Sermon Supplements – Page 26

Reading Providence (Ruth 2)

“So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech.” —Ruth 2:3 (ESV)

Things happen, but things never just happen. Can you picture the wry smile of the author as he pens this line? Can you see the Spirit’s joy as he moves the human author as his pen? Can you see God’s smile as he etches these events in history?

It is not as though God does the big stuff like famine and harvest and leaves the dust to settle where it will. It isn’t as though God sits in the comfort of the air conditioned cab of his tractor, mindful of acres of work but oblivious to the ant mound he just plowed over. God isn’t so big that he passes over the details. He is so big no detail is passed over.

We must look at all reality through these eyes. This was indeed a divine moment—as every moment is. We mustn’t presume, but we must believe in providence. Presumption occurs when we think we can read providence and that it is a story about us. “It was a divine moment—a God-thing. I saved thousands of dollars.” Funny how me-centered your God-thing is?

John Flavel said that “the providence of God is like Hebrew words—it can be read only backwards.” The author wrote this story from the vantage point of the Davidic covenant. We read it from the vantage point of the new covenant. Don’t presume to be able to read the events of your life with the same kind of clarity.

Nonetheless, believe that there is a God ordering all events, some more significant, others less so, but all ordered for His purpose without one ant marching out of place. Providence isn’t meant to be understood but believed. Our confidence and joy in God’s sovereign goodness flow not from our understanding the details God’s plan, but knowing a God of all understanding has a plan to exalt the King of His people.

A Beat of Hope Interrupting a Dark Rhythm (Ruth 1)

“In the days when the judges ruled…”

These were grim days. The evils of the latter kings and the exile to come were but the harvesting of idolatrous seeds sown only a generation after the death of Joshua. Here is the dark rhythm of Judges:

“And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals (Judges 2:11).”

“And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. They forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth (Judges 3:7).”

“And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD (Judges 3:12).”

“And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD after Ehud died (Judges 4:1).”

“The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD gave them into the hand of Midian seven years (Judges 6:1).”

“The people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines. And they forsook the LORD and did not serve him (Judges 10:6).”

“And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, so the LORD gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years (Judges 13:1).”

As you advance through the book, the minor key persists, but a motif of hope is added:

“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6).”

“In those days there was no king in Israel (Judges 18:1).”

“In those days, when there was no king in Israel… (Judges 19:1).”

“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25).”

The hope is a king.

Set in the midst of these local military leaders, these flawed superheroes, you have the pastoral setting of Ruth. It is a welcome reprieve from the violence and evil of Judges and a hopeful transition to the era of kings.

In the midst of such sin, we see the beauty of God’s grace. Here, God’s providence takes the ordinary stuff of life and brings extraordinary mercy to his people. God’s sovereignty works in the regular hurts and glories of all His saints towards the same end we see in Ruth—the glory of His King. The King who will turn the hearts of His people back to God.

Work in the Theology You Work out (Philemon 17–25)

A Biblical scholar has written, “Few ideas in New Testament studies produce higher levels of agreement than the notion that Paul’s letter to Philemon has little or no theological substance.” All that statement says is that a lot of smart people are really quite dumb.

This book may not tease out the doctrine of redemption, but I dare you to find another one that works it in so well. Only if your Christianity is all brain and no heart or limb can you say such a thing. Only if you approach the Bible with an academic processor and not an ardent heart, could you be so blind.

Theology here is worked out further than many care to go. It is worked pass the brain, into the heart, and out the hands. This is theology well digested and carried through the body. This is what it looks like when the blood of Jesus gets into our bloodstream. Here you see the doctrines of union with Christ, adoption in Christ, the family of God, redemption, and forgiveness as they take root in the heart of man and produce the fruit of the Spirit. Philemon is applied theology.

Just as the aforementioned doctrines are light in a dark world, so too, the life they produce in man is contrary to this culture. The gospel is foolishness to this world all the way down and all the way out. Thus, Philemon just might have been the most shocking little letter in the ancient world. If we too so ingrain the truth of Christ and his redemption, it is still surely so today.

An Appealing Approach (Philemon 8–16)

In the first half of this little letter, all that we explicitly know is that Paul is appealing. We are not told what Paul is appealing for, only how and for whom he is appealing. Instead of speaking as one with authority, that is, instead of speaking as an apostle of the Lord Jesus, Paul appeals as a prisoner of Christ Jesus.

In line with this, though Paul would have liked to have kept Onesimus, he is sending him back to Philemon so that Philemon can act freely. Parents should long for that time when law-like commands transition to Proverbs-like appeals. Obedience is the glory of children, but there is a kind of obedience that exasperates. “Bring me my glass son.” “Ok, which hand should I use? Where should I touch the glass? Do you want me to fill it up? How full?” When a child is older you can say “mow the lawn,” and walk away with confidence. While they’re younger, you have to stick around to direct and answer questions. Likewise, shepherds may speak more gently to mature sheep. They make appeals so that the sheep may act freely. A sheep that can be led with the slightest touch is a joy to the shepherd.

Shepherds shouldn’t coddle the sheep into immaturity. Sheep shouldn’t cultivate a Toys-R-Us attitude wherein they play the day away unless commanded to do something. Maturity in Christ means that not everything needs to be spelled out and that appeals come as powerfully as commands.

The Most Shocking Letter in the Ancient World? (Philemon 1–7)

When one reads through the Bible each year, while Exodus lasts a matter of weeks, and Ezekiel seems to never end, Philemon is mist soon forgotten. It is read one day a year and with a few other chapters from another book. But what we are so quick to pass over might have been one of the most shocking letters in the ancient world.

The nature of one’s slavery in the Roman Empire depended on the nature of their lord. A slave’s lot might be such that he is envied by many free men, or, it might be horrid beyond our comprehension. The slave/lord relationship would most often be dominated by fear. Lords fearing their slaves and slaves their masters. Slaves comprised upwards of a third of the Roman Empire. Most were owned by few, and no double many of the non-elite would side with the slaves. Though over a century past, Spartacus’ slave rebellion was an indelible cultural memory. Once that rebellion was quelled, some six thousand captives were crucified lining the Appian Way, the major highway to Rome, for over a hundred miles. Roman men were taught to dominate their households and ensure the submission of their slaves by whatever force necessary.

A runaway slave being returned to their master could expect the harshest of treatment and likely death. But, here is Philemon, returning, not by force, but willingly, with a letter from Paul, asking that his lord receive him as a brother.

This kind of thing can only happen in Christ. Paul doesn’t attack slavery head on. He attacks no social evil in this way. Sinners gotta sin. Outside of Christ, all is Babel. In Christ, there is Pentecost. Outside of Christ, man doesn’t understand man, man is fearful of man, and man is against man. Outside of Christ fear rules the relations of men. Outside of Christ, the powerful enslave the weak in a multitude of ways. Outside of Christ, even brothers kill one another. But in Christ, Pentecost has brought the different together. In Christ, Jew and Gentile, slave and free sup around one table as brothers with their Lord serving them. In Christ, we are speaking and hearing one message—Jesus. Only in Jesus do we see reconciliation and forgiveness of this magnitude and we see it in Jesus because it is dwarfed by that which we have received in Him.

Know Names (Colossians 4:7–18)

Paul’s little letter to the Colossians closes with a litany of names so large it is exceeded only by his grand epistle to the Romans. You don’t need to know these names so much as you need to learn that you should know names. Appreciate Paul’s letters, even these personal endings. Love, pray, and take interest in those who minister the word of Christ. Love the saints in other cities. Encourage them when given opportunity. Greet them as brothers and sisters in Christ.

In chapter three it is clear that life in Christ is communal. Life in Christ is life in the body of Christ. In this closing, an added element this communal life in Christ is brought out by the repeated word “fellow,” which we might call friendship or camaraderie.

Friendship, as C.S. Lewis noted in The Four Loves, is about something.

“This is why those pathetic people who simply ‘want friends’ can never make any. The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends. Where the truthful answer to the question Do you see the same truth? would be ‘I see nothing and I don’t care about truth; I only want a Friend,’ no Friendship can arise—though affection of course may. There would be nothing for the Friendship to be about; and Friendship must be about something, even it were only an enthusiasm for dominos or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellows travelers.”

Friendship is about something, and here we see the greatest kind of something friendship could be about. Here we see friendship on the deepest level; that born out of a common love, a union with the one who said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

In this letter, Christ is all; Christ is supreme. This remains true in this closing. Jesus’ Name echoes through this litany of names. In union with Christ, we put the old to death and put on the new, and thus we are conformed to Jesus’ image. So it is that our love for the saints proves to be love for the Savior. Lewis later continues,

“We were made for God. Only by being in some respect like Him, only by being a manifestation of His beauty, lovingkindness, wisdom or goodness, has any earthly Beloved excited our love. It is not that we have loved them too much, but that we did not quite understand what we were loving. It is not that we shall be asked to turn from them, so dearly familiar, to a Stranger. When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has made, sustained and moved moment by moment within, all our earthly experiences of innocent love. All that was true love in them was, even on earth, far more His than ours, and ours only because His. In Heaven there will be no anguish and no duty of turning away from our earthly Beloveds. First, because we shall have turned already; from the portraits to the Original, from the rivulets to the Fountain, from the creatures He made lovable to Love Himself. But secondly, because we shall find them all in Him. By loving Him more than them we shall love them more than we now do.”

Poorly Hung Church Doors (Colossians 4:2–6)

“At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison.” —Colossians 4:3 (ESV)

Paul’s “open door” has been installed in many churches incorrectly. This phrase has been hijacked in an attempt to sanctify a horrid way to seek God’s will. In his excellent little book, Just Do Something, Kevin DeYoung quotes a Lark New satire piece,

TUPELO — Walter Houston, described by family members as a devoted Christian, died Monday after waiting 70 years for God to give him clear direction about what to do with his life.

‘He hung around the house and prayed a lot, but just never got that confirmation,’ his wife Ruby said. ‘Sometimes he thought he heard God’s voice, but then he wouldn’t be sure, and he’d start the process all over again.’

Houston, she says, never really figured out what his life was about, but felt content to pray continuously about what he might do for the Lord. Whenever he was about to take action, he would pull back ‘because he didn’t want to disappoint God or go against him in any way,’ Ruby says. ‘He was very sensitive to always remain in God’s will. That was primary to him.’

Friends say they liked Walter though he seemed not to capitalize on his talents.

‘Walter had a number of skills he never got around to using,’ says longtime friend Timothy Burns. ‘He worked very well with wood and had a storyteller side to him, too. I always told him, ‘“Take a risk. Try something new if you’re not happy,” but he was too afraid of letting the Lord down.’

To his credit, they say, Houston, who worked mostly as a handyman, was able to pay off the mortgage on the couple’s modest home.

Do you know how Paul found open doors? He prayerfully tried a bunch of handles. When one opened, he went through.

What are the open doors Paul asks for? Opportunity for the gospel, to declare the mystery of Christ. Upon returning to Antioch following his first missionary journey, we read that, “when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles (Acts 14:27).” The open door for the word then isn’t just the opportunity to declare the gospel, but receptivity to believe the gospel. Listen to the same truth in different garb. In Acts 11 Peter reports of this same open door of faith for the Gentiles. When the church “heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, ‘Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.’ ” (Acts 11:18)

Paul desires prayer because He knows the work is the Lord’s. All opportunity and all receptivity for the gospel are gifts from God’s hand. Paul isn’t asking for prayer so that he might know who to marry, where to go to school, or what job to take. Paul’s personal request isn’t that personal at all. Paul doesn’t ask for an open door for himself, but for the gospel.

Why is Paul’s door installed incorrectly in so many churches? Because we are idolatrously bent in on ourselves. The crooked can’t hang straight doors.

A Call for Slavery (Colossians 3:22–4:1)

While some are repulsed by the command for a wife to submit to her husband, many ignore the command for slaves to obey their masters. They’d rather act like it’s not there, like dust quickly brushed under the rug as the guests approach. We wear the Bible’s slavery passages like a stain we got on our white shirt on the way to a job interview. We sit awkwardly trying to hide it.

The embarrassment goes as deep as our translations. It is as though a coverup is afoot made easy by a prior historical fumble. The Latin servus was used to translate the Greek doulos. The Latin then crossed over into the early English translations as “servant.”

Many modern English translations now used a mixture of slave, bondservant, and servant. When it comes to passages where cause for offense might be most intense, translators often waffle and default to servant or bondservant. Doulos, means slave. Every time. No exceptions. Murray J. Harris writes:

“In New Testament Greek there are at least six terms that are often translated or could be translated by the English word ‘servant.’ But only one New Testament word—doulos—has the distinctive meaning of ‘slave’, and this word occurs 124 times in the New Testament.”

The ESV translates this same word as “slave” in 3:11 and there is absolutely no reason to do otherwise in 3:22. At the close of chapter 3 Paul is speaking precisely to those just addressed as slaves and the free lords they serve.

The term slave should cause us to blush at our national heritage, but not at our Biblical heritage. Put shame where it belongs, on sinful men, not the Holy Word of God. Do not ever be embarrassed at the Scriptures. We shouldn’t blush to take any portion of God’s Word on our lips. If there is any right to embarrassment, the Word of God should blush to be on our lips. We are the stain. God’s Word is pure.

There is a radical difference between a slave and a servant. Most notably, servants are hired, whereas slaves are owned. Some argue for a translation of “servant” because ancient slavery was different from modern slavery and they fear an anachronistic reading of our ideas back into the text. Yes, it was different, but why is it any better to read our modern idea of servanthood back into the text? Modern slavery is a good deal closer to ancient slavery than modern servanthood is. Use the right words so that the right questions are asked. Making it easy doesn’t make it clear. Rather than making our translations soft, we need to do the hard work of teaching the sheep to be good readers of God’s good Word.

A Boat that Won’t Float Downstream (Colossians 3:21)

When the New Testament addresses parenting, it is the father who is addressed. There are only two places in the New Testament where parenting is explicitly dealt with.

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4 ESV)

“Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.” (Colossians 3:21 ESV)

The father is the head. The father is responsible.

Adam’s first sin was that he failed to be responsible. Following on the heels of this, he sinned by failing to take responsibility for his irresponsibility. First, Adam does nothing. He received the charge to keep, to guard and protect the garden. When the snake came. He did nothing.

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” (Genesis 3:6 ESV)

When Adam did do something, it was just as bad as his doing nothing; he blamed his wife. “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate (Genesis 3:12 ESV).”

When there was sin in the garden, God came calling for Adam. Men, when the fruit of sin is eaten in your home, when the lies of Satan are tolerated in your garden, it’s you God will call for. When a general loses a war, he can’t whine about the soldiers. A good general will bark at the soldiers, but he may not blame them. This isn’t to give a father license to bark, but to show the sissiness of blame shifting.

Responsibility travels upstream. You can’t float the boat of responsibility downstream with a thousand oars. Responsibility always goes up, so you can’t pass the blame down. Fathers, beware of blame shifting in the home, for the only step up from you is the Father. This is what Adam did when he said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me.”

Sacrificial responsibility is something a man can bear only in the Second Adam—the Christ, who though innocent, bore responsibility for our sins.

“Family-friendly”? (Colossians 3:20–21)

“²⁰Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. ²¹Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.” —Colossians 3:20–21 (ESV)

A saboteur has not only been largely welcomed into our midst, but afforded a cabinet position. We’ve promoted the spy.

While fleeing Absalom (2 Samuel 15–17), David strategically sent one of his loyal advisors, Hushai the Archite, back into Jerusalem under the guise of a defector, with the purpose to give bad counsel veiled as wisdom. It takes a great deal of cunning to disguise folly as wisdom. Hushai successfully offered what seemed to be superior counsel which proved Absalom’s undoing.

A Hushai is in our midst, but one that is not loyal to God’s King. He isn’t a servant of the Savior, but the serpent. He is just as sly, dressing up folly as wisdom, but to the saint’s destruction. His successful campaign flies under the banner “family-friendly.” A couple of examples should suffice.

We have “family-friendly” programming for TV, so that the children are occupied while dad and mom do their own thing. Rather than being educated in adulthood, adolescence is reinforced, and this is said to be friendly to the family? The commercials are “friendly” as well, catering to the children, developing an addictive appetite for more stuff. We keep the tube playing just so that we won’t be interrupted by pleas of “I want!”

We have the family-friendly church; a safe place to drop off the kids and escape them for a while. We segregate the family in the name of family-friendliness. The family is segregated so each individual can do church in a way attractive to them. And we wonder why once they’ve grown, we have a traditional church, a contemporary church, and others suited to personal taste.

Instead of such safe, sterile, “family-friendly” environments, what our children desperately need is some fresh air. They need some parental supervised and sponsored danger that prepares them for life outside the bubble. Instead, we coddled them into perpetual immaturity.

Like Theoden, a Grima Wormtongue has climbed the ranks, serving as our chief advisor. We are so poisoned by his lies that we cannot see the truth. We believe our sickness to be health. Our only hope is the liberating grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Before this section on parenting and children, Paul first addresses marriage. In both instances, Paul is dealing with life in Christ. Enveloping the family, is the Christ who is sovereign over all, in whom we died and rose to the heights.

It is because Christ is not honored as Lord that children do not honor their parents.

It is because Christ is not honored as Lord that parents are not honorable.

We must repent, destroy these idols of family-friendliness, slay Hushai as a spy, and bow the knee to Christ Jesus.