Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Refuge!

In the last devotional post, I discussed some reflections on God's dividing up of the land of Canaan--the Promised Land--among the tribes, which is a section that we are going to skip almost completely (except for this one sermon). By ch. 12, God’s people have essentially taken the Promised Land. They have broken the backs of the enemy and destroyed all the strongholds, so the land is essentially theirs, but the individual tribes have to do the “cleanup work,” we could say, of killing or driving out the remaining Canaanites. That means, the land has to be divided between the tribes, which is what chapters 13-22 are all about. And, again, as I mentioned in this past Friday’s post, this is not just a list of territories but a demonstration of God’s redeeming nature. He knows that we are sinful people, prone to fight among ourselves, and inheritance and property is one thing over which even families can become quickly divided: “I want this land,” “I don’t have enough because my family is bigger,” etc., and God cuts through all that by dividing the land proportionally Himself. No one can argue with that.

Now, part of the dividing up of the land is the giving of certain cities to the Levites. The Levites were the tribe tasked with serving God in the Tabernacle, Temple, and for the whole nation, so they did not get a specific territory, for, as the Scripture says in several places, their inheritance was the LORD Himself. However, they did need a place in which to live, so God allots them 48 cities distributed throughout the Promised Land on both sides of the Jordan, which also shows us God’s redeeming nature: He is concerned about the pastoral care of His people. By distributing the Levites throughout the land, He makes sure they are near to all peoples in all the tribes for care like marriages, funerals, circumcisions, and any spiritual guidance the people might need.

Among the Levite cities, God creates a subcategory: cities of refuge. There were to be six of them--three on either side of the Jordan, one in the north, middle, and south (see the map of the Promised Land above). And, these cities are the subject of the chapter for today's sermon: Jos. 20. They were the only place of refuge for someone whose life was being sought--someone was trying to kill them, and they had no place to flee except the cities of refuge. And, while this is still part of the dividing up of the land, which I have mostly skipped, it is a very special part. These cities, in particular, point us to the gospel and the work of Jesus Christ.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Some Reflections on the Dividing of the Promised Land

As I mentioned in the last devotional post in this series, we are moving ahead at warp speed through the last half of the book of Joshua, but, fortunately, Joshua lends itself to that. By the end of ch. 12, the Israelites have essentially taken all the Promised Land. They have broken the backs of their enemies, destroyed the strongholds, and basically won the war, but there is still a lot of "cleanup work" to be done. So, God divides the land between the twelve tribes of Israel and commands them to go into their various regions and kill or drive out the remaining Canaanites. That is what chs. 13-22 are mostly about, so we are going to summarize and skip almost all of it, with the exception of ch. 20, on which this Sunday's sermon will be.

However, even though we are skipping most of the dividing up of the land, that does not mean there's nothing for us to learn from that section. There are probably many theological and spiritual truths we could glean from it--too many to put in one post--so let me just hit a few highlights from these chapters.

First, one of the things that comes out in these chapters is that God gives the Israelites more land than they can possibly settle, at least at this point, but that should not surprise us at all. Our God is an abundantly gracious God. Christ Himself is far more full of grace than we are of sin and folly. When we go to the fountain of God's grace, it is kind of like taking a drink from a river. We can drink all that we can possibly hold and not even begin to drain the river of grace.

Second, God distributes the land to the tribes Himself, which is an important act of grace on God's part. Think about what would have happened if God had just said to the Israelites, "Here's the land, now go divide it up among yourselves." Do you think they would have done that without fights, without disagreements? Not hardly. Nothing can cause a family to turn on one another faster than dividing up an inheritance--"I want this land," "We deserve more because we're a bigger family," etc.--and the Israelites were no different. God knows their sinful hearts. He knows that if He had just sent them into the land with no instructions on dividing it up, they would have turned on each other, and there would have been a huge civil war that might have destroyed them. So, in His grace and wisdom, God divides the land Himself and proportions it as He sees fit. Therefore, when they go to settle the land, their property lines are clearly marked by God Himself, and no one can argue with that.

Third, the Levites do not get a specific territory. They are the one tribe that does not get a plot of land solely to themselves. Instead, they get allotted 48 cities distributed throughout the entire Promised Land. Why is that? Well, the Levites are the tribe specifically tasked with the service of God in the Tabernacle, later the Temple, and for the whole people of God. So, God does not put His ministers in one region but spreads them out throughout the whole land. This shows us that God is very concerned for the pastoral care of His people. If the Levites had one territory, say surrounding Jerusalem, then the tribes in the North would have to travel very far simply to get a circumcision or a funeral done. Instead, God distributes His servants throughout the land, so that they are close to all Israelites for weddings, funerals, circumcisions, or any other spiritual guidance that the people need. God loves His people and wants them to be cared for spiritually, and we can see that even in how He divides up the land!

Fourth, the dividing up of the land revealed a tension in which the Israelites would have to live for a time: the Promised Land was theirs--they had won the war--but there was also still a lot of "cleanup work" to be done to purge the land of Canaanites. So, the war was over, but the losers were still there and those Canaanites weren't going to be done away with easily. This is a kind of spiritual picture of how we live in the Christian life. For us, Jesus has won the war: sin has been defeated, death has been defanged, and the devil has lost. The war is essentially over--Jesus has won. Yet, we live in a tension like the Israelites. Though sin, death, and the prince of despair have been beaten, the losers still fight. We still must die a physical death, though it no longer has the sting of hell for God's people. The devil can still tempt us, but he must flee at the name of Jesus. And, while we are no longer slaves to sin, there are still many, many "Canaanites" in our hearts that need to be purged. Even though the war has been won, this life is still a battle that we have to fight by faith in Jesus each and every day, just like the Israelites had won the war but still had many, many Canaanites to get rid of.

But, God has not left us to live in this tension and fight these battles alone. He has give us His Word, prayer, worship, His people, and, most of all, the Holy Spirit to give us the strength to fight. As Paul says in Ro. 8:11, "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you." Because the Spirit dwells in us, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in us--resurrection-power working in us. So, while there is much work to be done--many more "Canaanites" in our hearts to be purged--we can know that "it is God who works in us, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."

Those are just a few spiritual highlights from this section of Joshua. I would encourage you to read through it yourself, even though it may seem boring and repetitive, and see what the Spirit shows you about Jesus and the battles we fight for the Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: After Sin

Because we had a limited amount of time in the book of Joshua over the summer, I needed to skip some content. Ideally, we would have work through every passage on Sunday mornings, but we did not have the time for that, as I have described in past devotionals. But, as I have also mentioned before, what I could not cover on Sunday mornings, I tried to cover at least briefly in the Friday devotional emails that I sent to my congregation over the summer. Those emails I have turned into these devotional posts, and that is what we are going to do with Joshua 8 in this post.

Two Sundays ago, I posted the sermon from Joshua 7, where we saw the destructive power of sin in the camp, both individual and corporate sin. Sin is far more deadly than we often think it is, and it must be dealt with. This next part of that episode--ch. 8--tells us the story of how God restored the people after the sin of Achan was dealt with and how, even though Achan had sinned and they had sinned, His plans could not be derailed by anything. The sin of God's people cannot overcome the glorious plan and work of God.

Again, I did not have time to look at ch. 8 specifically in a sermon, so let's look at a few highlights from ch. 8 in this post:

First, note how God encourages Joshua right from the start: "And the Lord said to Joshua, 'Do not fear and do not be dismayed.... I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, his city, and his land.'" With such a devastating loss because of sin fresh in his memory, Joshua may have thought that they had blown it and God was done with them, but, again, the sin of God's people cannot mess up the plan of God. Two quick points from that:

• Think about our battles against sin in the Christian life. When we give into sin and temptation, satan is often right there with us as the accuser of God's people, whispering, "You've done it now. God's done with you now. You might as well go on and keep on sinning." He may also say to us, "God's name will be dragged through the mud because of you. You're such a scumbag!" Those are lies from the pit of hell, and they smell like smoke. Conviction of sin is never intended by God to drive us down into the dust simply to stay there bemoaning our sinfulness. The conviction of the Holy Spirit is meant to bring to Him in repentance, hear His words "Do not fear and do not be dismayed," and then move on in gratitude to serve Him again. Sin should never spiritually paralyze us. As the old hymn goes, "Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that is greater than all my sin." Or, as the modern hymn says, "Without Thy sweet mercy I could not live here. Sin would reduce me to utter despair, but through Thy free goodness my spirit's revived, and He that first made me still keeps me alive." Learn from this episode and do not listen to the lies of satan: once you have repented of your sin, move on to serve God again in gratitude for His great mercy.
• Think also about our battles to share the gospel with friends, neighbors, and family members. Again, here satan attacks us and says, "Your sin is going to drag God's name through the mud. No one will listen to you because you're such a sinner, so get it together before you go out and try to share the gospel." That too is a lie from the pit of hell and smells like smoke. Just as God dealt with their sin and then brought them to victory over Ai, so God deals with our sin in Christ and sends us out as His messengers for the gospel. And, listen: your sinfulness is part of your witness. You are a great sinner going to other sinners and saying, "Look, I have nothing for you personally. I am big sinner whose only hope is Jesus Christ, and He's your only hope too." If we give into the lie of satan and think, "I really do need to clean up my act before I witness to my friend," what subtle message does that send to them (i.e. our friends)? It sends them the message that they have to clean up their act before they come to Jesus, and that is not the true gospel. Jesus doesn't say to anyone, "Clean yourself up some and then we'll talk." No, He says like God says here, "Do not fear and be not dismayed: there is more grace in me than there is sin in you."

Second, note the sad ending to Achan's story. It is subtle, but it is in v. 2: "...its spoil and its livestock you shall take as plunder for yourselves." When they "fought" against Jericho, all the plunder was to go to God, and Achan stole from God for himself. The sad ending of Achan's story is this: if he had just waited for a little while, he would have had all the plunder he wanted. But, Achan let his desire override his devotion to the LORD. Church family, often times our desires are not the problem. Often those desires in and of themselves are good desires. The problem comes in when we let those desires get out of order and we go after them before seeking God. For example, the desire for money to meet our physical needs is not the problem because God knows we need that for our physical needs. It becomes an idol when we go after it more than God, thinking that it will fulfill our needs. Or, the desire for sexual gratification is not in and of itself a bad desire because God created man and woman to be one flesh in marriage. That becomes a sin and an idol when we go after it more than God, seeking to fulfill it before God's timing and outside of God's plan for us, which is fulfillment in the context of marriage between a man and a woman. The sad conclusion to Achan's sin is that if he had just waited on God; if he had just sought God first, he would have had the plunder in God's timing. Is this not the OT equivalent of Jesus' teaching in Mt. 6:25-33 (cf.v. 33)?

Third, note that God's plan for His people is very different for this battle than it was for Jericho. Here, the whole army has to fight and they use an ambush strategy. Remember, while parts of God's plan for us in the battles of this life are constant, like using the means of grace (the Bible, prayer, and worship), we cannot put God in a box and think He will work the same way every time. We cannot think that because one strategy for evangelism worked for one person, it will work for all of them. We cannot think that because God met our needs in a particular way in one situation, that is always the way He will meet our needs. Our Lord is not a tame lion who shows up whenever we want and in the ways we want. So, we need to seek the counsel of God first, and then act after seeking godly counsel, knowing God may not work the same ways He has before (we will talk more about this in Sunday's sermon).

Finally, notice out Joshua renews the covenant at the end of this episode. This seems abrupt and even out of place in the narrative, but it is a very appropriate way to end the episode of chs. 7-8. One commentator notes: "After Israel had just experienced the curse of Yahweh’s anger (ch. 7) and the boon of Yahweh’s aid (ch. 8), what could be more appropriate than Joshua’s reading ‘the blessing and the curse’ (v. 34) of the Torah?" They have felt God's anger and seen God's blessing, and so what has happened to them in the space and time of life needs to be interpreted for them by the Word of God. But, even though it is appropriate, it is still and abrupt change: from war to worship. Yet, that abrupt changes brings back up one of the lessons we learned from ch. 1: Success for the Israelites was not primarily about defeating the Canaanites and taking the land. The land was simply a place where they could have rest from their enemies so that they could be prosperous in their relationship with God. Here, by bringing them to worship right after restoration and victory, God reminds them to keep first things first: their relationship with Him as His people. And, Church family, the same is true for us. In the battles of this Christian life, God gives us victory so that we can "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to [us]." In all the whirlwind of life, jobs, professors, family, friends, politics, struggles with sin, and everything else this life throws us, we need to keep first things first: our relationship with our Savior as His people and His Church.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Holy War and the Gospel

First, let me apologize for taking a couple of weeks to continue this series. I had meant to post these devotionals and sermons once a week, but the past couple of weeks have been really busy for my family and I. However, we are back in the swing of things now, and so here is the next devotional, with the next sermon coming on Sunday.

As I have alluded to a few times throughout this series so far, there are some difficult issues that come up in the book of Joshua that often get attention in from Christians and non-Christians alike. Well, the one that Joshua 6 brings up is probably the biggest: holy war. In the episode we will consider on Sunday, God commands that all living things be killed in Jericho, and v. 21 tells us, "Then they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword." This is simply a result of the commands God gave to them in the book of Deuteronomy, like 7:1-2:

When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them.

This should bother us or at the very least make us pause when we read that, and we need to know how to think about it within the whole context of Scripture and what it teaches us about God.

So, what about the "holy war"? How does "show no mercy to them" square with Jesus' teaching about loving our enemies? Well, I want to argue that most often our main hangup here is that we do not have a high enough view of God's holiness. As Christians, we have encountered the grace of God in Jesus, which allows us to enter into God’s holy presence with boldness (He. 10:19-25), because of the promise that we are being remade after the pattern of that same holiness. But, in that grace, we may sometimes forget what holiness looks like to someone who is not so covered by Christ. And, non-Christians, generally do not have a very high or realistic view of sin, thinking of God more as a "smiling grandfather" than a holy, upright, perfect, and just God. However, both those views of God are not true to His being.

God is supremely holy, which means He cannot abide sin without a response. God is a consuming fire (He. 12:29), a purifying power that cannot abide the unholy to remain in His presence without destroying it. God, however, is also a gracious God who does not desire the complete destruction of the works of His hands (cf. Eze. 18:32)--who holds back the consuming fire like a dam holds back a flood. (For more on this balance, see this excellent article by John Piper.) With that tension in mind, I think the conquest of Canaan is best understood as a profound and temporary in-breaking of God’s holiness into an unholy world for a specific redemptive purpose. Let me explain.

In creation, God created the world and humans holy--in perfect communion with Him. Yet, we fell from that holiness and therefore incurred the wrath of the holy God. God's holiness consumes unholiness just as light consumes darkness, and that is what we all deserve in our natural state. Only God can hold back the consumption for a time. And, at the fall of Adam and Eve, God, in His grace, temporarily suspended His full wrath until the day of Final Judgment (cf. Mt. 25:31ff), otherwise Adam and Eve would have been judged and sent to hell on the spot. So, common grace--God's forbearance of final judgment--became a part of the world in which we live.

This has bearing on the conquest of the Promised Land (henceforth referred to as "the Conquest"). The ethics of the Conquest are ultimately those of a completely holy and good God calling the rebellious people, the illegal aliens on His property into account for their sins. And, since the Fall affects all of us as equally as it affected the Canaanites, the implication is that we all deserve, always and everywhere, what they got then and there in Canaan from the Israelite armies. In light of this reality, we must admit that the sheer fact that the Conquest was confined to only one very geographically limited area at only one point in human history is a sign of God’s mercy.

What? A sign of mercy? Yes: one of the purposes of the Conquest is for us to see what must be the inevitable result of our natural standing with God as the sinful human race. Without Christ, we all deserve what they received. The ethics of the Conquest can be seen as a type of what is called "intrusion ethics" (a term coined by Meredith Kline)—a temporary intrusion into history of the ethics of the Final Judgment, i.e. that moment when God finally brings the created order to account so that He can judge all evil and create the new heavens and new earth. That is to say, the Conquest reveals in history, however briefly, what the end of history will look like when Jesus returns in glory to reclaim in total His land and create the true Promised Land.

As we talked about in the devotional a couple of weeks ago, this is an Old Testament type. A type is a real person, place, event, or object that God ordained to act as a visible pattern of Jesus' person (who He is) and/or work (what He does). Just as the OT Promised Land (a type) ultimately points to the true Promised Land--new heavens and the new earth; just as Joshua is a type of Jesus Himself, the Conquest (another type) points to the judgment where God ultimately judges and punishes evil through Jesus as the Judge (2 Pt. 3:10)--the punishment He stayed/delayed at the Fall--and creates the new heavens and the new earth (the true Promised Land). One purpose of seeing such a thing in history is, therefore, to bring mankind to repentance, so that we might be spared that fate when the Day arrives. Not only will God have given humanity the whole of their history of time to turn back to Him, He will have also made it abundantly clear by the Conquest what is to come. But, still many "stiffen their necks" against Him.

All of this has profound ramifications for how we square the goodness of God, as we have encountered it in Jesus, with the severity of God, as we see it in the Conquest. In many respects, they are two sides of the same coin. They both show the extreme lengths to which God must go in order to get humanity's attention. The sad history of Jesus' rejection by His own people only reinforces the point that humankind's fallen hearts are so hardened that we do not respond to God, even when He comes in meekness. Such a sorry state of affairs, such a clear example of our rebellion, makes the extreme ethics of the Conquest seem all the more justified. Further, it illustrates with vivid clarity how, in not getting always and everywhere what the Canaanites got then and there, humanity as a whole has seen merciful forbearance (common grace) on God’s part.

And, we also need to note that God's use of the Israelites of the instrument of His judgment was not because of their goodness. In fact, this is explicitly laid out in Dt. 9:4-5:

“Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,’ whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you. Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

God chose the Israelites (and us) simply because of His unmerited, free grace. The Israelites were very wicked and just as deserving of judgment as the Canaanites, just like all mankind is without Jesus. One commentator explains:

Hence Israel must not assume a holier-than-you-all attitude, for Yahweh will not bring his people into the land because they are righteous and deserving; ‘it is because of the wickedness of these nations that Yahweh is driving them out before you’ (Deut. 9:4–5). The conquest is not a bunch of land-hungry marauders wiping out, at the behest of their vicious God, hundreds of innocent, God-fearing folks. In the biblical view, the God of the Bible uses none-too-righteous Israel as the instrument of his just judgment on a people who had persistently reveled in their iniquity.

God, in His sovereignty, chose to satisfy His holy wrath against the Canaanites by judgment and against the Israelites by redemption (cf. Ro. 9:14-21).

Perhaps a typological chart would be helpful when thinking about OT types and the true, spiritual reality in Christ to which they point:

Old Testament Type	True, Spiritual Reality in Christ
The Exodus	Christ’s redemption
The wilderness wandering	This present life
The Promised Land	The new heavens and the new earth
The conquest of the Land	The Final Judgment
King David	King Jesus
Solomon’s kingdom	Jesus’ rule in the new heavens and the new earth

Before I end this discussion, though, there is one more intrusion ethic that we need to mention: the cross of Christ. Just as the Conquest was a temporary in-breaking of God's final-judgment, holy wrath into history, so was the cross, but in this case, God's final-judgment, holy wrath fell not on the culpable human race that deserves His wrath but on His perfect, innocent Son. Christ did not deserve anything but full reward from God, and yet, on the cross, Jesus took the full wrath of God that He would have poured out on His elect in the Final Judgment. That means that all God's holy wrath against His people has been satisfied. Even though He is completely holy and we do not really even understand the depth of that holiness or our sinfulness in comparison, He has satisfied His holiness by pouring out His wrath on Christ for all His elect. This is how the faithful Israelites and all true Christians avoid what the Canaanites got. We deserve the Final Judgment, but since Christ came into space and time and lived as one of us, since He fulfilled the law perfectly, and since He withstood the intrusion of final judgment on the cross, we can have eternal life in the true Promised Land forever.

So, the Conquest is a sad, hard part of Scripture to read, but it is a perfectly just action of the holy God. Yet, we should not look at it mechanically as that but in two ways: 1) as a warning that causes us to pray for and seek the conversion of the lost so they do not get what the Canaanites did and 2) to praise God for sending Jesus Christ to take the holy wrath that we deserve so that we can live with God forever in the true Promised Land. That should lead us to praise as Paul praised God in Ro. 11:33-36 after he finished detailing out these gospel truths about God:

33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

By His Grace,

Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: God Graciously Reassures Our Faith

In the previous post, we talked about how, when God brought His people into the Promised Land, He gave them a down payment of the abundant provision He would give them when they had conquered the Land. What they ate after that first Passover wasn't remarkable ("unleavened cakes and parched grain"), but it was a sign that God has so much more to come in the Promised Land.

In the same passage, we also see God reassuring the faith of His people through the sacraments of the Old Testament. They were at a very critical point in the taking the Promised Land: the beginning when all their fears would probably be right before their eyes. Yet, God does not just command them to march forward, but He graciously reassures their faith. And, as we will talk about in this sermon, God does the same for us today as we fight the battles of this Christian life.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: True Faith from a Shady Lady

In my last post in the Joshua series, I talked about how we should look at Rahab's deception in Jos. 2. As I mentioned in that post, I think we often get distracted by the way Rahab helps the spies and miss the whole point of this story. So, that is why I talked about the deception in a post and not the sermon on her story. It is not an unimportant detail, but it is not nearly as important as what Rahab shows us about faith.

So, what does Rahab show us about faith? Well, in short, she shows us what true faith is, which is incredibly important for the overall purpose of this book. As I talked about in the first sermon, this book shows us how to live by faith in our God who truly fights our battles for us. If that is the case, then early on the author needs to show us what true faith is, and for the Jews (and probably us too), there is no more convicting way to do that than to do it through a Gentile prostitute.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

I am not Very Good at Prayer. Are you?

"It just hurts not to be good at important things like prayer. I recent read this phrase--I want to say it's by Brother Lawrence--who said, 'I decided I was never going to be good at praying, so I'm just going to start not being good at praying. I'm just going to start to pray.' For a performance person, that's freeing: just to say, 'I'm not going to be really good,' and just do it. It won't be something to write a book about. But the the thought that Christ meets us there, not when we get good, but when we're not--doesn't that define grace?" ~ a quote from a pastor in Resilient Ministry

Currently, one the of the books I am reading is Resilient Ministry, and it is an excellent read. It is generally geared towards pastors, but it would be something helpful for a congregant, elder, church staff member, or anyone to read. I am not very far into the book so far, but one of the ways it has already blessed me is to remind me that I am not the only pastor who is not good at personal time in God's Word, prayer, understanding my own emotions, etc.

Are you good at praying? Does it come naturally to you? Do you rarely get distracted, discouraged, or go long periods of time without much prayer? If so, you are much, much better at it than me. I am not very good at prayer. I think that most people think pastors are just naturally good prayers. Why not? I mean, we are "professional Christians" right? (That was major sarcasm, by the way.) Sometimes when people come to me asking for prayer, and I get the sense that they think my prayers are going to carry more weight with God or something like that. Now, do not get me wrong: I love it when people ask me to pray for them, but my prayers are no more effective than anyone else who is in Christ. James says in Js. 5:16, "The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working," but that is not a call to rest in our own works for powerful prayer. It is a call to rest in the righteousness of Christ--the righteous Person--and simply to pray on the merits of His righteousness that He has given to us. That means any Christian can pray with equal standing before God. But, I digress... Again, I am not very good at prayer, and one of the blessings of this book is that it made me realize that I am not the only pastor who feels that way.

But, not being good at praying is no excuse for not praying. The Scriptures command us to pray, and prayer is one of the three objective means of grace (prayer, the Word, and the sacraments) that the Spirit uses to grow us in grace and in the likeness of Christ. We need prayer. The Church needs prayer. So, what does that mean for those of us who are not good at praying?

Well, it means just what the quote above says: we just need to start not being good at praying, i.e. praying "badly" but still praying. Do you get distracted during prayer like I do? Well, you can probably take some practical steps like solitude, specific times for prayer, writing prayers out, etc. (and I will talk about one practical step below), but the most important thing for us to remember is: keep praying and let the blood of Christ cover your wayward mind. Do you sometimes know you have many things to pray for/about but for some reason nothing is coming to mind? Well, again there are many practical things we can do here (and I am about to get to one), but the most important thing we can remember is: persevere in prayer even if your mind draws a blank, confess that to God, ask for the Spirit to help you pray, and trust the blood of Christ to cover your forgetfulness. When you pray, do you sometimes realize you are not really sure where you were going with a thought or think, "Good grief, I sound like the most confused person in the world!"? Well, again, there are probably some practical things we can do like writing out prayers, but, again, the most important thing we can remember is: Christ is our advocate before the Father (1 Jn. 2:1) and the Spirit prays with us and for us when we do not know how (Ro. 8:26). As Richard Sibbes wrote in The Bruised Reed, "God can pick sense out of a confused prayer."

Friends, you might be bad at prayer like me, but that does not mean God does not want our prayers! He is our Father, and He wants us to pray and loves it when we throw ourselves at His feet whether we are good at it or not. My three-year-old is not very good at speaking yet (though he is quite remarkable for his age), but I love for him to come to talk to me no matter how confused it is. I love trying to make sense of his confused thoughts. Remember, God is a Father far more loving than me or any other earthly father. And, Christ's grace covers our bad prayers, so we just need to accept ourselves where we are and be bad at praying but pray anyway!

But, even though we may not be very good at praying, we cannot use that as an excuse for not doing what we can to help our prayer life and grow. I am not going to talk about prayer from a theological perspective here, for their are many great books on that: Prayer by Tim Keller, Approaching God by Steve Brown, The Hidden Life of Prayer by David McIntyre, just to name a few. I just want to tell you about one thing that has helped my prayer life (and perhaps in a future post I will mention a few others things that have helped). It may seem silly to say this, but it is an app called PrayerMate. (I really do feel a little silly for saying an app helped me, but I am not the only pastor who thinks so. Tim Challies wrote "How An App Revitalized My Prayer Life" on it, which is actually how I found out about it.)

What I love about this App, is that it helps you keep track of all those people you want to pray for, and it makes it manageable. Do you ever feel like you have more to pray for than you can remember? Or, if you have a list, do you always make it all the way through? If not, can you remember where you left off or do you start back at the beginning again? Well, this app helps make prayer times manageable by allowing you to create categories of prayer, subjects under each category, and then giving you a set number of prayer subjects from each category each day/time you refresh the app. So, instead of feeling overwhelmed by a list, the app gives you a set number of subjects (however many you choose) from each category, and it rotates through so you do not have to keep track of what you have and have not prayed for lately.

Hopefully, that is not confusing, but if it is, let me try to clarify by giving examples from my use of the app. In mine, have a number of categories:

• God's Perfections & Adoration: This one helps me with adoring and praising God. I have in it God's perfections (i.e. His attributes; you can find the list here) as well as a number of psalms of worship (e.g. Ps. 19, 33, 103). Each time I use the app, I get one of those, so I either pray/praise through a psalm, allowing it to guide me in adoring God, or I spend time praying about and meditating on one of His perfections. I have found this helps make my praise of God more well-rounded--instead of always praising Him for the same things that come to my mind, in a period of time, I praise Him for all that He revealed to us about Himself. 
• Confessions: This category is to help me with repentance. I have in it Ps. 51 as well as a number of prayers of repentance from The Valley of Vision like "Yet I Sin," "Mortification," and "Sins." One cannot pray them rotely, of course, but each time I use the app I get one and they are very helpful as guides that jog my memory of how I need to confess specific sins of my day, week, and life. 
• Personal Godliness: I have this category to remind me to pray about ways in which I know I need to grow in Christ. I have it in the fruits of the Spirit, as well as some other ways I know I need to grow. Each time I use the app, I get one and I spend time confessing how I am sinful in that area, thanking God for any growth I might have seen, and asking for the Spirit help to grow in that area with respect to my ministry (in general) or certain people (specifically). 
• My family: I have all my family members listed in here along with ways I know I need to pray for them. Each time I use the app, it gives me two to pray for. 
• My friends: I have many of my friends in here (and I add new ones as I am reminded to) along with ways I know I need to pray for them. Each time I use the app it gives me two to pray for. 
• My youth: At my church, one of the areas I cover is the youth group. I love my youth group. And, I have a subject for each of my youth and how I need to pray for them. Each time I use the app it gives me two to pray for. 
• I have other categories like missionaries, non-Christians, graduate students (another area of my ministry at my church), and a few others. 

In the end, each time I sit down to pray and use the app, I get 16 out of 152 items/subjects in my list. Now, if I tried to pray for the 152 all the time, I would never finish, and I would probably forget where I left off each time, thus missing some almost completely. But, this app helps make that manageable and keeps me from skipping any of them. 

Now, a few tips:

• It is an app and it is designed specific times that one sets apart in which to pray. It does not replace spontaneous praise, confession, thanksgiving, or petition. Do not depend on it but let it help you. 
• It is an app, which means it is connected to a device with an Internet connection. If you are like me and easily distracted, turn off your WiFi or put it on Airplane Mode while you pray. 
• As mentioned above, it is really designed for designated times of prayer, so pick a block of time that is manageable for you and use it then. I would recommend even setting apart a time of day. You do not have to be legalistic about that time, but put it on your calendar, so you do not schedule things during that time if you can at all avoid it. The app will even alert you at that time, if you want it to. 
• Look and then close your eyes or look and then stroll around the room as you pray. This helps me not to be distracted by the other things I could do on the device. 

I do have a couple of complaints about the app. Its UI is a little cumbersome. It does not have a central syncing location for keeping several devices synced, but it does allow you to export to Dropbox and import from there. However, that means extra steps when you update your prayer list. But, overall, it is excellent and really has helped my prayer life. 

So, if you are not very good at praying, like me, pray anyway. As quoted above, say to yourself, "I'm just going to start not being good at praying. I'm just going to start to pray." Read a book on it or make use of an app to help you. You know what I have noticed since I have started having dedicated times of prayer with the app? I have noticed I pray more spontaneously throughout the day, and distractions are not quite as bad (though I have a long way to go). Remember, if you have put your faith in Christ, you have the Spirit to help you pray when you do not know how and the blood of Christ to cover your not-very-good prayer life. If you learn nothing else from this post, please try to learn to rest in that grace. 

By His Grace,

Taylor

Exodus: A Great Salvation -- The Call of the Weak

For the past few weeks, I have been blogging a series of sermons and devotionals on the first twelve chapters of the book of Exodus that I preached and wrote over the summer. These chapters contain the actual story of the exodus, which is a great salvation that points us to God’s ultimate salvation that Jesus accomplished. We’ve seen God setting up that salvation in ch. 1 and the first part of ch. 2, and then we’ve also seen God preparing His savior and the people through suffering from the second half of ch. 2. In today's post, we’re going to see God’s official call of Moses.

The text for this sermon is a selected reading from Ex. 3-4, which recounts to us God's call of Moses and Moses' response. Moses' response is, shall we say, less than flattering for him, and if you know the story, you know what I am talking about. But, let's not be quick to judge Moses. Put yourself in Moses’ position here. He’s about 80 years old at this time. He has settled into the life of a shepherd and has been roaming the wilderness with his sheep for about 40 years. At this point, Egypt is probably a fading memory and any hope he had of being the one who delivers the Hebrew people has probably faded even more. Then, one day, which probably started out like a normal day, he brings his sheep to the base of a mountain. While there, he sees a burning bush, and probably does not think much of it at first, but then, after some amount of time, he notices that it’s burning but not actually burning up, so he goes to check it out. And, then, all of a sudden, the bush starts talking to him, and the bush knows his name. Then, immediately the bush introduces itself as God Himself and calls Moses to go back to Egypt and deliver the Hebrews from Pharaoh. Now, how do you think that would have hit you, if you had been Moses? Perhaps you fancied yourself a deliverer when you were young and well-to-do, but after 40 years of sheep herding, you’ve probably mellowed and maybe even given up on the idea of being a deliverer. Even when you tried to be a deliverer, you weren’t, shall we say, in your prime, and with each passing year in the wilderness, that dream fades, tracking somewhat with the deterioration of your body. So, you’ve become “set in your ways” and are content to live out your life as a shepherd. But, then, seemingly “out of the blue,” God calls to you from a burning bush and says, “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” How do you think you’d feel? Probably not really up for it, I would think.

Well, I wonder if stuff like this does happen to us at times in our lives. Perhaps it’s not quite so dramatic, for to be sure we no longer hear God’s voice out of a burning bush, but maybe at some point we had grand ideas about what we can do for God whether it’s in our own personal holiness or in the world around us, until the circumstances of God’s providence blindsided us and we kind of settled down. Yet, then, somewhere in that more settled life, an opportunity comes before us: maybe God brings to mind a particular sin with which we’ve gotten comfortable and we can no longer ignore it, or maybe someone in the church asks us to do something that we’ve never really considered or been trained to do, or maybe a situation at work challenges us to stick out more as a Christian, or something else, and we’re worried that it might be God subtly saying, “Come, I have this for you…” because, like Moses, we’re not really up for it. Well, I think this passage can help because here we see God’s call of the weak, and if we’re honest with ourselves, we should probably be thinking, “Uh… yeah… that’s me.”

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here. I pray that the Holy Spirit will use it to magnify Christ in your heart and mind to the glory of God.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Hope for the Inadequate

In my last post, I posted a devotion on fear from the story of Gideon's call in Jdg. 6:1-16. In it, I pointed out that Gideon's encouragement comes from the fact that God is with him, which helps cast out the lesser fears of the Midianites or following God's call. Well, that devotion was a precursor to a sermon on the call of Gideon from Jdg. 6:11-16: "Hope for the Inadequate."

Do you sometimes feel like God is calling you to do something for which you know you are totally and completely inadequate? It could be parenthood (being a mom isn't for sissies, folks), it could be a job or change of jobs, it could be ministry or an office in the church, or anything else. Well, the story of Gideon's call (and all the other call narratives in Scripture as well) helps us to see that it is God's pattern to call the inadequate not the adequate (or those who think they are adequate), make them adequate by going with them, and gain the glory, which ultimately our greatest good (cf. this past post of a sermon on that subject).

So, if you want to learn more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here. I pray that it is a blessing to your soul and increases your joy in Christ.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Solus Christus: The Covenant of Consummation

For this week of Advent we’ve been looking that the covenants God made with man in the Old Testament, and we’ve seen how they’re related to one another since they’re all under the one covenant of grace that Jesus fulfilled for us in His life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Remember, think of the covenant of grace as an umbrella that covers all of Scripture from the fall of Adam to the end of Revelation. Under this umbrella, the individual covenants of the Old Testament build on each other as ever-increasing waves of revelation about the covenant of grace until they climax with Christ’s fulfillment of that overarching covenant. We’ve looked at the covenant of commencement made with Adam and Eve after the fall, the covenant of preservation made with Noah, the covenant of promise made with Abraham, the covenant of law made with Moses, and the covenant of kingdom made with David. We’ve seen that with each covenant God’s fellowship with man was increased and that each ultimately pointed to Jesus Himself. For today’s Advent meditation we’re going to look at the “new covenant” from Jer. 31:31-34:

³¹ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, ³² not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. ³³ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴ And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Does this fit into the unity of the previous covenants? It does. In fact, it represents the promised fulfillment of the earlier covenants, which why it’s sometimes called the “covenant of consummation.” First and foremost, the covenantal refrain is clearly stated in v. 33, “I will be their God, and they shall be my people,” connecting it to the thread that weaves through all the previous covenants. Furthermore, in this passage God promises the covenant of consummation will be better than the covenant of law, but it still connects the two. This covenant will still have the law, but it will be written on the hearts of God’s people. Also, just a few verses later, in Jer. 32:39-41, Jeremiah prophesies that in the covenant of consummation God will “plant them in this land,” clearly alluding to the promises of offspring and land in the covenant of promise and connecting those two covenants. Finally, in a parallel prophecy found in Eze. 37:24-26, the covenant of consummation is overtly connected to the covenants of promise, law, and kingdom, all in one statement:

²⁴ My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd [covenant of kingdom connection]. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes [covenant of law connection]. ²⁵ They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived [covenant of promise connection]. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there forever [covenant of promise connection], and David my servant shall be their prince forever [covenant of kingdom connection]. ²⁶ I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them [covenant of consummation establishment]...

Here Ezekiel shows that in the covenant of consummation all the promises of the God in the previous covenants find their fulfillment. So, the covenant of consummation doesn’t appear on the scene as something previously unknown to the people of God, but rather represents for them “the collation of all the old covenant promises in terms of a future expectation.” That future expectation is Jesus, and Jesus Himself claimed to fulfill this covenant when He instituted the Lord’s Supper:

¹⁹ And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” ²⁰ And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” (Lk. 22:19-20)

It’s through the new covenant—the covenant of consummation—that believers have even greater fellowship with God than the Old Testaments saints could’ve ever imagined. With the incarnation of Christ (what we celebrate at Christmas), John tells us in his gospel that God became flesh and dwelt—literally “tabernacled” (alluding to the Old Testament Tabernacle)—among man (cf. Jn. 1:14). With Christ the very presence of God walked, dwelt, “tabernacled” among men. Yet, the greater fellowship of the covenant of consummation didn’t reach its zenith there. Christ purchased salvation for His people and through their union with Him believers have received the Spirit of adoption as sons and daughters so that they might be able to cry out to God, “Abba! Father!” Such an intimacy and fellowship with God (calling Him the Hebrew equivalent of “daddy”) would never have been imagined in the Old Testament. Yet, the covenantal trajectory of ever-increasing fellowship and presence has another level still to come. The final stage of intimacy and fellowship in the covenant of consummation has yet to come. Soon Jesus will return again (in His second advent) to finalize the presence and fellowship that He inaugurated in His first advent. Re. 21:1-3 describes what God’s fellowship with His people will be like at that time:

¹ Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ² And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

God’s covenantal refrain finds is pinnacle in the covenant of consummation. In the present age, believers are adopted as sons and daughters of God through their union with Christ and can call God “Abba.” In the new heavens and the new earth, the ever-increasing trajectory of fellowship seen in all the previous covenants will climax when God recreates all of creation and grants uninhibited, unmediated fellowship with “God Himself.” He will walk and talk with His people just like He did with Adam before the fall.

This is what we celebrate at Christmas, and it’s also that to which we look forward and for which we pray, for we know that the best is yet to come. When one considers God’s work of redemption throughout the ages in His covenants, what He has already done in Christ (in the first advent), and what He will soon do in Christ (in the second advent), the only proper response is praise. We should say like Paul in Ro. 11:33-36:

³³ Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
³⁴ “For who has known the mind of the Lord,
    or who has been his counselor?”
³⁵ “Or who has given a gift to him
    that he might be repaid?”
³⁶ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

On this day of Advent think about “the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God” in His work of redemption that He began with His promise to Adam and was fulfilled in Christ. All these covenants and God’s redemptive work in them provide the foundation for all the hope we have in Christ and celebrate at Christmas. When we observe Advent, whether we consciously think about it or not, all these covenants have brought us to where we are in Christ today. Praise Him for His glorious work that brought redemption in Christ. Ask Him to magnify His glory in your heart so that you can’t help but break out into spontaneous praise of “the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.”

By His Grace,

Taylor

Solus Christus: The Covenant of Kingdom

The next covenant at which we need to look for this week of Advent is the covenant God made with King David: the so-called “Davidic covenant” or, as some call it, the “covenant of kingdom.” We can read about this covenant in 2 Sa. 7:12-17, 1 Chr. 17:7-14, and Ps. 89, but since the Samuel and Chronicles passages are parallel passages and Ps. 89 is a little long for a devotion, we will use Chronicles as our meditation for this day of Advent:

³ But that same night the word of the LORD came to Nathan….
⁷ “Now, therefore, thus shall you say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be prince over my people Israel, ⁸ and I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. ⁹ And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall waste them no more, as formerly, ¹⁰ from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will subdue all your enemies. Moreover, I declare to you that the LORD will build you a house. ¹¹ When your days are fulfilled to walk with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹² He shall build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. ¹³ I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from him who was before you, ¹⁴ but I will confirm him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever.’”

In this covenant God promises to establish David’s throne forever, which would ultimately be fulfilled in Christ (cf. Lk. 1:32). This covenant, like the others, does not annul any of God’s previous covenants but rather builds on them and reveals more about the covenant of grace. Each of the kings that followed David would be judged according to the covenant of law, and when the kings or the people broke the law, judgment came (eventually culminating in the Babylonian Exile). Yet, the covenant of kingdom isn’t merely regulated by the covenant of law, but is also based upon God’s covenantal refrain (like the previous covenants). Ezekiel discusses God’s covenant with David in terms of the covenantal refrain: “And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them.” Here, as a covenantal representative, David substitutes for the people of God. He belongs to the Lord; so all the people belong to the Lord. They will be His people, and He will be their God. Furthermore, God’s promised fellowship with His people finds even greater fulfillment in the glorious, permanent dwelling of the Temple (cf. 1 Kgs 6; 2 Chr. 7). So, like the previous covenants, the covenant of kingdom doesn’t replace the others but supplements and builds upon the previous covenants. In doing so, it also reveals a little more about the Messiah: He would be an eternal King who sits on the throne of David. And, a thousand years after God made this covenant, the angel Gabriel told Mary that Jesus fulfills it:

²⁶ In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, ²⁷ to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” ²⁹ But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. ³⁰ And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. ³¹ And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, ³³ and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” (Lk. 1:26-33)

It’s Jesus’ kingship (as fulfillment of this part of the covenant of grace) that makes our salvation possible, as Paul tells us in Colossians:

¹³ He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Col. 1:13-14)

Jesus is King—King of this universe and King of believer’s lives—because He sits on the eternal throne in the eternal kingdom promised to David in the covenant of kingdom. Believers are now citizens of this eternal kingdom and in it we find redemption and the forgiveness of sins from its King.

On this day of Advent remember that you might be a citizen of the United States of America or another earthly country, but if you belong to Jesus, you are first and foremost a citizen of His kingdom, in which there is salvation and of which there will be no end! America, Britain, Russia, and all the other countries of this world will fall, but Jesus’ kingdom is eternal. Thank God for qualifying you and transferring you to Christ’s eternal kingdom so you can have redemption and the forgiveness of sins (cf. Col. 1:12-14). Remember that Jesus—the eternal King who sits on David’s throne—is King of this universe and your life. Remember that because He is the eternal King, you can know that there are no ultimate terrors or surprises in this universe for He controls it all. You can also know that your life has no ultimate terrors. We live, work, and even die under Christ’s kingship. As our eternal King there is nothing that can befall us, which isn’t under Jesus’ complete control. Praise Him as your King and rest in His kingly sovereignty.

By His Grace,

Taylor

Solus Christus: The Covenant of Law

For today’s advent meditation we’ll continue our journey through the covenants of the Old Testament to see how they center on the covenantal refrain—”I will be your God and you will be my people”—and how they point us to Jesus. We’ve looked at God’s covenant with Adam and Eve (after the fall), God’s covenant with Noah, and God’s covenant with Abraham. That brings us to God’s covenant with Moses and the Israelite people given at Mt. Sinai: the “covenant of law.” The specific passages about this covenant, since they lay out the covenant law for God’s people, are numerous. The covenant covers Ex. 19-24 and the entire book of Deuteronomy. That’s obviously far too much to read in a single devotional, so we’ll focus on God’s words to Moses when He first promised to redeem Israel from Egypt and then talk a little about the covenant of law:

² God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD. ³ I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them. ⁴ I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. ⁵ Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. ⁶ Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. ⁷ I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. ⁸ I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.’” (Ex. 6:2-8)

This is not only the story of Israel’s redemption from Egypt but also our story of our redemption from sin. Like God promised to give the Israelites the land of Canaan, so He promised to give us heaven and eventually the new heavens and the new earth in Jesus. Like God heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians held as slaves, so He heard the groaning of His elect whom sin held as slaves. As God said, “I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment,” so He brought us out from under the burden of slavery to sin and redeemed us from the power of death through Jesus. And, as God promised to bring them into the land He swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and give it to them as their possession, so He will soon send Jesus back to bring us into the land we have been promised—the new heavens and the new earth—and give it to us as our possession. All of this was done for the Israelites and for His Church so He could fulfill His covenantal refrain—the thread weaving through all the covenants (italicized in the above reading): “I will be your God and you will be my people.” God’s physical redemption of Israel is a type—a foreshadowing—of what He would soon do for all His people in Jesus. This is why we have something to celebrate at Christmas and why we can observe the season of Advent. God brought us out of slavery into freedom in Christ; “He delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.”

Now, let’s talk specifically about God’s covenant with the Israelites that He gave to Moses. Why add this covenant under the umbrella of the covenant of grace after the covenant of promise given to Abraham? In Ga. 3:19 Paul asks and answers this very question, “Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made….” The covenant of law was added to the umbrella of the covenant of grace “because of transgressions.” It provided the covenant law and sacrificial system by which God’s people could fellowship with Him—He as their God and they as His people—until “the offspring should come,” i.e. until Jesus Christ came to fulfill the covenant of grace. The covenant of law mediated the covenant of grace for God’s people until Christ, and it ultimately pointed to Christ who was foreshadowed in its ordinances, laws, and sacrifices and who would one day fulfill and mediate a better, ultimate covenant (cf. He. 7:22). It didn’t replace the covenant of promise but built upon it: again, giving more information about the covenant of grace and greater fellowship with God. This is clear from the beginning when God rescued Israel from Egypt: “And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.” God redeemed them from Egypt to give them the land which He “swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob,” and He did so He could “take [them] to be [His] people, and [He] will be [their] God” (the covenantal refrain).

The covenantal dealings Israel had with God before He made the covenant of law with them at Mt. Sinai were founded upon His covenant with Abraham, and this didn’t change with the introduction of the covenant of law. Indeed, the covenant of promise was the foundation for redeeming the Israelite people from Egypt and giving the covenant of law. Even after the covenant was made at Mt. Sinai, God often repeated His covenantal refrain that He made to Abraham, and in the covenant of law God’s mercy and grace to the Jews were traced back to His covenant with Abraham (cf. Lv. 11:45; Dt. 4:20; 29:13). Finally, the fellowship promised in the covenantal refrain, and partially fulfilled in the covenant of promise, found even greater fulfillment with His presence in the Tabernacle among the people of Israel (cf. Ex. 40:34ff; Lv. 26:11-12). It was only upon the foundation of God’s covenant with Abraham (and with Adam and Eve) that the covenant of law could be built, and it was in the covenant of law that God’s covenant with Abraham found a basic fulfillment. More was to come in His later covenants and ultimately in Jesus Himself, who would bring final fulfillment. Thus, far from abrogating God’s covenant with Abraham, the covenant of law built upon it, further revealed God’s covenant of grace, increased His fellowship with His people, and foreshadowed Jesus in its ordinances and sacrifices.

Even though the covenant of law may seem like a lot of rules and regulations, remember that it is founded upon the promises of redemption and grace given in the covenant of promise. Remember that all the laws, ordinances, and sacrifices were not ends in themselves but pointed to Jesus who would fulfill them all forever. Christ’s advent didn’t replace the covenant with Moses; it fulfilled the promises, shadows, and types in it that had pointed to Him all along.

On this day of Advent remember that the covenant of law revealed more about God’s covenant of grace and increased His fellowship with His people. Also remember that we are even more blessed than the Israelites were because we know the Savior to which their laws pointed and He lives in us through the Holy Spirit. We’re even more blessed because they could only hope for the coming of the Messiah but we can look back on it and celebrate it in Christmas. Praise God for the amazing history of redemption that we have recorded for us in our Bibles. Remember how the redemption of the Israelite people from Egypt is a type and foreshadowing of your redemption, which Christ came in His first advent to accomplish. Ask Him to give you a new, fresh appreciation for the covenant of law and to reveal to you how that law points to Jesus. Ask Him to show you the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in it and to use that grace to conform you daily into the likeness of Christ.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Solus Christus: The Covenant of Promise

This week we began to look at God’s covenants and how they point us to Jesus during this Advent season. We first talked about the Old Testament covenants in general and how they all fall under the “umbrella” of the covenant of grace. We next looked at the covenant of commencement God made in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. Then we looked at how God’s covenant with Noah fits into the context of the covenant of grace. Today for our Advent meditation we’re going to look at the Abrahamic Covenant or, as it is sometimes called, the “covenant of promise.” This covenant was given in separate portions and recorded for us in Ge. 12:1-9; 15:8-22; 17:1-14:

¹ Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. ² And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
⁴ So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. ⁵ And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, ⁶ Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. ⁷ Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. ⁸ From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD. ⁹ And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.

⁸ But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” ⁹ He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰ And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. ¹¹ And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
¹² As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. ¹³ Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. ¹⁶ And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
¹⁷ When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, ¹⁹ the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, ²⁰ the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, ²¹ the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

¹ When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, ² that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” ³ Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, ⁴ “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. ⁵ No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. ⁶ I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. ⁷ And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. ⁸ And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
⁹ And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. ¹⁰ This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. ¹¹ You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. ¹² He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, ¹³ both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. ¹⁴ Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

Now, there is so much in this covenant that I could spend dozens of posts talking about it. I don’t intend to go that far, but I do want to point some things out about the continuity of this covenant with the previous covenants and how it points us to Jesus. In His work of redemption in history, God covenants with Abraham to set aside a people for Himself through which the Messiah—Jesus—would come. In this covenant (like His covenant with Adam and Eve but with more detail) God gives His covenantal refrain and promises Abraham “to be God to [him] and to [his] offspring after [him].” (Ge. 17:7) This level of detail shows the settled character of God’s covenant of promise and guarantees an intimate relationship with Abraham and his offspring (i.e. greater fellowship). This covenant with Abraham must be in the context of the covenant of grace, for such an intimate relationship with a holy God presupposes the removal of sin and imputation of righteousness, which Abraham received through faith (Ge. 15:6; cf. Ro. 4:3) and had sealed in his circumcision (Ro. 4:11). God also promises that Abraham and his seed (alluding to Ge. 3:15) would be a channel of universal blessing (Ge. 12:2-3; 22:18). It’s through this promise that Paul says the Scriptures “preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham,” and it is this very promise that Peter says Jesus fulfilled (Ac. 3:25-26; cf. Ga. 3:16). Remember how we said that all the covenants are under the umbrella of the covenant of grace? Here, in the covenant of promise, God’s plan of salvation through the covenant of grace is further explained: the seed promised in Ge. 3:15 would come through Abraham’s offspring (Jesus), would be a blessing to all nations (salvation for Jews and Gentiles), and would make fellowship with God possible (“I will be your God...”). This pledge of a Redeemer would be realized through God’s other promises to Abraham given in the covenant of promise: land (Ge. 17:8) and numerous offspring (Ge. 15:5). The people and the land would provide the necessary environment (under the security of the covenant of preservation) from which the Messiah could come (what we celebrate at Christmas). They would also foreshadow the ultimate fulfillment of this covenant in a spiritual ancestry (cf. Ro. 4:16-17; Ga. 3:7, 16) and a heavenly land (cf. He. 11:10), which Jesus would accomplish in His work of redemption. Thus, God’s covenant with Abraham gives more information about the covenant of grace, and it does not replace the previous covenants but rather builds upon them.

God’s covenant with Abraham, like the promise of the seed in Ge. 3:15, is not some other way of salvation that has come and gone. It pointed them to Jesus and prepared God’s people for the advent of their Messiah. Now we—God’s people—celebrate that advent and look forward to the future, second advent of Christ (i.e. His second coming) when He will take His spiritual people into the new heavens and new earth—the ultimate fulfillment of the land God promised to Abraham.

On this day of Advent remember that God’s plan of salvation hasn’t changed but has always and ever been through faith in Jesus alone. Remember that we have fellowship with God in Christ, which is something we never could have achieved on our own. But, also remember that there is even greater fellowship to come: being in the very presence of God in the new heavens and new earth for all eternity. Jesus’ first advent guaranteed that for us, and His second advent will usher it in. Praise God today for sending Jesus to guarantee that we would be His people and He would be our God, and ask Him to “haste the day when [our] faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll; the trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend” to bring us into the new heavens and new earth. Perhaps today could be the day.

By His Grace,

Taylor