©2003 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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03/30/03 |
Defense Against Spiritual Muggers |
Ephesians 1 and 2 |
3/30/03 Defense Against Spiritual Muggers
I would have been far more successful in the world of religion
if my Lord had not lead me into a study of His Word
that approached the New Testament writings as letters
rather than simply as a collection of random verses.
If I would not have begun,
almost from the very beginning of my Christian life,
studying the New Testament letters as they are written -
starting at the beginning
and then moving through them logically,
progressively to the end,
I would have had far greater freedom
to pick and choose those verses throughout Scripture
that fit more logically,
more reasonably with my own natural religious assumptions.
I wouldn’t have had to trouble with looking at where passages fit in context,
or why the author said what He said.
I could have been far more successful
in blending grace and performance,
I could have achieved what, to our religious minds
would have appeared as a far more reasonable and logical balance between
responding to God’s love and living in fear of His wrath.
I could have taken statements like the one in Romans 1:18
where Paul says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness...
and I could have flung it at my fellow Christians
in an attempt get them to mend their ways,
without ever troubling over why Paul made that statement in the first place,
without realizing that he was presenting a picture of a world in which Christ never came,
never died,
never paid the debt for our sin.
I would never have had to agonize over Paul’s statements a few verses later
when He proclaims, ROM 3:28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law...,
or where he
tells us that now, ROM 5:1 ... having been justified by faith, we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
ROM 5:2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand...
Mainstream religion,
the kind of religion that continually attempts to prod people into improved performance
by constantly exposing them to emotion-based guilt,
and fear,
and shame,
that kind of religion that is so common in the church world
needs the freedom to move from isolated verse
to isolated verse throughout Scripture,
forever seeking and then using the “proof texts”
that defend the religious stance.
But something remarkable,
something possibly threatening
and certainly potentially life-changing takes place
when we begin to listen to the words of our God as He has written them to us.
We begin to discover to our utter amazement
that this whole thing never has been
about God attempting to threaten or coerce the human race into better behavior.
From the very beginning it has been about our discovering
the true nature of the love of our God for us
in such a way that the reality of that love
becomes the driving force of our existence,
transforming us from the inside out.
I had an e-mail this past week from one of our people
asking for my help.
From what I know of the person who wrote
she seems to possess a genuine hunger for her Lord,
and an eagerness to grow in a life that honors Him.
She wrote me because she’d gotten spiritually mugged
by one of the countless religious folk who make their home under the banner of Christ.
She was told that she has created for herself a sugar-coated God
and that the God who really exists
is One who has to slap us around a good deal to get our attention
and to bring about the changes in us that He wants us to make.
Obedience is the bottom line,
and the wrath of God is end the result for all those who fail to comply.
In what I consider to be a remarkable word picture,
she described herself as coming away from that conversation
feeling like “a deer caught in the headlights, and the headlights were attached to a stealth bomber”.
When I heard the accusation of her having a “sugar-coated God”,
I couldn’t help but wonder how David would have responded to such an accusation when he wrote:
PSA 34:8 ¶ O taste and see that the Lord is good; How
blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!
I certainly understand that natural religious reflex within us
that causes us to believe that terror of the wrath of God
is the only practical means by which to bring about some measure of change within us.
It is the way the human mind operates.
It is exactly what Paul is talking about
when he said to the Colossians,
COL 2:20 ¶ If you have died with Christ to the elementary
principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit
yourself to decrees, such as,
COL 2:21 "Do
not handle, do not taste, do not touch!"
COL 2:22 (which all refer to things destined to perish with
use) -- in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men?
COL 2:23 These are matters which have, to be sure, the
appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe
treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.
I certainly understand the tremendous hazzards of preaching the grace of God.
I understand that there will be many who will abuse it,
who will use it as a hiding place,
an excuse for their own lusts and selfishness.
But the truth is,
there are just as many, or perhaps even more,
who hide their sin addictions behind legalism,
boldly proclaiming their allegiance to a high standard of moral conduct,
using their public piety
as a screen with which to hide their own sins.
I have lived long enough with my Lord,
and agonized over His Word sufficiently,
and observed His work among us long enough
to know that there is only one thing
that has the ability to bring about real change within us -
our personal discovery that our God loves us.
Back in 1995, just after the federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed
I shared with you an illustration
that I would like to share with you again
because I think it illustrates well why our God takes the approach with us that He does.
I want you to picture a five year old boy
in that day-care facility
inside the federal building.
This little guy is just going about the business of playing with the toys
and playing with his buddies
when all of a sudden
the entire world falls apart.
There is noise, and heat, and smoke,
and fire, and confusion,
and screaming,
and terror everywhere
in an instant.
The little guy is thrown thirty or forty feet,
and then realizes that everything around him is falling,
and crashing,
and coming apart.
In a state of total panic the boy drops to his hands and knees
and scrambles under a little desk,
then curls up in a ball of fear.
For what seems like hours
he sits there listening to the sounds
of pain and horror all around him.
There is no more wall between the boy
and the outside world.
Big chunks of building
still come crashing down occasionally,
and the floor under him continues
to move and shake.
Then a man dressed in a fireman’s outfit finally appears at the top of a ladder
and calls to the boy over the jagged edge of the building.
So far the boy is physically unhurt,
but the fireman knows that this whole section of the building
will collapse at any moment.
Gently, quietly he calls to the boy.
‟Son, I need to have you leave your hiding place
and come join me on this ladder.
It’s not safe for you to stay where you are.
I know its scary,
but You can trust me.
I promise, if you’ll come to me
and let me wrap my arms around you,
I promise you’ll be safe.
I know it seems safe where you are now,
but it’s not really safe at all.
Trust me, son - come to me. Let me take you away from all of this.”
You see what’s happening, of course.
The boy has found a little pocket to hide in,
a little pocket that makes him feel
safe and protected.
And in order for that fireman to save the boy’s life
he must find some way
of convincing the child to trust him
more than he trusts his feelings.
He must overcome the child’s fear
with the warmth and strength of his own love.
That’s where we are when our Lord
begins His redemptive work in our lives.
At some points in our lives
we are curled up in fear
under a crumpled-up desk
on a foundation about to give way under our feet.
Like that little boy
we want very much to believe that,
if we just stay there long enough,
it will all go away -
all the pain,
and the fear,
and the confusion,
and the chaos in our life.
Our Lord begins His healing process
right where that fireman began his.
He must force us to be honest
about the hiding place we have chosen.
It is not safe.
It will not and cannot meet our needs.
But look!
Just as that fireman could only bring the boy to that knowledge
by first winning the boy to himself
and convincing the boy to trust his strength,
his compassion,
his love
more than the feeling of security
provided by that little hole he was hiding in,
so our Lord can only draw us out
of our hiding places
and give us the courage to risk
being honest with ourselves
by revealing to us
His compassion,
His gentleness,
His kindness,
His integrity,
His love in a way
that allows us to risk letting go
of the little bit of nothing
we are clinging to so tightly.
True inner transformation
can only be built
into our lives
through a growing personal trust in the character and love of God Himself.
As He gently but persistently
seeks to show us the reality of His love for us
He calls us to increasing honesty
about those areas where our lives are inconsistent with the truth.
I share that with you again this morning
because I think it will help us better understand
why our God does what He does
in this letter to the Ephesians we are studying.
It is this study, combined with that e-mail I received this past week
that brought so many of these thoughts back to me.
You see, here we are again,
moving step-by-step through one of the letters given to us by our God.
And look at how the message we have heard so far
differs so dramatically
from what our natural religious minds expect.
I am not playing games with the words given to us by our God.
I didn’t write them.
I simply report them.
I understand that our natural distrust of our God,
and our keen awareness of our own weaknesses and struggles,
and our deeply rooted religious nature,
all go together to cause us to assume
that when our God speaks to us
He will speak with a sharp edge to His voice,
demanding from us more, and better, and sooner
or we can expect a divine slap across the face... or worse.
And yet look at what we have heard our God say to us so far!
He opened His conversation with us
by calling us His “holy ones”.
And then, the very next thing He says is
EPH 1:2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now folks,
I didn’t write those words.
I didn’t put those words into God’s mouth
in an attempt to create for us a kinder, gentler God.
He put those words in His own mouth,
telling us exactly what every one of us who comes to Him
can expect from Him - grace and peace.
And it only gets better...or worse (depending on your perspective) from there on.
The very next thing God instructed Paul to say to us is,
EPH 1:3 ¶ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places
in Christ...
And we spent a number of weeks walking our way through those blessings,
and saw in the process
that our God truly has poured incredible wealth into our lives.
And it doesn’t stop there.
The next thing Paul does
is to drop to his knees
and pray that God would then open “the eyes of our hearts”
so that we can see still more of what God has done in us and for us.
From there he goes on to boldly affirm
the absolute supremacy of Jesus Christ over all rule and authority,
and then assured us that this same Christ has now been given to us
as the supreme leader over our lives.
And still it doesn’t stop there.
From there Paul then goes on to illustrate the magnitude of the love of our God for us
by reminding us that we had nothing whatsoever in our performance or behavior
that could even remotely have recommended us to God,
and yet His love for us caused Him to reach into our lives at the point of our greatest need,
to transform us totally at the spirit level,
to raise us up with Christ
and seat us with Christ in the world of the spirit.
And then, to top it all off,
he goes one step further
by telling us that God has done for us all that He has done
EPH 2:7 so that in the ages to come He might show the
surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
I certainly do not understand that kind of God.
I do not understand that kind of love.
If God himself had not spoken these words to us,
and if I had simply made them up,
I would be the first to admit that I was simply presenting a “sugar-coated God”
created in the form I desperately wished He would possess.
But here is the truly amazing thing,
the greatest wonder of them all -
the God who really does exist
is the God our spirits hunger and thirst for the most.
He is the God who loves us with an everlasting love,
the God who seeks daily to pour out onto us His grace and peace.
I have reached a point in my own life
where, quite honestly, I’m fed up with the kind of flesh-based religious filth
that is constantly being dumped onto the people of God in the name of Christ,
a filth that corrupts and contaminates our spirits,
making it so much harder for us to recognize and respond to the heart of our God.
I don’t know why He loves us.
I have no answer for that question
and I know now I never will.
But I do know
that everything He has done
and everything He has said
confirms the reality of that wonder.
And I know, too,
that every word,
every voice,
no matter how many Bible verses they use,
or how forcefully they speak,
every message that perpetuates anything other than our growing trust in the Grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ is from the pit of Hell,
created in the mind of Satan
to rob the people of God
of the only truth that will ever set them free.
When Sandee and I were in Hawaii several weeks ago
one morning we took our rental car
and took off to see if we could find
the place we’d stayed in the last time we were in Hawaii nearly 25 years earlier.
On that previous trip
we’d been offered a “free week in a condominium right on the beach”.
What we didn’t find out until we got there
was that the “condominium”
was literally one small room
located in a building in an isolated corner of the island
less than a mile from the end of the road.
And the currents on the beach
were so vicious and treacherous
that swimming was virtually impossible.
During that stay so many years ago
we were there on a Sunday
and since we had no car
we decided to walk to the only accessible church,
a small Baptist Church just down the road.
When we walked in
we had no idea we were about to be spiritually mugged as well.
I can still see that preacher standing in front of us,
his hand raised over his head,
saying to his congregation,
“If I had a whip in my hand right now
I could do an awful lot of damage to you.
But that’s nothing compared to what your God will do to you
if you don’t shape up.”
When we went out on our drive a few weeks ago
we did find that beach
and that “condominium”.
And we found that church as well.
As soon as I saw that building
it brought the memory of that mugging back to me.
Twenty-five years ago I could never have put it into words,
but this time I found myself wondering
how in the world a man who let such blasphemy publicly pour from his mouth
could dare to identify himself as a minister of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ...
I know we have a war raging right now.
I know, too, that it is reasonable to assume
that I will have something to offer us
that can help us cope with what’s going on.
I have thought a great deal about this,
and, in the end, I have decided that, for the most part,
the best way we can continue to equip ourselves for this world we live in
is to continue doing what we’ve been doing - discovering more and more about the true nature of our God
and about the true nature of His relationship to us in Christ.
You see, the greatest danger with this war
is not in the attacks of the enemy on our forces,
as difficult for us to process as that is.
The greatest danger
is in the potential attacks on our ability to keep our minds fixed
on the true
nature of our God.
For those of us who observe this war through our TV screens,
every day,
and every night we see potentially terrifying images,
images that can make us feel fearful, powerless,
and images that can make us doubt the goodness of our God
and, as Paul puts it in Ephesians 1:19, “ the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.”
But the truth is,
this war has not changed one thing in the lives of any of God’s people,
whether we are here in the U.S.,
or in uniform in the middle of the conflict in the Middle East.
He still continues to hold us,
and our futures in the palm of His hand,
and he still daily pours out upon us grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,
not the fleeting and frequently strained peace between nations,
but the inner peace of the human spirit at rest in the arms of our Creator.
Our world is filled with spiritual muggers
who try to claim for themselves the right to rob us
of the peace with God that has been given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Some of those muggers call themselves “Christian”
and quote lots of Bible verses ripped out of context.
Some of them spit on the name of our Savior
and openly promote a philosophy of world terrorism.
But all of them are, in the end,
promoting exactly the same lie -
the lie that we cannot trust our lives into the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And in response to all such liars,
I join with the Apostle Paul in praying
“...that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.”