If you’ve missed the first 3 messages in this series on 1 Corinthians, let me catch you up. The Apostle Paul received some disturbing reports from Corinth about things going on there. The church was shattered into competing groups, claiming allegiance to different Christian leaders. Paul’s response was that such a situation ought not to occur, since the church is united as the body of Christ, and its leaders are servants in the name of Christ. The unity of the church is vital to its existence.

But it is not a unity at all costs. In chapter 5, Paul addressed a particularly heinous case of sexual sin within the congregation. The Corinthian church were not only failing to rebuke the transgressor, they were proud at such an exercise of ‘freedom’ (5:2). Paul instructed them to deal firmly with this man, and not to associate with sexually immoral people who claim to be followers of Christ. They must exercise discernment. All are welcome to join the body of Christ, to be united to him, but it must be a genuine unity based on repentance, faith, and obedience.

You see, who you are united to matters. That is a theme that will come up repeatedly in today’s passage as well, as the Apostle teases out how being united to Christ’s spiritual body, the church, impacts what believers do with their physical bodies. Let’s dive in.

“Everything is permissible for me” — but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me” — but I will not be mastered by anything. “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food” — but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. (1 Cor 6:12-17)

It seems that there were two schools of thought concerning the physical body in Corinth. The first were arguing that the body is unimportant, that it is only the spiritual things that matter. These were probably the same people who were proud of the ‘freedom’ being exercised by the incestuous man of chapter 5. Their catch cry was, ‘Everything is permissible for me.’ They also argued, ‘Food for the stomach and the stomach for food,’ by which they meant that just as the body craves food, so it craves sex, and both appetites ought to be fed.

But in Paul’s eyes, your body is of eternal significance. God raised Jesus bodily from the grave, and he will do the same for you and me, for an eternal bodily existence. He will return to this topic in chapter 15, but for now he wants the Corinthians to know that their bodies are united to Christ, and so what they do with their bodies is important, because who you are united to matters.

He continues:

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (1 Cor 6:18–20)

We often hear Paul misquoted at this point. Non-Christians will speak of their body as a ‘temple’, by which they mean they ought to live healthily, eat well, exercise and so on. All these things are good, but they miss the point Paul is driving at. He does not simply say the body is a temple, but that it is ‘a temple of the Holy Spirit’. The temple was famously the place where God dwelt with his people, Israel, and where they met with him. It was also erected to honour Yahweh, so that all the nations would know that he is LORD.

Friends, what we do with our bodies matters. If we are united to Christ, the Holy Spirit lives in us and our bodies ought to be places fit for us to meet with him there. This extends to our sexuality, both what we do with our bodies and the way we let our physical desires control our thought lives. It encompasses what we watch, how we interact with members of the opposite sex, whether we are married or not.

If you are not consciously comfortable with the Holy Spirit’s presence in the midst of what you are thinking, doing, or saying, particularly when it comes to your sexuality, then you are probably in a place of immorality. And the Apostle’s command is simple: Flee! Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, what we do with our bodies matters. And it matters not just to us, but to the entire church.

There is an ancient Jewish story:

A group of people were travelling in a boat. One of them took a drill and began to drill a hole beneath himself. His companions said to him: “Why are you doing this?” Replied the man: “What concern is it of yours? Am I not drilling under my own place?” Said they to him: “But you will flood the boat for us all!” (Quoted in Midrash Rabbah, Vayikra 4:6).

It has become clear over the last decade and more that a festering mass of sexual immorality within the church has resulted in destroyed lives and destroyed Christian witness. Perhaps you are thinking that your particular sin – flirting with a coworker, sexual fantasies, cohabitation, pornography, or engaging a prostitute – perhaps you think those things are not really hurting anyone. They may be private. But the truth is that, if you are a Christian, you are united with Christ; and if that is the case you cannot also be united with these things without damaging the entire body of Christ. Your sin affects me and mine affects you.

Perhaps the best way we have to understand this is through the God-given analogy of marriage. In Ephesian 5, Paul says that the relationship between Christ and church is like that between husband and wife. The two are united as one. But what happens when either the husband or the wife unites with someone else? Relationships and trust are broken. Who you are united to matters.

So if sexuality can have such a huge impact on our relationship with Christ and his church, perhaps it is better to avoid sexual relationships altogether? Certainly some in Corinth seem to have thought so. Against those who were saying ‘everything is permissible,’ these people were claiming that it was good not to marry, and so to avoid even the chance of sexual immorality. So they wrote to Paul, asking him his opinion. Here is Paul’s response:

Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. (1 Cor 7:1-7)

Paul does not say that sex and sexuality is bad; rather he says that its proper place is in the context of marriage, where it is a God-given means of unity, rather than disunity. Being united in marriage Paul says that the husband and wife ‘belong’ to each other. What does this mean?
Husband and wife are not only permitted but encouraged to enjoy one another. There may be seasons within a marriage where husband and wife agree to abstain from sexual interaction, especially in order to devote themselves to prayer. In other words, they may choose to forgo the unity of the flesh granted to husband and wife in order to pursue the unity of the Spirit. But Paul is clear that this is only for a time, lest continued abstinence lead to temptation and, ultimately, the kind of sexual immorality that he has already warned them to flee from.

‘Belonging’ to one another also means that husbands and wives have a special responsibility to care for and protect each other. I listen to what my wife says about the things I say and do, the people I spend time with, and even the way I look, because I belong to her. And I know that if she does ask me to change something, it is because she is caring for me.

Earlier, Paul wrote, ‘You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body’ (6:19-20). In the same way, husband, wife, you are not your own, you belong to each other; therefore honour one another with your bodies.

Marriage is the one kind of sexual unity that can occur without destroying our union with Christ. Who you are united to matters, and in marriage we see illustrated the unity between Christ and his church.

Paul goes on:

Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? (1 Cor 7:8–16)

Here Paul addresses the issues of marriage, remarriage, and divorce. To those who are not married, he says that remaining unmarried is the best option, for reasons that he will outline in the second half of this chapter. But getting married is far preferable to sexual immorality, which shatters union with Christ. And once united in marriage, this union is not lightly severed. Even for those who are married to non-Christians, the best course is to remain married; but Paul is clear that once again it is the union with Christ that must remain pre-eminent. Far better to endure separation and divorce from an unbelieving spouse than to follow them in their unbelief and so be separated from Christ.

It is clear that the Apostle’s primary concern is that the Corinthians remain united to Christ.

Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts. Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you — although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord’s freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ’s slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men. Brothers, each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to. (1 Cor 7:17–24)

The New King James Version highlights the word repetition in verse 20: ‘Let each one remain in the same calling in which he was called.’ Brothers and sisters in Christ, your calling is to be united to Christ. As you face decisions about your circumstances, make sure that you are remaining in that calling. If you are considering marriage make sure your partner is not going to undermine your calling. Don’t buy a new house or take a new job if they are going to move you away from your calling. You are responsible to God to remain in the calling to which God has called you.

Why is Paul so cautious about marriage? Why does he speak of it as second-best? He outlines his reasons in the final part of this chapter:

Now about virgins: I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for you to remain as you are. Are you married? Do not seek a divorce. Are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this.

What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.

I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs — how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world — how he can please his wife — and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world — how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.

If anyone thinks he is acting improperly toward the virgin he is engaged to, and if she is getting along in years and he feels he ought to marry, he should do as he wants. He is not sinning. They should get married. But the man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion but has control over his own will, and who has made up his mind not to marry the virgin — this man also does the right thing. So then, he who marries the virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does even better.

A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord. In my judgment, she is happier if she stays as she is — and I think that I too have the Spirit of God. (1 Cor 7:25–40)

Marriage is a tremendous, honourable, God-given blessing. But it is not without its costs. As a husband and father, I must love, lead, protect, provide and pray for my family. This is the most important ministry I exercise, and it is my joy and privilege to do so. But it also means that there are other ministry opportunities that are impossible, or a least significantly more difficult, for me. Would Paul have been able to engage in his missionary work if he had had to support a wife a family at the same time?

So, if you are considering marriage, make sure you count the cost before taking the plunge. And if you are single, whether it is by your own choice or not, take advantage of the freedom that you have to serve the Lord.

In summary, Paul wants us to know that Christian unity is essential, but who you are united to matters. And because you are united with Christ, what you do with your body is important, so honour God with your body and flee from sexual immorality. Marriage is the only context in which sexual union does not jeopardise union with Christ. It is a wonderful and honourable calling, but it is not the most important calling. So in whatever situation God has called you to, honour him there.

To close, then, I want to address two groups of people. The first group are those who have never united themselves to Christ. Jesus is like a suitor who has proposed, not down on one knee with a ring in his hand, but arms spread wide with nails through his hands. He died so that you might live. Who you are united to matters, and he invites you into eternal union with himself. You can accept him today by ‘forsaking all others’ and trusting him in repentance and faith. If you would like to know more, grab me, or an elder, or a Christian friend after the service – we would love to talk more with you about this.

The second group I want to talk to is those currently stuck in sexual sin. Whatever form this takes – whether it is sex outside of marriage, pornography, illicit sexual fantasies, or anything else – there are few things you need to know. Firstly, there is no sin so great it cannot be cleansed and forgiven by the blood of Jesus, if only you will confess your sins and repent. I know how daunting it can seem, how trapped you can feel, but Christ is more than able to rescue you. The Apostle John wrote, ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9). Secondly, be warned that, ‘if you fail to [repent], you will be sinning against the LORD; and you may be sure that your sin will find you out’ (Num 32:23). You may feel that you have it ‘under control’, that it is not impacting anyone else, but like the man drilling the hole under his seat in the boat we are all affected, and Christ will not allow you to continue in your sin indefinitely. Finally, know that you are not alone. We are the body of Christ, and we are here to help each other, to bear each other’s burdens. And you will need help. Because, as Paul points out, ‘All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body’ (6:18). So if the Holy Spirit is convicting you of any of these things this morning, I urge you to act today, choose to glorify God with your body, and ask a Christian you trust to keep you accountable to that.

Let’s pray:

Father in heaven, we praise you for your tremendous grace in calling us to be united to your Son. We thank you for his sacrifice to make that possible, and for the work of your Holy Spirit dwelling within us. Give us the further grace to live in a manner consistent with that calling.

Lord, give us a right view of our bodies. Convict us of those areas of our lives where what we are doing with our bodies is not honouring to you, and so jeopardising our union with Christ. I particularly pray for those feeling trapped in habitual sexual sin. Please grant them deliverance so that they, too, can glorify you with their bodies.

For those currently wrestling with questions of marriage, remarriage, and divorce, I pray that you would grant wisdom and discernment. Help us all to remember the primacy of our calling as Christians, and to consider our marital status in that light. For those of us who are married, I pray that we would honour you in and through our marriages.

Father, we are the body of Christ; help us to uphold and not destroy the unity that this brings.

Amen

The Apostle Paul spent 18 months in Corinth, before moving on to work in other places. While in Ephesus, however, troubling news started to reach him from Corinth. Though it was only two years since he had left, much had happened in the church he founded there. So he wrote his dear friends a letter, the letter we now call 1 Corinthians.

The first and most troubling issue, from Paul’s perspective, was an utter lack of unity within the church.

My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.” (1 Cor 1:11-12)

Some high-profile Christian leaders had visited Corinth since Paul left. We know from Acts that Apollos, a ‘learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures’ who ‘spoke with great fervour’ (Acts 18:24, 25), visited Corinth not long after Paul departed. Luke records that, ‘On arriving [in Corinth], he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. For he vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ’ (Acts 18:227b-28). Some of the Corinthians, evidently impressed by this articulate young man, started identifying themselves as followers of Apollos.

It is also possible that the Apostle Peter also visited Corinth, though this is less certain. Peter was one of Jesus’ 12 disciples, and given the name Cephas (which means ‘rock’) by Christ himself (Jn. 1:42). Whether or not he did visit Corinth, a group of people arose within the church claiming allegiance to him.

Paul was not concerned about other Christian leaders visiting the church he planted; what did worry him was that the Corinthian church was now split into factions, with some following Apollos, some Peter, some loyal to Paul himself, and some opposing all of these groups and claiming allegiance only to Christ. Perhaps some were new converts who had never met Paul, and so preferred to identify with those who led them to Christ, rather than a man they didn’t know. Maybe the Pauline group were claiming they were the ‘original’ Corinthian Christians. Peter’s followers thought they had it direct from the horse’s mouth, from an original disciple. And so on.

Paul’s response is vivid:

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name… For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel — not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. (1 Cor 1:13–17)

Paul will use the image of baptism again several times throughout this letter (1 Cor. 10:2; 12:13; 15:29). Most significant is in chapter 12:

For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. (1 Cor 12:13)

Baptism is a symbol of unity: people from all walks of life become united in one body. If the Corinthians have all been united in one body, the body of Christ, how can there be such disunity among them? Is Christ divided? Surely not! Paul was not in Corinth to gather a following for himself. ‘Christ did not send me to baptize [people in my own name], but to preach the gospel’. It is not the messenger but the message that unites the church, not the evangelist but the evangel, the gospel itself.

This is good news because it means our hopes don’t hang on our leaders. The modern world is no stranger to personality cults such as found in Corinth. And the church is often no better, idolising her favourite preachers, teachers, writers and evangelists. Yet as we witness so many Christian leaders going astray we need not be dismayed for it is not the messenger but the message that unites us. And we need not despair when our favourite pastor, preacher, small group leader or worship leader moves on; rather we rejoice in the messenger’s faithfulness in proclaiming the message. A church centred on messengers will inevitably devolve into factionalism when the messenger fails or another comes along; a church anchored in the message of the gospel will not.

And what a message! It is certainly not a conventional message; nor is it presented in a conventional way.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” (1 Cor 1:18–19)

Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength. (1 Cor 1:22–25)

Reading between the lines, the reason many preferred Apollos to Paul was that Apollos spoke and taught in the Greek wisdom tradition. Certainly he was a well educated man, and persuasive in his speech – perhaps unlike Paul, of whom the Corinthians would later say, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing” (2 Cor 10:10). But the Corinthians were so caught up looking for the wisdom of this age that they did not recognise the wisdom of God right in front of them.

Friends, the wisdom of God is not a matter of fancy words and flowery speech. It does not require you to conquer great intellectual mountains to understand it. The gospel message that brings unity is such that it can be grasped by a child. Yet at the same time, it is a message so rich that a lifetime of study is not enough to completely plumb its depths.

It is also a message of great power, but it is a power demonstrated in weakness and suffering rather strength and success. Many of the Jews in Jesus’ day believed that the Christ was to deliver them from Roman rule, and would be a conquering king. Instead, he was crucified on a Roman cross… and in that way delivered them from the much greater oppression of sin and death!

Woodcroft Christian Centre, what kind of church are we? What is the focus of our unity? Why do we meet together as we do? Perhaps we like the Sunday service: it’s at a good time, the format is familiar, they play the kind of music I like. Or is it the kids’ program? The facilities? The bread ministry? The people? What is it that brings you here week after week? What do you have in common with the person next to you? Or, more to the point, with the people who sit over the other side of the church?

What we have in common is this: we are all sinners by nature and by choice, and deserving of the righteous wrath of God. But God is not content that it remain so. Instead, he sent his beloved son, Jesus, to rescue us. Jesus left his place of power and was born to an unwed teenage mother in a backwater province of the Roman Empire. Before he was 2 years old, he and his family fled to Egypt as refugees. The Word of God became a child who had to learn to speak. Jesus, the Lord of all creation, had ‘no place to lay his head’ (Matt 8:20). He was mocked and ridiculed, falsely tried and condemned to death on a Roman cross. This is the opposite of what the world calls power or wisdom. Yet this is the wisdom and power of God, that the world should be saved through the weakness and suffering of the Saviour. Both the wisdom and the power of God find their fullest and final expression in Christ. He is the true and only source of our unity. We are united in Christ!

The world may call our gospel message foolishness, but ‘the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom'; the world may call us weak, but ‘the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength’ (1 Cor. 1:25). And it is offered as a free gift to all who will receive it.

I have spent considerable time this week investigating home loans. Each lender has their own requirements: you must have so much for a deposit, then so much for fees, insurance etc. And each one calculates it differently. It is so frustrating to answer 1001 questions only to be told, ‘You don’t qualify.’ But it is not like that with the gospel. You don’t have to be wealthy, educated, or successful in order to receive it. There are no entry criteria beyond repenting of your sins and trusting in Christ.

Just look at the Corinthians themselves:

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God — that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.” (1 Cor 1:26–31)

My non-Christian friend, if you are sitting here this morning thinking that there is some aspect of your life that disqualifies you from becoming a Christian, I want to tell you that you are wrong. You don’t need to be strong, rich, clever, moral, successful, well-liked, powerful, educated, influential or famous to come to Christ. The only requirement is that you humbly receive the gift God is offering you today in Christ. If this is something you would like to investigate further, please take action today – talk to a Christian friend, one of the elders, or me. We’d love to walk the next steps with you.

The free availability of the gospel also has implications for Christians. For a start, it shapes the way we share the gospel with others.

Immediately prior to coming to Corinth, Paul had preached in Athens, one of the most famous centres of worldly wisdom in the ancient world. When called to address the Areopagus, Paul gave a speech in the best traditions of Greek rhetoric, citing Greek poets and philosophers. Yet, we are told that only ‘a few men became followers of Paul and believed’ (Acts 17:34). Paul was obviously capable of the kind of ‘wisdom’ that the Corinthians so highly prized.¹ Yet, whether because of his lack of success in Athens, or because of his reflection on the nature of the gospel itself, he decided on a different course in Corinth.

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. (1 Cor 2:1–5)

If the church is to be united it must be the message rather than the messenger that holds the power and the wisdom. It has been truly said that what you win people with is what you win them to. That is, if you try to build a church by clever speeches, funny anecdotes, slick presentations, charismatic leadership, exciting music, or whatever, you will have a church that depends for its existence on the speeches remaining clever and the music remaining exciting. It is those things that have the ‘power’. On the other hand, if a church is founded on the unchanging gospel of Jesus Christ, then it will be a boat anchored in the ocean floor, rather than tied to a piece of driftwood; a house built on rock rather than flood plain. The gospel can and should be creatively, winsomely, and thoughtfully presented in all kinds of ways; but those ways should be in service of the message and not the other way around.

Even the ability to understand and respond to this message is a gift of God – it is the work of the Holy Spirit in us:

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment: “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Cor 2:10–16)

There may be some here not yet convinced that trusting in Christ is truly wise. After all, it may mean significant changes in your life: you may need to step off the ladder of success; or rethink some deeply held presuppositions; or hang out with a different crowd; or spend your money differently. All of this may be true. Yet I still want to say to you this morning that trusting in Christ is not only the best way, it is the only way that holds eternal hope. I could offer you evidence from my life, from history, from Scripture, from philosophy. Those things would all be good, but without the Spirit’s help they are insufficient. You see, sin makes us all predisposed to reject and dismiss such evidences because they challenge some of our most deeply held beliefs. See if any of these ring true for you:

• I am free to do what I want; or
• I’m basically a good person.

Sin makes us want to believe these things and many others like them, rather than trusting in what God says to us. So the first and most important thing I must do in telling you about Jesus is to pray that God will open your eyes by means of his Spirit. He may well use the things I say, the experiences I share, the arguments I use. But in the end, it is the work of the Spirit that is the only necessary and sufficient condition for you coming to Christ.

So my prayer for you this morning is that God will send his Spirit to help you see that the gospel, the good news, is indeed good news.

Let’s summarise chapters 1 and 2, then: The unity of the church flows from the message rather than the messenger; and the message is the wisdom and power of God rather than the wisdom and power of the world. In chapter 3, Paul circles back to the role of the messenger and, in particular, the roles he and Apollos had in the Corinthian church.

Paul and Apollos were both servants, with different tasks but the same master and the same goal. He uses two images to illustrate this. The first image, of farmers, reiterates his point about the work of the Spirit (1 Cor 3:6-9). Paul planted the seed of the gospel, Apollos watered it through his ministry, but it was God, through his Spirit, who brought the growth.

The second image is of Paul as a master builder who laid a foundation upon which other leaders and teachers would build. Here, Paul is warning those who would come after him:

[E]ach one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames. (1 Cor 3:10–15)

This is critical because it is not just any building that they are constructing; it is the temple of God:

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple. (1 Cor 3:16–17)

The temple was the place where God dwelt with his people, Israel. This side of the cross, God’s Spirit lives in his people, both within individual believers and the church as a whole. Those building this temple need to be careful that they build right; those trying destroy it ought to repent for they are themselves on a path to destruction.

The Corinthian church was in division because of differing evaluations of their leaders. Does this mean that we are better off without leaders at all? No. Paul shows that they have an important role in the life and growth of the church. It is not a way of power. It is not a way of wisdom – at least, not wisdom as the world sees it. It is rather the way of the servant.

We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world. (1 Cor 4:9–13)

We can be grateful that we have such leaders, who are willing to sacrifice so much for the sake of those who will hear the gospel as a result. And we must be especially grateful for those who serve us in person. I love that we live in an age where so much good teaching and counsel is available via podcasts, books, conferences, DVDs and many others. Truly we have ‘ten thousand guardians in Christ’ (1 Cor 4:15). But those who we do life with, those who are willing to enter into the messiness and trials of life with us, these are our fathers and mothers, our brothers and sisters, and are deserving of special honour and respect. And so, it is fitting that we conclude by praying especially for them this morning.

Let’s pray.

Father, thank you for those whom you have appointed to lead us. In particular, we thank you for our elders: Harry, Steve, David, and James. You have given them many responsibilities: to lead; to teach; to encourage; to discipline; and to pray. Thank you for the many sacrifices that they make on our behalf, must unseen and unknown to any but you. May they build well on the foundation you have laid, and in the day of judgment let them be honoured when their work is proved genuine.

Please strengthen them in all of these tasks, giving them wisdom to make good and godly decisions. Guard them and their families from the attacks of the world and the devil, for the enemy likes nothing better than to see Christian leaders fall. Give them the grace to bless when they are cursed; to endure when they are persecuted; to answer kindly when they are slandered. Help them to be men worthy of imitation; and help us to imitate them as a child imitates their father.

Lord, we at Woodcroft Christian Centre want to be a church united by your message; we are so grateful for the messengers you have anointed to proclaim it.

Amen.

Endnotes

1. Indeed, his ode to love in chapter 13 of this epistle is a fine example.

As we look around the world today, there is much to be concerned about: fighting, executions, domestic violence and sexual assault, to name a few. People are addicted to gambling, alcohol, pornography and drugs, often bringing great hardship on themselves and their families in the process. Locally, some of you will have been impacted by two young men walking into Eagle Vale High School, setting fire to a stage curtain and causing $50,000 of damage¹. Or maybe you own or work in one of several local stores robbed at knife-point.²

Why do these things happen? What can we do to fix these problems?

According to the Apostle Paul, the problem is not that we are not doing the right things or that we are not trying hard enough. Rather, the problem stems from not having the right nature. On the one hand, there is a sinful nature; on the other, a nature that grows out of the work of God’s Holy Spirit.

Paul describes the sinful nature according to its acts:

“The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
– Galatians 5:19–21

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it helps us to get the picture. Our sinful nature pervades our sexuality and spirituality. It is the ever-present but never-welcome shadow across our relationships. Its siren-like call draws us onto the rocks of substance abuse and addiction. When you snap at your kids over breakfast or talk about your colleague behind their back or blow your savings on the pokies that is your sinful nature at work.

And yet you are still responsible – for it is you doing those things. You cannot disavow your sinful nature, for it is part of you. More than responsible; you are culpable. Every single one of those acts carries a death sentence – ‘the wages of sin is death’ (Rom. 6:23) – and you and I have earned that wage over and over and over again. The ‘problem’ is not ‘out there’ but rather ‘in here’.

When a newspaper posed the question, “What’s Wrong with the World?” the Catholic thinker G. K. Chesterton reputedly wrote a brief letter in response: “Dear Sirs: I am. Yours, G.K. Chesterton³

When I read the Bible I am confronted with an awful reality: I am part of the problem, not part of the solution. What is wrong with the world? I am. You are. We are.

The sinful nature also encompasses the effects of the sins of others against us. According to some Australian statistics 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men are sexually abused before the age of 16.⁴ In other words, in a room of 50 adults, we might estimate 12 people to have been victims of sexual abuse. We could cite similarly disturbing figures in relation to domestic violence,⁵ robbery⁶ and so on. Though each survivor will have their own unique response to both the sin and the sinner, there are common themes: anger; sorrow; anxiety; depression; shame. Though they are not the ones to have sinned, nevertheless the sins of someone else have brought brokenness to their life.

The sinful nature has a lot to answer for.

In stark contrast is what Paul calls the ‘fruit of the Spirit’:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
– Galatians 5:22–23

Fruit grows according to the species of the plant. Apple trees produce apples. Grape vines produce grapes. Do you think my son will have to work hard in order to grow tall like me? Or will my daughters have to strive to grow as beautiful as their mother? Of course not. These things will happen naturally, for they are part of their genetic makeup.

Where the Spirit of God is, this fruit will grow. It may start small at first, but it will keep growing. And it will encompass all of the items in the list to some extent or another. The sinful nature is sometimes able to imitate one or two of these fruit, but rarely in any kind of balance.
For example, some people are temperamentally gentle and diplomatic (gentleness). But the sign that this is not due to the work of the Holy Spirit is that such people are usually not bold or courageous (faithfulness). Because of what Paul says about the city of the fruit, this means that this sort of gentleness is not real spiritual humility, but just temperamental sweetness… Some folks seem happy and bubbly (joy) and are good at meeting new people, but are very unreliable and cannot keep friends (faithfulness). This is not real joy but just being an extrovert by nature. Some people seem very unflappable and unbothered (peaceful) but they are not kind or gentle. That is not real peace, but indifference and perhaps cynicism. It enables you to get through the difficulties of life without always being hurt, but it desensitizes you and makes you much less approachable.⁷

But it would be a mistake to think that we are entirely passive in this process, for Paul also talks of ‘walking in step’ with the Spirit.⁸ The image is a military one – marching with the Spirit, following the Spirit’s leading and orders.

I think most of us would agree that this is a much more attractive list than the last one! That is the kind of world we wish we lived in, the kind of life we wish we lived. And we are meant to think so. It is like one of those Jenny Craig posters that show before and after photos with the caption ‘I lost 30kg in 16 weeks’. We are meant to be amazed at the difference and – crucially – to ask the question, ‘How can I do the same?’

So, how do we move ourselves and our world from perpetrating the acts of the sinful nature to exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit? I want to share with you two plans that don’t work, and one that does.

Some visitors to Galatia, the place this letter was written to, had come with a plan for dealing with the sinful nature. They argued that God had given a plan long ago, when he gave the law to Moses. If only the Galatians would follow this law, they could be saved from their sinful nature and live a life pleasing to God.

That might work if the problem was simply our actions that need changing. But Paul says it’s bigger than that; it is a question of desires.

“For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.”
– Galatians 5:17

Desires by themselves are not bad. C. S. Lewis wrote that,

[I]t would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.⁹

One of the tragic ironies of the sinful nature is that it longs for the fruit of the Spirit, but it settles for counterfeit versions instead. We seek love and accept lust; we pursue peace and find apathy; merriment and drunkenness substitute for joy; and so on.

Why is this? I think part of the problem is that, though we want love, and joy, and peace etc., we want them on our terms. We want to be in control. So we ‘agree to disagree’ instead of seeking reconciliation, otherwise we might have to admit we’re wrong. We invert our hierarchy of needs and wants such that we prioritise smoking and alcohol over food to eat. We choose ‘gods’ we can control – work, family, hobbies – to offer our ‘sacrifices’ of time and money, rather than submitting to a God who might ask more of us than we are ready to give. Today we commemorate Mothers’ Day, and in so doing we celebrate the ideals of motherhood: women who love and nurture their families. Yet we know that even such noble ideals can turn nasty when mum lives vicariously through her child, or becomes overly protective or controlling.

Paul says our desires are in conflict, ‘so that [we] do not do what [we] want’ (Gal. 5:17b).
Law is not very good at dealing with desire. The best it can do is to invoke some deeper desire, usually either a desire for respect or to avoid punishment. It cannot by itself eliminate the sinful nature, but only contain its symptoms. In fact, Paul says that by itself the law is another form of slavery, no better than having an unrestrained sinful nature.¹⁰

Another popular plan – now as then – involves the will. You need to resolve to control your temper, speak kindly, go to the gym, give up alcohol, stop looking at pornography and so on. And then discipline yourself to follow through on these resolutions come what may. You must be like Boxer, the cart horse from Orwell’s Animal Farm, whose solution to every adversity was, ‘I will work harder.’ And so we enrol in twelve-step programs, seek counselling, change our diet, read the latest research and generally invest all our efforts towards improving ourselves.

Yet, like the legal plan, this wilful plan suffers from the fatal flaw that it does not address our desires but only our actions. Worse than that, both plans rely on us for fulfilment, and that is bad for two reasons. First, anything that we can do we can also undo. I’m sure that many of us have gone on a diet, only to find ourselves drifting back into old eating habits and gaining weight again. If my deliverance from the sinful nature relies on the continued application of my will then what happens when I inevitably screw up?

The second reason a plan that relies on us is deficient is that anything we do is tainted by our sinful nature. A friend of mine carefully prepared a baking tray ready for baking. Upon completion of this task, his wife decided to take out the trash and, in the process of removing the garbage managed to drip ‘bin juice’ into the baking tray. I can’t imagine there was a vast quantity of ‘bin juice’; yet just a little was enough to spoil the effort!¹¹ Would you drink a glass of water with just one drop of poison in it? Would you wash your dishes in a muddy puddle? So it is when we try to cleanse ourselves of our sinful nature by the exercise of our sinful nature.

Are you doomed, then, to a life where ‘you do not do what you want’ (Gal. 5:17b)? Not at all! For though any plan that depends on us is doomed to failure, there is a plan which is completely dependable. You see God was not surprised by the sinful nature. It is not as though he saw Eve committing the first sin and thought, ‘Whoops, didn’t see that coming.’ Rather, even before the creation of the world, God had a plan ready,¹² and that plan was to send his Son, Jesus.
Jesus lived a life of perfect obedience to God, meaning that there was no sinful nature within him. Yet the world rejected and killed him. They crucified him, killing him in the most painful, shameful way they knew how. And, though he could have set himself free, Jesus endured the mocking, the beating, the agony and, ultimately, ‘became obedient to death – even death on a cross’ (Phil. 2:8). Because he knew what they did not: that cross was the only way that we might be delivered from our sinful nature. Paul puts it like this: ‘Those who belong to Christ have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires’ (Gal. 5:24), and it is on the cross of Christ that it has been crucified.

Do you belong to Christ? You can, you know. He invites you to come to him, to give up the pretence of being able to deal with your own sinful nature and instead trust him to deal with it. Remember, ‘the wages of sin is death’ (Rom. 6:23), and so your sinful nature must die; if it is not crucified on the cross of Christ then you will die with it. The apostle wrote in another of his letters,

For if you live according to the sinful nature you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
– Rom. 8:13-14

Or, to put it another way, if you are not crucifying sin, sin is crucifying you!¹³

This means that we have a responsibility to act when we recognise the acts of the sinful nature in our lives. We must confess and repent of our sin, both before God and before those we have sinned against. The trouble is that crucifixion, whilst a certain death, is also a lingering death.¹⁴ Too often, we hang around at the foot of the cross, to pity it, to long for its release. We need to learn to leave those sins there. We have crucified the flesh; we are never going to draw the nails.¹⁵

If that were the entire story, it would be more than enough to qualify as great news indeed. But God loves to give us ‘immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine’ (Eph. 3:20). And so he offers us new life, life in the Spirit after the death of the sinful nature. Picture a man with a broken spine. He needs a surgeon to deal with the brokenness within him; but he also needs someone to teach him to walk again, to walk with him as he mends, to push him when he needs encouragement and stop him when he needs to rest. Jesus Christ has granted us the freedom to walk the way we were always intended to walk. He has provided the means by which the sinful nature may be crucified. But he has also sent the Holy Spirit to teach us how to live in the light of that freedom and actually walk!

And as we walk, the fruit of the Spirit will manifest in our lives. That is to say, we will grow more and more like Jesus, the one who displayed the same fruit in his own perfect obedience to his Father.

Living by the Spirit is the root; walking by the Spirit is the fruit, and that fruit is nothing less than the practical reproduction of the character (and therefore the conduct) of Christ in the lives of his people.¹⁶

Though showered with hate, he demonstrated his love. His joy was such that he could ‘endure the cross, scorning its shame’ (Heb. 12:2). He brought peace to the storm, was patient with wayward disciples, and kind and gentle to outcasts. His goodness, faithfulness and self-control saw him walk all the way to the cross for our sake. Praise be to God for his willing obedience!

So, what is the problem with the world today? Men and women continue to ‘live’ in their sinful nature. The only solution is to belong to Christ and thereby crucify their sinful nature and live instead by the Spirit.

Will you choose a ‘life’ that leads to death? Or a death that leads to life?

Bibliography

• Bruce, F. F. The Epistle to the Galatians : A Commentary on the Greek Text. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.
• Keller, Timothy J. The Prodigal God : Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith. New York: Dutton, 2008.
• Keller, Timothy J. Galatians for You. Epsom, Surrey: Good Book Company, 2013.
• Lewis, C. S. The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.
• Owen, John, Kelly M. Kapic, and Justin Taylor. Overcoming Sin&Temptation. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2006.
• Stott, John R. W. The Message of Galatians. Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1984.

Endnotes

1. http://www.macarthuradvertiser.com.au/story/3039318/campbelltown-police-news/
2. http://www.macarthuradvertiser.com.au/story/3054051/campbelltown-police-news/
3. Timothy J. Keller, The Prodigal God : Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith (New York: Dutton, 2008), 46.
4. http://www.casa.org.au/casa_pdf.php?document=statistics
5. e.g. http://www.domesticviolence.com.au/pages/domestic-violence-statistics.php
6. e.g. http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/facts/1-20/2013/2_profiles.html
7. Timothy J. Keller, Galatians for You (Epsom, Surrey: Good Book Company, 2013), 141.
8. John R. W. Stott, The Message of Galatians (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1984).
9. C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 26.
10. To a group of people with a pagan background now considering submitting to the law, he writes, ‘It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.’ (Gal. 5:1)
11. cf. ‘“A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough” (Gal. 5:9).
12. 1 Pet. 1:20.
13. cf. John Owen: ‘[B]e killing sin or it will be killing you.’ John Owen, Kelly M. Kapic, and Justin Taylor, Overcoming Sin&Temptation (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2006).
14. Stott, The Message of Galatians, 151.
15. Stott, The Message of Galatians, 152.
16. F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians : A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982).

Why are you here? What made you decide to get up and come to West Pennant Hills Community Church this morning? Was it because that is what you do and have always done on Sundays? Perhaps you are trying to reconnect with your Christian roots? Or are you looking to find God? Are you hoping to become a better person? Perhaps you made a New Year’s resolution to get to church more. Or do you just like hanging out with a bunch of fun, attractive, perfect people? (I have some bad news for you…)

As we open the book of Zechariah, we find a bunch of people in Jerusalem who were probably wondering why they were there. Some 70 years before, Jerusalem had been utterly destroyed. But now the pagan king of Persia, Cyrus, had given permission for any Israelites living in his empire to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple (Ezra 1:1-5). In response, some 5000 people (Ezra 2:64-65) returned to Jerusalem and began work on the temple (c. 537 B.C.). Yet when they arrived I suspect that many of them began to have second thoughts. Here was a ‘city’ with no walls, surrounded by hostile nations of whom they were afraid (Ezra 3:3). As they laid the foundation for the temple, they sang of the LORD,

He is good; his love to Israel endures forever. (Ezra 3:11)

But they must have wondered whether that was actually true? After all, the prophet Ezekiel had spoken of the LORD leaving the temple (Ezek. 8-11); though he also spoke of a future return (Ezek. 43) they saw no evidence around them to suggest that this had, in fact, taken place. Was God still angry with them?

This doubt, combined with the opposition they faced from the surrounding peoples (Ezra 4:4-24) resulted in work on the temple stopping. For nearly 20 years, the foundations of the temple that they had laid stood as a witness to a broken dream. They had returned to Jerusalem, but it had not really turned out to be what they expected. So, instead, they focused on providing for themselves, trying to make ends meet, planting and harvesting, raising children, and generally trying to keep their heads down and out of trouble.

Then, in about 518 B.C., two prophets started preaching in Jerusalem. The first, Haggai, chastised the people for abandoning the work on the temple:

This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the LORD. “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the LORD Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house. Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands.” (Hag. 1:7–11)

The second prophet was Zechariah, and it is his message that we will spend the next 6 weeks considering. Where Haggai’s focus is on the rebuilding of the temple, Zechariah seems intent on a more wholesale reform. And he starts by calling the people to repentance.

A call to repentance (Zech. 1:1-6)

The LORD was very angry with your forefathers. Therefore tell the people: This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Return to me,’ declares the LORD Almighty, ‘and I will return to you,’ says the LORD Almighty. Do not be like your forefathers, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed: This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices.’ But they would not listen or pay attention to me, declares the LORD. Where are your forefathers now? And the prophets, do they live forever? But did not my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your forefathers? (Zech. 1:2–6)

Zechariah’s message is very simple: God was angry because your ancestors failed to turn from their ‘evil ways and practices’ (1:2, 4-6) and they ended up in exile in Babylon. Now you have the same choice they had, don’t make the same mistake (1:3-4)!

Zechariah records their response:

“Then they repented and said, ‘The LORD Almighty has done to us what our ways and practices deserve, just as he determined to do.’” (Zech. 1:6)
Repentance is a theme that looms large in Zechariah’s message, where it can essentially be seen as a two step process, a turning from and a turning to.¹ The Israelites were called to ‘turn from [their] evil ways and [their] evil practices’ (Zech. 1:4). But what were they called to turn to? Surprisingly, it is not to ‘good ways and good practices’ like we might expect. They were not called to turn to something, but rather someone.
‘Return to me,’ declares the LORD Almighty, ‘and I will return to you,’ says the LORD Almighty. (Zech. 1:3)

Zechariah sounds this note often. Repentance is an ongoing process, not a one-time event, and Zechariah knows that we will need food for the journey. This he furnishes in the form of 8 visions that keep our focus firmly on the LORD and his love for his people. We will look at the first three visions today.

First vision: a world at peace (Zech. 1:7-17)

The first vision starts in verse 7, and shows a world at peace:

On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, the month of Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo.

During the night I had a vision — and there before me was a man riding a red horse! He was standing among the myrtle trees in a ravine. Behind him were red, brown and white horses.

I asked, “What are these, my lord?” The angel who was talking with me answered, “I will show you what they are.”

Then the man standing among the myrtle trees explained, “They are the ones the LORD has sent to go throughout the earth.”

And they reported to the angel of the LORD, who was standing among the myrtle trees, “We have gone throughout the earth and found the whole world at rest and in peace.” (Zech. 1:7–11)

On first reading, this seems to be a comforting vision. Who doesn’t want a world ‘at rest and in peace’? But this is probably not how the inhabitants of Jerusalem saw it.

For the first two years of his reign, the emperor Darius had been busy suppressing rebellion in various parts of his kingdom. Perhaps this was the opportunity for the people to set up their governor, Zerubbabel – who was of the line of David – as a king on David’s throne? But about the time Zechariah first began to prophesy, Darius had finally crushed all those opposed to him, and peace reigned throughout his empire. Any hope of successfully breaking away from the Persian empire seemed crushed. Israel had been promised a king of their own, a Messiah, who would rule over them. Was that promise still valid after their failure and exile?

Can’t you hear the doubters: ‘Why am I here? If we are going to continue as subjects of the empire, why not do it somewhere else, some place where there is calm instead of conflict, and prosperity instead of poverty? Why not live in a city that actually has walls and schools and hospitals and employment and broadband and pubs and good roads and comfortable houses… ‘

The angel of the LORD voices the complaint that underpins these doubts, and receives an astonishing answer:

Then the angel of the LORD said, “LORD Almighty, how long will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem and from the towns of Judah, which you have been angry with these seventy years?” So the LORD spoke kind and comforting words to the angel who talked with me.

Then the angel who was speaking to me said, “Proclaim this word: This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I am very jealous for Jerusalem and Zion, but I am very angry with the nations that feel secure. I was only a little angry, but they added to the calamity.’

“Therefore, this is what the LORD says: ‘I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there my house will be rebuilt. And the measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem,’ declares the LORD Almighty.

“Proclaim further: This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘My towns will again overflow with prosperity, and the LORD will again comfort Zion and choose Jerusalem.’” (Zech. 1:12–17)

The LORD says that he is ‘jealous for Jerusalem and Zion’ (1:14), and that he will ‘return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there [his] house [that is, the temple] will be rebuilt’ (1:16). This is nothing less than the reversal of Ezekiel’s dreadful vision of the glory of the LORD departing the temple (Ezek. 8-11). Though that first temple had been destroyed, it would be rebuilt and the LORD would return to it with mercy. And it will be the presence of the LORD that will make all the difference, for he is the LORD Almighty! Things will go well for the ones whom the LORD Almighty loves.

Conversely, things will go very badly for those with whom the LORD Almighty is angry… which brings us to the second vision.

Second vision: powerful enemies (Zech. 1:18-21)

Then I looked up — and there before me were four horns!

I asked the angel who was speaking to me, “What are these?” He answered me, “These are the horns that scattered Judah, Israel and Jerusalem.” (Zech. 1:18–19)

Horns in the Bible are often a symbol of strength, especially arrogant strength. Picture a bull with its head up, daring you to chance its horns. That there are four horns may be symbolic of opponents on all sides – the four points of the compass. The people in Jerusalem had some significant enemies, who were directly opposed to the rebuilding of the temple and of Jerusalem in general.

And so the doubters find their voice again: ‘Why am I here,’ they might have said, ‘where I and my family are in danger?’

But the LORD has a plan for these enemies. Zechariah’s vision continues:

Then the LORD showed me four craftsmen.

I asked, “What are these coming to do?” He answered, “These are the horns that scattered Judah so that no one could raise his head, but the craftsmen have come to terrify them and throw down these horns of the nations who lifted up their horns against the land of Judah to scatter its people.” (Zech. 1:20–21)

There is a clear contrast here: though Judah is surrounded by bulls intent on destruction, the LORD has prepared craftsmen intent on construction. It is also significant that craftsmen had significant roles in the construction of both the Tabernacle² and Solomon’s Temple,³ so their appearance again at the building of this new temple would have been tremendously encouraging.

Third vision: slow progress and meagre results (Zech. 2:1-5)

Zechariah’s first two visions focused on the peace in distant nations and the hostility in Jerusalem’s immediate surrounds. But his third vision, the last one we will consider this morning, looks to what is happening within Jerusalem:

Then I looked up — and there before me was a man with a measuring line in his hand!

I asked, “Where are you going?” He answered me, “To measure Jerusalem, to find out how wide and how long it is.” (Zech. 2:1-2)

Again the doubters are out in force: ‘Why am I here? Nothing seems to be happening, everything is going so slowly. You just promised that the LORD’s house would be rebuilt and the measuring line stretched out over Jerusalem (Zech. 1:16); but I see only a foundation instead of a house, and the measuring line over Jerusalem is not returning impressive results. We don’t even have a wall to keep us safe from our enemies!’

We feel the force of these doubts today, don’t we? We want to be part of God’s work here on earth, we want to see the kingdom advancing, we want to see people coming to the Lord, we want to see revival in our time… but it all seems so slow. There are still so many who do not yet know about Jesus. Like the people of Zechariah’s day, we need to look at the situation again, through the LORD’s eyes:

Then the angel who was speaking to me left, and another angel came to meet him and said to him: “Run, tell that young man, ‘Jerusalem will be a city without walls because of the great number of men and livestock in it. And I myself will be a wall of fire around it,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will be its glory within.’ (Zech. 2:3–5)

You see, God measures based on his presence, not outward appearance. In one blow Zechariah undermines the two things that had traditionally made Jerusalem so distinctive, its wall and its temple. Remember that when David first captured Jerusalem, the Jebusites boasted, ‘You will not get in here; even the blind and the lame can ward you off’ (2 Sam. 5:6). Yet David did capture that city in spite of its formidable walls; and the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the walls entirely. Yet now the LORD promises that he himself would be a wall of fire – able to expand out to accommodate more men and livestock, yet impossible to break down or pass through. Similarly, though Solomon’s temple had been the glory of Jerusalem, with people coming from all over the ancient world to see it, it too had been destroyed. Yet the LORD promises that he himself will be the glory within.

And this brings us back to the heart of the matter. For the doubt that underlies all the other doubts is this: Is God still angry with us? For the Israelites, God had demonstrated his anger through the exile; was returning to Jerusalem enough to secure again his favour? What about rebuilding the temple and reinstating the temple sacrifices? Would that be enough to placate God? They had tried all of these things, yet it did not seem to be ‘working’. They were still subject to foreign powers, surrounded by hostile neighbours, and stalled in their own efforts to rebuild the temple. Those were not the ‘signs’ of the LORD’s favour, surely!

Why are you here? Perhaps you are here to try and secure God’s blessing? Or perhaps this is where you refuel, gain new energy to go out and evangelise your colleagues, or be a better parent, or fight off temptation.

These are good things… but they are not primary things. They are not first things. Because repentance is not about turning from doing that to doing this instead. Repentance is about turning to relationship. Judah returned to Jerusalem; but the LORD says, ‘Return to me… ‘ We come to church to gain wisdom and encouragement in how to serve the LORD; but the LORD says, ‘Return to me… and I will walk that path with you.’ We meet with pastors and elders seeking help in overcoming sin and brokenness; but the LORD says, ‘Return to me… and I will provide the help that you need.’ The LORD desires repentance that leads to relationship, not just proximity or service.

The trouble is that we really suck at this kind of repentance. We’re not comfortable entering into relationship with God because we sense our inadequacy. Deep down we know that we don’t really deserve this kind of blessing … and we are right. We don’t deserve it. So, like the prodigal son, we come up with a plan to earn back our Father’s favour: ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ (Luke 15:18–19). We secretly think, ‘Restored relationship is too good to be true,’ … but there we are only half right. It surely is good, but it is also true!

It is true because Jesus Christ repented on our behalf.

Did you ever wonder why Jesus needed to be baptised by John the Baptist? The Apostle Paul said that ‘John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance’ (Acts 19:4). Jesus had no personal need of repentance, for he never sinned and never broke relationship with his Father. But he repented as our representative – like Moses representing the people to God on Mount Sinai and repenting of their sin with the golden calf, though he himself had not sinned (Ex. 32:30-32) – and thus we receive the benefit of that perfect and lasting repentance.

Jesus is the perfect penitent. He returned to Jerusalem, but he did it in company with and obedience to his Father. Jesus returned to cleanse and pronounce judgment on the temple (Matt. 21:12-13, 18-21), but to him it was not a symbol of national pride or divine favour but ‘my Father’s house’ (Luke 2:49) as it had been since his youth. His goal was not the temple of God but the God of the temple. Jesus returned to Jerusalem knowing he could have had peace as a respected rabbi elsewhere, knowing that returning he would face hostility, torture and death. But remember his words, ‘not as I will, but as you will’ (Matt. 26:39). His repentance was always oriented upon his relationship with his Father.

As a result our imperfect repentance is gathered up into Jesus’ perfect repentance. The Father commands, ‘Return to me,’ and it is only by the representative repentance of the Son that we are able to do so. He repents on our behalf because we are not able to do it ourselves. This is the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ as the representative of mankind before God, whose perfect penitence covers over our imperfection. With Jesus, it is no longer simply ‘Return to me,’ but ‘Return with me.’

What does this mean for us – for you and for me?

For those who believe in Jesus it means we must live lives that reflect this kind of repentance, repentance oriented on relationship. Repentance is not something we do once and tick off our ‘To Do’ list, because any relationship involving one or more sinful people will require a continual attitude of repentance to continue. Husbands and wives, is this the repentance you practise in your marriage? Parents, do you teach your children just to say ‘sorry,’ or to go further and seek restored relationship? When conflict arises at work do you seek reconciliation or simply to ‘live and let live’? In the church, do we practise repentance toward one another, so that we may ‘keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace’ (Eph. 4:3)? This is the kind of repentance that will constantly remind us of our need to repent before the LORD, and to prize relationship with him. It is also the best advertisement to those who do not yet know Jesus of the kind of relationship that he wants to have with them.

For those who have not yet believed in Jesus, today is the day when you need to repent and return to your Father by trusting in Jesus. Zechariah’s urgency in the remainder of chapter 2 is directed at you:

“Come! Come! Flee from the land of the north,” declares the LORD, “for I have scattered you to the four winds of heaven,” declares the LORD.

“Come, O Zion! Escape, you who live in the Daughter of Babylon!” For this is what the LORD Almighty says: “After he has honored me and has sent me against the nations that have plundered you — for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye — I will surely raise my hand against them so that their slaves will plunder them. Then you will know that the LORD Almighty has sent me. (Zech. 2:6–9)

Those who remain unrepentant face disaster, for a day is coming when the Lord will return regardless of whether we do or not. But the results will be vastly different depending on whether or not we have repented and entered into relationship with him. Jesus spoke of that day and warned that there will be many who seek blessing on that day because of the many good things they had done – after all, hadn’t they returned to Jerusalem and built the temple, the church? But on that day Jesus himself will say, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matt. 7:23). On that day, the opportunity for repentance will be gone; no longer will it be ‘Return to me,’ but, ‘Away from me.’

Is this you? Perhaps, even now, you are thinking of some reason why you cannot or should not repent today. ‘I just need to succeed in my job, or raise my family, or care for my parents.’ Jesus says, ‘Return to me, and we will do those things together.’ ‘But you don’t know what a mess I’ve made of my life – my addictions, my violence, my debts, my broken relationships.’ Jesus says, ‘Return to me, and we will face those things together.’ There are no excuses.

Friends, Jesus left his throne in heaven to enter into a broken and sinful world. And by his presence he transforms them to be something new and beautiful, a new creation, a new kingdom that encompasses all nations.

“Shout and be glad, O Daughter of Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you,” declares the LORD. “Many nations will be joined with the LORD in that day and will become my people. I will live among you and you will know that the LORD Almighty has sent me to you. The LORD will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land and will again choose Jerusalem. Be still before the LORD, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.” (Zech. 2:10–13)

The promises to Israel – that they would be God’s people, in God’s place, under God’s rule – are fulfilled with the return of the king. Jesus Christ, the God-Man, left heaven and came to earth; will you return to him?

Prayer

Will you pray with me?

Father, we acknowledge that we are guilty of looking at what the world has and wanting it for ourselves. We see those around us who are successful, attractive, and influential, and we think, ‘I wish I was more like that.’ Yet in so doing we overlook the fact that they are far from you. Jesus said, ‘What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?’ (Mark 8:36) Lord, we repent of our materialism and covetousness. Fix our eyes firmly on Jesus, our greatest treasure, who comes to us in mercy, and who will one day return once more to bring overflowing prosperity and comfort (Zech. 1:17).

In our earthly relationships, Lord, we are guilty of avoiding conflict to maintain a pseudo-‘peace’. We have the opportunity to speak your name but draw back because it might cause us trouble. We avoid being known as Christians, for fear of either ‘rocking the boat.’ Or perhaps we worry about the standard of conduct we will be held to as ambassadors of Christ, a standard we feel unwilling or unable to uphold. Forgive us, Lord, and drive us back to the cross and the empty tomb. Jesus returned to Jerusalem knowing that it would bring him suffering and death, yet he also knew that it was the way to eternal peace in the presence of God. Teach us to trust in him and to follow his path – the way of suffering and death that leads to life.

Forgive us also, Lord, of our habit of measuring the work of the kingdom by the standards of the world. We find it all too easy to measure our church according to numbers – how many attend, how much is raised, how many are sent – and lose sight of your presence (or lack thereof) in our midst. Let us not be like the elder brother so caught up in the numbers – an inheritance squandered – that he missed the joy of his father in welcoming his lost brother home. Give us hearts that rejoice in every person who turns to Christ.

Finally, Lord, for those who have decided to embark upon this life of repentance, we pray that you would draw them deep into relationship with yourself. May they be filled with an insatiable desire for more of you in every aspect of their life. Let them always look to Jesus as both the exemplar and the enabler of the life they are to live.

Amen.

Bibliography

Boda, Mark J. Return to Me : A Biblical Theology of Repentance. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2015.

Endnotes

1. For an excellent exposition of the theme of repentance throughout the Bible, see Mark J. Boda, Return to Me : A Biblical Theology of Repentance (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2015).
2. Exod. 35:35; 38:23.
3. 1 Kgs. 7:14; 2 Chron. 24:12.

Last week, Tim challenged that if we want to see the lost saved we must first commit to being a church where Jesus rules. Together we stood with him and affirmed, ‘Jesus reigns’.

But what does that look like? Should our church look more like the early church or the church down the road? How do we balance the elements of the Great Commission – going, making disciples, baptising, teaching – in the life of our church? Where should we invest our resources? And what about your life and my life? Should I be a mechanic or a missionary, a teacher or a typist, a barista or a barrister? If we want to be a church who can truthfully say that ‘Jesus reigns’, we have so many areas of our individual and corporate lives that we must give over to him. Each of us must be able to say ‘Jesus reigns’ over my finances, my relationships, my work, my pets, my ministry, my commute, my body, my family, my house, my car, my hobbies.

This is a daunting challenge. But it is not a new one. Rather, it is a challenge the church has been facing since its very earliest days. Take the church in Galatia, for example. During his two visits to their area (Acts 16:6; 18:23), the Apostle Paul had taught them about Christ crucified (Gal. 3:1) and called them to acknowledge that Jesus reigns; but now, in Paul’s absence, they were trying to apply his teaching to their individual and corporate life… with mixed results.

As so often happens, some well-meaning people had showed up offering a plan to solve all their problems. The best thing to do, they said, was to adopt the the Jewish law, the Torah, known to us today as the Old Testament. The first step would be for the males to be circumcised, the sign of the covenant given to Abraham. Then they ought to obey the 613 commandments prescribed in the law. In so doing, they would secure the blessings promised in that covenant to Abraham and would be able to live righteous lives in the favour of God.

I can understand the attraction. Though difficult, here was a concrete plan that could be followed, with an ironclad promise of blessing and righteousness to follow, a plan with more than a thousand years’ track record! For those of us trained to set SMART goals – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bounded – this seems like just the ticket. Is this what West Penno needs in order to follow through on our commitment to be a church where Jesus rules, made up of people in whom Jesus reigns?

Well, the Apostle Paul would shout an unequivocal, ‘No!’ In fact, when he heard that the Galatians were seriously considering this, he was all but apoplectic. Though chapter 5 is the first time the specific issue of circumcision comes into focus, it is clear that he has been building a case against reliance upon law observance (including circumcision) since the beginning of the epistle, calling it a ‘different gospel':

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. (Gal. 1:6–7)
In chapters 1 and 2 he defends his credentials as a teacher of the definitive gospel, tracing its origins to the risen Christ himself and commending it as consistent with the teaching of the other apostles. In chapters 3 and 4 he argues that the blessings promised to Abraham are not contingent upon observance of the law, but rather upon faith in the one who made the promises. In fact, by the end of chapter 4 he is comparing law observance (represented by Mount Sinai, where the law was given to Moses) to slavery (Gal. 4:21-5:1).

As Christians, he says, we are not meant for slavery but for freedom (Gal. 5:1).

What was the problem? Wasn’t the law God’s word? Isn’t the law a good thing?

The key problem in Paul’s eyes is not with the law itself but with way the Galatians were intending to use it. They were trying to be ‘justified by law’, to make themselves righteous before God by their own actions and thereby achieve some sort of leverage over God. They were like my son, Aedan, when I ask him to help with tidying the house. He wants an itemised list of things he needs to clean up and a definite description of the reward to be gained when he does before he will sign on to do the work. That way, he can point to the list with neat ticks next to each item and demand his reward… and he can exclude any tasks that he really doesn’t want to do, or at least negotiate for better rates up front!

Listen to Paul’s description of the consequences of this kind of attitude:

Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. (Gal. 5:2–4)

Christ died in a free act of grace in order to secure their adoption – and ours! – as sons and daughters of God. Trying to ‘earn’ their way into the family of Abraham by observing the law was redundant. Why work to become a child of the servant, when you are already a child of the master?

Worse than just being pointless, though, this behaviour nullified Jesus’ sacrifice on their behalf. It was like they were saying, ‘Thanks, but we don’t really need you after all; we can do it ourselves’. They became ‘alienated from Christ’ and ‘fallen away from grace’ (v. 4). You want to be pretty sure of yourself before you do that. If you are swept out to sea when swimming at the beach, you don’t tell the lifesaver, ‘It’s OK, I can swim back.’ You get in that boat and stay in it until you are back at shore. Similarly, if you’re going to count on your obedience to the law for salvation, you’d better be sure you can obey the entire law else it will not go well for you. And I have to tell you that the odds are not good: in all of history, only one man has achieved this feat, and that is Jesus himself.

Circumcision is not a popular sales pitch these days. But there are plenty of people who hold up their adherence to some portion of scripture as evidence of their right to be respected as ‘good, moral people’. For some, it is the Ten Commandments, commands towards social justice, the so-called Golden Rule, or even Jesus’ ethical teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7). This last one is particularly ironic, because it misses the key point of Jesus’ teaching, which is that what is required transcends what is written down in the law.

“You have heard it said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt. 5:27-28)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person.” (Matt 5:38–39)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” (Matt 5:43–45)

Bare law observance would have us avoiding adultery, limiting ourselves to proportionate retribution when we are wronged and loving our neighbours; but Jesus demands much more than that. The law’s requirements fall short of Jesus’ expectations. Keeping the law may make you righteous in your own eyes, but not in God’s eyes. The law by itself is not enough.

So what alternative does Paul propose then? What does ‘freedom’ look like to him?

But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (Gal. 5:5–6, emphasis added)

There is a righteousness for us, for which we hope; a true righteousness in God’s eyes, not just our own. But it does not come to us by our efforts; rather, it is the free gift of God. And that righteousness is intimately bound up with the work of the Holy Spirit, for it is through his agency that this hope is realised.

So what is the relationship between the Christian, the Spirit and the Law?

The first thing to understand is how Christians come to be in possession of the Holy Spirit, and to do this we must turn to Galatians 3:

All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.” The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, “The man who does these things will live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. (Gal 3:10–14, emphasis added)

The logic is clear. Jesus died on the Cross (i.e. was hung on a tree) to redeem us from the cursed necessity of continual perfect obedience to the law. And he did so for a purpose: that we might receive the promise of the Spirit. Paul puts the same thought in different words in chapter 4:

But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. (Gal 4:4–7, emphasis added)

Once again, it is the work of Jesus Christ in redeeming us that is decisive. It is by this redemption that we become sons of God. Paul uses ‘sons’ here not to exclude women but to emphasise inheritance, for it was sons and not daughters who inherited in his culture. Male and female, if we belong to Christ we are sons of God in the sense that we are heirs. And because we are heirs we receive the Spirit. This means we are no longer slaves but free.

We who are in Christ are heirs of God, we have the Holy Spirit and we are free. And it is all because of the completed work of Christ. His sacrifice on our behalf is what makes it all possible.

So we receive the Holy Spirit because of Christ, but how does that help us?

Think of an athlete who has broken his back. He needs a surgeon to address the brokenness within him, or else any attempt to exercise will make things worse rather than better. This is the work of Christ in redeeming us from our sinfulness. If you are not a Christian, this is where you must start: call upon Jesus, put your trust in him, and he will redeem you from your brokenness and receive you into the family of God.

But once the surgery is done, the athlete will also need someone to coach him on how to walk again, let alone run, and this is the role of the Holy Spirit.

Some of you have noticed that I have been trying to lose some weight. Part of that effort has involved me taking up running. Never having been a runner, I decided to follow the so-called ‘couch to 5k’ plan to get me started, and that has been really helpful. I will never be an olympic athlete – unless they finally get around to making procrastination an olympic sport! – but the plan has helped me to improve. However it can’t tell me everything. It can’t tell me how to adapt to wet weather, or illness, or family travel commitments, or injury. Nor can it help me identify or address my specific weaknesses in gait or posture etc. It is a basic plan, general enough to be useful to a majority of people. Much like the law.

The law, used for its intended purposes, is good. But there are some things it is just not designed to do. Though it may set out relevant principles, the law cannot tell us how to serve our community here in West Pennant Hills; or whether we ought to pursue IVF; or when to seek specialised care for our ageing parents. It cannot produce in us the kind of life that Jesus calls for in the Sermon on the Mount. Much as we would like a black and white response plan, that is not the way God works. Instead, he wants us to rely on our coach; for it is the coach who sees most clearly and can come up with the right plan at the right time.

That coach is the Holy Spirit.

To be sure, the Spirit uses the law as one of his key training methods. As Christians, we need to be familiar with scripture, both Old and New Testaments, for the Spirit will show us there many things such as the nature and character of God; the sinfulness of men and women; and the awesome grace found in Jesus Christ alone. But the Spirit will also help us to grow by sending us challenges in the form of contentious coworkers, the loss of a loved one, financial crisis or illness. These things are to the Spirit what hill running and interval training are to a running coach. They help to build speed and stamina for the marathon that is the Christian life (Rom. 5:3-5). They serve to grow in us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control… among other things.

In other words, by his work the Holy Spirit remakes us in the image of Christ. Christ himself was all of these things, and we need look no further than the cross for evidence. His love, kindness and goodness were proved on the cross where he died for his enemies (Rom. 5:8). Hebrews tells us it was ‘for the joy set before him,’ that he, ‘endured the cross’ (Heb. 12:2). In the garden of Gethsemane he disciplined himself to obedience to God’s will rather than his own (Luke 22:42), demonstration of his faithfulness and self-control. In gentleness and peace he made arrangements for the care of his mother even as he died (John 19:26-27), and sought forgiveness for those who were crucifying him (Luke 23:34).

And he did all this by the power of the Holy Spirit, who came down and remained on him (John 1:32-33).

John the Baptist makes a special point of the fact that the Holy Spirit remained on Jesus, for this was unheard of. In the Old Testament accounts of the Holy Spirit coming upon someone – Moses, Saul, David, and many of the prophets and judges – it was usually for a specific time or purpose. But with Jesus, the Holy Spirit came down and remained. He was different from everyone who went before… but not after. For as we already saw, by his obedience and sacrifice Christ ensured that the same Spirit would come upon us when we put our trust in him (Gal. 3:14; 4:6).

The Spirit who remained on and empowered Christ is the same Spirit who now lives in our hearts; our coach has serious credibility!

This is not to say that there is nothing required on your part. An athlete can have the best coach in the world, but if he doesn’t run when the coach says, ‘run,’ and rest when he says, ‘rest,’ the coach will do him no good. The point of the fruit metaphor is not that we sit back and relax whilst the fruit magically grows; rather it highlights our dependence on the Spirit. The type and quantity of fruit is determined by the nature of the tree and the quality of its roots, rather than by any special effort on the part of the tree. If we want to live a life that is pleasing to God we must depend on the Spirit to teach us how (Rom. 14:17-18). Paul describes this as ‘walk[ing] in step with the Spirit’ (Gal. 5:25), and the image is of walking in a line, following the Spirit. He leads, and we follow.

So, brothers and sisters, let me ask you: Is the fruit of the Spirit growing in your life? Do you see growing evidence of love, joy and peace? Is your day-to-day characterised by peace, patience and kindness? Is the Holy Spirit prompting you in the areas of goodness, gentleness and self-control? If not, the answer is not some new regime of law-observance but to once again cast yourself on the Holy Spirit, depending on him to lead you. When he leads you in the direction of reconciliation with that co-worker you can’t stand or prompts you to spend more time with your family; when he convicts you of your lustful or envious thoughts or calls you to step out in faith as a missionary; when he brings you into a time of suffering or grief; when he does those things you have a choice. You can choose to go your own way and follow your own plan; or you can choose to follow him and in so doing grow more like Christ. You can walk away from the Spirit, or you can walk in step with him.

And as we choose to walk in step with the Spirit, we will find that we naturally do the things that the law commands. We will do more! We will leave lust not just avoid adultery. We will seek reconciliation rather than revenge. As the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control of Christ grows in your life, you will find that you naturally, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ (Gal 5:14)… and your enemy as well! In chapter 6, Paul calls this ‘fulfill[ing] the law of Christ’ (Gal. 6:2).

It is only in the power of the Holy Spirit that we can do this.

Throughout the month of June, then, we will look more specifically at the ways in which the Holy Spirit leads us to fulfil the law. We will explore his role in overcoming the sinful nature (week 2); in growing in our knowledge of and love for God (week 3); and in serving one another in love (week 4).

And as we do, may he teach us to ‘keep in step with the Spirit’ so we can truly say, ‘Jesus reigns in my life and our church by his Spirit’.

Let’s pray:

Father God, of the many wonderful gifts brought to us through the death and resurrection of your son, none are as precious to us as your Holy Spirit. We rejoice that we have a counsellor to coach us in living a life that is full of righteousness, peace and joy, and pleasing to God and approved by men. Thank you that he guides us into all truth, speaking to us what he hears from you. May he continue to bring glory to you by his work in and through us (John 16:7-15; Rom 14:17-18).

For our church here in West Pennant Hills, I pray that you would grant us a spirit of unity among ourselves as we follow Jesus Christ, so that with one heart and mouth we may glorify you, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And may you, the God of hope, fill us with all joy and peace as we trust in you, so that we may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 15:5, 13).

Finally, for any here this morning who are depending on their own righteousness, I pray that you would convict them of their folly. Show them that, no matter how good or moral they may consider themselves, such righteousness is as filthy rags when compared to that which is freely available in Christ Jesus (Is. 64:6). Convict them of their guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment (John 16:8-11). And draw them to yourself, so that they too may receive the gift of the Holy Spirit promised to Abraham but now available to all because of the finished work of Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:14; 4:4-7).

Amen.

Last week we started a new sermon series looking at the ways the Holy Spirit enables us to live a life that not only observes but fulfils the law. He describes this kind of life in terms of ‘freedom':

‘It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.’ (Gal 5:1)

Christians are set free from the need for continual perfect obedience to the law of God because of the finished work of Jesus Christ, which in turn brings about the gift of the Holy Spirit to those who put their trust in him. Christians are free in the truest sense.

But ‘free’ is probably not the word that springs to mind when the world thinks about Christianity, probably because they have different expectations about what ‘freedom’ means. Consider these common definitions:

• President Roosevelt spoke in 1941 of ‘freedom of speech everywhere, freedom of worship everywhere, freedom from want everywhere and freedom from fear everywhere’;¹
• Rolling Stones sang: “I’m free to do what I want any old time / I’m free to do what I want any old time / So love me hold me love me hold me / I’m free any old time to get what I want”;
• Every year, thousands of teenagers complete their HSC and go off on ‘Schoolies’ vacations to celebrate their newfound ‘freedom’.

Although this was probably one of his earliest letters, Paul was already a seasoned pastor by the time he wrote Galatians. He knew that when you tell people they are ‘free from law’ some just want to go out and break all the laws that previously bound them… just because they can! But what if there is no law to start with? For gentiles such as the Galatians, the limitations on morality prescribed by the laws of the Roman Empire were minimal. Blood and brutality in the circus, paedophilia, homosexuality, slavery, orgies… pretty much anything went. Were the Galatians ‘free’, then, to continue life as they had before?

According to the Apostle Paul, we must understand that freedom is either good or bad depending on the nature of the one set free. He describes two very different natures, the sinful nature and the spiritual nature. And each nature has its own set of desires that are completely opposite to one another and therefore in conflict (Gal. 5:17).

On the one hand, we have what Paul calls the ‘sinful nature’. He does not spell out the desires that emanate from the sinful nature, but let’s see if we can infer them from the acts and behaviours that Paul lists as characteristic of the sinful nature:

‘The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.’ (Gal 5:19–21)

These acts fall into a couple of broad categories. ‘Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery’ are all acts of sexual self-gratification. Pornography, adultery, masturbation, sexual fantasies, prostitution, molestation – all of these things are about how it feels for me, my needs and desires, what I can get out of it.

Idolatry and witchcraft, on the other hand, are about spiritual self-determination. Idolatry is the worship as ‘god’ of anyone or anything other than the triune God revealed in Scripture. I may call it ‘god': such as Allah, Mother Nature or Buddha. Or it may simply take the place of a god in my life, as I offer it my time, energy and money in worship: work, family, wealth, sport, health, beauty or whatever. I choose a ‘god’ that serves my needs and desires. Similarly, witchcraft is an attempt to coerce the spirit world into doing my bidding, so that I get what I want.

Next comes ‘hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy’. Here the goal is self-exaltation. In any group, what I want to be first and most important. It’s my opinion that matters and you’d better listen to me and join my side or else.

Finally, ‘drunkenness’ and ‘orgies’ are about self-indulgence. In this category we might put addictions of all kinds: drugs, alcohol, gambling, food, entertainment, sport, fitness or whatever. It’s all about the rush as your horse crosses the line first or the guilty pleasure of that block of chocolate after a bad day or the euphoria as you get high. It’s about the way it makes you feel.

Self-gratification, self-determination, self-exaltation, self-indulgence; do you see the pattern? Where the sinful nature is dominant, everything flows towards the self. It is about what I can get, what is due to me, my needs, my desires. And the worst of it is that we are all born with a sinful nature. It pervades our sexuality and spirituality. It is the ever-present but never-welcome shadow across our relationships. Its siren-like call draws us onto the rocks of substance abuse and addiction. When you snap at your kids over breakfast or talk about your colleague behind their back or blow your savings on the pokies that is your sinful nature at work.

And yet you are still responsible – for it is you doing those things. You cannot disavow your sinful nature, for it is part of you. More than responsible; you are culpable. Every single one of those acts carries a death sentence – as Paul wrote to the Romans, ‘the wages of sin is death’ (Rom. 6:23) – and you and I have earned that wage over and over and over again.

The sinful nature also encompasses the effects of the sins of others against us. According to some Australian statistics 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men are sexually abused before the age of 16.² In other words, in a room of 50 adults, we might estimate 12 people to have been victims of sexual abuse. We could cite similarly disturbing figures in relation to domestic violence,³ robbery⁴ and so on. Though each survivor will have their own unique response to both the sin and the sinner, there are common themes: anger; sorrow; anxiety; depression; shame. Though they are not the ones to have sinned, nevertheless the sins of someone else have brought brokenness to their life.

The sinful nature has a lot to answer for.

In stark contrast is what Paul calls the ‘fruit of the Spirit’:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Gal. 5:22–23)

The desires of the sinful nature focus exclusively on the self, but the fruit of the Spirit embraces God and others. The love grown by the Holy Spirit is love for God and love for others. The joy grown by the Spirit is joy in God that overflows toward others. We serve a patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, merciful, and self-controlled God, and so we manifest those qualities to everyone around us as witnesses of his work in us.

We will look at the fruit in more detail over the next two weeks. But for now, it is enough to note that this is a much more attractive list than the last one! That is the kind of world we wish we lived in, the kind of life we wish we lived. And we are meant to think so. It is like one of those Jenny Craig posters that show before and after photos with the caption ‘I lost 30kg in 16 weeks’. We are meant to be amazed at the difference and – crucially – to ask the question, ‘How can I do the same?’

So, how do we move ourselves and our world from perpetrating the acts of the sinful nature to exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit? I want to share with you two plans that don’t work, and one that does.

The first plan is the one put forward by the advocates for the Jewish law. ‘Even if Paul is right and the law can’t help you become a Christian,’ they would say, ‘you still need the law to avoid immoral behaviour and live a life pleasing to God once you are a Christian.’

This is a pretty common response in modern-day Australia as well. We look at issues like global poverty, sex trafficking, domestic violence, drunkenness, welfare cheating and drugs and we say, ‘We need better laws; our government should do something.’

Another popular plan – now as then – involves the will. You need to resolve to control your temper, speak kindly, go to the gym, give up alcohol, stop looking at pornography and so on. And then discipline yourself to follow through on these resolutions come what may. You must be like Boxer, the cart horse from Orwell’s Animal Farm, whose solution to every adversity was, ‘I will work harder.’ And so we enrol in twelve-step programs, seek counselling, change our diet, read the latest research and generally invest all our efforts towards improving ourselves.

These plans might work if the problem was simply our actions that need changing. But Paul says it’s bigger than that; it is a question of desires.

For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. (Gal. 5:17)

Desires by themselves are not bad. C. S. Lewis wrote that,

[I]t would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.⁵

One of the tragic ironies of the sinful nature is that it longs for the fruit of the Spirit, but it settles for counterfeit versions instead. We seek love and find lust; we desire peace and settle for apathy; merriment and drunkenness substitute for joy; and so on. We want the fruit but we want it on our terms. We want to be in control. So we ‘agree to disagree’ instead of seeking reconciliation, otherwise we might have to admit we’re wrong. We choose ‘gods’ we can control – work, family, hobbies – to offer our ‘sacrifices’ of time and money, rather than submitting to a God who might ask more of us than we are ready to give.

Law and will are not very good at dealing with desire. The best they can do is to invoke some deeper desire, usually either a desire for respect or to avoid punishment. They cannot by themselves eliminate the sinful nature, only contain its symptoms. A study done some years ago found that nearly 60% of smokers undergoing surgery for heart disease continue to smoke after their procedure.⁶ Their symptoms were dealt with, but not their nature or desires. And its the same when we try to treat the sinful nature by applying law.

Further, both plans rely on us for fulfilment, and that is bad for two reasons. First, anything that we can do we can also undo. I’m sure that many of us have gone on a diet, only to find ourselves drifting back into old eating habits and gaining weight again. If my deliverance from the sinful nature relies on the continued application of my will then what happens when I inevitably screw up?
Second, anything we do is tainted by our sinful nature. A friend of mine carefully prepared a baking tray ready for baking. However, in the process of taking out the garbage his wife managed to drip ‘bin juice’ into the baking tray. I can’t imagine there was a vast quantity of ‘bin juice’; yet just a little was enough to spoil the effort!⁷ Would you drink a glass of water with just one drop of poison in it? Would you wash your dishes in a muddy puddle? So it is when we try to cleanse ourselves of our sinful nature by the exercise of our sinful nature.

Are you doomed, then, to a life where ‘you do not do what you want’ (Gal. 5:17b)? Not at all! For though any plan that depends on us is doomed to failure, there is a plan which is completely dependable. You see God was not surprised by the sinful nature. It is not as though he saw Eve committing the first sin and thought, ‘Whoops, didn’t see that coming.’ Rather, even before the creation of the world,⁸ God had a plan ready, and that plan was to send his Son, Jesus.

Jesus lived a life of perfect obedience to God; there was no sinful nature within him. Yet the world rejected and killed him. They crucified him, killing him in the most painful, shameful way they knew how. And, though he could have set himself free,⁹ Jesus endured the mocking, the beating, the agony and, ultimately, ‘became obedient to death – even death on a cross’ (Phil. 2:8). Because he knew what they did not: that cross was the only way that we might be delivered from our sinful nature.

Paul puts it like this: ‘Those who belong to Christ have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires’ (Gal. 5:24), and it is on the cross of Christ that it has been crucified.

Do you ‘belong to Christ’? You can, you know. He invites you to come to him, to give up the pretence of being able to deal with your own sinful nature and instead trust him to deal with it. Remember, ‘the wages of sin is death’ (Rom. 6:23), and so your sinful nature must die; if it is not crucified on the cross of Christ then you will die with it.

Unfortunately crucifixion, whilst a certain death, is also a lingering death.¹⁰ Sadly, we do not immediately achieve sinless perfection when we turn to Christ; in fact, we will not be perfect until Jesus makes us so at his return. Too often, we hang around at the foot of the cross, to pity our sin, to long for its release. We need to learn to leave those sins there. We have crucified the flesh; we are never going to draw the nails.¹¹ The apostle wrote in another of his letters,

For if you live according to the sinful nature you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. (Rom. 8:13-14)

Or, to put it another way, if you are not crucifying sin, sin is crucifying you!¹² As Christians, we must not tolerate the acts of the sinful nature in our lives – whether or not they are included in the list Paul gives here. The desires of the sinful nature are in fierce, pitched battle with the desires of the Spirit. Just as we are reliant upon Christ for our salvation, we depend upon the Spirit in the fight against the sinful nature.

Paul says we must ‘walk in step with the Spirit’. The image is a military one – marching with the Spirit, following the Spirit’s leading and orders. So how do we ‘walk in step with the Spirit’ in this battle against the sinful nature?

Firstly, the Spirit helps us by convicting us of our sin. Sometimes we are too close to our sinfulness to see it for what it is. But the Spirit lives within us and is intimately aware of our sin. He shows us in the Bible how our thoughts and actions, our sins of commission and omission, fall short of what God requires. When he does, our response must be to take it back to the cross of Christ, confess it and repent of it. It is progress, rather than perfection, that characterises the life of the Christian.

What is the Holy Spirit showing you today? Is your mind flooded with the thoughts and attitudes of the sinful nature? Anger? Resentment? Envy? Cynicism? Apathy? Is he convicting of things that you ought not to have done, words you ought not to have spoken? What about things that you should have done but have not? Are there relationships where you ought to be seeking forgiveness and reconciliation?

We are granted freedom in the Spirit to continually crucify the sinful nature upon the cross of Christ. We ‘walk in step with the Spirit’ by confessing and repenting of those things which he shows us spring from the sinful nature.

Secondly, the Spirit helps us in the battle by replacing our sinful nature with a new, spiritual nature. He gives us new life, life in the Spirit after the death of the sinful nature. As I said last week, we are like a man with a broken spine. He needs a surgeon to deal with the brokenness within him; but he also needs someone to teach him to walk again, to walk with him as he mends, to push him when he needs encouragement and stop him when he needs to rest. Jesus Christ has granted us the freedom to walk the way we were always intended to walk. He has provided the means by which the sinful nature may be crucified. But he has also sent the Holy Spirit to teach us how to live in the light of that freedom and actually walk!

And as we walk, the fruit of the Spirit will manifest in our lives. Where the Spirit of God is, the fruit of the Spirit will grow. It may start small at first, but it will keep growing. And it will encompass all of the items in the list to some extent or another. The sinful nature is sometimes able to imitate one or two of these fruit, but never in any kind of balance. For example, some people seem happy and bubbly and are good at meeting new people, but are very unreliable and cannot keep friends. This is not real joy but just being an extrovert by nature. Some people seem very unflappable and unbothered but they are not kind or gentle. That is not real peace, but indifference and perhaps cynicism. It enables you to get through the difficulties of life without always being hurt, but it desensitises you and makes you much less approachable.¹³

But while the fruit grows naturally where the Spirit is, it would be a mistake to think that we are entirely passive in this process, for Paul also talks of walking in step with the Spirit.¹⁴ We rely upon him to provide the direction and depend upon him to sustain us as we walk, providing all that we need to do so, but in the end we must walk. We are dependent, yes, but not passive.

So, when the Spirit shows us the good work that we ought to be doing – caring for refugees, sharing the gospel with coworkers, feeding the homeless, teaching our children about Jesus, serving the church – we must act. We will have much more to say over the next two weeks about how that walk looks, particularly the ways in which it shapes our relationships with God and with other people.

In God’s grace, and by the completed work of Christ, we are granted freedom in the Spirit to turn from the sinful nature and instead walk in step with the Spirit. You have a choice: will you walk with him today?

Let’s pray:

Father God, I want to pray for all those among us struggling with the sinful nature… that is, I want to pray for all of us! Some here are captives of sin. Though they desire to do good, they find they cannot for they are held captive by their pride, anger, lust, apathy, ambition and addiction. Father, show us your mercy by delivering us from this captivity. Lead us to the foot of the cross where your Son died so that our sinful nature might be crucified with him. Proclaim to us the freedom to walk in step with your Holy Spirit, and so become more and more like Christ.

Others here are victims of sins not their own: violence, abuse, hate, neglect, bullying, conflict. Father of compassion and God of all comfort, comfort us in all our distress and brokenness. Lead us to the foot of the cross where your Son suffered all the anger, disgrace and shame that a sinful world could throw at him, so that just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so too our comfort might overflow.¹⁵ Grant us a new life, life by your Holy Spirit, life free from resentment, guilt or shame, for those things have been crucified with Christ.

Please God fill my brothers and sisters in Christ with the knowledge of your will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. May they live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of you, being strengthened with all power according to your glorious might so that they may have great endurance and patience. Let them joyfully give thanks to you, the one who has qualified them to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. Praise you Lord God that you have rescued them from the dominion of darkness and brought them into the kingdom of the Son you love, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.¹⁶

Amen.

Bibliography

Keller, Timothy J. Galatians for You. Epsom, Surrey: Good Book Company, 2013.

Lewis, C. S. The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.

Owen, John, Kelly M. Kapic, and Justin Taylor. Overcoming Sin & Temptation. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2006.

Stott, John R. W. The Message of Galatians. Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1984.

Endnotes

1. Cited in John R. W. Stott, The Message of Galatians (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1984), 139.
2. http://www.casa.org.au/casa_pdf.php?document=statistics
3. http://www.casa.org.au/casa_pdf.php?document=statistics
4. e.g. http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/facts/1-20/2013/2_profiles.html
5. C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 26.
6. “Most Smokers Continue to Light up after Heart Surgery,” American Heart Association, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/11/981112075613.htm.
7. cf. ‘“A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough” (Gal. 5:9).
8. 1 Pet. 1:20.
9. Matt. 26:53.
10. Stott, The Message of Galatians, 151.
11. Stott, The Message of Galatians, 152.
12. cf. John Owen: ‘[B]e killing sin or it will be killing you.’ John Owen, Kelly M. Kapic, and Justin Taylor, Overcoming Sin & Temptation (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2006), 50.
13. Timothy J. Keller, Galatians for You (Epsom, Surrey: Good Book Company, 2013), 141.
14. Stott, The Message of Galatians.
15. 2 Cor 1:3-5.
16. Col. 1:9–14.

On his journey to faith, and even for some time after he became a believer, C. S. Lewis struggled with the Biblical commands to praise God. Was God like the man seeking reassurance of his own virtue or wit; or the woman who requires constant affirmation of her beauty or intelligence? Does God need reminding of his power and might? Or does he just want to make sure his generosity and philanthropy are known by all?

Worst of all was the suggestion of the very silliest Pagan bargaining … More than once the Psalmists seemed to be saying ‘You like praise. Do this for me, and you shall have some.’ … It made one think what one least wanted to think. Gratitude to God, reverence to Him, obedience to Him, I thought I could understand; not this perpetual eulogy.¹

Lewis only overcame this difficulty when he realised that it is when we enjoy something that we spontaneously overflow with praise. Lovers praise their beloved and parents their children. We praise athletes, restaurants, musicians, cars, art, food, weather, actors, authors, holiday destinations, coffee, tradesmen… we live in a cacophony of praise! In Lewis’ own words,

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment… It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.²

More than that, we avidly invite others to join in that same praise: ‘Wasn’t that awesome? Isn’t she lovely? Does it get any better than this?’

In Psalm 103, we find David delighting in his God, and inviting others to join in doing the same. These invitations echo out in ever-widening circles, starting with his own soul and eventually encompassing the whole of heaven and earth.

1. Praise the LORD for his blessings to you

The first invitation David gives is to his own soul:

Praise the LORD, O my soul;
   all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, O my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins
   and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
   and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

     – Psalm 103:1–5

Why does David feel the need to summon his soul to praise? In spite of being one of the most prolific praisers in the entire Old Testament, David had his ‘up’ days and his ‘down’ days much like we do. No doubt, some days he sprang from his bed with a song on his lips;((e.g. Ps. 56:16; 92:2.)) other mornings, however, saw him hard pressed, on the run and fearing for his life.³

Perhaps that is your experience as well? Perhaps you woke up this morning eager to meet with God’s people and proclaim together his greatness, goodness, glory and grace. But maybe your enthusiasm was muted, crowded out by sickness, sorrow or sin. Even at Christmas time, traditionally a time of great joy and praise to God, there will be some who find it difficult to rejoice, as they contemplate the empty place at the dinner table or the uncertainty of the year ahead.

Whatever your starting point, David models for us a right response: praise the LORD! In inviting us to praise, he is neither naive, nor unsympathetic. After all, David himself endured great trials throughout his life: he lived on the run from Saul and, later, his own son, Absalom; several of his children died before he did; and the psalms are full of his desperate prayers for deliverance from his enemies. Yet in this psalm, he invites his soul to consider his blessings rather than his trials. He does not ask for anything but focuses on benefits already received.

Chief among these benefits is the one he mentions first: God has revealed himself (v. 1). Wherever you see LORD in all uppercase, this represents God’s covenant name, the name by which he chose to reveal himself to Moses and hence to Israel. This is the ‘holy name’ which David’s ‘inmost being’ must praise. David uses this name nine times in this psalm.⁴ There can be no mistake about which God David praises: ‘Praise Yahweh, O my soul… Praise Yahweh, O my soul… Praise Yahweh, you his angels… Praise Yahweh, all his heavenly hosts…. Praise Yahweh, all his works… Praise Yahweh, O my soul’.

By revealing his name to Israel, God placed himself in a special relationship with them, what we call a ‘covenant’ relationship. And this relationship carried with it many benefits. David wrote elsewhere, ‘For the sake of your name, O LORD [Yahweh], forgive my iniquity, though it is great.’ (Psa 25:11). Centuries later, the prophet Ezekiel would write, ‘You will know that I am the LORD [Yahweh], when I deal with you for my name’s sake and not according to your evil ways’ (Ezek 20:44). Note the close connection between the name of the LORD, Yahweh, and forgiveness.

The name of the LORD is also closely associated with healing. Yahweh spoke to David’s son, Solomon, and promised that ‘if my people, who are called by my name [Yahweh], will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.’ (2 Chr 7:14). Similarly, the prophet Malachi promised, ‘But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings’ (Mal 4:2). Is it any wonder that David praises Yahweh for healing and forgiveness received in his name?

In verse 3, David mentions Yahweh ‘redeeming [his] life from the pit’. Perhaps he has in mind a literal pit, such as that in which Joseph’s brothers tossed him, and from which he was ‘redeemed’ for the price of twenty shekels, or like when the Israelites under Saul hid in caves and pits and cisterns to escape the Philistine army (1 Sam. 13:6). Elsewhere in the psalms, however, this same language is used to describe death itself.⁵ Either way, what is certain is that the pit is not a good place to be… and that Yahweh redeems his people from it. Praise the LORD!

In place of whatever destruction is to be found in the pit, David says he has been ‘crowned’ with ‘love and compassion’. Rather than death, he received not only life but life lived in the love and favour of God: he overcame his enemies, he was raised king (literally crowned!) over all Israel, he married and had children, and he lived to see his son crowned king after him.

2. Praise the LORD for his patience with his people

Then, from verse 6, David starts to consider the blessings of God to his people. Yahweh revealed himself not just to Moses but to the people of Israel (v. 7). Yet Israel consistently disappointed him. Repeatedly through their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, they demonstrated the disobedience, idolatry, and lack of faith in Yahweh’s provision. Moses warned them of the consequences that would follow if they kept on like this in his final sermon before they entered the Promised Land, saying,

See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse— the blessing if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today; the curse if you disobey the commands of the LORD your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.
   – Deut. 11:26–28

You see covenants are not all about blessings; they also come with obligations, and failure to meet those obligations results in curse rather than blessing. Yet, in spite of this warning, Israel continued in their disobedience, earning the curse⁶ of the LORD many times over. David himself had committed adultery and murder. They all stood accused and under God’s wrath. Yet, astonishingly, David can write,

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.
   – Psalm 103:8–10

David himself was witness to this in a very graphic way. He once ordered that a census be taken of his fighting men (2 Sam 24), though was later conscience-stricken saying, ‘”I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, O LORD, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant.”‘ (v. 10). God gave him a choice of punishments: three years of famine; three months of fleeing his enemies; or three days of plague. David chose the plague, saying, ‘”Let us fall into the hands of the LORD, for his mercy is great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.”‘ (v. 14). Indeed, Yahweh demonstrated his mercy by relenting before the destruction of Jerusalem was complete (v. 16).

Are we not in the same boat? If God were to repay us according to what we have done, who of us would escape judgment? Yet God is patient with us. How can this be so? Why does God refrain from pouring out the curses promised by Moses for those who are disobedient?

David attributes this mercy to Yahweh’s love for his people.

3. Praise the LORD for he loves those who fear him

David describes this love using a series of analogies:

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
   so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
   so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
   so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;

     – Psalm 103:11–13

In Hebrew thought, heaven is unimaginably far above the earth; so it is with Yahweh’s love. Can anything be further from the east than the west? Yahweh removes transgressions that far from us. Is there a greater compassion than a parent’s for a child? That is the compassion Yahweh has for those who fear him.

What is even more astounding, Yahweh offers an eternal love to those who are only temporary. Usually our love is in proportion to the amount of time we spend with someone: casual acquaintances get only a little love, whereas our family gets a lot. From Yahweh’s vantage point as eternal God, the years that I spend on earth are like bumping into a stranger on a train. Yet in that relative instant, he pours out his love upon me, upon you, upon us, upon our children and upon our children’s children!

On the other hand, Yahweh’s love is not indiscriminate. It is offered to those ‘who fear him’ (vv. 11, 13, 17), ‘who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts’ (v. 18). And this presents a problem because, as we have already seen, Israel was notoriously bad at doing any of these things. How can Yahweh’s love be said to be ‘everlasting’ if it is only for those who ‘fear’, ‘keep’ and ‘remember’ – as Israel often did not? What if we can’t meet the covenant obligations and so incur – again! – the covenant curses?

This problem is answered by Jesus Christ. Jesus was the only one who ever feared Yahweh perfectly throughout all of his life, who remembered Yahweh’s covenant and obeyed his commands. You see, Yahweh was so determined to demonstrate his faithfulness in delivering the rewards of the covenant that he took upon himself the requirements of the covenant also. According to Paul,

[N]o matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. (2 Cor 1:20)

The promises of Yahweh to his people are ultimately and fully given to Christ as the fulfiller of the covenant. All that remains for us is to speak the ‘Amen’ – ‘I agree’, or ‘let it be so’ – to the glory of God.

When we realise that, the language of this psalm becomes even more significant. ‘As far as the heavens are above the earth’, that’s how far Jesus came to demonstrate the love of Yahweh. The Father withheld compassion from his one and only Son – in Gethsemane and on the cross – in order to show compassion to us. Jesus took away our sins, not just from east to west, but all the way down into death. Yahweh treated Jesus as our sins deserved, repaid him according to our iniquities. No longer does Yahweh accuse, because the curse has fallen on Jesus instead of on us. It is not our faithfulness to the covenant but Jesus’ that guarantees the covenant blessings. Paul would later write that,

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” (Gal 3:13)

The curse fell on Jesus and we are redeemed from the pit.

4. Praise the LORD for his kingdom is over all

But there is another fundamental problem: how can we who are not descended from Abraham and so not part of this covenant in the first place lay claim to these promises?

Once again, the tension is resolved in Jesus. The very next verse from Galatians 3 reads,

He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. (Gal 3:14)

Christ met the requirements of the covenant, endured the covenant curse on behalf of we who could not… and offers us the covenant blessings that are his by right. In fact, he proclaims a new covenant, one in which the only covenant obligation is to repent of our sins and trust in Jesus himself to work in and through us by his Holy Spirit.

And this new covenant is guaranteed. In ancient times, a covenant lasted only as long as the king who made it, and only within the borders of his realm. But this king, King Jesus, rules a kingdom that is ‘established… in heaven’, and that ‘rules over all’ (v. 19) and so his covenant is not bound by race or place. Nor is it a covenant limited by time, for this king has risen from the grave, and lives for eternity past, present and future! Jesus is able to guarantee the covenant blessings for us because he is sovereign over all time and space.

As a personal aside, the fact that Jesus both fulfils the covenant obligations and guarantees the covenant blessings is tremendously encouraging to me. Earlier this year my Gran passed away, and this psalm was one of the readings she selected for her funeral. My Gran was one of the godliest women that I have ever known. Yet if my hope of seeing her again in eternity rested upon her ability to fulfil the obligations of the covenant – let alone my own poor ability to do the same – it would be a slender hope indeed. But the glory of the gospel is that it does not depend on her, or me. It depends on Christ, and is therefore a sure and certain hope.

There is only one covenant requirement: repent of your sin and put your trust in Jesus. As you do, you gain access to blessings seen only in shadow in the earlier covenant. Everyone who believes in Jesus receives eternal life (John 3:16), and his love remains on them literally ‘from everlasting to everlasting’ (v. 17). Friend, I beg you to receive it as the good news that it is and respond: turn away from your sins and turn to Jesus. He will bestow his many blessings upon you according to his goodness, mercy and wisdom. He will be patient with you, for he himself knows what it is like to live in a wicked world, to be tempted, and to feel weakness (Heb 4:15).

Conclusion: Praise Jesus because he is the LORD

Let’s close by considering the movement of the psalm: David starts with the individual, then Israel as a chosen people, and finally climaxing in the proclamation that, ‘The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.’ (Psa 103:19) As Christians we recognise that climax in the distinctive work of Jesus Christ on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. It is an accomplished fact, a completed work. Yet we must also remember Jesus’ parting words to his disciples that echo so closely what David is doing in this psalm: ‘you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:8). As followers of Christ we have the responsibility to declare Jesus Christ throughout the whole world, starting with our own heart. As Lewis wrote, that praise not only expresses but completes the enjoyment; and that joy naturally overflows into an invitation to others to share it with us.

David knew the LORD -Yahweh, which means ‘I-am-who-I-am’, or ‘I-will-be-who-I-will-be’ – and he couldn’t help but praise him and call his nation and, indeed, all creation to praise him. As we approach this Christmas season, let us remember that we know our Lord by another name – Jesus, Yeshua, ‘Yahweh saves’, Immanuel, ‘God with us’ – and let’s proclaim him in our praise!

Please pray with me:

We praise you Lord Jesus, for you are the Lord over all creation. As high as the heavens are above the earth, that’s how far you came to demonstrate your love, not just to those who fear you but on your enemies (Rom. 5:8)! Though eternally crowned with the love and compassion of your Father, you set aside that crown and were born as a human child to a humble family.

Lord, we delight in your name. Before your birth Isaiah prophesied your coming, saying that ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel’ (Isa 7:14), which means ‘God with us’. He also named you, ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’ (Isa 9:6). The angel who appeared to Joseph instructed him to name you Jesus – ‘Yahweh saves’ – because you would ‘save [your] people from their sins’ (Matt 1:21).

And having lived a perfect life you did exactly that – saved us, your people, from our sins. You redeemed our life from the pit by going there in our place, and so you ensure that we no longer stand accused because our sins are blotted out forever. By rising to new life you proclaim that your sacrifice on our behalf has been found acceptable and is ‘from everlasting to everlasting’. And we know that God has exalted you to the highest place, and given you the name that is above every other name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:9-11).

Therefore we delight to bear the name of ‘Christian’ – those who belong to Christ. As the Apostle Peter declared, ‘Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved’ (Acts 4:12).

Praise the Lord Jesus, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name!

Amen.

Bibliography

Lewis, C. S. Selected Books. London: HarperCollins, 2002.

Endnotes

1. C. S. Lewis, Selected Books (London: HarperCollins, 2002), 358-59.
2. ibid, 360.
3. e.g. Ps. 73:14; 88:13.
4. Ps 103:1, 2, 6, 8, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22.
5. Pss. 28:1; 30:3; 88:4, 6; 143:7.
6. Consider the strong ‘curse’ language of Deut. 27-30, especially Deut. 27:26; 28:15.

Powlison, David. Good and Angry : Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness. Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2016.

I use to think I was a patient person… and then I had kids. They are able to find buttons I didn’t know I had and press them over, and over, and over again! As a result, there are days when I am little better than a bear with a sore head in my relationship with them. Why is that? How could it be that I could get so cranky with these little people I love so much?

In his book, Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining and Bitterness, David Powlison takes us on a guided tour of anger and its cousins. Drawing on his experience as a counsellor, together with biblical insights, Powlison presents anger as being capable of both good and bad expression. Insofar as it emanates from a worldview that is God-centered, as exemplified by Jesus Christ, it is constructive and good; but where it issues from selfishness and idolatry it causes great harm.

The strengths of Powlison’s book include his careful differentiation between righteous and unrighteous anger; the way he identified unrighteous anger as a sin problem; and his clear presentation of how the sin problem can only be overcome by means of the gospel and not some twelve-step program. On the other hand, I felt that he could have spent more time rooting what he was saying in Scripture so that people could feel the force of this biblical worldview.

As for me and my kids, Powlison’s analysis is spot on: “Your buttons say something very significant about what rules you.” May God grant me the grace to be gracious!

Today we continue a series through the Gospel of Mark. Throughout the first four chapters of Mark, Jesus has been growing in popularity. This man, Jesus, had brought a new kind of teaching, a teaching ‘with authority’ (1:27); he had cast out demons; he had healed Peter’s mother-in-law, a paralytic and many others who were sick. Mark records the reaction of the crowds:

This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!” (Mark 2:12)

But there was also a growing opposition. More and more, Jesus was coming into conflict with the teachers of the law, the Pharisees. This all came to a head in the latter part of chapter 3. The Pharisees came together to accuse Jesus of being in league with Satan. They were so persuasive that even Jesus’ own family were convinced that, at the least, Jesus must be out of his mind (Mark 3:21).
Not all the opposition was human in origin, either. Two weeks ago, Tim recounted an incident from the end of Mark 4 where Jesus and his disciples are out in a boat and a huge storm arises, threatening the swamp them. Even nature seems against him! Yet Jesus rebukes wind and waves and they submit to his command. The disciples ‘were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”‘ (Mark 4:41).

Which brings us to Mark 5. In this chapter, Jesus demonstrates his authority over evil and oppression; sickness; and even over death itself.

As they get out of the boat, Jesus and his disciples are approached by a man ‘with an evil spirit’ (v. 2). Mark is at pains to emphasise the power of this evil spirit: in spite of many attempts it cannot be bound, let alone subdued,¹ by any human effort; it names itself ‘Legion’, a picture of military strength in numbers. Afraid of his strength, the people of his village had driven him out, with the result that he was living in the local cemetery. In other words, he was as good as dead.

Reading about evil spirits prompts an almost contemptuous response in many today. ‘That’s just how they described people with schizophrenia, and other kinds of psychosis.’ Yet we ought not to jump to conclusions. C. S. Lewis once wrote,

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.²

Possibly this man would receive a particular medical diagnosis today, and would be treated and, perhaps, medicated, accordingly. But I would certainly not want to say that all who have mental health issues are possessed; nor would I want to say that all who are possessed will manifest mental health issues.

Nevertheless, there are two factors that confirm Mark’s analysis of this man’s situation. Firstly, he had been driven into isolation, cut off from anyone to show him compassion or care for him. This, to me, is one of the signs of evil at work. The second sign is found in verse 5: ‘Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.’ That tendency towards self-harm is a strong indicator of an evil spirit trying to deface the image of God found in him.

Many people today find themselves in similar straits, often totally unaware of the path they are on. Sometimes it comes in the form of an addiction: drug and alcohol addicts find themselves increasingly isolated as they hurt the people who love them, even as they are destroying their own health. Adulterers and porn addicts devalue human sexuality and damage their capacity for meaningful relationship. But sometimes it can be addictions to more ‘respectable’ things that isolate and harm: wealth; power; beauty; success. Sometimes it is ‘lonely at the top’ because of all the people stepped on in getting there. Sometimes the relentless pursuit of physical perfection pushes people away rather than attracting them.

What is it in your life that isolates you from others, that causes them to push you away or you to push them away? Human beings are made to be in relationship. What is it that causes you to denigrate or damage the image of God in you or in others? Is your head often filled with thoughts of failure, of self-loathing, of worthlessness? These things may or may not be a sign of spiritual oppression, and you will require wise and godly counsel to discern and address the root causes. That was what this man needed, but instead his community drove him out.

Then, one day, he met Jesus… and everything changed.

Not far from there, a man named Jairus was getting frantic as he watched his daughter dying in front of him. He was a man of wealth, influence, and standing in his community, but nothing he did seemed to make any difference. He had called in the best doctors, all of whom had looked grave, shaken their heads, hemmed and hawed and eventually admitted they had no idea what was wrong let alone how it could be fixed. For twelve years he had delighted in his daughter: held her in his arms, nursed her when she was sick, laughed and cried, danced and played, and now… it was all going to end. This had come out of nowhere and there was nothing – nothing – he could do about it.

Perhaps you can relate? What is it in your life that has rendered you powerless? Perhaps you have stood where Jairus stood, watching a loved one clinging to life with a desperate but failing grasp. The cause may be different – cancer, car accident, or catastrophe – but the emotional trauma is off the charts. Perhaps it is not a life under threat but a suddenly broken relationship – with a spouse, with a parent, with a child, with a friend – and you feel utterly helpless to do anything to restore it. For some the crisis might be financial – sudden unemployment, a fire destroys your home – and you don’t know how you’re going to get by. If you have stood in any of these places then you know something of the despair that Jairus must have felt.

Then, one day, Jairus met Jesus… and everything changed.

Amongst the crowd that day was a woman who ought not to have been there. Unlike Jairus, the last twelve years had not been spent in blissful family life but in increasing desperation, trying to find someone who could help her with her problem. You see, for twelve years she had bled from her uterus – if not constantly then at least considerably more often and more heavily than was to be expected. As a result she would have been constantly weak and in pain. If that was not bad enough, she was also considered ‘unclean’ because of the blood³, meaning that she could not engage in the religious life of her community, nor could anyone touch her without themselves being rendered ‘unclean’.⁴ That is why she ought not to have been there in that crowd that day. Yet she was desperate. So she forced her way through the crowd.

Is this where you find yourself today? I know there are some in this church who suffer from chronic illness that means they are often unable to worship with us on a Sunday morning. For others it is the infirmity that comes with old age that gets in the way. Or maybe you feel isolated from your church and your community because you have children whose special needs consume so much of your focus there is little time for anything else? Perhaps your job means you are in a different city each week and so never get to really settle into a church community. Do you long to connect with people but, for whatever reason, you just can’t? Then you know something of this woman’s desperation.

Then, one day, she met Jesus… and everything changed.

At one level, these three people are just about as different as could be: two lived on the fringes of society, the other was a respected citizen; two were men, the other a woman; two were Jews, the other a gentile; only Jairus was wealthy, though the woman may once have been so.⁵ If they had anything in common, it was their utter desperation and helplessness.

Nor is there any common pattern in the way they were delivered from their maladies: one was healed with a word, one was healed with a touch, and one was healed with a word and a touch. Certainly all three had to exercise faith, but at different times. Jairus exercised faith before the act (in coming to Jesus, and in believing his words), and he exercised it on behalf of his daughter (who could no longer do so for herself). The woman’s greatest act of faith was not so much in her touch as in her coming forward in response to Jesus’ query. And it is doubtful whether or in what sense the demoniac exercised faith at all during his healing; his expression of faith came afterwards in his desire to follow Jesus, and in his going back to his village to bear witness.

Trying to read the gospels in order to discern a ‘method’ for ministry is ultimately futile. Mark seems to be deliberately undermining any attempt to categorise Jesus as a magician by showing that there is no fixed ‘method’. Even the ‘incantation’, talitha koum, – a common feature of magic stories – turns out to be nothing more than a gentle instruction to ‘get up’ in the girl’s native tongue, and is followed up with an instruction that she should be fed.

It is sobering to realise that many of the things Jesus did defy commonly accepted mission methods. What was he doing in gentile territory, pig-farming land, amongst the tombs? Evangelism ‘ought’ to be done where there are concentrations of people, not one-on-one in the wilderness with a crazy person. But Jesus had a divine appointment to free this man at this time from his oppression. Why would you allow such a man to then go and preach on his behalf. Surely, given his history, he would have little credibility. In fact, in the Gospel of Mark, this healed demoniac becomes the first missionary-preacher sent out by Jesus, a Gentile sent to the Gentiles,⁶ at a time before Jesus trusted even his own disciples to go out on their own.⁷ As Mark McCrindle said when he preached on this passage a couple of years ago, he was ‘a most unlikely ministry candidate’!⁸

By contrast, church marketers would have cheered at the approach of Jairus. Here at last was somebody influential, somebody who could really catapult Jesus into the stratosphere of religious opinion and popularity. Why would Jesus stop mid-stride and ask an apparently nonsensical question (‘Who touched me?’) and risk offending the very person who could get him places? Because he is about loving people rather than ‘getting places’. He calls the woman out, not to get ‘the credit’, still less to embarrass her, but so he could call her, ‘Daughter’ and bring her peace (v. 34). Why does he forbid Jairus and his family from telling anybody about the girl, when he had already commissioned the healed demoniac to go and spread the good news? Perhaps because it would take Jairus away from his family to do so, whereas the gentile man was being sent back to his.

The only constant through all three episodes is Jesus himself. At some point, all three found themselves at the feet of Jesus, begging for his help, his compassion, his mercy. And in each case he gave it… though, according to the Law, he had reason not to. You see, touching a gentile, or a woman with her period, or a dead body would all result in the one who touched being made unclean. They themselves would then be ineligible to participate in any kind of religious services, or to enter the temple. ‘Many teachers avoided touching women altogether, lest they become accidentally contaminated.’⁹ This is probably why the woman came forward ‘trembling with fear’ (v. 33); she feared that she had contaminated this rabbi, and was about to be publicly rebuked in front of the whole crowd.

But that is not the way Jesus saw it. You see, he knew something none of them knew: his purity would swallow up their impurity. And this was so because of what he was about to endure on the cross. Jesus could deliver the man from that evil spirit because he himself would endure all the devil’s wrath and yet emerge victorious. Like Moses before him, he commanded the waters – be still! – then used it to dispose of a hostile enemy, bringing about a new exodus and a new freedom. Jesus took that man’s oppression upon himself and, in so doing, freed the man.

Similarly, although the woman’s blood was a contaminant according to the Law, blood was also the only means prescribed by the Law for cleansing the altar and taking away sin. Jesus himself would soon offer his own blood as the ultimate detergent.¹⁰ In describing her suffering, Mark uses the metaphor of a scourge or whip (μάστιγός, vv. 29. 34); he will use the same word again in Mark 10:34 where Jesus prophesies his own literal flogging at the hands of the Romans. Jesus took on her suffering as his own and, in so doing, delivered her from it.

Finally, Jesus was not afraid to touch the girl because he knew that her death was no more significant than the sleep he proclaimed it. As one writer puts it,

The keys of death were hung on the inside of Christ’s tomb. From the outside, Christ could do many wonderful works, including raising a twelve-year-old girl and two men from the dead – only to die again (Mark 5:41-42; Luke 7:14-15; John 11:43-44). If any were to be raised from the dead, never to die again, Christ would have to die for them, enter the tomb, take the keys, and unlock the door of death from the inside.¹¹

Hallelujah!

Friends, I don’t know your situation. Perhaps you are facing an immediate crisis like Jairus; or ongoing suffering like the woman; or, perhaps scariest of all, you don’t actually know you have a problem, until you are face to face with Jesus. Whatever the case, you have a choice to make, a response to give. Will you, like the villagers, try and drive Jesus away, the way they had previously driven away the man he healed? Because the tragic irony is that the one who is strong enough to expel ‘Legion’ from the area will allow himself to be driven away… for a time. Will you, like the professional mourners at Jairus’ door, scoff at the words of Jesus? Or will you, like Jairus, like the woman, and like the man, fall at the feet of Jesus and ask for his mercy?

Come and meet Jesus… and everything will change!

Bibliography

Edwards, James R. The Gospel According to Mark. Accordance electronic ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002.

English, Donald. The Message of Mark : The Mystery of Faith. Leicester, England ; Downers Grove, Ill., U.S.A.: Inter-Varsity Press, 1992.

Garland, David E. Mark. Accordance electronic ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996.

Keener, Craig S. The Ivp Bible Background Commentary : New Testament. Accordance electronic ed. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993.

Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters. Sixtieth Anniversary ed. London: HarperCollins, 2002.

Piper, John. The Passion of Jesus Christ : Fifty Reasons Why He Came to Die. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2004.

Endnotes

1. ‘Mark’s description is more fitting of a ferocious animal than of a human being; indeed, the Greek word for “subdue,” damazō, is used of taming a wild beast in James 3:7.’ James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 154-55.
2. C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (London: HarperCollins, 2002), ix.
3. Lev. 12:7; 15:19–24; 20:18.
4. Lev. 15.19.
5. She could once afford ‘many doctors’ (v. 26).
6. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark, 160.
7. Donald. English, The Message of Mark : The Mystery of Faith (Leicester, England ; Downers Grove, Ill., U.S.A.: Inter-Varsity Press, 1992), 111.
8. Sermon preached 3/3/13, http://www.wphcc.com/sermons/transformed-by-christ/#
9. Craig S. Keener, The Ivp Bible Background Commentary : New Testament (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 148.
10. David E. Garland, Mark (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 229.
11. John Piper, The Passion of Jesus Christ : Fifty Reasons Why He Came to Die (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2004), 100.

Over the last 7 weeks we have been sharing together in the book of Zechariah. On behalf of the LORD, Zechariah issued a call for repentance coupled with a promise:

This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Return to me,’ declares the LORD Almighty, ‘and I will return to you,’ says the LORD Almighty. (Zech 1:3)

The rest of the book, and particularly chapters 9-14, elaborates on the promise of the LORD’s return using many powerful images: the LORD will be a good shepherd, who cares for his flock rather than taking advantage of them; he will be a ruler, a judge and a deliverer. Perhaps most powerfully of all, Zechariah pointed to a king who was to come:

Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war-horses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit. (Zech 9:9–11)

Well, fast forward some 500 years and there was indeed a king in Jerusalem, King Herod. This king had poured vast amounts of time and energy into the rebuilding of the temple – 46 years, according to the Pharisees of Jesus’ day – with the result that it was more than twice the size of the Solomon’s Temple. True, he was not a Davidic king (he wasn’t even a Jew by birth), but he had done the work of a Son of David in building the Temple, just as the first Son of David, Solomon, had done before him. And he was acceptable to the Romans and therefore enjoyed a relatively long and prosperous reign.¹

Was this the king that Zechariah had spoken of?

Matthew gives us our first clue that all is not well with this king in Matthew 2. Three men arrive in Jerusalem to ask after ‘the one who has been born king of the Jews’ (Matt. 2:2). Matthew records that, ‘When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him’ (Matt. 2:3). You see Herod had not been born king; he had been made king, rather unexpectedly, by the Roman Senate, and had assumed the throne with a Roman army at his back. If, now, someone had been born king, then his own security was placed in doubt. It is his actions that follow that put the question beyond all doubt. For Herod plotted to find and eliminate this new threat, ultimately killing all children under the age of 2 in Bethlehem and its surrounds. This is hardly the action of one ‘righteous and having salvation’ (Zech. 9:9)! It is a tragic irony that Jesus and his family escaped persecution and death by fleeing into Egypt, suggesting that Herod was even worse than the Pharaoh who put Israelite children to death in the days of Moses. Herod was a Pharaoh-like king, rather than a king after God’s own heart as a Son of David ought to be. He is not the king Zechariah prophesied.

So the question lingered: ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews’?

Fast forward another 30 years. Once again, we find a city in uproar:

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?” (Matt 21:10)

It is this question that we want to answer this morning.

The king of peace

The Galileans who arrived at Jerusalem with Jesus certainly thought they knew the answer. Many of them had witnessed Jesus’ ministry in their home towns, had seen the sick healed, the possessed exorcised, and even the dead raised. Moreover they had heard his teaching, teaching delivered with an authority beyond that of the scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 9:8; Mark 1:27; Luke 4:36). And now, here he was entering Jerusalem for one of the biggest festivals of the year, Passover, when the population of Jerusalem would temporarily swell to more than 6 times its normal size;² surely this would be an ideal time for him to proclaim himself king?

Imagine their delight, then, when they see this same Jesus riding into Jerusalem, perhaps the only one riding amongst that throng of people. And he was riding a donkey just as Solomon, the first Son of David, also rode to his coronation (1 Kings 1:38).³ So they got on board, throwing their cloaks and branches on the road to form an impromptu ‘red carpet’ to welcome the king. And they shouted: ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ and ‘Hosanna in the highest!’

‘Hosanna’ is a plea for God to deliver,⁴ so ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ is a way of begging God to deliver by the hands of his anointed king. In fact, this is exactly what God was going to do, but it would not be in the way most of them anticipated. They would have expected Jesus to lead a revolt against the Roman authorities in the city, and to take the throne as king of the Jews.

But that was not Jesus’ plan. In fact, he carefully chose his actions to show that that was not the kind of king he intended to be – at least, not at this time. He rode into Jerusalem, not as warrior king mounted on a war horse or chariot, but as a king coming in peace and riding on a donkey. Matthew emphasises this by only partially quoting Zechariah 9:9:

This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: “Say to the Daughter of Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, [righteous and having salvation], gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’” (Matt. 21:4-5)

By omitting the words ‘righteous and having salvation’ Matthew places additional emphasis on Jesus’ gentleness. He returned to Jerusalem to bring peace rather than war.

On one level, the crowds were exactly right. They had rightly recognised the true king, the Son of David, the Messiah. Yet they missed the significance of Jesus’ actions, so caught up in their own vision of what Jesus ought to be doing that they missed what he was actually doing. They had listened selectively to what the Old Testament said about the Messiah, hearing about the king who would conquer but not the shepherd who would be struck; the judge who would deliver, but not the one who would be pierced. The difference between their expectation and reality perhaps partly accounts for the evaporation of their enthusiasm over the next week. Doubtless at least some of the same voices crying ‘Hosanna!’ would soon be crying ‘Crucify!’

Isn’t this something we are guilty of as well? We get so caught up in our plans for what God ought to be doing that we miss what God is actually doing. Take Romans 8, for example: We read promises like, ‘[I]n all things God works for the good of those who love him’ (Rom. 8:28) and ‘If God is for us, who can be against us?’ (Rom. 8:31) and ‘[I]n all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us’ (Rom. 8:37), but we skip over ‘present sufferings’ (Rom. 8:18), a creation groaning in the pains of childbirth (Rom. 8:22) and people groaning inwardly waiting for the redemption of their bodies (Rom. 8:23).

Friends, as you seek to answer the question ‘Who is this?’ take the time to read the whole of Scripture, to see the whole picture of what God is doing – lights and shades, colours and greys. Don’t try to filter out the dark bits, the bits that don’t fit with your vision of the world, that don’t match with your plans. For we find God at work just as much in the darkness as in the light. The picture of Jesus spans the whole spectrum from shadow to sunlight, and it is a glorious picture indeed. At his first coming, Jesus would be struck, he would be pierced, he would be crucified upon a Roman cross; yet in the midst of that apparent defeat he conquered sin and darkness and death.

The prophet from Galilee

Listen again to Matthew’s words:

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?” (Matt. 21:10)

The whole city was ‘stirred’, just as they were ‘disturbed’ when the Magi arrived back in chapter 2. The question then was, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?’ And the answer now ought to be, ‘This is the one born king of the Jews’. But it wasn’t.

You see, not everyone was so impressed by Jesus as the crowd from Galilee. In fact, being a Galilean followed by a bunch of Galileans was not a thing to inspire credibility when it came to religious matters. As best I can tell, it would be like a bunch of Parramatta Eels fans showing up, claiming to have a premiership team: a claim to be viewed with deep distrust! Can anything good come out of Parramatta?⁵ Look into it and you will find that a premiership team does not come out of Parramatta!⁶

So, if not the king, who did they think he was?

The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.” (Matt 21:11)

You can almost hear the scorn: the ‘prophet’ from Nazareth. The crowds outside the gate were proclaiming him king, but in the city it was a more sophisticated, urbane, and even cynical bunch. A ‘better class of people.’ They were not going to be taken in by the claims of a back-woods rabbi claiming to be a king. They knew where true power lay, and it was not with a man on a donkey.

Friend, if you are not a Christian I know how easy it can be to do this. It is easy to allow our prejudice to make us miss the truth. Perhaps you think, ‘He’s just another religious nut, and religion is the source of trouble not the solution.’ This is one of the hallmarks of the so-called ‘New Atheism’, trying to equate science, progress, and sophistication with abandoning religion. Or perhaps you question his relevance: ‘Jesus lived 2000 years ago and a long way from here. What could he say that is relevant to me today?’ Even some apparently positive prejudices, such as ‘Jesus was a good man; a good moral teacher,’ become an excuse to relativise Jesus’ claims and treat him as just another voice among many.

But I urge you not to allow your prejudices to lead you to dismiss Jesus too quickly. No, put those things aside and take the time to consider his claims about himself, and the evidence he offers for those claims. Make sure you are engaging the real Jesus, not some stereotype or second-hand picture of him. Look carefully at what he says about the world – that it is broken and sinful, that it needs saving. Then look at the solution he offers – his own sacrificial death to endure the punishment for sin, his resurrection life as the promise of a new life and a new world for all who believe in him. With those in mind, you must then consider his call upon you – abandon your attempts to save yourself and your world (because, frankly, they are not working) and trust instead in his work on your behalf. Jesus knows what he is talking about and his invitation is sincere. And if you want more evidence of his faithfulness and ability to deliver on his promises, keep listening: again and again we will see Jesus delivering on the promises of God given through Zechariah more than 500 years before!

Put your trust in him today.

The priest who rules the courts

Well, if the ‘sophisticated’ Jerusalemites didn’t think much of him, it is clear that Jesus did not approve of their actions either.

Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’” (Matt. 21:12–13)

Many who journeyed to Jerusalem would have found it more convenient to purchase livestock for sacrifice than to have to bring it on their journey. Similarly, certain types of coins were unacceptable for paying the temple tax because they bore images of other gods, so pilgrims would need to change their local currency for money that was acceptable. Arguably, these were important services; but they did not belong inside the temple courts. This is especially true insofar as they prevented people from engaging in the true purpose of the temple: prayer. Can you imagine trying to worship amidst the cooing of doves and clinking of coins, not to mention the vociferous bartering that would inevitably accompany such transactions?

Of particular note is that this was going on in the Court of the Gentiles, the only part of the temple that Gentiles were permitted to enter. It was meant to be a place for the nations to come and meet with God. Yet here it was, chock full of merchants, traders, and their customers, leaving little or no space (let alone peace!) for its intended purpose. In driving these people out, then, Jesus was beginning to fulfil the promise in Zechariah 2:11:

Many nations will be joined with the LORD in that day and will become my people.

He was also exercising the authority promised in Zechariah:

If you will walk in my ways and keep my requirements, then you will govern my house and have charge of my courts. (Zech. 3:7)

This is a conditional promise. The condition is to ‘walk in [the LORD’s] ways and keep [his] requirements’. Jesus fulfilled that condition through his life of perfect obedience to his Father, and obedience that extended all the way to death on a Roman cross and beyond. Because of that obedience, because he fulfilled the condition, God has fulfilled the promise by granting him authority over all things (cf. Eph. 1:10, 22; Phil. 2:9-11).

As Jesus heals the blind and the lame, we see that he also fulfils the requirement of Zechariah 7:9-10:

Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.

The chief priests and teachers of the law would have excluded such people from entering the temple, assuming that their physical maladies were symptoms of a deeper spiritual malady. But Jesus’ solution is to heal them inside and out. Remember the promise in Zechariah 13 that Dr. Petterson pointed us to last week?

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. (Zech. 13:1)

Jesus is, once again, the fulfilment of this promise. He fulfils it in part through physical healing; he completes it through his sacrificial death on the cross.

Friends, Jesus is committed to seeing you come to the Father in prayer and in worship. He has done everything to make it possible. He drives out those who put profit ahead of praise. He heals the broken and the sick. Ultimately he died on the cross so that you might be made cleansed and holy. And if that weren’t enough, he got up out of the grave to invite you to come. Come to the Father!

The judge who renders judgment

Matthew recounts a strange event the following morning:

Early in the morning, as he was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.

When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” they asked.

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” (Matt 21:18–22)

There is much that could be said about this, but we only have time to focus on one aspect. When fig trees grew leaves, it was normally a sign that their fruit was ripe. This fig tree, however, had leaves but no fruit. From a distance it looked as though it was healthy and productive, exactly what a hungry traveller needed; get up close, however, and it was a complete disappointment. So Jesus pronounces a curse upon it, with devastating results.

The disciples are fascinated by the power implicit in Jesus’ judgment; it takes effect immediately. And Jesus takes the opportunity to teach them a lesson about prayer and faith. Yet he may also hint at a larger judgment, a judgment upon the very mountain on which they stood, the Temple Mount, and by extension the temple built upon it. Herod’s temple was one of the wonders of the ancient world, much admired for its architecture and finery. If Zechariah’s contemporaries could have seen it they would have been astounded and probably thought that this was God’s promised temple, the glorious Jerusalem promised through Zechariah. But Jesus had demonstrated that it was all ‘leaf’ and no ‘fruit’ – no justice, no righteousness, no healing, no prayer.

Ultimately, by his own sacrifice in laying down his life, Jesus would destroy this temple, and replace it in three days with a new temple – his own resurrection body (John 2:18-22). And it was Jesus’ promise to do this that was quoted against him at his trial (Matt. 26:61) and mockingly hurled at him as he was dying on the cross (Matt. 27:40).

In a sense, Jesus could be seen as the exact opposite of the fig tree. He was the ‘fruit’ without the ‘leaves': the judge who submitted to false judgment; the high priest who was sacrificed rather than making sacrifice; the king who came to be executed rather than crowned. He endured all that was thrown at him for the sake of those who scorned him. He fulfilled all of the conditions so that we might receive all of the promises!

Do you remember that right at the start of Zechariah, God made a promise: ‘Return to me… and I will return to you’ (Zech. 1:3)? That is an astonishing promise; but the gospel message goes one better. The gospel says ‘I, Jesus, have returned to you so that you may return to me.’

Praise God!

The return of the king

One final thing. Many of you would have recognised the title we gave to our series in Zechariah, ‘The Return of the King’ as the title of the third volume in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. The King spoken of in that book is the mysterious ranger, Aragorn, known to some as ‘Strider’. There is a point in the novel where Aragorn’s right to be King of Gondor is made plain to everyone – by his courage, his sword, his healing, and his ability to command the loyalty even of the dead. Yet he faces opposition from the Steward of Gondor, the one supposed to be caretaker in his absence. So, rather than being crowned straight away he goes off to fight what appears a hopeless battle against the dark lord, Sauron. In the end, it is his faithfulness in the face of such impossible odds that allows his companions to destroy the source of Sauron’s power.

In Aragorn, Tolkien has gifted us with a magnificent picture of Christ. And, like Aragorn, Jesus will one day return to claim his rightful crown.

Come Lord Jesus!

Bibliography

Jeremias, Joachim. Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus; an Investigation Into Economic and Social Conditions During the New Testament Period. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969.

Endnotes

1. Some 37 years, 34 in Jerusalem.
2. Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus; an Investigation Into Economic and Social Conditions During the New Testament Period. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), 84.
3. The word used for Solomon’s mount is pered, ‘mule’, which is the offspring of a stallion and a donkey. So, in a sense, Jesus’ ride was even humbler than Solomon’s, containing not even a trace of the warlike stallion.
4. NIDNTT, s.v. ὡσαννά.
5. cf. John 1:46.
6. cf. John 7:52.