Christ Church

The Prophecy of Micah #1

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INTRODUCTION

Micah was a younger contemporary to the prophet Isaiah, and he ministered across the reigns of Jotham (c. 740 B.C.) and Hezekiah of Judah (who died in 687 B.C.). Other contemporaries would be Amos and Hosea, which accounts for the similar themes of those prophets—they were all confronting the same kinds of cultural problems. The two great issues were idolatry and social injustice. The name Micah is a shortened form of a name that means “who is like YHWH?”

THE TEXT

“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

In our text, we find a succinct statement of what true religion is supposed to look like. Is God impressed with high pomp or pretentious sacrifices? What could I give that would earn God’s favor? The answer is nothing, nothing whatever, which men of understanding have always understood since the world began. If salvation is not all of grace, then there is no such thing as salvation.

The book of Micah is not a long one, and is a collection of oracles, bundled loosely according to this recurring pattern—warning, oracle of judgment, and promise of salvation. Each of three sections is begun with the call to hear/listen(Mic. 1:2; 3:1; 6:1). The first cycle begins with warning (1:2-16), moves to judgment (2:1-11), and concludes with the first word of hope (2:12-13). The second cycle begins with warning and declared judgment (3:1-12), but then turns to hope (4:1-5:15). The third cycle begins with warning (6:1-16), moves to a lament over judgment (7:1-7), and concludes with a promise of hope (7:8-20).

As it turns out Micah should be credited with saving Jeremiah’s life, even though he lived a century earlier. Jeremiah was accused because he had prophesied destruction for Jerusalem, which was considered as treason by some, but certain elders of the land defended Jeremiah by pointing out that Micah had done the same thing (3:12), and Hezekiah had not put him to death (Jer. 26: 17-19).

YOUR BEST APOCALYPSE NOW

The better days of Uzziah are now in the rear view mirror, and the shabbiness of decadence and decay are definitely starting to show. False teachers are willing to start showing their true colors. “If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; He shall even be the prophet of this people” (Mic. 2:11). As things get worse and worse, the fulfillment of earlier dire warnings is entirely missed. When judicial stupor visits a people, the more manifest the problem is, the harder it is to see. “Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; And it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; And the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them” (Mic. 3:6).

GOSPEL TENSION

Micah alternates between fierce Deuteronomic denunciations and glorious kingdom promises. This gospel is going to conquer the world, but an essential part of the gospel message is found in the key word repent. Repent and believe. Before we ask what we are to believe, we must first ask what we are to repent of. We are to repent of great wickedness, as defined by Scripture, and our views of how high salvation goes will be shaped by how deep we believe the sin went. In the book of Micah, he calls the mountains to witness (Mic. 6:2)—may we learn to do the same. As the Lord taught us, the one who loves much is the one who was forgiven much (Luke 7:47).

This tension stretches from Genesis to Revelation. God is not mocked—a man reaps what he sows, and yet through the death of Jesus Christ, a man does not reap what he sows at all. The curse runs through it all, and yet the grace of God runs as bedrock underneath that.

SO TURN TO THE PROMISE

The judgments in the mouth of Micah were judgments that applied to Samaria and Jerusalem, to Israel and to Judah. But the promises were for the whole world. “But thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Mic. 5:2).

“But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; And people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; And he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: For the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Mic. 4:1–2).

AND BACK TO THE TEXT

In this world, what is the consequence of having our sins washed away? What does it look like when God comes down and the mountains of our religiosity melt under His feet (1:3-4)? When God interferes with us, when He saves us, when He fixes us up, what does that look like? What we could not do with burnt offerings, what we could not do with rivers of oil, what we could not accomplish by giving our firstborn for our transgression, God did by sending His Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And when He did so, the result in our lives tastes like this. He has shown us what is good. He has taught us what He requires.

He says three things. First, do justly. Second, love mercy. And third, walk humbly with your God. And we can only do this when we come to the cross. Only there can we do what is just. Only there can we love the mercy of God. Only there can we behold the humility of God. In Jesus Christ we can do justly, in Jesus Christ we can love mercy, and in Jesus Christ we can walk with humility. Only there. So all of you, lift up your heads—your redemption draws near. Christ is approaching. Look to Him.

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Permit the Children

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INTRODUCTION

This is a remarkable period in the history of our congregation. We have never seen growth like this before, and all of us are getting used to the new situation. Of course, those of you who have moved across the country to join us—welcome. In one sense you are refugees, but in a more fundamental sense, you are reinforcements. This is a new community for you, a new setting, a new set of friends, the works. Your experience of church is very different from what it was. But the same thing is true of all you old-timers. You are attending a very different church also.

Believe it or not, there are some things about Christ Church that take some getting used to. Some of them are trivial, and some of them are practices that we consider to be very important. Consider this message as an orientation to one of our customs that we believe to be crucial, and it is the one that has to do with the relationship of our children to the congregation.

THE TEXT

“And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them” (Mark 10:13–16; cf. Matt. 19:13-15; Luke 18: 15-17).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

This is a famous incident, recorded in all three of the synoptic gospels. Young children were brought to Jesus, so that He might “touch” them. What touching meant to Jesus is seen in how He responded. He took the children into His arms, placed His hands on them, and blessed them (v. 16). In Matthew, He laid hands on them (Matt. 19:15). In the Luke account, we see that coming to Jesus can be accomplished when someone carries you there because the word used of the children there is brephos, the word for infants. In all three accounts, the disciples were busy grown-ups and rebuked those who brought the children. “The Rabbi is a very busy man . . .” In the Mark account, it says that Jesus was greatly displeased with this. If you want to get that reaction from Christ, then try to get in between Him and a child being brought to Him. In all three accounts, Jesus requires us to allow the children to be brought to Him. The reason He gives is that “of such is the kingdom of God” (v. 14). He does not say anything like “children are a theology-free zone.” And in addition to all that, He teaches us that children do not have to become more like adults to come, but rather that adults need to become more like children in order to enter the kingdom (v. 15). Like the disciples in the story, we often get this backwards.

SOME QUICK BACKGROUND

You will have noticed that our children gather to worship the Lord together with the rest of us. We all gather together. Your children are most welcome, fidgets and all. On those occasions when you need to deal with any moral disorder that broke out in your row, then please feel free to escort your child outside. That is the sort of thing that we take in stride, and pretty much everyone here has been in your shoes.

The keys of the kingdom are held by the elders of the church, and not by the fathers. It is the responsibility of our session of elders to guard the purity of the Word and the integrity of the sacraments. If your child is baptized, he is welcome to come to the Table together with the rest of us. If your baptized child is three months old and conked out in the car seat, don’t feel like you have to wake him up for the Supper. But when he is on your lap, tracking with the service, and he notices the tray going by and wants to partake, please don’t restrain him. But at the same time, because this is not a unilateral family decision, please let your parish elder know that your child is now partaking. And if you have a child who is not baptized, but who believes in Jesus, he is still welcome to the Table with us—but he should be baptized first. He is welcome to sit at table with us, but the way to the dining room table is through the front door—which is baptism.

OUR BAPTISMAL COOPERATION AGREEMENT

The Confession of Faith for Christ Church is the Westminster Confession, but in addition to that we have what we call a baptismal cooperation agreement, which stipulates an allowed exception. In other words, for about 25 years we have successfully navigated and allowed for our differences on baptism, those differences being Presbyterian and Baptist. But at the same time, we have also cultivated a church community that is a welcoming place for the children. This issue is related to the doctrine of baptism, but it is not identical with it. One of the things we want to insist on is that all of you join with us in welcoming the children.

Some of you newcomers come from generic Baptist backgrounds, and others from a more defined Reformed Baptist background. You are most welcome here, but to get straight to the point, so are your kids. We can accommodate differences on baptism, but we don’t want to accommodate ungodly extrapolations from Baptist premises, or from Presbyterian premises, for that matter. An example of the latter would be, “Yes, he is serving 5 to 10 for armed robbery, but he is a good boy. He was baptized once, and we are hopeful that something good will kick in sometime.” An example of the former would be, “Daddy, I love Jesus . . .” “Let us be the judge of that, kid. Don’t you remember that lie you told three years ago?”

COME, AND WELCOME, TO JESUS CHRIST

This is not a religion club or a theology society that meets on Sundays. We are the body of Christ, and so coming to worship the Father here means that we are coming to and through Christ. We come to the Father in the power of the Spirit, traveling the road who is Christ. We are traveling Christ the Way all together. And as we travel in that way, we want to take great care not to place a stumbling block in the road for any of our little ones.

“And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea” (Mark 9:42).

Quite apart from the doctrine of baptism itself, it is therefore a baseline assumption for our congregation here that it would be far better for us to admit a false professor to our membership than it would be to exclude a true brother. This is an assumption that we want to see cultivated throughout the congregation—because we don’t want Christ to be greatly displeased with us.

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Dealing with Discouragement

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INTRODUCTION

Although the occasions can be many, there are two basic reasons for discouragement—internal and external. The internal occurs when for some reason we have given way to sin, and the external occurs when we are buffeted by circumstances, as Job was, but without sin. And, of course, it is possible to get discouraged in both ways. How are we to understand this? How are we to respond to it?

THE TEXT

“Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God” (Ps. 42:11).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

We have dealt with this psalm in detail before, and so here we will just consider the implications of this one verse. First, the psalmist presupposes that the condition of peace is normal. He is cast down and disquieted, and he wants to know the reason why. This disturbance of his soul is the thing that requires explanation. “Why are you cast down?” he asks himself (v. 11). Second, the psalmist remonstrates with himself. He talks to himself, which is a good alternative to listening to himself. He preaches to himself, and it is a convicting sermon. Third, he comes to a pointed exhortation, commanding himself to hope in God. Not only this, but he anticipates that he will in fact obey the command, for he will in the future praise God

FALSE COMFORT

When we speak peace to our hearts, we can do it in accordance with the Scriptures, or we can do it in accordance with our own pipe dreams. For example, someone who has become an idolater by turning away from the Lord can speak peace to his own heart, in his own name and on his own authority. “And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst” (Dt. 29:19).

But what I am declaring here are the words of the gospel, and the gospel does not sew cushions for sin.

TRIUNE PEACE

Remember that your salvation has occurred because God has included you in His triune life. The gospel is triune, just like the God who established the gospel. And this is why peace for your distress is triune peace. What do I mean?

God the Father has declared that the comfort of peace is to be announced to us (Is. 40:1-2). Christ has become our peace by His own blood (Eph. 2:13-14). And why would the Father not give to us what Christ has purchased for us? And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Christ so that He might comfort those who mourn, that He might bind up the brokenhearted (Luke 4:18). Because Christ died, the executor of His testament is the Holy Spirit. Remember then, when you are struggling with discouragement, that Father, Son, and Spirit, are all engaged on your behalf.

DISCOURAGEMENT IN SIN

One reason why Christians are discouraged in their attempts to live the Christian life is that they are attempting to run the race with cords around their feet, and a 150-pound backpack on (Heb. 12:1). And so the way out of discouragement in sin is repentance. Discouragement in such cases is disciplinary, and God’s hand is heavy upon you for a reason. Make sure to repent the sin all the way down to its foundations, and secondly, make sure to repent of the right sin. Don’t go snipe hunting in your conscience.

DISCOURAGEMENT IN AFFLICTION

But don’t make the mistake of thinking that hard circumstances mean that you must have sinned. This was the error of Job’s failed comforters (Job 2:11), and it was the error of the disciples concerning the man born blind (John 9:2-3). But at the least, every trial contains a temptation to murmur, an invitation to think that the God of universe has bungled matters when it comes to your case. But God does all things perfectly well (Rom. 8:28).

TWO ADVOCATES

When Christians sin, or when they struggle with affliction, there is an accuser of the brethren in heaven who accuses them there. But, thanks to God, we have an Advocate there on our behalf. Christ is our attorney, defending us before the Father (1 Jn. 1:1-2). But the devil does not just accuse you in the heavenly courts—he also accuses you to you. What kind of Christian do you think you are? We have an Advocate on earth, as well as in heaven (John 14:16). The same word describes the office of the Son and the Spirit. Whether you stand accused in heaven or on earth, you have a court-assigned defender. And neither the Son nor the Spirit have ever lost a case. “How could they get me off?’ you might wonder. “I’m guilty.” They successfully defend sinners like you and me because they never, ever argue from your virtues or mine. Their case presupposes our guilt. They always plead the blood of Christ, shed on earth, and then they plead the blood of Christ, sprinkled on the altar of heaven.

PICTURES OF YOUR PEACE

First, distinguish the money in your bank account, and the money in your wallet. There is your basic, foundational wealth, and there is the money you have on you. If you are mugged, then the thieves can only take what you have on your person. They cannot get at your bank account, which is not on you. In a similar way, a hard day can only disturb that day’s peace. You have a fundamental peace that a rainy day cannot touch (Rom. 5:1).

Second, distinguish peace in the seed and peace in the flower. Often peace in the seed looks like trouble. When you were converted, you were now troubled over things that never bothered you before. Don’t be troubled over that kind of trouble.

And third, distinguish peace from a distance, where you can only see the dancing, and everybody looks crazy, and peace up close, when you can hear the music.

The peace of God is a guardian, a fence, but it does not encircle your vices and sins. Rather, your hearts and minds are protected by the peace of God, which passes all understanding (Phil. 4:7).

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Difficult Relationships

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INTRODUCTION

For a number of years now, we have been emphasizing community, life together, fellowship, communion, what the New Testament calls koinonia. The response to this emphasis has been significant—showing that there is a real spiritual hunger for this kind of thing. But there is a hitch—other people are involved. There is always a catch.

Some might remember the conclusion of Sartre’s famous play, No Exit, where he said, “Hell is other people.” But we are Christians, and so we are called to affirm, to the emphatic contrary, that Heaven is other people. But a long stretch of road in a fallen world lies in between us and that Heaven.

THE TEXT

If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus . . . (Phil. 2:1-5).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Paul is about to set before us the great example of Christ’s servant-heart (vv. 6ff). This is an example that he wants us to follow, and he gives us the charge before the example comes. If there is any consolation in Christ (v. 1), and there is, and if God provides any comfort of love, and He does, and if He creates fellowship in the Spirit, which He most certainly does, if there is a deep sympathetic connection in the gut between Christians, and there is, then fulfill Paul’s joy (v. 2). How would we go about fulfilling Paul’s joy? We need to be like-minded, sharing the same love, being in agreement, and settled in one mind (v. 2). We should guard ourselves against noble-sounding but superficial motives (v. 3). Put the other person first, and do so in lowliness of mind (v. 3). Don’t think about your own stuff, your own issues, first, but let every man consider the “things of others” (v. 4). This is the kind of thing Jesus did, and he then proceeds to talk about that stupendous example (vv. 5ff).

INTELLIGENT FELLOWSHIP

There are three basic assumptions that cause conflict in the Church, that contribute to what we might call difficult relationships. First, we tend to assume that every disruption is the direct result of sin, pure and simple. Second, we tend to assume that we know what the sin is. And third, we tend to assume that it is the other person’s sin. All three of these assumptions are drastically, radically, wrong-headed. And remember that the first two easily blend together—when you assume sin in others, it is usually “apparent” to you what the sin is.

GOD-GIVEN DIFFERENCES

We are commanded in this passage to strive toward certain things in common—like-mindedness, being of one mind, a shared fellowship in the Spirit, mutual giving, and so on. This does not mean that we can only do this if we start from some clone-like identity. No, we serve and worship a triune God, who has built some glorious differences into the world. We are to proceed from those differences to the unity described, which is not the same thing as obliterating those differences for the sake of a unity not described.  What are some of those differences that have to be embraced at the starting point? You are cooking with onions and eggs, not trying to turn onions into eggs. Here are some of the glorious built-in differences, some of the onions.

Personality types: do not dismiss this just because you have heard it described by some secular psychologist. Every observant person in the history of the world has known the differences between Pooh, Rabbit, Eeyore, and Tigger. Give them other names (e.g. choleric, melancholic, sanguine, and phlegmatic), or rearrange them and call them something else. Like the fact of gravity, it is something we all have to deal with and, also like gravity, this reality is equally stubborn. There are different kinds of people.

Men and women: the differences between how men and women think, respond, emote, etc. are deep and profound. Men are linear; women think laterally. Men are goal-oriented; women are relationship-oriented. Men seek respect before love; women seek love before respect. Men want honor; women want security. Men want solutions; women want conversation. What a world we live in!

Culture and ethnicity: there are deep differences between a hardscrabble Scot, an expressive Greek, and an inscrutable Japanese. Our PC world should deal with it.

Age and birth order: how can someone who is sixty-years-old still be the little sister? And still feel like she has to compete for dad’s attention?

Mix and match: now take the categories outlined above, and see how many other different combinations you can get. Out-going African woman, shy, retiring, introspective Asian man. You get the picture.

Now if you want to think that every “head bonk” is the result of sin, you are going to wind up thinking that the whole world is engaged in a vast, perverse conspiracy, designed and operated solely in order to offend you grievously every day. And that is what we might call a self-fulfilling prophecy 

ESTEEM OTHERS BETTER

We tend to judge others by their actions, and ourselves by our motives. And since this collision “must be” the result of sin, we immediately try to diagnose what sin it is. And naturally, we always lift the hood of the other guy’s car first. We always give ourselves the advantage. But Paul says here to give the advantage, the benefit of the doubt, the other way.

As C.S. Lewis once pointed out, when you are dealing with a difficult family, or company, or class, you are only dealing with everybody else. God has the same problem with that same group of people, only He is dealing with one more than you are—He is dealing with you also.

STRIFE OR VAINGLORY

Ignoring the creational distinctives that God has given us is a good way to get “one up” on everybody. If you had done that, then your motives would have been thus and such. They did that, and so their motives must have been what yours would have been. This is a recipe for one conflict after another. Those who resort to this tactic frequently accuse others of sin, but they are the ones bringing the sin to the situation.  We are so focused on identifying what his sin must be, that we neglect entirely what our sin might be. Always remember that one of the traits that difficult people usually share is the fact that they think that everyone else is being difficult. So don’t you be that person.

When Paul says to avoid strife and vainglory, he says that we are, in lowliness of mind, to consider the possibility that the person with the other perspective has a point. Yes, but—you want to scream—you have a point too, and nobody’s listening! Well, let go of it, and maybe they will. Put it down for a second.

IN ONE ACCORD

The apostle knows that striving for this kind of like-mindedness is not a day at the beach (4:2), but it most necessary. To return to the cooking metaphor, we are not trying to make a bowl of cream of wheat, without the sugar. We are making a complicated dish, with hundreds of ingredients, and when we are done, we want to still be able to taste both the rum and the coconut. This is Trinitarian community, Trinitarian koinonia.

This is the kind of humility that looks to Christ, and when we look to Christ in this way, the humility grows.

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Christ the Friend of Sinners

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INTRODUCTION                            

If Satan could successfully get us all to believe one lie, what would that lie be? Is there an aboriginal lie, one that lies at the root of every twisted thought or desire that we might have? And there is a scriptural answer to that question. The assumption behind the first question posed to our first mother contained that foundational lie. The question was, “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (Gen. 3:1). The lying assumption was that God was not ultimately good, and that He did not have the best for His creatures in mind.

The primeval lie is that God is not to be trusted. The primeval lie is to encourage us to have hard and erroneous thoughts about God.

THE TEXT

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8–9).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The great problem with a text like this one is that we hear the lofty words, and we immediately default to our factory settings. But our factory settings were established for us in the Fall, and entertaining them were in fact the cause of the Fall. If we are believers, we tell ourselves that our hard thoughts of God are actually high thoughts of God, but this is not the case.

The text tells us that God does not think the same way that we do, and we need to remember that this applies—in the first instance—to how we read texts like this one. God’s thoughts are not like ours, and His ways are not like ours (v. 8). The heavens are much higher than the earth, and God’s ways and thoughts are that much higher than our ways and thoughts.

But here is the problem. Define higher.

The context of this wonderful passage is not what many would anticipate. Seek the Lord while He may be found (v. 6). Call on Him while He is near (v. 6). If the wicked and unrighteous man forsakes his way, what will God do? He will have mercy on him (v. 7). If a vile man comes to God, this God will abundantly pardon (v. 7). Why is this? Because God doesn’t think the way we do—or the way the devil does, for that matter.

God’s words of pardon and mercy come down on the earth like the rain and snow that give moisture to the earth (v. 10). Forgiveness grows, green and luxuriant (v. 10). God’s word of forgiveness is not impotent (v. 11)—it will prosper. It will result in songs of salvation (v. 12). Our salvation will be an everlasting sign that “shall not be cut off” (v. 13).

SQUASH YOU LIKE A BUG?

The natural man can believe that Almighty God can squash him like a bug. But confronted with a passage like this, we think the text is saying that we should always remember that God “can squash us a lot flatter than that.”

When we focus on the greatness of Almighty God, we revert to thinking of Him as the ultimate Zeus, a storm god who wields fistfuls of thunder, lightning, and blue ruin. And there are passages in Scripture that do talk this way, but we must always remember that the true greatness of this God is revealed to us in the juxtapositions.

Where does God dwell? He dwells, according to the prophet Isaiah, in two places.

“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” (Isaiah 57:15)

He dwells in the high and holy place, and He also dwells in the contrite and humble place. And how can He do this? He functions this way because His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. He is full of tender mercies.

THE HEART OF CHRIST

The men of Christ’s generation didn’t get much right, but they did get one thing right. Christ was the friend of sinners.

“The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!” (Luke 7:34).

The father of the prodigal son was looking down the road, longing for the return of his wastrel son. When he saw him coming back, bedraggled and humiliated, what did he do? He ran down the road and embraced him—and thus we have the parable of the running father. He then ordered the fatted calf to be killed, and party clothes to be put upon his loser son, and he hired a loud band, one that the older brother could hear out in the driveway. Did this father think that what this loser son really needed was another party? For one who had spent his entire inheritance on hookers and cocaine? Apparently so.

Just before this parable, the Lord told the one about the lost coin, and He concludes it this way. “Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth” (Luke 15:10). He doesn’t say that the angels rejoice (although I dare say they do), but rather that there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God. Who would be doing that but God Himself?

“The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing” (Zeph. 3:17).

THE FEAR OF GOD IS NOT WHAT WE THINK

We all know that Scripture calls us to a life of moral rectitude. God wants us to walk worthy of the gospel of grace. We do not want to give an inch to any kind of moral disorder (Rom 6:1-4), of course not. But the grace of God does not encourage moral disorder, and the fear of God is not craven.

“There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. His delight is in the fear of the Lord, and He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, nor decide by the hearing of His ears” (Isaiah 11:1–3, NKJV).

The grace of God is liberty in Christ. It is not the death of legalism, or the disorder of licentiousness. It is liberty. What is it that can enable a man to stand upright in his moral integrity, and to have that moral stand to be saturated in grace? We all want to know what that looks like, and so to see what it looks like we are summoned to look to the only place where it has been perfectly done—in Christ crucified and risen.

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