blessed are the pure in heart.” The difference between those phrases explains almost the entirety of Jesus’ ministry in Matthew and is behind his confrontations with the religious leaders of his day – the Pharisees and scribes.

Jesus Desires Purity of the Heart – Not External Appearances

The first thing we can conclude from this text is that Jesus considers purity of the heart to be of critical importance. What does this mean to be pure “in the heart?” In Hebrew thinking, the heart includes the entirety of a person’s core, and it includes the totality of a person’s mind (and its thoughts), emotions, and will.¹ So when Jesus blesses these people, he’s talking about the purity of everything that is at the center of a human being. The heart is the thing that makes a human tick. What do we know about this heart? We know two main things:

The first thing we know about the human heart is that it is corrupted by sin. That is, our minds, our thoughts, our feelings and emotions, and our wills are not as they should be. The prophet Jeremiah testifies to this truth when he wrote this about the human heart (chapter 17:9):

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

The reason the human heart has been corrupted by sin is because of the sin of Adam. As children of Adam, we are born with corrupt hearts that have a predisposition for evil and rebellion. It is deceitful about all things. The biggest liar you will encounter in life is the human heart. It is desperately sick, which means it is beyond health and restoration. The heart, in other words, needs rescue. It needs to be shocked in order to be restored to proper function.

The second thing we know about our hearts is that God knows their complete contents. God always know every detail of our spiritual condition. We know this because of what God says next in Jeremiah (17:10):

“I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”

We will see several times in this gospel that Jesus knows what is going on in our hearts at all times.

This text from Jeremiah also shows us the third thing we know about our hearts: The state of our hearts determines how we live. God knows the contents of our heart, and has promised to search them out thoroughly in order to administer true justice. But notice this: The Lord tests the hearts on the basis of what? It’s on the basis of a person’s “ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” There is a deep connection between the contents of the heart and what a person does.

Jesus knows this too, which is why his concern in his ministry was the purity of the human heart. He didn’t really care much for the outward appearance of righteousness. For example, later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will address the topic of adultery in Matthew 5:27-28. Here is what he says:

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Think about that for a minute. You can live your entire life without committing the outward act of adultery, and Jesus says that isn’t sufficient evidence of purity. If a man looks at a woman with lustful intent, you have already committed adultery with her in the heart. The heart is the issue. The lack of physical adultery isn’t evidence of righteousness at all. This same principle can be applied in other ways. You may never actually take something that belongs to someone else, but you may think ill of your neighbor for having something you think you deserve. That’s called coveting. It’s an inordinate desire in the heart for something that isn’t yours.

In fact, Jesus will really go after the Pharisees on this issue. The Pharisees were very big on external performance and demonstrations of righteousness. To this, Jesus says, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 6:1). There is no reward in heaven if you perform a deed of righteousness in front of others so that they can see how good you are! Jesus then immediately applies principle this in the case of gifts to the needy (6:2-4) and the loud, public prayers said at the street corners (6:5-6).

If we skip even further ahead to Matthew 25:25-28, we read these woes (woes are the opposite of blessings):

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. 

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

The point from this beatitude and from this gospel could not be clearer: Jesus is infinitely more concerned about the purity of your heart rather than your outward performance of deeds of righteousness for the sake of appearance. You can play a good game and have your name lauded in the newspaper, you can have perfect worship attendance and a perfect tithing record, but God’s concern is this – What is the condition of your heart?

For the Christians, the ethical demand in this blessing is purity of heart. But in our sinful condition, the condition so clearly identified by Jeremiah, how can anyone be pure in this way, such that they can see God? The answer is: No human can do this of his or her own will, especially since the human will itself is corrupt. Something must break into that broken human heart so that it even has a chance at the kind of purity that results in the blessing promised here by Jesus.

The pure in heart have to be made that way by the power of God. Those who are so blessed have been granted a purity that must come from God, because we lack any competency for purity because of the sin dwelling within us. King David sinned by committing adultery with Bathsheba, an act that resulted in a pregnancy that he then tried to cover up in ways that resulted in the death of Bathsheba’s husband. He was confronted by the prophet Nathan about this sin. One of the outcomes from this story was the famous penitential Psalm number 51, which David wrote when his sin was exposed. What did David pray for? He prayed for a clean, pure heart (Ps 51:7-10):

Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

What does God delight in? Truth in the inward being. David knows that the only chance he has for true forgiveness for everything he has done is if God, in his mercy, creates a clean, pure heart within him.

That is our only hope as well. Our only hope for a pure heart and for the blessing of this beatitude is if God grants his purity to us. The good news, the gospel, is that he has provided the means by which we can have pure hearts. He has done this great thing through the person and work of his Son Jesus. By faith in Jesus, all of the brokenness and impurity and sin that has marred your heart, your will, your emotions, your mind, the core of what is you, is washed away by His blood. What God sees in your heart, then, is not your sin, which is forgiven, but Jesus’ purity and spotlessness. That then frees you from immobilizing fear so that you can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, be obedient to Christ out of love.

Moreover, when God performs this miracle in the human heart, he also grants the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, who then begins the work of refining your heart so that it becomes more and more like the heart of Jesus. And that process doesn’t stop until you die or the Lord comes in glory. Acts 15:9 says,

...and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.

The cleaning of the heart is granted by God by the means of faith in His Son, Jesus.²

The Blessing – Seeing God

What about the blessing given to those who are pure in heart, to see God? I want to give you a just a few texts in the bible so that you can see just how stunning this blessing is. It is stunning because, apart from Christ, seeing God isn’t possible.

Back in Exodus 33, as he makes intercession on behalf of the rebellious Hebrews, Moses asks God for a huge blessing: To see his God’s glory. In response, this is what God said (Exodus 33:19-20):

“I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”

Not even as dedicated a servant as Moses is granted the blessing of seeing God’s face. Nobody can. When Isaiah, in Isaiah 6:1, sees the Lord sitting on the throne, he cries out “Woe is me!” This should probably be heard like the cry of someone condemned to death. Isaiah has no wings to cover his face, as the seraphim attending the Lord did. And so he says, “For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

God’s perfect sinless purity and holiness lays bare every single sin of every single person and exposes it to the universe for all to see. In the light of God’s sovereign judgment for sin, there is absolutely nowhere to hide. Isaiah knows this, and cries out in great fear and terror. The corrupt heart cannot withstand God’s perfect holiness.

But God, in his great mercy, has decreed that there will be those who by faith will believe in Jesus Christ and his purity. And so they will get to see God.

Those who are called to believe will be in God’s presence. They will see him in all of his splendor and majesty directly. We are granted this blessing partially now, because Christ, the Christ of the Scriptures, is the very “image of the invisible God” (as Paul says in Col 1:15). Later, in Col 2:9, we learn that “In him,” Jesus, “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” If you have faith in Jesus, you already are enjoying this blessing partially. But when he comes again to claim his bride, you will have a direct experience of God’s glory.

We know this because of what is written in Revelation 22:4, “They [the saints] will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.” Moses could not see the Lord face and live. But when God completes the sanctification of his children they will be granted the eternal blessing of seeing him in all of his wonder and beauty and all-satisfying perfection. Oh what a time that will be, loved ones! What a time that will be! Blessed are the pure in heart! Amen.

¹Bruner, Frederick Dale. Matthew: A Commentary. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub., 2007. 175.
²I am grateful to John Piper for this observation in a sermon he gave on this same text.

Given at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Minnesota
November 6, 2011
32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Copyright © 2011 by Christopher Donald Drew

Matthew 13: Blessed Are the Merciful

Sermon Text: Matthew 5:7

Introductory Comments

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

We have learned these past weeks that the beatitudes are first and foremost blessings to specific people in specific situations. The same is true with this beatitude, but the people described here are people who are merciful, that is, they demonstrate mercy in their lives. Jesus blessed these people with mercy. I believe, based on what the bible teaches, that this one word, mercy, is a good one-word definition of the gospel of God. Mercy is the one thing we need more than anything else (whether we know it or not) and it’s also the one thing that many people don’t think they need or are unwilling to grant to others. Or, if they think they need mercy, they need it for the sake of saving their own skins, rather than seeing it for what it is, a way to finally be in communion with the God who created us. There are two kinds of people who desire mercy, therefore, those who desire it because it holds forth the promise of loving and enjoying God forever, and those who seek it out because it’s fire insurance. The difference? In the first case, those who are seeking mercy seek it because it is the only way to know the joy of knowing and treasuring God. The others are satisfied with the things of God, including mercy, but have no passion for the joy of God Himself. They love the things of God rather than the Giver of those good things. Jesus clearly seeks out the former with this blessing.

What Does Mercy Look Like?

Up to this point, I’ve begin each of the beatitude sermons by describing the individuals who are receiving each of the blessings, followed by a description of the blessing itself. I can’t do that this week, because the blessing itself is in the same category as those who receive the blessing. That is, those who show mercy are granted mercy. So this week, the best way to illustrate what mercy is and its application to us is by sharing a short story. The story isn’t my own, it’s from the magnificent book Les Misérables, which ought to be required reading for every Christian. It’s length can be intimidating, but don’t buy any useless abridgements. Victor Hugo knew what he was doing, and you won’t be disappointed.

Some of you may know the story. It’s about a man named Jean Valjean who, at a young age, was imprisoned for stealing some bread for his hungry family. His original sentence was five years, but after four failed escape attempts he ends up serving nineteen years in prison. Upon his release, he is given a “passport,” an identification document that is, as required by law, colored yellow in order to identify him as a prison parolee.

When we meet Valjean in the story, he is trying to find food and lodging in the town of Digne. In each tavern and inn he visits, he is rejected out of hand because of his passport. It is October, and the nights have grown very cold. He continues on, trying a private residence where he offers money for a small portion of their family meal. Again he is rejected. He even goes to the local jail and asks to spend the night. The jailer tells him that that jail isn’t an inn, and that if he wanted to stay there he would have to get himself arrested. He is finally reduced to wandering around until he finds what he thinks is an unoccupied dog kennel. A threatening growl evicts him even from this place.

At one point he passes by the local cathedral. He shakes his fist at it as we walks by.

Tired, hungry, and cold, with nowhere left to turn, Valjean collapses on a hard, stone bench. An old woman comes out of the church and approaches Valjean, and asks him what he is doing. He angrily explains his situation, and accepts her offering of money. Valjean explains to her that he’s tried all the doors in town to no effect. The woman asks him if he’s tried the door to the church. He says no. She instructs him to knock there.

And so he does. And the elderly bishop opens the door to him. There, Valjean receives a welcome and a meal and a warm bed for the night.

The bishop in the story is very generous man, eager to use the privileges of his divine office to help the poor. As a result, he himself didn’t have much of value, but the bishop’s household had within it a valuable silver service includes plates and dining utensils. Also present were two very large, silver candlesticks.

In the middle of the night, Valjean wakes up, takes the silverware and dishes and takes off. The next day, he is returned to the Bishop’s residence in the arms of the police, having been caught with the valuable silver items which clearly belonged to the Bishop. Here the story takes a crucial, life-giving, merciful turn. The Bishop would have been well within his rights to take back what was stolen, which would have resulted in totally disaster for the prison parolee Valjean.

Instead, here is what happened.

“Ah! Here you are!” [The bishop] exclaimed, looking at Jean Valjean. “I’m glad to see you. Well, but how is this? I gave you the candlesticks too, which are of silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get two hundred francs. Why did you not carry them away with your forks and spoons?”¹

The police cannot believe what they are seeing. Had the bishop really given this valuable silver to the prison parolee? The bishop reassures them, and they release Valjean and leave.

At this demonstration mercy, Hugo writes, “Jean Valjean was trembling in every limb … [he] was like a man on the point of fainting.”

The story continues:

The bishop drew near to him, and said in a low voice: “Do not forget, never forget, that you have promised to use this money in becoming an honest man.” Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of having promised anything, remained speechless. The Bishop had emphasized the worlds when he uttered them. He resumed with solemnity: “Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.”

From that point on, Valjean is a changed man. Changed from without, having been shown unmerited mercy by a man from whom he had violated the commandment given by God, “Thou shalt not steal.”

Who Are the Merciful?

When Jesus speaks about blessing the merciful, he is blessing people who show the kind of mercy shown to the criminal Jean Valjean by the bishop. This is the mercy of the cross, where we, thieves and liars and murders and slanderers and adulterers and rumor mongers, receive unmerited mercy. The cross is where the greatest mercy of all was shown, because it cost the Son of God infinitely more than a few possessions or silver baubles. It cost him his blood, his life. He took upon himself the punishment you and I deserved for our sin, so that our souls would be liberated from sin and death and hell for the purposes of glorifying God and enjoying him forever. “Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God; He, to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood,” to quote Robinson’s famous hymn.

Applications

What we see in Valjean’s life is that he becomes a vessel of mercy himself. The transforming grace of God first bought the salvation of the Bishop’s soul. And the Bishop knew that, having been shown such great mercy, he was called upon to show that mercy in his life so that others might know it, too, and know its source, the God who forgives our sins by his grace.

The merciful in this beatitude have been made full of mercy to the point of overflowing. And in blessing others with the mercy which they have received, they are given the blessing of mercy. Healthy Christian communities are built on this kind of mercy. Having been shown such great mercy, how can we not in turn show our love for God’s mercy by sharing this mercy with others?

How does this kind of mercy play out in life?

This is a mercy that grants quick forgiveness to those who have wronged us for any reason. This is a mercy that’s in the trenches, that’s willing to part with money and time and effort for the sake of the salvation of someone else. As Dale Bruner wisely notes in his commentary on this passage, morality in Matthew is merciful.² It’s not an on-high morality that disdains and avoids the undesirables. That would be living life like the innkeepers who rejected Jean Valjean in Les Misérables. To live mercifully before God is to live with a sense of compassion of others, to be willing to join with others in their miserable condition to grant them mercy. John Calvin says that the merciful are those “who are not only prepared to put up with their own troubles, but [who] also take on other people’s troubles.”

While this blessing is simply declared upon the merciful, it doesn’t stop there. The declaration necessarily leads to action. Those who are shown mercy expected to show mercy. That is the huge implication for the church today. If you have been saved by grace alone through faith alone in the Jesus Christ and Him Crucified, what that means is that you are a bought person. That is why Paul can say to the Corinthians, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor 6:19-20). You were once in the same place as the totally lost convicted criminal Jean Valjean, who upon being informed that his soul now belonged to God, necessarily became an increasingly merciful person, at times at great cost to himself.

What kind of people shall we be? Shall we be the kind who show false mercy from “above” and keep our hands clean of trouble, or will we come along side those who long for mercy and relief, or even under them if necessary to help them up, so that they can see the mercy of God in us? Are you demonstrating the kind of mercy shown when God stooped down in the person of His Son to grant to us what we most longed for – mercy and release from bondage of condemnation? There is great blessing in this beatitude, but also grave caution. The one who receives such mercy, and who fails to exhibit the same in his or her life, will have demonstrated that they were happy with the things of God, rather than with God. In the Greek, the “they” in “they shall receive mercy” is included for emphasis. It is the ones who show mercy who will receive mercy. That means, like the other beatitudes, this blessing doesn’t necessarily apply to everyone. Those who do not show mercy will not receive mercy.³ They will be like the unforgiving servant who, in Matthew 18:25ff, was shown great mercy and forgiveness for his great debt, but refused to show similar mercy to a man in almost identical circumstances. The refusal to show mercy to those in misery is evidence that the heart was never really transformed. The unforgiving servant wasn’t really mercy-full, having been granted overwhelming mercy himself. He wanted the mercy, but that was all he wanted. Jesus won’t stand for this among those who claim be his disciples. And so the parable concludes with these words from Jesus (Matthew 18:32-34):

Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

One of the big signs you are growing in grace in Christ is that you will become increasingly merciful. Overwhelming love for God drives mercy in our day to day lives. Remembering the cross fosters a desire to be merciful that is rooted first in the love of God, which causes us to love our neighbors by showing mercy, including to those who you earlier thought didn’t deserve it, because they made some bad choices or committed some kind of sin which, if you were honest, you probably also committed at some point. How can a people who have been shown such grace then refuse to show it to others? It’s just not possible, for those who really are saved. There are so many people in our community who have never known mercy, and who by being shown mercy may receive the salvation of God and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Showing mercy to others shows the glory of our Savior, whose death God’s perfect exhibition of mercy for us. Being merciful draws people to Jesus.

So this beatitude is blessing, but it is also a description of the life of someone who has been saved by grace, and its an exhortation to us to live in faithfulness to Christ Jesus our Lord. Twice in Matthew, our Lord quotes Hosea 6:6, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Unmerciful, heartless living is ungodly and brings judgment. Merciful living brings mercy and glorifies the God who has shown us such great, undeserved mercy toward us in Jesus. The church is called by God’s grace to be place where people will mercifully answer the door when someone knocks, not the place at which people shake their fist when they walk by. Amen.

¹All quotes from Les Misérables are taken from the 1887 Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. edition [now public domain], translated by Isabel F. Hapgood.
²See Dale Bruner, 173.
³Ibid., 174.

Given at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Minnesota
October 30, 2011
31st Sunday in Ordinary Time
Copyright © 2011 by Christopher Donald Drew