We have learned to call God ‘Father’. This is astonishing and a huge kindness to us. So, when we begin to pray, our first request has to do with him—his name, or what he has revealed himself to be. We want him to be front and centre—for us and for everything around us.

‘Hallowed’ simply means ‘to make holy’. Clearly, we don’t make God holy but we do want him to be known as who he is. We could use the words sanctified, reverenced, or honoured.

The world doesn’t want God in its thinking at all. But if we know God as Father, his honour is what we want most. We will want everything to flow from him (Ephesians 3:14). Everything has been created to work in this way. We can see that persons, communities and the world suffer when they don’t know him.

So how is God’s name reverenced? Jesus says, ‘let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven’ (Matthew 5:16). We sometimes speak about children bringing glory to their parents—or shame—by how they perform in education, sport or some other activity. We can bring glory to our Father by receiving his goodness and reflecting that in our life. So this is part of what we are asking for when we pray ‘Hallowed be your name’.

But sometimes, the church causes God’s name to be dishonoured. This can happen because we don’t live as God tells us to (Romans 2:23). The world becomes disgusted with our poor behaviour and wants nothing to do with our God and Father.

So knowing God and being reverent before him is not as simple as it sounds. Lots of things stand in the way. For a start, we would like to be front and centre in our own lives. This means we can’t pray for God to have that place because it is already occupied!

Then again, the world puts pressure on us to conform to their interests. A couple of examples make this clear. Peter tells us to ‘honour Christ the Lord as holy (1 Peter 3:15). And Isaiah says, ‘the Lord of Hosts, him shall you honour as holy (Isaiah 8:13). Both these commands are written to people who are being threatened. God is telling us to reverence him more than people who frighten us! Who we honour is contested territory!

Notice now, that this first request in the Lord’s prayer is not about something we are going to do. It is not a round-about way of suggesting to ourselves that we should be more spiritual. We are asking God to bring honour to his own name.

There’s a story in Ezekiel in which God says he will do just this (see chapter 36).

God’s name is dishonoured by Israel. The signs that God is among them and blessing them have been removed because of their unfaithfulness. They are captured by another nation and lose their land. But now, this conquering nation thinks their gods are stronger than the Lord. God’s name is being rubbed in the dust—or profaned rather than being reverenced.

God is being dishonoured because he can’t go about his usual business of protecting and prospering them and the nations are joking about what a helpless God he is.

In our own time, if we Christians have gloried in our own status and deeds rather than in the Lord, and if he, our Father, has let us fall in a heap so that we are scorned by the world, and if the world boasts that their plans and values are superior to anything a so called ‘God’ has revealed, our Father’s name is being profaned. Then, well may we pray, ‘May your name be reverenced!’

And God answers that prayer. He will not stand by while all that he has revealed of himself—his name—is being dragged in the dust.

So how does God go about sanctifying his own name when we have brought shame on it? What can we expect God to do when the world has come to the conclusion that their achievements and values, their potential and passions—their ‘gods’—are stronger than the Father and his Son?

God says to Ezekiel, ‘I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I am proved holy through you before their eyes’ (36:23).

If we are going to truly make this first request in the Lord’s prayer, we need to see how God fulfils his promise.

God will restore his reputation among the nations by returning Israel to their land, and by turning their hearts away from idols and to himself. He will deliver them from their corruptions—give them a new heart and spirit, a heart of flesh instead of stone, a heart to love him. And then, he will restore their fortunes, and they will see how awful they have been (vv. 24-32). Now God’s name is sanctified or hallowed. God has shown himself to be God.

God does not just change his mind about how bad Israel is. And he doesn’t just bless them to put a lid over the stench of what they are doing. He will purify them and give them a heart to love him.

Jesus understands all this and knows he is the way God will cause his name to be reverenced. In his own life, he wants the honour of his Father’s name, so he is teaching us to pray the same things that he prays. And of course, his whole life can be summed up as sanctifying his Father’s name. People can see that God is with him—and that God is real and good.

But then, in two of his prayers, Jesus asks for God to glorify his name—similar to asking for God’s name to be sanctified (John 12:27-28; 17:1-5, 17-19). He asks the Father to glorify him, so he can bring glory to the Father. He is referring to his dying for our sins, and, in this way, to create people who love the Father like he does. He is going to do what God promised Ezekiel.

The world needs to see that the Father hates our independence and corruptions. He has no time for our hypocrisy. We can’t honour God as our Father and think that our sins don’t matter. He is holy!

Jesus will take all these abominations to himself—as though they were his and not ours, and the Father will show what he thinks of them. His curse falls on his own Son. And Jesus dies. He is where we deserve to be. And Jesus is willing to be there—because he wants his Father’s name to be known as holy—to be reverenced.

We may hear God himself say, ‘This is who I am. I am giving my Son up to this suffering so that you may not perish. This is my holiness.’ And he raises his Son from the dead to announce that what Jesus has done has revealed him perfectly.

The Father’s holiness has been revealed as love. Through this offering, God bring forgiveness to us, and brokenness, and gratefulness, and purity, and a heart of flesh that beats with love for Christ and the Father.

So when we pray, ‘Hallowed be your name!’ we are asking the Father to reveal himself to us, and to the church and to the world. We are asking for our arrogance to be dissolved in the purity of what God has done in Christ, and for our hearts to beat with genuine love for the Father.

Years ago, Isaiah prayed a prayer like this. His nation is in trouble because they have not been true worshippers. Isaiah says, ‘Look down from heaven and see. ….Where are your zeal and your might? Your tenderness and compassion are withheld from us. But you are our Father…our Redeemer from of old is your name’ (Isaiah 63:15-16).

What then will God do if we are expecting him to ensure the reverencing of his name?

Can you picture a church service to which an unbeliever comes, and he sees that God is alive and doing something among the worshippers. Here is a community that has been purified by Christ’s offering. Amongst us, this visitor knows that God has looked right through him and he falls down in worship. He or she knows that God is alive and active (1 Corinthians 14:24-25). God’s name is being reverenced again.

If we want God to be God and not just something we imagine, if we want him to be the prime mover and not just a benevolent observer, if we want him to be reverenced, loved and worshipped, this is how God answers our prayer.

God does not merely push us back on ourselves to do better. He takes us to his Son and to this offering up of himself. He undoes all our puff and foolery so that we trust in what he has done. We cannot have an inflated view of ourselves and honour the Father at the same time. Fundamental to honouring the Father is knowing that he is the good one—not us.

Now, God’s name is being hallowed. And this is what we have been praying for.

Jesus teaches us to pray to God as ‘our Father in heaven’. This—if we understand what we are doing—is astonishing. It assumes we are his children, and in a position of security and privilege with the Creator of everything and everyone.

Prayer is not just something to do but a whole life of relating to God and to others as his children. This is why Jesus not only teaches us to pray but also teaches us to live—in what we call ‘The Sermon on the Mount’ (Matthew 5—7). He uses this phrase ‘your Father’ eleven times in these three chapters. So what is it like to have God as Father?

First, if God is your Father, it will show! Other people will see you and recognise that God is being good to you. They will ‘give glory to your Father who is in heaven’ (5:16).

Second, it will show in your being generous to friends and enemies alike—just like God does. You will be a son or daughter of your Father in heaven who sends his sun and rain on good and bad people alike (5:45).

Third, you won’t need to look for approval from others all the time because ‘your Father who sees in secret will reward you’. This comes up four times in the Sermon so it must be important (6:1, 4, 6, 18).

Fourth, you won’t need to be anxious about your needs, or long-winded in your prayers, because ‘your Father knows what you need before you ask him’ (6:8).

Fifth, you will be quick to forgive. You know ‘your Father will not forgive your sins’ if you forget how much he has forgiven you (6:15)!

Sixth, you will expect God to respond when you ask him for something. If we sinners know how to give good gifts to our children, ‘how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him’ (7:11)!

Now is it really possible to know ‘our Father’ like this? Are we generous, content, peaceful, able to live above our own faults and forgiving toward others. Are we confident of God’s approval so that we don’t constantly need the approval of others? Well, not really. Not without some help.

That’s why I’m glad this Sermon starts with a blessing for people who are ‘poor in spirit’, or mourning, or meek, or hungering for righteousness (5:3-6). We don’t come to God because we are fit to come. We come because we badly need what he can give.

And when we do receive what he can give, we have learned to be merciful, pure in heart, and even peacemakers. And because of this last quality, we are called ‘children of God’ (5:7-9). Prayer is a lowly business, but wonderful—because God is our Father!

I hope you can see that we need Jesus to teach us to pray. Coming to God as our Father remains a problem because of a burden we bear. Jesus addresses it later in this Gospel and connects it with him being the one who must bring us to the Father.

He says, ’…no-one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:27-28). So what is the burden?

It could simply be the burden of not knowing the Father. If there is no Father in heaven—that is, above us—we are alone in the universe. There is no reason for anything, or no one to say what we are doing is good.

But in the setting of this Gospel, the burden we bear is probably the teaching in which people are being brought up. They have to do all the right things to be accepted. This is the line taken by the Pharisees—who were the main guides of what was politically correct (Matthew 23:4-7).

It is not very different from the world around us. We are taught that we get what we deserve, or that we should. We are hearing that word all the time. We are preoccupied with what we deserve. We are driven to do the things we think will make us deserving. This is the burden we bear.

Trying to keep the support and affirmation of others is tiring to say the least, and in the end, hopeless—opinions change, and vary. And it stops us knowing the Father. He isn’t approaching us to see if we deserve something, but to see if he can give us something!

It is no small thing Jesus has taken on when he says he will show us the Father. He knows how we are driven to be worthy of approval. And he knows why we seek to be worthy. Because we are unworthy.

We don’t necessarily deserve the good things that happen, and we certainly don’t deserve to call God ‘Our Father’. If the truth is known, we don’t even want him to be Father—certainly not one who is above us, in heaven. This is our secret shame, and our burden.

Jesus undertakes to bear this burden for us, to give us rest, and bring us to his Father. This is what he is doing when, just hours before he is arrested and crucified, he is praying about what he needs to do.

‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will but as you will’. He prays this three times (Matthew 26:39-44). The burden of us unworthy sinners, carried into God’s presence, is enormous, but he still wants what his Father wants. And his Father wants us—as his children!

Then Jesus is crucified. And towards the end of his sufferings, he cries out, ‘ My God, my God, why have you forsaken me’ (Matthew 27:46). Jesus can’t say ‘Father’. He has been abandoned. He has borne the burden that keeps us from the Father!

So this is what the Father wants—he abandons his Son so that we may not be abandoned. He wants us to be his children. In this way, Jesus has revealed God to us—as our Father. And then, Jesus is raised from the dead and says, ‘Peace be with you’. What wonderful words to hear!

We don’t call God Father because it feels warm and familiar but because he has given us the right to be called children of God (John 1:12). We come to him in Jesus’ name. Our unworthiness has been borne by God’s own Son. And the right he has to be in his Father’s presence is now shared by us. This is where we belong.

We now know that God is always being good to us, and people can see the difference this makes. We know now that God loves his enemies—because that’s what we were. We know we have his approval and are not angry when other people ignore us. We have discovered that he knows our needs before we do. We know he has forgiven us and so we have a reason and a power to forgive others. And we know he is waiting to hear what we ask.

Because God really is our Father, we know how to live, and we know how to pray.

Jesus teaches us to ask that we may be delivered from evil. It is the last request in what we call ‘the Lord’s prayer’. But what are we asking?

The prayer is actually in two parts—‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’. In simple language, we are asking God to keep us as far from sinning as possible. It is turning into a prayer what Jesus taught a bit earlier in his Sermon on the Mount—‘If your hand causes you to offend, cut it off!’ Obviously, he doesn’t mean literally, but he does mean do you everything you need to do to avoid sinning! And now he is telling us to pray as well.

The words have been translated ‘keep us from the hour of trial and deliver us from the Evil One (Satan)’. This is talking about evil that happens to us, but the setting and wording makes it better to translate it as a reference to the evil we are tempted by and the evil we can become implicated in.

Clearly, God doesn’t try to get us to sin. He doesn’t do the tempting. But he does say ‘Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come’ (Luke 17:1). What we are doing here is asking God to limit our exposure to temptation. In line with this, Paul says, ‘God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it’ (1 Corinthians 10:13).

But what would make us want to pray, ‘Deliver us from evil’? Perhaps we’ve become fed up with doing something wrong. It may be we are suffering some consequences of doing wrong. It may be we’ve seen how good it is to have God’s favour and it’s hurting to be without confidence of his approval.

Whatever the reason, we’ve come to God. That’s the important thing. And Jesus is saying ‘You can ask for help’. He’s not saying you should have known better, or to muscle up, or to punish yourself. Basically, you’ve been confronted with your weakness and are looking to God for help. That’s a good place to be.

Life has a way of teaching us that ‘crime doesn’t pay’. Avoiding what God asks us to do, or playing with what we know is not ours to have can make us sick—sick of ourselves, or sick of the consequences. I hope it does! If you are happily sinning and want things to stay the same, Jesus isn’t teaching you to pray. He’s showing you what you are missing out on.

What kind of evil can trap us up? Jesus has already talked about getting angry with a brother or looking lustfully at a woman (Matthew 5:21-30). It could be many things. We all have a sinful heart to deal with—what the Bible calls our flesh. We want things that are not ours to have. Then there’s the world—not just the world we see and appreciate, but rather, the ‘world’ that pretends there is nothing else and that it can provide all we need to keep us safe and happy. Then there’s the devil. He appeals to our flesh, glamourises the world and then put all sorts of ideas in our heads about what we should have and what things should look like. And off we go, led by the nose into trouble!

But there is help available. Jesus is telling us where to go. Trying harder or retreating from problems won’t fix things. We need help!

Peter the apostle can help us here—not by his teaching but by his experience. In the final hours before Jesus is arrested, Peter thinks he is totally reliable and faithful. But he is in for a surprise. Jesus says he will deny him three times before morning.

Look what Jesus does to lead him away from temptation and then, what he does to deliver him from evil.

First, at the point when he is going to be arrested, Jesus says to the soldiers, ‘Take me and let these men go’ (John 18:8). He knows they won’t be able to handle the pressure and gives them an escape route. As we noted earlier, God makes ‘a way out so that you can stand up under’ the temptation.

Peter is spared arrest but follows the soldiers anyway. Then, while Jesus is being questioned, Peter is identified, three times, as a disciple of Jesus. The weakness of his flesh is now on full display. The power of the world to get him to conform to its images and rules is overwhelming. It happens exactly as Jesus said it would—he denies his Lord three times. As Jesus said, Satan has desired to have him.

But now, there is a second move by Jesus—just a look (Luke 22:61-62; cf. Mark 10:21). It seems he is being led from one part of the building to another and looks at Peter in the act of his vigorous denials. And Peter goes out and weeps bitterly.

None of us needs to fail, but we do need what we learn from our failures. What Jesus could do for Peter was no use to him if he didn’t know he needed it. Now he knows.

Jesus has already told Peter, ‘I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail’ (Luke 22:32). Does Peter remember this as he weeps? What we do know is that his faith does not fail! The Father has heard the prayer of Jesus. So this is the second thing Jesus has done for Peter. Peter is not alone.

The third thing Jesus is doing he is doing for us all. He is going out to be crucified, and in this, he bears the sins of the world. Apart from this, anything Jesus did for Peter, or any of us, would be advice and friendship, not deliverance.

So when we ask to be delivered from evil, Jesus starts with his gospel—‘Believe that I have died for your sins!’ Our deliverance starts here. He has loved us and given himself up for us. We can see that there is no more debt to pay, nothing to make us squirm with guilt and shame. But we are being real—we know this deliverance is not from us but from him.

The fourth thing Jesus does for Peter happens after his resurrection. He asks if it is true that Peter loves him more than the other disciples—something he had claimed earlier (John 21:21:15-19). And he asks him three times. So, three times, Peter says, not that he will be better next time, but that he loves Christ. This is real deliverance.

Have you had enough of your failures? Do you know how weak you are? Then here is a prayer to pray. And the answer is not just comforting. It is powerful. And it works. Like King David sang so many years before, ‘He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake’ (Psalm 23). Real goodness does not arise from us. It is a path God maps out for us. It is the path we follow because Jesus is the shepherd who lays down his life for us (John 10:11). And it is not for the sake of our ego. It is for his name’s sake.

Two out of three of the personal requests in this prayer have been to do with our soul rather than with our body. Bread—covering all our bodily necessities; forgiveness and deliverance—covering all the needs of our souls. So, ask God for bread! And trust him with all your needs! But make sure you look after your soul too. Ask for forgiveness, and ask to be delivered from evil. ‘Guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life (Proverbs 4:23).

There is nothing more natural and right than for a human being to know and love God. He is the Creator, and everything in the universe—including us as human beings—beats out this fact. ‘The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork’ (Psa. 19:1). It is also a fact that many don’t ‘hear’ anything but this does not mean it is not happening.

Because God made the world, it belongs to him, and he doesn’t thrown it away like a broken toy when it goes wrong. We are the guests on his property, beneficiaries of his bounty and participators in his project. Better still, we are his heirs because he has created us as his sons and daughters and desires to have us as his family.

There is a difference of course between speculating about God existing and knowing him. Everyone who trusts in Christ is given the right to be called a child of God. Family members then understand the world quite differently to those who have confined themselves to calculating everything on the basis of what visible and measurable.

So what does the Bible creation story tell us about God creating the world? This account occupies the first two chapters of our Bible. Actually, there are two accounts here, the first that tells us the big picture, and the second (spilling over into chapter three) that fills out what is taught in the first one.

The narrative is not written to help us pass a biology exam! Its first readers did not have a degree in science but were surrounded by idol worshippers. The question of how long a ‘day’ is, for example, would not have entered their minds and doesn’t need to trouble us either as we try to understand the story.

Idol worshippers believed their idols had made the world and that they controlled it in various ways. But idols are human inventions and they reflect what humans do—they squabble, compete and use people to meet their needs. (I’ve put a couple of links below to articles that describe Ancient Near Eastern myths based on various idolatries.) Our Bible reveals something quite different.

It is good that the Bible’s account of creation deals with idolatry rather than science because science can’t answer our big questions. Everyone is built for something big, something more important than anything else. If then, we don’t worship the Creator, we give the importance he should have to some other part of the creation. We make it into and idol. Something must rise up to take the place of the true God. And then we squabble about what is most important! And this becomes a huge problem.

Here are some things we can learn from the Bible’s two creation stories. What I say here will make more sense if you’ve read them, or if you check them off as you go through the article, or read them afterwards.

First, before God, there is nothing. ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.’ Everything we have and can discover exists because God decides to make it. This rules out the idea that our universe is self-generated or eternal. However it happens, it happens because God makes choices, and speaks.

Second, a home is being created. On the first three days, ‘spaces’ are created and in the second three days, they are filled. God makes light to separate day from night (day one) and then makes the sun, moon and stars to do this job (day four). He makes the air space and the sea (day two) and then birds and fish to occupy them (day five). He separates the land from the sea (day three) and then makes land creatures, including us, to occupy this land (day six). Everything is moving towards creating a suitable place for us to live.

The next creation story (in chapter two) speaks of this as God planting his garden and putting Adam there, and then Eve. Everything here is orderly and purposive and excludes the idea that our universe is the result of random events.

Third, a difference is made between God creating the heavens and the earth, and then animal life and then human life because the word to ‘create’ is used for these three developments rather than the word to ‘form’. God creates the entire inanimate universe (verse 1), and then creates the animal world (verse 20), and then creates human beings (verse 27). In fact God makes us ‘in his image’—that is, like himself, so that we can relate to him and be fitting custodians of his creation. This excludes the idea that we are no more than highly evolved animals. We are a separate act of creation.

Fourth, at each stage, God calls his creation ‘good’. The word means ‘functionally good’—that is, everything has its place in the universe and is needed for everything to work properly. There is nothing that is essentially bad or to be rejected in what God has made.

Then, when he makes us and gives us authority over all that he has made, he calls it ‘very good’. God’s idea of a perfect world is not one we have left alone but one we look after. This excludes the idea that the best parts of the world are the bits we don’t touch. God has made the world to be explored, researched, farmed, engineered, harnessed and enjoyed. But all of this is to be done for God and according to his commands—which includes looking after our neighbour. He is the gracious God who cares about everything and everyone he has made. This excludes the idea that we can ‘rape’ the earth as though profits or convenience or ourselves were all that mattered.

God has no ‘plan B’. He still thinks his creation is good and that it is ‘very good’ for it to be cared for by human beings. This is why his own Son becomes a human being, to do what we are unwilling and unable to do. All authority is given to Jesus Christ to lead humanity back to God and back to what it means to live in God’s creation as his curators.

Fifth, God makes us ‘male and female’. This is linked to our being made in the image of God. And this is made more explicit in the next story (chapter two). Adam is created first and told to cultivate and guard God’s ‘garden’. But being alone is not ‘good’. Adam can’t accomplish his task without the creation of woman as helper.

We will never understand what it means to be human if we blur this distinction between a man and a woman. And we need to see how men and women complement each other when they work together to raise a family, create a true society and take responsibility for everything that needs to be done.

Sixth, everything leads up to the final day—the seventh, when God finishes his creation. And what does he make on that day? Nothing. He rests. It is a kind of goal to which everything is leading.

The Bible makes a lot of the fact that Israel was to keep a day of rest—a sabbath, one day off in seven. We don’t just need a day off. We need to know that the creation does not come into being or continue to its goal by our ceaseless activity, but be realizing that God is our Creator, and that he is still in charge. We all need to do what God gives us to do. No more, but no less.

The seventh day also points to the goal God has in making everything—when the whole creation will be fully developed and glorious, and ruled over by Christ and all his followers (one example of this is in Matthew 19:28).

We will never be able to find something great enough to replace God. Above us, there is a power mightier than anything we can manage, an authority superior to anything we choose and a need to answer to someone whose plan we are part of. Those who ‘hear’ what God is telling us through his creation, and through the Son he sent to make everything clear, are grateful to know there is a Father over this world. They are glad there is a plan that is being worked out even though it doesn’t always appear to be that way. And they trust there is a finished creation for which they are destined.

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https://www.ucg.org/bible-study-tools/booklets/creation-or-evolution-does-it-really-matter-what-you-believe/ancient-near-eastern-concepts-of-creation

https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2019/02/22/three-ancient-near-eastern-creation-myths/comment-page-1/

When you hold a Bible in your hand, what do you really have? We know it is now printed, sold and read by people around the world, taught in churches and appealed to as an authority. But what is it?

It is really a library of books written over a number of centuries—including history, teaching, songs, promises, encouragements and warnings. It concludes with reports of Jesus’ coming and the apostle’s announcing of his message.

What makes the Bible one book is that each part got written because God spoke to someone. There is no way to prove this but it is what the various writers say happened. ‘In many and various ways God spoke in times past by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son’ (Hebrews 1:1-2).

The fact is, God has always been speaking. He made the world by speaking: ‘Let there be light, and it was so’ (Genesis 1:3). When he made us in his own image and likeness, something like himself—to be his family, he spoke to us so we would know how to understand and to live in the world and what to expect.

The world was never meant to make sense without some information from outside the creation. We can discover much and use it to good purpose of course, and should do so, but nothing we find out through enquiry will tell us all we need to know.

For example, God told Adam in the Garden of Eden to enjoy every part of the Garden except the tree that would give them independent knowledge of good and evil. They decided otherwise, and the Bible recounts the outcome.

We see this at work when we say about someone that ‘they are trying to be God’. They are exaggerating what they know and can do, and they may be trying to force this onto others.  But we know that there isn’t anyone who knows everything about good and evil. There needs to be a voice greater than all our varying opinions—someone who actually isGod.

The Bible story continues, and God speaks to Abraham. We have no idea what this looked or sounded like. Abraham simply reports God saying that he would bless him and his family, and the narrative tells us how this works out.

But something very interesting is happening. Abraham knows his genealogy. He knows what has been said to his ancestors. They have been keeping a record—either oral or written—because they needed to remember what God said. It is their hope.

Then God speaks to Moses, and this time, he addresses a whole people—the descendants of Abraham. He wants to show the world that he is able to establish them as a nation no matter what other nations do to stop it.

God establishes this nation of Israel to show the world his power, and especially, what it is like for a people to hear his word and to be loved by him. He sends them prophets—people who are raised up to bring his word to his people.

For much of the time this is happening, God’s people don’t heed what he says. This is not surprising. None of us really want to listen to the word that comes from God—from outside the world of things we can examine or choose for ourselves.

But God goes right on telling Israel the next part of the plan—through his prophets. And from quite early in the piece, it becomes clear that there is going to be one person, a Messiah, who will bring the whole story together and accomplish God’s purpose in the creation. It will be his Son. He is also called ‘the Word’ because God speaks to the world fully through his Son. He will not only make God known but also bring about what God wants to do.

So, the Son of God enters the world—as a baby. ‘The Word was made flesh and lived among us’ (John 1:14). This is the apex of all that God has been saying to our world.

When Jesus begins his teaching and healing, he is displaying God’s love and wisdom and power and he becomes popular. But he has a bigger agenda. God’s Son, his Word, is among us to ‘bear away the sins of the world’.

When it becomes clear that his word is different from the word we want to hear, his own people kill him. Here is the truth about us. We don’t want God to speak to us.

Here is the greatest surprise in what God says. This killing of Jesus is precisely the way he takes away the sin of the world. Ignoring God’s word is a capital offence, but Jesus dies instead of us. Then God raises him from the dead and the first words he says are, ‘Peace be with you!’

This is the word we need to hear. Only God can truly say ‘Peace!’ because it is with him that we’ve been fighting. Peace with God is one way of describing what the Bible is all about.

When Jesus is about to leave this world, he says the Holy Spirit will enable the chosen apostles (‘sent ones’) to remember and understand all that he has said and done. So the Spirit comes and the apostles announce to the world what God has said through his Son.

They, or their fellow workers, write down what Jesus has done, how his good news spreads and what this Word of God means for our lives, now and into the age to come.

Jesus and the apostles call this coming and all that follows it ‘the last days’. The final revelation has been made so nothing needs to be added to what we have.

Think about what it means that God has spoken to our world.

There is no way we can discover the origins or purpose of our world unless God speaks to us. There is no way we can fathom out why the world is the shape it is unless God tells us he is our Father. We can try to act like a family and make out we are all here for others, but it doesn’t work—not for long anyway.

There is no way we can fathom the falseness of our own life unless we hear God telling us what is normal and what he is doing to mend us and our world. Without the sound of this ‘voice’, we begin to act like orphans and the big driver of our human enterprise becomes trying to appear good. We call it ‘virtue signalling’ these days. And this is not making us a better people or a better world. What brings us together is not our ‘virtues’ but our need, and God speaks to us in our need.

And there is no way we will trust him unless he sends his Son—the big Word—to save us.

And now, we have a Bible, and the same Holy Spirit who brought it together, is given to every person who hears and believes the message of Christ. God’s Spirit brings what is written to life so that we know that God is speaking to us.

Bible books were first written to other people living in another time and God spoke to them in a way they could understand. But we need to understand what theyheard, and to ‘hear’ it again. This is not such a strange thing to have to do. When we read the Bible or hear it explained, we are listening to our family story. We are listening to our Father God, and his Son Jesus Christ. The Bible is not just what God said. It is what he is saying.

When Christians talk about Jesus, they understand that the man who lived in our first century, who taught and worked miracles, who died and rose again, is in fact, God.

This belief may seem natural if we have been brought up to believe it is true but it was not so for those who first watched and listened to Jesus in person. It is good that we have the four Gospels to give us some detail about how this belief came about. Here are a few pointers showing why we rightly believe that Jesus is God. (I’ve included Bible references so various points can be checked if that would be helpful.)

First, Jesus was born into the nation of Israel that had a long history of God being among them. This didn’t mean he was among them as a visible person but that he spoke to them by prophets, saved them from their enemies, heard their prayers and promised them a future. One of their greatest prophets, Moses, recognised that the only thing that made Israel distinct from other nations was that God was among them (Exodus 33:16).

This was not always welcomed. Like us today, Israelites didn’t necessarily like the idea of God being among them. But God promised the nation that a child would be born and be called ‘God with us’ (‘Emmanuel’ in Hebrew; Isaiah 7:14). The prophet Isaiah also said that this child would come to Israel, as their King, to save them from the distress into which they had fallen. His name would be, ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of peace’ (Isaiah 9:6-7). These are all titles appropriate to God, and the Gospels make it clear that Jesus is fulfilling these prophecies (Matthew 1:21-23).

Second, when Jesus begins to teach and to mend lives broken by sickness and wrongdoing, he doesn’t want people to announce that he is Israel’s anointed king, that is, their Messiah. He does this, not because he isn’t but because people have mistaken views of what a Messiah will do. Before Jesus can be properly identified, he has to show what manner of God they should worship and what this God wants to do (e.g. John 6:15, 27).

For example, he says pleasing God is not just keeping rules but loving God and one’s neighbour. He says freedom is not being stronger than one’s enemies but being a child of God who is free from sin (John 8:33-38).

He does things God wants to get done to show what it looks like when God is among them. He heals rather than condemns, welcomes the poor in spirit rather than the proud. He protests the abuses of religion by forcibly evicting profiteers from the temple—what he calls ‘my Father’s house’.  He uses attraction rather than coercion, persuasion rather than force.

Third, Jesus speaks and acts as God. When he says that a crippled man’s sins are forgiven, authorities rightly point out that only God can forgive sin (Mark 2:1-12). When he calls God his Father, Jews understand him to be making himself equal with God—and Jesus doesn’t contradict them (John 5:18). In fact he says people should honour him just as they honour the Father because the Father has given him power of life or death over humanity (John 5:22-23). When he is asked if he is greater than their forefather Abraham, he says ‘Before Abraham was, I am’ (John 8:53-59). Jews know what this means—he is claiming eternity of being, claiming to be God—and they attempt to stone him on the spot.

Perhaps, as offensive to human pride as anything else, Jesus claims to be the light of the world (John 9:5), the shepherd of the sheep (John 10:7-16), the resurrection and the life (John 11:25) and much besides. Our entire enlightenment, welfare and future are in his hands. These things are not a role for one human being over the rest of humanity. They are tasks only God can perform—we are his creatures, not a self-sustaining humanity. Human ‘messiahs’ cannot fix what God has made.

Fourth, Jesus announces that the judgement of the world is about to happen, and then, speaks about his own death (John 12:31-33). The big decision for everyone is whether they see their God coming to them in Jesus Christ. This is the point on which humanity is judged.

But also, John the Baptist has said Jesus will ‘take away the sins of the world’ (John 1:29) and this is what Jesus is about to do. Judgement is about to happen, and Jesus knows we can’t live under the pain and shame of our failure and guilt. He voluntarily stands in the place where the judgement on our sin will fall so that he can give us back our true humanity. Only God would think to do this, and only our God could do this.

Then, Jesus is hung on a cross to die. While dying, he asks his Father to forgive us who kill him. Then, he rises from the dead and says, ‘Peace be with you’.

When Thomas, one of the disciples, sees that Jesus is really alive, he says to him, ‘My Lord and my God’ (John 20:26-28). Perhaps involuntarily, he blurts out the truth. This man is God, and man, at the same time. Only God has been able to speak to our need and bring us to himself as true human beings.

Some years after the resurrection, Jesus comes to the person we now know as the apostle Paul. He sees a bright light and hears a commanding voice that he recognises as his ‘Lord’ (Acts 9:1-8). Confronted by the ‘Lord’ he thinks he is serving, he asks who this ‘Lord’ is. ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting’ is the reply. He discovers that Jesus has been given the name above every name—that is, Jesus is Lord, or God (Philippians 2:9-11).

Later on, her reflects on this encounter and says, ‘For God, who said, ”Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor. 4:6).

Perhaps the reason we don’t want God in our lives is because we have a false view of who he is. The whole Bible, the story of Jesus and the proclamation of his good news are here for us to know our God—and his face is the face of Jesus.

I looked up all the New Testament references to the name ‘Jesus’ after Jesus rises from the dead. There are over 300 of them. Most of them have an addition—that is, ‘Jesus Christ’, ‘Lord Jesus’ or ‘the Lord Jesus Christ’.

Anyone may like or even love the man Jesus, but only God can reveal himself. Jesus said that only his Father in heaven could reveal to Peter that he was the Christ (Matt. 16:16-17). And to be the Christ and to do what a Messiah must do is to be our God, not just human.

Today, we need the help of the Holy Spirit to call Christ ‘Lord’ (1 Cor. 12:3). It is not a merely logical or intuitive decision. If you look at the revelation God has given us in the Bible and say ‘Jesus is Lord’, God has come to you.

We get some idea what Paul means by ‘Lord’ when he says, ‘For us, there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist’ (1 Cor. 8:6). To call Jesus ‘Lord’ is to acknowledge him, with Thomas, as your Lord and your God.

You have to be God to reveal God, and this is what Jesus has done. ‘No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known’ (John 1:18). We should not minimize the Son of God by easy familiarity with the warmth of his human name. He islove itself, and we have no comfort apart from him. But he is God. And if he were not God, he could not help us.

Every Christian knows that when they believe in Jesus Christ, they should then live as a Christian. For example, instead of being angry, immoral or lazy, they may say, ‘I should now be helpful, pure or useful’. The new life we have—the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8:2) is holy and we know this is now the way to live.

It doesn’t take long for any of us as Christians to realise that change isn’t as easy as we thought it might be. We all discover the same problem, that when we try to say ‘No’ to the past, the old inclinations and habits are still expecting to be noticed. And the world around us is travelling in a very different direction and calling us to conform. If we don’t find help for this problem, we may give up and say that the Christian life doesn’t work.

We need the help of the Holy Spirit.

Our life began as a Christian because God gave his Holy Spirit to us. We turned from being ‘good enough’ and trusted in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins. Then, we received God promised gift, the Holy Spirit.

Jesus calls the Spirit ‘anotherHelper’. Until that point, hehad been the Helper for the disciples—answering their questions, connecting them with God, showing them the way to live and what to hope for. In particular, he showed them how to deal with their own failures. But now he says the Holy Spirit will do this work.

In fact, Jesus says it is better for him to go and for the Holy Spirit to come, so, the help he brings must be as real as what Jesus has brought, or better. He is God’s gift when we trust in Christ, but now, what help can he give to struggling Christians?

Paul deals with this matter when he writes to some young Christians in Galatia. He says that if we walk by the Spirit we won’t do what the flesh wants (Galatians 5:16). This is a big claim. Will one action—walking by the Spirit, fix the whole problem?

What the flesh wants is plain to see—being free with our use of sex, coveting what other’s have, pride and slander to mention a few. Paul mentions numbers of things (5:19-21). So does Jesus (Mark 7:20-23). Elsewhere, Paul says our natural tendency—our flesh—doesn’t want to do what God wants (Rom. 8:7). Will all this just go away if we walk by the Spirit? Well, yes, so long as we understand what Paul means by this.

Walking by the Spirit isn’t just being directed by some kind of heavenly GPS—saying ‘Go here!’ ‘Do this!’ or ‘Keep away from this.’ What Paul has said already in his letter to this young Galatian church shows that the Holy Spirit supplies everything we need to get going as Christians (3:2-5).

First, he enables us to relate and talk to God like Jesus did—he is ‘the Spirit of his Son’ in our hearts enabling us to say Father or ‘Abba’—a word that Jesus used (4:6 with Mark 14:36). Second, this relationshipsis so clear and firm that we know that what God has done in us will last until we meet God—we will be welcomed as righteous people in God’s sight (5:5). That is a life changing hope to have and to live by.

Now, he says, ‘Walk by the Spirit.’ Every day, we need to know we are not on our own. We have a helper.

Every day, we know we are righteous because of God’s gift and not because of our performance (3:2-5). For example, if we do wrong, we are not immediately back on our own having to stand before God as condemned—under law. We are in the presence of his grace—grace made real to us by God saying he will live with us by his Spirit—grace that is seeking our restoration.

Real changes in life don’t happen because we simply listen to different instructions. They happen because we find ourselves in a different relationship. We are God’s children.

It is true that the desires of our flesh fight against the new life God has brought to us, but then, the Holy Spirit within us also has strong desires—to master what we have been (5:17). He is present as our helper!

The result of this is that we can’t do what we want to do. We are not as free as we thought we were. One way or another, we need a master. And the Spirit is present, telling us that we are children of God, and that we will stand righteous before God on the last day. And he is making us feel awful about giving way to the flesh! That’s helpful!

When the battle is on, what will we choose? Will we make choices based on the fact that God doesn’t matter? The things our flesh keeps us working at are plain enough—and sometimes, hard work! Pleasing ourselves isn’t all plain sailing! Do we want this—for ourselves, or for the world?

On the other hand, the Spirit produces fruit. We may tend a garden but we can’t make an apple! Fruit grows and the good that grows in our lives as we walk by the Spirit is not forced, not us. God is working, and he is producing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and much besides.

So Paul says, look at what you get when you go your own way (6:7-10). If you sow wild oats, that is what you will get. If you give way to yourself without God, again and again, you will get the results of that—corruption. But if you ‘sow to the Spirit you will reap eternal life. That is not only what you get when you die, it is the dignity and joy and permanence of doing something eternal right now.

Think about what happens if you remain your own person. Think about the fruit God produces. Live in line with the Spirit God has sent. You can’t see him. You can’t control him. But you can listen to what he is telling you about your Saviour and his grace, your Father God and your relationship to him, and the hopes he has for you, and you will see his fruit. And you can be confident that what God produces is real and will last.

When people first begin to trust in Jesus Christ, they are told that if they believe in him they will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. They are not told they will go to heaven, or even be forgiven—though that is certainly true. They are not given a list of dos and don’ts or activities they should now go to—though these things may be important. They are told they will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is what it means to become a Christian.

This is not something you can manage or commit yourself to or promise. This is something that happens to you. Christians are people who’ve had enough of what they can manage and are looking for what someone else can do—what God can do.

Christians are people who realize God is serious about the mess we are in—serious enough to let his own Son be our victim. Yes. That’s what the first people to hear the Christian message were accused of—they had killed their Messiah—God’s Son.

So God sends a Saviour into the world, and we, that is, the part of humanity that were there at the time, kill him. That’s how big our problem is.

We know better than that now! Or do we?

When people say they can make up their own mind about what is right and wrong, they have to end up ‘killing’ Christ all over again. Jesus says he is the truth. He is saying you can’t live truly in God’s creation without him. If you say that too loudly in the world today you may find out how much people hate Jesus Christ.

The world, or our part of it, doesn’t crucify people they disagree with now but they have many other very effective ways of silencing those they don’t like.

So we say to the world today, ‘You are killing Christ!’ Here is Jesus, the one who teaches us to love, not kill; to do good, not merely look good; to be wary of our own motives, not critical of others; to love God, not manage him; to trust God, not make out he doesn’t exist. Those who want to be their own person with no-one above them, no-one to tell them what is true, will have to silence Christ—one way or another.

We may not carry a hammer and nails, get ourselves in a frenzy and shout in the streets that Jesus should die, but we will have the same hate and the same distain and same ruthlessness to remove the evidence about who he is and what he can do.

It was those accused of exactly these things who became the first Christians. So how did it happen, and does it happen now? And here is the surprise. We find out how God treats his enemies. This is how this opening scene in the Christians story unfolds (see Acts 2).

First, God sends his Holy Spirit, and all the apostles Jesus has chosen are given remarkable ability to speak in languages that people understand. More than this, they are filled with the truth Jesus has given them, and are bold to speak regardless of the consequences.

Then, the apostle Peter tells them about God’s Son, Jesus whom they had crucified just a few weeks before. ‘You killed him’ he says. And God raised him up from the dead. More than that, he lifted him up to heaven to sit beside him and to manage all his affairs.

That’s the basic Christian message. Everything is in the hands of Jesus Christ—he is Lord. The very one the world hates is in charge, and he is the one we have to deal with. That puts us in a very dangerous position. So what can we do? At this point, we get a surprise. God doesn’t treat his enemies like we do.

Effectively, God says to us, ‘You made the wrong choice. You said Jesus was wrong, and I have shown that he was right—by reversing the results of your murder. And I have given him responsibility for all my affairs.

‘But you can choose again! You can believe that Jesus Christ is my Son and the world’s Leader and Saviour. If you do, I will give you my Holy Spirit!’

We don’t turn our life around. God gives his Spirit to us. Something has to come from heaven for us to change.

Earlier on, a leading academic called Nicodemus visited Jesus. He was impressed with him—with what he was saying and what he was doing. But he was puzzled too. He could see God was with Jesus and, perhaps, could see that God was not with him in the same way.

Jesus said, ‘You need a new birth. You need to be born of the Spirit or you will never be part of the world God is making—his kingdom.’ Here is a respectable, intelligent and responsible man, and Jesus is telling him he needs something he can’t control or make—something ‘from above’.

What God said to Nicodemus is now happening. God says through his apostle Peter, ‘Say “Yes” to Jesus Christ. Identify yourself with him by baptism, trust him to forgive your sins and you will receive a gift—the Holy Spirit.’

So many are baptized—for forgiveness. That is what they want. They don’t want to live with the guilt of killing Christ. But what do they get? Not just forgiveness but the Holy Spirit. God doesn’t just tick a box in heaven to say we are forgiven. He actually comes to live with us. That really is practical forgiveness.

It is important to know that the Holy Spirit doesn’t attract us to himself. We may not be aware of him as a person because he is pointing to Christ, and to God who is now our Father. But, like Jesus told Nicodemus, the Holy Spirit is like a wind you can’t see but whose power you can recognise.

Receiving the Holy Spirit is not just about feeling better or even getting closer to God. It is about him coming to do something we can’t do ourselves—that is, know and love God and trust him like a child.

Are you ready for a miracle? Through faith in Jesus Christ, a proud person is made grateful for God’s mercy. A fearful person calls God Father. And we can all see God for who he is—wonderfully kind. And we can see our neighbor, not as a rival but as someone to help.

This is what one of Israel’s prophets had said:

‘…I wilI remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules’ (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

© Grant Thorpe; October 2019

It’s important to know what happens after this life, and Jesus Christ has not left us guessing. There is a lot that remains a mystery, but he has told us enough to be sure that there is an eternal life and that life after our death will be real and wonderful—that is, for those who trust in him.

How real is all of this? Guesses are not much help. Wishing won’t make it happen. We need to hear from someone who knows and we need to be persuaded that what such a person says includes us. Jesus said a number of times that he could give us eternal life—that is, a quality of life that would begin now and continue after our death. But all this came together when he was killed and then rose from the dead. Here is where he gained the credibility to tell us what is to come.

Some think faith in God and in Jesus Christ is a leap in the dark, but it’s not really like this—especially when it comes to knowing what happens after death. Jesus Christ died. Pure and simple—he was dead. Then, he was seen alive by numbers of people, even by many people at one time. We know the conversations he had with various people and the effect he produced on those he met.

Some claim these records are just made up, but they are people who have already decided that miracles don’t happen. If you read the Bible text as it is, it passes all the usual tests of historical reliability. This is important because faith in Jesus Christ is not an idea or a philosophy or a wish. Jesus shows it is real by dying, and rising from the dead with a new body—same person, same body, but transformed now into something eternal. So what happened?

First, Jesus appeared to two women. Perhaps they needed to know first. Perhaps they were better at assimilating something that was totally unexpected. Whatever, they told the apostles Jesus had chosen, and two of them raced to the empty tomb. The body wrappings had collapsed. Apparently, Jesus didn’t need to unravel anything to get free.

Then, Jesus appeared in a locked room—without breaking in. The disciples had locked themselves away because they were nervous about what the authorities might do next. The locked door was no trouble to Jesus. He just came in.

Now clearly, the disciples were dealing with the same Jesus they had known. They knew who he was. He repeated what he had said before he was killed—’Peace be with you.’ He had more reason to say this now that before, because death was not a threat any more. He hadn’t just ‘cheated’ death by escaping it. He had defeated it by rising from the dead.

He was the same Jesus who had hung on a cross, and had the same body—even though it was now changed. The disciples were still having trouble believing a crucified Jesus could be talking to them. It must be a spirit they thought. So he asked them to feel the holes made by nails in his hands and feet. He asked for some fish to eat so they could see it disappear!

He also reminded them that he had prophesied all this. He showed them that this is what their religion was about—the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead, and God’s forgiveness for sin must be announced everywhere. Forgiveness and eternal life belong together. God can see what we are of ourselves, and it doesn’t warrant eternal life. But Christ died in the way sinners deserve to die—and he did it for us and in our place. His resurrection is not just saying that there is a thing called eternal life, It is saying that we can have it because we are relying on what he has done about our sins.

Put in another way, Jesus came to remove the shroud—the death garment—in which we are all wrapped. God had said earlier that he would ‘swallow up death for all time’ and ‘wipe away tears from all faces’ (Isaiah 25:7-8).

A week later, Jesus repeated his visit to the apostles, and this time, Thomas, who missed the first meeting, was present. The others hadn’t convinced him that Jesus was really alive, so Jesus told him to do the feel test—’Check these wounds in my hands and in my side!’ Thomas is the prototype for all of us who were not there when Jesus rose. The Lord expected him to believe without seeing for himself. But he did say, ‘You are blessed because you saw and believed.’ And then he added, ‘Blessed are all who haven’t seen and yet believe!’

Jesus doesn’t need to pop up out of nowhere to make people believe. He has appeared to chosen witnesses and told them to go everywhere announcing, not only that we can live after dying, but that we may be forgiven by believing his message. This is what makes life after death believable. We are forgiven because Jesus died in our place. We don’t have to fear death because we are forgiven. It will be good to meet God, not dreadful.

There were other remarkable meetings with Jesus, especially at the side of a lake when Jesus told disciples where to put a net to catch some fish, and then he ate some with them, sitting around a fire. At that time, Jesus completely rehabilitated Peter who had failed badly. Peter now had confidence, not only in Jesus but also in what Jesus would do in him.

For a final time, Jesus came to his apostles. He told them he had all authority in heaven and earth. He said he would be with them to the end of time. Then he ascended into heaven. He was lifted up until he was lost to sight in a cloud. The Jesus Christ in whom Christians believe has returned to his Father, God, but returned as a human being, raised from the dead.

Now, where does this leave us? We have no way of finding out what happens after death, but Jesus does. He says he will give eternal life to all who believe in him. ‘Eternal life’ is literally ‘life of the ages’. It’s what you have beyond this present life, but it is also what you have when you give up making out you are good enough as you are. Simply, you are trusting him to forgive you. It is a quality of life, not merely a length of life. In that sense, eternal life has begun already. Jesus said, ‘This is eternal life, that we know the Father (God) and Jesus Christ whom he sent.’ If you know God, you can be sure of the future.

Jesus is called ‘the first fruits’ of all who have died, meaning that he is the first of the ‘crop’. He rose from death, and those who trust him will rise—like he did. He had a body and could relate and converse and eat, and his followers will also have a body and converse and eat. Jesus no longer had restrictions as to what his body could do, and it certainly wasn’t going to die again, and we will have a body in which we will know one another and relate and converse, and we will never die.

In fact, the body Jesus has now must be more than what the disciples saw and touched. He appeared to them in a manner suited to the occasion. But when Christ comes to Paul, there is nothing ordinary about his appearance (Acts 9:3-5)! When John sees Christ in a vision, the Lord is glorious and fully in command (Revelation 1:12-18).

Paul tells us this mortal body must put on immortality (1 Cor. 15:53). John says we well be like him because we will see him as he is (1 John 3:2). We ourselves will not be ordinary but transformed—ready for a ‘forever’ life.

That leaves a lot we don’t know, but then, it is amazing to know this much. Jesus is the key to it all. He said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me will live even if he dies’ (John 11:25).

Suggested reading: John 20:19-29

© Grant Thorpe, 2/8/2019