Revealing the Cross of Christ

Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures,  explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ." (Acts 17:2-3 NKJV)

    I intended to begin writing about 1 Thessalonians today, but realized that to do so I needed to begin in Acts, Chapter 17, where the contentious planting of the church in Thessalonika is fully described. If you Google "missionary" you’ll find more resources, ideas and information than you can possibly sift through in a lifetime. What endless Google results make seem complicated is really very simple. I often describe myself to people as a missionary. They typically ask, Missionary to where? I usually just name the place where I am standing. Missionaries are missionaries wherever they are. Paul had three mission centric resources when he entered the capital city of Macedonia, and these resources remain available to all missionaries today. 

   Verse 1 says -- Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica… In any work we begin for God, it is critical to remain sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. God often pre-softens stony hearts to be receptive to the Gospel as He did for Paul’s work here. Paul’s discernment carried him through many places before he arrived at the specific place where God had a plan in place. It is easy to convince ourselves we can decide what God wants done and where He wants it done without ever asking Him for input, and  thereby miss the blessing He has planned. When we do this we end up with our ministry to which we attach His name. Paul wisely kept walking until the Lord revealed the spot where He wanted to establish a new church.  

   

   Paul reasoned with them from the scriptures. Paul’s scriptures weren’t  our scriptures. He had only what we call the Old Testament. For him it was the Only Testament. Could you sit and reason with someone, could you make reasonable representations that Jesus was the Messiah from the Old Testament alone? Many people we encounter have no idea that the Old Testament is about Jesus. From shadows and types like Boaz in the Book of Ruth who was Ruth’s kinsman redeemer as a type for Christ, our Kinsman redeemer, to the specific details of the birth, life, death and resurrection found in the Psalms and Isaiah, the Old Testament points to Jesus. We are equipped with the Old Testament scriptures Paul had, plus so much more. Have you equipped yourself to reason with others from the scriptures?

   In Philippians 4:16 we read -- For even in Thessalonica you sent aid once and again for my necessities. Paul didn’t just go, He was sent - both by God and by the church in Philippi. The success of any missionary is greatly increased with sufficient funding and prayer support from sending believers. Many are called to Christ’s Gospel mission, but more are called to support with prayers and funding. Do you support missionaries with prayers and funding? Ask God to reveal a missionary for you to support and begin sending monthly financial help. Even small support can produce huge Gospel results in the distant reaches of the Earth. If you can’t be a go-er, become a sender.

  If you are following the leading of the Holy Spirit, you have been strategically placed by God in a Gospel opportunity. Paul got busy in Thessalonica -- explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ." Today, to whom are you explaining and demonstrating that Jesus is the Christ? Or, have you abandoned God’s mission for one more of your own design and liking? 

    

Copyright 2014 Mission of the Master Ministries, Inc. May be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission if a link is provided to  http://wordworkswednesday.blogspot.com 

Regret Behind You....

 After these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear......So he came and took away His body.  Nicodemus, who had first come to Him by night, also came..... (John 19:38-39 NKJV)

 

     Nicodemus had a night time encounter with Jesus as depicted in John 3. Joseph of Arimathea had apparently become a secret follower of Jesus. This unlikely pair never was able to fully muster their spiritual courage and allow themselves to reveal the fullness of their faith until after Jesus died. Joseph petitioned Pilate for the right to bury the body of the Lord, and Nicodemous, a fellow Jew Joseph would have known from their service in the Sanhedrin at the Temple, brought burial accoutrements.

 

     As they performed the tender but morbid act of preparing Jesus' body for burial and placing it in the tomb, I wonder what they felt in their hearts. I don't think I am stretching the

biblically unmentioned very far to assume they had some regrets. Perhaps they regretted not boldly defending Jesus against the unfounded accusations of the Sanhedrin where they held sway. Maybe they regretted not be submitting to sitting under His teaching at the Temple, or perhaps they regretted time spent sitting quietly while their friends condemned Jesus as a heretic instead of confessing their growing thoughts of faith.

     Like the wealthy Joseph and scholarly Nicodemus, many of us have painful regrets of how we have failed to serve Jesus in our own lives. I'm sure these men weren't even aware in their grief that they were also fulfilling more of Isaiah's Messianic prophesy found in chapter 53 and verse 9a -- His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death.... Thoughts of what might of been, the If only I'd of the many times Jesus had been so close to them but they had ignored Him must have filtered through their minds.

 

     The grave Joseph gave Jesus was an expensive gift. It was the custom then that bodies be placed in tombs to decompose. Once all that remained was the skeletal structure, the bones were placed in an ossuary box marked with the person's name, and then left in the tomb. This tomb had been carved from solid stone and was an expensive gift -- especially for one that would only be used for its intended purpose for three days!

 

     Morbid reflection about time lost that could have better been used to serve the Lord is normal for us to experience as Christians, but it should quickly conclude as the fruit of faith replaces regret. For Joseph and Nicodemus, their grief blinded them to seeing that the cross that had brought such sorrow was very close to what they thought was a final burial spot, but was really the birthplace of resurrection. Isaiah saw that too a thousand years before it happened -- "Fear not, for you will not be put to shame; And do not feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced; But you will forget the shame of your youth, And the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your husband is your Maker, Whose name is the LORD of hosts; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, Who is called the God of all the earth.(Isaiah 54:4,5)

 

     J.A. Motyer wrote of this verse-- Shame . . . disgrace . . . humiliated represent three synonymous Hebrew verbs sharing the fundamental idea of disappointed hopes, the embarrassment of expecting - even publicly announcing - one thing and then reaping another. Joseph and Nicodemus were expecting one thing, burial and decay and got another, resurrection and glory.

 

     Do you mourn the life that might have been if your submission to God had come sooner, or been greater? Break free from the bindings of morbid reflection. End the funeral of your past life and embrace the power of resurrection. Bury the past, God has promised He no longer remembers it. No crop is harvested until it is ripe. God has gathered each of us at exactly the right time. Jesus' concern about the yesterdays of our lives is buried in the Grace of His forgiveness. After that, He is a God of today and tomorrow. We have to trust him for both.The remaining question for us is simple --

 

     What can we do today to serve Him in a way that leaves no accumulating regrets?

 

     Paul expressed it this way in Romans 12:1 -- I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

  

    

Copyright 2013 Mission of the Master Ministries, Inc. May be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission if a link is provided to http://wordworkswednesday.blogspot.com