The Joy of Glory

Genesis 22:1-14 (click here)
And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”

…And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. [14] So Abraham called the name of that place, “The LORD will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.” (Genesis 22:6-8 and 13-14)

Reflection
Isaac was the child whom God had promised to Abraham. Through him, God has promised Abraham descendants that would outnumber the stars in the sky. Yet…in Genesis 22 God instructed Abraham to sacrifice this son of promise.

If Isaac died, all the promises died with him.

Isaac represented the future people of God and as their representative, he was now marching up a mountain, bearing on his back the very wood upon which he was to die. In Isaac, God’s people were walking up a hill to their death.

God ordered this death. God alone could stop this death. But how?

That was Isaac’s question. As he looked around at their sacrificial supplies, he noticed one key thing was missing…they had no lamb.

Fire?…check.

Wood?…check.

Lamb?…where is the lamb?

Abraham knew the answer…Isaac was the lamb…unless God provided a substitute sacrifice. God alone could do this… and God alone did it!

A ram instead of Isaac. A substitute. A savior.

God provided. And Abraham prophetically stated more than he could possibly have known… that one day… “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.” And it has been provided.

We, the people of God, deserved nothing but death. God ordered this death for our sin because he is righteous and just and deals with evil…even our evil.

God ordered this death… and God alone could stop this death… but how?

We alone deserve to die… is there a lamb to sacrifice in our place? The question of Isaac echoes through the ages, “Where is the lamb?”

In John 1:29, John the Baptist answers Isaac’s 2000 year old question with the words, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Behold Jesus!

God’s own son, who marched up a mountain, bearing on his back the very wood upon which he was to die…and he did it in our place! God righteously, rightly ordered our death and God stopped it by taking it on himself!

On the mountain called Calvary, the Lord provided a substitute sacrifice for his people so that they, nor his promises to them had to die. Jesus Christ, the lamb, died so that we might live now and forevermore!

Behold the lamb of God! Behold Jesus!

*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.

Each day the Lenten season, I am emailing out a devotional to many of the members of SVCC. I will also be sharing these devos via blogging. Hopefully, I will post first thing each morning, but definitely by 12pm. The first devotional may be found below. These are designed to accompany the SVCC Lenten reading guide which may be found here: 2016 Lenten Reading Guide.

In these devotionals I will give a link that will take you to the entire reading for the day if you would like to read it. I will actually include a few of the verses upon which I will focus my reflections. In the reflection section I will make a few brief comments which I hope will spur your own thinking and prayers.

Lent is meant to be a season of repentance and fasting that prepares our hearts for the coming celebration of Easter (fuller explanation here). Repentance is a reminder that we need to be saved from our sin…we need a Savior. Fasting reminds us that we are not in need of the things this world offers, but in desperate need of Jesus.  So the point of Lent is that we need Jesus…we need Easter. It is my prayer that these daily devotionals will simply help remind us daily of our need for Christ.

Genesis 3:1-21 (click here)
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” “…you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” …And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. (Genesis 3:15, 19b and 21)

Reflection
I did not grow up observing Lent. It was not until I began pastoring Shades Valley Community Church that this season would become part of my yearly rhythm. Every February (or March), I find myself standing at the front of our sanctuary on a Wednesday evening with my thumb covered in Ash and I repeat these words over and over again…

“From dust you came and to dust you shall return… so repent and believe the Gospel.”

From dust you came. We came from something… were created from something. We are not the ultimate, eternal, end of all things in the universe. We are created beings who had a beginning. That beginning was given to us by our creator who made us from dust.

And to dust you shall return. We are headed somewhere… and not necessarily somewhere good. These words are spoken in judgment upon us… they are a penalty. We are created begins who have an end. That end was pronounced by our creator who will return us to dust in death.

These are sobering words that reveal a sobering reality we like to ignore, namely, we are finite, temporary creatures… created from dust and headed back to dust. Genesis 3 explains why this is the case. We were given life by God, and that life was not meant to end…we were not meant to return to dust, but we turned from God, the giver and sustainer of life and there was no where for us to turn but towards death.

He made us from dust yes… but we chose to return to dust.

Yet, every Ash Wednesday, these are not the only words I speak. I do say, “From dust you came and to dust you shall return,” but I keep going, “so repent and believe the Gospel.” Repent…or turn. Turn back to God! And believe the Gospel…the good news! What good news? How can there be any good news for a people condemned to return to dust in death?

There is good news because Genesis 3, the very chapter which contains our death sentence, proclaims our salvation!

Genesis 3:15 proclaims that one shall be born to a woman who will crush our ancient enemy, the serpent! Jesus…the offspring of the woman would have his “heel struck” through the cross, but he would use that same cross to “crush the head” of the serpent!

Through that cross he would do for us what God the Father did for Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:21… just like an animal was sacrificed to cover the nakedness of our first parents… Christ, the lamb of God, was sacrificed to cover our exposed sin and shame.

This is the Gospel, this is the good news for a people who are returning to dust! Jesus Christ returned to dust in death for us so that we might be saved from that fate and have life forever more!

“From dust you came and to dust you shall return… so repent and believe the Gospel.”

*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.

*Tonight at our annual SVCC family meeting, I briefly reflected on many things that happened among our faith family during 2015. Below are the thoughts I shared in the form of a letter.

Dearest Shades,

Here we are again. Another year has passed and I continue to wonder if I will ever actually figure out how to be a pastor. Every time I think I have a grasp on this thing called ministry, something changes, and I find myself relearning everything I thought I already knew. Last year was no exception to this trend. Looking back over 2015 at SVCC, I feel like I can say that everything has changed… yet nothing has changed.

Let me see if I can explain what I mean. Everything has changed. For instance, just a few years ago there were about 70 members at Shades and now there are over 170. We used to set up 250 chairs for Sunday mornings and now we set up over 400 and are almost ready to open two balconies. We used to have two community groups and now there are basically thirteen. Everything has changed!

Yet, nothing has changed. We are still family no matter how many of us there may be. This space still feels like our living room no matter how many chairs we cram into it. I still get to watch our community groups pray, study, and be on mission together as they grow in love for Christ and one another. Nothing has changed.

Still, everything has changed. I mean, a few years ago, we were praying that God would provide the funds for a new roof. That seemed impossible, but now we are getting a final price and beginning construction as soon as possible! Not long ago we were praying that the Lord would allow us to see spiritual adoptions among us and now we’ve almost grown used to seeing several baptisms each year. Likewise, I remember how we prayed together for the Lord to grant physical adoptions in many of our families, and now we ooh and ahh together over the answers to those prayers. I recall how we’ve prayed for the Lord to send members of our body to the ends of the earth for the sake of the Gospel, and now there are people connected with Shades on every continent except Antarctica (we are taking applications). Everything has changed.

Yet, nothing has changed. We are still a people of prayer! We still pray for God to move in our midst and let us to see more spiritual and physical adoptions. We are still passionate about the Gospel being preached to all peoples, so we continue to pray for the Lord to raise up missionaries from our body to take the good news of Jesus Christ to the ureached. Nothing has changed.

Still, everything has changed. Just four short years ago, I remember celebrating as one to two babies were born amongst and now the number of new births per year is consistently close to double digits. Likewise, in my first few years at Shades, I would only do one or two weddings a year, but last year I officiated seven. We definitely gather more often to celebrate, but we also gather more often to mourn. There was a time when we only had to assembled about once a year to grieve the passing of someone from this life to the next, and now this seems to be a much more regular rhythm in the life of our community. Everything has changed.

Yet, nothing has changed. When we celebrate together, we still do it with the same explosive joy that is rooted in Jesus. And when we grieve, we still do it as a people whose feet are anchored to an everlasting hope. I don’t think that anything has affected my faith more than grieving with this community. They way you surround each other, walk with one another for the long haul, and hope for joy in Jesus when it seems all hope is lost…that has given me more confidence in the glory of Christ than anything else I have witnessed in this world. You have taught me the meaning of 2 Corinthians 6:10, “…sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” Nothing has changed.

Everything has changed, yet nothing has changed.

So… as we head into 2016, it may feel like many things are different… and that is because they are, but we will continue to be the same Shades. We will still be the same, weird Shades family that gathers at the same time each week to sing the same praise, wave the same flags, sit around the same Word, eat from the same bread, drink from the same cup, and go into the same world in peace, having courage, holding on to what is good, honoring all men, strengthening the faint-hearted, supporting the weak, helping the suffering, and sharing the Gospel. Our mission will still be to love and serve the Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit, and our prayer will still be that the grace of our lord Jesus Christ would be with us all, and we will still be God’s people who week after week say, “Amen.”

I love you all,

Jonathan