What Jesus said the Scriptures are about

What is the Bible primarily about?

Previously I posted and attempted to answer the question: What is the point of Genesis? This related question is what our Lord himself said the Bible of their day--the Old Testament Scriptures (OT)--is about.

Surprising ("Hesed" or "Chesed") Love (2 Samuel 9:1-13)

David asked, “Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” (2 Sam 9:1)

Benjamin Warfield (1851-1921) was professor of theology at Princeton Seminary from 1887-1921. Before that he was pursuing studies in Leipzing, Germany, in 1876-77. This time also doubled as his honeymoon with his wife Annie. They were on a walking tour in the Harz Mountains when they were caught in a terrific thunderstorm. The experience was such a shock to Annie that she never fully recovered, becoming more or less an invalid for life. Warfield only left her for seminary duties, but never for more than 2 hours at a time. His world was almost entirely limited to Princeton and to the care of his wife. For 39 years. One of his students noted that when he saw the Warfields out walking together "the gentleness of his manner was striking proof of the loving care with which he surrounded her." For 39 years.

Love that truly loves is willing to bind itself, is willing to promise, willing and gladly obligates itself, so that the other may stand securely in that love.

2 Sam 9:1-13 is all about love. It is about David's love for Mephibosheth. The Hebrew word, which appears 3 times in 2 Sam 9:1,3,7, is hesed (or chesed). Its meaning is rooted in the character of God. It is so rich that so single English word can fully do it justice: stedfast love, loving kindness, covenant friendship, loyal love, and justice are a few of the ways we translate hesed. Notice 3 things about hesed in David's example:

The Purity of Christ and Our Fallenness (James 3:17)

"But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere." (James 3:17)

Only Jesus fulfills these heavenly attributes of wisdom perfectly. Only by the grace of God that transforms us might we reflect these attributes that do not originate from our fallen selves.

Pure. Purity (blamelessness) is the primary virtue with the rest providing aspects from this purity. Jesus is the pure perfect soul. Even our purity as Christians fall short because of our spontaneous default to impure motivations. Even our best and purest of Christian acts are like filthy rags (Isa 64:6).

The Stairway to Heaven (Gen 28:10-22)

"This is the gate of heaven" (Gen 28:17).

"Most people think of religion as man's quest for God. The God of the Bible, however, is the God who seeks us." Edmond Clowney, Preaching Christ in all of Scripture, 80.

"Jesus does not give recipes that show the way to God as other teachers of religion do. He is Himself the way." Karl Barth

One of my favorite songs of all time is "The Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin (1971). I could listen to it every day without ever getting tired of it. It is the perfect rock song. Why? The progressive crescendo and the spell binding ambiance makes the song mesmerizing. A google search says, "this song is about a woman who accumulates money, but finds out the hard way that her life had no meaning and will not get her into heaven."

Perhaps, this song has captivated countless millions of people of all ages through out the world for 40 years, because we human beings are all, without exception, seeking a "stairway to heaven," however we chose, on our own terms, to define heaven or God. In today's text, Jacob discovers, through his dream given to him by God, something radical about the stairway to heaven. It is the polar opposite of what most people and most religions think. Even Christians who misunderstand this "stairway to heaven" live a religious life that is not Christian, and which is no different from all other religions in the world.

The Problem of Blessing (Gen 27:1-35)

"...give me your blessing" (Gen 27:19).
"I blessed him--and indeed he will be blessed!" (Gen 27:33)

I knew a medical student whose parents blamed him for their unhappy life. Despite being a brilliant student, his mom often said to him, "My life is miserable because of you." When he graduated from medical school, he committed suicide with a fatal overdose. Before he lapsed into unconsciousness and death, he called up his mom, and said with tears, "Mom, I am granting you your wish. I love you." His tragic life was the result of not receiving any blessing from his parents.

The LORD Will Provide (Gen 22:1-14)

"The LORD will provide" (Gen 22:14).

Theme: The Lord provides a sacrificial lamb so that his people may live. When I reviewed Counterfeit Gods by Tim Keller, I shared how I used to teach Gen 22: "Offer your Isaac to God, you sinner!" and how Keller, in his book, explained the narrative by pointing to Christ.

Goal: To assure God's people that their faithful covenant Lord can be trusted to provide their redemption.

Application: Do we trust the Lord to provide, or do we go after what we want?

The Wonder of Laughter (Gen 18:9-15; 21:1-7)

"Is anything too hard (wonderful) for the Lord?" (Gen 18:14)
"Sarah says, 'God has brought me laughter...'" (Gen 21:6)

Ty Cobb (1886-1961), the 1st man inducted into the baseball hall of fame, was one of the greatest baseball players of all time. At the close of his life, he reportedly said, "Life sucks!" Pictures of him in his old age is that of a very dark, angry, irritable, unapproachable, misanthropic (dislike of the human species) unhappy man with no trace of joy or laughter on his face. All of his fame, popularity, success and wealth did not generate any laughter in his soul. In his old age, perhaps progressively through out his life, he lost the ability to laugh. Can any man live without laughter?

Theme: Laughter. When God fulfilled his purpose for Sarah, God brought laughter to her. God transformed her previous laughter of skepticism/cynicism to "real" laughter from the grace of God.

Goal: When God fulfills his purpose/gives grace, God brings laughter to our soul.

Application: Do you experience the deep wonder of the grace of laughter?

How the Divine Deals with our Doubts (Gen 15:1-21)

"...how can I know...?" (Gen 15:8)

In response to people’s delight in his failure to win the 2011 NBA finals, LeBron James said this after he lost (June 12, 2011): ““All the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day, they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal. But they have to get back to the real world at some point.”

He's not going to win any friends or fans by his careless defensive remarks as the loser. But what he says is true. Similarly, Henry Thoreau observed, "The masses of men lead lives of quiet desperation." From Genesis 15, we will see how God helped Abram face life in the real world of personal problems and quiet desperation.


Theme: God gives real confidence to Abram when he had humanly irresolvable doubts about God and about himself.


Goal: To plant confidence in God’s people when they are filled with their own doubts, sorrows and fears.


Application: Only the bloody cross of Jesus taking our sins upon himself enables us to live with real confidence in the real world, despite all of our doubts that are inevitable.

See The God Who Sees You (Gen 16:1-16)

"You are the God who sees me" (Gen 16:13).

What is a major theme of Genesis and of the entire Bible? Is it that good people do good things and God blesses and rewards them? Or is it something else?

Theme: Grace comes to those who do not deserve it, who do not seek it, who continually resist it, and who do not appreciate it even after they receive it.

Goal: Reflect upon our understanding of grace.

Application: Does the depth of sheer grace inform and touch and transform your heart and life?

3 major world religions look at Abraham as the model for courageous living, for authentic living, and for faithful living. Why did Abraham triumph? Gen 16:1-16, which is like a soap opera, shows that it is not because he is made of better stuff than we are. It shows Abraham to be a deeply flawed and very fallible human being, which is putting it mildly. Also, the English translations do not show the rawness and the brutality that is conveyed in the Hebrew. It beautifies, sanitizes and makes it PG or G that which was conveyed in Hebrew as R or even X rated.

3 Paramount Biblical Themes from God's Covenant with Abraham (Gen 12:1-3)

These 3 doctrines--grace, election, faith--may be among the most misunderstood, misconstrued and even maligned teachings in the Bible. This is what Graeme Goldsworthy, a highly respected Australian Anglican theologian specializing in the Old Testament and Biblical Theology, says.

1st, GRACE. As with Noah there is nothing special about Abraham that deserves the goodness of God in calling him into these blessings. He lived among pagans and responds with faith and obedience to the call of God. There is no hint that God was responding to Abraham's goodness. In fact, he lied about his wife twice, in order, so he thought, to preserve his life (Gen 12:11-20; 20:1-18). He showed lack of faith in God's promises and worked to undermine the promise that Sarah would be the mother of the promised descendants. It is clear from the biblical narrative that we cannot see God's goodness to Abraham as deserved. Rather, the biblical picture of God's free and sovereign grace is developed in God's call to Abraham (Gen 12:1-3).

2nd, ELECTION. Whenever God acts for the good of the people he is acting against what they deserve as rebellious sinners, and that action is grace. Election means that God chooses some and not others as objects of his grace. Rom 9:19-24 tells us that election works for God's glory, for it demonstrates divine sovereignty.

Man's Heart and Center (Gen 13:1-17)

Link to previous Genesis passages: The God Who Made Everything (Gen 1-2)  The Fall (Gen 3:1-24)  Sin, Grace and Salvation (Gen 4:1-16) Sin, Faith and Salvation (Gen 6:1-14)  Divine Judgment (Gen 6:5-13)  The Call of God (Gen 12:1-9)

My Story: I thought that graduating from medical school in Malaysia at age 22 in 1978 would validate my young life, and give me the happiness I desperately wanted for the rest of my life. But when I woke up on the 3rd day after graduation, expecting to still feel happy, the euphoria was gone. It really baffled me that my happiness lasted only 2 days! In light of Lot desiring the well-watered plain of the Jordan in this text, I was expecting that becoming a doctor would be my "garden of Eden," my "paradise," like "the garden of the Lord" to Lot (Gen 13:10). But I did not know that. So I thought I needed to be a physician in the U.S., the Mecca of Medicine. After 2 years of bone crushing effort, I made it to Chicago in 1980 with a sense of accomplishment and success. But again my joy was short lived. Painfully, I learned that becoming a doctor and coming to the U.S. could not fulfill my deepest inner longing beyond a few days. Next, I thought, "I need a woman!" All of this were my ever feeble attempts at getting back to "the garden of the Lord" without the Lord.

What does the account of Abram and Lot in Gen 13:1-17 teach about what can and cannot fulfill us human beings?

Questions on Genesis (1-2,3,4,6,11,12,13,15,16,17,18,21,27,28, 29)

General Articles: 

1. What is the point of Genesis?
2. Rethinking the phrase "Man Equals Mission" (Gen 1:26-28)

The God Who Made Everything (Gen 1:1-2:3)

1. What are some difficulties in studying the creation accounts in Genesis 1-2? How might we address them?
2. What is the author's message for Israel (the theme)? Why did he write this message to Israel (the goal)?
3. Who is God (Gen 1:1; Deut 6:4)? Why did God create the world (Ps 19:1-4; 1 Cor 10:31)? What does a talking God suggest? Could our God be a complex being, a complex unity (Gen 1:1-3;26)?
4. God created man in his own image (Gen 1:26-27). What are some similarities and differences between God and man?

Divine Judgment (Gen 6:5-13)

Theme: God's salvation (the ark) is always through judgment (the flood). There is never any salvation without judgment.

Goal: Understand the pain of God's heart in his judgment.

Application: To not despair because of God's judgment, nor apply God's judgment on others without grief or pain.

To countless people, the very idea of God's divine judgment is upsetting, outdated, and irrelevant to them personally and practically. They agree with Richard Dawkins who said, The God of the OT is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic (woman hater), homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal (killing one's child), pestilential (causing disease), megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic (denying pleasure), capriciously (impulsive) malevolent (doing evil) bully.

But 3 things in this account of God's divine judgment in the time of Noah may help us understand the utmost importance of God's judgment.

Sin, Grace and Salvation (Genesis 4:1-16)

"sin is crouching..." (Genesis 4:7)

Theme: When we do not know Grace, we functionally become Cain. When we know Grace, we become a sweet Abel.

Intro: Perhaps, the most striking question from the story of Cain and Abel is "Why did Cain murder his own lovely younger brother?"

A related contemporary question that has broad applicability to all people is, "Why are you upset, inwardly or outwardly, with a particular person?"

I'd like to suggest and propose that the answer to both questions is the same: We don't know Grace. Even though we Christians insist that we "understand" Grace, we do not apply it practically, functionally, emotionally, and experientially in the details of our life, especially when someone upsets us.

The Call of God (Genesis 11:27-12:9)

Theme: God calls his people to claim all nations as his kingdom (as Abraham did).

Goal: Soften and sensitize our hearts to the call of God.

Application: The call of God makes all the difference in the world in any man's life. Have you heard the call of God?

What made Abraham great was the call of God. What makes one's life great is the call of God. What makes one a Christian is the call of God. The call of God is what truly shapes a Christian life.

Some challenges in teaching/preaching this biblical narrative:

1. Avoid superficial "character-imitation" preaching.
2. Turning this text into a moral tale: God's call to Abram becomes God's call to everyone, and they, like Abram, must respond with unquestioning obedience. They apply God's unique call of Abram directly to everyone in the congregation, thus committing the error of generalizing and universalizing.
3. Spiritualizing the text: People must leave their "country," their old way of life, and go to the new life God will show them. This is not unbiblical, but it is not the message of this particular text. It fails to ask first what was the message the narrator intended to convey to Israel.

Abraham Lincoln's very unhappy marriage

Some excerpts from The Slow Fires of Misery:

• Lincoln’s marriage was a mess, and accepting the pain brought deep strength in the long run.
• It was a pain-filled marriage. The familiar lines in his face and the somber countenance reveal more than the stress of civil war. But the two stayed married. They kept at least that part of their vows.

Are We Christians (and Our Churches) Stuck in a Stifling Status Quo?

Check out missiologist Alan Hirsch's 2 minute video. He speaks quite fast, so here's the transcript:

I think that Christians are very risk-averse. And churches are very risk averse.

Churches are places that you don't normally associate with adventure or risk or creativity. Because here is the deal: If you want to be creative you have to risk failure. If you want to achieve something beyond the status quo, you have to get out of the status quo. That means you can't make everyone happy.

The God Who Made Everything (Genesis 1-2)

What is the point of Genesis? Jesus says that the entire OT Scripture, including Genesis, is about Jesus (John 5:39; Luke 24:27, 44). John 1:1-3 tells us that Jesus is the Word and the Creator God.

The debates over the symbolism and literary genre of Genesis 1-2, and the debates regarding the relationship to contemporary science is highly complex and confusing not only to the uninitiated, but also to the scholar. But what is the irreducible minimum that Genesis 1-2 must be saying for the Bible to have any coherence at all? Let's see what Genesis 1-2 teach us about God and about man.

A Church With Major Problems (1 Corinthians 1-4)

In 1 Corinthians, Paul writes to a church--a church with many painful problems. Why does a church, sanctified (made holy) in Christ Jesus (1 Cor 1:2), have problems?

It is because everyone in church is utterly sinful, from the top to the bottom, even if we are redeemed by the grace of Jesus (1 Cor 1:4). Very interestingly, the top think that the problems are predominantly the sins at the bottom, while the bottom think that it is the leader’s sins that is the major problem.

How does Paul see these problems?

Understanding the Gospel from the Fall (Genesis 3)

If we do not understand man's fallen condition (total depravity), we will not understand the glorious gospel of our salvation.

We may think we are basically good, but that bad circumstances and events cause us to be bad.

Or we may think that sinning makes us bad, not realizing that we are bad because we are sinners (Rom 3:9-11).

Otherwise, we make excuses for the sins of others, as well as our own.

Over the past week, Arnold Schwarzenegger confessed to have fathered a child with his house maid 14 years ago. Also, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the president of the IMF and a leading candidate to being the next French president, was charged with attempted rape of a hotel maid.

Why do such things happen? How could men who seem to have everything act in such brutish ways?

How did sin start?

This post does not attempt to explain every verse in its depth and wealth, but we can think of Gen 3:1-24 in 3 ways:

1. Satan (The Lie) (Why we sin)
2. Man (The Cover) (How we act)
3. God (The Solution) (What God does)
   

God's Great Heart of Love Toward His Own (Zephaniah)

Zephaniah, an OT prophet, warned Judah during the reign of Josiah (637-608 BC; about 80 years after the northern kingdom of Israel was defeated by Assyria) that their final days were near (Zeph 1:7). Their divine judgment will come at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar (605-586 BC), who would conquer and exile them about 20 years later (Zeph 1:4-13).
 
This outline/overview of Zephaniah is from a sermon by Mike Bullmore (senior pastor of CrossWay Community Church, Bristol, Wisconsin), which was delivered at the Gospel Coalition 2011 in Chicago. Watch the video, or listen to the audio of "God's Great Heart Toward His Own" here. Bullmore explained and expounded the message of Zephaniah in 3 steps:

1. There appears to be no hope. (God's judgment is rightly against all mankind.)
2. There is a glimmer of hope. (A word of hope is spoken.)
3. This glimmer bursts into a great and glorious rejoicing of God's people.
   

Here are my previous summations of the 3 chapters of Zephaniah:

1. No Hope (Be Silent Before God) (Zeph 1:1-18)
2. A Glimmer of Hope (Seek the Lord You Who Are Humble) (Zeph 2:1-3:8)
3. Sing, Shout, Be Glad, Rejoice (God Preserves The Meek and Humble) (Zeph 3:9-20)

Zephaniah, along with other OT prophets, is pregnant with the message of the Bible. Therefore it is pregnant with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Granted, in the earlier stages of salvation history and of progressive revelation, the shape of and the specific contours and content of the gospel is harder to detect. But Zephaniah very well has the entire Bible in miniature (as with the other books in the OT), for the gospel is present in Zephaniah in utero.

Are You Growing Spiritually? Making Progress?

Ponder these probing, painful questions:

• Are you growing (2 Pet 3:18)?
• Are you showing progress (1 Tim 4:15)?
• Are you working harder (1 Cor 15:10; Phil 2:12)?

What is God like? (Ezekiel 1)

This chart of Ezekiel gives an overview. Check out this excellent computer graphics animation describing the incredible vision seen in Ezek 1:1-28.

Ezekial was 25 when taken into Babylonian captivity, and 30 when called into ministry (Ezek 1:1), the age when priests commenced their office. He was a captured Israelite in forced exile. He is unusual and strange, and so is his book, which we may often not read, or hear sermons on. Historically, young rabbis were encouraged not to read Ezekiel until age 30, lest they become discouraged as to how hard Scripture is.

The outline below is from a sermon by Mark Dever (Capitol Hill Baptist Church) entitled A Vision of God, or "What is God like?" One of the most vivid records in the Bible of a vision of God is in Ezek 1:1-28, where Dever explains 5 things we can learn about God.

The Gravest Question Before The Church

Ponder these questions: What are your thoughts about God? What do you conceive God to be like?

Whatever we may (or may not) think of God, it will fully dictate and determine the way we live and think.

If we think little or nothing of God, then we ourselves become the measure of all things, based entirely and subjectively on our own ideas, thoughts, speculations, pride, self-confidence, experiences, culture, traditions, expectations, prejudices, "wisdom," etc.

If we think that God or others "owe" me for being good, or that God should do for me what I want, it will surely affect the way we live in the world and interact with others.

So, what do you really think about God? About your church?

Perhaps, A.W. Tozer says it best in the first chapter of his book, Knowledge of the Holy:

5 Questions Charles Simeon asked John Wesley

Charles Simeon (1759 – 1836), a Calvinist, was an influential English clergyman. John Wesley (1703 - 1791), an Arminian, was the founder of the Methodist church. In an attempt to resolve any differences between them, Simeon asked Wesley the following questions:

JONAH

"(Jonah is) probably the best known yet least understood book in the Bible." Ray Stedman

"The story of Jonah the prophet swallowed by the giant fish is simple enough to delight a child and complex enough to confound a scholar." Janet Howe Gaines

"(Jonah) is a subtly crafted narrative about the idols that drive our actions on many levels and pull us farther from God even when we think we are doing (God's) will." Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods, 133

"It is one thing to know the doctrine of salvation by grace, and quite another to know the grace of the doctrine of salvation. This is the lesson of Jonah, the prophet who knew God's grace but was challenged by God inwardly to embrace it." Richard Phillips, Jonah & Micah, 3

"(Jonah) is really a book about ... how one man came, through painful experience, to discover the true character of the God whom he had already served in the earlier years of his life. He was to find the doctrine about God (with which he had long been familiar) come alive in his experience." Sinclair Ferguson, Man Overboard! The Story of Jonah, 2008, xi

"Jonah brings us face to face with such important issues as God's grace for the wicked, God's sovereignty over his servants, and the intense human struggle involved with forgiveness and repentance." Richard Philips, Jonah & Micah, 4

"The Book of Jonah is not so much about this great fish that appears in the middle of the book ... [but] in order to teach Jonah that he has a gracious God." Sinclair Ferguson, "What Jonah Learned," in The Doctrines of Grace, 2006, audio recording

"Jonah is a storied presentation of the gospel, a story of sin and grace, of desperation and deliverance. It reveals the fact that while you and I are great sinners, God is a great Savior, and that while our sin reaches far, his grace reaches farther. God is in the business of relentlessly pursuing rebels like us and he comes after us not to angrily strip away our freedom, but to affectionately strip away our slavery so that we might become truly free." Tullian Tchividjian, Surprised by God, 18

"(From Jonah) we learn about the danger we experience when we run from God's will, the deliverance we experience when we submit to God's will, the deliverance others experience when we fulfill God's will, and the depression we experience when we doubt God's will." Tchividjian, Surprised by Grace, 25

Intro: The book of Jonah mainly recounts a story from the life of the prophet himself. The closest parallels are the accounts of Elijah and Elisha in 1 and 2 Kings. Since Jonah begins his ministry shortly after the time of Elijah and Elisha, he likely was one of their immediate successors, and may have been a personal disciple of the latter.

Jonah's world: According to 2 Kings 14:25, Jonah was a prophet in the time of King Jeroboam II, one of many wicked kings of the northern kingdom of Israel. It was 150 years since the death of King Solomon, and the nation had long been divided. 10 of Israel's 12 tribes were united as the northern kingdom, while only Judah and Benjamin held to the Davidic throne in Jerusalem and worshiped at the temple that Solomon built.

The northern kingdom had recurrent problems with constant idolatry and rebellion against the Lord. This was the main issue with which the prophets contended. But there were also political and military problems, for just north of them was the Assyrian Empire, the superpower of the time, which was an ominous threat and Israel's constant concern.

The prophets of the northern kingdom, like Elijah, called the kings and the nation to repentance. But the prophets were also messengers of grace. Over and over again, God showed mercy to his wayward people, often through the ministry of these prophets. It is in this connection that Jonah is mentioned in 2 Kings 14:25-27. For a time, Assyria was divided and suffered from famine, so that Israel's former boundaries were restored. In this way, God demonstrated his grace to Israel, renewed their hope, and encouraged their repentance. Jonah, who delivered the good news, saw the grace and mercy of God.

Israel had done nothing to merit God's favor; instead, their wickedness deserved God's wrath. Yet God was merciful. God reached out a hand of favor to woo his wayward people. Though Jonah saw God's grace up close, he still had much to learn about the grace of God, just as we do today.

References:

1. Counterfeit Gods, 2009, Tim Keller, The Hidden Idols in Our Lives, 126-153
2. Jonah & Micah, 2010, Reformed Expository Commentary, Richard D. Phillips
3. Surprised by Grace, God's Relentless Pursuit of Rebels, 2010, Tullian Tchividjian
4. ESV Study Bible, 2008
   
5. The Reformation Study Bible, 2005
   
6. The MacArthur Study Bible, 2006
   

18) The Beginning (Mark 15:37-16:7)

"The resurrection was as inconceivable for the 1st disciples, as impossible for them to believe, as it is for many of us today. The people of Jesus' day were not predisposed to believe in resurrection any more than we are." 216

"If you can't dance and you long to dance, in the resurrection you'll dance perfectly. If you're lonely, in the resurrection you will have perfect love. If you're empty, in the resurrection you will be fully satisfied." 223

Intro: In every messianic movement in Israel, the messianic leader was killed and the movement collapsed. But after Jesus' death, Christianity spread through the entire Roman empire in 300 years. What caused the explosive growth in Christianity after its founder's death?

17) The End (Mark 14:53-15:39)

"Christianity is the only religious faith that says that God himself actually suffered, actually cried out in suffering." Tim Keller, King's Cross, 208

"If you see Jesus losing the infinite love of his Father out of his infinite love for you, it will melt your hardness." 210

"Spiritual darkness comes when we turn away from God as our true light and make something else the center of our life." 203
"When you are in spiritual darkness, although you may feel your life is headed in the right direction, you are actually profoundly disoriented." 203

"Also, if you center on anything but God, you suffer a loss of identity. Your identity will be fragile and insecure... It's based on human approval. It's based on how well you perform. You don't really know who you are. In the darkness you can't see yourself." 204

ACTS

Introduction: Acts is a selective history of the early church following the resurrection of Christ. We have 4 accounts of Jesus, but only one of the early church, where the author Luke traces only the ministries of Peter (chs. 1-12) and Paul (chs. 13-28). So Acts or the "Acts of the Apostles" occupies an indispensable place in the Bible. It is the first work of church history ever penned, where Acts records the initial response to the Great Commission (Matt 28:19-20), as it provides information on the first 3 decades of the church's existence, which is found nowhere else in the NT. Acts:

1. emphasizes that Jesus of Nazareth was Israel's long-awaited Messiah,
2. declares that the gospel is offered to all men (not merely the Jewish people), and
3. stresses the work of the Holy Spirit (mentioned > 50 times)
   

As Hebrews sets forth the theology of the transition from the Old Covenant to the New, Acts depicts the New Covenant's practical outworking in the life of the church.

A Lamb Bound By His Four Feet

Are you wounded more than this lamb that is bound by his four feet?

We are wounded when we give in to the perpetual sinful desires raging in our own hearts. But our wounds are also inflicted by others: our parents, our family, our friends, and even by Christians in the church who believe in God and believe in the Bible.

As frail and fallible humans, we have a terribly hard time truly forgiving others, or letting go of the hurts and wounds that are inflicted on us, and deeply embedded in us. In fact, I'm convinced that we can't forgive others by our own human strength.

I've spoken to many young adults who were so brutally traumatized by their parent's divorce, which they experienced personally as a betrayal of the deepest cut. Surprisingly (but perhaps not so), I am also beginning to hear of those who were terribly wounded by Christians who believe in God and who believe in the Bible. Reinhold Niebuhr said, "There is no deeper pathos in the spiritual life than the cruelty of righteous people."

Sometimes, it's hard for me to figure out which wound is deeper: those inflicted by your own family, or by your church family.

This is one of our human dilemmas. We love our family, but we were terribly hurt by them. We love our church family, but we were also terribly hurt by them. What is the solution or the resolution?

I think the answer is in this picture of the lamb who was bound by his four feet.

When I thought of what would happen to the lamb after he was bound, I shuddered and broke down. The butchers would do to the lamb what they normally do. Then the lamb would no longer look so cute and so lovely. He would become an unrecognizable, disfigured, bloody mess (Isa 52:14).

Jesus is that lamb. Jesus is the kernel of wheat that fell to the ground and died (John 12:24). He wasn't forced to do so, but did so willingly (John 10:18). Why? Here are some reasons:

• He had to be cursed by God in our place (Gal 3:13).
  
• He became our sin in the presence of God (2 Cor 5:21).
  
• He bore our sins in his own body and was mortally wounded in our place (Isa 53:5; 1 Pet 2:24).
• He had to suffer and be put to death for our sins (1 Pet 3:18).

O this side of heaven, we may never be fully free of the inflicted wounds in our soul. But there is One who received a far deeper wound. And only by his wounds are we healed.

How have you been wounded? Do you find peace and healing in the Lamb who was bound unto death?