Music Mondays

This week's Music Monday selection is inspired by our upcoming sermon series. We've finished the book of Daniel and are returning to the New Testament by going through Galatians.

Galatians is all about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Galatians is all about how we undeservingly receive salvation through Christ by placing our faith in Him. Paul wrote this letter to combat those who were adding stipulations to the gospel, wanting new converts to conform to Jewish laws and regulations. Instead, Paul's message is "We are free!" OR as Homer Kent titled his commentary, Galatians is about "The Freedom of God's Sons".

With that in mind, I could think of no better recent CCM song to feature than this one:

Sermon Snippets

We've arrived at the end of the book of Daniel, focusing this week on 12:5-13. It has been a fun journey learning about God through his faithful prophet Daniel.  This book has traced Daniel's life from a captive young exile to an elder statesman who has served multiple kings and two different empires.

From these concluding verses, it is easy to imagine a steadfast but weary Daniel being comforted by God's message. It brings to mind another account, this one being a fictional elder-statesman who was also arriving at the end of his life's journey.

http://lesmiserables.wikia.com/wiki/File:Valjean's_Death.png

God provides comfort to this faithful servant by highlighting the promised deliverance and resurrection that are his:

 "As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance." (12:13)

What a beautiful way to end the book. God is in control and has great things in store for His people. This is the Gospel inserted into the Old Testament,

"Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever....Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked." (12:2-3, 10)

There are other promises within this passage that we will unwrap on Sunday, but the most important ones are those that speak to our ultimate salvation and our ultimate destiny. Praise God for this indescribable gift!

Music Mondays

I've run out of ideas when it comes to themes for Music Mondays. So today, I thought I'd go with a song that's been getting stuck in my head. It's especially appropriate for the current sermon series in Daniel:

Daniel's message communicates the hope we have in our God. It reminds us over and over that God is faithful and in control. God is the light of all and all that we need, because he will bring deliverance for His people. Can't get enough of this song, admittedly because virtually all the heavy hitters of the current worship scene are playing together.

Sermon Snippets

We've come to our next-to-last sermon in the book of Daniel. For the fifth time in his book, Daniel receives insight into God's plan for the future. 

Reading Daniel straight through can make it all seem redundant. Much of what's included in chapters 10-11 has already been described in the other visions. What's new in this vision is the detail God goes into in predicting what will happen in world affairs. The events were all to take place in the future for Daniel and his original audience, yet much of it has already taken place from where we sit in 2013.

So we are left with semi-redundant prophecy that mostly focuses on stuff that happened in the past. That is a recipe for a fine lecture on ancient Near Eastern world history, but not a perfect recipe for a sermon....

Unless...we can emphasize the uncanny ability of God to specifically fulfill his prophetic promises. And while some of the details about the events that are still to take place are a little hazy, we can still  emphasize what the passage makes clear - God is sovereign and he will deliver his faithful people.

If Daniel had to hear it five times throughout his life, how many times will it take for us to embrace that perspective?

Switching gears, the issue of supernatural warfare comes up within these two-plus chapters. While it is a minor point within my sermon, it is worth going into detail after the jump -

Sermon Snippets

This week, we are studying Daniel 9:20-27.

This passage is the most difficult passage in the whole Bible to interpret and understand.

It gets so complicated, some view one particular reference to refer to Jesus. Another widely held view on the same issue, believes it to refer to the future Anti-Christ.

That's how divergent and complicated it can get. After putting together this week's sermon, I'm mentally exhausted. I hardly know what to share in this preview of the passage.

What I do want to communicate is that no matter the interpretive positions you take, the hope we have in Christ is undeniably present in these verses.

End times material will sell a lot of books. End times material can attract a lot of attendees to a conference or seminar. End times material can create a lot of heated discussion in seminary classrooms and college dorms.

But end times material that is not centrally focused on Jesus is worthless. Any end times sermon that parses potential timelines but neglects the hope we have in Christ misses the point entirely.

The more I study God's Word, especially prophecy about the Last Days, the more I am convinced God would prefer we cling to the grace of Jesus rather than getting all the details right. The purpose behind what He's revealed to us about the future is to inspire us to faithfulness. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Problem with Suffering - 9/11 Remembered

Like any self-respecting college student who didn't have a morning class, I slept in that day. On September 11, 2001, I got some extra rest only needing to attend the 9:30 am chapel (or was it 10?/10:30?).  When I arrived in the basement of McClain for that morning's service, I found some friends and one of them mentioned an attack on the World Trade Center. I responded with outright disbelief. "No way," I thought, they are trying to pull some weird prank."

It was no prank. Moments later our dean of students would take the platform and describe the horrors that were taking place in New York City. Soon after we were dismissed and I returned to my dorm in Lamp Post to watch the rest of the morning's events unfold. 

Events like that one twelve years ago stick with you. We are all forever impacted by the tragedies of that day. As Christians, times like those force us to deal with age-old questions like, 'Why do bad things happen to good people?' and 'Where is God in all of this?'

The answers aren't easy nor are they easy to come by. As this pastor searches the Scriptures for help, the story of Job seems more pertinent than any other.

Before we delve into the lessons we can take from Job's life, we ought to heed C.S. Lewis' words regarding human suffering:

"The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defence for being the god who permits war, poverty and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the Bench and God in the Dock."

C.S. Lewis, "God in the Dock" as quoted by Philip Yancey The Bible Jesus Read. Zondervan Publishing House. pg. 53

When we take the position of judge and put God on trial, we have completely reversed the proper perspective for events like 9/11. 

When we sit as judge, we are then led to demand an answer to the "Why?" question. Some will even question God's very existence. In his best selling book When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Rabbi Kushner went so far as to conclude that God is weak and lacks the power to prevent suffering.*

His conclusion runs completely contrary to the clear theology of God's Word that holds our God to be the almighty Creator who is sovereign over all of history and all of mankind. 

But if God is omnipotent, we are still left to wonder why He wouldn't intervene. How are we to make sense of the sufferings and tragedies of our world? How are we to deal with events like 9/11?

Philip Yancey's exposition on the book of Job which I've already cited provides biblical principles we can rely on as we work through these things.The following is a summary of his points:**

1. Satan is responsible. Job 1-2 demonstrate that Satan, not God, caused Job's suffering. God permitted it to answer Satan's challenge, i.e., that Job was only faithful because of the good things God gave him. Likewise, we still live in a world where evil exists and Satan seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. We can't know for sure what's going on behind the scenes, but we should realize there are evil forces at work in our world.
2. God is not weak or powerless. Job 38-42 highlight his great power and control over all of creation. When he appears at the end of the story of Job, Job is left trembling while acknowledging God's great power (42:1-3).
3. Suffering is not always a punishment for our sin. Some claimed this was the reason God let 9/11 happen. God was punishing our country for our sins. Is it possible they were right? Yes. Is it possible they were wrong? YES! Job wasn't being punished for his sin, he was being tested. He was being used as an example to defeat Satan. Like the blind man in John 9:1-7, Job had to endure difficulty so that God's glory would ultimately be magnified.
4. True 'fairness' and 'justice' is not limited to this life. As Yancey states, "the pleasure that Job enjoyed in his old age is a mere foretaste of what is to come".  Earthly rewards and blessings may come to God's faithful servants. But whether they do or do not, they cannot be compared to the eternal rewards God has in store for His faithful servants in heaven.
5. God allows us to question and protest His plan. David did it in the Psalms and Job openly questions God as well. Yet God is not threatened by our questions or our outbursts. He invites it. It is ok to struggle with trials. It is ok to struggle to seek God's plan during difficulty. It is far worse to offer cliches or simplistic theology as if God needed our protection. Job's friends tried to 'defend' God by offering trite theological explanations but at the end of the book, they were the one's  reprimanded by God, not the overtly distressed Job.
6. Sometimes neither side of the argument is correct. Chapters 1-2 disclose the reality of the situation that was hidden from Job and his friends. It is in those early chapters that the reader is given the reason 'why' this happened to Job. And the truth is not even close to what Job and his friends had asserted. Like them, we lack all of the information when dealing with suffering in our day. So we should be cautious when making bold pronouncements and speaking for God in present times.
7. Suffering can be redemptive and serve a greater good. Job's painful suffering was used to win a decisive victory over Satan, foreshadowing in many ways Christ and the Cross.
8. How we respond to suffering matters. God never told Job why He let tragedies destroy his life. He did not tell him about the cosmic drama that went on behind the scenes (Job 1-2). God was concerned with how Job would respond. For that matter, so was Satan. Would Job reject God after all God's blessings were taken from him? Would he curse God as his wife suggests (2:9)? Or would he trust God despite being completely disoriented by the chaos of death and loss? God ignores the question of why suffering happens. Instead, He puts all His confidence in Job would respond in faithfulness to the suffering he would encounter. As Yancey says, "Job convinces me that God cares more about our faith than our pleasure."***

*Philip Yancey The Bible Jesus Read. Zondervan Publishing House. Grand Rapids MI. pg.69
**Ibid. pg. 69-72
***Ibid. pg.63. 

Music Mondays

I learned of this week's featured song over facebook, as some friends of mine who lead worship expressed their appreciation for this new song by Hillsong.

It is less of a 're-mix' of an old hymn as a new song that incorporates an older tune, in this case "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus".  It's a thought-provoking song for me personally, as I've been more and more sensitive to the idols I've set up in my own heart. To sing "Christ is enough for me" with any sincerity becomes a convicting exercise.

That's what worship is supposed to be, at least in part, recognizing God's greatness and our frailty.

Sermon Snippets

Daniel 9 is one of the most debated chapters in the entire Bible.

As I prepared for this Sunday after a wonderful vacation, I found myself pulled in different directions. The chapter is certainly one whole unit but I felt constrained to preach it as an entire passage.

The first part (and majority) of the the chapter deals with Daniel fervently seeking God's face after realizing the prophesied time of captivity is about to come to an end (vs.1-19).

God responds to Daniel's prayer by revealing more of his future plan through the angel Gabriel in vs. 20-27. This revelation of things to come, which revolves around 70 'sevens', has inspired thousands of pages of commentary.

So much attention has been given to the interpretation of this latter part of the chapter, I felt conflicted about the potential of how one all-encompassing message might neglect what makes up the majority of the chapter. In the end, the best option became cutting the passage into two parts.

The first sermon, on 9:1-19, can focus on Daniel's prayer of confession and repentance.
The second, on 9:20-27, can focus on the fascinating end-times descriptions.

So that's where we are going this week and why.  More related to the sermon itself, after the jump.