The Gospel-Driven Life: Death, Life, and Glory

In 1735, John Wesley sailed from England to America, to preach the Gospel to the unreached peoples there. But he knew that he had a problem. He could not convince himself that he had any personal saving trust in Jesus Christ. He wrote in his journal, “I went to America to convert the people there; but, oh, who shall convert me?” Three years later John Wesley received his long-sought inward conversion to Christ. He wrote in his journal, “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a [church meeting] in Aldersgate Street, [in London,] where one was reading Martin Luther’s preface to his commentary on the Book of Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my own heart strangely warmed.” This experience forever changed John Wesley’s life. What John Wesley—and many others throughout Christian history—experienced was a life-changing conversion from dead works to a living faith. It was a transfer from an old way of living (even if it was an outwardly religious life) to a new life centered on a personal saving trust in Jesus. 

In another place, the Apostle Paul writes about that experience this way: “And you were dead in the trespasses in which you once walked, following the course of this world… But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Eph. 2:1-5). Whether someone is dead in sin, or dead in their outward appearance of religion like the Pharisees—who Jesus described as being like “whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones” (Matt. 23:27)—whichever is the case for the outwardly sinful man or the outwardly religious man, both are dead, and both must be made alive. This is a work that only God can do. But God is in the business of saving, and pursuing, and redeeming, and calling people to trust in him and to find new life through the Gospel. This is the God who willingly became a man and bled and died on the cross in our place for our sins. This is the God who takes those who have made themselves his enemies, and he takes those same people and makes them his children. This is the work of God that the Apostle Paul witnesses to in Titus 3:1-8.

DEAD IN SIN

Paul once wrote the believers in Crete that he, and they, were formerly dead in sin. Here’s how he describes it: "We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice" (Titus 3:3). How would you like to be described as foolish, wicked, hateful, and blind? But that’s how Paul described himself and the people that he was speaking to. Those are the words that God inspired him to write down. Before one can be made alive, they must first know that they were dead. Jesus once said “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mt. 9:13; Mk. 2:17; Lk. 5:32). He said in Luke chapter 19, “the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Lk. 19:10). Who are the lost people? All of us are. That’s why John 1:29 says about Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

Jesus has come to free all who Paul writes are “slaves to various passions and pleasures.” This is everyone. 1 John 1:8 says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” In the Gospel of John chapter 8, Jesus said to the people that he was preaching to, “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin… So if the Son sets you free, then you will be free indeed” (Jn. 8:34-36). The Puritan author Thomas Boston wrote about Jesus, “His heart is open to you, his arms stretched wide.” See, Jesus will pull you in and clean you up. He will clothe you with his righteousness. He will give you a new identity as a child of God.

ALIVE IN CHRIST

Jesus Christ is the savior of the world. That is the meaning of his name: “The Lord saves.” In the Gospel of Matthew, Mary is told to give him the name Jesus, “for he will save his people from their sins” (Mt. 1:21). He himself said in Matthew 20, “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mt. 20:28). Jesus gave up his throne in heaven, and humbled himself, the book of Philippians says: he “made himself nothing, and took on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:6-8). What does it mean that God saved us through Jesus Christ? It means that the creator of the universe, the one who holds all things together, the one who will one day restore all things in heaven and on earth, and bring them under his righteous rule—our God willingly left it all and came down, out of his own love and goodness and kindness, for you and for me, to rescue us from our sin so that we could be together with him. That’s what that means. Jesus, who never committed any sin, was beaten and whipped and degraded and shamed and nailed through his ankles and his wrists to a piece of wood, and was held up for mockery, naked and in public, until he died of asphyxiation and his heart burst, so that you and I could be made right with God. He lived the life we could not live and died the death we should have died. He came to save and seek the lost (Lk. 19:10), and he found us. And he died for us. And we didn’t do anything to earn it.

How do we receive that mercy? We receive it through faith. Jesus said to one woman with a history of well-known sin, “Your faith has saved you, go in peace” (Lk. 7:50). He said to a group of Pharisees, “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved” (Jn. 10:9). Do you want to know, and love, and serve Jesus? Do you want to know in your heart for sure that you’ve been saved? Do you want the hope of a world beyond this one where there will be no pain, no sickness, no tears, nor sorrow anymore, for the old will have passed away, and the new has come? Then place your faith in Jesus. Or, better yet, place your trust in Jesus, because that’s what the word “faith” means. It doesn’t mean that you believe Jesus exists. It doesn’t mean that you believe a certain set of facts about Jesus. It means that you trust his way more than your own way; that you trust him to be able to save; that you trust him instead of all that this world can offer, instead of yourself, instead of your righteousness. Maybe you've been in a really hard time and had to tell someone, “I have nowhere else to turn.” If you are so done with yourself that you say that to Jesus, then that is what faith and putting your trust in Jesus is. There is no halfway decision there. The only way you put your trust in Jesus is by coming to the realization that you have no other option and nowhere else to turn, and you fall upon his infinite goodness and sweetness and mercy. There is no coming back from that moment. That decision is a one-way trip.

RAISED TO GLORY

We were dead in sin, and God makes us alive in Christ. But he doesn't just stop there. He raises us to glory. Here's how Titus 3:7 puts it: "so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." This is wild. We don’t just get saved, we get eternal life. And we don’t just get eternal life, we become heirs of the Kingdom. Ephesians 2:6-7 says that God “raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace.” Being heirs of the kingdom means we are placed in a royal position over God’s kingdom. 1 Corinthians 6:3 says, “Do you not know that we are to judge angels?” How incredible is the mercy of God, that he would take people who have made themselves his enemies, and then make them his children, and then make those same people into co-rulers with him in his perfect kingdom over a whole host of heavenly beings who’ve never sinned? Jesus said in Matthew 25:31-34, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” He says in another place, “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Mt. 13:43). What a picture that is. God found us when we were dead in sin. He made us alive in Christ. He raised us up to the seat of glory. And he will continue to be good and loving and merciful, in a time eternal, and in a world without end, in his perfect Kingdom. There is literally no end to the mercy of God.

-Sean

Three Motivations for Living for Jesus

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. - Titus 2:11-14

Before I became a parent, I used to think that I was pretty easygoing, and that I didn’t really have a lot of rules. Maybe the basics: be kind to others, pick up after yourself. That’s it. But I find the longer I’m a parent, the more rules I keep finding out that I have. And the thing is, for the most part I think they’re pretty decent rules. So I found out that I have rules like eat all your supper quickly or it will get cold and it won’t taste good. Or, don’t run out into the street, a car might hit you. Or, don’t run backwards into the table—you might hit your head, and that’s where your brain lives. By the time she was about 5, my daughter started to realize that when she follows these rules life is actually pretty good, and when she doesn’t she usually ends up having an accident and gets hurt. And she actually started to notice this pattern for herself. So I started asking her, “Hey kiddo, do you feel like I’m a mean dad who’s always giving you rules?” And she said, “No I don’t think that, you give me rules because you love me because you’re my daddy, and you don’t want me to get hurt.”

In Titus 2:11-14 the Apostle Paul has just finished giving the believers at Crete a whole list of instructions for daily life. Now maybe he's anticipating an objection here, like “I thought we were free in Christ. This seems like a lot of rules. Why should we do all this?” And Paul points out here that God’s rules come out of God’s character. It’s because of his grace that he gives us instruction. The Puritan author Richard Baxter once pointed out: 

“If any [believer] should be discouraged at the number of duties and directions set before him, [He should] consider, 1. That it is God… that imposes these duties: and who will question his wisdom, goodness, or power to make laws for us and all the world? 2. That every duty and direction is a mercy to you; and therefore should not be a matter of grief to you, but of thanks. They are like the commands of parents to their children, when they tell them to eat their meat, and wear clothes, and go to bed, and eat not poison, and tumble not in the dirt; and be careful not to cut your fingers, and [be careful around] fire and [don’t drown in] water. To leave out any such law or duty, would be to deprive you of an excellent mercy… A student is not offended that he has many books in his library; nor a tradesman that he has a store of many tools; nor the rich at the number of his farms or flocks. Believe it, that if you bring not a malignant quarrelsome mind, you will find that God has not burdened, but blessed you with his holy precepts, and that he has not appointed you one unnecessary or unprofitable duty; but only such as tend to your content, and joy, and happiness.” - from A Christian Directory, Part 1, Introduction

So the grace of God gives us instructions for life. Consider how, to one person who is lost and has messed up their whole life, finding out that God’s Word contains rules and instructions would fill them with gratefulness. “Wait, God’s given us instructions for life? Where?”

OUR FIRST MOTIVATION: THANKFULNESS FOR HIS GRACE

Titus 2:11-12 says that "the grace of God... trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age." It’s God’s grace that teaches us, continually, every day. It’s because of his grace that we have the ability to deny the old way of living, and to press on to live in a new way for God. If our being right with God were all up to us, we would either get discouraged and give up, or we would become proud. But the grace of God teaches us that sin is serious (because Jesus died for sin) and also that he has taken our shame away (because Jesus died for sin). So grace becomes the only way for us to press forward and to continually live for him, without either giving into discouragement or else self-protectively denying the seriousness of our sin and moving forward in arrogance and pride. We show that we trust in God when our lives are marked by (a) not denying the seriousness of our sin, and (b) continually pressing forward in hope. And so Paul says that it’s the grace of God that teaches us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives. 

Now I thought Paul Washer, who’s been a really influential preacher in my life, had a really good definition of what it means to renounce "ungodliness and worldy passions." He said ungodliness is “any attitude or action that demonstrates a lack of reverence toward God and shows a contempt for God’s law.” And so this is an attitude that has to be unlearned. And then he says worldly desires “are desires that are substitutes for God and his will. And they are desires that are telling the world that for us God is not sufficient and God is not satisfying. That is what worldly desires are.” And those worldly passions are disordered desires for anything that comes in the place of God—whether that be romantic relationships, or money, or anything else that causes you to run after it and deny God’s instructions and end up hurting yourself. Instead we need to put our focus on God alone. God alone has appeared, bringing salvation for all people. God alone gives us his grace. God alone gives us good instructions that we can build our lives upon. God alone. 

If we receive his grace, and trust in him, and accept his salvation, then his grace trains us—not just to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, but to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age (Titus 2:12). All the commentators, at least as far back as John Calvin, have pointed out that self-controlled describes the life that we live to ourselves, upright describes the life that we live towards other people, and godly describes the life that we live to God. So the life that God promises us, by God’s grace, is a life well-lived towards ourselves, towards others, and towards God.

OUR SECOND MOTIVATION: HOPE IN HIS FUTURE APPEARING

According to Titus 2:11 and 13, we stand between two appearances of Jesus: it says "the grace of God has appeared... [we] wait for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." The first is an appearance of grace, and the second is an appearance of glory. Here we are right in the middle. We have received God’s grace, and we look forward to Jesus’ second appearance in glory. But Paul uses three words to describe the hope of the future appearance of Jesus: it will be blessed, it will be glorious, and it will be great.

Why is Jesus’ second appearance “blessed, glorious, and great”—why is it something that we should desire? While he was preaching on Titus 2:11-14, Pastor Tim Keller said this: 

"The second coming is good news for those whose lives are filled with bad news. If you are a slave in Pharaoh’s Egypt or in the southern United States in the early nineteenth century, or if you’re an Israelite in Babylon, or a Kosovar exiled in Albania, or a woman in a culture where when the husband is mad at you he can lock you in a closet or call up his buddies and threaten to have them [beat you up], if you’re a Christian in a region today where AIDS is devastating populations, you don’t yawn when somebody mentions the return of Jesus. The [arrival] of the kingdom depends on the [arrival] of the King, and the [arrival] of the King means justice will at last fill the earth.”

We look forward to the day when Jesus will come back. His return means the end of oppression, and division, and politics, and brokenness, and pain, and depression, and loneliness. His second appearance is blessed because we will be blessed when Jesus returns."

OUR THIRD MOTIVATION: A NEW IDENTITY IN HIS REDEMPTION

Finally, Titus 2:14 says that Jesus has given us a new purpose and a new identity. He "gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous to do good works." Just like Paul narrowed down from “all people” in Titus 2:11 to "us" in 2:14, we can read this passage and narrow it down a little further. “Jesus gave himself for us” — Jesus gave himself for me. He died for me. Our blessed, and glorious, and great God and Savior Jesus Christ—he was betrayed, and whipped, and beaten, and mocked, and crucified with thieves and criminals for me. Why would he do that? The answer is, he did that to redeem us, to purify us, and to adopt us and make us his very own. Who are you in Jesus? Are you stuck in your sin? No, Jesus has redeemed you. Are you held down by shame? No, Jesus has purified you, you are clean from any shame that anyone might try to use against you so that they could hold you down. Are you alone? No, you have been adopted as Jesus’s own possession into his family.

SUMMARY

This is why we follow Jesus: (1) because his grace makes us grateful; (2) because his future appearance gives us hope; and (3) because his sacrifice gives us a new identity and purpose.

May you be motivated to live for Jesus,
-Sean

The Gospel Witness of the Church

In 2016, Tyler VanderWeele, who is the professor of epidemiology at Harvard, wrote this: 

“If someone could come up with a single [medicine] to improve the physical and mental health of millions of Americans —at no personal cost— what value would our society place on it? Going a step further, if research proved that when consumed just once a week, this concoction would reduce mortality by 20-30% over a 15-year period, how urgently would we want to make [this medicine] publicly available? The good news is that this miracle drug -regular church attendance- is already in the reach of most Americans. In fact, there’s a good chance it's just a short drive away.”[1]

This finding shows us, the Church, something incredibly important. The way we live shows the world around us that the Gospel makes a difference—not only eternally, but in the here and now. There’s more; according to multiple long-term studies published by The Harvard School of Public Health in 2016 and 2018, regular church attendance is connected to better mental health, better physical health, stronger and more long-lasting marriages, and greater financial stability. 

The benefits of being part of a church are so significant that in December of 2019 -just a few months before churches were forced to close their doors due to COVID- the Wall Street Journal carried an article controversially titled Don’t Believe in God? Lie to Your Children. Now I don’t think that’s a good title for an article and I don’t think anyone should purposely lie to their children. But in the article, the author, who is an atheist and a professional therapist, pointed out studies that children or teens who reported attending a church service at least once per week “scored higher on psychological well-being measurements and had lower risks of mental illness. Weekly attendance was associated with higher rates of volunteering, a sense of mission, forgiveness, and lower probabilities of drug use and early sexual initiation.” 

I want to ask you, if all of that is true (and it is), do you think that would make the Gospel more or less attractive to people? See, the world is watching the kind of lives that we lead together. They won’t necessarily support what the Bible teaches about marriage, or family, or sex, or gender, or how we organize ourselves as a community, or our approach to how the Gospel affects our entire life, but they will notice when the effect is so large that it has a marked difference on the happiness, health, stability, and wholeness of the entire Bible-believing church community (as a whole) in distinction from the rest of the world. The difference that living out the Gospel makes is so large that The Harvard School of Public Health can actually measure it.

I’ll give you one more: in 2012 Professor Robert D. Woodberry demonstrated how the same thing can be seen in the effect that Christian missionaries have had on societies worldwide. According to his research, the higher the number of Protestant missionaries, per ten thousand of the local population in 1923, the higher the chance that same nation would have become a stable democracy by the year 2000. Rodney Stark, who served up until a little while ago as the Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington, wrote “The missionary effect is far greater than that of fifty other variables, including GDP and whether or not a nation was a British colony.” In fact, the higher the number of missionaries that a country had in 1923, the lower that nation’s infant mortality rate was in the year 2000, and the higher the average adult life expectancy. The American Political Science Review checked those findings, and found that the effect was more than nine times as large as the effect of current GDP. So to break that down if I lost you: the effect of whether or not a country had a lot of missionaries was nine times more impactful on their infant mortality rate, life expectancy, literacy, and chances of being a stable democracy, than whether or not that country was even rich or poor. I’ll ask you again, if all of that is true (and it is) do you think that would make the Gospel less attractive or more attractive to people? See, our lives are a witness to the truth of God’s Word. And when we live out what Jesus teaches, we show the world a couple of important things: (1) That this kind of life is possible; and (2) That God’s ways are better than our human, natural ways of doing things apart from Him. This is what the Apostle Paul is getting at in Titus 2:1-10.

WE ARE WITNESSES AS A COMMUNITY

Three times in this passage, Paul mentions the need to maintain a good reputation for the sake of the Gospel (vv. 5, 8, 10). First, in Titus 2:5, he tells Christians to live out the biblical pattern for marriage "so that the Word of God may not be reviled." The Word of God is reviled when the world looks at the instructions that God gives and scoffs, “Not even the Christians believe or do that—so why should we?” We are witnesses as a community. How we live either lifts the message of the Gospel up, or it lowers the opinion that the whole world has of the value of God’s good instructions for us. The world may not support the Christian way of doing things, but they will sure sit up and take notice if it looks like we as Christians don’t even do those things either. We should live so that “the word of God may not be reviled.”

We should also be aware that there are some people in the world who are waiting for Christians to make a mistake, so that they can exploit it and use it against the Christian community. This is a particular concern for pastors. So second, in Titus 2:8 Paul tells pastors not to give "opponents" of the Gospel an "opportunity to speak evil." This does not mean that the rest of the community doesn’t have the same responsibility—we just saw that in verse 5. But it does mean that our Christian leaders have a little more of a spotlight on them, and that there are opponents of the faith (that’s the word that Paul uses) who would love to use the inconsistent or unserious words and actions of a pastor against the whole Christian community. So Paul says, to all Christians but especially people in Christian leadership, “don’t give them an opportunity to speak evil.” Once again, how we live changes how people receive the Gospel. That’s Paul’s concern here.

Finally in verse 10, Paul gives instructions for servants -the employees of the day- to “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.” That word adorn here in the original Greek is actually related to our English word cosmetics. Our actions as followers of Jesus can actually have a big part to play in enhancing, or at least bringing out, the beauty of the Gospel for all the world to see. The world doesn’t just want to hear the Gospel preached before they will believe it. They want to see the Gospel lived. They want to see what it looks like. When we start to create exceptions for ourselves, to say that this or that part of God’s Word does not apply to our lives, then the people in our lives will conclude that God’s Word doesn’t apply to them either, and they won’t want any part of it. But when they see the Gospel lived out, and they see Christians whose lives reflect that God is their treasure and that their hope is not in anything that is on this earth; when they see sacrifice, and consistency, and love in the midst of difficulty, and accountability within the church even when it’s hard, they will know that there is something different in our midst. And they will want to know what it is. And we will be ready to tell them: “We live for a good, and great, and glorious God, who rescued us when we did not deserve it and loved us to the point of death. He has given us a hope in heaven and for all eternity where all things will be exactly as he intended them, and we have chosen to live our lives in such a way that it reflects that hope, because we have placed our trust in Him.”

WE ARE WITNESSES AS INDIVIDUALS

We are not just a faceless group of interchangeable Christians, however. We each have an opportunity to adorn the Gospel in a different way, and we face different challenges. That is why Paul addresses specific groups of people. In verse 2 the older men are mentioned. And then in verse 3, it’s the older women. In verses 4 and 5, the younger women are addressed. In verse 6, the younger men. In verses 7 to 8, Titus and by extension all Christian leaders are mentioned. And then finally, in verses 9 and 10, the Apostle Paul addresses servants, or slaves, which were basically the employees of the day. Most of the instructions that the Bible gives for them here would apply to anyone who works for someone else today; most of the people in the church and throughout the Roman Empire at that time would have belonged to this group. So how are all these different individuals -men and women, old and young, rich and poor, the worker, and the retired man - going to live out the Gospel in a way that shows the world that God is great? The answer is, each in a slightly different way. We are all called to the same standard of living for Jesus. That’s not in question here. Actually, many of the specific instructions for everyday Christians in this passage are the same requirements that were listed in Titus 1:5-16 for Christian leaders. But as individuals we are still different people, and we have different duties and different responsibilities, and different stages of life, and even different struggles and temptations. So it’s not enough to be told, “We need to be witnesses.” No, we need to know “How do I live as a witness for Jesus? How do I live out a witness to the Gospel as an individual Christian?” This is why Paul addresses these specific groups in these verses.

I've addressed some of the specifics in sermon form in the past, so I will leave those aside for now to stick to the main point: wherever you work, whatever you do, whoever you know, however you get the opportunity, make sure that you are pursuing Jesus continually so that others see the difference that he makes in your life. Make sure that Jesus is your treasure. We talk about faith in the church sometimes, but it’s not just about a simple belief in God, faith is about what you put your trust in. Each of you, make sure that you are continually recalibrating your life so that it looks -to you and the rest of the world- like the life of someone who trusts Jesus. That trusts Jesus to save, and trusts that he’s good, and trusts that he’s God, and trusts that he’s in control, and trusts that his Word is good, and trusts his commands, and trusts his promises, and trusts in him. Our lives, as a community and as individuals, are a message to the rest of the world—is Jesus good? Is the Gospel true? Does Christianity have anything to do with life today? People will know the answer when they see God's people. God is so good to us. He loved us, he pursues us, he has provided everything. Jesus went to the cross for us. God has a plan to reconcile the whole world to himself, the Bible says, things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, metaphorically speaking. And he wants you and me by his side when he does it. So he has paid the price for our sin so we could live for him. Would the world get that message from watching us as a church, as a people? I hope they will. 

Let’s go out as a church, and with our lives, as Titus shows us, and let’s be witnesses of “the doctrine of God our Savior”--let’s be witnesses of the good news about Jesus, and what he’s done for us.

Blessings on your living, your working, and your "adorning the Gospel" with your lives wherever you go,

- Sean

------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Tyler VanderWeele and John Siniff, USA Today Oct, 28th, 2016, "Religion May Be a Miracle Drug: Church Attendance is Correlated with Longer Life and a Sense of Meaning."

"Who Do You Say That I Am?": The Historical Case for Jesus

Jesus asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" They said, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven."  - Matthew 16:13-17

Who is Jesus? In Jesus’ own day, people had some theories: Maybe he’s John the Baptist come back to life. After all, he had started to become a lot more publicly known just as John had been arrested and then killed. Or maybe Jesus is the prophet Elijah returned from heaven, which would signal the coming Day of the Lord and His judgment upon the nations. Maybe he’s the second coming of Jeremiah or one of the other prophets--John’s Gospel reports that Jesus had demonstrated at the temple early on in his ministry, just like Jeremiah had centuries earlier. As creative as each of those answers were, as much as each explanation had something going for it, all of those explanations were wildly wrong. In our own day people still have their own answers to that question: Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus is really Michael the Archangel; Mormons believe that Jesus is a mere man (and half-brother of Lucifer) who became one of many gods; Deepak Chopra and Richard Rohr claim that Jesus was an Eastern mystic who achieved a higher state of consciousness, known as the “Christ consciousness,” which resulted in him becoming known as “Christ” as a signal of his accomplishment; some people say that he survived the cross and ran to France with Mary Magdalene; or that he was really the Apostle Paul. Scientology claims that Jesus is a viral idea that was forced upon an alien's spirit about a million years ago. I can't fully explain that position to you, because I don't have any experience with this next thing either: in 1970 John Allegro, a Dead Sea Scrolls scholar and lecturer at Manchester University, wrote an entire book called The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross arguing that the story of Jesus is really an allegorical code for using hallucinogenic mushrooms. Some internet personalities have even tried to argue that Jesus never existed. Given all of this confusion about Jesus, some purposeful, and some of it by people who are honestly misled, it would be worth our time this morning as Christians who are witnesses of Jesus, to understand more about what the historical case for Jesus really is.

HISTORICAL WITNESSES TO JESUS

The first piece of evidence is that there are a good number of historical witnesses to Jesus outside of the Bible. The Roman historian and high-ranking official, Tacitus, writing in 116 AD, in the middle of his comments on the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero, wrote that “Christ, from whom the name [Christian] had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular.” Tacitus did not know Christians, he did not like them, and he was definitely not a Christian. But he did know about Jesus. And what he knows is that Jesus was a Jewish man from Judea, who was crucified by Pontius Pilate during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, and that a religion or “superstition” developed around him which temporarily halted after he was crucified, only to unexplainably come back and spread all the way to Rome--for reasons that he couldn’t speculate on. 

The Jewish general and historian Josephus wrote a long history of the Jewish people that he completed in 93 AD, and in it he mentions Jesus in two places: in one he focuses on James, who he points out was “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ,” and in the other he writes an amazing passage about Jesus, which only survives with additions except in one manuscript, but here is a reconstruction of that passage by scholars: “At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians (named after him) has not died out.” So Josephus confirms that Jesus lived during the time of Pilate; that he was considered a teacher, had a reputation as a miracle worker, and had followers among both Jews and Gentiles; that he was crucified at the suggestion of Jewish authorities. Added to that, Josephus also had his own separate sources about the death of James the brother of Jesus, because that death led to a complaint against the high priest of the day and resulted in a change in power, so it was politically significant. 

There are other references to Jesus by people outside of the Bible who were historically close to him, but between just Tacitus and Josephus we have a pretty good outline of some basics of Jesus’ life: He lived during the reign of Tiberius Caesar (who reigned from 14-37 AD); he was a Jewish man from Judea; he was called the Christ (which is the title of the Jewish Messiah); he had a brother; he had a group of followers; he was a well-known teacher; he was regarded as a miracle worker; he was accused by the Jewish leadership of the day of an offense which caused Pilate to have him crucified; and the movement around him was halted temporarily after his death, before gaining a new energy and spreading all the way from Judea to Rome itself.

BIBLICAL WITNESSES TO JESUS

So our first piece of evidence was historical witnesses outside of the Bible, which I only mentioned two for the sake of space. Our second piece of evidence is the witness of the Bible itself. It’s important to remember that the Bible isn’t just one book, but it’s an entire library of histories, and biographies, letters, and visions, poems, and sayings, by many different authors over a long period of time, over a huge geographical area. 

Now, it’s true that non-Christian historians don’t accept the truth of the whole Bible. But even they still have to accept that there is good historical material in the Bible. Here’s what the Atheist Bible scholar Bart Ehrman says about that: “[T]he Gospels, their sources, and the oral traditions that lie behind them combine to make a convincing case that Jesus really existed. It is not that one can simply accept everything found in the Gospels as historically accurate… At the same time, there is historical information in the Gospels. This historical material needs to be teased out by careful, critical analysis… [the Gospel writers] were historical persons giving reports of things they had heard.” He writes again, “These accounts did not appear out of thin air, however. They are based on written sources—a good number of them—that date much earlier… Even these sources… were based on [earlier] oral traditions that had been in circulation year after year among the followers of Jesus. These traditions were transmitted in various areas… throughout the Roman Empire… It appears that… many of them go back to the 30s CE. We are not, then, dealing merely with Gospels that were produced fifty or sixty years after Jesus’s death… We are talking about a large number of sources, dispersed over a remarkably broad geographical expanse, many of them dating to the years immediately after Jesus’s life.”[1] 

In the academic world Historical Jesus scholars come from all sorts of different religions and perspectives, so they take an attitude of suspicion towards the Bible. At the same time they can’t deny that all of these Gospels were written about Jesus within 60 years after his death (30 years for Mark and 60 years for John), while many living witnesses to Jesus' life and death were still around, and that these written Gospels are themselves based on earlier sources. So non-Bible believing scholars have had to come up with a series of tests for what to accept from the Gospels. Different sayings and stories about Jesus have to pass through restrictive criteria before they’re accepted as genuine. Thankfully, even under these restrictive criteria, many of the Gospel’s traditions about Jesus pass the test. 

For example there’s the criterion of multiple attestation: This is when two sources who don’t know each other say the same thing. For example, for reasons that are kind of hard to go into now, it looks like Matthew and Luke didn’t know each others’ Gospels when they were writing. And yet, they have this amazing amount of material in common that they couldn’t have got from each others’ writings and which doesn’t appear in the Gospel of Mark, which both Matthew and Luke quoted from heavily and used as one of their sources. From a lot of these common materials, and others, scholars are able to tell for sure things like that Jesus spoke Aramaic, spoke in parables, taught about the kingdom of God, debated with the Pharisees about the Jewish law, had twelve disciples, and celebrated passover. 

Then there’s the criterion of embarrassment. This test is used by scholars to sift for historical material that would have been embarrassing to the first Christian leaders, and which wouldn’t have been included unless everybody already knew about it. This includes things like Jesus being crucified, which was a shameful method of execution reserved for only the worst criminals, traitors, failed insurrectionists, that kind of thing. This is not a detail that you make up if you want people to accept your message. It would be like spreading the message of a guy who was killed by electric chair, not just by the state [the Roman Empire], but at the request of the local neighborhood watch [the Jewish authorities]. Jesus’ baptism by John is another embarrassing detail, because it was a baptism for repentance from sin. Scholars point out that Matthew’s Gospel goes out of its way to mention that John the Baptist didn’t think Jesus needed to be baptized, and they say that Matthew is trying to save face for Jesus there because he can’t deny that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. Another thing from the life of Jesus that passes the criterion of embarrassment is Jesus causing a disturbance in the Temple, which is recorded in all four Gospels (so it passes the first criteria of multiple attestation) but it also would have been highly scandalous to Jews and the polytheistic Romans for a religious leader to cause a disturbance at a temple or sacred space. Nonreligious Bible scholars say that the Gospel writers couldn’t erase an incident like this which would have been well known, so they had to include it and try to clean it up a bit. 

There are also different criteria which point out that when something seems to reflect Jesus’ Jewish background in an incidental way, it’s more likely to reflect a genuine tradition about Jesus. So for example all of the Gospels were written in Greek, but historical Jesus scholar Craig Keener points out that there are certain words or turns of phrase that “make no more sense in Greek than in English, but… make perfect sense in Hebrew or Aramaic."[2] In addition there are many details in the Gospels where the writers seem very familiar with the geography of Galilee and Judea, or where some of the exchanges reflect Jewish concerns that are genuine for the place and time but are not really spelled out—they’re incidental details that come together to show that what’s being shared is genuine. 

Taken all together, here are 17 facts about Jesus that are so well-supported that the vast majority of even non-Christian scholars accept them: 

(1) He was a Gallilean Jewish man, 

 

(2) he grew up in Nazareth, 

 

(3) his native tongue was Aramaic, 

 

(4) he was baptized in the wilderness by John in the Jordan, 

 

(5) he had a traveling ministry through Galilee 

 

(6) he was followed by a group of disciples, both men and women, 12 of whom he named as his apostles 

 

(7) he taught about the kingdom of God, 

 

(8) he often spoke in parables, 

 

(9) he was reputed to be a wonder worker who cast out demons and healed people, 

 

(10) he showed and preached compassion to people whom Jews commonly regarded as unclean or wicked, 

 

(11) he engaged in debate over matters related to Jewish law, 

 

(12) he went to Jerusalem at Passover the week of his death, 

 

(13) he caused a disturbance in the temple, 

 

(14) he had a final meal with his inner circle of disciples that became the basis for what Christians call the Last Supper, 

 

(15) he was arrested at the behest of the high priest in Jerusalem, 

 

(16) he was crucified under Pontius Pilate in 30 or 33 AD, 

 

(17) he was genuinely believed by his disciples to appear to them shortly after his death, in experiences that convinced them that God had raised him from the dead. 

 

For those of us who read the Bible regularly, you might read that list and think, “Well, that sounds like just about everything.” And you would be right. I think this is part of why God arranged for four biographies of Jesus to make their way into the Bible—because these sources, compared with one another even by skeptical scholars who are suspicious of the Bible, make the majority of the details about the life of Jesus simply undeniable. Even Paul's letters, which are earlier than most or all the Gospels, are an important source in what they say about the historical Jesus, but unfortunately we don’t have space to get into that—though if you're interested, you can read about that by clicking here.

HISTORICAL JESUS SCHOLARSHIP IS MOVING IN A FAITH-AFFIRMING DIRECTION

The third and last piece of historical evidence for Jesus (for right now) is that the discussion is continuing to move in a faith-affirming direction. Historical Jesus studies are moving really fast—30 or 40 years ago scholars generally would have said that there’s not much you can say about Jesus, historically. Now it’s a lot different. A lot of Christians have gotten involved in the discussion and pushed their other scholars on things, and there’s a lot more consensus and a lot more details about Jesus that are being affirmed today than there used to be. 

There are still two rules for academic scholarship: (1) scholarship is not allowed to say that Jesus is God; and (2) scholarship is not allowed to support the existence of miracles. So for example, here’s the Atheist scholar Bart Ehrman again: “What is the historian to make of all these miracles [in the Gospels]? The short answer is that the historian cannot do anything with them… Suffice it to say that if historians want to know what Jesus probably did, the miracles will not make the list since by their very nature and definition, they are the most improbable of all occurrences [so he’s saying, you just have to assume that miracles don’t exist, and you have to build that assumption into your scholarship from the start]… [but] even though historians -when speaking as historians- cannot say that Jesus really did, for example, heal the sick and cast out demons, they can say that he had the reputation of having done so.”[3] So non-Christian historical Jesus studies will never affirm that Jesus is God, or that he rose from the dead because that’s a miracle. However...

Even here scholarship is moving right up to the line. A guy named Michael Licona has been working to build a historically-based case for the resurrection which has already succeeded at causing other scholars to say that Jesus’ disciples, brothers, and a large group of other people alive during the time honestly believed that Jesus had risen and appeared to them all again. That’s not saying that Jesus actually rose from the grave. But it’s as close as scholarship will ever get to affirming the resurrection. And for his part, professor Craig Keener is pushing other scholars to affirm that Jesus thought of himself as a king who would rule all of the nations at the end of history, thought of his death as important to succeeding in that mission, and then purposely provoked the leaders of the day into crucifying him. That’s not affirming that Jesus is divine or that his death covered all of the sins of the world, but it’s getting us into that territory. Finally, a highly respected scholar named Richard Bauckham has written a book called Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, which is influentially pointing out that in many places the Gospels carry many of the marks of using eyewitness testimony. By comparing the Gospels to other ancient biographies, Bauckham has even pointed out how the Gospels appear to use ancient writing techniques to point out and name their sources for specific things that they say about Jesus. I don’t really have the space here to describe how or why (check out his book in the link), but his arguments have been persuasive to a lot of other scholars. 

So this is a real encouragement to Christians: although you wouldn’t know it by spending time on social media or watching TV, scholarship is continuing to get closer to affirming many of the things that we as Christians believe about Jesus, not farther. And what’s currently coming down the pipeline, what’s currently being debated, is moving in an even more faith-affirming direction.

- Sean

--------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Bart Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, p. 171

[2] Craig Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, 217-218.

[3] Bart Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, pp. 315-316

Being A People of Faith, Godliness, and Hope

"Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ: for [κατὰ] the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, for [κατὰ] godliness, and for [ἐπί] hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior. To Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior." - Titus 1:1-4

What is the mission of the God's people? The Apostle Paul provides the answer in Titus 1:1-4. Here Paul is writing to a younger leader named Titus, and he starts off with an unusually long introduction about his own personal mission--he's doing this because he is really "centering on the nature of gospel ministry" for Christians in general.[1] As Kenyan theology professor Samuel Ngewa writes, we are supposed to recognize in Paul's introduction that "we are called to the same task that Paul was."[2] So, what are the main themes of Paul's mission, and ours, as part of the people of God? The mission of God's people centers around three things: faith, godliness, and hope. Or, put another way: (1) telling people about Jesus; (2) living for Jesus; and (3) being people of hope.

FAITH: TELLING PEOPLE ABOUT JESUS

The first part of the church's mission is telling people about Jesus. Paul made it his mission to spread the Gospel to all of those who God might draw to himself. Or, as he put it in another passage, "I endure everything for the sake of the chosen people of God, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory" (2 Timothy 2:10). 

Paul dedicated his life to this. He used to be a persecutor of the church who hated Jesus, and he might have even murdered some Christians (Acts 9:1; Galatians 1:13). But God met Paul in a powerful way and turned his life around. From that day forward no one could stop him from telling everybody he met about the mercy and grace that God had shown him through Jesus. Maybe you're reading this and you're the same way. Maybe you were happy with your life, doing your own thing. But then you had an encounter with Jesus and it was like taking your first sip of water and realizing for the first time in your life that you had been thirsty for years. Your life changed as a result of hearing the Gospel, or being around other Christians and realizing something was different about them. But either way, your comfortable life wasn't comfortable any more, and you realized that you needed Jesus in your life. Since then, you haven't been able to keep yourself from sharing the same hope that you found with others. Maybe you got to the end of your rope. You tried to do everything that the world offers to make you feel at peace. You got involved in charity; you traveled; you got involved in the groups, showed up to make a difference at the rallies, tried the drugs, separated yourself from the toxic people, and you said your affirmations in the mirror: "I am a positive and powerful person, I am a positive and powerful person." and none of it did anything! Some of it made things even worse. And then you met Jesus. And not everything was fixed, not everything was solved. But there was something there, some kind of peace or something, that just didn’t have any kind of explanation that you could put your finger on. And after that it was just very hard for you not to tell people about what Jesus had done for you.

Let me tell you about what Jesus did for me. I grew up being bounced back and forth between Winnipeg and Toronto, between my dad and my mom. My mother left my dad and I when I was eight months old. I landed in foster care for a couple of years because my father put my head through a wall when I was five. Winnipeg Child and Family Services released me back into my mom’s care at the end of that time, but she only stuck around for a couple of months and then left me back with my dad. I grew up pretty much exclusively around strippers and bikers. I got into a lot of fights, got expelled from a lot of schools, committed a few crimes that would still be ruining my life today except that I was counted as a juvenile offender—and then I met Jesus when I was 16. I was in the back of a youth center, showed up to a Bible study, and the guy there just opened up the Word of God and told me about Jesus. And at the end asked me if I wanted to pray. And I said sure, I didn’t know what he wanted to pray about. Maybe the peace of the world or something. But he started to say “repeat after me” and led me through a prayer of asking God to forgive my sins and help me follow him. And I prayed that prayer. And I’ll tell you, I don’t think I believed in God when I started that prayer. But when we finished, and it was my turn to pray in my own words, I really did. It was just like faith happened to me. Like something supernatural that I still can’t explain to this day. And after that I just told all my friends about Jesus. They thought I was crazy; I didn’t care. I went back to my school and apologized to everyone I had ever hurt or been awful to. Jesus has changed my life to the point where it just feels like there is no continuity between who I am now and who I was then. Stories about some of the things I did as a teenager just feel like a different person did them. So here’s my deal: I love Jesus. He changed my life. And I want to tell other people about him. So that’s pretty much what I’ve dedicated my life to.

That’s the first part of the mission of God’s people as the church: to be people who have put our faith in Jesus, who to tell other people about Jesus, so that they can put their faith in him too.

GODLINESS: LIVING FOR JESUS

The second part of the church's mission is living for Jesus. This is what the word "godliness" means. It means living like people who’ve been transformed by knowing Jesus. It means something a little more than just living a good moral life—though it is that too, but that’s a really narrow way of putting it. Godliness means that your whole life could be explained by what you think of Jesus. So Jesus is who you put your faith in (Titus 1:1). Jesus becomes the foundation for how you make decisions about what you think is good and truthful (also Titus 1:1). Jesus is where you go when you are restless and stressed out and just need to find peace (Titus 1:4). And Jesus is the one you look to as your savior (Titus 1:3,4), who died on the cross to save you from what you really needed to escape from, which was the weight of all your sin. And you run to him -not to a political party, not to a new relationship, not to a financial opportunity; at least not primarily- you run first to Jesus as your Savior, because he saves you from the thing that really matters. He doesn’t just save you until the next election, or the next season of life, or the next financial quarter. Jesus saves you for all eternity.

Godliness looks like having the kind of life that could only make sense if God was at the center of it. I have a confession to make: I still need to be reminded of this constantly. So I had a couple of interactions this week where I was running really busy, and tired, and trying to get a lot of things running all at once, and as a naturally shy person who’s gone through some things before, I started to get worn down. And on Thursday I asked God why I was starting to have a hard time having conversations with people and just kind of interacting, and I felt like God told me, it’s because I’m getting tired out from doing things out of my own ingenuity, and strength, and work ethic. And it’s because I’ve been looking at myself and my own performance too much as the solution for what my family and other people need, and of course that brings out some insecurity because they don’t actually need me, or any person, primarily—what they really need most can only come from Jesus. And so it’s my job to still work hard and to make sure we’re on track, but before those things it’s really my job to point myself and other people to Jesus. And once I realized that, I spent some time just praying and getting close to Jesus, and asking him to help me take my eyes off myself and put them on him so he could do the work in me that really matters. So is being shy, or occasionally awkward, or worn out a sin? No—of course not. I would never say that. But how that got dealt with in my life, where I took that to Jesus and asked him about it and he worked that out with me, and how that changed things in time for the next day where I had a great time talking with all kinds of people—that kind of change is the sort of thing where there was something in my life that was different that could only be explained by a relationship with Jesus. That’s godliness. It’s not morality. A lot of moral people -according to the world’s standard- are pretty godless. Godliness is a way of life that comes from a deepening relationship with God. Godliness is a way of life that comes from a deepening relationship with God. And that’s a big part of the mission of the church: not just to tell people about Jesus; we want to live for Jesus too.

HOPE: BEING PEOPLE OF HOPE

Third, the mission of the church is about being people of hope. In the Gospel, which is the good news about what Jesus has done, we have been given the promise of eternal life (Titus 1:2-3). John MacArthur -who’s been a pastor at Grace Community Church in Las Angeles for over 50 years now- says this:

“Eternal life is the pervading reality of salvation, and the hope of that life gives believers encouragement in a multitude of ways. It is an encouragement to holiness… The hope of eternal life gives encouragement for service… The hope of eternal life also gives encouragement to endure whatever suffering we may experience for the sake of Christ.”[3]

Where does this hope come from? In Titus 1:2-3 we’re told that this hope comes from God, who promised it “before the ages began”—literally “before time eternal." And then “at the proper time” he acted. God exists outside of time. He’s not bound by it. He can pick it up and look around at time the same as you or I could take pick up and take a look at a pen. But then this passage says that “at the proper time” God acted. The God who is not bound by time stepped down for you and me and made himself known in history. How amazing is that? And how did we get this hope? This passage only suggests the answer, when it says that God is our true Savior in Titus 1:3. And then it says that Jesus is our Savior (Titus 1:4). What’s Paul saying here? The God who is outside of time acted inside of time. The God who is our Savior came down as Jesus who is our Savior. They’re both mentioned together in the same breath as the single, true source of grace and peace. They’re both given the same titles, because Jesus is God. And although it’s not mentioned in this verse, we have the hope of eternal life together with God because Jesus took all of our sin and our guilt and our shame, and he nailed them to the cross in his body, where he paid the penalty that we deserved in our place, so that we could be clothed with his perfect goodness. So God has replaced our shame with his honor. He’s replaced our guilt with a declaration of his righteousness on our behalf. He took our shame and put it on himself so that he could give us his perfect holiness. And now he’s invited us into the hope of eternal life where we can dwell together with him in a place where the Bible says there is no sorrow, nor sickness, nor pain, nor crying anymore, for the old things have passed away, and behold, the new has come (Revelation 21:4. He has come to gather up his children to him in a place of perfect justice, and equity, and peace. As the people of God, part of our mission is to live and talk about the hope that only eternal life with Jesus can give.

So Paul’s mission, and our mission, is about telling people about Jesus so that they can put their faith in him; and our mission is to live godly lives for Jesus; and our mission is to be people of hope.

- Sean

--------------------------------------

[1] John MacArthur, Titus, MacArthur New Testament Commentary Series, p. 1

[2] Samuel Ngewa, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, Africa Bible Commentary Series, p. 327-328.

[3] John MacArthur, Titus, MacArthur New Testament Commentary Series, pp. 9-10.

The Lord's Supper: Past, Present, and Future

"For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." 

- Corinthians 11:26

What is the Lord's Supper? What is this strange, small, family meal that Christians consume together in our church services? The Lord's Supper is called by that name because it is a family meal that was instituted by Jesus for his disciples. Sometimes it is also called the eucharist (literally "thanksgiving"), but Evangelical Christians do not usually call it that, because we do not want to confuse our practice with the Roman Catholic practice where they believe they are re-sacrificing Jesus every week. The Lord's Supper is also often called communion, which focuses on unity between Christians and the invitation to experience the presence of Jesus, which the meal emphasizes. There are different frequencies with which this meal is eaten by different Bible-believing churches (weekly or monthly), different elements involved (bread or wafers; juice or wine), and different ways of eating the meal (coming up front to receive the elements along with a blessing; waiting to partake together). However, we all believe that the Lord's Supper is a meal of remembrance, communion, and hope.

PAST: A SUPPER OF REMEMBRANCE

First, the Lord's Supper is a supper of remembrance where we focus on what Jesus did for us on the cross. Every time we take this meal together, it's sort of like our spiritual Remembrance Day, where we remember the one who died to give us freedom from the oppressive weight of sin. Here is the passage that we often read before we take the Lord's Supper together: "For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, 'This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”  In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me'" (1 Cor. 11:23-25). The meal where Jesus spoke these words to his disciples was called The Passover. The Passover was all about remembrance. Nigerian Bible scholar Victor Babajide Cole writes that at the Jewish Passover, 

“After the participants had taken their positions at the table, the head of the family pronounced a blessing on the feast and the wine. Then they drank a first cup of wine, in remembrance of having been led out of Egypt… Then they drank a second cup of wine in remembrance of having been freed from slavery. Next the head of the family blessed the bread, which was passed round and eaten… At the end of the meal, the head of the family blessed the third cup of wine and it was drunk to celebrate and remember God’s mighty act of redemption… The celebration concluded shortly before midnight with the drinking of a fourth cup of wine in honour of the consummation when God will take his people to be with him for ever… As the head of his family of disciples, Jesus led the disciples in the celebration of this Passover. [But] he infused new meaning into [it]… Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it. [But then he said, ‘this is my body.’]... The third cup of wine, taken at the completion of the meal, had been in remembrance of God bringing about salvation for Israel. [But] Jesus gave it new meaning [when he said, ‘this cup is the New Covenant in my blood’].” 

Jesus took the Passover supper, which was a supper of remembrance for God’s rescue of Israel, and he gave it a new meaning as a remembrance for our rescue from sin. Tim Keller says “the Lord’s Supper connects the present to the past, because it immediately connects you to the night in which Jesus was betrayed.” We re-enact the story of the Last Supper together as a church whenever we take Communion: We claim that that is our story; and you can say: Jesus shares his table with me; I am a disciple of Jesus; his body was broken like this bread for my salvation; his blood ran red, like this cup, from the cross for my sins; you can hold the cup and the bread and declare that you are provided with nourishment because you hunger and thirst for righteousness, and when you take Communion, you confess “I need Jesus—his presence is like spiritual food for me, his saving death is like a drink for my soul.” And when we say that the Lord’s Supper is a supper of remembrance, we also acknowledge that it’s not just for our benefit: we "proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Cor. 11:26). Thomas Schreiner put it better than I ever could; he said that “The Lord’s Supper communicates a story to the world, a story of sacrificial love in which Jesus gave up his life for the sake of others… The Lord’s Supper is not only a remembrance but also a proclamation... to the world about the love of God in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.” I also love how the Puritan Thomas Goodwin compared the Lord’s Supper to a sermon, when he wrote: “Of sermons, some are for comfort, some are to inform, some to excite; but here in the Lord’s Supper is everything you could ever hope to expect. Christ is here light, and wisdom, and comfort, and all that you could need. He is here an eye to the blind, a foot to the lame; He is everything to everyone.” This is how we remember and proclaim Jesus in the Lord’s Supper.

PRESENT: A SUPPER OF COMMUNION

The Lord’s Supper is also a supper of Communion. Think along the lines of community - gathering, and sharing, and relationship. In 1 Corinthians 11, the Apostle Paul's constant assumption is that the Lord’s Supper is something that that Christians eat, quote, “when [they] come together” (1 Cor. 11:33). It’s not something they do off by themselves and away from other Christians. It’s something that’s supposed to bring them together as a church. In the church that I serve at, we express this by all partaking together (though there's nothing wrong with going up front to receive, as it displays dependence upon Jesus). We all wait and we eat and we drink at the same time, because Communion reminds us that whether we’re rich or poor, old or young, woman or man, whether we vote Liberal or Conservative, whether we are a pastor or a student or a postal worker, whether we are an elder or deacon in the church or a brand new Christian, whether we cheer for the Roughriders or some other team, our first identity is in Christ and by taking this bread and this cup together we are witnessing that we are all one people, and that we are all united together in him.

The Lord’s Supper is not just a supper of communion with each other as a Church, though, it is a supper of communion with our Savior Jesus Christ. (1) In the Lord’s Supper, Jesus invites us to eat with him at his table. We dine with him on the night before he was betrayed, when he gave new meaning to the bread and wine. The Puritan Stephen Charnock said “in this action there is more communion with God…than in any other religious act…. We have not so near a communion with a person… as we have by sitting with him at his table, partaking of the same bread and the same cup.” (2) And that isn’t the only way we have communion with Jesus as we take the Lord's Supper. His presence is with us. When we take communion, and we take a pause, we make space and to ask that the Holy Spirit would make us aware of the presence of Jesus in our gathering as we take the Lord’s Supper. When we gather together, and we declare to each other and to God that we are his disciples, and when we gather at his table to remember him and to proclaim the news about his death for our sins and our trespasses, Jesus promises in Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.” At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, he says “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” So New York City Pastor Tim Keller says, “in a unique way, in a way that is not available any other place, [in the Lord’s Supper] you eat and drink his words, his truth, the gospel; it becomes part of you. You remember that God will spiritually graft his truth, his gospel, his grace into you in a way that’s unique, in a way you can’t have in a quiet time; in a way that you can’t have anywhere else.” When we take the Lord’s Supper, we are entering into communion with each other as we partake together, and we are entering into communion with the very presence of Jesus in our midst as we are gathered together.

FUTURE: A SUPPER OF HOPE

Third, the Lord's Supper is a supper of hope. 1 Corinthians 11:26 says that "as often as you [eat the Lord's Supper], you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." Whenever we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we also look forward to another Supper in the future, when Jesus will return to correct all injustice and wipe away all poverty and to cure all disease, and to heal all division; when he will bring all his people to himself, and the nations of the earth will make no war, and hold no hostages, and build no weapons, and have no secrets, and there will be no oppression, and no hunger, but only peace. Isaiah 25:6-9 tells us that on that day, on the mountain of the Lord, there will be another supper, which this supper looks forward to: “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine.” Go back with me to the Passover supper, on the night when Jesus was betrayed. If you remember back to the beginning of this post, the Nigerian Bible scholar Victor Babajide Cole wrote about how Jesus “ended the Passover meal with the third cup, and did not go on to take the fourth cup, [which represented] the gathering to God of his people. That cup will only be drunk at the time of Jesus’ second coming. So the fourth cup is postponed. [It’s still waiting on the table.]” When Jesus comes, what’s his gathering going to be? What’s he going to bring when he comes? A supper. When you take the Lord’s Supper, God is whispering to you. He says, “I am unconditionally committed to getting you from here to there; from this bread and drink, to the new bread and drink in God's Kingdom.” We eat this meal in anticipation of the Great Feast that we will share with Jesus when he comes.

CONCLUSION

So on Communion Sunday, we celebrate the Lord’s Supper together. We celebrate a supper of remembrance; a supper of communion; and a supper of hope. This little piece of bread and this little cup are so small, but they represent such enormous truth and beauty and meaning. In these, according to 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, we have the message of the Gospel re-enacted for us. Jesus gave his body for us (v. 24). He brought in a new covenant in his own blood (v. 25). He died for sin, and was buried, and he rose back to life three days later, conquering sin and Satan and death and hell, and he rose up to heaven where he is seated at the right hand of God the Father, from where he will one day come again. (v. 26)

- Sean

Eight Ways to Be An Evangelist (According to the Bible)

Jesus has commanded us to "Go and make disciples of the nations" (Matthew 28:19). Christians are meant to make Jesus known--individually, and together as the church! That's our mission statement. But, Jesus didn't command us all to do evangelism in the same way. We're all built differently from each other. The mission for all of us is the same, but our methods don't have to be. So in light of that, I wanted to outline 8 Ways to Be an Evangelist (According to the Bible).

1. Active Evangelism (Paul). Paul wrote in Romans 1:14-15, “I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish, so I am eager to preach the gospel.” The heart of Paul was to actively go out and preach the gospel to all people, everywhere, and especially to go to unreached areas where Christ has not been named. Active evangelism is when we go out and find people, and start conversations with them to tell them about Jesus. That’s one way of doing it, and for those who God equips it is probably the most effective way to tell the world about Jesus. God used Paul’s active evangelism to help bring the entire Roman world to faith. But it’s not the only way.

2. Being a Consistent Witness (1 Peter 3). Peter wrote in his first letter to a group of Christians, "In your hearts honor Chris the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 3:15). God has used the consistent witness of a lot of faithful Christians to bring people to faith. A consistent witness usually isn’t good at going out and talking to strangers in the checkout line of the grocery store, but they’re very upfront and unashamed about the fact that they’re followers of Jesus, and they live a consistent life. I know a guy named Chris Stein who’s very good at this. And so as time goes on, often the people who are already around people like this -their co-workers, their families, their friends- will eventually ask them more about what they believe.

3. Financially Supporting the Work of Evangelism (3 John). The Apostle John wrote to a group of Christians in the letter of 3 John, “Do all in your efforts for those brothers… [who] have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from [the places where they are going]. Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.” These supporters are people who aren’t able go and preach the Gospel: they live further away from where people are, or they’re stuck at home due to illness or responsibilities. But John says that by resourcing people who are able to go and reach other people, these prayer partners and financial givers can be considered, quote, “fellow workers for the truth” alongside the people who physically go out to preach the message of the Gospel.

4. Sharing Your Testimony (The Blind Man). The man born blind in John's Gospel said to his questioners, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” (John 9:25). He wasn’t clever or well spoken, but he confronted his questioners with the power of his experience and how he had been changed by Jesus. Anyone whose life has been changed by Jesus can do this too.

5. The Invitational Approach (The Samaritan Woman at the Well). This is the method of the Samaritan Woman from John 4, who told her neighbours "Come, and see a man who told me all that I ever did.’ So the Samaritans came to see Jesus” (John 4:29). This is what we do when we put on events for people in our neighbourhood, or invite our friends to church, or (wisely) share certain messages on Facebook that we hope will allow others to think and consider the message of Jesus. We might not be able to answer all of our friends' questions or give them all the resources that they need, but we can invite them to some place or connect them with some person who can.

6. The Intellectual Approach (Paul). The Book of Acts records that Paul did a lot of evangelism by reasoning with people and giving an intellectual defense of the faith. In Acts 9:19-22, he "confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ." Often when Paul proclaimed Jesus, he did it through reason. So we can find him again in Athens, arguing with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers: "Now while Paul was waiting at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned... in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him" (Acts 17:16-18). The intellectual evangelist loves apologetics, reasoning for the faith, and proving the truth of the Gospel. This person is a great resource for other Christians as well!

7. The Direct Approach (Peter). Peter was known for being a very direct person who just got right into things and did not beat around the bush. He got straight to the heart of the matter. In Acts 2 we find him confidently engaging with a crowd of people, preaching the Gospel of Jesus and calling people to repent, trust Jesus, and be baptized. People who utilize the direct approach are not afraid to strike up conversations with people and take the Gospel straight to them. Like Peter, these are usually engaging and charismatic people with a gift of gab, a heart for the Lord, and an infectious optimism that makes people want to listen to what they have to say.

8. A Connection With a Certain Group (Matthew). Everyone has a natural connection with a certain group. Since shaving my head, for example, I've discovered that us bald guys tend to share a certain brotherhood. (We also share a life verse: "As for the man whose head is shaven: he is bald, but he is clean," Leviticus 13:40.) Matthew had a connection with a certain group of people on the outside of polite society, and he brought them to hear from Jesus: "[Matthew] rose and followed him. And as Jesus reclined at table in his house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples" (Matthew 9:9-10). Whatever your group is, you probably have a group of people who you are uniquely equipped to reach with the Gospel.

...So as we can see, all of us are called to make Jesus known! But we're not all called to do it the same way. I hope this list of biblical examples helps us all to think of new ways that we might uniquely be called to make Jesus known.

-Sean