Jesus is the Better Jonah

The story of Jonah's sacrifice prepares us for a better Sacrifice.

Jonah, who was guilty, was drug and thrown off the ship and sacrificed so that everyone could be physically saved from the storm. Jesus, who was innocent, wasn't drug, but willingly went to the cross and was sacrificed so that we would be spiritually saved from the storm of God's wrath.

Jonah went down to the whale for three days and three nights while Jesus was placed in his tomb for three days and three nights. Just as Jonah was spit out of the whale after these three days Jesus was resurrected out of the tomb after three days.

Jonah then went unwillingly to his enemy nation to preach the good news, but God willingly sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to ensure that every enemy nation would hear the good news.

Communicating With Angry Teens

I don’t have a teenager yet (or any kids for that matter), but I do work with teens and am interested in how to connect with them better.

Here are some good nuggets that I learned from the book “Get Outta My Face: How To Reach Angry, Unmotivated Teens”.

• Repent of your own sin before approaching others.
• Teens can and must think about their choices in light of goals and consequences. Nearly 700 times Proverbs urges teens to think about their choices in light of positive and negative outcomes of their decisions.
• Most angry teens are used to being interrogated, not listened to. Teens are asking: “Are you going to talk to me about what you want or what I want?” It’s interesting that Jesus asked people multiple times, “What do you want?”
  
• Every person has good desires given by God. The problem is that we try to get good things in the wrong ways. Therefore, we affirm the underlying desires but challenge the path they are on to fulfill those desires.
  
• Teens have underlying motives for disobeying authority. They don’t disobey “just because” they are teenagers. Getting to the heart motives (or heart idols) is necessary to change the behavior. Why are they talking on the phone 24/7? Do they want approval? Do they want intimacy? Do they want respect? Find the root problem.
• You give them the choice rather than telling them what to believe or do. Giving someone the power and authority to decide something themselves lightens the resistance and forces them to choose good or bad for themselves. You can outline the consequences of either choice, but then you must put the ball in their court. This clarification often dramatically pits the teen against himself instead of against you.
• The teachings of Jesus demonstrate the value of communicating in stages. “I still have many things to say to you, but you can’t bear them now” (1 John 16:12). God does not confront us with every area of sin and weakness in our lives in a single week. He works in stages, as we can bear it. Do we approach others with one small challenge at a time?
• The worst thing that can happen to our teen is not contracting AIDS, or having some other permanently life-altering experience, as tragic as that would be. The worst thing would be losing his own soul. Are we focusing on moral issues primarily or helping them to treasure Christ?
• Repeat what the say. Translating a teen’s feelings into your own words can show that you are tuned in (i.e. “So you are frustrated every time you try to talk to the teacher. She won’t take any time with you?”)
• If you try to give advice before the relational bridge is secure, you will probably see the conversation collapse from the teen’s disinterest.
• My favorite: Blame your teen for the good choices they are making to throw them off balance. We usually blame others when they do something wrong. But “blaming” others when they do something good can be very encouraging (i.e. Why did you do so well on that test? Why were you so respectful when my friends came over?). This will put a smile on their face.

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What Are Your Idols?

“Beloved children, keep yourself from idols.” – 1 John 5:21

Tim Keller says, “An idol is anything which occupies God’s place – it is anything upon which you will base your life. It is what you look to for your sense of meaning, happiness, and validation. When something becomes your idol, you will give it your unquestioned loyalty. You will let it run your life, determine your choices, and govern the use of your money and time. You will give yourself to it effortlessly.”

What are your idols?

Scott Sauls, in his article “Building a Christ-Centered Message and Ministry Culture” lists and expounds upon some of David Powlison’s idolatry diagnostic questions:

1. What do people feel they cannot survive or function without? In other words, what do they feel they have to have in order to enjoy life, or to be acceptable as a person? What are the things that they are terrified of losing?

2. Where do people spend their time and money with the least amount of effort? We always, without exception, will give our time and resources effortlessly to the things that give our lives the most meaning.

3. What do people tend to think and talk about the most? Another way to frame this question is to ask, “Where do their thoughts go when they are driving alone in the car, when they first wake in the morning?” What does this say about where the utmost treasures of their hearts are residing?

4. Which biblical commands are people the most hesitant to obey? This is always going to be the most revealing questions about the nature of a person’s particular idols. Whenever we choose to disobey a command of God – any command of God – at that moment in time our hearts are treasuring something or someone more than Him.

5. When do people become most angry? What kinds of people, things, or circumstances irritate them the most, and what is it about these people, things, or circumstances that give them such power over their hearts? What, if it happened, would tempt them to become angry with God?

6. How would people fill in the blank? “I cannot be happy unless ____.” Whatever is on the other side of the “unless” is the idol.

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Joseph Foreshadowed Jesus

All of the Old Testament gets us ready for Jesus. Here's some ways that Joseph's story gets us ready...

Joseph was betrayed by his own brothers. Jesus was betrayed by one of his own disciples.

Joseph was sentenced to die by his own brothers. Jesus was sentenced to die by his own Jewish “brothers”.

Joseph was used by God to prevent the death of thousands of lives from famine. Jesus was used by God to prevent the spiritual death of thousands of lives.

Joseph said to his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good - to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives,” In the same way, God used the harm done to Jesus on the cross for the purpose of saving many lives.

God delivered Joseph from death by bringing him out of the well. God delivered Jesus from death by bringing him out of the tomb.

God used Joseph's saving act to reconcile his brothers to him. God used Jesus' saving act to reconcile us to Him.

Didactic Wisdom Leads to Despair

According to Charles Drew in his book “The Ancient Love Song” there are two types of wisdom: Didactic and Reflective.

Didactic wisdom fills the book of Proverbs especially. This type of wisdom promises blessing for righteous living and warns of judgement for disobedience. This type of wisdom teaches that if you do the things written in the bible then you will get a certain reward.

But, you are probably thinking to yourself that life isn't so simple. It may be generally true that those who live rightly live well. But you may know plenty of people (yourself perhaps?) that have done what you are supposed to (followed didactic wisdom) and are not living the good life.

The book of Proverbs and the Song of Solomon illustrate the benefits of following didactic wisdom. But, things start getting really confusing when we read the book of Job and Ecclesiastes. Suddenly, we see a guy named Job who is following didactic wisdom really well but gets all of his blessings for obedience taken away. What the heck?

The fine print of Job and Ecclesiastes reads: “If you follow didactic wisdom you may not receive the blessings promised.” When The Fall happened and sin entered into the world, didactic wisdom was fractured.

The problem with a lot of preaching today is that a lot of sermons leave out the fine print. The sermon becomes a list of things to do so that you can be blessed by God. But what if you do what you are supposed to do and aren't rewarded? What if you love your wife or husband and they verbally or physically abuse you? What will you do then? Most church members have no clue.

That is why God is usually the one who gets blamed. But we are the ones to blame.

We brought sin into the world and fractured God's system of obedience and blessing in the world we live in. However, there was One who did come into the world to redeem this fractured system. Job suffered even though he was perfect from a worldly standard. But Jesus, however, not only suffered but died even though he was perfect from a heavenly standard! Jesus suffered the consequences like one who disobeyed God in every way even though he didn't deserve it.

Jesus suffered to restore the blessings promised from didactic wisdom. In other words, because of the Resurrection, we don't have to live without hope that we will not get what we have been promised. Because of Jesus' work on the cross, if we follow God's wisdom, we will be rewarded. The rewards might not come right away or even in this lifetime. But the rewards will eventually come.

The second type of wisdom, reflective wisdom, is reflecting on Jesus and what he has done for us. Didactic wisdom leads to despair because we often times don't see the benefits when we do the things we are supposed to. But when we reflect on Jesus, it leads to hope because he promises to give us blessings that we deserve AND don't deserve... sometimes right now, but often much later on.

So let's not be quick to blame God when things aren't going well even when we are doing everything right. Instead, let's praise Jesus and thank him for securing eternal blessings that are drawing nearer day by day.

How Do You Deal With Your Guilt?

People deal with their bad consciences in many ingenious ways (from Charles Drew's book “The Ancient Love Song”):

• Practicing denial by keeping themselves busy working or entertaining themselves (cable TV and video movies can easily fill every leisure hour with nonreflective stimulation).
• Balancing off the bad stuff with religious or philanthropic activity.
• Purging (subconsciously) their guilt by vigorously condemning similar failures in other people.
• Developing a philosophy or a psychology that denies the existence of true guilt.
  

How do you deal with your guilt?

No matter how you deal with your guilt, the good news is that Jesus (not having any guilt of his own) died to clear you of a guilty conscience. So now, if you are trusting in Him and His work on the cross for you, you no longer have to work ingeniously to suppress your guilt. You are free and can live without the weight of condemnation on your shoulders.

If you are a Christian and still doing any of the following (above), perhaps you need to reflect on how well you understand the gospel.

If you are walking around trying to rid yourself of guilt, chances are you struggle with pride - since you are not letting Jesus take the guilt from you.

Perhaps you have been holding onto your guilt out of a desire to fix, clean, and redeem yourself.

Tim Keller Talks To 4,000 Campus Crusade Staff

Pastor Tim Keller, author of “The Reason for God” and “The Prodigal God”, addressed 4,000 Campus Crusade for Christ staff at the national staff conference in Ft. Collins, CO.

Here are a few highlights from his two talks:

Many people who pray the sinner's prayer don't understand imputed righteousness. They think that their “surrender” or their “giving their life to Christ” is what merits God's approval. We need to be very clear that when God saves us He imputes the righteousness of Christ to us - which is the only merit we have to stand before God.

Free justification is different than forgiveness. Forgiveness is being let go but justification is the allowance to come and partake. Jail analogy: Many Christians act like prisoners who have been set free from jail but then go out and try to get a job and make money to prove themselves – because they forget that Christ has justified them already. There is nothing left to prove.

Christian ministers who haven't had the gospel sink into their hearts fully will forget that they have been justified by Christ. Therefore, they will spend their entire lives trying to produce a successful ministry as a way to justify themselves before God and to the world. If the gospel reality that Jesus is our justification isn't grasped, our motivation for evangelism will always be tainted. We will continue to share our faith to enhance our reputation, not out of gratitude because our names are written in heaven (Luke 10).

The gospel is good news, not good advice. The gospel is about something that has already happened (Christ's death and resurrection which makes us right with God) not advice (this is what you need to do to get right with God). All other religions offer advice, not good news.

Evangelism is no longer an irritation to the culture, it is an offense to the culture. Just knowing how to share our faith isn't going to cut it. We are going to have to learn how to do apologetics for apologetics.

You won't be a good messenger if you are not a good neighbor. The message is what makes us good neighbors because its purifies our motives. We can love and serve our neighbors and cities no matter how undeserving they are because Jesus sacrificed himself for us, the undeserving.