Who Am I? Our Identity in Christ

 

Welcome to a new series entitled “In Christ, With Christ, and For Christ: Our Identity, Belonging, and Purpose”. This series seeks to explore the answers to some of the most important questions that we can ask. The questions we explore have answers in the Bible, and my primary prayer for this series is that our speakers pass on this Biblical truth and that we all absorb deeply these answers so that they do not leave us the same as we were at the beginning of this series. We will be in this series for twelve weeks. The first four weeks are devoted to questions involving our identity, the next four weeks are devoted to the theme of relationships and specifically where we belong, and our final four weeks investigate our God-given purpose.
 
Today we look at the question, “Who am I?” It is such a short question, but it reaches to the deepest parts of us. I want to start this message with an exercise – get out a piece of paper, and answer the question for yourself: Who am I? Don’t worry about giving the “right” answer, or trying to guess the Biblical answer, or to give the answer you think you want me to have you put. Simply search yourself and answer the question as honestly as you can. Maybe try to think of three to five honest answers to this question. I’ll give you a minute to do this.

Beholding Jesus

Let’s pray that God would use today’s message make a permanent change in how we view Him and how we approach the Bible in our quite times.  Today we are finishing our series on Beholding (a wide-angle view of the True Story of God).  Carl started with Beholding the Creator and Brian shared on Beholding fallen Man then Carl followed him with Beholding the Stricken Earth.  John followed that message up with Beholding the tragic flow of History and Tim followed him with Beholding Interventions of God and Carl followed that message just before Christmas with Beholding the Promise of a Savior and the following week Tim shared Beholding the Christ Child.  We end today with the message titled Beholding Jesus.
 
Now Carl began the series with the following three slides that I think are applicable to this message also:
 
I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel. – Numbers 24:17
 
In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by his Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom also He made the universe. – Hebrews 1:1-2
 
For in Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Him and for Him. – Colossians 1:16
 
I want to say up front that I was very blessed to have been given this final topic in the series.  While reading and researching it, I thought about a line in a song from the movie Fiddler On The Roof. 
 
The Song is titled “If I Were A Rich Man”.  The line in the song that I have thought about then and many times over the years goes like this: 
 
“If I were rich, I’d have the time that I lack to sit in the synagogue and pray and maybe have a seat by the Eastern wall and I’d discuss the holy books with the learned men, several hours every day and that would be the sweetest thing of all.” 
 
I feel that I am a rich man because now I have the time to read the scriptures and ponder what God has done not only in my life but in the lives of countless other believers like me.  I feel that I am rich because I have the opportunity on a regular basis to remind people what Christ has done in their lives and what He will do when He comes back.  I remind them that His reward will be with Him. 
 
Now in order to get a wide-angle view of Jesus I began my research into this topic by looking at the Old Testament prophesies and comparing them to the fulfillment verses in the New Testament.  I found a table that listed 351 Old Testament Prophesies concerning the Messiah paired with the associated fulfillment verses in the New Testament.  I decided to look them all up both Old Testament verses and the New Testament fulfillment verses to see if they were indeed prophetic references to Jesus.  There was only one verse in this list that I didn’t quite understand how it made the list (that was Song of Solomon 5:16).  There were only a handful of other verses in this list that I thought were only vaguely applicable.  However, I found the rest of the list to be spot on in that these were clearly prophetic references to Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection. 
 
I read elsewhere that conservatively Jesus fulfilled at least three hundred Old Testament prophesies in His earthly ministry.  One Scholar J. Barton Payne claims to have found 574 verses that point to or describe or reference the Messiah. 
 
Now Alfred Edersheim was a Jewish convert to Christianity and a Biblical Scholar. In the appendix of his book titled The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, there is a list of  456 Old testament passages which are considered Messianic by the Rabbi before the time of Jesus. I have not looked these up to compare it to the list of 351 references that I used but most of the 351 list would be in the 456 list.
 
In December of 2019 a teacher in the international Christian School of Vienna claimed that the probability that any one person could fulfill over 300 prophesies that were written between 500 and 1000 years before Jesus was even born is one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion.   If you weren’t counting that is a string of 13 trillions in a row.  I don’t know if there is a shorthand name for that number, but the probability that someone could fulfill just eight of these is said to be one in a hundred quadrillion.  Now a quadrillion is only a thousand trillion.  A hundred quadrillion is a one followed by fifteen zeros.  Now we don’t have time for me to go through the list of 351 prophesies about Jesus listed in the table that I used but I would gladly print you a copy of that list or email it to you.  Just let me know after the message today.  However, we do have time to look at the eight prophesies that were referenced with the probability of 1 in a hundred thousand trillion. 
 
The first is a prophesy that He would be born in Bethlehem stated in Micah 5:2 it was written 700 B.C. it was fulfilled in Matthew 2:1-6 and referenced by unbelievers in John 7:42. 
 
The second is a prophesy of the virgin giving birth stated in Isaiah 7:14 and 9:6-7 written 735 B.C and fulfilled in Matthew 1:20-23 and Luke 1:35. 
 
The third is a prophesy that the Messiah would be from the lineage of King David stated in Jeremiah 23:5 and written in 600 B.C. and fulfilled in Luke 3:23-38. 
 
The fourth is a prophesy that the Messiah would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver stated in Zechariah 11:13 written in 487 B.C. and fulfilled in Matthew 26:15. 
 
The fifth is a prophesy that the Messiah would have his hands and feet pierced stated in Psalm 22:16 and written in 1000 B.C. and fulfilled in Luke 23:33 and John 19:34-37 and John 19:18 and John 20:27. 
 
The sixth is a prophesy that people would cast lots for the Messiah’s clothing written in Psalm 22:18 and fulfilled in John 19:23-24 and Luke 23:34.  
 
The seventh is a prophesy that the Messiah would appear riding on a donkey written in Zechariah 9:9 written in 500 B.C. and fulfilled in Matthew 21:7. 
 
The eighth is a prophesy that a messenger would be sent to herald the Messiah is found in Malachi 3:1and it was written in 500 B.C. and fulfilled in John 1:26. 
 
So the probability of these 8 being fulfilled by one person is said to be one in a hundred thousand trillion.
 
While talking to John and Tim two week ago, I mentioned that I was in awe as I started looking up all 351 Old Testament prophesies and all of the associated New Testament verses that referenced their fulfillment.   Now 102 of these Old Testament prophesies were written in Psalms in or around 1000 B.C and 125 were in Isaiah in and or around 735 B.C.  So it doesn’t surprise me that before Carl became a believer when he found the prophesies in Isaiah that just couldn’t be argued away because they were written more than 700 years before they were fulfilled by Jesus Christ.
 
Now there were several verses not listed in the table of 351 prophesies that mention something very unique that belongs to Jesus.  That something is the Lamb’s book of life and these verses refer to the names written in this book.  John refers to it in Revelations 3:5, Revelations 13:5-8 and Revelations. 20:11-15
 
And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God. Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them.  And authority was given it over every tribe and language and nation,
and all who dwell on the earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain. – Revelation 13:5-8
 
He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. – Revelation 3:5
 
Judgment at the Throne of God Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. – Revelations 20:11-15
 
Now you can’t get a more wide-angle view of the Bible and the True Story of God than you can from looking from before the foundation of the world to the Great White Thrown of Judgement at the end of the age unless you count looking at the new heavens and the new earth (but that is view for another day).  
 
Now only a couple of translations of the Bible had the phrase from before the foundation of the world the rest that I looked at had the phrase from the foundation of the world.  Both have the equivalent meaning since none of us existed at the foundation of the world because Adam was not even created until after the foundation of the world.  Knowing that God’s foreknowledge of us and our names existing before Adam made me contemplate and meditate on God’s awesomeness.  Take some time and think about it.  When each of you whose name was written in this book from before the time when Adam was created, actually take the time to ponder this, you will be in awe like I was then and I am still now.
 
Also as I was pondering this a few other passages came to my mind. One was passage in Luke 2:41-49 when Jesus was only 12 and Mary and Joseph left for home without him.
 
 Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it.
Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished.
His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” – Luke 2:41-49
 
Now Mary and Joseph were worried that Jesus was lost and possibly in danger but Jesus was not worried.  He didn’t feel lost or abandoned or in any danger at all. 
 
A second passage that came to my mind while I was pondering this was found in the passage about Jesus’s mother asking Him to fix the problem with the host of the wedding running out of the wine at the wedding reception in Cana. It is found in John 2:1-4.
 
On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” “Dear woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.” – John 2:1-4
 
The thought that struck me was that Jesus knew from the foundation of the world when He was going to begin His ministry and fulfill all of these prophesies that were written about Him and He knew that He was going to perform all of the prophetic miracles.
 
Now there are no Old Testament prophesies about turning water into wine and Jesus was not in a hurry to do so.  It reminded me of
 
Isaiah 28:16 in the NIV it says,
 
So this is what the Sovereign LORD says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed.  – Isaiah 28:16
 
This word dismayed in my NASB bible is translated disturbed. 
 
But the word disturbed has a foot note that says this word literally means “in a hurry”.  Now Jesus trusted in His heavenly Father and He was and is literally never in a hurry.  He could have started His earthly ministry at the age of 12 but He didn’t.  He could have waited until He was 18 and started His ministry but He didn’t. He waited until the appropriate proper time. Luke 3:23 says He was about 30 years old.
 
A few other passages that came to my mind based on the thought of Jesus not being in a hurry are found in Zephaniah 1:14-18, 2 Peter 3:1-15 , Psalm 97:3-5 and Revelation 22:12
 
“The great day of the LORD is near—near and coming quickly.  Listen! The cry on the day of the LORD will be bitter, the shouting of the warrior there. That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness, a day of trumpet and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the corner towers. I will bring distress on the people and they will walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the LORD. Their blood will be poured out like dust and their entrails like filth. Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them    on the day of the LORD’S wrath.
In the fire of his jealousy the whole world will be consumed, for He will make a sudden end of all who live in the earth.” – Zephaniah 1:14-18
 
Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles. First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ He promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.  
But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.
So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. – 2 Peter 3:1-15
 
Now last week I read a news article that stated that Colorado was experiencing the Apocalyptic Fire and that two and a half cities had been destroyed by fire.  Now this fire was big but it was not even close to the real Apocalyptic Fire described here in Zephaniah1:14-18 and in 2 Peter 3:12.
 
In Zephaniah 1:18 it says,
 
In the fire of His jealousy the whole world will be consumed, for He will make a sudden end of all who live in the earth. – Zephaniah 1:18
 
In 2 Peter 3:12 it says,
 
“That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.” – 2 Peter 3:12
 
Now there are 12 element that melt below freezing between -458 degrees F and -37,7 degrees F.  Six elements melt between 19.2 degrees F and 111.7 degrees F.  All the rest melt between 146 degrees F (the melting point of Phosphorus) and 6332 degrees F the melting point of carbon).  The highest reliable recorded measured atmospheric temperature of on earth is 130 degrees F.  That temperature was reached last year July 9th 2021 at the Furnace Creek Visitors center in Death Valley California. 
 
“Fire goes before Him and burns up his adversaries all around.  His lightning’s light up the world: the earth sees and trembles.  The mountains melt like wax before the Lord” – Psalm 97:3-5
 
With hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and a few other elements carbon compounds make up 18 percent of all the matter in living things. 
 
When Carbon melts at 6332 degrees F there won’t be a single living thing that survives and the mountains will melt like wax.  The whole world will be consumed and as the prophesy states “He will make a sudden end to all who live in the earth.”
 
“Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. – Revelation 22:12
 
Now I have one final thought on this entire series of Beholding a wide angle view of the story of God. Professional photographers have different lenses for their cameras.  One of the lenses has a narrow focus for taking pictures of say a person or a small object that is located close to the front of the camera.  Another lens is a wide angle lens it is used for taking pictures of scenery or landscapes.  This series has let us take a look at the scenery and landscapes of the Bible from beginning to end using a wide angle view.  As you read your Bible each day you will want to focus on the passages that you are reading in front of you that day while keeping in mind the wide angle view of the whole Bible.  Each time we turn the page in our Bibles the Holy Spirit is able to reveal to us the beauty that God has there for us to see.  It reminds me of the beautiful images that appear when I look into the eye piece of a kaleidoscope.  I don’t ever remember picking up a kaleidoscope and seeing the same image that I have seen before.  Every time I turn the lens it creates a new and more beautiful picture of what god has created for me to see and enjoy.  The Bible is like that.  God has arranged it in such a way that He is able to reveal to you and me a new and beautiful image of Himself every time that we look into it.
 
He says in Jeremiah 29:11-14a,
 
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD – Jeremiah 29:1-14a
 
Let’s Pray

Beholding the Christ Child

Merry Christmas! I feel like I am one day late; however, December 26^th is traditionally celebrated as Boxing Day, when gifts would be given to the poor, and household servants would be sent home with Christmas boxes to share with their families. However, I read recently that Boxing Day should not be observed on a Sunday, so this year Boxing Day will actually be tomorrow. So perhaps I should wish you all a happy Saint Stephen’s Day today instead, which has a multitude of Christmas traditions associated with it, too.
 
In any case, we are not quite done with celebrating Christmas, as today we will consider what it means to behold the Christ child. This covers the smallest window in time of any of our topics in this “big picture” series. So far we have looked at God’s process of creation (in some ways ongoing even now), the fallenness of humankind, the stricken earth, the tragic flow of history, the repeated interventions of God, and the promise of a Savior-Redeemer. Each of these cover huge time spans, significant chunks of history. The gestation, birth, and infancy of Jesus on the other hand was a very specific event, limited to just 2 or 3 years. But as we have already said, it stands at the center of history, with everything before anticipating it and everything after impacted by it.

Beholding the Promise of a Savior-Redeemer

Welcome! Today we continue our series entitled Beholding: A Wide-Angle View of the True Story of God with the message “Beholding the Promise of a Savior-Redeemer.” The idea of “beholding,” as we have explained in this series, is to ponder, to reflect, to think about the implications of key aspects of the big picture of the message of the Bible.
 
In his recent message, Tim shared about the struggles he had with finding a way to give a wide-angle view of God’s interventions through history. I likewise have found it a struggle to put into words what I want to convey.
 
Let me start by talking about the Bible as a whole. As an unbeliever, I remember reading about someone saying that if God wanted people to believe in Him, then He should have made His presence far easier to discern. The person went on to say that if God were to write His name in the heavens, then he would believe. I remember myself agreeing with this argument, although I also remember being a little afraid of the idea that God might actually do that – I was a bit scared of becoming some kind of super-religious, extreme – I would have used the word “crazy” – person. I don’t think I came all the way to the realization that I actually didn’t want God to exist, but this was shortly before I put my trust in Christ, and I was definitely beginning to move in that direction. I did not make the connection that my wanting God to not exist would of course severely impair my ability to conduct an honest investigation and make an unbiased conclusion. Fortunately, God in His mercy moved me past this kind of thinking, past my own biases, and opened my eyes and heart to Him.

Beholding the Repeated Interventions of God

As many of you know, 10 days ago Lisa was in the ER with breathing difficulties and they did a chest CT that had previously been scheduled as an outpatient test to be done a few days later. She had a very scary allergic reaction to the contrast used in the CT. As her airway was closing off, I alerted a nurse who responded within seconds with two others plus the doctor. With quick intervention Lisa did keep breathing, but later commented on how the outcome could have been so much worse if she had been in the clinic for the test rather than the ER. We were praying throughout the experience but did not realize that this was how God would intervene, in possibly saving her life.
 
Today we will behold the repeated interventions of God. Some we can recognize in the immediate, micro level, like Lisa did in the ER. We can also stand in awe of God’s overall involvement in the entire sweep of history, assured that each individual story adds up to his story. What is God up to? How is he involved? What are his eternal purposes? One of the challenges of seeking a big picture view like this is that we realize very quickly that it is indeed very big. I feel like we are looking over a huge forest that stretches to the horizon in all directions. The risk is that we could walk down into it, examine a few trees, and come back out thinking that we have understood the essence of the whole. I would like somehow to describe the trees and the forest, conscious of how impossible this task actually is.

Beholding the Tragic Flow of History

Good morning!  We are continuing in our series “Beholding.”  When Carl opened the series, I was surprised to learn how many times the word “behold” appears in the King James Version of the bible.  (More than 1000!)  Often, God’s purpose for the word is to cause us to pay attention or “listen up.”

 
In this series, we want to stand back and behold the big picture.  In the case of today’s message, we will get a glimpse of the Bible narrative and even up to the present day beholding the tragic flow of history.
 
Our word history is derived from the Greek.  In Greek, the word is historia.  They dropped the “h” sound around the time of Christ.  Sometimes it is fascinating how close the words are even as they’ve been taken into other languages entirely.  That Greek word historia does not occur in the New Testament, but the word historeo does, one time.  It is the verb form, and in Galatians 1:18 when Paul describes going up to Jerusalem to see Peter.  It literally says Paul went to historeo Peter and stayed with him fifteen days.  Paul went to examine Peter face to face, to get to know him.  Historia or history is a written account of such inquiries or narratives.
 
The root word for historia is in the bible many times (over 600) and is in fact one of the secondary words in the New Testament that gets translated as “behold.”  Most of the time the meaning is directly translated as to see or to know which sort of takes us back to where I started.  Today we are going to behold or pay attention to the story of humanity, mostly at a micro or personal level, though we will touch on some macro nation-state-empire topics.
 
There will certainly be some feelings of déjà vu as we go along, I think.  Ecclesiastes kind of gives us the short version of this message.
 
History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new.  – Ecclesiastes 1:9 NLT
 
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. – Ecclesiastes 1:9 NIV
 
Let’s pray and we will fly through the ages of mankind.

Beholding the Stricken Earth

Welcome! Today we continue our series entitled Beholding: A Wide-Angle View of the True Story of God with the message “Beholding the Stricken Earth.” The core idea of this series, of “beholding,” is to spend some time really thinking about connections and implications of what we read in the Bible. Last week, Brian had us reflect about the fall of man, the events involving Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and God, as described in Genesis 3. Both today and next week, we will be looking at the implications and consequences of the fall. Today we are focusing on the effects of the fall on our physical world, and next week we will look at the effects of the fall on the history of man right up to the present day.
 
As I mentioned at the beginning of the series, I am taking the Creation account in General as literal, especially when it comes to the nature of the fall of man. I am assuming that death entered the world with the fall but did not occur prior to that time. I realize that there are theologians and others who hold to a different view, who take Genesis more symbolically, and I certainly do not believe that a belief in the literal view of Genesis is necessary for salvation. What is necessary is that you believe that your sins have separated you from God, and that you have personally repented and placed your faith in Jesus Christ to save you. Such a person the Bible calls both “born again” and a “new creation,” and such a person will seek to continue to obey and honor God, although they will likely also have some measure of setbacks and failures when they take their eyes off of Christ. Such a person will normally grow in faith and obedience during their remaining days on earth, and then God will complete His transformation of them, making them suitable for the eternal life that is to come, a life that I believe the Bible shows has many things in common with the pre-fall world (although there are many differences as well).
 
Now, in preparation for beholding the stricken earth, I think a good place to begin is to remember God’s twin blessings on animals and on people in Genesis 1:
 
God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” – Genesis 1:22
 
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” – Genesis 1:28

Beholding Fallen Man

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”
“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” – Genesis 3:1–13
 
How would Adam and Eve know that they were in a fallen state?  You would think they would be able to see some clear differences.  They had been without sin in a place without the presence of sin.  Now, all-of-a-sudden, they’re forever different.  Each of us have been born into this fallen state.  We’ve kind-of got used to it.  Coming from NC State I had gotten used to a mediocre football team.  I didn’t realize what it was like to be in close proximity to a winner on a national scale.  You would have experienced clear symptoms of fallenness.  What were some of those symptoms?

Beholding the Creator

Welcome! Good morning! Behold, we are starting a new series! And the series is entitled, Beholding: A Wide-Angle View of the True Story of God. As the series title suggests, our purpose is indeed to stand back, so to speak, and take a look at the big picture of the story of God as found in the Bible, from Genesis 1 to the coming of Jesus. As we approach the Christmas season, I think this is a good time to do this series, perhaps especially given the events of the past two years.
 
Although most of us have come through the pandemic so far relatively unscathed, at least physically speaking, it is hard to overstate the degree that the past two years have changed the world, our country, our communities, our church, and even our personal lives. Although it is true that our daily lives are mostly back to “normal” apart from using masks in certain situations and testing requirements if you are associated with the university, I think we all sense that we are not the same, and indeed, nothing is the same as it was before all this started.
 
We have seen things, we have beheld things, that we previously could not have imagined. Probably all of us have a friend or a family member or a friend of a friend or a friend of a family member who has been impacted severely by the virus. But I feel that even these tragic situations do not get fully to the root of change. The world has been reminded of its mortality, yes, but perhaps even more significantly, the man-made systems and governments of the world have been exposed as having deep flaws and inadequacies. And I think most people have a sense that these problems may be fundamentally unfixable. Here I think the world is truly beholding the Biblical truth of the fact that man is indeed fallen.
 
And we have been reminded that the world itself is not safe. Dangers abound, such as this virus that jumped species to infect people. And regardless of the details of how it happened, of whether people or a lab was involved, it does not change the fact that we now know more deeply the truth that pandemics can happen purely naturally at any time. The world itself seems broken, and this speaks to the Biblical truth that God’s judgment on man at the fall did not only affect man; it affected the entire Earth.
 
And the past two years have highlighted how intractable our conflicts seem to be, between nations, between political parties, and even sometimes between friends or family members. Rather than the world coming together to work to defeat the virus, our world has been as turbulent and on the brink of war as ever. This reminds us of the long, sad story of sinful man through history, another major theme of the Bible. 
 
I could go on with more examples, but I think this serves to make the point that now is perhaps an exceedingly appropriate point in time to take the wide-angle view of God and His interactions with man. Not only because perhaps some of our idols have been exposed, especially our idols of science, of human “progress”, and of supposed innate human “goodness”, but because, after being shown the worthlessness of our idols, at least some people in the world realize that we have taken our eyes off of our Savior, we have put our hope in things apart from Him, and we have lost sight of who our Creator really is and what He has been doing. My hope and prayer for this series is that it would freshly ground us in these things and that we would then share these truths with those around us.

The Lord is There

Ezekiel 47:1 – 48:35
 

Today we conclude our study of the book of Ezekiel, with the final two chapters. Last Sunday John gave a topical review of what this book contains, but I thought of another way of reflecting on what we have considered over the past 7 months as we have made our way through the ups and downs of this book. Let’s try to get inside the head of Ezekiel. What was he thinking as he saw these visions and gave these prophecies over more than 20 years of his life?
 
His calling, when he was a thirty-year-old, came literally out of the blue, as he sat on the bank of the Kebar River in Babylon, where he had been living as an exile for 5 years. He had been uprooted from his career path as a priest in the temple in Jerusalem and faced with a disheartening sense of dislocation and uncertainty, living far from his home in a pagan land. What would happen to him and the other exiles, I’m sure he wondered. Had God abandoned them in his judgment of their sin as a nation?
 
Ezekiel’s first vision of God’s glory in the sky would have been awesome and terrifying, reassuring in one sense: that God still wanted to engage with him, but disconcerting in that the dazzling presence of God that he associated with the Holy of Holies was appearing to him in this foreign land. What was going on?