Are You in Costume?

“Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.” 1 Cor. 7:17

When I was a kid, I loved costumes and uniforms. Zorro was one of my favorite heroes, and when I put on the black mask and cape that my mother made for me, I was Zorro. There was something very exciting about pretending to be someone other than who you actually were. It was a way to escape the ordinary-ness of everyday life.

Adults may not actually dress in a costume any more, but inside many there is a restlessness tugging at their hearts to be someone other than who they are. That dissatisfaction can produce good things in a person. If you are dissatisfied with the life of poverty and prejudice that you were born into, that dissatisfaction can drive you to better yourself economically and socially. Isn’t it a holy dissatisfaction with our unholy selves that often drives us to put off sin and put on righteousness? That’s a good thing.

Yet there is an unholy side to dissatisfaction. When we drill down far enough, we often find there is an attitude of disappointment with God and what He ordained for us. This verse from Paul helps me remember that it is God who assigns the parts in His play. He wrote the script. He is the producer and He gets to select the cast. I may wish I had a more visible role, but what I need to concentrate on is playing my part to the best of my ability. I need to trust the playwright of history that the role He assigned to me is not only the best role for me; He created me for that role and no other. My job in life should be to please my Lord by doing what He made me to do. As the catechism states…

1. How do you glorify God?
2. By loving Him and doing what He commands.

At the end of the day, all that matters is to see the smile on God’s face and hear His applause as He exclaims, “Bravo!”

The Five Excuses of Moses

“Who am I that I should go?” (Ex. 3:11) The closer you are to obscurity the more likely it is that you will be used of God. He’s not interested in promoting your career. He’s interested in promoting His glory. God’s answer to this question is “You’re a nobody, which is exactly what qualifies you to go.”

“What shall I say to them (the Israelites)?” (Ex. 3:13) Sometimes getting God’s people on board with you is a difficult task. You can’t trust in your words to persuade others. You must trust the Lord to reveal His plans to them. He will get them on board.

“They won’t listen to me.” (Ex. 4:1)

God’s power attends His word. If you are speaking His words, and they reject what you say, they are rejecting God’s words, not you.

“I am not eloquent.” (Ex. 4:10) Is it not God who has made man’s mouth? God said, “I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.” (11)

“Can’t you send someone else?” (Ex. 4:13) Of course God could send someone else, but you are the one He chose. Not yielding to the call of God always has consequences. Moses eventually went. So did Jonah. And so must we. God’s call is not up for negotiation.

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“And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.” Mark 5:20

We know the story. The man possessed by legions of unclean spirits—enough to inhabit two thousand pigs—had been delivered by Jesus. He was now sitting still; something he had not been able to do for years. He was clothed instead of naked. He was in his right mind; no longer thinking and acting crazy. The townspeople were more afraid of him now than when he was crying out day and night from the tombs and the mountains and cutting himself with stones. And most of all, they were afraid of Jesus, who possessed a power greater than a legion of demons. Verse 17 says they begged Jesus to leave them. Everywhere else they begged Jesus to stay and heal their sick, but here they didn’t want anything to do with him.

Jesus needed an evangelist to stay behind and share the good news. Though the man begged Jesus to let him join his band of disciples, Jesus knew his testimony was just what that region needed, so he told the man to “‘Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.’” The man didn’t argue. He did exactly as Jesus requested.

How do you respond when Jesus tells you to stay behind? Sometimes we hear the words of the Great Commission and think we’re supposed to leave everything and go to some foreign land, but we have to realize Jesus didn’t tell every single person he encountered to leave all and follow him. Like this man, some of us he asks to remain where we are and simply be a witness for him to our friends and family. The point is that we are to be faithful to do whatever Jesus calls us to do. He gets to decide what that is, and our decision is to obey or not obey.

 

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“But the evil spirit answered them, ‘Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?’” Acts 19:15

A Jewish high priest named Sceva had seven sons. They were referred to as “itinerant Jewish exorcists.” Evidently business wasn’t too good for them, and they discovered an entrepreneur named Paul who used a new technique that was evidently quite successful: invoking the name of Jesus. When they tried it out on one of their clients, their career in exorcism met a humiliating demise. The verse above was the response of the demon, and evidently he became so agitated that the man whom he possessed pounced on the seven brothers, overpowered them, and sent them running naked and wounded! (I’m not making this up—read the story in Acts 19).

I heard a sermon on this passage where the preacher asked, “Is your name known in hell?” If our name is in the Lamb’s Book of Life, it’s known in heaven. But is it known in hell? Are you causing enough trouble for the enemy that he remembers you? Perhaps is even a bit afraid of you? So it should be. If you wage war regularly in your prayer closet, the demons of hell know it. If you rely on the name of Jesus, and don’t just use it like a magician saying “Abracadabra,” the forces of darkness don’t like to see you coming.

The result of this event was amazing. News got around the region and Luke says, “fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled.” (17) Revival broke out and those who had been relying on “magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all.” (19) The end result was that “the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.” (20)

Ask yourself… is the word of God increasing and prevailing in my life? Is there evidence of it? Do the demons recognize me and tremble? If not, recognize you may be AWOL. Repent, put on your armor, and get back in the battle. Your brothers and sisters need you.

Heed the Stop Signs of Life!

Consider This…

“And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, ‘Save yourselves from this crooked generation.’” Acts 2:40

A stop sign can save your life. Though I didn’t lose my life, I vividly remember being broadsided by another car who ran a stop sign. The person who ran it had lived in the neighborhood for quite some time, knew the stop sign was there, had stopped at the intersection many times before, but for some reason this time was distracted and drove right through it… into the passenger side of my car.

The world is running spiritual stop signs right and left. It is even removing the stop signs, telling us the signs are more dangerous than the unregulated intersections. They couldn’t be more wrong. Just because you remove a warning sign doesn’t mean there’s nothing to be concerned about. Taking down the Ten Commandments from display doesn’t nullify them. There is an intersection at the end of life waiting for all of us. For the world, they will plunge head-long into the wrath of God. For the believer, who has stopped along life’s journey to switch drivers (from self to Christ), one need not fear this intersection. There is a bridge over the wrath of God called the blood of Christ, and the driver knows the way.

Peter, on the day of Pentecost, preached a sermon that God used to give birth to the Church. When the final words of the text run out, Luke tells us Peter continued to exhort them. “Heed the warning! You are headed for destruction! Scoot over and let the One who knows the way take control!” Most of the crowd ignored him. Most of the crowd ignores us today. But we need to keep on sounding the warning and praying that God would open the ears and eyes of those headed toward the final intersection before it’s too late.

Be Ye Holy

“You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out.” Leviticus 20:22

 

I can’t say reading Leviticus is my favorite thing to do, but I’m plugging through it right now and I couldn’t help but get a chuckle out of this verse, and then ponder it a bit. Chapters 18 and 19 deal with sexual purity and the holiness of God, and this imagery of the land vomiting you out comes up in a couple of places, speaking of the pagans that had occupied the promised land before the children of Israel arrived. Basically, God told Moses the reason these people were being ousted was because of their immorality and idolatry. Leviticus 18:27-28 says, “(for the people of the land, who were before you, did all these abominations, so that the land became unclean), lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.”

 

I wonder what American soil would say about us. To our forefathers and first settlers, American soil was a gift from God; a place to begin a new way of living based on freedom. It was indeed a promised land to many, and still is to people like my neighbor who fled her home in Syria as ISIS began to encroach. But it wasn’t long before the land of the free brought slavery to her soil. Freedom to pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness opened the door to greed, malice, envy, and anarchy. And these pollutants came and permeated our soil. The land of the free and home of the brave turned into “the land of the spree and the home of the rave” (Lloyd Ogilvie). Have we come to the place where the land is vomiting us out?

 

History is on a perfect clock. The unfolding of all events has been predetermined by a sovereign God. Nothing man does can thwart that perfect plan. But we are still responsible stewards of such a time as this. (Forte) There is way too much immorality and idolatry in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Mezzo Forte) There is way too much in Colonial Baptist Church. (Mezzo Piano)There is way too much in the music ministry. (Piano) There is way too much in . . . me.

 

Would the land I stand on vomit me out if it could? That is the question we have to ask and live with. Leviticus 20:26 says, “You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.”