Jesus Christ, King of kings. – Who Is Your King?

Facts are facts. Our problems with facts develop when we don’t like the facts, when the facts don’t support our point of view, when they challenge our lifestyle, politics, and beliefs.

She said, “Well, he’s not my president!” Obviously, she neither liked the incumbent president nor voted for him. The stubborn fact, however, is that the duly elected and sworn-in president of the United States is the president of all Americans regardless of whether a person likes him or not.

Before I get you all sidetracked by politics, let me turn your attention to Jesus Christ and Palm Sunday and the facts regarding Jesus. Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus riding into Jerusalem at the beginning of the week that ended with His crucifixion and resurrection. Mark records the moment, “Many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!’” Mark 11:8-10 (ESV).

They welcomed Jesus as King and then rejected Him when He didn’t meet their expectations and politics, they saw themselves as the king-makers. But what about the facts? Jesus Christ isn’t King because you and I decide to vote for Him or acknowledge Him as such. He is the eternal King, He has never not been the King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:11-16). He holds authority over all things: heaven, earth, the entire cosmos, all of humanity, history, every nation, all peoples, life, death, and hell (Matthew 28:18, Colossians 1:15-18, 2 Timothy 4:1).

Before Pilate, the Roman Governor, gave the order to crucify Jesus, he had the following conversation with him: “’Are you the King of the Jews?’
 Jesus answered, ‘Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?’
 Pilate answered, ‘Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?’
 Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.’
 Then Pilate said to him, ‘So you are a king?’                                                             Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.’  
 Pilate said to him, ‘What is truth?’” John 18:33-38 (ESV). Doesn’t sound like Pilate bought into Jesus being a King, does it? He certainly didn’t think that Jesus had more power than the emperor Pilate was serving. If Jesus was some sort of king, He was the kind of king you could safely ignore, which is what Pilate eventually did. He ended up yielding to the power of politics and the desire to forge his own success and destiny.

I wonder what Pilate will think when he, along with you and me, sees Jesus on the throne of heaven judging all of mankind, when “at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” Philippians 2:8-11. He met the King of kings and chose to serve a lesser king. He got an invitation to be part of God’s eternal kingdom and rejected it for what will never last.

How do you know who’s your king? You know by looking at who or what rules you, who you bow down to, whose standards and laws you follow and submit to. Maybe you’re like Pilate, who under no illusion that he was the big fish, but he made sure he ruled over as much as he could. Maybe you are like many in the Palm Sunday crowd, you know that you won’t be the king, so you settle for being part of the king-makers to make sure things will go in your direction, fit your opinion, establish your values, affirm your lifestyle.

My chances, like those of most folks, of running into a real king are minimal, but each one of us will stand and bow before Jesus’ throne and acknowledge Him as the King of kings. The only question is whether you and I will stand there because we accepted His invitation to be part of His eternal kingdom, or because we rejected His invitation and authority and had to be summoned.

Who’s your king? Who rules over and in your life? Don’t pull a Pilate and settle those most important questions according to what you declare to be true, instead listen to and submit yourself to the only King whose rule extends beyond the grave and over all of eternity, Jesus Christ. Don’t be foolish or defiant and say, “Well he’s not my king!” I … implore each one of you to walk worthy of God, who calls you into His own kingdom and glory” 1 Thessalonians 2:12.

            With Palm Sunday love and truth, Pastor Hans

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Tough Love – part 2

“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear. Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (ESV)

I am wondering just when did Jewish parents introduce their children to this? Did baby cribs come with Deuteronomy 21:18-21 carved into them? Did they sell school lunch boxes that had this on the inside of the lid? Did kids sing this in synagogue school along with the hand motions? Did parents ever have a conversation like, “And just when are going to sit down with this boy and read him Deuteronomy 21:18-21, because if you won’t, by Moses, I will?!”

  “But Miriam, he’s only three months old.”

  “Are you going to back me up on this, or what? We are not going to make the same mistake your parents made with you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t try to change the subject with me. I am telling you, if you won’t, I’m calling the Rabbi!”

As extreme as Deuteronomy 21:18-21 sounds to us today, it does remind us that every parent, no matter how much they love their child/ren, has to make tough love decisions. But that isn’t just true of parents, there are times for everyone when love will have to do tough things.

The Apostle Paul, who was fully aware of Christ’s command to “love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34-35), publicly rebuked the Apostle Peter when he caught him acting like a hypocrite and bigot (Galatians 2:11-14). I wonder if he had Proverbs 27:4-5 in the back of his mind when he did so, “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy” Proverbs 27:5-6 (ESV).

Jesus, who unquestionably loved Peter, gave him a swift verbal kick in the pants right after Peter publicly and accurately confessed Jesus as the Christ/Messiah, and then thought he could rebuke Jesus for predicting His death, burial, and resurrection. “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” Mark 8:33 (ESV), Jesus told him turning around – ouch.

The Old Testament ends with sixteen books written and named after prophets and every one of them illustrates the tough love of God. God’s tough love seeks to correct us, lead us to repentance, forsake sin, give up foolishness, turn us into blessers, establish godly habits, develop righteous character, sow goodness, promote harmony and unity, and cause us to love Him and others more, “For the LORD corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights” Proverbs 3:12 (NLT2).

Tough loving is still loving, so it has to know when to ease up. The Corinthian Church had to collectively exercise some tough love on a man who was causing grief and hurt. It seems he responded well to that tough love by repenting, changing his ways, and setting things right. Paul reminded them, “Now, however, it is time to forgive and comfort him. Otherwise he may be overcome by discouragement. So I urge you now to reaffirm your love for him” 2 Corinthians 2:7-8 (NLT2).

May God help you and me to be very good at love, just as He commanded us, and be even better and careful when it comes to exercising tough love.

            To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans

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Unleashing Your Capacity to Love – Part 2

Have you ever gotten lost? Totally turned around? I’m not talking geographically but lost in life. The Corinthian Christians had gotten themselves very lost, sounds like an oxymoron since becoming Christian involves being found and saved. They weren’t lost regarding the salvation of their souls, but they for sure had lost their way when it came to living the Christian life.

What they had lost sight of the most was the supreme importance of loving one another as Christ loved them. They were Christians but behaved like the non-Christian world, and in some instances worse than unbelievers. They got lost in factiousness, immorality, greed, chasing the miraculous, pride, and more. They got so lost in living the Christian life that Jesus’ new command, “Love one another, even as I have loved you, you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” John 13:34-35), was good for the fancy sign over their church doors but found no application in everyday life.

When God commands us to do something, it implies that we can count on His support and that we are capable of carrying out that command. If James had stopped by, he would have said, “Remember, if you keep the royal law prescribed in the Scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well,” and, “It is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it” (James 2:8 & 4:17 (NLT2, italics mine). Paul on the other hand told them what they specifically needed to focus on if they were going to keep God’s commands of loving their neighbor and each other like Christ loved them, “Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not conceited, does not act improperly, is not selfish, is not provoked, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (HCSB).

Did you notice that for the Corinthians, and you and me, to unleash our God-given capacity to love requires us to consistently practice some things, like being patient with and kind to others, and we need to reign in other things, like envy, conceit, and keeping score? Unleashing the love of God requires obedience, you can be kind even when you don’t feel like it, but it also requires obedience of restraint, of not doing certain things even if you feel like or think you are justified doing them.

How much of your God-given ability to love others is being realized? How much of it is being squelched because you are lost in Christless attitudes, thinking, desires, and practices?

Take your Bible and go find a mirror to stand in front of. Then look up 1 Corinthians 13. Once you have found it, slowly read it to that person looking at you and pray that he or she will have ears to hear. Then ask yourself who you are not patient with, not kind to, not …, that will get you started on where more and what of your love capacity needs to be unleashed. Then check on things you are not reigning in, like envy, conceit, selfishness, …, that will get you started on dealing with specific attitudes and behaviors that continually sabotage, constrict, and hinder your capacity to love.

If there is one thing we want to get right as followers of Jesus, Christians, and as a church, loving like Jesus commanded us is it. Can I hear an “AMEN!” Now give that “AMEN!” some real-life, real-love meaning, because you can, because God delights in it, and because others will be blessed by it.

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans

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Tough Love

I yanked back his little hand and slapped it, made him look into my eyes, and with a raised voice told him, “Don’t you ever, ever, never stick anything in any outlet, ever again! Do you understand?” Of course, he didn’t understand, heck, I still don’t understand electricity myself, but I do know it is dangerous.

Susie and I also had the “Don’t ever lie to me again!” talks, dished out the “You’re grounded!” verdicts, and had to figure out various consequences and punishments for bad, unwise, destructive, stupid, mean, selfish, and “I know you know better” kind of behaviors. Not because we wanted to or couldn’t wait to do so, but because these were our kids and because we loved them like no one else.

Hebrews 12:4-11 quotes and elaborates on Proverbs 3:11-12, “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.  And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: ‘My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.’ Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” Hebrews 12:4-11 (NIV).

We don’t usually think of discipline, punishment, and allowing hardships when we think of love, nor does the word “encouragement” immediately spring to our minds reading, “My child, do not despise the LORD’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the child he delights in,” Proverbs 3:11-12 (NIV, italics mine). That’s because we are culturally conditioned to think that love is always unconditional, permissive, tolerant, accommodating, and equal, none of which neither Scripture (the Bible) nor real-life experience supports.

Those Hebrew Christians, children of God, needed to grow up. They needed more holiness, more righteous behavior, and more stability/peace. The previous eleven chapters indicted them of theological immaturity, not learning from history, slowness of learning, inability to discern good and evil, incomplete understanding of Jesus, and a weak and fickle faith. None of these helped with navigating life and coping with hardships and persecution. What they needed was a growing faith, deeper understanding, and maturity – as do you and I.

Do you want God to treat and love you like His child? If your answer is, “Yes,” then first you need to ask yourself whether you have been born again by repenting of your sin and believing in Christ as your Savior. It is the only way to become a legitimate son or daughter of God. Then you need to ask yourself if you are growing, maturing in this faith you have placed in Christ, or do you continue to be a spiritual baby, living in continual defeat and discouragement, and are unable to recognize God’s loving discipline when you are trying to push yet another paper clip in an electrical outlet?

Someone said, “God loves you as you are, but He loves you too much to leave you as you are.” When God is your Father, you should expect that His love will be relentless in shaping you towards holiness, tenacity, righteous character, strong faith, and Christlikeness. In this process, His discipline is often very tough, even painful, but always, always for our own good. Thank you, Lord.

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans

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