Tag: faith

A Short Note about Predestination

Silva

In the Christian faith, the doctrine of God’s election has always sparked controversy–and split Christians from one another. While it is truly a mysterious part of God’s revealed will in the Bible, it is often used as a cudgel against the faith. Recently, I was asked to give some guidance on the doctrine so that a church member might share it with a family member who was truly curious. Here is what I shared:

Dear Sister, here are some of my thoughts.

Predestination, at its heart, is simply God’s plan to redeem people who have violated His law from their just punishment.  What is interesting about it is that there are many things we do that resemble this very thing: we make plans to do X or Y and we include some things and exclude others.  We include what we want and we exclude what we want based on our own criteria.  We could produce any number of examples: birthday parties, weddings, back yard gatherings: we decide who comes and who doesn’t.  We do it based on our goals for that plan.  

God’s decree of who will be and who won’t be saved is similar: He has a plan that includes some and excludes others.  If we believe our efforts at including and excluding is valid, then we can’t outright dismiss God’s efforts at the same.  

The fact of the matter is that all who desire to know God and worship Him will make the decision to do so; those who have no interest in God and reject Him also make decisions in this way.  If, in those moments we asked the people who turned to God to love Him and those who turned from Him in hatred why they did so, they would each claim personal agency.  From our perspective, there is neither coercion nor violence offered to the consciences of either—we always do what we want to do every time.

When we turn to God’s word we see why people decide as they do: God’s plan of election.  Since all are born alienated from Him because of sin, in His plan, for reasons He does not disclose, He chooses to save some and not save others.  

He chooses to give some mercy because doing so fits His plan to glorify His name in the following ways:

1.  He shines the light of glory on His Son’s selfless sacrifice

2.  He highlights His own justice by accepting His Son’s sacrifice on behalf of those who didn’t earn it

3.  He reminds people of His holiness by not accepting our work but Christ’s work

By not extending mercy to some this fits His plan to glorify His name in the following ways:

4.  He displays the results of breaking His law

5.  He exemplifies His justice in punishing those who do not turn to Him

6.  He highlights His unapproachable holiness

Those who object to 4-6 normally do so because of a human conception of “fairness.”  But if we return again to the ways we make invitation to weddings—including some and excluding others—how do we respond when our criteria is challenged?  “It’s my party and I get to decide based on my own criteria—criteria that I am not obligated to explain.”  God is truly free to decide to whom He extends mercy.  Since we are not God and He is not beholden to our evaluations of His actions, all we can do is accept what He tells us in His word.

For some this is inadequate just as our decisions to include or exclude would also be judged inadequate.  Yet the facts remain whether we judge them as adequate or not, “Our God is in the heavens; He does what He pleases” (Psalm 115:3).  A right receiving of election says, “Since all have sinned and are subject to His wrath, it is great glory that some are saved at all—and to be one of them is a great gift!”

Heaven soon,

Pastor Gabe

Sermon For a Saint’s Suicide

Sermon For a Saint’s Suicide

Silva

[I preached this sermon at the funeral service for a mid-20 year-old young man who took his own life. Names have been changed.]

I am Gabe Sylvia, the senior pastor at Christ Our Hope church in Wake Forest, NC.  My wife, Kim, and I—with pastor Tim and his wife, Chrissy—have been serving the [] families for many years; we are grateful to be here to serve them as well as [] and your families.  Thank you all for joining us for this service of worship to the Lord who is our hope.

Beloved, funerals take many forms these days.  While there will be a time of remembrance and story-telling at the luncheon following, this afternoon we, the friends and family of Charles, are gathered so that we might find hope that is higher than our sorrow and mercy that is stronger than our weakness.

I am a student of church history particularly because my faith tradition goes back to the English Puritans.  I find the Puritans compelling because they were pastors who cared deeply for the souls of their people.  That richness for me is most meaningful when they wrote of what is called the “dark night of the soul.”  It describes what David wrote of in Psalm 6:

I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows weak because of all my foes.

The “dark night of the soul” like this—like what has descended upon us—descends upon all of God’s people in varying degrees.  For some it is a shadow of foreboding at the edge, for others it’s a slowly passing cloud and for some (like it is often for me) it is an all-encompassing blackness—like a room whose darkness is thick.  The Bible tells us none—even those who put faith in Jesus Christ—is immune—this is why Psalm 23 means so much to us, right?  

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Our questions today abound, don’t they?  Our doubts about what we believe about God, they soar.  Our regrets flood our souls so that we feel drowned all the time.  That we are finite with few answers and so many questions seems unjust and unloving. Funerals are always emotional moments and rightly so: they draw our attention to the end of an earthly life and that’s hard enough when we lose someone dear to us.  But how much more do tragic deaths such as Charles’ spike our emotions?  Shock, disbelief, rage, bitter grief—emotions we might otherwise control register in the red—all of them.  

Let’s ask the question that I’ve heard many times, “How could God allow such a thing?”  It’s not a bad question; it’s not a sinful question; it’s not an inappropriate question.  For those of us who take the teaching of God’s word seriously when it speaks of the true and Almighty God sovereign over all He has made…“How could God allow such a thing?” is the question.  It turns us to the One who might give us answers in His word but definitely gives us comfort by His Spirit. The question is desperate in that it is an answerless one and we all know it.  Though we ask for answers in desperation, none has a road-map of his future.  What’s more, if the Lord gave us His reasons for this act of Providence, what would we do?  

  • In our sorrow, would we agree?   
  • In our anger, would we submit?
  • In our regret, would we proclaim God is just?   

But at the same time does this hour mean we must skip past all the questions that scream for answers as if they don’t matter?  Must we coat all of this with thin veneer of  Christianese as if this was all “OK” or “good”?  Must we just “buck up” as if we’re not crushed inside?  No, beloved. This is how all the laments in God’s word actually work: those who cry out to God do so with painful honesty—we must.  For only when we look honestly can we then see hopefully.  If we fail to do this, we won’t be able to make our way from what is real to what is true.  And this is what matters: in times of inexplicable tragedy like this, facing what is  real is crucial in getting to what is true.  And this is where hope begins.  Why?

  • Only what is true makes sense of what is real because what is true never changes.

What is real is that a father, a companion, a brother, a son, a grandson, a cousin, a friend, Charles, took his own life.  The heaviness and gripping brokenness of this world reached down to the bottom of his soul and would not let go.  His soul was punched down by the horrors of this fallen world and it did not get up. No one is to blame for HIS act.  Charles had purposed in his heart to bring his confusion, his angst, his grief and his trouble to an end—his way.  We might want to find reasons why a young man might do such a thing?  Mitigate those reasons so this might not happen again—those are good things to do but they aren’t certain.    

But we cannot minimize the true bleakness of this fallen world that often powerfully crashes into a saint’s soul.  If we minimize it we will misunderstand it and those who do not minimize it—even those who do what Charles did in response.  But we who have suffered loss in this life know better.  We can know this darkness and we know its gripping power.   We dare not excuse or minimize how Charles decided to deal with the bleakness; he did what God’s Word forbids.  But we can look at it and at the barrenness of this world and understand it.  With Charles we can all say, “Yes; at times the dark is so very dark—even to the saints—and there really seems no way out.”  Job admitted this; King David admitted this; the prophet Jeremiah admitted this—we as God’s people must admit this too.

Beloved, this is what is real.  As Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble…”  The tragedy of Charles’ death is real but it is not the final statement of what is true.  Jesus is the final statement of what is true.  He said, “in this world you will have trouble…but take heart, for I have overcome the world.”  

In John’s gospel, he records seven (7) statements of Jesus—the “I am” statements.  In different contexts, the Lord uses these statements as ways to describe who He is and what He has come to do.  Today I want to look at one of them that is particularly apt:

  • “I am the Light of the World.”

Who Jesus is to those who put their trust in Him is the truth that informs how we look to what is real.  This statement meets us and connects us—in our dark night of the soul—with our true hope and help.  Our text will be John 8:12 and the point I want to make from it is this, “Because Jesus is the light of the world, we who are afflicted in the dark have hope beyond the darkness.”

In this text, Jesus makes his 2nd (of 7) “I am” statement.  This statement, like the others, has two parts: a declaration and an invitation.  The declaration: 8:12a

    Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world….

    Jesus speaks to His adversaries, the Pharisees.  As we see repeatedly in the gospels, that group of religious leaders, highly educated in the Law of Moses, did not see Jesus as the Messiah, the Savior, they waited for.  As a group, they were in the dark, so to speak.  On a different occasion, He called them “blind guides” that is, those who lived in spiritual darkness.  He says of them as they represent the world:

      … the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

      To them (and to us), He proclaimed, “I am the Light of the world.” What does this mean, then: “I am the Light of the World”?  The imagery here draws a significant contrast between the Light of the Lord and the dark of the world.  He is not of the world; He is above it; beyond it; He has passed through it into the light of the glory He had with His Father in heaven. The world under the curse of sin has brokenness and chaos and trouble in everything—it is not as bad as it could be, but all of it is at least a little broken or “dark.”  Into that darkness comes the Light for the nations:

      For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light. [Psalm 36:9]…I am the Lord…I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations. [Isaiah 42:6]

      Jesus comes to us as this Light and says, “In the world, is the dark; in Me is the light.”  So, those who have put their faith in the Lord, have the Light of the World within, that is a lamp for our feet, a light to our path—we can know and see the way of hope and walk on it. As the Light of the World, He proclaims that with Him, this journey of life—that He says is one of affliction and tribulation—can be walked in hope and the end of that journey will be the Father’s land.  

      So this is the truth: Jesus is the Light of the World.  And does He keep this to Himself?  No.  He makes invitation to all in the last part of the verse: 8:12b

      Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

      This is why He came.  John 12:46:

        I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

        In other words, he who believes in the Lord Jesus—with grand faith or with mustard seed faith—that one does not remain in the dark of condemnation and judgment but in the light of salvation and freedom. This is what is true even if what is real in a saint’s life is affliction and trouble and distress.  All are invited to follow Him by faith so we will not walk in the darkness without hope.  That is, we will live with purpose and with the on-going and never-ending presence of the Lord.  To have the light is to be on a journey because Jesus says those who follow Him do not walk in darkness.  That is:  We do not live alone; we do not wander aimlessly; we will not get lost; we are never without hope.

        • This is the light that is life and that leads to life.  When we have this light, we have life.  And because Jesus is the Light and He is alive, we will always have the light of life.

        This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

        What does it matter? The reason for our gathering comes crashing down on us, doesn’t it?  The truth is those who follow the Lord Jesus by faith—grand and unshakeable faith or flickering and weak faith—have within us the light of life.  And Jesus spoke of what He will do for us in John 6:

        And this is the will of [the Father] who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” …No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. … Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.

        “I will lose nothing of all that [the Father] has given Me.”  “I will raise him up on the last day.”  “Whoever believes has eternal life.”  These are true statements from the mouth of God Himself.  This light that He gives is inextinguishable—we cannot put it out once the Lord turns it on. Jesus’ words are mingled in with the Psalms and the lamentations and the stories of afflicted biblical saints and troubled historic saints (like Martin Luther or Charles Spurgeon)—saints who had been given the light of life and had also been gripped by the dark.

        • The question is: does the light always beat out all the dark?  The answer is “No.”  
        • But that’s very different than can the dark put out the light?  Absolutely not.  

        The Light of Life is the presence of the Lord’s Spirit in all who believe—the Spirit of the One who was raised from death because He is life.  Death did not put out His light and no amount of darkness in this world can put out His light in us—ever. Beloved, what is true is that at the very bottom of a troubled saints’ soul, when reality feels like there is nothing but darkness, the truth is there is the light of Christ.  When you light the smallest candle and bring it into the darkest room: there is light that the dark cannot put out.

        I have spoken to many people who have shared of Charles’ faith in the Lord.  We want to take comfort in what we know of his faith.  But now we doubt that faith, don’t we?  We ask how can there be faith and such darkness—such that he would take his own life?  We may doubt the strength of his faith but we need not doubt the power of the light of the world, Jesus Christ. Nothing keeps the Light of the World from shining in the souls of His people.  What does the Psalmist say?  Psalm 139:7-12

        [7] Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?  [8] If I ascend to heaven, you are there!  If I make my bed in [the grave], you are there! [9] If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, [10] even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.  [11] If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be as night,” [12] even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

        No, beloved, even when the darkness shall cover a child of God and the light all around is as night, still He is there.  This is what the Lord does for all who put their faith in Him.  Yes: it can get dark in this world—so utterly dark and despairing.  But the darkest of this world cannot put out the light that is from another world: the world of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  To have the Light of life is to have life that will not be extinguished by any act of angels or of men.  Receive and rest in this light.  Your hearts might be troubled, and so they are; but take heart, there is One who has overcome the trouble.  His name?

        I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

        Let us pray.

        Why can we not endure our lives?

        Why can we not endure our lives?

        Silva

        The longer I live and serve God’s people, the more I witness how we have come to love formulas and quick fixes for life’s issues.  We probably aren’t any different from people of other ages.  Yet, for us, the good life or good quality of life is often defined in terms of things fixed or avoided, like pain alleviated or problems solved.  The quicker the pace of life, the more intense the experience or the busier the calendar, the more we demand to be relieved from it all.  We elevate comfort and ease to god-like status and order our lives around attaining them.  This is a sad state.

        We have become a culture – even a Christian culture – of traders and bargain-hunters.  This is most clearly seen in relationships.  Here’s what I mean:

        • We have traded in plenty for paucity.

        Now, we are satisfied with hundreds of Facebook friends and hours of wasted time keeping up with them rather than a couple of close and personal friendships.

        • We have traded in intimacy for efficiency.

        Now, drive-by relational investments, “doing the minimum,” has replaced the time consuming and rigorous interactions necessary for meaningful relationships.

        • We have traded in personal letters for status updates.

        Forget the fact that we may have no more time than the 140 characters of a tweet; I wonder how many of our hands could hold a pen for more than 5 minutes.

        We think we are making improvements.  Perhaps we are simply improving our ability to be shallow and short-tempered.  One casualty in all of this, perhaps the greatest one, is our ability to live the long haul.  Mostly gone is the ethic of standing firm in the mundane or day-to-day.  Now, the “mundane” (which is not a by-word) is considered monotonous (which is).

        Perhaps our culture lacks no greater virtue than the ability and vision to endure.  This is as true inside the church as it is outside.  We have grown in our expectation that life should be manageable, workable, or controllable.  But at the same time, we have put down the very thing that would allow us to see those things: endurance.  The real gravity involved in considering this topic isn’t primarily pragmatic: if we don’t endure then we’ll all be like middle-aged children. No, the Bible tells us that endurance is yoked to hope and our inheritance in Christ.  We cannot have the latter without the former. That’s what makes this so urgent.

        Jesus says, “The one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt 10:22, 24:13; Mark 13:13).  He has a different view of life than we have adopted by and large; a different view than we are teaching our children at home, at church and at school.  Jesus was certainly not alone in speaking of the present in long-haul terms.  I mentioned our penchant for “formula” living.  Paul presents a formula that speaks to the topic we’ll be focusing on.  His formula is as shocking as it is short:

        …we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope (Romans 5:3-4)

        Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope (Romans 15:4)

        Jesus and Paul (and others) viewed life in terms of scope – a lifetime.  They saw it as a race that has no end but heaven itself.

        Like the other general letters of the New Testament (like, for example, James, 1 Peter and Revelation), Hebrews speaks to long haul living.  There, like in Romans, the author says long haul living is a life of endurance.  Most prominently in Hebrews 10:36.  There it reads:

        “For you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised”

        Most believers work hard to endure life’s circumstances.  Most only endure because they happen to rather than purpose to.  Perhaps it would help to consider endurance, however, as a result rather than a goal.  We will see from Hebrews that endurance has two primary elements to it: faith and patience.  The author of Hebrews argues in his book that to focus on faith and patience is the means to endure.

        First, faith (see Hebrews 4:2, 11:6).  Faith is of course a prominent feature of Hebrews, especially in chapter 11.  But, perhaps a more significant occurrence is far earlier in the book: 3:16-19, 4:2

        For who were those who heard and yet rebelled?  Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses?  And with whom was he provoked for forty years?  Was it not those whose bodies fell in the wilderness?  And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient?  So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

        For good news came to us just as to them but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened.  For we who believed enter that rest…

        The Israelites that Moses led out of Egypt had the opportunity to enter the Promised Land had they simply believed God and followed Moses.  God had pledged Himself to the nation to care for them – He proved His power in the plagues and the exodus.  They were unfaithful and they did not believe God.  And, as a result, they did not endure the process of inheriting what had been promised to them.

        • They were, after all, going to be required to do the walking, fighting and settling of the land.

        We have seen the effects of unbelief, what, then, is faith?  We look to Hebrews 11:1,6:

        Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen…Believe that He exists and that he rewards those who seek him

        Faith recognizes that something has been done for us but we haven’t seen it yet.  It assumes the truthfulness of the promises God has made.  It looks at the finished work of Jesus Christ that is ours who are in Him.  Faith is thoughtfully considering the gospel of God and its effects.  Hebrews exalts Christ and His work as our priest, prophet and king.  Our task is to drink all of that in:

        • It is saying “Yes” to what God promises without actually seeing what He promises.
        • It is saying “Yes” to God’s control of all things even though the interpretation of those things might escape us.

        The effect of faith is to anchor our endurance outside of our circumstances.  Faith reels in the anchor and pulls us closer to heaven.

        Secondly, patience (see Hebrews 6:12).  We know of patience from prominent places in the Bible.  Perhaps most notably as a fruit of the Holy Spirit’s presence in Galatians 5:22.  Or as love’s first character trait in 1 Corinthians 13:4.   Patience is only considered in light of testing.  It only makes sense in that light.  So, whereas someone might think faith ignores circumstances in favor of other things, patience doesn’t.  Patience looks at the burdens of life but considers the temporary nature of those burdens.  When it is united to faith, patience thinks on this life relative to eternity and says, with Paul:

        This slight and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.  For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

        Patience is internal fortitude in the face life’s real challenges knowing they will end.  While faith reels in the anchor drawing us nearer to heaven, patience bears the work of the reeling knowing that one day the anchor will be in hand and heaven will be our experience.

        We know this to be true from life experience.  Let me illustrate.  Child-bearing.  Now, I’ve been through that – as a spectator – several times.  As a junior participant (my wife thought that was an apt description), there was always a point in the process where I needed to endure.  If for no other reason (but importantly), she needed me to stay engaged with her so she could endure.  At that moment, I was confronted with the need to be faithful and patient.

        • Faith in God that my wife’s body could actually do what He designed it to do: deliver this baby and safeguarding her life.
        • Patience that though it sometimes took hours to happen, it would eventually be complete.

        The combination of these two made me joyfully endure the process to see the wonderful results.  What would the opposite have looked like?

        • Without faith in God in the ways I mentioned, the whole process would be horrific for me: always wondering at what point the baby’s heart was going to stop beating or something awful was going to happen to my wife.
        • Without patience, I would have been no help to her.  I could potentially have been mean to her or the physicians or put out because I “had” to be with her when I’d rather be doing something else (like she wouldn’t also!).

        I illustrate in this way so you can see what failures in either faith or patience can do to endurance.  Does the Bible really discuss endurance in these terms?  Are faith and patience united to create endurance as I have suggested?  Hebrews 6:12, prays:

        “…you may not be sluggish but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises”

        We see here that faith + patience = inheritance.  Or, are we saw from Hebrews 10:36:

        “For you have need of endurance so that when you done the will of God you may receive what is promised”

        In that case, faith + patience = endurance.  Endurance leads to inheritance.  Perhaps our lives lack no greater virtue than the ability and vision to endure.  And, as we fail to endure, we fail to have the hope won for us in Jesus Christ.  But, endurance is a result not a goal.  We may pray to endure, but we should back our prayers up a bit.

        First, we must pray that God will grow our faith in His character and promises and the finished work of His Son, Jesus Christ.  We must ask Him to remind us of the ways that He has acted for our good and blessing.  We must have our view of who God is and what He has done for us deepened and strengthened.  The more we see Him, the more we trust Him.  The more we trust in Him, the more patience will yield the result of endurance.

        Secondly, we must ask God for an increase in patience.  This is simply asking Him for more of what He has already given us in His Spirit.  Believers in Christ aren’t at zero balance in patience.  They simply need refilling.  But, I know what you’ll say since it’s what I say, “I’m afraid to pray for patience!”

        • To pray for patience is to ask God to help us to grow in seeing our experience as transient and temporary though we may be grieved by it at times.

        Endurance will be ours as faith and patience are ours.  God is not stingy about giving us these gifts.  We must simply be diligent to ask Him for them and trust that we will receive them when we need them.