Category: Lent

This particular passage was the source of some debate during the process of gathering the material to present during this season of Lent. It does not have strong tones for a Lenten reading, however, the message presented was one we should not miss. As Christians we grow in holiness and that growth comes from several sources one of which are fellow believers. Like Peter we can be riding high of our confession that Jesus is Lord (Matthew 16:16-17) only to turn around and be in great need of correction (Matthew 16:23). Psalm 141 is a great reminder of our need of constant correction from a forgiving Savior.

O Lord, I call upon you; hasten to me!
    Give ear to my voice when I call to you!
² Let my prayer be counted as incense before you,
    and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!

³ Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth;
    keep watch over the door of my lips!
⁴ Do not let my heart incline to any evil,
    to busy myself with wicked deeds
in company with men who work iniquity,
    and let me not eat of their delicacies!

⁵ Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness;
    let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head;
    let my head not refuse it.
Yet my prayer is continually against their evil deeds.
⁶ When their judges are thrown over the cliff,
    then they shall hear my words, for they are pleasant.
⁷ As when one plows and breaks up the earth,
    so shall our bones be scattered at the mouth of Sheol.

⁸ But my eyes are toward you, O God, my Lord;
    in you I seek refuge; leave me not defenseless!
⁹ Keep me from the trap that they have laid for me
    and from the snares of evildoers!
¹⁰ Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
    while I pass by safely.

Reflection

1. How can you “eat the delicacies of a wicked person”?
2. Meditate on 141:3 and the phrase “keep watch over the door of my lips”. Journal some of your thoughts on how this applies to you.
3. In what way is a serving of humble pie a spiritual slap in the face?
4. In the introduction above two texts from Matthew 16 (v. 16-17 & 23) were mentioned. What stands out in what was said and how close these are to each other?
5. As a believer in Christ, what is your hope in all moments be it Matthew 16:16-17 or Matthew 16:23?

Audio provided by the 1517 podcast

This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Mark 14:24

I will make with them an everlasting covenant. . . . And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. Jeremiah 32:40

The Bible speaks of an “old covenant” and a “new covenant.” The term covenant refers to a solemn, binding agreement between two parties carrying obligations for both sides and enforced by an oath. In the Bible the covenants God makes with man are initiated by himself. He sets the terms. His obligations are determined by his own purposes.

The “old covenant” refers to the arrangement God established with Israel in the law of Moses. Its weakness was that it was not accompanied by spiritual transformation. Therefore it was not obeyed and did not bring life. It was written with letters on stone, not with the Spirit on the heart. The prophets promised a “new covenant” that would be different. It would be “not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6).

The new covenant is radically more effective than the old. It is enacted on the foundation of Jesus’ suffering and death. “He is the mediator of a new covenant” (Hebrews 9:15). Jesus said that his blood was the “blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (Mark 14:24). This means that the blood of Jesus purchased the power and the promises of the new covenant. It is supremely effective because Christ died to make it so.

What then are the terms of the covenant that he infallibly secured by his blood? The prophet Jeremiah describes some of them: “I will make a new covenant . . . this is the covenant that I will make . . . I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. . . . For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:31-34). The suffering and death of Christ guarantees the inner change of his people (the law written on their hearts) and the forgiveness of their sins.

To guarantee that this covenant will not fail, Christ takes the initiative to create the faith and secure the faithfulness of his people. He brings a new-covenant people into being by writing the law not just on stone, but on the heart. In contrast with the “letter” on stone, he says “the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6). “When we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5). This is the spiritual life that enables us to see and believe in the glory of Christ. This miracle creates the new-covenant people. It is sure and certain because Christ bought it with his own blood.

And the miracle is not only the creation of our faith, but the securing of our faithfulness. “I will make with them an everlasting covenant. . . . I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me” (Jeremiah 32:40). When Christ died, he secured for his people not only new hearts but new security. He will not let them turn from him. He will keep them. They will persevere. The blood of the covenant guarantees it.

from John Piper: Fifty Reasons Christ Came To Die

Reflections

1. John Piper said in our text that the Old Covenant had a weakness. “Its weakness was that it was not accompanied by spiritual ___________. Therefore it was not obeyed and did not bring ______.”
2. According to 2 Corinthians 3:6, how does this differ from the New Covenant?
3. Consider the following passages: Ephesians 2:1-7, Jeremiah 31:31-34; 32:40. What great encouragement do you gain about your security in Christ?

I will extol you, my God and King,
    and bless your name forever and ever.
² Every day I will bless you
    and praise your name forever and ever.
³ Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
    and his greatness is unsearchable.

⁴ One generation shall commend your works to another,
    and shall declare your mighty acts.
⁵ On the glorious splendor of your majesty,
    and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.
⁶ They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds,
    and I will declare your greatness.
⁷ They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness
    and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.

⁸ The Lord is gracious and merciful,
    slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
⁹ The Lord is good to all,
    and his mercy is over all that he has made.

Refelction

1. What comfort do you have that the Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love?
2. Considering Matthew 5:45 with Psalm 145:9, how is God good to all and how has he been merciful to all?
3. In what ways was God’s love aggressive?

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, ¹⁴ by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.  Colossians 2:13-14

What a folly it is to think that our good deeds may one day outweigh our bad deeds. It is folly for two reasons. First, it is not true. Even our good deeds are defective, because we don’t honor God in the way we do them. Do we do our good deeds in joyful dependence on God with a view to making known his supreme worth? Do we fulfill the overarching command to serve people “by the strength that God supplies— in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11)?

What then shall we say in response to God’s word, “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23)? I think we shall say nothing. “Whatever the law says it speaks . . . so that every mouth may be stopped” (Romans 3:19). We will say nothing. It is folly to think that our good deeds will outweigh our bad deeds before God. Without Christ-exalting faith, our deeds will signify nothing but rebellion.

The second reason it is folly to hope in good deeds is that this is not the way God saves. If we are saved from the consequences of our bad deeds, it will not be because they weighed less than our good deeds. It will be because the “record of [our] debt” in heaven has been nailed to the cross of Christ. God has a totally different way of saving sinners than by weighing their deeds. There is no hope in our deeds. There is only hope in the suffering and death of Christ.

There is no salvation by balancing the records. There is only salvation by canceling records. The record of our bad deeds (including our defective good deeds), along with the just penalties that each deserves, must be blotted out—not balanced. This is what Christ suffered and died to accomplish.

The cancellation happened when the record of our deeds was “nailed to the cross” (Colossians 2:13). How was this damning record nailed to the cross? Parchment was not nailed to the cross. Christ was. So Christ became my damning record of bad (and good) deeds. He endured my damnation. He put my salvation on a totally different footing. He is my only hope. And faith in him is my only way to God.

Reflection

1. According to 1 Peter 4:11 who should get the glory for our good deeds?
2. Meditate and/or write your thoughts and reactions on these two sentences from above: “If we are saved from the consequences of our bad deeds, it will not be because they weighed less than our good deeds. It will be because the “record of [our] debt” in heaven has been nailed to the cross of Christ.”

John Piper: Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die

G.K. Beale is one of my favorite still living theologians. He wrote this article for Tabletalk Magazine in April of 2019 and it explains in very good terms the obedience of Christ and what it accomplished.

Theologians often speak of the active and passive obedience of Christ. His active obedience consisted of His perfect keeping of the law of God throughout His life. His passive obedience consisted of His willing reception of the punishment of sinners’ breaking the law. Both are imputed to sinners who trust in Christ, so that they are seen to be perfectly righteous in Christ and without any penalty for breaking the law (see Westminster Confession of Faith 11). “Passive obedience” is somewhat of a misnomer, since Christ’s enduring the penalty of sin was an active endurance.

The passage that most strongly affirms the positive imputation of Christ’s righteousness is 1 Corinthians 1:30: “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption” (NASB, here and throughout). Believers’ union with Christ means that “in Christ Jesus” we are considered to have the same (perfect) “wisdom . . . , righteousness . . . sanctification, and redemption” that Christ possesses.

This does not mean that we possess these attributes in our personal existence on earth. Instead, we are represented by Christ as becoming these things because of our unity with Him (that is, we “are in Christ”). The phrase “to us” refers to our location “in Christ Jesus” and our sharing in His attributes.

Some object to this conclusion because it appears difficult to understand how Christ Himself was “redeemed” in the same manner that believers are “redeemed.” Accordingly, some contend that neither should the references to “wisdom,” “righteousness,” and “sanctification” be taken in a representative manner. The verse would refer only to believers’ becoming wise, holy, righteous, and redeemed through Christ, and the first three characteristics would be godly traits that should characterize increasingly the lives of Christians.

A simple word study alleviates this problem. The word translated “redemption” is sometimes used in the Greek Old Testament to refer to release from sin but is more often used to refer to liberation from harsh oppression. In view of this, it would appear to be a normal use of “redemption” in 1 Corinthians 1:30 to indicate liberation from oppression, particularly with respect to Christ. It would refer to His deliverance from death and liberation from bondage to the powers of Satan in the resurrection.

The first part of the verse augments the conception of Christians’ being represented by these attributes of Christ: it was by God’s “doing” that we “are in Christ Jesus,” and because we are “in” Him, we share positionally in His impeccable traits. Therefore, we are to boast not of our own abilities (vv. 29, 31) but of the benefits resulting from our representation by Christ.

Consequently, 1 Corinthians 1:30 supports the idea that believers are represented by Christ’s perfect righteousness and are, positionally, as completely righteous as He is (see Rom. 5:15–19; Phil. 3:9). In 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul writes, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Paul asserts that Christ took on an alien guilt and endured a punishment that He Himself did not deserve so that the sinners for whom Christ suffered the punishment would “become the righteousness of God in Him [Christ].” This means that God would view us as “not guilty” and not deserving of the penalty though we had committed sin. But our becoming “the righteousness of God” also means being identified with “the righteousness of God” not only in the death offering of Christ but explicitly in the risen Christ, so that some positive aspect of Christ’s righteousness is credited to us.

God chose a small nation to bring a GREAT Savior!

Praise the Lord, all nations!
    Extol him, all peoples!
² For great is his steadfast love toward us,
    and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
Praise the Lord!

Reflection

1. In what ways throughout Scripture has God used small things to do GREAT things?
2. In what ways throughout your life has God used small things to do GREAT things?
3. Read Acts 10:9-43. What is the significance of ALL nations coming to the Lord?
4. The Hebrew word for God’s love is “khesed”. Chad Bird commented that God’s love does not grow larger or lessen. How is this faithfulness of the Lord encouraging to you?

Today’s Lent reading reinforces what has been taught the past three Sundays at the Creek. We have been in Matthew 4:1-11 and much focus was on the humanity of Christ and while in the flesh he learned to obey and be led by the Lord.

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. Hebrews 5:8

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.
Hebrews 2:10

The very book in the Bible that says Christ “learned obedience” through suffering, and that he was “made perfect” through suffering, also says that he was “without sin.” “In every respect [Christ] has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

This is the consistent teaching of the Bible. Christ was sinless. Although he was the divine Son of God, he was really human, with all our temptations and appetites and physical weaknesses. There was hunger (Matthew 21:18) and anger and grief (Mark 3:5) and pain (Matthew 17:12). But his heart was perfectly in love with God, and he acted consistently with that love: “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22).

Therefore, when the Bible says that Jesus “learned obedience through what he suffered,” it doesn’t mean that he learned to stop disobeying. It means that with each new trial he learned in practice—and in pain—what it means to obey.

When it says that he was “made perfect through suffering,” it doesn’t mean that he was gradually getting rid of defects. It means that he was gradually fulfilling the perfect righteousness that he had to have in order to save us.

That’s what he said at his baptism. He didn’t need to be baptized because he was a sinner. Rather, he explained to John the Baptist, “Thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15).

The point is this: If the Son of God had gone from incarnation to the cross without a life of temptation and pain to test his righteousness and his love, he would not be a suitable Savior for fallen man. His suffering not only absorbed the wrath of God. It also fulfilled his true humanity and made him able to call us brothers and sisters (Hebrews 2:17).

John Piper, 50 Reasons Christ Came to Die

Reflection

1. Please meditate and ponder upon this and, if journaling, write a response of your reaction to this teaching.
2. In what way did living through suffering make Christ able to make atonement for sin?
3. In what ways does considering Christ an “elder brother” help make him more real and relatable to you?

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— Galatians 3:14

“Whom God put forward as a propitiation (wrath absorber) by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.” Romans 3:25

“ In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation (wrath absorber) for our sins.” 1 John 4:10

If God were not just, there would be no demand for his Son to suffer and die. And if God were not loving, there would be no willingness for his Son to suffer and die. But God is both just and loving. Therefore his love is willing to meet the demands of his justice.

God’s law demanded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). But we have all loved other things more. This is what sin is—dishonoring God by preferring other things over him, and acting on those preferences. Therefore, the Bible says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We glorify what we enjoy most. And it isn’t God.

Therefore sin is not small, because it is not against a small Sovereign. The seriousness of an insult rises with the dignity of the one insulted. The Creator of the universe is infinitely worthy of respect and admiration and loyalty. Therefore, failure to love him is not trivial—it is treason. It defames God and destroys human happiness.

Since God is just, he does not sweep these crimes under the rug of the universe. He feels a holy wrath against them. They deserve to be punished, and he has made this clear: “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). “The soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4).

There is a holy curse hanging over all sin. Not to punish would be unjust. The demeaning of God would be endorsed. A lie would reign at the core of reality. Therefore, God says, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them” (Galatians 3:10; Deuteronomy 27:26).

But the love of God does not rest with the curse that hangs over all sinful humanity. He is not content to show wrath, no matter how holy it is. Therefore God sends his own Son to absorb his wrath and bear the curse for all who trust him. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13).

This is the meaning of the word “propitiation” in the text quoted above (Romans 3:25). It refers to the removal of God’s wrath by providing a substitute. The substitute is provided by God himself. The substitute, Jesus Christ, does not just cancel the wrath; he absorbs it and diverts it from us to himself. God’s wrath is just, and it was spent, not withdrawn.

Let us not trifle with God or trivialize his love. We will never stand in awe of being loved by God until we reckon with the seriousness of our sin and the justice of his wrath against us. But when, by grace, we waken to our unworthiness, then we may look at the suffering and death of Christ and say, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the [wrath-absorbing] propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

from John Piper’s Fifty Reasons Jesus Came to Die

Reflection

1. John Piper said, “Therefore sin is not small.” How do you sometimes justify your sin or think in your heart that some of your sin is “small”?
2. What does the word propitiation mean and how did Jesus propitiate for you?
3. How would God be unjust if He just overlooked sin or simply decreed forgiveness?
4. In what ways does this reading increase your love and praise for Christ?

Listen to the audio above from Hidden Streams. The Scripture text is below. You can also journal or think through some reflection questions.

³⁸ But now you have cast off and rejected;
    you are full of wrath against your anointed.
³⁹ You have renounced the covenant with your servant;
    you have defiled his crown in the dust.
⁴⁰ You have breached all his walls;
    you have laid his strongholds in ruins.
⁴¹ All who pass by plunder him;
    he has become the scorn of his neighbors.
⁴² You have exalted the right hand of his foes;
    you have made all his enemies rejoice.
⁴³ You have also turned back the edge of his sword,
    and you have not made him stand in battle.
⁴⁴ You have made his splendor to cease
    and cast his throne to the ground.
⁴⁵ You have cut short the days of his youth;
    you have covered him with shame. Selah

⁴⁶ How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever?
    How long will your wrath burn like fire?
⁴⁷ Remember how short my time is!
    For what vanity you have created all the children of man!
⁴⁸ What man can live and never see death?
    Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah

⁴⁹ Lord, where is your steadfast love of old,
    which by your faithfulness you swore to David?
⁵⁰ Remember, O Lord, how your servants are mocked,
    and how I bear in my heart the insults of all the many nations,
⁵¹ with which your enemies mock, O Lord,
    with which they mock the footsteps of your anointed.

⁵² Blessed be the Lord forever!
Amen and Amen.

Reflection

1. Think of or describe a time when you have been in a place where it is always winter but never Christmas. How did it affect your prayer life?
2. What is the hope we have by praying constantly?
3. In what way was Jesus abandoned?
4. In what way does it impact you that Christ has experienced being abandoned?