June 26, 2010

Deuteronomy 31
My father died in January. My aunt died in February. A couple of mothers of my parishioners have passed recently. A friend and former parishioner died a few weeks ago; I preached her funeral. Yesterday, I received word that one of the women of our church passed away alone in her home while I am here in Mongolia. I have experienced some death since the first of the year. Death is an unwanted intruder for which we must all prepare. But God in His glory always brings honor to His name out of it. The Lord tells Moses to prepare to die. He has seen a whole generation pass away. Only he and Joshua and Caleb are left of those who were over 20 years of age when they left Egypt—not too good of a percentage. About .00015% made it to the edge of the Jordan. That’s a lot of dead people each day. Maybe an average as many as 140 people per day.
How do you prepare the people you are leaving behind for your death? You prepare them to live. Thirty-nine years earlier God gave the Law to Moses. He placed a copy of it in the Ark of the Covenant. Moses wrote another copy, Deuteronomy. The second copy was to be placed beside the Ark. He commanded the Priests that it should be read publically to the entire nation at least once every seven years. I wonder what would happen if we required the whole church to be present for the reading of the entire Word of God at least once every seven years. Then he inaugurated Joshua as the new leader. Then, the glory of the Lord appeared above the door of the tabernacle. How can I prepare the people I am leaving behind for my death? I make sure that the Word of God is incorporated into their lives. I make sure that they understand the proper role of leadership. I give them every opportunity to see the glory of God. Certainly it is God’s prerogative to let His glory appear. However, we have a responsibility to be in the Word, yield to leadership and be looking for His glory. His glory is seen even in death, if we are in the right position to see it. We are prepared to live when we see His glory. Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

Acts 8:1-25
One would think that a glorious King would protect His servants from the enemy, if He had it within His power to do so. Jesus certainly has it within His power to strike down those that hate and oppose Him and hate and oppose His servants. How can it increase His glory to not strike them down? Remember in Acts 1 we said, "Right now, the glory of Christ is seen by the world only in His people who are filled with His Holy Spirit and are busy witnessing by their words and actions, making disciples, building His church." His plan is to increase His glory through us. He desires that because of the filling of His Holy Spirit that each one of us would display His character in each of us. How can the world see the self-sacrificing love of Christ for an enemy, unless some of us lay down our lives for those who hate us? The only alternative is that people read about it in a book, or be told about it in a sermon, or see it in a movie. But somehow none of those are quite as real as when one of us does it. Not necessarily that we should be seeking to be martyred but rather all of life is laid aside for Jesus so that, if the choice is ever presented between Jesus & life, there is no hesitation because we know the excellence of Jesus over life. In this way the people of the world see the glory of Christ modeled in human flesh. It becomes more convincing. His glory is increased.
Also, our glorious King had commanded the gospel be taken into Samaria. The church, although numbering in the tens of thousands had not gone to Samaria. This persecution scattered the disciples. They probably should have scattered much sooner. Philip the deacon, not the apostle, went to Samaria. The King of Glory empowered him to do mighty deeds there. The enemy was scattered and confounded. The King of Glory was glorified through an ordinary servant of the church. That’s what the King wants. He wants to glorify himself through ordinary people. He wants the world to see what He can do. Not what extraordinary people can do. The apostles came up to view what was going on. Then the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the Samaritans just as at Pentecost. This confirmed the second portion of Lord's instruction in Acts 1:8, ". . . You shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. . ."
Does He still want to glorify Himself today? Of course, He does. Why don't we see more of that confounding of the enemy? We don't see more of it probably because I/we don't lay down our lives. We are too busy promoting the self-life instead of the exchanged life. The result is that our lives, marriages, families, churches are all filled with self. God won't glorify that. He has only one solution for the self life--crucify it. He only glorifies His Son. After all He is the only One worth glorifying. Indeed we serve a glorious king! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor John