Last week a member of the congregation shared an article with me from the New York Times in which the author, David French, spoke about a rising religious fervour in North America, seen more clearly in the United States than in Canada. In that article he contrasted Christian revival with Christian revolution. David French warns that what we might be seeing and experiencing today might be much closer to revolution than it is to revival. I find his insights helpful in analyzing the significant Christian movement of the last decade or so.

Revolutions have been part of Western culture for about three centuries. Significant revolutions include the French Revolution, the American Revolution, and the Communist Revolutions of Russia and China. In these revolutions, the people had become dissatisfied with the dominant powers, and they rose up against them to overthrow them. Typically, these revolutions took the form of removing political rulers and replacing them with new rulers, ones who make the claim that they will rule for the people. For a revolution to begin and to be successful, the people must prove that those who have power are in the wrong and that their continued power will result in the total destruction of society. It is necessary for revolutionaries to malign those in power by blaming them for all that is wrong with the world. Revolutionaries must state things to the extreme, for to admit that there is anything good in those who hold power would be to weaken their perceived right to remove them from power. Further, revolutionaries must be sure to plaster over any cracks in their own ideologies, for to expose a crack would be to betray weakness. Thus, in the American Revolution, for example, British rule was painted as being destructive while the proposed democracy that the revolutionaries would offer was painted as being the absolute best form of government. Democracy, self rule, was proposed as the being the goal to which all others should be expected to attain if they wanted true freedom.

The watchword of revolution is “You are wrong, and we are right.” To put this into Christian-speak, we could say that the watchword of Christian revolution is, “You are completely sinful, and we are completely righteous.” Of course, as we well know as Reformed Christians, neither statement is completely correct. While we believe in total depravity, we do not believe in utter depravity. Utter depravity says that there is no remnant of good in anyone while total depravity says that while there remain remnants of good in everyone (we can still see God’s image), every part is tainted by sin and therefore unacceptable to God. Revolution, by its very nature, must ignore total depravity and adopt a position of utter depravity, at least for those who are perceived to be enemies of Christianity. The other statement, “we are righteous,” also cannot be true, for we know that there is no one who is righteous. We are all sinners, and everything we do, even if it is in the name of Jesus Christ, is still tainted by sin.

In sharp contrast to revolution, revival says something completely different. Revival begins with the admission of personal sin and promotes repentance. A revivalist will say, “I am a sinner, and I repent.” If we look at the great revivals of the last few centuries, we discover that the influential leaders spoke directly to people about our sin. Jonathon Edwards, for example, preached a now famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, in which he likened complacent and sleeping Christians as being spiders hanging by a thread over a burning candle, in danger of being consumed in a moment. He moved his congregation to think about their own sin and to seek repentance from God. According to David French, “We will know when revival comes because we will see believers humble themselves, repent of their sins, and then arise, full of genuine virtue, to love their neighbors — to help them, not hurt them — and in so doing to heal our nation.” Revival results in life, as the word indicates. Revivification, the bringing again to life that which is dead or dying, is what is needed, not the destruction of those who are in opposition, as revolution demands.

Revival is not about power or about making things conform to one’s own ideologies. That’s revolution. Revival is about the renewal of the heart, and when the heart is renewed, life is renewed and when life is renewed, the world is renewed.

David French is concerned that we are mistaking the increasing religious fervour in the west, which is often tends to toward the revolutionary side, for revival. Revolutions can change things, of course. In the American Revolution, the outside monarchy was sent away and those from within took power of the new country. From that beginning the ideals of independence and freedom were born, but they were not realized for everyone. Democracy is not the rule of the people by the people but, rather, it is the rule of all the people by the dominant portion of the people. For those who were not among the dominant (slave, for example), democracy did nothing to make their lives better. Revolutions change the ones who have the power, and revolutions often do bring a better situation for many. But revolutions always involve the destruction of those who disagree.

Revivals, on the other hand, are life-giving. As we repent of our own sins and as we recognize our need for forgiveness, we are given new life by God. We are awakened to live and we, once again, recognize the value of giving others the ability to live. The intent of the revival is to give life to those with whom we have issue and who may be wrong and sinful.

Revolutionists must make their position strong and give themselves the right to overthrow others, and to do so, as already mentioned, they make the other the sinners and themselves the righteous. Revivalists recognize their own sin and repent of it. They never declare themselves to be righteous or even right. It is that posture of humility that brings life to others rather than take life from them.

It might be helpful if we would consider if we are seeing revolution or revival in the contemporary Christian climate. True, there is an increase in religious fervour, but is it of the right kind?

In 1689, in England, Parliament passed a law which said that all citizens had the right to bear arms. In the previous year England had experienced what has become known as the Glorious Revolution. King James II (not the one who authorized the production of the King James Bible), who was a staunch Roman Catholic, had turned against the Protestants in England developing policies which made their lives difficult. The Protestants rose up in revolt and, mostly without use of weapons and violence (thus named the Glorious Revolution), managed to reduce his power and give increased power to the Parliament. This marked a significant turning point in the British Isles, for since that day the monarchy has been subject to the rulings of Parliament.

In 1689, Parliament recognized that the king (or queen) could become tyrannical and destroy those who disagreed with them. To prevent tyranny, Parliament gave all citizens the right to bear arms against tyrannical, even to the point of overthrowing the monarchy by force. It should be noted that the idea of bearing arms was not original, for three quarters of a century earlier, Queen Elizabeth I had given common citizens the right to bear arms, effectively making all citizens into soldiers should the need arise. Her militia of citizens did not take hold, but the idea of citizens bearing arms did.

The Second Amendment of the US Constitution gives its citizens the right to bear arms, and for many of the same reasons as was found in British law. When first introduced, citizens were given the right to bear arms for the defense of the nation, to check federal tyranny, and to bring a balance of power to the nation by distributing the power of the sword among the people, the fifty states, and the federal government. Over the years the Supreme Court extended the right of a citizen (note that non-citizens are not necessarily included) to bear arms to protect him/herself from harm or attack.

We should note that in Canada there is no constitutional right given to Canadians to bear arms and the Supreme Court has also said that there is no constitutional right for a Canadian even to own a gun. The discussion in Canada has been centred around the right to own a gun, not the right to bear arms. It is important to realize that these are two very different things. Even if Canadians have the ability to own a gun, they do not have the right to bear arms as was enshrined in law in both England and the United States. (We should note that England has changed its laws, and its citizens no longer have the right to bear arms and owning a gun is considered a privilege.)

People who make the argument that they have the right to own a gun often argue that they would use the gun only at a gun range or to shoot varmints such as coyotes or bears. They also argue that hunting is a sport, and hunting requires one to carry a weapon, usually a gun. Rarely, if ever, do we hear people advocating for the right to bear arms as we might understand that phrase in the traditional sense. The right to bear arms also gives the bearer of the weapon to shoot to death another person. In other words, the right to bear arms supposes that the weapon will be used against another human being if the circumstances might warrant such action.

I suspect that most of those who advocate for gun ownership do not want to get into the debate about bearing arms, although, I suppose, some would say that they should have the right to defend themselves. They might be less likely inclined to say that the right to bear arms includes gathering a militia to attack the federal government if they perceive it has become too tyrannical.

The question we have to ask as Christians is this: does Scripture give room for us to bear arms either for self-defense or to overthrow a tyrannical government? Most of the “proof” for the right to bear arms for these reasons would come from the Old Testament, but we must be careful not to use the Old Testament laws in the New Testament context without carefully considering their context and purpose. (Those who advocate for Christian Nationalism, whereby they are advocating that a nation become like Old Testament Israel, tend to forget that the church is the continuation of God’s people of the Old Testament and not a particular contemporary nation.) It may be entirely inappropriate to apply Old Testament civil laws to current civil situations.

In the New Testament, we do see an ethic which seems to advocate against bearing arms with the intent to kill another person either because they are tyrannical or for reasons of self-defense. For example, Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, and in the context, he seems to be implying that this was also true in their response to the tyrannical Roman government. In his letter to the Romans, Paul reminds us that Scripture teaches us that it is God who has the task of avenging us if we think that revenge is called for. In fact, a quick study of the entire Bible indicates that God is the one who has the authority to avenge and when people engage in vengeance, they are usually in the wrong. We also note that the New Testament church’s response to the tyrannical behaviour on the part of the government was not to throw together a militia and attack the local authorities. When James was killed by Herod in Jerusalem (Acts 12), and when Peter was subsequently arrested to be tried by Herod (and likely killed as well), the church did not gather weapons and attack Herod or try to free Peter from prison. Rather, the church gathered to pray, and God answered their prayers, and Peter was freed. Herod, by the way, shortly after, died because worms of some sort had infested his body. And, of course, when Jesus was arrested and Peter took out his sword, cutting off a man’s ear, Jesus rebuked him and told him that his desire to exercise his right to attack a tyrannical government was out of line.

It does seem, as we read the Bible, that as Christians we should carefully question laws that would give people the right to kill other people even if their killing might seem justified. Gun ownership can be debated, for a gun can be used as a tool, just like we might use a welder or a hammer. Bearing arms, though espoused by many, including many Christians, should be carefully examined in the light of Scripture, and the question must be asked: is this what Jesus intended his followers to do? As we know, just because something may be legal does not make it right.

A few years ago, I had some business at the University of Toronto which is located near the downtown of the city. In a very small area, there are hundreds of thousands of people and during a normal day the sidewalks are full of people of all ages and ethnicities. As I walked along the sidewalk, I noticed that most of the people, while they did not avert their eyes, did not meet my gaze. For the main part, it was as if I didn’t exist. This, apparently, is not unique to Toronto. Some have told me that they have had a similar experience in Calgary. Even though there may be hundreds of people around, there is very little interaction with anyone.

One of the biggest problems facing people today is the problem of loneliness, and although it is counterintuitive, that problem becomes greater in settings where there are more people. We can understand why feelings of loneliness might arise if someone is living in an unpopulated area of the prairie, for there is no one else to talk to. However, to feel lonely on a city street where there are tens of thousands of people around doesn’t seem possible. In fact, we might feel more lonely in the midst of people than we would if we were in a remote location. When we are alone, loneliness comes as no surprise; when we are with others but have no interaction with them, it seems unnatural.

I have known people who say they are never more lonely than when they come to church service. This seems odd because, after all, when we gather for worship, we are with people who are of like mind and who have the same goal, namely serving Jesus Christ. Still, those who have told me of their loneliness say that while they are sitting in the pew, they sit alone, and the awareness that most other people have someone else makes them more aware of their own situation. And it’s not only single people who have said this. I have also heard the same from families who feel very lonely when they gather with the rest of the congregation. Perhaps the loneliness is accentuated by the fact that there is an expectation when we gather with God’s people that we will be welcomed as one would welcome a beloved member of the family, and when our experience is otherwise, we are shocked.

Some years ago, while living for a short time in a small city, I began to attend a church in that community, and my initial experience was wonderful. Someone immediately perceived that I was new to the church, and they came over to me with a smile and a welcome. They asked who I was, and they seemed to be genuinely happy that I was there. I felt welcome. A friend also attended that church with his family, and when I shared my experience with him, he became a little cynical: they are friendly, he said, but they do not want to become your friends. What he meant was that the church did its best to make him and his family feel welcome, but the relationship never went beyond that. They were never invited into the lives of others, and the feelings of loneliness grew, even as they were surrounded by smiling, welcoming people.

There are a number of biblical images of the church, but the one that addresses the problem of loneliness most fully is the image of the church being the family of God. We are brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. A few weeks ago, as a family we travelled back to Ontario where we spent time with family and friends. It was good to be with friends again, but it was more meaningful that we were with family. With family, we felt we belonged, and while our family is not perfect, it is where we felt welcome. This is what the church is meant to be. True, there are families where the members do not get along, and there may be feelings of loneliness even when with family. But, if we think about healthy families, we can see how the church, if it functions like a healthy family should, can be a place where there is no loneliness.

The church has been designated to be the family of God. By definition, when we put our faith in Jesus Christ, every other Christian in the world becomes our brother or sister. But being something by definition might not mean that we experience the reality. In other words, we are expected to cultivate that which we are. It takes effort and intention to treat each other as brothers and sisters. To that end, let me suggest two questions that we should ask of ourselves as we live out our role as children of God:

First, am I doing anything that might make others feel excluded? Groups of friends can become cliques, and cliques tend toward excluding most people while including just a select few. Being friendly without the expectation of making friends is a way of pushing people away rather than drawing them in.

Second, are we intentional about including others. Just because someone might be sitting among us does not mean they are with us. To include others is to open our lives to them. This is more than just having a simple conversation; to include means that we fellowship with them on a deeper level than just saying hi.

God did not create us to be lonely. He created us to be in community with each other, and the church, representing the restored creation, is meant to be a place where there is no loneliness. May it be that there is no loneliness among us.

The mark of the beast, in Revelation 13:18 is 666. According to that verse, it is not only the mark of the beast; it is also the number of a man. Many have speculated about this number and what it means exactly. Some have said that it refers to Emperor Nero, the letters of whose name, using a kind of numerology, total up to 666. This is unlikely, for Nero had died more than 40 years before John saw his revelation.

A more likely interpretation of this number is to notice that it falls short. The number, 7, is a number of completeness in the Bible. It is often associated with the things of God (e.g. seven spirits in Revelation), and thus, the number, 6, is a number which depicts something that is not complete, not whole. The threefold use of “6” indicates a great falling short of wholeness and completeness.

In Revelation 13:16-17 we are told that the second beast, whose number is 666, (more about the first beast in a moment) forced everyone to take its mark on their right hand or forehead, and if they did not, they would not be able to buy or sell, meaning that unless they bowed to the beast, they would not engage in business or even buy groceries for this family. It is understandable that reading a statement like this would raise alarm among Christians who would refuse to receive the mark of the beast. Many have asked how Christians will live if this becomes a reality.

Reading only Revelation 13 might raise in us feelings of dread, but we cannot read one chapter without considering the context of the rest of the book. This is not the first time that a mark placed on human beings is mentioned, and we need to go back to Revelation 7 to discover the first time. There in Revelation 7 we learn that God places a mark on those who are his, sealing them as his own. True, a narrow and literal understanding of Revelation 7 would lead us believe that those who are sealed are the 144,000 Jewish men (12,000 from every tribe of Israel), but scholars who have studied apocalyptic writing such as Revelation teach us that the number, 144,000 comes from the multiplication of numbers of wholeness (12x12x1000). This is the full contingent of all who belong to the Lord.

What we discover in Revelation 7, further, is that those standing before the throne of God will never again hunger or thirst, but rather, the Lamb will lead them to springs of living water.” We cannot help but see the parallel between Revelation 7 and 13, for both have to do with being supplied with the essentials of life. However, there is a significant difference: in Revelation 7, it is Jesus who supplies his people with life-giving food and water while in Revelation 13, those who have the mark of the beast have to have money to buy and sell, essentially providing for themselves in ways common to how this world operates. In other words, those who receive the mark of the beast live in a less-than-perfect situation (a 666 situation where nothing is complete) while those who belong to Jesus experience fullness (a 777 situation).

This contrast between incompleteness and wholeness is made more clear by the beasts as they are compared to the Lamb. In Revelation 5 we read that the Lamb who was Slain, Jesus, has the authority to open the scroll of history, thus having the authority to shape and direct the entire course of human history. We find this Lamb in heaven, before the throne of God the Father. In sharp contrast, in Revelation 13, we see an ugly beast coming up out of the sea (the place most distant from heaven, a place of great chaos), and that ugly beast also has a wound from which he had recovered (compare that to the lamb who was slain), and that beast is supported by the dragon, a terrible reconfiguration of the serpent found in Genesis 3. Many have said that the first beast represents the powerful empires of the world, empires which say they can provide salvation but the salvation they provide is substandard and ineffective. The second beast, whose number is 666, many believe, represents the religious powers that support the activities of the first beast. In other words, it takes two beasts to do the work of one Lamb who is both king and priest.

We could spend a lot more time thinking about the symbolism and its meaning in the book of Revelation, but we have enough to draw a conclusion: all that the devil can do is nothing more than a very bad and incomplete facsimile of what Jesus has come to do. Again, the devil needs two beasts (one injured and seemingly come back to life) to try to copy the work of the one Lamb who was slain but is now alive again, resurrected from the dead. The devil grants the ability to live to those who follow him, but he is not able to provide, and those who follow him must use their own money to survive. The Lamb, on the other hand, provides completely for those who put their trust in him.

But what of the mark of the beast, the thing that so many people fear? It’s a bad copy, and it has no real benefits. True, the devil might try to destroy the lives of God’s people by withholding from them the essentials of life, but we must never forget that those who belong to Jesus are marked for eternity and cannot be destroyed. It is important to realize, of course, that Revelation 7 is a scene from heaven where those who have suffered on this earth can now be found before the throne of God. We can take this to mean that those who belong to Jesus might well be persecuted while on this earth, but we must also understand that there awaits a glorious eternal life with Jesus that will last for eternity. To put it another way, the devil might be able to give those who belong to him an opportunity to get ahead in this world, but that is all they will get. Those who belong to Jesus are marked (guaranteed) for eternal life. For all who belong to Jesus, we need not fear the mark of the beast, for we are marked with the mark of God. And that is enough, isn’t it?

In Genesis 3 we read the story about Adam and Eve being tempted by the serpent (the devil) and their subsequent sin of eating the forbidden fruit. Realizing that they were naked, they covered themselves with leaves, and they hid themselves in the garden. Scripture records for us that they hid because they heard the sound of God’s footsteps as he walked in the garden in the cool of the day. It seems that this was a regular occurrence, for God to visit with them, and it would have been normal for Adam and Eve to greet God with joy and pleasure. On this day of falling into sin, however, they find themselves unwilling and unable to face God.

If we would have to depict this scene, we might well show God with a look of puzzlement on his face. Where were Adam and Eve? Why didn’t they come to welcome him to the garden, and why didn’t they greet him with joy? Aside from the fact that we can be sure that God already knew what had happened, he would have known from their absence that something had gone wrong. Things were not as they were supposed to be.

How would God respond? Because he knew that Adam and Eve had sinned, he could have responded with anger. Not only had they turned against him in open rebellion, but they had brought sin into the world, and sin would from that point on, taint everything in creation. Nothing would remain untouched by the stain of sin. God had every right to be angry, and he could have summoned them to stand before them to give account of what they had done. He could have levelled accusations against them and became their judge and jury, condemning them to banishment and death. Rightfully, he could have responded in anger.

God had to respond to the absence of Adam and Eve, for he could not ignore what had happened. And God did respond. In the Hebrew, his response was only one word, “Ayyekah?” which means, “Where are you?” Instead of leveling accusations against this frightened couple, he asked for their location.

We might wonder what God’s tone of voice was when he called out to Adam. Was it concern? Was there some frustration? Was there an undertone of anger? Was their love? I imagine it was all of those, and those words evoked a response in Adam. He told God that he was afraid because he was naked. Clearly Adam had come out of hiding, and he had to stand before God, the leaves he had fashioned for a garment barely covering him naked body. He was afraid because he was exposed to God. The fig leaves were not covering his shame, and he knew it. Hiding could not keep God from knowing what had happened.

I find God’s first response to human sin to be thought provoking. Yes, God asked the question, but God knew where Adam and Eve were. They were not hidden from his sight. So, he asks the question, not to glean information but to challenge Adam and Eve. Where did this sin get you? Where are you now?

They were in the garden, but they were soon to lose that. Within hours of their being found out, they had been expelled from the garden, banished from the presence of God not allowed to return. Where did their sin get them? Nowhere where they wanted to be. From that point on, they could not rely on the earth graciously yielding its produce; they would have to fight for everything, eking out their existence in an adversarial world.

Sin does that. What seems so enticing, so attractive, turns out to bring us to a place where we do not want to be. A husband grows close to a woman not his wife, engages her in a relationship, thinking it to be loving and warm and instead finds himself out in the cold, separated from wife and children. An accountant cooks the books, buying for himself a nice cottage with his ill-gotten gain in which he hopes to spend many weekends with friends and family but instead finds himself in prison, sharing a cell with someone who has no use for him. The sin which seems so attractive results in separation and banishment.

God’s question to Adam and Eve is provocative. Where does sin get us? Nowhere good. Sin always separates, always divides, always leaves us out in the cold. It may seem attractive, but where we are after sin is not where we want to be.

But there is more to the question. God does not only challenge us to think about where sin lands us, but there is also a sense of invitation in it. Yes, God calls Adam and Eve to account, asking that they be honest about the misery of their situation, but he is also calling the sinner to himself again. They were banished to a place from which they could not return, but, at the same time, they were forced to recognize that they depended on God to provide them a way back. They could not return alone, and they could not return without his help. But in his question, God calls them back into his presence, and he gives them a word of hope. Yes, they will be banished, but God will not banish them forever. He will make things right again.

He calls to Adam and Eve in their hopelessness and despair. They evaluate their situation, and what they discover about themselves is not good. Further, there is nothing they can do, so they have to rely completely on God to bring them back. In that question, we can hear God letting Adam and Eve know that while they are banished, God is also calling them to himself again.

And that is the hope of the gospel. Sin results in our banishment. Sin never gets us anywhere good. Sin always separates, and sin exposes to us that we are weak and naked. But God does not respond as we expect, for when we sin, even though his question makes us evaluate our own foolishness, his question also encourages us to come before him and take what we deserve. What we find, however, is not what we deserve but, rather, in Jesus Christ, we find what we do not deserve but receive, his grace to bring us back to himself.

In a sense, God asks the same question of us when we come to believe in Jesus: where are you now? And then, instead of being banished, we will find that we are in his presence because he drew us there.

I was listening to a podcast a few days ago, and I finally understood something that I had been puzzling over for decades. It turns out that I was making very complex something that is really fairly simple. The words, “in Christ,” have puzzled me. What does it mean to be “in Christ”? The word, ‘in,” indicates location, but what does it mean to be located in Jesus Christ?

The speaker in the podcast simplified it. He said this: think about your location. You are in a room or you are in a car or you are in hockey arena. While you remain who you are, where you are located affects everything about your life. In the last few weeks, I spent over 90 hours in the driver’s seat of my vehicle, and being in that seat affected how I lived. I did not act as if I were seated in a front row seat at a hockey game. In that driver’s seat, I had to pay attention to the road, other vehicles, and to traffic signs. If I lost my concentration for even a few seconds, I would put myself and others in danger. In addition, I also had to move the proper levers and push the right pedals so that the vehicle would move forward. If I neglected to behave appropriately, my vehicle would never have left the driveway and my 90+ hours would have been entirely wasted. But if I was in my seat at a hockey game and acted in the same way, I would probably be encouraged to visit a mental health professional.

This is a rather obvious explanation, but it took the simplicity of the explanation to understand what it means that we are “in Christ.” True, this phrase does not speak of location, but it does speak of our situation and our response to it. According to Paul in Ephesians (and a number of other letters), we are “in Christ.” We have been brought into Christ by God’s grace and divine election and by the faith which the Spirit engendered in us so that we could believe. Entering “into Christ” involves God’s work and necessitates our response. By God’s grace, we are “in Christ.”

That does affect our lives in very real ways. Because I wanted to attend my daughter’s wedding, I had to enter into the driver’s seat of my vehicle. Sitting in a seat in the hockey arena would not have served the same purpose. Being in Christ, likewise, brings us to a new state of being. Through Jesus’ death on the cross, we enter into a renewed relationship with our Creator God. The relationship that was broken because of sin is restored, and it only when we become “in Christ” that we what was broken is made whole. Being in relationship with God means that we can rely on him to provide for us both now and for eternity. We know that God the Father will never let us go because “in Christ” we have become his children. Being in Christ brings us to a new place.

But being in Christ also means that we are expected to behave appropriately. If I were sitting in the driver’s seat of my vehicle and acted as if I were at the hockey arena, nothing would get cone, first of all, and second, I would look very foolish. In the same way, being in Christ means that we act appropriately. We expect that of ourselves and others when it comes to what room we are in, but we also expect that of ourselves and others when we are in Christ. We commit our lives to serving Jesus, being in him, being fully committed to following him wherever he may lead.

Finally understanding what “in Christ” means (I realize I was overthinking the phrase), I also can more fully understand what Scripture means when it says, “we are in this world but not of it.” It is true that while we are in this world, we are first in Christ. We will always be in Christ, but we will not always be in the world, for one day, when we pass from this life to the next, we will no longer be in the world. Thus, because the world is temporary, it should have minimal influence on both our identity and on our life choices and priorities. Being in Christ means that while we are in the world, we are not of the world, and we will always be in him.

We will always struggle with how this should look, and there is never one easy and straightforward answer. Perhaps the best advice comes to us from the prophets who told the Israelites that after they were taken into exile that they should build homes, find jobs and seek the wellbeing of the place where they lived. They did not cease to be God’s people, and Daniel illustrated that best of all when he refused to pray to the emperor and was punished by being thrown to the lions. He survived, entirely by God’s grace, and he went on to bless the Babylonian empire with wisdom given to him by God. He was in Babylon, and he had responsibilities there, but he never abandoned the fact that he was first and foremost “in Christ,” meaning that he was committed to the Lord and his ways.

We are in the Nobleford area, in Alberta, in Canada, in the West, and being here does impact our lives. But we are first and foremost in Christ and that affects how we live, our decisions, and our priorities. We shape our lives in ways that are appropriate for being in Christ even as we live in this world. It is Christ who takes priority, even as we seek to be a blessing in this world.

I learned something important from that podcast. Maybe you already knew what it means to be in Christ, but I needed the concept to be clarified. Now I know, and I must ask myself, “Am I living in Christ, or am I living in this world? Which has priority?” I suspect that as I think about this, being in Christ should demand a little more of my attention while the world around me should demand a little less.

In the book of Genesis, we read the story of Joseph, son of Jacob, who, though sold as a slave into Egypt, became the second most powerful man in that country, second only to Pharaoh. As we recall, the land of Egypt enjoyed a seven year period of bountiful harvest during which Joseph collected the excess harvest and stored it because God had revealed to Pharaoh that bountiful period would be followed by a seven year period of famine. Joseph was able to keep the people of Egypt alive by selling them the food that he had stored over the seven years of bounty. In Genesis 47 we read that the people first bought grain with their money, and when the money ran out, they gave Pharaoh their livestock in exchange for food, and when the livestock were all sold, they sold their land and themselves to Pharaoh. The Egyptians became landless slaves, reduced to servitude to Pharaoh.

In verses 22 and 25 we are told that the only exception was that the priests of Egypt, because they received an allotment from Pharaoh, were able to keep their land and their freedom. By the end of the famine, only the priests of Egypt were free people who owned their own land. Pharaoh owned all the rest.

We might pass this mention of the special treatment of the priests by because it seems like an irrelevant point, but when we consider it more carefully, we understand how important the priests were considered to be for the welfare of Egypt. The Egyptians, along with nearly every other nation, attributed their wellbeing to the intervention and provision of their gods. Priests were employed to ensure that the gods were properly appeased and respected so that the nation would prosper.

The role of the priests, the religious sector of society, for most of history, has been considered to be essential for the wellbeing of most of the nations and peoples of the world. This was because the gods were considered to be relevant for the daily wellbeing of the people. If the gods were happy, the people were happy. If the gods were unhappy, the people suffered, so it was best to keep the gods happy. So essential was the presence of the priests that they were given special privilege, for the priests, after all, were the ones who kept the gods happy.

The point is this: religion and life were closely tied together. Religion was not a separate, private and individual choice, but, rather, an essential part of life. Every part of life was affected by religion, and religion was considered to hold life together, for God was the foundation of religion.

In the western world, which became predominantly Christian in the 4^th and 5^th centuries, the presence of God was seen to be essential. Prior to the upsurge in Christianity, the Roman gods held sway, and the Roman gods had the role of being sustainers and providers. When the Christian God was recognized and worshipped, he simply replaced the Roman gods, the true God replacing false gods. It was a transition, but the idea that the Lord God was as essential to daily life as the Roman gods had been did not change.

The western world, like ancient Egypt, gave special privilege to their religious sector, in particular, the church. Churches did not pay taxes on their land, and with the advent of income tax, donations to the religious sector resulted in the return of some of that income tax. Because God was considered important for all of life, it was important that the church (the replacement for the priests of pagan religions) was given the opportunity to thrive.

As many of us are aware, our current federal government is considering removing the charitable status of faith based organizations, including but not limited to the church. There are some cries of outrage voiced by those who practice their faith, but, surprisingly, there is very little of this proposal in the news. The change, it seems, is going largely unnoticed.

Many of us are outraged by this proposal, but we should not be surprised by it. If it is true that religious institutions were given special privilege because they maintained the connection between God and the world, we must also recognize that in Canada as in much of the West, God has become unimportant and the church has become irrelevant, at least as far as maintaining the health and stability of society. The vast majority of Canadians don’t acknowledge the importance of God, and, as a consequence, they don’t see much advantage in helping faith-based organizations to thrive. While many people say that they believe in God, they live as if God doesn’t exist (practical atheism), making the necessity of continuing to be connected to God irrelevant.

Our federal government may not be doing anything groundbreaking in proposing to eliminate the charitable status of faith-based organizations; all it might be doing is following the practices and beliefs of the people.

So, what has replaced God as the stabilizing force in society? Quite simply put, it is the economy. Economic numbers have taken the place of the proclamation of God’s Word as being the driving force of change. Those who control interest rates are the new priests and economic forecasters are the new prophets. Economic growth is seen to be the stabilizing force for our world, replacing God as the Provider. And the ones receiving the tax breaks? Rich business people and their corporations, at least in some countries.

It should not surprise us that this is happening, for in a democracy the government does not lead but, rather, it follows the will and desires of the people. If the economy provides us with stability and prosperity, then it can be expected that the government will move its support from churches and give it to the economic movers and shakers. Thus, it is not surprising that money be withheld from faith-based organizations and be given to those who “can truly make our lives better.”

Jesus would disagree with the trends we see. He would strongly argue against the belief that a growing economy is the most important thing. He would lament the privatization of religion and the growing idea that God has no relevance.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught that the church is the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Salt preserves food and gives it flavour. Salt provides electrolytes to our bodies so that they thrive. Light enables us to see the way, and it enables people to do their work and so fulfill God’s calling. The economy and its economists are not salt and light. But the church is, for it is the church that keeps this world connected to God, and God is the source of our lives, our provisions, and our stability.

Perhaps the best response, then, to the proposed changes in charitable receipts is not that we protest with outrage that our government is doing wrong, although protesting may be one way to make our voices heard. Again, our government seems merely seems to be following the leading of the people. Perhaps the best response by the church is to show how God is relevant, how it is to our Creator God that we owe our existence and our lives, and it is in his grace that we find security (salvation) both now and for eternity. Our witness to the stabilizing, blessed presence of God in our lives and society may be the best way to respond to current trends. If the status of the church is minimized, it is because God has become insignificant. The way to change that trend is to witness to the grace of God in Jesus Christ. The church, as the mediator between God and humanity, is relevant, for God is relevant. But to prove that point, the church needs to be faithful in making God known in the gospel message of Jesus Christ so that the world can again know that God is there and that we need him.

A number of years ago, I was approached by someone visiting our church for a Sunday morning service, and this individual told me that he was angry because he had come to church to visit friends from long ago but had ended up feeling accused by what I had said in my sermon. He was a son of the congregation but had moved away years earlier and was not living for the Lord. His purpose in attending church was to reconnect with some of the people he had not seen in years. He did not expect to be castigated for his sin, he told me. His hour at church had not met his expectations.

Recently someone shared a post on-line which talked about the value of a sermon. In that post, there was a lament that we rarely remember sermons and with that lament came the question of whether or not attending the worship service was really all that crucial. Someone reminded the author that while we do not remember most of the meals we have eaten, we benefitted from them all even though we could not recollect what we ate three days ago. We are often encouraged to go to church because we need to be fed.

Which of the above two examples is correct? Certainly there is an aspect of fellowship that we experience on a Sunday morning when we attend a worship service. And, of course, we do expect to grow in our knowledge of God and the salvation he has given us in Jesus. But what if we find the sermon boring and none of our friends are at church that Sunday? Is there any point in going?

Perhaps the reason for attending communal worship is not primarily to fellowship with other believers or to be fed spiritually. Perhaps the reason is simpler: it is to worship God. Someone has said that in a worship service, especially when we are singing, there is only one person in the audience, and that is God. (Since we are Trinitarians, we would argue that that is incorrect, for it is three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!) Worshipping God is the reason we attend communal worship services, for that is the point of the worship service.

If (since) that is the case, that does leave remarkable little room to excuse ourselves from the worship service. We can worship God even if we don’t know anyone else in the room, and we can worship God even if the sermon is a little boring or somewhat irrelevant. If we don’t like the music genre or the prayers are too long, we can still worship God. Even if the entire service is in a different language, one that we don’t understand, we can worship God. In fact, the only reason for not accomplishing the main goal of the worship service, worshipping God, is because we didn’t worship God. Only we can make that happen, and our worship of God is not dependent on who else might there or what happens during the service. Worshipping God is something we decide to do, and it is something that we must do intentionally. It doesn’t just happen.

But one might argue, do we really need to attend a worship service to worship God? No, we don’t. Not really. Some say that they worship God better by going for a walk in creation. I do not doubt that they are telling the truth. We do have to ask ourselves if that it is equally beneficial to worship God alone in a beautiful place in creation in comparison to engaging in communal worship with others. Or, what about the opportunity now afforded us through technology, the opportunity to join the worship service remotely. Is that not beneficial. Again, I do not doubt that those who chose to worship remotely are blessed, and for that we can be glad. We do recognize that the opportunity to worship remotely was created so that those who cannot attend can at least participate instead of giving an opportunity for those who can but choose not to.

A few decades ago, I was living in a part of Mexico where few people spoke English. I regularly attended church, and early on in my stay in Mexico, I spoke almost no Spanish and understood less. Mostly I attended a fairly large church named Nuevo Jerusalem (New Jerusalem), a Presbyterian church, and I rarely understood anything of the sermon. I did take my English Bible so I could at least understand what was read. I also participated in the singing, although, I confess, while I sang the words, I did not know what they meant. At the end of the service I had not learned much from the sermon and I did not really fellowship with others, mostly because I couldn’t understand what they were saying. But I was blessed.

Without a doubt I could have gone for a walk in the beautiful parks and countryside surrounding the city where I was living, and that would have been beneficial. But I would have missed out on gathering with God’s people for worship. There was something about being with other believers who believed that Jesus had died for their sins and who sought to make him Lord of every part of their lives that strengthened me. It was beneficial to be among them.

I think that what was happening was that their worship was carrying me into the presence of God. I was worshipping God with them as I was borne along by their praises and prayers. Being part of a worshipping community encouraged me in my worship as well.

I do believe that if the sermons were always boring and irrelevant (or in another language) and if I didn’t know anyone else in the building, that it would be more difficult to be motivated to attend communal worship. These things are not unimportant. But they are not the most important thing that we do when we gather as believers. The most important thing that we do is worship the God who made us and saved us, and when we do with others, their worship enhances our worship.

Our expectations regarding the worship service do determine if we will be fulfilled. If we are looking for a good sermon, we will sometimes be disappointed. If we are looking for fellowship, we may not always find someone to talk to. If we are seeking to worship God, however, we always will, and if the communal worship service does not meet that expectation, chances are that is more our own problem than anything else. God will be worshipped if we worship him, and if that is our expectation, we will never be disappointed.

A generation is often defined as the period of time from when a child is born until they have their first child. The length of a generation varies a little from culture to culture, but, on average, we can define a generation as being about 25 years (Note that English translations of the Bible sometimes use the word, “generation,” but it may not be the best translation of the original language. For example, in Genesis 15:16, “generation” seems to refer to a period of 100 years. This is a mistranslation, not a problem with the original text). It is approximately 2025 years since Jesus was born (give or take a few years because the original calculations were not quite correct), which means that 81 generations have passed since the incarnation of Jesus. That may seem like a lot, but if we had the records of those generations, it would not be an impossible task to memorize the names of our ancestors. Sadly, records do not exist for most of us before the 1600s, so we can’t do that memory work, but it would be fascinating if we could.

As I reflect on it, it would not have been hard for my ancestors to have taught their children the names of those who had gone before, and if they had been diligent in passing that information along, I would have had access to that list and maybe I would have been able to list my ancestors back to the time of Jesus. I’m not sure what benefit that would have, and perhaps that is why the lists have not been passed from one generation to the next. Still, it is fascinating to know that my grandparents from 80 generations ago lived at the same time as Jesus. And my ancestors from 160 generations ago lived at the same time as Abraham. Saying that Abraham lived 160 generations ago makes him seem a lot closer than if we say he lived 4000 years ago.

In the Bible we have a number of genealogies. The first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles are mostly genealogies, and we find many more scattered throughout the Bible. In the New Testament, there are only two genealogies, both of them of Jesus, one found in Matthew 1 and the other in Luke 3. These genealogies serve several purposes, but the primary purpose is connect people from different periods of history. Thus, Abraham, by means of genealogy, is connected to Noah. Jesus, in Matthew’s gospel is connected to Abraham and in Luke’s gospel, to Adam who is connected to God his Creator. Although genealogies played an important role in the Bible, Jews today do not keep the same genealogical records, for there is no significant reason for them to do so. As long as a Jewish person can trace their lineage back a generation or two to someone who is also Jewish, that is sufficient to guarantee them an identity as an ethnic Jew. They do not need to go back all the way to Abraham to prove that they are part of the people of Israel. Further, not all people who identify as Jewish can trace their ancestry back to Abraham because some of them are descendants of those who converted to Judaism and were accepted into the Jewish community. While for some Judaism is a mere ethnic attribute, true Judaism is a religious one, and someone who is truly a Jew by faith is considered part of Abraham’s family by other Jews.

For a Christian our biological ancestry does not determine our faith. I do not know when my ancestors first became followers of Jesus Christ, but from what I can tell, for generations my ancestors have been Christians. I am part of a long Christian heritage. I suppose I could go back to the church records and find dates of baptisms and professions of faith, and I could determine the depth of my Christian background, but that would not serve any real purpose. What includes me in the Christian community is not my ancestral heritage but my relationship with God through Jesus Christ. In other words, while I am grateful to belong to a long Christian heritage, I am even more grateful that by God’s grace, I am included in God’s family.

I am included in God’s family through adoption. My sister and her husband are in the process of adopting their foster child, and the paperwork should be finalized in a few weeks. Their son will gain a new family name, and his ancestry will become my sister’s ancestry, and, by extension my ancestry as well. In Christian-speak we would consider his adoption to be his conversion, for he is becoming part of a new family just as we become part of God’s family through faith in Jesus Christ.

I am an adopted child of God through Jesus Christ, and my genealogy has become the genealogy of God’s family. In other words, because I am Jesus’ adopted brother, his ancestry becomes my ancestry. While my biological genealogy might be unknown, my faith genealogy is found in the Bible. The genealogy of Jesus becomes my genealogy because of my adoption.

I suppose it would be nice had my ancestors passed down the list of names of my ancestors for the past 2000 years. It would not have been hard to memorize those 80 or so names. But for what point? What would I gain by knowing the names of people I have never met and will never meet this side of heaven? Probably very little. But God, in his grace, has adopted me as his child, and he has given me an ancestry which leads right back to him through Jesus Christ. Jesus’ ancestry becomes my ancestry, and, for that reason, I know to whom I am connected. I am connected to God and am his child. I may meet many of the people from those 80 generations when I get to heaven, but, more importantly, by God’s grace, I will meet the rest of my family, beginning with Jesus who I will see face to face.

Seventeen hundred years ago, in the year 325 AD, leaders of the church met in the small city of Nicea (near what is known as Istanbul) to talk about Jesus. Christianity had just been made legal and had become the preferred religion in the Roman Empire, and a lot of people had questions about what the Bible teaches. Among them was the question of the exact nature of Jesus. Is Jesus divine? Is he human? Is he both?

Let’s consider ourselves first. All human beings alive today are the result of the combination of genetics from both a man and a woman. (There is no evidence that says there are cloned human beings today, contrary to the claims of some.) Every single person alive has attributes of both their biological father and mother, but they have only one nature, the human nature which is ours since we were conceived. We are all fully human and we are only human.

Jesus is different from us. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, we learn in both Matthew and Luke, and the Holy Spirit is God. Jesus has no biological earthly father. His conception was a miracle, and it makes Jesus quite different from us. Somehow in Jesus there is both a divine nature and a human nature, but how those two interact had to be defined. Christians wanted to know who Jesus is.

As people considered Jesus’ conception, they began to ask, “How do his two natures, his human nature and his divine nature interact?” Some suggested that perhaps Jesus’ body was a lot like a costume which he put on for the duration of his time on this earth. He never really became human, they say. Others suggested that Jesus was more human than divine, perhaps more like a superhero who has had something happen to him that gives him extra powers. Neither answer to the question of the nature of Jesus is entirely satisfactory in that neither answer can be fully supported by Scripture.

The church of the early 4^th century decided that it needed to study Scripture to find a definitive answer, and after years of research, conversation, and writing, the basis for the Nicean Creed was developed. The Nicean Creed says that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine, meaning that he is fully God and he is fully human. He has two different natures while the rest of the people who walked this earth have only one. While this is difficult to wrap our minds around (it is outside of normal experience), we have to accept the teaching of Scripture as being true.

This whole discussion might seem a little “ivory tower,” meaning that it is of interest only to those who want to write doctoral dissertations, but there happen to be some very practical implications.

The first implication has to do with God the Son. God the Son always existed and is as eternal as God the Father. It wasn’t until just over 2000 years ago that God the Son was conceived and born of Mary. It was at that moment in time that God the Son took a human nature even while maintaining his divine nature. God the Son became one of us even while he remained fully God. Although the Bible does not state this explicitly, all the evidence points to the fact that Jesus will remain fully human for the rest of eternity. We know, for example, that Jesus will return in bodily form, returning as he left on Ascencion Day.

When we consider that God the Son, for the remainder of eternity, will remain fully human, we should be astounded. Why would the eternal Son of God bind himself to humanity in such a way? We know the answer, of course: he did it so that we can be saved. And this leads to the implications of the natures of Jesus for us.

The most important one is that Jesus can offer himself as a fitting sacrifice for our sins. Up to the point of Jesus’ death on the cross, the sacrifices that were offered didn’t have lasting value. Those sacrifices had to repeated because, as beneficial as the sacrifices were, the death of a lamb or young goat is not sufficient to fully pay the price for our sins. The only appropriate sacrifice for human sin is the life of a human. Jesus gave his life for us, and his life was sufficient to earn for us our salvation. Jesus had to be fully human to do this or else we would not be saved.

But there is another important aspect for us today. As we know, Jesus serves are our mediator in heaven. When we pray, we do so in the name of Jesus, and our prayers are mediated to the throne of God the Father through Jesus Christ. To put it another way, we know with absolute assurance that God the Father hears our prayers because of Jesus Christ, his Son who is also God. He is our great High Priest, a task and role reserved for a human being, something that we would not have if Jesus did not stand in God’s throne room and speak on our behalf, and he can speak with confidence because he is the eternal Son of God.

We might say, in a sense, that in becoming human, the eternal Son of God sacrificed himself, and he did it for us. There was no benefit for him in so doing. But the benefit for us is without equal: we are saved for eternity, and we always have someone interceding for us before the throne of God the Father. We may not have access to the office of the Prime Minister or the Premier of Alberta, but we have access to the most powerful seat of government that is, God’s throne room. And our voices may never be heard by our Prime Minister or Premier, but they will always be heard by God because of Jesus Christ.

What is so amazing, to repeat something that was said earlier, is that the eternal Son of God, took on human flesh, knowing that this would be a permanent thing. When we join him in eternal life, we will see him as a human being, even while he remains fully God. One would wonder why Jesus would give up so much, and the only answer we can give is this: because he loves us and invites us to enjoy his gracious presence for all of eternity.

The church gathered to talk about Jesus, and their discussion can seem esoteric. Let us be assured, however, that the theology they found in Scripture has significant and life-changing implications for us and our salvation. What Jesus did has life-changing significance for him as well, but he did it for us, and that was enough.