In calling Abraham, God begins the mission of restoring heaven’s reign to the nations of the earth.
The whole earth belongs under God’s sovereign authority, but the nations went their own way (Genesis 10) and the kingdoms tried to take over God’s world (Genesis 11). God responds by calling Abraham into partnership with himself.
God launches a different kind of kingdom. Genesis 12 is the bridge from the nations to God’s nation. Abraham is the bridge to a new world in partnership with divine leadership:
Continue reading “Kingdom: partnership with God (Genesis 12:1-9)”
This podcast (26 min) covers the topics blogged from Genesis 5:
Genesis 5 is a new family story, in contrast to the community of Chapter 4 who went out from God’s presence and built a city dedicated to human honour and ingenuity, relying on violent superheroes to bring justice. We’re now turning to the family that relies on God to give life and calls on his name for their survival (4:26).
God saves those who trust him.
Psalm 91 is a psalm of trust. There’s only half a dozen of these, and all the others in Books 1 and 2 (Psalms 11, 16, 23, 62, 63).
Now David is no longer teaching his people to pray, “The Lord is my shepherd.” David is gone, leaving them under foreign powers (Psalm 89). Moses prays the Lord to take pity on his people (Psalm 90). Psalm 91 affirms they are still in God’s care. Even without David’s reign, the Lord reigns (Psalms 93:1; 95:3; 96:10; 97:1; 98:6; 99:1). They’re still a flock shepherded by the Lord (95:7; 100:3). That’s the context of this psalm of trust.
Psalm 91:1-2 (NIV)
1 Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
Jeremiah’s message helps us recover when everything falls apart.
Just as Jeremiah had said, Babylon swept through the whole region, ingesting all nations into its kingdom. God’s nation was no more. They lost the land where God’s anointed reigned. They lost the land Joshua fought for. They lost the land God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
How could they make sense of the world now? They’d regressed 700 years, to the time before God formed them as his nation at Sinai. The leaders and influencers were captives in Babylon. What should those who were left behind do now?
Feeling exposed and insecure, they considered going back to Egypt where Pharaoh might protect them. They asked Jeremiah.
Continue reading “Where is God’s reign when the kingdom falls? (Jeremiah 41–52)”
Something changed when a Canaanite recognized Jesus as the Davidic heir.
Continue reading “What Jesus learned from a Canaanite (Matthew 15:21-39)”
It sounds offensive. There’s more going on.
Would you be offended if someone compared you to a dog?
This morning I woke up in a sci-fi dream. I was part of a team mining essential minerals on a foreign planet. We were not to disclose who we were or where we came from or how much we’d found, since teams from other countries were seeking the same resources.
The stakes were high. If our enemies beat us, we may not have a future. We weren’t sure how far they would go to stop us. There were rumours of teams using chemicals and explosives for purposes other than mining. We never knew if the threat was genuine or disinformation.
Who gets ahead in this world? Is it those who climb on top by cancelling others? Is it the people who advertise themselves with self-confidence? Is it those who know how to manipulate markets to increase margins? What is success?
By our standards, Noah was successful. He floated a limited company while everyone else was being liquidated. He won the Monopoly game.
But our preoccupation with competition creates a world where the strong win and the strugglers lose. God is not a Capitalist. God was not pleased when Cain asserted himself by wiping Abel out. The legends of old boasted of their warrior exploits, but God saw it differently: The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time (Genesis 6:5)
God regretted the day he gave us dominion over creation. Why? We turned that authority into domination of each other. That’s the opposite of God’s heart (6:7). The monopoly game — dominating each other — makes the world pointless: corrupt in God’s sight and full of violence (6:11).
“The world is not enough,” according to 007. He’s probably right: a world dominated by evil is pointless. God takes responsibility for his mess (6:12-13). Rather than leave the decaying world to spiral down and destroy itself, God gave one person a chance.
Enoch walked into God’s presence without dying. That’s inspiring. He’s the second example of faith in Hebrews 11.
Enoch’s relocation into the heavenly realm is intriguing. What did he see when he got there? How is that world different to this one? Where are the dead? Why is there so much evil in this world? How will God sort out the sufferings of his people and bring justice to the world? What can we learn from Enoch?
A fresh take on Abel’s faith.
There’s no shortage of sermons and podcasts on faith, on how to receive by faith, or how to protect ourselves with the shield of faith. But do you recall any sermons on the faith of Abel?
Who wants to follow in Abel’s footsteps? Whatever faith he had, it didn’t end well for him.
I did find a message where Abel’s faith tops the list. Abel is the prime example in Hebrews 11:
4 By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.
Didn’t Cain win that one? Why start a faith message with the loser? What was different about Abel’s faith?
Is faith still relevant today? Or does it belong to a bygone era when Christendom ruled? Many who depended on the church to sustain them are seeing their faith crumble.
Does faith make sense anymore? Is it reasonable to believe for something better when there’s so much wrong? In the face of the whole gamut of crumbling relationships from personal despair to social anxiety and global conflicts, we need a very secure basis to hold on to faith.
Why was Abraham looking for a city? He already had one.
Augustine knew: our faith leads us to “the city of God.” Faith may be seeking understanding, but that’s not all. Faith seeks embodiment as a city under God.
Abraham knew: By faith, Abraham … went … for he was looking for a city (Hebrews 11:10).
Did you ever wonder why he lived like that when he already had a city?
In this series, we’ve talked about losing faith, changing faith, searching for faith, and finding faith.
Habakkuk 2:4 underpins several NT discussions of faith: the just shall live by his faith (KJV) or the righteous person will live by his faithfulness (NIV). We’ve seen how this applies to Jesus’ faith, gospel faith, our faith and our struggle with evil.
Hebrews also quotes Habakkuk 2:4, right before the big “faith” chapter (Hebrews 11). But the quotation in Hebrews is problematic, different how Paul quotes it in Romans 1:17 and Galatians 3:11.
The differences are due to translation. As a sermon delivered in Greek, Hebrews uses the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) just as most preachers use our English translations for sermons each Sunday.
But how are we to respond if Hebrews relies on a mistranslation? Does that mess with our faith?
Continue reading “When faith is a struggle (Hebrews 10:37–39)”
It helps to know what we’re looking for.
Our friends’ dog went missing a few weeks ago. They searched all the places near their home, checked with neighbours, phoned friends, and posted pictures on social media. Several days later, one of their friends saw a ‘found dog’ notice at a shop and recognized the dog from the Facebook photo.
If you’re searching for faith, it helps if you know what you’re looking for. Would you like to know what kind of faith Jesus is looking for?
If you’re searching for faith, where do you look? Would you find God out there somewhere? Or should you look within to find the energy that permeates all things?
When Luther said we’re saved by faith alone, he did not mean we’d be alone in our faith.
No, it’s not just nostalgia; faith really has changed.
Long ago, people believed what their community did. If your culture was animist, Buddhist, or Christendom, that was your faith.
All that began to change when an Italian pointed his telescope to the planets and told his community he no longer believed we were the centre of the universe. The keepers of the faith told Galileo he wasn’t allowed to believe that. Their attempt to control him undermined the credibility of the Church’s faith. Galileo became a kind of unofficial saint of independent belief.
Losing faith is heart-breaking. Relationships rely on faith. When trust dissolves, relationship does too. That leaves us feeling isolated, and it’s hard to trust again.
That’s just as true of our relationship with God. Aussies are facing a crisis of faith. Most of us no longer identify as Christian. Many say they have “no faith.”
Crisis might not be the right word. This is no sudden disaster, like a bushfire or a flood. It’s more like a climate change: rising sea-levels of unbelief gradually eroding our faith. Europe experienced this last century. America has yet to feel the full impact.
Perhaps we don’t lose faith, so much as misplace it. “Believe it enough, and all your dreams will come true,” Disney sings. And then we grow up to discover that I am not the centre of the universe, and it wasn’t designed to fulfil my dreams. Disillusioned I feel when my illusions evaporate.
We live because God does right out of his faithfulness to us. So, faithfulness to God leads us to do right as we live.
The opening verses of Paul’s letter to Rome contain the message the whole letter unpacks. By verse 17, the key theme comes into view:
Romans 1:17 (ESV)
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Questions? What is the righteousness of God? How is it revealed in the gospel? What does from faith for faith mean? And why include a quotation when he’s packing the message so densely?
Continue reading “Why the gospel calls for faith (Romans 1:17)”
The Crusades were one of the most damaging misrepresentations of God in church history. How can we avoid making the same mistake?
Good interpretation matters, because God’s word is life-giving. When we don’t receive Scripture well, we don’t live well. We make choices that seem right to us without the wisdom of God.
The Crusades are a stark reminder of how we can misrepresent God. In 1095, Pope Urban II called European Christians to take up arms and fight for the Byzantine Emperor to retake Jerusalem, particularly the site of Jesus’ temporary grave (Holy Sepulchre). “God wills it,” cried the conference he addressed.
Continue reading “Crusader, or living by faith? (Habakkuk 2:4)”
Seeking the kingdom 