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Following Jesus: It’s all worth it.
This is a repost from December of 2012 (not sure how many of you were reading this back then…) which goes with our study from Monday night. Hope you enjoy…
Recently I went away with the other pastors from Calvary Philly for a few days of prayer. During one of our down times I sat with the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. I got stuck on the beginning, though, and spent the time mulling over the beatitudes in 5:1-11. As I thought that I was beginning to see something new (for me) there, I grabbed my notebook and wrote out the main points of the verses in two columns, which ended up looking like this:
| Your State | The Blessing |
| You’re poor in spirit | The kingdom of heaven is yours |
| You mourn | You’ll be comforted |
| You’re meek | You’ll inherit the earth |
| You hunger and thirst for righteousness | You’ll be filled |
| You’re merciful | You’ll get mercy |
| You’re pure in heart | You’ll see God |
| You’re a peacemaker | You’ll be called sons of God |
| You get persecuted for righteousness | The kingdom of heaven is yours |
Now, what struck me was just reading down the second column, and seeing the kind of promise Jesus was holding out. You’ll be comforted and filled, and you’ll get mercy. You’ll inherit the earth, and the kingdom of God, as the sons of God. In fact, You’ll see God! The kingdom is promised at the beginning and the end, when poverty of spirit and persecution are mentioned, as if to wrap the whole thing into a package that says: Don’t worry if things look bad. Just as sure as I’m coming back as King, you’re going to get My kingdom.
A few minutes contemplating all that is really enough to floor you. To fill you. Isn’t Jesus good? Doesn’t this list take care of whatever we’re facing, right now, today? You will be filled. You will be comforted. You’ll get God, and the whole earth thrown in for good measure.
And then, if we let our eyes drift to the left-hand column, we see the kind of people God is making us as disciples of Christ, and the kind of life we can expect. It’s sobering–but in a good, bracing, Bible kind of way.
With the promises that are held out to us, who wouldn’t want to press in to the kind of life Jesus taught His followers?
Confirming the Word, Transcending Rules.
Last Monday we continued our look at chapters five through seven in the book of Matthew, looking specifically at verses 5:17-20. In preparation for tonight (we’ll be looking at verses 3-16 of chapter 5), by way of review, I wanted to share this excellent paraphrase of the passage by R.T. France.
“Do not suppose that I came to undermine the authority of the OT scriptures, and in particular the law of Moses. I did not come to set them aside but to bring into reality that to which they pointed forward. I tell you truly: the law, down to its smallest details, is as permanent as heaven and earth and will never lose its significance; on the contrary, all that it points forward to will in fact become a reality (and is now doing so in my ministry). So anyone who treats even the most insignificant of the commandments of the law as of no value and teaches other people to belittle them is an unworthy representative of the new regime, while anyone who takes them seriously in word and deed will be a true member of God’s kingdom.
“But do not imagine that simply keeping all those rules will bring salvation. For I tell you truly: it is only those whose righteousness of life goes far beyond the old policy of literal rule keeping which the scribes and Pharisees represent who will prove to be God’s true people in this era of fulfillment.”
This sets us up nicely for tonight, and the weeks ahead. Jesus is calling us to some very deep, high things. See you tonight!
Studying Jesus on a Long Road
A few short thoughts from Thomas Oden’s book Classic Christianity.
As we continue our exploration of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount on Monday nights, we’ll keep coming back to the idea of discipleship. While Jesus knew the crowds around him were overhearing this teaching, he directed it primarily at his disciples–those who followed him closely in order to learn and practice his teachings.
We don’t literally walk behind him anymore, but if we would be disciples, we will certainly be his students of his life:
I may be saved by Grace through faith without passing an examination on Christology.
But his life compels some explanation. When he tells me that my eternal destiny depends upon trusting in him, what am I to say? His life and death remain the central point of interest of Christian discipleship and education.
He is not fully studied as if only a man, though he was a man.
This is a man for whom studying him means following him in his way.
He cannot be studied in a book alone but on a long road.
Talking about the Trinity with Muslims
If you have five minutes, listen to this brother’s recounting of a conversation with three Palestinian Muslims, where the Trinity was a central part of the conversation. So helpful…
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Three thoughts after viewing this:
- Notice how well he knew his bible? He could easily and fluidly quote and paraphrase it for the sake for the discussion at hand. This is a great example for us.
- He also knew his context. He knew which passages to reference for the young men he was speaking too. He knew enough about the Quran to really have the conversation. This is an example of “loving our neighbor”–taking the time to learn about them so we know how to share the gospel in love.
- I would bet that the main reason the Muslim men were willing to speak with him was that he struck them as an example of the kind of person they want to be as Muslims–like them, he was spending his time taking care of poor people, and practicing and spreading (what they considered to be) his religion. This is something I feel like I’ve been learning in thinking about these things: for many Muslims who take their faith seriously, the prospect of converting to Christianity and becoming less devoted to God seems absurd. Many aren’t interested in a “religion” that seems less spiritual, less devoted to God, and more like every other person who doesn’t fear God. Which means Christians must make sure that they don’t come to Muslims offering this “less.” Grace instead of working to please God? Yes. The power and life of the Spirit instead of the burden of law? Yes. But a life that’s more concerned with things and fun than God? No. And of course, this is what we’ve been called to all along.
What is a Disciple? (Notes from last night.)
On Monday night we began a trip through the Sermon on the Mount. Here are the notes:
The Sermon on the Mount is one of the places we get a block of Jesus’ teaching. The teaching is first of all addressed to his disciples. He’s going to tell them how to be and how to live.
Who and what is a disciple?
The disciple as the close follower… See Mark 4:1-2, 10-11, 34-35. Point–Be alone with Jesus. Stay close.
The disciple is someone who has attached themselves to Jesus with the intention of learning what he teaches. Stay close, and he will explain everything to you.
Matthew 7:21-28 – Pictures of things that are not discipleship, for the larger crowd to think about:
v.21 the contrast here is between saying and doing.
22-23 a new perspective from Jesus’ mouth: “whether or not you did these things doesn’t matter. What matters is two things: 1) I never knew you. 2) you practiced lawlessness.
Truth 1: The disciple of Christ doesn’t content themselves simply to say things about Jesus, or to do spiritual things which impress others. They also want to make sure they truly know Jesus (12:50) and that their lives are not full of things Jesus would call “lawlessness.”
v. 24-26 The contrast here is between hearing and not responding and hearing and doing. Hearing the things Jesus says is not enough to prevent collapse. Jesus calls us to “doing”–the “doing” here is like a building project: diligent attention to detail. You “build your house” on Jesus teachings. The collapse of the house refers to two things: First, without the teachings of Christ we tend to build lives that don’t stand up under the stress of life. Second, we cannot stand the final “storm” of the judgment of God—ultimately, without a life built on the teachings of Christ, we will be judged and sentenced forever under God’s wrath.
Truth 2: The disciple is not content just to hear and know some things Jesus said. They decide to build their entire life on his teachings by hearing to know to do. This is what “staying close” means now. It also means a life of prayer to speak to him and be spoken to.
v. 28-29 Jesus’ teachings will astonish. Jesus has authority greater than any other religious teacher.
Truth 3: The way to move from someone in the crowd to a follower of Jesus is to come into contact with his teachings and let your astonishment move you to begin a life of finding out what he has said and putting it into practice.
Christians typically call this very beginning of being a disciple “believing”—because that’s the bible’s way of getting to this truth: when you encounter the teachings of Jesus, and are impressed by the authority they command, you must then decide to bring yourself personally under his authority. But you won’t bring yourself under his authority unless you also come to trust him. And Jesus calls you to do exactly this—Trust him as your only hope of rescue from the consequences of the lawlessness you have practiced. This trust is exactly the same thing Christians mean when they talk about “faith” and “believing.” Believing in Jesus means you trust him, and therefore you trust the things he says about himself: that he is the true authority and judge of all people. If you trust him this way, you’ll become a follower, a disciple.
How to Forget God
Once, reading in Deuteronomy, I encountered this verse:
“Beware, lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.” (Deuteronomy 6:12)
And then this one:
“Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today.” (Deuteronomy 8:11)
In fact, forgetting God is mentioned three times in chapter eight alone. I realized this was a big deal. We can forget God! And by the kind of warnings written here, I gather that we might not even realize we are. I mean, it’s a pretty good bet the issue God was concerned about was not that his people would simply not remember they had ever heard of a being they used to know as “God.” So what really was the danger?
This sent me on a search through Deuteronomy to see how God describes forgetting God. What makes God know he has been, by his standards, forgotten. I want to watch for these things in my life. Here’s what I found, along with the exhortations I wrote for myself in response:
How to Forget God, as described in Deuteronomy:
- Stop paying attention to yourself Spiritually. (4:5-9)
What has God done in your life? What has he shown you? Where are you now with all that? - Don’t teach the things God has said to your children. (4:9-10)
Just don’t care about the next generation and if they know God or not. - Make and idol. (4:15-20,23)
Forget how God has shown us who He is by deciding God is the way you want Him to be. - When you succeed, give the credit to other things instead of God (that is, other gods). (6:10-12)
Forget that we ourselves are were slaves He set free, and we’d be nothing still but slaves if He hadn’t intervened. (John 8:34) - Get scared by obstacles or opposition or a fight, and refuse to step into it. (7:17-21)
Forget what God has done in the past, so you can refuse to trust Him in the present. - Ignore God’s daily instruction in the everyday things of life. (8:2)
- Don’t keep His commandments. (8:11)
- When you succeed, think it’s because of your abilities. (8:12-19)
See God’s blessings as something you earned all by yourself, and not gifts. (See 1 Cor 4:7 – “Who made you to differ from another, and what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”) - When you succeed, think that it’s because you’re righteous. (9:4-7)
Forget your own sin and how everything you have is because of God’s grace. - Don’t extend mercy or generosity. (24:17-22)
Forget your own neediness.
Sobering, and helpful…
Notes from last night.
Last night we took some time to explore a narrow but important topic. Here are the notes:
This study stems from a time when I was reading Leviticus in my daily Bible reading. I noticed, in Leviticus 18, that the phrase “view the nakedness” was used for commands regarding sexuality. My thought was, why did the Spirit inspire Moses to write it that way? Why use the word “nakedness” to refer to these things? This sent me on a trip through the scriptures to see what I would learn thinking about this question.
1. Genesis 2:25
Originally, the first two humans were in a state of nakedness. But they had no “shame.” So they existed, viewing each other’s nakedness, and there was nothing wrong with it, and nothing uncomfortable about it.
2. Genesis 3:7, 10-11, 21
The first thing humans realize after their sin is that they are naked, and now, naked in terms of being shameful and exposed. Their first instinct is to cover their nakedness. In verse 21 God confirms that, yes–now, this is the right instinct.
3. So now, to look at someone’s nakedness is to view them in their state of being spiritually exposed, without God’s protection. It is to view their shame as a fallen human being. See for instance the story of Noah and his sons in Genesis 9:21-23.
4. We see this in the New Testament as well, where nakedness is a metaphor for spiritual poverty and shame. See Revelation 3:17-18.
Some Applications:
1: Leviticus 18, and its use of “looking at nakedness” to refer to intercourse that is outside of God’s design, shows us that any sexuality outside of biblical-defined marriage is not loving. I am not loving another person by uncovering them without following God’s commands; I am shaming them. I am viewing them outside of God’s grace, and exposing them as the sinful person they are. And if I do it for my own pleasure, how unlike God am I in that moment? How far from him am I at that point? Could we even fathom a God who would find it entertaining to look at us at our worst?
2: This leads us to a second application: thinking about all the nudity in our popular culture. What are we (as a culture) doing when we use nudity as a form of entertainment or gratification? What really is pornography and the obsession with skin in our culture? Consider, for instance, Isaiah 57:8.
If we’re honest and scriptural, we’ll admit that the only being in the universe other than humans who derives pleasure from exposing human nakedness is Satan. Satan loves to expose humans as small and guilty and weak, and he laughs at it all.
And what about the people who put others up to this exposing of themselves for profit and pleasure? Whose work are they doing?
And… what about when people get to the point that do it willingly, exposing their nakedness for power or fame or money? They think they are becoming liberated, but what are they really doing? What does Beyonce think she’s doing when she shakes it on stage next to her husband? What does he think is happening? And what is really happening?
And what about the legions of women who, right now, stand in lines to get on camera naked? What’s really going on? When we hear of these things, we should sense the great shame that Satan is bringing on us–the total fraud he’s perpetrating–and we humans are helping him do it!
And finally, when a whole culture gets together to get naked, and tell God that he just needs to be OK with it, we need to recognize what’s really happening. It is exactly the same thing as if Adam and Eve turned around that day when God made the coverings for them, and said, “no God, we’re good. Check us out, just the way we are! You just need to be happy with us like this.” It is absolute rebellion for humans to disrobe and say it’s ok.
Which leads us to two further observations…
5. The one place where we are allowed to view the nakedness of another human being in the way referred to in Leviticus is in marriage.
We may not view someone’s nakedness unless we have entered into a God-ordained covenant with them. This covenant is binding for life, which means we have the safety of guaranteed non-rejection. In other words, since nakedness is a sign of our shame before God, we can only experience it again without shame when there is a covering of protection given by God, a covering of safety and acceptance, of total commitment, and above all, of love. Only when two people have vowed to love and honor each other for life may they view each other’s nakedness. (See 1 Corinthians 7:1-5)
In our messed up world, Marriage is a space God has opened up where a whole different set of rules can operate. It’s like a bubble of time that floats to us from the garden of Eden, something pristine where we can taste things we’ve otherwise forgotten—the unstained, unashamed freedom of two people fully committed to each other’s best interests. And with the teaching Paul gives us in Ephesians 5 we can go even further—Christian marriage is not only innocent but also righteous, because husbands view wives as Christ views the church, covered by grace, and therefore any flaws she does have are taken care of by Jesus. They’re not seen any more.
6. The final state of humanity is to be clothed. (See Revelation 19:8.) And not as simply a covering for sin, but now as an expression of righteousness. God takes innocence, and through the fall of man in our sin, upgrades it to righteousness.
Our God is a god who takes all our shame, and hides it with his love that covers a multitude of sins. And he only ever views us through that righteousness. He loves us too much to leave us exposed.
Dear David Brooks: Please Admit What We Really Need.
On Tuesday David Brooks had an excellent op-ed piece in the New York Times. I wanted to share it here for us to ponder, especially concerning what Mr. Brooks leaves out of his otherwise penetrating observations about the current state of our society.
He opens the article by reviewing the findings of a new book which surveys the differences children face when raised by college-educated verses high-school-educated parents. He highlights some statistics, but the more interesting notes are the case-studies he relays from the book. They read, tragically, like many of the situations we encounter here in our work as pastors at Calvary. I’ve heard these stories so many times before. In addition, I know many people in the nursing and social work fields who daily work with situations very much like those Brooks shares. Often when I encounter stories like these, I reflect on what it seems to indicate to me–the disintegration of the very fabric of our society. It is hard not to escape the feeling that we are witnessing real societal breakdown, at the personal level. And Brooks seems to agree with this assessment:
The first response to these stats and to these profiles should be intense sympathy. We now have multiple generations of people caught in recurring feedback loops of economic stress and family breakdown, often leading to something approaching an anarchy of the intimate life.
That sentence I italicized perfectly describes the tragedies so many people live with right now: anarchy of the intimate life. Brooks then goes on to make helpful extrapolations from these personal stories to a more societal level:
But it’s increasingly clear that sympathy is not enough. It’s not only money and better policy that are missing in these circles; it’s norms. The health of society is primarily determined by the habits and virtues of its citizens. In many parts of America there are no minimally agreed upon standards for what it means to be a father. There are no basic codes and rules woven into daily life, which people can absorb unconsciously and follow automatically.
Reintroducing norms will require, first, a moral vocabulary. These norms weren’t destroyed because of people with bad values. They were destroyed by a plague of nonjudgmentalism, which refused to assert that one way of behaving was better than another. People got out of the habit of setting standards or understanding how they were set.
Next it will require holding people responsible. People born into the most chaotic situations can still be asked the same questions: Are you living for short-term pleasure or long-term good? Are you living for yourself or for your children? Do you have the freedom of self-control or are you in bondage to your desires?
Next it will require holding everybody responsible. America is obviously not a country in which the less educated are behaving irresponsibly and the more educated are beacons of virtue. America is a country in which privileged people suffer from their own characteristic forms of self-indulgence: the tendency to self-segregate, the comprehensive failures of leadership in government and industry. Social norms need repair up and down the scale, universally, together and all at once.
People sometimes wonder why I’ve taken this column in a spiritual and moral direction of late. It’s in part because we won’t have social repair unless we are more morally articulate, unless we have clearer definitions of how we should be behaving at all levels.
History is full of examples of moral revival, when social chaos was reversed, when behavior was tightened and norms reasserted. It happened in England in the 1830s and in the U.S. amid economic stress in the 1930s. It happens through organic communal effort, with voices from everywhere saying gently: This we praise. This we don’t.
Every parent loves his or her children. Everybody struggles. But we need ideals and standards to guide the way.
I don’t know about you, but I find his analysis spot-on. After so many years of hearing that things like values, ideals and morals don’t exist in any real way–and by this I mean on a level larger than individual preference, in a way that we can apply them to all different people, even those who disagree–it’s refreshing to hear some voices starting to say the opposite. As Christians we can applaud this heightened consciousness both of the true plight of our people and of the nature of a solution.
And yet…
Every time I read something like this I feel an example spring to mind. It’s like we’ve lived in a world where we’ve denied the existence of medicine for several generations. We’ve said it’s offensive and oppressive, and we should acknowledge that everyone has different ideas of “health” and we shouldn’t impose our standards on them. These things are all a matter of opinion, and no one can say what’s poison for one and medicine for another. Then, in the midst of an out-of-control health crisis, with sickness and disease ravaging every sector of society, we start to have columns written saying, “It’s time we believed in health. People used to believe in health. We need to increase public health. We need more accountability. People need to be held to higher standards of health. We need to teach health in the schools. People–be more healthy!”
What’s the obvious thing missing? We’ve removed the very thing we need for health. Until we admit it back in the equation, we’re going to keep talking and never see change.
It’s just incredible to read Brook’s column and see what he’s calling for but watch him avoid stating the obvious. These “minimally agreed upon standards,” where are they to come from? How can we deny absolute truth and find standards that apply absolutely? This “moral vocabulary” we used to have–did it come from the Christian Bible? Where else might we turn for such a vocabulary? These standards and norms and ideals–if they’re not based on the Scriptures, as they used to be, on what could we possibly base them? Karma? Natural selection? Sharia law? Those “moral revivals” he speaks of–did they have anything to do with mass acceptance of the gospel we Christians preach?
This column is so right, and so incomplete, that it’s screaming out for the obvious–only King Jesus can bring this law, this authority, and this accountability to any people. Only trusting him unleashes the power of love into a society such that fathers start taking care of their children, businessmen start keeping their contracts, and people start using their time and money to build each other up instead of tearing society down. Only our God can fix broken things.
And so I ask Mr. Brooks–please finish your column. Please state one thing we all need.
Three Muslim Misconceptions About Christians
I found this post by J.D. Greer helpful. Hope you will too…
The history of Islam and Christianity is hardly an amiable one. Many people from both religions view the other with suspicion (at best) or fear and hatred (at worst). This suspicion existed from day one, and centuries of violence have only served to heighten it. Tragically, the border between Christianity and Islam has all too often been a bloody one.
A dicey past, of course, makes for a dicey present. But it isn’t just our history that transforms the border between Christians and Muslims into a dangerous fault line. A lot also rests on uninformed misconceptions. There are, of course, substantive theological differences between the two religions. And these differences can lead to legitimate conflict. But conversations can’t move forward unless we dispel some pervasive myths. I learned these the hard way, through dozens of awkward and often painful conversations with Muslims in Southeast Asia. You can do what I never could—learn from my mistakes without actually making them.
Many obstacles stand in the way of Muslims coming to faith in Jesus—theological confusion and the cost of conversion being two of the most daunting. And of course the most common reason why Muslims are not coming to Christ is that most have simply never heard the gospel.
That said, there is a set of misconceptions that most Muslims have about Christians that keep them from even considering the gospel… Here are three of the biggest misconceptions Muslims have about Christians:
Misconception 1: Christians worship three gods.
This one took me by surprise. I knew that the doctrine of the Trinity was difficult for Muslims (as it is for most Christians). But I never fully realized how badly Muslims misunderstood it and how offensive it was to them.
Several Muslims asked me how I could believe that God could have had sex with the Virgin Mary to conceive Jesus. Christians are blasphemous, I was told, because they worship three gods: god the father, god the son, and god the mother. This was news to me, of course, so I asked where they learned it. They told me: from their local imam, the Muslim religious leader.
Of course, Christians find this depiction of the Trinity just as offensive as Muslims do. And this is a good place to start. The idea of Jesus as a result of copulation between God and Mary is blasphemous, and we should feel free to express our disgust and outrage at the “trinity” as it is thus wrongfully described. Monotheism is central to Christianity, just as it is to Islam. So Christians can wholeheartedly agree with Muslims that there is only one God worthy of worship. Our conception of him is dramatically different…but the offense here is usually misplaced.
Misconception 2: Christianity is morally corrupt.
MTV was huge in the part of the world I lived. Western music videos frequently featured rap stars or scantily clad women wearing crosses. My Muslim friends assumed, naturally enough, that these were Christians and that their behavior was typical of Christians.
I was once even asked by one of my friends, a Muslim college student, if I would throw her a “Christian” birthday party. When I asked what she meant, she replied that she wanted a party with a lot of booze and racy dancing, just like she had seen on television. Misunderstandings like hers, sadly, are the norm and not the exception.
Many Muslims will not even consider the gospel because they know (correctly) that such behavior is offensive to God. You can leverage this for your advantage, though. When Muslims find out you are not that way, they will want to know what makes you different. This is your opportunity to explain to them what a living faith in Christ is all about.
Misconception 3: “The West” and “The Church” are synonymous.
“Separation of church and state” is part of the cultural fabric of Westerners. Muslims, however, do not understand such a distinction. Islam is, in its very nature, a political entity, replete with numerous societal codes. There is no parallel Muslim concept of the “separation of mosque and state.” So when Muslims look at Western nations like the USA, Germany, France, or the UK, they see “Christian countries.” Our presidents are assumed to be Christian leaders, and our political policies are assumed to be reflective of church policy. What the US does, the Church does. I was once asked, for instance, why “the Church” bombed Iraq.
To engage Muslims with the gospel, you must delineate these two entities. And you’ll probably have to, in many situations, put your patriotism aside. If you want to be an advocate for American policies, you likely will not gain much of an audience for the gospel. There is a place for discussion of both, but we each have only enough bandwidth to represent a certain number of issues, and to me (as a representative of the church) it is simply not worth it to sacrifice a gospel platform for the sake of defending American political decisions. I was recently told by a Turkish Muslim that “all of the problems in the world are caused by America.” Do I agree with him? No. But is this where I want to stand my ground? No. For the sake of the gospel, our patriotism must die when we serve in Muslim countries.
As we often say at our church, the gospel is offensive. Nothing else should be. Since so much of our message strikes Muslims as off-putting, we need to equip ourselves to dispel the false offenses of Christianity. Only then can the life-giving offense of the cross shine as it should.
Essential Scriptures for Today: Luke 21:18
On Monday we continued our look at some scriptures which seem especially important for the days we’re living in. Here are the notes:
The Scripture: Luke 21:18
10 Then He said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11 And there will be great earthquakes in various places, and famines and pestilences; and there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven. 12 But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for My name’s sake. 13 But it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony. 14 Therefore settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer; 15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. 17 And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. 18 But not a hair of your head shall be lost.”
Why it’s essential:
Every human since the beginning of history has faced a world where tragedy is a possibility, and death is inevitable. Christians especially face a set of dangers which are even more pointed because of persecution. In our day we are seeing an amplification of these things, and we may find them drawing near to us personally within our lifetime. And yet, we often affirm that God protects us. What do we mean when we say this? This scripture gives us an important way to think about what it means when we say that God protects us.
The issue in Luke 21:18 – It seems to contradict or ignore verses 10-17, especially 16b.
Other verses with this theme:
Luke 12:4-7 There is a greater danger than dying – it’s God’s power over the soul.
Rev 2:10-11 Being faithful till death, Jesus gives the crown of life.
John 11:25-26 If you believe, and die, you’ll live. If you live and believe, you’ll never die.
So, what do we mean when we say that God protects us?
Some Thoughts:
The Dilemma: No final lasting harm to Christian, but things do happen to us.
Jesus seems to imply that no final, lasting harm can ever come to a Christian. Everything, down to the individual hairs on our head, is safe. But we know from scripture (and from life) that all kinds of things do happen to us. Right now, everything from death by martyrdom (we’ll call that ‘the worst’) to all sorts of other (less intense) things are happening to Christians. Even in our own personal social circles we have all kinds of sickness, injury and loss. So Luke 21:18 must mean that Jesus guarantees some other kind of safety, some other kind of protection, than avoiding those things. In other words, the way God makes sure that not a hair of our heads will be harmed is not by keeping bad things from happening to us.
This is Physical, not just spiritual protection.
Some people interpret Luke 21:18 to imply “spiritual” protection. By this I think they mean that even if something can harm our body, it cannot harm our spirit. Our spirits are safe with Jesus. And this is true, as far is it goes. It’s kind of related to what Paul writes in Romans 8:36-37. But that’s not really what Jesus says here—He could have said, “Don’t worry, your soul will be saved.” But instead he talks about exactly what we worry about—our physical body. And he says we won’t even lose one hair of our head. So he wants us to think about more than simply a “spiritual” safety. And that’s probably because, as humans, we can’t really think of a “spiritual” safety, with no safety for the body, and be comforted. I know they can’t hurt my spirit, but what about my head? No—Jesus assures us of a physical protection.
Jesus is talking about the resurrection body.
These first two points, taken together, point us to an answer—Jesus is speaking of the resurrection body which is promised to Christians. This body is physical (see 2 Cor 5:1) as well as spiritual. This body is always depicted as being whole, recognizable, glorious, and perfected. In other words, you’ll have all your hair.
Our lives are viewed as including eternity.
This tells us about how Jesus thinks about our lives—He views our lives across their entire “timeline.” But his timeline includes eternity. So when Jesus says, “Not a hair of your head will be lost,” he can say it from the perspective of our final destiny. He himself paved the way for us. He went through death came out on the other side, with a resurrected glorious body, totally alive and totally whole. He secured the same path for us. So when he speaks to us of the fact that he cares for us, watches over us, protects us, he is thinking of that final end.
A Definition for God’s Protection.
This gives us a definition for what God’s protection means: God’s protection means that God personally protects anyone who is in Christ so that, no matter what trials and hardships they go through, they will be brought to the place where they are resurrected, living in the new earth, forever, never again to be harmed. God promises that nothing can stop this, break his protecting power over you, or ruin your final destiny. Thief cannot break in and steal it. Locust cannot eat it away and rust cannot corrode it. Sickness cannot weaken it. Abuse cannot ruin it. Rape cannot stain it. Torture cannot break it. Mockery cannot shame it. Prison cannot hold it. Chains cannot bind it. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus which is safeguarding us, so that, even though we will go through all kinds of difficult things, they will not keep us from standing on the shores of the new earth, with bodies unsinged by the fire. So they will do all kinds of things to many of us. And life will bring all kinds of things our way. How can we trust God to protect us if he lets all these things happen to us? His answer is, even if they take off your head, you won’t have a hair out of place in the new earth.
Adjusting our expectations for God’s protection.
So we need to adjust our expectations for God’s protecting care. We need to see that God allows us to go through all kinds of things. But we should remember the word, “through.” The Christian can always know that he or she will pass “through,” and ultimately come out the other side. This will keep us from ultimate despair when life gets bad, and from anger at God because we thought he’d keep bad things from happening to us. And it will keep our faith strong, so that when something bad does start going down, we aren’t thinking, “He’s gonna stop this any minute now…”
Getting excited about the resurrection
We also need to get very excited about the resurrection. Otherwise we won’t be willing to go through what God may allow in our lives. We’ll just want a great life here and now, in this fallen world. And anything that touches that life will feel like it’s too much to ask. But if we have eternity in mind, the way Jesus talks about life starts to make total sense.
The good news.
I said something in my definition which you might not understand. I said, “anyone who is in Christ.” What does “in Christ” mean? It means that you have trusted Jesus Christ as the only one who has the power to save you from the inevitabilities of life, especially death. You believe that he himself conquered death by dying and rising again. You admit your sinfulness, which is why he had to die. To accept his forgiveness. The bible days you are then given new spiritual life within, and you are united to Christ spiritually. This is called being “in Christ.”
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