Four Fold Gospel Archives - The River Alliance Church

August 1, 2016May 1, 2018

Christ our Coming King: Part I

There have been many end of the world predictions over the years. But possibly the most interesting of all doomsday predictions came from a chicken. Apparently there was a hen in Leeds, England back in 1806 that became known as the prophet hen of Leeds when she began laying eggs with the words “Christ is coming” written on them. People traveled from far and wide to visit this prophetic hen. However the whole thing was uncovered as a hoax when it was found out that the owner of the hen was using corrosive ink to write on the eggs and then reinserting them back into the hen, to be laid later.

Many people are interested in talking about the end times. There are actually many passages in Scripture that deal with this topic. Acts 1:6-11 is a very familiar passage that contains Christ’s ascension to Heaven and a challenge to be Christ’s witnesses to the ends of the earth. However, this well-known passage actually begins with a question about the end times.

In Acts 1:6 the disciples ask Jesus, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6b, ESV) Typically when we look at this passage we tend to gloss over verse 6, but when we recognize this starting question it takes us deeper into the context of what Jesus is saying.

Remember, the disciples had an unclear idea of what exactly the Messiah had come to do. They had grown up hearing these prophecies of the coming Messiah and the interpretations that suggested that he would be a conquering hero or a political or military leader who would return the kingdom of Israel to prominence. They then saw firsthand the miracles he was capable of and they gave up their lives to follow him. But then he was crucified and died and they were probably pretty confused, until he rose again and displayed authority over death. When you combine what they had seen of Jesus with what they expected of the Messiah, it is easy to see how they might have expected him to establish his kingdom right away now that he had risen. But they were still missing pieces to the puzzle.

In verse 7 Jesus basically answers their question by telling them that the timing of his kingdom is really none of their business. That is not what they were supposed to be focused on. And that is not what we are supposed to focus on either. Many times we are in such a hurry to get to verse 8 that we miss this important answer. But this helps provide good context for verse 8, because while Jesus says the timing is not our business, he does tell us what is supposed to be our business. In verse 8 Jesus says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8, ESV)

Our understanding of verses 6 and 7 doesn’t drastically change our understanding of verse 8, but it does add an extra emphasis. We may not know when the end is going to come, but we do know what we are supposed to be doing in the meantime. This is a pivotal verse in the Bible. It is kind of like an outline for the rest of the book of Acts as we see the disciples basically living out these words in the rest of the book as the Gospel spreads to the world.

After saying these things Jesus then ascended to Heaven and the disciples were left standing there watching him go. Then all of a sudden a couple of messengers showed up and asked the guys why they were just standing there gazing at heaven. And then they tell them that Christ is coming back. It’s like they were implying that the disciples should stop standing around and get busy doing what he had told them to do.

It may seem weird to take a passage that focuses on Christ’s ascension into Heaven and use it to talk about Christ our Coming King, but the context is clear. Christ’s is coming again. Ever since he left, we have been living with his imminent return. We don’t know when he will return, but we do know that he is coming. We see that stated right here in this passage as well as in many other places in Scripture.

Christ did not just come to earth, live a good life, do all those miracles, die for the sins of mankind, rise again and then just ride off into the sunset at the end of the story. He left with a plan to return. He is coming again. The story is not finished yet. And when he comes he will be ushering in his kingdom. So Christ is not only our Savior, and our Sanctifier and our Healer, he is also our Coming King. We can look forward to his return and to spending eternity with him, but talking about his return should not focus us on standing around watching for him to return, or arguing about when the end of the world is going to come, it should spur us on to do what he wants us to do while he is gone. All of this provides context for verse 8. So let’s let the fact that Christ is coming again, spur us on to be his witnesses to a world that desperately needs him.

July 25, 2016May 1, 2018

Christ our Healer, part 2

Movies like “Fletch Lives” and “Leap of Faith” poked fun at the stereotypical, televangelist, faith-healing frauds, but for many people the images in those movies are what we picture when we hear someone talk about healing. There have been a lot of abuses and misuses of healing in the church and on television and for that reason many people have abandoned the idea of healing altogether.

In James 5:13-16 we find a very clear outline of what healing is supposed to look like within the Church. “13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” (James 5:13-16, ESV)

There are a lot of different responses we might have when we are suffering. We might whine, complain, grumble worry or get discouraged, but James is suggesting that when we are suffering we should turn it over to God in prayer.

Then James moves on to good times. So often we are quick to blame God for the bad things in life and yet very slow to give him credit for the good things. It is almost like we expect things to always be good and so we only really take notice when something goes wrong. Making a point to give praise to God for the good things helps us maintain a right focus on him.

After talking about times of suffering and times when we are cheerful, James moves on to talk about what we are to do when we are sick. He tells us that we are to call for the elders to pray for us. Notice that there is a difference between what we are to do when we are suffering compared to when we are sick. I don’t believe that James is saying that we are to sit and try and deliberate about what our trouble is so that we can decide whether we are to pray for ourselves or call for the elders. I believe that James is suggesting a next step that we can take.

The word that James uses here to talk about those who are sick can also mean weak. Regardless of why we are suffering we should bring our needs before God in prayer. We also might reach out to our relatives and friends or put something on the prayer chain so the church can be praying for us. But James seems to be suggesting a next step we can take when those problems continue or we need a special touch. He tells us to call on the elders. This is not simply referring to those who are older than us, but to those who have been specifically set aside for a position of authority within the church. These people are called to be overseers who care for the spiritual needs of those within the church.

In this passage James points out a very specific process for seeking Christ for healing. He says that we are to call the elders to pray for the person and anoint them with oil. This is not some kind of magical spell or incantation. There is not some specific maneuver that needs to be done in the right way to bring healing. Healing does not come from using the right kind of oil, or saying the right words in the prayer, or having the oil applied in the right way or anything like that. The healing comes from Christ.

Notice how James specifically points out praying and anointing in the Name of the Lord and that it is the Lord who will raise him up. The Lord is the one who does the work. Healing should focus us on Christ, not on some person and not even on our own ability to believe strongly enough. Any healing service that takes the focus off of Christ and puts it on some person or some special process is a problem. Christ is our healer.

Notice also that confessing our sins is mentioned in this passage. Sometimes our sickness or suffering is a direct result of our sin. There are very real consequences for our sin and sometimes God might allow bad things to happen to us as discipline or just as a natural consequence of a wrong we have done. God also may allow sickness into our lives in order to get our attention and to help us see something in our lives that needs to change. So if we are refusing to acknowledge our sin and are determined to ignore what God wants for us, then there is no way we should expect his healing. So it is important to take the time and see if there is some sin that needs to be dealt when we seek healing.

However, sometimes sickness is not related specifically to some sin in our life that has not been dealt with. Notice that James says if he has sinned he will be forgiven. That word “if” suggests that we can be sick and not have some sin that needs to be forgiven. Sometimes we just get sick, because we are living in a broken world. Even when we are healed from a sickness we will eventually get sick again and eventually we will die. Sickness, pain and death are a natural part of living in this broken world. That means that sometimes we just get sick. But when we are sick it is a good time to pause and seek God and to let him reveal to us anything he might want to reveal to us.

This process for healing includes examining our hearts and confessing sin and having the elders pray for us and anoint us with oil. That is the process, but notice that it begins with a request from the one who is sick. This, in and of itself is an act of faith, so let’s not take it lightly. It is not simply a last ditch effort or a whim, it is a specific decision to trust in Christ as our healer.

James gives us a clear process for approaching Christ for healing and it looks very different from what was pictured in the movies I mentioned at the beginning of this blog. We do not need to abandon healing because of the abuses we have seen, we simply need to get back to the biblical foundation for healing like we see in this passage. So my challenge for us is to utilize this process that God has laid out for us. If we are sick, we should call for the elders of the church to pray over us and anoint us with oil in the name of the Lord.

July 10, 2016July 20, 2016

Christ our Sanctifier, Part II: Our Response

This is part 2 of a 2 part blog on Christ our Sanctifier. If you have not read the first part, you may want to read that first and then come back to this one. The first part focuses on recognizing that Christ is the one who sanctifies us and this second part focuses on our response. If Christ really is our Sanctifier then how to we respond to him? Does he just do this in our lives and we have no part to play?

Paul addresses this in Romans 6. He begins with an interesting question about whether or not we should sin more so that grace may abound. In other words, if it is amazing that grace covers a small amount of sin, then grace would be seen as even more amazing if the amount of sin was greater, so why not just keep on sinning.

Paul stands strongly against the idea that justification through Christ gives us a license to sin more. Christ didn’t die to give us the freedom to sin, but rather freedom from sin. We still have the capacity to sin, but sin has lost its power against us and we are freed from slavery to sin.

In the I Corinthians 1 passage, that we looked at in part I of this blog, we were reminded of the word redemption. That word actually carries with it the connotation of being bought out of slavery. Like slaves who have been freed, we too have been freed from slavery to sin.

But some slaves after they were freed, continued to live as slaves. Slavery was all they knew for so long and they just didn’t really understand how to live in freedom. We are the same way. We too have been set free, but sometimes we still choose to let sin be our master.

Paul challenges us to realize that after dying on the cross Christ rose again in victory over sin and death and we share in that victory. That is a promise for us for the future as we look forward to Heaven, but it is also a promise for us now. In Christ, we can have victory over sin.

And that brings us to our response to Christ our Sanctifier. There are two pieces to that response. In Romans 6:11 Paul writes, “11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 6:11, ESV)

The word here translated as consider in verse 11 is actually a mathematical term. It could be translated as count and can also mean something along the lines of reckon or to take into account. So we are to take into account that we ourselves are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. We are to look at our lives that way.

In part 1 of this blog I introduced this sanctification graph that you saw at this top of the article to try and illustrate sanctification for us. Here is the next part of that graph. Let’s pick things up with the crisis moment.

In the Christian and missionary Alliance we talk about a crisis moment. That simply represents that decisive turning point when we decide that we want Christ to be the Lord of our lives. We want to be set apart from sin and set apart to Christ or using the words in this verse it is that moment when we choose to reckon ourselves as dead to sin and alive to Christ.

That is part one of our response. Paul goes on in verses 12 -14 to point out a progressive day by day component that also exists. “12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” (Rom. 6:12-14, ESV)

These verses suggest an ongoing moment by moment and day by day living out of that crisis moment. It is us time and again choosing to be set apart from sin and set apart to God. I love the imagery in these verses. This is a powerful way of viewing sin. Paul is telling us to stop offering our eyes to pornography, and to stop offering our lips to gossip, and to stop offering our fists to anger, and so on.

This is not about trying harder to stop sinning, it is more along the lines of yielding. Actually the word used for present in verse 13, is the Greek word that means to yield. This is us submitting our lives to Christ as Lord and to the work of the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes when we think of Lordship as Christians we look at it as submitting our lives to Christ as master, and we look at the alternative as being free to do whatever we want. But in reality this is talking about shifting from one master to another. Rather than being mastered by sin, we are yielding to Christ as our Lord. There is a decision implied in this concept, but also there is power. We are not relying upon ourselves, but on the Lord to work in us.

We are still going to have ups and downs. There will still be times when we are living this out and times when we are not, but there is a power implied that is beyond us as we are relying on Christ to do this work in us.

So let me share with you how this has played out in my life. I became a Christian at an early age. I grew up in the Church and was a good Christian boy, but I did not really have a deep walk with Christ. My relationship with him was very superficial and I was more of a Jesus user than a Jesus follower. I wasn’t terrible, but I was stuck in some sins like lust and pornography and overall I was struggling with my identity in Christ.

In my late 20’s I was sitting at a railroad track, waiting for a long train to come by. I was feeling overwhelmed and discouraged in my relationship with Christ. I called out to Christ at those railroad tracks that I wanted him to be the Lord of my life and that I needed his help, because I couldn’t do it on my own.

That was my crisis moment. Then I needed to live that decision out moment by moment and day by day. I started to get serious about not offering my eyes to pornography and my mind to lust and I started yielding my life more and more to Christ’s work and his will for my life. And I started to grow.

I still had my ups and downs, but the trajectory of my sanctification changed that day. There is a definite upward trend that is there now that was not really there before that moment. Sometimes it is hard for me to see the progress in the midst of the moments of life, but I can look back and see growth over time.

God has helped me to see victory over sins that used to enslave me. He has helped me grow in Christ likeness and the fruit of the Spirit. You can ask my wife and she will tell you that I am a very different man than I was when we got married. I still am not perfect, but I am on a deeper walk with Christ than I was before that moment on those railroad tracks. And Christ is doing a work in me that I could have never done on my own. Christ is my sanctifier.

July 3, 2016May 1, 2018

Christ our Sanctifier, Part I

Did you know that Western Union originally rejected the telephone, saying in an internal memo in 1876, “The device is inherently of no value to us.” In 1903, the president of Michigan Savings Bank advised Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Company, saying “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad.” In response to David Sarnoff’s urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s, his associates said, “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?”

Sometimes really smart people make poor decisions simply because they think some really great idea is foolish. In I Corinthians 1:17-31 Paul talks about how the gospel seems like foolishness to those who have rejected it, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God.

From an earthly perspective the message of the cross makes no sense. How could a man who was put to death on a cross be of benefit to anyone? Why should someone stop going their own way and follow this Christ who had been put to death? But the message of the cross is not just some instruction about how to live, it is about accepting the sacrifice of someone who died, to bring us abundant life.

Actually the way this is written in the Greek suggests that those who are perishing are destroying themselves, while those who are being saved are saved not by what they do, but by what is being done for them. The message of the cross is not instruction for how to live, but life-giving power for those who believe.

Paul talks about how the Jews were looking for signs and yet when Christ came they missed him because he was not the kind of Messiah they were expecting. So to the Jews, Jesus was a stumbling block. They thought there was no way he could be the Messiah. So they killed him. Meanwhile, the Greeks were seeking wisdom. They had the great philosophers of the day desiring to know answers to the great questions of life and the universe. These great philosophers studied the world and applied their wisdom to life. To them the idea of Jesus was folly.

Man is very arrogant. We naturally think we know everything and can handle anything. We are taught from an early age to be independent. But God turned things upside down when he sent Christ. Through the work of Jesus Christ our sins can be forgiven and we can receive eternal life and this is a free gift that we simply receive by faith. To those who are willing respond to this seemingly foolish message and to proclaim their need for a Savior, God gives abundant life.

And notice what Paul says in verses 30-31, “30 And because of him[e] you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” I Cor. 1:30-31, ESV)

So Paul is writing to a Christian group. He is addressing the church. And he reminds them of what has happened in their lives through Christ. He speaks of Jesus Christ becoming wisdom from God to us. This contrasts with the wisdom of the world. The wisdom of the world does not have the power to save us, but Christ does, and therein lies true wisdom.

Then Paul talks about what happens in us through Christ by using three words: righteousness, sanctification and redemption. The word righteousness basically means to be put in right standing with God. We are declared righteous by God, because of the sacrifice of Christ. The word redemption refers to being bought back. It suggests a ransom and that a price was paid for us. It has ties to the concept of slavery and being bought out of that. The word sanctification means to be separate or set apart. Specifically in this context it would be set apart from sin and set apart to God. It refers to our holiness or the process of holiness in our lives.

I want to dig into this word a little more. So let me try and illustrate it visually for us.

Imagine if this graph represented our sanctification, as if we could quantify it. The top is 100% fully sanctified and down at the bottom is 0, representing someone who is going their own way, doing their own thing, not set apart for God at all. That doesn’t mean that they are a bad or good person, but specifically whether or not they are set apart from sin and to God.

At the point of conversion, when we receive Christ into our lives, there are some things that happen to us immediately. One of those things is that we are declared righteous, justified, or sanctified in God’s eyes because of the work of Christ.

In other words, when God looks at us, he sees us as clothed in Christ’s righteousness rather than covered in our sin. So at that moment we are placed in the position of sanctified based on Christ’s work in our lives. One day when we get to Heaven, we will be given new resurrected bodies and things will be like God intended, completely perfect and we will be glorified.

But between now and then, if we are honest with ourselves, while we may realize that God sees us right now positionally as sanctified, that is not the actual condition of our lives. We know that we are not perfect. We still sin, we still mess up, we are still not fully set apart from sin and set apart for God all the time. If we looked at the actual condition of our lives, and how much we are living like Christ, it would probably be more along the lines of a rocky up and down kind of following of God.

The question is, do we want more than that? I think in the church today we almost treat Christianity as if it is about praying a prayer so that when we die we will go to Heaven rather than Hell, but it does not really make that much difference in our day to day lives. So we are okay with an up and down following of Christ. However, if we are truly disciples of Christ, then that means that we are supposed to be in the process of becoming like the one we are following. That is what Christ has called us toward.

And we are not just looking ahead to eternal life in Heaven, God has promised us abundant life right now. He wants us to be victorious as we walk through this life, experiencing victory over sin, receiving his blessing and best for us today. He wants us to be walking in a newness of life that he has for us that I think many times we fail to grasp as Christians. And the only way for us to walk in that newness of life is by relying on the work of Christ who sanctifies us. Sanctification is not about cleaning up our lives and doing a better job of being a good Christian it is about relying upon the work of Christ in us. He is our sanctifier.

Think about the context of this passage. Paul has been pointing out throughout the preceding verses, the folly of man’s wisdom compared to the power of God. Just as we could never save ourselves we also cannot transform our lives into Christ-likeness. We need Christ to do that in us. Christ is not done with us at the point of conversion. He doesn’t stop with salvation, but continues on in our lives. He is our Sanctifier.

That flies in the face of earthly wisdom. This world would say that it’s up to you. You need to work hard. You need to get it done. You need to try harder. It is foolishness in the world’s eyes to rely upon Christ as Savior or Sanctifier, but that is exactly what we need to do.

So what is our response? If Christ is our Sanctifier, how do we respond to him? That’s a great question. Check out the next blog to find out more.

June 19, 2016May 1, 2018

Christ our Savior

For the last forty years the Heimlich maneuver has been synonymous with the abdominal thrust procedure for saving someone from choking. This method is named after a surgeon from Cincinnati named Dr. Henry Heimlich who apparently published this idea in an essay in the Emergency Medicine journal in June, 1974. Over the years this maneuver has been used to save the lives of many people who were choking.

But did you know that Dr. Heimlich never actually used the maneuver to save someone from choking until just a few weeks ago at the age of 96? He was apparently having dinner at his retirement home when a woman nearby began chocking and for the first time he used the Heimlich maneuver to save the life of this 87 year old woman.

What does it mean to save someone? It basically means to rescue someone from harm. In Titus 3:3-7, we read: “3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. 4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:3-7, ESV)

Notice that Paul begins with the words we were. He doesn’t say they are, but we were. We were foolish, we were disobedient and so on. He is describing himself and Titus, and all followers of Christ, before we became followers of Christ. This helps us identify ourselves with those around us who do not know Christ and reminds us of who we are without grace.

And then we see one of the most wonderful words in all of Scripture. The word “but.” That word carries with it a whole lot of implication. Paul says this is who we were, but then Christ came into the picture. And he connects the word “but” with the goodness and loving kindness of God. He points out all of the stuff about who we used to be and then the word “but” is there because God loves mankind so much and he is so good that he worked redemptively for us by sending Jesus.

Then Paul points out that we are saved not by what we do, but by what has been done for us. We could never earn salvation. We could never have been good enough on our own. Actually without Christ we were enemies of God, going our own way, as if he didn’t even exist. But God saved us, because of his mercy.

God rescued us from sin, from guilt, from death, from hell, but he also saved us from being separated from him. We were created to live in fellowship with God. Sin messed that up, but through Christ God restored the opportunity for that relationship to be restored.

Paul points out that we are saved through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. That’s kind of confusing, so lets break it down. We were unclean because of our sin, and that separated us from God, so we needed to be washed. But that washing is combined with regeneration and renewal. The word regeneration basically means rebirth. It implies something that was old being reborn. Renewal refers to being made new. The Holy spirit washes our sins away and gives us new life in Christ.

This is not something we could ever have done in our own lives. We cannot wash ourselves from sin. We cannot give birth to a new nature in us. We need to have this done for us. And that is what the Holy Spirit does.

It is also beautiful to see that phrase poured out on us richly. That gives us the image of a generous God who is lavishing us with his love, kindness, and mercy. He is not being stingy. He is not holding back. He is not treating us as our sins deserve or giving us just a little bit of grace, he pours out this amazing grace on our lives.

And then in verse 7 Paul brings in the word justified. This is a legal term that basically means to be declared righteous. It is as if we are standing in a courtroom awaiting a guilty verdict that we deserve and the judge declares us not guilty. One of the things that happens in our lives through the work of Christ is that his sacrifice covers our sins, so that when God looks at us, rather than seeing our sin, he sees Christ’s righteousness and we are declared justified in his sight. We also become heirs who are welcomed in to the family of God and are given the inheritance of eternity with him in Heaven.

So when we talk about Christ our Savior, this is what we are referring to. Jesus died on the cross in order for us to be saved. And make no doubt about it, we needed rescuing. We could not save ourselves. Christ is our Savior.

Let me illustrate it this way…

Way back in the beginning with Adam and Eve, God created things good and perfect. We even get the sense from the book of Genesis that God walked with man in the Garden. God created man to live forever in fellowship with him.

But sin entered the picture and broke that fellowship. Sin wrecked the perfect good reality that God had
created. And man was separated from God. Like verse 3 said, we were going our own way, astray from God, slaves to sin separated from God. And as we know from Romans 6:23, the wages of sin is death. We were faced with an eternity of separation from God.

But god loved us so much that he sent us a Savior. Jesus died on the cross, so that our sins could be washed away, we could be declared righteous, and we could be made new, brought back to a right relationship with God and given the hope of eternal life.

So how do we receive this gift? How do we respond to this message? In Romans 10:9,10 we read, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” (Romans 10:9,10, ESV)

That is our response. We need to admit that we believe that Christ came to save us and that we want him to be our Savior. That’s it. If you are reading this post and have some questions or if you have responded to this Gospel message and would like to talk with someone about it, please email me at office@riveralliance.com