Our Church Family

Dear church,

The hard times you face today are not designed by God to punish you. They are designed to bless you. The discipline of God is always meant to bring us into a blessing – “a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills.”

Pride is our primary enemy. The discipline of God will be savage with our arrogance. Deep inside of us, we may think we can shape ourselves up on our own. Worse yet, we may think we are pretty good already. God will do deep surgery to remove that thought. And he tends not to use anesthetics.  

“That he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end.” This is the point of God’s discipline, when he leaves us wanting something that we cannot provide ourselves. God wanted his people to live in the land in holiness, reflecting his glory. They were to be a tangible reminder to the world of the goodness, grace, and justice of God. 

“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11). Are you being trained by God’s discipline, or are you rebelling against it?

Sometimes, God answers our prayers with an emphatic “No!” (See Deuteronomy 3:26.) This is not because God doesn’t love us. Rather, it is because he does love us, and he knows what we need – or what his people, the church, need – better than we do.

Chris

Dear church,

The goal of our spiritual lives is not to become empty, like people who meditate while looking at doorknobs or special symbols. No, the goal of our spiritual lives is to become full of Christ. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

The Israelites were blessed with a conquest that occurred “little by little.” In this way, the land wouldn’t be overrun by nature – or by other opportunistic peoples. The conquest would take time, but it would be complete. Every vestige of pagan idolatry would be wiped out of the land. It would be clean, and it would be full of the people of God.

God works in this way with us. He doesn’t hollow us out all at once, instantly expunging from our lives all our old dreams and likes and dislikes and habits. We never are empty shells of human beings. 

Slowly, little by little, we are shaped and molded into Christlikeness. We call this discipleship. We are learners in the Way. And over time, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we push out the old sinful patterns of the past in order to make room for Christ in us.

This is why we should not become overly frustrated when we fall back for a time into old patterns. A certain frustration is good, but we should not allow our spirits to become crushed. Our faltering does not mean God is not at work in us. It simply means we must learn again how morally frail and fragile we really are, and we cannot do this work on our own. 

“These nations are greater than I. How can I dispossess them?” God will fight for you. Your job is to remain faithful to him, to love him with your whole self (Deuteronomy 6:4). And obey him where he has spoken to you, even down to the smallest detail. 

Patiently and joyfully watch as God moves in.

Chris

Dear church, 

Shema is Hebrew for “hear.” What are we to hear as we gather together as the people of God? What are we to say when one of our young ones comes close and asks why we take the bread and the cup, and why we sing, and why we pray, and why we give thanks?

“Then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” To hear well means we also must proclaim well. We hear and remember the story of the great acts of God – in Egypt, yes, but most prominently at Golgotha and at the tomb. We were taken out of the house of slavery to sin and death, once and for all. 

We hear about these things, and we believe them. Then we tell them to others. 

“What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?” What would you say? Do you understand that this covenant is based, first and foremost, on love?

We cannot love Jesus if we do not obey his commandments (John 14:21). In this way, we walk the same ancient path as the Israelites. We love God, and we obey him. Nothing has changed, even though so much has. 

Is Jesus the primary object of your love? 

Chris

Dear church,

To fear God is to live as a biblically minded person. We cannot come to know God until we also have come to fear him. We argue and strain under this, thinking God is a gentle Father who treats us as baby lambs. This may be true, but the Israelites did not experience that. “For this great fire will consume us. If we hear the voice of the Lord our God any more, we shall die.”

Wisdom springs from the fear of the Lord (Psalm 111:10). None other than Jesus himself, the Son of God and the Messiah of Israel, experienced the fear of the Lord, and it was a “delight” to him (Isaiah 11:1-2). The church also is to live in the fear of the Lord (Acts 9:31).

This is reverence, certainly (Ephesians 5:21). We think highly of God. We understand him to be all-powerful. We recognize he holds our eternal future in his hands, and he demands we worship him alone and not the material things of this world. It is not lost on us, as it was not lost on Job, that God gives life – and he can take it away (Job 1:21). 

For the ancient Israelites, the fear of the Lord drove them to obedience. “Go near and hear all that the Lord our God will say … and we will hear and do it.” This pleased God. “Oh that they had such a heart as this always.”

Of course, they did not. The fear of the Lord, holy reverence for the One True God, faded from view for the people of Israel. They no longer found their delight in this sacred fear, and their obedience suffered. Those who fail to fear God will face discipline.  

The early church walked in this fear of the Lord. They also had the Holy Spirit – a gift that had not yet been given to the Israelites in the wilderness. And they walked both in the fear of the Lord and in the “comfort of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 9:31). This is the Holy Spirit who writes the law of God on our hearts and shows us the way of obedience to his commands (Jeremiah 31:33).

To experience the fear of God means you are almost there, just knocking on the door of salvation. All that’s left is to trust in Christ. That is when the comfort comes. Are you holding those two things – the fear and the comfort – in balance?

Chris

Dear church,

Carelessness is not our problem. At least, it’s not the primary problem. Most people turn off the stovetop before they leave their homes. They do not take unnecessary risks. Generally speaking, most people are not careless.

No, our problem mostly is that our lack of carelessness does not extend far enough into the important areas of our lives – like the matter of one’s soul. “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen.”

To be diligent with our souls is to remember the works of God in the world. The Israelites remembered God’s discipline of them at Baal-peor – that this was a God of justice. And they recalled the words at Horeb – that this was a God of truth and righteousness. As a result, they honored him with obedience. They refused to make idols because their God did not need to take physical form to make himself known to them. 

Christians remember the death of the Son of God. In Jesus Christ, God did appear to his people in physical form. And he worked miracles, and the most miraculous of those was the resurrection of the dead. 

We keep our souls diligently by recalling these things, keeping them at the front of our minds, so that we will not forget the things we’ve come to know about God. 

But we tend to be careless about such things. It is enough, we think, to keep food on the table and gas in the car and the children and grandchildren well-adjusted and supplied with the things they need. And we lose sight of our souls. 

A soul that is not given care, that is not “kept,” is a soul that will wither. This, of course, is why we gather as a church and why we share at the Lord’s Supper. And it is why we pray and regularly take stock of God’s Word. 

To neglect these things is to neglect our souls. 

Chris

Dear church,

Humanity always has been marked by a relentless drive for more. When we are not seeking to become like God himself, we are striving to “make a name for ourselves” (Genesis 3:5; 11:4). We do not appreciate limitations, and some of the moments of our darkest despair are when we run face first into our limitations.

Very often, we cannot get other people to behave as we want. Our skillfulness at work inevitably will be eclipsed by someone else’s. The years of our lives roll on, and our bodies age and eventually will cease to do anything at all. 

Limitations cause us to grumble against ourselves and others and God himself. But God has given us limits within which to do our work. And it often is the work of others to go beyond where we are able to go. 

“But charge Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he shall go over …” Our obedience to God requires us not only to accept the sphere in which he has called us to operate but to encourage those who have been called to something else, perhaps even something that seems greater. 

In all of this, we begin to understand what it means really to be a servant to God. We learn the humility of Christ. “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done” (Matthew 26:42). Jesus Christ, in his role as the Lamb of God, faced clear limitations set upon him by his Father. The purposes of God were more important to Jesus than anything else.

Do you know the sphere in which God wants you to serve him? The limitations God has placed on your life will help you discern where God wants you to work. Once you discover those limits, the work needing done should become clear.

Chris

Dear church,

Unlike the Israelites of old, we are not called to join a physical battle here on earth. The final inheritance of God’s people is not in this un-resurrected life. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 15:50).

But this does not mean we are not called to war. “This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you on the peoples who are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you.”

The people of God go forward as people of victory. The battle is finished, and we have won. This wasn’t by our own cunning but by Christ, our Captain. Death is swallowed up in victory, nailed to the cross by the sacrificial act of the Son of God (1 Corinthians 15:54; Colossians 2:14).

And now Christ, leading the way, has shamed the rulers and authorities – those of the demonic realm – and is presenting us as the victorious ones (Colossians 2:15).  

We must be discerning, however – as the Israelites were called to be discerning – about who our true enemy is. Our battle is not waged against people who may already have their “inheritance” given to them by God, whatever that may be. 

The battle, in fact, is not against people. Rather, it is a cosmic battle (Ephesians 6:12). Satan wants nothing more than to destroy the work of Christ in the world. And as this is impossible, Satan desires to hinder it from continuing. And this means Satan wants a foothold in your life (Ephesians 4:26-27).

Where is the battle being waged in your own life? A person may have upset you. But that person is not the enemy. That is not where the battle is to be fought. “Do not contend with them.” 

Keep going. You will find the true enemy, lurking in the shadows. Expose the enemy, just as Christ always does. Call it by its name. “This person over here is not the enemy. Rather, the enemy is bitterness brought on by human weakness and Satan’s temptation.” See it for what it is. 

Have compassion on the human, and drown out the spiritual forces of evil with the blood of Christ. 

Chris

Dear church,

Is God calling you to do something today? If so, don’t wait. Just go and do the thing you know God has asked. And do it in faithful expectation of the very best of God’s blessings. 

The problem of the Israelites was their faithless delay. First, they sent the spies. There really was no need to send spies. The people already knew the promises of God. And then they recoiled in fear at the report of the spies. 

Only after their disobedience did they turn and try to do the thing God had called them to do. And then, it was too late.

Sometimes, we think too much. We know what God is desiring of us – to forgive that person, or to make that phone call, or to go forward with baptism. Our conscience prods us toward these things. 

But then we wonder. “Is this prudent? Does this make sense the way I think it should make sense?” And by the time we go about doing the thing to which we’ve been called, the opportunity is lost. 

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16). The calling may be to clean up some part of our lives, where we have been walking in darkness instead of light. Perhaps we have a besetting sin that we cannot seem to shake, even though the Holy Spirit is speaking to us constantly about the issue. Obey now. At least make a start toward obedience. Do something today to cut that sin from your life.

“Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time” (Colossians 4:5-6). Sometimes God’s calling is to advance the gospel outside the confines of our private lives. We may need to say something that is “seasoned with salt.” And God may be asking us to do it in the moment. Just go on and say it. 

And expect God’s best as you do.

Chris

Dear church,

This brings us to the end of our study of the book of Numbers. Tomorrow, we will start Deuteronomy. 

The people of Israel were tasked with holding on to the inheritance given to them by God. As Christians, we find it is God who holds on to us. 

Jesus said, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:28-29). 

If there is a fundamental difference between the old and new covenants of God, perhaps this is it. Jesus does what we never could do. He saves us and preserves us, and nothing can fracture the work of Jesus Christ. 

The only thing that kept the Israelites from inheriting the Promised Land for all eternity was their own sin. Jesus removed that barrier when he went to the cross.

Consider your own hold on eternal life – the way in which you can “hold on to the inheritance.” Your grasp is pretty weak, is it not? The pull of the world is strong. Something divine – or Holy Spirit-inspired – is necessary to lock us into eternity. 

Fortunately, we have been given that. And all we must do is abide in the place where Christ has called us. “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7).

Let the Holy Spirit direct you into God’s Word, to listen to the words and the way of Christ (John 14:26). Don’t fall for the lie of self-attainment. Don’t look around for spiritual gurus or unnamed “spirits” to help you along the way. Abide in Christ. 

The inheritance is not yours to take. It is His to give.

Chris

Dear church,

Every stupid mistake you ever have made has been paid for by the death of Jesus Christ. Even the mistakes you have made by accident, not intending to do them – those, too, have been paid for by Jesus on the cross.

When news began to spread from Jerusalem that the high priest had died, it would have caught people’s attention. “The old man has finally passed away.” And some would have heard the news with secret joy. Some in the countryside may have skipped home to tell their relatives – “The high priest has died!” A family reunion was coming. 

In the cities of refuge, some lived in exile. There was nothing they could do. They had inadvertently shed human blood – taken human life. God made humanity as a sacred thing. We live as His image on earth. Only human blood can atone for the taking of human life. And the high priest, for the manslaughterer, provided atonement. The high priest carried those mistakes on his shoulders.

“Now the point of what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest …” (Hebrews 8:1). In those cities of refuge – God-ordained places of temporary sanctuary – the news of the high priest’s death would have been received with sweet relief. Freedom, finally, had come. At last, it was time to go home.

“But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head” (Psalm 3:3). The only hope we have is in the blood of Christ. He is the only one who can pay for our sins without sending us to the final executioner. And he is the only one who can grant us relief from the guilt that ravages our consciences. 

He paid it all. When Satan assails us with our sins – or when we assail ourselves, ruthlessly trying to convince ourselves that we have no hope – we respond with the truth. “I will not be afraid. … Salvation belongs to the Lord” (Psalm 3:6, 8).

Chris