Habakkuk 1-2

The banner we have seen flying over all the Minor Prophets is this: God always keeps his promises. But for many of you, whether or not you would say it out loud, that statement has a question mark behind it. God always keeps his promises? There are so many loose ends and unresolved situations in your life that you feel like there must have been some fine print that you missed somewhere. It’s like looking through the mail and finding that letter that informs you that you’ve hit the jackpot and Ed McMahon is on his way to deliver an oversized check for $10 Million. But by the time you can think about what color you want your first Hummer to be, you read the fine print that says, “…If the 12-digit number on this card matches the one we draw,” and the finer print on the bottom of the back side of the letter clarifies, “chances of winning are 1 in 217 trillion.”

Is there fine print on this banner, “God always keeps his promises”? That is what we are going to explore this morning in the book of Habakkuk.

Habakkuk has a fascinating structure, like a Cliff Notes version of the book of Job. Habakkuk asks God a question, and God answers him. That answer brings up another question that Habakkuk asks, and God answers that as well. Habakkuk then prays a long, beautiful prayer that Stevo will walk us through next week.

This sounds rather straightforward until you consider the type of questions Habakkuk was asking, not to mention the complex mind of God that received the inquiry. On our level it is like a child asking why he has to get a shot at the doctor’s office. A three-year-old doesn’t have the capacity to understand how something that hurts so much could be good for him.

This is what makes Habakkuk much more complex than a prophet asking a few questions and God giving a few answers. This isn’t like asking for directions to the grocery store or asking who won the ballgame. Even though Habakkuk could doubtless think of some simple, theologically correct answers to his own questions, God answers him in a way that shatters his assumptions and leaves him with more questions.

Let’s walk through the exchange between Habakkuk and the Lord. Look at Habakkuk 1:2-4: “O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.”

This is a common theme in all the prophets. There is injustice amongst God’s people and the prophet is crying out to Yahweh to do something about it. It’s the same type of reaction that we would have if we found out that a businessman in our church was embezzling funds at his workplace or if a mom were teaching her children that people with different skin color shouldn’t be trusted. Our hearts, like Habakkuk’s would cry out, “this is not right!”

Let’s see what God answers beginning in verse 5. “Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own. They are dreaded and fearsome; their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.”

This is not the answer Habakkuk was looking for. There were all kinds of things the Lord could say, like “I’ll send a pestilence among the wicked” or “I will use Judah’s king to sift out the evil doers.” Instead, God says, “You’re right; Judah is plagued with injustice, so I’m going to raise up the Chaldeans to punish my people.”

To which Habakkuk says, “Whoa…hold your horses! Isn’t that being a bit severe? Sure we’ve got some problems and need to be disciplined, but you’re going to punish us with the Chaldeans?” The issue here is the fact that the Chaldeans were 10 times more wicked than Judah. Look at Habakkuk’s reply in 1:13: “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and are silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?”

Imagine being in the 5th grade and complaining to the teacher that the other students in the class are cheating on the test. So the teacher says, “You’re right; something needs to be done about this. I’m going to call cousin Guido and his boys from the Mafia to come teach these kids a lesson.” When your eyebrows are pasted back and your jaw on the floor at this reply, maybe then you will understand Habakkuk’s utter incredulity at God’s answer to his question.

And of course, your response to the teacher is, “The Mafia? You’re going to call the Mafia?!? Don’t you know what they do? The concrete shoes in the river?” Habakkuk has the same response in verses 14-17. Lord, don’t you know about these Chaldeans? They gather up their captives like fish in a net! They put hooks through their captives’ lower lips to march them in a shameful procession! These are idolatrous brutes, and you’re going to send them against us?!?”

Let’s read God’s answer to Habakkuk in 2:2-4: “And the LORD answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith. ”

When my parents and sister were here last week, we read Habakkuk 1-2 for family devotion time. When we reached the words I just read and saw that they were preceded by the words, “And the Lord answered me…” we looked at each other in confusion. How is this an answer?

This is the point at which it might be helpful to answer our opening question: yes, there is fine print on the banner that flies over the Minor Prophets. God always keeps his promises. But here’s the fine print: God always keeps his promises in his timing and in his way. And that often excludes our sense of when he should do it and our sense of how he should do it.

What I’m getting to is this. God does not feel the need to defend himself about when and how he keeps his promises. The central question of Habakkuk is, “God, how can you, being good, use an evil people for your purposes? What about your promises to your people?” And for that matter, we might as well connect ourselves to this dialogue and fill in the contemporary blank. “God, how can you, being good, use cancer for your purposes?” “God, how can you, being good, use a layoff for your purposes?” “God, how can you, being good, use a wayward child for your purposes?” “What about your promises to your people?”

But God is not answering those questions. God always keeps his promises in his timing and in his way. One commentator said, “It should be noticed that God did not seek to defend his justice. Instead of answering the ‘why’ sort of question, he began by suggesting that human responsibility lay not in having all the answers, but in responding to God in the proper way” (Hill/Walton, OT Intro, p. 518). In other words, the fact that calamity is coming has been established. Now the question on the table is, “What kind of a person are you going to be? Are you going to be puffed up in your soul and arrogant like the Chaldeans and those doing injustice in Judah? Or are you going to live by faith along with the righteous? Are you going to believe that I will keep my promises, even if it isn’t when and how you think I should?”

I don’t know where you are struggling to believe God’s promises, but here is where we are in Habakkuk. We’re standing next to Habakkuk in front of this big marquee that says, “God, who is absolutely good, uses evil people and events to accomplish his good purposes.” And while we are baffled at what this marquee says, we realize that Jacob’s son Joseph is standing behind us, repeating his words to his brothers at the end of Genesis: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” And then it all makes sense. Joseph had no say in when and how God would fulfill his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So it was not for Joseph to shake his fist at God at the bottom of the well or in his jail cell and say, “God you aren’t keeping your promises!” Rather, Joseph was to trust God in whatever circumstance he faced, whether as prisoner or prince. The righteous shall live by his faith.

The book of Habakkuk has no circumstantial resolution. That is, we don’t read that the good guy wins in the end. All we know is that calamity is about to strike, God is at the controls, and our calling is to trust him no matter what. I don’t know what calamities are raging in your lives right now, but this feels immensely practical for being a poem from the 7th Century B.C. You’re imperative is not to make perfect sense out of the painful circumstances in your life or anyone else’s life. Connecting the dots and saying, “Oh, this is how God is going to keep his promises” sometimes doesn’t happen for 10 years, if it happens at all this side of death.

William Cowper, a believer who struggled intensely with depression, captured the heart of this in his famous hymn:

God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines Of never failing skill He treasures up His bright designs And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; The clouds ye so much dread Are big with mercy and shall break In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err And scan His work in vain; God is His own interpreter, And He will make it plain.

So God answers Habakkuk’s question of “How can you use these brutish Chaldeans?” with “I know what I am doing and how I am keeping my promises. You live by faith.” But God doesn’t leave it there. He reassures Habakkuk of the promises that he is keeping so Habakkuk will know what he is to believe.

At the risk of redundancy I want to clarify what this life of faith looks like. God does not simply call us to have aimless faith. He gives us a focus, an object for our faith—himself. And he does not simply call us to have a general faith in him. He gives us promises where we can aim our faith; promises upon which we set our sights, even when the circumstances around us are contrary to what God promises.

So what promise does God give Habakkuk? Where can the prophet set his sights? In chapter 2, verses 6-20, God assures Habakkuk that he will bring the Chaldeans to justice. The first half of verse 8 best summarizes this: “Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you.” God reinforces to Habakkuk that he always keeps his promises, and he promises to execute his vengeance on the Chaldeans.

But the sweetness of God’s promises is that they go beyond a return to the status quo. God does not only promise Habakkuk that he will bring a foreign nation to justice. He promises that one day all foreign nations will know God’s saving power. Read verse 14 with me in Habakkuk 2: “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”

Again, the sweetness of God’s promises is that they go beyond a return to the status quo. Israel would have been happy to return to Egypt as slaves while they were wandering in the wilderness. But God had something bigger than Egypt for them—he had the Promised Land. Job would have been happy to be rid of his boils and unhelpful friends and are return to the way things used to be. But God had something bigger for Job—an encounter with the Almighty and the restoration of more possessions and family than he had before.

Brothers and sisters, the whole point of Habakkuk is that we must take the long view in believing the promises of God. What sets the righteous apart from the wicked is not his ability to make sense out of present circumstances. What distinguishes the righteous is that he or she believes that God always keeps his promises even when present circumstances speak to the contrary.

Micah 6:1-8

The story of the Old Testament is the story of Yahweh, the Creator of the cosmos, entering into a covenant with Israel, so that he might bless all the nations through them. The prophets fit into this story as the covenant enforcers. That is, God redeemed Israel as his chosen people, then set forth the law, saying, this is how to live in relationship with me. Israel responded by saying, “all that the Lord has spoken we will do.” The prophets entered the scene to hold up the law in one hand and Israel’s actions in the other hand, and say, “your heart has strayed from your covenant God.”

So Micah is the spokesman for God the judge, who brings charge after charge against his faithless people. The basic pattern in Micah is that God gives the charge against Judah, usually idolatry or injustice, the consequential discipline that he will send, like exile or destruction of their land, and then there is a word of hope for future restoration. Let’s look at an example of this pattern in Micah 3:9 and following.

First the charge—
“Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who detest justice and make crooked all that is straight, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity. Its heads give judgment for a bribe; its priests teach for a price; its prophets practice divination for money; yet they lean on the LORD and say, “Is not the LORD in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us.””

Then the coming discipline—
“Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.”

And then a word of promise—
“It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall come…”

Six times in the first 5 chapters God the judge slams his gavel, “Guilty!” then through his covenant enforcer Micah gives the word of coming judgment, followed by a promise that after that season of judgment he will restore his people.

But there is something we must know about this judge. This is not merely an emotionally detached judge who is doing his job to see that justice is served. Don’t hear me wrong, justice will prevail in God’s court. But as we come to Micah 6, we see God make an astonishing move: after 6 sentences of “Guilty!” he steps out of the judge’s bench and steps into the role of the prosecutor. But it’s not because the seventh issue is harder to prove and requires cross-examination. No, God questions Israel because they have broken covenant with him. They have rejected his love. He is not only a just judge. He is a husband who loves Israel his wife; he is a Father who loves Israel his child; he is a shepherd who loves Israel his flock.

Turn with me to Micah 6:3, where God opens his heart to his people, with the brokenness and befuddlement of a husband that finds his wife with another man or a father who catches his son stealing from his wallet. His questioning begins our ascent toward understanding what Judah’s relationship with Yahweh was supposed to look like.

“O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember what Balak king of Moab devised, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the LORD.””

Here we see four “saving acts of the Lord” that were evidences of Yahweh’s covenant love and faithfulness to his people. And this is against the dark backdrop of Israel’s idolatry and injustice, that is, Israel’s covenant unfaithfulness. The first two—the Exodus and God’s subsequent provision for Israel in the wilderness—are well known to us. But let us look at the third and fourth “saving acts of Yahweh.”

In verse 5 Micah says, “Remember what Balak king of Moab devised, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him.” This is a story from Numbers 22-24, where Balak, an enemy king, hired Balaam, a prophet, to prophecy against Israel as they moved toward the Promised Land. But each time Balaam opened his mouth, blessings came out. Four times Balak paid Balaam to curse Israel, and four times Balaam’s prophecy was blessing on Israel, making it plain that God had blessed Israel, and though he would punish them for their unbelief, his steadfast love for them would continue.

The fourth “saving act” that God lists is “what happened from Shittim to Gilgal.” This is a fancy way of referring to the crossing of the Jordan River, since Shittim is on the east bank of the Jordan, and Gilgal is on the west bank. Here God miraculously stopped the flow of the Jordan so that Joshua and the Israelites could pass through on dry ground, just as they had at the Red Sea.

What is Israel’s response to this? They completely miss the point. They import the notion of appeasing the gods from their idolatry and apply that to Yahweh. Look at Micah 6, verses 6-7. “With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

Put in modern day English, God’s people are saying, “Ok, God, we know we’ve been faithless and have thrown ourselves to the idols of status, property, and lust. So what would make you happy? How big of a check do we need to write to the church? How much time do we need to give to the building project? How many services a week do we need to attend?”

God’s response cuts through these externals. Here is the essence of what it means to be in a relationship with God. Look at verse 8: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” In essence, what God wants more than anything is your heart; your devotion; your affections; your commitment; your desires. He wants you, not your stuff.

Throughout our time in the prophets we have seen how our spiritual condition is displayed both in our horizontal relationships with people and our vertical relationship with God. Micah 6:8, more than any other verse I know, captures not only the horizontal and vertical, but how the two are connected. He begins with the horizontal—to do justice. He ends with the vertical—to walk humbly with your God. And in the middle is the connecting point—to love kindness, or steadfast love. I want to explore this, because this is at the heart of what it looks like to be in relationship with God.

This word, translated “kindness” in the ESV, is the word we have seen throughout the prophets that represents God’s loyalty to his covenant—his lovingkindness and mercy and faithfulness. There is no stronger bond in the universe than God’s steadfast love for his people. In fact, it is the only hope the prophets have that God will not obliterate Israel from the map, because he has this steadfast love for them that endures forever. When they are disobedient he will punish them, he will take them away from their land, he will allow their enemies to prevail over them. But ultimately he will preserve a remnant for himself and continue to uphold his promises to Abraham.

One of the clearest statements of this bedrock called God’s steadfast love is found at the end of Micah. Turn with me to Micah 7:18 as the prophet celebrates the assurance of God’s continuing faithfulness to Israel:

“Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.”

Getting back to Micah 6:8, the command is for God’s people to love kindness, to love steadfast love. And it is in this command that we see the hinge point between the vertical and horizontal. The text is ambiguous as to whether “steadfast love” refers to God’s loyalty to Israel or the type of mercy and faithfulness they were to show to one another. I don’t think we are forced to choose between the two—should I cherish the steadfast love God has for me or should I be merciful toward others. In fact, the rest of scripture attests to the interconnectedness between those two experiences. It is only because we feel and know and experience God’s mercy and faithfulness toward us that we are able to display true mercy and faithfulness toward others. The only true horizontal loyalty and kindness flows from the experience of the vertical loyalty and kindness God shows us. In this sense, any hope we have to do justice or walk humbly with our God is rooted in our experience of Yahweh’s mercy.

Micah 5:1-6

Those of you who have been on short-term mission trips or any trip abroad know that one of the most challenging things about re-entry into everyday life is answering the question, “So how was your trip?” You have been in a different culture eating different food around people who speak a different language and have a different exposure or access to the gospel than you do. So to sum up two weeks of that in a word or two is impossible. At the same time, your coworkers and acquaintances are not interested in the digital slideshow and 3 hours of video footage. So when we were in Indonesia last year, our missionary hosts made us write a one-sentence answer to the question “So how was your trip?” Then we wrote a three-sentence answer then an extended answer.

If one of your acquaintances hears that you have been sitting through sermons on the Minor Prophets since the first of the year, even if they are a believer they are likely to ask, “What are the Minor Prophets about anyway?” You and I both would be quite embarrassed if, after months and months in these books you hadn’t a clue how to answer them, so I thought I would use this morning’s text as an opportunity to give us the one-sentence answer, the three-sentence answer, and yes, the extended answer.

The one-sentence answer is so simple that you can teach it to your three-year-old. In fact, it is one of the most important things you can teach your three-year-old. It is this: “God always keeps his promises.”

The Minor Prophets are certainly more complex than this sentence, so here is the three-sentence explanation of the Minor Prophets. “Yahweh established a covenant relationship with Israel and made great promises to Abraham and David. The Minor Prophets were covenant enforcers who brought God’s message of judgment when Israel broke covenant with God. However, interwoven with their messages was the promise that God would ultimately restore Israel after he disciplined her.”

I want to use the three points in these sentences to set up one extended answer to “what are the Minor Prophets about?” The three points were (1) God’s covenant with Israel, (2) God’s judgment on Israel’s sin, and (3) the hope of restoration after the discipline. Don’t think that this is merely a history lesson on Israel. What we are about to look at is an entire paradigm for dealing with hardship and waiting on God. It is the experience of looking at what God has promised, looking at the circumstances around you, and saying, “God how can there be any hope here?” It is Abraham looking at the sand that his descendants will outnumber, looking at his old, barren wife, and all he can do is laugh and rest on the fact that God always keeps his promises.

Turn with me to Micah 7:1, and let’s step into Micah’s shoes as he wrestles with how God is going to keep his promises. “Woe is me! For I have become as when the summer fruit has been gathered, as when the grapes have been gleaned: there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripe fig that my soul desires.” Micah knows the covenant promises God made to Abraham and David, but when he sees the Israel’s situation, there are very few traces of those covenants being fulfilled. He likens it to having a deep craving for some grapes or figs, going to the vineyard, and finding zero fruit on the vines. He wants to see the fulfillment of God’s promises, and he doesn’t see it.

Let’s clarify what exactly Micah was seeing. On the one hand he was looking at God’s covenant promises to Abraham and David. God promised Abraham that his descendants would be many, that he would give them the land of Canaan, and that through them he would bless all the peoples of the earth. Then to King David he promised that his descendants would sit on the throne of Israel forever.

Put those together and Micah is looking at God’s promise of a mighty nation that would bless the world, lead by a king who would rule forever. Or to use the metaphor God spoke to David, “I will build you a house.” But when Micah looks at the building materials for this great house, all he sees are wicked people led by a weak king. If you are still in Micah 7, look at verses 2-3 to get a sampling of what the peoples’ wickedness was like; to see how rotten these 2x4’s are: “The godly has perished from the earth, and there is no one upright among mankind; they all lie in wait for blood, and each hunts the other with a net. Their hands are on what is evil, to do it well; the prince and the judge ask for a bribe, and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul; thus they weave it together.” You want to build a house out of that?

Turn back to chapter 5 where we see the weak king who is leading this wicked people. Verse 1 says, “Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops; siege is laid against us; with a rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek.” The king of Israel was supposed to rule with a rod of iron. He was supposed to strike down his enemies. He was to protect the nation from invasion. And here we see that this king was not ruling with an iron rod, he was being ruled by his enemy’s rod. He was not striking his enemy; his enemy was striking him. He was not protecting the nation from invasion; Jerusalem was under siege.

Can you understand Micah’s despair? Ringing in his ears are God’s promises that he will build a house for David, and all he sees for the materials are rotten boards and rusty nails. The reaction is, “God, how are you going to build a house out of that?!?”

How many times has this happened in the Bible? Abraham looks at barren Sarah and says, “How are you going to make a nation from us?” Gideon looks at his army of 300 and say, “How are you going to win a battle with us?” Israel’s army looks at little David and says, “How are you going to slay Goliath with him?” And here Micah looks at his people and asks, “How are you going to make a great nation out of us?” How is God going to keep his promises?

Thankfully the book of Micah gives us the answer. God is going to gather a faithful remnant of his people around a great king who will rule over them forever. All the passages in Micah that give hope for the future of Israel, especially in chapters 2 and 4, contain these strands of God gathering together a remnant and with them making a strong nation. And the Lord himself will rule over this nation through a new king that he will raise up.

Turn with me to Micah 5:2 and let’s see who this king is. “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.” Skip down to verse 4. “And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. And he shall be their peace.”

This is how God is going to keep his promises—he is going to raise up a great king who will shepherd the remnant of God’s people. This is the resolution to the tension between God’s grand covenant promises and the wickedness of his people. This is the hope that explains how God is going to keep his promises.

So if you are living in Micah’s day and you despair with him when you see the wickedness of your people and the weakness of your king, the place where you turn your hope is the reign of this new king. You can say, “things may be horrendous right now, but there’s a king coming who will make all things right. He will gather a remnant and rule over us forever!”

But what should you say if you are living in 2006, and you despair when you look at the wickedness and injustice of the world, the impurity that is always creeping in the church, and even the weakness of your own life before God? Where do you look when you hear all the great promises of God, and you simply don’t see it happening? You do the same thing that they did in Micah’s day—turn your hope to the reign of this king. You say, “things may be horrendous right now, but there’s a king coming who will make all things right. He will gather a remnant and rule over us forever!”

But you can say much more than that, can’t you, because the King has already come. When wise men from the east followed his star to Israel they said, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?” Do you remember what the chief priests and scribes answered them? They quoted the words of Micah, “And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.” They followed the star to the house of a young couple named Joseph and Mary, and there they fell down and worshipped this little boy named Jesus, because he was the King.

So unlike Micah, we don’t only have the hope that a king will come, we know who this King is. He is Jesus of Nazareth—our Savior, our Master, our King. And King Jesus did all we’re reading about in Micah, didn’t he? He came from the ancient line of David. He said, “I am the good shepherd that lays down his life for the sheep.” But at the same time, when the people wanted to make him king, he slipped off into the mountains by himself. He didn’t ride into Jerusalem on a white horse to establish his eternal reign. He rode into Jerusalem on a lowly donkey and allowed his enemies to capture and kill him. And as he hung on the shameful cross, Pilate mockingly placed a banner over his head: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”

But what nobody understood is that before this King came to reign forever he first came to die for the sins of his people. He came and made peace between God and sinners on the cross. Or as Micah says, he is our peace. And this King did not stay in the grave but rose again on the third day, showing that his kingdom is not a petty kingdom like the United States or Russia or China. No, this King conquered death, sin, and Satan. And he came to his followers and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”

There is a crucial connection between this Great Commission and our text in Micah that we cannot miss. In Micah 5:4 the prophet says, “And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. And he shall be their peace.” When you and I, as subjects of King Jesus, talk about him and the forgiveness and eternal life that is offered in his gospel, we are part of seeing Micah 5:4 fulfilled. It says that he shall be great to the ends of the earth. Jesus told us to make disciples of all nations. In Acts 1:8 he said, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Jesus Christ came as the King that Micah foretold. But he came not to crush his enemies but to extend mercy to his enemies. And as more and more sinners repent or turn from their allegiance to Satan and self and bow the knee to King Jesus, his kingdom extends. As we labor in sharing this good news of the kingdom with others here in Phoenix and as we help others take the message to all nations, Jesus is doing exactly what Micah prophesied. He is gathering to himself a remnant and reigning over them as a strong King forever.

And as we enjoy the benefits of being under King Jesus’ rule, we still are in a situation like Micah where we groan because of the injustice that remains in our world. The violence, the racism, the sexual perversion, the greed—it makes us ask, where is the covenant keeping God? Where are his promises? And in that moment of despair we look to the same place where Micah looked. We turn our hope to the reign of this King. We fix our eyes on King Jesus who, after this window of mercy is over, will come and trample his enemies, rid this world of injustice, and reign over his people forever in the New Heavens and the New Earth. And he shall be their peace.

Amos 3-6

Two weeks ago we looked at the overall story of the Old Testament through the acronym AMDER—Abraham, Moses, David, Exile, Return from Exile. What we saw throughout the Old Testament was a gracious Creator who lovingly bound himself to a people through the covenant with Abraham. And that covenant relationship between God and Israel is the engine that drives the Old Testament story and sets up the one who would fulfill all the covenant promises—Jesus Christ. So as we dive into the heart of Amos this morning, it shouldn’t surprise us that God’s covenant relationship with his people is behind every aspect of Amos’ prophecies.

I am aware this morning that many of you come into this place with situations at work or home or school that seem worlds apart from Amos 3-6. Maybe there is stagnation in your relationship with God and you know you need some sort of jump-start on your faith. Wherever you are this morning, I want to provide contact points throughout our look at Amos to see how Israel’s covenant relationship with God parallels our experience of being in covenant with God. As I said a few weeks ago, I want us to look at where this portion of scripture fits into the overall story of Old Testament Israel, how that story points to Jesus Christ, and how that bridges over into our experience in 2006.

Amos 3-6 is a unit within the book and its opening words are crucial to understand not only the indictments Amos gives but also how this connects to our lives today. Look with me at verses 1-2 of Amos 3:

“Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt:
“You only have I known of all the families of the earth;
therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.””

There are two interconnected relationships here between God and Israel. One is the covenant relationship God formed with Israel. We have talked about that already. But another is the redemptive relationship between God and Israel.
Israel’s Exodus from Egypt was the great redemptive work of God in the Old Testament. It is connected with the covenant as the fulfillment of God’s covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It solidified God’s absolute covenant commitment to his people. It also became the basis of the law, as the Ten Commandments open with the words, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Therefore Israel was to live a certain way to reflect her covenant relationship to the God that had redeemed her from Egypt.

So the sinful Israel that Amos preaches to was not any nation doing what everyone knows to be wrong, like Renato covered from chapter 1 last week. Israel was God’s chosen people whom he redeemed and committed himself to in covenant. In other words, it’s not just a woman slapping a man, it’s a wife slapping her husband. And it’s not just a wife slapping her husband, it’s a wife slapping the one who found her on the streets, strung out and homeless, put her through treatment, nursed her to health, married her, and provided everything she ever needed. That’s who Israel was slapping in the face by her atrocities.

Before we look at the specific sins that Israel committed, I want to draw a connection between us in 2006 and Israel in 760 B.C. As I do that, I want to be careful not to equate an Israelite in Amos’ day with a Christian in our day. I don’t want to get bogged down in how the New Covenant that we are a part of is similar or different from the Old Covenant, but suffice it to say that being an Israelite in those days is like growing up in the church or a Christian family in our day. What I mean by that is you may grow up hearing about God and learning stories about Jesus, but it is only when you embrace Jesus’ death and resurrection on your behalf by faith and confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord!” that you truly enter into a covenant relationship with God.

So as we think about Israelites who grew up hearing songs about the God’s redemptive act in the Old Testament—the Exodus, ask yourself where you are in relationship to God’s redemptive act in the New Testament—the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. First of all, have you believed that Jesus died for your sins and that he rose again to give you life? Have you been connected to him by faith?

If you have, how much does that affect your daily life? Do you walk through each day with awareness that you deserve God’s eternal wrath for your sins against him, but Jesus came to absorb that wrath for you? Is there a consciousness of being redeemed in your daily thoughts? Are you cognizant of your former status as a slave of sin and Satan and the powerful liberation from that slavery that God has wrought in Christ? Are your eyes fixed on the eternal hope and inheritance that you have in Christ because by faith you are connected with his resurrection? Do you look at those lost friends and coworkers and family members and neighbors around you and weep that they are living in spiritual death? Do you rejoice that you experience eternal life today because God’s Spirit dwells in you and has sealed you for the day of redemption?

I ask all this because I believe part of Israel’s departure from God into sinful ways was looking at God’s redemptive work and saying, “Big deal.” And after you do that a few times, you don’t even think about God’s redemptive work at all. This is the common theme we will find throughout Amos, Micah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Joel, whether we are talking about the northern kingdom Israel, like we are today, or the southern kingdom Judah, like we will in the other four books, the heart of the prophets’ indictment is that God’s people’s hearts had departed from their Lord. They were not in tune with their status as a redeemed people. They did not feel the weight of God’s covenant love and faithfulness toward them. They had a heart of stone that was unmoved by the greatness of their redeemer.

In Amos this heart departure manifested itself both horizontally and vertically. If you’ve lost your place, turn back with me to Amos; we are going to skip around to different sections, first looking at the northern kingdom’s horizontal sins, that is, how they treated one another. Look at 4:1, “Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’” Then turn to 5:10-13, “They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth. Therefore because you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. For I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins— you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate.”

Injustice reigned in Israel. There was a lack of respect for authority, a perversion of the legal system through the giving of bribes, and extortion of the poor. It was one of the most prosperous times the northern kingdom experienced, but the rich were getting richer by walking over the backs of the poor. Amos says, “you trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him.” The rich were starving the poor to build more houses and live in ridiculous extravagance. Look at 6:4-6: “Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall, who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp and like David invent for themselves instruments of music, who drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!”

Remember what is going on here—this is not merely a social commentary to say that the rich are corrupt and the poor are oppressed and by golly something needs to change around here. Injustice is merely the symptom. The deeper issue is that God had shown his covenant mercy to Israel when they were poor, and they were expected in turn to be merciful to the poor. Remember the promise to Abraham, “I will bless you so that you will be a blessing.” It was even built into the Law of Moses that those who owned fields were not to harvest the corners, so that the poor could glean and survive. But instead of showing mercy to the poor, Israel extorted the poor. Israel, who had been enslaved to Egypt, was now playing the role of taskmasters to their own countrymen. The core sin was that they were abandoning their covenant God by ignoring his mercy and justice. And the call for repentance is captured by Amos 5:14-15: “Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”

The amazing thing is that in the midst of this injustice, Israel was still going through the rituals of religion. But God was not impressed by their hollow routine. Look at Amos 4:4-5: “Come to Bethel, and transgress; to Gilgal, and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days; offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel!” declares the Lord GOD.” Then turn to 5:21-24: “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

What is even more baffling is that Israel thought that God was on their side because they paid him lip service. There was this expectation is Hebrew thought for the “Day of the Lord”—the day when God would come down in power, vindicate Israel, and crush her enemies. But look at what Amos says about this in 5:18-20: “Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! Why would you have the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light, as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. Is not the day of the LORD darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?”

In other words, the day of the Lord was bad news for God’s enemies and good news for his faithful people. And Amos was saying, “You are acting like God’s enemies right now, so why do you want him to come down? He will only come in judgment.” And that is the language Amos uses for God’s impending judgment on the northern kingdom. Turn with me to chapter 4. In verses 6-11 God tells Israel of five distinct disasters he had sent to warn them of the coming judgment, but in each case he says, “yet you did not return to me.” Then look at what he says in verses 12: “Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”

Now turn to 5:16-17: “Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of hosts, the Lord: “In all the squares there shall be wailing, and in all the streets they shall say, ‘Alas! Alas!’ They shall call the farmers to mourning and to wailing those who are skilled in lamentation, and in all vineyards there shall be wailing, for I will pass through your midst,” says the LORD.”

God clarifies this message of “I’m coming down there” to mean that he would raise up a nation to carry Israel off into exile. They would plunder all the wealth that the corrupted rich had amassed, and would take them away from the promised land and away from their fancy houses they had built with their filthy lucre. And since the rich liked to be first in everything, in 6:7 God says, “They shall now be the first of those who go into exile, and the revelry of those who stretch themselves out shall pass away.”

Like all of the prophets to God’s chosen people, Amos ends on a positive, hopeful note, because all of God’s discipline of his people has restoration as its goal. So next week Aaron will have the privilege of sounding that note, but for now we must ask where this morning’s message meets us in 2006.

The question that looms before us based on Amos’ message to Israel is the question of mercy. Do we feel the weight of the mercy God has shown to us in Christ? Do we understand or at least attempt to plumb the depths of the covenant, steadfast love and faithfulness that God displayed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Do we shake our heads in astonishment that Jesus died for my sins and was raised again to give me eternal, resurrection life? Do we taste the sweetness of being united with Christ by faith? Do we labor to understand all of the riches that we have in Christ—right standing with God, reconciliation with God, adoption into the family of God, and the down payment of the Spirit that transforms us into the image of Christ? Do we strive not to say “Big deal” about the gospel, but rather to maintain deep sense of wonder that we are saved by grace?

These are the heart issues that we must nail down. But one way to ask ourselves these questions is to examine our horizontal relationships to see whether or not mercy is filtering out into those relationships. Am I so bathed in God’s patience with me that I am freed to be patient with my roommate or spouse or child? Young people, ask yourself this: do I really believe that God deeply loves me, and has given me the body I have and the family I’m in and the school I attend for a purpose? Am I deeply satisfied in who I am in Christ so that I can sit with the unpopular kid in the cafeteria, or for that matter, sit with the popular kids and tell them about how good God has been to me?

How do we approach Amos’ condemnation of the injustice against the poor? Certainly there are direct applications that businessmen and women can take to heart: am I building my business on unfair wages or do our company policies disadvantage a particular group of people? And there may be broader structural issues in our society to be concerned with: am I in any way supporting the person who would try to sell Renato a mortgage at 35% interest? Am I a part of any structure that advantages me because of my ethnic or economic status and disadvantages someone else based on theirs?

But deeper than all of these is the question, if God blessed me, am I seeking to be a blessing? Or do I have a “what can I take” attitude toward those who might be vulnerable or have no voice? Do I have a “what can I take” attitude toward those with great wealth or physical attraction or good connections? Does God’s boundless mercy toward me strike so deeply in my soul that I ask, “how can I bless? How can I be a channel of God’s loving kindness to that person?”

Finally, we look at our vertical relationship to ask if our worship of God reflects his great worth. Do we count it a privilege to meet with God in the morning to saturate in his Word until our hearts are happy in him? When we drive by the billboard trying to sell us the next whatever, do we counteract with a sweet confession of the sufficiency of God? When we sing congregationally, do our minds and hearts connect with the words being sung? Is God the Treasure of our lives?

Intro to the Minor Prophets

Last Sunday we walked down the Emmaus Road with Jesus and two of the disciples as Jesus, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets…interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). In one of the most significant conversations in the New Testament, Jesus showed these followers that the story of redemption—the story God had been telling for thousands of years—culminated in Jesus of Nazareth.

So as we stand on the brink of 12 weeks in Amos, Micah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Joel, I want to spend our time this morning not simply talking about dates and other historical facts, but telling the story of Israel and seeing where we are in their history. I don’t know if you have this problem, but since the Old Testament starts with Genesis—which really is the beginning—I always assumed that everything rolled out chronologically like Zander and PJ rolling out the walkway for the wedding party. While it is true that Malachi is last book of the Old Testament both in order and chronology, the middle sections don’t work that easily. Needless to say, it surprised me when I was reading in Chronicles and lo and behold, Isaiah shows up! It’s like they leapfrogged over Job and Proverbs!

So where are we in the story when the Minor Prophets come on the scene? Before I answer that question, let me make a quick clarification about the name “Minor Prophets.” We use the word “minor” in a negative sense, like, “Oh, that ballplayer isn’t good enough to be in the major leagues so he’s in the minor leagues.” That isn’t what is going on here. It’s not as if Joel tried and tried to be a Major Prophet but just couldn’t make it. No, the descriptors “major” and “minor” relate to the length of the book, not the caliber of the prophet. So Isaiah, which is 66 chapters long, and Jeremiah, which is 52 chapters long, have major length while Amos, Obadiah, and Zechariah have minor length. That’s how we can get through 5 books in 12 weeks.

Now back to our question. Where do the Minor Prophets fit into the redemption story of the Old Testament? Well, the answer is “toward the end,” but that doesn’t help much if you’re not familiar with the story. So I want to give us five highlights of Israel’s story to put everything in context. I wish they created a really cool acronym, but all it spells is AMDER, so we’ll go with that, though I doubt it will spark any Christian merchandising campaigns. Don’t expect AMDER T-shirts or wristbands anytime soon.

So here are the big points, our AMDER points—Abraham, Moses, David, Exile, Return from Exile. That covers about 1,500 years of history and includes all of the Old Testament except the first 11 chapters of Genesis, which set everything up. And for all this history, for all that is written about it, the one thing I want to emphasize is the relationship God established with his people. This is not merely the story of the rise and fall of a nation. It is the story of God Almighty establishing a relationship with a nation. We can only understand the ministry of the Prophets in terms of God’s relationship with his people.

This relationship began when God came to Abraham and promised to make from him a great nation and give the Promised Land to this nation. God formed a covenant with Abraham, and whereas most covenants, like Greg and Erin’s wedding yesterday, have each party say, “I do,” in this covenant God said, “I do. Period.” And it’s a good thing, because Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob’s 12 sons could be rascals at times. But it was God who was faithful to his promise, his covenant with Abraham.

So we fast-forward 400 years to the Exodus, when Israel had been enslaved in Egypt and God brought them out with his mighty right arm. God had been faithful to his covenant with Abraham to multiply his offspring, and now he was fulfilling his promise to give them the land. Don’t miss this—it was God’s faithfulness to his covenant that drove the Exodus. Listen to these verses from Exodus 2: “During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.” The story of the Old Testament, the story of Jesus, the story of us, it all goes back to God’s faithfulness to his covenant with Abraham.

So God brings Israel out of Egypt, destroys Pharaoh’s army, then says to his people, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery…This is how you are to live in covenant with me.” And he gives the 10 commandments and all the other laws. And as he gives the law, he tells them of all the ways he will bless them if they are faithful to God and all the ways he will curse them if they are not faithful to God and disobey his law. Again, this is crucial for understanding the Minor Prophets. Almost every curse that the Prophets either witnessed or foretold came straight from Deuteronomy 28, where God listed off the ways in which he would curse Israel if they forsook him and his ways.
We’ve looked at Abraham and Moses, and now we need to fly over the taking of the Promised Land and the period of the judges to King David. And I can’t help but throw in one word about seeing how the Old Testament story points to Christ. The book of Judges is a disaster, summed up by the last verse of the book—“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” In other words, the book of Judges, and King Saul for that matter, show what happens when there is not a good king over God’s people, and the prosperity under David shows what happens when there is a good king over God’s people. Yet David was by no means perfect, and God promised that he would put one of David’s offspring on the throne forever, and at that point you have a big, neon, flashing arrow pointing toward Jesus Christ.

For our purposes in seeing how the Minor Prophets fit into the big picture of the Old Testament story, we need to look at how we get from the D to the E in AMDER. How did we go from having a great king, David, to God’s people being conquered and carried away by their enemies?

When King David died, his son Solomon took the throne and built a magnificent temple where God’s people could worship. But Solomon strayed further and further from the Lord, in large measure because he disobeyed God and married women of other religions. In fact, the Bible explicitly says, “when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father.” The consequences for this were devastating. Listen to what God says to Solomon in 1 Kings 11:

“And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the LORD commanded. Therefore the LORD said to Solomon, “Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. Yet for the sake of David your father I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen.””

And that is exactly what happened. After Solomon died his son Rehoboam took the throne, and it wasn’t long until Rehoboam alienated the 10 tribes in the northern part of Israel, and they set up their own king—Jeroboam. And this is what we call the divided kingdom. From this point on God’s people were divided into two countries—Israel in the north and Judah in the south.

It is during this time—from the splitting of the kingdom to the fall of each kingdom—that the prophets started writing down their words. There had been plenty of prophets in the past—Samuel, Nathan, Elijah, Elisha—but they had never published their work, so to speak, though you can read what they said in Samuel and Kings and Chronicles.

So we have this divided kingdom, and the northern kingdom, Israel, starts out on a bad foot and never recovers. Jeroboam set up idols for Israel to worship, and this trend of mixing idol worship with the worship of YHWH was carried on by every successive king of the northern kingdom. 1 and 2 Kings start sounding like a broken record—and this man became king, and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin. This is where the prophets Amos and Hosea came in, to say, “if you don’t return to the Lord he will destroy you.” And they didn’t listen, so God sent the Assyrians to capture the northern kingdom, Israel, and in many ways the story ends there for the northern kingdom. If you want to read the tragic record of the northern kingdom, you can find it in 2 Kings 17.

Now that the northern kingdom dropped off the map, the rest of the story follows Judah, the southern kingdom. While Judah had plenty of bad apples for kings, they also had some great kings who sought to lead Judah in pure worship of the Lord. Sadly this was the exception rather than the rule, and about 130 years after Israel was conquered by Assyria, Judah was conquered and exiled by the Babylonians. This is the E in AMDER—Exile. And it was during this time that most of the prophets did their prophesying, warning Judah to turn back to the Lord, lest they be conquered like the northern kingdom. 4 of the 5 prophets we will be studying prophesied during this time. The other one, as I already mentioned, was Amos, who prophesied to Israel before they were conquered.

But even when Judah did not return to the Lord, God used the prophet Jeremiah to promise the people that they would only be in captivity for 70 years, then the Lord would bring them back to their land. And that is what happened. This is the R in AMDER—return from exile. During this time when the people of Judah were trying to rebuild their walls and houses and temple, God used prophets like Haggai and Zechariah to give them a kick in the pants to keep working.

AMDER—Abraham, Moses, David, Exile, and return from Exile. I hope this helps a bit, that the prophets we will be studying are between the D and the E—after king David and before the Babylonians took Judah into exile.

I hope somebody is asking the question, “Why study these prophets? How does this relate to my relationship with God today?” Here is the key. If you zoned out during the history part, please hear this one thing—this is all about a relationship. From Abraham to the return from exile the Old Testament is about God’s covenant relationship with his people. It runs across the AMDER gamut. Abraham was the one with whom God initiated the covenant relationship. Moses is the one through whom God gave the guidelines of how to live in covenant relationship with God. David received a new covenant promise that one of his offspring would rule on the throne forever. The Exile happened because God was punishing his people for breaking covenant and forsaking him. The return from Exile was driven by God’s faithfulness to his covenant despite his people’s sin. It is all about God’s covenant relationship with his people.

And as we saw last week, the ultimate fulfillment of God’s covenant promises is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham—in you all the families of the peoples will be blessed. Through Jesus Christ, the seed of Abraham, we Gentiles are grafted into the vine, so that we can read of God’s covenant relationship with Israel in the Old Testament and know that we too are part of that relationship.

The Minor Prophets that we will study all have the same message. They were given during different decades with different emphases, but the message was the same. You are in a covenant with God, and you have sinned and forsaken God. So God is going to punish you by allowing one of your enemies to conquer you and carry you out of the Promised Land. But God is faithful to his promise and will restore you. He loves you with an everlasting, steadfast, loyal, covenant love. He is a faithful husband even when you have been an unfaithful wife. He will restore you after he has punished you and you will be his people forever.

COMMUNION MEDITATION

One of the fascinating things about the Old Testament is that it not only told about greater things to come, but it gave types or pictures or foretastes of greater things to come. For instance, the Day of the Lord is one of the common themes in the prophets. And the prophets would point to disasters like the locust plague in Joel or the Babylonians burning down the temple, and use those as springboards to talk about God’s final judgment day. They said, “If you think this is bad, wait until you see God’s final judgment. Repent and turn back to the Lord before it is too late!” They used a little-d “day of the Lord” to point forward to the big-D day of the Lord, which is still in the future.

As we come to the communion table, we experience something bigger and better than they did in the Old Testament. Jesus was very intentional when he initiated the Lord’s Supper on the night of Passover. He tapped into the Jewish experience—the experience of a family raising a spotless lamb and sacrificing it so that lamb’s blood would cover the family and the Angel of Death would not kill their firstborn. Jesus used that experience to point to a greater work of sacrifice and covering: “this is my body…this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” This was not the blood of an animal; it was the blood of the spotless God-man, Jesus Christ.

Yet Jesus didn’t leave it there. Just as the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb pointed to something bigger and better—the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross—the Lord’s Supper points to something better—being with God forever in the New Heavens and the New Earth. At the first Lord’s supper Jesus said, “I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” Paul also notes the forward-looking aspect of the table: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

The bread and the cup do not point only to the sacrifice of Christ, they point to the fellowship with God that that sacrifice makes possible. Remember, it is all about the relationship. Christ died so that we could be reconciled with God and enjoy him forever!

So if you have never confessed your sins and put your trust in Jesus’ death and resurrection, do that now. As the bread and cup come by, take it and say, “Jesus, I believe that I am a sinner. I believe that you died to take the punishment for my sins and rose again to give me eternal life.” And if you are not at that point yet, please let the plate go by. The body and the blood are for those who believe. So if you are a believer, rejoice and be solemn that the Son of God died for you that you might enjoy him now and anticipate being with him forever. Our communion with God now is only a taste of our eternal fellowship with him in the New Heavens and the New Earth.

Jesus Christ: Climax of the Bible's Story

During the summer between 7th and 8th grade I attended a conference with my family in the arena where the Atlanta Hawks used to play basketball. During a break my mom pointed toward a huge replica jersey of a former player whose number had been retired, and said, “Chris, who is Hudson? I’ve never heard of him.” I looked to where she was pointing and said, “You can read that?” She said, “You can’t read that?!?” I said, “No, it’s just a big blur to me.” And that’s when I was awarded my first trip to the eye doctor.

We went the next day to get me fitted for glasses, and can you guess what the first thing I said was when I walked outside with my new glasses? “I can see the leaves on the trees!” This was quite a revelation to me. A few weeks later when we went to an Atlanta Braves baseball game, I marveled at the fact that I could see the players on the field—that they weren’t merely white dots on a fuzzy green backdrop.

For the two disciples on the road to Emmaus the encounter with Jesus was that moment when everything they were familiar with came into focus. Obviously it didn’t come together immediately for these guys since their eyes were kept from realizing who this teaching stranger was, but later when our Lord broke the bread in their presence, Luke tell us, “And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?””

I want to make two simple points this morning. The first is the tree, while the second is the new glasses that allow you to see the details of that tree. The first point is that the Bible is a story. I don’t mean by that that the Bible only contains stories, like Jonah and the big fish, Joseph and his colorful coat, and David and Goliath. I mean that the Bible is a story. All the stories, laws, wise sayings, and characters of the Bible play into this story. It should be no surprise to us that we love stories, whether in books or plays or movies or at the feet of a grandfather or great aunt. We love stories because God is the greatest storyteller of all, and unlike many stories we grow up hearing, his is real and true.

But this was nothing new to the Hebrews of Jesus’ day, including our friends traveling to Emmaus. They knew the story of the Old Testament well. What changed their lives is the second point—the glasses they put on: the fact that the story of the Bible climaxes in Jesus Christ.

The crucial verse here is Luke 24:27, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” This is to say, Jesus went back, told the story again, but this time with glasses on that brought everything into focus; he showed how the story pointed toward himself.

The story God had been telling for thousands of years was the story of redemption. God created a perfect world and created man and woman to bear his image in this world. But Adam and Eve disobeyed God and their sin became the gateway of death and corruption into the good creation. God promised them redemption from sin and Satan, and the rest of the Old Testament is the story of how God began to work through his people Israel to bring about this salvation.

So Jesus goes back through this story on the road to Emmaus and shows how he is the fulfillment of all the buildup, all the cliffhangers, all the loose ends that had been left for hundreds of years. He gave them glasses to see that Messiah was the seed of Eve that God said would crush the serpent’s head. Messiah is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abram that “In your seed all the families of the peoples will be blessed.” Messiah is the one Moses was talking about when he said, “God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.” Messiah is the one that fulfilled God’s promise to David to establish one of his offspring as a king forever. Messiah is Isaiah’s Suffering Servant. Messiah is Daniel’s Son of Man. Everything in the Old Testament pointed toward Messiah.

I don’t know how much Jesus could teach on a seven-mile walk, but Luke tells us that he left no stone unturned. He opened up all the Scriptures and showed them the things concerning himself. And afterwards, as the disciples reflected on what happened, they said, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” In other words, our people have been longing for clarity and focus for hundreds of years, and now it’s here—this Jesus is the Messiah!

So we have two simple points here: the Bible is a story, and the story climaxes with Jesus. He is the hero of the story. He is the king come to take his throne. He is the redeemer come to save his people. He brings the story into focus so we can see that the story is all about Jesus.

It is doubtless that somebody is sitting there scratching your proverbial head, saying, “This is great, but why in the world are you talking about it?” I’m glad you asked. Next week we are starting a series in the Minor Prophets that will run until Palm Sunday. Lord willing, we will preach through Amos, Micah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Joel. We will also be going through most of those books in Sunday School, where we are able to get into more detail, so that will be a valuable hour on Sunday morning.

But I still haven’t told you why this morning’s sermon is about Jesus being the point of the Old Testament story. The reason is simple. The fact that Jesus is the climax of the story of redemption means that we read that story with him in mind. Or to use Luke’s language, the fact that Jesus interpreted in all the Prophets the things concerning himself means that we should not do a study of Amos or Joel without talking about Jesus.

Think of it this way. Say your family sets out for Disneyland for a vacation, and along the way you see all the billboards advertising the theme park. Now, you have been to Disneyland five times, but your kids have never been. So when you look at the billboards promoting the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad or Splash Mountain, you remember the thrill of those rides, whereas your children are only formulating ideas of what it might be like.

That is an imperfect, but hopefully helpful way to think about Jesus and the Old Testament. The stories and characters and laws and prophecies of the Old Testament were giving snapshots of what Messiah would be like, but it wasn’t until Jesus came in the flesh that they all made sense.

So as we enter a study of some of the Minor Prophets, we don’t want to treat them as independent stories that have nothing to do with the rest of the Biblical story. We want to study them in relation to Jesus.

But at this point I want to clarify that it is the story of the Old Testament that points toward Jesus, not necessarily every little detail. Some people get so zealous about Jesus’ presence in the Old Testament that they want to show how every gem on the priest’s breastplate relates to the person of Christ. But the point of the Emmaus road encounter was the story. God had been telling a story of redemption for thousands of years, and finally the hero came—Jesus Christ.

So as we approach the Minor Prophets, which can be rather baffling sometimes, our primary question we ask is this: how does this fit into the Old Testament story that reaches its climax in Christ? We’re not as concerned about how Ezekiel prophesying on his side and cooking his food over cow dung relates to Jesus. But we are concerned about how this and other parts of Ezekiel’s ministry related to the story of redemption—the story that reaches its apex with Jesus the redeemer.

As we close this morning I want to ask this question: does your heart burn when you hear and tell and study God’s story of redemption? Have you ever had that experience of putting on the glasses called Jesus the Messiah and allowing him to draw the Old Testament story into focus? I want to challenge you to read the book of Amos this week and next week. Next Sunday I will give a general introduction to the Minor Prophets and then we will dive into Amos on the 15th. So you have two weeks to soak in the book of Amos before we preach on it. And if you read Amos and haven’t a clue where it fits into the Old Testament story, go read 1 and 2 Kings to see how the kingdom divided after Solomon and how Israel began a fierce dive into idolatry and injustice and forsook the Lord. But as you do all of that, keep your glasses on and continually ask, “How does this fit into God’s story of redemption? How does this point toward Jesus?”

Advent Sermon-John 1:14-18

Last week we saw that what we celebrate today—the Son of God coming into the world as a little baby—was not disconnected in the Bible, but rather a continuation of a story. That is, the Incarnation, the Word made flesh, continued the story of God dwelling with his people. Just as God dwelled with Adam and Eve, just as God dwelled with the wandering Israelites in the tabernacle, just as God dwelled with settled Israelites in the temple, in the same way Jesus Christ was God “tabernacling” among his people. The Word became flesh and pitched his tabernacle in our midst. And just as the glory came down to the ancient dwelling places, God’s glory was evident as John and others saw Jesus.

But why did he come? Why did God the Son put on human flesh and humble himself to be born in a feeding trough? Hopefully the first answer that comes into your mind is, “He came to save us! We were lost in our sins and he came to die on the cross and rise again for us so we could be forgiven and have eternal life!” And that would be a fantastic answer. Only 2 verses before this morning’s text, in John 1:12, we hear that “to all who did receive [Jesus], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” Jesus came to open the way for all God’s enemies to become his children. If you walked into this room as God’s enemy our prayer is that you would confess your sins and believe in Jesus as your Savior and Lord, and you can walk out of this room as God’s child.

So one reason Jesus came is so God’s enemies could become his children, that those relationships could be reconciled through Jesus’ death and resurrection. But what happens after you become a child of God? Do you go on about your life as before? Of course not! God is no longer your enemy—he is your Father now! So how do we get to know our new Father? Do we walk outside and yell to the sky, “Here I am, Daddy; talk to me!?!” Do we sit in our room and clear our minds until God speaks quietly to us? How do we know God? How do we interact with him?

These are the deeper questions that are answered when John tells us why Jesus came. Look with me at verse 18, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” No one has ever seen God—that creates a bit of a problem if we want to know God, doesn’t it? The only God—don’t miss that this is Jesus; John is clearly saying, Jesus is God—who is at the Father’s side—the Word was both with God and he was God—he, that is Jesus, has made him, that is the Father, known.

I want to do something a bit unusual and work backward through our text this morning. Verse 18 is the most concise summary of John’s prologue—these 18 verses of chapter 1. And the summary is simple. Jesus came to make God known. He came to show us who God is. He put on skin so that we could understand the divine. But how did he do that? And hadn’t God already made himself known through the prophets in the Old Testament?

Absolutely. Just like verse 14—the Word became flesh and dwelt among us—is part of the bigger story of the Bible of God dwelling with his people, verse 18 is part of the bigger story of God making himself known to his people. We are going to go into more detail about this story next week, so let it suffice for now to say God has been revealing himself to his creation from the beginning, but on this side of heaven his revelation reached its apex in the person of Jesus Christ.

So as we work back to verse 17, we see one of the great prophets of the Old Testament—Moses. It is so appropriate that John is talking about Moses here, because Moses was God’s means of making himself known to Pharaoh and Israel. It was Moses who wrote down Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It was Moses who was on the mountain with God and came down with the 10 commandments and blueprint for the tabernacle and other laws for God’s people. He was God’s main man after the Exodus for God making himself known to his people.

But look carefully with me at verse 17. Look at the verbs John uses to talk about Moses and Jesus. “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Let’s look at these verbs—“the law was given through Moses.” Moses was the messenger. He was God’s representative. He was the delivery guy, the courier. God gave his law to Israel through Moses.

Now look at what it says about Jesus: “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” I know the difference between these verbs is subtle, but I believe it makes a world of difference. When God wanted to make himself known through Moses, he sent his message with him. When God wanted to make himself known through Jesus, he sent him as the message. In other words, Moses arrives on your doorstep saying, I have a message from God. Jesus arrives on your doorstep saying, I AM the message from God.

This is how John talks about Jesus in this passage. He doesn’t say, “Jesus gave us these messages from God…” though teaching was a huge part of Jesus’ ministry. But look at verse 14. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John is telling us, “this Jesus was a spitting image of his Father. He perfectly conveyed God’s glorious grace and truth.” John isn’t merely recording the things Jesus said, he is recording who he was.

This should make sense to us. There is an unusually high number of couples in this church who had long-distance relationships, and we all know the difference between a letter and a loved one, don’t we? We know the difference between getting an e-mail or birthday card or even a phone conversation with the one we love and sitting across the table from the one we love. There are all kinds of nuances and character traits that cannot be known except in person.

So it makes sense that when God wants to give the ultimate picture of who he is, he doesn’t merely send a messenger: he sends himself. Jesus Christ came to show us what God is like, through his reaction to society’s outcasts, through his treatment of children, through his confrontation of the religious leaders, and in his death and resurrection. Jesus himself gave us much more than the words of God—he showed us the character of God. He was God in person.

John likes this word “full” to describe Jesus. In verse 14 he says Jesus was “full of grace and truth,” then in verse 16 he says, “and from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” Jesus came exuding the character of God. He was like a sponge that was full of grace and truth, and when he was squeezed, grace and truth came out. And John is saying, “we were the ones who were blessed enough to receive the overflow—from his fullness we have all received.” When John experienced Jesus, he experienced God.

In talking about this, John describes his receiving from Jesus’ fullness as “grace upon grace.” What does John mean by this? We always want to stay true to the context of the Bible, so look at the words that come after “grace upon grace.” “For, the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” The word “for” is very important in understanding what an author is saying—it gives us the reason. So what is the reason that makes John describe his experience with Jesus as grace upon grace? “For, the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

We already looked at the difference between Moses and Jesus: Moses delivered the message while Jesus was the message. Or to say it another way, it was gracious of God to communicate to his people through Moses. But it was more gracious of God to communicate to his people by coming to them in the person of Jesus Christ. It was grace upon grace.

John has more examples of this later in his gospel. In John 3 Jesus refers to the time when Israel was grumbling in the wilderness and God sent serpents to punish the people. When they repented, God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole, and whoever looked at that serpent would live. That was a gracious thing for God to do through Moses. But in Jesus we have a better grace. He told Nicodemus, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” This is grace upon grace. That is, Jesus replaces God’s grace through Moses with a better grace—himself.

We see the same thing in John 6 after Jesus feeds the 5,000. He talks about how God fed the Israelites with manna during Moses' time. Every day they would wake up with enough of this white stuff to make it through the day. This was a gift! It was gracious. But Jesus said, “The bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world…I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” Manna was a grace. But like the serpent, it was only a temporary grace; it was a shadow that pointed toward the greatest grace God has given us—himself! The Word become flesh! Immanuel, God with us! Not a piece of bronze on a pole, but the Son of God hanging on the cross for the sins of his people. Not white dewy stuff on the ground that gets us through the day, but the bread of life that eternally satisfies our spirit. Jesus Christ is the fullness of all that God is, and he is the climax of God’s revelation of who he is. He replaces all the great things about the Old Testament with the substance they were pointing toward—himself!

So we close with the question we opened with—why did Jesus come? He came to show us who God is by being God in skin. Why? So that we might know God. God is the greatest being in the universe, and knowing God, worshipping God, serving God, resting in God, pursuing God, adoring God; all that is entailed with being in relationship with God, this is the greatest experience a human being can have. Jesus Christ came not only to make that relationship possible by his life, death, and resurrection, but he came to show us who this God is that we who believe will know forever.

So let us soak in this book and get to know Jesus as well as possible. Let us live lives with singular focus—to know Jesus Christ, which is to know God. And after the Christmas lights are down let us continue to talk to others about this Jesus who came to show us who God is.

Advent Sermon-John 1:14

[This is more a Biblical Theology of God dwelling with his people than an exposition of John 1:14.]

During our weeks in John 1, we have seen that Jesus Christ is the divine, uncreated, eternal Word who has always been with the Father and through whom all things were created. These are words that can be said of no other human being in the history of the world. It is impossible to speak too much of Jesus’ greatness and centrality to everything. And John opens his gospel by infusing all Jesus’ greatness into one title: the Word.

This is what gives great weight to the words in John 1:14—“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” This is not just any old Joe that came to dwell among humans. This is the Word that came. John doesn’t merely say, “Some carpenter from Galilee hung out with us…” He says, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

These phrases—the Word became flesh and dwelt among us—are great enough for an entire sermon. But they are part of an even greater story. It’s like we just walked into the middle of a conversation or turned on the TV during the middle of a movie and experienced a climax in the story, but we’re not quite sure what has already taken place. And in this morning’s text, with the Word becoming flesh and dwelling with humans, we find ourselves in the middle of a story that began in the Garden of Eden and will continue on for eternity, that is, the story of God dwelling with his people.

Back in December of 2002, did any of you see the newspaper headlines or lead story on the 7 o’clock news when I traveled to an obscure village in West Africa? No? Do you know why? Because there was no story. So why was there a story when Audrey Hepburn or Princess Diana or Angelina Jolie or Bono visited obscure African villages? Because these are people our media deems to be great. They are superstars of one sort or another that lowered themselves to spend time with the poorest of the poor, and that is something that makes our ears perk up.

I believe the reason we are impressed with superstars in obscure villages is because we have a built in yearning to see something great break into our mundane lives. And that yearning finds its greatest fulfillment in the story I am about to tell—the story of God Almighty dwelling in the midst of his people.

The story of God dwelling with humans began at the Garden of Eden. We are told very little about what went on in the Garden before the fall, but the fact that Genesis 3 mentions the Lord God walking in the Garden in the cool of the day suggests that he and Adam and Eve enjoyed fellowship together. And after Adam and Eve sinned, one of the first consequences they suffered was a shame that made them hide from the presence of the Lord God.

I don’t want to psychoanalyze the Bible, but is this not the case in our closest relationships? When we lash out or speak behind the back of a close friend or roommate or spouse, it throws up a wall of separation so that we cannot simply enjoy their presence. And that is the greatest benefit of friendship and marriage, isn’t it? The joy of being with someone that you appreciate and who appreciates you? The greatest tragedy of the fall was not pain in childbirth or difficulty in working the ground. The greatest tragedy of the fall was the broken fellowship between God and man.

Thus the rest of the story of the Bible is the story of mercy. The Bible could have ended with Genesis 3 if God’s destroyed of Adam and Eve because of their sin. But as Stevo said last week, our God is not one to take his ball and go home when he is rejected. His mercy is more persistent than our rebellion. And thus the story continues.

Turn with me to Exodus 25. The next part of the story comes on the heels of the Exodus—God’s great redemptive work in the Old Testament. Here we find Israel at Mt. Sinai where they received the law that showed them how to relate to this God that had redeemed them from Egypt. In the first 7 verses of Exodus 25 God tells Moses to ask the people for contributions of all kinds of materials, then read with me in verse 8 he says, “And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.”

Now, put yourselves in the Israelites’, um, sandals for a moment. These people had just watched YHWH bare his mighty arm against the Egyptians. They watched him turn the Nile into blood. They watched him send flies and frogs and lice to afflict the land. They experienced the darkness he sent over Egypt. And they heard the wailing of a thousand Egyptian mothers who woke to find their firstborn son dead. Then they had the dramatic experience of being stuck between a big sea and a bad army, only to watch God part the sea in two so they could walk to the other side on dry ground, and then see him obliterate Pharaoh’s army as he allowed the walls of water to crash in over them. And this is the God that has now said, “let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.”

And in case we might not connect with the fact that this was a big deal—that God wanted to dwell with his people—we have details ad nauseam about the dimensions of the tabernacle, what kind of wood was supposed to be used for which part, what types of metals should overlay the wood, how the priests’ garments should be made, the type of candles and oil to use, etc., etc. It’s the type of material that challenges peoples’ hope of reading through the Bible in a year, because there you are, clipping away through Creation and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, then this great story of Joseph closes out Genesis, then Exodus opens with this fantastic act of God to redeeming his people from Egypt, them BAM—7 chapters worth of instructions on how to build the tabernacle. And we loose steam because we can’t understand how lampstands and alters could be as exciting as the 10 plagues. But that’s because we don’t understand what this tabernacle was all about: this was the place where God would dwell in the midst of his people.

Many of you have designed your own homes, and consequently, many of your friends and family members have had to endure your countless details on how things were going to be constructed. That’s the point here: people go into great detail about things they are excited about—like how Rachael and I got together—and the same is true for the tabernacle. Here the Israelites were so excited about the fact that God was going to dwell in their midst that they wrote chapter upon chapter not only of how the tabernacle was to be built, but recounting the actual building of it. For the sake of time I will skip over those chapters, but turn with me to Exodus 40 as we see what happened once the tabernacle was built:

“Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.”(Ex. 40:34-35)

The next phase in the story comes when Israel is established in the Promised Land, and the traveling tabernacle is replaced by the permanent temple under King Solomon. Again, we are treated to myriad details of how many tens of thousands of laborers worked on wood and stone and metal, of how high the pillars were, and how many basins, pots, and shovels there were. But amid all the details there was one reason this temple was being built: it was the place where God would dwell with his people. Listen to what happened on the day the temple was dedicated, and see if you aren’t reminded of what happened at the inauguration of the tabernacle:

“And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.” (1Kings 8:11)

Solomon’s temple was one of the wonders of the ancient world. But it’s splendor was not its architectural glory—it was the glory of God as he dwelled with his people.

While there is much more that could be said about the Tabernacle and Temple of the Old Testament, I want to return to this morning’s text in John 1:14 and see how this verse continues the story of the Old Testament. John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The connection might not leap off the page at first, but if you were a first century Jew, you would know exactly what John is doing. About 250 years before Jesus was born, Jewish scholars translated the Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek. And the Jewish people of Jesus’ day were familiar with this translation. So when a first century Jew read John 1:14 in Greek they would have seen that when John talks about Jesus dwelling among us, he uses the verb, “to set up a tabernacle.” That is, we could accurately translate the verse, “And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.”

And if that is not enough of a connection, what did we see about the tabernacle and the temple when they were inaugurated? The glory of God filled those places. And what does John say about Jesus? “And the Word became flesh and set up his tabernacle among us, and we have seen his glory.” Jesus Christ was Immanuel—God with us—the presence of God in the midst of his people. And this was not merely God’s presence in a building; it was God’s presence in a person.

Think of all the references Jesus makes to the temple. In Matthew 12 Jesus tells the Pharisees, “I tell you, something greater than the temple is here,” speaking of himself. When the disciples marveled to Jesus about how beautiful the stones and buildings of the temple were, Jesus told them that before their generation passed the temple would be destroyed. And he was right, for in 70 AD Titus came and leveled the temple, so that not one stone was left on top of another. In John 2, after Jesus cleansed the temple, he told the Jews, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body.”

Finally, when Jesus died, what happened to the veil of the temple? Torn in two, from top to bottom. Jesus opened the way for us to come to God. Everything about the temple—the sacrifices, the priesthood, the annual visit to the holy of holies—these are all fulfilled in the person of Jesus! He is the great high priest. He is the sacrifice for the sins of God’s people. He is the presence of God in the midst of his people. He is the temple. All that the prophets said about a new temple that would be more glorious than Solomon’s temple was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. All of God’s promises are Yes in him.

But what happened when Jesus ascended to the Father? Does that mean the temple is no longer with us? That God’s presence is gone from his people? That the story has ended? Absolutely not. One of the most humbling and bewildering and glorious truths of the New Testament is that we, God’s people, now that Jesus has sent us the Spirit, we are the place of God’s dwelling on the earth. Listen to these texts from the New Testament epistles:

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (1Cor. 3:16-17)

“Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For…what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (2 Cor. 6:14-16)

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
(Eph. 2:19-22)

I want us to feel the enormous weight of these words. If a person wanted to experience the special presence of God 3,500 years ago, they would go to the tabernacle. If a person wanted to experience the special presence of God 3,000 years ago, they would go to the temple in Jerusalem. If a person wanted to experience the special presence of God 2,000 years ago, they would go to Jesus of Nazareth. But if someone wants to experience the special presence of God today, all they have to do is come to a gathering of God’s people. It could be a Sunday morning service, a Saturday night steak fry, a Tuesday morning prayer meeting, or a Friday night hang-out. But wherever we are, we are the place of God’s dwelling on this earth.

So how are we doing, Whitton Avenue? When people come to your home, do they experience the presence of God? When you hang out with your Christian friends, is there something different about that fellowship than when non-believers get together? I want to clarify that God is not confined to any one place. He is everywhere—omnipresent. But his special dwelling place is among his people by the indwelling Holy Spirit. That means the den where Rachael and I worked on this sermon is as holy a place as the sanctuary where I preach it.

This would be an anticlimactic place for the story to end, wouldn’t it? We are such an imperfect dwelling place for the Creator of the universe. Will this symphony end on a stronger note, or are we it? Turn with me to Revelation 21 and let’s read the good news about how this story will continue for eternity.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.””
(Rev. 21:1-4)

Then skip down to verse 22:

“And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.”

For all eternity we will dwell in resurrection bodies in the new heaven and the new earth, and in this New Jerusalem there will be no need for a temple, because God’s presence will so permeate everything that we will always, everywhere experience the fullness of his presence.

It is difficult to imagine what this eternal dwelling place will be like, but one thing is clear: God is there. And if you take the most potent, intimate, real experience of God that you have ever had and multiply it by 1,000, that is only the starting point of your experience in New Jerusalem, where your awareness of God’s presence will grow increasing, exponentially every moment, whether you’re working the land or helping a friend put up a shed in the back yard or playing a game of soccer. That’s what will characterize life in the New Jerusalem—an always-increasing awareness of the sweet, satisfying presence of our eternal, infinite God.

And that is what this whole story is about. God knows that he is the greatest gift we can ever have, so when we were cut off from his presence he himself came to us in the person of Jesus Christ so the fellowship might be restored. If you have never been reconciled to God—if you have never confessed your sins before him and believed that Jesus died in your place and rose again—then do that today. Come to Jesus to be saved from your sin and alienation from God so that you can be with him forever. And for those of us who are believers, let us not forget that the point of salvation is not merely to get us out of hell, but that we might enjoy fellowship with God both now and forever. Let us celebrate Jesus Christ—God with us—who came to give us that eternal life.