Blog Archives - WELCOME TO THE JOY OF TROY

March 11, 2021

3/11/2021

Praying With Understanding

        In this manner...pray:
                Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Matt. 6:9-13, NKJV.

    Jesus' disciples had a problem. The Master prayed a lot, but He had never taught them how to do it. They argued that John the Baptist had done that for his disciples, and they wanted the same (Luke 11:1). In response, Jesus provided two types of instruction. In the first He noted that they should not merely "heap up empty phrases" as did those who wanted to be heard "for their many words" (Matt. 6:7, RSV). He then went on to provide them with a sample prayer that was to provide them with a model for their own.

    Prayer is not just a "bunch of words" that we mumble in a mindless or passionate sort of way. No, we find in Jesus' prayer both order and structure. It comes as a shock to some people that something as spiritual as prayer could have any system or structure to it. But Christ's prayer provides a model that has all the essential elements of prayer.

    While it is not wrong to recite the Lord's Prayer if it is done with meaning and thought, it is better to see the Lord's Prayer as a pattern prayer that provides us with an outline of the essential elements that should be in both private and public prayers.

    As such, Jesus' outline prayer is much like the outline used by many preachers. Each part of the outline provides a heading of things that we need to remember in the prayer. The prayer itself expounds and fills out each point.

    The prayer is comprehensive in that it covers all the elements of both our relationship with God and with other people, as well as our personal needs. Even the order of the petitions is important. The first three have to do with God and His glory, whereas the second three petitions concern our human needs and necessities. Thus we must give God first and supreme place--then and only then should we turn to ourselves and our needs and desires. It is only when God receives His proper place that other things fall into line.

    We thank You, Lord, for taking the time to teach us to pray, for taking our needs seriously. We want to learn from You, especially in our prayer life.

March 10, 2021

3/10/2021

Sin Followed Me to Church

        Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Matt. 6:1, RSV.

    With Matthew 6:1-18 Jesus shifts the center of His discussion of kingdom principles from a Christian's righteousness to a believer's piety. He selects almsgiving (verses 2-4), praying (verses 5, 6), and fasting (verses 16-18) to illustrate principles that we can apply to all acts of religious piety. It is frightening to believe that we can go off the track in such religious activities as prayer and giving to God, but Jesus says we can.

    In essence, He is teaching that we didn't fully get rid of sin when we left our nasty way of life. To the contrary, sin is more than eager to follow us to church.

    His pattern is the same in each illustration. First comes a description of the false way of piety, which focuses on public display of the "worshiper's" holiness. He uses the word "hypocrites" in each illustration. In Greek "hypocrite" means an actor on the stage. Applied to religious experience in Matthew 6, a hypocrite is one who wears a false face. He or she is pretending to honor God, while really glorifying self. Such people, Jesus asserts, have already had their reward. The second half of each illustration suggests a proper way to fulfill the obligation (e.g., pray in secret). In each case the central idea is that motivation for devotion should be grounded in a person's relationship with the Father rather than a desire to look good. All three illustrations close with a statement that God will reward the faithful.

    In Matthew 6:1-18 Jesus brings us face-to-face with "vegetarian sins," sins that look so good because they are tied to religious practice, the sins of the Pharisees of every generation.

    Such sins are deceptive and deadly because they capture us unaware--they make us feel so religious, so right. But that is where deceptiveness comes in. They lead us to think that we are clean when we are still filled with the rotten core of sin--prideful self-sufficiency and self-centeredness.

    Jesus, dear friend, wants to save us even from our religious sins, even from our spiritual pride, even from feeling good about our prayer life.

    And how does He propose to do this? The same way He does for prostitutes and drug dealers. He wants our prideful spirit to fall at the foot of the cross and be crucified.

    But beyond crucifixion of our self-righteous pride, Jesus wants to engineer our rebirth through life in the Spirit. The good news is that He is able if we are willing.

March 9, 2021

3/9/2021

The Character of Character Perfection

        Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Matt. 5:48.

    "Therefore" is a key word in verse 48. It implies a conclusion to what has gone before.

    This verse, with its call for Godlike perfection, needs to be connected with its context from verse 20 onward, but most specifically to verse 43 through 47, as a comparison of verse 45 with verse 48 will clearly demonstrate. Those are the only two verses in the entire chapter that summon Christians to be like their Father in heaven. Verses 43 through 47 make explicit the essence of that likeness.

    Jesus is not dealing with abstractions here. Being like the Father means loving one's enemies, just as God loves His enemies. After all, doesn't He provide sunshine and rain for evil people (verse 45)? Anybody, even tax collectors and other unsavory sorts, can love their friends (verses 46, 47). But God loved the world that He gave His Son to die for people who were ungodly and His enemies, so are Christian to love even those who despitefully use them, "so that" they may be like their Father, "so that" they might be perfect, just as their heavenly Father is perfect.

    That thought brings us to the word "perfect" in Matthew 5:48. Translated from the Greek word teleios, it has nothing to do with concepts of absolute sinlessness. To the contrary, teleios means "maturity," and in most instances most translations translate it as such.

    In the Bible's use of the concept, people are teleios (perfect) when they are full-grown or have reached full stature. And for human beings that maturity means being restored to the likeness of God in whose image they were created. Thus it is only natural for Jesus to claim in Matthew 5:48 that the Christian should become teleios (perfect or mature) I love like the Father in heaven. After all, "God is love" (1 John 4:8). That is the essence of His perfection of character. Thus character perfection centers on acting in love like God rather than behaving like the devil.

    Such an understanding of verse 48 lines up with its parallel in Luke, which reads" "Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36, RSV). It also is in harmony with that forceful quotation on Christ's Object Lesson on perfectly reproducing the character of Christ (p. 69). The context makes it clear that such a reproduction centers on a "spirit of unselfish love and labor for others" (pp. 67, 68).

    Father, help me today to be a loving person so that I might be like You.

March 8, 2021

3/8/2021

Following Jesus Isn't Normal

        You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Matt. 5:43-45, RSV.

    So you want to be like God? If so, read verses 43-45 through thoughtfully several times.

    Just how much does our righteousness need to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees (see Matt. 5:20)? From Matthew 5:21 onward Jesus has been illustrating that "exceeding" righteousness. And it has been exceeding in the extreme. He has told us that we can't have hateful thoughts, lustful desires, or easy divorces, and that our thoughts and speech must be pure.

    Then in verses 38-42 Jesus appears to have topped it off by telling us we can't even retaliate toward those who do us wrong. But now in verses 43-45 He goes even further than that. It is one thing for me to hit you back when you hit me. But it is quite another for me to love you when you do me wrong, to pray for you when you misuse me and persecute me.

    Jesus has upped the ante to the highest possible amount in terms of what it means to have a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. How can anyone do such things? It's not normal.

    That's right. Loving one's enemies isn't normal, but it is Christian, and the next few verses will tell us why it is Christian. The key words are "so that." We are to love our enemies and pray for those who spit upon us "so that [we] may be sons of [our] Father who is in heaven." That is what God is like. He sends the gifts of sunshine and rain on both those who love Him and those who hate Him. He even gave His Son to die for those who were His enemies (Rom. 5:8). And Jesus prayed for those who put Him on the cross.

    We must do the same in our daily lives "so that" we will be like the Father. Ellen White helps us see the picture when she writes that God's "love received, will make us...kind and tender, not merely to those who please us, but to the most faulty and erring and sinful....It is not earthly rank, nor birth, nor nationality, nor religious privilege, which proves that we are members of the family of God; it is love, a love that embraces all humanity....To be kind to the unthankful and to the evil, to do good hoping for nothing again, is the insignia of the royalty of heaven, the sure token by which the children of the Highest reveal their estate" (Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 75).

March 7, 2021

3/7/2021

Filling Up the Law, Part 2

    Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh upon a woman [or man] to lust after her [or him] hath committed adultery with her [or him] already in his [or her] heart. Matt. 5:27, 28.

    This is serious.

    I remember the first time I came to grips with this passage. I was 19 years old and had been baptized from an agnostic background a few months before. There I was in a local store gawking at a woman while waiting for my wife. Of course, I wasn't just gawking; I was thinking the same sort of thoughts I had delighted in before I became a Christian.

    Suddenly it hit me like a ton of bricks. The Holy Spirit spoke to my conscience loud and clear: "You can't do that. It is wrong to lust after a woman, to think the kind of thoughts you are doing." I didn't care much for the lesson. After all, I had been "innocently" enjoying myself, and then He had to break into my meditations. I felt like telling the Holy Spirit to take a hike.

    In actuality I had begun to realize that sin was more than an act--that it was a mind-set. I had started to recognize the truth Jesus set forth when He taught that sin "proceeds from the heart" (Matt. 15:18, RSV). Jesus made the same point when He moved the meaning of the sixth commandment from killing to anger (Matt. 5:21, 22).

    I had been quite comfortable before He did that. After all, I have never killed anyone. And in all probability I won't murder anyone in my entire life. That is a thought that makes me feel good. But it's better than that. Not only have I never murdered anyone; no one has ever accused me of such an act. I guess I am a pretty good guy, a person who at least has part of his act together.

    But such self-righteousness shatters when I begin to read Jesus in His filling up the law. He tells me that I can't even be angry in the sense of a person who holds on to anger, refuses to let it die, and seeks revenge. Here Jesus hits me square. While I don't murder, I do become angry with some of the people with whom I have to deal.

    I don't like this new theology. I am more comfortable with my own definitions. They make me feel good.

    But Jesus' purpose isn't to make me feel good. It is to help me see the nature of sin and my great need of His forgiving and empowering grace.

    Lord in heaven, help me to live in my life the full meaning of the law and not merely its outward shell.

March 6, 2021

3/6/2021

Filling Up the Law, Part 1

        Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shall kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with His brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. Matt. 5:21, 22.

    With Matthew 5:21 we have come to the first of six illustrations of how our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees (verse 20). In those six examples we find Jesus filling up the meaning of the law (verse 17).

    Common to each illustration are the words "you have heard that it was said" and "I say unto you." Those who had done the initial saying were such Jewish leaders as the scribes and Pharisees, who had taken God's Old Testament law and created oral tradition to protect that law and to apply it to the life of the people. Such Jewish leaders were generally sincere in their attempts to make the law meaningful. But their sincerity did not protect them from error.

    That is why Jesus comes in with His "but I say." Those words are of crucial importance in understanding both Matthew 5:21-48 and the entire Sermon on the Mount. In them Jesus is pronouncing Himself to be the authority on the meaning of the law. But He was not basing His teaching on the judgment of others. To the contrary, He was the authority on the law. He approaches it not as a mere teacher, but as the lawgiver, the One who knows the height and depth of the law because He is the God who gave it in the first place.

    In the process, He overturns pharisaic approaches to the law. The Pharisees, as Jesus will demonstrate, were excellent on the letter of the law, but poor in its spirit. They were perfectionists at heart, and all perfectionists need a list of do's and don'ts. To make the law manageable if they are going to obey it perfectly, they need to cut it down to size. Pharisees of all ages have done that by being careful in how they define sin. For them sin tended to be actions.

    But Jesus overturns all such attempts. Refusing to play the pharisaic game, He moved beyond the outward letter of the law to its inward spiritual intent. Thus He pointed out that the root problem is not the act but the thought and attitude behind it. In that way Jesus shattered the easy perfectionism of the Pharisees of both His day and ours.

    Lord in heaven, help me to grasp in my heart the full meaning of the law and not merely its outward shell.

March 5, 2021

3/5/2021

Pharisees Were Good People, but Not Good Enough

        For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Matt. 5:20, RSV.

    One of Jesus' most astounding statements, it must have all but knocked the disciples and other hearers off their feet. How could anyone have more righteousness than the scribes and Pharisees?

    At this point we need to let Jesus speak and not try to collapse Him into Paul. His concern is not that His followers needed His righteousness or righteousness by faith to be superior to the Pharisees. To the contrary, He is explicit that it is "your righteousness" (mine and yours) that must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees.

    But how could that be? After all, the scribes were a class that spent all their time in teaching and expounding God's law. They had a superabundance of dedication to God's Word. And the Pharisees were not merely good men--they were the best of men. They were a select class of some 6,000 individuals who had totally dedicated their lives to bringing about the coming of the Christ through living sinless lives.

    Who could have more righteousness than a Pharisee? Look at them. First, they were lovers and protectors of the Bible as the Word of God. They had developed their massive oral tradition to preserve the true meaning of Scripture.

    Second, Pharisees were completely devoted to God's law. They loved it with all their heart. Their dedication to keeping it inspired them to formulate thousands of guidelines so that they wouldn't even come close to the appearance of evil. Thus they had some 1,521 oral rules on how to keep the Sabbath. Such laws touched every aspect of their lives.

    Beyond those qualities, the Pharisees were filled with missionary and evangelistic zeal and they were good "Adventists." That is, they awaited the coming of the Messiah with anticipation.   Many of them believed that the Messiah (Christ) would come if the Torah (law) were kept perfectly for one day.

    The Pharisees were like some of us church members. They believed all the right things and desired to do good.

    But there is the tragedy: they fell short of the kingdom. We need to take stock of ourselves so that we don't end up like the Pharisees of old. They may have been the best people in the church--but somehow they weren't good enough.

    Jesus knocked His hearers flat when He announced that their righteousness must exceed that of the religious athletes of the day. How?

March 4, 2021

3/4/2021

Taking God Seriously

        Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Matt. 5:19.

    No human being will be justified in his sight by works of the law, since through the law comes knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20, RSV). "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God--not because of works, lest any man should boast" (Eph. 2:8, 9, RSV).

    Because we believe in grace and forgiveness and love, it is all too easy to think that God is so easygoing that it doesn't matter how we live or what we do. That is not so. Because He cares about us to be as whole as possible in a sick world.

    Above all things, God wants our happiness, both now and eternally. And because He desires for us to be happy, He takes our needs seriously. We are important to Him.

    As a result, God is doing all He can to guide His people through life. In the process He sets forth principles of life so that we can be healthier in our spiritual, physical, social, mental, and even vocational aspects.

    He gave many such principles to His ancient people in the Old Testament. Then in the New Testament He provided additional insight into the happy and healthy life, and He has continued to guide His people in modern times through the gifts of His spirit.

    Jesus desires that we take God's counsels in the utmost seriousness, even those that may seem "least" or unimportant to us. It will not do to explain away this or that biblical instruction because it doesn't fit into our agenda.

    And Jesus tells us that we are not only to practice God's principles in our lives but we are also to teach them to others. That instruction includes our responsibility as parents and family members, our opportunities in church, and our opportunities in the community and workplace.

    We are representatives of the King of the universe. And He desires us to take Him just as seriously as He does us and our needs and problems.

    Thus as Christians we will be faithful in both the "least" and the great things in God's Book. And we will do it in the sweet spirit of Jesus.

    Help us, Father, is our prayer.

March 3, 2021

3/3/2021

The Permanence of Law

        For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Matt. 5:18.

    Jesus couldn't have said it stronger. Nothing can ever change God's law in the slightest degree. Its demands are permanent.

    Just as heaven and earth are signs of stability in the sense that they are always there, so is God's law unending. It is not something that He alters from time to time because He might feel the urge to do something different. No, its principles are built into the very fabric of the universe.

    I like the way The Message renders the first part of our verse: "God's law is more real and lasting than the stars in the sky and the ground at your feet. Long after the stars burn out and earth wears out, God's law will be alive and working."

    Now, that is permanent!

    But why? Doesn't God have a free will? Can't He choose to do what He wants?

    Of course He can do as He pleases. But the questions miss the point. The way of God's basic law is the way of health and life. Anything contrary to the law is death, destruction, and disorder. Take the Ten Commandments, for example. You can't have a healthy society in which people are killing one another and in which you can never trust anyone.

    God's law cannot be changed because it is an outward representation of His character of love. Its very principles are for our eternal good.

    Thus not even the smallest part of God's law--not a "jot or a tittle" (the smallest letter and the smallest point in the Hebrew alphabet)--will be altered. It is for our good.

    And while that is true for the Ten Commandments, it is also the case of the entire Old Testament--the law and the prophets. The Old Testament still has validity for Christians.

    Even the ceremonial law has meaning for us. What was nailed to the cross was the penalty for breaking the law rather than any part of the law itself. The ceremonial law is being fulfilled in the ministry of Christ. He was the Lamb who died for us (John 1:29), He is our Passover (1 Cor. 5:7), and He is currently functioning in the heavenly sanctuary as our great High Priest, as described extensively in the book of Hebrews. The action of the ceremonial law has shifted from earth to heaven, where the loving Christ is interceding for me today.

March 2, 2021

3/2/2021

Filling Up the Law

        Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. Matt. 5:17, RSV.

    With this verse Jesus has come to the third section of His great sermon in which He sets out the principles of His kingdom at the beginning of His earthly ministry. The first section dealt with a Christian's character in the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3-12), and the second treated a Christian's influence (verses 13-16). Verses 17-48 highlight a Christian's righteousness (verse 20) and how it must be superior to that taught by the religious leaders of Jesus' day.

    The preamble to His discussion appears in verses 17-20, with verse 17 indicating that Jesus had not come to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them. The first thing to note about that verse is that the law and the prophets were the Bible of Jesus' day, what we call the Old Testament.

    His teaching that He did not seek to destroy the law but to fulfill it has confused a lot of people. In spite of His plain words, they still read it to mean that He did away with God's law.

    But "fulfill" does not mean to do away with--rather to fill full, to fill it up, to full-fill. We can interpret the word "fulfill" in at least three ways: (1) Jesus obeyed the requirements of the Old Testament law through His obedient life, (2) He fulfilled the predictive elements of the Old Testament, and (3) He brought out the full meaning of the Jewish Scriptures through His teachings. In one sense Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament in all three ways, but in the context in verses 21-48 we find Jesus filling out the meaning of the law.

    Thus starting in verse 21, Jesus focuses on several Jewish teachings, beginning with the sixth and seventh commandments of the Decalogue. He prefaces each of His six teachings with "You have heard that it was said" and then goes on to explain the depth and breadth of the law or practice and its deeper meaning.

    That is how Jesus is fulfilling the law. He is endowing it with meaning. As Ellen White puts it, "His mission was to 'magnify the law, and make it honorable' Isaiah 42:21. He was to show the spiritual nature of the law, to present its far reaching principles and to make plain its eternal obligation" (Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 49). In the process, He helps us come to grips with the spirit of the law--the spirit of love, which makes lawkeeping and obedient Christians.

    Lord, help me today to listen to what the Master has to say.