Sunday, April 24, 2011

Signature of Approval

He is Risen Just as He Said – Matthew 28:6

As a business owner, I am frequently asked to sign stuff.  Whether it is contracts or agreements or what have you.  The signature is a stamp of authority.  I recently discovered that I can digitally sign documents and therefore do not have to print the signature page out only to have to scan or fax it anyway.  So I now digitally sign everything.  Adobe has a way of verifying the signature.  When I save the document prior to signing it, it puts some kind of encryption ID that if someone tried to alter the document, it would invalidate the signature.  Thus, once I sign a document, no one could forge it, at least electronically. 

When I think of the resurrection, I think that it is a signature.  It is God’s stamp that Jesus’ death on the cross was validated and the atonement was accepted.  Even if you accepted what the Scriptures say as pointing to a suffering Messiah and you believed that Jesus would die the death he predicted, you could not possibly be sure it was accepted without the resurrection.  That is why Paul puts so much emphasis on it in 1st Corinthians 15.  Without it, we are silly people (Paul says of all people most to be pitied).  With it, we have the power of God.  It is not a trivial event.  An unsigned document could commit our company to a whole bunch of tasks but without the signature of someone in authority, it is just a bunch of words with no teeth.

Now my digital signature is effectively an electronic witness.  Adobe knows that I am the one signing it because I do it on my computer.  In a manual signature, a notary public (someone licensed to be a witness) testifies that I am the one signing it.  In the case of the resurrection, there needed to be eyewitnesses and there were – many.  1st Corinthians 15 says there were more than 500 at one time.  These eyewitnesses verified the resurrected Christ and many of them were alive at the time the Gospels were written.  No fake out here – it is authenticated.  Do you think the disciples would have gone out with power from where they were unless the resurrection was authenticated?     The resurrection launched the power source because when Jesus went up, the Holy Spirit came down. 

Digitally signed by God.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Paid in Full

It is finished!  John 19:30

I have signed a lot of contracts in my life.  I am especially careful about signing contracts because I know the contract means that I have to deliver what is in the contract.  If it is services, we get paid for services we deliver.  If it is a loan, we have an obligation to repay the loan.  In our culture, we seemingly can get out of obligations by defaulting or filing bankruptcy, or even failing to deliver the services promised.  However, at the time of Jesus if you did not fulfill an obligation, you or your family could be sold into slavery to repay the debt.  It means you taking on an obligation that you are sure you can repay. 

But how about a debt you could never repay?  That is the debt you have incurred because of your sin.  Your debt is astronomical.  We have a picture of this in the parable in Matthew 18.  The king (master) wished to settle accounts with his servants (slaves).  One of those owed 10,000 talents.  A talent was 15 years wages so the man would have had to live 15,000 years to repay the debt.  Yet the man falls prostrate and still makes the unbelievable claim that he would repay everything if the master had mercy.  I don’t think so!  Yet somehow we feel we can justify ourselves by our works before a holy and righteous God.   To quote our vernacular – seriously?

At the cross, Jesus redeemed this ENTIRE debt in one fell swoop.  The Greek word teleo indicates to fulfill or bring to an end.  It was used being placed on papyri in receipts for taxes meaning “paid in full”.  Not only was the historical debt paid, but any future debt was also paid.  But the debt was costly.  When a contract is forgiven, we think in terms of the contract fulfillment being waived.  But this contract of sin had to be paid and was paid in full.  Jesus bore it in his life on the cross taking every single sin of you and me upon that cross.  The full weight of God’s fury was laid on Him.  We tend to focus on the physical aspects of the cross (because we can somehow relate to them), but God judged Jesus with the full weight of hell on the cross.  We can scarcely imagine that.

“He made him who knew no sin to BE sin so we might become the righteousness of God in Him” 2 Cor 5:21.  How great is that love!

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Ride On to Die

“And He resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem” – Luke 9:51

This was not the post I was going to write today.  Have you ever felt like what you were going to say paled by comparison to what needed to be said? 

Jesus is going to die this week.  Today starts the day, Passion week where we think of a Savior who will resolutely go to the most gruesome of punishments, be completely abandoned by the Father, and abandoned by His friends.  Jesus knows this is going to happen as he enters Jerusalem.  He hears the crowd shouting “Hosanna” meaning “save us we pray” knowing that this crowds expectations will not be met.  This is no political deliverance.  This is a spiritual deliverance and the crowd is simply not wanting a spiritual deliverance.  Jesus did not come to take over the culture but to take over our hearts. 

How quickly the crowd turns.  I have read commentaries suggesting it was a different crowd that shouted “Crucify Him”, but I would not be far fetched to think it was the same crowd.  After all, the disciples all abandoned him after being prepared to fight for him initially in the Garden.  The Savior willingly dispels the notion that he will fight the Roman authorities and hands himself over to them.  I have always been fascinated by the guy in Mark 14:51-52. 

And a certain young man was following Him, wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body; and they *seized him. 52 But he left the linen sheet behind, and escaped naked.

Most scholars believe this is Mark himself.  If so, he was likely a teenager who followed along as he heard the commotion.  It is likely Mark’s house was the scene of the Upper Room where Christ celebrated the Passover meal.  If so, Mark does not hesitate to tell you he abandoned Jesus.  He fled.  They all did.  We would too if we were there.  If Jesus was a political crusader, no doubt they would have done like Peter promised.  These were guys ready to fight.  But he threw that notion on its ear.  No matter how many times he said why he was going to Jerusalem, they did not get it.  Classic mismatched expectations. 

The idea was to ride on, to ride on to die. 

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Making the Cut

No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. 1 Cor 9:27

The Masters is this weekend and the unofficial start to golf season.  The Masters is such a unique event in so many ways.  Not only is it the most highly coveted prize in golf, but it kind of sets the tone.  It is played on a pristine course that sets itself above anything else out there.  Of course there is St. Andrews and there is Pebble Beach, but even the non-golfer knows Augusta and the Masters.  From a timing standpoint, the Masters gets us out of our doldrums and into a springtime form of mind.  As I write this, a young man by the name of McIlroy is winning by four strokes going into the last round.

I spent four years in the golf industry and learning some of the nuances of golf even though I am not a regular player.  it is I believe the only sport that is for the most part self-policing.  Disqualification for the most part occurs when a golfer admits to something.  Those of us that play for recreation don’t really care if we move a ball from its lie or give ourselves a stroke or two benefit on our score.  After all, we are then only cheating ourselves.  This golfer disqualified himself by using the wrong ball, a seemingly inconsequential mistake, but the rules are the rules.

J.P. Hayes admission of using the wrong ball not only cost him a successful round, but knocked him out of contention for qualifying for his tour card.  A seemingly minor infraction had a major cost.  Thankfully his honesty kept him in the game.

So it is with the Christian life.  Seemingly major infractions can be used by God for his glory.  Consider David who committed adultery and murder yet was called a “man after God’s own heart”.  On the other hand consider a guy like Achan (Joshua 7) who hid treasure which would seemingly would not have hurt anyone.  But it violated a command and God called him our on it and it resulted in the loss of his life.  Annanias and Sapphira were removed from the race not because they sold their property and kept a portion of the proceeds, but because they “lied to the Holy Spirit” (Acts 5:1-16). 

So the issue is the heart, not the infraction.  When God calls us out, it is based on our heart attitude.  It does not mean that we can go commit a crime and expect not to pay.  David paid big time for his sin.  But he was not disqualified from the race.  Peter paid for his sin of denial of Christ and paid for his alienation of Gentile believers (Gal 2:11), but was not disqualified.  In fact, we can bumble our way through life and if we are committed to the cause of Christ, we can be used. 

What is Paul saying in 1Corinthians 9?  Can we will or work our way into God’s service?  No the key is the motivation of 9:23 - “I do all things for the sake of the gospel, that I may become a fellow partaker of it”.    I want to be used, I need to be used.  My prayer is somehow, someway God can use me in spite of my constant awareness of my sin.  In fact, the more I desire to be used, the more aware I am of my sin.  God can use rough, raw material in any of us.  But those of us who trust in our raw material will find ourselves disqualified. 

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Let Anger Go

“For the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God”
James 1:20

Paul Allen announced the release of a book this past week that focuses in part on his time at Microsoft.  Reportedly, the book states that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and President Steve Ballmer schemed to dilute Allen’s shares at Microsoft over 18 years ago.  Allen says in the book, "I helped start the company and was still an active member of management, though limited by my illness, and now my partner and my colleague were scheming to rip me off," Allen writes in his memoir. "It was mercenary opportunism, plain and simple."

Whether the statement is true or not, the point is that there has to be some long lasting bitterness there, maybe appropriately so.  After over 18 years, the wounds are still very fresh to Allen.  We have all been there, but as Christians we are supernaturally charged to think and act differently.  All of us have been wronged from time to time to where we can harbor intense bitterness and hatred towards another person.  It is especially bitter when it is a fellow believer who in Christ we think has wronged us.  I can remember three people especially in my life whom I felt incredible rage towards, a feeling that I had been completely wronged.  It robbed me of my joy, my effectiveness, making me useless for the kingdom.  It masked deep seated wounds and sin on my own part causing me to focus my rage not internally on my own sin, but externally towards the person who had wronged me.  

The saying, “time heals all wounds” does not work towards bitterness.  In many cases, it seethes over time particularly when things subsequently don’t work out the way we think they should have worked out.  Forgiveness is supernatural.  We could never forgive without the power of Christ’s love in us.  Because He who has forgiven much gives us the ability to forgive others who have wronged us a little by comparison.  I have found that God uses the warts in others to reveal the warts in ourselves.  In every case where I felt wronged, there was a self-revelation of a stinging sin in my own life.  I needed to see “logs in my own eye, while seeing past the specs in my brothers eye” (Matt 7:5). 

Without true forgiveness, we cannot experience true joy.  That is not my opinion; that is what Scripture says.  Satan loves to use the root of bitterness to rob us of our joy.  Col 3:6 says to “put anger aside”.  Col 3:12 says to “put on a heart of forgiveness”.  Note that this attitude occurs regardless of whether the individual who has wronged us asks for forgiveness.  In my case, none of the people asked for forgiveness.  I don’t even think they think they wronged me.  The heart problem is mine and the response is also mine.