Has anyone here been watching the Olympics? Pretty amazing isn’t it? World record after world record has fallen. This year we have a 41 year old swimmer, Dara Torres, who, has won metals in five Olympics. The list of participants that have turned in phenomenal performances is long and the number of people that set aside hours to watch are millions (I’m one of them).

I find it interesting that when we compare what our athletes, or for that matter our business people, or our scientists, or our politicians have accomplished to what God has done – we are insignificant. Yet so often we find life’s purpose and satisfaction in our temporal accomplishments, in the creature rather than the creator.

Last week we looked at Genesis one and closed with four theological points:

1. God is responsible for all that exists. Reality is not mindless, it is not meaningless – there is a creator. All that exists comes from the purposes of God.
2. God is outside his creation – not part of it. While God is everywhere, pantheism is wrong.
3. When God created, it was good – Genesis 1
4. God has personhood – “Let us create man in our own image”

Today I’d like to continue talking about “creation” and how the biblical authors use “God as creator” in their thinking.

Scripture continually reinforces God as creator

In the O.T. We find the Hebrew term bara’ 57 times. This word for “creation” means to fashion or to create or to originate something new, fresh, and perfect. In the first 27 verses of Genesis bara’ is used three times.

Genesis 1:1 (NIV)
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:21 (NIV)
So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind…

Genesis 1:27 (NIV)
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

God as creator distinguishes Jehovah as the true God.

Isaiah 37:16 (NIV)
“O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.”

Psalm 96:5 (NIV)
For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.

Jeremiah 10:11-12 (NIV)
“Tell them this: ‘These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.’” ¹² But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.”

Not only is God the creator, his creation “screams” of the creator.

Acts 17:24-27 (NIV) – Paul to the Athenians
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. ²⁵ And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. ²⁶ From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. ²⁷ God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.”

Romans 1:18-23 (NIV)
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. ²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

God’s creation, in many ways, show us how sinful we are. Even though it is obvious that God exists, our tendency is to bend the truth, or deny it, so we can serve our own priorities.

Our helper is unfailing and tireless:

Isaiah 40:28-31 (NIV)
²⁸ Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. ²⁹ He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. ³⁰ Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; ³¹ but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah uses “God as creator” to give surety to his promises:

Isaiah 42:5-7 (NIV)
This is what God the Lord says – he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it: ⁶ “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, ⁷ to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.

In the New Testament the authors are clear that the Messiah (Jesus) is not only the one who came to die for us and bring us back into relationship with the creator – he Jesus is the creator:

John 1:1-5 (NIV)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of men. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

Colossians 1:15-17 (NIV)
[The Son] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Let me leave you with these two thoughts:

God ONLY is worthy of worship

Revelation 4:11 (NIV)
“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

A proper view of God our creator should drive us to humility

Psalm 8:3-4 (NIV)
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, ⁴ what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?

The Genesis 1 account of creation has always been a lightning rod for many reasons. Humanity has always struggled with a couple of foundational questions – “Why is there something rather than nothing?” and “Who am I?” or “Who are we?” These questions are intuitive for us – they simply “fall out” of our consciousness and cannot be left alone. We ask these questions as a deranged people however. On the one hand we know we are unique from the animals around us – we sense eternity and purpose in our hearts, and we know there is right and wrong. On the other hand we want an answer that tells us that, in the end, we are simply animals without purpose or accountability.

This morning I would like to talk about the first twenty-seven verses in the bible. I do this with some hesitancy because in the end there will probably be some, if not many, who disagree with at least some of my thoughts. I do not want this to divide us but I also think it is wrong to simply leave it alone. The impact of these verses is foundational to the rest of Scripture – they cannot be left alone. My prayer is that we can unite around the heart of God’s disclosure here.

I think there are a number of mistakes we often make when understanding this passage – I will mention four:

1. We have attempted to press Genesis 1 into a 21^st century scientific grid when the intent was not scientific. It is a type of narrative that allows us to walk along side the story as it unfolds. It is meant, in many ways, to transport us into the original setting so we can live there and, primarily, experience God in history. Every author writes in a way that lines up with what his/her primary purpose is. To miss the authors purpose is to read badly. Look at the gospels as and example. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each wrote the same story from a different perspective so as to connect with the needs of the audience. Matthew seems to be written from a distinctly Jewish perspective in order to help Jewish Christians stand in the face of persecution. Jesus is the Messiah. Mark probably wrote his gospel for the gentiles and wrote so they could see Jesus. He seems to focus on Jesus’ humanity – his limitations, his service, and his suffering. Luke wanted to write a more detailed historic account of Jesus’ life and helps us see him standing against cultural norms. He shows us how Jesus embraced gentiles and outcasts. He shows us how Jesus’ treated women differently than the culture of the day did. John writes his gospel from an evangelistic perspective so his readers will believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that they might have life.
2. We have failed to study Genesis 1 in its historical context and have assumed the author was targeting us in his writing (after all, it’s all about me isn’t it?). We ignore the author’s world and the people he was addressing. Genesis is most commonly attributed to Moses – a very well educated Hebrew man who grew up in the royal courts of Egypt. He understood its beliefs and its god’s. He was the one God chose to lead a nation away from physical and spiritual slavery. Egypt was a dominating powerhouse with deep religious convictions and their own version of creation. He wrote this account to the Hebrew people to speak to them of their unique and powerful God.
3. We have used the creation account as an apologetic when it was, primarily, a declaration. Most of the reformers didn’t use Genesis 1 the way we often do. By doing this we have driven a stake in the ground and created a litmus test of “the true faith” – all things into existence from nothing, fully developed with the appearance of age, in six twenty-four hour days. And this all happened 4,750 years ago.
4. Because we have often not focused on the author’s intent we have actually failed to apply its intended meaning.

So here is an important question. What did Moses have in mind when he wrote the first twenty seven verses of Genesis? Why did he write the creation account? Do you think his purpose was to write a scientific account of creation? I think he was doing two things, primarily:

First – I think Moses was standing “toe to toe” with the other creation stories of the day and proclaiming Elohim as the dominating, sovereign God who has no rivals or peers. When Elohim speaks, reality comes into existence. Generally, in the creation accounts of the ancient near east matter is seen as eternal and the gods evolve from the matter – the truth is different. Because there a similarities in the structure of the Genesis one account with other creation stories of his time, I think Moses was, to some extent, using the format and thinking of the day as a framework to communicate the reality and power of the true God.

Second – Moses was teaching the people, primarily, about the creator God who does not conform to our vision.

Genesis 1:1-27 (NIV)
¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (all that exists).

Here the title Elohim is used for God – the Sovereign, all powerful God who has no peers.

Is this verse original creation or a summary of the verses to follow? If it is original creation moment we seem to have a time gap between God creating matter and energy and God “working” with it in verse 2. If it is actually a summary of verses 2-27 then Genesis 1 does not account for creation from nothing.

John 1:3 (NIV)
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

Romans 4:17b (NIV)
…the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.

Colossians 1:16-17 (NIV)
For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Hebrews 11:3 (NIV)
By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

In ancient times the sea and darkness were often though to possess danger and evil – God defeats darkness and evil simply by speaking light into existence.

³ And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

It is not all creation in Gen 1 is creation – here we see process of some kind – God is shown to work with what he created – God separated.

⁵ God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning – the first day.

There seems to be a least on problem here. The evening/morning reference as “the first day” is interesting since it isn’t until verse 14 (the forth day) that God actually creates the means whereby we have 24 hr days.

⁶ And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” ⁷ So God made the expanse and separated (process) the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. ⁸ God called the expanse “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning – the second day.

⁹ And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear (process).” And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. ¹¹ Then God said, “Let the land produce (process) vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. ¹² The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. ¹³ And there was evening, and there was morning – the third day.

¹⁴ And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. ¹⁶ God made two great lights-the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. ¹⁷ God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, ¹⁸ to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ And there was evening, and there was morning – the fourth day.

²⁰ And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” ²¹ So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ²² God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” ²³ And there was evening, and there was morning – the fifth day.

²⁴ And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. ²⁵ God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. ²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make (create something new) man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” ²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

What can we learn about God:

• God is responsible for all that exists and is NOT dependent on us.

Psalm 90:2 (NIV)
Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Acts 17:24-25 (NIV)
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. ²⁵ And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.

• God is outside creation (no beginning) rather than a part of it.
• When God created it was GOOD!
• God has personhood – vs 26-27

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Links for your consideration:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dont_use.asp

http://www.covenantseminary.edu/worldwide/en/OT215/OT215_T_03.pdf

http://www.covenantseminary.edu/worldwide/en/OT230/OT230_T_04.pdf

http://www.covenantseminary.edu/worldwide/en/OT230/OT230_T_05.pdf

http://www.covenantseminary.edu/worldwide/en/OT230/OT230_T_06.pdf

http://www.wscal.edu/clark/creationwars.php

http://www.girs.com/library/theology/syllabus/creation1.html

http://www.girs.com/library/theology/syllabus/creation2.html

Over the last few weeks we’ve covered a fair amount of ground. We’ve talked some about faith and how the faith that leads us to believe in Jesus (not believe that Jesus) is the faith that helps us connect with God’s vision and plan. We talked about how faith and turmoil absolutely go hand in hand – can’t have one without the other because faith moves us to trust a reality that the world rejects – that stretches us.

We also saw how the disciples misunderstood their relationship with Jesus – like we can easily do. We talked about how easy it is to think of our relationship with Jesus as this “give-and-take” thing – forgetting that he is the sovereign God of all that exists and obedience is vital. Last week I mentioned that God desires to connect with every aspect of our lives – not just the cognitive.

Today I’d like to ask the question, “What would it take?”. What would it take to convince us that Jesus was actually worth everything – not just in theory, but in reality, in practice? What would it take to compel us toward Jesus over work, over sex, over the hobbies that have grown into gods. What would it take to compel us toward Jesus over money, over comfort, over sports, over food. What would it take for us to embrace pain as one of the ways God moves us closer to Jesus rather than something that makes us question God’s love or existence. What would it take to compel us toward the mission of Jesus over the mission of self – deep commitments to Bible Study and prayer, deep commitments to others in this fellowship, deep commitments to those who desperately need Jesus. What would it take?

Today we’re going to look at an event in the lives of the disciples that was designed, at least in part, to better show them who Jesus was. This, I think, will help them yield to Jesus’ vision of what it means to be Messiah, not the culture’s vision. Jesus was going to include Peter, John, and James in an event even more glorious than the miracles they had witnessed. This would put Jesus in another category.

Before we look at this event – the transfiguration – let’s talk briefly about its context. Before this, the disciples saw Jesus feed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish, we see Peter confess Jesus as the Christ, and then we read this:

Luke 9:21-26 (NIV)
Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. ²² And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” ²³ Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. ²⁴ For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. ²⁵ What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? ²⁶ If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

Wow – how do you absorb that? Jesus says that God’s calling on anyone who would follow him requires that they deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow him. You cannot embrace the values and treasures of this world and save your life because that is the same as being ashamed of Jesus.

After that we have our text for today:

Luke 9:28-36 (NIV)
About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. ²⁹ As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. ³⁰ Two men, Moses and Elijah, ³¹ appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure (exodus), which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem. ³² Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. ³³ As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters-one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what he was saying.) ³⁴ While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. ³⁵ A voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” ³⁶ When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves, and told no one at that time what they had seen.

• “as he was praying – Have you ever noticed Jesus spends a great deal of time in prayer?
• “the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning” – In describing what happened to Jesus here the NIV uses the word “changed” – that’s pretty good. Matthew & Mark use a different word with somewhat the same meaning – they use the word metamorphoo (the word we use for metamorphosis. This was not just Jesus’ face getting bright – something more was happening here).

Revelation 1:13-16 (NIV)
… among the lampstands was someone “like a son of man,” dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. ¹⁴ His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. ¹⁵ His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. ¹⁶ In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

• “departure” - this is a discussion around Jesus’ death – his mission.
• Moses and Elijah – Moses was a dominant figure for the Jews. Moses was God’s hand in the rescue of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt centuries earlier and the one who received the law, and he actually spoke of Jesus when he said to the Hebrews, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.” (Deut. 18:15). Moses was to be a picture or image of Jesus – a pointing to Jesus and his work. Jesus was getting ready to lead a rescue mission that makes the exodus from Egypt look like child’s play. This time the rescue would not going to be confined to a group of Hebrews, it would be global and final. This time Jesus would free people from slavery to death itself. He would not defeat Egypt like Moses did – he would kill sin. He would not lead those rescued to a geographic location like Moses did – Jesus would lead the rescued to God. Israel had great loyalty to Moses, but would not see him pointing to Jesus.

Elijah boldly and powerfully stood for God in the face of opposition. He was one of two old testament characters who did not die but was moved directly from life here into glory. God, speaking through the prophet Malachi said that he would once again send the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes (Malachi 4:5). So the prophet Elijah was also a powerful and dominant figure in Israel’s past.

So, here we see these three disciples witnessing an indescribable event that confirms Jesus to them and rounds out their understanding. After the death and resurrection of Jesus, the disciples speak words that are not magical but words that are powered by the Holy Spirit and come from what they know to be true.

Peter referenced this event in his writings:

2 Peter 1:16-18 (NIV)
We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. ¹⁷ For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” ¹⁸ We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.

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Luke 9:34-35 (NIV)
While [Peter] was speaking, a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. ³⁵ A voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.”

Are you listening to Jesus? Are you living as if Jesus really is the purpose of your existence?

The Bible is the revelation of God to us. Anything that contradicts the Word of God, as it was intended to be understood, is deception. That being said, there is a never-ending discussion of how Jesus comes to us, how he ministers to us, how he speaks to us.

In Christian circles there seems to be a lengthy continuum of thought on this. Some would seem to say that almost anything you hear in your head is a message from God – little restrictive filtering. On the other end there are those who seem to shake with righteous anger or fear if you imply there might be more than the cognitive reality of reading the Bible.

Presence

Matthew 18:20 (NIV) – Jesus
“For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”

Matthew 28:19-20 (NIV) – Jesus
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

John 14:16-17 (NIV) – H.S.
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

Romans 8:9-11 (NIV) – H.S.
You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Hebrews 13:5 (NIV)
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

Fellowship

John 14:23 (NIV)
Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

1 Corinthians 1:9 (NIV)
God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.

1 John 1:3 (NIV)
We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

1 John 3:24 (NIV)
Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

1 John 4:13 (NIV)
We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

Revelation 3:20 (NIV)
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

God speaking/communicating to us

John 10:27 (NIV)
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

John 14:26 (NIV)
But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

**John 16:13 (NIV)
“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide (or lead) you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.“

Romans 8:14-16 (NIV)
...because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by [the Spirit] we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit (or to our spirit) that we are God’s children.

1 Corinthians 2:9-10 (NIV)
However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”- but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

1 John 2:27 (NIV)
As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit-just as it has taught you, remain in him.

The following four points are from “Who’s Afraid of the Holy Spirit? The Uneasy Conscience of a Non-Charismatic Evangelical” by Dan Wallace, Dallas Seminary. I have, in places, put them in my own words

• A dominating emphasis on knowledge over relationship can produce “bibliolatry” – the Bible becomes an idol.

• The net effect of “bibliolatry” is a depersonalization of God – relationship with Christ fades and it is replaced with information, faith in our faith (not in Jesus). God becomes more and more the object of investigation and less and less the One whom we give ourselves too. every part of our being – including

• There may be an underlying, human reason we tend to not get this right. We want to stay in control. We must systematize and categorize everything – we need to break it down, reorganize it and draw a box around it.

• Many of the power brokers of evangelicalism, since the turn of the century, have been white, obsessive-compulsive males. We think the left side of the brain is God’s side and the right side was an afterthought. As a result we relegate the artistic, the creative, and those who don’t process information the way we do to a different status. Often we fail to listen to the women in our fellowship.

Does this mean knowing the Bible in any way is not the highest priority – absolutly NOT. The better we see Jesus in the Scriptures, the better we know him, the clearer he will speak. Never, never will God’s will for us be contrary to Scripture

2 Samuel 6:12-15 (NIV)
Now King David was told, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and everything he has, because of the ark of God.” So David went down and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David with rejoicing. When those who were carrying the ark of the Lord had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the Lord with all his might, while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets.

Daniel B. Wallace, Ph.D.; Associate Professor of New Testament Studies; Dallas Theological Seminary; Wallace@bible.org

Ed. Note: This message is a slightly modified version of what was given at the Evangelical Theological Society’s regional meeting in 1994, held at John Brown University in Arkansas. It may be helpful for those reading Dr. Wallace’s other essays on conflicting pneumatologies (i.e., different views of the Holy Spirit’s ministry) to gain a balanced perspective.

Introduction

As is the case with past presidents of ETS-SW, I have had quite some time to think about this address. In my case, the topic I had in mind two years ago has been shelved. In the past eighteen months, I believe that the Lord has laid on my heart a new topic. In a few moments, you will learn what the catalyst was that brought about this change. As for the rest of the message, you will have to be the judge as to whether the impetus was from the Lord or a different source.

Three preliminary remarks are in order. First, I need to define my target audience. Some of you here are charismatics or Pentecostals. I will not be speaking to you tonight. But I think that you will agree with much that I have to say. I invite you to listen in as I address my non-charismatic brothers and sisters.

Second, I speak from a non-charismatic or cessationist position. That is to say, I believe that certain gifts of the Holy Spirit were employed in the earliest stage of Christianity to authenticate that God was doing something new. These “sign gifts”–such as the gifts of healing, tongues, miracles–ceased with the death of the last apostle. This is what I mean by “cessationism.” Some of you fellow cessationists might style yourselves as “soft” cessationists whereby you mean that some of the sign gifts continue, or that the sign gifts may crop up in locations where the gospel is introduced afresh,¹ or that you are presently agnostic about these gifts, but are not a practicing charismatic. For purposes of argument, I will take a hard line. In this way, anything I affirm about the Holy Spirit’s ministry today should not be perceived as being generated from a closet charismatic. Further, it is not my purpose to defend cessationism. That, I understand, will be taken up in the panel discussion tomorrow. Rather, I wish to address some concerns that I, as a cessationist, have concerning the role of the Holy Spirit today among cessationists.

Third, based on my past performance at ETS meetings, you probably expect a heavily documented, fairly well researched, somewhat abstract, academic lecture. This is not of that ilk. There is a place for such lectures, but not here, not now, not with this topic. Rather, this message will be personal and anecdotal. I trust that, in spite of the paucity of footnotes, you will not dismiss this message as untrue. It is a message borne of my experience with God. This, of course, disqualifies it from publication in any theological journal! But I hope and pray that it does not disqualify it from stimulating you intellectually–not, as I said, because I have investigated every nook and cranny of pneumatology. But because it rings true. Hopefully–and this is my real desire and prayer–your hearts will be convicted as much as your heads stimulated.

This address has two parts. First is a topic rarely mentioned at ETS: a personal testimony. Perhaps in our scholarly endeavor to avoid ad hominem arguments, we have come to disdain anything of a personal nature. But our minds cannot be separated from our hearts. What drives us to study a given topic often receives its impulse from highly personal struggles. And at the risk of making myself vulnerable to you, of opening myself up to charges such as, “Wallace’s views can be dismissed because we know whence they come,” I wish to share with you, at some length, who I am and how God is working in my life. Second, I have eleven theses to put on the table–theses that have to do with our deficiencies in how we relate to the Holy Spirit. These theses are only at a seminal stage²–indeed, I would like to nail down 95 of them in due time!

My Spiritual Journey

I grew up in a conservative Baptist church in southern California. I was converted at age four when I attended Vacation Bible School in the summer of 1956. My brother, at the ripe old age of five and a half, led me to Christ. Ironically, he was not a believer at the time. A dozen years later I was instrumental in bringing him to the Savior.

I grew up in the church. My youth was characterized by timidity: I was a Clark Kent with no alter ego. I was afraid of life, afraid to explore, afraid to question out loud. In spite of this–or, perhaps because of this, I was a leader in the youth group. But I had questions that would not go away–questions about an authentic Christian experience. At age sixteen I was in the midst of a life-threatening crisis: should I or should I not ask Terri C. out for a date? Because of the turmoil in my soul, I quickly agreed when a friend invited me to a charismatic revival at Melodyland in Anaheim, California. The house was packed; several thousand were in attendance. The speaker said some things that disturbed me intellectually. When he gave an altar call, I was ready to go forward and give him a piece of my mind. As I got up out of my seat, the Holy Spirit grabbed my heart and said, “No, this is not the reason you’re going forward. You need to get right with God.” Now, he did not speak audibly to me. These words are not to be put in red letters. But as I rose, before I took one step, I was overwhelmingly convicted of my own sin. The Spirit of God was definitely in that place.

As I came forward, about four or five hundred other people streamed forth to the center stage. With hundreds of people there, I was quite amazed when the speaker, microphone in hand, selected me. “Why have you come forward, young man?” he queried. “I came to rededicate my life to Christ,” I answered. It was a good thing that the Holy Spirit changed my heart before my lips got in gear!

That night, January 6, 1969, was the major turning point in my life. I still celebrate it as my spiritual birthday (since the exact date of my conversion at age four was and still is a bit fuzzy).

That same night, before I left Melodyland, a man named David Berg invited me to visit his fellowship in Huntington Beach. His group, known then as the Huntington Beach Light House, later became known as The Children of God; David Berg was later called David Moses or Moses David.

I joined the group and became a charismatic. The group was vibrant in its worship, and courageous in its evangelism. My faith was alive. My prayer life was thriving. And I gained courage.

I would pray for hours daily, praying that God would grant me the gift of tongues. When one of the “apostles” (apostle Bob, I believe³) at the Light House discovered that I had not spoken in tongues, he asked if I had been baptized in the Spirit. When I answered in the negative, he laid his hands on me and did the job right there. Observing that nothing had changed, he doubted my salvation.

So I quietly left the group. In the coming months, I fellowshipped at Calvary Chapel, where the neo-charismatic movement finds its origins. Finally, and quite naturally, I left the charismatic movement altogether. But my zeal for God was not quenched. I was a part of the Jesus movement as a non-charismatic. I continued to pray, evangelize, and read my Bible. In fact, there was a long stretch of time in which I read my New Testament, cover to cover, every week. I saw God’s hand in everything. And the Lord granted me a measure of courage which was not and is not naturally mine.⁴ Although I had left the charismatic movement, it took me a long time before I replaced my passion for Jesus Christ with a passion for the Bible.

Because of my interest in spiritual things, I decided to attend a Christian liberal arts college. I attended Biola University, married a beautiful Irish lass⁵ right out of college, and came to Dallas for more theological training.

Through the years, after going to a Christian college and a cessationist seminary, I began to slip away from my early, vibrant contact with God. My understanding of scripture was heightened, but my walk with God slowed down to a crawl. I took a defensive and apologetic posture in my studies of scripture. In the last several years, I’ve been questioning the adequacy of such a stance–recognizing, subconsciously at least, that it did not satisfy my deepest longings.

Joe Aldrich, the president of Multnomah Bible College once told me, “It takes the average seminary graduate five years to thaw out from the experience.” For most seminary graduates, I suspect, that thawing out may come through the natural course of events. But it took several crises before the Lord started warming me up again. The latest one was what happened to my son, Andy, just two years ago–when he was eight years old.

In December 1991, Andy was kicked in the stomach by a school bully. He developed stomach pains which persisted for quite some time. Two months later, through a providentially guided indiscretion, Andy left the bathroom door open when my wife walked by. She saw something that horrified her: his urine was brown. That same day, she took him to our family physician. This began a series of doctors and specialists. None of them had a clue as to what was wrong. Finally, he was admitted to Children’s Hospital on April 20, 1992, scheduled for a kidney biopsy.

Before the biopsy was to be performed, a sonogram was conducted. We had anticipated a blood clot on the kidney, but the sonogram revealed that something more was present. Perhaps it was a tumor. One physician suggested exploratory surgery instead of a biopsy. This sounded crazy to me! Cut my “Beaker”⁶ open! We agreed, grudgingly, to this procedure.

The surgery took place on Wednesday, April 22. That’s when the nightmare began. One of the physicians prepped us ahead of time:

Mr. and Mrs. Wallace, I wouldn’t be overly worried about this operation. What the sonogram revealed may still be just a blood clot. And if it’s not a blood clot, then, most likely, it’s a benign tumor. And if it’s not benign, then it is probably a Wilm’s tumor. This is a congenital kidney cancer found in children. It’s treatable and curable. However, if it’s not a Wilm’s tumor, there is the very slight possibility that what your son has is renal cell carcinoma. But that is such a rare cancer in children that the likelihood is quite remote.

As the hours during and after the surgery wore on, we found ourselves getting hit with wave after wave of dreaded news. Andy, indeed, had renal cell carcinoma (RCC). And it was not just the normal type–which was lethal enough. Andy had the more potent strain of RCC. Less than ten children ever diagnosed worldwide have lived beyond two years with this strain of RCC. Apart from radical surgery, it’s virtually untreatable and incurable, as far as medical science knows.

There was good news through all this, news of a providential character, news which gave me and still gives me hope that my son will live. First, the bully who kicked Andy in the stomach probably saved his life. Only in one third of the cases of RCC is there bloody urine. The other symptoms are usually a mild stomach ache and an occasional low-grade fever.⁷ That kick to the stomach probably triggered the bloody urine. Second, the one physician who insisted on exploratory surgery instead of a biopsy also saved his life. RCC is so potent a cancer that every case on record in which a biopsy was performed resulted in the death of the patient. In the midst of wondering, of confusion, of crying out to God, I could still see his hand in all this.

Andy’s kidney was removed and he went through various grueling tests in which his body was probed for any remnants of cancer. For those of you familiar with cancer, I don’t need to tell you about the torture of bone marrow scans. Six days of testing produced no trace of cancer.

RCC in children is so rare that Andy’s case was the first one reported in the United States in eight years. Globally, he is the 161st child ever diagnosed with it. There are no support groups! Before Andy left the hospital a team of ten physicians could not decide whether to administer chemotherapy. It would strictly be a preventive measure, but with RCC, prevention is everything. If the cancer metastasizes again, he will die (as far as statistics reveal). No child has yet survived a return of RCC. The choice was ours whether or not to go with chemotherapy.

We decided to go with chemotherapy, because the risk of not doing it, wondering whether that might kill him, was too great to bear. I cannot adequately describe what the next six months were like–for Andy, for me and his mother, for his three brothers. But I can tell you that I was in an emotional wasteland. I was angry with God and I found him to be quite distant. Here was this precious little boy who was losing his hair, and losing weight. At one point he weighed only forty-five pounds. His twin brother at that time weighed eighty-five pounds. Andy was so weak that we had to carry him everywhere.

Through this experience I found that the Bible was not adequate. I needed God in a personal way–not as an object of my study, but as friend, guide, comforter. I needed an existential experience of the Holy One. Quite frankly, I found that the Bible was not the answer. I found the scriptures to be helpful–even authoritatively helpful–as a guide. But without feeling God, the Bible gave little solace. In the midst of this “summer from hell,” I began to examine what had become of my faith. I found a longing to get closer to God, but found myself unable to do so through my normal means: exegesis, scripture reading, more exegesis. I believe that I had depersonalized God so much that when I really needed him I didn’t know how to relate. I longed for him, but found many community-wide restrictions in my cessationist environment. I found a suffocation of the Spirit in my evangelical tradition as well as in my own heart.

It was this experience of my son’s cancer that brought me back to my senses, that brought me back to my roots. And out of this experience I have been wrestling in the last eighteen months with practical issues of pneumatology.

Eleven Theses

I believe that in North America today, there are two brands of conservative Christianity, neither of which is wholly satisfactory. There is charismatic Christianity–the free spirited, right brain, experiential roller coaster. And then there is the evangelical rationalism–uptight, left brain, logical, talking head, argumentative. Neither of these is adequate. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a fully committed cessationist. I believe that the sign gifts ceased in the first century. But I think that cessationists need to begin doing serious business with God. We need a deep-rooted repentance–both individually and communally.

I want to offer you eleven suggestions, eleven challenges–eleven theses if you will–that we need to address. I don’t yet have 95 of them–and this isn’t the Wittenberg Church. And, as I said at the beginning, this list is in a seminal stage. These theses are in a somewhat random order.

(1) Although the sign gifts died in the first century, the Holy Spirit did not. We all can affirm that theologically, but pragmatically we act as though he died too. This is my fundamental thesis, and it’s well worth exploring. What can we, as cessationists, affirm that the Holy Spirit is doing today? What did Jesus mean when he said, “My sheep hear my voice?” What did Paul mean when he declared, “Those who are led by the Spirit are the sons of God”? What did John mean when he wrote, “You have an anointing from the Holy One”?

(2) Although charismatics have given a higher priority to experience than to relationship, rationalistic evangelicals have given a higher priority to knowledge than to relationship. Both of these miss the mark. And Paul, in 1 Corinthians, condemns both. Knowledge puffs up; and spiritual experience without love is worthless.

(3) This emphasis on knowledge over relationship has produced in us a bibliolatry. Since the text is our task, we have made it our God. It has become our idol. Let me state this bluntly: The Bible is not a member of the Trinity. One lady in my church facetiously told me, “I believe in the Trinity: the Father, Son, and Holy Bible.”

One of the great legacies Karl Barth left behind was his strong Christocentric focus. It is a shame that too many of us have reacted so strongly to Barth, for in our zeal to show his bibliological deficiencies we have become biblioters in the process. Barth and Calvin share a lot in common: there is a warmth, a piety, a devotion, an awe in the presence of God that is lacking in too many theological tomes generated from our circles.

(4) The net effect of such bibliolatry is a depersonalization of God. Eventually, we no longer relate to him. He becomes the object of our investigation rather than the Lord to whom we are subject. The vitality of our religion gets sucked out. As God gets dissected and trisected (in the case of you trichotomists), our stance changes from “I trust in” to “I believe that.”

(5) Part of the motivation for this depersonalization of God is our increasing craving for control. What we despise most about charismatics is their loss of control, their emotionalism. We fear that. We take comfort in the fact that part of the fruit of the Spirit is “self-control.” But by this we mean “do all things in moderation”–including worshipping God. But should we not have a reckless abandon in our devotion to him? Should we not throw ourselves on him, knowing that apart from him we can do nothing?

Instead, as typical cessationists, we want to be in control at all times. Even when it means that we shut God out. It is this issue of control that kept my friend Sam a cessationist so long. Now, as a member of the Vineyard movement, Sam is quite happy: he acknowledges that he never was in control in the first place. In the midst of what I consider to be a heterodox shift on his part, there is this honest breakthrough with God.

(6) God is still a God of healing and miracles. As a cessationist, I can affirm the fact of miracles without affirming the miracle-worker. God is still a God of healing even though his normal modus operandi is not through a faith-healer. If I can be permitted an overgeneralization, the problem with charismatics is that they believe that God not only can heal, but that he must heal. God thus becomes an instrument, wielded by the almighty Christian. That is one reason why, historically, charismata has been a movement among Arminians. At the same time, the problem with non-charismatics is that although they claim that God can heal, they act as if he won’t. I don’t really think they believe in God’s ability–they don’t really believe that God can heal. Thus, the problem with charismatics is a denial of God’s sovereignty; the problem with non-charismatics is a denial of God’s ability or goodness or both. And neither group is being completely honest with God. Neither is submissively trusting him.

Let me take this a step further. Is it possible for a Calvinist to say that an Arminian can be used of the Lord to bring someone salvation? Yes, I think Calvinists would agree that such a thing is possible. If so, is this not analogous to God using a “faith-healer” to heal someone? In other words, can I, as a cessationist, affirm that sometimes God heals someone through the presence or stimulus of a faith-healer? Perhaps the sick individual, or the faith-healer, was exercising great faith. (After all, charismatics tend to believe in God’s ability more than cessationists.) In such instances, could we not say that rather than empowering the faith-healer, God was simply honoring the faith?

If this scenario is correct, then we would not expect every person touched by a faith-healer to be healed. And that is exactly what we find: not everyone is healed. At the same time, because the normal modus operandi of healing is through someone’s faith, as a cessationist I can affirm both that there is often great faith in charismatic circles and that there is no such thing as a bona fide faith-healer today. I can affirm miracles in their midst without affirming the miracle-worker.

(7) Evangelical rationalism can lead to spiritual defection. I am referring to the suffocation of the Spirit in post-graduate theological training, as well as the seduction of academia. Most of us can think of examples of gifted young students we have mentored who seemed to lose all of their Christian conviction in an academic setting. For many of us, this recollection is too painful. How many times have we sent Daniels into the lions’ den, only to tell them by our actions that prayer won’t do any good?

One particular instance is very difficult for me to think about. One of my brightest master’s students about thirteen years ago went on for doctoral work overseas. We prepared him well in exegesis. But we did not prepare him well in prayer. A couple of years ago I caught up with him and discovered that he was only confused about his evangelical heritage. He was even questioning the uniqueness of Jesus. This student had suppressed part of the arsenal at his disposal: the witness of the Spirit, something non-believers can’t touch. To this day I wonder how much I contributed to this man’s confusion and suppression of the Spirit’s witness.

It is not the historical evidences alone that can lead one to embrace the resurrection as true. The Spirit must work on our hearts, overcoming our natural reticence. When our graduates go on for doctoral work, and forget that the Spirit brought them to Christ in the first place, and suppress his witness in their hearts, they are ripe for spiritual defection. They need to be reminded–as do all of us who live in an academic setting–that exegesis and apologetics are not the sum of the Christian life.

I speak not only from the experience of my students. In my own doctoral program, while seriously grappling with the evidence for the resurrection, I suddenly found myself in an existential crisis. I was reading in biblical theology at the time, wrestling with those two great minds, Rudolf Bultmann and Karl Barth. I was impressed with the fact that as strong as the historical evidence is for the resurrection, there is and always will be a measure of doubt. Evidence alone cannot bridge the gap between us and God. As much as I wanted the evidence to go all the way, in integrity of heart and mind, I couldn’t make it do so. At one point there was real despair in my heart. I had gotten so sucked in to the cult of objectivism that I forgot who it was who brought me to faith in the first place. Only when I grudgingly accepted the fact that some faith had to be involved–and that through the Spirit’s agency–could I get past my despair. The non-verifiable elements of evangelicalism had become an embarrassment to me, rather than an anchor.

(8) The power brokers of rational evangelicalism, since the turn of the century, have been white, obsessive-compulsive males. Ever since the days of the Princetonians (Warfield, Hodge, Machen, et al.), American non-charismatic evangelicalism has been dominated by Scottish common sense, post-Enlightenment, left-brain, obsessive-compulsive, white males. Perhaps this situation is suppressing a part of the image of God; perhaps it is suppressing a part of the witness of the Spirit. And perhaps it is not in line with historic Christianity.⁸ The implications of this such demographics are manifold. Three of them are as follows.

• The white evangelical community needs to listen to and learn from the black evangelical community. I find it most fascinating that the experience of God in the black non-charismatic community is quite different from that in the white non-charismatic community. In many ways, it resembles the white charismatic experience more than the white cessationist experience of God. A full-orbed experience of God must take place in the context of community. And that community must be heterogenous. If, as has been often stated, the 11 o’clock hour on Sunday morning is the most segregated in America, then something is desperately wrong with the Church.

• The Holy Spirit does not work just on the left brain. He also works on the right brain: he sparks our imagination, causes us to rejoice, laugh, sing, and create. Few Christians are engaged and fully committed to the arts today. Where are the hymn writers? Where are the novelists? Painters? Playwrights? A very high-powered editor of a Christian magazine told me two weeks ago that he knows of only one exceptional Christian fiction writer. What are our seminaries doing to encourage these right brainers? What is the Church doing to encourage them?

• By and large, women are more in tune with their right brain than men are. We men have failed to listen to the women in our midst–and this failure is related to our not hearing the voice of the Spirit. If the Imago Dei is both male and female, by squelching the valuable contribution of women, we distort that very image before a watching world.

(9) The Holy Spirit’s guidance is still needed in discerning the will of God. The rationalism in our circles makes decision-making a purely cognitive exercise. There is no place for prayer. There is no room for the Spirit. I believe there is a middle ground between expecting daily revelations on the one hand, and basing decisions solely on logic and common sense on the other. Garry Friesen’s Decision-Making and the Will of God went a long way to correct some silly notions about how we function in the mundane. But I believe that Friesen went too far. I may not receive revelations, but I do believe that the Spirit often guides me with inarticulate impulses. Admittedly, this is primarily in the moral realm and Friesen was dealing basically with the amoral realm. Yet, a basic recognition that the Spirit does guide me today in all realms makes me increasingly sensitive to his guidance in the moral realm.

(10) In the midst of seeking out the power of the Spirit, we must not avoid the sufferings of Christ. This is the message of Mark: the disciples could not have Christ in his glory without Christ in his suffering. Too often when we decide that it’s a good thing to get to know God again, we go about it on our own terms. Again, I speak from personal experience.

Six weeks ago, one of my students died of cancer. Another was about to die. I began urging students at Dallas Seminary to pray for God’s intervention. The Lord did not answer our prayer in the way we had hoped. Three weeks ago, Brendan Ryan was buried. My own pain was increased when I saw his three small children paraded in front of the mourners at his memorial service. I had only visited Brendan once in the hospital; I was determined not to let such happen again.

Two more of my students are on the verge of death. I have called them and visited them in the past week. And I learned about suffering and honesty with God. I questioned God–and still do. Out of my pain–pain for these students and their families, pain for my son, pain for myself–comes honesty and growth. I have moments when I doubt God’s goodness. Yet I do not doubt that he has suffered for me far more than I will ever suffer for him. And that is the only reason I let him hold my hand through this dark valley. In seeking God’s power, I discovered his person. He is not just omnipotent; he is also the God of all comfort. And taking us through suffering, not out of it, is one of the primary means that the Spirit uses today in bringing us to God.

(11) Finally, a question: To what does the Spirit bear witness? Certainly the resurrection of Christ. How about the scriptures? A particular interpretation perhaps? Eschatological issues? Exegetical issues? Don’t be too quick to answer. Some of this needs rethinking . . . In fact, my challenge to each of you is this: reexamine the New Testament teaching about the Holy Spirit. Don’t gloss over the passages, but wrestle with what they mean. If the Spirit did not die in the first century, then what is he doing today?

1This is what I would call concentric cessationism, as opposed to linear cessationism. That is, rather than taking a chronologically linear approach, this kind of cessationism affirms that as the gospel moves, like the rippling effect of a stone dropping into a pond, in a space-time expanding circle away from first century Jerusalem, the sign gifts will still exist on the cutting edge of that circle. Thus, for example, in third world countries at the time when the gospel is first proclaimed, the sign gifts would be present. This view, then, would allow for these gifts to exist on the frontiers of Christianity, but would be more skeptical of them in the ‘worked over’ areas.

2At present I am co-editing a book on this very topic, provisionally entitled, Who’s Afraid of the Holy Spirit? Or, Pneumatic Christianity: A Third Alternative. This book will be written by cessationists for cessationists. We have a very long lead time with the publisher, in part to get the qualified people to sign on, in part to give the two editors time to sort out and articulate what God is doing in the midst of their present crises.

As well, this entire paper is in a seminal stage of development. I trust you will forgive me for not providing you with a fully manuscripted text.

3There were twelve apostles at the Light House. We knew each one only by their first name because, as apostle Bob said, “the original apostles only had one name.”

4So much so that as a high school student, during late 60′s, I visited the University of California at Irvine to evangelize in a public forum. The occasion was the capturing of UCI and “sit-in” by the SDS (a young socialist group). The school shut down while it was under siege. I sneaked in, hoping to address a group of hundreds of university students about a greater revolution than socialism.

5I must admit, she has that proverbial Irish temperament, too. After almost twenty years of living with her, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

6Andy’s nick name. Since he was about four years old, he has imitated the sounds of the beaker on the PBS program, Sesame Street.

7The first case reported in America (1934) was so mild, in fact, that the child died before the parents suspected anything worthy of a doctor’s attention.

8Along these lines, Vern Poythress read a paper at ETS last November in which he affirmed the miraculous among cessationists. Part of his argument was to note that cessationists in the 19th century sensed God’s presence and saw his works in ways that are not nearly as frequent among cessationists today.

Many of us have heard or read Luke 17:6, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea.’ and it will obey you.” Here’s an opening question for you this morning. What do you think when you hear those words?

Many, if not most of us think something like, “It would be so cool if I could do things like this with my faith!” Some use the miraculous to dismiss the truth of Scripture. Some relegate it to something unique to the time of Jesus. What do you think when you read a verse like this.

We humans tend to approach things from a perspective that is very limited and self-serving. My conclusions are often “bent” toward my own self interest and not God’s glory. Not only do we tend to view things from our perspective and not God’s, often the verse and chapter devisions we’ve placed in our Bibles disrupt the reading or break the context or encourage “proof-texting”.

Today we’re going to look at this verse in its context to see if we might understand it correctly.

Luke 17:1-10 (NIV)
Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to sin (stumbling blocks) are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. ² It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little (young ones or weak followers) ones to sin. ³ So watch yourselves. “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. ⁴ If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”

⁵ The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” ⁶ He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.

⁷“Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? ⁸ Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? ⁹ Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? ¹⁰ So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”

Verse 1-4

How we live in a sinful world is a VERY big deal. Jesus mentions two aspects of this that are important. First – the seriousness of our conduct and the reality of our sin causing others to sin. Second – how we respond to those who sin. These four verses are about living faithfully and the impact our lives have on those around us.

Romans 14:13 (NIV)
Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way.

1 Corinthians 10:31-33 (NIV)
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God- even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

1 John 2:10 (NIV)
Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.

Then we see Jesus focus on two specific things we should do in our role as ambassadors of Jesus. First, he says that when we see a brother (or sister) sin, we should connect with them about it. We should not just let it slide. This isn’t loving or in the person’s best interest. Lovingly, caringly come along side them and make sure they know you are for them – help them. Pray with them.

The second thing Jesus mentions here is forgiveness. We must not break fellowship while those who sin are repentant. God is patient and forgiving to us. We must be patient and forgiving as well.

Matthew 18:21-22 (NIV)
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

Verses 5-6

Now, after Jesus shares this very important instruction with them, the disciples respond. They come to the conclusion that they must have a faith-increase in order to do what Jesus was, in a sence, requiring of them. So they say, “Increase our faith” (notice how this wasn’t a request but more of a demand). Jesus then says, “If you have the faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planded in the sea, and it will obey you.’” So the BIG question is, what did Jesus mean by this?

Well I would suggest that after what Jesus said in verses 1-4, the disciples didn’t have the right response. In fact, I think their response was VERY wrong. And so Jesus’ response was actually a rebuke. It’s as if he was saying, “I just told you something VERY, VERY important. Be careful not to cause younger followers to stumble! Make sure you help others with their sin! Make sure you forgive each other! And you respond with, ‘We need more faith’. If you had any faith at all you could do amazing things. Additional faith is not the answer.”

Now, as Jesus so often does, he moves to a story to drive home his point.

Verses 7-10

The disciples had lost their way in the relationship with Jesus. He was their friend. He was also God asking them to obey. The point of the story is that we are still subservient to the God that created everything that exists and gives us every breath we receive. We must not forget that God is God – I am not.

Matthew 11:30 (NIV)
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

1 John 2:3 (NIV)
We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands.

Revelation 12:17 (NIV)
Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring-those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

1 John 5:3 (NIV)
This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,

Lessons:

Without faith we cannot be saved. Faith is the connection to Jesus that we must have. Faith is that trust that recognizes Jesus as the One who is our only hope if we are to survive God’s judgement. Our rebellion is too deep. Our sin is too massive. We cannot make it right. Jesus came to make it right for us. Saving faith, within the context of my desperate need, believes in Jesus as my only hope in life and in death.

With faith comes obedience. “Jesus, I will trust you in life. I will trust you in death. You are now the One I respond too. You are the one I follow. You are the one I will obey.”

Obediance is faith in action. We must not use a lack of faith as an excuse for disobedience – that’s sin. We must not use a lack of faith as an excuse for being a stumbling block to anyone. We must not use a lack of faith as an excuse to not forgive. We must not put off obedience because we don’t “feel it”. It does not work to search for deeper faith while refusing to obey God’s clear instruction.

This culture would love to see Jesus as friend only. If he is only our friend we can easily not obey. After all he is friend and not master. And he is our deepest friend. Jesus He is also the sovereign God who reigns over everything that exists.

Jesus as Lord will ask for obedience when we may not full understand.