New Thoughts (1/22/06-1/29/06)
Before I turn to the more immediate concerns of this passage, there is something in the meaning of that word ‘do’ that I don’t recall seeing before. Admittedly, that little word plays a key role in this passage, yet before I think about it in the current context, I want to think about it on a much larger scale. For, when I first saw this particular aspect of the definition, one which certainly applies here, it made me think of the magnificent context of Creation
The particular definition I have in mind is that which speaks of doing as expressing our feelings and thoughts in deeds. Creation, in that sense was in its origins an expression of God’s own thoughts and feelings. What a wonderful thing to understand! Creation was, to be sure, God doing. In the beginning, we are told, God created. For existence as we know it, there was the starting point: God expressed Himself. Millennia later, and even how many remains a matter of debate, the great minds of this world are still trying to understand how. This is not just a debate between the rather arbitrarily divided camps of science and religion, but rages just as fiercely, if more civilly, within each of those camps.
We may not be wholly satisfied with knowing this piece of the answer to the means of Creation. We may not, inquisitive beings that we are, be willing to stop at this point and simply accept. Yet, if we set aside this most basic fact of Creation, what is left in all our explorations, but a fruitless seeking after some other answer than the Truth? What hope of a legitimate answer can there be when we refuse the possibility of the most fundamental points upon which Truth is established? Shall we completely and utterly discount the line of reasoning we dislike, and yet claim adherence to scientific method? Shall we claim the results as purely logical and unbiased when we have closed our eyes to one answer, and been satisfied to bend all else to the service of our chosen answer? Have we, in the growing ball of nonsense that has inevitably resulted from this blinding of our own reason, come up with even the germ of an explanation for why we are here?
Well, here’s the answer, if you care to look. God chose to express Himself. His desires were breathed forth in the Word, the Spirit was busily out and about bringing to fruition all that God had been thinking. What was this great desire which God was expressing? It was, first and foremost, a desire to share that fellowship which He had in Himself on a grander scale. God felt in Himself that same need that was found in Adam after his creation, for Adam was created in the image of God. He felt in Himself the need for fellowship with that which was of Himself and yet not Himself. Was this not exactly what Adam found in woman? Here was flesh of his own flesh, something taken from him without which he was no longer whole. Yet, she, as woman, was no longer so utterly flesh of his own flesh as to be directly controlled by his own volition. His will would not automatically result in her compliance.
This is exactly the relationship of God and man. Man was created. Let us begin with that. Man was created by God. Man was, then, another part of that expression of God’s thoughts and desire. In His case, this is particularly evident, as we hear God at counsel with Himself: “Let us make man in Our image, in Our likeness, to rule over all else that We have created here” (Ge 1:26). In giving man the rule of creation, God was indeed parting with a piece of Himself, for who else has the right of rule, if not the Maker? God had imparted a portion of Himself into man, and would no longer be whole except in being united with Man. This is not, lest I be accused of heresy, to suggest that God is less than perfect, or capable of improvement, now that He has done this thing. Not at all! For, in His infinite wisdom and understanding, He was fully aware that Adam would fail of his one assigned purpose: to stand as the ambassador of God on earth. He knew that Adam would fail to fully and perfectly reflect the government of heaven, and knowing this, He had established from before this time of creation, how it was that He would be reunited with this piece of Himself.
Listen, you are a piece of God, in that He has created you with that same purpose of dominion. Since He has imparted to you a portion of the rule that is rightfully His and His alone, He has declared you to be a part of who He is. His greatest desire, expressed in the Creation of which you are a part, is to see you grown and matured, even as Adam saw Eve, that He might be wed to you in the holiest of holy matrimony, that He might become One (as He truly is One) with you. As the two become one in marriage, no longer just two creatures of similar construction, but now truly united in will and purpose, so He seeks out His own to become one with Him.
Any married person could tell you that even at its nearest approaches to perfection, the mind of man and woman in marriage remain separate and unique. The will and purpose of the marriage is one, yet each of those so married continues to have separate dreams, separate thoughts, separate sub-wills, if you like. Even in those times when marriages were a matter of arrangement rather than emotion, this held true, perhaps even to greater extent. A couple that has been wed for some time, however, will have noticed that the unity between them has increased over that time. One finds he has picked up some of his partner’s habits, and that she in turn has developed some marked similarities to him. This, my friend, is exactly what is happening with God and His Church, His bride. It may not always seem that way, but it is. Long years of association, of learning each other’s ways, cannot but bring greater unity. In the case of man and wife, it is a unity caused by each partner’s ways approaching a harmonious center. In the case of God and Church, there is this difference: God is not moving. The Church, however, where it remains truly the Church, is moving ever closer to God’s perspective.
Now, in the interest of drawing this study back to the passage at hand, I will reiterate this well-known point: God spoke Creation. He created by His word, the expression of His desire.
Oh! Before I go on I must recognize the even greater implication here, that You, my Lord, Jesus, being the Logos of God, are indeed the Expression of God’s desires and thoughts. Is that not why John calls You ‘ho Logos’? In You, my King, the greatest desire of God was made manifest. In You we are able to understand what ineffable God is thinking. In You is all of heaven spoken in the language of created man. In You, the incomprehensible is comprehended. Blessed be Your truly glorious Name, my Jesus!
I was saying, His word, His Word, is the expression of His desire. As such, when God spoke, He was actively doing. This, too, is reflected in us, for we are created in and as His image. This is not, however, to be understood in that New Age fashion that wants to make man the creator of his own universe. That is stuff and nonsense, and worse. No, but our words, particularly those that are not staged for the sole purpose of impressing others, are indeed counted as deeds. This is what Jesus is addressing there in Matthew 12:36. Notice that it is particularly the careless word that is measured as the fruit of our character. It is the careless word because the careful word, by contrast, is a result of calculation. The careful word, the polite word, the expected word is that thing we may put forth because we are at church. We know it is expected that we will be all righteous and proper there, so we are exceedingly careful of what we say. But, when we get home and relax a bit, when we are alone in the car, what has changed in us? How are we talking then? These are the times God is far more concerned with, because these are the times when we feel free to be ourselves. It is, as often as not, a particularly unpleasant sight, if we are honest about it.
So, in keeping with His purpose of clarifying hypocrisy from reality, Jesus makes the point: It is the careless words, those things we express when we’re comfortable and unguarded in our dealings, that will be our measure before God. Those casual words are our works, if we really feel we must have works. They will count more in God’s books than all those little acts of service we’ve done at church. They will count more in God’s books than all those times we’ve sacrificed our time [!] to help at some ministry outreach. They will count more than all the hours spent studying Scripture, and studying the great teachers of the faith. This point is made all the more clear in Matthew 7:21-23. Many will call Him Lord to His face, yet will be shown to have never obeyed Him as Lord. They will parade their deeds before Him, take care to remind Him that they attributed all they had done to Him, but they will find it has only increased the indignation of the Court. How can that be? Well! Because what they have been doing, fine though it may have been, was done not because the Lord besought them to do so, but only because they thought to themselves that these were fine things to do. But what, we might ask, had the evidence of their private moments said of them? Jesus’ closing accusation seems to make that clear enough. “I never knew you.” You never came to take counsel with Me, to learn what it was I had for you to do. You simply did as you pleased, and thought to sanctify it by sprinkling My name on it.
It is not obedience to prophesy when the Lord says, “Pray.” It is not obedience to go forth in great displays of miracles and healing when the Lord says, “Teach my people.” No, and neither is it obedience to sit in hours of prayer when the Lord says, “Go help that one,” or to devote hours to study when He says, “Tell the world!” Obedience is only obedience when we who serve are attentive to the voice of the Master, and pursue solely and precisely those things He expresses as His desire for us at this very moment. To be doing anything other than that which He who alone has our charge requires of us is nothing but the increase of sin, however pretty and honorable it may appear to our senses.
False Prophet (1/24/06-1/26/06)
What connects the thoughts behind these passages to what has preceded lies in the opening portion in Matthew 7:15. “Beware the false prophets,” Jesus says. What does it mean to be a false prophet? By definition, such pretenders are those who lie by means of acting as if divinely inspired while uttering lies and falsehoods. How closely this aligns with the meaning of hypocrite, those pretenders to religious prowess whom Jesus has taken as the negative example. The false prophet is, however, a much worse and much more dangerous matter, for he is not satisfied with causing those around him to overrate his righteousness. No, but he will only be happy when he has led the truly righteous into errors that will separate them from the God they know and love. It may well be that these liars think the things they speak are true. It may be that they think them matters upon which they have thought long and hard so as to reach this conclusion. They may even be the result of lengthy study. But, they are not the Truth. They are the corrupt lie of the devil, planted by whatever means in the hearts and minds of such men that he, the devil, may enter into the house of God in their guise.
Here, I think, is where that image Jesus uses of the wolf in sheep’s clothing is most truly apt. I really doubt that the heretics and false prophets of old came with the intent of doing harm to those they taught and spoke to. It is simply unfathomable to me that one would, particularly in the guise of religion, knowingly labor to guide folks to destruction. Perhaps there are those amongst the cult leaders that really don’t have any other motive, but I find that doubtful. No, they are blinded leaders of the blind, blinded and duped by an enemy of great cunning, the father of lies, the one whose conniving and deceitful ways led to the Fall, and left us in such condition that Jesus would rightly refer to us all as a brood of vipers, the offspring of the snake and his deceptions.
Where the hypocrite disguises himself in order to be thought righteous, the false prophet disguises himself in order to be heard and believed. In both, there is that same mechanism of false appearances, but what difference there is in their motivations! These false spokesmen, lying prophets, teachers of error, are truly worthy of comparison to the serpent, for they are of a nature with the serpent, disguising their deadly poison in an appearance of beauty. Likewise, the comparison to the wolf befits their intentions, or at least the intentions of him who has made them his stooges. He seeks to enter the house of the holy undetected, to come amongst the faithful unmolested, and having found entrance, he has but one purpose: to destroy the true sheep.
In fairness, the wolf does not entirely deserve comparison to such as this enemy. For the wolf at least provides a service of sorts to the herds where he practices his predations. If we are to believe the naturalists, which I find no reason not to, the wolf tends to target the sick and weak in the herd, thereby contributing to the overall health of the community. Granted, that’s a bit evolutionary, but as I consider that the wolf is as much a creation of a good God as am I, I find it reasonable to think there is something other than evil in his ways. There is a reason for his existence just as there is for my own, and that reason, being good as God is good, cannot be solely to destroy.
No, the wolf under that clothing is not the man deceived, but the devil deceiving. However false his beliefs may be, they are, I think, truly the beliefs of that man. He is not going out to purposefully preach lies, and declare things as God’s word which are not God’s word. Even in those periods of Israel’s history where it seemed that the voices of falsehood were drowning out the words of Truth, I suspect this held true.
Turning to the verses that serve as comment on this message, we are presented with a point in Israel’s history where the leadership had become so blind, had gone so far astray after power and profit, that God found them wolf-like in their behavior. The princes, He declared, were like wolves in the midst of the land, destroying the innocent in pursuit of dishonest gain (Eze 22:27). It was not the merchants that were so charged. It was the princes, the leaders. How truly dangerous it is when the leadership of any organization loses sight of the interests of that organization! It is the beginning of the end for a business. It is a precursor to collapse or revolution in a nation. But, the worst is when the leadership of the Church is so disposed, for the consequences extend far beyond the present, and even the future. Here, the danger has come in the guise of moral leadership. When the moral leadership is concerned more with their accounts at the bank than with the mission they have supposedly undertaken, they leave behind them a morally bankrupt congregation; except, of course, that the congregation awake to the danger and leave them behind instead.
Beware the false prophets! Beware the leadership that leads astray! It is certain, said the apostle, that wolves will come amongst you when I am gone. They will come into your midst, and they will not spare any amongst that flock if they can help it (Ac 20:29-30). Who are these dangerous interlopers? They are teachers who have come from your own ranks! Out of your own ministry they have emerged, but they teach not the Truth, they teach perverse doctrines. Why do they do so? Because they are jealous of you, and they wish to steal away your disciples. More to the point, they are jealous of the God you serve, and wish to steal way His disciples. In this, they show their real allegiance. Again, I will say that they may very well be unaware of that allegiance, but the fruit of their efforts gives evidence to what feeds their root. The one they serve whilst professing to Christianity is that very one who first sought to steal away God’s own from Him. He, who led the heavenly choir, whose lust after God’s power, position and prestige caused jealousy to cloud reason; he who in his jealousy provoked the rebellion of many in the ranks of the angelic host; he has never ceased from that one poisonous and impossible ambition. He still, in spite of his crushing defeat at Calvary, clings to that ambition of unseating God and claiming His throne.
Where the fruit of ministry is to turn faithful believers from their true course toward heaven and redirect their attention toward any other cause, who else can we think it is that leads the way? Who else would so blithely lead the sheep off to destruction. It’s not even to slaughter that he leads them. He does not seek any benefit of these innocents, only that they not be found in their proper fold. He does not covet their wool, nor their meat. His hunger is not after such material things as he knows best suit his efforts to get our attention. He cares nothing for having a profit of us, just so he can get us away from our Master and Shepherd. In this, he has already achieved his goal, and beyond this, his concern for you is absolutely nil.
False Evidence (1/27/06)
Perhaps the most disconcerting part of this message is what Jesus says in Matthew 7:21-23. Here, He has turned from the wolves intent on destroying His sheep to those who thought they really were sheep. It may shock our sensibilities, but in heaven’s view, they are no better. What we find Jesus describing is a crowd of people who lived their lives convinced of their salvation. They had, so far as they thought, done mighty things for the kingdom. Why, look at the powerful ministries they had been part of! They were the prophets, they were the healers, they were the miracle workers! Not only that, but they had been quite careful to make certain that all their great deeds were properly attributed to Jesus. You know there is not a one amongst us who would not have considered them our brothers, our fellow Christians. This does not, of course, include the charlatans and such who plague the fringes of the Church, but those who truly were doing such things.
Those prophets, they were not of the same class as the false prophets Jesus had described earlier. No, they spoke Truth well enough in all they had said. That was not the issue. The healers whom He now condemns, they had truly healed. It is not the charlatans that Jesus is talking about now, only the deluded. The miracles that these claimants to citizenship had performed were all real enough as well. Yet not a one of them was found to have satisfied the demands of heavenly citizenship. The problem lies in some ways hidden in the phraseology, but it is there for all to see none the less. “I never knew you.” With all that You have done in My name, I never once heard you ask Me if it was something I wanted done. While I have been faithful to My word and turned your lawless behavior to good purpose, your behavior is none the better for all that. All your deeds remain deeds of lawlessness and rebellion, for they were done without the authorization of the One you call, ‘Lord.’ Indeed, He declares to us, there are so many things I have prepared specifically for you to do, so many things you were created to accomplish on My behalf, but you have not been listening to hear what I wanted of you. You have been too busy doing the things that seemed good to you, never once caring to find out if they were what I wanted.
The New Living Translation is particularly effective in making the point clear in this case. That work closes out Matthew 7:21 with this: “The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven,” and proceeds to deliver the sentence in these words: “Go away; the things you did were unauthorized.” Luke’s account of the life of Jesus reflects that same issue immediately following the passage currently considered. Why call Me, “Lord,” if you don’t obey My commands (Lk 6:46)? How can we think it is obedience when we pay no attention to what God wants, and just do whatever suits us? Twice in the book of Judges, we hear the judgment upon Israel in that period. In those days every man did what was right in his own eyes (Jdg 17:6, Jdg 21:25). They were a nation unique among nations, with God Himself as their king, but they did not consult Him at all, just did whatever came to mind.
The problem didn’t end there, though. We are in many ways just the same, still doing what seems right without concerning ourselves over much with what actually is right. As with so much of what Jesus has covered in the course of this lesson on the Mount, the great issue is that we have missed the point. We have developed our own definitions of things religious, modified the terms of righteousness to fit our meager abilities. We have been doing this for so long that we have actually begun believing our own definitions. We have become so convinced of our deep knowledge of righteousness that we no longer feel it necessary to consult with the Righteous One. We are so smart we feel no need for a teacher! After all, we have the Holy Spirit, right? What need, then, to consult the Lord personally?
One brief aside, before I move on: The list of claims that Jesus talks of in Matthew 7:22 strike a fearful chord with me. What are the particulars that He declares will carry no weight at the gate? Prophecy, healing and miracles. Now, if there is anything that sets the Pentecostal / Charismatic movement apart from the rest of God’s Church, it is these things. Sure, we tend to put forward speaking in tongues as our great definer, but it’s really not that, it’s the greater things that we hear Paul promoting as a proper object for our desire. Now, the very fact that we have Paul as spokesman for these gifts should suffice to assure us that it is not the gifts themselves, nor their practice that is at issue here. It is the way that appropriate desire has become lustful envy in so many.
What it tells me apart from that, though, and this is a matter to make me shiver, is that there are many who count themselves a part of that particular portion of God’s Church who are fooling themselves. They are not members of God’s kingdom, but merely showmen. They have been playing with things beyond themselves, and God being God has seen fit to turn their shenanigans to good purpose, for He causes all things to work for the good of those who are truly doing His work. The sad thing is that so many get so caught up with displaying the gifts that they never stop to ask God if that is what they are supposed to be doing. So many have fallen into the trap of thinking that the gifts themselves are the seal of God’s approval. They are not. Speaking in tongues is not the great proof of salvation, it is simply a gift. Indeed, it is a gift easily counterfeited, for who can tell if words spoken in an unknown language have any meaning at all, let alone any good meaning? As for prophecy: Well, Caiaphas prophesied when he declared the fitness of Jesus’ death. Better one man die that Israel be saved, he said, and never a truer word did he speak. Yet, his intentions were all evil in saying so, and that prophetic word was surely no proof of his being numbered amongst the faithful.
How careful, then, I must be not to fall into that trap! How careful I must be to check in with Him whom I call Lord before I pursue any sort of ministry!
Holy Jesus, how great a concern I find in myself upon reading this. Lord, I know myself well enough to know how willful I can be in pursuing my own course. Let it not be so with You, my God! If I have been doing nothing better than what seemed good to me, bring Your correction. If I have been missing Your true purpose in my life, make me aware of it and let me follow after that purpose with all that is in me. Oh, God! Let this body amongst whom You have set me and my family prove to be the exception to the rule. Let us stand, as a body, determined to pursue Your purposes and Your pleasure even if You should call us to set aside the gifts by which we are known. Forgive us, Holy God, if we have made religion an evil word or an evil practice. You have told us what real religion looks like. Give us, give me a heart to pursue the religion that You desire, and none other.
False Righteousness (1/28/06)
While I have relocated the later passage from Matthew in considering it here, I don’t want to lose sight of that other setting completely. Neither do I suppose that Matthew has fallen into simply repeating the same stories in different settings to beef up his account. No, any good teacher, having arrived at a good way to get his point across, will happily reuse that same approach when next that point needs making. So it was with Jesus. He had explained to His disciples and those others who were listening that the overall tenor of a man’s life could not help but reflect his true, inward self.
He had also made clear on that occasion that it was more than whether a man had done any good deeds. Of course I can see the truth of that. I can think of any number of atheists, agnostics and worse who in spite of their erroneous ways are doing good things. Jesus, however, forces us to consider the real defining facet of what is good. What is good is what God has commanded us to do. That same thing done by another is no longer truly good, although the outcome may be turned to good by a good God. Consider King Saul. In offering a sacrifice to God, he was doing what was in itself a good act. However, it wasn’t his act to perform. That task rightfully belonged to Samuel. Therefore, though the action taken was a good action it was an evil in Saul’s case. He was not doing God’s will, he was willfully pursuing his own idea of right and wrong.
Now, in Matthew 12:33-37, Jesus is addressing the authorities of the church. These were the men who carefully set down the rules of righteousness as they understood them. These were the men who, at least when any could see, took great cares that it be known they were pursuing those very rules. They were the same who did all they could to impress those rules on those they influenced, and would even go so far as to keep at arm’s length any who would not do so. They thought they were doing fine. Well, the discourse we have been following from that time in Galilee has already shown the error of their chosen way. These things were not righteousness as God had defined it. They were righteousness dumbed down. They were the Codex of the Achievable.
With that setting in mind, the way Jesus reuses this lesson is truly stunning. Here, addressing the religious leadership of Israel, He says, “Look, you! Either make the tree and it’s fruit good or make them both bad.” There is a world of difference between how He is using this image now and how He had used it in teaching His followers. There, the nature of the tree and its fruit had served to illustrate how they could discern those who were truly of God and those who were not. Here, as He talks to those who supposedly served Him, His complaint is not that their fruit is bad. It’s not even that their inward state is bad. The great issue He has with this crowd is that their inward and outward states do not agree with each other.
It is the very definition of the hypocrite! They display good fruit, but inwardly they are rotten with the hunger for power and prestige. The ‘righteousness’ they display is just that: display. It cannot be truly good because the core of their being is not truly good. Somewhere along the way, they lost sight of the goal. They had started out, let us give them the benefit of the doubt, seeking after righteousness, although they had sought it in the wrong ways. But, as they reduced the demands of righteousness to that which they could handle and then felt the pride of having done it, as they experienced the admiration and respect of the people around them, they failed to deal with the corrupting effect. They began to hunger after that admiration and respect more than the righteousness they had started out after.
Now comes Jesus saying, “Look at yourselves!” Sure, the things they were doing could hardly be classified as evil actions. How could it be evil to give alms? How could it be evil to pray to God? The problem was that it wasn’t penetrating. The inward state of these men was worsening even as they went about their practiced righteousness. “But,” says our Lord, “how can you expect to bring about anything good when your hearts are filled with what is evil?” Today, with our insistence on finding somewhere else to place the blame for our condition, many would find Jesus’ label upon these men to be just the excuse they needed. They were a brood of vipers, the offspring of the snake. Well, then! If we’re offspring of the snake, of course our nature is turned toward evil. We’ve been dwelling under the curse upon our father, have we not? As descendents of that cursed serpent, sons of the devil, how can we hope for our hearts to be filled with anything else? We might even go so far as to excuse ourselves by pointing out that we’re doing the best we can.
Now, it will be noticed that I have shifted my perspective from considering that original audience to my own hearing of that same message. By nature, after all, I am as much the son of a snake as they. I, too, was once a child of the devil, until my God came and adopted me out of that darkness and declared me His own son. This is not something I would have acknowledged of myself at the time. Like these Pharisees and scribes Jesus spoke to, I was convinced I was a good guy. Sure, I had my faults, however few, but over all I was a nice guy. What did I need this Jesus for? It takes time to see the problem. It takes time to accept and admit to the great need that is in us. It takes time to willingly confront the fact that what little good we do we do more as cover than as expressing our true wishes.
However, if we are honest with ourselves, we begin to recognize that a great deal of the ’good’ we do, we do more or less against our own wishes. We don’t generally go to work because we so desperately want to, we go because we feel we must. We don’t, as a rule, set aside our own plans and wishes to help another realize his or her desires simply because it is our own great desire to ignore our desires. Even trying to make a sensible sentence of that notion is next to impossible! It is not in our nature to willingly do what we don’t will to do. Yet, we often do just that. Why? We do it because we hope to gain some other advantage by our actions. Whatever good may come of those actions, then, has been poisoned by our motivation. The fruit may yet look good, but the tree on which it grows is still diseased and dying.
This is what angered Jesus so, as He looked upon these pillars of the Temple. They were looking good, but diseased and dying inside, and worse, they were teaching as many as they could to be just like them. That problem didn’t end at the temple! We continue the tradition to this day! It is part of our dysfunctional heritage that we are forever replacing the Truth that seems too challenging with some achievable standard. It is part of our mission to ourselves as God’s children to root out every occurrence of this self-deception in ourselves and restore our standards to the impossibly high standards God has established. It is necessary over and over again to be reminded that we are not there yet. We are not yet so improved from our former selves as to stand before His court without Jesus to appeal to. The minute we start thinking we can stand on our own righteousness, on our own record, we must be reawakened to the Truth. The minute we allow self-righteousness to be our guide and standard, we have become a tree whose fruit is a deceptive fruit. Like the snake we have become such as disguise their deadly poison in pretty skins.
“It is your own words which shall determine the outcome of the trial,” He tells them. It is your own words, not all these careful activities, but the idle words, the ones you gave no thought to, the careless aside, the exclamation that escaped you in that moment of surprise and pain. Why? Because they reveal the heart far more accurately than all those works and rigid acts of self-control. For, it is fools who speak foolishly, and it is the foolish heart that seeks after wickedness! (Isa 32:6). What is this wickedness? Have we not been doing good things? Wickedness, Isaiah continues, is practicing ungodliness. Wickedness is speaking contrary to God. Wickedness is refusing to feed the hungry. In a word, wickedness is refusing to do what God has commanded, and doing instead what He has not. “Many will say to Me, ‘look what we have done for You!’ but I will declare them lawless scoundrels, for they did not do what I asked them to
Oh, my God, let this not be my story! If in any way, my King, I have been off on my own agenda, refusing to heed Your call, turn me around even now, even in this moment. Keep me open, sweet Lord, to the voice of correction, that I may not come to the end of my days only to discover I was not on the path I thought to be on. Oh! Thank You, Holy One, that it is Your promise that I shall indeed come home to You, that You are indeed faithful to guide me through every pitfall and snare, to come safely to the place You are preparing for me. All praise, my God, be unto You and You alone, for by Your own zeal, You do it!
True Evidence (1/29/06)
Jesus taps our ability to identify fruit with tree and tree with fruit to make His point clear. In the course of His message, He has presented the association in both of its possibilities. First, He notes that we will know what sort of tree we are dealing with by the fruit we find upon it. For many of us, this is particularly true in the natural. We would not, for instance, know whether we were dealing with a lemon tree or a lime tree until we had seen the fruit, because it is the fruit we are familiar with.
On a somewhat coarser scale, Jesus turns the picture around a bit and notes that we wouldn’t even look for grapes amongst the thorn bushes, or go hunting for figs out in the open fields. Why? Because we know full well that these are cultivated fruits, and not the things we are likely to find out in the wild. We know the difference between tended land and wild. This aspect of the comparison has really just been coming to my attention. It’s not so much that we know what sort of plants to find those desired treats on, it’s that we know the characteristics of the area in which such treat-bearing plants would be likely to be found. It’s the difference between tended and untended lands. That difference, in the matter of spirituality and righteousness is the main point of what He is saying.
It is the tending of the land, the care for the trees, that makes them good and fruitful. It is the attention of the vineyard keeper that makes the grapes plump and sweet, as much as it is the weather. It is the attention of that gardener with the pruning shears that keeps the trees producing their best. In matters of the spirit, we all know that God is the one who tends the garden in which we grow. The message, then, is twofold.
You know that there are places you need not look for a true brother. There are places so choked by the weeds of sin, so untended, that any brother you found in that place you would count false. One tended by the Father would not, could not be found doing such things, participating in such activities. Don’t even bother looking.
The flip side is that the fruit of the tree is the identifying feature of the tree. This is the point Jesus makes in saying you will know them by their fruits. The particular choice of words there allows of a particular definition, that which indicates that our knowledge is based on some identifying feature. In plain, we know what sort of tree we face by what sort of fruit we find it bearing. As I said before, we are not likely to be able to distinguish lime tree from lemon tree, but we can certainly tell lime from lemon. So also with the nut bearing trees more common to this region. We may not know leaf from leaf, or bark pattern from bark pattern, for these things are not sufficiently important to our survival to have earned our attention. But, let us see the nut, that part which we have eaten in times past, and we will know that this one was a chestnut, that one a walnut.
You will know them by the identifying feature of their fruits. One corollary to that point is the impossibility of there being a fruitless Christianity. If I am a Christian, then I have my Father as my vineyard keeper, my tender. If I am a Christian, then I know that He has come to prune, to ensure that I, the branch of His Vine, remain fruitful, and that my fruitfulness is on the increase as time goes on.
This does not mean that I shall be found doing more and more, greater and greater things. It does not mean that as I grow in Him, I shall be found to be performing grand miracles, healing the masses, or any such thing. It doesn’t mean I won’t, either, but these things are not the fruit that mark the True Believer. They may very well be part of the True Believer, but they are not the identifying mark.
The fruit of belief is not to be found in our works. The fruit of belief is to be found in our intimate allegiance to Jesus. The fruit of belief is that we not only call Him, “Lord,” but also attend upon His wishes as our Lord. To obey, the word says, is better than sacrifice. It is a familiar point. To obey is also better, we must understand, than the greatest miracle, to obey is better than deliverance, to obey is better than study. To obey is everything, and in the end nothing else at all will mark us out as His.
What is the fundamental fruit of this intimacy and obedience to our Lord? He lays it out for us in pure, simple terms. All men will know that you are Mine if you will simply love one another (Jn 13:35). This, combined with the equally simple, “If you love Me, you will obey Me” (Jn 14:15), completely defines the fruit of the Christian tree. Our love for Him compels us to obey Him as Lord, and as Lord, His primary command to us is to love one another – to truly love one another, not just in platitudes and catchy phrases, but in real, meaningful ways. The sort of love He commands of us is the sort of Love He Is. It is that manner of love which will look upon the other’s need as greater. It is that manner of love that will set aside its own agenda to help a loved one.
God, that hurts. I know, by recent events, that this is love beyond what I often times display. How far I have to go yet. Oh! Seeing this, laid bare before my eyes, how can I but come to You in repentance, begging Your forgiveness. Father God, there is still too much of selfishness in me, and I know I have failed to love as I ought. I have failed to husband as I ought, and to father as I ought. I have had my eyes too much on my own needs and not enough on the needs of those You have given me as the primary exercise of love. Forgive me, and help me, Lord, to really and truly make a fresh start of it. I cannot be satisfied, this morning, with just tossing this in Your lap and forgetting about it. No! I don’t want to find in coming days and years that I have come back to this place with the same failures. Lord! Prune the branch of selfishness away, and let it be burned lest I insist on grafting it back in.
True Righteousness (1/29/06)
Where is true righteousness to be found, such as it can be found in man? The only way our attempts at righteousness can be counted true is if they are a matter of the heart. The only way our acts, even our acts of obedience to the Lord, can be counted as fruits of righteousness is if they have flowed from the heart. The heart is the treasure-trove of the man. Where your treasure is, your heart is as well, Jesus tells us (Mt 6:21). This part of the message might be seen as the corollary of that statement. Where your heart is, what your desires and purposes value most will be found. That is the issue of the careless word. That is the issue of the fruit. The fruit of the tree grows by the sap that vitalizes the tree. The fruit of my life grows by the spirit that defines my life. The fruit expresses the spirit, for better or for worse.
The heart, in this symbolic sense, is the storehouse of the soul. There, we have stashed away a lifetime of thoughts, desires, beliefs and longings. There is the foundation of habit. There is the foundation of righteousness, if we are to find it at all. There is the reason for our condemnation, if we need look for such. And the tongue, untamable thing that it is, will inevitably give voice to the things it finds in the heart. The heart, it is true, is deceptively wicked, deceptive beyond all things. But, the tongue has been placed in the body to ensure that the deception of the heart will not succeed.
However much we may labor to put a good face on things when we are amongst our fellows, however much we may dress ourselves up in civility, there will come the moment when our guard is down and the tongue speaks truly. In those unguarded moments, the tongue will invariably speak from the storehouse. Those moments tend to be ugly indeed, for they are the moments that reveal to us that we are not as we wanted to be. I need only look back to yesterday, laboring over tax forms, and consider what sort of mutterings were on my lips to recognize that the heart of me has been deceptive. It has led me to think I am doing well, making fine progress and need have little concern. Oh! The first two may be true enough, but there is ever room for concern when it comes to this human nature, however spiritually informed. No, while I have been declared truly justified by the only Judge who matters, I need only think upon this the least little bit to recognize that what is in my heart is not yet justified.
What does it mean to be justified? Quite simply, it means that it has been shown that one is as he ought to be. Therein lies the cry of James in considering the ways of the tongue. “These things ought not to be!” The heart is not yet right. There’s still too much garbage in the storehouse, and a cleaning crew must be sent in. James asked, at that point, how it could be that this same tongue of ours could in one breath praise God and in the next curse His creation. The answer lies in the storehouse. The answer lies in the distinction between the careful and the careless word. The careful word makes certain to be right and truthful to God, if not to the heart. The careless word, caring nothing for God, speaks what is really within.
In simple truth, neither the careful nor the careless fully and properly represent who we are. We are, as (I believe) Martin Luther declared, simultaneously saints and sinners. We are a body in conflict, seeking to leave behind the clinging darkness of sin and approach the pure light of righteousness. We are no longer ruled by flesh, but not yet ruled by spirit. We are still in the world, and the world tugs at us however much we may seek to deny it. But, we press on, because we know Him who promised that we would one day be like Him. We know that He has begun a great good work in our storehouse, and that He, unlike us, is faithful to complete what He has begun. We know that there will come a day when we see Him as He truly is, because we have once for all been made truly as He is. And in this is all our hope and confidence.
One day, we shall be shown to be as we ought to be because He has restored all things as they ought to be. Dikaioo and shalom, the one the manifest presence of the other. God is, in Himself, restoring Creation to its proper state, reconciling all things to Himself. That reconciliation, when His creation can cease fearing His reprisals and rejoice in His love unfettered is the shalom, the peace of God, the restoration of all things as they ought to be. In that restoration, all those whom He has chosen for Himself shall be likewise restored, and declared restored: dikaioo - Justified.
Even so, Lord, let it be done to me as You will it.
