How Important Is Holy Week?

March 31, 2010

“The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.” (John 12:23)

Approximately half the chapters in the Gospel of John record the first thirty-three years of the life of Jesus and the other half record the last week of His life.  The solemn words quoted above announce that His hour had come.  This is where John divides his writings and begins to tell us about that last week of Jesus’ life.

If you add together the number of chapters in all four of the Gospels you come up with the number eighty-nine.  Four of those chapters cover the birth and the first thirty years Jesus lived on earth.  Eighty-five cover the three years of His public ministry.  And twenty-eight cover that last week of His life.  This means that last week is seven times more important than His birth and the first thirty years He lived according to those who wrote the four Gospels.

The authors of these Gospels tell us by the way they have prioritized the last week in the life of Jesus that what we call “Holy Week” was the most important week in His life.  They did this because it was during that week that He suffered and died and was raised from the dead for our salvation. Traditionally, we make much of Christmas, but the four Gospel writers make much of Easter. As committed followers of Christ should not this week that was so very important to Him be the most important week of our Church year?

If you want to make this week important to you, if you’ve never done so before, believe that this was the week Jesus died and rose again for your personal salvation.

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Posted by Dick Woodward

What Really Happened on Palm Sunday?

March 27, 2010

“Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.” (Matthew 21: 43, 44)

Most of us know that on Palm Sunday we commemorate the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.  Have you ever considered what Jesus did when He got off that donkey?  He cleansed the Temple and then gave a series of scathing messages to the leaders of the Jewish religious establishment.

The essence of those messages was that Jesus formally and officially fired Israel!  He took the Kingdom of God from them and said He was giving it to a people who would bring forth the fruits of that kingdom.  In these messages He declared a principle about the way God works.  Jesus claimed that He Himself is a Stone and when those who profess to be His followers fall on Him and are broken to His will as the King of the kingdom of God, they bring forth the fruits of His Kingdom.  When they no longer do that, this Stone falls on them and crushes them to powder.

In other words, God moves His headquarters.  There was a time when God worked from what we call the “Holy Land,” He then moved to Asia Minor, then Europe and America.  Many believe it’s an interesting observation that the largest churches in the world are now in Korea.  Could God work primarily from Asia, perhaps China in the 21st century?

Since there is a sense in which the Kingdom is now within us, how do you personally apply what really happened on Palm Sunday?

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Posted by Dick Woodward

The First Couplet

March 23, 2010

“Blessed are the poor in spirit… Blessed are those who mourn…” (Matthew 5:3-4)

Jesus gave this teaching to those who professed to be His disciples.  They were with Him on the slopes around the Sea of Galilee while He was ministering to a vast multitude of sick people.  Mark 3:13 & 14 tells us that by personal invitation Jesus invited these disciples to join Him at a higher level surrounding the Sea of Galilee, so that He might teach them how to be part of His solution and His answer to all those problems at the bottom of the mountain.

The first two attitudes He taught them were to be poor in spirit and to mourn.  Poor in spirit means broken in spirit and mourning could at least be applied to the mourning we experience while we are learning that we are poor in spirit.  I paraphrase these first two attitudes with the words “I can’t but He can.” One of the best ways He teaches us that we can’t is failure.  We hate to fail.  We loath failure.  We are driven in many ways by the fear of failure.  That’s why there is much mourning involved in learning these first two attitudes.

Another application could be that Jesus is teaching His disciples to look down the hill at all those hurting people.  He is asking, “What makes you think you can be an answer of mine or a solution of mine to their problems if you never know what it is to mourn yourself or experience the broken spirit that confesses “I can’t but He can?”

Have you learned this yet, or are the experiences of your life vehicles of God through which He is trying to teach you these first two blessed attitudes?

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Posted by Dick Woodward

A Checkup from the Neck Up

March 19, 2010

“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness…” (Matthew 6: 22, 23)

Jesus began His greatest discourse by teaching His disciples that if they wanted to be His solution and His answer to the problems people have in this world, they needed a checkup from the neck up.  According to the verses above, the right attitude can be the difference between light and darkness in our lives and in the lives of those with whom we relate every day.

He therefore gave them eight blessed attitudes that would make them salt and light for Him in this world, as through them he would make the difference between a life filled with darkness (unhappiness, depression) and a life filled with light (happiness and meaning) for themselves and for those to whom He would send them.

This discourse is called “The Sermon on the Mount” and it is recorded for us in the Gospel of Matthew chapters five, six and seven.  Before looking at these eight attitudes individually it’s good to make some observations about them as a unit.  They divide into two sections between the fifth and sixth attitudes and they fit into four couplets.  The first section could be called the attitudes we must learn while coming to God through Christ, and the second section describes the attitudes we must learn while going for Christ as salt and light.

The four couplets are the poor in spirit who mourn; the meek who hunger and thirst for what is right; the merciful with a pure heart and the peacemakers who get persecuted.

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Posted by Dick Woodward

Has God Oversold the Product?

March 16, 2010

“… God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound unto every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:8 KJV)

This is the most superlative and emphatic verse in the New Testament about the grace we need to live in to serve Christ. I once heard Dr. A.W. Tozer preach on this text. After he read the verse with much inflection, he paused, shook his head and said, “Sometimes you cannot help but allow the thought that God has oversold the product in the New Testament!” Of course, he went on to explain that God has not oversold the product. We undersell the product because our access into this grace is flawed.

Think of this with me for a moment. God is able to make all grace, not just some grace, abound toward us, not just trickle in our direction, that we, (he repeats that for emphasis meaning it’s not just for the pastor, or the missionary, but for every believer), always, not just sometimes, may have all sufficiency, not just some sufficiency, in all things, not just some things, may abound, not just go limping, unto every good work, not just the ones we like.

Once you have meditated on this verse ask yourself this question, “True or false?”

If we answer that question as we should by saying it’s true, should that not give us the courage to tackle the things God is leading us to do that we know we cannot do? Are you doing anything that can only be explained by the supernatural reality that He is, only He can, and He did because you found access into this grace?

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Posted by Dick Woodward

The Plague of Procrastination

March 12, 2010

“And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came … and the door was shut.” (Matthew 25:10)

The story is told of a farmer who called an insurance agency in the middle of a hurricane and said “Hello, hello I’d like to buy some insurance for my silo—O my Lord there it goes!”

In The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins Jesus teaches that the wise virgins had oil in their lamps when the Bridegroom returned but the foolish virgins did not. Oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. When those who had no oil came to those who had oil to get some they were told they had to get oil of their own, but it was too late. The Bridegroom had come and the door was shut! The teaching of Jesus is that there are two kinds of people in this world – spiritual and secular. When He comes the spiritual people will be taken and the secular left – and it will be too late then to become a spiritual person.

When I was a child in Sunday school a teacher put a black velvet tablecloth on a card table. On that cloth she had thousands of straight pins and matchsticks all mixed up together. She then passed a powerful magnet over the table. The straight pins were caught up and stuck to the magnet while the matchsticks were left on the table. This illustrated the teaching that when Jesus returns one will be taken and the other left. I stood in front of that table with big eyes and decided that I was going to be a “straight pin!”

Are you a matchstick or a straight pin? Don’t let the plague of procrastination keep you from being taken when He returns.

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Posted by Dick Woodward

The Workmanship of God

March 8, 2010

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)

The founding elder of the first church for which I was the pastor was a home builder. He did beautiful work and when a couple wanted him to build their home he would take them to a beautiful home he had built and say to them “By the grace of God this is by workmanship.” The verse above is saying to all of us who are followers of Christ that our risen living Christ would like to point to each of us and say “This is My workmanship!”

We are all a work of Christ in progress. In addition to that thought this verse is stating that when we came to faith and were saved by grace through the faith our Lord gave us, He created us for good works. In fact we’re told that before He saved us he had already planned that we would do those works for Him.

I don’t know about you but that truth excites and inspires me greatly! We’re so selfish and self-centered that when we come to faith our focus is often on what trusting Christ to be our Savior is going to mean to us. Many followers of Christ have the attitude “What have you done for me lately?” The Apostle Paul had the right vision when he met the risen Christ on the road to Damascus and asked the question, “Lord, what do you want me to do for you?”

As a follower of Christ have you been asking and seeking to know what those works are your Lord and Savior had planned for you when He saved you by grace?

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Posted by Dick Woodward

The Job Description of Every Pastor

March 5, 2010

“… And He Himself gave some to be … pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry…” (Ephesians 4:11, 12)

According to these words of Apostle Paul, “the work of the ministry” is not committed to the pastor, or to a staff of professionals, but to the saints. Paul’s nickname for those who are sanctified, or set apart to following Christ was “saints.” In many of our churches today people believe the work of the ministry has ended when the benediction is pronounced. This job description of the pastor declares that the work of the ministry begins when the benediction is pronounced and hundreds, or even thousands of saints are commissioned and equipped to go out and do the work of the ministry. This means that the role of the pastor/teacher is like that of a coach.

Which is more productive? To give an invitation and have half a dozen or more people respond to it, or to equip a sanctuary full of believers to go out and reach people who desperately need to hear the Gospel? Is the church a soul saving station or a base from which a multitude of believers are equipped every Sunday to reach people in the neighborhoods where they live or the marketplaces where they work?

It is not merely because it is more effective but because it is God’s plan that we who are pastors should accept our role and calling to be a coach and not just a player. If we will equip, instruct, encourage, challenge and inspire believers to go out and do the work of the ministry it could wake the sleeping giant of the Church.

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Posted by Dick Woodward

Four Spiritual Laws

March 2, 2010

“… For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2)

From about the middle of the seventh to the middle of the eighth chapter of his letter to the Romans the Apostle Paul profiles four spiritual laws. The first is the law of God which is the Word of God. One of the many functions of the Word of God is to reveal the law of sin and death. James describes this when he tells us the Word of God is like a mirror which shows us our imperfections.

These first two laws are the bad news and they get us ready to hear the good news which is quoted above. The third law is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ and it can free us from the law of sin and death. It’s almost as if the law of sin and death is a law of spiritual gravity and the law of the Spirit is a law of spiritual aerodynamics because it can raise us above the law of sin and death. If that is true, why are some believers like a 747, lumbering down the runway for 40 years and never overcoming gravity?

The fourth spiritual law is the law of the mindset. Six or more times according to your translation, Paul writes that those who live in the Spirit have set their minds on the Spirit and those who live in the flesh have set their minds on the flesh.

Athletes and many other professions critically depend on the law of the mindset. What is your spiritual mindset today? It can make all the difference, according to these four spiritual laws of the Apostle Paul.

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Posted by Dick Woodward