Colin S. Smith's Blog, page 4

Jesus Will Return to Put the World Right

In 2000, our son Matt was born with post axial hypoplasia in his left leg. This condition can have a variety of bone abnormalities. In his case, his left femur, tibia, and fibula were not the same length as those on his right and would likely never “catch up” during his growth to maturity. In addition, of the twenty-six bones that most people have in their left foot, Matt had just two. The doctor was unable to determine if those two were phalanges or metatarsals as there were no other bones whatsoever inside the flesh that bore a vague resemblance to a typical human foot.

The painful solution to this condition was amputation of that foot when he was just seven months old to create a heel pad on the distal end of his limb. That surgery allowed him to be fitted for a prosthetic left leg which could address both disabilities created by the condition. First, it provided a substitute foot so that he would be able to walk. Second, the knee down nature of the device created a way to artificially lengthen the left leg as he grew so that it could always be the same length as the right leg.

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Now, as his parents, my wife and I have obviously done all we can to help Matt with his disability. That’s what you do when you face something wrong in life, particularly with those people you love most. You do your best to make it right. Further, we have celebrated the advancements of technology that have helped him. Isn’t it amazing that he was the first of our four children to walk? I’ll never forget when he stood up and ambled across our kitchen floor at just 11 months old. Such a precious memory. Matt even played baseball in high school. We rejoice in all that he has been able to do physically as well as in all that people have done to help him overcome the challenges presented by his body.
The World Is Not Right
Yet, we also clearly understand what cannot be done for him. We cannot give him a new left leg and foot with all the bones and proper development. Oh, how we wish we could! We would give up our own bones in a heartbeat so that he could have them. But, alas, we can’t make the situation right in that way.

You see, none of the good that has been done removes the sense of loss we feel for him regarding what cannot be done. In other words, we have hopes for his earthly life that can and are being realized, and for that we are very grateful. But we have no hope for true physical wholeness for him on this planet. That isn’t available to him, or to anyone for that matter, in this life. It awaits in the next.

The world is not right and there are some things we can’t resolve:

Hurricanes tear through the Gulf of Mexico and flood multiple states. We know they are coming. We prepare for them, but we can’t stop them.
We create laws to stop racism and protest when it happens, but it still lingers in the hearts of people.
We organize our house and care for our lawn, but the laundry piles up and drought and grubs turn the grass brown.
We bombard cancer with chemotherapy and radiation, but it returns to grow until it overtakes life.
We try to keep the winter salt off the car but rust invariably develops causing a breakdown.

Humanity continues to strive for utopia, but original sin makes it impossible to achieve. Just like no one can get eggs out of a cake that has been baked, no one can get the sin out of us and the world; no one, that is, except Jesus.
All Things New
The good news about the Lord is that He has promised to return to earth to right all that is wrong with this world. He is not just interested in justice and purity. He is determined to usher in glory. The Apostle John saw a vision of the Lord doing just that and recorded it in Revelation 21. About this promise, Jesus said,

“Behold, I am making all things new. Write this down for these words are trustworthy and true.” (Revelation 21:5)

Jesus is going to make everything new. Forty days after His resurrection, He ascended into heaven. At an unknown time in the future, He will descend from heaven in the same form and in the same way that He left. After He returns, He will continue His work of making everything new by giving Christians new bodies, patterned after His resurrection body.

Whereas our current bodies are flawed, weak, natural, sinful, and perishable, our new bodies will be like His – complete, invulnerable, spiritual, holy, and immortal. With the same power He used to raise himself from the dead, He will raise you, Christian. He’s not going to enter your grave and perform CPR to reanimate your old body. He’s going to transform your current one, whether it is alive or dead when He returns, into a glorified one.

Then, with the same power Jesus used to create the cosmos, He is going to create a new glorified world. Since the Scripture is silent on the scope of the change, we don’t know if He plans to resurrect the entire universe, just the Milky Way, or simply our solar system. It is difficult to have certainty on how pervasive sin is and how thoroughly it has corrupted what God has made.

What we do know is that the world that we currently experience will be transformed such that all the effects of original sin will be overcome. Jesus will eliminate the presence of sin, setting the creation itself free from its bondage to corruption. And the results will be astounding. Disease will end and everlasting health will begin. Disabilities will be made permanently whole. Discord will give way to constant harmony. Decay will reverse into perpetual growth. Tranquility will replace disorder and success will supplant disaster. Even death itself will die. Revelation 21:4 describes his return in this way:

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

This is the gospel hope we have for our son Matt, ourselves, and everyone else: a New Heaven and a New Earth where righteousness dwells. Only Jesus, the Son of God, can create this eternal life. He is the only one who can save us from all that is currently wrong. He is the only Savior of sinners.

 



 

Editor's Note: Get your copy of Always Good News: Why the Message of Jesus is Good Every Day by Scott Lothery this month for a gift of any amount. Also consider taking Scott's course in Open the Bible for Leaders called Grasp the Gospel or hearing how Always Good News can encourage your whole church.

Four Reasons the Gospel Can Be Unclear

When I was in my 40’s, I vividly remember the sudden onset of farsightedness – words on a page being blurry the closer they got to my eyes. It was so discouraging, not just because it happened so quickly, but also because I was already nearsighted. So, I went to my eye doctor, and he explained how common this was, why it happened, and how I could address it. And my discouragement quickly faded.

Just like that doctor did for me, I want to provide you some comfort as to why you may have lacked confidence in defining the good news, if that has been the case with you. It’s actually quite common and here are four reasons why:

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1. The Gospel Is Simple and Deep at the Same Time.

It is a straightforward, easy, and uncomplicated message. Yet, it also dense, unfathomable, and profound. I explained the gospel to all four of my children when they were young, and they readily understood it. However, I also produced a doctoral project of 100,000+ words that still hasn’t even come close to exploring all the depths of its meaning and application.

In that way, the gospel is like the ocean or the universe. A child knows the joy of sandcastles at the beach with the calming sound of the waves, but the world’s most knowledgeable and experienced oceanographers would never say they truly know all that the ocean is. Likewise, most people know the wonder of looking up at a dark night sky filled with bright stars and a full moon, but would any astronomer ever proclaim to understand the cosmos?

How do you define the ocean? How do you sum it up in a way that is faithful to its depths? How about the universe? What can one succinctly say to describe it in all its immensity? Though both ocean and universe are easy to experience, they are also quite overwhelming and, thus, difficult to define. I think that simple, but deep aspect also makes the gospel hard to keep straight in our mind.

2. The Gospel Is Not Regularly Emphasized in Churches.

Some churches don’t hold the Bible in very high regard. They believe it is merely man’s word about God, not God’s definitive Word to humanity. The result of that worldview is they don’t feel compelled to preach the gospel of the Scriptures. They don’t emphasize it because they have little motivation to know it or believe it. They don’t think it’s that much more important than their own thoughts about what constitutes good news from God. So, of course, their congregations are unclear about what the gospel is.

Other churches know it and believe it, but think it is primarily a message for non-Christians. They only preach the gospel for outreach events or during worship services when they think more unbelievers will be there. They don’t regularly proclaim it because they aren’t convinced it is a message for Christians too. Instead, they focus their teaching on how believers should live their lives. Therefore, their congregations can also be prone to being unsure about the content of the gospel. Perhaps you have attended a church like one of these two examples. That could be a second reason why it’s been unclear.

3. The Human Heart Drifts from the Gospel.

So, even if you attend a church that does emphasize it, another challenge to certainty about the good news is that your humanity does not help you in your effort. There is a tide in our very nature that is consistently pushing against us thinking clearly about it. We are bent away from clarity on it.

The sea provides a helpful analogy. In college after a doubleheader in Panama City, Florida, my baseball teammates and I swam straight out into the Gulf of Mexico to reach a sandbar, but we could never quite get there. When we returned to shore sometime later, we found ourselves 1/4 mile away from where we left and exhausted. Unbeknownst to us, the tide was pushing us back to shore and East.

It’s a bit like that with our fallen human nature. We drift away from God not towards God. So, it is a regular battle to maintain clarity about the message of Jesus. It is like swimming against the tide. You are in that battle every day. It is certainly one reason why you may struggle to keep the gospel clear in your mind.

4. The Bible Is Not a Dictionary.

So, it is not like you can simply turn to the “G” section signified by a tab sticking out of the book and get the definition of the gospel. It is much harder than that.

And if you look up “Gospel” in the table of contents, you may be slightly misled as to its meaning because Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are sometimes called Gospels, even though these books aren’t entitled ‘gospel’ in the original language, nor are they limited to the gospel in their content. They are theologized biographies of Jesus of Nazareth, not good news lexicons.

The Bible is a collection of 66 books written by about 40 authors over 1500 years in 15+ genres. Determining the meaning of a word used in this vast and diverse book requires more than scanning the table of contents or doing a quick search. It warrants studying all the occurrences of that word, its cognates, and its idioms across all that material, each in its context.

If you do that, you will find that the Bible doesn’t contain one, explicit, repeated definition of the good news. Though most of the information on the gospel is in the New Testament, even there it isn’t easy to quickly identify. The Apostles explained it in different ways without contradicting each other. Synthesizing their views into one concise definition faithful to all the Bible teaches about the gospel is quite a difficult task—very hard indeed.

Furthermore, when you do that kind of research you will also discover that the gospel is an eternal message that is progressively revealed, both in the Bible and in history. This dynamic may present the most significant challenge of all. It is not as simple as just taking the last “definition” we see in Scripture. We need to take great care that the last revelation is also informed by all the previous revelations of it and that we are identifying the difference between the headlines of the good news and the depth of the details about it.

All the occurrences of the message in the Bible have consistency since they are the same message. At the same time, some of those occurrences are more well-developed and each one is contextualized to the situation and the specific time-period of salvation history. That makes it extremely difficult to define. It could be why you have had some trouble.

Is your head spinning even more right now? It is not hard to understand why. If you have had difficulty maintaining clarity about the message of Jesus, there are at least these four reasons for that. That’s one reason I wrote Always Good News. To make the gospel clear to as many people as possible.

 

Editor's Note: Get your copy of Always Good News: Why the Message of Jesus is Good Every Day by Scott Lothery this month for a gift of any amount. Also consider taking Scott's course in Open the Bible for Leaders called Grasp the Gospel or hearing how Always Good News can encourage your whole church.

Why the Gospel Is Always Good News: An Interview with Pastor Scott Lothery

If you asked five random Christians "What is the gospel?" you might get five different answers. Many believers are simply confused as to the content of the gospel. That's why we're thankful for the new book Always Good News: Why the Message of Jesus Is Good News Every Day by Pastor Scott Lothery. In the short book, Scott walks through a biblical framework for describing the gospel that every Christian should be aware of. (That's why we have Scott teaching on the gospel as part of Open the Bible for Leaders .)

What follows is a Q&A with Pastor Scott about his new book and the gospel message.



[caption id="attachment_142297" align="alignright" width="295"] Get your copy of Always Good News by Scott Lothery this month for a gift of any amount.[/caption]

1. Always Good News captures teaching on the gospel you’ve been developing for years. What's the backstory for the book?

In the early 2000’s, I set out to do some doctoral work focused on how the gospel nourishes the virtue of Jesus in Christians. As I began to make those connections in my research, I casually mentioned to my professor that there seemed to be a lack of clarity in the church surrounding what the gospel itself is. He responded by telling me that I had to first focus on defining the gospel before I could move onto demonstrating how it makes us more like Jesus. What I thought was a preliminary part of my project turned out to be my major focus and yielded Always Good News. I still aspire to write that second book though. My working title for it is The Gospel Nourished Life: How the Message of Jesus Cultivates the Virtue of God.

2. As you studied the gospel so intently, did anything surprise you?

During my research, I discovered that the only occurrence of the word “love” in the entire book of Acts is the word “beloved” in Acts 15:25, used by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem as an adjective to describe their affection for Barnabas and Paul. That was very surprising! The words “loved,” “loves,” “loving,” “lover,” and “lovely” are all absent from the book. Basically, there’s no “love” in Acts. Why was that so surprising to me? Well, Acts is the historical record of the evangelistic activity of the apostles. It is the God-inspired account of the gospel going forward to the entire Roman Empire. It is the only New Testament narrative that describes the content and nature of the Spirit-filled, gospel-preaching ministry of men like Peter, Paul, and Philip, men after whom the church patterns our gospel preaching. As such, it contains direct quotes from their lips as well as summary descriptions of their sermons to non-Christians. It seems quite strange, then, doesn’t it, especially for those of us who have long understood the gospel to begin with “God loves you” that the word “love” is not found anywhere in the book of Acts. Nowhere does Luke record, “And Paul said to the crowd gathered in the town square, ‘God loves you,’ because he wanted them to understand the gospel.” Nowhere is it written, “Peter told the Samarians how much God loved them in Jesus Christ.” They are never recorded as reciting John 3:16.

So, I had to wrestle with the question…how can it be that the biblical book about the preaching of the gospel in the world does not include the word “love” when the whole world seems to understand the gospel as “God so loved the world…”? I reflect on that question in the last chapter of Always Good News and I think I present a good conclusion.

3. If you’re on an elevator, and someone asks you "What is the gospel?" How would you answer in under two minutes?

I can do it in under 20 seconds. :-) The gospel is the good news about Jesus of Nazareth. That He is the Lord of all, who is putting the world right regarding sin, the only one who can do that, and He is saving sinners by grace through faith.

4. How/Why do you recommend someone use the Lord-Sin-Savior-Faith framework to share their testimony?

I was taught that your Christian testimony should be formatted in three sections: Who were you before you became a Christian? How did you become a Christian? What is your life like now that you are a Christian? I don’t think that is a bad way to do it, but sometimes it lends itself to focusing on how God has improved your life through Christianity. Clearly, the Apostle Paul might suggest that the circumstances of his life got worse after becoming a Christian.

I prefer a Christian testimony that is focused on testifying about Jesus. It doesn’t have to be a four-question formula that aligns with Lord-Sin-Savior-Faith, just make sure you cover those topics so that your testimony focuses on the gospel. For example, how did you conclude that Jesus of Nazareth is the one true Lord of the world? What sins did Jesus convict you of? When did you put your faith in Him as the only one who can save you from sin and its consequences?

5. The church doesn't seem to talk much today about the return of Christ, at least in comparison with the New Testament authors. Why is this? And why should Christ's return be a greater focus?

Perhaps some segments don’t talk about the return of Christ as much because they’re focused on how to improve life here on earth now. I think other segments of the church talk a great deal about the return of Christ but do so with a focus on what is going to happen prior to His return.

I’d prefer that our focus would be on what His return accomplishes – completing the work of putting the world right regarding sin. That is vitally important. Everyone needs hope regarding their sin, the sin of others, and the pervasive effect of sin on our world. Jesus’ return is that hope. I am on the edge of my seat in life waiting for it to happen. Yes, I know by faith that I am forgiven, but I can’t wait for the day when my faith is sight, the day that He looks me in the eye and tells me I am forgiven. Scott Lothery is pardoned! Incredible!!

Likewise, I am eager to have my soul healed from the hurt of being sinned against in this world. Yes, I feel His healing work in my heart now for all the ways I have been wronged, but I long for the day that I am completely whole again with no pain in my soul. I want my inner scars to disappear. Similar, I was delivered from the spiral of drug addiction in 1992, but I still struggle with self-control in other areas of my life. I yearn for the day when I only want the virtue of Christ, and I always think, desire and act in alignment with His virtue, never again being burdened by the power of sin.

Lastly, I want a new body equipped to explore the incomprehensible new universe; a body that is complete, invulnerable, spiritual, holy, and immortal. I long for that transformation for myself and the people I love so much.

6. What is common feedback you've heard about this teaching from believers? From pastors? Any common themes of "We've never heard this before?"

I have received feedback from unchurched people, Christians, and pastors. In general, people have described it as a compelling and encouraging book. When they are done with it, they often think of other people who they want to share it with. The bit about the word “love” not being a headline is something people haven’t heard before, but I think there are several other more prominent themes that people find encouraging. Some say it helped them refocus on Jesus as the main topic of the good news. Others comment that they have been refreshed by the book’s focus on how each aspect of the news about Jesus is good, and how that good news applies to their life every day. Still others appreciated the motivation the book provides to live out their faith more fully and share their faith more frequently.

Get your copy of Always Good News by Scott Lothery this month for a gift of any amount.

Six Dimensions of Hell on the Cross

Artists and poets have speculated over the centuries about hell (consider Dante’s “Inferno”), but the clearest revelation of hell is given at the cross.  The Apostle’s Creed affirms that Christ descended into hell. While this has often been taken to refer to a journey Christ made after His death, the Reformers understood it to refer to what Christ experienced in the hours of darkness when He bore our sins and became our sacrifice.

Hell has six dimensions and Christ experienced all of them on the cross.
1. He was in conscious suffering.
Jesus experienced great physical suffering—the scourging, the nailing and the mocking—all at the hands of men. He felt in His body all the pain of torture and crucifixion. Hell is a place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Luke 13:28; Matthew 13:50), and Jesus entered into all of its pains and torments when He was suffering on the cross.
2. He was in blackest darkness.
“From the sixth hour [midday] until the ninth hour [3 in the afternoon], darkness came over all the land” (Matthew 27:45). The sudden darkness tells us that something entirely new was happening. Up to this point it had all been about physical suffering. Now Jesus was entering into the heart of His atoning work as our sin-bearer, drinking the cup of God’s wrath.
3. He was surrounded by demonic powers.
Scripture speaks of these dark forces when it tells us that “having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2:15). A full picture of this conflict has not been given to us, but we can be sure that the demonic powers were present at Calvary, adding their taunts and venom to the human hatred that was poured out on Christ.
4. He was bearing sin.
1 Peter 2:24 says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.” God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). In the darkness, the Lord laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). To be our sin-bearer, Christ received in Himself the hell that our sins deserve. Klass Schilder says God was “directly sending the torments of hell against the Christ.” [i] This is the deepest mystery in the darkness of the cross.
5. He was under judgment.
Jesus endured hell on the cross because hell is the punishment for sin. All that hell is, He experienced right there during these hours of darkness in which He bore our sin and endured our punishment. The wrath of God was poured out on Him, and He became the propitiation for our sins (Romans 3:25, 1 John 2:2).
6. He was separated from the knowledge of God’s love of God.
This abandoning of Christ meant that the love the Son had enjoyed with His Father for all eternity was now beyond His reach. It also meant that the terrors of the Father’s judgment were poured out on the Savior. 2 Thessalonians 1:9 says that “those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus…will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”

That is hell.

Hell is conscious suffering in blackest darkness, surrounded by demonic powers. It is bearing the guilt of your sin and coming under the righteous judgment of God. But the hell of hell for the sinner will be to know that there is a God of love and that he or she could have known this is love, but that now it is beyond their reach.

When people talk about hell, the discussion is often about whether or not it is real. Hell is as real as the cross. Jesus entered all of hell’s dimensions on the cross, and He endured them so that you would never know what hell is like.

If someone should say, “There is no hell,” I ask, “Then what was the cross about? Why did Christ have to suffer? Why the darkness? Why the forsakenness? These things happened because there is there is Divine wrath, there is judgment and there is hell. All of this was poured out on Jesus, and He absorbed it in himself to save us from it. But as Richard Sibbes says, “Whatsoever was done to Christ…shall be done to all that are out[side] of him.” [ii]

That is as plain a statement as you can get, and it is faithful to the Scriptures. It is why every person must come to Jesus Christ and be in Him, because we cannot be saved without Him.
[i] Klass Schilder, “Christ Crucified,” p. 404, Sovereign Grace Pub., 2001
[ii] [ii] Richard Sibbes, “The Works of R.S., Vol. 1,”  p. 354, Banner of Truth, 1973

The Story of the Thief on the Cross—and What It Means for Us

If you want a short and powerful story that teaches the gospel of grace, you can't beat the story of the thief crucified next to Jesus (Luke 23:39–43; Matthew 27:38–44). 

In actuality, two thieves were crucified next to Jesus. One trusted Him and received salvation, and the other did not. In this article, we will walk through the story of the first thief, the repentant one (sometimes called the penitent thief), in four parts.
1) Both thieves mocked Jesus
Crucifixion, by design, drains the life and energy out of a body. Matthew tells us in his account that the two thieves used the little breath they had to mock Jesus (Matthew 27:44). In doing so, they adopted the same behavior as the religious leaders and other onlookers who witnessed His death (see Matthew 27:39–43).

Jesus was not surprised to hear the mockery or to be crucified between two thieves (see Isaiah 53:12). Jesus quoted and fulfilled Psalm 22 when He prayed "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:1). The same psalm also says: “All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads; ‘He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!’” (Psalm 22:7–8).
2) The repentant thief recognized his sinfulness
While one thief hurled insults at Jesus, saying “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!”, the repentant thief chided him: “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong" (Luke 23:39–41).

What a stunning transformation. The thief no longer mocked Jesus, now he defended Him. What changed? We don't know when the repentant thief began to fear God, but we find clues when we look at the Scriptures and think what the thief experienced alongside Jesus.

John narrates that Jesus died before the robbers (John 19:32–34). This means that the repentant thief was able to observe everything that happened when Jesus was on the cross, including His cry: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). We do not know what the thief thought when he heard these words, but it’s not difficult to imagine that something like the following went through his head: "If He was ready to forgive the man who drove the spikes into His hands and feet, maybe He was ready to forgive me.”[1]
3) The repentant thief believed in the Lord Jesus Christ
After an internal transformation, the thief said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). The thief believed that Jesus was a king with a real kingdom. Normal kings don't die on crosses, and certainly have no kingdoms after death. So, the thief believed that this king was more than an earthly king, He was a Savior King able to take him to His heavenly kingdom.
4) The repentant thief was saved by Jesus
Jesus answered the repentant thief with the most hopeful words possible: "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). A thief who woke up in the morning on his way to hell had his eternal destiny changed with a simple plea to the Savior. “Jesus, remember me.”
What Does This Story Mean for Us?
This story reminds us, first of all, that salvation is a gift from God . The repentant thief had no time for good deeds. He could not repay those he had stolen from, help the poor, or be baptized. He also did not have a sophisticated faith. He probably would have failed a Bible knowledge test. All he could do was look to the Savior with faith and ask for mercy. And that's all he needed.

The experience of the repentant thief is a perfect illustration of the biblical truth that salvation is a gift of God's grace that we receive through faith and not by works (see Ephesians 2:8–9; Titus 3:5).

Second, the story of the repentant thief shows us that no sin is too bad to be forgiven . The repentant thief had already received a death sentence for his wrongdoing. All we know about his sin is that the Scriptures call him a thief and a criminal. This sin, according to the world, deserved death. However, according to Jesus, it was forgivable. The death of Jesus is enough to pay the debt of all our sins (Romans 6:23). What the sinner has to do is acknowledge and confess his or her sinfulness and ask Jesus for forgiveness.

Ultimately, this story means there is hope for you, too . The repentant thief believed in Jesus Christ in his last minutes. This is proof that God will show grace and forgive the sins of all those who believe in Him, even in their dying breaths.

This is a glorious truth! But you might know this truth and think, "I'll live the way I want now and trust in Jesus when I'm older," or "I'll trust Jesus on my deathbed." Two questions expose the recklessness of thinking this way:

1) How do you know you will have the opportunity later? Your heart could stop beating in a second and you'd go to hell.
2) How do you know you will want to trust Jesus in the future if you don't want to now?

The truth is, we are like the thief. We have sinned against a holy God and deserve His wrath. One day every human being must appear for judgment (Hebrews 9:27). However, as we saw in the story of the thief, there is hope for everyone who humbles themselves before God in faith and repentance. If you do this, Jesus will say to you with joy: “Truly I say to you: you will be with me in paradise.”



 

[1] Colin Smith suggested these words in Heaven, How I Got Here: The Story of the Thief on the Cross. You can listen to the audio of the book below.



This article was published originally in Spanish on Coalición por el Evangelio.

Three Means by Which People Follow Jesus

The first disciples did not all come to Jesus in the same way. They had different stories , and they found their way to Jesus by different means.
1. Gospel Proclamation
Two disciples of John “followed Jesus” (John 1:37). They did this as a result of John’s preaching. They heard John say, “Behold, the Lamb of God,” and it was through this preaching that they moved away from him and became followers of Jesus.

One of those who left John the Baptist and followed Jesus was Andrew (John 1:40). Many believe that the other was John, the apostle, who wrote this fourth Gospel. He never names himself in the Gospel, though he later describes himself as “the disciple who Jesus loved” (John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7; 20).
2. Personal Invitation
Simon Peter became a follower of Jesus through the personal invitation of his brother, Andrew:

One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which means Christ). (John 1:40-41)

Then these beautiful words, “He brought him to Jesus” (John 1:42). Andrew brought his brother to Jesus by sharing his own testimony, “We have found the Messiah! Here’s what I have discovered in Jesus…” Peter met Jesus and became a disciple of Jesus because he was invited by a friend.

You find the same pattern in the words of Philip to Nathaniel:

We have found him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote. (John 1:45)

Think about your family circle. Think about your friends and neighbors. Think about your colleagues in your work place. Who needs to meet and follow Jesus?

Some people come to Christ through the public preaching of the gospel (that’s why it is a good thing to invite people to come to church), but others are brought to Christ by the personal influence of a friend.
3. Direct Intervention

The next day, Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me." (John 1:43)

As far as we can tell, no other human agency was involved here. Philip did not become a disciple because he heard a preacher or because he was invited by a friend. Jesus Christ stepped into his life directly.

Christ does this, and we should be thankful for it, and pray that He will do it. We should pray that, through our personal invitation, people will know that Jesus is calling them to follow Him. We should pray that, in our public preaching, people will know that Jesus is saying to them, “Follow me!”

And when people in your life are not open to a personal invitation, and they won’t listen to gospel preaching, you can ask God to make a direct intervention in their lives, to lay hold of them by His Holy Spirit and bring about a change of heart.

There will be some of us for whom that will also be true. You can’t point to any particular preacher that you heard or person you met, but over a period of time, there was a growing hunger in your heart, and this led you to read the Bible and then to pray and somehow, in God’s kindness, Jesus Christ laid hold of you and you began to follow Him.

It would be a good thing in your small groups to share the stories of how each person became a follower of Jesus. You don’t have to have a dramatic conversion story. What matters is that however you got there, you know Jesus, you believe in Him, and you follow Him now.

People become disciples of Jesus in a variety of ways. Our approach should be to do all that we can in gospel proclamation, personal invitation, and prayer for direct intervention. By all means win some!
Who in your life needs to meet and follow Jesus?

Faith Is Like a Muscle and Needs to Be Exercised

Faith is like a muscle – if it is not used, it will atrophy.

Some of us spend time every day exercising certain muscles that we want to develop. You say, “I haven’t run for a week, and I feel the difference.” Similarly, if a week goes by without exercising faith, you will notice the difference. The longer you go without using faith, the greater the danger that you will forget how to use faith altogether.

If you have ever broken a leg and been unable to use it for a time, you will know that you need to work hard to rebuild the muscle that has been weakened by prolonged inactivity. The physical therapist will work with you to rebuild what has been lost through lack of use.

So, faith is like a muscle and needs to be exercised.

Faith is the gift of God. It is not of ourselves; we receive it from Him. It is the special work of the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to who Jesus is and to show us our need of Him and to create within us the capacity to trust Him. He gives you a new heart, the gift of faith.

But Jesus’ question in Luke 8:25 makes it clear that you can have this gift of faith and never use it. “Where is your faith?” He asks the disciples, after a storm blew up as they were rowing across the lake. Jesus had been asleep in the back of the boat, and the disciples panicked! But Jesus awakens, calms the storm, and then asks, “Where is your faith?” In other words, “Why aren’t you exercising the faith I have gifted to you?”

From this account, we learn three ways to exercise faith.
Faith Factors in the Ability of God
The disciples had already seen remarkable demonstrations of the power of Jesus Christ. They had seen His power over disease, demons, and death. The problem was that, although they know the power of God, they were unable to make a connection between the ability of God and the situation they are facing. The looked at the situation in purely secular terms.

Where do you need to factor in the ability of God? Is it loneliness? Spiritual blindness of a member of your family? A health issue? Marriage? The battle of living an authentic Christian life? The fear of being different?

The problem is that you evaluate the problem in purely secular terms. But have you factored in the ability of God?

The living God is the God of the impossible situation. With God all things are possible. Faith factors in the ability of God. Where is your faith?
Faith Submits to the Sovereignty of God
As soon as we talk about the ability of God, we face some serious questions.

We rejoice in stories of God’s miraculous intervention in people’s lives to bring salvation, deliverance, and healing. We know that God is able to do these things. Our question is why, if He has the ability, doesn’t He always do it?

Faith factors in the ability of God, but it does more than that. It also submits to the sovereignty of God. And if you factor in the ability of God without submitting to the sovereignty of God, you will soon find yourself in all kinds of confusion.

God has never promised a storm-free life. Whose idea was it to go to the other side of the lake?  “One day Jesus said to the disciples, 'Let’s go over to the other side of the lake’” (Luke 8:22).

Following Jesus’ command led them right into a storm! It will sometimes be like that. There are many situations where life would be easier if it was not for Jesus. Christ never promised fair weather sailing, only that we would arrive at the destination.

Some people have got into great difficulty here over the whole matter of prayer for healing. They imagine that somehow we have to persuade ourselves that healing will take place. That is the difference between biblical faith and the psychology of positive thinking. Some Christians have gotten these two things completely confused.

Positive thinking it all about mind over matter. The power comes from inside me. I make the change.

Biblical faith is about the power of God over matter. The power comes from God. God makes the change.

That is why biblical faith must submit to the sovereignty of God because no power in the world is going to make God do what He does not want to do!

Biblical faith factors in the ability of God, for whom all things are possible, but at the same time submits to the sovereignty of God, who does whatever He pleases, and there is a place in His plan for storms as well as still waters.
Faith Trusts Intentionally in the Goodness of God
I want to emphasize this word intentionally. Faith is not something that works automatically.

A lot of people have the idea that faith is like a thermostat, that it works automatically. We feel that if we have faith, then when some great crisis comes, our faith should click in automatically.

Now you only need to look at this story to realize that this is a complete fallacy. If faith worked on automatic, then it would have clicked in when the storm blew up on the lake, and the disciples would never have been in difficulty.

But when Jesus asks them, “Where is your faith?” His question makes it very clear that faith works on manual. You have to put it into operation. When that happens, the world will begin to wonder what makes you different.
The Prescription for Faith
What is the prescription for the person whose doubts arise from not exercising faith? There is only one answer to this condition, and that is the spiritual discipline of service.

Some of us have been splashing around in the shallows of faith for too long, and more than anything else you need a man or woman-sized challenge that is going to stretch you beyond your limits, push you outside your comfort zone, and give you something in which you need to trust God like you never did before!

Christ asks, “Where is your faith?” If your answer is, “Not being exercised,” then it is time for you to ask the question, “Lord what do you want me to do?”

I have a letter that I will treasure all my life. It was written by a college tutor, who was giving me counsel when at the age of twenty-two I had been invited to become pastor of the church my wife and I served for sixteen years in London. I had asked him for his advice, and this is what he wrote:

If you take on this task, you will find that you are out of your depth, and you will find that you prove God in ways that you never thought possible.

Christ calls us out of our depth. He invites us to launch out into the deep. The storm may be raging, but if you are where Christ has called you to be, and you are doing what He called you to do, He will bring you through it by faith.

 



 

Go deeper on the topic of faith by watching the session "Exercising Faith" in the course Watch Your Life with Pastor Colin Smith.

Why Did Jesus Cry “My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?”

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:45-46

Mark tells us that Jesus was crucified at the third hour (Mark 15:25), which would have been nine o’clock in the morning. When He was nailed to the cross, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

[caption id="attachment_142256" align="alignright" width="295"] This article is an excerpt of the new book Six Hours that Changed the World by Pastor Colin Smith. Available this month for a gift of any amount.[/caption]

The morning wore on with jeering from the crowd and insults from the robbers on either side of Jesus. Nine o’clock, ten o’clock, ten thirty… Sometime during morning, one of the thieves asked Jesus to remember Him and Jesus said, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (23:43). Then Jesus said to Mary, “Woman, behold, your son” (John 19:26).

At noon, after Jesus had endured three hours of agony and insult, something new happened and Christ entered into the heart of His passion. “Now from the sixth hour [noon] there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour [three o’clock in the afternoon]” (Matthew 27:45).

God turned off the light. When Jesus was born, there was light at midnight, and when He was crucified, there was darkness at noon. The sudden darkness tells us that something new was happening. Jesus was entering into the heart of His work as our sin bearer.

The darkness reminds us that the events that took place in these hours are beyond our understanding. But there are some things we know because God has told us.
Jesus bore our sins on the cross

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24)

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin (2 Corinthians 5:21)

The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6)

Jesus bore the punishment for our sins

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace (Isaiah 53:5)

Christ Jesus [was] put forward as a propitiation by his blood (Romans 3:24-25)

He is the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:2)

Propitiation means Jesus endured the punishment for sin. He endured all that hell is on the cross.
Jesus was completely alone in His suffering

In the darkness Jesus cried out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The Father did not cease to love the Son, but the comforts of the Father’s love were beyond the Savior’s reach.

Here we enter the deepest mystery of what happened in that darkness. The terrors of the Father’s judgment were poured out on the Savior. Try to take in what was happening here. Jesus became our sin bearer, and He was plunged into all the torments of hell. And in the depths of His agony, Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Three windows into the cross
These words of Jesus open three windows into what was happening at the cross – the nature of sin, the pains of hell, and the extent of God’s love.

Jesus suffered for sins on the cross. Our indulgent greed, our cherished pride, our secret lusts were laid on Him. Learn to hate sin at the cross by looking at what your sin did to Jesus. Look at how He was forsaken for you and ask yourself, “What sin is there that I cannot forsake for Him?”

Jesus suffered hell on the cross. He suffered consciously in blackest darkness, surrounded by demonic powers, bearing sin, under judgment, and separated from the love of God. This is hell and He endured it for us. The worst part of hell is to be separated from the love of God forever. Jesus endured hell on the cross so you would never know what it is like.

God’s love is displayed at the cross and the extent of His love can be measured by the price that He paid to redeem you. Before He created the universe, God the Father had you in view and planned for you in love. Before you were ever born, God the Son took your flesh. He lived a perfect life for you. Then He went to the cross for you. God did all of this to save you. What greater proof could there be of His love for you?

There may be times in your life when you cannot feel the love or the presence of God. When these times come, you need to know that Jesus has been there too. When Jesus was in the darkness He said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Notice Jesus still referred to the Father as my God, even when He could no longer feel the comfort of His love. These words were a statement of faith from the lips of Jesus. When you cannot feel the love of God, you can exercise the same faith. God says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). You have a Savior to whom you can always come, even in the darkest moments of your life.

Prayer

Father, help me to see Your love for me in the cross.

Help me consider what my sin did to Your Son
on the cross so that I learn to hate it.

Thank You that Jesus endured hell on the cross,
so that I would never know what it is like.

Father, when I cannot feel Your love,
help me to turn to my Savior,
who was forsaken, and find in Him
the strength that I need.

Practical Wisdom for Sustaining Ministry

Jesus said, “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:8). How can you bear fruit that proves you are a disciple? How can you sustain a lifetime of service?

Stick with the proper seed. 

“The seed is the Word of God.” (Luke 8:11) 

This is the only seed that will bear the fruit of God-ward change in people’s lives.  

One of the greatest responsibilities of any ministry leader is to make sure that the Word of God is at the heart of your ministry. Would a person need to bring a Bible to your small group in order to follow along? Does your friend need a Bible at the mentoring sessions you have with her? Is your ministry a ministry of the Word, or are you using some other kind of seed?  

Here’s how a church loses a faithful and fruitful ministry: Some well-meaning Christians observe what Jesus teaches here, that the seed of the Word does not produce an abundant harvest in every life. So they say, “There are some people in whom this seed is not producing a harvest, so let’s consider them and try some other seed."  

In other words, “They are not responding to this, so let’s give them something else.” 

But here’s the problem: Different seed will produce a different harvest. Different seed may keep people together, and it may create a helpful group experience. But, it will not bring people under the rule of God. Only the seed of the Word of God can do that. 

The goal of Jesus was never to keep the crowd. It was to draw out of the crowd people who would live under the blessing of God’s rule. That harvest can only be raised through the Word of God.  

Exercise patience. 

Remember, Jesus told the Parable of the Sower, not the Parable of the Bomber. Jesus does not say, “A bomber went out to bomb, and as he bombed, he changed the whole landscape overnight.” 

Maybe there are times when you wish that God would drop a few bombs. The structures of evil seem at times to be so strong in the world. We would love to see abortion unneeded and unwanted now. We would love to see the culture transformed by godliness now.  

But God works by sowing seeds not by dropping bombs. Christ is telling us that God’s work gets done, not by earth-shattering explosions, but by the faithful and quiet teaching of the Word of God.  

Watch yourself.  

Your work as a sower can affect the soil of your heart. 

Here’s what happens: You love the Lord and you give yourself to ministry. You take responsibility and you become a sower of the Word in the lives of other people. As you do this, three things will happen:  

1. You will get trodden on. 

Some difficult experience happens in the course of ministry, and when that happens, watch your heart. Do not become a sower whose heart is getting harder: A father who is so concerned about the unresponsiveness of his son, and what happens is that he doesn’t notice that his own heart is becoming unresponsive to the same seed. 

2. As you give yourself to ministry, it will become more costly.

Circumstances in your life will arise that will make your ministry more difficult. When that happens, watch your heart! Do not become a sower who loses your joy. 

3. As you give yourself to ministry, your life will become more crowded   

As God gives you greater responsibility, it will be harder for you to manage your life. When that happens, watch your heart! It is so easy to become like Martha, who was concerned about many things. Don’t let your life not become so crowded with what you are doing for Jesus that there no longer is room for Jesus Himself! 

Trust the outcome of your ministry into the hands of God.  

God can change the hardest heart. There will be many times when you wonder what has come of all your work in sowing the seed in a particular person’s life. You’ve prayed for them. You’ve loved them. You may share the Word of God, and as far as you are concerned, it felt like good seed on hard ground.   

William Lane points out that in the time of Jesus, farmers plowed after they had sown, not before. [1] When the plough comes, the hard path gets broken up, the seed gets tipped into the opened ground, and everything is changed!  

We serve a God whose plough can break up the biggest rocks and root out the most stubborn thorn bushes. When God’s plough comes won’t you be so glad that you planted the seed? 

 

[1] William L. Lane, The Gospel According to Mark, p. 153, Eerdmans, 1974.

 

If Jesus offered to tell you “secrets of the kingdom of heaven” for your ministry, would you listen? Join Pastor Colin Smith for the free course Sustaining a Lifetime of Ministry where he unpacks Jesus' Kingdom Parables of Matthew 13 that help us embrace God's perspective on gospel ministry.

What Is Regeneration? Four Ways the Bible Talks about an Overlooked Doctrine

If you search the Bible for the word ‘regeneration,’ you won’t come up with much.

In the English Standard Version, it occurs just once.

When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. (Titus 3:4–6)

If you run your search on the New American Standard Bible, you will find ‘regeneration' in Titus 3, and also in the words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 19.

Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matthew 19:28)

Other translations say, “in the new world” (ESV) or “at the renewal of all things” (NIV).

Jesus is speaking about the new heaven and the new earth, and the word He uses to describe this transformation is "the regeneration.”

Regeneration involves taking something (in this case the planet that has been devastated by sin) and making it new, so that it reflects the glory of God.

And this is the word that the Bible uses to describe God’s work in you. If you are in Christ, then what God will one day do for this planet, He has already done in you!

Regeneration is an often overlooked doctrine. But despite the fact that the word occurs rarely in the Bible, the transformation that God is able to bring through Jesus Christ is one of the Bible’s major themes.

Scripture speaks about regeneration in at least four ways.
1. New Birth
Jesus said,

No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. (John 3:3)

You must be born again. (John 3:7)

To be born again is to receive an infusion of new life that comes from God.

This new birth is a work of the Holy Spirit:

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)

And the Holy Spirit brings new life through the Word.

You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable,
through the living and abiding word of God. (1 Peter 1:23)

Peter is using the analogy of how human life begins. The living seed comes, and in a moment, a new life is conceived. The seed does not always bring new life, but there is no new life without the seed.

It follows that if we want people to be born again, the best thing we can do is to open the Bible with them. Get the living seed of the Word of God into their lives and pray that the Holy Spirit will bring new life from the seed.

The Holy Spirit brings us to new birth through the living seed of the Word of God. That’s regeneration.
2. New Creation

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

God made you. He knit you together in your mother’s womb. But sin has affected all of us in every area of our lives.

When God saved you, He did a new creative work in you, in which He opened your mind, softened your heart, and redirected your will. You are no longer the person you used to be, you are a new creation in Christ. That’s regeneration.
3. New Life

God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. (Ephesians 2:5)

Being dead in our sins and transgressions, we were unresponsive to God, to His commands, and even to His love. So how did you come to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?

The answer is that God made you alive with Christ. He regenerated you, by breathing new life into your soul.

Jesus tells us that He came so that we may have life (John 10:10). He did not say, ‘I have come to show you how to do life!’ He said, ‘I came so that you may have life,’ and He gives this life to us by His Spirit, through His Word. That’s regeneration.
4. New Heart

I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.
And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh
and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26-27)

The heart you were born with loved the wrong things. By nature, we were lovers of self rather than lovers of God. But God has given us a new heart, and this is why we love Him, trust Him, and want to serve Him. That’s regeneration.
Go Deeper on this Central Doctrine
So although the word ‘regeneration’ is found rarely in Scripture, the truth of regeneration is all over the Bible, and grasping this central doctrine will be of great help to you and to the people you serve.

That's why we've included a session called “Regenerated by the Spirit” in our Open the Bible for Leaders course called Watch Your Doctrine. You can watch this session below.