Red Mountain Church - It is Finished

Inner Purity Results in Outer Power

In Psalm 24:3, David ponders, "Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?" Then, he answers: "He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false. He will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God his Savior" (Psalm 24:4-5).

Here, David tells us that in order to stand before the Lord, you must have "clean hands and a pure heart." Such inner purity results in a "blessing from the Lord and vindication from God." What an excellent reward for keeping a pure heart!

Intuitively, to have God's power flowing through you requires a clear "path" through which it can flow. In other words, if you want God's power to be working in your life, you must keep a clean conscience and a pure heart. It's no surprise, then, that Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God" (Matthew 5:8).

Having outer, visible power requires having a developed, mature inner life. A believer who tries to have a powerful outer life but lacks that pure inner life is like a tree with lots of branches that lacks roots. When the storm comes and the winds blow, the tree topples, because it has no roots. Likewise, you must develop solid "roots" in your inner life, if you ever want to bear strong, stable fruit in your outer life.

Similarly, in Colossians 2:6-7, Paul instructed the early Christians to be "rooted and built up in [Christ], strengthened in the faith as you were taught." We too, need to be rooted and grounded in God.

King David also knew the importance of inner purity. After he had ordered the murder of Uriah and committed adultery with Bathsheba (see 2 Samuel 11), he obviously lacked inner purity. However, in Psalm 51:10, David asked God to cleanse him: "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." His desire for inner purity was necessary before he could "receive blessing from the Lord."

Since inner purity results in outer power, I challenge you to take David's prayer and make it your own.

[Weekly Wisdom - ChristNotes.org]

How Much Does God Love This Church?

How He Loves

God Is Just

“…There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8)

Here’s an old (meant to be) humorous story that is seen occasionally on the internet:

“It was an unusually serious case for the small county seat courthouse and the courtroom was packed with spectators.  Reporters were everywhere.  The noise of whispering was so great that little could be heard.  ‘We must have ORDER in the Court,’ the judge shouted and banged his gavel another time.  He continued by shouting, ‘There have already been a half dozen witnesses that have testified today and I couldn’t hear a single word they said!’”

That’s actually not as “humorous” as we might like a joke to be, but the point of the story is that the judge in the story didn’t hear the testimony of the witnesses, and therefore his judgment would not be valid – it was not based on hearing the evidence.  That’s all too common – we make judgments without knowing all the facts.  But God is not like that.  He hears and sees everything and understands it all perfectly.  If He did not, then you could complain about His verdict.  But He does hear and He is precisely “the righteous judge” that the Apostle Paul described in our Scripture for today.  God knows our hearts, motives, words and actions.

We are all “witnesses” in one manner or another. All of us at one time or another have spoken for or against a neighbor, an acquaintance or a relative, with words designed to find them guilty or innocent, depending on our feelings about them. It’s true about how we view God. Many decide who and what He is without actually knowing anything about Him. We make snap judgments, often liking or disliking people before we know them. Then after we have made up our minds, we spend the rest of our time with them trying to prove what we’ve already decided. But God hears and decides from the evidence, not from mere opinion.

The ones God finds “Not Guilty” on the Day of Judgment receive “the crown of righteousness”  (2 Timothy 4:8).  Many in this world decide that God’s little ones, His people, are guilty of something or other, but God will stamp “Not Guilty” over the opinions of this world about us, for if we trust in the Lord, our acquittal is written indelibly in the blood of Christ.

The evidence upon which God renders His verdict is found in today’s verse.  The ones who will be judged “Not Guilty” are those “who have loved His appearing.”  In other words, if you are pleased that Jesus is the Son of God who came to earth as a human child, lived, then died for your sins and rose back to life, you have “loved His appearing.”  Through His grace, though your faith in the Lord is small, forgiveness is yours when you have that faith.  The Holy Spirit of God has been or is being placed deep within you, and “Not Guilty” is stamped over your previous sins.  When we place our faith in the Lord, you and I are changed for the good – forever.

Jeff Japinga wrote in a recent “Daily Guideposts” article about “two boys in (a) high school class… who shared the exact same name but seemingly little else. One was an all-state swimmer on his way to being class valedictorian and about to choose one of the six elite universities that had offered him scholarships. The other often skipped class, refused to play sports (although he was built like a line-backer…), and likely wasn’t even thinking about college. Two very different kids headed in two very different directions…”

Interestingly, as Mr. Jappinga continued, “both ended up going to college and both are doing very well… The talented kid decided to invest some of his talents in the other kid with the same name – and it all added up to TWO successful young men...” And he concluded, “Life isn’t fair. But God is good… God gave me what I have, not just for my own use but to benefit the lives of the world around me…” Your life is intended to benefit others.

Jesus Christ is similar to the “talented kid” who helped the other boy. All in this world, in some manner, are like the boy who “skipped class, refused to play sports… and likely wasn’t even thinking about college.” But the one boy helped the other and both succeeded, and Jesus Christ offers success with God for us.

God made Jesus “who knew no sin to BE SIN FOR US, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

I’ve mentioned this more than once, but it’s so important that it needs to be stated enough so that we all, you and me, finally KNOW the wonder of Jesus’ death as a Substitute for your sins and mine.  In the language of 2,700 years ago, Isaiah the prophet looked ahead to the work of Jesus the Messiah, stating, “…He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows… He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities… and by His stripes we are healed… and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquities of us all… He bore the sin of many…” Those are excerpts from Chapter 53 of the Book of Isaiah.  Read the whole chapter, which defines in advance the work of Jesus Christ in dying for your sins and mine.

Another recommended reading is Psalm Chapter 22.  It contains words like “They pierced My hands and My feet” and “They divide My garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots…”  Again, that Chapter described in detail the deliberate sacrifice of Christ Jesus for us and those words were written by David, about 3,000 years ago.

Other words were uttered a thousand years later to a religious man, a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who “came to Jesus by night” with questions. This man who came to Jesus had the right education, wore the right clothing, spoke correctly and was admired, looked up to by all. It was felt about such people that they “had everything.” Others wanted to be like him.

Nicodemus was troubled because Jesus did not have the right education, wore the wrong clothing, and spoke with the odd accent that revealed He came from Galilee, a place sneered at by those who lived in Jerusalem. And yet the evidence of Jesus’ actions suggested to the man that Jesus was “a teacher come from God…” for, as he continued, “No one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him” (excerpts from John Chapter 3).

Jesus did not answer Nicodemus’ questions by authenticating Himself.  Instead He went to the man’s deep need to become right with God.  He said, “…Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God… You must be born again… so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved…” (more from John Chapter 3).

God has heard the evidence about your life and mine.  He intimately knows our motives and what we have said and done. We all fall short before a holy and just God and you can’t save yourself or change your past. All that we could is if Someone Acceptable to God took our guilt and paid the price we cannot pay. And that’s exactly what has been done for you and me: He “who knew no sin (became) sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). When we “have loved His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8) we become “Not Guilty” in the sight of “the Lord, the righteous judge.” As Mr. Japinga concluded, “Life isn’t fair. But God is good.” Let’s trust in the Lord:

Thank You, Father, for sending Your Son, and thank You, Dear Lord, for rescuing me.  I confess my need of You and I trust in You now.  In Jesus Name.  Amen.

 

Ron Beckham, Pastor

Friday Study Ministries

Send comments to: Ron@FridayStudy.org. 

While we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

 [Sermon 4/25/10 – 2 Timothy 4:8 – God Is Just]

In Christ Alone

Ask Pastor John (January 2010)

Can Anyone Stop This?

For I know that the LORD is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.
(Psalms 135:5-7 ESV)

Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.
(Jeremiah 32:17 ESV)

The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad! Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Fire goes before him and burns up his adversaries all around. His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the Lord of all the earth.
(Psalms 97:1-5 ESV)

Hear, you peoples, all of you; pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it, and let the Lord GOD be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. For behold, the LORD is coming out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will split open, like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place.
(Micah 1:2-4 ESV)

The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry; he dries up all the rivers; Bashan and Carmel wither; the bloom of Lebanon withers. The mountains quake before him; the hills melt; the earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.
(Nahum 1:3-6 ESV)

What Jesus Demands from the World, Q&A

Did Jesus Preach Paul’s Gospel?

T4G 2010 -- Session 6 -- John Piper from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.

All of Creation

Savior, Please

Christ is Risen!

HE is risen!

HE is risen indeed!

Was 3 Hours of Suffering Enough?

The following is an edited transcript of the audio.

If our sins are punished by eternal separation from God, why did Jesus only have to suffer momentary separation?

That's a good question, and I think there's a pretty clear answer.

Another question would be, How can one man suffer when millions should've suffered? Same kind of issue. How does one suffering become the suffering of millions? The math doesn't work! How does suffering for 3 hours on a cross correspond to delivering people from eternity in hell? All those kinds of questions apply here.

The answer is that the degree of suffering, indignity, reproach, degradation, and fall that Jesus endured is not simply determined temporally. And it's not simply determined by the exquisiteness of the pain of a nail cutting through a nerve in your wrist.

It's determined by the difference between the glory that he had with the Father in heaven and the ignominy that he suffered, naked and hanging like a piece of meat as the Son of God on the cross. It's that distance that is the magnitude that provides the scope needed in his suffering to cover an eternity in hell and to cover the sins of millions of people.

The way to think about it is that we commit a greater indignity against God, not just in accord with how many sins we commit or how bad they are, but in accord with how great he is. Therefore our sins are infinitely great because they're against an infinite person and deserve an infinite punishment.

Christ, being an infinite person, became so low that that drop in suffering, that drop in indignity was such a huge drop—it was an infinite drop—that it suffices to cover the sins of millions and to cover the entire length of eternity that we deserve to be in hell.

He is a great Savior.

[source: http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/2326_was_3_hours_of_suffering_enough/]