This week, when my wife Becky went grocery shopping, she had a brief conversation with the cashier, which started started off being about the amount of coffee she was buying.  As Becky explained that she was shopping for our church’s food bank, the cashier said that she also went to church and that every day before work, she read Psalm 91 as a reminder of God’s protection.  

When Becky came home and told me this, I laughed because I had just been corresponding with some of Becky’s family members via email about Psalm 91.  Becky’s Uncle John (who lives in England) had sent out an email asking what we thought about how Psalm 91 applies to us during this pandemic.  Becky’s other uncle, Uncle Philip (who lives in Holland), had replied that he had been asked to preach on Psalm 91 at his church.  Becky’s dad (who is a missionary in Colombia) had commented that many Christians in Colombia were leaving their Bibles open to Psalm 91 as sort of a good luck charm against COVID-19.  

Why all this interest in Psalm 91 all at once?  Psalm 91 is a song of confidence in God’s protection in the midst of trouble.  It starts off like this:

1 Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High

    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,

    my God, in whom I trust.”

3 Surely he will save you

    from the fowler’s snare

    and from the deadly pestilence.

This Psalm has many wonderful statements of confidence in God’s protection and salvation, and verse three is particularly encouraging as we face COVID-19.  What a promise to hold today!  “Surely he will save you… from the deadly pestilence.”  No wonder it’s coming up so much recently.

However, is it really true that God will protect His people from COVID-19?  Is that a promise that we can hold to?  Surely some of the people who have died in this pandemic have been Christians.  And let’s not forget that this isn’t the only disease that the world has ever faced.  Luke 4:9-11 shows us how dangerous taking God’s Word out of context can be when Satan uses this psalm to tempt Jesus!  So we need to make sure we understand what this psalm is actually saying.

When we read any part of the Bible, it’s important to read it in context.  That means a couple of things.  First, it means when we read a verse, we should read what’s around it and figure out how it fits into the whole chapter and even book of the Bible that it’s part of.  But it also means we need to read verses in the context of the whole Bible.  The Bible is a single story from beginning to end and knowing where a verse or passage fits into that large story helps us to understand it.  The story of the Bible can be understood in terms of the covenants (sacred promises) that God made throughout the story.  There are several key covenants in the story of the Bible, but when we read Psalm 91, we need to focus on two in particular.

The first covenant that we’re going to focus on today, is the covenant under which Psalm 91 is written.  This is Moses’ covenant, sometimes called the Old Covenant.  This covenant was given, through Moses to the nation of Israel.  The Old Covenant was basically a constitution for the nation of Israel that laid out what it meant for them to exist as God’s people, with God dwelling in their midst in the tabernacle/temple.  In this covenant, God promises to be their God and dwell with them.  And He says that because He is holy, they too must be holy.  If they follow His commands in faith, His presence will be a blessing to them.  They will be protected from trouble of all kinds and be prosperous.  But, if they reject His commands and  turn away from Him, His presence will be a curse on them.  They will face famine, oppression, and disease.  You can read Deuteronomy 28 for all the details on that, and particularly verses 20-22, referring to diseases.  

Why is all this important?  Because Psalm 91 is an Old Covenant psalm.  It is a song expressing confidence in God’s promises made to the nation of Israel in the Old Covenant.  It is a song expressing confidence in promises that God made to Israel at a specific time, promises that are not given to Christians living today.  If that’s the case, why do we still read Psalm 91?  Why don’t we rip it out of the Bible and throw it away?  Because it is still God’s Word and it is still true.  How is it still true?   Because Psalm 91 is a song of confidence in a God who keeps His promises.  God keeps His promises.  That does not change.  God does not change.  So as we read Psalm 91, we need to ask ourselves what promises God has made to us, Christians living today.  

That’s where the second covenant we’re looking at today comes in.  This covenant is called the New Covenant.  It’s first mentioned in Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Ezekiel 36:22-32 as a covenant that will come to Israel in the future.  This covenant isn’t like the old covenant.  It’s better.  The Old Covenant involved following God’s laws so they could have God dwelling with them in the temple.  This New Covenant is all about having God dwelling in His people directly and changing them from the inside so they want to obey God’s commands.  It’s about God forgiving sin and cleansing His people.

When Jesus came, He inaugurated the New Covenant through His death and resurrection.  He made it clear that this covenant wasn’t for Israel as a nation or ethnicity, but all of those who are God’s people through faith in Jesus.  In other words, this covenant is for Christians today.  This New Covenant is still in process.  It’s promises have already started, because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, but they are not yet complete, and won’t be until He comes again.  But Christians living today are under this already/not yet covenant with God.  In this New Covenant, we aren’t promised protection from disease.  We just aren’t.  That promise isn’t for us.  But we have an even better promise: that no matter what happens to us in this life, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  That our suffering in this life is being used by God to strengthen us and prepare us for our glorious inheritance in Christ that can never perish, spoil, or fade.  That we have the hope of eternal life after this world passes away.  

So is Psalm 91 for us today?  Yes, but we need to read it in light of Christ and His New Covenant.  God will surely save us from the deadly pestilence.  Because of Jesus, COVID-19 cannot truly harm us, even if it kills us.

At the end of every year, dictionary websites choose a word that they feel best represents the year that is ending.  They then name that word the word of the year. For 2019, dictionary.com chose the word ‘existential’.  You probably don’t use this word a lot in every day conversation (unless you like using big words), but understanding it will help us understand a little more about how our world thinks and it will helps us understand how we should think as Christians.

Dictionary.com defines existential in two ways.  The first is “of or relating to existence”. For example, a business might talk about their existential requirements, by which they mean the things the can’t exist without.  Environmentalists sometimes talk about existential threats, by which they mean things that threaten our existence as humans. The conversation around climate change was an important factor in the choice of this word for 2019.   

The second definition is as follows: “concerned with the nature of human existence as determined by the individual's freely made choices.”  This definition is a philosophical one; it comes from the philosophy known as existentialism. Existentialism is the belief that the universe is random and meaningless and therefore our purpose for existence as humans is something we must determine ourselves as we make purposeful choices.  In other words, there is no absolute Truth or meaning in life that is knowable through science or through revelation from God and therefore we must each be purposeful in deciding how to live our lives in ways that are meaningful and true to ourselves. In existentialism, living this way is referred to as living authentically.  You can see why this would be significant for 2019 (for instance, take a minute to look up Merriam Webster’s word of the year for 2019).

Dictionary.com has posted a video of several people talking about what the word existential means in their own lives.  They talk about rising above the grind of working and paying bills. They talk about defining who they are outside the norms of society.  They talk about the anxiety of trying to live a meaningful life. And then there’s a little boy at the end who clearly has a more simple existence and isn’t worried about such things.  You can watch the video at https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-year/

Watching the video made me think a lot about how people in the world see their lives.  If there is no Truth with a capital T and if there is no real meaning to the universe, then what is left but to define it for yourself?  But even in the testimonies on that video, you can hear how much confusion, anxiety, and regret is the fallout from this kind of worldview.  They try to couch it in a positivity and freedom, but even as they laugh about the futility of their lives, you can see that they desperately need an anchor outside of themselves to make life truly meaningful.  

The Bible, thankfully, gives a very different perspective on Truth, purpose, and the meaning of our existence.  The Apostle John began his gospel by talking about these very topics. He opens the gospel by referencing a philosophical term logos, which is translated into English as ‘Word’.  The Word was a Greek concept referring to the logic and Truth of the universe.  It was the reason for existence, the essence of all things; the Word is everything that existentialism denies.  But the Word was also an important concept for the Jewish people. The Jewish faith is based on the Truth that God has spoken to His people.  His will, His Truth has been revealed to us in the Bible through God’s prophets. When the Apostle John speaks of the Word, he is bringing all of these ideas together.  The Word is the Truth behind all existence, the meaning of life, revealed to us by God in Scripture. But John takes it a step further and says, that the Word isn’t just an abstract concept or a written story, the Word is a person.  And it’s only through this person that we can know God, know ourselves, and find true meaning and purpose in life. This is how John puts it:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it….

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.  He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.  He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—  children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth…. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known. 
    - John 1:1-5, 9-14, 18 (NIV)

As 2019 draws to a close and 2020 begins, we need more than what existentialism offers us.  There is Truth. There is Reason. There is Purpose. His name is Jesus. The world may not recognize him, but that doesn’t change the Truth.  Jesus was the Word in the beginning with His Father and He will be the Word long after the empty philosophies of today are forgotten.

Whenever you read a book, you have to take into consideration what kind of book it is.  You don’t read all kinds of books the same way. For instance, you don’t read a cook book in the same way you read a novel.  And you don’t read an encyclopedia the same way you read a book of poetry. The kind of book you are reading determines how you read it.  

So what kind of book is the Bible?  Is it a rule book? An encyclopedia of spiritual insights and promises?  A theology textbook? A collection of unrelated stories? The kind of book it is will determine how you read it.  And if you don’t understand the kind of book it is, you’ll read it the wrong way and miss out on what it is actually saying.  For example, many people treat the Bible like an encyclopedia of spiritual insights and promises. Most people don’t read an encyclopedia from cover to cover, they just look for the entry on the topic that interests them.  That’s how encyclopedias are meant to be read. The section on one topic isn’t related to the next topic, so you don’t need to keep reading once you have learned about the topic you are interested in. But the Bible isn’t an encyclopedia.  It’s not arranged that way, so if we pick and choose verses, paragraphs, and chapters out of context, we won’t really understand what we have read.

This brings us back to our question: what kind of book is the Bible?  It’s a tricky question because the Bible is such a unique book. It was written over the course of thousands of years by dozens of authors and editors.  It uses several different genres of writing, historical narrative, parable, poetry, letter, sermon, prophecy, as well as census information, and lists of laws.  Not to mention ancient genres like apocalypse that we don’t use at all today. But what makes the Bible truly unique is that despite its diversity, it’s a a book with amazing unity.  It was written by dozens of human authors and editors over thousands of years, yet it claims to have one divine author who worked in each of these humans so that their writings were the very words of God (2 Peter 1:19-21, 2 Timothy 3:16-17). And God authored the Bible to be a single cohesive story.  

Let me show you what I mean when I say that the Bible is a single cohesive story.  Almost every story follows the same basic structure: Introduction, Crisis, Climax, Resolution.  In the introduction, we are introduced to the world of the story, Including the main character. The Crisis is a problem that disrupts the world of the story and drives the story forward as the characters try to defeat the villain or solve the mystery or meet their true love, or whatever it is.  At the Climax, the problem is either dealt with and defeated or (in a tragedy) the characters are defeated by the problem. In the Resolution, the new normal for the world of the story is found and the story concludes.  

The Bible follows this structure as well.  The Introduction is found in Genesis 1-2. God (the main character) creates the world and it is good.  He creates humans as the pinnacle of creation (they are very good) and they dwell together in harmony - God protects and loves His creation and they love and obey God.  The Crisis happens in Genesis 3. A villain enters the story and disrupts the harmony between God and His creations by tempting the humans to disobey God and try to take His place.  As a result humanity is corrupted by sin. Sinful humans cannot dwell together with the Holy God, but rather they deserve death for their treason. What’s more, death and sin corrupt all of creation.  The Climax of the story of the Bible is found in the gospels. A man named Jesus claims that He is the Son of God and that He has come to rescue humanity from their sin. He lives a perfectly holy life and is the first human ever to live who doesn’t deserve death.  Yet He sacrifices Himself by dying as a criminal to pay for the sins of the world. He is then raised to life by His Father, both vindicating His claims of being God’s Son and breaking the power of sin and death that have ravaged creation since the first humans disobeyed God.  The Resolution is found in Revelation 19-22. In these chapters, Jesus returns to finally defeat the ancient villain who caused the Crisis of sin. He judges those who still oppose God and gives new life to those who follow God through faith in Him. He remakes heaven and earth so that it is like it was back in Genesis 1-2, but better.  And that’s the end.

That’s the story of the Bible.  But you might be thinking, “You left an awful lot out.  You only covered the first three chapters, the last four chapters, and a few details in the middle.  What about the rest?” Well, in any story, the basic structure is filled out by Rising Action and Falling Action.  In the Rising Action, the problem created by the crisis builds and the characters try to deal with it, leading to the climax.  In the Falling Action, the fallout from the climax is unpacked as the story heads towards the resolution. The Falling Action is typically pretty short (but if you have read the Lord of the Rings, you know there are exceptions).  The Rising Action in the story of the Bible is everything from Genesis 4 up until Jesus dies on the cross. In other words, the Old Testament (and the beginning of the gospels) is the Rising Action. The Falling Action in the story of the Bible is everything between the resurrection and second coming of Jesus.  In other words, the bulk of the New Testament is the Falling Action.

The Rising and Falling Action of the story of the Bible unpacks God’s plan to save the world.  That plan is presented in stages through a series of covenants (sacred promises) that God makes.  God makes covenants to Noah (Genesis 8-9), Abraham (Genesis 15 & 17), Moses (Exodus 19-31), and David (2 Samuel 7).  Each covenant is a step in God's plan to deal with the problem of sin.  They each prepare the way for Jesus who will deal with sin completely and once and for all.  The Rising Action of the story of the Bible (the Old Testament) is all about How God’s people lived in light of these covenants, waiting for God’s plan to fully unfold, and failing a lot along the way.

God also promises one more covenant in the Old Testament, the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34).  This covenant will be different than the ones before because it will deal with sin once and for all.  The death and resurrection of Jesus inaugurated the promised New Covenant (Luke 22:19-20). The Falling Action of the story of the Bible (the New Testament) is all about how God’s people should live in light of this New Covenant as we wait for Jesus to return and bring Resolution to the story.

And that’s the story of the Bible.  God’s plan to save us from our sins and dwell with us again.  Every part of the Bible is part of this story. So when you read the Bible, it’s important to read it as a story and to know how the part you are reading fits into the whole story.  If you read the Bible this way, it will still be difficult at times, but you will have a deeper understanding of who God is and what He is saying to you through His word.

The writers of the New Testament point out over and over how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies in His birth, His life, His death, and His resurrection.  But if you have ever looked up the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled, you may have found yourself confused. Sometimes these prophecies aren’t prophecies in the way we expect them.  One good example of this is John 19:36-37 which talks about what happened to Jesus on the cross. When the Roman soldiers went to break Jesus’ legs to speed up His death, they found that He was already dead, so they pierced His side with a spear to make sure.  Then John says, “These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: ‘Not one of his bones will be broken,’ and, as another scripture says, ‘They will look on the one they have pierced.’” (John 19:36-37).

Now, there are no prophecies that state: “Not one of the Messiah’s bones will be broken” or “When they kill the Messiah, they will look on the one they have pierced.”  Those verses don’t exist (although, see Psalm 34:19-20). So what is John doing in this passage?  

In the first chapter of his gospel, John made the connection that Jesus is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).  These words build on a theme in the Bible of lambs and goats sacrificed as substitutes for the sins of God’s people. One of the most important places this theme comes up in the Old Testament is in the Passover meal, where the Passover lamb was killed as a substitute for the firstborn sons of the Israelites.  When God gave the instructions for the Passover, He said this: “It [the lamb] must be eaten inside the house; take none of the meat outside the house. Do not break any of the bones.” (Exodus 12:46). Jesus was the fulfillment of the theme of sacrificial lambs in the Bible. They all pointed forward to Him. And the fact that His bones were not broken is part of that fulfillment.

But what about “They will look on the one they have pierced”?  That’s a reference to Zechariah 12:10, which says “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.”  This is God speaking about how the Jewish people had rejected Him and rebelled against Him. The one pierced is God and it seems to be metaphorical. Is it about Jesus being pierced with a spear on the cross? Well, notice that the pronoun changes suddenly in the middle of the sentence. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child.  If the me is God, who is the him? Sometimes pronouns just shift like that in Hebrew poetry, so that may be all there is to it, but the context of Zechariah's message and the way it is used in the New Testament suggest otherwise. 

In the several previous chapters, God promised to send His Messiah to reign as King in Jerusalem (Zechariah 9:9 “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”) and God also predicted that the Jewish people would rebel against God. This verse brings those two ideas together and says that God’s people would rebel against God by rejecting His Messiah.  They pierced God metaphorically and they pierced His Messiah physically. It’s still a bit strange that the verse switches pronouns so abruptly, as if God (me) and the Messiah (he) are one. But Jesus clears up this confusion by proclaiming that He is not only the Messiah, but the Son of God, and that He and His Father are One (John 10:30).

There is one more difficulty in comparing John 19:37 to Zechariah 12:10.  In John, a Roman soldier pierces Jesus, but in Zechariah, it is the Jewish people who have pierced the Messiah (and God).  This difficulty can be answered in a couple of ways. First, the Jewish people rejected Jesus and handed Him over to be crucified, so while they didn’t pierce Him themselves, the emphasis is on their rejection of God’s Messiah, which led to His death.  But also, in both passages, the emphasis is less on who pierced the Messiah, and more on the result of that piercing.  

Zechariah 12:10 begins with the promise that God will pour out His Spirit on the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that they are able to realize what they have done by rejecting God and His Messiah.  As a result, they will repent and mourn. After a few verses describing the depth of the mourning, chapter 13 picks up with the result of their repentance: “On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.”  When God’s people mourn over their sins of rejecting God and killing His Messiah, they will be washed from their sins, like someone washes in a fountain. John, in his gospel, picks up on that and says the fountain that cleans us is the blood of the Messiah. When the soldier pierced Jesus’ side, “a sudden flow of blood and water” came from the wound.  This was proof that He really was dead, but it is also the symbolic fountain that washes away our sins. Just like the blood of the Passover lamb protected the firstborn sons of Israel, the blood of Jesus, the pierced lamb of God washes away the sins of the world - for anyone who puts their faith in Him, whether Jewish or Gentile.

Sometimes we wish that the Bible was a bit more simple, especially when it comes to the prophecies about Jesus.  But the truth is, if the Bible was simple, it wouldn’t be so rich and deep. When the Bible confuses you, don’t give up, keep digging and let the depth and glory of God’s Word astound you.

Our church recently celebrated its 100th anniversary.  We thank God for sustaining Forward as a faithful, gospel-preaching church in Toronto for a century and we pray for many more years of God-honouring, effective, faithful ministry.  As we look towards the future, we must also remember that God has been at work in His church much longer than 100 years. Many men and women have stood for Christ and served Him faithfully through the past two millennia.  Knowing their stories will help us continue to stand for Christ and serve Him faithfully in our lives.

One of the most important events in the history of the church took place in 325 AD.  This was about 300 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.  By this time, Christianity had spread throughout the Greco-Roman world and largely gained acceptance as the religion of the Roman Empire.  But as Christianity spread, false teachings, known as heresies, began to spring up.  These heresies twisted the teachings of the Bible in subtle ways that changed the message of the gospel significantly. One of these heresies became known as Arianism.  Arianism is named after a man named Arius, who was an elder of the church in Alexandria, Egypt. Arius struggled to understand the relationship between God the Father and Jesus, the Son.  He began to teach that God the Father was God and Jesus was not. He also taught that the Father was eternal, but that He created the Son. This teaching directly opposed the teaching of the New Testament, which states that Jesus is God, equal with the Father, that He is eternal, and that the Father and the Son are one (John 1:1, John 10:30, Romans 9:5, etc).  Arius’ false teaching about Jesus caused great conflict in the church.  

The Roman Emperor at this time was Constantine, who was himself a Christian.  He didn’t understand the problem, but knew it was causing trouble, so he called a council of the entire church in the whole Greco-Roman world.  This church council met in the city of Nicaea (in Turkey) in 325 AD. Almost 300 church bishops (each of whom oversaw the church in a particular city or region) attended as well as many elders (who oversaw particular parishes in a city or region) and deacons.  One prominent attender was Nicholas of Myra, later known as Saint Nicholas, who was known for giving gifts to the poor (over time, the legend of Santa Claus developed from his life). The council condemned Arius’ teachings as heresy almost unanimously, two other men stood with Arius and were excommunicated from the church (they were put through church discipline and removed from church leadership and membership).  

The Council of Nicaea together wrote the Nicene Creed, which was an official statement of faith about the person of Jesus.  The creed begins: 

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and all things visible and invisible.  
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made…

The creed affirms the Bible’s teaching that Jesus is the Son of God, and distinct from the Father, and yet is fully God, of one substance (equal in essence) with the Father.  It also reflects the language of the New Testament that often uses the Old Testament divine names 'God' and 'Lord' for the Father and Son respectively.  Calling Jesus 'Lord' is identifying Him as the God of the Old Testament.  Our statement of faith as a church reflects theses teachings when it says,  “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  He shares the same divine essence as His Father and the Holy Spirit and is fully God.”

The Arian heresy is still believed today by Jehovah’s Witnesses, but many Christians also demote Jesus because they find the concept of the Trinity confusing and they end up believing heresy.  Our faithfulness as a church depends on faithfulness to the Bible’s teachings about Christ. If you want to look into these matters more, here are some books that will help you:

The late author and pastor Eugene Peterson has said that the Psalms are unique in the Bible in that “most of scripture speaks to us; the Psalms speak for us” (Working the Angles, 55).  The Psalms teach us how to come to God in prayer, but they can be very confusing for many Christians.  Many of the Psalms seem like complaining (these are called lament psalms). Others ask God to destroy our enemies (these are known as imprecatory psalms).  Surely God doesn’t want us to pray that way, does He?

The first two Psalms can help us can help us with this question, although they don’t seem to fit with what follows.  Psalm 1 is wisdom literature, it would be something we would expect to find in Proverbs. Psalm 2 has a prophetic feel to its language, and seems as if it would be more at home in Isaiah or Ezekiel than where it is.  These two introductory psalms are different precisely because they are an introduction. Eugene Peterson refers to Psalms 1 & 2 as two pillars of an “entrance...flanking the way into prayer” (Answering God, 24).  They prepare us to enter into intimate prayer with God by re-orienting us from a mindset tuned to the world - where God is mocked and rebelled against (Ps 1:1, 2:1-3), to a mindset that is tuned to God - trusting and submitting to Him.  These psalms work together to teach us that the way of the wicked, rebellious, and mockers leads to death (Ps 1:6, 2:12), and that the way of those who delight in God’s law and submit to His authority leads to blessing (Ps 1:1, 2:12). 

When we read and pray all of the following psalms in the context of the first two, we gain a more clear understanding of the faith and mindsets of psalmists as they composed the Psalms, as well as the nation of Israel as they sang and prayed them.  If we understand the first two psalms, then we begin to understand laments as honest prayers of faith made by hurting people who are expecting God to fulfill his promise to bless those who delight in His law and submit to His authority. Likewise, we begin to understand imprecatory psalms as prayers expressing faith in God’s justice and promise that the way of the wicked will perish.  Other types of psalms, such as praises and hymns, celebrate and commemorate God’s faithfulness to His people. Wisdom psalms teach and remind that it is good to delight in the Law of our God and that scripture is sufficient and powerful to bring us close to God, convict us of sin, and direct our paths. Everything in the book of Psalms flows out of the introduction set up in Psalm 1 & 2.

What does faith look like in the face of doubt and despair?  How do we pray when we aren’t sure that God is listening or that He cares?  Most of us don’t know how to answer those questions. We find them awkward and disturbing.  We like to think, or to pretend that Christians don’t ever feel that way. But those reactions to doubt and despair aren’t realistic, they aren’t helpful.  Thankfully, they aren’t biblical either!

The Psalms are full of prayers from people who felt like God had abandoned them.  The Psalms are raw and real. Sometimes the things they say are shocking. It’s easy to wonder if they’re there as examples of bad prayers from sinful people.  But the Psalms were the hymn book of the Bible. They were the songs that God’s people sang when they worshipped God. All of them. Not just the nice happy ones.  On the cross, Jesus prayed the Psalms to His Father when He said “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34, Psalm 22:1). And let’s not forget that all of the Bible is God’s Word.  Like the rest of the Bible, the Psalms were written by humans and reflect human experience, but were also breathed out by God. The Psalms are God’s Word that we can pray back to Him. Words that God gives us to express not only joy and praise, but fear, doubt, sadness, anger, and even hatred.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book on the Psalms, entitled The Prayer Book of the Bible, puts it this way:

The Psalter has rich instruction for us about how to come before God in a proper way in the various sufferings that the world brings upon us.  The Psalms know it all: serious illness, deep isolation from God and humanity, threats, persecution, imprisonment, and whatever conceivable peril there is on  earth…. They do not deny it , they do not deceive themselves with pious words about it, they allow it to stand as a severe ordeal of faith, indeed at times they no longer see beyond the suffering (Ps. 88), but they complain about it all to God…. There is in the Psalms no quick and easy surrender to suffering.  It always comes through struggle, anxiety, and doubt. Our confidence in God’s righteousness and, indeed, in God’s good and gracious will, is shaken…. God’s ways are too difficult to grasp. But even in the deepest hopelessness, God alone remains the one addressed. Help is neither expected from other people, nor does the sufferer in self-pity lose sight of God, the origin and goal of all affliction.

Having faith doesn’t mean you never doubt or despair.  Rather, doubt and despair are often essential for strengthening faith, as long as the doubt is brought to God and processed with Him.  The Psalms give us permission to do just that, and provide rich prayers that speak for us when we don’t know what to say.

As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Forward, here’s a cool snapshot from our history.  This is an article from a church publication entitled The Forward News, written in 1941 for the church’s 22nd anniversary!  The article is reproduced below. We have left all the typos as they appear in the original to maintain historical accuracy, and so that you know that we aren’t the only ones who spell things incorrectly in bulletins!

Aggressive Evangelical Group of East Toronto Concludes 22  Years Of Outstanding Ministry

    The first services of Forward Baptist church were held in Snell’s Hall in the year 1919, when a small group of people met together to establish a New Testament  church in East Toronto. A short time later a basement building was constructed on Woodbine Avenue near Gerrard Street, were this small brand of believers met to worship and work.  After consistent spiritual and numerical growth in both church and Bible school, the present church building was erected; dedication services being held in January of the year 1930.

    The character of the work of Forward Baptist church has never changed.  Throughout the past years, and we pray God for the years that lie before us, we shall constantly beseech men and women to be reconciled to God.  We preach Christ and Him crucified, not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. We endeavour to declare the whole counsel of God for the salvation of sinners, and the spiritual blessing of believers.

    To-day, after twenty-two years of faithful ministry eighteen sons and daughters of this church are serving Christ in Africa, China, India, South America, and the West Indies, while several others are actively engaged in full time work for the Master in the homeland.

    Our Sunday morning Bible School, where the Bible is the only text book, and the only attraction, ministers to nearly six hundred boys and girls each week.  Many of these young people have been brought to a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ as Saviour, and are daily following Him.

    The Lord Himself declared: “My house shall be called an house of prayer,” and in obedience to His express command, a large place is given to the ministry of intercession.  Prayer meetings are held every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, and one for women only on Thursday afternoon.

    We thank God for all His goodness to us during these past years, and our prayer is that He will lead us into a greater sphere of usefulness in the days to come.  We cordially invite you to come and see what great things the Lord hath done for us, whereof we are glad.

“If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” - Romans 10:9 (NIV)

Can Jesus be your saviour without being your Lord?  Romans 10:9 tells us that you are saved by believing that Christ died and rose again AND by confessing that He is Lord.  So confessing that Jesus is Lord is a part of how we are saved. But what exactly does that mean?

For the original readers of Paul’s letter, Christians living in Rome during the Roman Empire, there was no confusion.  They lived in the capital of the most powerful nation on earth, the home of the Emperor, the most powerful man on earth.  In order to be a good Roman citizen, you had to confess that Caesar was lord. In other words, that he was your king and had absolute authority over your life.  By confessing that Caesar is lord, you were swearing loyalty and allegiance to him. He is the lord and you are the servant.

For the Romans Christians, the words “Jesus is Lord” were not empty religious words.  They were a declaration of allegiance to Jesus rather than to Caesar or to anyone else.  These words are a vow to obey Jesus, to follow Him completely. This is what is required for salvation, alongside faith in His death and resurrection.

But doesn’t that contradict everything that we read in Romans 1-11?  We aren’t saved by our obedience, by our morality, by trying to follow God’s law.  We can’t be saved that way. We can only be saved by grace alone through faith alone.  It is only the death and resurrection of Jesus that is enough to pay the price for our sins and make us new.  So then how does confessing that Jesus is Lord fit into this gospel of grace?

Romans 6 tells us that we can’t continue to live a life characterized by sin after we have put our faith in Jesus, because the gospel doesn’t just provide forgiveness, it also makes us new.  We have died with Christ and been raised to new life with Him. We cannot live the same life that we did before we knew Him. We aren’t saved by obedience, but we’re saved for obedience. We are saved so we can be obedient.  When you are truly saved, then you know that your sin was destroying you and that you have been rescued and made new. You don’t want to live like you used to; you want to follow Jesus. And so you will confess that Jesus is your Lord,  and you follow Him as the Holy Spirit gives you power to do so.

This is what Romans 12-16 is all about.  These five chapters are the “now what?” of the gospel.  Because Jesus saved you and made you new, here’s how you respond.  Because you have trusted in His death and resurrection how do you live with Him as your Lord?  By and large, these chapters are about living with other Christians lovingly; they’re about church life.  There are other parts in there too, but loving one another is the overarching theme. So read the last few chapters of Romans with an eye towards that.  How can you show your allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ by loving His people?

Romans chapter 8 makes some amazing and glorious promises to Christians.  There is now no condemnation. The law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.  We are children of God - heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ who will share in His glory. The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness by praying for us when we don’t know what to pray.  All things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose. God is for us, no one can be against us. We are more than conquerors in Christ. Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  These promises are truly incredible and joyous. But are they trustworthy?

God made a lot of promises to the nation of Israel too.  That He would bless them and bless those who bless them and curse those who curse them and that He would bless the world through them.  That they would be His people and He would be their God for all time. As Romans 9:4-5 puts it, “Theirs is the adoption to sonship;theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.  Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.” But what happened to those promises? When Jesus came to Israel, He was rejected by the majority. They hated Him and arranged for His crucifixion at the hands of the Romans.  They did not follow Jesus through faith and so they were cut off from the fulfillment of all the promises God had made to them. What happened? Did God’s Word to the Israelites fail? And if it did, how can we have any confidence in His word to us?

Romans 9-11 are the answer to those questions.  The simple answer is a resounding NO! “It is not as though God’s word had failed” (Romans 9:6).  So what did happen? Well, the answer to that is a lot more involved. And many of the arguments that the Bible makes in these chapters are difficult to understand.  They’re difficult to understand in two ways: First, sometimes it’s actually difficult to grasp what exactly is being said. But second, sometimes what is being said is pretty clear, but it’s difficult to accept.  I would encourage you to read Romans 9-11 over several times.  Doing so with the understanding of how they fit into the book of Romans will help you a lot as you read them. Think about what is being said and how it relates to God’s promises to Israel and to the church. If you struggle to accept what it says, ask yourself why you struggle.  It may be that your reaction is a result of pride.

The long and the short of these chapters is that God’s sovereign (He’s the one who is in charge) and we aren’t and we need to accept that and be grateful that He loves us.  As a fellow human being, I understand how that answer can rub us the wrong way. But that’s because I’m sinful too. I don’t deserve the gift of God’s salvation. I couldn’t have earned it.  I wasn’t wise enough to know I needed it. Yet God chose to give it to me. And if you’re a believer in Jesus, God chose to give it to you too. This truth that God sovereignly saved you calls for humble gratitude to God.  That’s how this section ends.

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

   How unsearchable his judgments,

   and his paths beyond tracing out!

“Who has known the mind of the Lord?

   Or who has been his counselor?”

“Who has ever given to God,

   that God should repay them?”

For from him and through him and for him are all things.

    To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:33-36)

The teaching of God’s sovereignty also calls for a heavy burden to pray for and share the gospel with those who haven’t responded to the gospel with faith.  God’s sovereignty doesn’t diminish our need to share the gospel. In fact it strengthens it! God is sovereign and He wants to save people, so we can believe that He will!  

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?  And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:14-15)

So rather than get bogged down by the difficult teachings of this passage, let’s trust God’s Word and respond as we should - with humble gratitude and bold evangelism!

          O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
          It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth.
          Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
          Till He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
          A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
          For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
          Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices!
          O night divine, O night when Christ was born

This is the first verse of my favourite Christmas carol - O Holy Night.  It's a beautiful song (even if it's basically impossible for most people to sing!) and the lyrics carry a beauty that matches the melody very well.   In the words of this song, there is a deep truth that we should celebrate all year long: the coming of Jesus changed everything!  

Romans 5:12 tells us that “...sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin,and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned….”  This is referring to the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 1-3. Adam, the first man, disobeyed God and by doing so, condemned the world. In Genesis 3, we read that actually Eve sinned first, and Adam followed.  But the Bible always places the responsibility on Adam as the head of his family and the representative of the human race. When Adam sinned, all humanity sinned in him. That’s a hard concept to understand, but Romans 5:19 clearly says so: “...through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners…”

What this means is that every person who is born is born a sinner by nature.  We have sin hardwired into our flesh by virtue of being a descendent of Adam. We aren’t born neutral, we’re born corrupted.  We aren’t able to follow God’s commands. We don’t want to. Romans 8:7 says it very clearly: “The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.”  That’s the natural state of all humanity ever since the first sin of the first man. That’s what the hymn means when it says “Long lay the world in sin and error pining”. Generation after generation of humanity lived and died under the power of sin, waiting and hoping for salvation.  

God didn’t leave humanity to suffer without help or hope.  He gave His law to show the seriousness of sin and to point toward the promised hope. Those who trusted in God and sought to obey His law were given grace and their sins weren’t counted against them.  But that wasn’t the final solution. Those sins remained piled up, needing to be dealt with. God could not just ignore them because He is just and sin must be punished.  Who would rescue humanity from the power of sin?

          Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
          Till He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
          A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
          For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

When Jesus was born everything was new.  The weary world, laden down by sin, rejoiced with a thrill of hope!  Why? Because Jesus was not just another human child born under the condemnation of sin.  Jesus wasn’t a normal baby following in the footsteps of His ancestor Adam. No Jesus was the Son of God.  Born of a virgin. Conceived by the Holy Spirit. Eternal God become flesh to dwell among us. God with us.  And as a result, Jesus was able to be a new Adam - a new representative for the human race. He was born sinless and He succeeded where Adam failed.  He obeyed His Father perfectly. What's more, He took the penalty for our sins by dying on the cross. Jesus was the sacrifice that our sins required.  On the cross, Jesus paid for all those piled up sins committed in the past by those who followed God in faith (Romans 3:25-26). And likewise, on the cross, Jesus paid for all the sins committed today and in the future by those who follow God in faith through Jesus (Romans 5:18-19).

All humanity is born into Adam’s race.  We are born corrupt and sinful, hostile to God by nature.  But now we can be born again into a new race of humanity, with Jesus as our representative, rather than Adam.  He gives us a new nature through the Holy Spirit and allows us to begin the journey of growing to be more like Jesus and less like Adam.  So let’s not wait until Christmas to celebrate the coming of Jesus! Let’s rejoice with a thrill of hope every day because of this glorious truth.  And let us turn from our sin and error day by day and live like Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:1-4)

At our house, we try to take turns making dinner each week.  I’m not a great cook, so I’m always a bit apprehensive when it’s my turn.  A few weeks ago, when it was my turn, Becky suggested we have leftover chili.  All I had to do was make the cornbread. My sister, Beth, who is living with us can’t eat gluten, so Becky left me the recipe for the gluten free cornbread and I went to work on it.  I followed the recipe as best as I could, heated up the chili in the microwave, and then served dinner.

I was a bit nervous to see how the cornbread turned out, and... it didn’t turn out well.  Instead of being moist and crumbly like it usually is, it was dense and chewy. It tasted good, but it was hard to swallow!  I couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong, so Becky started walking me through the steps to see where I had gone wrong. When we got to the part about mixing in the gluten free flour, Becky stopped and said, “Wait, what did you use for gluten free flour?”  I responded, “I used the flour that was in the tupperware container labelled ‘gluten free flour’.” Becky, looking a bit sheepish, proceeded to tell me that gluten free flour is actually a mixture of rice flour and tapioca flour and that she hadn’t mixed them yet and the flour that was in the tupperware was only tapioca flour.

Well, that made my day.  I wasn’t to blame! I was justified!  There was no longer any guilt or judgement on me! (Not that there was much judgement, but there was a good deal of snickering.)  

This idea of justification is a major theme in the book of Romans.  Romans starts off early on by setting up the problem that all people have: we are all guilty of sin and we deserve God’s judgement.  But this problem is much more serious than my failed gluten free cornbread. The guilt is no misunderstanding and the judgement is much worse than being teased.  We are guilty of sin, or as Romans puts it, we are unrighteous.  And the penalty of our unrighteousness is death, both physically and spiritually.  On top of this bad news, Romans tells us that there is nothing we can do to justify ourselves or become righteous (innocent of guilt).  And God can’t simply forgive our sins because our sins demand justice and God would be unjust if He swept them under the rug.  In short, all of humanity is in huge trouble!

But then comes the good news:  

God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement,through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—  he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. - Romans 3:25-26 (NIV)

Jesus is the solution to our problem.  God sent His Son into the world as a human to live a sinless life and then die the death we deserve, taking our place and paying for our sins.  Then He rose again, defeating death and sin and breaking their power. Now, if you trust that Jesus’ death and resurrection paid for your sins and you decide to follow Jesus as your king, you are justified.  God declares you righteous, innocent of guilt.  Jesus took your judgement and you received His position as God’s child.  Praise God for His mercy and grace! What amazing good news!

All the bold words in this article come from the same Greek word.  

Some of them are nouns (righteousness, justice, unrighteousness, injustice, justification)

Some are adjectives (righteous, just, unrighteous, unjust)

some are verbs (justify, justified, justifies)

But they all have to do with being innocent of guilt or being declared innocent of guilt.  These words show up over 60 times in the book of Romans. Keep an eye out for them and they’ll help you follow the point of the book and see the amazing news of the gospel!

I recently reread a little book called Delighting in the Trinity by Michael Reeves.  I reread it because the first time I read it I didn’t understand part of it and I thought that if I reread it I would understand it better.  I didn’t. Some of the things Reeves says in the book still made my head spin. I guess that’s to be expected from a book about the Trinity.

However, the point of the book is that the Trinity isn’t supposed to confuse us, the Trinity is supposed to delight us.  The Christian teaching that our God is Three-in-One isn’t shouldn’t be a strange, mysterious teaching that only deep theologians and scholars care about.  The Tri-unity of God is a good, beautiful truth that we should celebrate and be glad of!

You may be wondering how this can possibly be true.  If you are, I suggest you pick up the book. It’s short and written in a fun and breezy way and is mostly really easy to understand.  However, let me give you one example of how Michael Reeves taught me to delight in the Trinity through his book.

All throughout human history people have wondered why God (or the gods) created the world.  Some creation myths state that it was an accident. Other myths state that the gods wanted slaves.  Still others imply that God was bored and wanted something to do. All of these myths of creation make some level of sense.  If God is a singular God with nothing to do he could create playmates to meet his needs or to serve his whims. Or if there are many gods who are at odds with each other and battling, they might create us by an accidental side effect of their battles, or even as pawns to use in their machinations against each other.  But in all of these creation myths, humans don’t have much dignity. We are either mistakes, pawns, or slaves. And what’s worse, the gods in these myths aren’t very great gods. They battle each other. They make mistakes. They are needy and lonely and bored. They need us to be complete. If God or the gods are like that, they can’t really care about their creation.  Their act of creation was self-centred. Humans, at best, can keep on their good sides through religious obedience, but nothing more.

However, the God of the Bible is completely different.  He didn’t create by accident and He didn’t create because He was needy.  The God of the Bible was and is complete without creation. He doesn’t need us.  But He created us on purpose. And not on a whim. It was something He planned for all of eternity.  Why? Out of love.

The God of the Bible isn’t just one of many gods who are at odds with each other and He’s not a lone God who can’t relate well to others.  The God of the Bible is a Father. He didn’t become a Father at some point, He always has been a Father, which means He has always had a Son.  But this Father and Son aren’t like Odin and Thor. First of all, there was never a time before the Son was with the Father. He was with God in the beginning.  But more than that, the Son and the Father, though  they are distinct, are also completely unified. They are completely One in every way. So much so that the Son isn’t just with God, the Son is God.  Similarly, the Son and the Father exist together with a Third Person, the Spirit. This Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God and is distinct from the Father and the Son but also One with them.

All of that is mind-boggling and defies our understanding.  But it’s also incredible news. Because the Father, Son, and Spirit, don’t just exist together in unity (which already makes them better than the multiple gods of the pagan myths), they LOVE each other.  They aren’t just impersonal forces in the universe, they are persons who interact and relate. And they relate with each other with perfect, eternal love. They don’t need us, They delight in each other.

So why did God create us?  He created us because the love that exists in our Three-in-One God overflows and must be shared.  God created us to include us in His love. Because of this, human beings have so much dignity. We were created for love, to love and be loved.  We were created to love each other, but even greater than that, we were created to love God and be loved by Him!

That’s beautiful reality is only true because our God is Three-in-One.  Because our God is love and always has been. So let’s be thankful to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and delight in Him.

We often talk about the gospel in terms of a legal transaction that results in a life change.  Through faith, we accept the payment that Jesus made for our sins when He died on the cross and rose again to new life.  Our sins are forgiven, our debt has been paid, and Christ’s riches of righteousness are credited to us.  As a result we live our lives differently out of gratitude and through the power of the Holy Spirit who is transforming us.  What an amazing truth!  Praise God for His salvation!  But the good news of Jesus Christ doesn’t end there.  There’s more to it, and unfortunately, we often neglect this part.  When we follow Jesus through faith in His death and resurrection for us, we aren’t just forgiven our debt, we’re united to Christ.  In his letter to the Colossians Paul says that his great privilege as an apostle is to proclaim the amazing truth of union with Christ to God’s people. 

I have become [the church’s] servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. - Colossians 1:25-27

Paul says that our sin has alienated us from God (see v 21) and that “for ages and generations” the way to resolve that problem has been a “mystery that has been kept hidden”.  Through Christ’s sinless life, death for us, and victorious resurrection, the mystery has been revealed, our relationship with God is reconciled (restored) because Christ is in us and that is our hope of glory (our hope that at the end of this life, we will be with God and not punished).  

But what does it mean that Christ is in us?  It’s a difficult concept to understand.  I can’t really draw a picture of it or explain it as easily as I can explain the idea of my debt being paid (which is probably why Christians tend to focus on that part of the gospel and neglect our union with Christ).  When we become Christians, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in us.  We are the new temple.  God is with us and we have direct access to Him.  And through the Holy Spirit, our lives are joined with Christ’s.  We are connected to His death and our old self is crucified with Him and we are raised to new spiritual life that we live in Christ’s power. (Galatians 2:20 - I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.)

Yeah, but… what does it mean?  What does it look like?  The Bible uses a few pictures to try to give us a sense of what it looks like.  It’s kind of like the union we have in marriage where two become one (Ephesians 5:21-33).  It’s kind of like the union a body has with its head (1 Corinthians 12:12-31).  It’s kind of like the union of a branch growing on a vine (John 15).  I want to take a minute to look at this last one, because it will help us know what to do, even if we can’t quite wrap our minds around the spiritual realities of our union with Christ.

In John 15:5-6, Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.”  A branch that is cut off from the vine will not grow grapes.  It can’t.  It can’t even stay alive.  It’s cut off from the roots of the plant and will die.  Jesus tells His disciples, and us, that in order to live our Christian lives, we need to remain in Jesus and Jesus in us.  Our union with Christ is our source of strength, life, and spiritual vitality.  

When we become a Christian, we don’t just make a mental choice of belief and then choose to live differently, no our lives are plugged into the life of Jesus in a way that makes us truly alive for the first time.  We don’t just trust in Jesus for a transaction, debt paid, sins forgiven, no we trust in Jesus for new life that comes from Him.  That new life in Christ is why the transaction can happen, why He can take our punishment and we can take His righteousness.  And it also empowers us to live differently every day.  Our job is simply to remain in Him.  To find our life and strength and hope in Him rather than in anything else.  To choose every day to live it with Jesus and in His power rather than without Him (which we default to if we don’t intentionally remain in Him).  

I recently read a book on our union with Christ called, appropriately enough, Union with Christ.  The author, Rankin Wilbourne latches on to the biblical metaphor of walking as how we live our lives in Christ.  He says, 

This turns out to be one of the most challenging aspects of the Christian life—the simple repetitiveness of it.  Left, right, left, right.  Again and again, over and over.  Every day.  All the way.  Like a long walk uphill…. The first step in the life of God is always the step of faith….  And following just behind faith, as surely as the right foot follows the left, is repentance.

We remain in Christ by choosing in each moment to believe the gospel, that you are united with Christ through His death and resurrection and made new in Him and His is pleased with you.  We remain in Christ by choosing each moment to repent of sin, turning aside from what you know displeases Him and disrupts you from remaining in Him.  And then by remembering the gospel again, that though I failed to remain in Him, I am still united with Him.  And then by turning away from sin again.  “Left, right, left, right.  Again and again, over and over.  Every day.  All the way.”

As we believe and repent and believe and repent, we will remain in Christ and grow in Him.  He will empower us to keep going and give us hope and strength and life.  And we will bear fruit for Him and be used by Him to bring glory to His name.  “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” - Colossians 2:6-7

Are you a Disciple?

If you’re a Christian, you can answer that question in a couple of different ways.  First of all, you can answer with a “Yes!”  A Christian is someone who is a disciple of Jesus Christ.  You have put your faith in Him as your Lord and Saviour and so you have been forgiven for your sins, made new, and you make it your goal to follow Him.  

On another level though, the answer for many Christians is, “Not really.”  Many of us aren’t really disciples.  Why not?  Because disciples of Christ don’t just follow Him on their own, they follow Him in close relationship with other disciples of Christ.  Another way of saying this is that disciples of Christ are the church.  

Now, you may be thinking, “Wait a minute, I go to church!”  Yes, of course you do.  But go back and read that last sentence of the previous paragraph again.  It doesn’t say “disciples of Christ go to church.”  It says “disciples of Christ are the church.”  What’s the difference?  Going to church is sort of like going to get an oil change.  You know you need it, so you go to receive the service, and you even offer something in return for the service you receive (offering, serving).  But largely, you come to receive your tuneup for the week.  

Being the church isn’t like that.  It’s less transactional and more relational.  The Bible describes it as being a member of a family (1 Timothy 3:15, Galatians 6:10) or a part of a body (1 Corinthians 12:12-27).  In other words, you don’t come to receive a tuneup, you come because you belong.  You come because a finger by itself isn’t much use, and a body missing a finger is in pain and not able to do all it should be able to.  

What’s all this got to do with being a disciple?  Being a disciple of Christ means understanding how much you not only need other Christians speaking into your life, but how much they need you doing the same for them.  It changes your relationships with the people you see at church.  They are your brothers and sisters.  They are the ligaments and tendons that you are connected to so you can function and grow as a body.  Without each other, you can’t follow Christ properly (Ephesians 4:11-16).

So what should we do to become better disciples of Christ?  Hebrews 10:23-25 gives us the answer: 

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.  And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another— and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

I’d like to suggest three practical ways we can spur one another on in this way:

1. Stick around after church for a while and make a point to talk to someone about how the sermon, or some other element of the church service encouraged or challenged you.
2. Pick someone who is further along in their faith than you and take them out for coffee or have them over for lunch.  Get to know them and learn from them.  Let them challenge you and speak into your life.  Let them point you to Christ.
3. This is the hard one.  Pick someone who is younger in their faith than you and take them out for coffee or have them over for lunch.  Get to know them and build into them, encouraging them and challenging them to grow in their faith.  

These suggestions may seem completely outside of your comfort zone, especially the third one.  But This is how Christ has designed His church.  The church is a family, a body made up of disciples who need each other to grow in Christ.  You aren’t here by accident.  You’re here by God’s sovereign design and if you aren’t doing your part, the body is missing an essential piece and walks with a limp.  So in 2018, make it your goal to consider how to spur your brothers and sisters in Christ on to love and good deeds as we walk together as disciples of Christ.

Tuesday October 31, 2017 marks the 500th anniversary of an event that changed the course of world history.  Like many important days history, it was an small, ordinary action performed by a relatively normal person that made all the difference because it happened at just the right time.  On October 31, 1517, God used the actions of a German monk named Martin Luther to spark the Protestant Reformation and reintroduce to the world the true gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Martin Luther was a miserable monk.  He hated himself and was terrified of God.  He knew that God was holy and punished sin, and he knew that he was a sinner.  One of his least favourite verses in the Bible was Romans 1:17, which ends with the phrase, “The righteous shall live by faith.”  Martin Luther wanted to live by faith and please God, but in order to do that, he thought, he had to be righteous.  So he spent hours every day praying, fasting, studying the Bible, making himself endure physical pain and discomfort, all in an effort to purge himself from sin and become righteous.  But nothing worked.  He was not righteous and he knew God was not pleased with him. 

But one day, after years of this, God opened Luther’s eyes as he was again meditating on Romans 1:17.  He realized for the first time that he had been understanding the verse backwards.  The point is not that being righteous allows you to live by faith, but the opposite, it is through faith that we are righteous in God’s eyes.  Luther finally understood that through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, his sins were paid for and the righteousness of Christ was credited to him as a free gift, as grace.  In his own words (translated from German), "At last meditating day and night, by the mercy of God, I ... began to understand that the righteousness of God is that through which the righteous live by a gift of God, namely by faith… Here I felt as if I were entirely born again and had entered paradise itself through the gates that had been flung open.”  

As Luther continued to grow in his understanding of this salvation by grace through faith in Christ, it brought him into conflict with the Roman Catholic church that taught salvation through religious works.  This is what led him, on October 31, 1517 to nail a list of grievances (which he called the 95 theses) onto the door of his church in Wittenberg Germany.  Luther only intended to open up a discussion in his local parish, but with the help of the relatively new invention known as the printing press, Luther’s 95 theses were distributed and read all over Europe.  Luther’s grievances struck a chord with Europeans who were fed up with the hypocrisy and abuses of the Medieval Roman Catholic church and who did not know the true gospel of Jesus and who were therefore spiritually starved.  

This, of course brought him into more conflict with the pope and the Roman Catholic church, who branded him a heretic.  This only strengthened Luther’s resolve and helped him understand that he must believe what God’s Word says - not the teachings of any church - and that he must do this all for God’s glory, and not for the glory of the pope, himself, or anyone else.  

Martin Luther was far from a perfect man.  He was known for being hard to get along with and for his prejudice against those who differed from him.  But God used him to reawaken the world to the true gospel of Jesus Christ, which brings salvation to sinners like Martin Luther, you, and me.  This gospel is summarized in the five key doctrines of the Reformation, known as the solas, which means the “alones”: salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone according to Scripture alone to the Glory of God alone.  Thanks be to God for so great a salvation and for those who have boldly taught it and lived by it through history.

What is God’s will for my life?  Have you ever asked that question?  It often comes up in times of upheaval, when we are faced with change or a significant choice that we must make.  When we don’t know what to do, we stop and wonder what God wants.  Sometimes God makes it quite clear what He wants.  He answers our questions with astonishing clarity.  Often though, He doesn’t.  

When this happens, it can become easy to get frustrated with God.  We want an answer, we feel lost, why isn’t God helping us?  When we feel like this, it’s important to take a step back and consider how we are viewing God.  Why are we really mad at Him?  Is it because we really want to follow God’s will, or is it because we don’t like not being in control?  Think of it this way:  when things are easy and normal, how much thought do you give to God’s will for your life?  My guess is that for most of us, the answer is “very little” or even “none”.  

The truth is, all of us like to feel like we have things under control.  We don’t like it when we don’t know what to do.  And when we are forced to stop and ask for God’s help, we are hoping for a quick answer so we can give Him a quick thank you and go on being self-reliant.  It’s nice to have God in reserve for when we need Him to show us His will. 

But that’s not how it works.  God doesn’t sit in a glass box with a sign that says “Break in case of emergency” on it.  God isn’t sitting around waiting for us to ask His opinion.  God’s will is at work in our lives every day, whether we think to ask Him about it or not.  

And guess what, the Bible tells us exactly what His will is for us. “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified…” (1 Thessalonians 4:3).  Sanctification is a process by which God makes us holy.  It means becoming more like Christ and less like we are naturally.  It means loving God more and hating our sin more.  It means learning to depend on Him rather than ourselves.  That’s God’s will for you: sanctification.  This doesn’t mean He doesn’t care who you marry or what career path you choose or where you live, or when you retire.  It means that in every situation He will be at work to make you more holy.  It also means that when you are desperate for an answer and God doesn’t give you one, it’s probably because His will is that you learn to depend on Him more by waiting and praying.  

If you find that frustrating, you’re not alone; I find it frustrating too.  But that just proves how much we don’t like relying on God and how much we need to grow - to be sanctified.  So while it’s frustrating, at a deeper level it’s extremely comforting.  Our God is wise and loving.  He doesn’t always give us what we want because He knows how much more important our sanctification is.

Happy Canada Day!  It has been 150 years since the British North America Act (Constitution Acts, as it’s now known) was passed and the Dominion of Canada became a sovereign nation in the British Commonwealth.  How different Canada now looks than it did on that first day, July 1, 1867!  In 150 years since confederation, Canada has grown from having four provinces to ten provinces and three territories.  We have been through World Wars I & II and the Great Depression.  Women, and Aboriginal peoples have gained the right to vote.  We have faced the inner conflicts of The Quiet Revolution of the 1960s and the October Crisis (1970), followed by the referendums of the 1980s and 1990s.  We became the first nation of the world to officially adopt the policy of multiculturalism (1971).  We have gained a constitution with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982).  More could be said about the history of our nation, residential schools, the war in Afghanistan, the creation of the NHL, the dawn of the information age.  Each of these events in history have shaped our national identity and culture, for better or for worse.  It defines what it means to be Canadian.

Through all of this, Canadians have sung a prayer to God, “God keep our land glorious and free.”  And many of us have celebrated that everything good about our nation does indeed come  as a gift from God.  But the number who do so has decreased.  Once Canadians largely believed in the God of the Bible and agreed that we should follow God’s commands (whether or not they understood the gospel of Jesus may be another question).  This is no longer true of us.  Those who identify as Christians still make up a large demographic of the population, but the number is decreasing.  And of those who do identify as Christians, fewer and fewer hold to the teachings of the Bible.  

In 2013, a prominent political leader publicly called evangelical Christians un-Canadian.  While many expressed shock at this statement, it does reflect a growing hostility towards the values and worldview that is expressed in God’s Word, and towards those who seek to live according to those values and worldview.  Many of us have experienced this firsthand, as we have tried to talk about our faith with friends, neighbours, co-workers, and schoolmates.  Being a Christian in Canada is hard in 2017.  And that’s okay.

Historically, the church of Jesus Christ has always been much most effective when it operated from the margins of society.  The further culture moves from God’s standards, the more Christians will stand out.  And when we do, we will face hardship, rejection, persecution, suffering.  It’s in these times when we look most like Jesus, and when we look most like Jesus, God is honoured and His gospel is showcased powerfully through our lives.  First Peter 2:11-12 puts it this way, 

Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.  Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

This is what we are called to as Christians.  God is still sovereign over our home and native (or adopted) land.  And in the end, this land isn’t our true home.  We are strangers here, citizens of another country, waiting to be rescued by our Heavenly King.  We wait for His return, when the heavens and the earth, will be made new and redeemed.  In the mean while, we show the world around us who this King is through our lives and our words, trusting that He use the testimony of our faithful lives to convince some unbelievers of the truth of the gospel. And they will join us as strangers in this present world who will glorify God when Christ our King returns.