Raised – Live your New Life
Read Romans 6:1-4
Prayer: Father, as Christ died, so in Christ I too have died to sin. Help me to not live that way any longer. As Christ was raised, so you have raised me to a new life in Christ. Let me live this new life you have purchased for me through Jesus. Amen.
Reflect/Discuss: How has Jesus changed your life?
Praise: Sing “O To Be Like Thee”
Received – Embrace the Gospel
Read I Corinthians 15:1-7
Prayer: Father, thank you for the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ – that he died for my sins, was buried, and rose from the dead. Thank you that he demonstrated his resurrection by appearing to your early disciples. Thank you for the opportunity to receive this good news and have my sins forgiven. Amen.
Reflect/Discuss: What is the gospel? Have you received it? How do Christ’s many appearances encourage or strengthen faith?
Praise: Sing “One Day”
Easter Sunday: Rejoice – Celebrate His Resurrection
Read Luke 24
Prayer: Father, what glorious news! The tomb is empty! He is not here, but has risen! Let me join with your disciples in joyous worship and praise to you. Amen.
Reflect/Discuss: What evidence does Jesus give of his resurrection, and how does that strengthen your faith and joy?
Praise: Sing “Christ The Lord Is Risen Today”
Yesterday, I mentioned the need to overcome our passion for things and replace it with a passion for God. At root is the question of what we value most and where we place our trust – in things or God. If the answer is things – then we commit idolatry. Consider the words of the Psalm 135:15-18:
“The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths but do not speak; they have eyes but do not see…. Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them.”
John Piper, in his book, When I Don’t Desire God, comments on these verses with insightful words:
“Make and trust a blind idol, and you become blind. Apply that principle to the modern world, and think of the idols of our own day. What do we make and what do we trust? Things. Toys. Technology. And so our hearts and affections are formed by these things. They compress the void in our hearts into shapes like toys. The result is that we are easily moved and excited by things….”
And yet these things never satisfy. For as Augustine wrote, speaking of God: “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” When we delight and trust in things, our hearts are formed towards those things, but are hearts remain restless. We need to redirect our gaze on Christ, reset our desire upon him, place our trust in him. If trusting in idols makes us like idols, if looking to things makes us like things, then looking to God will make us like him – and we will find rest for our souls. May God help us reset our gaze upon him.
In my last post I mentioned our president’s rash words comparing his bowling to the Special Olympics. Many, starting with our president, have condemned these words – and rightly so. Yet is there a sense of glee coming from conservative voices? Why did I smile rather than mourn at our president’s mistake? How is that we can respond to a lack of compassion with our own lack of compassion? Truly we are flawed beings in need of a Savior!
In the book of Judges, Jephthah rashly vows to offer up whatever first comes out of the door of his house if God will give him victory over Israel’s enemies. God gives the victory, and as Jephthah nears home, his daughter – his only child – comes out the door to greet him. Rash words.
My son has been using the word “never” a lot lately, like “I will never come to the table to eat again” – which of course isn’t true. Rash words.
Our president compared his bowling to that of the Special Olympics. Apparently the champion Special Olympics bowler has bowled 5 perfect games since 2005. Rash words.
I say something unkind to my wife or in an unkind tone. Rash words.
Bottom line: We can get on Jephthah’s case or the president’s case, but all of us are guilty at times of rash words. Oh, how we need to guard our tongues if we are going to live with compassion for people!
In the sermon this morning we were looking at the book of Judges. One of the points came from Judges 2:10. Joshua’s generation passed away, and “there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.” What a tragedy! Somehow Joshua’s generation failed to pass on their faith. God’s commandments were lost. Despite all of Moses’ instructions to teach the next generation (see for instance Deut 6), they failed to do it. The results were the time of the Judges, a corrupt depraved time summarized by the last line of the book: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” That last line sounds incredibly similar to the approach to morality in our country today. And the failure to pass on their faith parallels our day too as some statistics say up to 88% of evangelical youth will abandon their faith by the time they finish college. For further statistics and an interesting analysis, see link
What to do? Three suggestions: First, parents need to recognize that they have the primary responsibility to teach their children (see Deut 6:5-9 and Ephesians 6:4). They cannot expect the church to do this for them – it is their responsibility. Many families have a daily family worship time with their children to teach the Bible and pray together. (See the Center For Biblical Spirituality link in the Recommended Sites list for a great intro book on this idea.)
Second, the church must partner with the parents to help them to teach their children. Children and youth ministries are important to reinforce what the children are learning at home. The positive example of other Christians in the church fleshs out what the Christian life looks like. The church must teach parents the Bible with some depth so the parents can then teach their children. The church needs to offer parents practical suggestions, ideas, and resources to equip parents to fulfill their role.
Third, parents and churches need to pray, pray, and pray some more. All of the above will not guarantee that children will follow the Lord. Ultimately the decision is between the grown child and the Lord. So we need to pray.
If we have a passion for God and compassion for children, we must teach the next generation for their joy and God’s glory!
One of my resolutions for the year is to grow in the Christian virtue of joy. To that end, I recently read John Piper’s book When I Don’t Desire God: How To Fight For Joy. It doesn’t take too long before you come to this statement:
Pursuing joy in God was a non-negotiable way of honoring God.
Seeking and finding joy in God honors him, it acknowledges God as the glorious being that he is. The alternative is sobering: failing to seek and find joy in God dishonors God – it treats him as unglorious, ho-hum, run-of-the-mill. Pursuing joy in other things before God dishonors him because it treats those things as more glorious than God. As Piper writes later:
Preferring anything above Christ is the very essence of sin.
Preferring something before Christ is to give it a status above God; indeed to make it our god. It then is a violation of the First Commandment – “You shall have no other gods before me.” Which is to say that it is idolatry. So joy is a serious affair – the failure to rejoice in the Lord dishonors him, is the essence of sin, and is nothing short of idolatry. So here is the question: how do you pursue joy? Piper seeks to answer that question in his book, but I’d love to get some other perspectives.
I have been thinking about the question I left yesterday – “How does God’s faithfulness spur us on to love God more?” I think it has to do in part with trust. The more I see God’s faithfulness, the more I trust him, and the stronger our loving relationship becomes. It is similar to marriage. Unfaithfulness of one spouse (in any number of ways), will make it more difficult for the other spouse to trust and hence hurts the relationship. But faithfulness lived out day by day by one spouse makes it easier for the other to trust and hence stregthens the relationship. There is something attractive and delightful about people who are trustworthy. We want to be around them. Our great need is to recognize God’s daily faithfulness so that we might trust him more, delight in him more, and so love him more. That is my stab at the question. What do you think?
Our church has been reading through the Old Testament this year, and we have come to Joshua this week. Joshua is an incredible testimony of God’s faithfulness. God had promised to give the land of Canaan to Abraham’s descendents over 400 years earlier. In Joshua, God keeps his promise. With great power, God brings Israel into the land. While God’s saving work on the cross is his greatest demonstration of his love for us, his faithfulness is a priceless testimony of his love too. Many of the Psalms tie his love and faithfulness together. For example, the shortest Psalm – Psalm 117 – praises God because “great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.” How has God been faithful to you? How does his faithfulness spur you on to love God more?
