Category: Ephesians (Page 7 of 19)

Resurrection Initiates Transformation

July 11, 2016 / Allan / 0 Comments

When you read the New Testament, when you hear the apostles’ sermons and read the apostles’ writings, the cornerstone of what they wrote and taught was not our own resurrections, but the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What’s in the Bible about resurrection certainly includes the hope of heaven, but it doesn’t start there. The center of gravity in the New Testament is in the actual event of the resurrection of Christ as the dawning of a new age. It’s not a conclusion. It’s not “Jesus is alive so he really is the Son of God, so we win, end of story.” It’s a new beginning. It’s not a pretty bow tied on to the end of a story back then; the empty tomb is a doorway into a brand new adventure right now today.

When the first Christians proclaimed the Good News of Christ’s resurrection, it wasn’t, “Hey, guess what happened last Sunday! Our good friend Jesus of Nazareth who got a raw deal at his trial came back to life after his horrible crucifixion. He’s alive! Isn’t God nice?”

No! The resurrection means a new age has begun. And we participate in it right now. There’s no waiting!

“Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved. And God has raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” ~Ephesians 2:4-6

We are already raised right now today! We are already new creation right now today! The resurrection of Jesus means everything for our future with God beyond the grave. But it doesn’t mean any less for our present with God right now today.

For starters, the resurrection initiates our transformation. Our Lord’s resurrection and our participation in that resurrection with him changes us. We’re changed right now today by the resurrection.

“You were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live… but because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead.” ~Ephesians 2:1-5

We are made alive in the resurrection of Jesus. We are no longer slaves to sin. You don’t have to sin anymore! The resurrection fuels your transformation. The resurrection starts your becoming like Christ.

Think about Jesus’ disciples. The resurrection empowered them, it changed them from frightened, scared, confused, selfish, power-grabbers into bold, courageous, imposing, sacrificial, servant-minded, self-denying witnesses who turned the whole world upside down! To be raised with Christ today is to be changed into the image of Christ today. It’s to live in the name and manner of Jesus for his salvation purposes.

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things… Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry… You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self… As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” ~Colossians 3:1-14

The resurrection compels us toward thinking and acting and speaking and looking more and more like Jesus, less and less like the world. Becoming like Christ, living the resurrected life in Christ, is right now today.

Peace,

Allan

Having All That You Need

July 5, 2016 / Allan / 0 Comments

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” ~2 Corinthians 9:8

The four words in the middle of that verse — “all that you need” — could make you think that God’s interested in giving you a bunch of material things. But he’s not. “Having all that you need” is about contentment. We all have every single thing we need. I dare say every single person reading this post has every single thing he or she needs to make it through today and tonight and into tomorrow. We all have everything we need. We just might not have everything we want. But what we want isn’t always what’s best for us, right? Paul’s talking about a contentment, a satisfaction with what God is choosing to give us. This is about you being good with what God is choosing to give you and what he’s deciding not to give you.

It’s also about knowing that the truly important things, the eternal things, the things that really matter, he gives us in abundance. We have more of the really important stuff than we know what to do with.

“the surpassing grace God has given you” (2 Corinthians 9:14) – surpassing grace, overflowing grace, enough grace to obliterate every single one of your sins and restore you to a righteous relationship with God;

“his incomparable great power for us who believe” (Ephesians 1:19) – overflowing power, overwhelming power, more than enough divine Holy Spirit power inside you to annihilate sin and death and Satan and everything that might separate you from God;

“the incomparable riches of his grace” (Ephesians 2:7) – buckets of grace, grace in spades, more than plenty of grace to be saved, it says, and to join God in doing works;

“this love that surpasses knowledge” (Ephesians 3:19) – incomprehensible love, love that blows your mind, divine love up to here, unconditional love coming out your ears; a surplus of love, it says, to fill you to the measure of all the fullness of God himself; this God who is able to do, it says, immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within you!

All that grace. All that power. All that love. Lavished on us. More than we need. Why? Why does God give us so much?

So you will abound in every good work (2 Corinthians 9:8)

So you can be generous on every occasion (2 Corinthians 9:11)

So you can supply the needs of God’s people (2 Corinthians 9:12)

So you can share with God’s people and everyone else (2 Corinthians 9:13)

You and I have all that we need, and then some. It’s a simple concept, an easy thing to understand. But once we truly grasp it and begin to live out its implications, it’s profoundly life-changing. So, try it. Double up on your tip today at the restaurant. Buy the cold drink for the guy behind you in line at the convenience store. Let somebody else go first. Give. Give. Give. Because our God has given you more than enough.

Peace,

Allan

Marriage Needs Sex

June 16, 2016 / Allan / 0 Comments

“The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again…” ~1 Corinthians 7:3-5

Paul writes almost shockingly when he talks about the importance of sex within the marriage. It’s revolutionary. He’s writing these words at a time when women were legally considered the property of their husbands. But Paul says, no, the wife owns her husband’s body in exactly the same way he owns hers. Nothing like this had ever been said before. This is a radical and unprecedented restriction on the husband’s sexual freedoms. He can only have sex with his wife. And he HAS TO have sex with his wife! Scholars and historians cannot find this thought written down anywhere in history before this — not in secular or religious writings — this idea of mutual sexual ownership.

Paul is telling married Christians that mutual, satisfying, sexual relations must be an important part of their life together. Sex should be frequent and reciprocal. One spouse can’t deny sex to the other. That plays right along with everything we know about God’s designs for Christian marriage: loving each other the same way Christ loves the Church and mutually submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Each partner in marriage has to be most concerned not with getting sexual pleasure, but with giving it.

In the movie Annie Hall, her therapist asks her how often she and Alvie are having sex and she answers, “Constantly! Three times a week!” The therapist asks Alvie how often he and Annie are having sex and he says, “Never! Three times a week!”

OK. It takes both people. We know this. Men and women are really, really different physically, emotionally, psychologically, and on down the line in as many ways as you can imagine. So, yes, it’s not easy. Nobody says this is easy. It takes all the mutual loving and submitting and sacrificing and serving that Ephesians 5 talks about.

You know, if you’re married — I hope you know this! — sex doesn’t just happen when you turn off the lights and turn on the Marvin Gaye. It’s about consistent kindness and every day listening and communicating. It’s about daily sacrifice and respect. And it’s not about you. It’s about the other and paying attention to something bigger than both of you.

So, married people, let me ask a couple of questions: Do you believe your current sex life with your marriage partner fully agrees with Paul’s encouragement in 1 Corinthians 7?

Are you and your spouse practicing this?

Sex is a powerful thing. This whole “one flesh” idea means that sex is a sign of the personal union and the means to accomplish that union. It consummates the marriage and it acts to maintain that covenant. And it’s got to happen in a marriage. It’s not a marriage without it.

It’ll also text your marriage or troubleshoot your marriage. It’s such a powerful thing. If your relationship is in a bad place, sex doesn’t work very well. Sex is so intimate and so close and so personal, it doesn’t allow you to just sweep things under the rug. If there’s mistrust or disrespect in the relationship, if there are some unresolved hurts or wounds, the sex will bring it out and force you to deal with it. Or you just stop having sex. And that’s a sure sign that you need to do some serious digging and soul-searching. There might be something you both need to address to move closer to God’s design for your sexual and emotional intimacy. For the sake of your marriage.

Listen, I know this is difficult. There’s nothing easy about this. Marriage is hard. Sex is tough. And it requires a lot of grace: grace from our Lord to us in our marriages and to us as individual Christians; and grace from us to one another in our marriages and in our churches. But we make it so much more difficult when we separate sex and marriage. Sex without marriage doesn’t work. Marriage without sex doesn’t work. You know I’m telling the truth. You probably know from your own experiences. Because that’s the way our Creator designed it.

Peace,

Allan

Sex Needs Marriage

June 15, 2016 / Allan / 0 Comments

“Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, ‘The two will become one flesh.’… Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body.” ~1 Corinthians 6:16-20

The apostle Paul forbids Christians from having sex with a prostitute. But the reason he gives is fascinating.

The “one flesh” in Genesis 2 that Paul uses here and in Ephesians 5 means more to him than just the physical union. If he were just talking about body parts, he’d be saying, “He who unites himself with a prostitute unites himself with a prostitute.” Duh! No, he says don’t unite yourself with a prostitute because remember, “The two will become one flesh.” One person. The man and woman who have sex are united at all levels of their lives. Don’t unite with someone physically unless you’re willing to unite with that person emotionally, personally, socially, economically, and legally. Paul is crying out about the abomination of physical oneness without all the other kinds of oneness that God designed to go with it.

Tim Keller says you could paraphrase Paul’s statement like this: “Don’t you know that the purpose of sex is always one flesh — to become united to another person in every area of life? Is that what you’re seeking with the prostitute? Of course not! So don’t have sex with her!”

Now, our culture says just the opposite of what Scripture says and what God’s Church has always taught and practiced. Our world finds the idea of abstinence from sex until marriage as ludicrous. Our culture can’t even comprehend the idea. Yet this is the unquestioned and uniform teaching of all the Christian churches for all time — Orthodox, Protestant, and Catholic. Right down the line. Forever. Not because the Bible has a low view of sex, but because it has such a lofty one. Sex has a divine purpose inside marriage. But when sex is separated from marriage, it can be devastatingly dangerous.

Sex makes you feel deeply connected to the other person even if you use it wrongly. That’s the way God designed it. And it works. Even if you experience it outside marriage. Sex makes you feel deeply and inseparably connected to that other person, even if you don’t want to be. As you’re physically joined, you find yourself feeling marriage-like connections even if you’re not married. You feel like the other person is obligated to you, even though that person doesn’t have the obligation to even call you the next day. So it’s messed up. And it leads to jealousy and hurt feelings and obsessiveness if two people are having sex and they’re not married. Sex makes it really hard to break up with somebody even when you and all your friends and family know you should break up. You feel so deeply connected. You feel a “forever” because that’s how it’s designed. If it’s separated from marriage, though, sex can trap you in a horrible relationship.

If you’re not married, the instruction from Scripture and the expectation of your church — and this won’t surprise anybody — is that you adopt the Christian ethic and practice chastity: No sex if it’s separated from marriage. Now, that will be very difficult, especially in a culture that will give you no support for your conviction. So, you’ll need the Christian community. You’ll need your church to act as a people and a place of open and supportive and loving family. You’ll also need the love and grace of Christ and the boldness and power of the Holy Spirit. And you should be able to find that in your church family, too.

Peace,

Allan

Sex Is From God

June 14, 2016 / Allan / 0 Comments

“A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh.” ~Genesis 2:24

The first explicit mention of sex in the Scriptures is in the second chapter of Genesis. This is the same line Paul quotes in Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 6 when he’s talking about marriage. Man and woman, husband and wife, are to be united to become one flesh.

You know, when we read this, it looks like it’s only talking about a physical, sexual union between two bodies. But it actually means a whole lot more. When Genesis 6:12 says all flesh had corrupted their ways, it doesn’t just mean bodies. It means all people. When Joel 2:28 says God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh, it means people, not just bodies. It’s like if I said I was going to “count noses” in the worship center on Sunday or do a “head count.” I’d say, “I’ve got 985!” (preacher count) and you would know I’m not talking 985 noses or 985 heads; I’m telling you how many people are in the room (more like 700). It’s very common to use a part of a thing to represent the whole thing.

So marriage is leaving your father and mother and uniting with another so profoundly that the man and woman actually become one new single person. We’ve talked about the word “united,” or “cleave” in the older translations. It means to make a covenant or a binding contract. Every aspect of the two lives are sworn together. The man and woman merge into a single, legal, social, economic, emotional, physical, spiritual unit. They give up a lot of their rights and their independence. They give themselves completely to one another.

To call the marriage “one flesh” means that sex is a sign of that personal and legal union and the means to accomplish it. It’s the God-created way to help you give your entire self to your spouse. Sex is God’s ordained way for two people to say to each other, “I belong completely and permanently and exclusively to you.”

Now, we’re not done with this. Today’s post just really sets us up for tomorrow and Thursday.

Peace,

Allan

The Creed & Historical Community

January 14, 2016 / Allan / 1 Comment

I had a great day at Oklahoma Christian University yesterday, catching up with some really old friends and maintaining connections with some more recent ones. It’s fascinating to walk into Hardeman auditorium and see Sheldon Adkins as a respected university counselor and Jeff McMillon as a respected Bible professor. Randy Roper — pardon me, Doctor Randy Roper — my play-by-play partner for all those Eagles basketball games, is the dynamic preacher for the Edmond Church of Christ. I know my own life has changed in so many wonderful ways since we were terrorizing the faculty and administration at OC back in the ’80s. Our God has faithfully shaped me and used me in ways I never could have imagined back then. To know he has done and is doing the exact same surprisingly wondrous things in others is a true blessing to my heart. We picked up with our conversation and connection like we had never left off, getting the scoop on mutual friends, re-telling the crazy stories that nobody would believe unless they had been there, laughing at the same things we laughed about twenty-five years ago. But there was added joy in the knowledge that our God saved us from ourselves and is using us to his glory and praise.

It was great to see Dillon Byrnes and Chandler Trader from the youth group back at Legacy. It was a true blessing to have Barrett Packard from our youth group here at Central introduce me to the OC chapel crowd and pray with me before I spoke. And the lunch at Alfredo’s with Adair, Randy, Barrett, and Dillon was a blast: old Delta guys in their late 40s with a couple of current Delta guys in their early 20s. And Randy.

Speaking at chapel at OC is nerve-wracking. I dread it. Tough room. Tough crowd. Impossibly high demands. I get the sense that 95% of the kids in the room don’t want to be there. I feel like none of them are listening (I know, I used to be one of those kids). Yesterday, though, seemed different from the other times I’ve spoken there. It seemed like they were paying attention yesterday, actually listening to the words of encouragement from the end of Romans 8 regarding God’s unconditional love for each of us. I wonder sometimes if the entire OC faculty and board of directors has to meet and vote first before I’m invited back to speak at chapel. I wonder if they call Terry Johnson or Richard Mock first, just to be sure they haven’t missed some kind of lifetime ban I’m under for some infraction committed in 1988. Regardless, I’m always grateful for the opportunity. And always blessed.

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“There is one body and one Spirit — just as you were called to one hope when you were called — one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” ~Ephesians 4:4-6

We’re in the beginning stages of exploring together the Apostles’ Creed here at Central. We just introduced it to our congregation last Sunday and we’re jumping into the first line together this Sunday, returning to each of the different lines in order once a month through the end of the year. I’ve received much encouragement this week since that introductory sermon in the form of emails and texts and even pictures. Some of you have placed the creed on your refrigerators, some of your children are drawing and painting the lines of the creed and hanging them up in their rooms, lots of you are wondering why you’ve never heard of the Apostles’ Creed before. Your excitement and energy about this is giving me much energy and excitement. Thank you.

In the last post here I wrote about using the Apostles’ Creed as a way to maintain theological balance. Today, let me suggest that memorizing and saying the creed together also reminds us that we belong to the historical community of all disciples of Jesus for all time. We are a part of the one body. We belong to the one called people. We confess the one faith and we are all children of the one God.

When we stand up and say this creed together, it connects us to all the Christians who stood up and said this creed together. Through the ages. The group of fifteen Christians in Asia Minor who gathered at the river and said the Apostles’ Creed as their neighbor was baptized in 265 AD. The two dozen Christians in Ephesus who said the creed together around the Lord’s Meal in one of their homes on a Sunday night in 310 AD. The hundreds of Christians in Rome who said the creed together in a brand new church building in 526 AD. The Christians in the European cathedrals in the 14th century. The Christians in the mission fields in the 19th century. All the Christians around the world who say the creed together every Sunday today. We are part of a people — think about how big this is! — thousand and thousands and hundreds of millions of people for the past 1,800 years all over the world who confess the basis beliefs of the Christian faith with these same words. It’s huge. It’s beautiful. It connects us to the people who’ve gone before us even now as the faith has been passed on to us and it’s our turn to run the race and boldly proclaim the truth about our God and his holy Son.

You say the pledge of allegiance or you sing the U.S. national anthem and it connects you to a people that were founded 240 years ago. We say the Apostles’ Creed and it joins us to an eternal people who were founded and shaped by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Peace,

Allan

Category: Ephesians (Page 7 of 19)

Resurrection Initiates Transformation

Having All That You Need

Marriage Needs Sex

Sex Needs Marriage

Sex Is From God

The Creed & Historical Community

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