Community Bible Church: Recent Episodes
Community Bible Church
November 12th, 2023
Elect Exiles
1 Peter 1-5
November 12th, 2023
Introduction
Good morning, everyone. Grace and peace to you.
You show up to work and you find out corporate ordered a mandatory diversity meeting to promote LBGTQ+ community more positively. HR wants managers to start using more inclusive language, as well as promote the campaign. To make sure you are on board, you will have to sign an agreement. In addition, the office is planning a rainbow day to support the initiative. As a follower of Jesus, how are you supposed to respond?
You are at family gathering and tension fills the air. Everyone is trying to avoid the hot-button issues, but someone (probably that one uncle) brings them up anyway. You want to seek peace, but you do not want to compromise either and you know most people in the room have serious disagreements. The conversation has already begun. As a follower of Jesus, what is the right course of action?
You are at class trying to keep your head down, but the group project finishes early and everyone begins to chat. The guys in the group seem to know each other and they start talking about their rather inappropriate things, expecting you to join in. You try to appear as friendly as possible but it is not working. One of the guys asks you, “What is the matter with you?” As a follower of Jesus, what are you to say?
Those are situations that Christians find themselves in everyday—situations that are becoming more and more common. As our society becomes increasingly post-Christian, we are going to find ourselves increasingly at odds with our neighbors, on the outside looking in. For most, this is new territory, the landscape has changed and we need to chart a new course. What does that look like?
We have arrived at the last phase in our series on evangelism. We have considered what the gospel is and how to share it, putting special emphasis on the practice of hospitality. Now we are considering how to be a faithful witness to the gospel among unbelievers—at home, at work, at class, wherever we find ourselves. The place to do that is 1 Peter, it is basically what the letter is all about.
Peter is writing into a situation not too dissimilar from ours. His audience—a group of churches in modern day Asia Minor—find themselves on the outside looking in. State-sponsored persecution—loss of rights, imprisonments, executions—have not yet begun. Instead, these churches face what we would call soft persecution. They “live with some measure of stability and comfort, yet experience repeated reviling from family members, neighbors, and coworkers” (Clark). In other words, their persecution is more social than political, more verbal than physical.
Peter speaks about them being treated harshly, being slandered, reviled, intimidated, and maligned. His aim is to encourage them to remain loyal to Christ despite the intense social pressures and to provide them with a strategy moving forward. Over the coming weeks, we are going to unearth that strategy and put it into practice. Peter will teach us what it means to be a Christian in a world where that is no longer a good word.
At the bottom of the sea, there are some real strange creatures—the anglerfish, for instance. What makes these fish incredible is their ability to withstand the pressure at the bottom of the ocean. How does they survive at such depths? I am no biologist but my reading tells me it is their internal pressure, the pressure within their bodies is the same as the pressure exerted upon them by the ocean. Whereas every other creature would be instantly crushed, these strange fish survive and thrive.
Peter is out to increase our internal pressure. We are being drawn into deeper waters, where the bright sun does not penetrate and the pressure becomes unbearable. Before we can do anything, our inner person has to be strengthened, made fit to handle the new depths. Otherwise, we will be crushed. What does that look like? Three things:
- Coming to terms with our situation.
- Becoming people of hope.
- Learning to have a proper fear.
Resident Aliens
Peter’s first move is get his readers (and us) to come to terms with our situation. It is not abnormal, it comes with the territory. In the introduction, he refers to his audience as “aliens” (1:1) or “exiles” or “pilgrims,” depending on your translation. Meaning, alienation is not a temporary misfortune, it is our identity in this world. It is something we must accept and comes to terms with.
Our “citizenship is in heaven,” the scripture says (Php 3:20). “Here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come” (Heb 13:14). Therefore, we are “strangers and exiles on the earth” (Heb 11:13). Home is no longer home, everything familiar has become strange. I imagine we are all familiar the experience. When I confessed Christ, it was the first thing that struck me. Situations and conversations that used to be normal, suddenly felt wrong. Almost overnight, I was an outsider where I previously felt at home.
Peter reminds us that we are strangers in this age and the reason is because God has chosen us. He addresses his audience as “those who reside as aliens… who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God” (1:1-2). That is, when God chooses a people for himself, he alienates them, he sets them apart from the other peoples of the earth.
God’s choice involves to things. First, it means that we are special to God. Later in chapter two verse nine, Peter says, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession,” or, as one version translates it, “his own special people.” Though we face opposition in the world, sometimes severe, Peter does not want that to cloud our vision. He reminds us that we are very dear to God. He loves us with a special and unique love.
However, because God chose us and loves us, he commands us to be holy and that is the second thing. God says to us, “You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine” (Le 20:26). As God’s special people, we are called to reflect his holy nature in all our words and deeds. It is this—holiness—that makes us strangers and exiles to those around us. Later on Peter says,
For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries. In all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you. 1 Peter 4:3-4
In other words, holiness is a surprise to non-believers. It leaves them confused and perhaps suspicious, which leads them to speak against us. Peter also mentions that such treatment is due to ignorance. It is “the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men” (3:15). Holiness is something new to them, that cannot be incorporated into their experience and therefore their first instinct is to bad-mouth and ridicule it.
In summary, Peter wants us to know that our status as “strangers and exiles” is not abnormal. It is par for the course in a world that has turned to idolatry and sin, simply what happens to those whom God choose and sets apart. Rather than running from it, he wants us to embrace it. It is who we are.
The church is “chosen” and therefore “alien,” but it is also “scattered.” Again, Peter writes: “To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (1:1). In the original, scattered is an agricultural term and it literally means the scattering of seed. God separates us to scatter us, he makes us aliens and strangers to our neighbors and then sprinkles us like seeds on foreign soil to take root and produce fruit.
I can imagine someone thinking: “Why has God put me in this situation? Because I serve Christ, I do not fit in at work, my relationship with my spouse is strained, and I am weary being among the world.” The answer is: God has separated you to sow you. Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it this way: “This is a curse and a promise. God’s people must live in distant lands among the unbelievers, but they will be the seed of the kingdom of God in all the world.”
In the present, we are scattered—planted in foreign soil to bear witness to the kingdom—but in the future, we will be gathered, plucked up from our isolation and bundled into the kingdom.
Hope
Such is our situation. It is nothing new or strange but simply the way things are. It is fine to mourn the changes in our society, to experience frustration and even anger, but sooner rather than later we are going to have to get used to it. That is what Peter wants. Alienation is not temporary misfortune, it is our lot in this world. The question is not: How can we go back to the way things were before? But: How are we to respond to the new normal?
Peter has a surprising strategy (as we will see next week), but he takes on deeper matters first. His primary goal is to encourage his readers (and us) with future glory awaiting us on the last day. That is, he aim to strengthen us in hope, that we would become people of hope.
If our hearts are not settled in “living hope” of the resurrection, then we are not going to be prepared to face the opposition of the world. The strong might stand for a time but sooner rather than later the foundation will crumble even beneath them. We can get by without being particularly courageous or tough or wise but we cannot get by without hope. It is the main ingredient in Peter’s counsel.
In fact, hope is where he begins. Peter’s first real imperative—that is, the first thing he tell us to do—is hope. “Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ,” he says (1:13). What is this hope?
First, it is a secure and lasting hope. It is necessary to have faith in this because our eyes show us something different—the lasting thing is not the kingdom but the ridicule and exclusion of this world. When our grip on the kingdom slackens, so does our witness. One author put it this way: “It may not be overt persecution that… tamps down your witness; it can simply be the shame of having those closest to you consider you to be foolish, ignorant, arrogant, misguided, or prude. Or it can be the threat of isolation, of being perpetually uninvited, unrecognized, or unwanted.”
“I don’t want to be embarrassed or shamed,” we think implicitly, so we sensor ourselves, we turn on incognito mode and hide our true colors. Thus our allegiance to Christ is allowed to become a private thing, sectioned off from work or class or anywhere it might offend. Peter recognizes the social pressure we face but he does not attempt to minimize it. Instead, he counters it with something greater.
Yes, we face “various trials” but they are “only for a little while,” he says (1:6) and he repeats himself at the close of the letter, we suffer but only “for a little while” (5:10). It is only for a little while, hereafter comes something unimaginably superior that will make every slight, every put-down, and every persecution worth it.
Because Jesus rose from the dead, we have “an inheritance,” Peter says, “imperishable and undefiled and [which] will not fade away” (1:4). The contrast is between that which is fading, temporary, no more than a vapor, and that which is lasting, eternal, and substantial. “The sufferings of the present time,” Paul says, “are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Ro 8:18). And again: “We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2Co 4:18).
Peter urges us to “fix [our] hope completely” on this coming day. It is unseen now but all will be made plain “at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” To bear up under the shame that is our lot in this age, we need our hearts firmly planted in the next.
Moreover, Peter wants us to know such verbal and social persecution is necessary. “For a little while, if necessary,” he says, “you have been distressed by various trials” (1:6). We need to be clear that God is never the source or cause of suffering, as if he willed the harm of his people. Rather, “every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above” (Jas 1:17). God does not will our suffering, but he does use it.
It is necessary that we are ruffed up at the hands of unbelievers from time time, that we share in the exclusion and exile of the church, because these are instruments that God uses to test and purify our faith. “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God,” Paul and Barnabas proclaimed (Ac 14:22). Again: though you might question God’s design, that he has placed among mockers and scoffers, his intention remains good and kind.
Peter says:
If necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:6-7
Our faith is “tested by fire” but it rebounds to our benefit. It results “in praise and glory and honor.” Here is the miraculous thing—that is our praise and glory and honor that Peter refers to. God tests our faith, whether or not we will withstand the slander and shame dished out to us by unbelievers. If it stands, he will bestow upon us his eternal glory on the last day. As Paul says, “We suffer with [Christ] in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Ro 8:17). In the last estimate, we cannot lose. All things are working together for our good.
Therefore, Peter says, “you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1:8). Hope makes us joyous and even glad amidst deep opposition.
“During the reign of Soviet communism, multitudes of Romanians, including many Christians, were tortured as criminals of the state” (Clark). One such prisoner was Richard Wurmbrand, a minister. He recounts one of his memories from his time in jail, saying:
“It was strictly forbidden to preach to other prisoners. It was understood that whoever was caught doing this received a severe beating. A number of us decided to pay the price for the privilege of preaching, so we accepted their terms. It was a deal; we preached and they beat us. We were happy preaching. They were happy beating us, so everyone was happy.”
Such is the nature of our living hope, it cannot be extinguished even under severe persecution. “It’s a hope that [is] baffling… to our doctors, counselors, classmates, or next-door neighbor. And it’s… the kind of hope we need to have amid our suffering and social exclusion” (Clark).
In fact, it is supposed to be so present within us that others take notice. Be “ready,” Peter says, “to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you” (3:15). He envisions this hope being so alive within us that it opens doors for the gospel wherever we go. “Why are you like this?” someone might ask. “How come you are not put out by their words? How come you remain joyful despite their treatment? How come you still serve Christ?”
Apart from this living hope, we simply will not have the internal resources to bear up under the threats and ridicule of the world. With this living hope, we can not only bear up but positively joyful in the midst of it. Where is you hope?
Fear
Peter’s initial counsel is about hope and his secondary counsel (no less important) is about fear. It might seem counterintuitive but he wants us not to banish fear but to have the right kind of fear. There is no such thing as a fearless person, in other words. Everyone fears, the only difference is what or whom they fear. Peter wants to move us from the fear of man to the fear of God, from a fear that paralyzes to a fear that frees.
He says:
Do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. 1 Peter 3:14–15
Peter’s words here are actually a citation from Isaiah 8:12-13: “You are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it,” God says. “It is the Lord of hosts whom you should regard as holy. And he shall be your fear, and he shall be your dread.” Isaiah was commissioned to preach a gospel that would be rejected, the people would not heed him and thus he is commanded not to fear them or their threats. He is to fear and dread God, not men and what they might do to him. This greater fear, this holy fear would keep him from being cowed into silence.
Peter applies the same words to us. He urges us to “sanctify Christ as Lord in [our] hearts,” or as another translation has it, to “revere Christ as Lord.” In order to remain loyal to the gospel, our reverence for Christ must exceed our fear of men and their threats. That is, when push comes to shove, we’d rather lose our reputation, our friends, our career, and even our lives than dishonor Christ. His holy name is burned onto our hearts and we cannot deny it.
You do not need to be tough at work or at home or anywhere else, toughness is not a Christian virtue. You need to be fearful—not less but more, not of men but of God. Christian heroes, those who sacrifice life and limb for the gospel, are not like the heroes of the world—proud, confident, and macho—they are fearful men and women, whose fear is in God alone. “I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,” Paul says to the Corinthians (1Co 2:3).
When we say that our problem is fearing others too much, we should note what such fear looks like. “We typically aren’t running from people in terror. We aren’t cowering in a corner… Rather, fearing others more than God usually demonstrates itself in trying to please them more than God” (Clark). In other words, we please what we fear.
If that happens to be our boss or coworkers, then it is our witness to the gospel which is neglected. If it is the culture, then we end up changing or leaving out elements of the truth that are offensive. If it is our own security and comfort, then we will be faithful right up to the point where it begins to cost us something.
Are there happenings and trends to be fearful about in our society? Yes, the church’s cultural and social capital is vanishing into thin air. Yes, school curriculum is being weaponized to indoctrinate children into secular dogma and a new sexual ethic. Yes, it is not hard to imagine how certain laws against discrimination and hate-speech could be used be used against the church.
There is much to fear on a personal level as well. By remaining true to Christ we run the risk of forfeiting promotions or being passed up for positions, missing out on tenure and contacts. We might even lose our jobs and families.
“Yet none of that… justifies [us] being terrified. We must not… tremble in fear at the thought of surrendering a job or business, at a failed school board initiative or a particular Supreme Court decision. Because if we do, we’re preaching the… wrong gospel. We’re telling them our greatest fear is he loss of money and power and influence, the lost of our beloved comfort. But as long as that is the case, we show that our fear (and our gospel) is no different from theirs” (Clark).
Instead, God says, “You are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it.” Our fear is in God and the one we aim to please is Christ. We will happily bear their displeasure and disapproval us, so long as on the last day we stand unashamed before Christ. We fear him not because he is a tyrant but because we have been redeemed by his “precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless” (1:17). This is a marvelous and fearful thing. “What is man that thou are mindful of him?” We fear God in Christ because he loved us and bled and died for us and our salvation.
The Lord’s Supper
Read: “The Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’”
Read: “In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’”
Read: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”
Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
June 18th, 2023
Due to recording issues, we are not able to provide audio for this sermon. However, below is a transcript (un-edited) of the sermon.
Introduction
Good morning, everyone. Grace and peace to you.
Over the past couple weeks, I have been trying to demonstrate the importance of this gathering for the rest of our lives. That is, it is not a mere religious activity (whatever that might mean), it is something that shapes our lives and teaches us what the faith is.
It is something theologians call a thick habit, as opposed to a thin one. Thin habits are rituals or routines that are less meaningful, like brushing our teeth. Thick habits are more meaningful, like consuming social media or a nightly family dinner—these habits shape our desires and form our identity. Attending church is a similarly thick habit: what we do here, how we do it, matters, it is shaping us into a certain kind of person.
The first aspect of that person (and this is what we discussed last week), is a listening person. Through the central practice of hearing the holy scriptures read and preached, we are being formed into people whose ears are open and attentive to the voice of God. “Speak, Lord. Your servant hears.” The second aspect of that person, is a hospitable person. Holy communion, the supper, is forming us to a people whose homes and tables are open to others, like God’s is open to us.
That is the destination, but we need to start at the beginning. To understand the supper and not view it simply as a empty ritual or a religious tradition, we need to locate it in the larger story—that story is the story God’s gracious hospitality to the human race.
A Story of Hospitality
The story of God’s hospitality begins in creation. It begins by recognizing that God does not need anything, that he is perfectly self-sufficient in his own life as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Nothing can add to him and nothing can be taken away from him. Thus when he creates, it is not receive something. It is not because he is needy and has some emotional lack to fill or that he is lonely and creates to have company. Again, he is entirely self-sufficient, creation is not a benefit to him, giving him something he did not have before, meeting some need that had not been met.
When God finally answers Job’s desperate questioning, he turns the tables on him and asks him a question, saying, “Who has given to me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine” (Jb 41:11). A creature cannot give to God anything that is not already his. All things come from him, are through him, and are to him. Paul asks the arrogant Corinthians, “What do you have that you did not receive” (1Co 4:7)? The question can be turned around and asked, “What can you give to God that he did not first give you?” The answer is: nothing.
Our point here is simple: God did not create the universe to receive anything from it, but rather to give. He created because he wanted to share his own life and glory. God is not “served by human hands, as though he needed anything,” the apostle says. There is no lack in him, no service that humans could perform to his benefit. Rather, he continues, “he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things” (Ac 17:25). We are here, not because we have something to give to God, but because he desires to give to us.
Creation is an act of hospitality. God did not have to create us, as though we deserved to exist. He was under no inner compulsion to create, as though he had to. Rather, God created something other than himself simply for the purpose of sharing. He created us from his own freewill to welcome us into his presence, to share communion with us. He created us to give and not take, to share and not demand. The human race and our entire universe is the product of an infinite hospitality. God wanted guests to share in his life, a people to feast at his table.
Perhaps the closest analogy to God’s hospitality is a couple’s decision to have children. Why do couples decide to have children? In a fallen world, there are many less than pure motives, and of course, there is a biological drive ingrained into our nature However, in best circumstances, a husband and wife decide to have children to share their love with another. “They… decide to share share something that they could have kept to themselves… Children… are born out of the loving communion between parents” (Hicks).
So God creates because he wants guests, others to share at his banquet table. But what happens? They refuse the invitation. In ingratitude, the guests spurn the host and the good things he offers. And in their contempt for the host, the guests are banished from his table. No longer will they eat the food, the tree of life, and the drink, the river of life, that he provided for them. Instead, they are sent out into dry and fruitless places, to scavenge in the wilderness. The story of creation is a story of hospitality and hospitality refused.
But in time, the host has pity on his guests. Though they have long forgotten him and his hospitality, he has not forgotten himself. “If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself” (2Ti 2:13). The same boundless hospitality that lead him to create the human race, leads him to redeem it. His generosity and determination to have us at his table outruns our contempt.
God’s plan begins with one people. He rescues them, redeems them, and prepares a table for them in the wilderness. God draws near to them in the tabernacle, welcoming them again into his presence, setting his food and drink before them once more.
What happens at the tabernacle—the animal sacrifices, the rituals, the altar—is a sacred barbecue. The worshipper offered an animal, with flour or cakes, on an altar. Leviticus calls the offerings of the tabernacle the “bread of God” (Lv 21:6) and Ezekiel says that the altar is God’s table (Ezek 44:16). The “peace offering” was a shared meal: the fat was burned as the God’s food, while the rest of the animal was divided between the worshipper and the priest.
In the scripture, there is no such thing as food-less worship. God renews his hospitality and recreates covenant fellowship and what that looks like is a meal, eating and drinking in his presence.Then God leads his people into a land flowing with milk and honey and establishes them there. And he sends them prophets, men and women who dream dreams and see visions. What do they see? A day and time when God’s hospitality reigns.
Isaiah sees “a lavish banquet for all peoples” that God has prepared upon a mountain top. He sees cups overflowing with “aged wine,” and a table decked with “choice pieces with marrow.” He sees God wiping “tears away from all faces” and swallowing “up death for all time.” Amos sees a time when “the mountains will drip with sweet wine,” when the hills will be dissolved in their flow. He sees the plowman overtaking the reaper, the sower of grapes overtaking the harvester.
In short, the prophets see God’s original intention for creation restored. They see a day when the guests’ ingratitude and contempt for the host will be reversed, when the entire creation becomes a table and a redeemed human race sits down to eat in gladness and simplicity of heart.
Then, in the fullness of time, the host comes to his guests. The Word, through whom all things we created, becomes flesh, a human. He comes “eating and drinking,” the scripture says, sharing a table with his people—prostitutes, publicans, and even Pharisees. As one author puts it, Jesus “did not come preaching an ideology, promoting ideas, or teaching moral maxims. He came [proclaiming] the feast of the kingdom, and he came feasting in the kingdom. Jesus did not go around merely talking about eating and drinking; he went around eating and drinking. A lot” (Leithart).
Jesus’ ministry was criticized by the religious establishment for a lot of reason, but there are two main ones: that he came eating and drinking, rather than fasting and praying, and that he ate and drank with all the wrong people. Jesus, it seems, did not fit the bill for what a prophet and a teacher should be. The establishment expected him and his disciples to be more buttoned-up and respectable than they were.
In one instance, the religious leaders confronted the disciples at a party. Levi, the tax-collector who became a disciple, hosted a big reception for Jesus at his house. “There was a great crowd of tax-collectors and other people who were… with them,” the scripture says. Quite offended, the Pharisees ask, “Why do you eat and drink with… sinners?” Jesus cuts in and answers, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinner to repentance.”
So they change the subject: “John’s disciples often fast and offers prayers, the Pharisee’s disciples do the same, but your disciples eat and drink.” Their questions amount to something like: “If you a prophet and a teacher, then why is your behavior not more sober and serious? Why are you and your disciples out eating and drinking and not praying and fasting like the rest of us? Moreover, why are you doing these things with sinners and dishonorable people?”
Jesus responds to their questions by saying that he is more than a prophet or a teacher, he is the bridegroom. He asks them, “You cannot make the attendants of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you” (Lk 5:34)? In other words, the messianic age has dawned, the promised bridegroom has come, it is not time to mourn and feast but to celebrate and feast. It is not a funeral, it is a wedding.
God’s boundless hospitality has come to lost and broken humanity in Jesus. He plays the host wherever he goes and he welcome everyone at his table, especially the outcast and downtrodden, the sinner and the tax-collector.
On another occasion, Luke records that religious leaders grumbled at Jesus, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them” (Lk 15:2). Again, his indiscriminate hospitality is an offense to them. But rather than addressing them directly, Jesus tells three parables: each one about losing something—a sheep, a coin, a son—then finding it and rejoicing. The parables explain his practice of eating and drinking with sinners. It is what one must do—even what heaven does—when the lost are found.
Almost ten years ago now, a friend of mine lost his wedding ring at a rest stop. He took it off for some reason and placed it around the straw of his cup and tossed it in the trash without knowing. When we got the the hotel that night, he—and his wife—noticed. We did what we had to do and the next day returned to the rest stop. The trashes had been cleaned, but we saw a large dumpster in the distance. So we hopped the fence, climbed into the mess, and started digging. Mind you, this was a rest stop dumpster and we were in our church clothes. We must have dug for three hours, tossing bags out and tearing them apart to find nothing.
We got to the point quitting. He was nearly in tears, when he said, “One more bag.” We looked down and we happened to see a Starbucks cup peaking through a white bag. We both looked at each other and I jumped in and tossed it out. I sat on the edge of the dumpster as he frantically dug through it and started screaming, rejoicing. He found it—the last bag! We were jumping and shouting and running around in the middle of nowhere. If we could have had a feast by the dumpster, we would have.
Jesus’ table fellowship, eating and drinking with sinners, is God’s joyous welcome to the lost. In his infinite hospitality, God in Christ sets a lavish table for us, true food and true drink, in a world of sin and death.
All this hospitality is preparation for the cross, the ultimate act of hospitality. In Jesus’ death, God puts away the “enmity” once and for all. We “who formerly were far off have been brought near” by his blood. We “are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints” (Eph 2:19). Jesus’ death and resurrection removes our ingratitude and contempt, all the relational damage that we caused, and makes us to be guests again. Because of him, there is a place for us at God’s table.
And the great promise is: the bridegroom will return for his bride. He will finally deal with those who stubbornly refuse his invitation, too busy with other things, and then the festivities will commence, that which has been prepared since before the foundation of the world will begin. It is the wedding supper of the lamb, envisioned in Revelation 19. God will set the table of salvation before us and give us the best portions, to eat from the tree of life and drink from the river of living water. The former things will be forgotten and we will enjoy his welcome and hospitable kingdom for ages and ages to come. “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Re 19:19)!
The Lord’s Supper
Where does the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, fit into this story? Right at the center, near the cross. It is easy when we come to communion, to get caught up in the controversy and debate. That ongoing conversation between the various branches of the faith is not unimportant, but sometimes it can keep us from experiencing the supper for what it is: God’s hospitality to us in Christ.
I prefer the name supper over communion or the eucharist simply because it preserves this element of hospitality, the image of the table. It keeps us connected to the larger story that runs from the creation of the world to its consummation. Chiefly, the supper tell us that God wants us at his table and that he has gone to extraordinary lengths to make it happen. It is a profound moment in the life of the church that teaches us what salvation is all about.
Interestingly, apart from a few cryptic statements, Jesus never explains the meaning of the cross. He warns his disciples that it is going to happen, but they do not understand. Once he even explains its meaning to them—“a ransom for many”—but it goes over their heads. Instead, when he wants to teach them what it is about, he gives them a meal not a sermon. In the upper room, the night before his crucifixion, he institutes the Lord’s Supper.
When we share the supper, it demonstrates the goal of salvation: communion or fellowship. It has become less obvious in our day, but a meal is always more than a meal. It is never simply about eating and drinking to sustain our lives. It is about relationship. It is a community-building, bond-forming event. That is why Jesus’ table habits, eating and drinking with sinners, were so scandalous. A meal was deeply symbolic of friendship, intimacy, and unity. The goal of our salvation is a meal, that is, communion and relationship with the triune God. This all ends, no matter what happens, with us together at his table.
A meal is also about dependance. “We are eating creatures, who cannot live unless we take in something from outside of us” (Leithart). That is part of the reason why a meal is special, a set table is symbolic for life itself. When we come God’s table as dependent creatures, what does he feed us? Himself. We do not believe, as Catholics do, that the elements of the supper, the cup and the bread, are literally transformed into the blood and body of Jesus. That is called transubstantiation. But neither do we believe that the supper is a mere memorial, that is, a purely human act of remembrance.
Instead, we believe, as the scripture teaches, that “the cup of blessing which we bless [is] a sharing in the blood of Christ” and “the bread which we break [is] a sharing in the body of Christ” (1Co 10:16). It is not an empty sign nor is it transformed into body and blood, rather it the means by which we commune with the risen Christ. Our participation in supper is the moment when God in Christ graciously communes with us, when he gives himself to us as our bread and drink. His is our life.
So the supper reaches back and it reaches forward. It reaches back as a continuation of Jesus’ table fellowship, eating and drinking. What happens in the supper is no different from what happened when Jesus reclined at the table with tax-collectors and sinners. It also reaches back to the cross, as a continual proclamation of the gospel in the bread and the cup. Jesus gives us the elements as he gave us his own body in death and resurrection.
It reaches forward, too. It looks to and anticipates kingdom come, when “many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 8:11). It brings past and future into the present and preaches to us Jesus Christ and him crucified.
God’s Hospitality and Ours
The supper is about God’s hospitality to us in the death and resurrection of Christ. Our aim in this portion of the series is to connect our corporate worship with our lives, so what does the supper teach us? It teaches us be hospitable people, whose tables are open and generous like the one we are invited to everything time we gather. First, the supper makes us hospitable by being hospitable to us.
Do you know the story of Mephibosheth? After David assumed the throne, he asked his servants if any relatives of Saul remained—the previous king, who, in rage and jealously, tried to murder him. In those days, it was common for a new king to kill the rest of the royal family, so that no challenger remained. His servants found one remaining descendent, Mephibosheth, the grandson of the Saul and the son of Jonathan, David’s best friend, who was killed in war.
He was crippled and living in hiding because he was afraid that David would kill him. When he was presented before the king, Mephibosheth fell on the floor expecting to be killed. But David responded and said to him, “Do not fear, for I will surely show kindness to you for the sake of your father Jonathan, and will restore to you all the land of your grandfather Saul; and you shall eat at my table regularly” (2Sa 9:7).
We are Mephibosheth. We are summoned before Christ, expecting condemnation and death, only to be welcomed at his table, to eat and drink from his riches for the rest of our lives. When we recognize the unmerited welcome that has been given to us, it is very hard to withhold that from others. When God has opened his home and table to us in such lavish and extraordinary fashion, it is hard to be closed off and cold toward others.
This free and bountiful hospitality that we receive in the supper, cannot but make us similarly hospitable to others. God’s gracious welcome melts away everything that is miserly, begrudging, and self-righteous in our hearts. He turns enemies and strangers into guest, so that his guest might themselves become hosts.
God’s hospitality makes us hospitable. And that leads us to our second point: the supper teaches us how to be welcoming to one another. In Corinth, the celebration of the supper had been supremely botched. It was meant to be a demonstration of unity and fellowship and instead it had become an instrument of division, primarily along socio-economic lines.
Imagine you are a poor member of the Corinthian church. Later that evening, after the work day, the entire congregation is meeting at someone’s home to partake of the supper and share a meal together. Because you a poor, you can contribute little or nothing to the common meal. When you work day is over, likely as someone’s slave, you show up to the gathering and the food and drink are entirely consumed and some people are even drunk. The rich people in the church had been waiting too long and decided to get on with things, because it was their food anyway. You do what you can and try to strike up a conversation, but you are too embarrassed and shamed to continue. You and the other poor members of the church leave, while the others do not even seem to notice.
This was the situation in Corinth. Paul says though they call it the Lord’s Supper, it is not the Lord’s Supper at all. It is a shame and mockery. “What!” Paul rages. “Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you” (1Co 11:22). It is not the Lord’s Supper because there is no brotherhood or unity. If you want to partake rightly, he says, then “judge the body rightly” (1Co 11:29). Meaning, the church—the supper is a demonstration of the unity and peace the gospel brings and divided congregation preaches the exact opposite message.
The supper is not a private religious experience, it is communal demonstration of unity and fellowship. It reminds us that we are one body, that we are members of one another. It keeps our hearts tender and compassion to our brothers and sisters. It nudges us toward forgiveness and reconciliation. Above all, it preaches the gospel of peace to us, and says, “Accept one another, just as Christ also accepted [you] to the glory of God” (Ro 15:7). What does the acceptance look like? A meal. Our table at home is supposed to look like the Lord’s table in the assembly, where natural enemies are untied as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Lastly, the supper teaches us how to be hospitable to outsiders. How so? It gives us a lens through which to view other people, unbelievers. According to our natural vision, we see political enemies, we see those who oppose our values, we see those who undermine society, and etc. But the supper teaches us to see those same people as people wanted by God, as guests he desires to have at his table. God wants their company as well as ours. “How much simpler if God only wanted [our] company and that of those [we] decided to invite. But God does not play that particular game” (Williams).
That is not to say this issues that divide us are unimportant, often time they are major. Nor is it say that hospitality is anything-goes tolerance, it is not. Rather, it is to say that the gospel is greater than those divisions and difficulties. It has the power to transform enemies into friends, Sauls into Pauls.
February 26th, 2023
Due to a power outage at the church building, the message was not recorded. Below is the sermon transcript.
Introduction
Good morning, everyone. Grace and peace to you. Our psalm this morning recounts a near-universal experience, namely, looking up into the night sky and wondering were one fits into the picture. You have had that experience, I am sure, that feeling of your smallness in relation to it all, that ego-diminishing sensation where you grasp the vastness of things.
It is exhilarating and terrifying all at once, and it is the experience our psalm recounts. The psalmist looks up into the heavens and asks: What is man? It is the right question to ask: the contrast between the immensity of the universe and our life on “the pale blue dot,” as Carl Sagan put it, forces the question upon us. Where is our place, my place, in all this?
In our age, the question is even more intimidating, given what we know about the universe. According to recent estimates, there are somewhere around two trillion galaxies in the know universe, each containing around 100 billion stars. Astronomers estimate that there are 10,000 stars for every grain of sand on earth. It is absolutely staggering, and it is right to feel insignificant because of it.
But there are some who say that humanity actually is insignificant because of it. That is, the claims (particularly, Christian ones) that humans have a special place in the universe is simply false. The size of the universe and its indifference toward human life refutes any claim to uniqueness on our part.
It argument goes like this: in light of it all, do not the claims that God “came down” to our planet, that he has a special concern for our species, that he died and rose again on our behalf seem rather childish now?
Some argue for a more modest view, in their words. Humans are certainly not unique, given the size of the universe. Surely, there are other creatures just like us—indeed, superior to us. It should keep us from an over-inflated ego, creating these myths about our place in things.
Others go further. Rather than modesty, it is more like contempt. Humans are simply a cosmic accident, a temporary host for genes to propagate themselves, as Dawkins says. In the end, there is nothing special about our species, even our ability to contemplate our place in the universe is simply a evolutionary trick, a useful fiction.
The psalmist’s question is universal, but the answer to it is not. What does the church say about the vastness of the universe? Does it invalidate our claims about the human race? Really, the size of the universe should give us no trouble. Why? Because the claim is, right there in our psalm, that the heavens are the work of God’s fingers and the reflection of his glory.
In one sense, we are supposed to feel that gut-churning feeling at the immensity of the universe. It is supposed to lead to the psalmist’s question about our place in things, but even more, the question of God. Who stands behind all this unfathomable vastness? And what does its immensity and majesty say about its creator?
What about the possibility of other species in the universe? Again, yes or no, it is a question that posses no threat to us. Could God have created other intelligent life beside humans? He did. He created the angels and the vast array of heavenly beings. Is it not so hard to imagine that he could have do so on another planet.
The scriptures are not an answer book, given to satisfy our every curiosity. Instead, the apostle says, “the sacred writings” give us “the wisdom that leads to salvation” (2Ti 3:15). God has not told us everything, only what we need to know. Why would we imagine he has? He created the heavens that we might stand in awe of him, but that hardly means that is their sole purpose. We do not have the slightest clue why he the Andromeda galaxy.
And we should remember that when the vastness of the universe intimidates us, it is only humans who can have that experience. C.S. Lewis says, “Men look on the starry heavens with reverence: monkeys do not.” It is an aspect of human uniqueness that we can tremble at the scale of things. The distance between our galaxy and another is meaningless data without the human mind to give it meaning.
My point here in this apologetic detour is simply to show that we still have good reason for trusting the testimony of the scriptures. No matter what human learning turns up—that is, what we discover about ourselves and the universe—it cannot overthrow what the scripture says about the human race, our place in things.
You Make Him to Rule
And that brings us to our real question: What does the scripture say about the human race? As we noted, the psalm recounts the near-universal experience of looking up and contemplating our place in the universe. It is the same experience modern people have, but the psalmist winds up in a radically different place.
A modern person looks up and what he sees inspires insecurity—a sense of wonder, no doubt, but soon overcome be a greater dread. The psalmist looks up and has the same experience of smallness, yet it leads to another conclusion: he knows that he is only dust, but also that he is the object of divine care.
What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?
Psalm 8:4
At the heart of what the scriptures have to say about the human race is that God loves us, that he has a special concern and care for us. Though we are indeed a spec of dust upon a spec of dust, his heart is toward us. And why? Because he made us in his image, according to his likeness.
The next section in our psalm, vv.5-8, are essentially an interpretation of the original creation narrative, specifically the creation of humanity. Genesis 1:27 says, “God created man in his own image… male and female he created them.” And our psalm says, vv.6: “you have made him a little lower than God.”
In the original, it is the word is elohim. It is a generic rather than specific word. In this case, rather than “God” as in the transcendent creator of the universe, it refers to “spiritual beings.” As some translation have it, “heavenly beings” (ESV) or simply “angels” (NIV).
Regardless, the point is: both passages are saying the same thing. Humans are made to mirror their maker, and as such, we have a unique status among creatures. Indeed the psalmist says, “you crown him with glory and majesty” (Ps 8:5). Created in the divine image, humans have an exalted, royal place in creation.
God created man in his image, the creation accounts says, that we might “rule” over the earth (Ge 1:26). And vv.6-8 in our psalm make that same point:
You make him to rule over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
All sheep and oxen,
And also the beasts of the field,
The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea,
Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.
Psalm 8:6-8
Humans are like vice regents. A vice regent is someone who acts in the place of the ruler. Meaning, the king is away and until he returns the vice regent acts in his place, making decisions and administering the kingdom. Humans are a bit like that. What a vice regent is to the ruler, humans are to the creator.
God creates the vast universe, particularly our planet, and then sets humanity over it, to rule in his place as it were. At the beginning of the creation narrative, the earth is described in two words: formless and void. God acts to correct this. He brings form to a formless world, days one through three, and he brings life to the empty void, days four through six. Then he places humans over the earth to do the same thing.
God commissions us to “fill the earth, and subdue it” (Ge 1:28). That is, to bring order to wild nature, taming and cultivating it, and to then fill it with human life. Man is created male and female, the man’s duty is to bring order, that is, subdue the earth, and the women’s duty is to fill it, that is, to be fruitful. In short, God has put us over his creation to glorify it, to bring its raw potential to perfection. And that is what it means for us to mirror our maker. Human rule over earth is supposed to reflect God’s rule over all things in righteousness and justice and peace.
It is essentially a commission to build civilization. Humans take the raw materials of creation to build homes and cities, to invent instruments and tools. We bring bread from mere grain and produce wine from grapes. We are cooks and hunters and famers and crafters and builders, imaging the creator in all we do.
What is man? Here is the scriptural answer. Humans are God’s vice regents, sub-rulers over the earth, made to mirror his glory in all their works.
What does this mean for us? Simply to keep doing what we are doing. It is all apart of the creation mandate, to be rulers. It brings a new dignity to our life and work. It is not simply a job. It is a uniquely human task that mirrors the maker, and whether you are making a sandwich or software that does not change.
It is our calling to rule after our maker, to bring his glory to our lives and work. It is a wonderful picture of what it means to be human. It pertains to every part of our lives, as husbands and wives, parents and children, employers and employees, in work and rest. “You crown him with glory and majesty; you make him to rule over the works of your hands.”
Men Become Beasts
But we know the story, it does not stay this way for long. Humanity is broken and now it mirrors something quite different than what it was supposed to.
Our psalm pays particular attention to human rule over animals, which seems quite odd or at least not that impressive. It talks about man being given dominion over the earth, but when that is expanded upon it looks like tending sheep and herding cattle. It is a little anti-climactic. I was hoping for something more than life on the ranch.
But there is more going on here. It becomes clear in the original creation narrative. Humans were created to rule over the beasts, but very early on, we find humans listening to the beasts.
The story that tells of our undoing begins with these words: “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made” (3:1). It is clear that there is something more at work in the serpent, but the passage simply wants us to know that it is a beast. Presumably created on the sixth day with the rest of the land animals.
God had placed this creature under the man’s feet, and here it is speaking to him. It has his ear, and the roles are reversed. Rather than asserting their dominion, the man and the woman are brought under the dominion of the serpent. Things go wrong when humans fail to rule as they were intended.
So the problem is: human rule is subverted by beastly rule. And no longer after, humans begin to act beastly themselves. Adam and Eve have two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain is turned away, because his sacrifice was unworthy. He begins to sulk and turn murderous, and God confronts him:
“Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” Genesis 4:6-7
How is sin portrayed in this passage? Like a predatory animal, a beast, crouching at the door, reading to pounce. Cain falls pray to sin, and turns beastly himself: he murders his brother in cold blood. The moral is: turned over to beastly rule, humans become beasts, or rather, their rule is exercised in beastly ways.
What does a beast do? It devours, like Cain. We tear apart the peace God intended for creation. Rather than as humans, crowed “with glory and honor,” we act like beasts toward one another. As the apostle warns us: “If you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another” (Ga 5:15). He pictures the warring church like a pack of wild dogs.
Rather than imitating what is above us, we have come to imitate that which is beneath us.
And this theme runs throughout the scriptures. God enemies are often depicted as beasts, devouring predators. In our modern translations, Goliath is described as wearing “a coat of mail,” but literally the word is scales. The giant warrior taunting the armies of Israel was covered in scales, like a snake.
When the people are afraid for David, he assures them: “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, he will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine” (1Sa 17:37). God’s enemies are like beasts, lions and bears that attack the sheep, but the king has dominion over them.
King Nebuchadnezzar is another beast, more literally this time. God visits him, to humble him in his great pride. And how does this happen? He is turned into a beast. His reason leaves him and he “was driven away from mankind and began eating grass like cattle… until his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers and his nails like birds’ claws” (Da 4:33).
It is the garden all over again. Pride turned the king into a beast. He wanted to become like a god and instead he lost his manhood and became a beast. It anticipates the climactic vision in Daniel, where he sees four mighty beasts arising from the sea. One was like a lion, the other a bear, and the third a leopard, and the last was so terrible it resembled nothing in nature.
What are these beasts? The kingdoms and empires of the earth. They are the political embodiment of what happens when humans listen to the serpent. Intended to promote righteousness and justice, these beastly empires fill the earth with blood and violence.
If there is anything we learn from these figures, it is that pride turns one into a beast but humility makes one more human. In pride, these figures claim to be something more than human, and instead become animals. They lift themselves up to godly heights, but they are cast down to the earth. Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit hoping to “become like God” (Ge 3:5), and it winds up with them in slavery to the beasts.
Pride turns one beastly.
On the other hand, humility humanizes. A humble person lowers themselves to the earth with the beasts, and therefore they are lifted up. “Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and he will exalt you” (Ja 4:10). Human “glory and majesty” is not attained in pride, but bestowed in humility and obedience. If Adam and Eve had not lifted themselves up in pride, God would exalted them in humility.
Humans were created a little lower than the heavenly beings, crowed with glory and honor, but have been reduced to beasts. God placed us over the works of his hands, to rule and steward creation well, and instead we have devoured it.
The Son of Man
What can be done? Is there any hope for humans-turned-beasts? How are we to be restored to our original glory? The answer: we need another man, a new beginning to the human race.
Do you know Jesus’ favorite name for himself? In the rest of the New Testament, he is referred to as the Christ or Lord or Messiah. But in the Gospels, he hardly calls himself by these names and instead identifies as the Son of Man—ben adam, the Son of Adam. It simply means a human.
After his vision of the four beastly empires, Daniel has another vision. He sees a heavenly courtroom set up. Seated upon the throne is the Ancient of Days, and pouring out before him is a river of fire and thousand upon thousands of heavenly beings.
Judgement was passed against the beastly empires, their dominion was taken from them, and the last beast was slain and its body tossed into the fire. And then what happened?
I kept looking in the night visions,
And behold, with the clouds of heaven
One like a Son of Man was coming,
And He came up to the Ancient of Days
And was presented before Him.
And to Him was given dominion,
Glory and a kingdom,
That all the peoples, nations and men of every language
Might serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
Which will not pass away;
And His kingdom is one
Which will not be destroyed.
Daniel 7:13-14
God brings an end to beastly rule and restores proper dominion to one “like the Son of Man.” He ascends on the clouds, is presented before the Ancient of Days, and is given a kingdom, spanning all peoples and nations and times. In this figure, humanity is returned to its original role. The beasts have been deposed and the human is once again ruler over earth.
It takes us back to our psalm and helps us understand it full implications. It is prophetic in nature, not only about men in general, but the man, Jesus. That is how the apostles understood it. Allow me to read it again:
What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?
Yet You have made him a little lower than God,
And You crown him with glory and majesty!
You make him to rule over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet.
Psalm 8:4-6
In Hebrews, our psalm is read in reference to Jesus’ earthly ministry. “You have made him a little lower than God” or “angels,” as some translations have it. This refers to Jesus’ incarnation, becoming human and therefore lower than the heavenly beings. But on account of this, “you crown him with glory and honor.” This refers his resurrection and exaltation into heaven.
And thus, “you make him to rule over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.” Jesus’ work culminates in him being installed as the ruler over heaven and earth, with the devouring beasts deposed from their rule. As the apostle says:
For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death. For He has put all things in subjection under His feet. 1 Corinthians 15:25-27
What does this mean? Simply, that only Jesus—the son of adam, the last man, the true human—can forgive and remove that which is beastly within us, only he can restore us to our “glory and majesty” as humans. We exalted ourselves and became beasts. He humbled himself and became man. In his true manhood, we are restored to ours.
For us, beasts-in-transition, we have to stumble behind his true manhood, until he returns to abolish the last enemy and put every last thing under his feet. We must walk in his path of humility, till he returns to exalt us to glory.
As we turn to holy communion, we are reminded what these elements mean. The body and blood of the Son of Man broken and poured out for us, that he might welcome us into his everlasting kingdom, that beasts of sin and death might be removed for us, that glory and majesty might be ours once more.
It is right that we give thanks! Come, receive the elements, take them back to your places, and I will lead us in celebration in one moment.