FreeTruth

Have you ever had someone wash your feet? I'm not sure you can fully enter into the emotion of the scene in John 13:1-15 if you have not. Recently we were discussing this scene at our care group. One of our young women commented on what it would have been like to be sitting above our Lord as he humbled himself in the position of a slave or servant to wash our dirty feet while looking up into our eyes. Could we bear such a moment?

Eight years ago as we prepared to take our youth group to Brazil I had to sit above one of the young men who had diligently served me in this project for two years. He asked to wash my feet and the emotion I felt towards him at that moment made me understand why Peter would blurt out, "Lord, you shall never wash my feet." It was deeply humbling. As tears flooded my eyes, it was actually painful having someone I cared so much about take a position of humility below me and look into my eyes.

Jesus then wraps his garment around him and sits back at the table. Were the disciples dumbfounded, in shock, having watched Jesus lovingly touch each disciple? Were they were confused? Did their hearts burn with love?

He says to them, "If I then, your Lord, and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you." This act of great humility Jesus meant as a teaching tool, to be followed by his atoning sacrifice on the cross.

We are to take up our cross and follow him daily. But what about washing one another's feet or, perhaps more applicable, serving one another with the humility of Philippians 2, putting ourselves beneath the concerns of another brother or sister in Christ?

I think this example is one we all embrace in our "one anothering," yet do we remember that Judas was also one whom Jesus knelt before, perhaps looked into his face and washed his dirty feet knowing full well his dirty heart. That reality causes my heart to cry out along with John, "Behold, what kind of love is this?"

It is a self denying love, a hard love to live up to, a love that we desperately need to have infused into our hearts from our Father. It is the love that resided in Jesus as he set His face toward Jerusalem. This Lenten season, ponder this love, setting our affections upon the Lover, by grace getting beneath our brothers and sisters, taking advantage of opportunities to serve. Perhaps in the process we will be blessed to see them with the eyes of Jesus and cultivate a deeper love for one another.

Holding a feeble hand of a weak brother, encouraging the faint heart of a sister, admonishing a rebel soul back towards repentance to their loving Savior, will all result in new affections in our hearts towards one another and a greater appreciation for our Teacher who led us by His humble example as seen in John 13:1-15.

by Pat Bowditch

Labels: God's Love, Guest Post, Humility, Lent, Servanthood, The Love of Christ

I squared off with a couple of Jehovah's witnesses last Thursday morning. A middle aged woman and a teenage girl came to our door asking if they could leave me two copies of AWAKE magazine, and follow up later.

I'm not sure why, but when this happens, I immediately move into a stiff and nervous debate mode. I confess, I completely lost sight of the fact that these two ladies are loved by God. Suddenly, I am the defender of the faith, the apologist. The love? Well, I don't know what happens to it, but it wasn't evident in those few moments when I bulldozed these two unsuspecting ladies. The fifteen year old girl was far more gentle than I was.

In the end, it probably didn't matter that I quoted four or five O.T. Messianic passages from memory, or that I pointed out how Charles Russell didn't know the Greek alphabet and yet spearheaded the New World Translation, or that one can't call oneself a Christian and depart from 2000 years of universally held Christology.

They soon walked away with the older woman saying, "well that's your opinion." I'm quite sure they did not feel cared for in any sense. I didn't even answer in kind when they told me to "have a nice day."

As I reflected on the scene later that day, I was sure that it would have been more fruitful for me to have gently stated my (orthodox) views about the deity of Christ. I could have humbly expressed that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is a deep mystery, and then genuinely indicate my concern for them for standing outside the Tradition of the Church by embracing a heresy that was condemned by the Church about 17 centuries ago.

If we are going to try to be "wise as serpents" we must also try to be "gentle as doves."

Labels: Apologetics, God's Love, Guest Post

When Paul adds in Philippians 2:8 that our Lord's death was "even the death of the cross", he was not simply adding an inconsequential historical piece of trivia; he was adding a detail with huge redemptive significance. In my message Sunday I highlighted the fact that the Bible goes out of its way to tell us, not only that Jesus died, but also the manner and place in which he died: on a cross.

Check out all the following texts and you'll discover that God is emphatic in telling us that the death of His Son was a public on-a-tree, up-in-the-air, for-all-eyes-to-see spectacle (Acts 5:30; 1 Peter 2:2; John 3:14; Psalm 22:16, 17; Zechariah 12:10; Romans 3:24, 25) . The Romans text actually uses a word (translated put forward in verse 25) which means to "set forth publicly" (TDNT). The NASB translates it "displayed publicly".

As I said Sunday, this public spectacle aspect of the death of Christ has redemptive relevance. That Christ did not die in secret or in an unseen and unknown place is essential to the meaning of his death. Both Deuteronomy 21:22, 23 and Galatians 3:10-14 make this clear. Both these texts reveal that His death on a tree (i.e.-on a cross) was meant to display that His death was an act of God in cursing human sin. Public hanging in execution was different from other executions like stoning. Those who were hung, were cursed of God (Deut. 21:22, 23).

This means that Christ became a curse--indeed the cursed of God--for us. I return to this even though I preached it just this past Sunday, because I want all who heard (and those who didn't) not to forget. Please consider this friends: God the Father and Son agreed that to redeem those loved by God, the Son would bear the curse of God for their sins.

We may find the language shocking and may even recoil as if it somehow overstates the matter, but it is accurate to say that on the cross, God damned Himself in His Incarnate Son so that He might be able to save His elect. These texts go out of their way to teach just that, and nothing less.

Tomorrow I'll give you a couple of quotes along these lines. For today, let's just ponder the matter ourselves. Those who deny or disdain the atoning and penal aspects of the cross (that is, those who deny that Jesus was actually bearing the penalty and punishment for human sin to appease the holy and just wrath of God over that sin) are not merely overlooking an irrelevant side-bar to the cross. They are missing the whole point.

Atonement, the propitiation of a holy and justly angry God, the substitution of a sinless Lamb for a sinful people; all this is the very heart and essence of the gospel. Take these away and we have nothing left. Keep these and we have everything.

O let us weep, and wonder, and be humbled, and be still and quiet at the foot of the Cross. Then let us sing and dance for joy.

Labels: Atonement, God's Love, Gospel, Grace

In the embarrassment countdown series I started last week, which I'm going to shorten to four instead of five (not because I'm trying to spare my ego, but because other topics press in), I'd have to list as one of my more embarrassing moments one that I've actually had a few times. I refer to the times--yes there have been more than one--when I have forgotten my children, and left them behind.

As a parent, this is almost as embarrassing, not to say horrifying, as it gets. But what can I say. There was the time Gayline and I left a meeting at church and drove all the way home (at the time a ten mile drive) before we remembered that we'd left Alina in child care. Try to explain that as a pastor to a child care worker! And there was the time I left Elliot behind at a basketball game I was coaching for his older brother. There were other times too, but I'd like to suppress at least some of this if you don't mind.

My children seem to have survived these episodes without permanent psychological damage, but I'm not sure I have! Man, such moments are humbling and guilt producing!

O to grace (God's and my kids') how great a debtor!

Aren't you glad God doesn't forget His children. Here's what He doesn't forget:
1. His covenant promises (Genesis 9:15, 16; Exodus 6:5; Titus 1:2).
2. His children's whereabouts (Psalm 139:1-18) and perils (Numbers 10:9).
3. His Son's work in our behalf (this is what the Bible doctrine of the intercession of Christ as our Mediator is all about; Christ's presence before the Father reminds the Father of the sacrifice He offered for our sins).
4. His children's deeds of service (Hebrews 6:10; "overlook" is translated "forget" in another translation; Nehemiah 13:14, 22, 31).
5. His children's needs (Matthew 6:31, 32).
6. His children's frailty (Psalm 103:14).
7. His mercy and love (Psalm 25:6).

O I should mention that there is one thing that God does forget: our sins (Jeremiah 31:33, 34; Hebrews 8:12; 10:17; Psalm 25:7; Isaiah 64:9). God simply refuses to hold our sins against us. He treats us as if we've never sinned.

But everything else is on His mind all the time, for our good. So the next tme you forget your kid somewhere (if you ever could do such a horrifying thing!), or simply forget something else that your children need, pause and say a huge thank you to the Father who never forgets.

And love Him all the more.

Labels: God's Love