Thesis 54- We must believe that all we experience God sends because He loves us.
There are two great evils that travel side by side with hardship and suffering, two lies hissed by the forked tongue of the serpent. One says “God is absent. He either doesn’t care, or can’t help.” The other says, “God did this, because He hates you.” As the most potent lies contain an element of truth, there is one here- “God did this.” Every hardship you have ever been through, no matter how horrific, was ordained by the hand of God before you were even born. It came about, whatever secondary or proximate causes there might have been, ultimately because of His sovereign decretive will. He is never absent. He always cares. He is ever able to help. And He not only doesn’t hate you, but loves you with an infinite, personal and immutable love.
Karma isn’t just a female dog, but a lying female dog. When things go well for us it is not because we have done well. We haven’t, ever. They go well for us because of what He has done. Our standing before the living God is wrapped up in our union with Jesus. If the Father loves the Son, and you are in the Son, the Father loves you. If you are in the Son, and the Father hates you, the Father hates the Son. When things go poorly for us it is because of the same love from which the good times flow.
Why would God, in His love, send hardship into our lives? He is the Potter and we are the clay. His end is to remake us, filthy, muddy clay that we are, into vessels of His glory. That means spinning us in circles on His wheel until we are dizzy. It means His hand pressing into us. It means of deluge of water. And finally it means the blazing heat of the kiln. It is His process, and boy howdy can it hurt. That said, His promise is that what we go through is not worthy to be compared with the eternal weight of glory (II Corinthians 4:17).
This glorious truth ought to ease the pain He puts us through. Believing Him to be indifferent or hostile makes it worse. Reformation in the church requires that we submit to all that He has told us. He, altogether holy, unable to lie, calls on us to trust Him. He tells us “When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, My grace all sufficient shall be thy supply. The flame shall not hurt thee, I only design, thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.” We are to count it all joy, knowing the testing of our faith produces patience (James 1:2).
Every good and perfect gift is from the Lord (James 1:7) and everything is from the Lord (Isaiah 45:7). Which means of necessity that everything we go through is a good and perfect gift from the Lord. Bless us O Lord with the gift of gratitude for all Your kind blessings, even those that hurt.
Despite the truth that from time to time, whether on my blog or on either of my podcasts, Ask RC or Jesus Changes Everything I dip my toes into political issues, I do not, as a general rule follow politics carefully. My political convictions put me well outside the mainstream and my hope is that that they are grounded in eternal verities which makes temporal vicissitudes of less significance. So I noticed when I agreed with my precious wife’s request that we tune our TV to the President’s press conference in March. Strange days indeed.
As the President introduced me to COVID I watched my indifference dissolve into the ether. This wasn’t Nixon announcing his resignation. This wasn’t Jimmy Carter coming on television to tell us to keep our thermostats down. This was the President telling us that travel overseas would come to an end, that sheltering in place was on its way. I praised the President for being presidential. I was confident that we would weather the storm. Remember 15 days to flatten the curve?
My classes switched to online, removing the one part of my work week where I left the home. I like home. My wife makes a beautiful home and is beautiful herself. The whole thing was just a minor inconvenience. We watched the President more regularly over the following days, but got out of that habit. Then came the riots. They weren’t covered by CNN or Fox news. They were covered by WANE and every other local station here in Fort Wayne. We were watching our own riots in our own city.
Remember Summer? Remember how we felt like we were coming out of the valley? But then came the second wave, and riding the crest, election season. And that, of course, ended smoothly. Now it’s masks, vaccines, and 5G oh my.
My strategy? Act in light of what I know. I don’t know if masks help, how dangerous COVID is, how safe the vaccine might be or if 5G will cause my blood to boil. I really don’t. I’m not at all suggesting that those with concerns about these things are wrong. I just know that I don’t know. And that God calls me to act on what I do know. I do know that I need to pursue becoming more like Jesus. I do know that I need to love my family. I do know I need to serve the body of Christ. I do know that how I do with those things, not how I respond to things above my pay grade is what matters, and is what will change the world.
It is true that a prudent man sees danger and takes refuge (Proverbs 27:12). The danger I see, however, is more in my own failures, less in whatever sludge comes down the pipeline from Washington DC. When I die, and look back at 2020, it will be every idle word of mine that I’ll see, every moment of faithlessness, every failure to reflect my Lord, every selfish thought. How did I manage 2020? The same way I managed 2019 and every year before, by knowing that every one of my failures is covered by the blood of Christ.
I must have been 10 years old when the anxiety hit me. I sat amidst the crumpled paper when it dawned on me, “It doesn’t get any better than this.” As I surveyed my gifts, however, I knew—the descent had already begun. Like a subtle heresy, clothes began to creep into the mix. There were plenty of toys, new diversions I was eager to get to. The joy of anticipation, however, was tempered by the clothes and the realization that next year there would be more clothes. Perhaps even, God help me, underwear. The spirit of Christmas future was haunting me.
I had adopted the creed of Sally Brown, Charlie’s younger sister. Surveying her lengthy and demanding wish list to Santa, Charlie Brown, the round headed sage, chastised his sister for her greed. Her response? “All I want is what’s coming to me. All I want is my fair share.” Lucy van Pelt complained she never got what she wanted, real estate. I wanted children’s things, and I wanted to stay a child.
While I suffered from greed, my understanding of Christmas wasn’t exclusively materialistic. I understood we were celebrating an event, that center stage of the Christmas Pageant was not the North Pole but the little town of Bethlehem. It was an awe inspiring thing to see how the world changed each Christmas season. The universe of a ten year old, home, school, television was a swirling Christmas display. All because of what happened in a small town halfway across the world two thousand years ago.
When that event happened, however, the world did not change. Those in the know were very few. The world, in fact, was busy tending to the business of keeping Caesar happy through the census. The shepherds were tending their flocks with care when they heard the Good News. The magi sought the child, following the star. It’s the ultimate in dramatic irony- all Israel awaiting a mighty king to restore their glory and throw off the shackles of Rome, receiving a baby, long promised but unnoticed. That Christmas they received not a toy soldier but clothes, swaddling clothes enshrouding a tiny newborn.
We, the audience of the future, know what happened, what became of the baby. At Advent we look backward to that time before Christ that we might experience looking forward to His birth, recreating the joy of anticipation.
The Spirit of Christmas Future haunted Ebenezer Scrooge with the ultimate burden, giving him a glimpse of what was to come. That spirit was a false prophet. Because of Christmas past, Christmas future points no bony hand down to his grave but a living hand up to His grace. The Advent is coming again.
Christmas future is not about clothes or toys, not about secrets or subtle portents in the stars. It is not about a darling, sweet baby. Christmas to come won’t be heralded by angels singing in an out of the way pasture. Like the shepherds, we will all look heavenward and will be sore afraid. All the world will know as He comes in judgment. The mightiest of warriors, He will bear the sword and not in vain.
But we, who are His sheep, who know His voice, look to that great day with great anticipation. We will be as children again, His children. He will remove all our burdens, wiping away every tear. And we will receive no new clothes. For when He comes we no longer need to stand clothed in His righteousness. When He comes in glory we will be glorified, our sanctification complete. Like Adam before us, we will stand before Him, naked and unashamed. We will see Him as He is and be like Him.
Never again will we look backward with anticipation. We will look forward, moving further up and further in. Each day we will be astounded that it does indeed get better than this, every day perfect yet every day better than the last, on into eternity.
On that glorious day, wisdom is given to all. Not just three wise men but all men everywhere, sheep and goats, will bow the knee and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. I was a foolish 10 year old, for there is every reason to look forward to Christmas. When we look to Christmas future our joy outshines the reborn Scrooge. God bless us, one and all.
The Bible is faithful to tell us what has come to pass. It, in turn, rightly also tells us what will come to pass. Our faith can faithfully be summarized with these three affirmations, two historical, one future- Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. What the Bible doesn’t tell us is what might have been. What if Adam and Eve had not eaten from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? What if Boaz had not wakened on the threshing room floor? What if Judas’ remorse had come when he was merely thinking of betraying Jesus, and he had stopped short? The Bible doesn’t say.
Hollywood, on the other hand, is not so averse to showing us what might have been. Movies have been made about a world where Germany won the war, or the south defeated the Yankees. No movie better captured the “what if” however than It’s a Wonderful Life. George Bailey is given the blessing of seeing how his own life, however hard it may have been, was a blessing to all around him. Working families without homes, a druggist guilty of manslaughter, even a whole troop ship lost in the war were just a few of the ripples flowing from a world without George Bailey. We walk away from the story, I pray, more grateful both for the lives that have touched our own, and for the beauty and grace of the providence of God.
The problem, as with so much that is so delightful about the advent season, is that in giving thanks for this, we miss giving thanks for that. The glory of God’s providence isn’t ultimately that God allows us to minister to and bless each other. The wonder isn’t that our lives are wonderful, but is in the life of Him whom we call Wonderful. The ripples that began in a manger become that tsunami whereby the kingdom of God covers the world as the waters cover the sea.
And that is the very story of history, the mother of all drama. World wide wars, epidemics, the rise and fall of nations, the destruction of Pompeii, economic collapse, all these are but shadows of the real story, the conquest of every principality and power by that babe who was born in a stable in a podunk town, in the middle of a bureaucratic hassle.
The reason we remember the five evangelical feast days (Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost) is so that we never lose sight of where our story is going. Christmas isn’t something that happened while the world was going on its way. It is instead the very way of the world. The world was made for Christmas, not the other way around. The life of the world is the wonderful life of our Lord. It began when He sang it into being. Drama came with the fall that He ordained. The promise sustained His people. And then, in the fullness of time, a hero was born. He grew in wisdom and stature, and took the weight of the sins of His people upon Himself. The Great and Terrible Father breathed the very fires of hell on His own Son.
Because, however, the Hero was an innocent man, death could not hold Him. He walked out of His tomb, setting the world aright. From there He rose once again, this time to a throne, where He rules heaven and earth. From there He sent His Spirit, to give birth to a people, to sanctify a bride, to conquer all His and our enemies. This is our story, because it is His story, and we are His. What might have been, had He not been born, that is not a bit of Capra-esque entertainment, but a nightmare we need not imagine. Because He was born.
Lisa and I pray daily that God would be pleased to use our work to bless the people of God. As noted in an earlier piece on why I write we desire to be changed and be agents of change, to be a tool in the hand of Jesus as He washes His bride. To that end we produce, every week an online Bible study, every weekday, the 20 minute podcast, Jesus Changes Everything and on youtube the 5 minute podcast, Ask RC. To that end we publish written pieces here six days a week. It is with the same goal in mind that we do all that we do, including Lisa’s work through The Purpose Driven Wife, speaking opportunities and my editing and writing projects.
God has provided for us this past year as we have produced this teaching, though of course, as for many people, it has been an intense financial challenge. Starting a new ministry in the midst of a pandemic takes more valor than discretion. Our goals for the coming year include planting a church, training men in and for gospel ministry, as well as ministering to pastors who are dealing with depression, burn out and scandal.
All of which explains why you might consider supporting Dunamis Fellowship. If we have been a help to you as you seek to better reflect the glory of our Redeemer, if you agree with us that we can and will help others in the same way, we are praying you will prayerfully make us a part of your regular giving. Raising support is not my strength. I suspect it may not be anyone’s strength. But I try to keep before me these two nuggets of wisdom I received from my father- 1) It takes a million dollars to do a million dollars worth of ministry and 2) Why should anyone be willing to give to a work I’m not bold enough to ask them to give to?
Which is why we are asking. The process is abundantly simple. You just click the button marked “Donate.” From there you will be led through the process for either a one time gift or more regular giving. Gifts to Dunamis Fellowship are tax deductible. If you prefer to mail in a check, email us at hellorcjr@gmail.com and we’ll help you with that. We are not a church and are not your church. We are, however, seeking to serve the broader church. Maybe you want to give from your stimulus check, or from a year end bonus.
We are so grateful to those who have given in 2020. For those who commit to giving monthly, we are happy to send you a copy of my newest book, Call Me Barabbas, co-written with my friend Paul Derry, and signed by me. Just let us know it is your intention to give monthly and send us your address. It’s just one way of both expressing our thanks, but also fulfilling our mission.
We will be here, God willing, with podcasts and posts on schedule even through the rest of the holiday season. Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, just like Christmas Eve, we will seek to serve the body with everything in us. God bless you and may you have a merry Christmas.
