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The Shepherd’s Care

One of my favorite parenting memories is of my children reciting the Twenty-third Psalm. When they were very young their bedtime ritual often included kneeling for prayer and reciting the psalm in the venerable King James Version: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” That’s a good memory for an old dad.

I have been meditating on this psalm since I received my diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease a few weeks ago. This little masterpiece of scripture is a favorite of many Bible readers, and for good reason. It is a reminder of the Lord’s tender care of his people through the circumstances of life on earth. It encourages us to hold to the promise of eternal life “in the house of the Lord.”

I am writing these meditations on Psalm 23 during the weeks leading toward the celebration of our Lord’s death and resurrection. As you prepare your heart for Passion Week, I hope this will contribute to your faith and assurance that the Lord is indeed your Shepherd.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters” (Psalm 23:1-2).

Here is a picture of quietness, contentment and peace. How is this possible in a time of anxiety when trouble reaches us? It is possible because the Shepherd is near. He owns his sheep. He knows his sheep. He calls each one by name, In the catacombs in Rome, there is an epitaph used by the early Christians: “In Christo, in pace;”  (In Christ, in peace). The early believers were comforted by the presence of the Good Shepherd who was with them in death.

At this time in my life, as I face the coming limitations and dependency imposed by Parkinson’s, I am comforted by the assurance of the Lord’s presence. “Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you,” is the Shepherd’s promise (Hebrews 13:5). “The Lord is near”(Philippians 4:5). “You are with me,” the psalm declares, in life and in death.

Furthermore, the Shepherd provides for his sheep. King David, who wrote the psalm, had been a shepherd in his youth. The Bible records how he protected his father’s sheep from predators, wild animals who threatened the sheep. The shepherd’s “rod and staff” could be used to defend the sheep, as well as to guide them.

The Near Eastern shepherd also provided food and water for the sheep. He would lead his sheep from one green pasture to another. C.H. Spurgeon, in his classic work on the psalms The Treasury of David, applied this to the Christian’s need for spiritual nourishment. He wrote: “What are these ‘green pastures’ but the Scriptures of truth — always fresh, always rich, and never exhausted?” We are fed spiritually when we hear, read, and reflect on God’s Word.

Psalm 23 reminds us how the Shepherd guides. The phrase “he makes me lie down” is not as abrupt and forceful as it sounds in the English language. The original connotation is of gentle leading and setting in a good place. The shepherd guides to a place of rest. He is aware of how his sheep need calm security as they assimilate the food they have received.

Phillip Keller was a sheep herder and pastor. In his book on Psalm 23 he said that the Eastern shepherd would lead his sheep to quiet waters that he himself had prepared by creating stilled pools in flowing streams. According to Keller the sheep would be afraid of rushing water. So the shepherd, ahead of time, would dam the streams with rocks to make sure the sheep had quiet water that they would drink.

All of this imagery pictures the personal care of the shepherd for his sheep. Psalm 23 was written to assure us that the Good Shepherd, Jesus, cares for his own sheep in the same way (John 10:1-15). I do not know all that is ahead for me, but I am relying on the Shepherd’s presence, provision, and guidance.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

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My Shepherd

A long time ago I read a story about the Twenty-third Psalm. It is inspiring whether or not it actually happened as described. According to the story, two men were invited to recite the psalm before a large audience.

One of the men, a young orater, was especially skilled and polished in his delivery. He gave the words of the psalm with rhetorical flair and dramatic inflection. When he finished, the crowd erupted with sustained applause and cheers. They called for an encore.

The second speaker was an elderly gentlemen who leaned on a cane as he shuffled to the podium. In a muted, trembling voice he uttered the words of Psalm Twenty-three. This time the audience responded with reverent silence. They were awestruck by the power of the words. The people seemed to pray.

As they sat in silence, the younger man got up again. “Friends,” he said, “you asked me to come back and repeat the psalm in an encore. But you remained silent when my friend here sat down. Do you know the difference? I will tell you. I know the psalm. He knows the Shepherd.”

King David knew the Shepherd. When he wrote this psalm, presumably near the end of his life, he was expressing his personal relationship with God. “The Lord” is our English Bible’s euphemism for Yahweh, or Jehovah, or the I AM. It was the name by which God revealed himself as the eternally self-existent God, the One who was, and is, and always will be. David was saying, “this God is my personal Shepherd.”

In different ways, our Lord Jesus took this identity upon himself. When he declared in John 8:58, “before Abraham was born, I am,” he was claiming to be God. When he said in John 10:11, “I am the Good Shepherd,” he was claiming to be the Lord, the Shepherd of whom David wrote. Can you say with certainty that the Lord is your personal Shepherd? You know the psalm. Do you know the Shepherd?

The New Testament refers to Jesus as the Shepherd in three ways. John 10:11 says that “the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” The Good Shepherd died for our sins. In Hebrews 13:20 our Lord is called the Great Shepherd of the sheep who “was brought back from the dead..” The Great Shepherd was raised from the dead for our justification. 1 Peter 5:4 refers to the Chief Shepherd who is coming again to reward those who have faithfully served him.

Do you know the Shepherd in a personal way as the One who died for your sins, who was raised from the dead, and who is coming again? You may know him as King David did. It is a matter of faith. Believe what the Bible declares to be true about Jesus the Shepherd. He said, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish” (John 10:27-28).

Elizabeth Elliot told the story of a little girl who was desperately ill and not expected to survive. Her caregivers taught her to be comforted by trusting in the Good Shepherd. The little girl learned to recite the Twenty-third Psalm on her fingers. Starting with her small finger, she would clutch each finger as she said each word, “The Lord is my Shepherd.” As she said the word “shepherd,” she would clasp her thumb in recognition of the Lord’s care for her.

One morning, after she had fought her illness for a long time, her attendants found her dead. She left a silent witness. Her lifeless hand was clasped around her thumb.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

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I Shall Not Want

Last week I met with a friend who has been diagnosed with incurable cancer. She has been receiving hospice care. Before we prayed together, her husband, she and I joined hands and recited Psalm 23 as we remembered it from our childhoods. There was no better spiritual therapy for us in that moment.

This is why the 23rd Psalm is a favorite of many people. It is a source of strength for people who are troubled by anxiety, overwhelmed by difficult circumstances, or facing the reality that life is coming to an end.

“The Lord is my shepherd,” the psalm begins. This is personal. This is relational. King David, who wrote the psalm, wrote from his personal knowledge of the Lord. He had been a shepherd boy in his youth, and he knew what it was like to care for sheep. He knew how dependent the sheep were on the shepherd’s care. As king of Israel, he knew he needed the guidance and care of his (“my”) heavenly Shepherd.

“He makes me lie down in green pastures.” The sheep need nourishment, rest and protection. God’s people need spiritual nourishment from the Word and regular times of fellowship with the Lord in prayer. David knew this and his psalms are filled with prayers and praises. “He restores my soul” expresses the healing, renewal and forgiveness we experience when we come to God in transparent faith and honest confession.

“He guides me along the right paths.” I have read that there are animals that have a homing instinct and they are able to find their way back home even over many miles of separation. This is not true of sheep. They have no internal compass, no sense of direction. Sheep can only find the right places if they follow the shepherd. The psalm is teaching us to follow in the steps of Jesus the Good Shepherd.

“I will fear no evil.” When facing the last enemy, death, that lonesome valley will hold no terror for the believer who knows and follows the Shepherd. Even people who do not think of themselves as especially brave, are promised supernatural courage because in that in that dark and lonely place they discover they are not alone. The Lord Jesus himself is with them.

“Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life.” The believer who lives by faith and daily dependency upon God will find that his promises are faithful and true. He takes care of his own sheep, loves them and provides for them. David is describing the personal relationship of the sheep to the Shepherd. All through this psalm we see the personal pronouns “I,” “me,” and “my,” teaching us that the Shepherd wants us to know we are significant to him and that the concerns of our lives are important to him.

“I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” This assurance of an eternal home with the Lord is the reason the psalm opens with the phrase “I shall not be in want.” I shall not want for provision, guidance and care throughout life. I shall not want for the protection and presence of the Good Shepherd in the hour of death. And after death, I shall not want for the comfort and security of a home with the Lord.

I enjoy singing in the choir at church. We are preparing an anthem based upon Psalm 23, “Shepherd Me, O God,” by Marty Haugen and Mark Hayes. It is beautiful and its message is strong: “Shepherd me O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life.”

One reason this is important to me right now is that just this week I received the unwelcome news from my doctor that I have Parkinson’s Disease. Obviously this means that Connie and I must begin to learn a whole new way to live. To paraphrase Michael J. Fox, I have no choice about whether I have Parkinson’s, but Connie and I have lots of choices about how we respond to it.

I choose to respond by following and trusting my Good Shepherd. His goodness and love have accompanied me for 75 years, and I know he will be a faithful Presence in the major adjustments and limitations that lie ahead. I shall not be in want.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

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Why Worship on Sunday?

Christian practice has been to worship God on Sunday, the first day, not on the Sabbath, the seventh day. Why?

The Sabbath principle has always been a part of God’s law and the law has not changed. Indeed, all of the requirements of the moral law as summarized in the Ten Commandments are reaffirmed in the New Testament, except one, the requirement to keep the Sabbath.

There is no evidence that the first century Christians were required to worship on the Sabbath, as the Jews had done. The scriptures indicate that very early in the Christian era, followers of Jesus began to worship on the first day of the week, rather than on the seventh. Yes, the apostle Paul attended Jewish services on the Sabbath. He did this as a part of his policy “to become all things to all people” in order to influence his fellow Jews to believe in Jesus (1 Corinthians 9:20).

When he wrote his letter to the Colossians, Paul made it clear that Christians are not obligated to observe the Sabbath, any more than any other of the dietary laws or religious observances of the Jews. “Therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ (Colossians 2:16-17).

When Paul wrote to the church in Corinth he was writing to Jews and Gentiles who shared a common faith in Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians 16:1-2 he told these believers how they were to support the Lord’s work financially. “On the first day of the week” they were expected to bring their offerings which had been set aside for this purpose. Presumably these offerings were to be collected when they came together for worship on Sunday.

In Acts 20:7 Paul and his travelling companions met with the Christians at Troas where they stayed for seven days. “On the first day of the week” they gathered to break bread. This is no doubt the observance of the Lord’s Supper, a vital part of Christian worship. This meeting also included a long discourse by Paul, as he taught the word of God.

Christians gather to worship the Lord on the first day of the week in honor of Christ’s day of resurrection (Matthew 28:1, John 20:1). The church of Jesus Christ was born on the first day of the week. The Holy Spirit descended on the Day of Pentecost, which always fell on the first day of the week, exactly fifty days after the Passover Sabbath (Leviticus 23:15-16).

Sunday worship is a Christian celebration before a week of work, symbolizing that we are saved by grace and not by works. Hebrews 4:9-10 says that believers cease from all efforts to gain salvation by  their own works and rest in the finished work of Christ on the cross. He is our Sabbath rest. “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for any one who enters God’s rest also rests from their works. . . .”

The Jewish Sabbath, on the seventh day, always followed a week of work. This may be seen as symbolizing obligations of the law that had to be fulfilled before an individual could experience rest.

The first day of the week has become, in Christian practice, “the Lord’s Day” (Revelation 1:10), a voluntary setting aside of one day in seven for the glad praise and worship of God,  for instruction in the word, and for faithful service to Jesus.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

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Heart Knowledge over Head Knowledge

As a boy growing up in the 1950s, I felt the fear that many of my contemporaries felt when we were reminded of the threat of atomic war. I had nightmares. Sometimes tears flowed. The reminders were pervasive. Preachers described doomsday in terms of nuclear annihilation. Our teachers told us to hide under our desks. Newspapers calculated the travel time for missiles coming from Russia. Little wonder I was a scared little boy.

That is until I read a verse in the good old King James Bible, “The fear of man bringeth a snare, but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe” (Proverbs 29:25). I memorized that verse. I recited it to myself over and over. I cannot explain how it happened, but those childhood fears evaporated. I can only attribute it to the power of God’s word planted deep within.

Christian counselor K.J. Ramsey attributes this to “heart knowledge.” She described her own battle with fear when she had a serious illness. Writing in Christianity Today she said, “In that suffering the word hidden in my heart started countering my fear. I was confused and craving comfort, but God’s story was alive inside of me, welcoming me into the wonder that I am loved at my weakest.”

She quoted researchers in neuroscience and education who describe memory in two ways. “Heart knowledge” is embodied, autobiographical memory. “Head knowledge” is less related to lived experience. It is like the difference between rote learning and applied knowledge. She said, “The word has to be experienced and embraced as living, active and relational to become a lasting part of our autobiographical memory.”

This may be what Paul had in mind when he wrote to the believers at Colosse, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Colossians 3:16). “The word” is God’s revealed truth, his message, holy scripture. “Dwell” means to live in or to be at home inside of us. “Richly” could be translated abundantly, or overflowing.

If I do this, it means that my Bible reading and memorization will be a response to the living God, hearing from him and treasuring his word. I will then learn his word with heart knowledge by applying it in my decisions, behavior, and thoughts. I will put to use the scriptures I am reading and memorizing, by praying them, sharing them and living them.

If Ramsey is right, there may even be a redemptive quality in my frustrations, anxieties, and pain. She cites brain research which tells us that learning is optimized in suffering. “When we come up against the limits of our knowledge of God and life, when we realize we are not in control . . . God has wired us so that our bodies release the very hormone we need to form new neural connections.” It is then that the implanted word is “rooted in our autobiographical memory,” our lived experience.

Proverbs 19:25 is still precious to me. It is a part of God’s word which has helped to shape my spiritual autobiography. Now when I am fearful or anxious about world events, it is comforting to remember the promise I hid in my heart over 65 years ago. “Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe” (NIV).

Pastor Randy Faulkner

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Confession of a Recovering Racist

With Martin Luther King Day approaching, I am thinking about the lily-white world in which I was reared. The adults in my life would have abhorred racial hatred. They would have never admitted to being racists. Yet bigotry was all around us. White supremacy was the air we breathed.

As a youth, I did not have the wisdom, maturity, or the vocabulary to challenge the institutionalized racism in that Southern culture. I live now with a sense of shame because of my lack of empathy at that time for black Americans. I have confessed this to some of my African American friends who have been exceedingly gracious, more understanding to me than I deserve.

I have just finished reading the excellent memoir by Philip Yancey, Where the Light Fell. This spiritual autobiography tells about his growing up in the racist South, one strand in his complex story. He grew up in a fundamentalist subculture that preached racial segregation and practiced ecclesiastical separatism.

Yancey’s background was similar to my own: a fundamentalist church, authoritarian leaders, the cultural milieu of white supremacy, and attempts to justify it theologically. His spiritual and social awakening paralleled mine: frustration with a rule-based religious life, a spiritual crisis while in college, and a growing understanding of the inherent dignity of people of all races, created in the image of God.

Yancey wrote about how he has attempted through his writings and personal relationships, to promote racial harmony and understanding. Throughout my ministry, I have tried to preach against racism and to promote inclusion. I have learned, instead of wallowing in regret, to accept God’s forgiveness for the racism of my youth.

More than that, I am called to take positive action. I serve as a volunteer chaplain in the Oklahoma County Detention Center. Most of the inmates I meet with are African American. It is a joy to bring God’s word and God’s love into that environment. My wife ministers as a tutor to an African American schoolboy and his family.

I am called to confess and openly acknowledge the stupidity and wickedness of racism. Several years ago I wrote a letter to my adult children in which I attempted to lay out my concerns about white supremacy and racial bigotry in our nation. I wanted them to know that I believe these have no place in the life of a Christian. I encouraged them to actively oppose structural racism.

I am called to recognize and support the legitimate concerns of my black neighbors: policing, voting rights, housing, health care. I will vote for and support political candidates who take seriously these concerns.

I am called to seek understanding. I may never fully appreciate how it feels to grow up as part of a racial minority group in this country. But that doesn’t mean I should not try to understand. That means I will listen. I will cultivate friendships. I once asked an African American friend, what I could do to promote racial harmony. His answer was simple. “Show up,” he said.

So that is what I am called to do. On this coming Sunday afternoon I plan to do what I have done for several years now. I will show up at the annual Martin Luther King Memorial Service at Saint John Missionary Baptist Church, where my friend Dr. Major Jemison serves as pastor. I will be a racial minority in that environment.

But I will gladly join the congregation in singing a song written by James Weldon Johnson that carries deep meaning for the African American community. I will sing enthusiastically as an act of love for my brothers and sisters: “Lift every voice and sing/ till earth and heaven ring/ ring with the harmonies of liberty/ Let our rejoicing rise/high as the listening skies/ let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

“God of our weary years/ God of our silent tears/ Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way/ Thou who hast by Thy might led us into the light/ Keep us forever in the path we pray/ Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee/ Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee/ Shadowed beneath Thy hand/ may we forever stand true to our God, true to our native land./ Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us/ Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us/ facing the rising sun of our new day begun/ let us march on till victory is won.”

Pastor Randy Faulkner

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Jesus Shows God’s Care

Impassibility: The belief that God is incapable of suffering or of experiencing pain, that he is inaccessible to injury.

A friend of mine died recently. He suffered in a hospital for weeks before his passing. What did God know or feel of his pain? And what of the emotional pain of his wife and family who have lost a good husband and father?

The ancient Greeks taught that the deity cannot change, suffer or be affected by what happens in the material world. To them, divine transcendence means that God is absolutely separate and different from the evil world. If we understand impassibility as Greek philosophy explained it, then God could never expose himself to the experiences of our human life, not to mention suffering and death.

Yet Christianity teaches precisely what we have just celebrated in the Christmas message. The incarnation reveals how an infinitely holy God could and did enter humanity, uncorrupted by sin. God in Christ did not merely seem to be human. His physical nature was not an illusion. He was not an apparition. Jesus was a human being as well as a divine being.

His mother the virgin Mary was more than a passive vehicle though whom the holy child passed at birth. From her Jesus received a human nature. He had human ancestors. He possessed the full range of human emotion, including sadness, loneliness, joy, compassion, and love.

This means he was capable of suffering and identifying with our sufferings.
“Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4). In the words of Millard Erickson, “Jesus can truly sympathize with and intercede for us. He has experienced all that we might undergo. When we are hungry, weary, lonely, he fully understands for he has gone through it all himself” (Hebrews 4:15).

If we wish to know what God is really like, our best source of information comes from Jesus. God reveals himself in the divine-human Jesus. The apostle John put it this way: “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known” (John 1:18)

Although we may not be able to see God with natural vision, Jesus has made him known to us. His close relationship to the Father speaks to us of his previous existence at the Father’s side before he came to earth. He reveals God though his perfect human life, his teachings, his miraculous signs, his death and resurrection and his present ministry representing us to the Father.

My friend who died recently was a follower of Jesus. That means that there in the gloomy half-light of his hospital room, in the lonely hours of the long night, he was not alone. God was there to comfort him with the presence of the compassionate Jesus. This means that God feels the sorrow of his family. This means that they may know by experience God’s merciful and faithful care. Jesus has made the Father known to us.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

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Jesus and You in 2022

Recently I read the claim, put forward by a clergyman, no less, that Jesus never stated that he was the divine son of God. This writer would have us believe that what we have are Jesus’ “daily and constant declarations about how to be human and how we are to imitate him in his humanity.”

Jesus was most certainly human. But to imply that this cancels his claim to deity is is to misread the New Testament and to misunderstand Jesus’ plain words about his divine nature. If we take the Bible seriously we cannot escape the conclusion that it teaches us that Jesus is both God and man.

Even our Lord’s favorite name for himself, “Son of man,” is a messianic title taken from the Old Testament. It implies his ideal and perfect humanity. It also teaches his lordship, kingship, and ultimate rule over the whole world in a divine kingdom that will never be destroyed (Daniel 7:13-15).

So as we enter a new year let it be with the intention of keeping Jesus in the central place in our lives. “In all your ways acknowledge him” (Proverbs 3:6). “Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:11). Jesus even said that we are to honor him in the same way that we honor the Father in heaven. “Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him” (John 5:23).

In responding to his critics in John chapter 8, Jesus repeated the claim that he came from the Father, God, who sent him. “I stand with the Father who sent me” (v.16). “My other witness is the Father who sent me” (v. 18). “He who sent me is reliable” (v. 26). “The one who sent me is with me” (v. 29). “I have come from God” (v. 42). “He sent me” (v. 42).

Jesus also stated that his teachings came from God. “What I have heard from him I tell to the world” (v. 26). “I speak just what the Father has taught me” (v.28). “I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence” (v. 38). “I know him (the Father) and keep his word” (v. 55).

In John 14 Jesus said that we are to believe in him with the same faith that we reserve for God. “You believe in God; believe in me” (v. 1) “No one comes to the Father except through me” (v. 6). “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (v. 9). “I am in the Father and the father is in me” (v. 10). “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

These are astounding claims. If they are true then in this new year of our Lord 2022 we must respond with some resolutions. With the disciple Thomas we must worship him as “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28). We must obey him as he told his followers, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching” (John 14:23). When we pray to God, we must approach him in the name (on the authority) of Jesus. “Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete” (John 15:24). Added to these is the great commandment: “Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12).

Many African American churches have “watchnight” prayer services on New Years’ Eve. There is testifying, singing, preaching and, and as midnight approaches, fervent prayer for the new year that is ahead. What a great way to acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus in the new year! It would not be a bad idea if every new day in 2022 began with our heartfelt declaration: “Jesus Christ is Lord!”

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

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A Christmas Letter from Paul

Well, not exactly.  Paul did write letters. The letters of Paul make up half of the New Testament. He never really described the birth of Jesus, nor did he write an account of the life of Jesus. But Paul sent a Christmas message in his letter to the Galatians.

“But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law that we might receive adoption to sonship” (Galatians 4:4-5).

Let’s think about Paul’s little Christmas message.

Jesus came in the right way. He was “sent” by God our Father and Creator. Jesus was sent on a mission from heaven to earth. In the words of John the apostle, “We have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14).

He was “born of a woman.” the infant Jesus was conceived in a supernatural way, but born in the normal human way. The divine child took a human nature as he passed through human birth into the world. He partook of his mother’s humanity. This conforms to the prophecy of Isaiah, “Unto us a child is born” (Isaiah 9:6).

C.H. Spurgeon wrote of the birth of our Lord: “Infinite, and an infant. Eternal, yet born of a woman. Almighty, and yet hanging on a woman’s breast. Supporting a universe, and yet needing to be carried in a mother’s arm.”

The fact that Jesus was born under the law means that he was a Jew who observed the requirements and customs of the law of Moses. He was born under and into that system so that he could release people from that system. He fulfilled the requirements of the law by his sinless life. He paid the penalties of the law by his sacrificial death.

Jesus came at the right time. His appearance on the scene coincided perfectly with Bible prophecy. Those familiar with Daniel the prophet know that he prophesied the exact time of Messiah’s coming to Israel (Daniel 9:25-27). There are many prophecies in the Hebrew scriptures about the first coming of Messiah and Jesus fulfilled them. The book of Hebrews tells us that his coming was “in the culmination of the ages” (Hebrews 9:26).

Not only that, but his coming coincided with world events. In the providence of God, there was a confluence of historical circumstances that contributed to the rapid and efficient spread of Christianity just a few years after the earthly life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus came for the right reason. This is the heart of the Christmas message. In Galatians 4:4-7 Paul enumerates some of the blessings of salvation that are true because Jesus came at Christmas.

One of them is redemption. Jesus is said to redeem those who believe in him. This is a word that is taken from the Roman slave market to illustrate the freedom of those who are released from the bondage of sin. “All are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). His death on the cross was the ransom payment for our redemption.

Not only that, but his coming makes it possible for us to be taken into the family of God by adoption. In Paul’s day that meant full acceptance, status and recognition as children in the family. He applied that as an illustration of the believer’s relationship to God.

He goes even further to speak of the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is the indwelling presence of the Spirit who makes possible an intensely personal relationship to God. It is because of Christmas that it is possible for us to call out to the Father is prayer and call him “Abba!” It is because of Christmas that it is possible for us to know God and to be known by God and to receive the inheritance of eternal life (Galatians 4:6-9).

Paul would have us think about these things as we celebrate around the Christmas tree, sing carols and feast with our families. He wants us to know that redemption, adoption, the Holy Spirit, inheritance, and knowing God are wonderful gifts of Christmas. All because Jesus came in the right way, at the right time, and for the right reasons.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

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A Christmas Letter from Micah

Christmas letters bring us news from friends and relatives we haven’t heard from in a while. Sometimes they contain more information than we want to know about the sender’s activities during the previous year. Other letters are spare, not saying enough, prompting curious phone calls to ask for more detail.

That is what happened to me a few years ago when a friend’s holiday letter hinted, barely hinted, that she might have cancer. This got my attention. It turned out to be true. Her letter came at the beginning of a protracted battle with the disease.

Micah the prophet was a straight-talking country preacher, a contemporary of Isaiah. He was called by the Lord to prophesy bad news for the people of Judah. This was because false beliefs and immoral lifestyles had corrupted the nation, and Yahweh was ready to respond in judgment for their sins.

Embedded in this bad news were some hints of good news which make this letter so relevant for the Advent season. Micah’s prophesy is a call to “Listen!”  to “Pay attention!” and to “Hear the word of the Lord!” We hear this call to snap to attention in each of the three divisions of the book.

Advent is an invitation to wake up and get ready for the coming of the Lord. It moves us from our sleepy drifting through life to an outward-focused expectation.

Mica h wrote about a place. It was a small town in the territory of Judah. As a prophet who spoke bluntly against corruption, Micah was not popular with the convention and visitors’ bureau of Jerusalem. Right from the beginning of his prophecy, he exposed the hypocrisy and idolatry of the people. He followed up with a long poetic dirge predicting God’s judgment on Jerusalem and the outlying towns and villages of Judah.

Amid the prophesies of doom (it’s no fun being a prophet of doom), Micah deflects our attention to another town in Judah which would become famous as the birthplace of Messiah, Jesus Christ.

“But you, Bethlehem Ephratha, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from old, from ancient times” (Micah 5:2).

This prophecy was fulfilled when, in obedience to a governmental edict, Joseph and Mary travelled to Bethlehem. It was while they were there that she gave birth to Jesus (Luke 2:1-7).

Micah wrote about a person. Mary’s baby will be the ruler in Israel, according to the prophet. Micah had been meditating on the future of his nation. God revealed to him that there would be severe judgment against Judah and Jerusalem. But he was strangely comforted by this word of the unexpected arrival of this very special person who would be coming from heaven to earth. His coming will be from eternity into time.

He will come to rule Israel (5:2), and rule the world (5:4). He will deliver his people and bring peace to the earth. This, of course looks forward to the second advent of Christ. Micah says, “He will stand and shepherd his his flock in the strength of the Lord” (5:4).

At our Lord’s first coming he went to Calvary as the Great Shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep. At his second coming he will reign as the true Shepherd-king, as did David his ancestor(Ezekiel 34:23-24).

Micah wrote about a promise. The book closes with a magnificent hymn of praise. In soaring poetry Micah captures the truth of God’s merciful intentions  toward his people. Micah’s name means “Who is like the Lord?” He answers the question with the following description in Micah 7:18-19. It is promise of comfort for any who want a proper understanding of the nature of God.

“Who is a God like you who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.”

This is a promise for us today too, because of that baby who was born in Bethlehem.

Pastor Randy Faulkner