all the nations God has made

 

All the nations you have made shall come

and worship before you, O Lord,

and shall glorify your name.

Psalm 86:9

David's vision of the worship of the LORD is global because God's vision of worship calls all the nations to Him. Israel was a chosen nation, but all the nations of the world are the creation of God, every person, every culture, every people group are loved by God, and called to worship the Lord. The nations are God's creation, made for His glory to be sharing in His worship. That is the vision of world missions, that all nations would come to bring glory to the name of their God.

And this is still the state of things thousands of years of world history later. God has made all the nations for His glory and blessing... not just the good ol' U. S. of A! All nations are made for His glory and purposes. Botswana and Belgium, Indonesia and India, Chile and China, any nation on this globe is made up of people that God created, loves, and for whom He sent His Son to die! When God loved the world by sending Jesus, He loved ALL the people of the world, not just parts of it. God loves ALL the nations, even ones like North Korea, or Sudan, or Iran, Libya or Yemen. And God is calling all people groups to Him. That includes people lost in sin and compensating with Buddhism, Islam, ancestor worship, animism, secularism or a host of other false beliefs. He will call them all to His worship.

And Christians are tasked to play a role in accomplishing this big picture of worship. Jesus charges us to make disciples of the nations. We preach the gospel, we baptize believers, we teach God's Word as Jesus commanded because this vision drives us. At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And the nations God has made shall worship Him!

dead men walking

 

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—

Ephesians 2:1-2

Before I came to faith in Christ, even though I was a child, I was still spiritually a zombie. I was a dead man walking. That is what Paul teaches in this passage. I must believe what this scripture says. Nobody, not even me, is born good. We are born spiritually dead in sin. And we walk in that sin, marching mindlessly toward hell.

The passage says that the dead zombie souls of our unredeemed natures will mindlessly follow two things: 1) the path of this world, and 2) the spirit of this world, Satan. That ain't good! We are on a path away from God at the start of our lives. We are dead men walking.

We are set on a road to hell in our sin. It is the only course we know, the "course of this world". We are oriented in the direction away from God by our sin. This life is lived outside of Christ in what scripture calls our "present evil age" (see Galatians 1:4). We can't change that fact about ourselves by ourselves. Our only hope is through the regeneration Christ brings. He sets us free, makes us alive, and places us on His "path of life".

We will also follow Satan's bidding in our unredeemed state. Usually not overtly, since I have yet to meet any overt Satanists, but in covert operations, Satan is THE influence in the world system AND in the individual lives of walking dead sinners. Jesus said Satan is like a father to sinners. And in following sin, we ultimately follow Satan's evil, disruptive, destructive, disobedient schemes.

These two tendencies toward the world and toward the devil are why we desperately need to believe that Jesus died for our sins and gives us new life. It is why I am thankful that He saved me when I trusted in that truth. It is why I must be passionate to live and proclaim the gospel of His saving life! 

longing

 

How lovely is your dwelling place,

O Lord of hosts!

My soul longs, yes, faints

for the courts of the Lord;

my heart and flesh sing for joy

to the living God.

Psalm 84:1-2

When the holy work of Christ is at work in me, when I let the Spirit of God work in me using the Word of God to transform my inner person, I find my passions changing. I want to have a heart that longs to be with God. I yearn for His presence and power. I want my heart and my flesh not to be steeped in self-centered sinfulness. I want my heart and flesh to find joy and expression in God. I want to sing from the simple, pure, single-minded joy of knowing God.

I realize that as much as I have this desire, I am my own worst enemy when it comes to seeing it come to fruition. I want full devotion to God. I fight a stinking devotion to my self, my unrepented sin, and the muddy, worthless, earthly trinkets I tend to clench tightly in my heart as my dearest treasures. To truly know this longing for God, this desire to always be in God's presence, I must "put off" what is earthly in me (Colossians 3:5), considering it dead, so that I can "put on" this holy, joyful longing in a new worship-filled life.

O Lord,

Help me lead a funeral today for the wickedness in my heart. I say that I want You, and Your new creation in me does long for You, but I confess, there is so much in my "old man" that still forces my head down in an earthly stare. And like the prodigal I want to feed on pig slop. I repent of this. I fight against the weight of sin so that I may run, with all my longing, into the courts of the LORD, Your lovely dwelling place, there to live!

Amen

Jesus is throwing a party.

And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.

Luke 13:29-30

Jesus says three things about His kingdom that are wonderfully surprising. Jesus turns things upside down with His vision of the kingdom. It will be a delightfully different realm, unlike any kind of rule people in this world have ever known.

First on the surprise description: the kingdom of God is a pretty fun party. That's the image Jesus employed when talking about the kingdom as a table where people recline with Jesus to eat. It was the ancient middle eastern way of throwing a feast, a party, a social gathering with food, fun, and great interaction among the guests and host. Jesus let us know that the way to understand His kingdom is to see it as a great get together at a party.

Secondly, the party of the kingdom of God will not be an exclusive, stuffy, members-only country club affair. It's going to be packed tight with variety. Many will come from all directions (a reference to the breadth of the gospel message impacting all the globe and all people groups) to feast at the table Jesus prepares. All of these people will be honored guests reclining in joy with the Master of the feast. Yes, the kingdom of God will be diverse, and I will be glad that it looks nothing like an American evangelical church service! Lord knows, we've had enough of those. Let's look forward to that party that Jesus throws in His kingdom!

Finally, the usual social order is reversed at Jesus' table. I have a feeling the outcasts, the infirm, the minorities, the ridiculed, and the misfits will all be the first into the kingdom's table. The line guard angel with the clipboard will probably keep me outside looking in for a while, but I'm pretty sure I'll at least get a spot at the kid's table as Jesus favors the "least of these" and I heartily enjoy seeing them get the love of the Master showered on them. This vision from Jesus challenges me to have His heart for people and groups that our world ignores, ridicules, or hides from view. His kingdom party will celebrate the men and women that most people consider to be social losers. Get ready for everything to change! I can't wait for this day to come.

Jesus is an evidentialist.

If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

John 10:37-38

When the leaders of the Jews confronted Jesus in their struggle to accept His claim to be God, Jesus asked them to match His claim to deity with the works that He did. His claim was preposterous unless His miracles were clearly the things that only God could do. And the miracles could become a back door of sorts to faith. Jesus said to evaluate His works, and then to look at His claims. He was inviting these people who repeatedly sought to kill Him, to stop in their tracks and reconsider not His claim, but His actions. This isn't confrontation as much as it is from Jesus an invitation. Jesus invited even His enemies to believe Him.

This would be a form of evidentialism, which is a defense of the gospel based on history, known present truth, and factual argumentation. By that I mean that Jesus asked people to believe based both on visible evidence of His divine power as well as His claims to be God. And that same line of reasoning is valid and true today. Christianity should be observed both by its works and its claims. Jesus truly lives in His followers. They demonstrate His love and power so that gospel truth can be both seen and known. Changed lives are a powerful, miraculous testimony to the truthfulness of Christian Faith and the transformation the gospel brings.

Contrary to prevailing cultural bias, truth is not relative. It is certain, propositional, and in the case of Christ's claims, verifiable in historical record. Jesus claimed that His actual deeds were undeniably divine in explanation. And His followers saw, and knew, this to be true. His disciples would die for this truth, so convinced were they of His deeds and claims. And they lived to proclaim His saving life. So should we.

listen and walk

Oh, that my people would listen to me,

that Israel would walk in my ways!

Psalm 81:13

This song is written in God's voice as He pleads with Israel to be faithful in their commitment to Him. They did not listen or submit to God (vs11) and so God let them follow their own stubborn hearts to live by their own counsel (vs 12). But even in this sin, there is a call to repent as God offers deliverance (vs 14) and a return to His tender care (vs 16).

The outcome of repentance requires two changes: listening to God and walking in His ways. And if Israel would do so, God would reward their renewed commitment with the blessings of His presence and the good joys of the covenant. Those same two things also apply to Christians today as we repent of sin and trust in the saving work of Jesus for us. The gospel calls us to change by listening to God's Word and obeying it as we live in the new life that God reveals to us in His Word.

Those two aspects of growth can become barriers if we don't combine them with repentance of sin. For instance, I can put all my efforts upon knowing Bible doctrine and codify a set of teachings, having never actually let that truth change the way I live. I would not truly be listening. I can also put all my emphasis on the details of outward appearances (Christian subculture gives us plenty of ways to do this) and have no deep grounding in God's truth, becoming a shallow imitator of a faddish sense of style. That is just legalistic and was the problem that the Pharisees had.

May God continue to call His people to a proper balance of listening, obeying, and walking in His truth. May His Word lead us in His ways for His glory. May we repent, listen, and walk!

hypocrisy never lasts

Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.

Luke 12:2

God has a way of shining light on hypocrisy. It doesn't pay to fake your way into an appearance of holiness. It will not succeed. Jesus exposed the Pharisee's hypocrisy when He walked with them, and He will bring the sins of His church in this generation into light. A smug, false righteousness always fails. It humiliates those deceived into thinking they can pull off holiness under their own power.

Sadly, nobody really "wins" when dark secrets are exposed in a scandal. I suppose God's justice prevails, and that is great, but among people, the church in hypocrisy is a losing situation. It hurts the church and it disappoints those outside the church, fueling opposition to the gospel. That is why we must call each other as Christians to gospel accountability and confessional community. We must fight our sin, and our sinful covering of our sins, by being quick to repent, to turn to our Savior, to confess our faults to each other as well as to God, and to encourage one another to holy change that refuses to allow superficial faith, shallow doctrine, and unexamined lives to be among us!

All of us who have trusted Jesus for eternal salvation will give an account to Jesus. And at His judgment seat he will shine His light on all we have done, both good and evil (2 Corinthians 5:10). That is a fearful moment to consider, because all of us will have forgotten His warnings that nothing is hidden. It forces me to look daily at my own heart filled with the "leaven" of hypocrisy, and to root it all out through the Word, conviction of the Holy Spirit, and repentance.

O Most Holy Lord,

May my hands NOT cover up my sin, but instead, when I know I have done wrong, perhaps sewing fig leaves of my own hypocrisy, may I run to my Savior, confess my sin, share confession with my brothers and sisters without criticism, and find in You and with Your people grace, mercy, and forgiveness! Burn away hypocrisy's mask so that Your face is shining on me.

Amen