The Glorious Deeds of Christ

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’

Mark 1:3

The season of Advent is one of my favorite times of the Christian year. Advent is like New Year’s Eve, the Holy Spirit convicts our hearts to seek God afresh for the coming year. Advent is like revival, the Holy Spirit examines our hearts and speaks to our impure motives and attitudes. Advent is like a prophecy film, we are reminded that Christ is coming again and that this life is not as good as it gets. Advent is the Holy Spirit knocking on the doors of our hearts drawing us to Jesus. The expectation of Advent is the anticipation of Christ changing our hearts: minute by minute, day by day, month by month.

Advent is not an miracle out of the blue such as is offered by the preachers of revolution and the heralds of new ways of salvation. God acts in an entirely human ways with us, leading us step by step and waiting for us. The days of Advent are like a quiet knocking at the door of our smothered souls, inviting us to undertake the risk of stepping forward toward God’s mysterious presence, which alone can make us free.

Pope Benedict XVI, Seek That Which Is Above (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1986), 22.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

1 Thes. 4:16 ESV

The season of Advent celebrates three comings of Christ: one future, one past, and one present. The Christ of the first coming came in obscurity offering salvation. The Christ of the second coming will come in power and great glory judging the world. Christ comes now through the indwelling Holy Spirit calling us to intimacy and holiness with him. Three comings, one Christ, one life change, one heart, yours.

The first coming of Christ the Lord, God’s Son and our God, was in obscurity. The second will be in sight of the whole world. When he came in obscurity no one recognized him but his own servants. When he comes openly he will be known by both the good and the bad. When he came in obscurity, it was to be judged.

When he comes openly it will be to judge. He was silent at his trial, as the prophet foretold . . . . Silent when accused, he will not be silent as judge. Even now he does not keep silent, if there is anyone to listen. But it says he will not keep silent then, because his voice will be acknowledged even by those who despise it.

St. Augustine, Sermon 18.1-2.

Cindy Crosby and Thomas C. Oden, eds., Ancient Christian Devotional: Lectionary Cycle B: A Year of Daily Readings [Kindle Edition] (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011).

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

1 John 3:2-3

The season of Advent celebrates three comings of Christ: one future, one past, and one present.

Advent prepares our hearts for the second coming of Christ as we express gratitude to Christ for his first coming. Our hearts must must be prepared and ready for his return. Advent is a season of repentance for we know that Christ comes again in holiness, power, and judgment.

Advent leads us into deeper repentance: Christ comes now into our hearts by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Also, Advent is a season of joy for we are grateful for Christ’s coming in the manger: the incarnation made the way for our salvation. Advent can be summarized as life of repentance leading to a present joy-filled, fresh experience of the risen Christ.

Advent waiting is the prayerful longing to see Jesus face-to-face and experience the God’s Holy Spirit pouring upon us in love and grace. In preparation for the coming church year, we yearn for the transformation of our hearts. Advent waiting is thankfulness for Christ’s first coming while eagerly expecting Christ’s second coming in glorious majesty. Advent waiting converts our hearts as we await Christ’s physical appearance in the skies.

In this present world, we endure while calmly trusting the Holy Spirit to be Christ in us in the midst of a fallen and decadent world. In hope, we look forward to seeing our blessed Savior face-to-face.

A summary of Robert Webber’s thoughts on Advent from his book, Ancient-Future Time:

Advent is a time to prepare for the coming of the Messiah.

The Messiah’s coming is understood in three different senses: (1) His coming to earth in Bethlehem, (3) His second-coming at the consummation of God’s purposes and (3) His coming in the present moment into my life.

The coming of Messiah to me in this moment is predicated on repentance.

Repentance is not something we can take, but it must be granted us by God.

Isaiah is the prophet of Advent because in his life and prophetic word, he represented the hope of Advent.

John the Baptist and Mary, Jesus mother, reveal Advent spirituality: the former by his single-minded mission and self-giving love, the latter by her willingness to yield her life to God’s will.

Robert Webber, Ancient Future Faith: Forming Spirituality Through the Church Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2004).

HT: Joel Willitts

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Matt. 6:24 KJV

No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Matt. 6:24 NLT

The word, “mammon,” is an Aramaic word transliterated into the Greek and brought directly into the English by the King James Version translators. Modern translations prefer the word, “money.” However, money does not convey all that Jesus meant: possessions, worldly influence, materialism, absorption with wealth, etc. One does not have to be rich to be consumed with mammon: all of us in the Western world have been touch by its values at one time or another. You can be rich or poor and still be obsessed with making one more dollar and looking to that dollar to bring you joy and happiness.

Jesus speaks of two masters: God or mammon. Their loyalty is absolute: one cannot selfishly be committed to the values of this world while loving God and serving others. A choice must be made: our lives can only maintain allegiance to one or the other. How do we know if money and its values consumes our hearts and lives? George MacDonald gives us an answer.

When a man talks of the joys of making money, or boasts of number one, meaning himself, then he is a servant of mammon. If when you make a bargain, you think only of yourself and your own gain, you are a servant of mammon. . . . If your hope of well-being in times to come rests upon your houses or lands or business or savings, and not upon the living God, whether you are friendly and kind or a churl whom no one loves, you are equally a server of mammon.

If the loss of your goods would take from you the joy of your life, then you serve mammon. If with your words you confess that God is the only good, and yet you live as if he had sent you into the world to make yourself rich before you die; if it will add a pang to the pains of your death to think that you have to leave your fair house, your trees, your horses, your shop, your books all behind you, then you are a server of mammon and far truer to your real master than he will prove to you.

George MacDonald, “Jesus the Servant,” Discovering the Character of God, ed., Michael Phillips (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1989), 128.

For call those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.

Isaiah 66:2 KJV

God is “looking,” he looking for a particular man or woman: one through whom he can speak, move, and bless. That person is a “humble” person, a person who knows that they cannot live life without Jesus. At its most basic, humility is seeing yourself as God sees you: dark yet lovely (Song of Songs 1:5), weak yet strong (2 Cor. 12:9), and poor yet spiritually rich (2 Cor. 5:21).

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking less about yourself. Humility is not denigrating yourself by making yourself out to be less than the total person that God has gifted and called you to be as his servant.

Having a, “contrite spirit,” is similar to maintaining an attitude of humility: a contrite spirit is a heart that is broken, needy, and yearning for help. It’s having a sense of sin: the emotional damage caused by sin, the selfishness that wounds others, and the helplessness that paralyzes. Contriteness is an awareness that our sin has hurt God and others, but it also acknowledges that God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness is greater than our failure.

Last, “trembling” at God’s Word is an attitude of submission, openness, and obedience to God’s spoken and written word.

In all, a believer that God uses is humble, contrite of heart, and submitted to God’s Word: the same character qualities that Jesus describes as  ”poor in spirit” in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:3). The “poor in spirit” acknowledges their complete and utter bankruptcy before God. Its admitting that we are spiritually, emotionally, and physically afflicted; completely unable to save ourselves.

In conclusion, the Lord is not looking for the adequate, successful, and influential: he seeks and supports those who know their need of him.

[God] has a heaven and earth of his own making, and a temple of man’s making; but he overlooks them all, that he may look with favour to him that is poor in spirit, humble and serious, self-abasing and self-denying, whose heart is truly contrite for sin, penitent for it, and in pain to get it pardoned, and who trembles at God’s word, not as Felix did, with a transient qualm that was over when the sermon was done, but with an habitual awe of God’s majesty and purity and an habitual dread of his justice and wrath. Such a heart is a living temple for God; he dwells there, and it is the place of his rest; it is like heaven and earth, his throne and his footstool.

Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996), Isa. 66:1–4.

Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Eph. 5:20

What is a thankful heart? A thankful heart trusts God’s goodness irrespective of whether he or she understands their unexplained difficulties, chronic trials, or persistent obstacles. A thankful heart knows that the Cross has conquered this fallen world and that our troubles are small compared to Christ’s great suffering on Calvary’s tree. Thankfulness says, “yes” to God’s grace knowing that whether good or bad, God can use our circumstances for his glory and our growth.

We have received too much from God to allow ourselves opportunities for unbelief. We have received too many gifts and privileges to allow a grumbling, murmuring heart to disqualify us of our destiny. In contrast, the thankful heart sees the best part of every situation. It sees problems and weaknesses as opportunities, struggles as refining tools, and sinners as saints in progress.

Francis Frangipane

Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.

2 Tim. 2:19

Holiness of life is not an option for the believer. Belief in Christ means a changed heart that leads to a changed life. Christ must be Lord, sin must be rejected, and holiness desired and pursued. We may stumble and fall on occasion, but our heart’s desire is Christlikeness. Christ saves his people, he completely transforms us at the foot of the Cross.

Christ will be master of the heart, and sin must be mortified. If your life is unholy, your heart is unchanged; you are an unsaved person. If the Savior has not sanctified you, renewed you, given you a hatred of sin and a love of holiness, the grace which does not make a man better than others is a worthless counterfeit.

Christ saves His people, not in their sins but from them. Without holiness “no man shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). “Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Tim. 2:19). If not saved from sin, how can we hope to be counted among His people? Lord, save me even now from all evil, and enable me to honor my Savior.

Charles H. Spurgeon, Daily Help  [electronic ed.] (Escondito, CA: Ephesians Four Group), July 5.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

1 Cor. 12:27

Biblically, the Church is the people of God, the body of Christ, the fellowship of the Spirit, and the household of God. If is true that, “the church is the fulfillment of the purpose for which God created the world” [Fisher Humphreys, Thinking about God: An Introduction to Christian Theology, 210.] That purpose is to have a people who are God’s own possession, a people who love and adore him. “Once you were no people but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:10 RSV).

In addition, the Church is the body of Christ, Origen stated, “The Church is Christ manifest in the flesh, as Jesus of Nazareth was God manifest in the flesh.”  Paul affirms this truth, “Now all of you together are Christ’s body, and each one of you is a separate and necessary part of it” (1 Cor. 12:20 NLT).

Third, the Church is to be Christ on the earth and reflect the character of its redeemer, then the Holy Spirit must be present to make these truths actual. Theologian Thomas Oden proclaimed, “The fundamental requisite of the church is the presence of Christ.” Thus, it is necessary, that the Holy Spirit be resident not only in individual believers, but also with the assembly of God. “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16 NIV).

Last, the Church is the household of God, an ongoing institution, which is called to guard the deposit of faith. Missionary Bishop, Lesslie Newbigin affirmed that the Bible regards the Church as a living vibrant fellowship made real in a visible community existing throughout history. “If I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15 RSV).

Therefore, the Church is God’s own possession, the life of Christ on earth, animated by the Spirit and a visible on-going community of believers. The Church is God’s creation, led by the Lord Jesus Christ, and empowered by the Holy Spirit. To love Jesus is to love what he loves and what he loves is his Church.

Johannes Oecolampadius cited in Timothy George, Reading Scripture with the Reformers (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 41.

She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.

Mark 5:27-29

Loneliness is a dull, depressing feeling. We may feel a strong sense of emptiness, solitude, and isolation. The woman with a hemorrhage was an exceeding lonely lady. Her condition lasted twelve years, twelve years of uncleanness, twelve years of isolation, twelve years of being ostracized, and twelve years of despair. She turned to Jesus, he took her uncleanness, and gave her life. ”And he said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease’” (Mark 5:34 ESV).

A moment ago, I spoke of the time-bound idea that a woman with a flow of blood was considered unclean and that she was therefore shunned. Even the slightest contact would transfer this uncleanness to objects and other people. To that extent she was the bearer of a contagion and people had to be on their guard against her. Therein lay her abysmal loneliness–a loneliness which categories are scarcely adequate to measure.

Only when we are clear about that will will we be able to grasp the frightful and dismay-producing truth that she must confess: By her touch she made Jesus of Nazareth unclean; she had infected him. More than that, from her magic-oriented point of view, it appeared that when the miracle occurred she was suddenly freed from the burden of her uncleanness but that burden was transferred to him. He had been taken it over from her.

Helmut Thielicke, How to Believe Again (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970), 61.

I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich . . . .

Rev. 3:18 ESV

We live in a materialistic age: all the commercials, all the movies, all television shows declare that we will be happier if we use, buy, or own a certain product. We are persistently told that the more money we possess, the more happiness we will enjoy. But, the Bible speaks of a true spiritual wealth that fills the heart with a joy that never fades, a love that never falters, and a satisfaction that never grows empty.

True spiritual wealth, the sort that cannot rust or be stolen or suffer from a Wall Street crash or plummeting interest rates, is the gold that is purified of all dross and rid of every alloy by the refining fires of suffering (cf. Job 23:10; Prov. 27:21; Mal. 3:2–3; 1 Pet. 1:6–9). This is the gold of knowing Christ, enjoying Christ, savoring Christ, treasuring Christ, prizing Christ, and finding in him alone the fullness of joy that will never fade or lose its capacity to please.

Sam Storms, To the One Who Conquers: 50 Daily Meditations on the Seven Letters of Revelation 2-3 [Kindle] (Crossway, 2008).