Powerball Verses The All Powerful

Not to be Pharisaical, but I’m not a big fan of gambling.  Any self-righteousness that may seem implied by that statement would evaporate under the weight of the vices I have struggled with throughout my life.  While that list may be long and varied, gambling would not be included.

However, I do purchase a Powerball ticket most weeks.  Sometimes twice a week.  I have done so for years and consider it my personal contribution to the welfare of Minnesota’s environment and natural resources.  Like most Powerball players, my two dollars spent on a ticket buys an opportunity to dream of the life that might be if I were to actually win a jackpot.  My rational mind knows that I might as well throw the money out of the car window as I drive past the store, but my imagination is unleashed for a minimal investment.

Awhile back, as I walked from the convenience store after purchasing my ticket, the thought went through my mind of the security that would come from having even a minimal winning of say fifty million dollars.  Putting fifty million in the bank after paying taxes would certainly provide a certain amount of confidence in our finances for the coming years.

But even as that thought was running through my mind, an annoying little question came along side of it.  Why would I put more confidence in an overflowing bank account than I would in the promises my God has given me?

I am promised in my heavenly Father’s written word, over and over, that he is going to take care of me….That he is going to provide for me.  

And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19 (ESV)

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.  But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.   Matthew 6:31-33 (ESV)

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.   2 Corinthians 9:8 (ESV)

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5 (ESV)

These and so many more wonderful promises of my Father’s provision for his children.  And I believe what he says. I have faith in what he says.  He always has been faithful to supply my needs even in times when I have been less than faithful to him.  And, I am trusting that he will continue to do so until the day he takes me home.

But the thought still popped into my mind that it would be nice to have the security of a fifty million dollar bank account.  It is, I suppose, human nature to want the sureness of something tangible in the reality of this world.  The truth, however, is that as children of God our reality is not the reality of this world.  Our truth is rooted not in this world system, but in God’s kingdom as revealed to us in his word and by his Spirit.  And that truth…that reality…is that I am much more secure in the promises of my Father than I ever can be with an ever increasing bank account.

While I put my faith in that, I long for the day when my faith will be my sight, and the struggles of this world will be a distant memory.  And as I wait, I’m sure I will buy more Powerball tickets, just to dream of the what if’s.  But I am checked when the thought begins to enter my mind that it would be nice to have the security of a fifty million dollar checking account because I realize that I already have all of the security I could ever need or want.  And I pause to thank my God for providing all of my needs according to his riches in glory in Jesus Christ.

The Promise of Christmas

God moves in the midst of chaos.  He shines when everything seems the darkest and, with God, there is hope in even the deepest despair.  It is part of who he is…it is what he does…and it is why we can place our hope in him even as we approach the most ominous of valleys.

Our God not only moves in the midst of chaos, but he was moving long before there was even a hint of turmoil.  Before darkness had a name, God was speaking light.  He was speaking peace when despair was not even a thought, and the valley shimmered in the distance.

And when, in an instant, the perfection of his creation was shattered, God gave us the promise of Christmas.

With one act of disobedience in Eden the cosmos was fractured, from the most distant galaxies known only to the Creator, to the DNA strands he used to carefully weave the creatures who would occupy his most treasured planet.  The damage rippled from the tiniest atom to the largest star.  All the beauty that appeared when God spoke from somewhere deep within the glory of his imagination was shattered and broken through the rebellion of the beneficiaries of his magnificent work.  Creation was fractured.  Man’s relationship to God was fractured.  Adam’s relationship to Eve was fractured.  The absolute order of all things became foggy and muddled.

But God moves in the midst of chaos. 

 

Standing in the devastation caused by sin, God makes a promise he resolved to make somewhere in the eternity before creation.  He would pass a judgment onto the woman.  He would pass a judgement onto the man.  But before he chastises them, he gives them hope for the future.  First, God curses the physical serpent:

 The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.   Genesis 3:14 (ESV)

Then God curses the spiritual serpent…the liar…the deceiver…the seducer…Satan… with the words:

 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”  Genesis 3:15 (ESV)

In that curse is the promise of Christmas.  In that curse is the promise of the cross and the promise of the resurrection.  With those words God was promising to do what he had determined to do long before he spoke anything into existence.  The Creator himself would take on flesh, crush the enemy and redeem his people.

Our Father planned it from eternity.  He promised it even as he felt the pain of man’s rebellion echo through the cosmos.  He spoke it before he led man from Eden into a life of toil on the earth, “A woman is going to have a son, and he will crush Satan along with the death and destruction he has caused.”

 But when the fullness of time had come….God sent forth his Son….born of woman… Galatians 4:4 (ESV)

In God’s time, when everything demanded by his perfect timeless plan was in place, the Creator humbled himself to do what only he could do.  He placed himself into the hands of his rebellious creation, and set out to fix, restore and redeem what had been lost in the garden.

…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…John 1:14

With that, the promise of Christmas became a reality on that most sacred and holy of nights.

^….And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
Luke 2:7 (ESV) 

To be sure, that is not the end of the story.  It is not the end of the promise.  But it is a beautiful reminder of the depths our Father will go to move in the chaos, to shine in the darkness and to bring hope even in the deepest despair.

Christmas: Turning Fear into Joy

Well, it’s the time of the year to dust off Luke 2 again.  From Linus using it to explain Christmas on one of the airings of, A Charlie Brown Christmas, to six year old’s wrapped in sheets gently being pushed onto the stage as the narrator reads, “And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.”  Families around the globe will pause during the hectic bustle of the season to read Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus.  It will be read in churches on Christmas Eve and Christmas day and probably on the Sunday before as well.

It occurs to me that this is the gospel in its most simple form.  Either that baby was who the angel proclaimed him to be…a Savior.  Or he wasn’t.  Either that baby grew into a man who ushered the Kingdom of God into this world by dying on a cross and being raised from the dead, or he grew into a man who deceived the world.  It is the gospel in its simplest form.

And, as Luke 2 is read on Christmas Eve all over the world, denominational distinctions will fade, Armenians will harmonize with Calvinists, and the church will unite around the birth of this baby who was born a king and destined to die for his kingdom.  On that night, the premillennialists will not be debating the postmillennialists, and it will not matter whether the rapture is pre, mid, or post tribulation.  All eyes will be on that baby in the manger.  Theology will bow, for one night, to the image of that newborn in the arms of his mother being worshipped by shepherds.

There is so much packed into Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus, but a few things have stood out to me this year as I’ve worked my way through the Advent season.

First, I have realized, that in the account of the angel appearing to the shepherds, the angel has received too much attention.  In saying that, I mean no disrespect to the angel, and I have no desire to detract from the countless boys and girls who have landed the role of the angel in this year’s Christmas pageants.  Believe me when I say that I am a fan of angels, and I am sure the appearance of this one two thousand years ago grabbed the attention of the shepherds.  However, I would suggest that what caused the fear in these nomadic sheep herders was not so much an angel lighting up the darkness of the night sky, but 

 rather can be found in the words right after the appearance of the angel.

"…and the glory of the Lord shone around them…"

And then what happened?

"…and they were filled with great fear."

Again, not to be dismissive of the angel, but the glory of God trumps everything.  The weight of God’s glory pushes the splendor of anything around it to the side.  When the heaviness of the glory of God invades any space, it fills that space, while men tremble and are terrified.  The angel appearing may have shocked these men and made them afraid, but the great fear that they felt came from the glory of God shining around them.  They saw the bright light that surrounds the presence of God, and they were rightly terrified.

 

Some of the most righteous men in the bible were terror-stricken in the presence of God’s glory.  Consider Isaiah’s words,  “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” Isaiah 6:5 (ESV).  Or the apostle John getting a glimpse of the glorified Christ in Revelation,  ^“When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.” 
Revelation 1:17 (ESV). 

Whenever man gets a glimpse of the glory of the Creator, with all of his manifold perfections, human sinfulness is exposed for the assault on God’s character that it really is, and man is left trembling in fear.  In the light of God’s indescribable glory, the utter darkness of man’s heart is laid bare and there can be no reaction but one of dread.

For anyone who has ever acknowledged Christ as their Savior, there has been that realization.  They receive a Holy Spirit anointed glimpse of the glory of God through his Word, or through a sermon, or through someone sharing the gospel message.  Maybe they receive it through seeing the beauty of his creation, and hearing a voice whisper the truth that it was formed by the finger of God.  Or by seeing his glory in the eyes of a child. Or in the unseen hand that silently touches them as they wait through a dark and lonely night. 

There are so many ways that God reveals his glory, but a common denominator for everyone who has come to him is that they have seen a glimpse of it.  And, in seeing that glimpse, they see his purity.  They see his excellence.  They see his beauty. 

When any person sees just a glimpse of that glory, he is driven to momentary despair in knowing that he is worthy of every bit of wrath and anger this God who is perfect in perfection would pour out on him.  It is, in this place, where we have to acknowledge that we are not mistake makers, we are sinners.  We have to admit that we don’t just slip once in a while, we live in the depths of rebellion against this glorious God.  We no longer think that, while our actions may sometimes be wrong, our hearts are in the right place.  When even a little of God’s glory is revealed to us…when we see even a little of what God is like…the darkness and wickedness and depravity of our hearts are laid bare.

That is why Isaiah cried, “Woe is me.”  It is why John, “fell at his feet as though dead.”  And it is why the shepherds were filled with great fear. 

But even as they were filled with great fear, the angel tells them not to fear.  He says, “I bring you good news of great joy.”   So he says to them, in the midst of their great fear from being surrounded by the glory of God, “I’ve got some good news for you, that will not only remove the fear, but will turn the fear into great joy.”

What was the good news?

^“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:11 (ESV)

Notice the order.  They see the glory of God, and in seeing who God is, they realize their utter sinfulness.  They realize how hopeless it is for them, and so they are filled with great fear.  But the angel says, “Here’s the good news, a Savior has been born for you.”

For sure, it was good news that brought them great joy.  When you hear about the good news that saves you from the justifiable wrath and judgement of the God of all creation, it brings great joy.

That is always the path to Christ.  A revelation of the glory of God reveals the reprehensible state of our sinfulness before a holy God.  And as the Holy Spirit brings that revelation he also whispers to us, “But here’s the good news, there is a Savior who is Christ the Lord.”

The other part of Luke’s account of the birth of Christ that has stood out to me as we’ve gone through the Advent season this year is the last verse.

And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen….  Luke 2:20 (ESV)

The shepherds returned.  What did they return to?  They returned to being shepherds.  They returned to the sheep. 

At the time of Christ’s birth, shepherds did not have the reputation that their forerunners in the Old Testament had.  The Old Testament had the Patriarchs, Moses and David.  By the time the New Testament roles around shepherds  were considered dishonest thief’s.  They were not allowed to worship in the temple, and they were not permitted to be witnesses in any legal battle.  They were not trusted.

After seeing the angel, experiencing the glory of God, and kneeling before the Savior, they returned to herding sheep.  Nothing had changed for these guys.  They were still not welcome to worship in the temple.  They were still not trusted and were still considered thief’s  Their testimony was still not reliable, and people would prefer that they not enter their villages and cities. 

Nothing in their circumstances had changed.  But they returned glorifying and praising God. They returned rejoicing because they were filled with joy.

It occurs to me, and the lesson I take from this is that when we experience a taste of the glory of God, and kneel before the Savior, often times, God does not take us out of our situation.  He does not always change our circumstance.  What he does, however, is flow into our space.  And whenever God fills the space that is our life, there is an overflow of praise and worship…there is joy…and there is rejoicing.  We may return to the same condition we were in before, but we return rejoicing. 

May you see the glory of the Father in new ways this Christmas.  May you bow before the Savior in new levels of worship.  And, may our God flood the space of your life with ever increasing joy.