Christ is Best

Greetings All,

     It's been a few weeks since I sent out a "thought."   Yahoo tightened their controls and was blocking me from sending them. Therefore I had to find an alternative way of sending them out.  We will see how this goes! With that being said, I send you this thought.

     It comes to you from one of the most beloved of Puritan preachers -- Richard Sibbes. He was Spurgeon's favorite because his writings were always so comforting and Gospel-saturated. It is found in his booklet "Christ is Best."
     It was actually preached at the funeral of a friend.  Michael Reeves, who writes the forward to the booklet, sums it's message up well:"In dead religion, one can easily talk of receiving 'grace' so as to 'get to heaven.'  Paul does not.  Instead of departing and be 'in heaven,' Paul says he desires to depart and be 'with Christ.'  For, says Sibbes, 'heaven is not heaven without Christ.'  In other words, true faith is not about buying into some abstract system of salvation (even one paid for by Christ); first and foremost it is about the Spirit bringing me to know, love, and desire Christ himself... hearts begin to desire Christ above all when they sense how much he loves us sinners, how much he has suffered for our forgiveness, how unfathomably kind and merciful he is and has been. We love him because he first loved us (I John 4:19)." And those brought to love him because of his great love them, yearn not solely for heaven, but for heaven because it is there that they will be with the Christ they have come to love. I have taken the liberty to change some antiquated terms and explain others.  Enjoy.

"For me to live is Christ and to die is gain... Yet what shall I choose? I do not know!  I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ , which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body."   Philippians 1:21-24

     "Death is but a departing. The word death [in the Greek] means 'loosing from the shore, or removing a ship to another coast' [Luke 8:38, 2 Timothy 4:6, Phil. 1:23].  We must all be loosed from our houses of clay and be carried to another place, to heaven.  Paul labors to sweeten so harsh a thing as death, by comfortable expressions of it. It is but a sleep, a going home, a laying aside our earthly tabernacle...

     Some things are desirable for themselves, like happiness and holiness. Some things are not desirable for themselves, but because they make a way to better things... Medicine is not desired for itself, but for the health it brings. And just as we desire health for itself, and medicine for health, so to be with Christ is a thing desirable of itself.

     Yet because we cannot come to Christ but by the dark passage of death, Paul says, I desire to depart that my death may be a passage to Christ. Death was the object of St. Paul's desire so far as it made a way for better things.  To be with Christ who came from heaven to be here on earth with us and descended that we should ascend; to be with him who has done and suffered so much for us; to be with Christ who delighted to be with us; to be with Christ who emptied himself and became of no reputation, becoming poor to make us rich; to be with Christ our husband, now in heaven -- that all of him may be gained in heaven -- this was the thing Paul desired.

     Question: Why does he not say, "I desire to be in heaven?"  Answer: Because heaven would not be heaven without Christ. It is better to be any place with Christ than to be in heaven itself if he were not there. All delicacies without Christ are but as a funeral banquet. Where the master of the feast is away, there is nothing but solemnness.  What is all without Christ?  I say the joys of heaven are not the joys of heaven without Christ.  He is the very heaven of heaven.

     True love is carried to the person. It is adulterous love to love the thing (or the gift) more than the person. St. Paul loved the person of Christ because he felt the sweet experience that Christ loved him. His love was but a reflection of Christ's loving him first. He loved to see Christ, to embrace him, and enjoy him who had done so much and suffered so much for his soul -- who had forgiven him so many sins.

        To be with Christ is best of all. To be with Christ is to be at the spring-head of all happiness. It is to be in our proper element. Every creature thinks itself best when in its own element. That is the place it thrives in and enjoys its happiness in. And Christ is the element of a Christian.

     Again, it is far better, because to be with Christ is to have the marriage consummated. Is not marriage better than the contract? Is not home better than absence? To be with Christ is to be at home. Is not triumph better than to be in conflict? But to be with Christ is to triumph over all enemies, to be out of Satan's reach.

     Is not perfection better than imperfection?  Here all is but imperfect, but in heaven there is perfection. Therefore that is much better than any good below, for all are but shadows here, there is reality.  What are riches?  What are the worm-eaten pleasures of the world?  What are the honors of the earth but mere shadows of good?  'At the right hand of God are pleasures indeed' (Ps. 16:11), honors indeed, riches indeed; there is reality...

     It is better to be with Christ than enjoy the graces and comforts of the Holy Spirit here. Why? Because they are all stained and mixed.  Here our peace is interrupted with desertion and trouble. Here the joys of the Holy Spirit are mingled with sorrow. Here the grace in a man is mixed with combat of flesh and spirit, but in heaven there is pure peace, pure joy, pure grace; for what is glory but the perfection of grace?  Grace indeed is glory here, but it is glory mixed with conflict.  It is imperfect.  My friends, perfection is better than imperfection, therefore to be with Christ is far better.

     Is it not far better to die and be with Christ, than to live a conflicting life here?  Why should we then fear death, which is but a passage to Christ?... It is but a departure to a better condition.  It is but as Jordan to the Children of Israel, by which they passed into Canaan... It is but the Red Sea by which we pass from Egypt to the promised land. Death is ours and for our good.  It ends all our misery and sin.  It is the suburbs of heaven.  It lets us into those joys above."

     Sibbes shared all this to comfort and encourage those present at the funeral of his friend Mr. Christopher Sherland (1593-1632).

     Death, though the final enemy, has been defeated, and made by the sufferings, death and resurrection of Jesus, the gateway into his immediate presence. It is the Jordan we must cross. It is the passageway through the Red Sea to the promised land.  It is the gateway to true and everlasting life and eternal pleasures at Christ's right hand. In Him, as the author of Hebrews tells us, God has "freed those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death" (Hebrews 2:15).

In the Bonds of our Blessed Hope, Pastor Jeff 

Remember Jesus Christ

Greetings All,

     This week's 'thought' comes to you from an old book I purchased recently.  I started glancing through it and found this selection interesting -- from a historical and biblical perspective. In fact, if you are one of those people who idealizes the past as the "good old days" when everything was supposedly,  "the way it should be," when compared to today, you may be disappointed to discover otherwise!

     I'll save the date the book was published for the end so you can try to guess from its contents what era he is talking about. The title is "Remember Jesus Christ" and its author is Robert E. Speer.  [I have taken the liberty of condense and update the language while holding to the author's intent].  Enjoy.

Christ's Command to Believe

     "One of the most significant characteristics of the temper of our day is its dislike of the imperative mood. It does not like commands, or to be addressed in terms of, 'You must!'  It likes to be spoken of in other terms, such as, 'Will you not, if it pleases you?'... For the last few years in this land we have had abundant evidence of the dislike of great classes of men for enforced limitation, for obligation, for law. There is across the country an antagonism to obligation...

     The human will has never liked to limit its sovereignty, but it is quite clear that there is scarcely anything that is now as distasteful, especially in the sphere of religion, as the imperative mood. We are told that as far as religion is concerned, it must keep its hands off the rest of our life; that it is a matter altogether beyond reason, having no right whatsoever to coerce reason; and that it cannot say to people, 'you must.' 

     Yet it must at once occur to us that Christ speaks constantly in the imperative. We have it in these words: not, 'It is desirable, if you wish to have blessings, that you should have faith in God' -- but 'Have it.' 'Have faith in God.'

     And He not only uses the imperative in religion, but He uses it in the most objectionable sphere of religion - faith. 'It is all right,' some will declare, 'to say, 'Thou shalt' and 'thou shalt not,' in the sphere of conduct. But to tell us we must do certain things in the sphere of belief is absurd.'  They continue, 'How can God override all the laws of our lives by compelling us or ordering us to do things which, perhaps, in the very nature of our constitution, it may not be possible for us to do? We cannot intellectually assent to a proposition on orders.' 

     And yet, it is precisely on this matter of faith that the New Testament persists in putting the imperative... When the Philippian jailor asked Paul and Silas what he must do to be saved, they advised him in terms of a command: 'Believe!' This is a stumbling block to many, or at least to everyone who does not like obligation. But it is also a stumbling block to those who say that belief comes from having the facts laid before them, and that if belief does not spring up spontaneously from it, no amount of commanding it will create it.  That may be true if faith were to be defined as 'intellectual assent' and nothing more. But this is not an adequate definition. If it were, faith could not be commanded.

     Yet faith, primarily and essentially, is vital, moral -- a personal relationship -- and intellectual assent is a fruit of this relationship. When a child believes something which its father tells it, we call the child's acceptance an act of faith.  Yet it is not.  It is a fruit of faith.  Faith is the confidence which the child posits in its father, which leads it to believe in what the father says...

     If you will read through the New Testament carefully, you will see the commands to believe are used with reference to the moral and vital relationship every soul is summoned to recognize between himself and God [ie: I John 3:23 -- 'And this is God's command: to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another.']...

     And so Christ felt He had a right to order people to have faith, because it was not a matter, primarily, of their minds. He could and does order it because it is primarily a matter of moral character, of heart, of life, of personal relationship.

With that emphasis in mind, let us consider Christ's command as a fourfold call.

     FIRST of all, it is a call to a personal surrender to God. If you read through your New Testament you will find that in pretty nearly every case the root idea of the writer or the speaker is that there should be on the part of men, a moral surrender to God or to the personal truths of God.  'Believe   on the Lord Jesus Christ' means 'believe on Jesus as Lord; as the one who possesses you; as the one to whom you must make a personal surrender... In saying 'Have faith in God,' Jesus summons us to an unconditional, hold nothing back, irreversible, life-engulfing surrender to Him.

     SECOND, the words, 'Have faith in God,' are a call to intensity in service... Faith, Christ meant to tell them, links us so closely with God as to make us co-workers with Him to give us His power in the world, so that we work no longer with a human soul's strength only, but with the strength of God... Faith in God is a rest, surely enough, but it is also a life of power and a call to a life of intensity of service in which every faculty and gift of life must find play, transfigured and made a thousand fold more effective by the Spirit of Christ...

      THIRD, the call to 'have faith in God' is a call to confidence. It was not, 'Have speculations about God,' or, 'Have doubts regarding Him.'  The early church had an unqualified unhesitating message. 'Have faith in God' was its one word -- 'in God, and in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ'... The agnostic type mind was vexed by the positive certainty of the Christian doctrine and life. But the early church knew. It had faith, and spoke... So stand fast. Believe. Be not tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. Have faith in the eternal and trust-deserving God.

      Then LAST, Christ's command is a call to hopefulness... The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews conceives of faith as 'the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen'... He goes on to say to those struggling believers who lived by faith even though it resulted in their torture or death, 'God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared for them a city.'

     The Gentiles conceived of the night as coming after the day.  Day came first, night followed. Their golden age was behind. The good old days had passed. It was darkness ahead.  But for the Jew, the golden age was always to come. They left darkness (Egypt) behind... Day does not begin when morning comes. It ends in light.  The Genesis account says, 'there was evening and then there was morning, the first day' not, 'there was morning and then evening, the first day.'  The Christians brightest days are ahead.  Bonar expresses this truth in one of his hymns,

'Not first the bright, and after that the dark,

But first the dark, and after that the bright.

First the thick cloud, and then the rainbow's arc; 

First the dark grave, then resurrection light.'"

     Oh yes, I forgot to mention this was published in 1899.  One of those "not so good old days" when people from coast to coast (according to the author) had a loathing for imperatives, laws or commands (similar to our day)!

     Yet, in light of his last point, where he tells us the call to faith is a call to hopefulness, do we have that biblical mindset where we believe that day follows night, instead of night following day?

     Could it be that despite the present darkness, a morning is coming and light is just around the corner? Can we believe God to bring it about? Can we, "Have faith in God"? Or should I phrase it in that despised imperative tense -- people, "Have faith in God!" "Believe!"

It does make a difference. Yet as he notes, it all depends on that ever-necessary personal relationship with God.    Blessings on your day, Pastor Jeff

He Cares

Greetings

This week's 'thought' comes from Ravi Zacharias and is found in his book "Cries of the Heart - Bringing God Near When He Feels So Far." One of his other books, "Can Man Live Without God" (lectures delivered at Harvard University and later put into book form) is one of the most compelling and profound arguments for the existence of God that I have ever read. In our secularized and semi-atheistic society it is well worth whatever time it takes you to read it! You can also hear broadcasts of his radio program "Let My People Think" on over 550 radio stations worldwide.

Ravi was born in India. He was descended from a line of Hindu priests (of the Nambudiri Brahmin caste). At one point a German priest spoke to one of his ancestors about Christianity and the family was converted and embraced the Christian faith. At that point they changed the family name from Nambudiri to Zacharias. Though Ravi grew up in a nominal Anglican home, he was himself an atheist until the age of 17. Our thought for today picks up at that point! Enjoy.

"Many make the assumption that God is unknowable or too distant. The Scriptures remind us that God has graciously invited us to come to Him on a personal level. He reaches out to every man, woman and child and says: 'Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest' (Matt. 11:28).

I very seldom like to mention the turning point of my own life, for it is a very private matter and sometimes still hurts to think of it, to say nothing of the embarrassment it must bring to my family... I was seventeen years old when, with neither great intensity or great anguish, I came to the recognition that life had very little meaning. The more I pondered its harsh implication the closer I drew to a decision. That decision was to choose the way of suicide.

I found myself after that attempt lying in a hospital bed, having expelled all the poison that I had taken but unsure if I would recover. There on that bed, with a dehydrated body, the Scriptures were read to me. The flooding of my heart with the news that Jesus Christ could come into my life and that I could know God personally defies the depths to which the truth overwhelmed me. In that moment, with a simple prayer of trust, the change from a desperate heart to one that found the fullness of meaning became a reality for me.

God reached down to a teenager in a hospital bed in the city of New Delhi, a mega-city of teeming millions. Imagine! God cared enough to hear my cry. How incredible that He has a personal interest in the struggles of our lives. I cannot express it better than to say that His self-sufficiency and greatness do not deny us the wonderful joy of being affirmed in our individuality and of knowing that we are of unique value to Him. That was the point of the parable Jesus told about the shepherd who left the ninety-nine sheep in the fold and went looking for the one. The breadth of the gospel in its implications for history and for all of humanity ought never to diminish the personal application of it... God is not just the God of power in creation; He is the God of presence in our affliction."

The immense power, greatness and majesty of God does not (as the Deist asserted) make Him distant. Just the opposite is true. God can be near to us all precisely because He is so infinitely immense and great! If we think or feel otherwise, then it is not because our understanding or view of God is too great, but as J. B. Phillips put it, because "Your God is too Small."

In the Bonds of Christian Charity,

Pastor Jeff

Spirituality

Greetings to all,

After a few weeks vacation it's feels good to be back in the office preparing messages and doing ministry. In my time away I came across two good quotes. The first is by William Barclay in his Daily Study Bible, and the other is by Deitrich Bonhoeffer (one of my favorites) in his book "Spiritual Care."

The first is simple truth. The second is a bit more profound, but addresses so well the cause of much spiritual apathy, distress and anxiety and what we must do if we are ever to move beyond it. Enjoy!

"We must always remember this -- that Christianity does not mean knowing all the theories about the New Testament; still less does it mean knowing all the theologies and the Christologies; because Christianity does not mean knowing about Christ; it means knowing Christ; and to do that requires not earthly wisdom, but heavenly grace."

William Barclay

"To a great extent it has become customary to expect from spiritual care and proclamation, not faith and salvation but advice and aid in any kind of emergency. We cannot allow this to continue. This is an avoidance of the gospel even and especially when the person in question participates in worship. As a rule this (desire for little more than advice and aid in emergencies) happens because the person is unwilling to give himself to the Word of God without reservation, to trust and obey the Word. There is a kind of natural acknowledgment of God's lordship over our lives, but when it comes to turning over to God a very concrete area and a definite decision, we deny that to him. Precisely this one item -- maybe only this one item we want to withhold from God. God is not to rule in this particular area and we do not notice that in this way we deny God lordship over our lives in general....

The withholding of specific parts of our own nature, of our vocation, and of our social life gradually delivers us into tight imprisonment. This condition is experienced as distress, but not understood as sin. And this condition can lead to total indifference toward proclamation (we become spiritually numb and unable to hear God speak)...

The human will does not want to bow before the will of God. One becomes spiteful, callous, and unrepentant toward God. People accuse God; they ask why God burdened them with this sickness, this death, this failure, this marital problem. The crucial question behind all these problems is whether or not God's Word is being accepted as God's Word...

It must always be clear to the pastor that the core of the "problem" is flight from the Word of God... Everything necessary for our help is to be found in the Word of God. It is essential for us to listen to the Word. The person must be brought back to the path of (listening to the proclamation of God's Word) from which he strayed in impenitence over a quite specific sin... As long as you consciously deny Christ obedience at this particular point in your life you can't hear...

Those trapped in a vice are not healed by being hit with advice. The flesh is strong. It loves a good argument. People will never relinquish the enjoyment of their sins even when outwardly they seem to be seeking advice. Only surrender to Christ and joyful discipleship are able to spring us free of the bonds of sin."

Deitrich Bonhoeffer

For those north of the equator, enjoy what remains of the summer and the approach of autumn (my favorite time of the year)!

In the Service of Jesus, Pastor Jeff

Dr. Jeffrey F. Evans

Christ Community Bible Church