Author: TimMaynard

Advent 08 – The Image of God

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”  Colossians 1:15-20 ESV

For the most part, my memories of Christmas are tied to music.  I have shared with you before that George Fredrick Handel’s majestic oratorio, “The Messiah” filled our home as I grew up during Christmas and Easter seasons.  My Dad especially loved this music, and he had actually sung it in so many local churches and community chorales that he had memorized most of it!

Hearing that musical floods my soul with memories.  But so do many of the other carols we sing at Christmas.  Most Christmas music is rich in theological insight (well, maybe not “All I Want for Christmas is You”).  But you know what I mean.

Carols emphasize parts of the Biblical narratives of the birth and nature of Jesus that we otherwise may not think enough about.  No doubt, you have your favorites, as I do.  But some of the most important statements about the person and work of Jesus Christ were also hymns being sung by the early church

One such hymn is found in the Book of Colossians, Chapter 1.  It is theologically rich and meaningful as we peel back the layers of this text.  While the ESV does not, several translations set these six verses apart to emphasize it is being quoted from another source.  Paul was inspired to use hymns in what he was writing in the same way some preachers quote hymns or choruses today.

So, over the next few days as we continue our journey through Advent, why don’t you take some time to read and re-read these verses as an act of worship.  Think deeply about the words that describe Christ’s person (“the image of God,” “firstborn of all creation,” “creator of all things”) but also think about words that tell us what He did (“created all things,” “holds all things together,” “reconciler of all things”).

He is your Savior.  Your Sovereign.  Your Creator.  The head of the church.  The redeemer.

No wonder the carol asks,

What Child is This?

Advent Day 07 – The Mission of the Messiah

“When the fullness of time was fulfilled, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law that He might redeem those who are under the Law….” Galatians 4:4-5a

Jesus was sent on a mission. God did not randomly send His Son to earth to do good things and to help hurting people, though surely, He did those things. No, in His own words, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save those Who were lost.”

 Jesus was sent on a mission. His mission was unlike any other mission ever attempted before or sense. It involved the One Who was creator of all things to become One of those He had created as the crowning point of creation. To live in their skin, experience their limitations, endure their worst suffering, and to fulfill the demands of God placed on humanity by the Law.

Jesus was sent on a mission. The mission would involve not only becoming incarnate (enfleshed) in humanity, not only perfectly fulfilling the Law’s demands, but ultimately incurring the penalty of the Law we each were living under. The penalty of death.

Jesus was sent on a mission. The mission began, to our eyes, on Christmas in a rough wooden manger at Bethlehem. It ended thirty-three years later on a rough wooden cross outside of Jerusalem. He was both born, and crucified, “outside of the camp.” And ultimately, He emerged from a borrowed tomb on Easter morning, still fully human; still fully God, but now “the first fruits of those who would rise from the dead.”

Jesus was sent on a mission. A mission to redeem. A mission targeted…at you. His redemptive mission comes one step closer to fulfillment each time a lost life, a lost soul, turns to find life in Jesus Christ. By faith, His fulfillment of the Law is counted as yours. By faith, His death is considered your payment for the death penalty. By faith, His resurrection becomes yours as well.

Jesus was sent on a mission. A mission to bring a gift. The gift of eternal life. Have you met the Savior? Have you received His gift?


Prayer: Our God and Creator of the Heavens, and the Earth I come to you today with no gift in my hands. There is nothing I can bring to impress You, nothing I can give to purchase my own salvation. So, I come asking to receive the gift You gave as You sent Jesus on this Diving rescue mission. I receive Your gift, Your Son, Your Lamb as my substitute and my sacrifice. I have nothing to bring to receive this awesome gift so today, here in this Christmas season, I give you my heart. I turn from my own sin and unrighteousness to receive Your gift of eternal life. And I will continually bring You the gift of a thankful heart and a grateful obedience. Til He comes again for Me.

“For whoever will call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Advent 06 – The Mystery of the Word Made Flesh Part 3

When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a virgin, born under the Law.” Galatians 4:4

 A six-year old boy described Jesus as “God with skin.” His definition captures a huge theological truth in very simple terms. The eternal, immortal, invisible God became an occupant of our “skin;” our humanity. All that is true of humanity apart from sin was true of Jesus. He had a country of origin, a mother and (step) father who raised Him, a house He grew up in; He had friends, and siblings, and when He fell and skinned His knee of slammed His thumb with a hammer, He bled. He had blood, and hormones, and bad days. Just like you and me.

Jesus came through the birth canal of a teenaged, Galilean mother, who was already engaged to be married to a local craftsman-a carpenter named Joseph. Their life together was preoccupied with the enormously significant task of raising… God?

He grew up, as some of us did, on “the wrong side of the tracks.” He had no social standing, or any kind of advantageous childhood. And like us all, He was “born of a woman.” While no man’s DNA was involved in His Divine birth, Mary’s was. Some older theologians, attempting to soften this reality, believed Jesus passed through Mary’s body “like water through a pipe,” with neither the water nor the pipe being changed by its passage.

But that’s not what we understand this birth to be. Did Jesus have some of Mary’s physical features? We can’t know for sure, but it wouldn’t be a real birth nor a real pregnancy she endured if it were not at least possible.

We struggle more, I think, with the full humanity of Jesus than we do with His Divinity. We want to make Him “something other” than we are, and yet the further we push that line the less possible it would be for Him to be the sacrifice for our sin. He had to be fully human, yet at the same time fully Holy. Completely God. He was both. Not part of each. Fully both.

“In Jesus, the fullness of the godhead dwelt in bodily form,” we read in Colossians 1:27. A miracle beyond compare. A mystery beyond comprehension.

“Let all mortal flesh keep silence….” the old hymn says. Now we know why.

Advent Day 05 – The Mystery of the Word Made Flesh – Part 2

THE MYSTERY OF THE WORD MADE FLESH (Part 2)

 “…God sent forth His Son…” (Galatians 4:4)

 This, this is Christ the King
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing
Haste, haste to give Him praise
The Babe, the Son of Mary.

It matters that we believe correctly what the Bible teaches us about Jesus.  Getting this right is incredibly important, though fully understanding it is not possible.  There is a great deal of faith involved when we begin to gaze into this mystery.  And questions will always linger for our human minds.

God did not “create” Jesus at Christmas.  In the virgin Mary’s womb, God implanted Jesus’ body in cellular and then in embryonic form.  He did so without the aid of a man.  Of this, the writer of Hebrews quotes a Psalm which states “a body You have prepared for Me.”  It was the birth of this Divinely orchestrated body which we celebrate as a baby at Christmas.

Yet in Heaven, the Son had eternally existed.  There was never a time when the Son of God did not exist, and in fact scripture affirms that “the Lamb (Jesus) was slain before the foundation of the earth.”  Jesus existed in eternity past as the Second Person of the Trinity.

Though Jesus was “sent” by God, it is not the same sense in which we would “send” a child to their room.  Jesus fully entered into the plan of redemption, and His part of that plan was to come to earth and be incarnated in flesh and blood.  He came willingly.

He came to “tabernacle” (to dwell, to camp, to live) among us.  In fact, He picked the worst neighborhood, with the worst forms of violence, among the most oppressed of people, and “pitched His tent” right in the midst of it.  The Son was sent on a rescue mission by God.  It was not a vacation trip in which He expected to be coddled.  It was an eternal life-and-death attempt to redeem the souls of human beings lost in sin.

He “dwelt” (camped) in the midst of us and we “beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father” John’s Gospel tells us.  He was sent on mission in the same way that those who believe in Him are also “sent” on a mission:  to tell the world about Him!

This, this is Christ the King… the Babe, the son of Mary.

Advent Day 04 – The Mystery of the Word Made Flesh

When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a virgin, born under the Law.” (Galatians 4:4)

“King of kings yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood
Lord of Lords in human vesture…”
—Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent

Perhaps the greatest mystery in all of Scripture is the mystery of how God became flesh. Throughout the years, different theories have emerged from people wrestling with everything from the makeup of Christ’s material body to the question of how God could become man and yet remain… God? Tens of thousands of pages have been written trying to explain or understand this mystery.

But of this teaching of the Deity of Christ the Bible says little by way of explanation, though much by way of proclamation. Our text in Galatians 4:4 is one such place of proclamation. It tells us that Jesus was God’s Son SENT by Him to earth. And then, in the same sentence, it proclaims that Jesus was born of a WOMAN in the way every child is born.

One thing is clear. Jesus was the most completely unique person that ever lived. Though He took on flesh and bone and blood and skin and bore our weaknesses and our temptations, yet He lived without ever committing sin.

His Deity was not diminished in its capacity even though, as Philippians says, “He emptied Himself…” of the rights and privileges that should have been His. In that self-emptying He did not cease to be God, and in his humanity, He was fully a human being. He was always, fully, both.

The wonder of Christmas is to gaze again upon this mystery of God made flesh… this babe in a manger… this King Who caused the angels to bow…

…and worship Him.

Advent Day 03 -The Fullness of Time Continued

Well it’s almost here! As December rolls around on our calendars, the official December countdown to Christmas has begun. There is an unusual expectancy in the air this year. My neighborhood has already gone “over the top” in decorations. The time is ripe… for something.

There was a constant sense of expectancy in Israel in the days and years before Jesus’ nativity. Messiah had to come soon. God had promised His arrival from days of old. The prophets had prophesied. The conditions were right. And, indeed, they were.

“When the fullness of time had come…” Paul writes in Galatians. Why was this time the right time? History gives us some important clues:

  1. The Romans had conquered and, for all intents and purposes, tamed the known world. The “Pax Romana” (peace of Rome) lay like a blanket over Europe and parts of Asia.
  2. A system of roadways called “the Roman road” (any one of which would literally take you to Rome) crisscrossed the previously treacherous countryside.
  3. Unemployed Roman soldiers, idle due to lack of war, were put to work keeping the peace and protecting travelers on the roads from thieves and hijacking of goods being transported.
  4. A common language was shared, uniting the Greco-Roman world with “common” Greek; the language in which our New Testament would ultimately be written.
  5. The Jews had now received favored religion status under the Roman Empire, and they began an aggressive program of building synagogues in every city.

While others could be added, these realities alone show that the stage was set for Jesus to come. The conditions of the world would allow the Gospel to begin to travel to “the uttermost parts of the earth.” Missionaries could journey safely, protected by elite Roman soldiers. The common language would allow the pages of the New Testament to be written and understood by multitudes. And the synagogues became the first places for evangelism as the first Christians entered cities unreached by the Gospel.

How wise of God! These are just a few physical things that made the timing of Christ’s birth to be, well…perfect. It is so important that we learn to trust God when He says “wait,” or when He says “go.”

He knows when the time is right. And His timing is never wrong!

Advent Day 02 – The Fullness of Time

When the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a virgin, born under Law….” Galatians 4:4

 Time.  We’re obsessed with it.  I noticed as I was thinking through this article while driving that I had immediately available access to four different time-keeping devices.  In the days of my youth, the song “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” by Chicago was playing continually on the radio.

When the Bible speaks of time it does so using two different words.  One word, “chronos,” is the common definition of time.  It is linear time.  Time in increments, measured in seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years. It is time that we all live with, or live enslaved to in our culture.

But there is a second word also translated “time” in English.  That word is “kairos.” That word is “pregnant” time.  It is a word filled with expectancy.  The difference is the difference between “moment” and “momentous.”

We actually live with both.  “Chronos” is something we are aware of constantly.  “Kairos” is something we can miss.  “Kairos” is our opportunity, a chosen season that God selects to do something momentous through us or for us.  It is the “pregnant” pause or the moment about to give birth to something new.

That was the word the Apostle Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit to use in describing Christ’s coming.  When time was fulfilled, when the moment was right, when the expectancy of Christ’s coming was about to give birth… that was “the fullness of time.”

It takes no faith to live with “chronos.” Time does, indeed, march on (ahem, check the mirror) whether we cooperate or not.  But “kairos” takes eyes of faith to see what God is up to in our days on earth.  At Christmas, “chronos” and “kairos” intersected.  The eternal Son, sent from God, became human, and lived under “chronos” time in our flesh for thirty-three years.

Don’t waste “chronos” is always good counsel.  “Live as wise people… and redeem the time (chronos).  But while time should not be wasted, make certain you don’t miss the “kairos”… the opportunity God brings to begin something new in your life.

“For now is the appointed time…today is the day of salvation.”  2 Corinthians 6:2

 

Advent Day 01 – The Right Time

“When the time was right, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman; born under the Law.”   Galatians 4:4 NLT

By now, you doubtless have finished up seconds… and thirds… of Thanksgiving meal. The pumpkins and fall decorations are now being tucked away to await the next arrival of autumn. And now, ON TO CHRISTMAS! Decorated homes and bright lights are beginning to dot our neighborhoods, and Christmas shopping lists are being made and checked off.

I’ve heard more than one person say, “I can’t wait for Christmas this year; it means we’re almost finished with 2020!” Maybe you have felt the same. It’s been a hard year… the hardest for many. And as much as I would wish turning the calendar from 2020 to 2021 means all of this difficulty would fade into history, I am doubtful it will.

The people alive when Jesus arrived in Bethlehem around 2,020 years ago were, like us, eager to see better days. Political unrest, riots in some areas and persecution in others, injustice, illness and poverty riddled their daily lives. Old men would gather and discuss in whispered tones about the coming one. Jewish synagogues were filled with conversations and questions about the arrival of Messiah.

They were expectant. And suffering. And weary. It was then that the Bible says, “When the time was right, God sent forth His Son….” When the time was right? What could that possibly mean? Was God oblivious to what was happening in the world? Didn’t He know people were hurting?

Or could we allow that God doesn’t see things as we see them? The prophets had promised for hundreds of years prior that “a child would be born” and “a light would shine forth in the darkness.” And now, “the time was right.” The darkness was now dark enough. Light was on its way!

God knows right where we are today. And no, He isn’t oblivious or calloused to our pain or our cries for help. In fact, it was in the midst of His people’s pain and hopelessness that our Lord first entered the world. Can we await expectantly in these dark days and believe that He will not leave us nor forsake us? Can we wait with hope in spite of the challenging days we are living in and believe that Light will come?

Perhaps we’ve never needed the hope of Christmas… or the promise of a Savior… more than now.

Keeping In Step With The Spirit

KEEPING IN STEP WITH THE SPIRIT

Galatians 5:22-26

It is our nature as Christians to produce fruit.  Spiritual fruit.  We don’t strain to do it—we don’t go to “fruit bearing” seminars.  We can’t learn to produce fruit watching a self-improvement or personal growth videos on YouTube.

We just do.  IF… our inner nature is truly the life of Jesus.    But let’s explore what this fruit is, that every believer in Christ should be bearing.  What does it look like as it is lived out?

“Fruit is the result of a long organic and living process.  The process is complex and intricate.  Fruit is not something made, manufactured, or engineered.  Fruit is the result of a life of faith created by God.  We do not produce fruit by our own effort.  We do not purchase it from another.  It is not a reward for doing good deeds, like a merit badge, a gold medal, a blue ribbon.  Fruit is simply there.”

Let’s review for a few moments what we said last week about fruit:

The fruit of the Spirit is SINGULAR, not PLURAL.  Not “fruits” of the Spirit.  All the fruit grows out of the same tree and root system.  The fruit of the spirit is more like a bouquet of beautiful flowers than just a sprig of daisies here or a rose there.  It’s symmetrical.

2). The fruit of the Spirit is AVAILABLE, not AUTOMATIC.  Just because it’s there in potential doesn’t mean we always avail ourselves of it.  There are certain conditions that must be met, just as we fertilize and water and keep the plant in sunlight.   “Keep in step with the Spirit.”

3). The fruit of the Spirit is VISIBLE, not UNSEEN.  If the Spirit of the Lord is in you, if you are “abiding in the vine,” “keeping in step with the Spirit,” then these characteristics will be evident in your life.  They will be seen by you and by others.

4). The fruit of the Spirit is GRADUAL, not SUDDEN.  No botanical or biological growth is sudden in nature.  You maybe suddenly NOTICE it, but it’s been coming on for a while.  And let’s be clear.  Like fruit or vegetables or oak trees, you can’t see the growth until it’s there.  It’s a mysterious process.  Be careful about judging your own fruit production or another’s.  Let me also say that the fruit of the Spirit doesn’t save us.  We are saved by grace through faith, not fruit.  But it’s equally true that a fruitless faith doesn’t save us either.  A true Christian will produce fruit.

5). The fruit of the Spirit is ORGANIC, not ARTIFICIAL.  The fruit of the Spirit is simply the character and nature of Christ being reproduced in you.   The purpose of the Holy Spirit is to point people to Jesus.  So, the work of the Holy Spirit is to form Christ in us and give expression of Jesus through us.

These character traits cannot be forced.  We are never commanded to “bear fruit” although every one of these characteristics is commanded somewhere in the Bible!   But it’s not something you can make happen.  This is not multiple choice, nor is it a self-help program.  If you are bearing spiritual fruit, it is evidence you are connected to the vine.  And if not, it’s because you are out of step with the Spirit.

When you set up your Christmas trees this year, there is one thing you will not do.  You will not examine your artificial tree for fruit, will you?

Why not?  It looks like a tree.  You may even spray it with something that makes it smell like a tree or hang ornaments on it that look like apples or oranges.  But it’s not real.  My Mom used to have some plastic shiny fruit ornaments that she’d put on our artificial tree.  (pic). But we knew they didn’t grow out of the plastic tree.   Only a living, organic tree or plant has that capacity.

THE FRUIT OF THE FLESH

We sometimes produce rotten fruit.  We detailed that last week.  Let’s remember that we are to live with our flesh crucified, and our lives in step with the Spirit.  If either of those are not true, if we are living to gratify ourselves, then this is how we know.  This is an ugly list.  They are characteristics that destroy life and destroy relationships.  And if we are seeing these rotting, fleshly things as characteristics or hanging on us as a normal part of our life, it should serve as a huge warning sign to us.

THE PROOF OF SPIRITUAL FRUIT

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Love, Joy, Peace:    Godward

This has to do with how we relate to God, and how He relates to us.

We start with the fruit of LOVE, which, I believe begins the list because all the other fruit flows from love.  We are to love one another.  We love because He first loved us.  The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts.

But then we come to joy.  Joy is actually irrational and comes independent of our outer circumstances.  Happiness has to do with our circumstances being in a good place around us.  Joy comes despite those.

A man told about his friend who was a believer and had been hospitalized for a brain tumor.  One of his attending PA’S came into the room to speak to him, and wrote on his chart, “The patient seems to be inappropriately joyful.”  Isn’t that awesome!  “Inappropriately joyful!”  The joy of the Lord makes no sense to a lost world. “The joy of the Lord is our strength.”

And after the fruit of love and joy comes peace.  If there is a woman listening named “Irene,” you were given a Greek name.  Your name means “peace” or “peaceful.”  That might have been the intent of your parents who named you, hoping you would live up to your name, “Irene: peace.”

Do you have peace?  Most of this world doesn’t.  Most of the world simply has stress.  Stress as a condition was only identified by psychologists in the mid-1950’s.  Before that, the term stress meant something entirely different.  But now, it’s the common condition of most people: “You stress me out.  I’m so stressed.”

Having inner peace is a prized condition to find.  How much would most people give just to have peace?  We look for it our whole lives, but right here is the answer we need.  God will give us the peace we are lacking.  “We have peace with God…and peace from God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  We have peace with God, that was brokered for us at the cross of Jesus and by the payment of His blood.

The problem with humanity is simply the “a-b-c’s:” We are ALIENATED from God, BROKEN because of our sin, and in CONFLICT inside of ourselves and with everyone else because we have no peace with God.  But one of the fruit borne by the believer is this “peace that passes understanding,” that guards of our hearts and minds.

All of this comes about as we relate to God.

Patience, kindness, goodness:  External fruit (toward others).

This is the social dimension of the fruit of the Spirit.  It has to do with how we relate to people around us.   We relate, first, with patience.  Patience is long suffering toward those who aggravate us and frustrate us.  You don’t need to have patience for people who don’t aggravate and frustrate you do you?   “Love suffers long…”  It’s more than simply “grinning and bearing it”

The patience being described here is a God-given grace that the Holy Spirit puts in us and marks us by it.   Some people seem to be more patient externally, but inside they are seething while they’re smiling on the outside.  That’s patience as humans practice it.  It’s just a mask.  The patience that is the fruit of the spirit is far more positive.

Then there’s kindness, which is really a disposition of attitude.  There was a sense in which Jesus was kind to people and they saw that kindness flow from Him.  It attracted children to Him.  The opposite of kindness is crankiness, irritability, a critical attitude, or complaining.  Kindness is welcoming of people.  By nature, we are not kind.  We push people away.

While kindness is an attitude, goodness is an action.  It’s words we speak and actions that are consistent with what is right and good.  The word “good” is actually derived from “god.”  When you tell your kids to “be good” you’re actually telling them to be like God!  To be “good” is to reflect the kind of things that God would do.  Goodness has to do with behaving ethically, righteously, and justly in line with God’s description of what is good and right.

One of the ways we are “good” is when we forgive those who wrong us.  (Woman caught in adultery—Jesus’ disposition was kind and He was good to her).

This fruit pointed toward others seeks their best and puts up with their worst.  Only God can produce that capability in us!

Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-Control:  Internal fruit

This third grouping of fruit is the quality and grace that allows us to live out a godly life.  Remember again that none of these nine qualities are something we self-produce.  God by His Spirit produces them in us, and as we “walk in the Spirit” or “keep in step with the Spirit” they will flow naturally from us.

“Faithfulness” is the quality of being a person who can be depended upon, whether that is faithfulness in your marriage, or just the integrity of keeping your word.  Faithfulness keeps you showing up because you said you would!

“Gentleness” is sometimes translated “meekness.” But it’s actually the ability to restrain strength.  We have a brother who works with our preschool children who spent his career in construction as a carpenter.  He is physically strong, but his strength is restrained and the children are drawn to his gentleness.

“Self-control” is the ability to restrain those urges that would cause you to veer off into sin if you “let go.”  Every person has characteristics that need to be constrained and controlled; every person has temptations that you have to continually say “no” to expressing.

This fruit is the grace God gives us to align our lives with the life He wants us to know and gives us strength to say NO to the wrong thing even when it’s very tempting to us.  We are no longer slaves to our sin.  We have the grace of self-control.

IN CONCLUSION

So, we don’t have to live a life consumed by the pursuit of things that never satisfy.  We can live a fruitful life, that attracts a lost world to us.  But it begins by (1) SURRENDERING to God and then (2) SUBMITTING to the control of the Holy Spirit in our lives. (3) STAYING in step with the Holy Spirit.  “Walk in the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”

 

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