David Bahn – Reflections

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. ⁸ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. – 1 John 1:5-10

I am at the 61st Triennial Texas District Convention of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in Irving, Texas. It has been a full day with insightful presentations, worship, Bible studies and devotions, together with elections of new leadership for our District. Rev. Mike Newman was elected District President on the first ballot. He is a dedicated servant leader and gifted author, speaker, and colleague. I am thankful in anticipation of his leadership of our District. He succeeds Rev. Ken Hennings who served 12 years as our District President. Ken is a dedicated leader, churchman, mission-minded, and well-respected servant leader. I am thankful for both of these men.

Rev. John Davis was elected as First Vice President of our District. For that I am doubly thankful. He and I were both nominated for Vice President of our area of the state. At a meeting of mission-minded pastors John was selected as the one we would support for our area vice president, and as First Vice President of our District. Our group, Great Commission Advocates of the Texas District, prayerfully considered all the candidates and when the selection came to John rather than to me, I was thankful to have been considered, and grateful that John was chosen. I have plenty to do, and will continue to serve the larger church through my involvement with PLI as well as future possible synod-wide service – if the Lord so leads.

All this is good news…relative to the news of the world in which we live. This good news – of leaders whom I trust and respect being elected – pales in comparison, however, to the Good News of Jesus Christ who forgives sin and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. Thankfully all who were nominated for the various offices, boards, and committees of our District believe, teach, and confess this truth. It is the basis for our fellowship and the focus of our mission efforts. It is our prayer that all would come to faith in Jesus and enjoy the rich, eternal, joyful, and enlightened fellowship founded in our faithful walk with Jesus in the light of his love.

May we ever walk in that light!

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.² He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. ³ And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. ⁴ Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, ⁵ but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: ⁶ whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. – 1 John 2:1-6

Keith Getty and Stuart Townend have written a powerful and extremely popular hymn which expresses the truth of God’s love and grace along side of his justice and holiness. The hymn is In Christ Alone. It is said that they were asked by one publisher to change the words of one stanza from, “Till on that cross as Jesus died/the wrath of God was satisfied” to “Till on that cross as Jesus died/the love of God was magnified.”

They refused the change, believing that the atonement language of God’s wrath being satisfied was more important to maintain than to have the song included in the hymnal with altered words. (For a more complete background regarding this particular hymn verse controversy, check out this article from the Gospel Coalition website.) Because of that the hymn was rejected in that particular hymnal.

I believe Getty and Townend are reflecting the thoughts of John in this passage which speaks of Jesus as the propitiation for the sins of the world. The word refers to Jesus’ appeasing God and atoning for our sin. In righteous anger and holy anger God poured out his wrath on Jesus. That appeased God’s wrath and cleared the way for us to have access to God’s riches of glory and eternal salvation.

We need this assurance: God is not angry with us. Jesus’ propitiation, as the Reformation Study Bible says,

“was the sacrifice to God meant to take away the enmity brought by sin between God and [man]. Only Christ can be an effective propitiation. This gift is for the whole world. Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient not only for John and his immediate community, but is valid anywhere in the world. It is a sacrifice that requires no addition or supplement.”

That’s good news for all of us sinners!

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. ² He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. ³ And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. ⁴ Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, ⁵ but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: ⁶ whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. – 1 John 2:1-6

Lyle Schaller was a preeminent church consultant and author. He wrote 55 books and edited 44 others. His insights were keen and to the point: “My version of reality,” he would say, and then go on to express how things really are, as opposed to how they ought to be. He published a helpful and insightful weekly newsletter, The Parish Paper in which he would highlight certain insights about ministry and organizational issues and ideas.

Once he was asked for permission to copy the newsletter so it could be shared with the church’s leadership. “I wish you hadn’t asked that,” he said. “I am not allowed to give people permission to do that.” The message was clear: Don’t ask, and I won’t tell.

It reminds me of John’s declaration: Don’t sin. But if you do, there is forgiveness. It’s not quite a get out of jail free card, but it is an honest admission of something that John will drill into further later in this chapter. It has to do with the reality of sin and our continuing need for forgiveness, mercy, and God’s grace.

Jesus spoke about divorce as something that Moses allowed because of the hardness of our hearts. It’s a sad version of reality: even at our best we fail. Marriages fail. Women fall prey. Men fall into temptation. Children rebel. Old people become self-righteous. We are all broken.

We need an advocate, and thanks be to God – we have one: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior of the World. That’s not just my version of reality, nor even Lyle Schaller’s. It’s God’s truth.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— ² the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— ³ that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. ⁴ And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. – 1 John 1:1-4

I have shared previously the joy I experienced during a dramatic sketch gone wrong during a worship service at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Arlington, Texas. It was a moment of joy in the deepest sense of the word: a funny, deeply-felt, warmly embraced, moment of delight. Sadly, however, this is not always the case in the church at all times. Sometimes – even in that wonderful congregation – tempers flare and emotions take over. Sometimes the fellowship is broken by sinful pride, spiritual blindness, or a failure to remove the log from our own eye before trying to remove the speck from anothers’ view.

John shows us the better way of sweet fellowship: connecting in faith to God, the Father through his Son and – although not named – by the power of the Holy Spirit. When our focus is on Jesus and his gift of eternal life, we will be less focused on those niggling differences of opinion and personal preferences. When we focus on the latter there will be reasons aplenty to scuttle the treasure of a sister or brother in Christ who is God’s gift to us – even when they rub us the wrong way (from our perspective). Sometimes we need to have the rough edges of our personal opinions and lightly-challenged convictions rubbed smooth.

The Psalmist says it is good and pleasant when brother dwell together in unity (Psalm 133). John tell us that joy is a result of Jesus’ gift of eternal life and our fellowship around that gift. We may need to speak words of challenge to one another. We may even need to be confronted with wrongly-held opinions and convictions. That is part of the making of true fellowship. But in the end, true fellowship – through Jesus Christ – is a sweet blessing from God and something highly to be valued, pursued, and protected. It is a cause and venue of complete joy.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— ² the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— ³ that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. ⁴ And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. – 1 John 1:1-4

I have been reminded of the great encounter between Job and God, recorded in Job 38 and following. After God spoke “man to man” with Job, Job responds, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6). The idea is this: it’s one thing to hear of God; it’s quite another to experience him in reality. For Job it meant repentance in dust and ashes.

How different it was for the people of Jesus’ day! Their encounter brought a different kind of repentance and faith. The whole of Jesus’ ministry was not so much a stark and stunning comeuppance, as it was a rescue mission. And the encounter between God and man was hidden in swaddling clothes, laid in a manger, seen as a young boy in the temple, and encountered along the dusty roads of Galilee.

John was one who heard, touched, saw with his eyes the love of God, the redeemer of lost mankind, and the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ. He will lay out before us these next few chapters the reality of that manifestation and it’s profound implications. His goal is that we have complete, eternal, and profound joy in Jesus.

Friends have experienced death, disease, disaster, and trouble of various kinds in a way that changed their hearts from just knowing about them to a deeper understanding of the power of God, the destructive nature of sin and disease, and the joy and blessing of the prayers of the faithful in their behalf. May God’s Holy Spirit move our hearts to a deeper appreciation of God’s faithfulness, love, salvation, and gift of eternal life through a real encounter with the real Son of God!

Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. ¹⁵ And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, ¹⁶ as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. ¹⁷ You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. ¹⁸ But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. – 2 Peter 3:14-18

I recently bought a new car. I believe I was treated fairly and that I got a good deal. But there have been times in the past when buying a new car has been a rather unpleasant experience. Think, “Let me go talk to my sales manager.” Or, “What would it take for you to do the deal today?” Thankfully my most recent experience was not so freighted. But I’ve been there. Deception. Manipulation. Bait and switch. Lemons. I’ve had my share of all these.

There is nothing new under the sun. Peter speaks of those who have an even more sinister agenda: being tools of Satan to lead people away from faith in Jesus Christ. The stakes were not simply about getting a good or bad car deal. It wasn’t about avoiding buying a lemon. It was about being carried away to lawlessness and eternal instability.

While it’s not good to be hoodwinked by a dishonest car dealer, it’s far worse when people distort the Word of God for their own purposes, and lead people away from Jesus. Sometimes it’s obvious: Islam nor Buddhism claim to point people to Jesus as the Son of God and our Savior. But there are those who do lead others astray – Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses – claiming to be following the true message of God.

Peter speaks of Paul’s letters here, admitting that some of them are difficult to understand. While that is true, it is also true that when we are well-grounded in the truth of Scripture by means of a very simple rule: if a teaching leads me to repentance from my sin to a confident faith in Jesus as my Savior, it is well-founded. If it leads me to any kind of self-righteousness, self-help, or reliance on anything other than Jesus’ perfect righteousness, reject it for what it is – a lie of Satan.

In short, “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen”

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,¹² waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! ¹³ But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. – 2 Peter 3:11-13

I love the Old Testament concept of hope. It includes the idea of waiting for and trusting in God. Think of it: if you hope in something, you wait for it. If you wait for something or someone you trust that your hopes will be fulfilled. If this is tied to waiting, hoping and trusting in God, it is well-founded. You will not be disappointed.

How quickly, however, we learn not to wait for, hope or trust in anything of this fallen world. We’ve been fooled too many times. From fake decoder rings or cereal prizes of days gone by, to people in authority abusing their position and taking advantage of the weak and vulnerable: we quickly learn not to hope. Hope is too dangerous when poorly placed. We’ve seen the sign: “Abandon all hope you who enter here.”

Peter points us to a life application quite different from abandoning all hope. His call is to live holy and godly lives waiting for the Great Last Day, hastening its coming. Peter points to a life of godliness as hastening the Day of the Lord. We see John praying, “Come, Lord Jesus!” in Revelation 22:20. Jesus says that the Gospel will be preached “as a witness to the nations and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).

This is the trifecta of true faith: Godly living, prayer, and evangelism. If we truly wish to see the Great Last Day, we will focus our energy toward those three key behaviors, and hold on to the hope we have in Christ, trusting his promises, and waiting for his return.

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. ⁹ The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. ¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

– 2 Peter 3:8-10

Perhaps you have heard the silly joke…

• Believer to God: Is it true that a thousand days are like a moment to you, and a moment is like a thousand days.
• God to believer: Yes, that is true.
• Believer to God: So that means that $1,000,000 is like $1 to you, right?
• God to believer: Yes, that also is true.
• Believer to God: So can I have $1,000,000?
• God to believer: Yes, in just a minute.

Silly? Yes. But perhaps too much of a look inside the thinking of too many people. We too often and too easily think in terms of manipulating God, or treating him like a genie in a bottle. We conjure him up at our whim, for purposes focused too often our own selfish desires. We think of life in terms of our own comfort, convenience, and status, rather than as a time for honoring God and seeking his rule and reign in our lives and the lives of others.

Peter speaks of the moments and opportunities that God allows us to experience as an opportunity for us to repent and be saved. Just because God hasn’t come down in might and power to judge us for our sins or to avenge us of our enemies, we lose hope.

We can easily draw two different but equally dangerous conclusions: We can think that we will never be avenged; that evil will always prevail. It won’t. We can also fall prey to the idea that we can get away with anything; God will never call us to account. He will.

The Day of the Lord is coming. All that we seek to hide will be revealed. All evil will be destroyed. All who hope in the Lord will be vindicated and saved. Thanks be to God…whether we wait for a minute or for the next million years for his coming.

This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, ² that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, ³ knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. ⁴ They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” ⁵ For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, ⁶ and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. ⁷ But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

– 2 Peter 3:1-7

Diane and I read an excellent devotion tonight titled, “The Omega Joy.” From The Book of Mysteries, by Jonathan Cahn. It was about the Old Testament Feast of Tabernacles, and the difference between the joy of the world and joy of God. He makes an excellent point:

The joys of the world come at the beginning. They’re fleeting. They grow old and pass away. The joys of sin lead to sorrow, The laughter of youth leads to tears of mourning. But in God, the greatest joy comes at the end. In other words, the ways of God all lead in the end to joy. Even that which seems hard for the moment, the way of sacrifice, self-control, and righteousness…in the long run it all leads to joy. …For the ways of God all lead to joy. And the best is saved for last.

There are those who in some manner or another deny God’s faithfulness and dismiss the promises of eternal joy at The End of it all. They will scoff at the faithful, hopeful followers of Jesus’ ways. They will indulge their own sinful desires and wonder why you don’t fall in with them – and even deride you when you don’t.

But there will come that time when the ungodly are destroyed, and everyone who has waited for God’s salvation will experience eternal joy. A friend of mine used to say, “Forever is a long, long time.” Indeed. Imagine experiencing eternal joy for the long long time that will be.

These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. ¹⁸ For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. ¹⁹ They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. ²⁰ For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. ²¹ For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. ²² What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.” – 2 Peter 2:17-22

Several years ago a member of the church I serve brought his 10 year old son to my office. The boy had a problem with lying. We talked about the importance of truth, and I used an illustration of ten pennies, saying they were ten dollars, when in fact they weren’t. No amount of my saying they were dollars would convince him otherwise. Then I asked him, “what difference does it make?” It’s just words. He looked at me wide-eyed. I hope he got the message.

Saying something is so doesn’t make it so – unless you are God. That’s the point of lying: only God can create and sustain a world by virtue of his word. When God said, “Let there be light,” there was light. When I said there were ten dollars, there were still only ten pennies.

The problem with lying is that you have to use more and more words to sustain the fake reality you have tried to create by your words. Eventually the lie falls under its own weight. Such is the nature of evil. It cannot be sustained. Ultimately those who forsake God and turn away from him will be even more lost than they were to begin with. The fall of their lives is gravely disastrous.

Some want to say that such people have never been saved in the first place. Peter seems not to say that. In fact our salvation has been won by Jesus’ death for the sins of the whole world. Our faith receives the gift already given. Sadly, we can lose our faith and our salvation.

Those who believe otherwise put themselves in grave danger of eternal destruction. That’s why it is important to gather with other believers to worship, hear God’s word, receive the Lord’s Supper, and encouragement of the brothers and sisters in Christ.

I am personally thankful for those who make a habit of worshiping; it encourages me even as I serve as a pastor. I pray that those who come to worship are edified and encouraged in their walk in faith by the power of God’s Holy Spirit, working through his people and his word.