How does God see you?

The Question: What is a reference for God seeing us 'through' Christ vis - 2 Sam 22:@5? i.e. Christ's righteousness as ours.

On the surface this seems like an easy question but it is also one that has been and will continue to be embroiled in controversy over the years. The reason for this is because the question is one that touches on one of the cornerstone statements of faith, namely 'justification by faith' (JBF).

Let's briefly examine why this is such a central aspect to Christianity. The cross is the central point, the pivotal saving point; JBF is also at this point. To distort JBF is to distort salvation and
faith is the instrument of salvation.
a) Faith in Jesus Christ alone as presented in the gospels therefore we preach Christ in a JBF kind of way because there is no other way
b) Faith arises from the Holy Spirit in rebirth and so is evidence of regeneration, but not merely evidence, it is the means and instrument which we we grasp Christ and his benefits
c) Its effective in Jesus in dealing with sin on the cross, our righteous actions can’t acquit us. He totally bore sin and justifies the ungodly
d) Faith is ‘reckoned’ for righteousness (account something). Faith in Jesus Christ that is counted as righteous. Whose righteousness is it? God’s given by JC
e) Faith alone makes Jesus Christ Lord, but this makes faith never alone
f) Only faith makes Jesus Christ Lord, this is truly exalting Jesus
g) Faith alone gives us access to God (Ro 5:1-11): constitutes the ongoing basis of access to God.

Having seen the importance and centrality of justification by faith let's turn to the Scripture. There are many references that answer the initial question:

Rom 3:22

The righteousness of God through faith in/of Jesus Christ for all who believe

Rom 6

The whole idea of being united to Christ

I cannot stress just how important the idea of union with Christ is. Martin Luther in his famous treatise "On the freedom of a Christian" was expounding on what it means for us to be united with such a wonderful bride in Jesus. Listen and rejoice in Luther's words:

It is impossible now that her sins should destroy her, since they have been laid
upon Christ and swallowed up in Him, and since she has in her Husband Christ a
righteousness which she may claim as her own, and which she can set up with
confidence against all her sins, against death and hell

Union with Christ gives the Christian great assurance. Being united with Christ gives victory over sin and death. As Luther goes on to say;

Our sins are unable to destroy us, Christ the righteous husband, takes on
the needy and impious harlot and gives her all his good things

Those who belong to Christ have died with him to sin and death, and now live to God and to righteousness.

Rom 13:14

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Gal 3:27

For as many of you as were baptised into Christ have put on Christ.

It seems clear to me that when God sees us his perspective is that we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. And as a result of this he declares us to be righteous.

Is this how God sees you - if not, probably time to do something about it? Time to get some God given faith!!

Do we really love sin?

The Question:

"We love sin" - isn't it also just put down to the fact that we are sinful beings? I think we sometimes do it unwillingly just because we are sinful, rather than loving it...

I think both sides of the coin on this one are true, what do I mean? John Stott has some very helpful words to say from his commentary on Ephesians, he is commentating on 2:1 'And you he made alive, when you were dead through trespasses and sins in which you once walked'.

The death to which Paul refers is not a figure of speech, as in the parable of the Prodigal Son, 'This my son was dead'; it is a factual statement of everybody's spiritual condition outside Christ. And it is traced to their trespasses and sins. These two words seem to have been carefully chosen to give a comprehensive account of human evil. A 'trespass' is a false step, involving either crossing a know boundary or a deviation from the right path. A 'sin', however, means rather a missing of the mark, a falling short of a standard. Together the two words cover the positive and negative, or active and passive, aspects of human wrongdoing, that is to say, our sins of commision and of omission. Before God we are both rebels and failures (p71).

I only presented half the picture of sin, the half that crosses the known boundary. This type of sin is what I was talking about when I said, 'we love sin'. And I will stand by my words of us loving this type of sin in some way. If we really truly hated it we wouldn't do it, just like if you really truly hate brussell sprouts you don't eat them. It is what Ephesians 2:3 talks about when it says 'Gratifying the desires of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts'. Sometimes it is hard to look in the mirror and see ourselves for who we are as sinners and deserving of God's wrath. But don't forget the great BUT of v4-6!

But, there is the other side as Stott points out the one of being a failure which is more our falling short of God's standards, and this is the more passive aspect of our sin.

Both aspects of sin need to be held together to get a complete picture of our humanity.

Cracking the whip??

The Question: 2 Sam 7:14 'I will be his father , and he will be my son. When he (Jesus?) does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men'. 2 Samuel 7 is talking about Jesus isn't it - so when did Jesus sin?

2 Samuel 7 is definitely one of the great passages of Scripture. It talks of great and extravagant promises that are made to David. They particularly focus around building a house and the arrival of a son. These promises are initially founded in the surrounding chapters of 2 Samuel. Who will be this 'Son of David' who will fulfill the promises? The narrative from 2 Sam 9-20 and 1 King 1-2 is often called the succession narrative which is the search in some ways for this promised son. And we see God fulfilling his promise as he punishes the sons of David for the wrongdoing. You just have to look at Amnon and Absalom to see that this is true. When Solomon comes to the throne in 1 Kings the question is - could he be the promised one? But alas he fails us and is punished by God. This question remains until the arrival of Jesus.

Jesus does NOT sin. And so, on the one hand, he is unlike any of the other 'sons of David' and is not punished like them for God had no reason. But on the other hand he is punished by God even though he did no wrong, he did get punished by floggings and even death. For Isaiah says,

Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and thought the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

(53:10)

Jesus was inflicted with punishment he did not deserve to pay the penalty for the sin of you and me.

Amazing Love

The Question: Why did Jesus descend/experience hell when he did nothing wrong?

Firstly, we must understand sin. Sin is our rebellion against God. It manifests itself in every one of our lives in so many different ways - pride, lust, envy, theft, etc. God must be just in this situation and therefore every sin must be dealt with. The punishment set for sin is death.

So, why does he care? Why doesn't he leave us in our sinful state?

This question drives at motivation.

The answer that the New Testament drives at over and over again is love. And it is a love for his creation that springs forth from Gen 1 & 2. We belong to God. He is grieved, angry in fact, over our rebellion and loves drives him to do something about it.

Rom 5:8
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Eph 2:4-6
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ- by grace you have been saved- 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

1 Tim 1:14
and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

Titus 3:4
but when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,

1 Jn 3:16

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

And the list could go on.....

So, then Jesus experienced hell on the cross for us. That is the just anger of God needed to be satisfied and he himself provided the sacrifice. God was not angry with Jesus. God was pouring out his wrath and just judgment on our sin but the beauty, joy and sheer scandal of the gospel is that we were not there - Jesus was!! He provided his one and only Son. As we sing "In Christ Alone"

And on that cross as Jesus died

The wrath of God was satisfied

That Son, Jesus Christ, bore on the cross everything that was coming to me - his just anger which should result in death and exclusion from his kingdom.

BUT WHY? Why would he do something like that?

God was driven by his great love as we see in those earlier verses.

And again: Gal 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Song of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

What person wouldn't want to believe this??

How to motivate your prayer life

This question came in after last weeks talk.

"Dave I would say 'we should' pray and that we 'must' is legalism rather than 'we should' statement. Thoughts?"

This is a great question and one I thought A LOT about before giving the sermon (2 Sam 6 & 7) so as you'd imagine I have a few of thoughts:

1. The nature of communication
Communication is a funny thing. What you say is not always what is heard. So when I say we should then it could easily be heard as you must. So on that basis happy to say the perceived lighter thing, in that we can prayer, rather than command it just made more sense to me.

2. Motivation by grace not by command
I still have the outline of my talk on my whiteboard and I written next to the section on prayer - motivate by grace. I think I could have easily said you must - you must - you must but rather I wanted to have the motivation that we can and see prayer as a wonderful thing that we can now do because of Jesus' work. So in light of this I really wanted to steer away from laying a burden upon people. One of the really great things this week at preaching conference was seeing how Paul motivated people towards obedience to Christ, he doesn't command but rather appeals to people on the basis of Christ's work.

For example Rom 12:1

'Therefore, I appeal to you in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices.....' And again in Philemon 8-9,

'Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do I appeal to you on the basis of love.'

So, my goal is to get people to pray - how do you do it? By a command or an appeal on the basis of Christ's work? I chose to make it an appeal on the basis of Jesus has done and his grace and this I think is the vibe of the New Testament.

3. Prayer is not necessary for salvation.
Praying is an outworking of our faith so therefore it is not a should or a must. And since as I said already the language of should and must is not always heard as distinct people may hear you saying what you don't want to say about praying and salvation. When we are converted it is solely through the work of Jesus - not by praying a prayer at the end of a talk but by faith. Once we are saved we have the opportunity to bring things to him in prayer

A step by step guide to winning friends with your money!

Well it's not actually, this question came in ....

What is Luke 16:1-13 on about? Especially that stuff around v8 about commending dishonesty?.

Luke talks a great deal about money, wealth and how to use it. Luke 16 falls into Jesus’ teaching on this topic. The point of Luke 16 is easy to discern. Be generous and responsible with your resources.

Some initial observations
The parable is about a steward who is accused in v1:
There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions.

This idea of wasting his money is like that of the previous story of the Prodigal Son who wastes his Father’s inheritance. It is clear that this type of mismanagement of money requires a response. It can’t be left unchecked.

I guess this shows us our first lesson. We need to be good stewards of our money. Money is a tool. When used properly it is an excellent resource. It can also be a great danger and like all good things that God gives us we can use it serve our own needs and desires.

So, what exactly is the steward doing when he ‘wastes’ the money?
Is the steward inept in his management, just a bad manager or is he siphoning off funds for his own consumption from transactions made? The answer to this question will help make sense of v8:
The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.

Is his dishonesty what he does in v5-7, letting people pay him back less than what they owe him? Or is his dishonesty siphoning off funds?

V3 tells us of the manager’s pickle – he can’t do anything else but be a manager. So his plan is seen in v4:
I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.

His plan is to counter cultural for any banks or governments – he introduces a deflationary scheme: a 50% & 20% reduction in bills.

There are 3 options to consider what is going on here;
1. The steward just lowers the price and therefore the master later praises the steward for his shrewdness and recognises his dishonesty. This view says that v8 is about v5-7 not v1. View 3 challenges this position.
2. The steward removes the interest charged from the debt in line with Mosaic Law. This doesn’t really hold up though because of the different rates of reduction
3. The steward removes his own commission. This would make the most sense of the master’s commendation in v8. Who is going to commend someone who has actually just cheated them? The steward has reduced what is owed to him and at the same time been faithful to his master as well as making his master look good. Jesus also commends the steward for his behaviour and he would not commend immoral behaviour. This would that the dishonesty mentioned in v1 is about him siphoning off stuff for himself – that is the reason for his subsequent sacking.

Some applications of this text:
The steward sacrificed what he could have taken now and has given it to others so that he can receive gain later. The moral about the use of resources is exactly the application Jesus makes in v8-9
For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings

Jesus’ point is that the people of this ‘age’ give thought to how they use their resources – even if they misuse it they think about it! They think about the short and long term benefits of what they acquire.

We, as well as his disciples should honour and serve God with our resources thinking through the short and long term benefits of our actions. So to gain friends by means of money is to use money in a way that others appreciate you for your exercise of stewardship, your kindness and generosity.

1 Peter

We have been studying 1 Peter for 1st term of 2009. There has been a lot of work that has gone into producing a booklet, bible studies and recording of the talks.

You can access them all for free here