Build Your Life Upon the Rock

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” –Matthew 7:24

Jesus here describes our lives as building a house. Much care for detail can go into walls, doors, windows, even a staircase. Same in our lives. We can care much for detail as careers, leisures, relationships, and habits. Yet, dark clouds form on the horizon. Will the foundation of the homes we build for ourselves, our lives, hold against the fury of a storm?

Notice our Lord tells us the same storm comes to two different houses. A life built on Christ and His Word is not an escape from trials. Trials come to all of us. The difference is, when trials come to the believer, Christ withstands the might of that trial. A false foundation of sand will not endure the mightiest of trials.

Consider the wisdom of the Lord Jesus in this passage. There are only two options for foundation. There is Christ the Rock, then there is sand. Humanism, Islam, Buddhism, moralism, and all other philosophies and religions are called foundations of sand. They will not withstand the fury of the coming storm which beats against the house.

Consider also this wisdom of our Lord Jesus. He says the house built upon the rock is a life with the foundation of hearing His words and doing them. First, to believe the words of Jesus as mighty and true, as Paul says, we will not be “tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:14). There is one teaching that withstands the winds and the waves, the words of Him who can calm them with a word (Mark 4:39).

Second, we are encouraged to obey the words Jesus teaches. Jesus is not making hearers only, but disciples. The disciple of Jesus builds his house, or his life, on the foundation of His words. Dear reader, the storm is sent by God. Only God’s words can withstand God’s sent storms. All other foundations are invented in the imaginations of men, either contemporary or historic. We are not to build our lives on the foundations of sand on the words men dead or dying, but on Christ who has the “words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

Perhaps the home builder can hear Jesus’ words, put Christian décor on the nightstand and Scripture quotes on the walls while the foundation remains sand. Could this house withstand the fury of the storm? My pastoral concern in my teaching and my preaching is to proclaim the faith once delivered to all the saints. That those in my hearing who have publicly professed faith in Jesus Christ truly possess the faith they publicly profess.

Character is not found in a fine house, its architecture or décor. Character comes from its foundation. By faith in Christ’s might, His obedience to the Father through temptations and suffering, God’s grace in the atonement of Jesus’ blood, we will weather the coming fury of God’s wrathful storm. On that day, “great will be the fall” of all humanity has invented to save us from God’s judgment.

Consider how the Sermon on the Mount ends with the astonishment of Jesus’ hearers. Jesus did not teach like the scribes; quoting, name-dropping, trying to sound profound with reputable figures and teachings of others. Jesus taught as having an authority far above and beyond human counsel. Jesus teaches us eternal words never fading in beauty (Isaiah 40:8). Trustworthy words of life.

Jesus does not promise that if you hear and obey His words you will never face storms. The storms which greatly beat against a house built on the Rock is scary, but your house, your life, will not fall greatly if you believe upon the Lord Jesus. Listen to the words of Jesus and wisely build your house on the Rock of His eternal words and live.

Heavenly Father, give us discernment to reject words of sand foundation and ears to hear the voice of our Good Shepherd whose words form a rock foundation to weather storms, hearing the heavenly voice speaks words of life drawing us heavenward. Grant us wisdom to hold fast to Your Scripture in the face of all the opinions of humanity, and lead us O Lord to the eternal joy and peace with You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Richard Sibbes and the Sovereign Christ in Us

Richard Sibbes was a late 16th, early 17th Century Puritan, preacher of Gray's Inn and Cambridge scholar when he authored The Matchless Love and Inbeing in London in 1629. Within these series of sermons and lectures, Sibbes sought to answer this question: "How shall we know that Christ is in us?"

"Where [Jesus] enters likewise, he possesses the whole inward and outward man to himself. He changes it like to himself ; He rules the eyes, the ears, the hands; He renews all, that our delights are clean other than they were before. If there be such a power in his truth, that, he a [branch] engrafted, it does change us into itself, certainly where Christ dwells, he hath as much power as his word. His word is like leaven, which alters the whole lump to be like itself. For the word engrafted makes the soul that believes it heavenly like itself, (I Corinthians 5:6). How is this? Because Christ comes with his word, leavens, alters, changes, and turns the soul. Christ by his Spirit and word is said to do it, because the Spirit of Christ comes with the word, which does all. Those therefore whose dispositions are contrary to Christ, Christ is not begotten in them. For certainly he does alter and change and fit his temple for himself, and drives out and chases thence, as I said before, all that is contrary; and keeps the door of the senses, and possession against all. He uses every member as an instrument of the Spirit and weapon of defense."

What My Neighbor Does Not Know

“But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” –Luke10:29

Imagine yourself confronting Jesus, God the Son taken on flesh, and attempting to justify yourself. Jesus whose face is set toward Jerusalem (Luke 9:51) to suffer and be crucified to atone for sinners listening to you accurately quote Scripture, but then attempt to exempt yourself from following what the Scripture clearly says. An expert in the Law of God attempted that one day.

Yet, then I realized it. There is something important my neighbor does not know. There is something important my neighbor has not heard. Who is my neighbor?

Jesus asked this expert in the Law of God what the Scripture says about inheriting eternal life. Love God, love your neighbor as yourself, he answered. Our Lord Jesus approved of this man’s answer (vs 28). This led the man to ask Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” But Luke gives us insight into his heart. “Desiring to justify himself.”

This pulls us back to “love your neighbor as yourself.” That’s not about learning to love yourself, but rather how you like to be treated. I want to be treated right, even gently when I’m wrong! I want to be provided for, protected, and treated well. So, to love your neighbor in this way is to look to treat others with good things.

There is this troubling insight into the human heart God exposes painfully here. “Desiring to justify himself.” The expert in the Word of God dared to ask, what kinds of people can I avoid loving and still inherit eternal life? Where is the loophole, who is MY neighbor? And what Jesus does is this: instead of looking at the kinds of people who are my neighbors, who am I that my neighbors can be loved by? Instead of looking externally, Jesus cuts to the heart of this man internally.

This leads to the Lord’s Parable of the Good Samaritan. If you have not read this parable, I encourage you to read that now. Yet, I want the Lord Jesus to examine me using His Word. Who is my neighbor is answered from the beaten man’s perspective at the end. Who proved to be this beaten man’s neighbor (vs 36)? The expert answered correctly, “the one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “You go, and do likewise.”

Did you hear the authority of Jesus’ words here? This from the Word of God which never fades in beauty or power, unlike the grass and flowers, speaks to us right now. Words of life! You go, and do likewise. This leads me back to what I said earlier. There is something important my neighbor does not know. There is something important my neighbor has not heard.

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few,” said the Lord Jesus at the beginning of this chapter. Pray to God to send laborers (vs 2). Go (vs 3). The Lord of the Harvest answers our prayers for more laborers by sending us into His fields with the gospel.

Dear Christian, who is your neighbor? Or should I ask, who is your neighbor’s neighbor? Show mercy by telling them something important your neighbor does not know nor has heard.

What an awesome privilege to know the gospel of Jesus Christ! Praise be to God for such mercy, to enjoy so great a salvation! And what an awesome privilege to be told by God, “go.” To show mercy as one shown great mercy. To tell the gospel as one who has heard and believed the gospel. Christian, there is something important your neighbor does not know and has not heard. Pray to the Lord for such laborers to tell them. Then, “go.”

Heavenly Father, You are the Lord of the Harvest. Dig Your plow blades deep into our hearts to be mercy showing, gospel preaching neighbors. Send us into Your field and bear much fruit in us for Your glory. Grant Your laborers wisdom for words our neighbors need to hear, boldness not to be silent, and mercy to show mercy by the power of the Holy Spirit. Father we ask these things as children adopted in Jesus Your Son. Amen.

McCheyne on the Urgency of Evangelism

Preaching from II Timothy 4:1-2, 19th Century preacher Robert Murray McCheyne gave an urgency to
gospel preachers to be winners of lost souls. Yet, I find in this an encouragement for all Christians and local churches to be soul winners.

"The great mass you will find to be unconverted.—Go, brother, leaving the ninety-nine, go after the one sheep that was lost. Leave your home, your comforts, your bed, your case, your all, to feed lost souls. The Lord of Glory left heaven for this; it is enough for the disciple to be as his Master. It is said of Alleine, that “he was infinitely and insatiably greedy of the conversion of souls.” Rutherford wrote to his dear people, “My Witness is above, that your heaven would be two heavens to me, and the salvation of you all as two salvations to me.” The Lord give you this heavenly compassion for this people. Do not be satisfied without conversion. You will often find that there is a shaking among the dry bones,—a coming together bone to his bone,—skin and flesh come upon them, but no breath in them. Oh! brother, cry for the breath of heaven. Remember a moral sinner will lie down in the same hell with the vilest."

Robert Murray McCheyne, The Works of the Late Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne Volume II, (New York: Carter, 1847), Page 68.

Stay Alert this New Year

“Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come.” -Mark 13:33

It is that time again as we celebrate our New Year in the Gregorian Calendar. We discard the old calendar, flipping from December 2024 toward the fresh 2025. It is difficult for me to grasp that we are 24 years into the 21^st Century! With this out with the old and in with the new season, it is wise for the Christian to turn to ancient words that never wither or fade in beauty (Isaiah40:8).

I need regular reminders from our Lord to stay alert, keep my guard up, and stay awake. Here, we see Jesus’ prophecy of the upcoming Roman invasion into Jerusalem to destroy the city’s many fine buildings and, of course, the temple. Jesus’ prophecy came true, yet the haunting words of judgment were but shadows of the final judgment at our Lord’s return.

As the drumbeat of time plays the same tune as centuries past, it is easy for us to be soothed to sleep by the lullaby of daily routines and earthly concerns. It is easy in the flesh to simply coast through life, go day to day, shuffle through work, take the kids to events, pay monthly bills, keep up with favorite shows, movies, sports teams all while Christ and His church take a distant secondary concern.

Some may say their New Year’s resolution is to return to church. Unfortunately, such a commitment with strong words does not last. As a YMCA member, I can tell you January is filled, but February returns to an introvert’s dream. Like the apostles at Gethsemane, sleep overtakes those with commitments made only verbally instead of staying alert in prayer.

What does this have to do with staying alert for the return of Jesus? 2025 is one year closer to the climax of human history: the return of Christ. Does your life reflect a posture of worship of the returning Lord with awareness, alertness, on guard? For the time is drawing near, as our Lord says, “the end is not yet” (Matthew 24:6). In the meantime, wars. Famines. Broken relationships. False Christs. Tribulation. Betrayal from loved ones. Lawlessness increases. And the love of many will grow cold (Matthew 24:12). This Jesus warned us of in contrast to those who endure to the end.

A loveless heart is the condition of “many”. This includes those once passionately professing Christianity. Those once good friends. Even those claiming Christianity with hidden evils compromising their theology. Those gaining trust of others only to slide others into their own compromise. Piece by piece, like a New Year’s resolution, slowly compromise turns to daily concerns and the very thought of Jesus, worship, and church life become numb if not completely dead. Or, church is something to infest with a love grown cold.

John even warns us in I John 3 not to be like Cain the murderer. Of course, taken with the Sermon on the Mount, this is speaking of a cold heart that does not love the church, but harbors hatred in the heart (Matthew 5:22). “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers” (I John3:14).

So, we must take this command to love one another as one of combat with internal sin and commitment to true love, steadfast love, we have received from God. So we must be strong in our watchfulness with one another. To “act like men” is connected to doing all things in love (I Corinthians 16:13-14). Watch one another and keep one another awake with a warm love for Jesus, His Word, and His church. To guard ourselves from lawlessness, which is saying we become our own gods making our own laws in a land where “everyone is doing what is right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25).

Jesus is Lord, and He is good. Reader, I implore you to make this resolution: to draw near to the Lord and love Him increasingly. Draw near to Him humbly. Taste and see the Lord is good. Become active in the life of the local church to be watched over and to keep your love for Jesus and His church warm. All while we await that glorious day of His return.

Let us not be like the unwise bridesmaids sleeping without oil (Matthew 25:1-13). If we sleep, let us regularly be awakened by the Lord like the apostles at Gethsemane. To regularly gather with the church, to hear the Word of God faithfully taught and preached, as another day then another year draws us closer to Jesus’ return that “you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matthew25:13). Let us, then, faithfully remain watchful together.

Heavenly Father, we confess we become drowsy. We slumber. The world which gives us trouble regularly has a numbing effect, deadening our resolutions no matter how strongly we felt or worded them at the beginning. Our endurance is only possible by Your mighty hand. Lord, strengthen our hearts to love warmly with brotherly love, letting love be genuine, with hearts eager for our Lord’s return. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

 

Rejoicing through Great Change

Psalm104:19 reads, “God made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting.” Our Creator fixed those times at creation (Genesis 1:14). I find this thought of consistent order under our unchanging God’s hands comforting, as I find myself in a season of great change.

In 15 years of pastoral ministry, I have witnessed a lot of change. Our great enemy death has claimed so many friends. Church members may suddenly appear, then vanish. Old leaders I relied on step down, new leaders rise. I watch as my own children are growing up. My hair is beginning to shine with new white hairs. Time answering to our Creator’s drum beat marches on.

The familiar fades. The predicable deteriorates. However, we can and must “rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4). We can have great joy in the Lord with every season of change. First, because our God is unchanging. This is good news, for His promises to us are unchanging. “For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed” (Malachi 3:6). Our salvation is dependent on our unchanging God, not on us. Life everlasting is promised by He who lives forever and does not change!

In Isaiah 40, the prophet compares our flesh with grass and asks to consider the beauty of the flowers in such a field of grass. The grass withers, the flower’s beauty fades when God breathes on the field. But the Word of God endures forever. Never dying. Never fading in beauty.

In every season of change, our unchanging God washes us with the water of His Word (Ephesians 5:26). We are in need of change, and our unchanging God is good to change us through every season that we might be presented to Christ as a bride beautifully adorned by His Word which never dies nor fades in beauty.

Now, dear reader, consider this. Our unchanging God is to be delighted in during change. Do not let your heart fall into bitterness when the familiar fades and the predictable deteriorates. Rather, delight yourself in the Lord Jesus who is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). Christ Himself is to be our comfort and joy, not familiarity and predictability in our earthly life.

When the temple was rebuilt as recorded in Ezra, some saw it and shouted with joy! However, the folks who remembered the glory of the first temple wept (Ezra3:12). Things are not what they once were. They took a look at such great change and wept while others rejoiced in the same sight. We should rejoice that God would give us life long enough to witness change and to see His faithfulness from generation to generation as He raises up leaders in their youth.

For our Creator’s drum beat marches toward that final day when all the world’s troubles and sorrows will be swallowed up forever. Oh, beloved child of God, our Savior’s hands will wipe away the tears from our eyes for the last time (Revelation21:4)! No more sorrow. No more pain. We will enjoy the comfort and joy in the presence of our unchanging God…forever.

Born to Save Sinners

“The LORD was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.” –Genesis 39:21

Joseph was in Egypt, but not by choice. He was beaten by his brothers, thrown into a pit only to be pulled out of the pit to be sold into slavery. Yet, the Lord’s favor promised in dreams of his brothers kneeling before him remained on Joseph. He was appointed by his Egyptian master Potiphar to head the home, and his master prospered and had no worries under Joseph’s care.

Yet, Potiphar’s wife kept making sexual advances at the young, handsome Hebrew. Joseph remained faithful saying, “How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God” (Genesis 39:9)? The lustful woman kept advancing, one day trapping Joseph only to see him flee from evil. In the chaos, she held Joseph’s garment and deceived her husband into believing Joseph was the evil one. Potiphar then threw Joseph in the pit, though he did no wrong.

It is here Moses reminds us God’s steadfast love and favor remained on Joseph, and this time in the sight of the prison master. Moses inserts a short story about his brother Judah before returning to the Joseph narrative in Genesis 38, a chapter filled with sexual immorality. First, Judah took a Canaanite woman as a wife, something God prohibited. Then, Judah found a wife for his son named Tamar, who was widowed as both Judah’s sons were wicked and the Lord took their lives.

Tamar then dressed as a cult prostitute to seduce her father-in-law Judah, only to disappear with his belongings. When she was found to be pregnant, Judah judged her guilty and deserving death (Genesis 38:24). Yet, Tamar brought out Judah’s belongings which proved his culpability. It is here, Judah confessed Tamar to be more righteous than him, which in a way confesses his guilt and deserving more than death (vs 26).

Why does God’s Word tell us Joseph has God’s steadfast love and favor on him, yet he is imprisoned and suffers for sexual crimes he did not commit while Judah commits heinous sexual crimes, confesses guilt, and does not suffer as Joseph does? Read on, and we find Judah confessing he deserves punishment for his sin against Joseph (Genesis 44:16), only for Joseph to reconcile with his guilty brothers, draw them near to himself and tell them God sent Joseph ahead in suffering then exaltation to preserve their lives (Genesis 45:4-5). What the brothers meant for evil, God sovereignly meant for good (Genesis 50:20). By his sufferings, the brothers’ lives where preserved by God’s hand.

Think deeply what God is pointing us to in the favored Son Jesus Christ. He is perfectly righteous, yet treated as a great criminal. Suffering mockery and beatings. By His wounds we have inflicted on the Son of God, we sinners are healed. He suffered instead of us, and by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone we receive His benefits.

Think about the great evil of Judah and his brothers, plotting evil against their brother with intense jealousy. Jesus taught on this evil in His parable of the wicked tenants. The tenants were left the vineyard as the master went to the far country. Sending servants to receive his share, the tenants beat them all. Finally, the master sent his son, but the wicked tenants killed the son expecting to take his inheritance (Matthew 21:38).

Jacob, Joseph and the brothers’ father, passed away with a final request for Joseph to forgive his brothers all their sins (Genesis 50:17). On His cross, our Lord cried out, “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). At Jacob’s funeral, Joseph gathered his brothers now forgiven and said not to fear twice, then a promise of good. He will provide for them.

Joseph was born to suffer, then be exalted to save his wicked brothers, all by God’s sovereign hand. Deeper still, the sinless Christ was born to save sinners as Joseph was told to name Him Jesus (Matthew 1:21), a saying trustworthy and deserving your full acceptance (I Timothy 1:15).

Dear sinner, think upon the sufferings of the Man of Sorrows. Jesus did this willingly. Christmas is the time we meditate on the Son of God taking on flesh, being rejected and despised, suffered and crucified as a criminal though He did not wrong, to save the wicked. Deeper than the weeping Joseph’s drawing his wicked brothers to himself with forgiveness, Jesus draws sinners to Himself to forgive us and reconcile us to our heavenly Father. Sinner, believe upon Christ and call upon the name of the Lord and be saved.

As Linus concluding in his reading of Luke 2, “That’s what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown.”

This is what Christmas is all about. God sending His favored Son to suffer and die instead of you to save many, glorifying our God who is mighty to save.

Heavenly Father, as this season draws family and friends together, remind us why Jesus came into the world: to save sinners. A sinner like me. All praise be to our gracious God who placed our guilt on Christ and His righteousness on us that we may glorify our God and enjoy You forever. In Jesus’ name. Amen.