The Greatest Gift

This is the fourth installment in a Christmas series that seeks to know the reason Christmas was necessary.  It began with creation, and how God made everything, including man and woman just as it should have been.  “Very good” were His words.

Adam and Eve were given complete freedom in a Garden that provided them everything they would ever need.  Their one and only restriction was to avoid eating the fruit from a single tree.  It was a test designed to give them daily opportunity to prove their love and trust in their Creator Father.  There was no need to eat that fruit.  But the perfection of everything God had provided them proved in their minds to be not quite enough.

Eventually the temptation overcame Eve, who then broke down Adam’s resistance as well to the forbidden fruit.  Created in the image of God and without a nature to sin they chose by that one act to disobey and rebel.  Immediately their spirits’ fellowship with God was broken, and that broken spiritual life was then passed on to all their descendants.  What God had created, including the earth, as “very good” suddenly in a moment was corrupted and dead.

Adam and Eve tried to cover up their newly discovered nakedness with fig leaves.  But, apart from the life of the tree from which they were plucked, the fig leaves at best could only give temporary covering.  And really, their attempts to hide their sin from God were silly.  Ever since men have come up with new ways to make themselves acceptable to God.  However, none have removed the taint of human depravity.

But, God had a plan.  The Scripture tells us that even before the foundations of the earth were created God knew how to fix broken people.  After all, He created us.  His plan was simple, yet so difficult, both for Him.  In fact, His plan would prove to be offensive to humanity because we like to think we can fix ourselves.  We cannot, but God can.

Throughout the Old Testament God promised the One who would provide us the way back to a relationship with Him.  He’s called by many names and given many titles in the prophecies.  So many of the stories of God’s deliverance to Israel were to point them to His plan for all of mankind.  The Law He gave to them through Moses was not designed to remove their sin, but to make it clear that they had sinned.

Through the prophets He foretold of Bethlehem, a Messiah, Emmanuel, the virgin birth, a descendant of David…so many details were given of the future Savior to let them know all was not lost.

Then when the time was right (Galatians 4:4) God came in human form to become the second Adam.  He would be born into poverty, not in a palace, and would live life, with all of its temptations (Hebrews 4:15) never sin.  Like Adam, He was born with no innate nature to sin, because like Adam He had no human father.  But unlike Adam He would show God’s intent from creation. 

More importantly, because of His unique sinlessness, He alone qualified to pay the penalty for Adam’s (and ours by inheritance) sin.  As our substitute He would be crucified, the sinless for the sinful so that we might again have a relationship with the God who created and loves us.  That baby in the manger was far more than a wonderful story.  The angels announced His birth to the shepherds that night because this was the long-awaited answer to the ultimate need of every heart.

Most amazing aspect of God’s plan is that the salvation from sin that Jesus came to provide is offered freely to all who believe in Him.  Indeed, the Christ of Christmas is the greatest gift ever given.

Why Christmas? Because Everything is Broken.

(Part 3 of 4.)

All of us have at some time turned on a mystery television show or movie well into the story line and found that because we missed the beginning we can’t follow the plot.  I’ll do that sometimes to my wife…walk in on the middle of a drama and during the next commercial ask, “What’s this all about?”  And she’ll try during the commercial break to fill me in enough so I can grasp what is happening.

Even though Christmas is about a birth, and in many ways the ushering in of something new, it’s far from the beginning of the story.  In fact, it’s closer to the end.  And if you never read or understood the third chapter of Genesis, which is back at the beginning, you could never fully grasp the need for Bethlehem’s babe.  And, as we’ll see next week, the incarnation of the Son of God – the Christmas story – was only the first paragraph of the final chapter of the story.

Maybe it is for this reason that Christmas truly has become a most misunderstood celebration.  The plea of the familiar children’s Christmas song to “be good for goodness sake” is one example of that misunderstanding because it proposes the impossible.  We can’t be good for goodness sake because we are by nature broken.  The solution is not to try to be good.  The solution is to be fixed by our Maker.

After God created the heavens and the earth and pronounced it “very good” He then placed the first of our kind, Adam and Eve, in a garden of perfection where every need they might have was met by God in creation.  Their Father provided food, shelter, vocation, and companionship all. 

He also placed within their daily view a test.  God did not create us as robots, but with a free will to choose right from wrong.  That test, at fruit bearing tree, was the only one of its kind and served as a proof of Adam and Eve’s love for their Father.  Jesus, in His teaching would state that principal this way: “If you love me keep my commandments.”  So there was a tension within paradise.  There stood the forbidden tree.  With it came a warning from God: eat from it and die.

Death was never intended for mankind.  Life was to be enjoyed and spent in fellowship with God and with one another, and meant to last forever on a perfect earth.  I don’t know if Adam and Eve were actually tempted to cross that line and eat the tree’s fruit prior to Genesis 3 and if they were how difficult was the temptation.  We’re not told.  Neither are we told how long into their lives it was when the day of infamy came.  But no doubt the restriction from God and the warning were a daily remembrance that kept them from falling.  That is until one fateful day.

Satan, the deposed worship leader of heaven who led a rebellion of angels against God had been cast down to the earth.  And it became his goal to foil and spoil what God had done – create a being with the ability to choose.  So Genesis 3 gives us the story of how Eve, then Adam failed, going from perfection to depravity.  It’s not a pretty story when you realize all that was lost, not only for the first couple, but for all of their descendants. 

Some have commented that the third chapter of Genesis is the most important theologically in all the Bible.  The impact of that fall, becoming sinners by choice has infected every human born since. We all start dying the moment we are born! 

And that’s why Christmas is indeed the total opposite.  That’s why Christmas is supposed to be merry!  It brings the Good News that God didn’t give up on His creation and that He has the fix to our brokenness.  That’s where we’ll go next week.

When Perfection Wasn’t Good Enough

(This is part 2 of 4.)
 
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This month I’m looking at why Christmas was needed.  Why did God come to earth, nurtured for nine months in the womb of a virgin to be born a pauper in a stable?  The answers are found “in the beginning” – in the first 3 chapters of Genesis.

Last week we saw how God, in His creative work made everything “good”.  That’s Genesis 1.  Then in the second chapter we’re given more information about the habitat God provided for the man and woman who first dwelt here.  There we’re told that from the dust of the ground God crafted Adam.  So it isn’t really surprising that when our bodies decay after death they return to “dust”. 

But there was Adam, (the perfect man at this point) with a list of tasks, such as naming all the animals, but without someone with whom he could share life.  I believe God knew Adam would be lonely.  He just wanted Adam to experience being alone so he would have a greater appreciation and love for the partner God then provided him.

Not from the dust, but from a rib in Adam’s side God created woman – another human like him but different.  They were to complement one another and to get busy populating the earth with offspring.  Theirs was a perfect environment in Eden.  All of their needs were met.  You can let your imagination run wild and come to the conclusion that they had it good.  It was paradise.

Imagine living in a place where you are surrounded with every kind of fruit and vegetable to eat.  And it was all perfect.  The climate was perfect.  It must have been because we’re told Adam and Eve existed in nakedness.  I’m thinking about 76 degrees with no humidity and a gentle breeze in the day and a drop to 72 at night.  Yeah.  That would be about right.  They didn’t have to work for anything other than reaching up or down to pick their meals.  And Adam never had to contend with a mother-in-law!

You would think (at least I do) that in such a perfect, sufficient, idyllic place they would have been satisfied.  I try to tell myself that I would have been!  But God put a tension there in the Garden.  In the form of a fruit tree God designed a way to test the man and woman’s love for Him.

“And the LORD God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.’"  (Genesis 2:16-17)  See that one tree?  It’s off limits.  Everything else is yours.  But eat from that one tree and everything changes.  Death comes.  Perfection is lost.

I remember as a boy my mother telling me to never play with matches.  But I would watch my dad strike a match to light his cigarette and was amazed that the strike produced a flame.  I wanted that ability to light a match.  But to do that I had to “play with matches” which I had been warned not to do.  Yet it never seemed to bring anything bad on Dad when he struck a match. 

So one day, when Mom wasn’t looking, I opened a closet door where I knew some matches were kept.  Now, I didn’t burn down the house or even start a fire.  But I did get burned.   The flame came down the match until it came in contact with my never-before-burned flesh and I screamed in pain.  A blister quickly formed and it hurt!

I should have listened to Mom.  Here I am, 50-plus years later and I still remember what happened when my curiosity got the best of me. 

God established some limits and boundaries for Adam and Eve.  Not because He was a killjoy.  Because he loved them.  But the day would come when they would exchange that love and the life they had for a momentary pleasure.  And that’s why Christmas had to happen.

Christmas Looks Back to Creation

Let me be the last to pronounce that we are in the season of Advent.  Even though we’re less than a week after Thanksgiving, we’ve seen the evidence that Christmas is coming for three months in the displays and commercials seeking to condition our minds into pulling out cash and plastic.  To a growing number the reason for the season is what stimulates the economy.

Indicative that our society has lost its memory of the meaning of Christmas was the theft last week of a Salvation Army kettle containing perhaps fifty dollars at a Belk store in Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem. 

Yet it is for these very kinds of wrongs that we need Christmas.  I’m going to use my opportunities here in December to explain just why it was necessary for Christ, the Immanuel – “God with us” – to step down from His throne on high to be born in a barn and laid in a feeding trough for livestock. 

Go back with me all the way…at least all the way as far as our existence is concerned to creation.  In the first chapter of Genesis, as God spoke the universe into existence He paused seven times to pronounce each aspect of His creation as “good”.  In fact, the last time He looked at our home and said, “It is very good”.  Of course it was!  God don’t make no junk!  (Pardon my grammar.)

Creating the day and separating it from the darkness of night caused God to say, “It is good”.  Separating the dry land from the seas, He called the continents and islands “good”.  All of the vegetation He created was “good”, (which let’s us know sandspurs came later).  Sun, moon and stars?  All “good” according to God.  The birds of the sky and the creatures of the sea were “good”.  Then He made all the animals that live on the land, from livestock to the creepy-crawlers and said they were all “good”.

His last creation was us.  Putting His own image into humanity was a step above the rest of earth’s occupants.  And when that was done verse 31 tells us, “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.”

Can you imagine with me a world void of any sort of pollution?  None of the animal kingdom was on an endangered list because the “good” earth allowed them all to thrive.  Think of the brightest, starriest night you can recall.  In the beginning every night was like that.  It was a perfect world, beautiful in every way.  In fact, we’re later told that creation itself was enough to show our world how much our Creator cared when He made all this and that He alone is God.

But something adverse would take place that ruined perfection, turning God’s masterpiece into much less.  Fast-forward to these words of Paul to the Roman church, describing what followed. 

“They [mankind] exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is blessed forever.” (Romans 1:25 HCSB)

Then fast forward again.  Way forward this time to one of the last recorded phrases uttered by Christ.  In Revelation 21:5 He says, "Look! I am making everything new."  His plan is to re-create what has been broken.  That day is yet to come.  And Christmas was a necessary event in re-creating the earth and final perfection.

(This is the first of four Christmas posts for 2013.  They are also being printed in The OuterBanks Sentinel.)

Where Were You?

Every generation has a "day" that anchors their history.  For the "greatest" generation it was Pearl Harbor Day.  My kids' generation looks back to 9-11-01.  Baby boomers claim November 22, 1963 - the day President John Kennedy was assassinated. (Second to that day might be the Beatles' appearance on the Ed Sullivan show.)

We ask each other, "Where were you?"

I found out he had been killed when our school bus stopped to let us off.  Our next door neighbor, Mrs. Fioriti, came running out to meet us, tearfully crying, "President Kennedy has been killed".  For a third grader that was a lot to process.

If you were around on 11-22-63, where were you?

Well done, Chuck Smith.

A giant in the Christian community died today.

I was fortunate to have been a high school student in Orange County, CA in the early 70's and saw firsthand the explosion and impact of Calvary Chapel in the lives of young people. Those were the days of the tent, as they outgrew their little church building and began to build something much larger.  Under Chuck's leadership Calvary Chapel was the epicenter of the Jesus Movement that reached kids from coast to coast. My estimate is that 25% of the student body of my high school were born again Christians - and not shy about it - and most of them were reached by Calvary Chapel.

After graduating from a Baptist college on the East coast I went back to my home church in Orange to serve as youth pastor. Frequently I made the drive over to Costa Mesa to check out Chuck's teaching on tapes. His commitment to the Word was so strong. And even though we did not agree on some issues, I learned you do not have to be my twin to be my brother.

My generation of Christians owes a debt of gratitude for Chuck's vision and pioneering spirit. Contemporary Christian music can point back to Chuck's willingness to let long-haired newly-saved rockers sing their from their hearts and lead in worship. Maranatha! Music, started by Chuck, became the grandfather of our worship music today.

Like all visionary leaders Chuck wasn't without controversy. But he always pointed others to Christ and lived his life with integrity. I imagine that should Jesus one day ask all in heaven who were reached with the Gospel by ministries birthed and nurtured by Chuck Smith to stand, the rest of us will be in awe at the multitude on their feet.

He's certainly heard the words, "Well done" from his Savior.

Thank God for Chuck Smith.  Pray for revival to sweep America again.

How is it? Laws, violence and mental health.

How is it that a government agency was treating him for mental illness and yet he maintained access to a military facility?

How is it that he had a record of gun abuse in his past but was hired to do contractual work on a military base?

How is it that he could purchase a shotgun so easily considering his mental health and gun background?

How is it that the US Military forbids its highly trained officers from carrying military issued sidearms on military installations?

How is it that in a city with the highest gun control laws and on a gun-free military base the laws did not work?

How is it that another city with equally strong gun control laws leads the nation in murders?

How is it that in other areas of the country with relaxed gun control laws the incidents of gun-related violence decreases?

How is it that while we have gun laws that are not being enforced some think that adding more laws will turn the tide?

How is it that mental illness and anti-psychotic drugs ars more often than not a factor in these terrible acts of mass shootings, yet restricting guns, not those drugs is the answer?

How is it that in a nation where simulated gun violence is a multi-billion dollar entertainment industry we expect our young men (who play those games) to be peaceful?

How is it?  I'm just wondering.

A Wake Up Call Forgotten

September 11, 2001.

I remember well the events of that day.  So shocking were they that the course of an entire nation came briefly to an abrupt halt before making a slight turn.  Shock turned into anger, which turned into a resolve that seemed for a while to pull this vast American union together.

The flags flew.  The seventh inning stretch became a time to sing God Bless America in place of Take Me Out to the Ball Game.  As we watched the rescue efforts at the Pentagon and World Trade Center morph into recoveries we were made ever so mindful of our own mortality.  And that triggered something within us - a spark that was encouraging, but never grew into a flame.

That following Sunday at every church in America seemed like Easter.  Everyone, it seemed came to a realization that God was important in their lives. At least for that moment He was.

But as Americans we proved once again that we live for the moment and not with eternity in mind.  The resurgence of church lasted just a few weeks before waning away.  The requests to open the church doors during the week so prayers could be made on the lunch hour faded.  And instead of making a 180 back to God we just took a bend in the road before getting back on the same old paths away from Him.

And here we are today, twelve years later.  Not only are we not closer to God, as a nation we are running in the opposite direction as fast as our relative moralities will take us.  I wonder what God thinks?  Surely this didn't surprise Him.

Preachers like myself, while hating the evil of 9-11 hoped that perhaps it was a true wake up call leading to a revival like the Great Awakenings or even the Jesus Movement.  But it was not.  Like on a rainy afternoon we were interrupted from our nap only to roll over and go back to sleep.

What will it take to bring America back to our knees?  That's where we need to be.

Before it's too late to change.

Look First in the Mirror

On Sunday afternoon after church, while Grandma was getting Sunday dinner ready it was Grandpa's ritual to take a short nap in his rocker on the front porch of their farmhouse.  One particular Spring Sunday ten year old Johnny had a stroke of mischievous genius.

He walked out to the pasture where Grandpa's dairy cows were grazing and looked for a fresh cow pie.  Taking a stick, he got the end of the stick sufficiently covered and gingerly walked toward the front porch and his napping grandfather.

Grandpa had a healthy mustache.  He told Johnny it was his "cookie duster".  He was also a heavy sleeper, which was in Johnny's favor.  Making sure no adults in the house saw him, he quietly crept up the steps and on to the porch.  With the stick he carefully smeared fresh cow manure on Grandpa's mustache.  Then as quickly as he was quiet, he got off the porch and hid behind the tractor to watch what happened next.

It only took a couple of snoring breaths before the old man's olfactory senses opened his eyes and furrowed his brow.  The squint of his eyes told Johnny that the pungent stench had Grandpa concerned.  As a farmer he was most familiar with the smells of the farm.  But this was stronger than anything he had ever experienced.

He muttered just loud enough for Johnny to hear, "Something around here stinks!".  And rising from the rocker he went on a search to find the source.  First, he went into the house.  Instead of the smell of frying chicken and baking biscuits, he smelled the manure.  "The house stinks!", he told himself.

Grandma was too busy getting the apple pie ready for the oven to notice him walking up behind her in the kitchen.  He had done this hundreds of times over their long marriage, usually to give her a quick peck on the back of her neck.  But this time as he approached her he noted the smell was just as strong.  "She stinks!".  Wisely he didn't speak the words, but just thought them.

Walking out the back door he made his way to the barn, which was filled with sweet, fresh hay.  "The barn stinks!"  Into the hen house, which usually had it's own distinctive smell he went.  But this time the smell was not the same and much stronger.  "The chickens stink!"  The smokehouse, where hams hung curing didn't have that smoky smell that makes your mouth water.  "The smokehouse stinks!".  On and on he went  into every outbuilding and corner of his barnyard.  He couldn't escape that smell no matter where he was.  Grandma's rose garden, the horse stalls, the bee hives.  Even the field planted with winter wheat ready for harvest.

Exasperated Grandpa said loud enough for all to hear, "The whole world stinks!".

Johnny couldn't hold back his laughter.  He knew the truth.  It wasn't the rest of the world that smelled so bad.  It was Grandpa.  He just couldn't see it.

Often, when life doesn't pan out like we think it should, especially if we find it unpleasant, disagreeable or uncomfortable we can quickly come to the conclusion that everyone else is in the wrong and it's someone else's fault, when in reality the problem is our own.  Instead of looking in the mirror and seeing the source of the stench we can come to the conclusion that everyone else is the problem when the problem is as clear as the mustache on Grandpa's face.

Accepting personal responsibility rather than seeking blame is often. a sign we've started at the right place.  It's a lesson we all need to learn.  Crusty manure gets hard to clean off.   But once it is discovered and cleaned, the rest of the world certainly does smell better.

Celebrating Work

How did you spend and celebrate Labor Day?  If you are fortunate, you had a day off.  If you are really fortunate it was a paid holiday.  But many of us worked on Labor Day, not to actually celebrate it, but because we needed to keep our jobs!  But by doing so you kept the local economy rolling or provided necessary services for the rest of us, and we thank you!

More than just the “official” end of the summer tourism season and the beginning of “fall”, Labor Day has its roots in the recognition of something God designed and affirms: work.  Although it is totally secular in its origins as recognition of American labor, the idea of work started even before the very onset of mankind’s creation.

In the very opening words of Scripture we’re told that God used His creative powers to form the universe, including our solar system.  For the first six days He “worked”, speaking into existence all we see or know in nature and astronomy.  Taking the seventh day off to “rest” He set examples for us.  First, work is a good and necessary thing.  Second, we should always take time off after working. 

On that sixth day, after covering all the basics of creation and the animal world God produced a creation designed in His own image: man.  And even with everything provided for him to live and enjoy life Adam and Eve were given “work” responsibilities.  They looked after the garden God had given them as their home.  He had given them intelligence no enjoyed by the rest of creation, and with that intelligence He gave them a task: name all the animals in the garden.  In what we suppose as a life of leisure there was still work to do.  And it must have been enjoyable as they came up with the names and looked after God’s perfectly crafted home.

But apparently they didn’t use their idle time wisely, and found themselves in a pickle.  Rather than trust God for everything, they fell to the temptation of thinking they could become gods themselves and picked and ate the fruit that God had forbidden.  Among the penalties placed upon them for their rebellion was a life of work.  But this work wasn’t simple and easy.  Here’s what God told them:

“The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life.  It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground…” - Genesis 3:17b-19a.  So next time your work is painful or sweaty, blame it on the poor choices of your progenitors. 

Life would be a dream if we could get back to the garden (think Crosby, Stills and Nash there).  But work – hard work is our lot.  Healthy minded descendants of Adam have learned to accept that and seek to provide the necessities, and if we’re fortunate, the better things of life through work.  Blessed we are as Americans to live in a country where we’re free to work and free to seek whatever kind of employment we desire.  Our economy stands on the backs of working men and women no matter what color their collars.

I know that there are some people who can’t wait to get up and go to work every day.  And those people are especially blessed.  But most of us likely have those days (especially if the fish are running or there’s a great swell) when we’d rather be doing something else.  But we’re blessed, if we have jobs, to be able to punch the clock and earn our living.

Thanks to all who do so.  And to those who may perhaps be currently unemployed, I hope you return to work soon.  Work is what we do, and makes a difference in so many positive ways in our society and in hour homes.