Whiteboard Wednesday

Overwhelmed at the depth of how God loves and uses us, that is. Ruth 4 is an incredible example. Naomi, leaving God's house of bread and experiencing the death of her husband and children, left only with the seemingly insignificant loyalty of an unconnected daughter-in-law. And then God using even the difficult circumstances and unknown connections to not just bless Naomi... but put her and Ruth in the actual line of David... and Jesus Christ. What an amazing God we have, who not only adores us but brings in the seemingly insignificant (and even wrong!) parts of our story, redeeming it all, enveloping us into his story forever. Overwhelming!

The pathway from bitter to blessed doesn't go as we'd think. We are often caught up in the religious "obey/be blessed, disobey/be cursed" that flavors all our thinking. That's why the book of Ruth is such incredible good news. Redemption comes not from good choices but from a seemingly unimportant connection (the gift of surprising loyalty) and the introduction of an actual redeemer. This is what God provides: not help with better choices but a Redeemer. This is the gift of our Savior, who has paid it all for us and covers us in forgiveness, righteousness, and redemption forever.

From Ruth 1. Naomi has made terrible choices. And she has lost her husband and her children. Famine follows her. She heads back to Bethlehem in shame, only a foreign daughter-in-law with her. Don't call me pleasant, call me bitter, she says. Yet we know something she doesn't. That God is at work. Her self-evaluation is wrong, not because she hasn't suffered, but because of the incredible things God is doing through and around her. Would you receive this gift: that Jesus Christ is for you, now and forever, and he has blessed you beyond what you will ever see!

So often we think the goal of Christian living is to become stronger and better. The law is our ladder to improved flesh. But Paul ends Galatians insisting that those efforts simply aren't our goal. Instead we die, and are brought to new life in Christ by the Spirit. What matters is the new creation, and that is entirely a work of God in Christ. Come, trust him, receive the wonderful news that the gospel is true, that Jesus Christ brings forgiveness and righteousness, that he has us now and forever.

From Galatians 6. "You reap what you sow." The phrase strikes fear in us. Are you sowing good so that you will get good? But that's not the point. The point is that sowing to the flesh -- our own righteousness, holiness, advancement, our focus on ourselves -- leads to corruption, even though you don't see it now. And to sow to the Spirit -- trusting Jesus and all that he gives us in forgiveness, righteousness, and freedom -- may not look like much, but it will reap life. Hear the good news: Christ for you, forever.

Galatians 5. We so often think God's goal is to improve us. So we see the Holy Spirit as a divine power source, which we tap into to make ourselves better, stronger, holier, whatever. But in actuality the Spirit is in conflict with the flesh. We can't "use" the Spirit to improve. That path leads nowhere. Rather we turn from ourselves, and trust the Spirit will produce all the fruit that God desires. We really have a new way of life: trusting this incredible God who declares the good news of Jesus Christ.

Galatians 5. Our freedom accomplished by Jesus is the ground for seeing everything differently. Instead of getting to work on our righteousness, we have the hope of righteousness, a gift from Jesus. Instead of trusting so that we can obey, we see that trust is the obedience, because Jesus has done it all! And we don't return to the law, even the great law of love. Instead we trust the perfect love of Christ, for us and for our neighbor. So we don't have to impose our way -- instead we believe the Way, which is the good news of Jesus Christ our Savior.

From Galatians 4. One of the most practical -- and oft misunderstood -- areas of Christian living is our freedom. We are free. And that freedom is not to be a better person, to avoid sin, or to accomplish for God. No, we are free from the law, free to drop our guilt and shame, free from measurement and accounting. This is the division between law and gospel, and they cannot be mixed, says Paul. The law makes children for slavery, working through the flesh; the gospel brings children of promise, through the Spirit. Rejoice, because Jesus really has done it all!

From Galatians 4. Incredible news from outside of ourselves: we are heirs and children of God, adopted into his family, by what Jesus has accomplished. We have been freed from the basic princples of the world -- where we were kept under the law -- and are now in Christ. This is so hard to believe that the Holy Spirit testifies to our hearts that it is true! There's a 'so what' to all of it -- so don't go back. Don't add yourself back in. Receive and rest in the promise of Jesus for you, forever!

From Galatians 3. Often we fully accept that our conversion is by Jesus alone. But we have trouble trusting Christ for our daily living. It's like we've been delivered from a burning building but want to spend our time putting out the flames, managing sin, improving the flesh. Instead, Paul urges the Galatians (and us!) to take the leap, scary as it might be, to an entirely different foundation: trusting that we live now by the Spirit, who produces fruit in us and is with us for our entire lives. Our only hope remains in what Christ has done, him alone. May we continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus!

It's the final word of Ecclesiastes: fear and obey God. That's because you are in a state of decay and decline, followed by death. Everything you do will be judged by the creator of all. Ecclesiastes, the best of man's wisdom, is deep and true. But God's final word, wisdom from above, is deeper and more amazing still: we have a Savior. Jesus upholds the need for perfection, but then provides it. He declares forgiveness and righteousness and life... simply by trusting in the one who loves us and dies with us and is with us forever.

Ecclesiastes 11. The golden rule of investing is to diversify. That's because we don't know what God will do, in any of the areas of life we think we have control over. Yet while we don't control outcomes, we are told in the Bible that God will judge our inputs -- both external actions and internal motives. This leads to a life of fear and uncertainty, seeing God as mostly unhappy with us. So what good news the gospel brings! Jesus announces that the judgment is finished, not by our improvement but by forgiveness, trusting his Word. We're moved from fear of judgment to life as an amazing gift. Because it is. In Christ.

Ecclesiastes 7. Denial is a fool's game, so we contrive many ways to try and control this life under the sun. The most common is to be righteous, good, so that God and others will bless us. The difficulty, says the wise writer of Ecclesiastes, is that no one is righteous. Humbled and forced to live a daily life, we turn to our only real hope -- the one who redeems and rescues and saves. Our incredible righteous one, Jesus Christ. He gives full and free forgiveness to all who receive him. Can't wait to be with him forever!

We long for justice and want to end oppression. In Ecclesiastes, the Preacher looks at the world and doesn't find a way. Power corrupts; overthrowing regimes leads to new regimes, all exercising power over others. It is hard for us to hear, that in our longing for justice and getting power we become part of the problem. Yet as we recognize our inability, we can see a true hope: the one who became oppressed for us, God who had everything giving up his power for us. In our weakness, he is our strength, both in life now and forever.

From Matthew 7. Judge not, that you not be judged; ask and you shall receive. Those don't seem like connected thoughts, but they very much are. Jesus identifies our problem, not that other people aren't guilty, but that we all are crushed by the standard of the law. Our hope is not in being better in ourselves, but in receiving a gift. And the Father delights in giving this gift to any who ask: the gift of Christ himself, our Savior, his rightness and goodness ours forever. Great news for lost, broken, outcaste losers like us!

So often what is presented to us as Christians is that our life is one of self-improvement, with some help from God. We try to climb a ladder to God, to get to his level, to be approved, stronger, complete. Yet the ladder the Bible presents is a down ladder. Our incredible news is Christ come down to us. Life is not strengthening the flesh but a new creation, one that he creates through death and resurrection. Our direction looks aimless and foolish but is actually towards an incredible life in trusting Him, not us.

God is love, and Jesus came to earth because of the incredible love he has for us. You might think that his love is like ours -- attracted to what is beautiful, strong, upright, good. But God's love in Christ is different. His love isn't attracted to what he likes; rather it creates what he desires. God's love is for losers, because there's nothing attractive in us, just a one-way action for our good that doesn't care at all that we are lost, little, wicked, dead. Christmas is the best news ever -- because there is love for losers!

Reason serves us well. We know that judgment is coming, Paul says, so we persuade people. We know that God looks at the heart, not just the outward behavior, so we too logically move toward internal virtue. But in the midst of our reasonable rationality comes an explosive grenade that defies all logic. It is a message. A proclamation. That Jesus was made sin so that we might be made the very righteousness of God. And this is so far beyond reasonable thinking that it must simply be received. By faith in a God who is wonderfully beyond logic.