The Present, the Promise, and the Fear of God

Exodus 1

A lot of you already know the story of how Loanne and I began our marriage. I’m not going to go into detail about it, but to make a long story short: we got married almost twenty-one years ago, a mere nine weeks after we met, and about five months after we got married, we realized that we were completely incompatible with one another. Thus began six years during which we absolutely could not stand each other. Six years in which we’d go to work and feel like we could finally breathe, because we didn’t have to be around one another. Six years of dreading vacation, because that meant being together all day, every day.

Thankfully, God has been good, and we love each other now—I am so thankful God put me in a marriage with this woman. But I still remember that time, and it was sometimes unbearably, difficult.

All of us will deal with something like that in our lives: suffering that seems unfair, or that comes out of nowhere, and that doesn’t seem to let up. Our default mode when this happens is to reject the problem: Christians often say things like, “I know this isn’t God’s will for my life!” We reject the idea that God might actually be doing something in the mess, because we can’t imagine God would be so cruel, and when you’re in the thick of it, sometimes it does seem cruel.

Six years is a very long time to be living with someone you hate. Six years is a long time to be asking questions: God, why would you allow this? Why did you put me with this person? We know how you feel about divorce, but surely this would be a good reason, right? Why would you let us get stuck like this?

For six years, we had no answers. And we still don’t have answers to all of the questions we had. But we have experienced enough to know that there are answers to those questions of why he allowed us to go through all that for so long. We know some of them, and he knows the rest.

The point is, there are answers.

The story of Exodus is the story of God, working out his plan in sometimes incomprehensible ways, for incredibly, infinitely good reasons only he knew at the time.

If you’re joining us for the first time, last week we began a new series on this book of Exodus—or to be honest, it was more of a prologue. We spent last week in Genesis 12, in which God gives a promise to a man named Abraham, and in that chapter we saw a kind of snapshot of the same themes we’ll see all throughout this book. We see God’s majesty in making an impossible promise that he is able to make good on, and his will to use imperfect, broken means to bring about his purposes.

That was a sort of thematic prologue to this book; today we’re going to see an actual introduction—I want to talk quickly about what we can expect from the rest of this book; then we’ll need to bring ourselves up to speed on the story so far; and finally, we’ll look at chapter 1, which sets the stage for everything that will come after.

Part 1: Genesis

Before we get into chapter 1, what have we missed? I said last week that Exodus is the second part of a longer story; we’ve missed part 1, which we find in the book of Genesis.

(We should note that traditionally, and in the New Testament by Jesus himself, authorship of the first five books of the Bible—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy—is attributed to Moses himself. There’s a lot we could say about this, but when it comes down to it, I’m not going to argue with Jesus about who wrote these books, so I’ll just take his word for it and say it’s Moses.)

So what happened in the book of Genesis?

I’m going to go really quickly. Chapters 1-11 basically tell the story of the beginning of the world: who made the world (spoiler: God did), how he did it, why he did it, and what his plans are for it. We actually see almost all of this in the first three chapters of Genesis. We see how men multiply and populate at least a small part of the earth, then God judges humanity for their wickedness and floods the earth, sparing Noah and his family, who start again—people are born, people have kids, the earth begins to be repopulated.

Then beginning in chapter 12, we see the story of the beginning of God’s chosen people. God comes to a man named Abraham, to whom he makes a promise that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky, and that they will bless all the nations of the world. The only problem is that Abraham and his wife Sarah are quite old, and Sarah is sterile on top of that.

God’s got that covered though: despite their old age, and despite Sarah’s barrenness, God gives them a son, Isaac, who will be referred to later in the Bible as “the child of the promise.”

Then in chapters 12-25 we see that Isaac has a son named Jacob, to whom the promise is extended, and Jacob has twelve sons. The youngest of these sons, Joseph, is his dad’s favorite, and as it turns out, God actually speaks to him: he gives Joseph dreams, and the ability to interpret those dreams. What God didn’t give Joseph, apparently, was tact: Joseph doesn’t hesitate to tell his brothers dreams about them bowing down in submission to him.

They get fed up with joseph and his arrogant dreams. They sell him into slavery in Egypt and tell Jacob that Joseph was killed by wild animals. Joseph is sent off to Egypt and spends many years in prison. But he has something most of us don’t have a lot of the time: he has faith that God had a reason for bringing him there. And pretty soon he finds that reason out.

God’s revelations to Joseph put him in the good graces of the Pharaoh, the kind of Egypt, who releases him from prison and gives him a place of power. Joseph essentially becomes the second-in-command in Egypt. God also lets Joseph know that a massive famine is coming to Egypt and the surrounding countries, and this gives Joseph time to prepare. So when the famine hits, everyone is coming to Egypt to get food to survive—everyone, including Joseph’s brothers.

They don’t recognize him at first, but eventually Joseph tells his brothers that it’s him, and he forgives them for selling him into slavery. Why? Joseph tells them why in Genesis 50.20: As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

So Jacob’s entire family, about seventy people, come to live in Egypt with Joseph, and with the Pharaoh’s full blessing.

That’s where we are when Genesis ends and Exodus begins.

A Promise Partially Fulfilled (v. 1-7)

Now in Exodus 1, we see two separate things, and both of them are setting the stage for what’s going to come after. The first is that we see God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at least partially fulfilled; and the second is that pretty soon a significant threat comes against that promise—or so it might seem.

Let’s read again, beginning in v. 1:

These are the names of the sons of Israel [that is, the sons of Jacob, to whom God also gave the name “Israel”] who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, 3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, 4 Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. 5 All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt. 6 Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. 7 But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.

So very briefly, we see here that God has been making good on the first part of his promise to Abraham: that his descendants would multiply and become very numerous. Not only did they “increase greatly”; they also “grew exceedingly strong.”

I say that the promise was only partially fulfilled, because there is one big piece missing, which will influence everything that comes after. God promised that Abraham’s descendants would multiply greatly (check), and that they would bless all the nations of the earth from a specific place. God promised to give Abraham’s people the land of Canaan as an inheritance. But now they’re in Egypt, seemingly at home and doing well.

In short, they’re in the wrong place. If God’s promise is going to be fulfilled, something will have to change.

Now, as long as the Pharaoh in power could remember Joseph (or even stories of Joseph), this massive growth from the people of Israel would have been seen as an asset rather than a threat, because the Pharaoh  thought very highly of Joseph, and by extension his family.

That positive outlook wouldn’t last forever; as the years passed (about 400 years, we’ll see later in chapter 12), people forgot. Including the Pharaohs themselves.

A Threat to the Promise? (v. 8-22)

So in v. 8 we see this new Pharaoh, and how he perceives the people of Israel. V. 8:

8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. 10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. 13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves 14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.

Now of course this didn’t happen all at once; the Pharaoh sees the people of Israel as a threat, so he subjects them to slavery…and yet they keep multiplying. This multiplication would have taken decades, perhaps even centuries—long enough for other kings of Egypt to come in, continue the policies of their fathers, and see the same threat. No matter how much oppression the people of Israel endured, they kept multiplying. So what was the response? Give them more work. Make their lives harder.

Still, it didn’t work. The people were miserable, but they kept growing.

So eventually another Pharaoh comes to power, and has another idea. V. 15:

15 Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” 17 But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. 18 So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” 19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” 20 So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”

It’s important to notice something really interesting here. Almost no one is mentioned by name in this passage—not even the Pharaohs are named here; they’re all referred to as “the king of Egypt” or “Pharaoh”. But two women are referred to by name: Shiphrah and Puah. Moses wants us to remember them, for one simple reason: they feared God more than they feared the Pharaoh. They refused to obey his order to kill all male Hebrew babies. (Apparently his order was that the midwives not let the mothers know that’s what they were doing; they were meant to make it look like the babies were born dead.)

Now, I’m going to just mention this quickly as an aside, because it is not the main point of this passage, but I know many of you will be asking yourselves the question: were the midwives wrong to lie to the Pharaoh? We’ll see later on in this book that one of the Ten Commandments is, “You shall not lie.” And yet the midwives seem to make up this excuse for why the male babies are still alive, in v. 19: that Hebrew women give birth really quickly, before the midwives get there.

Some people have found this explanation deceptive on the part of the midwives. Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not. Maybe Hebrew women did give birth really quickly. I doubt it, but it doesn’t matter. The midwives, at that point, were the only things standing in the way of Pharaoh’s plan to kill the children from being executed, so they said what they said in order to remain in a position to protect them.

If that still feels strange to you, change the context. Think of how some families must have dealt with the extermination of the Jews during World War II. No one would fault a family for hiding Jews in their homes, then telling the Nazis that they weren’t there. That’s the right thing to do.

Now you can debate that point as much as you want, but it’s important not to lose the forest for the trees. The author’s goal here isn’t to give a moral evaluation of what the women said, but rather to commend them for their courage in handling such an impossible situation at great risk to themselves. He’s trying to display how God commended them for their courage to protect his people: their fear of God and their courage in the face of the Pharaoh are rewarded by God.

(And isn’t it interesting that later on, another woman would be commended for her courage in facing scandal and shame and possibly even death, for carrying a baby although she wasn’t yet married—a baby that would become, not just the Savior of the people of Israel like Moses, but the Savior of all of God’s people.)

So these midwives do this courageous thing, and many lives are saved. But ultimately, there’s only so much they can do. The Pharaoh sees that his plan is not working, so he gives a command to the rest of the Egyptian people: if you see a son born to the Hebrews, take him and cast him into the Nile.

The Present and the Promise

I know that can be a disappointing end point for today’s message. But even this depressing situation has a lot to tell us about God and how he works.

If you’ve come directly off of reading Genesis, all of this is a fairly surprising turn of events. In Genesis, we spent a lot of time with Joseph, more time than we spent with Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. Joseph’s story culminates in the rescue of his family, the people of Israel, from starvation—they are brought into Egypt, and they prosper and are safe.

Then, within a few verses at the beginning of Exodus, it looks like that blessing has turned into a curse. Joseph brought them to Egypt, yes—but now that they’re in Egypt, they’ve become slaves. And by the end of chapter 1, they’ve been slaves for a very long time. The oppression over them was intense and brutal and unrelenting.

Why would God do this? Why would he bring them to safety, only to deliver them over to suffering?

It’s a common question, isn’t it? Earlier I mentioned the beginning of my marriage with Loanne—this is the same question we were asking. Why give us something so good—a husband, a wife, a new family—only to let it spoil so badly and so quickly? Surely this isn’t your will, God.

The people of Israel were asking that question too, as we’ll see next week. And it’s true that if you only look at the promise God had given Abraham, it seems like what’s happening here in Egypt can’t possibly be his will.

But that’s not true.

When we think about God’s will for the world, we’ll always run into problems if we examine our present instead of his promise. Every promise is about the end result. But to get to that end result, God always has a specific road he's going to take, and he always has a reason for choosing that particular road.

Incidentally, later on in this book we find out one of the reasons why God chose this road for his people. We see it in Exodus 9.15-16, in which God says to Pharaoh (the same Pharaoh who has been oppressing his people for so long):

“For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”

As hard as it is for us to imagine or accept, this is God’s ultimate purpose, and that’s why he has brought his people into this particular situation, under this particular ruler. God has brought them to a place where they would need rescuing, so that he could show himself to be that rescuer—to show his power, so that his name may be proclaimed in all the earth.

This is hard for us to accept, because the people’s suffering was long and very hard. But God’s goal wasn’t to make his people happy and comfortable in the present: it was to display his glory, and through this people, to bless all the nations of the world.

Instead of examining the present, we must hold fast to the promise. Just because our present situation isn’t what God promised doesn’t mean it isn’t his will. There is a road to get to the promise, and more often than not, that road is very difficult. But what we see again and again in the Bible is this very simple truth: God displays his glory in rescuing his people.

The Fear of God

We will all be faced with suffering in our lives that we can’t explain. We will all be faced with situations that last much longer than we feel they should, for reasons we don’t understand.

When that happens, we will have a choice to make—the choice the people of Israel will be faced with over and over again in this book: will we fear God, or will we fear our suffering?

It’s no accident that this book begins with great suffering, and with the description of two women who fear God more than the Pharaoh. When the Bible talks about fearing God, it doesn’t mean being afraid of him. It means recognizing his power and his authority to rule over his world.

That might seem terrifying, and it would be—if God wasn’t who he is.

In C. S. Lewis’s book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the children are speaking to Mr. Beaver, who is preparing them to meet Aslan, the great King of Narnia. They are frightened to learn that Aslan isn’t a man, but a lion.

"Ooh!" said Susan, "I'd thought he was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."

"That you will, dearie, and no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver; "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly."

"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.

"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

God is not only powerful and sovereign over the world. He is also good. We know this because rather than letting us wallow in our sufferings, no matter how deserved they might be, he joined us in those sufferings. He took on a human nature and suffered with us, suffered for us, in the person of Christ. He lived our life and died our death and was raised to rescue us from our slavery to sin, and declare us righteous before God.

This is why the fear of God need not be a cowering fear, but a courageous fear. It is a fear that recognizes who he is, and that all the help God might give us is less important than God himself.

In our moments of trials, we always look for help, we look for solutions, we search for explanations. But all of those things are less important than him. Ultimately—and this is what Exodus teaches us—we don’t need his help as much as we need him. We don’t need solutions, we need him. We don’t need explanations, we need him.

So we come to him with fear and trembling, because he is the only one powerful and sovereign God over our lives, who has the authority to fulfill his promises, for his glory, as he sees fit. But we also come to him with hope and courage, because we know that he is good, and he does not allow his people to suffer uselessly.

Conclusion

So let me leave you with two ways to begin preparing for and responding to this book, no matter what you’re going through.

Firstly, turn repeatedly to God. (And we’ll see the people of Israel doing just that over the course of this book.) You need him, himself, more than you need his help. Build those muscles now, of turning to him in good times and in bad, in learning that he is trustworthy, in learning that he is wise. You’ll need those muscles strong when those times come, so turn to him now.

Secondly, dig in to the community of believers around you. I say this, in part, because of our particular context, and because of the story of Exodus in general. When Loanne and I went through that terrible period, we were completely and totally alone. We had a church, but there was no meaningful community, no one we could share those things with.

My fear for all of you—and this is one reason I’ll be pointing out these questions of suffering quite a lot over the course of this series—is that many of you will come to Connexion and have a great time, and have good conversations and laugh a lot and even have some meaningful experiences. But then a period of intense suffering will come, and you’ll be alone. Because you will have kept the people of God at arm’s length, seeing them as a group that does you good sometimes, rather than seeing them as MY PEOPLE.

Or someone in the church will suffer, and they’ll be alone, because the people around them in the church (for all the reasons I just mentioned) didn’t invest in them enough to see it.

Don’t let that happen. The story of Exodus is the story of a God and his people. We are his people. If you’re a Christian, your life is no longer separate from the life of God’s people. So dig in. Be present for your brothers and sisters, and let them be present for you. Know them, and let them know you. You’ll need them, and God will work through them, for your good and for his glory.

Over the coming months we’ll see more and more the different ways in which God comes to the rescue of his people, and how he has already come to our rescue, in the person of Jesus Christ. My prayer for this series is that we might grow in our trust in him, and in the joy of knowing that the God who comes to the rescue of the people of Israel is the same God who reigns over our lives today.

Exodus, Prologue: Who Is This God?

Genesis 12

Today we’re really excited to be beginning a new series on the book of Exodus which will bring us up to this summer. It genuinely was not a joke we’d planned for this series to coincide with our leaving one location and going to another; we had planned on this series long before we knew about the move. But it is strangely appropriate.

If you’re only joining us recently, you may not know this, but what we’ll be doing over the next few months is what we usually do: with only a few breaks here and there during the year, we preach through books of the Bible, from beginning to end. We do this simply because we believe it’s the most faithful way to preach the Bible—if we go through a book from beginning to end, that means that you all can follow along with us, and hopefully understand why we’re saying what we’re saying. At the end of the day it’s not our opinion or our teaching that matters, but God’s Word, and what he wants to say to us through his Word.

We’ve got a bit of work to do today, because even though we’ll be starting at the beginning of the book of Exodus, we’re not starting at the beginning of the story. The story of Exodus is actually the second part of a much longer story that makes up most of the Old Testament; in order to truly understand the book of Exodus, we need to understand the book of Genesis, which is the first part.

Of course we can’t see all of that today, so we’re going to spend our time today in Genesis 12, which will serve as an introduction for what’s coming starting next week. For all the other things we need to understand but can’t cover today, we’ll fill you in as we go.

And we’re seeing this text, not so much to give us historical context, but more thematic context. That is, in Genesis 12, we see a sort of microcosm of the bigger story we see played out in Exodus, and in the rest of the Bible. The Bible isn’t ultimately the story of God’s people; it’s the story of God himself, and in this passage we see two massively important aspects of who God is. We’ll see these two aspects of his character over and over again, in the book of Exodus.

Who Is This Man?

But before we see all that, let’s look at the passage. In v. 1 of chapter 12, we’re introduced to a man named Abram (who would eventually be called Abraham). We see Abraham all over the Bible, in the Old and the New Testaments. So one of the first questions we’ll want to ask is, who is this man, Abraham? We’ve heard so much about him—who is he?

Well, first off, remember Noah’s sons? After they left the ark, Noah’s three sons had kids of their own. And in chapter 11, starting in v. 10, we have the line of the descendants of one of these sons, Shem. This genealogy follows the same pattern from beginning to end: “When so-and-so was so-and-so-many years old, he fathered so-and-so, and so-and-so lived so-and-so-many years and had other sons and daughters.” (So clearly not everyone is mentioned here.) But at the end of the genealogy, the pattern is broken: 26 When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

Not a lot is said about Terah’s family; it says they lived in the country of Ur; that Abram had a wife, Sarai, who was barren; that they moved from Ur to Haran and settled there. But something is mentioned in the book of Joshua which is, I believe, significant. In Joshua 24.2, we see Joshua speaking to the people of Israel, Abram’s descendants: 2 And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods.’” So Abram’s father, and (it would seem) Abram himself, was an idolator. He was not faithful to the Creator God of Noah; he served other gods.

But despite this, one day God decides to do something incredible. 12.1:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

So you see, God makes Abram a promise, and he gives Abram a command.

He says, “Leave,” and he promisesto make him into a great nation.

Now there are two great leaps Abram has to make here with the information he’s been given. Firstly, God doesn’t tell him where he’s supposed to go. He doesn’t say, “Go to this place, because where you’re going it’ll be way better than here.” No—he just says, “Go where I will show you.” Could you imagine following such an order, with no idea of what you’d find when you got there?

Here’s the second leap. He tells Abram he will make him into a great nation…but we’ve already been told, just a couple verses before, that Abram’s wife Sarai was barren. How would God make him into a great nation if he couldn’t have kids? God explains neither of these two things; he simply gives Abram an incomprehensible command, makes him an incomprehensible promise. And what does Abram do?

v. 4:

4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.”

It’s not until they arrive in Canaan that God explains to Abram why he brought him there: because God was going to give this land to Abram’s future offspring.

v. 7b:

So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. 9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.

So he’s off to a pretty good start, right? God calls him to an unknown land, promising to make him into a great nation, and Abram just goes, “Yeah. OK.” Reading this for the first time, what are we tempted to think? We’re tempted to think God picked the right guy. This is the kind of guy I want to be! God does a great job picking those whom he’s going to use; he knows how to look through a stack of CVs and find the guy most suited for the job.

That’s what we think, and that’s what we’d be tempted to keep on thinking…were it not for what follows. Now, I realize that I haven’t yet talked about Abram’s faith in leaving—a faith that is not negligible. And I’m not going to in this message, because I believe the thrust of this chapter is not to applaud Abram’s faith (at least not yet; the author will get there in chapter 15, and the author of Hebrews will come back to it much later). The center of this chapter, I’m going to suggest later on, is not primarily Abram, but God. So let me show you why I think that.

In v. 10 we see that there was a famine in the land of Canaan. So Abram goes down to Egypt with his wife to stay there, in order to survive the famine. And in v. 11, Abram does something absolutely despicable.

11 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.”

Now reading this, we might not yet see the gravity of it. But we can see the gravity of it in what follows:

14 When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15 And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.

(Later on, in v. 19, Pharaoh explains what this means: he took her as his wife.)

Upon entering Egypt, Abram was faced with two choices: either tell the truth and more than likely be killed; or lie about it, say she’s his sister…in which case nothing would keep anyone else from taking her and sleeping with her. No one would be knowingly committing adultery; no one would be knowingly stealing her from her husband. Abram knew good and well what saying she was his sister would mean for Sarai…and he did it anyway.

Can we all agree that this is a massive marriage fail? “Honey, say you’re my sister.” “But someone’s going to want to take me as their wife if they think I’m not married!” “Don’t worry about it—I’ll survive. Do you love me? You want me to survive? Go ahead, honey—take one for the team.” This is disgusting behavior.

Thankfully, it doesn’t last long: the Lord sends plagues to afflict Pharaoh’s house because he’s taken Sarai as his wife. And somehow—this passage doesn’t say how—Pharaoh figures it out. So he goes to Abram and (very rightly so) asks Abram what’s going on.

18 So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife?

The answer? He was afraid.

And that’s it—the Pharaoh gives Sarai back to Abram and says, “Get out.” He orders his men not to touch them, and they go back home.

Now if we went back to the beginning, and read v. 1-9 knowing what kind of guy Abram was—the kind of guy he proves himself to be in v. 10-20—does it make any sense at all? From this man Abram, God is going to build up the people of Israel, from whom Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior and Messiah himself, would be descended. In other words, to work his redemptive purposes, God chooses to use an idolator, a coward, and just about the worst husband imaginable—if a man tried to do that today, what would we call him? An abusive husband. Abram is often painted in this glorious, almost-perfect light because of his faith. But by his actions he proves himself to be a deeply flawed man, at least at this point in his life.

So here’s the question I’d like to ask today, because I believe it’s a question the text prompts us to ask. I don’t think the main point of this text is to get us to look at Abram, and how wonderful his faith was. There was faith, but there was also incredible weakness. Abram isn’t the focus here: I think the text is prompting us to notice some things about God: how he operates, how he chooses to act.

I believe the author brings us here, not to get us to ask ourselves, “Who is the man, Abraham?” but rather to get us to ask ourselves, “Who is this God?”

Who Is This God?

Well, what does the text show us? What does this tell us about God? How is his glory seen in his actions here?

I think the answer to those questions can be summed up in two words: majesty and condescension. (I stole the juxtaposition of these two words from Jonathan Edwards, whom I’ll quote later on.) I think that as we look at what God does here, we can see both his amazing majesty on display, and his amazing condescension. So let’s take a few minutes more to see that in the text.

Majesty. I say “majesty” because when we talk about God’s majesty, we’re talking about his power and authority. Look at God’s command to Abram first:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”

How could anyone make such a ridiculous command? “Pack up your things and leave, take your family…but I’m not telling you yet where you’ll be going. Just go.” The only way that command makes any kind of sense is if God has the authority to command such a thing. He comes in as a God among others—remember, Abram’s is a family of idolators, they worshiped other gods—but when God speaks to Abram, clearly he has an authority that the other gods don’t. His authority is also present in the fact that Abram begins to call upon his name, v. 8:

8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.

Calling upon the name of the Lord was an act of worship which showed dependence on him. So Abram has moved from being an idolator to being a man who recognizes his dependence on God.

We see God’s majesty in the promise he makes to Abram. v. 2:

2 And I will make of you a great nation…

Think about this: Abram is an old man at this point. If I wanted to make a great nation of anyone, I wouldn’t use him. First of all because the idea of him and his super old pregnant wife is almost laughable, but after that they’d have to care for this baby and raise him!

But that’s exactly what God does! He makes him a ridiculous promise, and he makes that ridiculous promise because he’s powerful enough to make good on it. Not only is he able to make a woman that old have a baby, but he also tells Abram that he will use him to bless all the families of the earth. Can you grasp the expansiveness of that promise? Only one who is infinitely powerful can make such a promise.

We also see it in God’s judgment on Pharaoh’s household. v. 17:

But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.

God hasn’t yet worked a miracle in the life of Abram; he hasn’t yet made Sarai have a baby. But already he shows his power to do supernatural things by judging Pharaoh’s house with plagues because of them. God is able to say, “Leave those two alone” and absolutely make sure that Pharaoh does what he wants. God’s majesty is evident in his power and authority to command what he wants and to fulfill his promises.

Condescension. This term will probably have to be explained. It’s a word the old Puritan theologians often used, and I thought for a long time of other, simpler possibilities, but none of them fit. When we talk about God’s condescension, we mean his wisdom and his choice to accomplish his infinitely great will using weak, finite means. This is not a negative term, like we would often use it (“My boss always speaks to me in a condescending way”), but rather a choice he makes to execute his great plan at our level.

Think about God’s plan for the redemption of man on a grand scale. God’s plan to show his beauty in creation, and to redeem the fallen world after sin entered it, to save the men and women who have rebelled against him, is a glorious and infinitely massive plan, and his desire is that the world see his glory in the immensity of his plan.

Now, if you were God, how would you do that? How would you go about implementing and bringing this massive plan to fruition? If you wanted to show strength, whom would you use? Strong people! If you wanted to show holiness, whom would you use? Holy people! Think of Abram in Egypt: he and the Pharaoh are both sinful men, but Pharaoh is clearly more powerful. Wouldn’t it be natural to imagine that the Pharaoh would be the more likely candidate to be used to display God’s power to the world?

But that’s not what God does. Here in Abram we see it clearly: God uses a weak, cowardly, sinful man to bring about his plan of redemption. In other words, he doesn’t need to make a big show of it. He manifests his power in weak, ordinary people. He chooses one man, a very flawed man, and through this one man he starts humanity down the road that will lead to the cross.

In Genesis 12 we see God’s majesty in his authoritative call to Abram, in his power to fulfill his promises to Abram; and we see his condescension in his desire to use weak, imperfect people to accomplish his will. Now why did God begin his redemptive plan in this way? Because it was exactly in this way that he planned to finish it. We can see in the whole sweep of Scripture this pattern of amazing, powerful acts being done by lowly, unimpressive people—and it’s not difficult to see that God always chose to do things in this way to prepare us for Jesus, in whom we see the ultimate combination of majesty in condescension. In other words, God manifested a peculiar glory in Christ, for it is in Christ that his majesty and condescension find their ultimate expression.

Here’s a quote from Jonathan Edwards which perfectly explains why (it’s lengthy but it’s worth it):

“[Because Christ’s] glory [shines] upon us through his human nature, the manifestation is wonderfully adapted to the strength of the human vision; so that, though it appears in all its effulgence, it is yet attempered to our sight. He is indeed possessed of infinite majesty, to inspire us with reverence and adoration; yet that majesty need not terrify us, for we behold it blended with humility, meekness, and sweet condescension. We may feel the most profound reverence and self-abasement, and yet our hearts be drawn forth sweetly and powerfully into an intimacy the most free, confidential, and delightful. The dread, so naturally inspired by his greatness, is dispelled by the contemplation of his gentleness and humility; while the familiarity, which might otherwise arise from the view of the loveliness of his character merely, is ever prevented by the consciousness of his infinite majesty and glory; and the sight of all his perfections united fills us with sweet surprise and humble confidence, with reverential love and delightful adoration.”

In other words, Christ’s majesty reminds us of who he is, protects us from presumptuously assuming that he’s our “buddy”; it reminds us that we are not dealing with a mere man; it keeps us from sentimentally treating him like a mother hen. But his humility gives us an access to him in relationship we could never otherwise have; it makes it possible to believe that the God who created us and who has the right to judge sin desires to adopt us as sons and daughters; it gives us a reason for incredible gratitude, for “joy unspeakable and full of glory,” that comes from knowing that such a great God as he loves and cares for such weak creatures as we are.

Conclusion

I know this seems like a strange way to introduce the book of Exodus—I haven’t really given any historical background yet, any information that will help parse out the story. (We’ll get to that next week.)

The reason I wanted to do it this way is to show that what we see God do in the book of Exodus, he’s actually been doing it since the beginning. In Exodus, we see a microcosm of what God does and is still doing on a global, universal, eternal scale. We see the gospel, acted out, almost as if it’s a backwards allegory, written before the events it’s meant to represent ever take place.

And most especially, we see God. Exodus is not primarily about God’s people—the Old Testament is not primarily about God’s people. It’s about God.

So our call, looking at a text like this, is very simple: SEE the God who saved you.

See the One who created the entire universe by the word of his power.

See the One who gave a simple man, a veritable newborn, the task of naming the animals.

See the One who governs every atom of every molecule of every plant and tree and living being in creation.

See the One who gave simple men and women the task of cultivating and keeping his creation.

See the One who has the authority to judge sin and rebellion against him.

See the One who graciously replaced fallen man and woman’s pitiful fig leaves and with clothes of animal skins.

See the One whose anger justly drowned the world.

See the One who warned a sinful man of the coming flood, and provided him with a way of escape.

See the One who has the authority to command what he will, and the power to fulfill every promise he makes.

See the One who chose a weak, fearful man from whom his own Son would descend.

See the Savior who will crush Satan under his feet, vanquish death and sin and all the powers of hell.

See this Savior—who did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking on the form of a servant, who humbled himself unto death, even death on a cross.

See your God. Be stunned by him. Serve him. Worship him. Love him with your lives.

And if you don’t know him yet—he may yet be your God. Turn to him. Accept the gift of forgiveness and salvation that is offered to you. Repent of your sins and turn to him. Know this amazing, glorious, majestic, humble Jesus Christ, who humbled himself and gave himself up for those who are his.

Two Good Reasons to (Not) Treat Yourself

Ezra 8.21-23, Matthew 9.14-17

This is a big day, obviously. It’s our first week in a new venue in almost nine years. We knew going into this that no matter what decision we made—to stay at Espace Saint-Martin or to come here—we would be facing a lot of changes which we’ll have to get used to. In addition, today is the first Sunday of 2024, and a new year always brings unexpected circumstances.

If you’re an optimist, you’ll see these things as opportunities; if you’re a pessimist, you’ll see them as obstacles. Whatever the case may be, these changes and surprises bring uncertainty: we don’t know how this move to a new location will go, and we don’t know how 2024 will go either.

So we wanted to begin this new year with a week focused on prayer. And as I prayed about it and thought about it I realized I felt like we should go one step further.

In times of uncertainty, or in times of need, one of the most common practices the church has typically encouraged is not just prayer, but prayer and fasting.

The question is, why? We understand why we would pray in such times—at least somewhat—but why fast?

As we know, fasting is generally defined as depriving oneself of food for a fixed amount of time. Fasting doesn’t just happen in Christianity, of course, but all over the place, for any number of reasons. Nearly all religions which have ever existed include some kind of fasting ritual; their reasons for doing so vary wildly, but it’s always there.

If you’ve grown up in church, you’ve surely been subjected to a time of enforced prayer and fasting: they’re those times we dread all year long, because we know we’re going to feel terrible, and we don’t even really understand why it is we’re doing it.

And let me be clear: fasting isn’t just about food. In the Bible, people generally fasted food—but it wasn’t always necessarily all food, and it never says it must be food. The English pastor Martyn Lloyd Jones said, “Fasting if we conceive of it truly, must not . . . be confined to the question of food and drink; fasting should really be made to include abstinence from anything which is legitimate in and of itself for the sake of some special spiritual purpose. There are many bodily functions which are right and normal and perfectly legitimate, but which for special peculiar reasons in certain circumstances should be controlled. That is fasting.”

So it doesn’t have to be food, and if it is, it doesn’t have to be all food. But it should be something of which we’ll feel the lack. I occasionally go on an entertainment fast, during which I watch no TV, no movies, etc. I feel that (probably more than fasting food!).

So we’re going to talk about fasting today, but what we don’t want to do is simply imitate a ritual without getting to the bottom of it. The question we’re asking today is not whether or not fasting is a good idea in general, or why one would choose fasting above more traditional methods of doing whatever it is they want to do. Our question—and it’s an important one—is this: Is fasting a Christian thing to do? And if so, why? Why on earth would God take pleasure in his people depriving themselves of food? And what is the link between prayer and fasting? And can depriving ourselves of pleasure actually bring pleasure?

I’ve preached on this before, several years ago, but it’s been a long time, and many of you in the church now, unless you attend our regular prayer meetings, may have never even heard of fasting or why we do it. There’s a lot we could say about this, but one of the best clues is found in the book of Ezra, in chapter 8; the second is in Matthew chapter 9. So we’re going to do something unusual today and look at more than one text, to be able to get a fuller picture of not only the point of fasting along with prayer, but also what makes Christian fasting particular and different.

Reason 1: To Learn Humility (Ezra 8.21-23)

Just a bit of backstory to set up this passage. The capital city of the people of God was the city of Jerusalem, but in the 6th century B.C., the people of God are exiled to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar. Then, about fifty years later the King Cyrus of Persia overthrows the Babylonian king and takes over the lands he formerly occupied. And in 538 B.C. Cyrus issues a decree declaring that the Jewish people can now return to their homeland. The first six chapters of the book of Ezra tell us the story of the first wave of exiles returning to Jerusalem and rebuilding the temple of Solomon. Then, in chapters 7-10, we see the second wave of exiles coming home about 50 years later, led by Ezra the Priest.

So our passage picks up just as they are about to leave. Ezra has just been given permission by King Artaxerxes to return home and reestablish the Mosaic Law in Jerusalem. Now apparently Ezra has spoken at great length to the King about the God of Israel, telling him that God is a mighty God who is more than able to protect his people from harm; so the King sends Ezra on his way, free to go and be protected by his God. But this creates a tiny problem for Ezra, in that he’s got a long road ahead of him; he’s traveling with a large group of people, and there will be various obstacles and enemies on the road. And although he does believe what he told Artaxerxes—that God is a powerful God who can completely protect his people—he hasn’t yet asked God to do so.

And so, starting at v. 21 of chapter 8, we see Ezra encourage the people to ask God for help.

21 Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods. 22 For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, “The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.” 23 So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.

Now there is one sentence here that is key to understanding why Ezra proclaims not only that the people should pray, but that they should fast. We see it in v. 21: Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods. Ezra declares that the people will deprive themselves of food for a time, and ask God for protection on the road; and this fast is declared that we might humble ourselves before God.

Everyone who has ever prayed knows that they need God. This is one of the main reasons we pray in the first place: to ask God for something we can’t do for ourselves. But I’m sure you’ve all had this experience before—let’s say you need to find an apartment, and quickly. So you pray: “Lord, please let me find an apartment quickly.” And then what do you do? You go to work: you put together an immaculate renter’s profile for the owners; you go visit every bank in town to try and find the loan which will be the most advantageous to you and attractive to the owners; you visit real estate agencies and make phone calls and work your tail off.

Now, these things you do aren’t bad; they’re necessary and good. But if you’ve ever looked for an apartment, you know the state of mind you’re usually in when you do so, especially if you’re pressed for time. Most of us going through this experience are bent over backward with stress and worry about it. Most of the time it’s not industriousness or work ethic that drives us to work as hard as we do, but fear—fear that if we don’t get everything just right, we won’t find an apartment on time.

Do you see the problem in this scenario? We’ve prayed to God to ask for help because we know that God can do something we ourselves are incapable of doing, and that he knows what is best for us. But although we know that’s true, we don’t completely believe it. If we believed it, we wouldn’t be worried! We would do the work we need to do, but we would do it with confidence, because it’s the right thing to do. Most of us pray, then work our tails off in fear that God might not come through: our work is not obedience to God, but a way of providing ourselves with a safety net in case God doesn’t come through.

So fasting, in this context, is a way to help us humble ourselves before God, in order to not work in this way. Fasting is a way of expressing with our bodies our spiritual dependence on God. It’s a way of helping us to feel dependent on him and to not just know intellectually that we are. Our stomachs ache for food, and we realize, Lord, I need you THIS MUCH, and more. As much as my body feels that I need food right now, I need you even more! And that kind of prayer honors God: that kind of prayer does not try to manipulate or strong-arm God into doing something he doesn’t want to do, but comes to God with open arms and an open mouth, saying, “I need you, Lord! Fill me! Help me!” That kind of prayer humbles us before God, because we don’t merely acknowledge with our mouths that we need God’s help, but allows us to feel with our guts that we need him.

And what is the result here? v. 23: So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty. The Bible never says that fasting will automatically makes God answer our prayers the way we wanted; but it does seem to incline his heart to act on behalf of his children in a particular way.

The best example I can think of to explain why this is the case is, as usual, an example about my kids. Zadie is five years old, and she is determined to do most things herself. I see she’s doing something wrong, and I say, “Here kiddo, let me help,” and she is convinced that she knows better than me how it should be done. So I let her do hisherthing. But eventually she realizes that no, in fact Dad was probably right about this, so she’ll inevitably crack and say, “Daddy, I can’t do this; can you help me?” And because I love her, and I enjoy seeing her grow in humility (it’s a hard thing to admit you need help, after all), I don’t hesitate for a second to help her and give him what she needs.

When we humble ourselves before God—not merely verbally, but when we feel in our hearts and in our guts that we need him—God is inclined to come to the rescue of his children, because that humility honors him, and helps us grow.

That’s the first key. But there’s a question we need to ask: Is there anything different about Christian fasting? There are multiple passages in the New Testament which talk about the reality that now that Jesus has come, Christians are no longer obligated to submit to rituals and rites to earn God’s favor, like the Jews did (including fasting). And this is true—to my knowledge there is no explicit command in the New Testament that Christians fast. So when a Christian fasts, what is different about his fasting? How do we fast in a way that doesn’t try to manipulate God into giving us what we want, but that honors him?

Reason 2: To Desire What We’ve Already Tasted (Matthew 9.14-17)

For this, we need to turn to Matthew chapter 9. In this chapter, we find Jesus in full “breaking-down-the-Pharisaic-system” mode. The Pharisees were religious leaders who followed the Law of Moses to the letter: they observed every ritual, kept every law. And everything Jesus is doing goes against what they say is right. Just a few verses above our passage, in v. 9-13, Jesus has just called Matthew, a tax collector—one of the vilest occupations imaginable in that society—to be his disciple. And when the Pharisees see this, they’re shocked and outraged to see that Jesus is eating with these terrible people and calling them to follow him. To which Jesus responds in v. 13, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. This was mind-blowingly counter-cultural.

And it is in this context that the disciples of John the Baptist come to Jesus with a question in v. 14:

14 Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. 17 Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

Here’s what he means. The Jews fast to express their longing of something that hasn’t yet been fulfilled. They’re still waiting on the fulfillment of God’s promises, including coming of the Messiah. For the Jews, it’s an ascetic practice meant to show their devotion and their allegiance to God’s plan. The fasting of the Jews is the old wineskin, the old cloth—the old way of doing things.

But now, Jesus says, the kingdom has come! The old wineskins and the garments have been replaced with new ones, never before used or seen. The old way of doing things has been replaced by a far better one. They no longer need to long for the coming of the kingdom of God—the kingdom of God is here! They no longer need to long for the coming of the Messiah—the Messiah is sitting right there with them! We are no longer waiting expectantly for his arrival; he is here, we have seen him and know him!

And yet, Jesus does say that it won’t always be exactly as it is now (v. 15): The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. After his death and resurrection, Jesus ascended back into heaven and sent his Holy Spirit to fill his disciples and empower them to proclaim the kingdom of God all over the world. So soon, he says, he will be taken away from the disciples, and THEN they will fast. So yes, they will fast; but their fasting won’t the same as the Pharisees’. In some ways it will be similar, but in one massive, fundamental way, it will be radically different.

Christian fasting is similar to the Pharisees’ fasting in that it is expectant—it does express a longing in us. Jesus promised that when the time was right, when the gospel had gone out to all corners of the earth and all of God’s children had been called to him and given new life, that he would return. He will return, and establish his kingdom here on earth.

This will happen. This is what the children of God are waiting for; this is what we are longing for; this is what we our expecting. When we fast, our hunger expresses our longing for this time when the kingdom will be fully realized, completely fulfilled.

But at the same time, Christian fasting is wildly different from the Pharisees’ fasting, because the hunger we feel when we fast is not a desperate, painful hunger: it is a satisfied hunger, because the kingdom of God has begun. The Messiah has come, and we have seen him. We have been given a foretaste of that wonderful day.

Before the kids were born, we would travel back to America nearly every Thanksgiving to celebrate the holiday with my family. (Since we planted the church we’ve spent Thanksgiving with all of you.) If you don’t know Thanksgiving, it’s basically an excuse to eat insane amounts of amazing food we only eat on that day. Every time we would go home for Thanksgiving, I had a strange experience of going back to my childhood, and it always started with the smells.

My mom begins cooking the Thanksgiving meal at around 5:00 in the morning, and as the morning progresses the smells—these very particular smells that I’ve known all my life—gradually fill the house. We don’t usually sit down to eat until 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon, which means we spend a lot of that time really hungry. It’s tempting to go into the pantry and grab a Twinkie or a Pop-Tart (or any number of unhealthy snacks) to calm our appetite a bit, but we don’t, because we know what’s coming. We’ve had this meal before, and we know it is so much better than the Twinkie in the pantry. And so not in spite of our hunger, but precisely because we’re so hungry, we wait: we stay patient, because we know that what’s coming will satisfy our hunger far better than anything else we could find to eat.

When we fast as Christians, we feel hungry, but our hunger is not desperate; ours is a satisfied hunger which says that we have seen the Messiah, we have tasted his graces, we have seen his glory, and we want more. We feel the stirring in our stomach that says it’s mealtime, and we turn that feeling to God and say, I long for you like this. I desire to see your glory this much.

Three Questions

There is much more that we could say about this, but as we close let me ask you a couple of questions, to help you examine yourself.

First of all, think about how you pray for something that is important to you, and what happens afterward. Ask yourself this: After I pray, do I feel anxiety over the idea that God might not act? Do I attempt to do God’s work for him, just in case? If so, consider fasting: when we fast, we humble ourselves before God, allowing ourselves to not only verbally admit our dependence on him, but to feel that dependence. And that humility both honors God and helps us to trust that he really is in control, that he really is powerful to act, and that whatever it is he does really is the best thing—even if it’s not what I wanted in the first place.

Second question: Have I tasted the joy of knowing Christ? Do I delight in his grace day after day? Do I have joy in knowing him? It’s amazing how many Christians find this difficult—it’s amazing how difficult I find this myself. In some respects it’s to be expected: we live in a fallen, corrupt world and are confronted with pain and anger and sin every day. It’s hard to feel joy and contentment in a context like that. So we need help. We need something to pull us out of ourselves and remind us of what we have in Christ, and how much better he is than all the things we so badly want on this earth. If you have a hard time delighting in God’s grace, if you have a hard time feeling the joy of knowing him, then consider fasting: when we fast, we express our satisfaction with what we already have in him: whatever it is I hunger for, God, you are so much better!

Last question: Do I long for the day when his kingdom will come? or do I rather long for pleasure in this life? Most of us rarely think about heaven, partially because it’s a little abstract to us, but mostly because we’re so preoccupied with this earth that it doesn’t even occur to us to think about the new heavens and the new earth. But we should be longing for them; we should think about them often, because that’s where our hope lies—our hope is fixed on that day when Christ will make all things new, and we will be like him, and we will live with him on this earth, perfectly renewed, and we will rejoice in his glory forever. Whatever we could find in this earth, no matter how legitimate that pleasure is, pales in comparison with the pleasure of knowing him forever (cf. Ps. 16.11). If you find it hard to long for that day, if you are preoccupied with the pleasure of this world and this life (even if that pleasure is legitimate), consider fasting: when we fast, we express our longing for what is to come—we feel the ache of whatever we have given up, and we say, Lord, I long for you LIKE THIS. I need you LIKE THIS. I hope in you LIKE THIS.

A Call to Fast

So as we conclude our series on prayer, this week I would encourage you to join me in fasting. And again, it doesn’t have to be food. But it should be something we feel. Because the point of fasting is to remind us that whatever it is we’re giving up, whatever it is that hurts us to give up, God is so much better. Sometimes not doing what feels good—depriving ourselves of what we desire—brings its own unique pleasure: that of feeling our desire for God in a particular way, and of knowing that one day, that desire will be totally and completely satisfied.

So please pray and consider fasting this week. Let’s humble ourselves before the God who has given us all things through the life, death and resurrection of his Son; let’s not only acknowledge, but feel our dependence on him; let’s remind ourselves, through what we’re giving up, of what we’re waiting for. Let’s feel more keenly, in our guts, the desire for that wonderful day, when Christ will return and make all things new.

The Conversation

John 21.15-19

I’ve been a pastor for almost ten years now, and I’ve been a Christian for more than twice as long. And over that time I’ve come to realize that what we think the Christian life should look like is often quite different from what it actually is.

Here’s what we often imagine when we think of what the Christian life ought to look like. It’s not perfection, but a life that could be represented on a graph by a straight line moving progressively upwards. Smooth, straight—not perfect yet, but always going up.

Honestly, that’s not what the Christian life really looks like most of the time. What it usually looks like—or rather, what it feels like—is more like a spiky line on a graph. There’s progression, followed by moments or periods of struggle or outright failure, followed by more progression, then more struggle, and so on. We still move gradually upwards, but it’s not a straight line.

For some people, these spikes are more pronounced than for others—but we all have them.

The holier we become, the more we realize how unholy we actually are. The more like Christ we become, the more clearly we’re able to see just how pervasive sin is, and how much still remains to be changed.

This can be discouraging to us, particularly at a period like Christmas, because we can feel like the beautiful picture people paint at Christmas doesn’t apply to us.

This is our last message for the season of Advent. We always take one extra week after Christmas to reflect on why we’re doing this. If you remember, Advent is the period where we reflect on the people of Israel waiting for the coming of the Messiah. We do this, not just to remember Christ’s birth and be thankful for it, but to help us learn to wait for the day when the Messiah will return, rid the creation of sin and its effects, and bring us with him to live forever in a world without pain, without death, without grief or anger or fear.

In other words, there’s a reason why we read those passages in Revelation this morning: this is the day we’re waiting for. But often this can seem very theoretical to us, very abstract.

I’ve had conversations with multiple people this month that make me think that we would be well served, on this last Sunday of 2023, by speaking not directly about Christ’s return, but about the time in between—the time in which we find ourselves now, when we’re still waiting. Because a lot of Christians will hear a sermon on the second coming of Christ and feel doubt rather than encouragement, because given how their lives are going so far, they’re not sure they’re going to make it. You may not be sure you’ll make it—that you’ll be among those whom Christ will welcome into his kingdom.

So rather than panic about it, let’s sit in it for a little while. The last three weeks we’ve been in the beginning of John’s gospel, when John described Jesus Christ to us—God himself, the Creator of all things, our life and our light, who took on human flesh, lived our life and died our death.

It’s a beautiful picture, but imagine you were there to see Jesus in person, and you let him down, you betrayed him—in person. How would you feel to have Jesus look at you then? How might he react?

That precisely was the experience of the apostle Peter.

Peter: Background

Peter was a fisherman, a disciple called by Jesus to follow him early in his ministry. Of all the disciples, Peter was one of the most devoted, one of the most fervent, and certainly the most confident.

Toward the end of John’s gospel we see a lot of things coming to a head for Peter. In John 13, Jesus tells the disciples what’s going to happen soon—how he’ll be arrested and put on trial and killed. Peter, ever confident, says that he’ll follow Christ even to death, and Jesus says, “No you won’t—before dawn you’ll deny me three times.”

Which is exactly what happens. Jesus is arrested, he is taken before the high priest. Most of the disciples run away in fear. Peter follows from a distance, standing outside the house.

We see it in John 18. Those standing around with Peter recognize him and ask him if he’s one of his disciples. Peter is afraid, so he says no—three times, just like Jesus said.

We can of course understand Peter; he was afraid, and it’s normal to be afraid. Who among us could say with absolute certainty that we would do things differently?

But that’s not the issue. The issue is Peter’s heart. He had been sure that he was stronger than that. He was sure that even if everyone else left Jesus, he wouldn’t. In other words, he was prideful—he imagined himself stronger than he was, and was depending on his own strength to see him through.

We know what happened next. Jesus was crucified, all the disciples—including Peter—were absent at his crucifixion, all but one (John himself).

Jesus was buried, the disciples were in complete despair over it all. Clearly Jesus wasn’t the Messiah, the great King they thought he was.

But then, to everyone’s amazement—on the third day following his crucifixion, Jesus comes back to them. He is clearly the same man—they can recognize him, they can see the marks in his hands and feet—but he has been changed as well, resurrected and glorified, alive once again in a perfect body, freed from sickness and disease and death.

Think of the massive shift in perspective this would have caused. Already Jesus had surprised them time after time, with his teaching, by performing miracles, and even raising the dead. But the dead he raised were pretty much the same after their resurrections as before; this resurrection was different.

The Jesus standing before them now was the sign of something much bigger than a simple bodily resurrection in the future: he was the sign, not just of resurrection, but of renovation, renewal. And not just of one or two individual people, but of everyone and everything that belonged to God.

I imagine the days following Jesus’s resurrection must have been remarkably strange for the disciples. You know that feeling when you learn some bit of information that is so huge, you walk around in a daze, unable to see anything in the same way because of what you now know.

The Conversation (John 21.15-19)

Now—in the last chapter of John’s gospel, John 21, we see a very interesting story, probably my favorite story in this entire gospel, and this is where we’ll spend the rest of our time today. Some time after Christ’s resurrection, some of the disciples were together near the Sea of Tiberias, and Peter decides to go fishing. So they all go out in the boat together, they fish all night, they catch nothing. They’re coming back in to shore, and they see a guy on the shore who tells them to throw their nets over the right side of the boat.

So they do it, and suddenly the nets are overloaded with fish.

John recognizes that the guy on the shore isn’t just a guy, but it’s Jesus, so Peter jumps into the water and swims like a madman to see Jesus. (I would have loved to hear what Peter said when he got to him, all wet, out of breath, while his buddies struggled to haul to load of fish to the short.)

When they get there and they bring the fish in, Jesus cooks them breakfast. Already, this would have been incredible: the resurrected and glorified Son of God serving you breakfast! But then after breakfast, Jesus trains his sights on Peter, for what would surely become the most significant conversation of his life.

Let’s read it together—John 21.15-19:

15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” 19 (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”

Now this is a relatively simple story. Jesus asks Peter the same question three times, gets the same answer,  and gives a variation of the same command.

The question is, why did Jesus ask this question—“Do you love me?”—three times, and why was Peter grieved when he did?

Because that’s how many times Peter denied knowing him.

Jesus was subtly—but clearly—placing Peter directly in front of his own failure, in front of his own pride, in front of his own hypocrisy and sin.

Most of us know how that feels. All of us have disappointed someone. All of us have failed someone we love. All of us have hurt someone who trusted us. And if we’re Christians, we’re aware that all of us have failed God.

But sometimes, the knowledge that we’ve failed God can feel a little distant, like we’ve failed an idea or a principle rather than someone we love. So we need to try to put ourselves in Peter’s shoes here. He has walked with Jesus for the last three years. He has listened to him and observed him. He has had endless conversations with him, and been endlessly helped by him. Peter loves this man more than he loves anyone else in the whole world.

And now, Jesus is sitting across from him, reminding him none too subtly that Peter let him down. Peter responds to his questions the only way he knows how—“You know all things, Lord, you know that I love you”—and it feels a bit like when you try to say “I love you” after hurting your spouse, like you’re trying to say the thing that will make it better, when you know that nothing you can do in that moment will really make it better.

That’s the position Peter is in; that’s what he’s feeling.

It may seem cruel of Jesus to put Peter through this. Hadn’t he been punished enough during those three days when Jesus was dead? Why did he feel the need to rub his face in his failure?

It wasn’t for retribution; it wasn’t to punish Peter. Jesus is drawing Peter’s attention to his failure, and saying what he is saying, for Peter. Peter needed to know—not just in his head, but in his guts—that he would not “succeed” in being the perfect disciple he wanted to be. He would not get there under his own steam, and there would be bumps in the road.

And he needed to know that these bumps in the road didn’t mean he could no longer be a disciple of Christ.

Despite his failure, Jesus’s invitation still stands. On the heels of his questions, he also gives commands: “Feed my sheep. Take care of my sheep.” And most especially: “Follow me.”

Jesus is being very clear here. He is not expecting perfection from Peter. He’s expecting two things.

Firstly, he’s expecting dependance on God alone. That’s what the questions are for. “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” Peter’s failure held up in front of his face, to remind him he cannot do this alone. He cannot love Jesus like he should, or follow Jesus like he should, on his own. He’s not strong enough on his own to get there. He needs God’s help.

Secondly, Jesus is expecting humble perseverance. This perseverance is humble because Peter must recognize that he needs God in order to do anything, and that he must depend on God to give him what he needs; and it is “perseverance” because if God gives Peter what he needs to do what God has called him to do, he has to do it.

This is the part a lot of people have a hard time understanding. By reminding Peter of his failure, and then giving Peter these commands, Jesus is pulling him up off the ground, and setting his feet back on the road: something Peter desperately needed at that point in time. But you can’t be set back on the road without first recognizing that you’ve left it. Jesus is telling Peter, essentially, “Despite your failures, despite your weaknesses, you must continue to do what I’ve called you to do. Feed my sheep. Feed my lambs. Follow me. You won’t get it perfect on your own, but God is here to give you what you need—and even if you fail, keep going. Do what you know to do. Keep going.”

We know what happened next. Peter is a changed man in the weeks and months that followed. He is confident, but it’s no longer the brash and self-centered confidence of a prideful man. He is confident in God’s ability to carry out his will (which is a very different thing).

Peter was not perfect. He made other mistakes. He still struggled with sin.

But he fed Jesus’s sheep. He and the others founded and cared for the church. He wasn’t perfect, but he persevered.

Conclusion

Some of you really need to hear this. You’re looking at these first five or ten or twenty years of your Christian life and you’re doubting yourselves. You’re wondering if God could ever really use you, if how you’ve begun is any indication.

But it doesn’t matter how you begin. It matters how you end.

Perfection is not the goal; perseverance is the goal, and God will help you persevere.

Some of you always feel out of place here because you look around and you imagine that everyone else is doing so much better than you. Some of them probably are; most of them aren’t. You can’t see that because you don’t know them well enough, but we’re all struggling to live for God. Living for God is by definition a struggle, because it goes against everything in our sinful nature.

OK, so people struggle. But you still feel out of place. Because you look around and you see all these smiling people, all these folks who seem genuinely happy to be here, while you’re barely keeping your head above water. You wonder if they’re faking it, or if you’re just missing something, or perhaps a combination of both.

Some of them might be faking it (I faked it for a long time). But I’ve come to learn that more often, that happiness is sincere. Maybe these people are happier in their Christian lives than you are.

If they are, it’s for one reason only. It’s not because they’re better than you, but rather because God has helped them to understand what he expects of them. It’s not perfection. Rather, it’s dependent perseverance, which always results in progress.

Perfection is the end goal, and we will get there, on that day when Christ returns and makes all things new, and rids the world of the effects of sin and death—everything we read during the worship service earlier. That’s where we’re going, but we’re not there yet. So for today, our marching orders are persevere, and progress.

That’s why happy Christians are happy (at least if they’re not deluded, and are happy for the right reasons). It’s because God has helped them understand what he expects of them, that the strength to persevere and to progress won’t come from them, but that they can depend on God to give them what they need to persevere and progress today.

So let me give you a bit of advice. Take a cue from what Jesus says to Peter. When he asks Peter three times if Peter loves him, he doesn’t command him to start a church that would become a global phenomenon and would still be continuing two thousand years later.

If Jesus had done that, Peter would have balked, because at that point in time, he wasn’t able to do that.

Jesus called him to a much smaller, very simple task: “Feed my sheep.” Peter, at that moment in his life, may not have been able to become the foundational apostle he would become. But he could take care of the people God had placed in his life.

You don’t need to concern yourself with what God will call you to do in twenty years, and whether or not you’re able to do it. You’re not, more than likely—at least not yet. All you need to concern yourself with is what he has placed in front of you today.

And you don’t need to compare yourself with where some other Christian may be today; they’re not you, and they’re not where you are.  All you need to do is keep your eyes fixed on where you’re going, and keep marching, slowly but steadily, in that direction.

This is just the beginning, and It doesn’t matter how we begin, but how we end.

All he expects of us is that we run our race, and finish our race, dependent on him, and persevering in his call on our lives.

And since we don’t know when the end will arrive for us, it must begin today.

Christmas: Grace and Truth

John 1.14-18

Today is an exceptional today, because of course today is Christmas Eve. We’re here to celebrate our Lord Jesus Christ, as we do every Sunday, but this Sunday is different, because we’re celebrating a particular aspect of our Lord Jesus Christ: we’re celebrating his coming.

Now, we have the kids with us this morning. Kids, I know you’ll find it difficult to sit still today, so I’m going to start with you, and I’m going to explain really quickly everything I’m going to say to your parents and your big brothers and sisters, so on the way home you can ask them questions and make sure they understand what I’ve said.

Raise your hands if you have a favorite character—a favorite princess, or a favorite superhero. So imagine how incredible it would be if I told you that Elsa or Anna (or Superman or Wonder Woman) was coming to your house this week? And that they weren’t just coming over for dinner, but that they were going to live in your house from now on?

Wouldn’t that be amazing? What would it be like to have breakfast with them, to play games with them, to talk to them? And to know that they would be living with you forever?

Well Jesus is way bigger, way more important, than Elsa or Anna or Superman—and that’s exactly what he’s done. He’s come to us, and he’s moved in, and he lives with us now, and forever.

In John 1.14-18, the apostle John ends his prologue by making explicit the things he had hinted to before: that the Son of God became flesh, full of grace and truth, in order to make God known.

The Son of God Became Flesh… (v. 14-15)

We remember that John has used several pictures since the beginning of the prologue—he’s talked about “life,” and “the light,” and “the Word”: that is, what God wanted his people to know about himself. John said that this “Word” wasn’t just a message God was sending, but it was God himself, the Creator of all things. And then John tells us the incredible news—which of course we’ve heard now, but imagine what it must have been like to learn this for the first time. V. 14:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Hold on—John said earlier that this “Word” was God; that he was eternal; that he created everything, including us. And now he says that the Word became flesh. That is, he took on a human form, became a human being, took on a human nature.

We’ve become numb to how huge this idea is, but imagine if Tom Cruise walked in through these doors this morning. You might agree with him, you might not, but his presence wouldn’t go unnoticed, and it wouldn’t leave us indifferent.

But even that wouldn’t be all that impressive, because even if it’s unlikely that Tom Cruise would come to our church this morning, it’s at least theoretically possible.

So rather, imagine if Nelson Mandela stepped out of history and walked through these doors. On top of being an incredible thing because of his significance to world culture, it should be impossible for him to be here, because he died ten years ago. What would our reaction be if it happened, and it really was Nelson Mandela sitting here?

The Word became flesh—God himself, the Creator of all things, became a human being. This is the most incredible thing to have ever happened in the history of the world.

And not only that, John says, The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This is another callback to the Old Testament, like John did at the beginning of this chapter: the word he uses for “dwell” is the verb form of the word “tent” or “tabernacle.” In the book of Exodus, when God gives the law to the people, he has them build a big tent, called the tabernacle. In this tent, they will place the Ark of the Covenant, and that is where God’s presence dwelt with his people. If you wanted to go to God, you had to go to the tabernacle. The tent was transportable; they could take it down and put it back up as they moved from place to place. And every time they set up camp somewhere new, God’s presence would remain in the tabernacle once again.

But at this point in time, the tabernacle had been gone for a long time. The Ark of the Covenant was lost (at least until Indiana Jones found it again, haha). The temple had been pillaged more than once. The days in which God’s presence was visibly active amongst his people were long behind them.

At least until the Word became flesh. God himself, the second person of the Trinity, was born as a human baby named Jesus, and that baby grew up, and he lived an ordinary life amongst ordinary people. When God became a human being, he dwelt among his people. He became, in a manner of speaking, a new tabernacle—a place where the presence of God remained, because he was God. And he wasn’t far away or inaccessible: he dwelt among us. The apostles, who were spreading this good news throughout the Roman world, saw him. That’s what John says next: and we have seen his glory.

The phrase “we have seen his glory” can mean a lot of different things depending on what kind of “glory” you’re talking about. I remember once reading a review of a stand-up comic who gave a one-man show in San Francisco. The review was one simple sentence: “He was glorious.” Of course by that, the reviewer meant that this comic’s talent was incredibly impressive.

So we need to be specific: when John says that we have seen the glory of “the Word”, what glory is he talking about? John tells us: glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

To put it another way, the Word became flesh in order to show us who God is and what God is like. That’s what God’s glory is: it’s all of his attributes—his power, his wisdom, his goodness, his justice, all of it—made visible to the world. So it’s fairly obvious that if God wants to show us his glory, he’d make those attributes literally visible. And he did it by becoming a person. A person we could see and touch and listen to.

When you look at Jesus in the Bible, you see God. His glory is divine glory.

And John gives us another reminder of this in v. 15, when he speaks again of John the Baptist:

15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”)

Remember what we saw in v. 1—In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word WAS God. John the Baptist is saying exactly that: even though he came before Jesus, Jesus is more important than him, because he’s always been here—he is God.

The Son of God became flesh, and he lived among human beings, and we beheld his glory—when we look at Jesus, we see God himself.

…Full of Grace and Truth… (v. 16-17)

But what precisely do we see when we see his glory? We see a lot of things, but there are two things John focuses on in particular. V. 16:

16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

So the first thing we see and receive when we see Christ is grace. Grace is a lot more than not getting the punishment we deserve. My dad used to make a very helpful comparison between two words we see a lot in the Bible: grace and mercy.

Here’s how he explained it—he explained it using noises. “Mercy” is when you deserve something bad, and you don’t get it. So the noise for “mercy” is: Whew!

“Grace” is when you don’t deserve something good, but you get something good anyway. So the noise for grace is: Wow!

Grace is—Wow! We deserved nothing from God but punishment for our rebellion against him. But only did we not receive his punishment, we received his goodness. We received his blessing. We received his grace.

And we didn’t just receive his grace; we received it from his fullness—grace UPON grace. It’s not as if God had to work really hard to convince himself to be kind to us. The most substantial grace you have ever received in your life is merely a drop in the bucket: we have received from his fullness, not from the tiny morsels of goodness he was able to scrape together.

So grace came through Christ, and the other thing that came through him was truth. V. 17—For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Now, John isn’t comparing and contrasting the law (like that’s the bad thing), and grace and truth (like they’re the good things). He’s talking about progression. The law God gave to his people was a picture of his perfect character and holiness—a picture his people could never live up to. So although they had a list of things they would need to see in order to see God’s character, they had never actually seen it, because no one had ever lived like that.

Until Christ.

The grace and truth that had always been in God, that had been described in the law of Moses, manifest themselves in Jesus Christ. Perfect grace, and perfect truth.

And you need both—because grace without truth causes some massive problems. Grace without truth makes a mockery of justice, because it ignores sin, or at least treats it like it’s no big deal.

God never gives grace at the expense of truth; he gives grace because of truth. The truth is that we are sinners, we need a Savior to take our place, and we need the Savior’s help to become more like him.

…To Make God Known (v. 18)

Jesus is that Savior. Jesus is God. Jesus brings grace and truth from his fullness. And he does it to make God known. V. 18:

No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

This is John’s concluding sentence for his prologue, and he says it as clearly as possible, just in case we hadn’t understood before.

God’s goal, since the very beginning, has always been to reveal himself—to show his glory to the world. Only God himself could manifest God’s character and holiness to us; only God himself could reveal himself to humans.

Jesus Christ is that God. He is able to reveal God’s character and holiness to us because he is God. He took on a human nature, lived a human life, in order to make God visible to human beings.

If you want to see God, you need to look at Jesus.

Conclusion

The picture in everyone’s minds at Christmas is the picture of the baby Jesus in the manger, sleeping peacefully. It is a beautiful picture—a picture of peace and happiness (new parents of healthy babies are almost always happy), and it’s a picture that naturally makes us feel restful.

But at Christmas we must remember that this picture is just the beginning. The baby in the manger grew up. As he grew, he lived a perfect, sinless life in a world full of sin. He ministered to those who needed him even though he didn’t need to do it—he didn’t have to teach or to heal or to speak to people no one else would speak to. He did those things to show us who God is.

Then he showed us even more of God: although he was without sin, he took our sin on himself and suffered the punishment we deserve, in our place. God did that, for us. GOD absorbed his own wrath against our sin, so that we wouldn’t have to. That is mercy—that is whew!

And he gave us his own perfect life, so that we would receive the reward, as if we were the ones who had lived without sin. He gave us eternal life, eternal joy, eternal peace, in a world without sin or sickness or death. Everything he deserves, and nothing we deserve. That is grace—that is wow!

Before such grace, how are we called to respond?

We are called to respond with truth—the same truth Christ came to proclaim. We are sinners, in need of a Savior, and this Savior has come. He has shone his light on us all, and we don’t want to be like those in the world who didn’t recognize him or receive him.

So we will confess our need of him, we will confess our sin, we will accept his forgiveness, and we will follow him. We will become more like him. We will not take his grace for granted, but recognize it as costly.

And for such a grace, we will be infinitely thankful.

It is the only response that makes sense.

I don’t know where you are this morning, what kind of questions or doubts you’ve brought with you, or what you’re looking for. But in all honesty, it doesn’t matter. Every situation and every doubt and every pain and every joy is changed by this simple truth: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.

Let us come to him this morning, and humbly receive his grace.