The View From Here

photo credit: Okko Pyykkö

“Daydreaming about something in order to do it properly is right, but daydreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong.”

–Oswald Chambers

I believe that there are three basic categories of commands that we as Christians receive. They are explicit, implicit, and situational. The first two come from scripture and the last comes from our daily lives.  Let’s start at the end of the list and work our way to the beginning.

1.  Situational

Situational commands are the hardest to discern out of the three.  There are situations in our lives that come up where there is no prescribed correct way to handle them.  The Bible does not speak directly to these situations.  What are we supposed to do?  In this case we have to determine what God would have us do based on what we know of Him as revealed in scripture.  For example, we are told in scripture that is is good not to marry but that marriage does have a purpose.  Both ways of life are spoken of highly by God.  So, which is it?  And then on top of that, who, if anyone, are we supposed to marry?  Is it this person or that one?  How do we know?

This is a situation where we have to be in a close relationship with God and trust that He will lead us.  We have to take these situation by situation and it requires a daily walk with Him to do so.  As my pastor said it, “Obey what you know, and you will know what to obey.”  We know that we are supposed to have a deep and close relationship with out Lord and Savior and if we do that we will know what to do in situations like these.

2.  Implicit

Implicit commands are not directly spoken in scripture but they can be implied.  We are told in 1 Cor. 6:9 that people who practice homosexuality will not inherit the kingdom of God.  It is easy to imply from this scripture that we are commanded not to practice homosexuality. 

Another example of this can be found in 1 Cor. 10:31.  The only two explicit things we are told to do for God’s glory is eat and drink but then we are also told “…whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”  We have to take this and imply that it means that we have to watch movies to the glory of God, or discipline our children to the glory of God.  Implied commands can take some extensive study to understand.

3.  Explicit

Explicit commands are the most visible and easy to discern because they come very directly from scripture.  A great example of these can be found in the ten commandments.  Do not steal is pretty easy to understand.  The only way to interpret this is, don’t steal.  That’s it. There are no two ways about it.

This brings me to the explicit command that I want to talk about.  Jesus says in Mat 28:19-20 to:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

We are explicitly commanded to “make disciples”.  That means sharing the gospel with people.  Our witness before everyone is paramount.  Many times I find myself thinking too much on whether I should share with this person or that person.  There is no question in my mind that I should.  I am over-thinking whereby putting off what God has commanded of me.  There shouldn’t be a time in my life when I am not actively or passively pursuing people for God’s kingdom.  We cannot use the excuse that we don’t know if we should or not.  It is explicit in scripture that we share with everyone.  That is why we are here.

There are things that should take a lot of thought and preparation but this in not one of them.  Don’t think too much.  Obey God.  By doing this we show that we trust Him.

“(Contemplating) after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust Him.”

–Oswald Chambers

 Brian

So I have missed a week or two of this.  My apologies.  We are still working to memorize them and I would encourage you to do so as well. Having God’s word memorized in our mind and heart will go a very long way in our sanctification as well as helping us to encourage others with truth.  Here they are:

Rom. 11: 34 - 36

For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?  For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be glory forever. Amen.

Rom.  12: 1 - 2

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the perfect will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Brian

We have started studying Nehemiah in the Sunday School class my wife and I are attending and I thought it would be a good opportunity to read the book again so I have an idea of where we are going in the study. First of all, I haven’t read this book in a long time and I had forgotten that it was written in the first person point of view. Being the avid reader that I am (or at least I like to think I am) this is probably my favorite point of view. Perhaps it is because not very many authors use it or maybe it is because the reader can get more acquainted with the character as you are in their thoughts. It is probably a combination of both. Secondly, I have enjoyed reacquainting myself with the history of God’s people leading up to the time of Nehemiah. I think we sometimes forget how important this is and it gets neglected in our studies. I am rambling. All that to say that we are studying through Nehemiah and I am enjoying it. Moving on.

I was reading through the first couple chapters last night and I came across something interesting. At the beginning of the book we find Nehemiah serving the king of Persia while in exile. Nehemiah is distressed about what he hears about his ancestor’s city of Jerusalem. He immediately begins to pray that God would provide a way for him to return to his homeland. He is in an important position as cup-bearer to the king which allows him to ask a favor of the king. He requests that the king allow him to return to Jeruselem to rebuild the wall. He also requests letters from the king to the various people he will need to require either permission or materials to do this. The king grants both of these requests and sends Nehemiah on his way with king-permission-letters in hand. To quote verse 8 of chapter 1, “And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of God was upon me.”

When Nehemiah gets to Jerusalem he inspects the wall, then starts gathering people and resources to start the job of rebuilding. Now comes the interesting part. Look at verses 19 - 20:

But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah, the Ammonite servant and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they jeered at us and despised us and said, “What is this thing that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?” Then I replied to them, “The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we his servants will arise and build…

What is interesting or amazing about this? Nehemiah has, in his pocket, the letters from the king authorizing him to do all he needs to complete the job. These men have no reason to question him. All Nehemiah would have to do is pull out the letters, wave them in their faces and say, “booyah!”. But he doesn’t do this. Instead he calls upon the authority of God, who is the true provider of Nehemiah’s authority. He knows that his authority does not come from an earthy king, but the Eternal King of heaven.

Nehemiah’s statement is an awesome display of faith and trust that we as believers in Christ can learn so much from in respect to how we acknowledge God as sovereign over everything. I know that when I am faced with a difficult situation, all too often I rely on powers of this earth, either myself or something else I can draw authority from. Why do I do this knowing that the God of heaven is at my disposal? My first place to turn should be prayer. I need to acknowledge where any authority I have comes from. It comes from the author and perfecter of my faith. If God is for us, who can be against us?

Brian

Matt. 3:7-12

But when� (John the Baptist) saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers!� Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Let me give you a little background on who the Pharisees were. Pharisees were close students of scripture and were detailed followers of the law. They were so detailed that much of their study resulted in additional traditions to the law in order to be able to fulfill it to a greater extent. According to the New Testament, Pharisees used these traditions to focus on the external rather than the internal. They were more concerned with how things looked to others rather than how it really affected them. They were the religious elite. Because of their externalism, they made sure they followed the letter of the law and even some letters that weren’t there. They were caught up more in traditions and how they looked than the motivation behind their actions. As a result, their religion was a facade and nothing more. They drew their assurance from their heritage. In the above passage we see that heritage is not enough. If there is no true repentance and resulting fruit then their heritage matters nothing. They will be the chaff that will be separated from the wheat and cast out because they lacked true repentance.

Repentance is one of those words that Christians sometimes throw around without really thinking about what it means. We find a great picture of repentance in Psalms 51. Please read it. Repentance is turning away from sin and towards God. Repentance is not just for your neighbor. When we think of repentance it is easy to think about all the people we know who need to repent. In fact, the message of repentance is for me. Is this not something that we should be doing every day� I know that I sin every day. It is not a matter of if but when. So then it would make sense that repentance is for every day. If we are to produce fruit in our lives then our days must be marked by repenting of sin and turning back to God. This cannot be a facade that we put up, it must be a true heart change in response to the Holy Spirit. We could follow all the rules that are out there for a Christian to follow and it would not bring us any closer to God. The worst, most public sinner with true repentance is closer to God than a person who appears perfect because they follow the letter of the law when in their heart they hide, even from themselves, the sin that afflicts us all.

Sin is another word that, I think, has lost some of it’s impact. Click here to read a post I wrote a while back specifically about this. Sin is not as simple as we like to make it. We like to think that there is a list of dos and don’ts, clear-cut things that are either sin or they are not. We think that if it looks like sin, according to our viewpoint, then it must be sin. It is true that there are many sins out there that are very visible, but there are just as many that aren’t. Saying, “I love you,” to someone could be a sin if said with the wrong heart intent. The person you said it to may never know, but you know and God knows. If all we care about is how the other person viewed it then we are practicing the same religion that the Pharisees were condemned for. Our cup is clean on the outside but the inside is mucked up with junk.

As Christians it is easy for us to think that we are right. We go to church, we read our bible, we pray, we sing songs of praise, we help people in need; we do everything that we think being a Christian should look like. We are the religious elite. It is certainly a scary thought that many of us are not many steps away from becoming exactly what the Pharisees were: a brood of vipers who lived out their religion as a way to look good but lacking true relationship with God. We look down our noses at others who don’t look like us all the while forgetting who we should be on the inside. We have absolutely no basis to feel good about who we are aside from Christ. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” That includes us! The only thing that separates a believer in Christ with an unbeliever is grace that was poured out at the cross. There should be no swagger in a Christian’s walk because of who they are in Christ. Instead, there should be humility and brokenness. We hide our sins from our fellow believer hoping that no one will guess what darkness hides within us. We can all say with Paul, “I am the chief of sinners!” We do this to the detriment of the gospel because when we hide the sin within we only cover the measure of grace that was poured out on us.

There are many aspects of my life that I live exactly like the Pharisees did. My sin hides behind the facade that I create on a daily basis. Without repentance I can become haughty in my faith. This should not be!

Father, help me not to live my life like a Pharisee. I am so in need of grace that there can be no room for prideful facades. Break me of myself and cause me to fall into pieces in Your merciful hand. Thank you, Jesus, for the undeserved favor you have poured out on me and help me to accept it humbly. Help me to be able to confess my sin to others so that they can see who I really am: a fallen sinner caught by grace.

Brian

 As of late I have been rather disconcerted with the way the world seems to be going.  The political atomosphere in the US is about as low as it can get and I don’t really like any of the choices we have in presidential candidates. Morality is on a steady decline.  Internationally, we have a war that is drawing out and most people are getting war weary, and we have nations with potential nuclear ability and other nations probably willing to back them.  It is easy to look at everything going on and feel helpless and hopeless.  What can I do to change things?  What will happen if the world blows up in war and life as we know it ceases?  Then the thought occurs that this must be the worst time in all of history.  When and if you start thinking like this the following quote and passage have been very helpful to me for putting things into a more God-centered, big picture perspective.

What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecc. 1:9

In times like these, it helps to remember that there have always been times like these.

Paul Harvey

 The world has already seen people and nations acting these ways and the world still exists, but more importantly, God has been there at every turn bringing about his perfect will no matter the choices that are made by man.  Be encouraged, God is in control!  This is not a promise of ease.  In fact, God promises that, as believers, we will experience trials in whatever form they take. Instead it is a promise of hope in our salvation and joy that can be found in those trials knowing that God is refining us.  The world may seem to be falling apart around us (and it may be) but the promises of God are not dependent on a perfect world.  They are only dependent on He who is our cornerstone, Jesus Christ.

 Brian