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Foundations For Our Future #60 - #69

Foundations for Our Future (60)

by: The Reverened Dr. Jon Shuler

This week we have come face to face with one of the biggest challenges facing the church we love. Will we, who are the people of God, move out of our comfort zone and engage in the daily mission of Christ Jesus? We have seen that this is what God wants of us, but are we ready to answer this call? Is it really for me?

By now all who read this daily devotional will know that I believe it is so. Yes it is for me. Yes it is for you. We are all to become, in the way God intends for each of us, missionaries for Jesus.

Hearing this truth and acting on it are two very different things. Between the two falls the mystery of personal faith. I must believe it is true, God is calling me, and I must surrender to him in repentance and faith. I must be born again by the spirit of God and I must then devote myself to learning how to serve him as a Christian. (Acts 2:42)

This year, as God allows, we at Christ the King/Grace will renew our commitment to this journey. We will continue reviewing the foundations of true faith together, we will begin to live it together in new ways, and we will discover our particular calling, as individuals and as the community of faithful ones called the church.

 

 

Foundations for Our Future (61)

by: The Reverened Dr. Jon Shuler

What Is Missing?

One of the basic realities of life is this: If you are not getting the results you want, something is wrong with what you are doing. If you are satisfied with the results of your effort, you have the perfect system. We all need to apply these truths to our life in the church if we have begun, as many of us have, to sense a divine unease. Where do we begin?

Throughout church history, whenever God has begun to stir his people to a time of renewal and advance, he takes his people back to the story of the first Christians. He opens to them the book of the bible known to us as the “Acts of the Apostles.” This is the second volume of  Luke’s gospel, and it is a summary of the church from the day of Pentecost to about AD 60.

The place we need to start to see the life of the early church is to go to the second chapter. We read there of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the first sermon of Peter, the amazing response to that first sermon, and the way in which the apostles organized the new converts. Here we must rest our attention.

We are told those who had come to faith were baptized, and then that they “devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42) Let us begin with the teaching. They taught about Jesus.

 

 

Foundations for Our Future (62)

by: The Reverened Dr. Jon Shuler

The 90 Day Challenge

A believer may not begin here, but soon he or she will have to become familiar with the four gospels, or they are not serious about their commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. The reason is simple, he said if anyone was his true follower, they would “abide in [his] word.” (John 8:31) It was that word alone that would give them the “truth” that would set them free. (John 8:32) Knowing and abiding in the word of Jesus is the only sure path to everlasting life.

The Lord actually described his followers as “his disciples,” which means those who are learning his teaching in order to live the life he has come to reveal to them. Those who are doing this, Jesus says, are truly his. Nothing could be more clearly stated in Holy Scripture than this: hearing the word of God and keeping it is the sign of true faith. It must be our hearts desire, if it is to ever be the reality of our lives. And it begins with careful attention, prayerful attention, regular attention, to the word of Jesus that has actually been written for us. There is no shortcut.

A priest living in our community, Ramsay Gilchrist, developed some years ago a simple way to begin to disciple other men. He calls it “The 90 Day Challenge.” There are 89 chapters in the four gospels, and he issues a challenge to read one chapter a day for the next ninety days. Are you willing to take that challenge? It could change your life.

 

 

Foundations for Our Future (63)

By: The Rev. Dr. Jon Shuler

Back To The Sermon on the Mount

Yesterday we talked about embarking on the challenge of reading the four gospels, a chapter a day, for the next ninety days. Some of you may have felt that challenge to be for you, and may have even begun it. Others may have said to themselves: “I have read the gospels but I need a more focused next step. I need a more limited set of next steps.” It is for you that the daily devotion has been written.

What I am praying you will do, is look up the daily scripture mentioned, and prayerfully read it while asking the Lord Jesus Christ to speak to your heart. Of course I also pray you will read more than the one or two verses I am bringing to your attention, but I want you to start with a narrow and focused gaze. By God’s grace I pray he will awaken in you a hunger for his word. In time I pray that will include knowing and internalizing all four gospels.

We will resume next week our journey through the Sermon on the Mount, picking up the thread again in Matthew’s gospel (Matthew 5:27). It is possible, on any day, to go back to the beginning and start all the dailies afresh. For some this may be a wise thing to do. For the rest, let us remember this fact: the Sermon on the Mount is elementary teaching from our Lord. This is his teaching for those at the beginning of the journey of following him, or near the end.

 

 

Foundations for Our Future (64)

by: The Rev. Dr. Jon Shuler

Adultery

The Lord Jesus has given us a picture of what he is calling us to be as his disciples. He has painted the picture clearly in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:12). Then he has taught us that we are called to a very public life as the salt (5:13) and light (5:14) to the world. Individually and corporately the church is to be visible in a dark world. We are to preserve and illuminate, to season and show the way. Next he made plain that the Word of God is central to disciples. It will not pass away. It is to guide and shape us. (5:17) Finally, he has profoundly challenged us to live together in harmony because we are brothers and sisters in one family. (5:21) Broken relationships among believers are not acceptable.

Today Jesus addresses adultery. The breaking of the sacred bond between a man and a woman in Holy Matrimony. (Matthew 5:27) This truth, the holy nature of marriage between one man and one woman for life, was revealed to Israel by Moses long ago. (Exodus 20:14) It is part of the binding moral covenant that is to shape the life of man and woman and, when it is God’s will, for the giving and raising of children. It is the divine crucible for learning to live a life of love, mercy, and righteousness. It is the basic building block of all civilization, and the greatest of gifts to God’s people. Without faithful marriages the church of Jesus Christ suffers grievously.

 

 

Foundations for Our Future (65)

by: The Rev. Dr. Jon Shuler

Brokenness

 

Before we explore our Lord’s teaching about adultery further, it is necessary to pause and remind ourselves of the whole counsel of God. Why? Because there are so many divorces among us in 2021, and many of them were occasioned by adultery.

When I was a boy, I never had a friend whose parents were divorced. In High School I had one. By the time our daughter was in the Second Grade she came home from school one day and asked her mother: “Are you and daddy going to get divorced?” There were 17 divorces in a classroom of 23 children. From 1952 to 1984 there was a sea change in American culture. And also in the church of Jesus Christ.

Until 1973 no one could be remarried in an Anglican church who had been divorced. The General Convention that year changed the canon law of the church in America. It was explained as an act of mercy and grace for laity who had been cruelly and unjustly abandoned and divorced. They could remarry. With very strict guidelines, and the bishop’s permission, it was to be occasionally allowed. Today we have divorced and remarried men and women throughout the church, including many clergy and even bishops. Jesus taught that it should not be so. But because of the hardness of men’s hearts it is so.

Jesus also taught that there is mercy and forgiveness. He made it clear that there was a possibility, almost always, for a new start, a fresh beginning. Brokenness could be healed. Grace could cover, because of divine love, a multitude of sins.

 

 

Foundations for Our Future (66)

by: The Rev. Dr. Jon Shuler

Letter & Spirit           

Today we come face to face with the need for every believer to become mature in understanding the word of the Lord. We must learn to interpret the scriptures in the light of their whole truth, and not just on the basis of a superficial literal reading.

Jesus is continuing to elaborate on his teaching about marriage and the sacredness of the bond between one man and one woman. Of all the sins that can destroy a marriage, adultery is one of the most destructive. But any man who thinks he is not guilty of this sin because he has never committed it, is now faced with the deeper and subtler reality of sexual sin. If a man looks at a woman with lust in his heart he is guilty of adultery. (Matthew 5:28) Every man stands condemned.

We have seen this teaching before, that is that there is an external reality and an internal spiritual reality, and the internal is the most important. Today, the Lord Jesus speaks to the absolutely central truth that sexual sin destroys God’s purpose for his children. Sexual attraction between a man and a woman, expressed in Holy Matrimony, is good. Lust, which is the craving for what is forbidden, is not.

Jesus never, not for one moment, meant for anyone to “pluck out their eye”(5:29) or “cut off their hand.” (5:30) He is using hyperbole to forcefully clarify how serious this teaching is in the sight of God. Adultery, and all sexual sin, is a destroyer.

 

 

Foundations for Our Future (67)

by: The Rev. Dr. Jon Shuler

Only Men?

We are alive in the most sexually decadent time the West has seen for a thousand years. It has happened in one lifetime. Things any decent man or woman was ashamed of fifty years ago are now being taught to our children in schools and libraries. Mainline news and media routinely print and broadcast things that were unthinkable (and even unknown) only a few decades ago. We are being swept up in a moral revolution that is contrary to all that God has told us is holy and righteous. And men in authority are responsible.

But so are women. Lust is not gender specific. To lust after a diamond is little different than to lust after a man. Lust is lust. The insatiable desire for what is not rightfully ours is always wrong. But only women can stop its sexual advance in our culture. Only women can demand a change. Only women, as a dear older friend taught me years ago, can civilize men. But if women are swept along by the same moral perversion that is sweeping men before it, there is little hope for our world. Women must stop it.

How can this be done? It must begin in the family, and be reinforced by the church. A truer moral standard must be demanded of our schools and colleges. It must be demanded of the merchants who feed on this most ancient and powerful sin. It must be demanded of those in government.

The Lord Jesus is telling us plainly, there are some choices that will lead to hell. (Matthew 5:30) Those choices must be stopped. 

 

 

Foundations for Our Future (68)

by: The Rev. Dr. Jon Shuler

Divorce

Most of you will remember that I have learned to define the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) as “”Nursery School for Disciples.” When Christian people have well understood the teaching in this great section, the world they live in has been a more just and honorable one. When the teachings Jesus gave his first disciples regarding marriage are neglected, first the church and then the world around it become places of pain, division, and spiritual death.

Is this too harsh? I think not. If godly men and women had united behind the truth of God’s revealed Word, fifty and forty and thirty years ago, we would not be facing the crisis in our culture that we face today. But “what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3)

The rebuilding of the Christian Family is perhaps the single most important thing we can do. This must become a priority. Divorce must again become very rare among Christian people. But what of those among us who are casualties of this era?

Nothing I have faced as a priest of the church has given me more heartache than the steady advance of marital breakup in my lifetime. I long ago decided that I had to find a way through these traumas that focused more on God’s goodness and grace, than on the severity of his law. Marriages die. Divorces happen. New love can and does spring up, in holiness and purity. And the church must embrace those who truly turn to God for a new beginning. Why? Because God is a God of second chances.

 

 

Foundations for Our Future (69)

by: The Rev. Dr. Jon Shuler

Divorce (Again)

I do not enjoy remaining here, but the teaching of Jesus compels me. Today we read that if a wife is divorced she will likely (because she will remarry) become an adulterer, and that every man who marries a divorced woman becomes an adulterer. (Matthew 5:31,32) Here we see the Lord overruling the law of Moses, which allowed for divorce because of mankind’s “hardness of heart.” (Matthew 19:8) It was not meant to be so, he says.

Underneath every sentence in this section is the stark reality of sin. To face, honestly and prayerfully these verses in Matthew’s gospel is to realize the awful truth of why the Son of God had to die. The weight of human sin was too much for all but One to bear. There had to be a new beginning. The Cross and Resurrection mark that new beginning. Only true repentance and faith can free us from the judgment.

If I am a liar, I have sinned with the adulterer. If I have stolen, I am no better than the murderer. If I have been a false witness, my condemnation is just. If I am a sabbath breaker I am no better that the one who has divorced his wife.“ All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

But then comes the glorious Good News of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It declares to the sinner that he or she can be saved. And will be saved, if they flee to Jesus for new life.