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Gospel Presence VI: Gospel, Church, World
Joe Harby on May 5, 2013
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Gospel Presence V: Taste and See

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Introduction

We worship God the Father through Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. But in order for this to work, He cannot be a distant Christ. Remember that in Christ God came near, God became our neighbor. We worship God through a close Christ, a near Christ, an indwelling Christ. The point of the message today—taste and see— requires that we serve God through an experienced Christ.

The Text

“The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. O taste and see that the Lord is good: Blessed is the man that trusteth in him” (Ps. 34:7-8).

Summary of the Text

A wonderful theme of this psalm is that God is the great Deliverer. God is the one who saves those who have faith in Him, and whose lives are living indications of that faith. That theme is very much present in the two verses that constitute our text. The angel of the Lord places the one who fears God in the midst of the camp, and entirely surrounds him. He delivers him (v. 7). This is a glorious promise, and anybody is invited to come in order to participate in it. The invitation is to taste and see (v. 8). What do we taste? The goodness of the Lord. We taste the blessedness of trusting in Him.

Notice also the parallel between fearing Him and tasting His goodness. And notice too that being delivered is the blessing that results from trusting Him. Tasting is fearing and blessedness is being delivered.

An Experienced Christ

We identify ourselves as evangelicals, but by this we mean historic evangelicals, or confessional evangelicals. This is to be distinguished from that pop evangelicalism that has commodified the whole thing in order to be able to print it on a T-shirt, available at a Jesus junk store near you. Jesus Himself said that the experience (which is absolutely necessary) is not an experience that we can successfully manipulate. We cannot bottle the wind of the Spirit. We cannot manufacture this because we are talking about the sovereign motions of the sovereign God.

At the same time, we insist that a man must be born again if he is to see the kingdom of God. As I have taught before, you don’t have to know what instant the sun rose in order to know that it is up. And neither may be conclude from the fact that we know that it is up that we have the authority to command it to rise.

God is Good

We serve the God who invites. We serve the God who summons, and who goes out of His way to summon. “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, And he that hath no money; Come ye, buy, and eat; Yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? And your labour for that which satisfieth not?” (Is. 55:1-2).

Apart from Christ, we feed on little bits of refuse. We bake bread made out of sawdust. We mix our drinks with used dishwater, and we sneer at those pitiful believers who do not know what it means to live the good life. We turn everything into gruel. We clutch at driveway pebbles, calling them diamonds. We collect wisps of straw to make an arrangement for the middle of the table. When God pronounces a woe on those who call evil good and good evil (Is. 5:20), more is involved than simply a mistake in ethics. It all comes down to what you have to eat, what you have to chew, and what you must swallow. And if you consume the meager pickings of self, you are in dietary training for the outer darkness.

Consistency and Variation

God is not locked into the same kind of tight strictures that we are. A vineyard in France, and one in California, and another in Louisiana, can all produce a bottle of Cabernet, and this is completely different than the effect you get when it is a diet soda bottling plant in all those same locations. But no one remarks on the terroir of the Diet Dr. Pepper. No one stands at the drink dispenser, swirling the plastic cup under his nose.

It is the same with the fruit of the Spirit—fantastic variation and remarkable consistency. Legalists want the experienced Christ to taste like it all came from one bottling plant. Antinomians want to pretend that there is no difference between a fine wine and stump water. Never forget that the triune God, who is growing us all up, is holy. And never forget that the triune God, who is growing us all up into a splendid array—of different kinds of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control—is not a ball-bearing manufacturer.

A White Stone

A commonplace in Christian circles is the phrase “a personal relationship” with Jesus. However clichéd it may have become, there is an important reality there that we must preserve. We preserve it because it is precious.

“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it” (Rev. 2:17).

God the Father, through the Lord Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, has a relationship with you that only He and you know. This is for the one who overcomes, and what is it that overcomes? Is it not our faith? The one who tastes, the one who sees—which can only be done by faith—is the one who knows the goodness of God as it has been evidenced in their relationship. Just the two.

Now this does not eliminate the need for the body of Christ. Every cell, every member, being alive is the prerequisite for living participation in the living body. You want to be a living finger, not a dead fingernail. Don’t be covenantal keratin.

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Gospel Presence IV: Who is My Neighbor?

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Introduction

We live in a relativistic and postmodern age, one that loves to muddy distinctions and blur the lines. This is all done with high-sounding language, which the first thing that happens is that we find we have lost the Creator/ creature distinction, which puts us in the idolatrous violation of the greatest commandment. The next thing we discover is that we have blurred the lines between us and our neighbor, which places us in selfish disregard of the second greatest commandment.

The Text

“But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor? And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves . . . Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among thieves” (Luke 10:29-36).

Summary of the Text

The parable of the Good Samaritan follows hard after the episode where the seventy returned from their mission. The issues involve individuals, households, cities, and nations. The parable cannot be filed away in one spot. Jesus tells His followers to rejoice because their names are written in heaven (v. 20). He says that great things have been revealed to them (v. 24). And then a lawyer challenges Jesus (v. 25), and they have an exchange about the two greatest commandments (vv. 26-28). But the lawyer, stung by this, wanted to parse things out (v. 29). Jesus then tells the very famous story about the priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan (vv. 30-36).

There are of course national implications, and ethnic implications, and first century implications, and the central implication is that such implications don’t matter anymore. So let us not lose the trees because of the forest. Jesus told His followers to rejoice that their particular names were written in Heaven (v. 20). The set-up question from the lawyer concerned what he individually had to do in order to inherit eternal life (v. 25). He uses the pronoun I. Jesus answer him in kind—do this and you shall live.

The Basics

We begin by noting that having a neighbor to love means that there is somebody else out there. There are, out in the world, other centers of consciousness which don’t look out through your eyes at all, and whom you are to love as you do yourself. That is a tall order.

Note that you are not summoned to love an abstraction like “mankind.” To love everyone is very similar to loving nobody. What could it possibly mean for you to say that you love every last person in China, one billion of them? This would simply be to confess that you love none of them.

Neither may we—in our rascal hearts—settle for loving the idea of loving our neighbor, instead of our neighbor himself. One understands the temptation. The idea of loving your neighbor doesn’t have any bad habits, doesn’t need to take regular showers, and doesn’t return things he borrowed busted.

John asks how can you love God whom you have not seen, when you do not love your brother, whom you have seen (1 Jn. 4:20)? In the same way, and on the same principles, how can you love your “neighbors” whom you have not seen when you don’t love your neighbor, whom you see daily? The priest and Levite who passed by the man beaten up could have been busy composing prayers that they would present in the Temple on behalf of all men everywhere. But “all men,” Jesus taught, were, in an incarnational way, present in that ditch through their appointed representative.

The Options

So we are not allowed to slip off the point by loving everyone indiscriminately. That kind of gaseous approach is nothing but self-absorbed good intentions, which amounts to the bad intention of remaining self-absorbed.

So your neighbor is someone else, and not everybody else. But if this is the case, then which someone is it? The answer to that question is found in the parable that Jesus told. Your neighbor is not everybody else; your neighbor is anybody else. Your neighbor is not everyone, but he is Everyman. When Christ was born among us, He was born in a particular town, of a particular woman. This is why you can always find Christ in your neighbor. Jesus loves humble dwellings—He lives in us, doesn’t He?

So your neighbor is assigned to you by the providence of God. Your neighbor is the one that God has placed in front of you. This is why it is not possible to have a robust theology of your neighbor without a robust theology of God’s sovereign control over all history. How did this person wind up in front of you in the first place?

Answered Prayers

One of the things we have urged you to do is get to know the names of five of your neighbors—straight across the street, two catty-corner across the street, and one on each side of you. Five neighbors. Start praying for each one by name.

Now let me say something about two different kinds of reluctant prayers. One prayer is hesitant to pray because of an instinctive knowledge that such a prayer couldn’t possibly be the will of God—say a prayer for your company to transfer you to the Big Rock Candy Mountain division of your company, where nubile assistants feed you grapes incessantly, and the skies are not cloudy all day. You think, perhaps, that such a prayer might be a tad selfish. God might say no. But the other kind of reluctant prayer is just the opposite. You aren’t concerned at all that God might say no. You are dreadfully afraid that He will say yes. A prayer for patience might be answered affirmatively, along with the trial that makes the patience necessary.

If you start praying for your neighbors, God might throw them spang into your life. He might say yes. They might track stuff in. In fact, they almost certainly will. The problem with this is that you had just gotten your life set up the way you wanted it, the cruise control all adjusted, with nothing left to do but finish your road trip to glory—and no hitchhikers.

Don’t Be Afraid

When it comes to your neighbor, don’t be afraid to go small. Don’t be afraid to go particular—this is a symphony and you are just the third piccolo. Just do your part—your neighbor is not all neighbors.

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Gospel Presence III: The Armor of God

Joe Harby on

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In Christ

You have heard it pointed out that, even though it is important to have Jesus in your heart, the New Testament speaks more often of us being in Jesus. And the book of Ephesians easily illustrates this point, where, in six short chapters, the phrase “in Jesus” or “in Christ” or some equivalent is used over thirty times. Clearly Paul wanted us to understand this very important concept. We are in Jesus. But we need to keep in mind this emphasis on being in Christ as we read the rest of the book.

Chapter One: The Body

Paul starts right off with a strong focus on our position in Christ. Everything is happening in Christ. But he is in the heavenly places. How can any of this be any good to us, when he is so far from us? Paul tells us that there was a mystery that God planned from the beginning, that at the right time God would gather all things together by bringing them into Jesus. This happened at the incarnation, when God the Son became a man and took on a body. By taking on a body and becoming our brother, he united himself to us (Heb. 2:11).

Chapter Two and Three: The Mystery

Remember that Paul said the incarnation was a mystery, which God had planned from the beginning as a way of bringing together heaven and earth. Before the coming of Jesus, the way to God was only hinted at through the temple sacrifices. And so all of the worship of God, all the laws and regulations of the Old Testament, stressed the distance between God and man. One of the ways that this was illustrated was by the separation between Israel and the Gentiles. But this distance was destroyed by Jesus. In particular, the distance between Jew and Gentile, between heaven and earth, was destroyed by a body. And that body is the mystery that the world has been waiting for (3:3-6). So the reconciliation of Jew to Gentile was a sub-mystery, a junior mystery, which was intended to show us all the larger mystery, the great mystery of the reconciliation of God and man in Jesus.

Chapter Four and Five: Body Life

Ephesians 4 is about unity, one body (4:4-6). This is the one body of Jesus – which doesn’t just represent, but actually, through the mystery of the Gospel, is the meeting point of God and man, meaning it is our redemption. It is where we are reconciled to God. This is all a profound theological point. But it is also a very practical point. Paul teaches that if we are the body of Christ, then we need to act like it.

Corporate life and gifts (4:11-13, cf. 1 Cor. 12). Notice that this is all to serve the one body of Christ and that it is leading us to become one perfect man. Who is that perfect man? Christ. We are growing up into this man. We think of the new man individually. And we all have to do this as individuals. But the new man that we are putting on is something that is done in this corporate community. We are putting on the man that God is making out of the church, the man who has been being described throughout this book.

This all means that you don’t grow in sanctification on your lonesome. You grow corporately as the Gospel shapes you. And you get shaped in community. In all the relationships that Paul describes here – your marriage (5:22-33), your job (6:5-9), your parents and your kids (6:1-4), your fellow Christians (those you share a baptism with 4:1-6), the officers of the church (4:11-16).

Chapter Six: The Aristea of God

And notice the last thing that Paul tells this body, this new man, to do (6:10-20). We usually read this passage as individuals. But Paul is speaking about arming this corporate body, this new man – the church militant. When we read this as individuals, we set our sights too low. We think of putting on the armor of God as a matter of being diligent about our quiet times. But Paul is talking about us as the body of Christ being on the march here in Moscow.

We are the presence of Christ here in Moscow. We are the presence of this mystery, the Gospel, here on the Palouse. And the way we live out our marriages, our friendships, our relationships with our employers and employees – this is the presence of Christ here, the aroma of life. And each of these relationships is an opportunity to advance his kingdom here, to put on the armor of God as a collective body and to declare this mystery to the watching world.

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Gospel Presence II: Gospel Center, Gospel Edges

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

The gospel message provides a hard center for our lives, but we must make sure that we do not understand this as an isolated hard center. We want the gospel to be a taproot to the entire tree, and not an isolated boulder in a field of scattered boulders. The litmus test is whether you can find yourself moving from a conversation about anything to the gospel without changing the subject.

The Text

“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time” (1 Cor. 15:1-8).

Summary of the Text

The gospel is something which can be declared, preached, and (clearly) summarized (v. 1). It is also something which can be received, and the person who receives it can take a stand in it (v. 1). This message is capable of saving those who remember it, not counting those who believed it in vanity (v. 2). Paul delivered to them what he himself had received, which is that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures (v. 3). He was buried and raised to life, also in accordance with the Scripture (v. 4). This resurrection was witnessed—first by Peter, and then the twelve (v. 5). After that were 500 people, most of whom were still alive when Paul wrote this (v. 6), then James and all the apostles (v. 7). Finally He was seen by Paul (v. 8).

The Taproot

The Scriptures use the word gospel to describe this center. But it is a center that is connected to absolutely everything else. We can see this in other, broader uses of the word gospel. For example the four gospels are called gospels (e.g. The Gospel According to Matthew), and while they contain the facts that Paul points to in our text, they also contain much more. For example, the fact that Jesus went to Capernaum is part of the gospel (Matt. 8:5). Or take the fact that God preached the gospel to Abraham by telling him that through him all the nations would be blessed (Gal. 3:8). Or again, then author of Hebrews says that the law of Moses, given to the Israelites, was gospel (Heb. 4:2). Jesus arrived in Israel, preaching the gospel, but He clearly was not presenting the gospel the same way that we would (Matt. 4:23).

No False Choice

So in Scripture, the word gospel is as narrow as the cross, and is as wide as the world. We must be faithful to both uses. Liberals abandon the center—Christ crucified for sinners—and want to put some kind of happy face over the whole world. Sectarian conservatives guard the center fiercely, making sure that it remains disconnected from everything else. Seeing it as connected might bring the gospel into contact with sinful stuff, and we wouldn’t want to get our gospel dirty. But we have forgotten the power of the cross. When Jesus touched lepers, the healing went out . . . the leprosy did not contaminate Him.

A Fatal Error

One of the first steps in disconnecting the gospel from the world is the step of disconnecting “gospel” verses in the Bible from other kinds of verses (as we imagine them). For example, it is a very easy mistake to try to divide the Bible up into law verses and gospel verses, as though God had divided the Bible up, with happy faces next to some verses and frowny faces next to the remainder.

No. To the unregenerate, the whole thing is law. To the regenerate, the whole thing is gospel. What is more “law” than the Ten Commandments, but what does the preamble declare? God is the one who brought them out of the house of bondage (Ex. 20:2). And what is more “gospel” than the message of the cross—and it is the stench of death to those who are perishing (2 Cor. 2:16). The divide runs, not through the Bible, or through the world, but through every human heart.

Reconciling All Things

God’s purposes in the gospel are cosmic. Christ shed His blood on the cross, and why? So that He might reconcile all things to Himself, whether those things are in Heaven or on earth (Col. 1:20). Now that means that everything is related to Him.

But we do not “connect the dots” by reading big, fat books of theology. They are not tied together with abstraction string—they are all coherent because of the blood of Jesus. So we begin this glorious process by being reconciled ourselves, by receiving forgiveness for our wicked works (v. 21). And as we saw just a few verses before this, Christ is the one in whom all things are integrated (Col. 1:18). He is arche—the foundational beginning, the cornerstone, the axle.

He is therefore the center toward whom all the edges run. He is the sovereign Lord over all. He is the bedrock underneath all things. He is the root. He is the Head over all things. We noted a moment ago that everything is related to Him, and related in Him. But take a moment to reflect—what does that include? That includes carpentry, novel writing, weather reporting, roly poly bugs, lawn mowing, cake baking, leaf raking, software writing, star gazing, doctrine parsing, child teaching, and everything else that men might do. And since He is the one in whom all these things tie together, why can we not detect His presence in these things—a gospel presence—and live in the awareness of that presence as we deal with those who do not believe.

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