Ya gotta have faith!

One of the latest investment trends is the NFT, which stands for non-fungible token.  (If you’re like me, you want to know what “fungible” means, too:  it means “mutually interchangeable”.)  In other words, these items are not mutually interchangeable, but they can be owned.

The thing is, these items don’t actually exist.  They’re not actually things.

You can own them, you can buy them, you can sell them – but they are digital; they’re not real.  And NFTs can be anything from a piece of digital art to a picture of a non-existent cigar, and everything in between.  I don’t understand either the concept or the craze, but it’s a thing (about non-things) these days.

It seems to me that dabbling in NFTs (or cryptocurrency, for that matter, which is another booming trend) takes a lot of faith.

It takes faith in the person who creates (and sells) the NFT.  It takes faith on the part of the person who might then buy it from you.  You have to believe that this non-existent thing actually exists, by mutual understanding.

I suppose, in one sense, it’s a bit like trading stocks. As long as everybody’s on the same page about the value, and your ability to be able to convert that to hard currency, I can understand the allure.

But it still takes a lot of faith.

This is why I am puzzled when people are unwilling to place their faith in God.  For eons, the Hebrew people placed their faith in a God whom they could not (and would not) see.  When God became flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, aspects of God became visible.  He taught as one with authority.  He performed mighty and inexplicable miracles.  Yet many people refused to believe.

Even with hard evidence in the person of Jesus, and in his mighty acts, people would not believe.

I think if I were into the NFT and cryptocurrency trend, I would want to be a person of faith in God.  After all, there’s a lot more hard evidence for the good news of his love for us in Jesus than for the value of a digital image!

We have consistent records of the value of faith in the Lord.  Trust in him today!

“And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him” (Hebrews 11.6, NLT).

The Covenant of Grace: Why Infant Baptism is Biblical

Do you ever wonder if it is biblical to baptize children? In the Reformed tradition, we don’t believe it saves the child, but we do believe it places the child on the path toward profession of faith in Jesus, which does bring salvation. It’s based on Genesis 15, Genesis 17, Colossians 2 and Acts 2. You can watch the whole worship gathering below, or just the message below that.

Action, in the afterglow of Easter

We have been through Holy Week, witnessing Jesus sharing the last supper with his disciples, humbly washing their feet, subtly being betrayed, helplessly hanging on the cross.  We have waited through those long hours in anticipation of finding the tomb empty.  And it was empty!  Jesus was raised from the dead!

In the afterglow of Easter, though, the party might be over, but the work is not done.

Churches that follow lectionaries for their preaching often spend time in the season of Easter – the Great Fifty Days between the resurrection and Pentecost – studying the book of Acts.  Theologian J.B. Phillips, when translating the New Testament for ease of reading in the 1960s, called it “The Young Church in Action”. 

It’s an accurate title for the book of Acts, because that was the early church’s response to the resurrection of Jesus:  action.

And it should be the response of the church of today, too.

If we remain content to give mere mental assent to the resurrection of Jesus, but then do nothing with it, our faith doesn’t mean much, does it?  Just ‘pie in the sky when you die’.

But Jesus’ victory over death calls us to action, and specifically to grow the church.

Granted, that’s a tough task these days, with secularization on the rise, and sundry scandals among church leaders dotting the news.  In the midst of all that, though, Jesus is alive, and he longs to build his church.

Despite society’s best efforts, the church of Jesus will never die.  If you read statistics, you might not believe that, but maybe you’ll believe Jesus when he said to his disciples that on the bedrock of their faith, “I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it” (Matthew 16.18b, NLT).

The church is, literally, unstoppable.

If you’re in leadership, you’re probably tired right now.  (Join the club!)

If you’re not in leadership, pray for your leaders.  They’ve been praying for you!

Pray that all of us, together, will be the church in action, responding to the grace of God at work in the resurrection of Jesus in this season of such growth potential.

The risen Lord Jesus has not given up on the church, so why should we?

Two thousand years on, we are still called to be the young church in action.

The Holiness of God

This is a message I preached to the Presbytery of Oak Ridges on Tuesday, April 19, 2022, on the holiness of God, based on Isaiah 6.

He is Risen!

In this Easter service, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, and share the Lord’s Supper together. In reading Matthew 28.1-15, we look at the theories that have been posed to try to refute the resurrection, and consider why Jesus’ exit from the grave matters for us today. You can watch the message below, or the whole worship gathering below that.

Good Friday 2022: “The Name”

In this Good Friday worship gathering, we mark the death of Jesus and hear a message that focuses on the importance of the name of Jesus. It’s based on Matthew 27.32-44. You can watch the whole worship gathering below, or just the message below that.

“Good” Friday?

It’s Good Friday.

But it’s the day Jesus died.  What makes this “good”?

Well, from a word-origins standpoint, some have suggested over the years that it’s another way of saying, “God’s Friday”, but there’s not much to back that up.  Instead, it is more likely that “good” is another way of saying “holy”.  It’s “Holy Friday”.  In some other languages, the day Jesus was crucified is translated as “Holy Friday”.

That makes sense.  So why not just call it “Holy Friday”?  We know what that means.

Solid point!  I suppose we could do that, but there are many other days that are designated “holy”, and Good Friday is, well, different.  It’s definitely holy, but it stands apart from all other holy days, because it is the day Jesus went to the cross for our sins.  So in English usage, we’ve called it “Good Friday” for a long, long time, because it is a day unlike any other day in the Christian calendar.  And it is, after all, good!

Well, it sure didn’t seem very good for Jesus.

Fair enough.  But he knew from eternity that this day would come.  In his humanity, in Gethsemane, he prayed that it might not happen – that the Father might find some other way – but he still submitted to the Father’s will.  He knew the purpose behind his awful death.  And he knew what the outcome would be, on the third day.

He did it for you, and for me.  For us, it is definitely good:  it is the day on which our sin received atonement.  Without Good Friday, we would not be able to be in relationship with God.  So that’s good.

But didn’t Jesus himself say that there is none who is good but God (Luke 18.19)?

Indeed, he did.  But because Jesus was God, he was also good, in the very best sense of the term – he was holy.

So Jesus the Good died for us on Friday, so it’s Good Friday…

That’s a good way of looking at it!

Remember the sadness of the day, because God in the flesh died because of our sin.  And rejoice in the goodness of the day, because God in the flesh died for our sin…and because we know what comes next!

“‘The Son of Man must suffer many terrible things,’ he said. ‘He will be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He will be killed, but on the third day he will be raised from the dead’” (Luke 19.22, NLT).

Hosanna!

In this Palm Sunday worship gathering, we celebrate the work of Harold McDonald, who served as a congregational trustee since 1974, and hear a message from Mark 11.1-11, learning to whom our Hosannas should be given. You can watch the whole worship gathering below, or just the message below that. We apologize for the bad coloration in this video.

Ride on!

Hosanna.  “Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord” (Psalm 118.26a, NLT).

This weekend, Christians throughout western society will celebrate Palm Sunday, when Jesus rode a donkey from the Mount of Olives into the temple in Jerusalem.  As he did, people shouted, “Hosanna!”, which means, “Save us now!”

Little did they know what they were asking.  It would signal the beginning of the last week of Jesus’ earthly ministry before he went to the cross.  Those who shouted as Jesus sauntered by on that donkey had no idea.

I am reminded of the words penned by Henry Hart Milman in 1827, printed in hundreds of hymn books since then.  His poem tells the real story of Palm Sunday so well, it deserves to be quoted in full:

Ride on, ride on in majesty!  Hark!  All the tribes hosanna cry.

O Saviour meek, pursue Thy road, with palms and scattered garments strewed.

Ride on, ride on in majesty!  In lowly pomp ride on to die.

O Christ, Thy triumphs now begin o’er captive death and conquered sin.

Ride on, ride on in majesty!  The angel armies of the sky

look down with sad and wond’ring eyes to see th’approaching sacrifice.

Ride on, ride on in majesty!  Thy last and fiercest strife is nigh.

The Father on his sapphire throne awaits his own anointed Son.

Ride on, ride on in majesty!  In lowly pomp ride on to die.

Bow Thy meek head to mortal pain, then take, O God, Thy pow’r and reign.

“In lowly pomp ride on to die.” At that point, only Jesus knew what the week would bring.  But, thanks to God’s Word, we also know.  So we can shout with the onlookers, who themselves echoed the Psalmist, “Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord” (Psalm 118.26a, NLT).

Mark this Holy Week appropriately, knowing he rode on to die.  

The Seal and the 144,000

In this worship gathering, we hear a message based on Revelation 7 that describes 144,000 people who would be protected in the tribulation – but is it really, literally 144,000? Why does John see a great multitude? Lots of questions, and some answers can be found here. You can watch the whole worship gathering below, or just the message below that.

Foolish preaching

I’m going to resist the temptation, on this April Fools’ Day, to write about the foolishness of not believing in God, as extolled by Psalm 14, though the psalmist is absolutely right.  (Actually, I’ve done this before.)

Perhaps instead I’ll focus on what the Bible calls the foolishness of preaching.

Wait a minute, Jeff.  This doesn’t seem like much of an advertisement for your line of work.

Well, consider what the apostle Paul said, in context:

The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.  As the Scriptures say,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise
    and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.”

 So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish.  Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe.  It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom.  So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.

But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.  This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.  (1 Corinthians 1.18-25, NLT, emphasis mine)

If God can use what I (and other preachers) say to bring salvation, then I’ll be a homiletical fool for Jesus. 

It’s surprising how many people think that preaching has no place in contemporary society, but I disagree.  In response to that perception, though, a lot of sermons have become very brief and very light.  Yet I have found that it isn’t preaching in and of itself that people are reacting against, but pointless preaching that fails to challenge.

In other words, bad preaching has no place in contemporary society (or in any other society).  People will sit and listen to good preaching at length.  That whole thing about short attention spans?  Yeah, tell that to Netflix.

People will appreciate preaching that edifies them, that challenges them, that anchors them in a deepening relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.  That’s the foolish preaching that Paul was writing to the Corinthians about.  That’s the foolish preaching to which I, and any preacher, ought to aspire.

And that’s no joke.