Reading the Christian hospitality and Muslim migration book by Matthew Kaemingk. An intriguing book it’s part of my apologetics class and it’s interesting in the book he analyzed the rationale of nationalism which is kind of a big word specially in America now, even mentioned that with the rise and fall of right wing politicians who wanted to stop Muslim immigrants. They want to bring the ideology in line with American values especially the previous administration.

In Europe there’s a reaction to incidents of terrorists radicalized Muslims in Europe. Clearly, so it’s a very intriguing talking about how Christians can practice hospitality and to welcome them to honor their rights.

First and foremost the idea of Christian nationalism really comes from the Old Testament which is a theocracy when God is the King seriously now that God has the power to dethrone and appoint new king. So if you look at the dynasty of David for example King David and Israel and Judah and all this you can see clearly that God is very intimately connected to the administration and the running of the nation of Judah and Israel and is a very direct intervention by the prophetic words of prophets etc on the running on the political scene of the nation of that time. That was like you know 3000 years ago or so but now this is very different as our society does not have a theocracy, but we practice a democracy because that democracy we elect political leaders etc. to run the country. Very much like that the time of Paul, Peter James and John though there was no really democracy at that time but theocracy is out of the question as well.

So to bring that Christian nationalism into the country is a misrepresentation of Christianity now because there’s really important directly from the Old Testament which is no more the case. God is not the king of this world now though that eternal Kingdom is in the process but the geopolitical Kingdom our God is not the king but he will be the eternal king encompassing the geopolitical in the consummation of the age but now he’s not! Because of that we cannot introduce and push Christian nationalism and the way to do this is really how Christ becomes the answer for the problems today in this world politically and culturally. And what the cultural thinkers calling pluralism how does pluralism work? For example Jesus said love thy neighbors as yourself as one of the commandments.

Who’s your neighbor?  Jesus gave a parable of the Good Samaritan. A Jewish man was robbed and wounded on the road and the Pharisee walked past did nothing . it was a Samaritan man who passed by and he just stopped and he took care of him. He helped him out and brought him to the hotel and then in the hotel in the hotel he brought oil to treat the fellow and told the hotel guy to look after this guy until his healing. And he told the hotel man that  all this expenses will be on him and he left the place. This is a quite stunning.  This is a total stranger and you have to understand at that time Samaritans are outcast to the Jewish people. Jewish people do not even mingle with them don’t talk or eat with them. Here Jesus chose to show the reverse psychology show how you should love the people who are different ideologically from you and it was the Samaritan who was despised by the Jewish people actually went out to help the Jewish man injured on the road. It was the pharisee Jewish pharisee who knows Torah well and did nothing but just passed right this Jewish injured man on the road. So what is Jesus trying to tell us is  we are to reach out to our neighbors and even people we look down or we look up to. Or people with a very different ideological cultural even religiously.

This is this is a huge contrast from the days of old in the Old Testament when God commanded the kings of Israel totally annihilate the philistines and all this Edomites and all these people who were worshipping the false gods sacrificing children to idols. God told them to go and wipe them out kill them. If you take that you will see that God is basically saying that those people who bring the false God, wipe them out but here comes Jesus , he totally changed everything and the reason he can change everything is because he fulfilled the wiping out of enmity between people have different of the false idols false gods in the Old Testament sense of the word. The reason that Jesus can ask us to reach out to all these people who seemingly would definitely worship a different God even there’s a lot of darkness involved and not to wipe them up like in the Old Testament is because Jesus himself took upon himself the wiping out and upon himself on the cross when he was annihilated ,murdered. He paid the price and therefore the common grace is like going to steroid!  

Therefore we Christians don’t do that anymore like a theocracy time as Christ changed everything and the reason he can change everything is because he fulfilled the requirement of the Old Testament.

There is the phenomenal understanding we must get hold of, and without getting hold of that, we will end up acting like Old Testament Christians thinking that with theocracy pumping our fists under nationalism!  There is no nationalism and our faith is in Christ not in our nation, not in America or any country. We follow our God and therefore we are called to extend hospitality and loving to all people different kinds different from us even with different God. We are called spread the good news through the gospel with them. However,  if any of those people like in the book said that caused terrorism and all this violent crimes, that will be a judicial issue to take care of them and to bring them to task .

To enforce a policy that will help that enforcement is really complex that will be another time but now I just want to say why we are treating very differently because of Christ because Christ took all the punishments for the philistines for the Philistines & others . When God called Joshua to annihilate every one of them every single one of them even women ,even kids so it was so brutal and dark. So we ask why? Just wanted you guys understand if there’s no judgment of God, if there’s no hell, he ceases to be God as justice cannot be fulfilled because as a God of justice the Simplicity of God means the Aseity (Self Sufficiency) of God means his character and his actions are one together. There’s no difference whatever he says, happens, there’s no potentiality and actuality for him for God is. (The Great I AM).  He doesn’t just love, he’s love! So that’s a quick synopsis of that I talk to you some other time the Lord bless you. 

The way God looked out and protected Abraham in the Old Testament it’s  quite eye-catching. I was doing my devotional and the way twice God protected Abraham from someone taking his wife. One time was he faked his wife as his sister because his wife was so beautiful, and the second time is exactly the same situation with Abimelech. And first time God gave Pharaoh a dream so that he will not touch Abraham’s wife. Second time God inflicted the King’s household with sickness so that that the king won’t touch Abraham’s wife and relented and repented.

I’m intrigued and how specific and intentional God protected and guided his called one specifically in Abraham. Abraham is unique. His call is to fulfill a great covenant of God to be the blessing to the whole world. God promised to bless him so that he would be a blessing to the whole world. Abraham is no ordinary folk. God tested him one time too have him offer up his one and only son Isaac while he was only a teenager. And Abraham obeyed diligently consciously immediately the next day early in the morning he brought Isaac up the mountain Moriah to offer up his son Isaac. He had the audacity to put out his knife and almost pierced through the belly of his son Isaac, when the Angel of the Lord stopped him saying “Abraham do no harm your son but I know that you fear God.” And God responded saying, “Because you have done this that you feared God I swear will definitely bless you and make you into a great nation.”

15 The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring[b] all nations on earth will be blessed,[c] because you have obeyed me.” (Gen 22)

Note the emphasis here, God swore. He didn’t just say. He swore by His Name, because He really wanted to emphasize it and send a message how impressed, how blessed and encouraged He was with Abraham!

Now if you compare all these events, you can clearly see that not everyone it’s called to offer up , sacrifice his very own son. And therefore quite clearly not every everyone who is called by God gets singled out and protected it in a very specific way and intentional way like God did for Abraham. One may wonder why did God do all this for Abraham? The answer is clear, Abraham carries a great mandate, a great covenant in his body. In fact, the promised child for Sarah’s old age at 90 years old or so, was not even born at the time of threat of being taken up by the king to be to be his wife. Therefore the covenant of God will never be broken in any circumstances even in this temporal world. God is all out to protect his called ones.

Now we come to the New Testament, the fascinating story of Jesus is even more intriguing. Jesus was not only called by God, but he actually is God himself and also the son of God. With him being incarnated into the world, to take up the sins of the world and to redeem mankind on the cross is what I call ‘scandalous’ (for what extent God is going out for his people!)at any level but so beautiful and soul glorious showing the love of God. In his growing up even at a young tender age of being a baby, king Herod tried to kill him. And his parents took him and fled for Egypt just like the Old Testament prophesized “I will call my son from Egypt.”  Jesus’s life is almost word for word fulfillment of everything written in the Old Testament. God protected him. But at the cross God seemed did not protect him. That is simple to understand. Because that’s precisely what Jesus came to the world to do. I would argue that God protected Jesus so He could endure the sufferings and even apparent rejection of the Father on the cross. To me, God protected and shielded Jesus for a higher purpose than the apparent rejection on the cross. We folks need to learn and see the higher purpose of God than the immediate sufferings and hardship!

But now if you apply all this to our lives, can we see possibly such intentionality or protection and guidance upon our lives as God did to Abraham? As I said before, not everyone has a calling like Abraham. Therefore my first point is this, there is a special hand of God upon those who are called by God to do specific tasks at different period, different times, different people. Now one may argue that Paul had a huge special calling in his life, but he got sent to the jail, he got beaten up and all this seemingly God was very quiet and did not protect him. That’s the hardest part to understand. New Testament seems to be much demanding dispensation of God’s dealings with his chosen ones. But thats how God protected and strengthened Paul to go for that extra mile, the highest calling. Folks, apparent temporal worldly downcast doesn’t not mean a failure on an eternal plane. Thats exactly how God brought His glorious will and plan to pass in Paul’s life. What a mighty apostle who planted more churches, strong churches, and written more epistles, and most powerful theology! I’m talking in the context of being called and chosen by God. Israel was called and chosen by God as a nation. Now the church is being called and chosen by God as the body of Christ. In the epistles we are the chosen people, royal priesthood, to proclaim the excellencies of God. But this is a group calling. This is a group choosing. This is not individual calling. And would God do the same thing as he did to Abraham to the group of we called the church today?

Of course he will. But in a very different way. Sometimes it can be very tangible like what he did to Abraham, sometimes he’s very silent : just like the way how he did with the greatest apostle Paul , this makes us wonder. However we must understand that the suffering produced the best in him. And similarly in the epistles Paul wrote about we rejoice even in our trials and sufferings, because sufferings and trials produce perseverance, produce character and produce glory. So in the context in all this, it’s really a mixed bag. So one could also argue did Abraham experience a mixed bag? I said definitely yes, but in a very different way. For example, Abraham was childless all the way to when he was about 100 years old when he was promised by God decades ago about him being chosen father of many nations. He endured such childlessness. And in those silent years,

Romans 4: ²⁰ Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,²¹ being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

That’s a tough time that Abraham had to face. But I would say the hardest time is when God tested him to sacrifice his only child. So looking all in all we could say is GREAT is the faithfulness of God. He will see us through. Those he has chosen he will bring it to completion.

Like the in Philippians says he who started the faith in you will bring you into completion. To God be the glory.

Phil 1 ³ I thank my God every time I remember you. ⁴ In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy ⁵ because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, ⁶ being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

And remember God is ALL out to save you!

With him being incarnated into the world, to take up the sins of the world and to redeem mankind on the cross is what I call ‘scandalous’ (for what extent God is going out for his people!) at any level but so beautiful and soul glorious showing the love of God.

One of the most important things in church to mobilize people for evangelism outreach and proclaim God’s name in our faith, is the fact that we ourselves have to experience the goodness of the Lord and the flourishing result of walking with God first and foremost. If we don’t, we then have nothing to proclaim to the world. If we don’t experience the reality of the transcendent God in our own lives, experience the love of community towards one another, there is little hope of a message to the world outside. While we brag about the glorious future that is coming we must take care of what we experienced God’s word now in life.

Any transactions or divisions or disagreements in church must be put to rest ASAP as per Paul’s warnings and exhortations in the epistles.

Romans 16: 17 I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them.

While it is most important shepherds look for the lost sheep, and to reconcile any misgivings in church, the onus lies on the leadership to resolve and having said that, move on. If we can’t move on, the whole church is stuck. The church that is the very bride of Christ. And the faith that we are profoundly passionate about will come to a grind. Not knowing how to proclaim the faith that we have been so profoundly impacted by the richness of the grace of God which God lavished upon us in Christ Jesus. It will be such a shame. No dry bone can serve the Lord! And that needs prayer, determination, submission and humility to the Holy Spirit’s leading and guidance.

Having said that, by going through some trials in lives individually and the church as a whole, we must all submit ourselves to the authority of God’s word. This eventually, if we overcome the trials as a church, we will emerge stronger and more beautiful. This is going to be so pleasing to the Lord , encouraging to the body of Christ in a local church, and will be a really uplifting process.

The Bible says honor one another and preferring one another.

Romans 12:  ⁹ Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. ¹⁰ Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. ¹¹ Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.

Loving one another and honoring one another comes hand in hand with serving the Lord. No one can really truthfully serve the Lord in honor, without also loving and honoring one another.

The Bible also says people’s lives will be changed by feeding the sheep God’s word.

John 21: 15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
16 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”

Seriously my point here is that without feeding the people God’s word, people won’t grow spiritually, and it will be even harder to overcome trials, grudges and be humble towards one another. Only the Word of God in the anointing of God will break the yoke, renew our minds and be transformed.

Romans 12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Our minds must be renewed daily, so we can truly be transformed. Only the transformation of the hearts can bring forth revival.

Amen

The most helpful to me is the doctrine of God in His being in the absoluteness and personalness of God as the gridline for our worldview. This also relates to the Simplicity and Aseity of God.

Matter and energy themselves are not the most fundamental, the first, and the basic constituents of all reality. They are part of the creation of a personal God who proceeds and exceeds them. First our God himself is not reducible or anything more basic than God. (Watkin) God is the first causation of everything. There is nothing external to him that caused his existence. God is self-defining, self-authenticating. All existences in the world come from Him, and He is the eternal being that is the first cause of all realities.

To me, that’s a powerful message, because the secular world’s ideas of evolutionary progression of mankind essentially can reduce us humanity to mere elements. But God is the one who gives us meaning, dignity in life, as man and woman created in the image of God. Not of elements! In other words, God of Christianity is absolute, meaning self-existent, self-sufficient, and self-contained, not relying on anything outside of himself for his existence, and also fundamentally, not able to be broken down into more basic parts. Van Til calls that God is dependent upon nothing beyond his own being.

The  principles of truth, goodness, or beauty are to be thought as identical with God’s being; they are the attributes of God. In other words, there is no principles of goodness, kindness, beauty that is next to God or above God, because they are part of God’s attributes. (Watkin)

All these demonstrate the absolutes of God that clearly defines the origination of the cosmos that makes sense, because there is just no way to drill back any further than God himself in our search for the question, “Where do we all come from?” And the question of such irreducibleness and absoluteness of God.

You know any servant of God can be looked as courteous, polite, thoughtful, kind, zealous for God, so forth, but what goes on in his thought life can go rotten at times. That’s why I was burdened to write this because that’s in the inner condition. Thought can be fleeting, lust or greed thoughts can just flash over your mind. So when I read from Psalm 19: 14, how David prayed that his words and the meditation of his heart be acceptable in God’s sight, his Lord, his rock, and his redeemer, I am pumped to want to know how he did it.

First he acknowledged God as is Lord, rock, and redeemer. Rock is his refuge, as many psalms show that. He is clinging unto the Lord as His protector, etc. SO when he asked for meditations of his mind to be pleasing to God, he’s really wise and speak right into the hearts of millions of men and women. So how?

Psalm 19:7–14 (NASB 2020)
7 The Law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul;
The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
8 The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.
14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.

Psalm 19 :14 says “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. This is in the context of wanting to be pure and righteous before God. In Psalm 19 verse v1 to 12 or 13 talks about the law of the Lord’s perfect restoring the soul. You can never be meditating on the things that are pleasing to God if you don’t experience the restoration of the soul.

How does the restoration of the soul happen? It happens because the law of the Lord is perfect. Because it is perfect it can help to remove the dirt and the resistance and darkness of our soul. They’ll be restoring my soul. He also goes to say the testimony of the Lord is pure making wise the simple. All these are pointing to the restoration of the soul.

V18 says the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. Do you know that by meditation upon the word of God it would make our hearts rejoice? We will rejoice because our hearts which have been wrong , and now by the precepts of the word of the Lord we are made right. When we read the word of God , it causes our hearts to rejoice. When our hearts rejoice, it’s so easy to be pleasing to the Lord not just in external actions, but in the meditation of our thoughts. Our emotional joy will have a chain reaction to our thought life, because its just so beautiful and wonderful the Word of God.

Thought life can be the most dangerous and lethal because it is unseen. It needs to be cleansed, purified by the precepts and the word of the Lord. Verse 8B states the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. That’s another beautiful word for enlightening our eyes. That means our eyes are dull normally, and therefore we cannot see and perceive the beauty of the word of God and therefore our heart never rejoices. But now the word of the Lord is pure it has the power to enlighten or open our eyes. All this is powerful.

They are more desirable than gold than pure gold sweeter than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. What else do we want? The psalmist David says mostly in verse 12 and 13 who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. David goes into the deep level of his hidden life and hidden thoughts. And ask that God keeps him from presumptuous sins and let not them rule over him.

Do you know that sins can rule over you? By such prayer we will finally be liberated to have the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. Amen.

This is a question of whether charismatic members have high turnover in church in the typical scenario. Having a conversation discussion with my professor today, the question was asked do we give consideration to the signs and wonders of the charismatics for evangelism’s apologetics etc? The answer is charismatics typically have high turnover of membership though leadership stay stable over the years. And because of the high turnover of membership there’s a concern for this type of church.

The reason for this high turnover of membership, is that there is a lack of sufficiency in the depth of the teaching of doctrinal truths. Because of that membership swing from one church to the other in search of the one that would truly satisfy them. This really got me thinking. I’m intrigued on the accuracy and the reality of that observation statement. I do see and agree that there is a general lack of the depth of the teaching of the word of God or doctrinal truths but I didn’t know there is a high turnover of the membership. So this is a real concern for charismatic churches while they have this great exuberant expression of worship with high energy for the Lord, the foundation of it all is the doctrinal truth or the teaching of the word of God.

I’m reminded of the book called Creedal Imperatives by Carl Trueman, having not read myself, however I have read some of the recommendations for this book. Essentially creed is a set of teachings that have been passed down for generations from our spiritual forefathers in the past. Creedal imperatives is urging churches to really look to the creed that has been established for us, so that we don’t have to reinvent the wheels so to speak. The call to affirm foundational truth of the doctrinal revelation from the Canon, that has been established since the early day fathers, like Athanasius, Augustine Calvin etc. the great spiritual giants who have gone before us, fought a good fight, defeated the heretical factions, and triumphed over them. They rose up to the occasion like the defense of the trinitarian God by Athanasius was just outstanding. Augustinians exposition of the Trinitarian God is amazing. Augustine’s teaching on the city of God exposes the weakness, vulnerability and selfishness of the city of man, the cause of downfall at that time the city of Rome. But the city of God coming will be the one that gives us hope that drives us to the ideal theocratic eternal joyful Kingdom of God that is coming. A lot of which is to be studied.

A church without creed is standing on flimsy ground, exposed to whims and fancies of leadership at the time in the church. Creed established the foundational truth that we follow. I feel a lot more secured if a church has the foundational creed established not from the leadership in the church but rather from 1500 years ago or 1700 or 1800 years ago. Creeds are great, like the Apostles creed, like the Nicene creed that established the Trinitarian God which is absolutely important and hugely profound as we defeated the Arians, with Augustinian help as well.

Moving forward to solve the problem of high turnover of our of membership we need to establish some good creedal teaching in the church. We need to go back to the creed to enlighten our people, into nourishing them and to feeding them. Like Jesus said ‘feed my sheep.’ The reason people float around churches having high turnover is simply they are not satisfied with the spirit of truth with the truth of God being preached. Basically they’re hungry spiritually. For people to grow healthily they should be rooted in one community, where they can receive nourishment to continue to grow and not just some imperatives telling them to do ministry all the time. The motivations to serve must be the Lord. God is the first causation of all. People are exhausted. People needs their creedal truth anchored in the person of Christ.

 A great example of the creed is the Westminster’s Confession which is thoroughly insightful foundational anchoring giving the truth like the inerrancy of the word of God, the simplicity of God, the first causation of God  etc. etc. All these have been established, and would require no more effort for us to dig into them. All we need to do is to capture this teaching and teach it to our folks so that they are anchored in the House of God.

I strongly urge many charismatics to embrace and look into creedal teachings and foundations. To look into Reformed Theology that shook the Vatican in Germany when Luther proclaimed that “I won’t recant, for my conscience is upon the Word of God, and to do otherwise will be wrong”. That challenged the Pope and birthed the Reformation movement. When John Calvin wrote the Institute of the Religion he broke new ground ,he brought it amazing insight systematic theology that revels the teachings of God’s word and function as  the anchors for our souls.

We should go for the best in God and not just the leftovers. The Lord bless you. Amen.

Romans 8:26 says in the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness where we didn’t know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans and he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. 26           In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words;

That groaning cannot happen unless you really going through a time of soul searching. And soul searching will not happen without a time of challenges of hardship. And that’s why there is tremendous power in the time of hardship. If we let that experience slip by, we will miss a tremendous opportunity of God doing some deep work in our lives. Example the word of God talks about God who loved us and predestined and called us according to his purpose so that God will conform us to the image of his son. And then it goes on to say those he predestined, he called, he also justified, and he also glorified.

V28-30 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

You see how beautiful this is? That is the process how God makes someone beautiful and glorious. The process starts from predestination and then the effectual call of God and then the justification of God and finally the glorification of us. All these point towards glorification. The goal is we become more and more conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, and when that happens ,it will be the most beautiful, glorified person.

That glorification can never happen without predestination, justification and calling. But even with all this, no one can experience that process until that groaning happens. That groaning by the Holy Spirit in prayer is what we need to go through in our weakness. Romans 8:26 says the Spirit helps us in our weakness. Without weakness no one can experience God. Only through weakness in our crying out to God, the Spirit will come in and help us in our weakness. How does this help us? The Spirit prays with groanings too deep for us to understand.

That groanings I wanted to take it to a step further and connect that with our weakness. No one can groan without a weakness. They go hand in hand. It’s almost like weakness is the design of God for him to put in him the new craft of God.

Look at Moses, he was full of himself as the Prince of Egypt. He thought he was the savior of the Jewish people in Egypt in the time of slavery. He never experienced the weakness he needed, but when God came into his life, God threw him into the wilderness to expose him to humble him and to transform him in the wilderness. By going through that process, Moses truly existentially went through a time of real weakness in his life. It is at that low point of life, he encountered God. He saw the burning bush and his life is never the same anymore but he would not have come to that without a long process of humbling and weaknesses. That’s the way how God works.

The thing is when we are doing well somehow we just not that close to God. The maturity in God is when we are doing well and yet we even press in to be closer to God. That’s where we should aim for!

Jesus says “feed my sheep”. God’s people need to be taught and trained the scriptures of the word of God so that they be edified, encouraged and strengthened. That can happen when people of God is transformed when the preacher or the pastor is transformed and glorified. And non-glorified preacher will not produce a glorified congregation. We all need the process to be glorified by God. Amen.

Genesis 1:26–27 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”           27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

God said, “Let us make man in our image”. God didn’t say “Let me create man in my image”. Interesting! Isn’t it? This is the first revelation of God as the Trinity God, meaning 3 persons one God. One of the most mysterious doctrine of Christianity. It has enormous implications which I will describe below. No religion in the world has 3 persons in One God. One God religion is Monotheism. That will includer Islam etc., but only Christianity has 3 persons in one God. But that precisely stumbles a lot of people.

John 1: 1-2 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. ⁴ In him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Did you see that? In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God! This is saying God was with God, linguistically speaking. But in reality, it’s the Son was with the Father, and they are God. Trinitarian God doctrine is immense. In fact without a Trinitarian God, there could be no love in this world. Because God the creator of this world had no one to love and be loved, as its just him. A very lonely God indeed! But Christianity shows us the God of Christianity has 3 persons loving one another from all eternity, and when he created the world, he simply shared his love with us. Or they shared their love with us. They didn’t have to learn how to love because God is love. But you can’t say that for any other religions.

The other concept is diversity and unity. How a monotheism one person God will not appreciate that as he all alone before human’s creation. So only in Christianity our God has that diversity and with true unity. And we as his creations are called to reflect his image, as we are created in his image, that diversity and unity is just part of us. And today that concept is actually from the God of Christianity. And same goes for Love, as we learnt love from our God, who had loved one another from all eternity.

Tethered with that is the social slogan of “tolerance” today which is proclaimed all over the world. You really can’t have tolerance when you are screaming for it, and in the process of it, shutting down those who differ from your opinion. In the process of doing that, you are not tolerant yourself. Calling others not being embracing and tolerant, is actually being intolerant. That’s not the case with the Trinitarian God, who has in a worshipful, joyful, delightful, loving and enjoying one another’s presence from all eternity. They don’t even need to proclaim tolerance, or intolerance, they merely go by who they are by themselves, which is what we called the simplicity of God, which means God never changes, h what he says is what he does. There is no hiccup per se. No changes. His words are eternal. The whole idea of tolerance can only be achieved within the framework of the righteousness of God. When we meet his righteousness, there is no such thing as intolerant. Racism will be thrown out of the window because that will not be the righteousness of God, so tolerance or not, doesn’t even arise. God will not tolerate sins, so shall we not. We love one another to build one another up. Rebuke in love, for the glory of God. With God in the center of our lives, marriage, career, jobs, relationship, we will always be strong and be held by stead hands from above.

Amen.

Rationalism considered itself sure of God’s existence and attached but little value to knowledge of his being. It is as if people had lost all sense of the majesty and grandeur of God. Disregarding all called metaphysical questions, people rushed on to do the will of God in order to do to know and to do it.—(Herman Bavinck Reformed Dogmatics, Vol 2, p 41)

Rationalism give little value to God’s being, they only want God’s will and ethics. That is the downfall of religions without God. The downfall of all pantheism, atheism, liberal theology, because you get to know the will of God, the ethics, but not knowing the God himself. Denying the transcendent God in all these, we will find ourselves floating in an ocean of lostness, and total despair.

This is incredibly similar to why many evangelical Christians preachers’ pastors dived right into the applications of doing the will of God, without understanding first the metaphysical questions of who God is, and what He does, and His calling for us.

Jesus says, no one can come to me except those whom my father called him or her. He also said that our greatest command is to love the Lord with all our hearts and minds.

Mark 12: ³⁰ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’^[a] 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[b] There is no commandment greater than these.”

How can we rush into doing something for God, without knowing him better first? How can we love him if we don’t know him enough? We can only love him to the extent we know him. And yet, we are inundated with sermons calling us straight to serve God, be bold, have faith in God, etc. etc., without going deep into God first and foremost.

Paul says I pray that you may know him and the love of Christ:

Eph 3: ¹⁴ For this reason I bend my knees before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom ^[m]every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, ¹⁶ that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner ^[n]self, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may be able to comprehend with all the ^[o]saints what is the width and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to all the fullness of God.

Paul prayed with his knees bent, asking that God may grant us strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit that we may be rooted in Christ’s love, and be able to comprehend the width, length, and height and depth of the love of Christ for us!! Which surpasses all understandings.

Paul wants us to know Christ, the love of Christ!

Knowing precedes doing. I believe that! Charismatics church upbringings in me, has caused me to be exposed to all these, but never the depth of the ontology and being of the Trinitarian God, until I am exposed to great reformed preaching’s and now in the seminary. I feel many are short-changed. They rushed into applications of sermons, without knowing the reasons of that application, the motivations. Example: We should go to church planting. Why? Because of Matt 28 the Great Commission. But why the Great commission? Because of whom Jesus is, and what he has done for us. All these…

It’s like we jumped into engineering without understanding the physics of it all.

I liked this term so much when I heard it preached by Tim Keller in his sermon on marriage. I have not heard such metaphoric illustration on marriage of a Christian married a non Christian or someone by name Christian. But it won’t apply if you yourself is a nominal Christian, as that would require a separate conversation.

What does that mean exactly? 

Not Good for Man to be Alone 
This is from God. God created Adam and let him rule over all the creations and name them all. 

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs

The man Adam had all the power to name animals etc but there was not a helper suitable for him. Suitable. Do you think this is what we call compatible relationship? When a Christian looks for a girlfriend/ boyfriend, does that suitable word come to mind? What you think as suitable must be scrutinized by the holy scriptures of God. Adam looks around and found no one suitable . He feels lonely. And God knows it. He said it’s not good for the man to be alone. He needs a helper. So God did this amazing miraculous work by putting Adam to sleep then miraculously pulled out a rib bone to create a woman. It’s to be noted that God created a man initially this way: Genesis 1:26

Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.” So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

It says here God created man and woman. That’s a big brush but the details comes in chapter two when God pulled out a rib from Adam and created Eve. So when God created Adam, 

Genesis 2 V18 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. And the LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “At last this is bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called ‘woman,’ Because she was taken out of man.”

Woman was made out of a man. Adam said Eve is flesh of his flesh, and then God said the man shall leave his parents and become one flesh. That’s exactly what they were to begin with . Man and woman were one flesh. One flesh is the will of God the will of Gods creation. The beautiful creation of God is one flesh . 

We must get back to one flesh on a marriage. When God brought Eve to Adam, that is the first marriage in the universe. 

One Flesh

Genesis 2: 23-24Then the man said, “At last this is bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;She shall be called ‘woman,’Because she was taken out of man.”
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

This one flesh must be initiated by God. And it’s between the opposite sex. God’s original plan is a man and a woman. Different genders.

Finally you can’t be one flesh if you have a spouse who doesn’t believe in Christ or Christian by name. Then you would end up putting Jesus in the suburb when you live in the city. One flesh means you share everything in life permanently and legally. Thats really the vow a couple takes in marriage, the old vow. But its powerful. Thats really the meaning of One Flesh, sharing all of your life, being vulnerable and open and helping to sanctify one another.

Ephesians 26 ²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, ²⁶ so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ that He might present to Himself the church ^[q]in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. ²⁸ So husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. 

As Christ sanctifies the church as the bridegroom, husband is to sanctify the wife and cleanse her with the word of God, so that she would be holy and blameless. This is a high call for the husband. But who can speak right into husband’s life or wife’s life apart from his/her spouse? That’s why sanctification can happen in the right marriage dynamics like nothing else.
All these can only happen, if we have Jesus’ right in our marriage, i.e. Jesus must be with us and not put in the suburb when live in the city, or the other way round.