Night before Christmas

How familiar do the following advertising slogans sound to you?

“Love yourself this Christmas” , “Where the heart of Christmas is”,  or what about “The Magic of Christmas”

If you were to pop into any shopping centre today the first thing you would notice is the large Christmas tree in the centre court, followed closely behind with children’s activities focused on Santa Clause and all the goodies he has to bring.

But you will be hard-pressed to find any kind of real reference to  Jesus and what truly should  be remembered on Christmas day.  Sure you might find references to Him, or about Him, but it will be purely commercially motivated. I am amazed at how easily stores have the ability to somehow take Santa, Reindeers and the nativity story and just roll it all into one, as if Santa was right there with Jesus when he was born!

If you had no clue about what was really going on, you could easily assume that Jesus was actually delivered to Mary by Santa himself!

To so many of us, Christmas is a story about peace, traditions, family, and good feelings . It is about making wrongs right, and giving leftover food to the poor.

But how wrong we are.

Romans 3:10-11 says, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.” But there is hope, because as 1 Timothy 1:15 informs us, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”, which means that Christmas is not about gifts and shopping specials and all that is worthy of spending money on, but rather that it is a date set apart to remember the day God stepped into our world to rescue us from our own sinful ways and give us eternal life if we believe in Him.

Jesus himself reinforced this for us when He said “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.“

It is this Jesus that we should remember and share with those around us as we celebrate Christmas this year. For on Christmas day a King entered this world.

A king who the bible says is the King of Righteousness and the King of Glory.

He is the king of Ages, the King of Heaven, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords...

He is the greatest phenomenon that has ever graced our planet! He is God’s son and the sinners Saviour. He is the center piece of civilization and the miracle of the Ages; most importantly, He is the only one qualified to be the all sufficient Saviour!

It is this King who we should celebrate on Christmas day.

This same King has died on the cross for you, so that you may receive the greatest gift of all, the gift of eternal life.

God: Just and Holy

The bible teaches us that God is a just and holy God. He can not look upon sin without acting justly towards that sin. What this means is that if we mess up even once, God has to condemn us to hell. It isn’t because he wants to,but because he has too. If he didn’t he wouldn’t be a just and holy God, instead he would just be a liar or somehow who gets kicks out of making humans suffer. Thankfully God is not like this.

He is a loving God who loves us, but must also punish sin.

This is where the tricky bit comes into play..

I’ll repay all my sin by doing good!

We might argue that if we do enough good that it would some how out weigh our sins and that we could (on our own) pay for them. This of course is ludicrous! Lets just look at it from judicial view (based on human standards). If you kill someone (or even steal for that matter) and you stand before the judge and he asks you “How do you plead?” You can’t respond with “Well, I gave X amount to charity this week, and did extra hours at the homeless shelter” or even “I stopped Global warming!” See, you good doesn’t somehow cancel out your wrongs.. If Mother Teresa went and killed just one person before she died, she would still be sentenced to jail even though she had saved 1000’s of lives prior.

It doesn’t get better, because Jesus says that even if you are angry at your brother it is as bad as murder

Matthew 5:21-22

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.”

So, if your good doesn’t out weigh your sin, what about not sinning at all?

The bible is very clear on this subject.

Romans 3:10-18 says :

10As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
12All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
13″Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
14″Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
15″Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16ruin and misery mark their ways,
17and the way of peace they do not know.”
18″There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

1 John 1 :8-10 says :

⁸If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

Though we can definitely rejoice in verse no 9 (because he is faithful and just), but vs 8 & 10 is definitely a warning to all those who think that judgment can’t touch them, or that sin does not exist.

I know! I’ll be very religious

You might find this quite a surprise, but God hates religion. He says we will be tossed out like filthy rags if we think religions can save us ( Isaiah 64:6 ). In Hebrews 10  God tells us that religion will not save us, but a relationship with Him through the blood of Jesus Christ will give us the relationship we have been searching for. We will be made clean before God, because Jesus who become a man, came and died for us, so that he may become the substitute of all those who believe in Him, giving us eternal life.

See, God doesn’t forgive sin until it is paid for, but the good news is that he has already paid for it.  There is nothing left for us to do but to accept him as God, and surrender to Him as Lord!

Then our sins will be paid for, and sin can not harm us anymore. (meaning we will share eternity with Him)

Though, just to clarify things a bit..

There is one kind of Religion that God does enjoy, and this is the Religion mentioned in James 1:27 : “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

Now it isn’t saying that if you do these things you will somehow earn your way into heaven.. No, no.. What it is saying is that if you are going to put your efforts into trying to do the things that pleases God, then you should seek after these things.

Now of course this isn’t a complete list, but it does give us an idea of what we should be aiming for.

So I leave you with the same question I started with..

How are you paying for you sins?

Sorry for the long delay, but I’ve been working on some projects that have taken up alot of my time.

Right, first off I’ve got a two part sermon from John Piper which will really challenge you on the way you think about life, money and your priorities.
This sermon is also not a once off sermon listen (no sermon should ever be), every time I listen to it I learn/get challenged by something else.
I Hope you enjoy it and are challenged as much as I was/am.

Note : You must right click on the link and select “save target as”.

John Piper

1. John Piper – Appearance of the Unwasted Life – Part 1(18 megs)
2. John Piper – Appearance of the Unwasted Life – Part 2(11 megs)

Another Series that I really enjoyed, is “Ask an honest question, get an honest answer” by Mark Meynell from All Souls Church in London.
This is a great 3 part Series going through the book of Habakkuk.

Mark Meynell

1. Mark Meynell – Lord why don’t you listen? (6megs)
2. Mark Meynell – Lord, why do you tolerate wrong? (6megs)
3. Mark Meynell – Lord how do I get it so wrong? (5megs)

Hope you guys find these helpful.

More sermons to come.

The following few verses are so powerful, yet for some reason so under quoted.

Ezekiel 33:11
“As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways!”

Basically, what it is saying is that God does not wish for us to die without him at the center of our lives!
Yes, he is a just and righteous God, and because of this, he must punish the wicked (because if he didn’t how would we be able to trust him with anything he says??)!

Here we see how God is almost pleading with us, begging us to turn from our wickedness so that we can rejoice in him (through the death and resurrection of His son), and not perish on the day of judgment.

When the God of creation comes and asks us to turn away from our wickedness, and live a righteous and holy life so that he doesn’t have to destroy us, we know know that we serve a awesome God!

The best part is, all we have to do is accept His gift of life! That is it!

We truly serve an awesome God!

I won’t go into a huge article here (mainly because of time constraints), but the following mp3 is very good in explaining this, and helps a lot in this hotly debated subject.

Women Teaching Men
(to download the file : Right Click on the link, and select “Save Link As” it is 5megs)

I just read the following article : http://www.icr.org/article/4573/ about a physicist who predicts through theoretical physics the reality of a hypercosmic god, who exists outside of the physical universe.

“The goal of quantum mechanics is to provide a complete description/model of the physical world. However, if something exists beyond scientifically predictable phenomena, then there must be some other reality underlying the natural world, another dimension that is not based on time, distance, or physical constraints.”

As fancy as all this sounds, the conclusion is by far best part of the entire article

“Although it is exciting that modern scientific research clearly points towards God, it does not take millions of dollars in government grants coupled with years of laborious research to prove His existence and know what He is like. His Divine attributes are clearly outlined in the Bible.”

GOD ON TRIAL : PART 4 ( Why does God allow suffering? )

People today ask me why a good God, a loving God, allow suffering to occur? Surely a loving a God, who sends his own son to die on the cross for the human race would not allow these same humans to suffer?

The problem with this question, is that it is a statement that is actually asking two questions in one, and both need completely different answers to be answered properly.

The first question should be : “why is their suffering?” or “what causes suffering?”
The second is : Why doesn’t God do anything about it?

The problem with the problem

Just because we suffer doesn’t automatically mean that it is from God! Most of the suffering we experience today is because of our own sinful nature. The fact that we aren’t perfect is exactly why we suffer. Suffering is but a reminder of the fact that we do live in a fallen world, where broken relationships are the norm, and the nicest people might die first. The state of the current world is but the aftermath of what happened in the garden of Eden, and until we are reunited with God, suffering will be a daily thing, exactly because we are not with God. God doesn’t cause suffering, he stops it!

But this doesn’t mean that God doesn’t allow us to suffer. Just like Joseph ( Genesis 37-50 ) where God allowed certain things to happen to Joseph so that he may become second in charge of Egypt and save the entire North Africa from starvation, so God has his will and plan that we might not fully understand. Just because we don’t understand the plan, doesn’t mean their isn’t one.

The definition of love isn’t “An end to all my suffering”, it is God works for the good of those who love him. What is that good thing good works towards you might ask? It is to be conformed to the likeness of his Son. Romans 8:28-29

See God wishes us to become more like Him, to be saved! To come to know him! He will do what HE thinks is best for us, not what we think. Turning away from sin, and following Christ is not an easy road and God, through his love will be looking after you all the time, but like a child who is naughty, so we too must be punished for our sinful ways!

God would not be loving if he didn’t let us suffer, and gave in to our whim’s and pleas, we would become like spoilt children!

It is a mistake to assume that getting rid of God will make the problem of evil easier to handle!
Or as Philip Yancey puts it ” We either suffer with God, or without him. Suffering with God is infinitely better than suffering without him”

So who is the problem? Is it us?

Think about this for a second.. If God put an instant end to all evil.. What would happen to you? Oh, but you might say, I’m not evil! Look at all the Good I’ve done in my life. What does that count for? The answer : Nothing, when we compare it to our sins! God doesn’t judge sins differently. Gluttony, swearing, homosexuality is on the same level as  murder, rape and stealing.

Or as Jesus puts it in Mark 7:20-23

He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’ ”

If God was to pour  out his rightful anger upon us, we would all be killed.
Romans 3:23 : “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

But Jesus pays for our sin so that one day He can put an end to evil without putting an end to us! See, that is the awesomeness of Jesus. It isn’t for all the good he did, or for his teachings, or for the “love” culture he left behind. But it was because God came down, in human form and died on a cross (fulfilling all the prophecies regarding this matter) so that we may be saved from our inevitable death and separation from God, and instead join him in heaven one day.

The God who suffers
I would like to end with showing that our God is a God who suffers with us. He understands our suffering, and is not separate from all we are going through.
This can be seen when Jesus came down to earth, He was tempted, and faced the same pains we did. But he resisted!

Hebrews 2:17-18
For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Because of all of this, our God as not only saved us from our ultimate death and separation from him, but he is also preparing a place for us :
Revelations 21:21-24
The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.

For all those who suffer for Christ now, and bow the knee to him will inherit the city in Romans 21.

It seems we have gone from an “unfair” and “abusive” God who looks to torture us for the fun of it, to a God who not only hates punishing us, but does it because he loves us, but a God who also understands our suffering and experienced it himself, and is busy preparing a place for each of us in heaven! All we need to do is accept his invitation.

Our God is good God, and a loving God, even though we suffer, and this is more comforting than anything money can buy.

Don’t believe me?
Look at Job, Joseph, Jesus, Paul. Read the stories of these men and you will see how through all their suffering, not only did they come out stronger, but they also gave all the glory to God!

I suggest we stop blaming God for all the suffering in the world, and start pointing fingers our ourselves.

GOD ON TRIAL : PART 3 ( The Justice of God )

The justice of God has always been misunderstood by those who do not believe/read the bible.

Some of the reasons people have for objecting to the idea of God being a just God, yet filled with love in compassion is as follows :
1) People are generally Good, how can God send good people to hell?
2) The moral code of this world is “good people get rewarded”, which is cemented into us from an early age. So why are the good people punished with the bad?
3) God is love
4) The judging cynical God contradicts the loving Jesus depicted in the bible.

All these examples above are what we call “bad doctrine” of God. It basically means, that the people making these statements do not fully understand who God or Jesus is, and so make false claims/accusations about things they do not fully understand.

But first, lets look at hell, and what the bible says about it.
Luke 16:19-31

The Rich Man and Lazarus

19″There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22″The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23In hell,[a] where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25″But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

27″He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, 28for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29″Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

30″ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31″He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ ”

From this passage we learn a couple of things about the rich man ( the one in hell ).
Although he asks Abraham to send Lazarus down to give him relief from the fire, not once does he ask to be saved from the fire!
He continues to treat Lazarus as a slave or a lesser being (vs 24 & 27 ), and shows no sign of repentance towards Lazarus.
In vs 27 he asked Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers, basically saying “Look, you didn’t give me the heads up, but at least give my brothers the heads up about this place”. To which Abraham replies ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ (which is basically saying “They have the same information you have, you didn’t listen to it, for your sake, lets hope that they do”)

Note the last verse, see how Jesus knew that even His resurrection would not automatically turn everyone into believers! (.. they will not be convinced even if someone raises from the dead.’ )

From this passage we see that the general attitude of those in hell will be exactly the same as when they were on earth. Still in denial and blame shifting, with no thought for God, or how to serve him.

Hell is God giving us what we always wanted, a life without Him. When we die, God gives us an eternity without Him!

If this is all true, then what is the deal with God being “loving”, yet condemning people to hell? How can a God who judges, also love?

A loving God must be a judging God

If we look at those who love, they also judge. They do not judge because of their lack of love, but because of their love.
A loving person is not indifferent to their loved ones actions. Instead, because of their love, they cannot ignore what is going on, and so God cannot ignore our sin. Not because He hates us, but because He loves us!

Tim Keller puts it this way :

“Think how we feel when we see someone we love is ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we respond with benign tolerance as we might toward strangers? Far from it… Anger isn’t the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference… God’s wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled opposition to the cancer which is eating out the insides of the human race he loves with his whole being.”

Romans 1:21-25 puts it like this : We have chosen to ignore God (even though he has made himself known to us), because of this God gives us what we want, and turns us over to our own desires.

2 Corinthians 4:1-6 hits the nail on the head.
“Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

Or as Ravi Zacharias puts it :

“People often say, what about all the good things I’ve done? What about all the good people in this world? Jesus did not come into this world to make bad people good. He came into this world to make dead people live. Those who are dead to God, to make them alive to God.”

Well, a good question might be “Well then why be punished for eternity?”, why not just for the 80 years (or however many) we live on this earth? Because “The length of punishment reflects the severity of the crime” – S. Tubman. Our sin is so bad, that infinity can not reconcile us back to God (not without the help of Jesus).

Because God is just, loving and perfect, His love will never compromise His justice, and His justice will never compromise His love.

Imagine a world where evil did not matter and was not punished? Would you follow a God who did not care about justice? Who did not care about you or your eternal future! What kind of God would that be?

The God of the bible ( the true God ), is a loving and compassionate God, but also a righteous God, and because He is just and righteous, we can believe in His word.

However, because of His righteousness, He  can not just sweep our sin under the carpet. Instead, He came up with the ultimate plan (planned from the beginning) to save us by sending His only son, to die on our behalf so that His wrath may be satisfied! This plan therefore keeps within Gods character of being a loving God and a just God and not compromising on His judgment. To sum up how His character is not compromised, He loves by sending His son to judge sin (this is Gods justness) but at the same time makes the sinner justified (God’s love) through His son for those who believe. His love never compromises His justice and His justice never compromises His love!

This is how a loving God works, not by blessing us with BMW’s and fancy holiday houses, but by saving us from eternity in hell, and giving us the life ever lasting!

AMEN!!

GOD ON TRIAL : PART 2 ( The Uniqueness of God )

Last week I touched on the subject of God and the bible. Is the bible still true today? How can we tell if it is true etc? You can read it all here : The Bible…The Voice of God.. How true is it?

This week I will be looking at the topic of “Is there only one true religion?”

I mean face it, one of the biggest challenges we as Christians face in this Post Modern world is the fact that everyone is right, yet strangely enough, everyone else is wrong!

One of the “HOT” topics at the moment is : “There are many roads to God, no one is right.” No matter who you serve, you’ll get into heaven, so don’t stress. Well as nice as this sounds, it is as far from the truth as saying “there is no God”.

But before I get ahead of myself, lets take a look at what God thinks about sharing his glory.

God does not like too divide his glory.

Exodus 20 is a good place too start (it is after all God’s commandments too us).

Exodus 20 : 2-3 are quite clear on where God stands in the whole business of sharing :
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”

The entire book of Leviticus is filled with things the Israelite weren’t allowed to do. Many of these rules were placed there because other religions of the day where doing these exact things, and God was basically saying “Hey, I don’t want you to be worshiping me as if I’m some other God!”

What about Jesus? God in human form, who came down to earth and supposedly preached peace and unity?
Well first off, Jesus did not preach unity, he preached “repent and believe for the Kingdom of God is near.”
This same Jesus also said “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

Does that sound like a Free For All to you? Who comes to the farther? (The farther who will have no other gods before him) Those who put there trust in Jesus, and follow him, only those will come to know the farther.

And post Jesus? What did the apostles preach?
Acts 4:12 “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
1 Cor 6:19b-20 : “You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”

Right, so now that we got that all out the way, what about some of the tough questions people ask?
Questions like “exclusive religions are dangerous, it causes conflict!” or “there are too many good people who are not Christians”, or “all religions teach the same thing” and so on.

I’m going to tackle some of these question very briefly.

Exclusive religions are dangerous – cause conflict
Looking at the current situation in Gaza, people like to point fingers at religion and say that it is all religions fault, without religion this world would be a far better place! Well let me just point out the facts quickly.

In the 20th (Century which has also had more wars,and deaths by war than any century before it) the biggest wars have all been caused by Idealists who have wanted to get rid of religion. eg: Soviet Russia, Communist China, Nazi Germany, Khmer Rouge in Cambodia!

You think religion creates violence! Just look at what the parties above caused!
By the way, if you hold this view (the view that all religions are wrong and deadly) then you are being just as exclusive as the religions you criticize.

There are too many good people who are not Christians
Unfortunately this is sad but true. Luckily there is a simple answer for this. Christians are saved by grace, we do not need to earn our way into heaven. So being “good” is not going to save us (though it is expected). Other religions require Good deeds. Without good deeds you are useless and worthless, with good deeds you can feel superior to others.

As Christians we boast in the cross alone! “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” Gal 6:11-18

All religions are equal in value!
If you hold this view point, you must include ALL religions. You can’t just accept some, because then you would need to justify you exceptions. So if we have to accept that all religions are of equal value, we must agree that religions that sacrifice children are as intrinsically good in value as ones that don’t!

All religions are different parts of the one great spiritual truth
This is also know as the blind men and elephant theory.
Basically what this is saying is that just like each blind man can only touch/experience the part of the elephant they are currently in front of, and will never be able to see the full picture, so each religion is but a part of the GREAT truth.
See, the problem with this view is quite simple. For the person to make this statement they must accept the fact they are but an observer who actually knows what the elephant looks like. In which case, you hold the key to enlightening all of us!

See, you can’t claim that everyone knows a small portion of the big picture, if no one knows what the big picture looks like, or even exists! (especially when each of the portions are in no way related or even hint at a “bigger” picture)

Which brings me to my last objection.
All religions teach the same thing.
If you really believe this too be true, I suggest you study the table below.

Lets just look at Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism as examples :

Wow, now that is what I call an incompatible list!
So if any of you had reserves about the fact that they might all teach the same thing, I hope this has helped you in that!

But what too make of all this evidence?

If religions of this world, do not say the same thing, and are all radically different(which they are). Then there is a choice to be made, and it is definitely important enough to investigate.

If the bible is right (which the first article helped to prove) then the wrong choice will have serious consequences!