(The following meditation was delivered during the Christmas Eve service at the First Baptist Church of Benbrook)

When we finally make it to Christmas Eve, when all the shopping is done, and all the parties have been attended, and all the cards have been mailed, and all the fruitcake eaten, and when all the decorations are up, the simple message of Christmas is all that remains. As the angels said to the shepherds, “I bring you good news of great joy for today a Savior has been born to you.”

When Christmas is reduced to its one, foundational, core truth, Christmas is a demonstration of God’s love for each one of us. One of the very first verses of the Bible that most of us learned and memorized is John 3.16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The reason that God became flesh and dwelt among us is because this Most High God, this Creator of everything, this sovereign King of Kings, this Holy One loves you and loves me.

The scriptures tell us that “the heavens declare the glory of God,” and humanity has always known that behind the beauty and greatness of creation there had to be some kind of a creator. And that Creator must have some kind of incredible power and a divine nature that is completely different from us humans. But, in our attempts to try to understand God, mankind has almost universally thought that the divine was always angry with us mortals. Much of pagan religion through out history has been mankind’s attempt to keep the gods happy.

And God knew that unless He revealed Himself to us, we would never know Him. We would only be able to guess what He was like. So, throughout history, the Creator God began to reveal Himself to His creation. And you can imagine what a shock it must have been when God began to reveal Himself as a God who was not, in fact, an angry God, but a God of love. Whether we look at God revealing Himself to Abraham, or Moses, or through the prophets, or through His final self revelation in the incarnation, what humanity has learned about God is that this sovereign, creative, divine, and eternal God loves the men and women He created. In fact, the Bible says that God has set His affection upon us and that we are the apple of His eye.

Before we close our Christmas Eve service tonight, I want us to meditate for a few moments on a verse of Scripture, and by meditate I mean to focus on, to ponder, and to chew on the Word of God. In Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus, he wrote a prayer, what he was praying for that group of Christians. And I would like for us to meditate on this prayer for just a few moments. Paul wrote,

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3.17-19)

Tonight, I want to send you away with a better grasp of how wide, high, deep, and long the love of Christ is for each one of us.

Wide Enough To Love Us As We Are

Paul’s prayer is that we would be able to grasp how wide God’s love is for us. One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Romans 5.8, where the apostle Paul wrote,

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5.8)

There are several reasons why I really like this verse, but one reasons is that this verse is one of the very first verses where I actually applied my studies in Greek. I was a religion student at Baylor and studying biblical Greek. And I actually applied what I was learning in class while preparing a Bible study for my church. I learned that this word “demonstrates” is a present active verb, not past tense. Paul did not write, “God demonstrated His love” but that “God demonstrates His love.” That means that God continues to demonstrate His love for me while I continue to be a sinner.

God demonstrates His love for you and for me by sending His own Son to die in our place while we were still sinners. He did not wait for me to get my life together, to stop doing the bad things and to start doing the good things. No, He demonstrates His love for me while I was still living in rebellion, in ignorance, in defiance, and in selfishness.

Everyone of us in this room has a story, a story that includes a past full of things we would rather not remember, things we have said and done that bring us great shame today. Our stories include times where we have mistreated others, times where we have made selfish choices, and times where we have lived in abandon to God’s moral law. If we think of our lives as a graph, with the “straight and narrow” is the middle line and our lives wandering away from that line, when we were as far away from the middle line as possible, when we wandered as far away from God as we ever had, at that moment is the exact moment when God demonstrates His love for us.

When you get that, when you get that the Creator of all things, the Sovereign King of Kings, the Most High God loved you and continues to loves you even when you are living in rebellion and defiance and immorality and selfishness, when you truly understand that it will amaze you.

God’s love does not just shine on those who are able to keep their lives on the straight and narrow, to keep it between the ditches a they say in the country. No, God’s love is wide enough to reach out to those who have wandered very far away.

High Enough to be Our Wonderful Counselor

Paul’s prayer is that we would be able to grasp how wide and how high God’s love is for us. God’s love for us is not only wide enough to reach out to those who have wandered far away, but it is also high.

When Jesus was searching for an image to describe His love for us, he often used the image of a shepherd and his flock, which might not be the most flattering imagery for us since sheep are not the brightest members of the animal kingdom. But those who lived in first century Palestine knew a lot about being a shepherd. A real shepherd leads and guide his flock with compassion, and care, and sacrifice. As a result, the sheep have come to recognize the voice of their shepherd. Several shepherds would pen their sheep up in the same pen over night, and then would separate them in the morning simply by the sound of their voices. Each shepherd’s sheep would know the sound of his voice, and they would follow him because they knew the shepherd would guide them to quiet waters and green pastures.

In other words, God love me and cares for me by leading and guiding me to quiet waters and green pastures. One of the prophecies about the coming Messiah is that he would be called “Wonderful Counselor.” God’s love for each of us is high enough that as He looks down upon our lives, He guides and counsels us from His wise and omniscient and compassionate perspective. He sees our lives and His plan for our lives, and if we will seek out His wise counsel and follow it in faith, He will guide us on the path of life. The apostle James wrote,

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. (James 1.5)

How amazing it is to me that God loves me enough to be my Wonderful Counselor, and when I need divine guidance to make a career decision, or divine wisdom to know how to react when a friend has hurt my feelings, or divine wisdom to know how to care for an aging parent and make those difficult choices, whenever I am in need of wisdom, God’s love for me is high enough to be my Wonderful Counselor from a perspective of wisdom and compassion and sovereignty.

Deep Enough to Patiently Forgive Again and Again

I pray that you might be able to grasp how wide and high and deep God’s love is for you. God’s love for us is not only wide to reach out to those who have wandered far away and high enough to be our Wonderful Counselor, but His love for us is also deep.

Sometimes we have heard the gospel so many times that we take it for granted.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1.9)

In God’s great love for each one of us, He has forgiven us of our sins. We are told in the Scriptures that we are to forgive each other like God has forgiven us and that we are to forgive each other not just once, not just twice, but over and over again for the same offense. Which means, that God forgives us over and over again since this is the way He wants us to forgive others.

All of that to say, that not only is God’s love for me deep enough to forgive me, but it is deep enough to forgive me over and over and over again for the very same offense. Some sin in our lives is rather easy to get rid of, but other sins linger and stick around like a bad penny. Fear of rejection, low self esteem, outbursts of anger, pride, materialism, judgmentalism, lust, these things can take the Spirit of God quite a while to work out of us. And yet, as we slowly mature in our faith, the promise of 1 John 1.9 remains true. God’s love is deep enough to forgive us for the same sin over and over again. No matter how many times you have claimed that promise, the offer still holds because of the depth of God’s love. If you confess your sins, God is faithful and just and He will forgive your sins.

Long Enough to Prepare a Place for Eternity

I pray that you may be able to grasp how wide and how high and how deep and how long God’s love is for you. God’s love for us is wide enough to reach out to those who have wandered far away, high enough to be our Wonderful Counselor, and deep enough to forgive us for the same sins over and over again, but God’s love for us is also long.

Here, Paul adds a fourth dimension to the measure of love, the dimension of time. God, in His great love for us, does not simply love us in the short term. He has long range goals for us. And by long range, I don’t just mean next year. His love for you will extend through out eternity. In fact, He loves you and me so much that He has prepared a place for us so that we will be close to Him in His eternal heaven. When Jesus was telling His disciples that He would be leaving them and going back to the right hand of God the Father, He encouraged them with these words,

I am going there to prepare a place for you. ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. (John 14.2-3)

God loves you and me so much that He has prepared an eternal place for us so that we will be with Him forever.

I remember when I was considering whether or not to ask Kelli to marry me. As I was thinking about that, one of the strongest motivations for me was that I loved her so much that I wanted to make sure that she and I would always be together, wherever that togetherness would lead us. I wanted a guarantee that if something caused me to move, that she would move with me, and if something caused her to move, then I would move with her. I wanted to make sure that for here on out, she would be by my side.

That kind of love, when you love someone so much that you want to make sure you are always together, is the exact kind of love that God has for each one of us. God loves you and me so much that He has made a place for you in eternity so that you will always be at His side. God’s love for you is long enough to last through eternity.

Conclusion

I pray that you will be able to grasp how wide and how high and how deep and how long God’s love is for you. In a few moments, we are going to stand and end our service, as we do every year, by singing Silent Night by candlelight. In a moment, we will sing these words,

Silent night, holy night
Son of God, love’s pure light

I want to encourage you as you look at the light of the candle before you, to drink deeply of God’s love for you. My prayer for you this Christmas eve, is that you would have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and high and deep and long is the love of Christ for you. May you have the eyes to see that God’s love for you is wide enough to reach those you when you have wandered very far away, high enough to be your Wonderful Counselor, deep enough to forgive you over and over again, and long enough to last throughout eternity.

And all God’s people said, “Amen.

The gospel of John has always been difficult for me to read. Unlike the other three, John is written with more poetic flair, and since I do not have an artsy bone in my body, much of its beauty is lost on me. Nevertheless, this gospel is the inspired Word of God, the very breath of God, and like all of Scripture, I hear the living Word speak to me through the written word.

In John 15, Jesus is giving His “I am the vine” speech to His disciples. In this context, Jesus says to me,

Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. (John 15.4)

What follows, is a short sermon where Jesus used the word “remain” no less than six times in 12 verses. He then finished the “remain in me” discourse by saying,

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. (John 15.16)

The context of John 15 is that Jesus is about to be arrested, and the events of the crucifixion will quickly follow. But before those events begin, He takes the time to encourage the apostles and to clarify their calling. They will become witnesses to Jesus since they have been with Him, and Jesus chose them so that they could bear fruit that will last, and the only way to bear that kind of fruit is to remain in Him.

Several years ago, I was shocked and encouraged to read of the private diary that Mother Teresa left behind when she died in 1997. For most of the world, she was a model of great faith, but her private thoughts revealed a woman who lived primarily in the dark night of the soul. She was encouraged by her superior to write out her thoughts, capturing the struggle of her soul. She wrote,

They say people in hell suffer eternal pain because of loss of God. In my soul, I feel just the terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing….Jesus, please forgive the blasphemy — I have been told to write everything –that darkness that surrounds me on all sides. I can’t lift my soul to God: No light, no inspiration enters my soul.

One thing I have discovered about the calling of preaching and pastoring is that fighting off depression seems to be a common battle for those who are called to pastor. I am not implying that we are all in need of medication, but that a spiritual battle rages in our soul as we stake our very lives upon the claims of the gospel and seek to be used by God to herald the good news. I don’t know if what I experience as a pastor is any different for those who are not pastors, but I constantly struggle with the value and worth and veracity of the gospel. Not because I doubt it, but because the Enemy is constantly assailing my soul.

Which is why the words of Christ to me today are so meaningful. He has chosen me to go and bear fruit, but the only way that I can bear fruit is if I remain in Him. The most important thing I will do today is to remain in Him. The dark night of the soul is a call to remain and endure.

Fruit bearing is on the other side.

(An excerpt from Darius Salter’s book, Preaching as Art: Biblical Storytelling for a Media Generation, 2008)

In a day that almost totally dismisses the possibilities of taking pride in a finished project, most lives become abstractions, minuscule points in an endless line of routine with no particular direction. A critical objective for preaching is to enable people to get the big picture, to envision that life is more than getting up and going to work. Sermons place life within the overall scheme of God’s providence. Sermons work when they consecrate the most menial responsibility to God’s eternal and universal scheme and they reduce the CEO of a mega corporation to obscurity, unless he or she is engulfed by God’s superintendency over human affairs. Americans are increasingly depressed people, gulping down megadoses of antidepressants, largely because they are lost in a world that controls them rather than able to lay claim to their rightful domain. Paul asked the Corinthians when they were embroiled in lawsuits, a depressing activity for anybody, “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?” (1 Corinthians 6.2). Sermons ask the simple question, “Why would anyone want to grovel in the give and take that ensnare and enslaves most of us when we can be a major player in God’s scheme to redeem the world?” Enticing our parishioners to trade the trivialities of mundane existence for Kingdom citizenship shouldn’t take a whole lot of persuasion, but it will demand out best imagination. (32-33)

In the gospel of John, the key event that leads to the arrest of Jesus is when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead in John 11. Almost immediately, the Jewish rulers began to plot how they might bring about the death of Jesus. What is shocking to me is how the decision of John 11.53 (“From that day on, they plotted to take his life”) came about.

Lazarus, a close friend of Jesus and brother of Mary and Martha, has died in Bethany. When Jesus arrived four days later, his body had already been placed in a cave-like tomb and sealed with a stone. Jesus asked for the stone to be removed and told Martha if she only believed, she would see the glory of God. After the stone was removed,

Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴²I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” ⁴⁵Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. (John 11.41-45)

Strike up the band and start the parade. What could be more convincing than witnessing a four day old dead man being brought back to life? Surely there could not be any doubters among the crowds in Bethany. But somehow, while many put their faith in Jesus as the Christ, some did not.

⁴⁶But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. ⁴⁷Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. ⁴⁸If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” (John 10.46-48)

Some of the eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Lazarus, saw the miraculous signs but only saw them as a threat to their “place.” Their love for the praise of others and places of significance and importance in the community prevented them from seeing the coming of the Christ. How in the world could they not hear? Jesus explained it rather simply:

He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God. (John 8.47)

Today, I am thankful that God has given me eyes to see and ears to hear. I am thankful that He has chosen to open my eyes so that I can see that the attractiveness of things like positions and possessions are at best temporary, and ultimately void of any real life. I am thankful that I have seen the miraculous signs, including the coming of the Christ into the world and His resurrection from the dead. And I continue to ask God to give me eyes to see and ears to hear so that I never choose the fading beauty of the things of this world when the glory of the Lord is on display right before my eyes.

Acts 26.22-29 – December 20, 2009

MP3 File

(The following sermon was preached at FBC Benbrook on December 20, 2009. It is the fourth of a sermon series called, “A Herodian Christmas Carol.”)

The birth of our Savior is truly an amazing story. And no matter how many times I read it, or hear it told, or see it acted out on stage, the story never gets old. And the reason is that this is not just the story of a baby born long ago who has long since lived and died, but it is a living story because this Jesus is still living today. And when you really hear this story, it does change everything. It changes you.

Over the last few weeks, I have been preaching a sermon series called “A Herodian Christmas Carol.” I have been looking through the eyes of several rulers of Palestine during the time of Jesus, all with the family name of Herod. And when they met Jesus, that experience changed them. When you experience Jesus, it just changes you. Experiencing Jesus forces you to respond in one way or another.

When Herod the Great learned of Jesus’ birth, he responded by trying to kill him. When Herod Antipas experienced Jesus, he responded by asking to see a miracle. When Agrippa experienced Jesus at work through those who followed Him, he arrested them and tried to kill the key leaders. And the last Herod we will meet was no different. When he heard the story of the living Christ, it forced him to respond to.

When Herod Agrippa died suddenly in 44 AD, after a five day infestation of intestinal worms, the heir to his throne was his seventeen year old son, Agrippa II. However, the Emperor of Rome decided that Agrippa II was too young to rule. So, the territory of his father was broken up into smaller territories and became a Roman province. As Agrippa II became older, the Emperor slowly gave him territories to govern. However, Agrippa II never became a significant political force in Palestine like the Herods before him. His territory was never that large. In fact, he never ruled over Judea or Galilee or Jerusalem like his predecessors. In fact, this particular Herod probably would have passed unnoticed to the gospel reader if not for two reasons.

The first reason is that even though he never really ruled that large of a territory, and never ruled over Judea or Jerusalem, for some reason, the Emperor decided to appoint Agrippa II as the Curator of the Temple in Jerusalem. This meant that it was his responsibility to appoint (and depose) the high priest, to oversee the temple treasury, and to oversee the priestly vestments. He was the Roman ruler in charge of the Temple. As a result of this office, Agrippa II was considered by Rome to be an expert on the Jewish religion. When Rome had a question about how to rule the Jewish people or how to understand the Jewish customs, they turned to Agrippa II for advice.

The second reason that we are even talking about Agrippa II today is really nothing more than a scheduling coincidence. The king of Judea was the primary ruler in Palestine. When the rule of Judea passed from one king to the next, it was customary for the rulers of the smaller adjoining areas to come and “pay their respects” to the primary ruler of the region. So, when Festus took over as king of Judea from Felix, Agrippa II, like all of the other rulers of the small territories around Judea, went to Caesarea to pay his respects to the new ruler. It just so happened that while Agrippa II was there, a situation arose where he became useful to Festus as “the expert on the Jewish religion.”

One of the things that Festus inherited from his predecessor was a court case involving a man who was accused by the Jewish leaders of being a trouble maker, stirring up riots, and desecrating the Temple. After investigating the problem, Festus discovered that the man was really innocent of breaking any civil law and that this was really an internal dispute among religious leaders. Unfortunately, the prisoner had taken advantage of a right that belonged to all Roman citizens: he appealed his case to Caesar. So, Festus could not release him. The prisoner that we are talking about was, of course, the apostle Paul, and the court trial is recorded in the book of Acts.

The problem for Festus was that when he sends Paul to Rome, it was his responsibility to present to Rome the charges against the accused. He has to fill out the paperwork on Paul. But he doesn’t really know what the charges are because he thinks Paul is innocent. He has no idea what to put on the paperwork that will be sent with Paul when he appears before Caesar. But lucky for Festus, the local, Roman expert in the Jewish religion is in town. So Festus sets up a meeting for Agrippa II and himself to hear the apostle Paul. Festus is hoping that Agrippa II can help him understand what Paul is accused of.

In Acts 26, Paul was brought before the two rulers and given a chance to speak in his defense, and you know Paul is going to take advantage of this. What Paul really does is he shares his testimony. He told them of his past as a Pharisee of Pharisees, a Jew among Jews. He told them about how he had persecuted those “Christians” who thought Jesus was the Messiah. And he told them about that moment on the road to Damascus, where Paul’s life was changed forever because he met the resurrected Christ. And Paul realized that Jesus was in fact the Messiah. He told them about God’s call on His life, when the resurrected Jesus said to him,

I am sending you to the Gentiles to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. (Acts 26.17-18)

This experience radically changed Paul’s life. From that moment on, Paul told Agrippa, he was obedient to God by preaching the good news about Jesus Christ. He told Agrippa,

But I have had God’s help to this very day, and so I stand here and testify to small and great alike. I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen—that the Christ would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would proclaim light to his own people and to the Gentiles. (Acts 26.22-23)

Up until this moment, everything seemed to going well for Paul’s defense. He had the whole court hanging on his every word until he mentioned the idea of Jesus being raised from the dead. This was about all Festus could handle. Festus interrupted Paul, saying, “You are out of your mind” (Acts 26.24). But Paul took that moment to say something very important to Agrippa. And here is the moment I want you to see, the moment where Agrippa experiences for himself the resurrected Christ.

²⁵“I am not insane, most excellent Festus,” Paul replied. “What I am saying is true and reasonable. ²⁶The king (speaking of Agrippa II) is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner. ²⁷King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do.” (Acts 26.25-27)

Now what Paul is saying to Agrippa is that the prophets pointed towards the coming Messiah just like the drama team acted out. Isaiah said that the people walking in darkness will see a great light, and the light has come in Jesus. Jesus fulfilled what the prophets said about the Messiah. As the resident, Roman expert on the Jewish religion, Agrippa was aware of these things, and that is why he responded the way he did to Paul.

²⁸Then Agrippa said to Paul, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?” ²⁹Paul replied, “Short time or long—I pray God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.” (Acts 26.25-29)

Herod Agrippa II met the resurrected Christ, and I see something very important about the Christ through his eyes. I see that when anyone experiences the resurrected Christ, whether its Paul on the road to Damascus or Agrippa in the royal court or you and I sitting in a church in Benbrook, when anyone experiences the resurrected Christ, that experience demands a decision. It demands a response.

When the apostle Paul met the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus, that experience demanded a decision. Paul was either going to continue to persecute those who faithed in Christ, or he was going to embrace the gospel and turn from his sins and believe upon Jesus as his Savior and Lord. When Agrippa heard about the resurrected Jesus, he knew that this story demanded a response. And he felt it. He felt Paul backing him into a corner. That is why he so quickly said, “Do you think you can persuade me to become a Christian?” This was not just the legal defense of an accused prisoner. This story was a personal challenge to Agrippa. And he knew it.

Today, you have heard and have seen the story of the Christ. This baby was not just a baby, but the incarnate Word of God. Christmas is about the incarnation, when God Himself became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have to ask ourselves, why did God go through all of this trouble? So that we could sings carols and decorate trees and give gifts? No, the purpose behind the incarnation was so that this Jesus could save you and me from our sins. That was the word of the angel to Joseph, you shall call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us because we are all sinners separated from a loving and holy God. And because God is rich in mercy, He sent His Son to make a way for us to return to Him. And that way was that this baby would grow up, and in the fullness of time, this Christ who knew no sin would become sin for you and me that we might become righteous in the eyes of God. This is the good news of Christmas.

But this story demands a response. If you really hear the story, it will back you into a corner. If you really hear this story, you should feel like Agrippa. You should feel backed into a corner. You should feel this story calling out to you, “Would you become a Christian?” This story, if you really hear it, will force you to either say “yes” or “no” to everything wrapped up in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

If this baby is who the choir says He is, if this baby is who the drama team says He is, if this baby is who the Scriptures say He is, if this baby is the Christ, the Savior, the Eternal God who became flesh, if this baby is one who has come to save you from your sins, then this baby cannot be just another story to entertain you. This is not just a Hallmark movie with a feel good ending. You have to do something about this story.

And you will either do what Agrippa did or what Paul did.

You can do what Agrippa did. “Would you have me to become a Christian? Wait a moment, I was just here to help my friend rule on a court case. I’m not here to buy into some kind of religious group. Step back Paul.” And you can say the same thing. “Hey, I just came along with my grandmother or my friend. I’m just here to get into the Christmas spirit. Don’t push me. Why would you push me to become a Christian?” You can respond like Agrippa did.

Or, you may be more like Paul. Paul met the resurrected Christ, and his life was changed in an instant. The instantaneous change of Paul is nothing short miraculous. How does a man who is bound and determined to arrest any one who believes Jesus is the Christ all of the sudden come to faith in Christ? How does that happen? It happens because God gets a hold of your heart, mind, and soul and draws you to Himself. It happens when you know in your soul that this story is true.

The Bible tells us that no one can come to Christ unless the Father draws them to His side. And when that happens, when you hear the word, when you hear the gospel, when you hear of the good news of Jesus who came to save you from your sins, the Spirit of God quickens your spirit. When God draws you to Him, the eyes of your heart are opened and you can see the full glory of the gospel. When God’s Spirit is at work in your soul, there is an overwhelming conviction of sin and longing for God’s forgiveness. When God reaches into your soul, it is as if your soul is on fire and you can’t wait to come to Jesus. When God draws you to Himself, this story becomes the bread of life.

If that is happening in your soul right now, if you just can’t walk away from this story, if you joyfully hear the invitation to become a Christian, I want to help you respond to Jesus. I want to help you become a Christian and a follower of Christ.

What do you do with this burning desire to become a Christian? Let me give you four simple words.

The first word is confess. If you want to become a Christian, you have to confess. To confess means to admit that you are a sinner and that sin is a great problem that you can’t solve. Everyone knows they are not perfect, but to admit you are a sinner is totally different than admitting you have faults. A sinner is one who has broken God’s law, twisted His plan for your life, and rebelled against His kingship in your life. When you confess, you are admitting that you are a sinner worthy of the judgment of God. If Jesus came to save you from your sins, then obviously you and I were sinners who needed to be saved.

But the real key to confessing is admitting that there are consequences to my sin. If there were no consequences, then I would not need to be saved. The consequences of my rebellion against the King of Kings is that His wrath is revealed against all ungodliness, and that the wages of sin is eternal death. Because of my sin, I will spend eternity cast out from the presence of God in a place called hell, a place of torment and judgment. To confess is to admit that all of that is true of me.

The second word is to believe. To become a Christian, you need to believe upon the name of Jesus. You need to believe that Jesus is everything the choir has just sung about, that Jesus is God’s Son, that Jesus became flesh and dwelt on this earth, that Jesus died on the cross, in your place, for the forgiveness of your sins, and that God raised Jesus from the dead. You need to believe that Jesus took your sins upon Himself, and through His grace and mercy, you can be forgiven of your sins and cleansed of all unrighteousness.

The third word is repent. To become a Christian, you need to repent. The word repent means to stop walking one way and to start walking another direction. To become a Christian, we must have a change of course. You can admit and believe and still not be a Christian. To become a Christian, you have to turn from darkness and turn to the light. You must leave one kingdom, the kingdom where you are in charge of your life, and move towards another kingdom, a kingdom where Jesus is Lord. This is a change of orientation.

The fourth word is to submit. To be a Christian, you must submit your life to the Lordship of Christ. You need to accept Jesus as the final and complete authority over your entire life. Christ must become the ultimate ruler of your time, your tongue, your money, your morals, your anger, your career, your family, and every area of your life.

When you do this, a great miracle will take place in your life. The Bible says that you will be born again, you will become a new creation, that old things will pass away and new things will come. If God is calling you to become a Christian right now, then would you let me pray for you and with you? I want to lead you in a simple prayer where you can confess, believe, repent, and submit to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

Dear God, I confess that I am a sinner who has rebelled against the King of Kings and am worthy of your judgment. But I believe in Jesus, your Son, whom you sent to die in my place so that I might have forgiveness of sins. Today, I want to turn away from my sin and turn to you. Please forgive me of my sin, and please take control of my life. I submit to you as my Savior and Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

If you prayed this prayer, if you truly admitted you are a sinner, believed upon Jesus, repented from your sins, and submitted your life to Jesus as Savior and Lord, what do you do next? The answer is that you have a lifetime of following Christ before you and His Spirit will lead you to many steps. But let me give you a simple first step.

First, you need to baptized as a testimony of your new life in Christ. Second, you need to become part of a church family where you can worship Christ and learn what it means to follow Him. Finally, you need to develop the personal habits of walking with Jesus each and every day through Bible reading and prayer. But really, all of these need more explanation that I can give you at this moment. So, here is the first step you can take if just became a Christian: when we stand together and sing this next song, I encourage you to come down to the front where I will be standing, shake my hand, and proudly say, “I became a Christian.”

[2] Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. ³⁷All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. ³⁸For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. ³⁹And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁰For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” ⁴¹At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” ⁴²They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?” ⁴³“Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. ⁴⁴“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6.35-44)

[3] Romans 1.18

[4] Romans 6.23

[5] 2 Corinthians 5.17

I have finished reading Mark Batterson’s latest book, Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity, and am joining the many other bloggers who have agreed to review the book in exchange for a free copy. Batterson knows bloggers: they will work for books.

I have never read any of Batterson’s other works, nor have I heard him speak. It is hard not be impressed with his ability to communicate. He is able to weave his various life experiences with his knowledge of Scripture and the testimonies of people from his church to create a tapestry of truth that is easy to read, insightful, and dripping with Spirit inspired application of truth.

The book is an effort to return to the primal essence of the Christian faith, and so he focuses on the Greatest Commandment: loving God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. These form the four sections of the book, and with each he offers a succinct definition of what it means to love God and some interesting applications of that kind of love. To love God with our heart means to have a heart that breaks with the things that break the heart of God. And when our heart breaks, this compassion will move us to action.  Batterson then focuses on serving others and giving money towards the needs of the hurting world. While acts of compassion are godly, I think something is missed if we define loving God as loving others. After all, the greatest commandment is to love God, the second is to love others. Loving God means delighting in the beauty and greatness of who He is and not just demonstrating compassion to others.

To love God with our soul is to rekindle a sense of wonder at the beauty of God. Too often, Christians reduce God to a set of propositions instead of a wonderful divine Being. Batterson encourages us to develop a sense of wonder through meditating on Scripture. To love God with our mind is exercise our God given ability to continue to learn, to question, to seek to know more about Him and everything God created. Batterson reminds us that as we expand our God given imagination and our appreciation of who God is and what God has made, we must continue to freely admit our non-omniscience. We do not know everything, and much of what we think we know needs to be rethought. One of Batterson’s greatest observations in this section is the positive application of 2 Corinthians 10.5 (“take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ”). While we usually apply this to sinful thoughts, he reminds us that this also means to capture the “God ideas” that the Spirit puts in our heads. Obedience to Christ involves capturing these visions and living into them.

To love God with our strength means to expend tremendous amounts of energy for kingdom causes. God ideas take work and perseverance to become realities. Batterson suggests that the reason many churches are stuck in petty disputes is because they are not expending all of their energy towards a God idea, so they create petty problems to keep them busy. He is quick to remind us that we do not work for God, but God works through us. Afterall, it is not what we can do for God, but what God can do through us. God ordained dreams cannot be accomplished in our own strength and wisdom.

Batterson states his  goal in writing this book:

I hope this book has taken you back to some of the sympathy break throughs that have broken your heart and the epiphanies that have shaped your soul. I hope it’s unleashed a holy curiosity to know God more. I hope it’s renewed your resolve to devote your energies to kingdom causes. I hope this book has taken you down that flight of stairs, all the way back to the primal place where loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength is all that matters (171).

For the most part, Batterson has accomplished his goal.  He uses science, history, and personal testimonies in an inspiring and thought provoking way. And in the end, readers will find themselves somewhere in the pages of this book. They will hear the Spirit speak a word about loving God with their mind, soul, heart, and strength. And hopefully, they will be called back to the primal essence of the Christian faith.

(The following is part 4 of a running book review on Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity by Mark Batterson).

If loving God with all of our heart means having a heart that breaks for the things that break the heart of God, and if loving God with our soul means having a soul full of wonder at the glory of God, then loving God with our mind means to expand our God given imagination so we can expand our appreciation of who God is and what God has made (102). God has created us with a capacity to learn, and the day we stop learning is the day we begin to die. Learning about God and His creation is not so much about finding the answers, but about seeking God with questions. Questions lead us to discoveries and every discovery reveals a new dimension of God’s creativity and personality. For most Christians, we have a problem admitting our non-omniscience. So we spend so much energy asserting that we have all the answers instead of admitting our ignorance and bringing our questions to God. God answers our questions, not with information, but with a relationship. Our questions bring us to Him.

And often, when we bring our seeking and questions to God, He respond by putting ideas in our head. Batterson takes 2 Corinthians 10.5 as a positive command, to capture the creative thoughts God puts in our minds and make them obedient to Christ. These “God ideas” can revolutionize our lives and the world around us. How do we get these God ideas? By putting ourselves in situations where we can hear the Spirit speak. Batterson’s formula is simple: “change of pace + change of place = change of perspective.” He challenges us to get outside of our routine, to capture our thoughts in some fashion, and to refuse to let reasonableness hold our “God ideas” ransom.

Are we loving God with our mind? Do we seek him with our curiosity and questions? Do we capture the visions he puts in our heads and make them obedient to Christ? Loving God with our mind is part of the primal essence of the soul of Christianity.

Acts 12.1-24 – December 13, 2009
Herod Agrippa Experiences the Exalted Christ

MP3 File

Herod Agrippa I died suddenly in 44 AD, after a five day infestation of intestinal worms (see Acts 12.23). His seventeen year old son, Agrippa II, was the heir to the throne, but the Emperor of Rome decided that he was too young to rule. So, the territory of Agrippa I was broken up into smaller territories and became a Roman province. As Agrippa II became older, territories were slowly given to him for him to rule. However, Agrippa II never ruled over Judea or Galilee like the previous Herods. In fact, this particular Herod would have passed unnoticed to the gospel reader if not for two reasons.

First, the Emperor appointed Agrippa II as the curator of the Temple in Jerusalem. This meant that it was his responsibility to appoint (and depose) the high priest, to oversee the temple treasury, and to oversee the priestly vestments. As a result of this office, he was considered by Rome to be an expert on the Jewish religion.

Second, after Festus became the king of Judea, Agrippa II traveled to Caesarea to “pay his respects” (Acts 25.13). Little did Agrippa II know that while he was in Casesarea, he would be drawn into a drama much larger than himself. Several days earlier, the chief priests and Jewish leaders had appeared before Festus to charge a certain man with  being a trouble maker, stirring up riots, and desecrating the Temple. However, during the trial, the prisoner took advantage of his Roman right to appeal to Caesar. Festus had no choice but to send the man to Caesar. However, it was the responsibility of Festus to specify the charges against the accused, and he thought the man to be innocent. Fortunately for Festus, the “expert on the Jewish religion” had just arrived in town. So Festus arranged for the prisoner to appear before him and Agrippa II.

By now you know, the prisoner’s name was the apostle Paul. The appearance is recorded in Acts 26.1-32. What the writer of Acts provides for us is a detailed account of Paul’s presentation before Festus and Agrippa. Agrippa hears Paul tell, in great detail, of the Jewish hope of the resurrection from the dead (26.4-8), of his experience on the road to Damascus (26.9-18), and his ministry to the preach the gospel to the Gentiles (26.19-23). Paul finished his defense with the following summary statement:

²²But I have had God’s help to this very day, and so I stand here and testify to small and great alike. I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen—²³that the Christ would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would proclaim light to his own people and to the Gentiles.” (Acts 26.22-23)

Upon hearing Paul speak of the resurrection, Festus thought him to be out of his mind, but Paul knew that Agrippa was familiar with everything that he had just said. And the encounter ends with the following dialogue between Paul and Agrippa:

²⁵“I am not insane, most excellent Festus,” Paul replied. “What I am saying is true and reasonable. ²⁶ King Agrippa is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner. ²⁷King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do.”

²⁸Then Agrippa said to Paul, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?”

²⁹Paul replied, “Short time or long—I pray God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.” (Acts 26.25-29)

That was enough for Festus and Agrippa. Court was dismissed, and it was decided that Paul could have been set free had he not appealed to Caesar. But Paul was not the only one on trial that day. The gospel was on trial before Agrippa. Agrippa had been confronted with the gospel story, and he was going to render his personal assessment about the craziness of the gospel. What judgment would he make?