Presented to the Tisdale community at the ecumenical Day of Prayer for Christian Unity Service and to the Nipawin Corps of The Salvation Army on January 27, 2008
1 Thessalonians 5:12a, 13b-18: But we appeal to you, brothers and sisters... Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, beloved to admonish the idlers, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Jesus Christ for you.
For our message this week, I do not have my typical style of sermon, where I am painstakingly exegeting a passage and trying to illustrate with a number of neat stories that I hope that you will remember.
Today is going to be a little different. Now, you’ll understand that I wasn’t initially on to preach this weekend. Captain Susan was. She was very much looking forward to it but she then realised that she would be out of the province this weekend. So, while I did read up on the day of prayer for Christian unity and the theme of praying without ceasing, it occurred to me that the Lord has let me see a lot about these two things – just this past weekend.
Something exciting happened a week ago today: Irving, a member of our Nipawin congregation, was baptized. There were many of us there1 (maybe 9 or 10) from The Salvation Army to support and encourage him. It was great. I praise and thank the Lord for Irving and I was delighted to be able to be there to witness this outward expression of the inward reality of what Jesus is doing in his life.
But, now I don’t know how many of us here are familiar with The Salvation Army’s stance on water baptism. It is noteworthy for sure. We, denominationally, would look at it like … well...if salvation were ice-cream baptism to us would be sort of like... chocolate sauce atop the ice-cream. Sure many people like it. And many of us probably wouldn’t say ‘no’ if it were offered to us, but we – The Salvation Army, denominationally – we pass. We don’t see it as necessary for the enjoyment of our ice-cream of salvation for which, like 1 Thessalonians says, we can rejoice always.
Like many Christian denominations, though not all, The Army believes that baptism in water is not necessary for salvation: Jesus’ death and resurrection is all that is ever needed for that.
In the early days of The Salvation Army, we actually did used to practise the rite of water baptism but – for many reasons pertaining controversies [in 19th Century England] when and where the Army was born, we decided as a movement, that abstaining from this rite, this chocolate syrup of our analogy this evening, as it were, - for us - would be right.
At this time in the Army, baptism actually became almost like circumcision was to Paul in his letters to the Corinthians, Romans, and yes even the Galatians to whom Paul writes that “neither circumcision nor un-circumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love (Galatians 3:6; cf. 6:15).” That is our belief. And today in Canada our leadership is certainly firm in our stance that our Officers (our clergy) are not to baptize people. We have the opportunity, we are told, to show the world, as it were, that it is okay to pass on this chocolate syrup on your ice-cream of salvation.
We again acknowledge, of course, that there is nothing wrong with water baptism, and we are certainly an organisation that from its earliest days is both Christian and very evangelistic; we just prefer to have our ice-cream without toppings. (Actually there are some Salvos who would argue that since we are to lead fully sacramental lives, we shouldn’t have ice-cream at all – but I’ll save that for the holiness debate!) We are joined by our friends, the Quakers, in declining this rite of baptism - by the way.
Now, I am taking my time explaining this, and you’ll have to forgive me but there is good reason for this relating to our theme today of Christian unity and our sub-theme of praying without ceasing.
You’ll remember that I said that we do not believe that baptism is necessary for Salvation. And you’ll remember that I said that we do not practice the ceremony. You’ll remember that The Salvation Army does not forbid people from baptizing or being baptized nor do we discourage others from doing it: we are merely abstainers. We have no theological problem with the rite at all.
I must confess now that this stance of ours, a month or two ago, provided a good catalyst for ceaseless prayer on my part because Irving, our brother in Christ; Irving, a faithful member of our congregation; Irving, at the Lord’s prompting; Irving came to me letting me know that Irving was being called by the Lord to the waters of baptism - and then Irving paid me a great honour by asking me, as his Corps Officer, to baptize him.
I am excited delighted that Irving was following the Lord’s leading and I told Irving that I would pray and I would ask the authorities over me if I was permitted to baptize him but that I thought it would be highly unlikely.
So I pray. And I pray. And I pray. And I ask those in authority over me if I can perform the rite and they say, 'no', for good reasons, they say, 'no, that would not be right.'
So I pray and I pray and I pray some more - Now every Tuesday there is a ministerial prayer meeting at The Salvation Army Ministry Centre in Nipawin that is open to any Christian clergy so that we can come together and pray and support each other. Some of our most faithful attendees are a Baptist preacher from Smeaton, a Pentecostal pastor from White Fox, a Narrazene minister who leads the Holiness church in Nipawin and, of course, a Salvation Army Officer or two from Nipawin and Tisdale.
These prayer meetings are a great source of encouragement for me. It is a time when we can share things with the Lord and each other that we won't necessarilly share in other places. It truly is a place where we can encourage and help each other. It is a place where we can share about the miracles that God is performing in each of our lives, communities, denominations... It is a place where we can pray together as an ecumenical community.
It is a place where our different theological flavours - of the ice-cream of Salvation can be brought together into a wonderful Neapolitan type ice-cream; where, while we maintain our denominational distinctions much like the chocolate, vanilla, and the strawberry, we mingle in prayer and support in such a way as to produce a taste that we hope is always pleasing to the Lord. And we hope to never cease offering this pleasing dessert to the Lord.
So of course, on this one particular Tuesday, having just spoken with Irving and having just spoken with my authorities and while continuing in personal prayer, I added prayer about Irving’s baptism as – a sprinkle atop our Neapolitan prayer meeting.
I told my friends everything. I told them that The Army does not oppose baptism but that we do not perform the ceremony; I told them that God is asking Irving to be baptized and Irving is asking me to do it. I told them that the Army, however, has strongly recommended that I not personally touch the water. I was wondering if they could encourage me and be united with me in ceaseless prayer.
I also had another request. On this particular Tuesday, there is - a, sort of, - well, let’s say a chocolate flavoured Baptist preacher present. So I bring specifically to him the challenge of the chocolate syrup of baptism. I ask him some questions.
Now, as some of you may know, I have studied Baptist theology a bit and I know that different Baptists feel very differently about baptism: what it means, who can do it, and the works. After much prayer, I do ask pastor Darcy if he could and would add the chocolate sauce of baptism to Irving’s spiritual ice-cream sundae.
Now, this Baptist preacher, who does not live in the same town as Irving, as it turns out, does not travel with a baptismal tank in the back of his pick-up. (Go figure) but he would ask Pastor Brian of the Pentecostal Church in White Fox if the ceremony could be performed there. We prayed. I spoke with Irving. Darcy spoke with Brian. They prayed. Irving spoke with the others. We prayed. And in the end there really was the peace among us of Verse 13 of 1 Thessalonians 4.
So on this Sunday that just passed, the Lord poured the strawberry of The Salvation Army corps into the vanilla of White Fox Pentecostal Church and then added the chocolate of the Baptist preacher and the chocolate syrup of water baptism to Irving’s spiritual sundae. This indeed was a glorious sundae. This sundae of Christian prayer and Christian unity was completed on this past Sunday through the power of and to the glory of God.2
The Lord used this Sundae to show me a perfect example of Christian unity of prayer and service and He reminded me that the new testament letters weren’t written to the churches (plural) at Thessalonica, they were written to the church (singular) at Thessalonica and today, as members of the church at Nipawin/Tisdale/whatever city you happen to be in, I encourage us all to pray without ceasing for this same sort of Christian unity that Paul has been calling for since his letter to the Thessalonians.
Now, we have not always done so well at being united with our Lord have we? Many times and places today and throughout history members of Jesus’ Church have fought with each other. Many times we have put our own selfish ambitions before the Gospel of Jesus Christ himself. Many times we have let the devil tear us apart and divide us. Many times we have tried to exclude rather than encourage each other. Many times we have devoured each other and there are many examples of actual physical wars where Christians have dared to use a force of arms against each other instead of against the real (spiritual) Enemy.
We should not be fooled. Let us not be fooled. When we attack each other when we waste our efforts fighting with one another, then we are distracted and Enemy needs not worry about us, does he? When we concentrate on our differences, it only serves to divide us and then we cease to be this tasty ice-cream dessert for the Lord. When the sparks of discord fly, when we repay perceived or real evil with evil then, instead of being this great Neopolitan sundae, we instead, become a melted puddle of enmity.
So let us never give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing. Let us be united in prayer for when we do pull together; when we are at peace among ourselves; when we are admonishing the idlers, encouraging the faint-hearted, helping the weak, and being patient with everyone (as our text today says). When we see that none of us repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another. When we rejoice always, when we pray without ceasing, when we give thanks in all circumstances, THEN we experience the joy that comes from doing the will of God in Jesus Christ; we experience the joy for you, for us, and in Christ.
So brothers and sisters today, I invite us all to come together, not as a flavourless puddle of enmity but instead as a strong ice-cream sundae rich in the traditions and heritage of the Christian faith and let us remember that we are all one body and as a body, we are indeed the bride of Christ himself – and he’s coming back for us – and soon! And when he does, lets present him with that wonderful Neapolitan flavoured ice-cream sundae of Christian unity.
Let us pray:
Lord thank you this Sunday that we are able to come before you united in prayer for Christian unity. Lord, we pray that this Sunday we will really truly appreciate the distinctive flavours that you have given each of us and each of our denominations that we will indeed be a treat and an everlasting dessert in which you are well pleased. In Jesus name, Amen.
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1The ceremony was performed at the White Fox Pentecostal Church by the Baptist Reverend Darcy Cust.
2The is an interesting footnote to this as well. This footnote I take as the Lord's blessing. When I asked my leadership about whether I could participate in the ceremony they gave me a full blessing but they suggested that I not 'touch the water' – in the end I did wind up reaching out to help our newly baptised, soaking wet congregation member from the tank and you know what – not a single drop of water got on me. Not a drip. Praise the Lord. This is very important to me the Lord kept me blameless in lending this helping hand to our brother. This moment was indeed for the Lord.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Galatians 3:19-25: Don't be a McChicken...
Presented to Nipawin Corps on January 20, 2008
and to Tisdale Corps on January 27, 2008
and Swift Current Corps on 26 August, 2011
By Captain Michael Ramsay
One day at the McDonald farm there is a rumbling in the air; something is a foot. In the chicken coop – something isn’t just quite right. The old farmer walks all around the chicken wire fence. It seems to be in tact. The barbed wire along the perimeter looks undisturbed. Everything looks fine as he locks up the hens for the night. But inside the henhouse on the top rung, something is stirring…it is Henrietta the Poultry Hen.
Now, as soon as Farmer McDonald closes the door to the coop, Henrietta, the Hen, speaks up: “It’s time.” Quickly Henrietta, Polly, Mick, - and all the chickens on the top rung - run to the southeast corner of the coop. They peck and they peck the ground in the corner like never before. Last night they had almost made it. Tonight would be the night. Finally – breakthrough! Henrietta and the other Chickens are free. They are free from the farmer’s coop. They are free from the barbed wire and the chicken wire; they are free from the tedious ritual and routine. They are free!
They spend the next morning roaming around the yard, exploring the whole farm. They eat what they want, when then want. They can be near or wander far away: they talk. They talk and they talk some more; it’s a hen’s life. They spend that whole day walking around eating what and when they want and really enjoying the full freedom from the yard. At the end of the day, they perch on a branch of tree across the road from the farm and cuddle up the night. It is good.
They have a nice rest but in the morning when they wake up, they notice something on the road - - - it is Mick the chicken crossing the road. They wonder. Why did the chicken cross the road? (pause) Mick is walking back towards the farm.
Mick is walking back to the coop. She goes across the road, to the fence and through the same crack under the chicken wire fence. She walks around the corner and up the walkway onto her old bar in the farmer’s small, confining chicken coop. The farmer then notices the crack in the fence and repairs it quickly. Mick is trapped.
Henrietta can’t believe it. She sees the whole thing where she is sitting, still free, looking on from her perch on other side of the road. She sees Mick, of her own accord, trapped all over again on the farm.
Mick was free and then she just goes back to be trapped all over again and it is even worse then she thought at first - As Henrietta scans the farm and hears the noises: here a cluck, there a cluck everywhere a cluck, cluck. She remembers, Mick the Chicken is on McDonald’s farm. The Mick Chicken is back at MacDonald’s! And you know what happens to McChickens at McDonald’s.[1] They get eaten. Mick is trapped.
And this is just like the Galatians we’ve been studying for two weeks here. In Susan’s teaching last week and in our Bible studies so far we’ve looked at how some of the Galatians have become just as trapped by the Law as Mick the Chicken is by McDonalds. And Paul, Paul is quite concerned; after all as we read in Galatians 3, where Paul repeatedly calls the Galatians ‘foolish’, he says in verse 10, “All who rely on the law are under a curse; for it is written ‘cursed is anyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law (cf. Deut 27:26).’ And it seems no one can do that.
Paul is then rightly quite concerned because it appears that there are some ‘false believers’ (Gal 2:4) who actually want the Galatians to be trapped by the law.[2] It appears that there are some here, in the Galatian churches, who are walking away from their freedom and [in the process] even walking away from [the Gospel of] Christ.
Rather than relying on Jesus, they prefer to return to the rules, regulations, feasts, celebrations and the Law (cf. 4:9,10) as if that can save anyone from our sins, as if we can possibly do anything to merit salvation and the resurrection – its not possible: All who rely on the law are under a curse because they do not and will not observe and/or obey all the things written in the book of the Law (cf. Gal 3:10, Deut 27:26).
The people in Galatia here are at risk now of being trapped by the Law. Paul is desperately, in this letter, trying to point them to freedom again.[3] He is trying to stop Mick the Galatian Chicken from returning to the confines of the Law (Gal 3:4, 4:9).
This raises a question though. (This is why we’ve been encouraging all of us to read the whole letter through so as to get its full meaning in context.) If the Law is something that traps us, if the Law is something that curses us, why did God give us the Law in the first place? Why did God write the Ten Commandments and hand deliver them to Moses? Did God want to trap us? Really, if the Law is so terrible, why were God’s own people expected to follow it for so long – hundreds of years. Why?[4]
For me, as I was reading and re-reading Galatians this passed couple of weeks, this was a pivotal question that kept coming to my mind. If the Law is so bad, why did God give it to his ‘chosen people’? And you’ll notice in the passage we read from earlier today 3:19-25 that Paul considers this as well.
Paul speaks of people as being imprisoned and guarded by the Law in verse 23. He says that the Law –depending upon your translation -was our guard, our disciplinarian, our custodian, or some translations even say our schoolmaster, in verses 24 and 25. This is interesting because the word in verses 24 and 25 that is translated these so many different ways probably could best be rendered ‘tutor’ and tutors –unlike guards or disciplinarians- were generally not considered bad people in first century Galatia.[5] They were the good guys: servants protecting and helping the children.
I look at the historical role of the Law like this[6]: The Law is sort of like a storm cellar – remember the Wizard of Oz? It is a place to hide when the storm kicks up - a place of refuge. When humankind started sinning (vs. 19), sin entered the world like a tornado bringing death and destruction to everything in its path. It says right in verse 19 of Chapter 3 that the Law was given to us as a result of our transgressions (Cf. Ro 5:20).
There is this storm of sin and death kicking up out there. People are dying, literally, and so God builds this storm cellar, in the form of the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, for their own protection. He builds the Law as a shelter from this storm of sin and death and He gives it to Moses and says to him, “Here, in there, take everyone in with you. Quick. Hurry!”
Moses does and the people remain in this safe, albeit somewhat cramped and confining, shelter for a long time and then something happens…Jesus, through His death and resurrection, Jesus defeats Sin. JESUS calms the storm. It is over. As JESUS said on the cross, “It is finished.”
So now the storm is over. It is finished and Jesus, through His death and resurrection, Jesus has freed us from the storm cellar as the storm is finished. We no longer need to remain in the storm cellar of the Law. It kept us safe for a while but it is of no use to us now, sin and death – the storm – has been defeated.
So, while the storm is whipping around outside we are all very grateful if we can find shelter in the Law but who of us, after the tornado had passed wants to continue to live in a hole in the ground? No one…No one in her right mind anyway.
This is exactly what Paul is talking about here in Chapter 3. And in Chapter 4, he goes on explaining the Law as if it were this servant guardian tutor of a small child. The guardian only has any authority until the child is grown, then the child has authority over the slave. We are no longer servants to the Law, customs and ceremonies… while we are grateful for the shelter God provided through the Law, we are especially thankful now that he has freed us from that hole in the ground.
But I have a question for us… are their times when, like Mick the Galatian Chicken, we are tempted to return to the confines of the Law? Are their ways in which, even though life is carrying on outside the storm cellar, we refuse to walk around in the freedom of Christ? What are some of the rules, special days, and traditions that can cut us off from our freedom in Christ (4:10)?
I remember one incident at a youth group activity many years ago, Heather, one of the girls at the church, invited a group of her Christian to a youth event and at break time these kids –who she knew were smokers- headed out for a cigarette. They go outside, have their cigarettes and start roughhousing a little bit. Heather is devastated; she cries. I talk to her. It didn’t make any sense to her. A Christian couldn’t do those things. There are rules to follow. There are things YOU HAVE to do…
So while it would serve us all well to never have a cigarette, of course, and we should all be on the road to holiness, sanctification, which ends in glorification, here is the problem: like Heather and like Mick the Galatian chicken, we can become trapped by our own rules –our own laws. We can start to believe that they are the means to our Salvation or just as bad – someone else’s.
Have you ever thought, “Does he really need that piece of chocolate cake? He’s already 800 pounds[7]. How can she really call herself a Christian? She stays up all night playing video games[8] and she doesn’t clean up after herself or help out around here at all. Look at that kid. He’s got his nose, ears, eyebrows and who knows what else pierced."
I’m a good solid Christian though. I don’t smoke. I go to church – and Bible study. I never eat too much. I always give my tithe. When I get to heaven, I’ll get a big house – not like those people who just get in by the skin of their teeth.
Don’t we sometimes get trapped by believing that, if we never speed and always declare all our income on our income tax; if we never lie, obey all the commandments and the Golden Rule, then that will get us into heaven, right? (wrong.) Aren’t there things that tempt us to hide in the security of the storm cellar of legalism rather than experiencing the freedom of Christ. What are the things that trap you?
SLOW: Think of these things. Really think of those things. Think… is there anything that is impeding our relationship with Christ? Are there any chains that are holding you, us, back, that are stopping us from experiencing the freedom in Christ that Paul speaks about. Is there anything at all that causes us to hide in that storm cellar of legalism?
Remember Christ died freeing us from the storm cellar. Christ died on the cross; so we don’t need to be trapped by our traditions. Christ died; so we don’t need to be trapped by our prejudices. Christ died; so we don’t need to be trapped by the Law. Christ died; so we don’t need to be trapped by, as Paul says in 4 verse 10, observing special days, months, seasons, and years. Christ died.
Christ died defeating the storm of Sin and Death and freeing us from all this. And you know what? He rose from the dead. Jesus rose from the dead. So, for those of us who are still trapped beneath ground in the storm cellar of legalism, for those of us who are sill underground, let’s rise with Christ. Let’s not remain in the ground, let’s break those chains that bind us and keep us back and - now let’s experience the freedom of life with Christ.
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[1] Based on: ‘Mickey the Hen’ from the sermon, Free as a Bird: Galatians 5:1-15. by Michael Ramsay
[2] Richard B. Hays, Galatians. (NIB: XI. Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 2000), 314. The NIB calls them ‘Missionaries’
[3] It appears that many of the Galatians were originally Gentiles and thus not subject previously. This then would be particularly irritating to the apostle, Paul. Cf. also Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians. (WBC: 41. Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1990), 227.
[4] Cf. Ramsay, Michael. Paul’s Understanding of the Role of Law as Reflected in Romans 2:12-16, 17-24, and 25-29. Available on-line at: www.sheepspeak.com/NT_Michael_Ramsay.htm
[5] Cf. Cousar, Charles B., Galatians. (Interpretation. Louisville, USA: John Knox Press, 1982), 79.
[6] Cf. for a good discussion of the role, function, and traditional understanding of the Law, NT Wright, “The Law in Romans 2,” Paul and the Mosaic Law, ed. James D. G. Dunn (WUNT 89; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1996), republished with English translations of German essays (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001).
[7] Intentional example since “Experts estimate that 10 to 25% of all teenagers and 20 to 50% of all adults have a weight problem”. Obesity Canada. n.p. [cited 09 04 2006] On-line: http://www.obesitycanada.com/
[8] 80% of BC Teens play video games regularly. Media Analysis Laboratory Simon Fraser University, Burnaby B.C. “Video Game Culture: Leisure and Play Preferences of B.C. Teens.” Simon Fraser University (October, 1998): 5.
and to Tisdale Corps on January 27, 2008
and Swift Current Corps on 26 August, 2011
By Captain Michael Ramsay
One day at the McDonald farm there is a rumbling in the air; something is a foot. In the chicken coop – something isn’t just quite right. The old farmer walks all around the chicken wire fence. It seems to be in tact. The barbed wire along the perimeter looks undisturbed. Everything looks fine as he locks up the hens for the night. But inside the henhouse on the top rung, something is stirring…it is Henrietta the Poultry Hen.
Now, as soon as Farmer McDonald closes the door to the coop, Henrietta, the Hen, speaks up: “It’s time.” Quickly Henrietta, Polly, Mick, - and all the chickens on the top rung - run to the southeast corner of the coop. They peck and they peck the ground in the corner like never before. Last night they had almost made it. Tonight would be the night. Finally – breakthrough! Henrietta and the other Chickens are free. They are free from the farmer’s coop. They are free from the barbed wire and the chicken wire; they are free from the tedious ritual and routine. They are free!
They spend the next morning roaming around the yard, exploring the whole farm. They eat what they want, when then want. They can be near or wander far away: they talk. They talk and they talk some more; it’s a hen’s life. They spend that whole day walking around eating what and when they want and really enjoying the full freedom from the yard. At the end of the day, they perch on a branch of tree across the road from the farm and cuddle up the night. It is good.
They have a nice rest but in the morning when they wake up, they notice something on the road - - - it is Mick the chicken crossing the road. They wonder. Why did the chicken cross the road? (pause) Mick is walking back towards the farm.
Mick is walking back to the coop. She goes across the road, to the fence and through the same crack under the chicken wire fence. She walks around the corner and up the walkway onto her old bar in the farmer’s small, confining chicken coop. The farmer then notices the crack in the fence and repairs it quickly. Mick is trapped.
Henrietta can’t believe it. She sees the whole thing where she is sitting, still free, looking on from her perch on other side of the road. She sees Mick, of her own accord, trapped all over again on the farm.
Mick was free and then she just goes back to be trapped all over again and it is even worse then she thought at first - As Henrietta scans the farm and hears the noises: here a cluck, there a cluck everywhere a cluck, cluck. She remembers, Mick the Chicken is on McDonald’s farm. The Mick Chicken is back at MacDonald’s! And you know what happens to McChickens at McDonald’s.[1] They get eaten. Mick is trapped.
And this is just like the Galatians we’ve been studying for two weeks here. In Susan’s teaching last week and in our Bible studies so far we’ve looked at how some of the Galatians have become just as trapped by the Law as Mick the Chicken is by McDonalds. And Paul, Paul is quite concerned; after all as we read in Galatians 3, where Paul repeatedly calls the Galatians ‘foolish’, he says in verse 10, “All who rely on the law are under a curse; for it is written ‘cursed is anyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law (cf. Deut 27:26).’ And it seems no one can do that.
Paul is then rightly quite concerned because it appears that there are some ‘false believers’ (Gal 2:4) who actually want the Galatians to be trapped by the law.[2] It appears that there are some here, in the Galatian churches, who are walking away from their freedom and [in the process] even walking away from [the Gospel of] Christ.
Rather than relying on Jesus, they prefer to return to the rules, regulations, feasts, celebrations and the Law (cf. 4:9,10) as if that can save anyone from our sins, as if we can possibly do anything to merit salvation and the resurrection – its not possible: All who rely on the law are under a curse because they do not and will not observe and/or obey all the things written in the book of the Law (cf. Gal 3:10, Deut 27:26).
The people in Galatia here are at risk now of being trapped by the Law. Paul is desperately, in this letter, trying to point them to freedom again.[3] He is trying to stop Mick the Galatian Chicken from returning to the confines of the Law (Gal 3:4, 4:9).
This raises a question though. (This is why we’ve been encouraging all of us to read the whole letter through so as to get its full meaning in context.) If the Law is something that traps us, if the Law is something that curses us, why did God give us the Law in the first place? Why did God write the Ten Commandments and hand deliver them to Moses? Did God want to trap us? Really, if the Law is so terrible, why were God’s own people expected to follow it for so long – hundreds of years. Why?[4]
For me, as I was reading and re-reading Galatians this passed couple of weeks, this was a pivotal question that kept coming to my mind. If the Law is so bad, why did God give it to his ‘chosen people’? And you’ll notice in the passage we read from earlier today 3:19-25 that Paul considers this as well.
Paul speaks of people as being imprisoned and guarded by the Law in verse 23. He says that the Law –depending upon your translation -was our guard, our disciplinarian, our custodian, or some translations even say our schoolmaster, in verses 24 and 25. This is interesting because the word in verses 24 and 25 that is translated these so many different ways probably could best be rendered ‘tutor’ and tutors –unlike guards or disciplinarians- were generally not considered bad people in first century Galatia.[5] They were the good guys: servants protecting and helping the children.
I look at the historical role of the Law like this[6]: The Law is sort of like a storm cellar – remember the Wizard of Oz? It is a place to hide when the storm kicks up - a place of refuge. When humankind started sinning (vs. 19), sin entered the world like a tornado bringing death and destruction to everything in its path. It says right in verse 19 of Chapter 3 that the Law was given to us as a result of our transgressions (Cf. Ro 5:20).
There is this storm of sin and death kicking up out there. People are dying, literally, and so God builds this storm cellar, in the form of the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, for their own protection. He builds the Law as a shelter from this storm of sin and death and He gives it to Moses and says to him, “Here, in there, take everyone in with you. Quick. Hurry!”
Moses does and the people remain in this safe, albeit somewhat cramped and confining, shelter for a long time and then something happens…Jesus, through His death and resurrection, Jesus defeats Sin. JESUS calms the storm. It is over. As JESUS said on the cross, “It is finished.”
So now the storm is over. It is finished and Jesus, through His death and resurrection, Jesus has freed us from the storm cellar as the storm is finished. We no longer need to remain in the storm cellar of the Law. It kept us safe for a while but it is of no use to us now, sin and death – the storm – has been defeated.
So, while the storm is whipping around outside we are all very grateful if we can find shelter in the Law but who of us, after the tornado had passed wants to continue to live in a hole in the ground? No one…No one in her right mind anyway.
This is exactly what Paul is talking about here in Chapter 3. And in Chapter 4, he goes on explaining the Law as if it were this servant guardian tutor of a small child. The guardian only has any authority until the child is grown, then the child has authority over the slave. We are no longer servants to the Law, customs and ceremonies… while we are grateful for the shelter God provided through the Law, we are especially thankful now that he has freed us from that hole in the ground.
But I have a question for us… are their times when, like Mick the Galatian Chicken, we are tempted to return to the confines of the Law? Are their ways in which, even though life is carrying on outside the storm cellar, we refuse to walk around in the freedom of Christ? What are some of the rules, special days, and traditions that can cut us off from our freedom in Christ (4:10)?
I remember one incident at a youth group activity many years ago, Heather, one of the girls at the church, invited a group of her Christian to a youth event and at break time these kids –who she knew were smokers- headed out for a cigarette. They go outside, have their cigarettes and start roughhousing a little bit. Heather is devastated; she cries. I talk to her. It didn’t make any sense to her. A Christian couldn’t do those things. There are rules to follow. There are things YOU HAVE to do…
So while it would serve us all well to never have a cigarette, of course, and we should all be on the road to holiness, sanctification, which ends in glorification, here is the problem: like Heather and like Mick the Galatian chicken, we can become trapped by our own rules –our own laws. We can start to believe that they are the means to our Salvation or just as bad – someone else’s.
Have you ever thought, “Does he really need that piece of chocolate cake? He’s already 800 pounds[7]. How can she really call herself a Christian? She stays up all night playing video games[8] and she doesn’t clean up after herself or help out around here at all. Look at that kid. He’s got his nose, ears, eyebrows and who knows what else pierced."
I’m a good solid Christian though. I don’t smoke. I go to church – and Bible study. I never eat too much. I always give my tithe. When I get to heaven, I’ll get a big house – not like those people who just get in by the skin of their teeth.
Don’t we sometimes get trapped by believing that, if we never speed and always declare all our income on our income tax; if we never lie, obey all the commandments and the Golden Rule, then that will get us into heaven, right? (wrong.) Aren’t there things that tempt us to hide in the security of the storm cellar of legalism rather than experiencing the freedom of Christ. What are the things that trap you?
SLOW: Think of these things. Really think of those things. Think… is there anything that is impeding our relationship with Christ? Are there any chains that are holding you, us, back, that are stopping us from experiencing the freedom in Christ that Paul speaks about. Is there anything at all that causes us to hide in that storm cellar of legalism?
Remember Christ died freeing us from the storm cellar. Christ died on the cross; so we don’t need to be trapped by our traditions. Christ died; so we don’t need to be trapped by our prejudices. Christ died; so we don’t need to be trapped by the Law. Christ died; so we don’t need to be trapped by, as Paul says in 4 verse 10, observing special days, months, seasons, and years. Christ died.
Christ died defeating the storm of Sin and Death and freeing us from all this. And you know what? He rose from the dead. Jesus rose from the dead. So, for those of us who are still trapped beneath ground in the storm cellar of legalism, for those of us who are sill underground, let’s rise with Christ. Let’s not remain in the ground, let’s break those chains that bind us and keep us back and - now let’s experience the freedom of life with Christ.
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[1] Based on: ‘Mickey the Hen’ from the sermon, Free as a Bird: Galatians 5:1-15. by Michael Ramsay
[2] Richard B. Hays, Galatians. (NIB: XI. Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 2000), 314. The NIB calls them ‘Missionaries’
[3] It appears that many of the Galatians were originally Gentiles and thus not subject previously. This then would be particularly irritating to the apostle, Paul. Cf. also Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians. (WBC: 41. Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1990), 227.
[4] Cf. Ramsay, Michael. Paul’s Understanding of the Role of Law as Reflected in Romans 2:12-16, 17-24, and 25-29. Available on-line at: www.sheepspeak.com/NT_Michael_Ramsay.htm
[5] Cf. Cousar, Charles B., Galatians. (Interpretation. Louisville, USA: John Knox Press, 1982), 79.
[6] Cf. for a good discussion of the role, function, and traditional understanding of the Law, NT Wright, “The Law in Romans 2,” Paul and the Mosaic Law, ed. James D. G. Dunn (WUNT 89; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1996), republished with English translations of German essays (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001).
[7] Intentional example since “Experts estimate that 10 to 25% of all teenagers and 20 to 50% of all adults have a weight problem”. Obesity Canada. n.p. [cited 09 04 2006] On-line: http://www.obesitycanada.com/
[8] 80% of BC Teens play video games regularly. Media Analysis Laboratory Simon Fraser University, Burnaby B.C. “Video Game Culture: Leisure and Play Preferences of B.C. Teens.” Simon Fraser University (October, 1998): 5.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Philippians 1: Be Bold! Be Prepared! Are you Ready?
Presented to Nipawin and Tisdale Corps on January 6, 2008
Presented to Swift Current Corps on November 18, 2012
By Captain Michael Ramsay
To read the 2012 version click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2012/11/philippians-1-be-bold-for-gospel.html
Last week Susan walked us through the heart of Philippians: Philippians Chapter 3. She let us know about the real significance of dying to self. It is impossible to put both yourself first AND to put Christ first. You have to choose. It is like after the recent provincial election. With only two parties having any seats in the house, you won’t have both of them ruling. It wouldn’t work – so Susan last week – in very different words - encouraged us to send the old party, in this case, the Self party packing and to just serve the NCP, New Creation Party. We have to serve someone, let’s serve God.
Today, before we get into Chapter 1 a little bit, I thought that we would look at some of background information to Philippians. I have a little quiz for you that those who attend our Bible studies should be able to get through easily enough.
1) Who is the city of Philippi named after? (Philip of Macedon; Macedonia is one of the northern most Greek provinces)
2) Who was Phillip? (Alexander the Great’s father; he laid the ground work for the Greek Empire and when he took over Philippi he really encouraged Greek immigration to the Area)
3) What other famous battle took there? (The Battle of Philippi which was around 300 years later; this was an important battle in the Roman civil war in which Caesar Augustus[1] won.)
4) Does anyone remember, where in the Bible – just recently would we have read about Caesar Augustus? (The Christmas story, remember, “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that the entire Roman world should be taxed (Luke 2:1).”
Very good, so this battle of Philippi that Augustus fought in is less than 100 years before this letter to the Philippians was written; there may even still be some veterans around; it would be like us reflecting on WWI. It is still in our general consciousness and just like the world changed after the World Wars in our time, it changed significantly by the Apostle Paul’s time as well.
The world does change very quickly, doesn’t it? I remember when I was kid in the 1970s. I lived in a semi-rural area of Victoria. All behind my house cornfields and beside us were Farmer Wild’s potato fields and we had a very small orchard of our own in our back yard. And the Vantreights, they had Daffodil fields everywhere. Between Farmer Wild and the Vantreights there was no end to seasonal employment for the kids. In the Spring some of us would even cut school in order to go earn a couple bucks cutting daffodils.
Now, of course, my parents home has been completely swallowed up by my hometown, Victoria, which is now a city of 300 000 people or so. It is Canada’s 13th largest city.[2] Things change.
But in those days life was different. The area was semi-rural and dogs could even roam free without being on a leash or without even their owners. They would often stroll along by themselves or together in pairs or packs and then they would meet up with another pack of dogs and start to investigate each other.
Of course, every once and a while there would be an aggressive dog or two and I certainly saw more than one dog fight growing up. (Some of these could be quite scary actually).
We had a dog. His name was Tuffy. Tuffy was a little border collie/sheltie cross and he was a smart dog but every once in a while, of course, he would get into one of these scraps himself.
I remember more than once, Tuffy would see some dog on our block that doesn’t belong there. He would charge them. It wouldn’t matter how big is the dog. It doesn’t matter how fierce is the dog; Tuffy runs at them. He’s not afraid of them. He growls at them. He, completely without any fear, engages the intruder.
Now sometimes, like I said, the dogs are a lot bigger than Tuffy. Still Tuffy charges, teeth bared- no fear – he charges the giant intruder with full confidence and then when the large dog strikes back…He runs away.
The other dog inevitably chases him and Tuffy runs right toward home. Tuffy runs faster and faster. As the dog gets closer, Tuffy – never afraid – runs to our next door neighbour’s house. He bounds up the stairs to his deck. The dog comes flying after Tuffy and arrives on the deck where he is seemingly trapped and … there is Goldie.[3] Goldie is by far the biggest dog you have ever seen and Goldie and Tuffy are quite a pair. They really are the best of friends.
So now the pursuing dog, the dog chasing Tuffy – which until this moment seemed quite large - is all of a sudden dwarfed by the giant Goldie, surrounded, and trapped on our neighbour’s deck.
So after a couple of very noisy minutes, the intruding dog finds a way out and runs away as fast as it can never to come back again, and there is little Tuffy standing at the top of the stairs –(if dogs could smile)- this little collie-sheltie cross was telling the much bigger dog, I’m sure, never to come back!
When Tuffy saw the intruder, he wasn’t worried, he engaged him; he did not avoid a conflict. He was prepared; he was not afraid. He didn’t worry about what could happen to him. His goal was to encourage his opposition toward Goldie and have Goldie take care of the rest.
This is actually the same sort of thing that is happening in Paul’s life as he writes this letter to the Christians in Philippi.
Paul has been openly engaging the non- and pre-Christian world. He has met with some strong resistance and it is just as if he is Tuffy up against a bigger dog.
Paul is even in jail right now as he writes this letter. Paul is in a jail and jails then, like now, really are not the best places in the world to be and not only that, Paul is facing a capital charge[4]. Paul, if convicted, is facing execution.
Paul is seemingly cornered by a larger and an aggressive part of the pre- and non-Christian world of his day but he is not afraid of this dog nor is he even apparently concerned for himself.
Look at our text today…well…actually wait a minute…imagine with me first, that you are in prison. I don’t know how many of you have ever seen the inside of a prison. I’ve seen a couple. I can tell you that they themselves can be more than a little intimidating – even when you aren’t confined there.
Now imagine that you aren’t just in any prison. Imagine that you are in an off shores American prison – the Super Power of our day – imagine that you are in Guatanamo or something and they’ve actually charged you OR even imagine that you are in Afghanistan or Pakistan and in the hands of the Taliban or another such group and imagine that you are facing a capital charge. Imagine that you are facing execution if you are convicted…
What would you write in your letters home? If you could make a video tape or leave a phone message, what would it say? I imagine that we would be more than a little afraid. I imagine that we would ask for everyone to pray for us. We would try to activate a prayer chain on our behalf and …we would get everyone that we could to pray for our safe return, right? We would send up the prayer alert and ask everyone to pray for our deliverance…
Now this is interesting because, this isn’t what Paul does here at all. Paul mentions that he is in prison but it is not with his own state that he is concerned (1:18b-26).[5] He is bold and he is concerned with how well the Philippians are doing at standing firm in preparing to meet Christ (cf. 1:11) on the balcony as it were, on the ‘Day of the Lord’.
He is encouraging them to not be afraid and to be prepared for this ‘Day of the Lord’ by living in a manner worthy of the Gospel (1:27) by being united in purpose (1:18; 2:1-8; 3:15-16), staying the course, fighting the foe, and he is even now rejoicing (cf. 1:3, 6) in the Lord’s accomplishments through them;[6] he is encouraging them to be bold in making preparations for the day of the Lord’s return. Are they ready for Christ’s return?
Look with me at Chapter One. Instead of ‘Please pray for me…Paul writes in verse 3, I thank my God every time I remember you. Paul is not concerned about himself. He is thinking about others and about their participation in the Gospel and Kingdom of the Messiah; and Paul goes on, verse 6, he tells them how confident he is, that God will complete the good work in them that God has already started. Verses 9 and 10: he speaks of his desire that their love may overflow with wisdom and knowledge to help them determine what is best so that we are prepared when day of the Lord does arrive – and he’s coming soon – when everyone meets Goldie on the balcony, Paul wants the Philippians to be prepared; we should be prepared.
Paul is not worried about his own self. Paul is concerned about others’ standing firm, being prepared for the Kingdom of God. This is a man in chains writing here. This is a man facing a death sentence. This is a man who has put his life on the line for the Gospel and right now is in jail awaiting appeal.
He is in jail and we don’t read in his letter any “Oh why is this happening to me, Lord”, do we? We don’t read any of the, “What have I done to deserve this?” or “How could this be happening to me?” Talk. Do we? NO, we don’t. Rather he is bold because he is prepared; he says to live or die, both are good. Death is gain (because of the resurrection) and life, life, is Christ.
We don’t hear him whining and complaining (cf. Romans 8:19). We don’t hear accusations about his captors. We don’t hear him calling down curses upon Caesar. We don’t read of complaints about even the food or his fellow inmates. What do we hear? We hear that his captors are hearing the Gospel and we hear Paul encouraging others to be bold and be prepared to share the Gospel in Philippi.
Paul is in jail and he is concerned about the Philippians and their courage to fully participate in the Messianic Kingdom of Jesus when Jesus returns.
Now Philippi, which was once a predominately Greek city, is now a small Roman Colony with special status and many Romans citizens.[7] It is a city of privilege[8]. Paul has visited it before, and now he, imprisoned by the Romans, is writing to encourage them who are free and in this privileged city to be bold. He is writing encouraging them how to live – being united in purpose, with their love overflowing – so that they will be prepared for the coming ‘Day of The Lord’.[9] Interesting.
The one imprisoned is writing to encourage those who are free. Paul is imprisoned for his defence of Christ. In our world today, people are still imprisoned for defence of the Gospel. Missionaries are still martyred but lest we think ourselves better than we are, let us not forget that there are Canadians who struggle against our own government for the Kingdom of God.
Now in Saskatchewan do we have it good. I spoke about Christ in the public Remembrance Day ceremonies here. The schools put on Christian plays at Christmas and there was even reference to Christ in Rebecca’s homework. There is still a certain amount of freedom of religion here. But let’s not be mistaken about what is happening in this country. Today people are suffering for the Gospel and we do need to be bold and prepared to stand for Christ because the ‘Day of the Lord’ is coming.
In BC, in previous sermons and articles[10] I have mentioned the religious persecution that has already begun in the public school system. In the 80s or early 90s, we were told not even to refer to Christmas in the schools. We were told rather to call it a ‘Winter Festival.’ I heard of Christian student teachers taking a stand at this time and I heard of some of these Christians not successfully completing their degree or suffering even worse consequences.
Not too long ago as well, a Surrey school board decided not to have a book in their libraries entitled, “One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dads Blue Dads.”[11] It promoted a different world view than the one held by the those who elected the school board. The people of Surrey did not want that book to be read to their children.[12] The Supreme Court and the federal politicians[13] continue to fail in standing up for these concerned citizens and the school board members they elected.
Even more recently, it was decided in BC’s lower mainland that Christian parents were not allowed to protect their children from courses –vetted by outsiders who are not even their regular school teachers - that they feel encourage counter-Biblical teachings[14]. So not only are Christians not allowed to try to protect others from what some consider very dangerous things, but they are forced to subject their own children to this worldview/religion (unless they are able to pay the not inexpensive costs of a private school education). Is it no wonder that since this Atheistic religious indoctrination has begun in the schools that Atheism has become the fastest growing religion in BC and with its growth, this persecution of others.[15]
Persecution for serving Christ is not confined to the Roman Empire of the 1st Century or the third world of today; so, are we prepared to be bold in defence of the Gospel?
In Nova Scotia, after the Swissair crash, the Christian clergy was told not to mention the name of Jesus and after 9/11, and even though the federal government apologized for the Swiss Air incident, the only world view represented in the Canadian ceremonies was that of the Secular Atheists: God was not invited; He was to be was excluded from the ceremonies.
So, although, in Saskatchewan, I have heard a local politician, encouraging others to write letters to the editor defending our freedom to proclaim Christ in the public arena, in Ontario the Secular-Atheists are calling for the police to step-in when politicians dare to pray in even small meetings.[16]
Persecution for serving Christ is real and it is not confined to the Roman Empire of the 1st Century or the third world of today. It is happening more and more here in Canada of the 21st Century. As it comes here, are we prepared to be bold in defence of the Gospel? This letter address to the Philippians, is for us.
After all, we here in Canada and Saskatchewan have it pretty good, just like the citizens of Philippi did. Canada is one of the richest countries of the world and a close ally of the Super Power of our day.
Philippi had a privileged status within the Empire of its day; people had it pretty good by comparison but even in Philippi persecution had begun and even now in Canada persecution has begun.
But let’s not just lament the acts of our aggressors. Paul didn’t. Let us not run away and hide. The Philippians were not to. Let us not cry out whoa is me. Let us not let our predecessors preaching be in vain. Let us not let those who are hauled before the courts in this country for our faith today do so in vain. Let us rather stand firm in proclaiming the Gospel. Let us be bold in our preparations for the ‘Day of the Lord.’
Paul is encouraging us, thousands of years later; Paul is encouraging us, since we have the same struggles that he had (cf. 1:30), to be bold in our proclamation and our preparation for the Day of the Lord so that our love may overflow and so that indeed the harvest of holiness, the harvest of righteousness may be produced in our own lives as the Kingdom of Christ will certainly be established through Jesus and to the glory and praise of God (1:11; cf. 1:27,28).[17]
Let us not be mistaken, in our world today, as we walk along we, like Tuffy, will run into dogs, who attack us for the truth of the Gospel of Christ. We will run into big, aggressive beasts. We must stand firm in proclaiming and living a life worthy of the gospel (1:27,28). Like Tuffy did not back down from his adversaries but rather let them to the balcony to meet Goldie, we should be prepared to be bold and not back down, and in the process lead even our aggressors to Jesus Christ - because it is only through Him that our Salvation comes.
Let us pray.
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[1] Octavius, as he was called at this time, was allied with Antonius (Mark Antony) and Lepedus against the republicans, led by Cassius and Brutus. Octavius later defeated Mark Antony as well which led to the famous story of Cleopatra’s suicide by Asp. Octavius / Augustus, after securing power, and thanks to Julius Caesar’s wrestling power from the Senate and placing it instead in the leader’s hands, would turn out to be arguably the most powerful Roman Emperor ever.
[2] 2006 Census. Canadian’s largest urban area:. www.stascan.ca
[3] I can’t remember her real name.
[4] He may or may not actually be in a jail as we think of it today. He is still awaiting trial so he could be in a cave, a secured room, a house, or a barracks. (Fred B. Craddock, Philippians, Interpretation Series, 1985, p. 19). Regardless, he is in the hands of the Super Power of his day, the Roman authority (Paul, of course, is himself a Roman citizen) and we should not assume that his imprisonment is necessarily easy. In some of our contemporary Canadian minimum security facilities, which are undoubtedly more comfortable than Paul’s arrangements, outsiders have greatly underestimated the effects of confinement upon people. Imprisonment is not a pleasant experience. Let’s not forget as well that he is awaiting trial for a crime that is punishable by death. This fact itself does not tend to gain oneself favour from one’s captors. See also DW Palmer, “To Die is Gain.” Novum Testamentum 17. 1975. pp. 203-208, re: release from imprisonment via death (and later resurrection, of course).
[5] This segment (1:18b-26) serves to clarify to readers that even if Paul does die, it doesn’t matter and they (we) should still be encouraged. After all if he does die, the next thing he knows will be the resurrection, when the Kingdom to come has indeed been established and gained and if he does live, he can continue to rally the troops to be prepared for the coming ‘Day of the Lord.’
[6] Paul’s reference to “Joy” is repeated numerous times throughout the letter.
[7] This is particularly interesting in the context of this letter because it doesn’t appear that there was much of a Jewish population in the tiny city of 10 000 people at all. This is interesting because Paul usually first evangelised the Jewish communities in the towns. Here there is no such evidence of such a segment even existing.
[8] There was however persecution of the Christians in this city. Cf. Philippians 1:28-29.
[9] It is interesting that there is some debate as to the theme of the letter itself. One thing, however, that is evident regardless of the primary theme (if there need be one at all) is that Paul is indeed encouraging the readers how to act in accordance in relationship to our theological understanding. Cf. Morna D. Hooker, The Letter to the Philippians, NIB XI, 476. Cf., also, R.C.H. Lenski, St. Paul’s Epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians, and Philippians, p. 695.
[10] Full citations for the references in this list are in other sermons and papers of mine, most of which are available on-line at http://www.sheepspeak.com/.
[11] cf: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1040356828066_95
///?hub=TopStories
cf. also Christianity Today: Parents Flee Public Schools: "Christians in British Columbia, Canada, are worried that courts are undermining their religious rights in the classroom."http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/march/12.23.html
cf. also the Atheist website, nodeity.com: http://nodeity.com/chamberlain_v_SD36.html re 'One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dads, Blue Dads'
You can read the Supreme Court Decision: http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/index.html - The following phrase is interesting - 'The School Act's insistence on secularism;' this begs the question why must our be subjected to the secularist Worldview; neither BC not Canada were settled or founded upon that mythology.
There were other problems with the books as well. CBC.ca: "This story has problems with punctuation and grammar throughout. The spelling of 'favourite' is inconsistent, switching from the Canadian to the American," said board chair Mary Polak about Asha's Mums. The board also criticized the book's depiction of men. (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2003/06/13/samesex_books030613.html).
It is serious that even though the book is unsatisfactory for education young people, that it was deemed necessary for our children to be exposed to it. The courts it appears are more interested in promoting a secular-atheist worldview than they are about providing a quality education for our children.
[12] There was, I believe, even an election in the interim between when the offer of the book was declined by the school board and when it was forced upon them by the courts and parliament.
[13] The federal government has the jurisdiction to make laws to protect its citizens. The Supreme Court is only allowed to interpret the laws in theory.
[14] Cf. The National Post: ‘Gay couple gets input into school curriculum’, http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=80dd8007-ef56-40a7-809d-37936b9d4179&k=51593&p=1
cf. also ‘Secular-Atheist's religion secures making the promotion of Homosexuality mandatory in the BC school system.’ Lifesite.net: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06060101.html
cf. also 'Documents Reveal Government Signed Over Control of Education to Homosexual Activists': http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06061907.html
cf. also: Peter Corren (né Cook) and Murray Corren (né Warren) — 'Corren is a combination of their former names — are LGBT-rights activists from Vancouver, British Columbia whose complaint before the BC Human Rights Tribunal led to an agreement by which the provincial Ministry of Education will consult them on how gays are presented in the school curriculum': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_and_Murray_Corren
[15] No religion / Atheism is now the largest religion / World View in BC: StatsCan: http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/Products/Analytic/companion/rel/bc.cfm
[16] cf. a letter from a former mayor: http://www.secularontario.ca/peterbexam06dec13.html, CBC.ca: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2007/01/26/prayer.html, Canadian Christianity.com: http://www.canadianchristianity.com/cgi-bin/na.cgi?nationalupdates/070201prayer
[17] Paul is encouraging us not to fight amongst ourselves (cf. 1:18: How it is that we proclaim the gospel doesn’t matter; what matters is that it is proclaimed).[17]He is encouraging us to proper actions, ethics, and to have love overflowing.
Presented to Swift Current Corps on November 18, 2012
By Captain Michael Ramsay
To read the 2012 version click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2012/11/philippians-1-be-bold-for-gospel.html
Last week Susan walked us through the heart of Philippians: Philippians Chapter 3. She let us know about the real significance of dying to self. It is impossible to put both yourself first AND to put Christ first. You have to choose. It is like after the recent provincial election. With only two parties having any seats in the house, you won’t have both of them ruling. It wouldn’t work – so Susan last week – in very different words - encouraged us to send the old party, in this case, the Self party packing and to just serve the NCP, New Creation Party. We have to serve someone, let’s serve God.
Today, before we get into Chapter 1 a little bit, I thought that we would look at some of background information to Philippians. I have a little quiz for you that those who attend our Bible studies should be able to get through easily enough.
1) Who is the city of Philippi named after? (Philip of Macedon; Macedonia is one of the northern most Greek provinces)
2) Who was Phillip? (Alexander the Great’s father; he laid the ground work for the Greek Empire and when he took over Philippi he really encouraged Greek immigration to the Area)
3) What other famous battle took there? (The Battle of Philippi which was around 300 years later; this was an important battle in the Roman civil war in which Caesar Augustus[1] won.)
4) Does anyone remember, where in the Bible – just recently would we have read about Caesar Augustus? (The Christmas story, remember, “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that the entire Roman world should be taxed (Luke 2:1).”
Very good, so this battle of Philippi that Augustus fought in is less than 100 years before this letter to the Philippians was written; there may even still be some veterans around; it would be like us reflecting on WWI. It is still in our general consciousness and just like the world changed after the World Wars in our time, it changed significantly by the Apostle Paul’s time as well.
The world does change very quickly, doesn’t it? I remember when I was kid in the 1970s. I lived in a semi-rural area of Victoria. All behind my house cornfields and beside us were Farmer Wild’s potato fields and we had a very small orchard of our own in our back yard. And the Vantreights, they had Daffodil fields everywhere. Between Farmer Wild and the Vantreights there was no end to seasonal employment for the kids. In the Spring some of us would even cut school in order to go earn a couple bucks cutting daffodils.
Now, of course, my parents home has been completely swallowed up by my hometown, Victoria, which is now a city of 300 000 people or so. It is Canada’s 13th largest city.[2] Things change.
But in those days life was different. The area was semi-rural and dogs could even roam free without being on a leash or without even their owners. They would often stroll along by themselves or together in pairs or packs and then they would meet up with another pack of dogs and start to investigate each other.
Of course, every once and a while there would be an aggressive dog or two and I certainly saw more than one dog fight growing up. (Some of these could be quite scary actually).
We had a dog. His name was Tuffy. Tuffy was a little border collie/sheltie cross and he was a smart dog but every once in a while, of course, he would get into one of these scraps himself.
I remember more than once, Tuffy would see some dog on our block that doesn’t belong there. He would charge them. It wouldn’t matter how big is the dog. It doesn’t matter how fierce is the dog; Tuffy runs at them. He’s not afraid of them. He growls at them. He, completely without any fear, engages the intruder.
Now sometimes, like I said, the dogs are a lot bigger than Tuffy. Still Tuffy charges, teeth bared- no fear – he charges the giant intruder with full confidence and then when the large dog strikes back…He runs away.
The other dog inevitably chases him and Tuffy runs right toward home. Tuffy runs faster and faster. As the dog gets closer, Tuffy – never afraid – runs to our next door neighbour’s house. He bounds up the stairs to his deck. The dog comes flying after Tuffy and arrives on the deck where he is seemingly trapped and … there is Goldie.[3] Goldie is by far the biggest dog you have ever seen and Goldie and Tuffy are quite a pair. They really are the best of friends.
So now the pursuing dog, the dog chasing Tuffy – which until this moment seemed quite large - is all of a sudden dwarfed by the giant Goldie, surrounded, and trapped on our neighbour’s deck.
So after a couple of very noisy minutes, the intruding dog finds a way out and runs away as fast as it can never to come back again, and there is little Tuffy standing at the top of the stairs –(if dogs could smile)- this little collie-sheltie cross was telling the much bigger dog, I’m sure, never to come back!
When Tuffy saw the intruder, he wasn’t worried, he engaged him; he did not avoid a conflict. He was prepared; he was not afraid. He didn’t worry about what could happen to him. His goal was to encourage his opposition toward Goldie and have Goldie take care of the rest.
This is actually the same sort of thing that is happening in Paul’s life as he writes this letter to the Christians in Philippi.
Paul has been openly engaging the non- and pre-Christian world. He has met with some strong resistance and it is just as if he is Tuffy up against a bigger dog.
Paul is even in jail right now as he writes this letter. Paul is in a jail and jails then, like now, really are not the best places in the world to be and not only that, Paul is facing a capital charge[4]. Paul, if convicted, is facing execution.
Paul is seemingly cornered by a larger and an aggressive part of the pre- and non-Christian world of his day but he is not afraid of this dog nor is he even apparently concerned for himself.
Look at our text today…well…actually wait a minute…imagine with me first, that you are in prison. I don’t know how many of you have ever seen the inside of a prison. I’ve seen a couple. I can tell you that they themselves can be more than a little intimidating – even when you aren’t confined there.
Now imagine that you aren’t just in any prison. Imagine that you are in an off shores American prison – the Super Power of our day – imagine that you are in Guatanamo or something and they’ve actually charged you OR even imagine that you are in Afghanistan or Pakistan and in the hands of the Taliban or another such group and imagine that you are facing a capital charge. Imagine that you are facing execution if you are convicted…
What would you write in your letters home? If you could make a video tape or leave a phone message, what would it say? I imagine that we would be more than a little afraid. I imagine that we would ask for everyone to pray for us. We would try to activate a prayer chain on our behalf and …we would get everyone that we could to pray for our safe return, right? We would send up the prayer alert and ask everyone to pray for our deliverance…
Now this is interesting because, this isn’t what Paul does here at all. Paul mentions that he is in prison but it is not with his own state that he is concerned (1:18b-26).[5] He is bold and he is concerned with how well the Philippians are doing at standing firm in preparing to meet Christ (cf. 1:11) on the balcony as it were, on the ‘Day of the Lord’.
He is encouraging them to not be afraid and to be prepared for this ‘Day of the Lord’ by living in a manner worthy of the Gospel (1:27) by being united in purpose (1:18; 2:1-8; 3:15-16), staying the course, fighting the foe, and he is even now rejoicing (cf. 1:3, 6) in the Lord’s accomplishments through them;[6] he is encouraging them to be bold in making preparations for the day of the Lord’s return. Are they ready for Christ’s return?
Look with me at Chapter One. Instead of ‘Please pray for me…Paul writes in verse 3, I thank my God every time I remember you. Paul is not concerned about himself. He is thinking about others and about their participation in the Gospel and Kingdom of the Messiah; and Paul goes on, verse 6, he tells them how confident he is, that God will complete the good work in them that God has already started. Verses 9 and 10: he speaks of his desire that their love may overflow with wisdom and knowledge to help them determine what is best so that we are prepared when day of the Lord does arrive – and he’s coming soon – when everyone meets Goldie on the balcony, Paul wants the Philippians to be prepared; we should be prepared.
Paul is not worried about his own self. Paul is concerned about others’ standing firm, being prepared for the Kingdom of God. This is a man in chains writing here. This is a man facing a death sentence. This is a man who has put his life on the line for the Gospel and right now is in jail awaiting appeal.
He is in jail and we don’t read in his letter any “Oh why is this happening to me, Lord”, do we? We don’t read any of the, “What have I done to deserve this?” or “How could this be happening to me?” Talk. Do we? NO, we don’t. Rather he is bold because he is prepared; he says to live or die, both are good. Death is gain (because of the resurrection) and life, life, is Christ.
We don’t hear him whining and complaining (cf. Romans 8:19). We don’t hear accusations about his captors. We don’t hear him calling down curses upon Caesar. We don’t read of complaints about even the food or his fellow inmates. What do we hear? We hear that his captors are hearing the Gospel and we hear Paul encouraging others to be bold and be prepared to share the Gospel in Philippi.
Paul is in jail and he is concerned about the Philippians and their courage to fully participate in the Messianic Kingdom of Jesus when Jesus returns.
Now Philippi, which was once a predominately Greek city, is now a small Roman Colony with special status and many Romans citizens.[7] It is a city of privilege[8]. Paul has visited it before, and now he, imprisoned by the Romans, is writing to encourage them who are free and in this privileged city to be bold. He is writing encouraging them how to live – being united in purpose, with their love overflowing – so that they will be prepared for the coming ‘Day of The Lord’.[9] Interesting.
The one imprisoned is writing to encourage those who are free. Paul is imprisoned for his defence of Christ. In our world today, people are still imprisoned for defence of the Gospel. Missionaries are still martyred but lest we think ourselves better than we are, let us not forget that there are Canadians who struggle against our own government for the Kingdom of God.
Now in Saskatchewan do we have it good. I spoke about Christ in the public Remembrance Day ceremonies here. The schools put on Christian plays at Christmas and there was even reference to Christ in Rebecca’s homework. There is still a certain amount of freedom of religion here. But let’s not be mistaken about what is happening in this country. Today people are suffering for the Gospel and we do need to be bold and prepared to stand for Christ because the ‘Day of the Lord’ is coming.
In BC, in previous sermons and articles[10] I have mentioned the religious persecution that has already begun in the public school system. In the 80s or early 90s, we were told not even to refer to Christmas in the schools. We were told rather to call it a ‘Winter Festival.’ I heard of Christian student teachers taking a stand at this time and I heard of some of these Christians not successfully completing their degree or suffering even worse consequences.
Not too long ago as well, a Surrey school board decided not to have a book in their libraries entitled, “One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dads Blue Dads.”[11] It promoted a different world view than the one held by the those who elected the school board. The people of Surrey did not want that book to be read to their children.[12] The Supreme Court and the federal politicians[13] continue to fail in standing up for these concerned citizens and the school board members they elected.
Even more recently, it was decided in BC’s lower mainland that Christian parents were not allowed to protect their children from courses –vetted by outsiders who are not even their regular school teachers - that they feel encourage counter-Biblical teachings[14]. So not only are Christians not allowed to try to protect others from what some consider very dangerous things, but they are forced to subject their own children to this worldview/religion (unless they are able to pay the not inexpensive costs of a private school education). Is it no wonder that since this Atheistic religious indoctrination has begun in the schools that Atheism has become the fastest growing religion in BC and with its growth, this persecution of others.[15]
Persecution for serving Christ is not confined to the Roman Empire of the 1st Century or the third world of today; so, are we prepared to be bold in defence of the Gospel?
In Nova Scotia, after the Swissair crash, the Christian clergy was told not to mention the name of Jesus and after 9/11, and even though the federal government apologized for the Swiss Air incident, the only world view represented in the Canadian ceremonies was that of the Secular Atheists: God was not invited; He was to be was excluded from the ceremonies.
So, although, in Saskatchewan, I have heard a local politician, encouraging others to write letters to the editor defending our freedom to proclaim Christ in the public arena, in Ontario the Secular-Atheists are calling for the police to step-in when politicians dare to pray in even small meetings.[16]
Persecution for serving Christ is real and it is not confined to the Roman Empire of the 1st Century or the third world of today. It is happening more and more here in Canada of the 21st Century. As it comes here, are we prepared to be bold in defence of the Gospel? This letter address to the Philippians, is for us.
After all, we here in Canada and Saskatchewan have it pretty good, just like the citizens of Philippi did. Canada is one of the richest countries of the world and a close ally of the Super Power of our day.
Philippi had a privileged status within the Empire of its day; people had it pretty good by comparison but even in Philippi persecution had begun and even now in Canada persecution has begun.
But let’s not just lament the acts of our aggressors. Paul didn’t. Let us not run away and hide. The Philippians were not to. Let us not cry out whoa is me. Let us not let our predecessors preaching be in vain. Let us not let those who are hauled before the courts in this country for our faith today do so in vain. Let us rather stand firm in proclaiming the Gospel. Let us be bold in our preparations for the ‘Day of the Lord.’
Paul is encouraging us, thousands of years later; Paul is encouraging us, since we have the same struggles that he had (cf. 1:30), to be bold in our proclamation and our preparation for the Day of the Lord so that our love may overflow and so that indeed the harvest of holiness, the harvest of righteousness may be produced in our own lives as the Kingdom of Christ will certainly be established through Jesus and to the glory and praise of God (1:11; cf. 1:27,28).[17]
Let us not be mistaken, in our world today, as we walk along we, like Tuffy, will run into dogs, who attack us for the truth of the Gospel of Christ. We will run into big, aggressive beasts. We must stand firm in proclaiming and living a life worthy of the gospel (1:27,28). Like Tuffy did not back down from his adversaries but rather let them to the balcony to meet Goldie, we should be prepared to be bold and not back down, and in the process lead even our aggressors to Jesus Christ - because it is only through Him that our Salvation comes.
Let us pray.
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[1] Octavius, as he was called at this time, was allied with Antonius (Mark Antony) and Lepedus against the republicans, led by Cassius and Brutus. Octavius later defeated Mark Antony as well which led to the famous story of Cleopatra’s suicide by Asp. Octavius / Augustus, after securing power, and thanks to Julius Caesar’s wrestling power from the Senate and placing it instead in the leader’s hands, would turn out to be arguably the most powerful Roman Emperor ever.
[2] 2006 Census. Canadian’s largest urban area:. www.stascan.ca
[3] I can’t remember her real name.
[4] He may or may not actually be in a jail as we think of it today. He is still awaiting trial so he could be in a cave, a secured room, a house, or a barracks. (Fred B. Craddock, Philippians, Interpretation Series, 1985, p. 19). Regardless, he is in the hands of the Super Power of his day, the Roman authority (Paul, of course, is himself a Roman citizen) and we should not assume that his imprisonment is necessarily easy. In some of our contemporary Canadian minimum security facilities, which are undoubtedly more comfortable than Paul’s arrangements, outsiders have greatly underestimated the effects of confinement upon people. Imprisonment is not a pleasant experience. Let’s not forget as well that he is awaiting trial for a crime that is punishable by death. This fact itself does not tend to gain oneself favour from one’s captors. See also DW Palmer, “To Die is Gain.” Novum Testamentum 17. 1975. pp. 203-208, re: release from imprisonment via death (and later resurrection, of course).
[5] This segment (1:18b-26) serves to clarify to readers that even if Paul does die, it doesn’t matter and they (we) should still be encouraged. After all if he does die, the next thing he knows will be the resurrection, when the Kingdom to come has indeed been established and gained and if he does live, he can continue to rally the troops to be prepared for the coming ‘Day of the Lord.’
[6] Paul’s reference to “Joy” is repeated numerous times throughout the letter.
[7] This is particularly interesting in the context of this letter because it doesn’t appear that there was much of a Jewish population in the tiny city of 10 000 people at all. This is interesting because Paul usually first evangelised the Jewish communities in the towns. Here there is no such evidence of such a segment even existing.
[8] There was however persecution of the Christians in this city. Cf. Philippians 1:28-29.
[9] It is interesting that there is some debate as to the theme of the letter itself. One thing, however, that is evident regardless of the primary theme (if there need be one at all) is that Paul is indeed encouraging the readers how to act in accordance in relationship to our theological understanding. Cf. Morna D. Hooker, The Letter to the Philippians, NIB XI, 476. Cf., also, R.C.H. Lenski, St. Paul’s Epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians, and Philippians, p. 695.
[10] Full citations for the references in this list are in other sermons and papers of mine, most of which are available on-line at http://www.sheepspeak.com/.
[11] cf: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1040356828066_95
///?hub=TopStories
cf. also Christianity Today: Parents Flee Public Schools: "Christians in British Columbia, Canada, are worried that courts are undermining their religious rights in the classroom."http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/march/12.23.html
cf. also the Atheist website, nodeity.com: http://nodeity.com/chamberlain_v_SD36.html re 'One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dads, Blue Dads'
You can read the Supreme Court Decision: http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/index.html - The following phrase is interesting - 'The School Act's insistence on secularism;' this begs the question why must our be subjected to the secularist Worldview; neither BC not Canada were settled or founded upon that mythology.
There were other problems with the books as well. CBC.ca: "This story has problems with punctuation and grammar throughout. The spelling of 'favourite' is inconsistent, switching from the Canadian to the American," said board chair Mary Polak about Asha's Mums. The board also criticized the book's depiction of men. (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2003/06/13/samesex_books030613.html).
It is serious that even though the book is unsatisfactory for education young people, that it was deemed necessary for our children to be exposed to it. The courts it appears are more interested in promoting a secular-atheist worldview than they are about providing a quality education for our children.
[12] There was, I believe, even an election in the interim between when the offer of the book was declined by the school board and when it was forced upon them by the courts and parliament.
[13] The federal government has the jurisdiction to make laws to protect its citizens. The Supreme Court is only allowed to interpret the laws in theory.
[14] Cf. The National Post: ‘Gay couple gets input into school curriculum’, http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=80dd8007-ef56-40a7-809d-37936b9d4179&k=51593&p=1
cf. also ‘Secular-Atheist's religion secures making the promotion of Homosexuality mandatory in the BC school system.’ Lifesite.net: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06060101.html
cf. also 'Documents Reveal Government Signed Over Control of Education to Homosexual Activists': http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06061907.html
cf. also: Peter Corren (né Cook) and Murray Corren (né Warren) — 'Corren is a combination of their former names — are LGBT-rights activists from Vancouver, British Columbia whose complaint before the BC Human Rights Tribunal led to an agreement by which the provincial Ministry of Education will consult them on how gays are presented in the school curriculum': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_and_Murray_Corren
[15] No religion / Atheism is now the largest religion / World View in BC: StatsCan: http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/Products/Analytic/companion/rel/bc.cfm
[16] cf. a letter from a former mayor: http://www.secularontario.ca/peterbexam06dec13.html, CBC.ca: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2007/01/26/prayer.html, Canadian Christianity.com: http://www.canadianchristianity.com/cgi-bin/na.cgi?nationalupdates/070201prayer
[17] Paul is encouraging us not to fight amongst ourselves (cf. 1:18: How it is that we proclaim the gospel doesn’t matter; what matters is that it is proclaimed).[17]He is encouraging us to proper actions, ethics, and to have love overflowing.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Are You The One To Come Or Should We Expect Someone Else? (Matthew 11:1-11)
Presented to Nipawin and Tisdale Corps on December 16, 2007
Presented to the Swift Current Corps on July 11, 2010 & Jan 25/15
Presented to Alberni Valley Ministries on December 22, 2019 and December 14, 2025
By Captain (Major) Michael Ramsay
The original presentation began with a quiz: the congregations were shown pictures of famous people that are readily recognisable and asked to identify them and at the end they were also shown a decades old picture of myself: the latter they weren’t able to successfully identify.
I remember - about the time these pictures were taken – I was a janitor; I worked nights for a big janitorial company. They have many buildings all over the city and I worked for this company since before I ever went to university so when I did go back to school, they were kind enough to work around my schedule.
They made me a ‘floater’: now a floater is a very important position because we are given the keys and alarm codes to banks and other important businesses all over the city and our shifts often end late at night or early in the morning so one doesn’t want just anybody walking around some of these buildings (for security reasons) in the middle of the night.
I remember one night. I’m on ‘floater’ duty. I have four buildings to clean. The first one, I have a staff working with me and I am given the unpleasant job of letting one of them go and that doesn’t go over so well. My second building takes me twice as long to clean as it should and when I get to my third building, it is well passed midnight and I have never been in this building before and I can’t find the light switch anywhere. As a result, I am late turning off the alarm and the thing goes off: it is loud. So while it is still ringing and the place is still dark I run and trip over a desk trying to turn it off and then the phone rings (the alarm company always calls to see why an alarm is going off) so I’m off and running again and this time it is in the other direction -still in the dark - to find the phone before I miss the call and the alarm company phones the police. I get to the phone just in time but not before crashing into another desk in the pitch black and yelling out some words that – don’t worry – I won’t repeat here.
I finally get this alarm mess sorted out but by now my leg that I have bashed twice is killing me as I am limping around the whole building still looking for the light switch in the pitch black. I am very lost in a maze of cubicles and I really can’t see anything and I am not feeling too happy at all when I hear something.
I hear something. I hear something growl. I hear something growl and bark loudly. This is not good. So what do I do? I yell. I yell quite loudly as I hit the floor. Peering up I can see a couple of police dogs and a police officer staring down at me. I can tell you – I don’t know if you have ever encountered an angry police dog but that was one of the scariest moments of my life.
What happened was when I spoke with the security company on the phone – remember I was just a spare, not the regular cleaner – my name wasn’t on the list of people who were approved to be in the building after midnight and instead of calling the company I worked for, like they are supposed to do, they called the police and so I almost got seriously hurt by a police dog.
Even though I told them my name they didn’t really know who I was.
This is not entirely unlike our story here today. Look at 11 verses 2 and 3, “When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, ‘Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?’”
John knows Jesus - just like the alarm company knew my name from our phone conversation – John knows Jesus, just like we know who many of those people whose pictures flashed on the screen at the beginning of the sermon are but here, it seems, John, like the alarm company with me and like many of us with those famous people, John is not entirely certain who exactly Jesus is.
Now I don’t know if you remember from when we were studying Luke earlier in the year, John is Jesus’ cousin. Not only that. Jesus’ mom and John’s mom are fairly close. Remember from Luke chapter one, that when Mary finds out she is going to have a baby; it says, she gets ready and hurries to meet Elisabeth and when Elisabeth hears that Mary is going to have a baby –the baby in her stomach – John the Baptist – leaps, it says. John and Jesus are family but still in the passage before us today John asks, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”
And not only that, as we read last week as well, if you’ll remember, John is actually the one who baptises Jesus. These two know each other in this way but still John asks, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”
Not only do they know each other. Do you remember the interchange between the two of them – you can flip back to Chapter 3 if you want – when Jesus comes to be baptised? John says, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? (Matt 3:14).” John obviously knows Jesus and he obviously knows something about Jesus, even before and right at the beginning of Jesus ministry but now, now for some reason, John asks of him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”
But there is even more: remember the heavens open up and God declares, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased (Matt 3:16)” and still John, who is there at the time asks, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”
Well this is interesting then – if John knows Jesus so well, who, other than the Messiah, the expectant King, could John be expecting?
Could John be expecting that Jesus is Elijah?[1] Some theorists have posited that John may have thought Jesus was Elijah; certainly other people did (cf. Matt 17:10-12; Mark 6:15, 8:28; Luke 9:19). After all – even though Jesus claimed that John was Elijah later in this very chapter we are looking at here today, in 11:14 (cf. also 9:11-13; Luke 1:17), John himself at one point denies that very claim (John 1:21). So if here John does not realise that he himself is fulfilling the role of Elijah and if he does not realise that Jesus is the Christ, he could have thought Jesus was Elijah – maybe.
Maybe John was just asking this questions for others and he really knew the answer all along. This was a popular view of the Reformers evidently– an unlikely view given the context of the passage, I would think, the gospels don’t tend to be quite so tricky – but maybe?[2]
He could be a prophet (Jeremiah; cf. Matt. 16:14)– much like John himself– only greater. If John saw the dove at Jesus’ baptism he may even recognise that, yes, Jesus is God’s son but maybe he just doesn’t know what that means? After all aren’t we all the children of God? Weren’t angels in the Genesis account sometimes referred to as ‘sons of God’ (Gen 6:2-4)? So then what does it mean to be the ‘Son of God’ and who, who is Jesus? Is he the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?
Well this is an important question for us today then too, isn’t it? Who is Jesus? The most educated, religious people of Jesus day, the Pharisees and Sadducees did not accept him as the Messiah, the Christ, the King to come, and in our story today John the Baptist, someone who knows Jesus even before he is born, someone who is his cousin, someone who baptises him, someone who teaches the same message of ‘repent for the Kingdom is near’ (cf. Matthew 3-4), someone as close to Jesus as John asks the question, are you the one to come, or should we expect someone else? Well, is Jesus the one to come or should we expect someone else; who do we say Jesus is?
A good man? - I have heard people say that. An imaginary figure? - I have heard that too –this one is rather silly though since we have much better evidence for Jesus as Christ than we do for Julius Caesar as Roman Emperor or the even the very existence of Socrates.
Was Jesus just a prophet as some – such as the Muslims and the Jews – suggest? Was he a mere man? Was he only a voice calling from the wilderness? Much of the world today would say that he was some kind of the prophet.
Could he just have been a religious teacher from a minor Roman province who developed a cult following that continued to grow for well – thousands of years now – there are more Christians in the world than ever before and, of course, the Bible is the world’s best-selling book. But all that aside, could he be just a dead teacher?
These are all answers with which people today answer the question, ‘Who is Jesus?’ Is he the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?
I think this is important because it changes everything doesn’t it? If Jesus is our Lord; if he is our king and his kingdom is at hand; if he is our wonderful counsellor, mighty God, everlasting father and prince of peace (Isa 9:6) – then we need to submit to his authority don’t we? So who is this Jesus?
Of course Matthew answers this question right in our text today. He does it in a couple of different ways. First, he does actually call him the Christ / Messiah (same word, different language) in Verse 2 and even more than that, look at how Matthew records Jesus’ response to the question, ‘are you the one to come?’
He says, verses 4-6, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.” Jesus is drawing John’s attention to the glory of the Kingdom of the Messiah mentioned in Isaiah 35:5-6 and 42:18.
Here, listen to part of Isaiah 35 again - we read it earlier today - where the Christ’s Kingdom is described:
The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendour of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the LORD, the splendour of our God.
And more, look at verse 5, HERE IT IS. It says that in the Messianic Kingdom to come, “… the eyes of the blind be opened (just like it says is happening now in our passage in Matthew) and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow. - And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness.
Isn’t this great?! And Isaiah 42 is much the same: this is what Jesus is answering to John’s question. John asks, are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else? And Jesus answer gives John tangible evidence that indeed this Kingdom of God is at hand. The Kingdom of the Christ, the Messiah is being established now; it is here. Just like John and Jesus proclaim – it is now at hand.
Who is Jesus? He is this Messiah. He is this Christ. This kingdom is being established and the wondrous aspects of it are available now. This is what Jesus lets John know and he reveals it in His own way in His own time. It reminds me of a story I read about just recently in the Expository Times.[3]
James V, the King of Scotland used to go around the country dressed like everyone else: a common person. That is because he wanted to meet the everyday people of the country not just the rich and powerful. He wanted to see how the normal people lived.
One day he was dressed in very old clothes and was going by a place known as Cramond Brig, when he is attacked by robbers who don’t know who he is. There is a fierce struggle and he is nearly overcome when, at just the right moment, a poor farm worker - Jock Howieson - hears the commotion comes to the disguised king’s aid.
Now Jock, the poor labourer, who works on this portion of the King’s land, known as Cramond Brig, now Jock unawares takes the undercover king home and gives him a dinner of broth and Jock - as the king is recouping – naturally asks the man who he is.
The King responds – in a Scottish brogue that I am not even going to attempt – ‘Ach, I’m a good man of Edinburgh.’
‘And where do you live in that city and where do you work?’
‘Well,’ says James, ‘I live at the palace and I work there too.’
‘The palace, is it? I’d like to see the palace; if I could see the King, I’d tell him a thing or two…’
‘About what?’ asks the man.
‘I’d tell him that I should own this land that I am on. I work it every day and he never comes here & gets his hands dirty working this land’
‘You’re right enough’, says the man. You come tomorrow to the palace at Holy Rood and I’ll show you around. Come at two.’
So the next day at two o’clock, Jock Howieson, is washed, dressed and at the palace to meet his new friend at the back door. The good man, whom Jock had saved the day before, shows him around the kitchen, the dining room, the bedrooms – the whole place. Then, at last, the two of them come to the great rooms of the State.
‘Do you want to see the King?’ the man asks Jock.
‘Oh yes indeed’, says Jock, ‘I do. I do want to see the King.’
So they enter the great hall and as they come in, men bow and ladies curtsey. It is really quite a thing to see.
So Jock whispers to his friend, ‘How will I know who the king is?’
‘He’s the only one who keeps his hat on’
Jock says, ‘But… there’s only us two with our hats…’ and Jock immediately takes off his hat as he realises that James is indeed the King of Scotland.
And so it is with us today. Jesus is King. He is walking around with each of us showing us his domain here on earth and just waiting for us to take off our hats as we realise that indeed Jesus is the one to come and he has arrived (and he’s coming back too, soon!)
Appeal: If there are any of us here today who have not taken off our hats and lain them before the Lord, I invite you to come up front here to the mercy seat and do just that – acknowledge the truth that Jesus Christ is Lord.
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http://www.sheepspeak.com/
[1] Cf. The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Matthew/Exposition of Matthew/IV. Book Version: 4.0.2. re: Schweitzer.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Margaret Forrester. The Expository Times. Vol. 119 Number I Pages 47-48.
Presented to the Swift Current Corps on July 11, 2010 & Jan 25/15
Presented to Alberni Valley Ministries on December 22, 2019 and December 14, 2025
By Captain (Major) Michael Ramsay
This is the original. To view the 2025 version, click here:
The original presentation began with a quiz: the congregations were shown pictures of famous people that are readily recognisable and asked to identify them and at the end they were also shown a decades old picture of myself: the latter they weren’t able to successfully identify.
I remember - about the time these pictures were taken – I was a janitor; I worked nights for a big janitorial company. They have many buildings all over the city and I worked for this company since before I ever went to university so when I did go back to school, they were kind enough to work around my schedule.
They made me a ‘floater’: now a floater is a very important position because we are given the keys and alarm codes to banks and other important businesses all over the city and our shifts often end late at night or early in the morning so one doesn’t want just anybody walking around some of these buildings (for security reasons) in the middle of the night.
I remember one night. I’m on ‘floater’ duty. I have four buildings to clean. The first one, I have a staff working with me and I am given the unpleasant job of letting one of them go and that doesn’t go over so well. My second building takes me twice as long to clean as it should and when I get to my third building, it is well passed midnight and I have never been in this building before and I can’t find the light switch anywhere. As a result, I am late turning off the alarm and the thing goes off: it is loud. So while it is still ringing and the place is still dark I run and trip over a desk trying to turn it off and then the phone rings (the alarm company always calls to see why an alarm is going off) so I’m off and running again and this time it is in the other direction -still in the dark - to find the phone before I miss the call and the alarm company phones the police. I get to the phone just in time but not before crashing into another desk in the pitch black and yelling out some words that – don’t worry – I won’t repeat here.
I finally get this alarm mess sorted out but by now my leg that I have bashed twice is killing me as I am limping around the whole building still looking for the light switch in the pitch black. I am very lost in a maze of cubicles and I really can’t see anything and I am not feeling too happy at all when I hear something.
I hear something. I hear something growl. I hear something growl and bark loudly. This is not good. So what do I do? I yell. I yell quite loudly as I hit the floor. Peering up I can see a couple of police dogs and a police officer staring down at me. I can tell you – I don’t know if you have ever encountered an angry police dog but that was one of the scariest moments of my life.
What happened was when I spoke with the security company on the phone – remember I was just a spare, not the regular cleaner – my name wasn’t on the list of people who were approved to be in the building after midnight and instead of calling the company I worked for, like they are supposed to do, they called the police and so I almost got seriously hurt by a police dog.
Even though I told them my name they didn’t really know who I was.
This is not entirely unlike our story here today. Look at 11 verses 2 and 3, “When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, ‘Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?’”
John knows Jesus - just like the alarm company knew my name from our phone conversation – John knows Jesus, just like we know who many of those people whose pictures flashed on the screen at the beginning of the sermon are but here, it seems, John, like the alarm company with me and like many of us with those famous people, John is not entirely certain who exactly Jesus is.
Now I don’t know if you remember from when we were studying Luke earlier in the year, John is Jesus’ cousin. Not only that. Jesus’ mom and John’s mom are fairly close. Remember from Luke chapter one, that when Mary finds out she is going to have a baby; it says, she gets ready and hurries to meet Elisabeth and when Elisabeth hears that Mary is going to have a baby –the baby in her stomach – John the Baptist – leaps, it says. John and Jesus are family but still in the passage before us today John asks, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”
And not only that, as we read last week as well, if you’ll remember, John is actually the one who baptises Jesus. These two know each other in this way but still John asks, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”
Not only do they know each other. Do you remember the interchange between the two of them – you can flip back to Chapter 3 if you want – when Jesus comes to be baptised? John says, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? (Matt 3:14).” John obviously knows Jesus and he obviously knows something about Jesus, even before and right at the beginning of Jesus ministry but now, now for some reason, John asks of him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”
But there is even more: remember the heavens open up and God declares, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased (Matt 3:16)” and still John, who is there at the time asks, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”
Well this is interesting then – if John knows Jesus so well, who, other than the Messiah, the expectant King, could John be expecting?
Could John be expecting that Jesus is Elijah?[1] Some theorists have posited that John may have thought Jesus was Elijah; certainly other people did (cf. Matt 17:10-12; Mark 6:15, 8:28; Luke 9:19). After all – even though Jesus claimed that John was Elijah later in this very chapter we are looking at here today, in 11:14 (cf. also 9:11-13; Luke 1:17), John himself at one point denies that very claim (John 1:21). So if here John does not realise that he himself is fulfilling the role of Elijah and if he does not realise that Jesus is the Christ, he could have thought Jesus was Elijah – maybe.
Maybe John was just asking this questions for others and he really knew the answer all along. This was a popular view of the Reformers evidently– an unlikely view given the context of the passage, I would think, the gospels don’t tend to be quite so tricky – but maybe?[2]
He could be a prophet (Jeremiah; cf. Matt. 16:14)– much like John himself– only greater. If John saw the dove at Jesus’ baptism he may even recognise that, yes, Jesus is God’s son but maybe he just doesn’t know what that means? After all aren’t we all the children of God? Weren’t angels in the Genesis account sometimes referred to as ‘sons of God’ (Gen 6:2-4)? So then what does it mean to be the ‘Son of God’ and who, who is Jesus? Is he the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?
Well this is an important question for us today then too, isn’t it? Who is Jesus? The most educated, religious people of Jesus day, the Pharisees and Sadducees did not accept him as the Messiah, the Christ, the King to come, and in our story today John the Baptist, someone who knows Jesus even before he is born, someone who is his cousin, someone who baptises him, someone who teaches the same message of ‘repent for the Kingdom is near’ (cf. Matthew 3-4), someone as close to Jesus as John asks the question, are you the one to come, or should we expect someone else? Well, is Jesus the one to come or should we expect someone else; who do we say Jesus is?
A good man? - I have heard people say that. An imaginary figure? - I have heard that too –this one is rather silly though since we have much better evidence for Jesus as Christ than we do for Julius Caesar as Roman Emperor or the even the very existence of Socrates.
Was Jesus just a prophet as some – such as the Muslims and the Jews – suggest? Was he a mere man? Was he only a voice calling from the wilderness? Much of the world today would say that he was some kind of the prophet.
Could he just have been a religious teacher from a minor Roman province who developed a cult following that continued to grow for well – thousands of years now – there are more Christians in the world than ever before and, of course, the Bible is the world’s best-selling book. But all that aside, could he be just a dead teacher?
These are all answers with which people today answer the question, ‘Who is Jesus?’ Is he the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?
I think this is important because it changes everything doesn’t it? If Jesus is our Lord; if he is our king and his kingdom is at hand; if he is our wonderful counsellor, mighty God, everlasting father and prince of peace (Isa 9:6) – then we need to submit to his authority don’t we? So who is this Jesus?
Of course Matthew answers this question right in our text today. He does it in a couple of different ways. First, he does actually call him the Christ / Messiah (same word, different language) in Verse 2 and even more than that, look at how Matthew records Jesus’ response to the question, ‘are you the one to come?’
He says, verses 4-6, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.” Jesus is drawing John’s attention to the glory of the Kingdom of the Messiah mentioned in Isaiah 35:5-6 and 42:18.
Here, listen to part of Isaiah 35 again - we read it earlier today - where the Christ’s Kingdom is described:
The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendour of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the LORD, the splendour of our God.
And more, look at verse 5, HERE IT IS. It says that in the Messianic Kingdom to come, “… the eyes of the blind be opened (just like it says is happening now in our passage in Matthew) and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow. - And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness.
Isn’t this great?! And Isaiah 42 is much the same: this is what Jesus is answering to John’s question. John asks, are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else? And Jesus answer gives John tangible evidence that indeed this Kingdom of God is at hand. The Kingdom of the Christ, the Messiah is being established now; it is here. Just like John and Jesus proclaim – it is now at hand.
Who is Jesus? He is this Messiah. He is this Christ. This kingdom is being established and the wondrous aspects of it are available now. This is what Jesus lets John know and he reveals it in His own way in His own time. It reminds me of a story I read about just recently in the Expository Times.[3]
James V, the King of Scotland used to go around the country dressed like everyone else: a common person. That is because he wanted to meet the everyday people of the country not just the rich and powerful. He wanted to see how the normal people lived.
One day he was dressed in very old clothes and was going by a place known as Cramond Brig, when he is attacked by robbers who don’t know who he is. There is a fierce struggle and he is nearly overcome when, at just the right moment, a poor farm worker - Jock Howieson - hears the commotion comes to the disguised king’s aid.
Now Jock, the poor labourer, who works on this portion of the King’s land, known as Cramond Brig, now Jock unawares takes the undercover king home and gives him a dinner of broth and Jock - as the king is recouping – naturally asks the man who he is.
The King responds – in a Scottish brogue that I am not even going to attempt – ‘Ach, I’m a good man of Edinburgh.’
‘And where do you live in that city and where do you work?’
‘Well,’ says James, ‘I live at the palace and I work there too.’
‘The palace, is it? I’d like to see the palace; if I could see the King, I’d tell him a thing or two…’
‘About what?’ asks the man.
‘I’d tell him that I should own this land that I am on. I work it every day and he never comes here & gets his hands dirty working this land’
‘You’re right enough’, says the man. You come tomorrow to the palace at Holy Rood and I’ll show you around. Come at two.’
So the next day at two o’clock, Jock Howieson, is washed, dressed and at the palace to meet his new friend at the back door. The good man, whom Jock had saved the day before, shows him around the kitchen, the dining room, the bedrooms – the whole place. Then, at last, the two of them come to the great rooms of the State.
‘Do you want to see the King?’ the man asks Jock.
‘Oh yes indeed’, says Jock, ‘I do. I do want to see the King.’
So they enter the great hall and as they come in, men bow and ladies curtsey. It is really quite a thing to see.
So Jock whispers to his friend, ‘How will I know who the king is?’
‘He’s the only one who keeps his hat on’
Jock says, ‘But… there’s only us two with our hats…’ and Jock immediately takes off his hat as he realises that James is indeed the King of Scotland.
And so it is with us today. Jesus is King. He is walking around with each of us showing us his domain here on earth and just waiting for us to take off our hats as we realise that indeed Jesus is the one to come and he has arrived (and he’s coming back too, soon!)
Appeal: If there are any of us here today who have not taken off our hats and lain them before the Lord, I invite you to come up front here to the mercy seat and do just that – acknowledge the truth that Jesus Christ is Lord.
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[1] Cf. The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Matthew/Exposition of Matthew/IV. Book Version: 4.0.2. re: Schweitzer.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Margaret Forrester. The Expository Times. Vol. 119 Number I Pages 47-48.
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