Why is the Way narrow? And how narrow is it?

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.  For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” – Matthew 7:13-14

“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” – Acts 4:12

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” – John 14:6

This last week’s sermon covered a difficult subject: Why does God not save everyone?  When it came to our Tuesday night Supper and Study group, I did my best to facilitate the discussion and let people be as open and honest as they could be.  Sometimes it can be a scary job facilitating these kinds of topics.  It would be easy to just throw down the “right answer” and move on, ignoring the questions, confusion, and feelings of people who’ve perhaps never really wrestled with questions like this.  It would also be easy, but incredibly unfaithful to the gospel, to not point people towards real answers.  I won’t venture to judge how well I did.  But our discussion at Study last night has inspired me to lay out what I think are some important points to remember…

1. Humanity’s universal predicament

The point of Romans 1:18-32, which both the sermon and the Supper and Study groups this week have touched on, is that God’s wrath is his response to human evil.  And the root of this evil is the refusal to honor God and thank him for our lives (see verse 21 in particular).

The Bible never treats the existence of God as a doubtful issue that needs to be proven.  And in this passage in Romans, the apostle Paul tells us that “what can be known about God is plain [to people], because God has shown it to them” by means of the creation.  Humanity’s folly is to see the good things God has made, and instead of turning to God and thanking him, they live for and worship (and even fear) the things themselves.  And because we become like what we worship, humanity’s universal bent towards idolatry leads to a universal distortion in our humanity.  From what we do with our minds to what we do with our bodies, everything becomes corrupted when we stop worshiping God.

2. God’s perfect solution

The Bible is also clear that God has provided a solution to this universal problem.  When humanity walked away from God and became more and more corrupt, God declared that this would not be the last word in the story.  In the person of Jesus, God came after us.  He taught us about our heavenly Father.  He showed us the true intent of God’s commandments.  He also revealed to us just how godless we had become.  And then he dealt with the mess we have made once and for all at the cross.

The relationship between God and humanity had been destroyed from our side, and none of us were willing or able to fix it.  The covenant had been broken.  But by becoming man in the person of his Son Jesus, God upheld both sides of the covenant.  Where we disobeyed, Jesus obeyed.  Where we worshiped our wallets, our stomachs, or our egos, Jesus worshiped the Father.  But Jesus did not just obey in our place.  He identified himself with us as sinners.  He allowed himself to be baptized, though he had no sins from which he needed cleansing.  As the apostle Paul says elsewhere, Jesus became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21).  He obeyed in our place, and he also suffered the wrath of God in our place.  He suffered as man.  But he also suffered as God.  In Jesus Christ, God himself became the solution to mankind’s alienation from God.  If God himself has provided the solution, no other solution is needed.  If God himself provided such a costly solution as the death of his Son, clearly there was no other solution that would work.  Jesus himself is the answer to the problem of human evil.  Jesus is our salvation.

3. Who then will be saved?

The Greek word for “grace” is charis.  The Greek word for “gift” is charisma.  In the New Testament, salvation is by God’s grace – which means that it is a gift.  No one earns salvation.  From the beginning, God’s desire and plan was to be in a covenant relationship with mankind.  It was us who walked away.  And that could have been the last word.  God could have let us just have what was coming to us.  Instead, he came after us.  In Jesus, he re-established the covenant that we had broken and took upon himself the pain and loss which our rebellion deserves.  Now he offers reconciliation freely to all.  But it is a gift we have to receive, and it is a gift we receive through Jesus.

John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”  So the life we receive through Jesus is a life we receive through faith.  When we believe in God’s solution to humanity’s problem, we become partakers of that solution.  We get in on what God is doing.  Our sins get washed away.  We find ourselves reconciled to the God who made us.  But this is where the conversation gets tough…

What about people who have never heard of God’s solution?

Well, we have already seen from Romans 1:18-32 that people who have never heard of God’s solution are still not exempt from humanity’s problem.  They still have the issues of idol worship and sinful behavior that not only keep them from God, but serve as evidence that they too have turned away from God.  And the Bible’s number one answer to their predicament is that people who do know Jesus need to go and tell them about him!  This is the entire missionary enterprise – whether it means going oversees or going next door.

But what about those whom missionaries haven’t reached yet?

In the book of Acts, a gentile named Cornelius receives a vision about the apostle Peter.  An angel comes to Cornelius and tells him that there is a man who can tell him about salvation (see Acts 10).  In this instance, the angel merely sets things up for Cornelius to go find Peter.  It is Peter who ultimately tells Cornelius and his friends about Jesus.  But today, numerous stories arise from time to time about Muslims who are meeting Jesus in dreams and visions.  In the past, stories have been told of Hindus and Sikhs seeing Jesus in visions or being directed by angels to find Christian missionaries.  In American history, I have heard of more than one Native American tribe (I remember one specific instance in Canada) who have come to faith in Christ through the visions of their medicine men.  When these tribes have met Christian missionaries, both missionaries and tribesmen have realized that Jesus Christ is the Savior the Indians already knew.

These stories make the point that salvation is still always by the grace of God and through faith in Jesus.  They don’t eliminate the Bible’s number one answer to the problem of people who don’t know Jesus.  God’s plan is still to use his people to tell others about him.  But it reminds us that God is not limited.

If John 3:16 is true, we first of all need to realize that salvation is not just limited to conservative, evangelical, Pentecostal fundamentalism.  I say this a little tongue in cheek, but it is still worth remembering.  If “whosoever believes” is a real promise, then the breadth of the church throughout the world and throughout history is much broader than many of us suppose.  I am a Bible-believing, evangelical, Pentecostal Christian (perhaps not a “fundamentalist,” depending on what you mean by that) for a reason.  I think evangelical Christianity has a better grasp of the New Testament message than most other Christian streams.  But because I am a Bible believing evangelical, I have to affirm and emphasize the whosoever of “whosoever believes.”  Be they Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, Protestant, or of some indigenous church, wherever Jesus Christ is preached and believed in, salvation is there.

Jesus told us that “few” would find the way that leads to life, but the apostle John saw a vision of “a multitude that no one could number” worshiping the triune God (see Revelation 7:9-12).  In Jesus’ day, few indeed accepted the Messiah who had come to them.  In our own day, too, it seems that few have any real interest in Jesus.  Mankind has rebelled and the wrath of God is real.  But God is a God of love, and his desire is that none should perish.  How narrow is the way of salvation?  It is as narrow as Jesus and as broad as the grace of God.

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Free from, Free to, Free for…

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska

The freedom that God gives us in Christ is an amazing thing, usually not fully appreciated or comprehended by us.  I have been reading some in the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians lately, and Paul’s working understanding of freedom is rich and multifaceted.  In the apostle Paul’s theology of freedom in Christ, we find that we are simultaneously free from, free to, and free for.  Keep reading to see what I mean.

Free From:

“9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11, emphasis mine)

The first dimension of freedom is probably the most obvious and, perhaps, the least controversial.  The freedom that we have, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is a freedom from sin.  We are free from its eternal consequences because Christ suffered on our behalf.  We are free from its stains and shame because God has declared  us clean.

We are also free from sin’s power.  This is perhaps harder to believe, but it’s still true.  Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection not only takes away our guilt but also destroys sin’s power and rights over us.  We belong to Christ, and we no longer need to walk in sin (see Romans 6).  Not only that, but when we became believers in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit of God took up residence within us, regenerating our spirits and making us new.  So we are further freed from sin’s power by the very presence of God and the birth of a new nature inside.  As Paul says, we are washed, we are sanctified, and we are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.  Hallelujah!

But also…

“22 For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ. 23 You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men.” (1 Corinthians 7:22-23)

We are free from being defined or enslaved by anything or anyone other than Jesus Christ.  For Paul, circumcision and uncircumcision were irrelevant.  Being a slave or a free person were of little consequence (though if one could attain freedom, one should do so [v.21]).  Being rich or poor, male or female, and all the prestige or powerlessness inherent therein – none of that was of ultimate importance to Paul.  We are free from slavery to people and society so that we can become slaves of Christ and find true freedom therein.

Free To:

“let him do as he wishes: let them marry—it is no sin.” (1 Corinthians 7:36b)

“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof…” (1 Corinthians 10:26, Psalm 24:1).

“27 If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience. 28 But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience— 29 I do not mean your conscience, but his. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else’s conscience? 30 If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks?” (1 Corinthians 10:27-30)

As I have been driving around today running errands, I have been listening to my old punk rock CD’s from my high school years.  This is not Christian music.  It is punk rock, and it is youthful, loud, and foolish.  But, in my opinion, it is also great music!  I love putting in a CD of the Clash and listening to their snotty British sneers as they sing songs like “London’s Burning” and “I’m So Bored with the U.S.A.”  Like I say, this is not worship music.  It’s youthful foolishness put to music, and at times the entertainment I get is from laughing at the songs and at memories of myself when I was young and thought I was such a rebel.  But, Christian or not, it is music that I am free to enjoy.

We are not very good at this aspect of freedom, to be honest.  There are some reading this article right now who are perhaps coming up with a multitude of reasons why I really should not consider myself “free” to listen to my old punk rock CD’s.  And, to be honest, there are some people who would be wise to find something else to listen to.  There are also definitely people I would not listen to the music around because it might offend them or even cause them to stumble.  But for me it is not a stumbling block and it is an aspect of God’s good creation and common grace that I can find upbeat, fast and raucous music that fits my mood when I’m having a busy day of driving back and forth across the island.  Sometimes Hillsong United just won’t do the trick.

What I am trying to say is that Christians are not just free from sin, we are also free to enjoy life and the world and creation.  We are of course not free to sin – but if we make everything that is not religious or “spiritual” off limits we cut ourselves off from a huge swath of life that God meant for us to enjoy!  Really, no one should be more able to enjoy life than a Christian.  And even if someone were to object that the apostle Paul tells us, without the resurrection, “we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Corinthians 15:19), allow me to simply respond that the same apostle said that to teach Christians that they must abstain from the good things in life (like food and marriage) is demonic. “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (see 1 Timothy 4:3-4).  No one should be able to enjoy the good things that life gives us more than the Christian.

And this leads me to my final point…

Free For:

“19 For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.” (1 Corinthians 9:19)

“31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 32 Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, 33 just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.” (1 Corinthians 10:31-33)

“27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (1 Corinthians 12:27)

“Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts…” (1 Corinthians 14:1)

Having been set free from sin and having been made free to enjoy life, we are now ultimately free for God and others.  The apostle Paul, throughout his letter to the Corinthians, has been trying to get them free.  The Corinthians have already become free in the sense that their sins are forgiven and they have been adopted into God’s family and gifted with the Spirit of God.  But they are still stuck in their old carnal ways of thinking.  They want to divide up into cliques around their favorite preachers.  They want to make everyone in the church abstain from sexual relations within the bonds of marriage – not for Paul’s reasons but because, as good Greeks, they think they can become more “spiritual” by becoming less physical.  Others of them want to allow sexual behavior, not just within the bonds of marriage, but in whatever way feels good in the moment.  Others of them want corporate worship to become a time to flaunt their gifts and function in the Spirit however they want – no matter how it affects the people around them.  But Paul wants them free – free from their sin and their foolish ways of thinking, free to enjoy marriage and meat and wine (as long as they are not causing an impediment to their own or another’s faith and obedience), and ultimately free for each other, free for their lost neighbors who need to hear about Jesus and abandon their idols.  He wants the Corinthians to be free for God – the God who is love and who wants them to walk in the joy and freedom that comes when the Spirit of love is truly in operation.

 

 

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Praying in the Trinity

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska

This week is the annual meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies (SPS), the academic society for the world Pentecostal movement.  I had hoped to attend as a non-SPS member but decided not to for various reasons.  However, I’ve had the privilege of meeting some brothers in the Lord who are in town for the conference.  Three of us got together for coffee this morning in Seattle to have a brief time of fellowship between SPS events.  As we closed our time together in prayer, it struck me what a wonderful privilege it is to “pray in the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:18).

First of all, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that praying “in the Spirit” means more than just praying in tongues.  Of course, the apostle Paul uses “pray in the Spirit” as an alternate way of saying “pray in tongues” in his first letter to the Corinthians (see chapter 14).  But when Paul tells us to pray “at all times in the Spirit” in his Ephesians letter (6:18), I think he has something in mind that is more like his exhortation to “walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16).  Paul wants us to consciously live our lives in the Spirit.  And I say consciously, because if we are believers in Jesus, we are already “in the Spirit” so far as our salvation is concerned (Romans 8:9).  What Paul wants us to do is to live our lives and pray our prayers as though this were true.  Indeed, even being “baptized in the Spirit” is simply to let the Spirit of God who already dwells in all who believe be released in our lives.

That brief time of prayer with my Pentecostal brothers opened my eyes afresh to the wonderful privilege of praying to (and in) a God who is Trinity.  Scripture is clear that we pray to the Father (consider the opening words of the Lord’s prayer, “Our Father, who art in heaven…”).  Scripture also is clear that we pray in or through the Son.  That is what it means to pray “in Jesus’ name” – we come to God on the merits of his Son, our Great High Priest and our perfect sacrificial Lamb.  Indeed, as Jesus represents us before God as our Priest, he intercedes for us himself (Romans 8:34), and I have to imagine that our prayers “in Jesus’ name” come to the Father by means of Jesus’ priestly intercession (consider the interesting tension between Jesus’ words in John 14:13-14 and John 16:23-24, 26-27).

So we pray to the Father and through the Son.  We also pray in (the same Greek word could be translated by) the Spirit.  God himself is love.  He is within himself a Trinitarian fellowship – a community.  The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father.  The love of God that flows from Father to Son is the Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity (Romans 5:5), and when God draws us up into himself by the Spirit as we trust in Christ, we are drawn up into the life of love that is the Trinity.  The Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father, and by the Spirit they make their home together with us (John 14:15-23).  To pray “in the Spirit,” to me, means to lean into that reality.  To realize that because of Christ, the Father hears me and the Spirit lives within me.  To sense the reality of the Spirit, to lean into him, and to enjoy the Life of God at work within us.

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Giving Up Religion for Lent

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska

“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.” - Galatians 4:8-11 (ESV)

I thought about observing Lent this year.  Yes, I actually did.  And by “observing Lent” I mean that I thought about giving something up for the Lenten season.

For many of us, the season of Lent brings to mind legalistic, medieval Catholicism – castigating ourselves in hopes of pleasing God and shortening the time we will have to spend in purgatory.  For others, particularly those with a background in some more traditional branch of Christianity, the idea of observing Lent rings of hollow religiosity.  If we were raised in a traditional religious environment where things like Lent were observed but where no one seemed to personally know Jesus and no one taught us that we needed to be born again and become alive to God ourselves, then the season of Lent can appear to us as at best empty and meaningless, and at worst downright evil – a distraction from the true and living God.  And let’s face it – we are all hardwired for legalism.  We are all hardwired to think of our relationship with God as based upon some sort of points system where we do good things, or avoid bad things, or deny ourselves things we want to do, and somehow all of this becomes “credit” for us with God.  If we feed the homeless and avoid late night television, then God will be more prone to answer our prayers, right?

This is precisely where I saw the danger in giving up what I was going to give up for Lent.  I know that I am prone to religiosity and legalism (that’s why I am always harping about grace – I’m preaching to myself!).  I knew that if I gave something up for the season of Lent, it would become all about my own personal act of self-denial and nothing about Jesus.  So instead, I am giving up religion for Lent.  This doesn’t mean I am giving up corporate worship with the people of God on Sundays.  That is the highlight of every week!  It’s a joy!  This doesn’t mean I am releasing myself from the obligation to love others and do good to them.  If I love Jesus, how can I do otherwise?  This doesn’t mean that I am taking a break from Bible reading, prayer, and Christian fellowship.  I would sooner stop breathing and eating, and would eventually get the same result!  By “religion” I mean ladder climbing.  I mean doing something because it seems like it would make me more godly, but really just serves as a distraction from God.

The season of Lent, which begins today with Ash Wednesday, is a season where we enter into contemplation over our sin and the meaning of our own and the world’s suffering.  It covers a time of forty days to match the forty days that Christ spent in the wilderness being tempted by the devil.  Giving things up for Lent is a way of identifying with all that Christ gave up for us – it points to the costliness of sin and what it cost our Savior to save us from it.  As Americans, it would do us some good not to brush off the uncomfortable part of the “good news” and to embrace a season of contemplating the seriousness of our sin.  We often like to skip to the happy ending too quickly.  But the equal and opposite temptation also besets us regularly.  Even surrounded by crosses and songs about Jesus we still tend to think that our salvation is up to us.  Instead of descending into a deep and honest contemplation of the sinfulness of our sin, we want to be comforted and encouraged and told its not all that bad.  And in the face of the glorious truth that God has purchased our salvation once and for all at the cross of Christ, we tend to think that our Savior’s blood really only sets us up with a clean slate so we can start saving ourselves.

The truth of the matter is that our sin, not just our neighbor‘s sin, has really made a mess of this world.  The pain and tears of a starving child can be traced all the way back to the sin of Adam and Eve and you and me.  God gave us a beautiful world, and we have consumed it and destroyed it.  But instead of leaving us to our fate, God has entered into our darkness through Jesus Christ.  He absorbed the evil we created into himself on the cross.  He destroyed the devil’s kingdom on the cross and then sent his Spirit into our world to rescue us.  Being made new in Christ, we become part of that rescue mission, telling others about Jesus and loving our neighbors as ourselves.  One day God will wipe every tear from our eyes, he will set the poor and helpless back on their feet, he will judge those who have refused redemption, and he will establish his kingdom on earth.

The Christian calendar is one way (not the only way!) of preaching this gospel to ourselves.  Lent is the season of “bad news,” leading to the “good news” of Good Friday and Easter Sunday and Pentecost.  So I encourage you to consider observing Lent this year.  Consider your own sin and your need for a Savior.  And if you want to give something up, give up your sin, give up your independence, give up religion, and embrace the cross.

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Let’s Be Like Paul, Not Like Nazareth

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska

‘And when Jesus had finished these parables, he went away from there, and coming to his hometown he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.” And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.’ – Matthew 13:53-58 (ESV)

‘And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.’ – Philippians 1:6 (ESV)

There is an old saying: “Familiarity breeds contempt.”  It has also been said, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder (so please go away!).”  We are a small church in a small town.  There is no such thing as anonymity here.  And like Jesus’ small home town of Nazareth, we all think we know each other pretty well.  To be perfectly honest, we do.  Along with the many blessings of the small church community come some real obstacles.  And one of those obstacles is to limit (in our minds, at least) what God can do in and through one another.

The other day I was approached by someone who confided in me a growing sense of God’s calling to ministry in their life.  The sense of calling remains vague and unconfirmed, and my initial reaction was to dismiss it as a flight of fancy.  This person has a lot of growing to do, a lot of maturation.  To be honest, it may and probably will take years for this person to grow into their calling, and it will certainly require God’s confirmation as we go.  But as we were speaking, the Lord showed me how much judgment I had of this person.  I had already decided that this person could NEVER do what they believed God was calling them to do almost before the conversation even started.  It did not fit the picture I had already developed of this person.  “Is not this the carpenter’s son?”

The transition of leadership between Pastor Frank and I creates a similar such challenge.  As a pastor, will I limit what I think God is capable of doing through this flock?  Will I start looking around for new, “more gifted,” blood?  Will I be like Jesus’ childhood neighbors of Nazareth and stumble over God’s attempts to do wonderful new things through his people here as VICC?  Likewise, am I so familiar to you that you’ve already (perhaps not consciously) predetermined the limits of my growth?  Do you expect God to mature your new pastor into the man this congregation needs to lead it?  In sum, Are we looking for what God is doing in each other?  For the “new things” he wants to do? Or have we already set out limits on God’s ability to gift, to grow, to call, and to use one another?

Vashon Island Community Church is a body.  We are all one in Jesus Christ.  As Paul told the Corinthian believers in 1 Cor. 12, no one part can function without all the rest.  I know that God wants to use us for his kingdom on Vashon Island and in the wider world.  I have limitations.  You have limitations.  But the God we serve is a limitless God.  We can do all things through him who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13).  And, like Paul, we can be confident that whatever good work God has begun in us he will bring to completion, presenting us perfect in Christ on that glorious Day!

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Christ’s Incarnation and Our Suffering

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – Psalm 22:1 (quoted by Jesus from the cross, Matt. 27:46 and Mark 15:34)

Psalm 22 is a powerful psalm.  In fact, it is probably worth taking a minute to read it in its entirety before continuing.  It is a psalm of David, clearly written during a time of intense difficulty.  We do not know for certain which event in David’s life motivated the writing of this inspired song.  Was it his persecution at the hand of Saul?  Was it the rebellion of his son, Absalom?  We can never know for certain.  But whatever the circumstances, the psalm provides a fascinating glimpse of the great king’s worship and prayer life.

In verses 1-2, David very honestly questions God’s presence.  Where is God during all these trials David is facing?  Then in verses 3-5, David worships God, recounting his trustworthiness in ages past.  In verses 6-18, David continues recounting his troubles and the apparent hopelessness of his situation.  In verses 19-21, he calls out to God for deliverance.  But in the last sentence of verse 21, he switches tenses, no longer asking that God will deliver him but stating plainly that “You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!”  And at this point David begins speaking confidently for the rest of the psalm, predicting the praise that God is going to receive due to his glorious act of deliverance, verses 22-31.

We can make a few observations from this psalm.

1) Even faithful people like King David sometimes ask God, “Why?”

2) In the midst of suffering, an anchor for our souls can be to praise God for his past faithfulness, knowing that the God who was faithful yesterday will be faithful again today and tomorrow.

3) In the midst of suffering we can praise God for his deliverance, even if we don’t yet see it.  When David’s “mood” seems to change beginning at the end of verse 21, I think it is safe to say that David’s prayers had not yet been answered in actual space and time.  The David who cried out, “Why?”, to God was probably still in the same situation at the end of the psalm as he was at the beginning.  The difference is, he has grown confident that God is hearing him.  It is THIS shift, and not a shift in circumstance, that has caused the psalmist to change his tone and to begin speaking as though the dangers are past and all that is left is to praise.

4) Because this psalm becomes a prophecy of the suffering of Jesus, from his cries from the cross to his unbroken bones and divided clothing (see Matthew chapter 27), Psalm 22 also tells us something about Christ’s incarnation and suffering.  Of course, Christ’s death on the cross was first of all a substitutionary sacrifice for our sins (he is “the lamb of God”).  And it was also God’s means of defeating the powers of darkness and putting them to open shame, by reversing the power of sin and death in the innocent death of Christ and taking authority over those powers in the resurrection (see Colossians 2:15, Romans 8:3, 1 Corinthians 15:56, and Revelation 1:17-18, among others).  But on the cross, Jesus also entered into our suffering with us.

Isaiah prophesied that Jesus would be “a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).  The letter to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus “learned obedience through what he suffered” (5:8) and that he is not “unable to sympathize with our weaknesses” but is “one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (4:15).  And in one important sense, Jesus fulfills Psalm 22 by incarnating David’s song of suffering in his own suffering on the cross.  Jesus not only identified himself with David’s sin on the cross, but also with his suffering.

While one could argue that David’s suffering could have been the result of his sin (especially if the psalm was written during Absalom’s rebellion), it is worth realizing that David’s suffering itself was not sin.  And one could argue that any regular human suffering could be traced in some sense to the fact that all humans, other than Jesus, are sinners.  But the idea of innocent suffering is not at all foreign to biblical thought, and that seems to be what is going on in Psalm 22.  This leaves us with the fact that, in quoting this psalm from the cross and incarnating it in so many details of his crucifixion, Jesus not only took upon himself the sins of David but also identified himself with the sufferings of David as well.

What does that tell us about our suffering?  Does God simply watch us suffer?  Does he simply mourn our problems and offer us comforting snippets of scripture?  He does these things too, of course.  But at the heart of the incarnation of God in Jesus is a deeper truth.  God suffers with us.  He suffers with our neighbors.  He suffers with the hungry and the persecuted.  In humanity’s present brokenness, suffering is commonplace.  And in taking our humanity upon himself, God in Christ has identified himself with us in our pain.  He suffers too.

 

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The Importance of Praise

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska

 “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NIV)

Now there is an interesting verse.  How often do we wonder what God’s will is?  Many a sleepless night has been lost among believers, anxiously praying over the events of the next day or anxiously wondering what exactly God wants them to do with their lives.  Well, whatever else God wills for us, we know one thing: God wills that we be grateful to him, that we give him thanks.

Last night at prayer meeting, I found myself personally troubled by many things.  A week of prayer and fasting can, at times, allow weakness to surface rather than strength.  With all the changes taking place, and shifting responsibilities, and concerns for the future, I confess I was deeply distracted during our corporate prayer.  But God is faithful.  As I sat among that small group of saints, most of whom had known one another and prayed with one another for decades, I was humbled by how freely they praised God and thanked him for his blessings.  Some very serious needs were expressed, but still God was worthy of praise.  There was no spirit of doubt in the room.  No stinginess.  No attitude that said, “If God does ___________ for me, then I will praise him.”  No, those folks praised God there and then, despite any challenges expressed.

And I am not saying that God has not already answered prayers this week.  Last night we also praised God about three very specific needs that God kicked off the week by answering.  He truly hears us when we call out to him.  His love for us in Jesus Christ is unconditional.  His grace is free.  And his love was ours even before we accepted it.  But because God knows the end from the beginning, he wants us to trust him.  Notice that the apostle Paul does not tell us to be thankful for all circumstances (some things in life are truly evil), but he does tell us to be thankful in all circumstances.  God knows what he is doing.  He is still in control.  God is sovereign, and even the darkness is light to him (Psalm 139:12).  So in all circumstances, we can praise him.  God knows what he is doing, and the very breath with which we praise him is a gift.

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Observations on Fasting and Prayer

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska

“But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” – 1 Corinthians 9:26 (ESV)

During this week of prayer and fasting, I thought it might be worth meditating on the act of fasting itself.  Whether a person chooses to fast from food, from certain foods, from activities, or from media, the act of fasting carries with it certain risks.  As naturally sinful people, we can all too easily turn anything into an idol – including our own self will.  If we are not careful, the act of abstaining from certain needs or pleasures can become an act of “will worship” (Colossians 2:23, KJV), or “willpower religion.”  Our sense of spiritual assurance or righteousness before God can rise and fall with our success or failure in the disciplines.  Instead of self-denial for the sake of others (Isaiah 58:6-7) or the sake of displaying repentence (Jonah 3:6-10) or for personal discipline (1 Corinthians 9:26), it becomes a means of justification, which is idolatry.  Only Jesus can justify us, or make us right, before God.  Jesus has done it all, and on him we rest.

That having been said, fasting is legitimate when we deny ourselves food or other luxuries for biblical reasons, such as to be more generous towards others.  Also, if we are broken over our sins, sometimes a season of fasting and prayer is an appropriate decision – if we can avoid the error of thinking it’s our acts of self-denial, and not the mercy of God, that justifies us (Luke 18:9-14).  And finally, there is the value of simply fasting for the sake of personal discipline…

While fasting for this reason carries with it many, many potential pitfalls, it also can be a tool in the Lord’s hands to teach us many things.  A season of fasting is very similar to the act of turning from temptation.  There is within us a duel between two desires – pleasure and satsfaction on one end and our commitment to the Lord on the other.  The act of relying on grace, and building a little spiritual muscle, could be really good for a lot of us.  Just as no one runs a marathon the first day learning to jog, so also does the believer start weak.  But over time, stamina and perseverence become part of one’s character, and the pain that accompanis saying “no” to sinful temptation holds less sway in one’s heart.

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2013 Week of Prayer. Join the 7:14 Movement!

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Administrator

2013 Week of Prayer Promo Video

This year the Assemblies of God has begun the “7:14 Prayer Movement” based on 2 Chronicles 7:14. Watch the video and take part in the week of prayer with us!

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Peace in the Church

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Administrator

By Mike Ivaska

“Cain spoke to Abel his brother.  And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.” Genesis 4:8 (ESV)

Normally this is not the sort of topic I would write or speak on during a season of peace in the congregation, but I believe the Lord wants me to say something on living at peace with one another.  During times of immense loss and sorrow, often we are unprepared or incapable of receiving comfort from the doctrine of God’s providence.  But if we have come to know and love that truth during normal times, then we find ourselves prepared to trust in an almighty God during dark seasons, too.  In the same way, if we meditate on God’s call that his people be peacemakers, then perhaps by his grace we might find ourselves uniquely equipped to avoid the temptations of pride and fear that lead to church conflict.

There is much that I could say on the topic of church conflict, but the Lord has been showing me something lately and it is this that I want to speak to: the unhealthy need to get one’s own way, to “win.”

In his first letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul reprimanded that church for taking their interpersonal conflicts to court.  The sadly divided congregation, who couldn’t agree on anything from “who’s the best apostle?” to “what’s the coolest spiritual gift?,” had allowed their inability to get along to descend to the point of lawsuits against one another.  Paul was flabbergasted, and wondered aloud if there really was no one in the congregation mature enough to deal with these conflicts (1 Cor. 6:5).  Then Paul goes on to say,

“To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you.  Why not suffer wrong?  Why not rather be defrauded?  But you yourselves wrong and defraud – even your own brothers!” (1 Cor. 6:7-8, ESV).

“Why not suffer wrong?” Paul asks.  Those are difficult words, but they point to the heart of the gospel.  Jesus Christ suffered wrong at the hands of sinful men for their sake.  He turned the other cheek and, as Isaiah prophesied, opened not his mouth to argue back.  The very heart of Christ’s commands to love and forgive is the fact that this is what God in Christ does for us on a daily basis.  Jesus Christ committed himself to the Father’s will and did not fight back.  He went to the cross, and by doing so redeemed all who believe – including many who no doubt approved of his execution, judging by the mass conversion on Pentecost and the many Pharisees and priests in Jerusalem who converted in the early days of the church.

There is more to settling conflict than turning the other cheek, of course.  Letting others persist in sin to their own undoing is hardly a loving act.  But how often does church conflict and division stem from open sin?  While it leads to sin, and is itself sin, conflict usually develops out of personality differences, poor communication skills, inability to cooperate, a lack to patience to learn how, or even the perception of wrongdoing that takes place long before any of God’s commands are actually, if ever, violated.

Letting go of our rights, turning the other cheek, and handing our fate over to our heavenly Father all go a long way toward preparing our hearts for conflict, particularly conflict that stems from change.  I need to be careful in these regards.  I think we all do.  And more importantly, choosing to live this way is simply part of our discipleship as we obey Christ’s commands and follow the humble example of our risen Lord.

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