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A New and Living Way, Part 3


I. God has prescribed for us a New Way of Living. (10:22-25)
For those who are a members of God’s family through faith in Jesus Christ, God has given us instructions for how we are to behave as his children, both in relation to Him as our Father and to one another in the church as brothers and sisters.

A. We must approach God sincerely. As I have said before, part of being a child of God is the ability to approach Him as a child would approach her father. But a child who loves her father would never go to her father with a sense of disrespect or with a demanding attitude. That same child, confident in the love of her father, is not going to approach him cautiously or fearfully. A child of God must go to Him with the same confidence, trust, and respect. When people in Scripture were in the presence of God, they had two responses: they recognized the sinfulness of their lives and they fell down and worshiped God. When Moses encountered God in the burning bush in Exodus 3, God demanded that he remove his sandals as a sign of respect for being on holy ground. In Isaiah 6:5, when Isaiah saw the throne room of God in a vision, he declared himself to be a man of unclean lips. In Revelation 1:17, the Apostle John saw Jesus in a vision on the island of Patmos and fell down as a dead man.

When we approach God, we must do so with a clean heart, in an attitude of respect and worship. The word here that we translate as “sincere” literally means “without superficiality, hypocrisy, or ulterior motive.” God told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 4:29, “You will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul.” We are to come before God not wearing a mask of perfection or false holiness, but we are to approach Him in prayer and worship, honestly showing ourselves to Him while having a full assurance that He will help us with our sins and weaknesses. One commentator stated, “The people who find God are those who seek Him with their whole heart, with total genuineness.”

The idea of “full assurance” means that when we rely on God, we do so without doubt in our position as His children or His love as our Father. In 4:14-16 of Hebrews, the author has already explained to his readers:
Since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Jesus, our high priest, provided a way for us to confidently approach God with a pure, forgiven heart, and we are to approach Him this way each time we come to Him!

B. We must confess our hope unwaveringly. The writer begins this section on instructions concerning behavior with a point on how we are to approach God. This is very important to understand, because if our relationship with the Father is not correct, our relationships with one another will almost certainly be wrong as well. These instructions are given in a progressive order, and we see here that once we are confident in our position in Christ, we can then confess our hope with the same confidence. At the end of this verse, we are given an amazing statement concerning our Father: “He who promised is faithful.” God our Father has never failed in His promises, and unlike fallen, sinful man, He is always faithful to do what He says He will do. This fact is one in which we can place our confidence.

The Christians who received this letter had begun to lose their confidence in this new covenant, and it is believed that some of them were considering a return to the Jewish temple practices. Hard times had come and they had begun to waver in their faith in Christ. Just like those Christians had seen God keep His promises countless times, the Bible is full of examples of God’s faithfulness, and we can trust that God is faithful today just as He was then, because our God never changes.

Part of being a child of God is that, as we learn more and more about God, we are changed from the inside out and become more like Him. In 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, we are promised this will happen: “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.”

We have hope that God is faithful, but what are we to confess? Our confession of hope is the salvation found in Christ. When we are confident in our salvation, we will share that hope with everyone we know.

C. We must encourage one another consistently. Part of becoming a child of God is learning to interact with other members of His family. Just as parents expect their children to treat one another lovingly, so God also expects us as His children to treat one another lovingly. In verse 24, we are told to consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. The word “consider” means that we are to do more than think about it occasionally. It’s easy to think about other believers on Sunday morning when we are together at church. But here, we are told that we are to take care of each other’s spiritual welfare; we should show continuous concern for how our brothers and sisters are growing in their walks with the Lord.

This is the standard God has set for how we are to treat one another, but too often we fall short of this standard. In Matthew 7, Jesus gives us one example of how we fail at this instruction to consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. Here he says, “”Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” The word translated here as “look” is the same Greek word that is translated as “consider” in Hebrews 10. With these two passages, we are given instructions in how we should and how we should not think of our spiritual siblings.

The word “stimulate” or “stir up” means we are to sharpen one another. With the combination of these two words, the writer of Hebrews is encouraging us to focus our attention consistently on finding ways to bring the love of Christ out of our fellow believers in real and practical ways.

In verse 25, we are told the reason for the urgency in the instructions of verse 24; many had begun to get frustrated and had grown disillusioned with the church and had even abandoned the fellowship of believers. It is nearly impossible to have any type of relationship with someone you never see. These practical instructions are meant to remind the readers that they will not be able to build up one another with encouragement if they are not gathering together. There is strength in numbers, and the discouraged sister is quickly encouraged when she comes together with other believers for a time of worship, prayer, and encouragement.

An early Christian writer named Ignatius once wisely observed, “When you frequently, and in numbers meet together, the powers of Satan are overthrown, and his mischief is neutralized by your likemindedness in the faith.” By gathering together, more mature believers are able to teach and encourage younger believers, and those younger believers in turn remind the older believers to keep their excitement for the Lord fresh and new as they walk with Him. Abandonment and isolation lead only to defeat, so the writer encourages his readers to remain together because the longer they stay together in a mutual state of love and encouragement, the closer they all come to the day when they will see Christ face to face.

My sister Brittany learned quickly her being a part of our family came with certain responsibilities. My parents raised us to believe that carrying the Mason name required certain things of us. We were told that Masons worked hard whether our boss was looking or not. We were told that Masons worked hard in school and that they went to college. We were told that Masons kept their promises and were true to their word. We were told to remember that when we went out into the world and began making choices on our own that we needed to remember that we not only represented ourselves as individuals, but we represented our family. My parents did a good job of teaching us those things because they spent time with us and taught us those things and then quickly corrected us when we were not living in a way that was consistent with who we were as members of the Mason family.

Just like being a Mason comes with certain responsibilities, being a child of God comes with certain responsibilities to God and to each other. This week, find ways that you can live out your confidence in your position as a child of God. Do you confess your hope in Christ without wavering? If not, find an opportunity this week to share your faith with someone. Take a moment and take inventory of how you consider your friends and family. Do you spend your time judging them and their sin, or do you spend more time considering how you can encourage them in their walks with Christ? If you realize you spend more time thinking about their sin than about how you can help them out of your sin, then make a point of changing that this week.

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Encounter with the Risen Savior


Matthew 28:1 Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

Yesterday my pastor made an observation about the resurrection story that I had never considered before. He was preaching from Matthew 28:1-10, and he was speaking about the two Marys that came to the tomb to complete the process of preparing the body of Jesus for burial.

They had come to the tomb not expecting a miracle. They came to complete a labor of love that they had begun before the sun set on Friday. Love drove them to the tomb, not faith. At first, I thought this was a ridiculous idea. Who could love Jesus without having faith concerning who He is? After all, He told them He would not only die, but that He would rise again! But then I thought about all of the times that I do not trust Jesus. I don’t believe that the power that had victory over death has victory over the sins I allow to plague me. I don’t believe that He can transform lives, change marriages, teach and comfort those who are searching for Him. I come to the tomb every Sunday morning in the form of a worship service, proclaim my love for Jesus and walk away, unchanged. Which is exactly what Mary Magdalene and the other Mary intended to do that morning.

But they did not walk away unchanged, because instead of performing their duty and going back to their lives, they encountered an angel with a message!

2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4 And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.

How many of us come to church on Sundays, perform our required duties and then leave again, going back to our lives in which there is no evidence of an encounter with a message from the risen Savior? Do we ever stop and contemplate that through the resurrection, the Kingdom of God broke into our lives, into time here on earth and upended our existence for eternity? How many Sundays does my life reflect an encounter with a dead body instead of a risen Lord? How many times do I miss the opportunity He has for my life to be revolutionized by time with Him?

But these ladies did not miss the opportunity. They didn’t doubt the message. They didn’t question the messenger. They didn’t go to the Temple to consult the priests about the message. They didn’t wonder if the angel told the wrong people. They didn’t consider the distance of the trip. They didn’t worry about the fact that the men to whom they were supposed to take this message may ridicule them. They were only grief stricken, emotional women, after all. They did none of those things. They simply obeyed, and that single step of faith put them on a path that would alter the entire world.

8 So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 And behold, Jesus met them and said, Greetings! And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.

One more observation from this precious encounter with the Savior. When they saw Jesus, when they had time to worship Him, they did just that. They had a message to deliver, a job to do, but when it was time to worship, they stopped, and they gloried in their Savior. Don’t allow the work to be done get in the way of the time you set aside to simply sit at the feet of the Savior and worship Him. The work will be there when He is finished with you, and you may just find that, after your time with Him, the work seems just a little less laborious.

So what about you? Will you walk away from yesterday and go back to your everyday life? Or will you recognize that you’ve had an encounter with the living Savior who has given you a mission? Jesus has given His followers work to do: “Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell…’” How does your life show that a risen Savior has given you a job to do? Do you spend enough time with Him to even know what that job is?

I pray that during the time from this Easter to the next that I will begin each day remembering that I have had an encounter with the risen Savior and that because of it, my life will never be the same again.

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On Passover and Easter


From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”–which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.” Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.” And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. Matthew 27:45-50

This Good Friday Morning broke with glorious sunshine and warmth here in Wake Forest. The weather has been cold but deceptively sunny, so the sunshine combined with warm temperature was a welcome change. But early this afternoon, the weather shifted quickly. The sky grew dark and it began to rain. The change reminded me of the account Matthew gives of a similar Passover that took place two thousand years ago. I read this account of the crucifixion of Christ with new eyes today because last night I attended my first Passover Seder with a Messianic congregation. Participating in a religious tradition that has been observed for thousands of years is a soberingly reflective event all by itself. But to practice a Jewish observation with a group which is concurrently celebrating the sacrifice of the Messiah to which the Passover points? Well that was an overwhelming experience for the senses as well as the soul.

Just take a moment and think about the three hours that are described in the short passage above. They are the climax of history. From the moment Eve chose to doubt the word of her Creator, all of time had been hurtling toward this moment of redemption. Eve’s decision did not take God by surprise, and His plan to redeem mankind was not a kneejerk reaction to the choices made by His creations. Genesis 3:15 declares God’s promise that the seed of woman would overcome the evil one, crushing him under His heel. God then chose Abraham to be the man through whom this promised seed would be delivered to the world. Just read the Old Testament. The thread woven throughout Scripture is the promise that there would be One who would deliver His people and save them. Through famine, war, sin, near destruction, terrible choices and a few faithful, God showed Himself faithful to keep His promise to His people that He would provide a redeemer to sit forever on the throne of David.

God instituted the sacrificial system as a picture of the sacrifice that would be required for the forgiveness of sin. Hebrews 9 is a beautiful explanation of how this picture pointed to and was fulfilled in the sacrifice of Christ. It was no accident that His crucifixion occurred on the Friday of Passover. Jesus is the perfect Lamb of God, the one and only God-Man who was perfect and could therefore serve as a worthy sacrifice to take upon Himself the judgment for our sins.

There is no way our minds will ever be able to comprehend “the Great Exchange” that took place during those three hours of darkness. So often we focus on the physical pain and sacrifice of Christ that took place on that tree. But have you ever stopped to think about the emotional and spiritual sacrifices made? Before this time, Jesus had spent 33 years on this earth, walking in perfect communion with the Father. Think about how disconnected you feel when there is sin in your life that breaks your communion with God. Now, imagine you had never before experienced that disconnect and now, suddenly, every sin ever committed has created a seemingly unspannable chasm between you and the Father. When Jesus was being falsely accused before Pilate, He fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah and like a sheep before his shearer, He was silent. It was not the attack on His character that caused Him to cry out. Throughout the rejection, the lies, the betrayal and denials, he remained silent. Scripture records that He did not utter a sound while enduring a physical beating that was known to kill its bearers before they ever reached the hill of Golgotha. But when He bore the weight of our sins on Himself, the separation from the Father was so excruciating He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That sort of pain is truly excruciating; the word excruciating literally means “out of the cross.”

I so flippantly talk about sacrifice and pain. I know nothing of sacrifice and pain. On this day over two millennia ago, Christ offered Himself as the one and only sacrifice worthy of being the once for all sacrifice for our sins. He accomplished for us what we could never accomplish for ourselves so that we will never have to experience the truly excruciating power of the curse of sin.

My question for you this Good Friday is, Have you recognized your sin? Do you know that you are separated from your Creator? Can you see that here is nothing you can do within yourself to restore that relationship? God is the only one who is able to provide what is needed for our relationship to be restored, and He sacrificed Himself as the ransom for our sins. Do you recognize your need for a Savior? He offered Himself for you. There will be no better time to offer yourself in repentance, thanksgiving and obedience to Him. Paul declared “now is the day of salvation!” God knew before time began what He was going to do about us and our rebellious nature. But the question now is, What are you going to do about His offering of salvation and forgiveness?

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Philippians 1.12-18a– Overcoming Obstacles in Ministry


I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the Gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.

Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of rivalry, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

Philippians 1.12-18a (ESV)

Paul is describing his time of imprisonment as a blessing for the advancement of the Gospel. Some background would be appropriate here concerning the circumstances in which Paul finds himself as he is writing this letter. Most scholars believe that Paul was writing this letter from Rome around the year 62. He was arrested in Jerusalem following his third missionary journey around 57, and from there spent the next several years in Roman custody while he went through various trials. Paul eventually appealed to Caesar, and was transported to Rome for a trial before Nero.

This was not exactly the plan Paul had for his life and ministry. Reading through Acts and his other epistles, you can see that he had great plans for more missionary journeys, namely a trip to Spain which he discusses in his letter to the Romans. Paul had spent the last 12 years of his life traveling throughout Asia and Greece, planting churches and discipling Gentiles. His intention was to continue this ministry. But instead, Paul finds himself arrested in Jerusalem and then imprisoned in Caesarea for two years before being transferred to Rome for another two years of house arrest. It is during his time of imprisonment in Rome that this letter is written.

Paul shows us how to respond when things in life do not go our way. This divine change of plans in Paul’s life led me to think about how I respond when my carefully developed plans go by the wayside. If you had met Paul just after his conversion, I’m certain that the plans he had for his life did not include an extended time in prison and a group of people competing with him for power in ministry. In the same way, if you had asked me ten or twelve years ago what I thought I would be doing in ministry today, I would not have said that I would still be single and in school preparing to “begin” ministry.

Each of us has some experience in which life has not worked out the way we planned it. Often, my first reaction is to complain. I don’t understand the reasons, I think my plan was perfectly acceptable, and if God really loved me, he would agree with me. Changes of plan tend to freeze us in our tracks. Instead of seeing setbacks and frustrations as God’s unique opportunity to share the Gospel in an unplanned place, we see them as stumbling blocks on the road to our own happiness.

Paul responded to this event in his life in the exact opposite manner. Instead of shutting down, instead of questioning his calling from God in light of his circumstances, Paul continued to answer his call as a missionary regardless of his location. This is an important thing for us to remember. Our calling to serve God and share the Gospel is not dependent upon our circumstances, situation or location. Sometimes the calling we have on our lives does not materialize in the manner we envision. When I answered a call to full time ministry in January of 1997, I was convinced of the fact that I would be a missionary in a foreign country using sports as my platform for working with teens. While the call to serve God with my life has not changed in the last twelve years, the specifics of how that calling has taken shape is vastly different from what I originally thought God was going to do with my life.

Planning is not the problem. Having a goal to work toward is a good thing! Our plans become bad, though, when they become our focus instead of the Gospel being our focus. It is good to have plans and to be intentional in the way we live our lives. But when we become upset when those plans are changed, we need to check our hearts and make sure that those plans have not become idols in our lives.

What are the plans you have for your life? Do they consist only of family or career or ministry? Or do your plans focus on living out the Gospel and sharing the Gospel with others regardless of your circumstances? Paul identified himself as a servant of God and messenger of the Gospel, and that identity can never be taken from us, even when our circumstances change. It was ok with Paul that his traveling had been cut short by his arrest. Instead of going to the Gentiles, God was allowing the Gentiles to come to him! Every four hours, four new guards were posted around Paul, and he then had four hours to talk with them about Christ. Through his faithful sharing of the Gospel, Paul says that the Gospel had been shared with the entire imperial guard. Paul wanted to go to Rome, and God provided a way for him to get there—and Roman government paid for the journey! The church was in a time of persecution. Many believers were losing jobs and homes and their lives. When Paul was arrested in Jerusalem, he was there delivering an offering he had collected from Gentile churches to help the persecuted believers in Jerusalem. There was a shortage of funds to pay for missionary work—at least there was a shortage from man’s point of view. An economic crisis followed by the arrest of a prominent leader would seem to be two heavy blows to the work of the early church. But Paul declares that the exact opposite is the case. The two hardships he has faced—imprisonment and opposition from fellow ministers—have actually served to further the spread of the Gospel. And for Paul, that is more important that any plan he may have had for ministry.

Joseph had a word concerning this very idea when he spoke to his brothers in Egypt in Genesis 50. 19-20: “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to being it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” Our plans can be destroyed. Jobs are lost. Health is compromised. Fellow believers sin against us and cause frustration and hurt. But if we keep our focus on Christ and His work, we will find ways to fulfill God’s will for our lives regardless of the setbacks we face.

So, how will you view frustrations and setbacks? How will you react to persecution, bad news, or the effects on your life of the sins of others? Will you have an identity crisis and lose faith, or will you remember that your calling is higher than your job or location or situation? Will you see the good opportunity God has placed in your life through the evil of a fallen world or will you focus on the negative circumstance and allow it to rule over you and keep you in bondage? Paul was literally in bondage, chained to two men 24 hours a day. But the closing verses of Acts tell us that during this time, Paul was free because he was “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance” (Acts 28. 31). Our freedom is found in Christ and his Gospel, and no circumstance in this world can take that away from us.

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Philippians 1.11


And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:9-11 (ESV)

Paul tells us in verse 11 what we are to do in order to become that pure and blameless bride of Christ that he describes in verse 10. In order to have abounding love, increasing knowledge and discernment, so that we may approve what is excellent, we must be filled with the fruit of righteousness. I wanted to know what this fruit of righteousness is, so I did a search of the New Testament for the word “fruit” in an English concordance. The word is used 43 times in the New Testament, occasionally talking about literal fruit, but most often used as a metaphor for the works of the spirit. “Fruit of righteousness” or “fruit of the Spirit” are both terms used to describe the external product of the internal growth of our spiritual life. We spoke about love being an action; fruit is the product of that action.

Jesus spoke extensively about fruit in His teaching in Matthew. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus warned his listeners to be aware of those who claim to be believers but who produce bad fruit. He tells us that a good tree will produce good fruit and a bad tree will produce bad fruit. But what is the good fruit Jesus is talking about? Paul gives a concise answer to that in Galatians 5:13-26.

13 You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. 14 The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. 16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. 19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

What fruit am I producing in my life? Do I spend my time “biting and devouring” my fellow believers? If so, I need to heed Paul’s warning that we will destroy one another. I also need to remember that my enemy is not flesh and blood—we as believers are on the same side of the battle against the evil one! Paul encourages us to keep in step with the Spirit by living out the truth that our sinful nature has ALREADY been crucified! We do not fight against our sinful FOR victory; we battle our sinful nature FROM victory! Producing the fruit of righteousness in our lives is possible for every believer who chooses to daily live in the reality of our flesh being crucified and our spirit being renewed and controlled by the Holy Spirit. As I seek to allow the Lord to work out this prayer in my own life, I pray that I will keep this comparison list close to the front of my mind. Is my life producing discord, jealousy, selfish ambition, idolatry? Or am I producing love, joy, peace, patience and the rest? Sometimes we see ourselves better than we really are. If asked, how would those closest to me describe the fruit in my life?

The fruit we produce is of utmost importance for our walk with the Lord and our representation of Him and His kingdom as we journey through this life as His ambassadors. How will people know that we are His ambassadors? Jesus said in the Gospel of John that they will know us by our love for one another. It is our unity as a body of Christ that sets us apart from the world! They will not know us by our building programs or by our humanitarian aid. They will know us by our unified diversity and love for one another. How are you showing love for your brothers and sisters in Christ that causes you to stand out in the world?