Atlanta Westside Presbyterian Church
To Know What It's Like
To Make God Known
Refuge in Paradise
Depends on How You Look at It
What If?
Look and Live
Exasperation
Sin-Cancel Culture
Spies Like Us
by Walter Henegar
God became human to know what it’s like to be you. Physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, Jesus was (and is, although he’s ascended) a real, normal human being, just like us. Not only does he identify with us in our human-ness, he is not ashamed of us, and is proud to call us his little sisters and little brothers. Even more, he is able to help us no matter what we’re up against; because wherever we are right now, Jesus has been there. God knows what it’s like to be you.
Jesus came to make God known more than ever before. Christians tend to think we “know” all about God because we’ve heard a lot of Bible stories, especially the Christmas ones. John reminds us that we’ve still barely scratched the surface of who God is. The God who “tabernacled” among us in the glory of flesh comes to us full of grace and truth, which he pours out on us over and over again. We can examine our grasp of this reality with three tests: The Staring Test, the Gathering Test, and the Least of These Test. Ultimately, growing in the knowledge of God satisfies us in him, while always leaving us hungry to see him face to face.
Even in the promised land, God anticipated a world of both accidental and intentional violence. Mercifully, he provided cities of refuge as way to curtail vigilante justice while taking seriously the consequences of death by human hands. New covenant believers no longer live in a theocracy, but we can learn from it in the way we relate to others today. Jesus showed in Matthew 5:21-22 that both actual violence and verbal violence are liable to judgment. As our great high priest, he has not only given his innocent life to atone for our guilt, but he has sent his Spirit to empower us as humble agents of reconciliation.
God has given his people eyes to see and faith to walk. Often we prefer sight over faith, especially when there’s something hard we just got out of or are about to get into. Walking by sight energizes our individual preferences, even as it runs up against our trust in God. But God, being rich in mercy, has called the household of faith to walk together, having confidence in Him no matter what’s behind or awaiting us. Guest preacher Steven Gilchrist brought this message.
The daughters of Zelophehad demonstrate that we can trust God with our future. Shattering the notion that women must always be responsive, their bold request came from deep faith that God would bring his people into the promised land. God’s affirmation of them and the statutes he enacted illustrate both the necessity and the weakness of laws. And their concern for land and a name speaks to our universal longing for stability and meaning. We who trust in Christ are now freed from gender stereotypes, legalistic striving and fears about the future. Instead, we can love others boldly, obey imperfect laws humbly, pursue the holiness of Christ with the power of the Spirit, and trust our future hope entirely to him.
The bronze serpent is an unlikely symbol of grace. Like the ancient Israelites, we all have the same tragic impulse to resist dependence on God and choose the way that leads to death. But God had mercy on them, and ultimately, as Jesus explained in John 3:14-15, his “lifting up” onto the cross, and out of the tomb, and into heaven, would provide our permanent cure. Rather than always trying harder, we simply have to repent, admit our wrong, and then look in faith to his finished work on our behalf.
Everyone experiences exasperation; how you respond to it depends on your relationship to God. The people of Israel had a real need, but they blamed their human leaders instead of crying out to the Lord. Moses and Aaron initially did the right thing – falling on their faces in prayer – but ultimately they failed to “uphold the Lord as holy” (v. 12). Both leaders and followers fixated on human realities more than the presence and power of God. But those who trust in Christ now have “the spiritual rock that followed them” (1 Corinthians 10:3) through the “living water” of the indwelling Holy Spirit (John 7:38). The more we depend on him, the more we see him generously meeting our real needs, and the more we are able to respond constructively to exasperating situations.
The Bible’s view of sin is dramatically different than the way most people think of it in our current cultural moment. Biblically, sin can be individual or communal, unintentional or defiant (“with a high hand” v. 30) – with many variations in between. Today’s “cancel culture” rightly identifies communal and unintentional sins, but fails to treat them differently, and also eliminates the possibility of forgiveness. The Bible treats sin even more seriously, yet still provides a way of forgiveness for those who repent and call on the final sacrifice of Jesus. In the end, sin is devastating but forgivable, and gradated but stable.
We all tend to “spy out” our future to predict what we think is possible or likely. Whatever we find, two questions determine how we will respond to it: a) What has God actually promised us? b) How might God expect us to participate in accomplishing it? When we answer these biblically, we experience our future as simultaneously more scary and more exciting than anything we could have dreamed up ourselves. More important, we experience God’s character as simultaneously more generous and more powerful than we ever could have imagined.
We all have areas in our lives where we aren’t content with what God has spoken and we wish we could speak for God. Miriam thought her own righteousness gave her a right to speak for God; Aaron thought the same with his gifting. The irony of this is that in trying to speak for God, we cut ourselves off from receiving what God wants to give us—himself. The good news is that God has already given himself to us in the person of Jesus. To be a Christian to not bring anything to the table—either our goodness or our giftings—when we come to God, but rather to bring our whole selves (both strengths and weaknesses) and to receive all of God as he has given himself to us in the person and work of Jesus.