Trusting Christ, Our Redeemer

In our materialistic and narcissistic society, the world, the flesh, and the devil offer us daily with all kinds of things that are really appealing to our senses and base desires. Things such as food, sex, gadgets, money, power, and fame are really pleasurable, which makes these things powerful incentive to yield to temptation and sin.

But we know that these things and the pleasure that they give are fleeting and they leave us empty, guilty, and restless. In fact, these are substitutes to the things that are eternal and really matter. They are counterfeit gods peddled by false gospel teachers and hucksters of holiness who are motivated by greed and selfish ambitions.

Jesus Christ, however, offers to us the real thing that truly satisfies both our body and soul. He offers himself in his Word, the gospel of salvation. Those who believe him, those who accept him and his claim as the Christ who suffered, died and came back to life on behalf of his people, he offers pardon and peace through his redeeming work at the cross that reconciles sinners to God. Jesus Christ is the only Savior and Redeemer from sin and he's the only one who is able to deliver us from the enticement of sin. As we fix our eyes on him by faith he helps us in conquering every sin that easily entangles us.

When we lay our hands on Christ by faith, when we put our trust in him and repent from our sin, the Father owns us as his children and seals us with the Holy Spirit, 'who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of [God's] glory' (Eph 1:14).

In Living Communion with God - Part 2

"15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”" ~ Genesis 2:15-16

Our first parents' living communion with God has entailed a divine call (v.15). But that living communion has also involved a sovereign command (vv.16-17). And that's what we're going to talk about here.

A Sovereign Command (vv. 16-17)

In verse 15 we are told of the divine purpose for man. In verse 16-17 we can see that this relationship also involves a sovereign command. It reads, “And the LORD commanded man….” Adam’s relationship with God does not only state a comprehensive purpose of work and worship that he has to seek to fulfill. It also specifies a definite command to first, enjoy God’s provisions from the garden (v.16), and second, to keep His prohibition to refrain from eating the forbidden tree (v.17).

The text tells us that man was given the freedom to eat from every tree in the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It does not explicitly tell us the reason why God puts this one restriction. However, it does tell us the result of eating from the forbidden tree. It says that the day Adam eats from this tree he will surely die. This is a very solemn command that Adam has to obey. His life depends on his obedience to this command. Not only that, his continued presence in the garden of God in Eden depends upon his obedience to the command not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

I will not dwell on the fine points of this prohibited tree. What I would like to point out here are two observations about the command. First, let’s talk a bit about the content of the command. Second, let’s focus on the giver of the command.

The thing that strikes me about the content of the command is the fact that both in the provision of every tree (v.16) and the prohibition from the forbidden tree (v. 17) the theme of food or the idea of eating stand out. Food is one of the most prominent themes throughout the Bible, even in this passage. This picture of abundant food and delight in eating lead us to look forward to the Messianic banquet at the end of the age (Matt. 22). Furthermore, the image of trees in the garden, especially the tree of life, brings us to the tree of life in Revelation 22 wherein we are told that this tree bears twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month (v.2).

However, in between these trees of life in Genesis and Revelation is the cursed tree in Calvary where the God-man Jesus Christ died. He was crucified and condemned to die in this tree not because He disobeyed God but because Adam and his descendants did. We are descendants of Adam. We were condemned both on account of Adam's failure to obey God regarding the forbidden tree, and our actual sins against God.

But Christ, the last Adam, took upon himself the burdens of our sin and misery, including death, including the most severe punishment of sin which is separation from the blissful presence of God. He bore them all in that tree so that in His death, that cursed tree became a tree of life for us who believe in Jesus Christ.

Now as believers of Jesus Christ in the new covenant by His blood, God allows us to partake of a new food, a new banquet, wherein our souls will be nourished and our faith in Him will be strengthened by His Word that confirms that food. The Lord's Supper and the green pasture of preaching the Word, when they are received by faith, enable us to enjoy and obey God by the Holy Spirit.

Another thing that draws our attention concerning this command is the Giver of the command Himself. God, in this passage, is portrayed as the Sovereign LORD over man. So the command is sovereign because it proceeds from the Sovereign LORD, the God and creator of the heavens and the earth.

It is interesting to note that the name LORD used two times in our text is the same name God gave to Moses when he asked about God’s name (Exo. 3). The name LORD is also the name God used to call Himself when He gave the Ten Commandments to His chosen people in Sinai. The LORD is the Sovereign God. He is the God who establishes covenant with His people. LORD is His covenant name.

In the New Testament, the title LORD is likewise designated to Jesus Christ. Time will come that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. He was with God the Father from the very beginning and He Himself is God. Through Him all things were made and without Him nothing was made that has been made. His disciples call Him Lord. The apostle Paul says that because of Christ Jesus’ perfect obedience, even in his death upon that shameful cross, God has highly exalted Him and has given Him the name that is above every name.

Thus the inspired author of the book of Revelation calls Him ‘the King of kings and the Lord of lords.’ Jesus Christ has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Since He is the Lord of lords who gives His command to us new covenant believers to keep and obey we must humbly and gratefully submit to His lordship by faithfully keeping everything He commands to us. He is the Lord worthy of our trust and obedience. His word is our life. His law is our delight.

In Jesus Christ man experiences the ultimate union and communion with God. In Him and through Him, man’s living relationship with God is perfected. No one comes to the Father except through Him. Union with Jesus Christ is the essence of man’s relationship with God. Through Him God fully dwells with man in perfect communion.

Thus let us turn to Christ today and always for God calls us to worship Him in Christ. God desires from us a kind of service that springs from our faith-relationship with Him through Christ. God commands us to look unto Christ. He is our life and our salvation. God has established His gracious covenant relationship with us through Jesus Christ. It started in the Garden of God in Eden and it will consummate in the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, when it will come down out from God in heaven above. Blessed is he who hears this Word and believe, for he will be satisfied by the water of life who is Jesus Christ!

How Deep the Father's Love for Us

One of the contemporary hymns that I learned to like singing is Stuart Townend's 'How Deep the Father's Love for Us.' During our Church Family Retreat every Holy Week, we sing this beautifully written song. I especially like the last few lines which says,

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom.

The song clearly views the atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ as a way for us to be redeemed from our bondage to sin. Christ's death is the ransom price for those He came to save. He is the Father's expression of love for us His elect. Through His sacrificial death we have been set free from the power and penalty of sin. By faith in Him, Christ, by His Spirit, has delivered us from our enslavement to sin. Thanks be to God!

Here's the full lyrics of this contemporary classic:

How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure.

How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory.

Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers.

It was my sin that left Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished.

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection.

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom.

Lord willing, we are going to sing this song again during our Church Family Retreat next week.

"Make Known His Deeds Among the Peoples" - Part 1

(based on a sermon from Isaiah 12:1-2)

Where shall we find joy to sustain us beyond the excitement of the New Year or any special occasion such as birthday or wedding anniversary?

In Isaiah 12:1-6, we will find reasons to be joyful and sing praises to the Lord our God. The passage discloses the joyful response of the faithful remnant of Israel to God’s promised salvation. As an individual and a congregation, we sing the glory of our God regardless of our situation. He preserves us through many dangers and threats in life. And through all the difficulties we don’t stop praising Him.

That’s the message we get from this. The chastised people of God sing the glories of the Lord. Yes, Isaiah 12 is Israel’s response song to God’s promised salvation. Here, the saved community of God, although suffering the rod of His chastisement, proclaims to one another, and to the world, the wonders of God.

Here in Isaiah 12, we are given three important truths of God that we shall sing about to one another and proclaim to the ends of the earth. First, we ought to sing His Gracious Salvation; second, we sing His Great Commission; and third, we sing His Glorious Presence.

His Gracious Salvation (v.1-2)

When Isaiah wrote this prophecy the people of Jerusalem and the whole kingdom of Judah were sinning against God. In fact, Isaiah started his prophecy with a series of accusations of the people of Judah (Isa. 1:2-4). Isaiah accuses them of rebellion (1:2), ungratefulness (1:3-4), false worship (1:13-15), hypocrisy (1:15), and many other transgressions. God sees all these iniquities and transgressions in us.

We cannot hide anything from Him. He sees our outward devotion to Him but He can also see our hearts’ deep longing for this world and all the material things in it. He knows how we go through the motions of worship, even pretend to listen to His Word, but our minds are wondering somewhere else and our lips are filled with vile things and our lives with uncleanness.

If you and I are brutally honest, life in the holy presence of God is unbearable for sinners like us. Even the prophet Isaiah would confess, having seen the presence of God in a vision, he would admit that he is lost. He curses himself for being a man of unclean lips, dwelling among proud and ungrateful people, people with dirty tongues and thoughts. That’s us, people of God.

And so if God is going to judge us, we deserve nothing but His anger. We deserve His punishment. But thanks be to God that Someone has appeased God’s anger toward us! Somebody has satisfied the wrath of God for you and me. Even Isaiah himself could testify that although he deserved to die in the presence of God, yet God has touched his unclean lips and has taken away his guilt and has atoned for his sin.

Now the question is, “How can our holy God do that to a sinner like Isaiah, like you and me?” “How can a just God change His disposition toward us who are so idolatrous, ungrateful, and greedy?” Well, of course, the answer is in verse 1. The prophet testifies that although God was angry with him, yet in that day, God’s anger will be turned away once and for all.

God’s anger was turned away at the altar when Isaiah’s sin was atoned for. As a result Isaiah had comfort, and his fear of God’s wrath was gone when he believed the word of God. Trust, rather than fear, has overpowered Isaiah (8:17).

Ultimately, God’s anger against us His people was turned away only through the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Matthew Henry says, “Though God may for a time be angry with his people, yet his anger shall at length be turned away; it endures but for a moment, nor will he contend for ever. By Jesus Christ, the root of Jesse, God's anger against mankind was turned away; for he is our peace.”

Salvation for sinners is a rescue from the wrath of the God Who is offended by our sin. But it is this same Lord God Who made a provision for our sin. God, in His great mercy and love, poured out His wrath against our sins upon Jesus as He suffered upon the cross so that God would not have to pour out that wrath upon us. The cross is the place where the fires of God's judgment consumed our sacrifice, even Christ Jesus our Lord. He bore the fires of God’s anger upon Himself because of our sin and transgressions so we don’t have to carry them anymore.

Boys and girls, Isaiah 53 gives us an awful picture of what Christ has suffered in bearing our iniquities upon Himself (see esp. vv.4-6). And so when God calls us to the cross in faith, He calls us to the one place of safety from His holy wrath against our sin. The cross is the place where God’s anger was satisfied. So when Christ first came, the day of salvation has dawned!

This is the gracious salvation that Isaiah is singing about in vv.1-2. Although God is angry with us because of sin (and let us not forget that), yet He does not treat us as our sins deserve because of the atoning work of Jesus on our behalf. When God is angry with His people, His anger is that of a father to a son. It’s going to be a temporary anger intended to correct and discipline but not to harm. This is the anger of chastisement and not the wrath of judgment. It’s for our good. It’s for our holiness, for without which we cannot see God.

In contrast, God's anger against the pagan Babylonians, against the unbelieving world of Isaiah’s time, was the wrath of judgment, and God permanently destroyed them as a people and culture. They were erased from the face of the earth. The same thing will happen to all the unbelievers who will persist in their rejection of God, who abuse the kindness of God as a license to their wickedness and sinful lifestyle. There will come a day when God’s anger will forever consume the unrepentant and the unbelieving world. So be warned, beloved congregation!

Israel’s exile to Babylon was a discipline for their idolatry and immorality. God used the hardships of the exile in pagan lands to cleanse Israel of their idolatry, to give them a sorrowful heart for their sins and to work faith in them. Then, when they repented as a people, God comforted them and restored them.

So don’t be discouraged when God chastises you. Don’t be dismayed when you feel the rod of God’s discipline. It’s for your good. He loves you with that rod. That’s why you and I could sing with Isaiah, “God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.”

What troubles you today? What hinders you to offer your sacrifices of praise to God? Are there any unconfessed sins, or troubled past, or unsettled relationships that bother you? Does it make you feel unworthy before God? Are there sins or failures that cause you to think that God is angry with you?

Be comforted! There is freedom and deliverance. In Christ you can find God’s gracious salvation. Though it’s costly for God, yet it’s free for you! God has promised that anyone who trusts in His Son, anyone who calls upon Him in faith, asking His forgiveness, He will turn away His wrath. He will comfort those who are sorrowful and seek refuge in Him.

Then as God’s comforting grace overwhelms you, sing His praises with all your heart. Join the chorus of God’s people in singing His gracious salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ!