Atlanta Westside Presbyterian Church
Pursuer of the Proud
The Essential Ascension
Children of God
Faith in the Fire
Revealer of Mysteries
Winning for Losers
The Only Necessary Thing
Holy Change
Rich Toward God
por Walter Henegar
Nebuchadnezzar illustrates both the toxic power of pride and the persistent love of God to rescue the prideful and exalt them to new glory. True humility that God alone rules the world, and whatever corner of it we may be ruling now is always a gift.
We don't talk about the ascension very much. But it turns out, the ascension is essential for Jesus' story and for your thriving. It's essential because Jesus has old promises to keep and new work to do.
Often we can become casual in our Christian walks, however 1 John reminds us that being called a child of God means something. In this call, just like children, we should be confident in the assurance of our Father’s relationship and work to imitate Him in all that He does.
Trusting God will always put you outside of some important group of people in the world, and all you have to do to get back in is deny his supremacy. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were able to resist that temptation, even if God didn’t deliver them, because they had ample reasons to believe he was THE God of the universe; his presence with them in the furnace just gave them one more. Christians today have even more confidence to live counterculturally, because Christ has gone through the furnace of the cross ahead of us, and his Spirit is in us, and his church is with us.
God reveals mysteries to people who trust him, primarily through opening up his Word, the Bible. When we study it in community and dependence on the Holy Spirit, he uses it to disclose not only the "thoughts and intentions of our hearts," but the scope and sweep of human history. Most important, God reveals the mystery of the Gospel of grace that pivots around the person and work of Jesus Christ. Jesus, it turns out, is the Rock who ultimately shatters all earthly kingdoms and establishes a permanent rule of justice and peace.
Daniel and his friends excelled in exile because they trusted in the God of losers: a God so committed to their flourishing in relationship with him that he was willing to oppose their nation when it strayed from him. In this way they foreshadowed Jesus, who endured suffering and death to give us new life. When God’s discipline placed them in a climate hostile to their faith, they chose the simple habit of eating to reinforce their confidence in him. Likewise, Christians today must prioritize simple disciplines that continually reorient our hearts to depend on him.
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Isaiah is brought into the holy presence of Jesus, the Lord of Hosts, sitting on the throne. He is awestruck by the holiness and glory he witnesses, and he recognizes his sin. Out of his sincere repentance, the Lord forgives Isaiah and makes him holy. With a heart renewed, Isaiah is eager to share the message of the Lord.
The rich fool’s problem wasn’t that he was rich, or that he saved for the future, or that he died like everyone else. His problem was that his life revolved around himself, not God. As a result, he wrongly thought that he earned his riches, rather than receiving them as a gift of God’s grace. This led him to ignore other people, failing both to learn from their wisdom and to share God’s blessings with them. His life illustrates the Bible’s repeated warnings that the more wealth you have, the more spiritually mature you need to be. Whatever our net worth, Jesus calls all believers to be "rich toward God," a posture marked by grateful enjoyment, approachability, freedom from anxiety, and above all, confidence in the extravagant generosity of God. This posture produces habits of hospitality toward the needy, and aggressive, systematic generosity toward every effort to manifest the Kingdom of God.
Christians are meant not only to profess faith in Christ, but to practice it. This encouragement includes a sober warning: that no one might delude us with plausible arguments (v. 6) or take us captive by philosophy and empty deceit (v. 8). Paul doesn’t say exactly how we are in danger, but he offers one clear remedy: to center every truth around the person and work of Christ. And if we pay attention to the particular qualities of Christ he highlights, we can apply them to the many ways we can be deluded or taken captive today. Jesus alone has 1) the wisdom to define reality for us, 2) the authority to include us, and 3) the power to change us. Each of these truths about Jesus can help Christians counter the many distortions that delude us today, like living for expressive individualism, blindness to the influence of literal and spiritual authorities over us, and friendly pity that seeks to release us from the burdens of discipleship.