Romans 8:28-39
As this is being written, it’s November. The year is nearly done and the time is nearing when we reflect over the past year, looking at our triumphs and our trials, our victories and our struggles, our blessings and our heartaches. Some of us will sit down to write Christmas letters soon and stare at the paper. We’ll be wondering what to write, how to shape the events of the last year in such a way that we don’t depress those who read the letter. We’ll wonder how to make the good things sound more mundane so we don’t sound like we’re bragging about how good life has been for us. Let’s face it. Some years are just better than others, and some years there are more tears than joy.
One of the things the last year has taught me is that so much depends on your perspective, how you look at the situations in your life. Do you look at them from God’s perspective or your own? Looking at the situations in your life from your own perspective is dangerous. The biggest danger is that, as humans, we’re limited in how we see the world around us. Our perspective is limited to what we can see and feel and experience. We are simply incapable of seeing the big picture, because it is so much bigger than we are.
And because the big picture is so much bigger than we, it is much safer to place our trust in God and look at things from His perspective. Sometimes we won’t know why certain things happened in our lives until much later in our lives, and sometimes we may not know the reason certain things happened until we’re with Him in eternity. My parents found a poem many years ago that wonderfully describes our perspective versus God’s perspective:
My life is but a weaving
Between my Lord and me,
I cannot choose the colors
He worketh steadily.
Oft times he weaveth sorrow
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
And I, the underside.
Not till the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas
And explain the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful
In the Weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned.
Benjamin Malachi Franklin, the author of this poem, was obviously familiar with the passage in Romans we’re taking a look at today. This passage is all about looking at life from God’s perspective and when looking at life that way, seeing how much He loves us. This passage is full of encouragement to do just that. Paul shows in these verses that because He loves us, no matter what, God is in control, God is on our side and God is always with us. It may sometimes seem hard to believe all of that, but Paul presents us a great case for believing it, not only with his words here but also in his own life. By the time that the book of Romans was written, Paul had been threatened with death, run out of town, stoned and left for dead, beaten, and thrown in jail. I think if anyone had a case for being discouraged, it was Paul. Yet, he was able to see things a little from God’s perspective as he wrote the words that we’re studying today. So let’s take a look at the points that Paul makes in this passage.
Because He loves us, no matter what situations come our way, God is in control. The ten dollar word for this idea is sovereignty. According to the dictionary, sovereignty means “the exercise of, or right to exercise, supreme power; dominion; sway; supremacy; independence.” When it refers to God, it means “his absolute right to do all things according to his own good pleasure.” Really, what it all boils down to is that God is in control and that He knows what He’s doing.
Faith in God’s sovereignty caused Paul to write, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”(v 28) These words have gotten thousands and perhaps millions through some of the toughest times of their lives. For so many of us, we want to control what’s going on in our lives, even down to the minutest detail. Those who want to control the details we call “control freaks.” These also tend to be the first to freak when things in their lives get out of control.
However, Paul gives a gentle reminder in verse 28 that though we think we’re in control, we really aren’t. God is. He takes the beautiful and the ugly in our lives and uses it not only to bring glory to Himself, but also to shape us in the image of Christ. Paul tells in verse 29 that God not only called us, He chose us to be like Christ. The circumstances of our lives are like a chisel and hammer in the hands of God. Like a sculptor, God chisels away at us with the stuff that happens to form us into the image of Jesus. It’s not an easy process. It’s not a fast process. But it is a process that is worth the effort. It took seventeen years for God to shape a young braggart and dreamer named Joseph into a man who had the wisdom to lead a nation in a time of crisis. Sold into slavery by his brothers out of jealousy, accused of rape by his master’s wife, thrown in prison for that same accusation, forgotten by someone who promised to remember him, Joseph had every reason to be bitter when his brothers came to Egypt in search of food during the famine. All the years that Joseph was in Egypt, God was chiseling away, until Joseph could stand in front of his brothers and say, “As far as I am concerned, God turned into good what you meant for evil.”(Genesis 50:20)
One word that jumps out in these few verses in Romans is the word “everything.” Paul doesn’t say that God uses only the good things in our lives to shape us. He doesn’t say that God uses just the bad things in our lives to shape us. He says that God uses every thing that happens to us, whether it is an illness or the birth of a child. God even uses what we call chance encounters to mold us. Some have referred to these as divine appointments. These may take many forms. They may come in the form of a doctor who administers exactly the right treatment needed at exactly the right moment. They may come in the form of a book that opens your eyes to the relationship with God that He means for you to have. Or they may be a person who is need of something that only you can give them, which may turn into an opportunity for them to see that God is on their side.
Because He loves us, no matter what accusations are thrown at us, God is on our side. Paul practically shouts this truth in verse 31: “If God is for us, who can ever be against us?” Eugene Peterson in The Message translation puts it this way: “With God on our side like this, how can we lose?” Paul is telling us that whatever happens to us, God wants the best for us. Sometimes what we think is the best for us isn’t what is best for us. Remember, we’re trying, in our limited humanness, to see things from God’s perspective. This may mean that what we want God to do isn’t always what He will do. This means that we’ll go through things that aren’t pleasant, that hurt, and that may tempt us to walk away from God. When we experience that temptation, we need to remember what Paul tells us in verse 34 about Jesus: “[H]e . . . is sitting at the place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us.”
Did you catch that last phrase? Let me read it to you again: “pleading for us.” This means that Jesus isn’t just sitting up in heaven enjoying listening to the angels sing. He is our high priest, pleading for us, interceding for us, standing between us and the accuser. In the Old Testament, the high priest was the one priest who went, once a year, into the Holy of Holies in the temple, where he interceded for the people before God and offered the sacrifice for the people’s sins. When Jesus offered Himself on the cross, He became that sacrifice. When the temple curtain in front of the Holy of Holies was torn in two at His death, our High Priest entered the ultimate Holy of Holies, offering the sacrifice to God. And after His resurrection and ascension, He came into the Father’s presence and pleads our case before the Father, like a lawyer at a trial.
Because Jesus stands in that place, Paul asks the question, “Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? Will God? No! He is the one who has given us right standing with himself.” Because we’ve been given right standing with God, we have nothing to fear from the accusations that Satan throws at us and that he throws up to God about us. It is as if Jesus stands between us and God and says, “This one believes in me. This one is covered by the blood I shed on the cross. This one’s sin is forgiven by my sacrifice. I do not condemn or accuse this one, for they belong to me.” This is undoubtedly what Paul was trying to convey to the Romans when he wrote, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.”(Rom. 8:1) Because of Jesus’ sacrifice and our faith in Him, no one can tell us that our sins are not forgiven, that we can never be forgiven when we slip back into our old ways. Jesus has already covered all of your life with His blood, so that when you stand before the Father, He no longer sees your sin, but someone who is pure and righteous – in right standing with Him. Because of Jesus, the Father looks at us and declares, “Not guilty.”
Though hearing the words “not guilty” from God should be cause enough for anyone to praise Him, God takes His love one step further: no matter what, God is always with us. Jesus promised that fact Himself when He told the disciples on the night before His crucifixion, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth.”(John 14:15, 16a) This is not the first place in Scripture that God promises His continual presence with us. In Deuteronomy 31, Moses told Joshua, “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”(Deut. 31:8 NIV) David cries out in Psalm 139: “I can never escape from your spirit! I can never get away from your presence!”(Ps 139:7)
He never leaves us. He is always with us. No matter what we’re going through, God is right there, holding our hand. After Horatio Spafford lost his four daughters in an accident at sea, he penned these immortal words:
When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrow like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul.
What causes such a sentiment? How does a person move past the grief of such a loss to be able to say, “It is well with my soul?” By remembering that Jesus, though He was God, was also human. By remembering that Jesus doesn’t downplay our losses and our trials. He’s been there, too. He knows our limitations, both bodily and spiritually. He stands with us and grieves with us and strengthens us. Because He is with us. Because He loves us.
It was the confidence that Paul had in this truth that caused him to write: “Can anything separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death?” Too many people believe that if these things come along, if bad things happen, that they are being punished, that God is not in control, that He no longer loves them for whatever reason. Not true. Trouble, calamity, persecution, hunger, cold, danger and death happen because we live in a sinful world, not because God no longer loves us. This goes back to God’s sovereignty and what I said earlier. God loves us so much that He will allow troubles and struggles and trials to help shape us. Someone the other night at small groups used the analogy of sandpaper on a block of wood. Our trials and troubles are the sandpaper that God uses to smooth the rough places and knots out of us.
Paul emphasizes his point when he tells us, “No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.”(v 37) The New International Version translates that same verse this way: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” With those three words, Paul paints the picture of a soldier in armor at the end of a battle who is not just elated that they won the battle, but has their sword raised in victory, shouting their joy to the heavens that the enemy is defeated.
The next verse in our passage has another word that jumps out at us: nothing. Normally, when you think of the word nothing, it’s in a negative way. But Paul doesn’t see it that way. He uses it to tell us what can separate us from God’s love. Nothing. Not death or life. Not a bad economy or a good economy. Not our trials or our blessings. Not a spouse dealing with an illness or the birth of your first grandchild. Not anything bad or anything good. Nothing can separate us from God’s love. Not even the bonds of humanity. He broke down that barrier when He became one of us in the person of Jesus. Not even our sin. He broke down that barrier when He went to the cross as our sacrifice. And not even eternity. He broke down that barrier when He rose from the dead.
Paul knew this. He was convinced of it. He spent most of his life trying to convince others of it. In our passage today, it was the Roman church he was initially trying to convince. Because we have Bibles in our hands, his words are there in black and white to try to convince us. “And I am convinced,” he tells us, “that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t, and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”(vv 38, 39)[i]
Paul has offered us the evidence. Because God loves us, He is in control. Because He loves us, He is on our side. Because He loves us, He is always with us. What comfort is there in knowing this, that no matter what situations we find ourselves in, no matter what accusations are thrown at us, no matter what trials we go through, God loves us. Paul believed it. Millions since have read his words and believed it. Do you believe it?
[i] Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois, 60189. All rights reserved.
Friday, July 31, 2009
FREEDOM!
John 8:31-36
Saturday, July 4, 2009 we celebrated the 233rd birthday of the United States of America. Two hundred and thirty-three years ago, a group of men signed a document declaring their independence from the tyranny of England. For the next several years, scrappy colonists and well-trained soldiers would fight for that independence. The fighting was hard, the conditions for the colonists sometimes at their harshest, but in the end, England surrendered and the United States of America declared itself a free country.
That freedom came at a price. An estimated 25,000 Americans died in active military service, while as many as another 25,000 were seriously wounded or disabled. As a youngling country with a population of about 2.5 million, this came to about 2 percent of the population who died, were wounded or became disabled. Yet, to this new, free, independent country, it was considered worth the cost.
The idea of paying a price for freedom isn’t a new idea. Whenever there have been slaves, there has always been a cost for their freedom. For the freedom of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt, it cost the Egyptians their livestock, their crops, their health and eventually their firstborn. For the freedom of the black slaves in the southern United States, it cost the division of a nation, millions of lives and one president.
In our passage today, Jesus refers to a different kind of freedom, one that He considered worth the cost. He tells his new disciples that there is a different kind of slavery, a slavery that doesn’t shackle a person with physical chains, a slavery that doesn’t bind the body, a slavery that doesn’t leave physical wounds. He speaks of a slavery that shackles the mind, binds the spirit and wounds the heart. It is a slavery that affects all of humanity, not a select group of people. It is a slavery that we are all born into. No one is exempt from it, not you, not me. The slavery to which Jesus refers is the slavery of the human race to sin.
Just what is sin? Well, that’s a touchy subject in today’s day and age of anything goes. Basically, sin is anything we do, whether knowingly or unknowingly, that violates God’s will and separates us from God. Whether we like it or not, we are sinful people. We like having our own way and it doesn’t generally match up with what God wants for us. We turn our backs on the wonderful life that God has for us and dig ourselves deeper into the slavery of sin. Have you been there? Are you there? Have you ever thought, “There’s got to be more to life than this?”
Well, have I got good news for you. There is more to life than our slavery to sin. There is more to life than being stuck in the pit of despair, tied to a rack, having the life sucked out of us. Yeah, yeah, I meant that “Princess Bride” reference. Think about it, though. For those who know Jesus, isn’t that a good image of our life without Him? Just waiting around for our lives to be sucked out of us, without hope of rescue.
Jesus tells us in this passage that though we are in slavery, we can be free. Truly free to enjoy a life with peace, with joy, a life that is as God intended it. Yet, true freedom doesn’t end with this life. It extends to the next. Too many people believe that their lives end with their death. I’m here to tell you that that’s not true. Death is merely a stopping point along our eternal journey, and what we have done prior to that is what determines our destination after death.
So, what is true freedom? Quite simply put, it is the freedom from the bondage of sin. Jesus states in verse 34 of our passage, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin.” He doesn’t say, “Everyone who isn’t a Jew is a slave to sin.” He doesn’t say, “Everyone who doesn’t have a certain skin color is a slave to sin.” He doesn’t say, “Everyone who isn’t a political conservative is a slave to sin.” He says that everyone, without qualification, is a slave to sin. This makes our situation pretty hopeless.
Yet, Jesus gives us hope. He goes on to say, “So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free.” (v. 36) We don’t have to be stuck in our pit. We can be pulled free of it. Hundreds of years before Jesus, King David of Israel knew this truth. In Psalm 40:2, David tells us about God: “He lifted me out of the pit of despair,/out of the mud and the mire./He set my feet on solid ground/and steadied me as I walked along.”
Let me point out something here. Freedom does not equal independence. Independence, while it is similar to freedom, implies that it stands alone, that no one had to make us independent. We did it ourselves. Out of curiosity, I looked up the word independence in my exhaustive concordance. Care to guess how many times the word independence appears in the Bible? In the NLT, it occurs just once, referring to Israel’s abandonment of God. Not once is it used for the word freedom.
Freedom causes us to be dependent on someone or something else to set us free. Being set free implies that someone had to pay a price for our freedom. Whether it’s the slave whose freedom was purchased with money or the addict whose freedom was purchased with hours put in by a loving friend, freedom costs someone other than ourselves something. Our freedom costs someone else something.
The same is true of our freedom from sin. Jesus tells us that if we know the truth, then the truth will set us free. Later on in John’s gospel, Jesus tells his disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” (Jn 14:6) So, if Jesus tells us that the truth will set us free, then tells us that He is the truth, it doesn’t take much to conclude that Jesus is the one who sets us free from the bondage of sin.
But at what cost? What price did Jesus pay so that we could be free from the bondage of sin? The apostle Paul tells us that “[H]e …died a criminal’s death on a cross.” (Phil. 2:8) What does that mean, exactly?
I’ll spare you the gory details, because they are very gory. Crucifixion, death on a cross, was the most excruciating, horrific method of execution. It was used with the most common criminals or used to disgrace those being executed. It was painful – the one being executed was usually scourged before being forced to carry the crossbeam of their cross to the place of execution. It could take hours or days for the one being executed to die, and often the condemned’s legs were broken to hasten death. It was also humiliating. The condemned was usually stripped naked, forcing them to the degradation hurled on them by passers-by. In other words, think of the worst, most painful way for you to die and multiply it by ten. This is what Jesus endured on the cross.
By now you’re wondering why someone would go through such an agonizing, humiliating death. Jesus put it very simply in the most famous verse in the Bible. Speaking to the Sanhedrin member Nicodemus, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16) Love motivated God to become human in order to be a perfect sacrifice for our sins. In the Old Testament, the people were to offer for sacrifice the most perfect animal they could afford, from a spotless bull to two doves or pigeons, as an atonement for their sins. The priest then sacrificed the animal and placed it to be burned on the altar in the temple. Yet God knew that the system of animal sacrifice would be manipulated and violated, so He provided a permanent solution: Jesus.
You see, God knew us humans so well. He knew that we could never fully enjoy the intimacy we once had with Him through the animal sacrifices. He knew that for us to be able to communicate with Him, to enjoy a relationship with Him without hindrance required our full repentance. He knew in our imperfect state we were incapable of repenting fully. Christian author C.S. Lewis puts it this way in the classic Mere Christianity: “[Repentance] means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death. In fact, it needs a good man to repent. And here comes the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person – and he would not need it.” Lewis concludes that the only way humanity could repent was if God became man and did it for us. And that is exactly what He did.
Maybe you’re still asking yourself why. Why would the God of the universe want anything to do with a flawed race like humanity? That answer is actually very simple and is found in Genesis 1:26, 27: “Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like ourselves. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.’ So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
God loves each and every one of His creations. Consider the words of Jesus in Matthew 10:29: “What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.” When we were created, we were perfect, just like God is perfect. But we messed up. We listened to lies that God was holding out on us and tried to become God ourselves. I’m telling you, that didn’t work out so well. In trying to become God ourselves, we separated ourselves from God and from the relationship we once had with Him.
God knew that drastic measures were needed to bring His fallen creations back to Him. Only a powerful, amazing, incomprehensible, crazy love would do something as drastic as giving up One’s only Child to save the creation. Yet Jesus was willing to count the cost, determining that each and every one of us was worth it, because He loved us.
Because He loved us, Jesus considered our freedom from sin was worth His death on the cross. Freedom from the bondage of sin is available to each and every person on earth. It doesn’t matter where you’ve been or what you’ve done. All that matters is that you want to be free.
So how do you get free? This is actually very simple. The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 10:9, 10: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.” The apostle Peter in his very first sermon told the crowd before him, “Each of you must repent of your sins, turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ to show that you have received forgiveness for your sins.” (Acts 2:38)[i]
Here’s the deal: if you believe in your heart that Jesus died to free you from sin and that He rose again, tell somebody. Acknowledge that Jesus is Lord of your life. Have someone pray with you. Then, as Peter told the crowd in Jerusalem on Pentecost, repent. All this really means is turning your back on sin and turning to God. I’ve heard it described as doing a 180, as if you’re headed south and you turn around and go north. Repenting is not an easy task. C.S. Lewis describes it this way: “It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing yourself, undergoing a kind of death.” But repenting is not something you have to do on your own. God will be with you every step of the way.
You can be free from the bondage to sin right here, right now. You don’t have to do anything special. Just tell Jesus, “Jesus, I screwed up. I’m in bondage. But I believe You died to set me free. Be my Savior. Be my Lord. Set me free.” Your prayer to Him doesn’t have to be fancy. It doesn’t have to be out loud. It doesn’t even have to be done right here, right now. But once you’ve prayed it, tell somebody who already knows His freedom. They can walk alongside you as you start this incredible new journey.
If you asked Jesus to set you free just now, tell me. I want to pray with you and for you. If you asked Jesus to set you free just now, fabulous! Welcome to your freedom and your new life.
[i] Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois, 60189. All rights reserved.
Saturday, July 4, 2009 we celebrated the 233rd birthday of the United States of America. Two hundred and thirty-three years ago, a group of men signed a document declaring their independence from the tyranny of England. For the next several years, scrappy colonists and well-trained soldiers would fight for that independence. The fighting was hard, the conditions for the colonists sometimes at their harshest, but in the end, England surrendered and the United States of America declared itself a free country.
That freedom came at a price. An estimated 25,000 Americans died in active military service, while as many as another 25,000 were seriously wounded or disabled. As a youngling country with a population of about 2.5 million, this came to about 2 percent of the population who died, were wounded or became disabled. Yet, to this new, free, independent country, it was considered worth the cost.
The idea of paying a price for freedom isn’t a new idea. Whenever there have been slaves, there has always been a cost for their freedom. For the freedom of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt, it cost the Egyptians their livestock, their crops, their health and eventually their firstborn. For the freedom of the black slaves in the southern United States, it cost the division of a nation, millions of lives and one president.
In our passage today, Jesus refers to a different kind of freedom, one that He considered worth the cost. He tells his new disciples that there is a different kind of slavery, a slavery that doesn’t shackle a person with physical chains, a slavery that doesn’t bind the body, a slavery that doesn’t leave physical wounds. He speaks of a slavery that shackles the mind, binds the spirit and wounds the heart. It is a slavery that affects all of humanity, not a select group of people. It is a slavery that we are all born into. No one is exempt from it, not you, not me. The slavery to which Jesus refers is the slavery of the human race to sin.
Just what is sin? Well, that’s a touchy subject in today’s day and age of anything goes. Basically, sin is anything we do, whether knowingly or unknowingly, that violates God’s will and separates us from God. Whether we like it or not, we are sinful people. We like having our own way and it doesn’t generally match up with what God wants for us. We turn our backs on the wonderful life that God has for us and dig ourselves deeper into the slavery of sin. Have you been there? Are you there? Have you ever thought, “There’s got to be more to life than this?”
Well, have I got good news for you. There is more to life than our slavery to sin. There is more to life than being stuck in the pit of despair, tied to a rack, having the life sucked out of us. Yeah, yeah, I meant that “Princess Bride” reference. Think about it, though. For those who know Jesus, isn’t that a good image of our life without Him? Just waiting around for our lives to be sucked out of us, without hope of rescue.
Jesus tells us in this passage that though we are in slavery, we can be free. Truly free to enjoy a life with peace, with joy, a life that is as God intended it. Yet, true freedom doesn’t end with this life. It extends to the next. Too many people believe that their lives end with their death. I’m here to tell you that that’s not true. Death is merely a stopping point along our eternal journey, and what we have done prior to that is what determines our destination after death.
So, what is true freedom? Quite simply put, it is the freedom from the bondage of sin. Jesus states in verse 34 of our passage, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin.” He doesn’t say, “Everyone who isn’t a Jew is a slave to sin.” He doesn’t say, “Everyone who doesn’t have a certain skin color is a slave to sin.” He doesn’t say, “Everyone who isn’t a political conservative is a slave to sin.” He says that everyone, without qualification, is a slave to sin. This makes our situation pretty hopeless.
Yet, Jesus gives us hope. He goes on to say, “So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free.” (v. 36) We don’t have to be stuck in our pit. We can be pulled free of it. Hundreds of years before Jesus, King David of Israel knew this truth. In Psalm 40:2, David tells us about God: “He lifted me out of the pit of despair,/out of the mud and the mire./He set my feet on solid ground/and steadied me as I walked along.”
Let me point out something here. Freedom does not equal independence. Independence, while it is similar to freedom, implies that it stands alone, that no one had to make us independent. We did it ourselves. Out of curiosity, I looked up the word independence in my exhaustive concordance. Care to guess how many times the word independence appears in the Bible? In the NLT, it occurs just once, referring to Israel’s abandonment of God. Not once is it used for the word freedom.
Freedom causes us to be dependent on someone or something else to set us free. Being set free implies that someone had to pay a price for our freedom. Whether it’s the slave whose freedom was purchased with money or the addict whose freedom was purchased with hours put in by a loving friend, freedom costs someone other than ourselves something. Our freedom costs someone else something.
The same is true of our freedom from sin. Jesus tells us that if we know the truth, then the truth will set us free. Later on in John’s gospel, Jesus tells his disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” (Jn 14:6) So, if Jesus tells us that the truth will set us free, then tells us that He is the truth, it doesn’t take much to conclude that Jesus is the one who sets us free from the bondage of sin.
But at what cost? What price did Jesus pay so that we could be free from the bondage of sin? The apostle Paul tells us that “[H]e …died a criminal’s death on a cross.” (Phil. 2:8) What does that mean, exactly?
I’ll spare you the gory details, because they are very gory. Crucifixion, death on a cross, was the most excruciating, horrific method of execution. It was used with the most common criminals or used to disgrace those being executed. It was painful – the one being executed was usually scourged before being forced to carry the crossbeam of their cross to the place of execution. It could take hours or days for the one being executed to die, and often the condemned’s legs were broken to hasten death. It was also humiliating. The condemned was usually stripped naked, forcing them to the degradation hurled on them by passers-by. In other words, think of the worst, most painful way for you to die and multiply it by ten. This is what Jesus endured on the cross.
By now you’re wondering why someone would go through such an agonizing, humiliating death. Jesus put it very simply in the most famous verse in the Bible. Speaking to the Sanhedrin member Nicodemus, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16) Love motivated God to become human in order to be a perfect sacrifice for our sins. In the Old Testament, the people were to offer for sacrifice the most perfect animal they could afford, from a spotless bull to two doves or pigeons, as an atonement for their sins. The priest then sacrificed the animal and placed it to be burned on the altar in the temple. Yet God knew that the system of animal sacrifice would be manipulated and violated, so He provided a permanent solution: Jesus.
You see, God knew us humans so well. He knew that we could never fully enjoy the intimacy we once had with Him through the animal sacrifices. He knew that for us to be able to communicate with Him, to enjoy a relationship with Him without hindrance required our full repentance. He knew in our imperfect state we were incapable of repenting fully. Christian author C.S. Lewis puts it this way in the classic Mere Christianity: “[Repentance] means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death. In fact, it needs a good man to repent. And here comes the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person – and he would not need it.” Lewis concludes that the only way humanity could repent was if God became man and did it for us. And that is exactly what He did.
Maybe you’re still asking yourself why. Why would the God of the universe want anything to do with a flawed race like humanity? That answer is actually very simple and is found in Genesis 1:26, 27: “Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like ourselves. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.’ So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
God loves each and every one of His creations. Consider the words of Jesus in Matthew 10:29: “What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.” When we were created, we were perfect, just like God is perfect. But we messed up. We listened to lies that God was holding out on us and tried to become God ourselves. I’m telling you, that didn’t work out so well. In trying to become God ourselves, we separated ourselves from God and from the relationship we once had with Him.
God knew that drastic measures were needed to bring His fallen creations back to Him. Only a powerful, amazing, incomprehensible, crazy love would do something as drastic as giving up One’s only Child to save the creation. Yet Jesus was willing to count the cost, determining that each and every one of us was worth it, because He loved us.
Because He loved us, Jesus considered our freedom from sin was worth His death on the cross. Freedom from the bondage of sin is available to each and every person on earth. It doesn’t matter where you’ve been or what you’ve done. All that matters is that you want to be free.
So how do you get free? This is actually very simple. The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 10:9, 10: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.” The apostle Peter in his very first sermon told the crowd before him, “Each of you must repent of your sins, turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ to show that you have received forgiveness for your sins.” (Acts 2:38)[i]
Here’s the deal: if you believe in your heart that Jesus died to free you from sin and that He rose again, tell somebody. Acknowledge that Jesus is Lord of your life. Have someone pray with you. Then, as Peter told the crowd in Jerusalem on Pentecost, repent. All this really means is turning your back on sin and turning to God. I’ve heard it described as doing a 180, as if you’re headed south and you turn around and go north. Repenting is not an easy task. C.S. Lewis describes it this way: “It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing yourself, undergoing a kind of death.” But repenting is not something you have to do on your own. God will be with you every step of the way.
You can be free from the bondage to sin right here, right now. You don’t have to do anything special. Just tell Jesus, “Jesus, I screwed up. I’m in bondage. But I believe You died to set me free. Be my Savior. Be my Lord. Set me free.” Your prayer to Him doesn’t have to be fancy. It doesn’t have to be out loud. It doesn’t even have to be done right here, right now. But once you’ve prayed it, tell somebody who already knows His freedom. They can walk alongside you as you start this incredible new journey.
If you asked Jesus to set you free just now, tell me. I want to pray with you and for you. If you asked Jesus to set you free just now, fabulous! Welcome to your freedom and your new life.
[i] Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois, 60189. All rights reserved.
Do You Love Me?
John 21:15-17
“Do you love me?”
This is the third time I’ve started this message. Each time something different has come out of my head and down through my fingers and out into this document on my computer. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that this is the third time. God is big on threes: the three persons of the Trinity, the three nails in the cross, the three denials of Peter, the three times that Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?”
The first time I sat down to write this, I focused on what Jesus told Peter to do. “Feed my lambs.” “Take care of my sheep.” “Feed my sheep.” The second time I tried to do an analysis of the two Greek words used in these three (there’s three again) verses. But this third time, I told God I wanted to get to the heart of the question that Jesus was asking. After all, God doesn’t repeat Himself without reason, without meaning, and over the years I’ve discovered that when God says something once, you should listen and do as He says. When He says something twice, He really wants you to pay attention, but when He says something three times, He really wants you to know that what He’s saying is serious.
In recent weeks, we’ve heard messages on the questions Jesus asked throughout the book of John. We’ve heard Jesus ask us what we wanted, if we knew what grace was, if we wanted to be whole, if we believed in the Son of Man, if we would die with Him. Yet I think that this last question of Jesus in the book of John is the most difficult. Jesus peers into our souls, into our hearts and minds and asks, “Do you love me?”
It is a question that should pierce our hearts. It is a question that should cause us to step back and think. It is a question that we need to answer, not to others, but to God Himself. It is a question that requires an answer, an honest, real answer. For this is the only time in the entire Bible when God asks this question of anyone. Other places in the Bible He tells us to love Him. Deuteronomy 6:4, 5 says, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all you heart, all your soul, and all your strength.” Jesus later stated that this was the greatest commandment God had given (Mt 22:37, Mk 12:30, Lk 10:27). In Deuteronomy 11:1, Moses tells the people, “You must love the Lord your God and obey all his requirements, laws, regulations, and commands.” Jesus reiterates this in John 14:15: “If you love me, obey my commandments.” But in this short passage, we find the only time in all of Scripture that God asks us, “Do you love me?”
Why does He ask? And why does He ask three times? Scholars agree that Jesus asks Peter this question three times to offset the guilt Peter feels for denying Jesus three times. If you remember, Peter, the night before Jesus was crucified, denied publicly three times that he knew Jesus: “The woman asked Peter, ‘Aren’t you one of Jesus’ disciples?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘I am not.’ . . . Meanwhile, as Simon Peter was standing by the fire, they asked him again, ‘Aren’t you one of his disciples?’ ‘I am not,’ he said. But one of the household servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, ‘Didn’t I see you out there in the olive grove with Jesus?’ Again Peter denied it. And immediately a rooster crowed.”(John 18:25-27) Jesus had predicted the moment, and in the book of Luke, Luke records what Peter did next. “As soon as he said these words, the rooster crowed. At that moment the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered that the Lord had said, ‘Before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny me three times.’ And Peter left the courtyard, crying bitterly.” (Luke 22:60-62)
Peter knew what he had done. He had denied not only his Messiah, but his friend. The guilt must have weighed heavily on him. Jesus knew this. I believe that’s why He asked this question of Peter three times. Jesus knew Peter’s heart, but He wanted Peter to know he’d been forgiven. So Jesus asked the question three times, in order to allow Peter to reaffirm his commitment not only to his Lord, but also to his friend.
So Jesus looks down the centuries and asks us the same question. Here’s my theory as to why He asks us the same way He asked Peter. How many times have we denied we knew Jesus? Maybe we didn’t do it with words, like Peter, but perhaps by approving of actions we knew Jesus would not approve. Maybe we didn’t stand up for Him when someone else put Him down. Maybe we denied knowing Him by our own actions. Whatever the case, He is giving us the same opportunity that He gave Peter: a chance to reaffirm our commitment to our Lord and our Friend. He looks at us and says, “Do you love me?”
What is your answer to that question? There are really only two answers: yes or no. But maybe you’re unsure of what it means to love Him. What does it mean to love Jesus as your Lord and your Friend? Well, I have a theory about that, too. I believe that it has to do with the two Greek words that Jesus uses in these three short verses. The first Greek word is agapao, from which we get the word agape. The second is the word phileo, from which we get words like philanthropy and Philadelphia. Let’s look at each of these words separately and why Jesus used them.
Agapao literally means “to love”. Yet when I looked deeper, I found out that it’s not the kind of love we think of when we say the word love. Agape, the noun form of agapao, refers to an active love, one that shows itself in deeds and actions, that is often self-sacrificial and always a choice. This form of love is not a feeling. This form of love is deliberate. In fact, Jesus used agapao and its other forms more than any other to talk about love. He used it most often in the book of John to show the kind of love that not only God has for us, but that we should have for Him. In fact, when Jesus told Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son”, He used the word agapao. He used it to talk about His relationship with the Father: “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love.”(Jn 15:9) He even used it in His final commandment to his disciples: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”(Jn 15:12 NIV) The last time in the Gospels that we see Jesus use agapao is in His questions to Peter. There’s a reason for this. As much to us as to Peter, He is asking, “Do you actively love me? Do you show it for others to see?”
So how do we actively love Jesus? I believe that there are three things Jesus did in His own life that we can learn from. As we look at how Jesus showed His love, we see that He served, He obeyed and He sacrificed.
Through His healings and miracles, He served others. At the wedding in Cana, recorded in John 2, Jesus turned jars full of water into fine wine. Why? So that the groom wouldn’t be embarrassed by the fact that his household had run out of wine for the wedding. In a town called Nain, He raised a widow’s only son from the dead. Why? So that the widow would be taken care of, since in that time, a woman depended either on her husband or her son for her income and without either, she might have become homeless and penniless. Jesus Himself stated that serving was one of His ministries on earth when He said, “For even I, the Son of Man, came here not to be served but to serve others.”(Mt 20:28)
Jesus also obeyed His Father. “For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do what I want,” He told the people in John 6:38. Praying before His crucifixion, He says to the Father, “I brought glory to you here on earth by doing everything you told me to do.”(Jn 17:4) And even in His humanness, He obeyed: “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will, not mine.”(Lk 22:42)
This brings me to the last way Jesus showed agape: He went to the cross for you and me. For, you see, agape is sacrificial. Jesus showed the ultimate form of agape when He hung on a cross on a hill outside Jerusalem and became the once and for all sacrifice for sin, when He embodied and demonstrated the words that He had spoken to Nicodemus: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son”. Agape is a choice and sometimes that choice is sacrificial. Jesus had a choice: go to the cross as our sacrifice for sin, or, as Pastor Bill puts it, push the God button and wipe out sin with a wave of His hand. Because He had agape for us, Jesus went to the cross.
So what does all of this mean for us? It means we can learn from Jesus’ example. To show agape, we serve – we serve God, each other, those outside the church, including the ones we may not like very much. Jesus came to serve those who opposed Him, too, after all. To show agape, we obey what God tells us to do. To show agape, we sacrifice. We may not be called to sacrifice our lives, as Jesus and the majority of the disciples were, but there are things that God will call us to give up not only in order to show Him how much we love Him, but also to make us more like Jesus.
In addition to agape, Jesus asks us if we phileo Him. “Do you love me like a brother, like a friend?” He asks. “Do you have a relationship with me?” Jesus asks this because without a relationship with Him, agape is pointless. I think we’ve all heard of people who serve in churches not because they want to, but because they feel obligated to or because they want people to notice that they’re serving. Jesus addressed this on several occasions when He talked about those who prayed publicly in order to be heard, or dressed and acted a certain way in order to be seen as Godly by others. He called such people whitewashed tombs – they look good on the outside, but they’re dead on the inside because they’ve missed the point. To be like God, you need to know God. And to know God you need to have a relationship with Him. Jesus did, and He did it through one primary method: prayer. He got alone with His Father and talked to Him and listened to Him. He spent time with His Father. But the Father wasn’t the only person Jesus had a close relationship with. He spent three years in the company of several men He called His friends. When you spend time with someone, you get to know that person.
In the here and now, we have three ways that we get to know Jesus: prayer, which I’ve already mentioned, study of the word of God, the Bible, and worship. God communicates to us in all three ways.
In our busy lives, it’s difficult to take time to pray, yet prayer is one of the most essential keys to a healthy relationship with God. If we want to be like God, if we want to know Him, we must pray and we must take the time to pray. King David in Psalm 5 states: “Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly.”(Ps 5:3)[i] David knew that the secret of a close relationship with God was prayer. Now this doesn’t mean you’ll do all the talking. In fact, God wants to do some of the talking. In Psalm 46:10, God says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”(NIV)[ii] If we are still before God, if we’re focusing our attention on Him, then He will speak. It may not be an audible voice; in fact, He will more often speak with a still, small voice that takes all of our concentration to hear in our hearts and minds and spirits. But I promise you, He wants to speak with you. You are precious to Him and He wants to spend time with you.
We also get to know God through His word, the Bible. God has a lot to say about who He is in the Bible. He is our Deliverer (Dt 5:6). He is our refuge (Ps 46:1). He is our Shepherd (Ps 23:1; Jn 10:11). He is our Strength (Jer 16:19). He is the Way, the Truth and the Life (Jn 14:6). He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last (Is 44:6; Rv 1:17). He is our Sacrifice, once and for all (Heb 10:12). This is just a smattering of examples as to who God is according to the Bible. As we read His word daily, we start to see what an amazing God we have, and learning about Him causes us to want to spend more time with Him. God also uses his word to teach us how to be like Him.
Finally, we get to know God through worship. I’m not just talking about the music we sing or listen to. I’m talking about every aspect of worship – the music, the giving, the teaching, the fellowship. Worship is just another way we can learn who God is, what He’s done, and hear Him speak. He may speak through the music or the teaching or another believer, but like with prayer and reading the word, He does want to speak. We need to keep an open heart to hear Him.
So how will you answer Jesus? He speaks the question even now to our hearts: “Do you love me? Do you actively love me? Are you my friend?” If your answer is yes, then I ask these questions: How will you agapao Him? How will you phileo Him? Will you serve, obey and sacrifice? Will you take time to pray, to read His word, to worship?
The work of the cross is done. The stone is rolled away. But once we accept God’s gift of grace, what will we do with it? This is what Jesus is asking. “I have died for your sins because of my agape for you. Do you love me?”
This is the last question of Jesus on earth according to Scripture. What is your answer?
[i] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois, 60189. All rights reserved.
[ii] Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
“Do you love me?”
This is the third time I’ve started this message. Each time something different has come out of my head and down through my fingers and out into this document on my computer. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that this is the third time. God is big on threes: the three persons of the Trinity, the three nails in the cross, the three denials of Peter, the three times that Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?”
The first time I sat down to write this, I focused on what Jesus told Peter to do. “Feed my lambs.” “Take care of my sheep.” “Feed my sheep.” The second time I tried to do an analysis of the two Greek words used in these three (there’s three again) verses. But this third time, I told God I wanted to get to the heart of the question that Jesus was asking. After all, God doesn’t repeat Himself without reason, without meaning, and over the years I’ve discovered that when God says something once, you should listen and do as He says. When He says something twice, He really wants you to pay attention, but when He says something three times, He really wants you to know that what He’s saying is serious.
In recent weeks, we’ve heard messages on the questions Jesus asked throughout the book of John. We’ve heard Jesus ask us what we wanted, if we knew what grace was, if we wanted to be whole, if we believed in the Son of Man, if we would die with Him. Yet I think that this last question of Jesus in the book of John is the most difficult. Jesus peers into our souls, into our hearts and minds and asks, “Do you love me?”
It is a question that should pierce our hearts. It is a question that should cause us to step back and think. It is a question that we need to answer, not to others, but to God Himself. It is a question that requires an answer, an honest, real answer. For this is the only time in the entire Bible when God asks this question of anyone. Other places in the Bible He tells us to love Him. Deuteronomy 6:4, 5 says, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all you heart, all your soul, and all your strength.” Jesus later stated that this was the greatest commandment God had given (Mt 22:37, Mk 12:30, Lk 10:27). In Deuteronomy 11:1, Moses tells the people, “You must love the Lord your God and obey all his requirements, laws, regulations, and commands.” Jesus reiterates this in John 14:15: “If you love me, obey my commandments.” But in this short passage, we find the only time in all of Scripture that God asks us, “Do you love me?”
Why does He ask? And why does He ask three times? Scholars agree that Jesus asks Peter this question three times to offset the guilt Peter feels for denying Jesus three times. If you remember, Peter, the night before Jesus was crucified, denied publicly three times that he knew Jesus: “The woman asked Peter, ‘Aren’t you one of Jesus’ disciples?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘I am not.’ . . . Meanwhile, as Simon Peter was standing by the fire, they asked him again, ‘Aren’t you one of his disciples?’ ‘I am not,’ he said. But one of the household servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, ‘Didn’t I see you out there in the olive grove with Jesus?’ Again Peter denied it. And immediately a rooster crowed.”(John 18:25-27) Jesus had predicted the moment, and in the book of Luke, Luke records what Peter did next. “As soon as he said these words, the rooster crowed. At that moment the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered that the Lord had said, ‘Before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny me three times.’ And Peter left the courtyard, crying bitterly.” (Luke 22:60-62)
Peter knew what he had done. He had denied not only his Messiah, but his friend. The guilt must have weighed heavily on him. Jesus knew this. I believe that’s why He asked this question of Peter three times. Jesus knew Peter’s heart, but He wanted Peter to know he’d been forgiven. So Jesus asked the question three times, in order to allow Peter to reaffirm his commitment not only to his Lord, but also to his friend.
So Jesus looks down the centuries and asks us the same question. Here’s my theory as to why He asks us the same way He asked Peter. How many times have we denied we knew Jesus? Maybe we didn’t do it with words, like Peter, but perhaps by approving of actions we knew Jesus would not approve. Maybe we didn’t stand up for Him when someone else put Him down. Maybe we denied knowing Him by our own actions. Whatever the case, He is giving us the same opportunity that He gave Peter: a chance to reaffirm our commitment to our Lord and our Friend. He looks at us and says, “Do you love me?”
What is your answer to that question? There are really only two answers: yes or no. But maybe you’re unsure of what it means to love Him. What does it mean to love Jesus as your Lord and your Friend? Well, I have a theory about that, too. I believe that it has to do with the two Greek words that Jesus uses in these three short verses. The first Greek word is agapao, from which we get the word agape. The second is the word phileo, from which we get words like philanthropy and Philadelphia. Let’s look at each of these words separately and why Jesus used them.
Agapao literally means “to love”. Yet when I looked deeper, I found out that it’s not the kind of love we think of when we say the word love. Agape, the noun form of agapao, refers to an active love, one that shows itself in deeds and actions, that is often self-sacrificial and always a choice. This form of love is not a feeling. This form of love is deliberate. In fact, Jesus used agapao and its other forms more than any other to talk about love. He used it most often in the book of John to show the kind of love that not only God has for us, but that we should have for Him. In fact, when Jesus told Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son”, He used the word agapao. He used it to talk about His relationship with the Father: “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love.”(Jn 15:9) He even used it in His final commandment to his disciples: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”(Jn 15:12 NIV) The last time in the Gospels that we see Jesus use agapao is in His questions to Peter. There’s a reason for this. As much to us as to Peter, He is asking, “Do you actively love me? Do you show it for others to see?”
So how do we actively love Jesus? I believe that there are three things Jesus did in His own life that we can learn from. As we look at how Jesus showed His love, we see that He served, He obeyed and He sacrificed.
Through His healings and miracles, He served others. At the wedding in Cana, recorded in John 2, Jesus turned jars full of water into fine wine. Why? So that the groom wouldn’t be embarrassed by the fact that his household had run out of wine for the wedding. In a town called Nain, He raised a widow’s only son from the dead. Why? So that the widow would be taken care of, since in that time, a woman depended either on her husband or her son for her income and without either, she might have become homeless and penniless. Jesus Himself stated that serving was one of His ministries on earth when He said, “For even I, the Son of Man, came here not to be served but to serve others.”(Mt 20:28)
Jesus also obeyed His Father. “For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do what I want,” He told the people in John 6:38. Praying before His crucifixion, He says to the Father, “I brought glory to you here on earth by doing everything you told me to do.”(Jn 17:4) And even in His humanness, He obeyed: “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will, not mine.”(Lk 22:42)
This brings me to the last way Jesus showed agape: He went to the cross for you and me. For, you see, agape is sacrificial. Jesus showed the ultimate form of agape when He hung on a cross on a hill outside Jerusalem and became the once and for all sacrifice for sin, when He embodied and demonstrated the words that He had spoken to Nicodemus: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son”. Agape is a choice and sometimes that choice is sacrificial. Jesus had a choice: go to the cross as our sacrifice for sin, or, as Pastor Bill puts it, push the God button and wipe out sin with a wave of His hand. Because He had agape for us, Jesus went to the cross.
So what does all of this mean for us? It means we can learn from Jesus’ example. To show agape, we serve – we serve God, each other, those outside the church, including the ones we may not like very much. Jesus came to serve those who opposed Him, too, after all. To show agape, we obey what God tells us to do. To show agape, we sacrifice. We may not be called to sacrifice our lives, as Jesus and the majority of the disciples were, but there are things that God will call us to give up not only in order to show Him how much we love Him, but also to make us more like Jesus.
In addition to agape, Jesus asks us if we phileo Him. “Do you love me like a brother, like a friend?” He asks. “Do you have a relationship with me?” Jesus asks this because without a relationship with Him, agape is pointless. I think we’ve all heard of people who serve in churches not because they want to, but because they feel obligated to or because they want people to notice that they’re serving. Jesus addressed this on several occasions when He talked about those who prayed publicly in order to be heard, or dressed and acted a certain way in order to be seen as Godly by others. He called such people whitewashed tombs – they look good on the outside, but they’re dead on the inside because they’ve missed the point. To be like God, you need to know God. And to know God you need to have a relationship with Him. Jesus did, and He did it through one primary method: prayer. He got alone with His Father and talked to Him and listened to Him. He spent time with His Father. But the Father wasn’t the only person Jesus had a close relationship with. He spent three years in the company of several men He called His friends. When you spend time with someone, you get to know that person.
In the here and now, we have three ways that we get to know Jesus: prayer, which I’ve already mentioned, study of the word of God, the Bible, and worship. God communicates to us in all three ways.
In our busy lives, it’s difficult to take time to pray, yet prayer is one of the most essential keys to a healthy relationship with God. If we want to be like God, if we want to know Him, we must pray and we must take the time to pray. King David in Psalm 5 states: “Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly.”(Ps 5:3)[i] David knew that the secret of a close relationship with God was prayer. Now this doesn’t mean you’ll do all the talking. In fact, God wants to do some of the talking. In Psalm 46:10, God says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”(NIV)[ii] If we are still before God, if we’re focusing our attention on Him, then He will speak. It may not be an audible voice; in fact, He will more often speak with a still, small voice that takes all of our concentration to hear in our hearts and minds and spirits. But I promise you, He wants to speak with you. You are precious to Him and He wants to spend time with you.
We also get to know God through His word, the Bible. God has a lot to say about who He is in the Bible. He is our Deliverer (Dt 5:6). He is our refuge (Ps 46:1). He is our Shepherd (Ps 23:1; Jn 10:11). He is our Strength (Jer 16:19). He is the Way, the Truth and the Life (Jn 14:6). He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last (Is 44:6; Rv 1:17). He is our Sacrifice, once and for all (Heb 10:12). This is just a smattering of examples as to who God is according to the Bible. As we read His word daily, we start to see what an amazing God we have, and learning about Him causes us to want to spend more time with Him. God also uses his word to teach us how to be like Him.
Finally, we get to know God through worship. I’m not just talking about the music we sing or listen to. I’m talking about every aspect of worship – the music, the giving, the teaching, the fellowship. Worship is just another way we can learn who God is, what He’s done, and hear Him speak. He may speak through the music or the teaching or another believer, but like with prayer and reading the word, He does want to speak. We need to keep an open heart to hear Him.
So how will you answer Jesus? He speaks the question even now to our hearts: “Do you love me? Do you actively love me? Are you my friend?” If your answer is yes, then I ask these questions: How will you agapao Him? How will you phileo Him? Will you serve, obey and sacrifice? Will you take time to pray, to read His word, to worship?
The work of the cross is done. The stone is rolled away. But once we accept God’s gift of grace, what will we do with it? This is what Jesus is asking. “I have died for your sins because of my agape for you. Do you love me?”
This is the last question of Jesus on earth according to Scripture. What is your answer?
[i] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois, 60189. All rights reserved.
[ii] Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Good Grief
Psalm 30
Have you ever lost a loved one to death? Have you ever watched a child you raised to go the right way turn and go the wrong way? Have you ever been handed a pink slip just when you thought things were going well? Have you watched a home full of memories burn to the ground? Have you ever watched a spouse walk away from your marriage? Have you ever been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you’ve experienced a gamut of emotions: hurt, anger, sadness, heartache, confusion. But the emotion that probably encompasses all of these is one that is hard to define and understand: grief. Grief is defined as “Deep mental anguish, as that arising from bereavement.” Professional counselors agree that there are several stages to grief, starting with disbelief and denial and ending with acceptance. None of the stages are set in stone; everyone grieves differently.
The truth is that at some point we all grieve over something, whether it’s the loss of a loved one, our health, or a wayward child. The Bible tells us that even God grieves. But the Bible also tells us that there is hope in grief.
One of my favorite Christian musicians is Steven Curtis Chapman. I not only love his music, but I admire him as a Christian. Several of his songs have spoken to my heart. Yet, something happened just over a year ago that challenged his faith. You see, several years ago, Steven and his wife Mary Beth adopted three little girls from China. The youngest was Maria, who turned five in the middle of last May. On May 21, 2008, Maria was playing in the Chapman’s front yard when her brother, the youngest of Steven and Mary Beth’s biological children, returned home. Excited to see her brother, Maria ran toward the driveway. Her brother never saw her. Maria was lifelined to a nearby hospital and was pronounced dead a short while later.
Suddenly the Chapmans were plunged into a new experience: grief. For a time after Maria’s death, Steven didn’t return to the stage. Shortly after he did, though, he began performing a new version of a song that had appeared on his newest album. He had written a new verse for the song “Yours” in the light of Maria’s death. The chorus of the song goes “And its all Yours, God, Yours, God/Everything is Yours/From the stars in the sky/To the depths of the ocean floor/And its all Yours, God, Yours, God/Everything is Yours/You're the Maker and Keeper, Father and Ruler of everything/It's all Yours.”
On August 5, the new version of the song became available for download with a new verse, which included these words: “Still even here in this great darkness/A comfort and a hope come breaking through/As I can say in life or death/God, we belong to You.”
What causes a man just weeks after losing his youngest child to pen a lyric like this? The Chapman family is united in the answer to that question: the hope they have in God. They know that Maria is with her Savior. They know they will see her again.
No doubt Psalm 30 has come up in the last year. As someone who’s recently become familiar with the grieving process, I can tell you that it’s come up several times in the last year and a half. In fact, the idea for this message has been hanging around my computer files for the last year. A year ago, though, I couldn’t have stood up here and spoken on this subject. Not enough time had passed since my dad had gone to be with his Savior.
As I was searching for Scriptures for this, I turned to the lectionary for inspiration. After several glances at the texts, Psalm 30 jumped out at me. God impressed on me that it was time for the idea for this message to come out of the ideas folder. The original idea had a different text. Someday, I might work that idea into a message, but not now. I’m going to look at the truths about grief that King David so eloquently shows us in this Psalm – that grief shakes our foundations, that all mourning has a morning and that God turns our mourning into dancing.
Anyone who has experienced grief knows that it shakes our very foundations – our hearts, our minds, sometimes even our faith. King David experienced this many times in his life. In Psalm 30, he says, “When I was prosperous, I said, ‘Nothing can stop me now!’ Your favor, O Lord, made me as secure as a mountain. Then you turned away from me, and I was shattered.”(Ps 30:6,7)
When something happens to bring grief in your life, it does sometimes feel like God has turned away. We question why – why this happened, why it happened to us, why God had to take that away from us. We question ourselves – what we could have done differently, what we should have said, should have done. We question our faith, whatever it may be – is my faith strong enough for this, can it see me through this? We question God – how could a loving God allow this to happen?
These questions are natural. They are part of what makes us human. No doubt Steven Curtis Chapman and his family asked these questions. We see evidence that Steven himself asked these questions in the song lyrics I showed you earlier. While I didn’t formulate these questions into words after my dad died, there is no doubt that my heart asked them. My whole world had been turned upside down. The man I thought would be there to walk me down the aisle someday was suddenly gone. In the span of a heartbeat, almost literally, my life was a whole lot emptier.
King David knew grief. When he was just a shepherd boy playing his harp for King Saul, he formed a close friendship with Saul’s son Jonathan and a great respect for “the Lord’s anointed”, a term he often used of Saul. Saul eventually, out of jealousy, pursued David in order to take his life. Yet, despite the fact that Saul wanted him dead, when David heard of Saul and Jonathan’s deaths, he grieved. Second Samuel tells us his exact reaction: “David and his men tore their clothes in sorrow when they heard the news. They mourned and wept and fasted all day for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the LORD’s army and the nation of Israel, because they had died by the sword that day…Then David composed a funeral song for Saul and Jonathan, and he commanded that it be taught to the people of Judah.” (2 Sam 1:11, 12, 17, 18)
Later in his life, David would experience the death of three of his sons, one of whom sought to usurp the throne and kill his father. Yes, David was well acquainted with grief.
The disciples knew grief, too. Sitting behind closed doors on the first day of the week, they must have asked these questions. What happened? Why did it happen? What were they going to do now? After all, they’d given up their livelihoods to traipse around Judea with their rabbi. Now he was dead. Mark tells us that the disciples were weeping and mourning for the loss of Jesus (Mk 16:10). Can you see Peter, the guilt of his actions adding to his grief? Scripture tells us that after he denied knowing Jesus, he “left the courtyard, weeping bitterly.”(Lk 22:62) Jesus’ death shook the disciples’ foundations.
Despite being intimately acquainted with grief, David saw this truth: all mourning has a morning. Just as night turns into day, so our grief eases. David tells us this: “Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.”(Ps 30:5b) Now he didn’t mean a literal night and a literal morning. He meant that when we are grieving, our grief surrounds us and makes our world seem dark. But when we see the light at the end of the tunnel, our grief begins to ease and gradually that light gets brighter until we realize that our grief isn’t smothering us anymore.
When we last saw the disciples, they were encompassed by their grief. But soon, in this case literally a morning, their mourning had a morning. Mary Magdalene came to them with astonishing news: she and some other ladies went to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body, but when they arrived they found the stone was rolled away. In his gospel, Luke tells it this way: “As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes. The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, ‘Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.’ Then they remembered that he had said this. So they rushed back from the tomb to tell his eleven disciples—and everyone else—what had happened.” (Lk 24:4-9)
Steven Curtis Chapman and his family could tell you that mourning has a morning. Though they still hurt from the loss of Maria, they have been able to reach many with their testimony. They have rejoiced as Emily, the eldest, got married. They have rejoiced that Caleb, the second oldest, is engaged to be married. On June 28, they left for China to celebrate the opening of an orphanage for special needs children named for Maria. Do they still miss Maria? Of course. But they also know that life goes on, that mourning has a morning.
I can tell you that mourning has a morning. Yes, I miss my dad. But now I can look back and smile instead of cry. I can remember the good times and even laugh at old memories. In our house, we even joke about Dad standing outside his heavenly mansion, steaks sizzling on the grill, a bottle of Coke in his hand, waiting for Jesus to show up so they can eat. And you know, I’m convinced my dad pulled on over on us. I believe he knew about my niece Penny before her parents did.
The thing is, there’s a key to mourning having a morning. That key is found in the final verses of Psalm 30. Talking to God, David says: “You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever!” David knew that the key to grief becoming joy was God. He knew that only God was able to turn his mourning into dancing. David knew that the only source of comfort was God.
This is not the only place in Scripture that we see this idea. Let me give you just a few examples:
Psalm 23:4 – Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. (NIV)
Psalm 46:1 – God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble.
Isaiah 40:29 – He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.
Isaiah 51:12a – “I, yes I, am the one who comforts you.”
Jeremiah 31:25 – “For I have given rest to the weary and joy to the sorrowing.”
Matthew 5:4 – “God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
Matthew 11:28-30 – Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy
burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
John 14:27 – “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.”
John 16:33 – “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
2 Corinthians 1:3, 4 – All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.
2 Thessalonians 2:16, 17 – Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal comfort and a wonderful hope, comfort you and strengthen you in every good thing you do and say.[i]
As you can see, we are continually reassured in Scripture that God is our source of comfort, that he will turn our mourning into dancing. He did for David, who, after the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, was anointed king of Judah in the town of Hebron. He did for the disciples, who, after the death of Jesus, saw Him resurrected, then told everyone they knew – and a lot of people they didn’t – about the One who turns tears into laughter. He has for the Chapmans, who have touched thousands of lives with their testimony to God’s comfort and strength. He has for my family, who remember my dad with smiles and laughter, ‘cause you know – he may even be getting carpentry tips from Jesus.
Wouldn’t that be cool?
[i] Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois, 60189. All rights reserved.
Have you ever lost a loved one to death? Have you ever watched a child you raised to go the right way turn and go the wrong way? Have you ever been handed a pink slip just when you thought things were going well? Have you watched a home full of memories burn to the ground? Have you ever watched a spouse walk away from your marriage? Have you ever been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you’ve experienced a gamut of emotions: hurt, anger, sadness, heartache, confusion. But the emotion that probably encompasses all of these is one that is hard to define and understand: grief. Grief is defined as “Deep mental anguish, as that arising from bereavement.” Professional counselors agree that there are several stages to grief, starting with disbelief and denial and ending with acceptance. None of the stages are set in stone; everyone grieves differently.
The truth is that at some point we all grieve over something, whether it’s the loss of a loved one, our health, or a wayward child. The Bible tells us that even God grieves. But the Bible also tells us that there is hope in grief.
One of my favorite Christian musicians is Steven Curtis Chapman. I not only love his music, but I admire him as a Christian. Several of his songs have spoken to my heart. Yet, something happened just over a year ago that challenged his faith. You see, several years ago, Steven and his wife Mary Beth adopted three little girls from China. The youngest was Maria, who turned five in the middle of last May. On May 21, 2008, Maria was playing in the Chapman’s front yard when her brother, the youngest of Steven and Mary Beth’s biological children, returned home. Excited to see her brother, Maria ran toward the driveway. Her brother never saw her. Maria was lifelined to a nearby hospital and was pronounced dead a short while later.
Suddenly the Chapmans were plunged into a new experience: grief. For a time after Maria’s death, Steven didn’t return to the stage. Shortly after he did, though, he began performing a new version of a song that had appeared on his newest album. He had written a new verse for the song “Yours” in the light of Maria’s death. The chorus of the song goes “And its all Yours, God, Yours, God/Everything is Yours/From the stars in the sky/To the depths of the ocean floor/And its all Yours, God, Yours, God/Everything is Yours/You're the Maker and Keeper, Father and Ruler of everything/It's all Yours.”
On August 5, the new version of the song became available for download with a new verse, which included these words: “Still even here in this great darkness/A comfort and a hope come breaking through/As I can say in life or death/God, we belong to You.”
What causes a man just weeks after losing his youngest child to pen a lyric like this? The Chapman family is united in the answer to that question: the hope they have in God. They know that Maria is with her Savior. They know they will see her again.
No doubt Psalm 30 has come up in the last year. As someone who’s recently become familiar with the grieving process, I can tell you that it’s come up several times in the last year and a half. In fact, the idea for this message has been hanging around my computer files for the last year. A year ago, though, I couldn’t have stood up here and spoken on this subject. Not enough time had passed since my dad had gone to be with his Savior.
As I was searching for Scriptures for this, I turned to the lectionary for inspiration. After several glances at the texts, Psalm 30 jumped out at me. God impressed on me that it was time for the idea for this message to come out of the ideas folder. The original idea had a different text. Someday, I might work that idea into a message, but not now. I’m going to look at the truths about grief that King David so eloquently shows us in this Psalm – that grief shakes our foundations, that all mourning has a morning and that God turns our mourning into dancing.
Anyone who has experienced grief knows that it shakes our very foundations – our hearts, our minds, sometimes even our faith. King David experienced this many times in his life. In Psalm 30, he says, “When I was prosperous, I said, ‘Nothing can stop me now!’ Your favor, O Lord, made me as secure as a mountain. Then you turned away from me, and I was shattered.”(Ps 30:6,7)
When something happens to bring grief in your life, it does sometimes feel like God has turned away. We question why – why this happened, why it happened to us, why God had to take that away from us. We question ourselves – what we could have done differently, what we should have said, should have done. We question our faith, whatever it may be – is my faith strong enough for this, can it see me through this? We question God – how could a loving God allow this to happen?
These questions are natural. They are part of what makes us human. No doubt Steven Curtis Chapman and his family asked these questions. We see evidence that Steven himself asked these questions in the song lyrics I showed you earlier. While I didn’t formulate these questions into words after my dad died, there is no doubt that my heart asked them. My whole world had been turned upside down. The man I thought would be there to walk me down the aisle someday was suddenly gone. In the span of a heartbeat, almost literally, my life was a whole lot emptier.
King David knew grief. When he was just a shepherd boy playing his harp for King Saul, he formed a close friendship with Saul’s son Jonathan and a great respect for “the Lord’s anointed”, a term he often used of Saul. Saul eventually, out of jealousy, pursued David in order to take his life. Yet, despite the fact that Saul wanted him dead, when David heard of Saul and Jonathan’s deaths, he grieved. Second Samuel tells us his exact reaction: “David and his men tore their clothes in sorrow when they heard the news. They mourned and wept and fasted all day for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the LORD’s army and the nation of Israel, because they had died by the sword that day…Then David composed a funeral song for Saul and Jonathan, and he commanded that it be taught to the people of Judah.” (2 Sam 1:11, 12, 17, 18)
Later in his life, David would experience the death of three of his sons, one of whom sought to usurp the throne and kill his father. Yes, David was well acquainted with grief.
The disciples knew grief, too. Sitting behind closed doors on the first day of the week, they must have asked these questions. What happened? Why did it happen? What were they going to do now? After all, they’d given up their livelihoods to traipse around Judea with their rabbi. Now he was dead. Mark tells us that the disciples were weeping and mourning for the loss of Jesus (Mk 16:10). Can you see Peter, the guilt of his actions adding to his grief? Scripture tells us that after he denied knowing Jesus, he “left the courtyard, weeping bitterly.”(Lk 22:62) Jesus’ death shook the disciples’ foundations.
Despite being intimately acquainted with grief, David saw this truth: all mourning has a morning. Just as night turns into day, so our grief eases. David tells us this: “Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.”(Ps 30:5b) Now he didn’t mean a literal night and a literal morning. He meant that when we are grieving, our grief surrounds us and makes our world seem dark. But when we see the light at the end of the tunnel, our grief begins to ease and gradually that light gets brighter until we realize that our grief isn’t smothering us anymore.
When we last saw the disciples, they were encompassed by their grief. But soon, in this case literally a morning, their mourning had a morning. Mary Magdalene came to them with astonishing news: she and some other ladies went to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body, but when they arrived they found the stone was rolled away. In his gospel, Luke tells it this way: “As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes. The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, ‘Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.’ Then they remembered that he had said this. So they rushed back from the tomb to tell his eleven disciples—and everyone else—what had happened.” (Lk 24:4-9)
Steven Curtis Chapman and his family could tell you that mourning has a morning. Though they still hurt from the loss of Maria, they have been able to reach many with their testimony. They have rejoiced as Emily, the eldest, got married. They have rejoiced that Caleb, the second oldest, is engaged to be married. On June 28, they left for China to celebrate the opening of an orphanage for special needs children named for Maria. Do they still miss Maria? Of course. But they also know that life goes on, that mourning has a morning.
I can tell you that mourning has a morning. Yes, I miss my dad. But now I can look back and smile instead of cry. I can remember the good times and even laugh at old memories. In our house, we even joke about Dad standing outside his heavenly mansion, steaks sizzling on the grill, a bottle of Coke in his hand, waiting for Jesus to show up so they can eat. And you know, I’m convinced my dad pulled on over on us. I believe he knew about my niece Penny before her parents did.
The thing is, there’s a key to mourning having a morning. That key is found in the final verses of Psalm 30. Talking to God, David says: “You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever!” David knew that the key to grief becoming joy was God. He knew that only God was able to turn his mourning into dancing. David knew that the only source of comfort was God.
This is not the only place in Scripture that we see this idea. Let me give you just a few examples:
Psalm 23:4 – Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. (NIV)
Psalm 46:1 – God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble.
Isaiah 40:29 – He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.
Isaiah 51:12a – “I, yes I, am the one who comforts you.”
Jeremiah 31:25 – “For I have given rest to the weary and joy to the sorrowing.”
Matthew 5:4 – “God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
Matthew 11:28-30 – Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy
burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
John 14:27 – “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.”
John 16:33 – “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
2 Corinthians 1:3, 4 – All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.
2 Thessalonians 2:16, 17 – Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal comfort and a wonderful hope, comfort you and strengthen you in every good thing you do and say.[i]
As you can see, we are continually reassured in Scripture that God is our source of comfort, that he will turn our mourning into dancing. He did for David, who, after the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, was anointed king of Judah in the town of Hebron. He did for the disciples, who, after the death of Jesus, saw Him resurrected, then told everyone they knew – and a lot of people they didn’t – about the One who turns tears into laughter. He has for the Chapmans, who have touched thousands of lives with their testimony to God’s comfort and strength. He has for my family, who remember my dad with smiles and laughter, ‘cause you know – he may even be getting carpentry tips from Jesus.
Wouldn’t that be cool?
[i] Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois, 60189. All rights reserved.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
