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Pastoral Letters
Here you will find brief writings of theological and general
interest written by Pastor Hartley. These are also archived via the links below.
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Friday, February 17, 2012
This morning in the New York Times author David Brooks wrote a provocative opinion
piece about Jeremy Lin and the problem of conflicting moralities between life as a professional athlete and life as a follower
of Christ (read it here).
If you have not
been tuning in to the world of sports this past week, you may not know about young Mr. Lin. His story is that new. Lin is
a Christian, a Harvard graduate, and a sudden phenomenon in the National Basketball Association. Recently signed by the New
York Knicks, Lin has helped the team run up an impressive seven game winning streak. Since his start he has also set some
new achievement records along the way. Needless to say, he has captured the attention of the nation and the often dashed hopes
of New York basketball fans.
A
noticeable media subtext to all his talent is Jeremy Lin's faith in and following of Jesus Christ. Since the age of 13 he
has worshiped the Lord with his family at Redeemer Bible Fellowship in Mountain View, CA. And, yes, his pastor and church
family are quite proud of him but they say they are praying for him more now than ever. Why? Well this brings us back to David
Brooks and his article in the NY Times. It is Brooks' contention that Christians and modern professional sports
don't mix, or they do mix but about as well as oil and water (Brooks is careful to include those of "other faiths"
too which is an unfortunate secular idiom suggesting the legitimacy of all religions).
Brooks' concern about Christians and professional sports is stated
quite clearly and, I must admit, he does gain some of my sympathy. Here are a few of Brook's better thoughts on the matter:
"We’ve become accustomed to the faith-driven
athlete and coach, from Billy Sunday to Tim Tebow. But we shouldn’t forget how problematic this is. The moral ethos
of sport is in tension with the moral ethos of faith, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim. The moral universe of modern
sport is oriented around victory and supremacy. The sports hero tries to perform great deeds in order to win glory and fame.
It doesn’t really matter whether he has good intentions. His job is to beat his opponents and avoid the oblivion that
goes with defeat. The modern sports hero is competitive and ambitious....He is theatrical. He puts himself on display."
Here is where I think Brooks' argument is at its strongest. He
identifies rightly the problem with modern professional sports - a quest for glory and transcendence and meaning in created
things. Modern professional sports, which is really just another spoke in the wheel of the entertainment economy, has been
granted too loud a voice in our culture in telling us who the great ones of society are. Who has granted it such a loud voice?
We have, the society who consumes its product and hopes in its glory for ourselves or at least for our children,
which is just glory-lust for ourselves by another name. And it does us no good to simply say this is not the fault of modern
professional sports but only the fault of the human heart. Yes, the human heart is the source of the idolatry but the heart
also contracts with the hands to create things that fulfill the heart's ambitions. The difference between a pint-of-beer for
dinner at home and a dinner-of-beer at a bar comes to mind.
Another thing I appreciate in Brooks' argument is that he lays his charge against modern professional
sports not amateur sports (from the Latin amo- which means "to love," meaning
an outward love for the game not an inner love for self glory). In my opinion amateur sport serves a very noble purpose. In
a significant way amateur sport does what the family farm use to do for most children. Sport exercises the body. Sport awakens
the mind to the body's hidden strength and its limitations and its varied capacities. Sport also reveals the rewards of disciplining
the body and submitting it to rigor, rewards of accomplishment and advancement. Modern professional sports, of course, carry
these same benefits into adulthood games but modern professional sports also unleash a host of tempting vices upon the
athlete: the glory of wealth, the glory of fame, and the glory of one's own physical beauty reflected back to oneself endlessly
on television (consider carefully the Greek myth of Narcissus).
So it is my opinion that Brooks does a decent job critiquing the ethos of modern professional sports.
But he does significantly less well - he misses the shot, if you will - when he tries to explain why Jeremy Lin (or Tim Tebow,
or somebody else) will not be able to reconcile their faith with professional sports. Here is Brooks again:
"Ascent in the sports universe is a straight shot. You set your goal, and you climb toward greatness.
But ascent in the religious universe often proceeds by a series of inversions: You have to be willing to lose yourself in
order to find yourself; to gain everything you have to be willing to give up everything; the last shall be first; it’s
not about you.For many religious teachers, humility is the primary virtue. You achieve loftiness of spirit by performing the
most menial services. (That’s why shepherds are perpetually becoming kings in the Bible.) You achieve your identity
through self-effacement. You achieve strength by acknowledging your weaknesses. You lead most boldly when you consider yourself
an instrument of a larger cause. The most perceptive athletes have always tried to wrestle with this conflict. Sports
history is littered with odd quotations from people who try to reconcile their love of sport with their religious creed —
and fail.... The odds are that Lin will never figure it out because the two moral universes are not reconcilable."
There is so much to talk about in this paragraph but let's just
consider the biggest mistake. Brooks has defined "the life of faith" for us in exclusively subjective terms. "Lose
yourself...give up everything...humility...menial services...self-effacement...weaknesses." According to Brooks the problem
with sports is that it pulls one away from the religious perfection of the self which is the goal of faith. Sure he uses biblical
phrasing but in an unbiblical way. There is nothing objective in his description of faith. Nothing. There is no named God
whose work compels us to abandon our own works. For Brooks, or at least for his article, faith is this common course of self-debasement
that fits so nicely with Christianity, Judaism, and Islam but also sounds quite similar to Bhuddism. If this is what "the
life of faith" is then I can understand why Christians must disengage from any "moral universe" in the
world associated with power, supremacy, and glory. Not only professional sports but politics and higher education and creative
science and fields of exploration must also be declared irreconcilable to the Christian.
The problem of course is that Brooks is completely wrong about the life of
faith. True faith is believing in the objectively bloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross as sufficient grounds for
God to objectively declare you righteous, justified before him. True faith moves the believer out into the world with confidence
that we need not accumulate our righteousness by avoiding creation and striving after particular subjective experiences that
prove we have sufficiently avoided creation and so earned our righteousness. On the other hand, neither does true faith recklessly
adopt the world's ambitions of glory simply because it has laid hold of a full and sufficient righteousness. No. True faith
moves with great care in and through the world - not out of the world, but unstained by it nonetheless - for it aspires to
no glory other than the glory of the Savior and his salvation.
So what then about Jeremy Lin and his continuation in professional sports? If faith is not what Brook's
construes it to be, might he be wrong about the irreconcilable moral universes of faith and sports? Yes and no. He is wrong
where he sounds like a dualistic absolutist but right where he sounds the warning against glory-lust. So it is not evil to
participate in an entertainment economy nor is it evil to consume the products of said economy unless those products defy
God's objective and revealed will in the Word (pornography, gambling, psychic readings to name just a few).
What is evil is when our participation and/or consumption leads us to lustfully deny fundamental objective truths
about our glorious Savior and his will for us so we can have the glory the world says we are entitled to.
It seems Joseph, rising through the ranks of political power
in Egypt, or Daniel, rising through the ranks of political power in Babylon, would both be worth our consideration. They
truly lived by-grace-in-the-world-but-not-of-the-world careers. For more such men, see the stories of two noble athletes of Scotland, one living the
other now asleep in the Lord. Here and here.
Friday, February 10, 2012
There Is Grace for Converted Sinners
Now that you are a Christian be sure to keep believing the whole truth about grace.
What is the whole truth about grace? Namely this: the grace of God
that took the initiative to rescue you from death, darkness and sin - that divine and powerful grace - has in no way whatsoever
departed from you now that you are a Christian and trying so very hard to be good. You must keep believing the whole truth
about grace for there is a great temptation in your soul to only believe half the truth about grace.
The half-truth about grace goes something like this: "I
was dead in my trespasses and sins, but God in an act of amazing grace made me alive through Christ and by the Spirit (now
that sentence is true, but everything from this point on is a lie). "Now that I am alive in Christ my increasing
goodness and my decreasing badness keeps me in God's grace. God got things started but now I keep things going. So when I
fail, God removes his loving care from me. I can tell because life starts to tip over and trouble and pain and all kinds of
messes tumble down on me. This confirms to me that God has withdrawn and I must double-down and increase my goodness to get
God back and to set right my topsy-turvy world. So I do. I double-down and when the trouble passes I feel really good about
myself and slowly stop doing what I had double-downed on because nothing is falling on my head anymore. And if the trouble
doesn't pass, well, I feel terrible and wonder deep down if this time God is angry beyond winning back."
The problems with this half-truth version of grace are many and I
won't get deep into them here. For now let me just say this: the half-truth version of grace makes me glory in my pious self
instead of in Christ. When my soul is hoping that my increasing goodness is the way to tie down the love of God again, to
make trouble go away, then I am believing and hoping in me not in Christ. I have become my own savior. In this scheme I have
tapped converting grace on the shoulder and said, "I'll take it from here." This is a subtle self-exaltation that
assumes too much about the goodness of human goodness and assumes too little about the intercessory ministry of Jesus Christ
in his own exaltation.
The whole truth about the grace of God is that it is not something
you need just to get saved it is something you need every day after you are saved and, most significantly, it is something
you have on all those after days. "Through him [the crucified and risen Lord Jesus] we have also obtained access by faith
into this grace in which we stand" (Romans 5:2). The grace
of God is not something that only acted upon you at your conversion or upon your election, no, it is something you have in
just as great a measure acting upon you now.
A powerful demonstration of this grace is the apostle Peter's own life. On the night of
Jesus' arrest our Lord told Peter terrible news: he was going to fail the Lord scandalously. "Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times." What did Peter do when he heard this? He doubled-down. He boldly offered his own life for his Savior
and said quite piously: "If I must die with you, I will not deny you." But not even his doubled-down pious
pledge could keep him from failing miserably. He denied the Lord Jesus three times in one evening to, ironically and shamefully,
preserve his own life. Peter thought he was something but he was nothing. You and I are no more than he.
But more shocking than Peter's
failure is the grace of God in Christ that didn't fail. In the same conversation where the Lord foretold Peter's denial the Lord also foretold his grace. "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have
you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith
may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers" (Luke 22:31). Remember, Peter heard this gracious
promise from the Lord before he piously pledged his life and swore his confidence in his own faithfulness. You see,
Peter didn't want to have to rely on grace. In that moment, when the Lord told him what would happen, he was ashamed of the
prospect of being discovered a real sinner with real sins needing grace. But the Lord had other plans, he was going to make
an apostle of grace out of Peter not a Pope of Piousness.
Well, surely as the Lord promised He performed. Peter denied the Lord but his faith, though weakened by the denials
of self-preservation, did not fail. Peter was restored and numbered among the saints. This is the whole truth about grace on glorious display and it belongs to you too. Your exalted Savior is now
praying for you that your faith will not fail. All his prayers are answered with a "yes" and "amen" by
the Father and the Spirit does their bidding in us.
What if you believed in this gratuitous love for your weak life? What if you believed in
this gratuitous love for your weak brother in Christ? What if you believed in this gratuitous love for your own children?
Would God be mad at you for believing in such grace?
You see, dearly beloved, every mess and setback and sideswipe in life is delivered to us under the reign of grace.
Everything that enters our lives from our own hearts or from without is ruled by reigning grace, a faucet flow opened and
left open by the sacrifice of Christ. Even Peter's denial, though sinful and shameful, was allowed to come to pass upon him.
Jesus, clearly knowing it was going to happen, could have prayed that it would never happen. But he, the Lord, did not. He
prayed rather for Peter to be kept through the shame of it. Why? One reason I am sure of is this:
so that the grace of God that keeps sinners every day in the Redeemer's love would be on grand display. That was the most
obvious fruit of Jesus permitting Peter's denials and loving him still. It is similar to Paul's testimony to Timothy about
his own wretched life: "I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost [sinner], Jesus Christ might display
his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life."
Brother and sister, you are under GRACE: God's Riches At Christ's Expense. There
is no risk in believing the whole truth about it.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Not Everyone Will Enter the Kingdom
Jesus
loves you with an unfamiliar love. His love says what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. Take these words for
example, from Matthew's gospel, chapter 7:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom
of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord,
Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will
tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'" (7:21-22) Do you recognize
the love in those words? Usually we don’t. We’re trained not to. Our training comes from a hundred scenarios
like this: You’re having dinner with Christian friends. Some time after the meal, now that the conversation has
grown comfortable and intimate, one friend begins grieving her bad day at the office. She confesses behavior unbecoming
a follower of Jesus: anger, malice, insult. But her confession is met by all with sweeping reassurances: “It could
not have been that bad.” “You were just having an off day.” “Don’t fret, that is not the
real you.” And so the convicting work of the Holy Spirit is trampled by the comfort brigades.
Because we are regularly
reassured by nearly everyone over nearly everything we hear Christ’s assault on false assurance as simply rude.
At worst, we might suspect he’s a bungling prophet with a sour disposition. At best, we suspect he’s talking
about other people, yet we can not imagine who. Therefore, finding us too dense for pleasant persuasion, Jesus must
drop a bomb at our feet: “Some of you profess me (Lord, Lord) but you don’t actually possess me
(I never knew you)."
With this warning Jesus penetrates the comfort of religious activists with shocking news: displays
of religious enthusiasm and power can blind you to impending doom just as sure as abject worldliness blinds others. How?
Because if we engage in self-selected religious activity for the purpose of glorying in ourselves we will remain darkened
and dead to the glory of God in Christ crucified and risen. In short, we can cleverly reject Christ by even doing the
works He did all the while refusing to do the one work He demands: Then they said to him, "What must we do,
to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in
him whom he has sent" (John 6:28-29). Notice what Jesus calls the religious enthusiasts in Matthew
7: evildoers. This is the last thing they thought they were but it is the only thing Jesus sees them to be.
They name him - Lord, Lord - they mimic his works - prophesies, exorcisms, miracles - but
Jesus does not know them. As much as they seem to have a part in him they do not. They have been fooled, for the works
they do are the works of Satan who gladly replicates all the works of Christ except the atonement (2 Thess. 2:9). These
religiously enthusiastic folk do not serve Jesus they serve Satan! They would rather cast out demons and raise the dead
for their justification than have to trust Jesus for it. And so the love of self and lust for self-justification remains unbroken. They
have never loved the Lord they easily named for there is no love for Jesus in hearts that trust in their own works.
Does
Jesus’ shocking warning give birth to a fear in you? If so, this is good. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, “The man who never
knows what it is to have certain fears about himself, fears which drive him to Christ, is in a highly dangerous condition.”
Jesus loves us too much to let us settle down in danger. Remember, “wounds from a friend can be trusted,” says
the Proverb (27:6).
Is there an alternative to all this satanic and counterfeit religion? Yes, but it is not "no
religion" it is rather pure and undefiled religion. Jesus speaks of this in the Matthew 7 passage as well. The one who
knows Jesus and enters the kingdom is "the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven" (v.
21).
Now we have touched on something enormous, something far beyond self-selected visible religious enthusiasm.
"Does the will of my Father" - notice how Jesus presents this identifying statement without specifics.
Those whom He knows do not just do a few specific religious functions, no, they do the will of his Father - it is an all consuming
way of life. This is the opposite of self-selected religious enthusiasm. Those whom Jesus knows are those who have been
taken over in all of life's nooks and crannies by an interest in his Father's will - a religion with a wide berth that originates
in the inner man. Psalm 51:6 - "Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom
in the secret heart." Such is the new creation of the Spirit.
Do you pursue God's will when no one is around?
Is God’s will visible in you when you’re invisible to others? Does your religion control your tongue (James 1:26)?
Does your religion direct you in compassion for orphans and widows (James 1:27)? Does your religion cause you to abstain from
worldly lusts and worldly aspirations (James 1:27)? If so, it is because by faith you see in the Father's heaven sent
Son, Jesus Christ, all the goodness of the Father being given to you and now God's Spirit has opened your heart to the goodness
of doing his will. What if you have no broad all-of-life interest in the will of the heavenly Father? Then humble
yourself under the grave warning of Matthew 7. Confess to the Lord that you were hoping to get around needing Christ's righteousness
and sacrifice by offering to the Lord on judgment day some nostalgic recollections of your own filthy works. Repent of trusting
both your good works and your selective religious performances and trust in Christ alone. It is not too late. Jesus spoke
the warning in Matthew 7 preemptively to save us from trying to save ourselves. Call on his name today. No, not to tell him
what you have done, but to trust in the great work He has done on the cursed tree.
Friday, January 27, 2012
What Are You After?
Two events this Lord's Day will make us all sense the weight and breadth of Christ's work among us in
ways we often don't. First, we will receive four new members during the
worship service and second, we will have a fellowship meal followed by the Annual Congregational Meeting. This divine conspiracy
of feeling the fuller of weight of Christ's Church seems to offer the opportunity for some fresh reflection.
Consider these two
questions, one inward and one outward: (1) "What am I after by participating in Christ's church?" (2)
"If I could lead this brother or that sister to one thing in Christ's church, what would that be?"
At the risk of being too reductionist, I think both questions are sufficiently
answered in scripture by one phrase located in one verse. The apostle Peter in his first letter says, "In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord" (3:15a). "What am I after by participating in Christ's church?" To set apart Christ as Lord
in my own heart. "What do I want more than anything for my brother in Christ, my sister in Christ?" That they would
set apart Christ as Lord in their heart.
What does it mean to
set apart in our hearts that Christ is Lord? It means that by faith and through the Holy Spirit we let Jesus have dominion
over every quest of the human heart. In short, we let Jesus always be the answer to our soul's incessant questioning: Is
all well? Is all well? Yes, because of my crucified and risen Savior, all is indeed well. You set
your heart on this solid foundation by believing again and again, day after day, that Jesus' covenantal faithfulness
through his blood is the answer to your heart's every quest. When your heart is fresh in the truth that Christ is ruling over
all life's eventualities with the same love and power that saved you in the first place then He is set as Lord in
your heart.
The raw truth is we too often set something else apart
in our hearts as lord. We pursue something other than Christ to tell our soul that all is well. And that something
slowly and dangerously becomes the answer to those two earlier questions. This is how in all our churchliness we can still
become idolaters, worshipers of a god that is not God.
In their book, Helping
People Change, Paul Tripp and
Tim Lane help us face the truth about church sanctioned idols - idols that live in our hearts undisturbed because they seem
so admirable and useful in the church. Below are Tripp's and Lane's list of seven counterfeit gospels (heart-idols, pseudo-saviors). Read through them
carefully and take it by faith that you - and certainly I too - have some of these counterfeit gospels in greater or lesser strength vying for our affections and our allegiance, leading us from glorying and resting
in Christ alone:
Formalism. “I participate in the regular meetings
and ministries of the church, so I feel like my life is under control. I’m always in church, but it really has little
impact on my heart or on how I live. I may become judgmental and impatient with those who do not have the same commitment
as I do.”
Legalism. “I live by the rules—rules I create for myself and rules I create
for others. I feel good if I can keep my own rules, and I become arrogant and full of contempt when others don’t meet
the standards I set for them. There is no joy in my life because there is no grace to be celebrated.”
Mysticism. “I am engaged in the incessant pursuit of an emotional experience with God. I live for the moments when
I feel close to him, and I often struggle with discouragement when I don’t feel that way. I may change churches often,
too, looking for one that will give me what I’m looking for.”
Activism. “I recognize
the missional nature of Christianity and am passionately involved in fixing this broken world. But at the end of the day,
my life is more of a defense of what’s right than a joyful pursuit of Christ.”
Biblicism. “I
know my Bible inside and out, but I do not let it master me. I have reduced the gospel to a mastery of biblical content and
theology, so I am intolerant and critical of those with lesser knowledge.”
Therapism. “I
talk a lot about the hurting people in our congregation, and how Christ is the only answer for their hurt. Yet even without
realizing it, I have made Christ more Therapist than Savior. I view hurt as a greater problem than sin—and I subtly
shift my greatest need from my moral failure to my unmet needs.”
Social-ism. “The deep fellowship
and friendships I find at church have become their own idol. The body of Christ has replaced Christ himself, and the gospel
is reduced to a network of fulfilling Christian relationships.”
Do you see how these fake gospels become counterfeits? They promise to be the good
news to us. They become the only tree in the garden. They become the tree of life to us. They become the one place to which
we bring others to feed. And in this our hearts lose Christ and often, under our tutelage, so does our brother. Why not today
take the most dominant false gospel that you use to quiet your soul, take it in prayer to the only Savior. Name it, confess
it, ask for grace to fight it off with the matchless worth of Christ. Why not? Would you be better just reading this? Let's
pray.
Praise be to God that our gracious Lord Jesus Christ
still stands in the midst of his church, even where He is dishonored in our hearts, and speaks to the restless hearts of the
redeemed, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Such grace, such mercy, such long-suffering love. Oh, how He wins our hearts again!
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
The Counter-Intuitive Ministry of the Word
If someone were to write a children's book based on Jeremiah 38, it might be called (with all due respect to Judith Viorst): Jeremiah
and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
In Jeremiah 38 we find Jeremiah being lowered by ropes into an empty cistern, empty of all but soft mud. This is no
spa treatment. Jeremiah is put in the cistern because he is being silenced. He is God's prophet and what he has been saying
is, well, unpopular to say the least. He has been calling the people of Jerusalem
- God's people, Jeremiah's people - to surrender to their enemy.
The Babylonians are encamped around the city readying themselves for mayhem. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, is a
blunt instrument in the Lord's hand, sent by God to discipline God's own people for their rebellion and idolatry. Jeremiah,
God's prophet inside the city, is bringing God's word to his own: "Thus
says the LORD: He who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, but he who goes out to the
Chaldeans shall live. He shall have his life as a prize of war, and live" (Jeremiah 38:2).
The counselors and officials of King Zedekiah, ruler of Judah, find
the Lord's message utter foolishness. They approach Zedekiah in no uncertain terms: "Then the officials said to
the king, 'Let this man be put to death, for he is weakening the hands of the soldiers who are left in this city, and the
hands of all the people, by speaking such words to them. For this man is not seeking the welfare of this people, but their
harm.'" Zedekiah, so weak and easily ruled by his officials, caves. He gives them Jeremiah to do as they wish. And they
wish him to be embalmed in mud at the bottom of cistern.
There are three important lessons we can take from Jeremiah and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad
Day.
(1) The
Word of God confounds the wisdom of man. Zedekiah's counselors and officials seem, in many ways, first rate guys.
They are nationalists. They love their country. They love their people. They want to win. So they find Jeremiah a threat.
He sounds to them like a fool. He sounds like a traitor. He sounds more pro-Babylonian than pro-Israel. But the truth is Zedekiah's
officials are not first rate guys. They are deaf to the Word of the Lord. Their ears are closed. They trust their own words
more than God's. They are the fools. They are the traitors. Their dullness and deafness to God's counter-intuitive, other-worldly,
discomforting and humbling Word is the very treachery that has brought the nation to the brink. In their pride they believe
God prefers their blind nationalism to their humble obedience to his Word. "This is the one to whom I will look: he who
is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word" (Isaiah 66:2).
(2) The Word of God comes to bring life. What the Lord spoke through
Jeremiah was spoken for life not death. Like a brilliant light God's Word shined in Jerusalem's darkest hour to show his people
the way to avoid destruction. Humble yourself and surrender to the Lord's discipline and you will live - that was the message.
But isn't this the same thing Zedekiah's officials desired? They too wanted the people to live, to survive and thrive in Jerusalem.
Right? Yes, but they wanted the people to live a worldly life: breathing and eating without loving and obeying
God. God wants no such life for his people. Such a God-empty life is really death in disguise. God wants his people to live
the life that comes through divine discipline: life gladly surrendered through repentance and renewed trust producing fresh
zeal to hear and do his Word. This is as true today as then. The Word of God to us is a Word of life. The message of the gospel
is throw all in with Jesus, lose your life in this world for him and you will live free of divine condemnation, free of hardhearted
ignorance, free of death. Jesus comes to you, the despised and bruised Prophet of
prophets, to bring you this message of life: "For
I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope"
(Jeremiah 29:11).
(3) The
Word of God triumphs over the schemes of man. In not too many months Zedekiah watches with his own eyes as the Word
the Lord spoke through his prophet triumphs over his plans. Babylon captures the city and summarily slaughters those who failed
to surrender. Zedekiah himself watches as his own sons and his own officials are slaughtered before him. Then Zedekiah's eyes
are removed from their sockets, he is shackled and thrown into a Babylonia prison to rot until death. The Word the Lord speaks
creates the world it reveals. This means those who trust themselves against the Lord - regardless of their sincerity and intelligence
and power - will not succeed. This also means that all the good the Lord has promised those who trust him, they will see it!
Father, we praise you for shedding the light of your Word upon
our darkness. We thank you for the Word made flesh, Jesus, revealing your grace and truth to us and triumphing over our sin
and our enemy. Lord, please give us more grace to believe all that you have spoken. Save us from the confidence we recklessly
place in our own thoughts. In Jesus name, Amen.
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Apple Valley Church - OPC, 1750 Olde Buggy Drive, Neenah,WI 54956 (920) 969-1650
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