But we have these mantra-ish phrases in Christianity. Ones we say over and over in teaching or talking.

“He must increase but I must decrease.”

This’d be one of them.

Yet the weight of the statement shouldn’t be lost on us even though some of us have been told it since Sunday school.

He, Jesus, the one come to save must in my heart and in my life increase and my own desires ought to decrease and become more in line with him.

The phrase doesn’t save us. Neither does the message the line conveys, what saves us is the hope we have in Christ. Hope, which was given to us by God and will not put us to shame.

So we continue to say, “He must increase and I must decrease.” In our jobs, “He must increase I must decrease.” In our families, “He must increase I must decrease.” In all the circumstances of life from fun to sad; from love to hate, and all the ‘mundane’ in-between Jesus Christ’s excellency must ever be increasing and my own thoughts and view of self should be decreasing by the grace of God.

This should apply so well to our lives. Should.

But it’s a wrestle, isn’t it? Trying to have faith that the sovereign God is completely watching over us, and will not be caught off guard by the things, which shock us.

Yet this goes further than that, this says not only will he not be caught off guard by any of it he also planned it. He was/is intimately involved with our lives before our lives existed.

Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” This comes in a passage, which just finished saying how we were dead, but God brought us to life, and that this is by grace and not by works.

Saved not by works but by God because God prepared our good works beforehand. Why would God look at our good works, the ones he’s planned for us, and save us because of them? He saves us by himself, with himself, for himself.

We can only do what God has given us to do.

Which doesn’t mean we sit on our thumbs and do nothing waiting for God to speak to us and tell us what to do. We work and build friendships and talk to people and love God trusting him for all things.

Because, as Martin Luther said, “Love God and do what you want.” Because loving God will fundamentally change who you are (Psalms 37:4), because it is a miracle in and of itself that a dead sinner can love Living Perfection. Therefore the wants of life will change to be more in line with the wants of God.

  As a side note: We need more people to make our Saturday evening service (at 7pm) their regular service. It was dreadfully apparent this last weekend of this need. Please prayerfully consider making a switch.

In its most basic form it means belief. Belief in the gospel, that Jesus has done what he was sent to do and intercepted the wrath of God, which we had incurred. So no we are new creations, we are regenerate, made alive together with Christ, seeing the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Yet this can never be manufactured.

We can’t make the music crescendo in the right way at the right time with the lights just dim enough to cause new birth. New birth isn’t up to us.

It’s God who makes us alive, creates us anew, lets the blind see, fixes the broken it’s God who does it not man. It’s God who died on the cross to settle God’s just wrath against sin. It’s God who lives inside a believer causing them to live freely. It’s all God.

And he does it for himself.

He doesn’t look down and say, “The worth and excellency of the souls of my creation move me to save them.” No, he says, “For my name sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sale, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another. (Isa 48:9-11)”

And again, “… When he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. (2 Thess. 1:10)

God stoops to save us because he looks at his own worth and his own excellency and loves us enough to give us himself.

(John Piper wrote a book called, “Finally Alive,” through which he writes about this idea of being born again. I highly recommend you read it, the intro is worth the price of the book.)

For many they “cannot help but believe,” which for agnostics and atheists alike drives them nuts (and reasonably so). For some they must search out meanings and swim in the fathoms of the ocean of belief before they’re saturated to the heart with it. For others, they simply can’t believe.

“… If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Rom 9:9)” It is indeed astoundingly simple, this process of belief. Yet the complexities of it will resonate through the believer’s life until their death, and even then their eternity will be and already is being shaped by it.

“Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. (Isa 45:22)” Turn, some translations say ‘look,’ and be saved. What is more easy than looking? Yet what is more difficult than dying to self?

Astoundingly simply, yes – O my God yes – to believe my wretchedness redeemed is astoundingly simple (because I long to believe it). Infinitely complex, very much so, for why should God redeem my wretchedness? How do I die to myself? How do I see Jesus as more worthy of all of me than my stuff?

We believe not for ourselves, but because of God.

Rock of Ages Rock of Ages

Rock of Ages Rock of Ages

Not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy law’s commands; could my zeal respite know, could my tears forever flow, all for sin could not atone; thou must save, and thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling; naked, come to thee for dress; helpless, look to thee for grace; foul, I to the fountain fly; wash me, Savior, or I die.        

While I draw this fleeting breath, when mine eyes shall close in death, when I soar to worlds unknown, see thee on thy judgment throne.” Rock of Ages, Agustus M. Toplady

Often we sing these words. The building crescendo and the many voices around us moving us to lift our hands. But do we know what we are singing?

“Let the water and the blood… be of sin the double cure.” Both our inherent sin and the sins of our own commission and omission have doubly damned us. We are in need of the only double-cure existing.

“Could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow, all for sin could not atone.” If all of life was lived for and with a passion for God and all of that life was filled with tears for sorrow over my sin, still it would not atone for my sin. Only Jesus can save.

“Foul, I to the fountain fly; wash me, Savior, or I die.” We must have new life breathed into us. We must be washed in the water and the blood. We must be shown the glory of God in the face of Jesus.

“See thee on thy judgment thrown.” He will judge us all. Whether we are judged by the cross or our own, ‘righteousness,’ is his to judge.

But he must remain our Rock of Ages, from now until eternity.

Typically when I think of legalism, I think of, ‘those people.’ You know, the ones with suits and ties, who carry around their Bible in a Bible purse (or carrier). They have their lists of rights and wrongs, do’s and don’ts and they have their seemingly stuffy church where anything different is shunned.

But we can be legalists on the other side of the law.

We can be the jean-wearing, boot-loving, t-shirt rockin’ legalists with our Bibles on our phones (or tablets). The ones who look at the suits and think, “Well the sure don’t/can’t worship.” We can have our own lists of rights and wrongs, do’s and don’ts, which make us just as stuffy and unchanging as the any other run-of-the-mill legalist.

The issue is not which type of legalist best fits your personality, the issue is don’t be a legalist.

Cling to Jesus not style.

Lists are great under the title of, “To Do,” but under the title of, “Salvation,” it means damnation. Lists won’t save, can’t save, and have never saved; Jesus saves.

Even under the guise of holiness trends won’t always be the same. Things change and we cling to Jesus.

That’s one of the questions from the Community Group discussion this week. How are you, like the temple was, inhabited by traders?

You see the temple was created for worship, much like mankind was created for worship. It was to be pure, to be spotless, to be the meeting place of God and man. Sound familiar?

Once was a garden wherein man lived and communed with God. God had made man to worship Him. It was the reason for creation, to glorify God… It still is the reason for creation.

But man sinned and fell.

The Temple created for worship, intended for nothing else but worship, fell.

Then Jesus came in and whipped out the traders, turned over the root of the issue, the money, and cleansed the Temple.

John 2:13-22 is a picture of the Gospel, of what Jesus does in the life of his people.

Traders buying and selling while the moneychangers finance it all inhabits you. Yet Jesus comes crashing into your life, whip in hand, and doesn’t simple go for the small issues, the pigeons and goats, he turns over the root of the problem, your sin filled heart. Then by the blood of himself he cleanses you and calls you, “Mine.”

Yet we are constantly being made new. Sin is continuously being routed out by the work of the Spirit, the Helper.

Jesus has done precisely what was planned. Cleansed.

Let’s take the idea one word at a time.

Moralistic.

Morals. Lists of rights and wrongs made up by every individual person to live a good life. No drugs, no pre-marital sex, no cursing, no alcohol, yes church, yes trying to be kind, yes being a ‘good’ person. The ‘church’ is teaching how to have a better life, and be a better you, and managing debt well, and having a better marriage/parenting/spouse/fill-in-the-blank-here.

Theraputic.

Therapy. We all know this one. There’s no guessing what it’s about. Making us feel good about who we are and what we’ve been/are. No pushing to change only the desire to see just a few more how to’s added to the list of morals from above because hey, God loves you.

Deism.

Deism. Deism is the belief in a Supreme Being who created the universe. But deism is nowhere near Christian. Deism holds that this Creator created then left us to play everything out. The clock-winder-god. He wound the clock and now it sits on his mantel only to be glimpsed when wanted. This is not Christianity. Not. At. All.

Morals won’t save you.

Therapy won’t make you well.

Deism doesn’t do anything.

Morals won’t save you because you can’t be good enough (Romans 3).

Therapy won’t make you well because pride kills (Psalm 31; 59:12; Prov. 8:13…).

Deism won’t save you because it is absolutely void of the Gospel.

Let this be crystal clear. The cross is central to the Christian faith. Jesus is what separates Christians from all other religions. To call deism ‘Christian’ is like calling a mouse an elephant and the moon the sun. 1) It is a lie. 2) It is a blatant disregard for the way God has made things. 3) It is pure ignorance.

It’s why we preach the Gospel. It’s why we talk about the brutality of the cross and the glory of the resurrection. It’s why Christian is Jesus and not morals or therapy or deism.

“We worship Jesus primarily because he is, and secondarily because he can.”

We probably all know the story.  Two thousand years ago a Jewish man was at a wedding party – the kind that lasts days – with his mother. At her declaration that the wine had run out (which was going to make the party a lot less joyful) he had several servants fill six huge stone containers (for ceremonial cleansing) with water. Sometime after the water was added to the vessels, but before the master of the banquet tasted it, it had turned into wine.

We need to understand; at least I need to understand, what really happened here.

In our world of special effects, this wasn’t just special effects, or sleight of hand, or psychological trick.  The physical universe had, for one brief moment, changed its own rules in favor of obeying its Creator and King.

It was water; then it was wine.

It just was.

So what do we do with this story? Our mouths should be hanging open after the facts sink into heads.  But they’re not; at least, I know mine isn’t.

We are like the people in the main rooms of the wedding party, unaware that the wine is flowing because of a miracle Jesus preformed. No one looks for the source of the blessings. Like the wedding guests from so long ago, we are unaware Jesus is filling the vessels once used for an endless, repetitive ceremony with wine, the universal symbol for joy and mirth.

We are unaware Jesus is foreshadowing his future wedding with his bride, the church.  A picture of an eternal celebration with the one he loves, that he redeemed with an unimaginable death.

We desperately need to be confronted with the wonder of Jesus again.

He walked upon the dust of this earth and the natural elements followed his commands. He preformed miracles, but in our age of special effects, they only seem like a story, a story 2000 years ago, and that makes it very removed from us.

The world I live in is very comfortable, full of music and entertainment and stimuli.  It deadens me to the miraculous. I could be reading the words the Living God had written about Himself for me, but I find myself playing Minesweeper. Again. The fact that these things took place seems distant and unreal.

We need to live by faith and not by sight, now more than ever.

After all, there’s not a YouTube video where we can watch Jesus changing water into wine. We have to believe it by reading God’s word and being humble enough to ask him even for the faith to believe.  “Take time to be holy, the world rushes on,” advises an old hymn. We need to look at this story and see the miraculous again. We need to look forward our future wedding with the lamb, more inevitable and real than anything in this world.

All your ways of mercy tend to end in my delight.

You did weep, sorrow, and suffer that I might rejoice.

For my joy you have sent the Comforter, multiplied your promises, shown me my future happiness, and given me a living fountain.

You are preparing joy for me and me for joy; I pray for joy, wait for joy, long for joy; give me more than I can hold, desire, or think of.

Measure out to me my times and degrees of joy, at my work, business, and duties.

If I weep at night, give me joy in the morning.

Let me rest in the thought of your love, pardon for sin, my title to heaven, and my future unspotted state.

I am an unworthy recipient of your grace.

I often disesteem your blood and slight your love, but can in repentance draw water from the wells of your joyous forgiveness.

Let my heart leap toward the eternal Sabbath, where the work of redemption, sanctification, preservation, and glorification is finished and perfected forever, where you will rejoice over me with joy.

There is no joy like the joy of heaven, for in that state no sad divisions, unchristian quarrels, contentions, evil designs, weariness, hunger, cold, sadness, sin, suffering, persecutions, toils of duty.

O healthful place where none are sick!

O happy land where all are kings!

O holy assembly where all are priests!

How free a state where none are servants expect to you!

Bring me speedily to the land of joy.”

The Valley of Vision pg. 162