Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God—the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake. And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you.  I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong—that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.

–Romans 1.1-12 (NIV)

Three things jump out at us in today’s passage. In ancient times, it was the custom of letter writers to introduce themselves at the beginning of the letter and here in Paul’s introduction of himself to the church at Rome, we see some helpful encouragement as we pursue our Lenten disciplines.

First, Paul reminds us that the Gospel originates from God; it is not some made-up human concoction. In putting the Gospel in its historical context, Paul also reminds us that the Gospel is not some new thing that God has conjured up. No, the Good News of Jesus is the culmination of God’s eternal plan to bring healing and redemption to his broken and rebellious people through Israel. What Paul is essentially telling us here is that God did not wake up one day and decide that the old covenant was no longer working and that he’d better try something else. No, the Gospel is the culmination of the old covenant that God had made with his people Israel and fulfilled by himself in Jesus, God become man.

Moreover, because the Gospel is God’s, this immediately confronts us with a choice that we all must make. Are we going to believe what God has told us and accept his gracious gift offered to us in Christ, and him crucified, or are we going to continue to be stubborn and bull-headed and reject the Good News God offered to us freely? If the Gospel really does originate from God, then we ignore it at our own peril because by rejecting it we are essentially calling God a liar.

And if the Gospel originates from God, then we can also expect it to be endlessly rich and deep. We will never be able to fully plumb its depths because who can fully plumb the mind of God? What this means for us on a practical level is that there will always be new insights and understandings that can be gleaned from the Gospel, but not in ways that deny or contradict the faith once delivered to the saints. In other words, we’ll never get bored with it. We don’t have to make up new stuff to keep us satisfied when we reflect on the Gospel.

Second, Paul reminds us why the season of Lent is necessary for us. We are God’s called-out (holy) people, but there is that within us that will stubbornly resist our call in Christ. We are made holy in God’s sight through the blood of Christ shed for us and by virtue of our baptism in which we share Jesus’ death (Romans 6.3). But the Gospel is about more than just forensics (being put right in God’s sight so as to avoid his wrath). We are made holy by Jesus’ death and we become like him by his Presence living in us so that we can follow and imitate him as agents of his redeeming love to his broken and hurting world.

This, then, reminds us why we must pursue our Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, self-denial, reading Scripture, and confession/repentance. We are doing our part to respond faithfully to God’s gift of Jesus offered freely to anyone who has the good sense to accept it. We are putting to death that in ourselves that hampers the very Presence of Jesus in us as he works to heal and transform us into his very image. We can only do this with the help of Jesus living in us and we engage in the Lenten disciplines not to engage in introspective navel gazing but to embody Jesus’ Presence and healing power to a world that desperately needs him. In other words, we pursue our Lenten disciplines to help us be more faithful to Jesus’ call to us to be his Kingdom workers. We pursue our Lenten disciplines to help us grow in our faith, which must always express itself in the actions of self-denial and loving service to others.

What a wondrous opportunity this is for anyone who wants to make a difference in his or her life! Christ in you, the hope of glory! (Colossians 1.27).

Last, Paul reminds us that the season of Lent is meant to be observed together as Christ’s body, the Church. Why? Because we are weak and fallible. It is quite easy for us to fall away from practicing our acts of self-denial, cross-bearing, and following Jesus. It is not easy putting to death that within us that is killing us by keeping us hostile to God. Self-denial is not an easy thing to pursue and as we have seen, it is impossible if we do not have the Holy Spirit living in us to help us in our weakness. But he also helps us through the presence of other believers because he knows we need the human touch. We need each other for support, strength, and encouragement. The Christian life was never intended to be lived alone as individuals. It is a life that we are called to live together. We see this clearly in Paul’s letter when he reminds us that we are God’s called out (holy) people and in his tacit acknowledgment of the human condition. Despite the fact that he was called by Christ himself to be an Apostle, Paul acknowledges that he too needs to be strengthened and supported by fellow believers. Likewise for us today.

Here then are two compelling reasons to pursue our Lenten disciplines. In Jesus, God has acted decisively for us to end our estrangement from him. He has done so not because of who we are but because he loves us and created us to have a relationship with him. As with any relationship, when one party is rebellious and/or stubbornly willful, the relationship suffers and will be ultimately destroyed if something isn’t done to reconcile the two parties. Second, we are responding to God’s gracious call to us to be his holy people. In doing so we have the wondrous opportunity to embody Jesus so that others can be introduced to his breath-taking love for the human race. Last, we have the help and support not only of God himself through the Power and Presence of the Spirit, but also through the very body of Christ himself, the Church. As we observed earlier, the Christian faith is not about self-help because we acknowledge that on our own power we are helpless to be the creatures God created us to be. We need the help of Christ and each other as we grow in grace.

The Gospel is God’s Gospel. Have you decided to believe that it is and follow Jesus? If so, remember that you do not have to follow Jesus alone. You have help sufficient for every task. If you have not yet decided to follow Jesus, what are you waiting for? The ride of your life awaits you and the season of Lent is an appropriate place to begin!

For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

–John 3.34-36

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

–Hebrews 4.13-16 (NIV)

This week we have been looking at some hard truths about the human condition and the devastating and deadly consequences it has on our relationship with God. We have seen that a healthy understanding of the human condition is necessary for anyone who wants to be reconciled to God because it opens us up to the possibility of God’s grace. This reality is affirmed by both John and the writer of Hebrews in today’s passages, quite explicitly in John’s Gospel and more implicitly in Hebrews. But both passages don’t stop at the hopelessness of the human condition. Both announce the wondrous Good News of God’s offer of reconciliation through Jesus.

We have also seen that engaging in the necessary Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, Scripture reading, self-denial, and confession/repentance is hard work. Any way you cut it, the season of Lent is not particularly a fun time nor is the work pretty. Nevertheless, our Lenten journey is essential if we ever hope to deny ourselves, take up our cross each day, and follow Jesus.

But as today’s passages also remind us, we do not have to try to engage in the Lenten disciplines on our own. We have help from multiple fronts. We have help from God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and with help like that, we need not fear failing in our efforts at putting to death the selfish and rebellious parts of ourselves that keep us hostile to and alienated from God.

We have help from God the Father who desires that all humans be saved and who condescended to become human in the man, Jesus, to atone (make amends) for our sins by dying for us on the cross so that we would not have to bear the awful consequences of God’s holy wrath on us. As John reminds us today, without Jesus’ atoning death on the cross, we humans are without hope because each one of us is a hopelessly fallen person. But it is to God’s glory that we also have a loving God who knows our predicament and who has acted decisively on our behalf to bring about our healing and restoration through Christ. If we take this truth seriously, it will inevitably help us deny ourselves because we are honest with ourselves about our inability to fix ourselves.

As the writer of Hebrews reminds us today, in addition to God the Son’s atoning sacrifice on the cross, we also have Jesus’ help as our great High Priest. As our High Priest, we have confidence that the risen Christ has ascended into God’s direct Presence and is interceding for us in our weaknesses. He is able to do so because God became human and experienced the human condition to the fullest, with the critical exception that he did not sin. This should be tremendously comforting to anyone who takes his or her relationship with God seriously and who has suffered setbacks and reversals in his or her faith journey. Why? Because if God did not love us and seek to have our relationship with him restored, he would not have acted decisively on our behalf nor would the Son be praying for us right now to the Father. By praying for us, Jesus is practicing what he preached about love, forgiveness, and mercy, and his prayers on our behalf are not ineffectual. What a wondrous gift it is for God the Son to be praying on our behalf constantly! As you pursue your Lenten disciplines, take heart, comfort, and hope that you have God the Son, our great High Priest, praying for you, interceding on your behalf so that you can do your part in restoring your relationship with God.

Last, we have the help of God the Holy Spirit, whom God sends to live in us to heal us and transform us into the beings God created us to be. The Spirit helps us in our weakness and his living Presence in us gives us the tremendous privilege of embodying Jesus so that we can take his healing love and redemption to others in the context of our daily lives. As the NT writers make clear, we are thoroughly infected with sin and getting rid of it can only be accomplished by God himself. This won’t happen overnight nor will it be complete in our mortal lives, but this doesn’t change the fact that God the Holy Spirit is living in us, strengthening us in our human weakness, and transforming us to become truly human. As you struggle with your Lenten disciplines, don’t forget that you have the very Presence of God the Holy Spirit in you to help you overcome your brokenness and weaknesses.

All this reminds us in very powerful ways that we have a God who is passionately in love with us and who wants us to love and enjoy him forever. As we have said here before, the Christian faith is not about self-help. It is about God’s help because it is about God’s Holy justice and love for us, and if this does not excite the desire in you to respond to God’s gracious love for you, I don’t know if anything ever can. With God’s help for and Presence in us, no wonder “don’t be afraid” is the most common exhortation in the Bible!

This Lenten season as you struggle with denying yourself, taking up your cross, and following Jesus, take heart and hope. Lent is a difficult season but we are not asked to engage in it alone. We have the very Power and Presence of God himself: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. What a wondrous and gracious gift! Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. To him be honor and power and glory forever!

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

–John 3.16-21 (NIV)

In the last couple of days we have been looking at some very hard stuff. We’ve been looking at the human condition and our hopeless plight without radical intervention and help. If you’ve read my last couple of posts, it would be easy to think that Scripture focuses on nothing but the dark and ugly. You might even think that guilt is the necessary basis for forming a relationship with God. But that would be a mistaken interpretation. Scripture points out the hopelessness of the human condition, not because God hates us or wants us to go through life feeling guilty all the time, but because God loves us and wants us to open our eyes to the reality of our condition so that we can do our part with his help to end our rebelliousness and begin to really live.

In today’s passage we find one of the best known verses in all of Scripture: John 3.16. John reminds us that God loves us and wants us to have life with him, starting right here and now. But because he loves us, God will never force that on us. As Jim Packer observes, out of apparent love and respect for humans, God allows us to choose whether we want to spend life with him or without him. Talk about respect for human dignity!

This is what makes observing the Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, reading Scripture, confession/repentance, and self-denial so important for those of us who love God and want to accept his life-giving offer to us in Jesus. As John points out in the rest of today’s lesson, there is much in us that would prevent us from coming to the light of Jesus because our fallen human nature prefers the darkness so that our deeds will not be exposed. Precisely because we understand the wretched state of our human condition, we focus on putting to death our fallen nature so that we can live in Christ’s light. It is hard work and it spans far beyond the physical season of Lent. Neither can we engage in the Lenten disciplines without the help of the Spirit living in us.

But none of this stops us. By God’s grace we are awakened to the hopelessness of our fallen nature. This, in turn, prepares us to hear the wondrous Good News of Jesus. Just when we are ready to throw our hands up in utter despair, God speaks to us and reminds us that he loves us and has acted decisively on our behalf by becoming human and allowing himself to be nailed to the cross to bear the just punishment for our hostility and rebelliousness toward him. We are reminded that if we choose to believe in Jesus and follow him, we have infinite hope, the hope of New Creation, and our Lenten disciplines allow us to do our part to help the Holy Spirit transform us into the beings God created us to be.

The Gospel is called Good News precisely because it is rooted in historical events (you can’t have news, good or bad, without an actual event occurring) and the very love of God. It reminds us there is healing for our brokenness, forgiveness for our rebellion, and redemption from our slavery to sin. It is accomplished for us by God himself in Jesus Christ and it is offered to everyone freely because God created us for relationship with him, not to destroy us. During this season of Lent, don’t lose sight of the ultimate prize that is yours in Christ as you seek to deny yourself, take up your cross every day, and follow Jesus. Mourn your sins. But don’t forget why you mourn nor lose sight of the wondrous love of God in Christ that claims you and calls you to a higher calling in the Lord Jesus.

[God said to Moses]I’ve been watching the Israelites, and I’ve seen how stubborn and rebellious they are. So don’t try to stop me! I am going to wipe them out, and no one on earth will remember they ever lived. Then I will let your descendants become an even bigger and more powerful nation than Israel. [Moses said] Fire was raging on the mountaintop as I went back down, carrying the two stones with the commandments on them. I saw how quickly you [Israel] had sinned and disobeyed the LORD your God. There you were, worshiping the metal idol you had made in the shape of a calf. So I threw down the two stones and smashed them before your very eyes. I bowed down at the place of worship and prayed to the LORD, without eating or drinking for forty days and nights. You had committed a terrible sin by making that idol, and the LORD hated what you had done. He was angry enough to destroy all of you and Aaron as well. So I prayed for you and Aaron as I had done before, and this time the LORD answered my prayers. It was a sin for you to make that idol, so I threw it into the fire to melt it down. Then I took the lump of gold, ground it into powder, and threw the powder into the stream flowing down the mountain.
–Deuteronomy 9.13-21 (CEV)

If you do not take sin and the wrath of God seriously, chances are you will never take Lent seriously, let alone the Christian faith. In the west, at least, we have been conditioned to believe the lie of human self-improvement propagated by Enlightenment thinking. In buying the Enlightenment’s now debunked view of human progress, we have elevated ourselves to an unrealistic and unhealthy position before God and forgotten how grievous sin is to our Holy God. Neither is a good thing since both make us blind to the terrible reality of God’s wrath toward us without an adequate solution to turn it away.

Passages like today’s make us terribly uncomfortable, don’t they? They offend our modern senses. We don’t like to think that God sees our sin as ongoing rebellion against him. The thought of an angry God makes us uncomfortable, in part, because we have seen our own anger and it is generally an ugly, ugly thing. We’d rather think of God as being loving and merciful, which of course he is. But God is also perfect, just, and holy. And because he is holy he cannot tolerate sin in his presence and is implacably opposed to it in any form. The holy and the profane simply cannot coexist. However, before we are too critical about this notion, consider this. If you want to live forever in God’s New Creation where there is no death, suffering, or imperfection, you have to rid it of every trace of sin because sin perforce leads to death.

We see this illustrated in today’s story. God has chosen and called out his people Israel to be agents of his redeeming love for God’s broken and hurting world. In this particular context, God is continuing to make manifest his call to his people by bringing them out of their slavery in Egypt and leading them to his promised land where they can get to work on his behalf. But despite God’s mighty deeds and acts, Israel decides that she needs other gods beside God. In making idols, Israel has violated the Prime Directive, so to speak. How can she love God with her whole being if she is worshiping idols? Likewise, how can we?

And lest we think that we are beyond idolatry, think again. Sure, we’ve gotten much more sophisticated in making our idols. We typically don’t build golden calves anymore but we have our idols nevertheless. Money, sex, power, fame, prestige, popularity, and materialism are among those idols we commonly worship today and they take our focus away from loving and worshiping the one true God. That, in turn, arouses God’s anger against us. But why? Is God just a cosmic bully who is out of sorts and cannot take a joke? Is he just some prig who cannot stand to see anybody having a little fun?

No. God’s anger is aroused when we rebel against him because God created us to have a relationship with him, a relationship not of equals but between Creator and his creatures where we love and enjoy him. And because he loves us and wants us to live, when we rebel against him, it arouses God’s wrath against us and puts us in mortal (and eternal) danger.

But this latter notion turns us off. Many of us just cannot accept the notion of a wrathful God. Yet if we think about it for a moment it makes sense. There are not many of us who don’t understand how a rebellious child can incur the wrath of his parents. When parents really love their kids, they want the best for them and when the child continuously rebels against her parents and does whatever she pleases, even if it means bringing her harm, this will typically make the parents angry.

Of course, we have to be careful and not take this analogy too far because God’s wrath is holy and not imperfect as sinful human anger and wrath usually are. But the point remains valid nevertheless. Rebelliousness on the part of the beloved can incur the wrath of the lover, especially when the rebelliousness is destructive and aimed at the lover. If we understand this dynamic in the context of parents and their rebellious children (which is really what sin is in the biblical sense), then why are we incredulous when considering the wrath of God? Do we think that God really does not love us or are we really elevating ourselves to a position of being equal with God? Either way, we are asking for trouble. Denying God’s wrath does not make it any less real.

However, if by God’s grace we are able to develop a healthy theology of God’s wrath, we are now in a position to take Lent seriously because we begin to see the terrible and hopeless plight of the human condition. We understand that without radical help, we are lost and without hope. But of course we do have hope because we believe we have received radical help, and no less from God himself! We have seen the cross of Jesus and we believe that in Jesus’ death, God himself has borne the brunt of his own wrath, satisfying it completely.

All this should stop and make us think about what Lent is all about and why we must observe it. When we have an adequate concept of sin and understand how grievous it is to God–and if we really love him–then we will have real sorrow for all that we have done to demonstrate our rebelliousness toward God. Just like we behave toward our loved ones, at least when we are at our best, we want to behave in ways that are pleasing to God, precisely because we do love him, and are grieved when we do things that we know will both sadden and anger him. And so we try to stop doing those things that we know are displeasing in his sight. In traditional terms, this is called “repentance.”

But you cannot repent if you do not really believe you have done anything wrong in the first place.

I am not talking here about following a bunch of arbitrary rules. Instead, I am talking about keeping the Big Picture in mind of loving God first and demonstrating our love for him by loving others as we do ourselves. Why is the latter important? Because every other human, like us, is made in God’s image and when we act badly toward others, we are therefore acting badly toward God. When we act selfishly and maliciously toward others, we are essentially saying that God’s Image in others really isn’t important enough to be loved and respected at all times. So real repentance, aided by the grace of God’s Holy Spirit living in us, will always involve a reorientation away from our self-centeredness and toward God and others so that we can demonstrate our love for God, in part, by fulfilling the two Great Commandments. This is also why self-denial is emphasized during Lent because it helps us break our self-centeredness.

In sum, reflecting on the wrath of God is never a pleasant thing to do but it is necessary if we are to ever develop a healthy and realistic attitude about the plight of the human condition. Without the radical and healing intervention of Jesus, we humans are destined to live in rebellion and alienation from God forever, and this must incur God’s wrath against us because as we have seen, God cannot tolerate any form of evil or sin.

But neither is it healthy for us to focus exclusively on the wrath of God and the hopelessness of the human condition without also focusing on what God has done about our plight. God wants us to live forever with him. He created us to love and enjoy him forever and he has acted decisively in history on our behalf to end our alienation and exile from him. And here is where it gets really interesting. The more realistic we are about the reality of God’s wrath and his continuing antipathy toward our sin, the more wondrous the cross of Christ becomes because we realize how really hopeless is our plight without the wondrous love and grace of God made manifest in the cross of Jesus. Simply put, when we see sin for what it is and does to us, we are also able to see the cross for what it is and what it has done for us.

All this is worthy of our reflection during this season of Lent. All of this will help us develop a healthy understanding of who we are and who God is, and it will inevitably lead us to engage in a real season of Lent. We will fall to our knees in thanksgiving and awe for the wondrous and costly love of God made manifest in Jesus. We will truly understand the gift we have been given, and this will motivate us to do the things we need to do to deny ourselves, take up our cross each day, and follow Jesus.

This season, may God bless you with the grace of really understanding the wondrous love made manifest in the cross of Jesus Christ.

After the LORD your God has driven out [the indigenous people living in the land] before you, do not say to yourself, “The LORD has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.” No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is going to drive them out before you. It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.

–Deuteronomy 9.4-6 (NIV)

Imagine you are an Israelite listening to Moses giving the nation of Israel (and you) these instructions he has received from God. How would (or did) you react to today’s passage? Did it make you angry? Were you offended? Or were you grateful for the great gift you were about to receive from this wondrous and loving God of yours? How you reacted to this passage will give you keen insight into the extent of the work that faces you during this season of Lent.

If you bristled over this passage or were offended by it, chances are you have a good deal of sinful pride with which you and the Holy Spirit must deal. For you see, God knows the heart and he knew the collective heart of his people, Israel. He knew that their willful pride would delude them into thinking they were being given the promised land because of who they were. After all, being God’s chosen and called-out (holy) people is heady stuff and it is easy to get all puffed up with pride over it.

But that was not why God was giving Israel the promised land. God did not call Israel to be his people because they were deserving. God called them because it was his sovereign will to do so. In other words, God called Israel to be his people because, well, he is God and he can do whatever he pleases. It pleased him to call Israel to be his people through Abraham so that they, in turn, could be agents of his healing and redemptive plan for his broken and sin-sick world.

And lest we are tempted to think that we are different from the ancient Israelites, think again. God continues to call people to faith in Christ because it pleases him to do so, not because of who we are. Christians are no more special in God’s eyes than were his ancient people (or anybody else for that matter) and that is a very humbling thing for us to contemplate.

God’s call to us in Christ is all about who God is, not who we are.

Hence, our sinful pride and our tendency to make it all about ourselves is one of the chief reasons we observe this season of Lent. Lent reminds us that we are not the center of the universe, that the world was not created to serve us nor was it created to be at our disposal. Just the opposite, in fact. God is the center of the universe and we were created to love and serve God, in part, by serving his broken and hurting world. We are called to embody the very Presence of Christ to those we encounter in the context of our daily lives. That’s what it means to deny ourselves, take up our cross every day, and follow Jesus. We find ourselves by losing ourselves to Jesus and that is what the Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, self-denial, Scripture reading, and confession/repentance are all about. They remind us that we have gotten things terribly wrong when we seek to put ourselves in God’s place and worship ourselves instead of him.

The season of Lent is difficult and sometimes painful because we are working hard, with the help of Christ’s Spirit in us, to kill off that in us which prevents us from wanting and having a relationship with the living God. But if we really do want a real relationship with God, it is necessary for us to put to death all the things in us that are hostile to God. And while this is never easy to do, it is the experience of countless others that the hard work of Lenten discipline is some of the best work we can ever do. Why? Because it makes the scales fall from our eyes and opens us up to the reality of the Risen Lord, who loves us and gave himself for us in a terrible and costly act on the cross so that our alienation and exile from him could be ended forever.

The season of Lent is about helping us reorient our focus so that we put first things first. The season of Lent helps put God and us in our respective rightful places where we acknowledge and worship him as our Lord and understand that we are but his creatures who were created to love, adore, and serve him. When that happens, we begin to learn the joy of having real life, life as we were created to have it, and that is nothing to be sneezed at.

During this season of Lent (and beyond), may you be given the grace to turn away from your own self-centeredness toward the Living God. And when that happens, may you also be given the grace and requisite humility to see the gift for what it is as well as the wondrous love and mercy of the One who gave it to you.

Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.

–Deuteronomy 8.11-18 (NIV)

In today’s passage we find another compelling reason to engage in the Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, reading Scripture, self-denial, and confession/repentance. As the Lord reminds his people, Israel, through his prophet, Moses, we humans have the unfortunate tendency to make it all about ourselves.

For example, we all desire health, wealth, and prosperity, and while there is nothing inherently wrong with these things, as Moses reminds us in today’s passage, when things are going our way, we tend to believe we are responsible for that happening. But that is delusional thinking.

No, all of our blessings come ultimately from God. Sure, we have to roll up our sleeves and do our part. We can’t, for example, wish for a better job and then sit at home twiddling our thumbs. We have to engage God in prayer about the kind of work he wants us to seek. Then we must go out and look for that new work and trust that God will help us find it according to his good will for us and in his good time for us.

This is what makes the season of Lent and its attendant disciplines so necessary for us because they tend to counteract our unfortunate tendency to make it all about us. The essence of human sin is that we tend to want to be God instead of submitting to the real God. The Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, reading Scripture, and self-denial remind us to make sure the God we are worshiping is the one true God, not something of our own concoction. Our Lenten disciplines help us, in part, to remember the mighty acts of God throughout the history of his people culminating in Jesus so that we can keep our eyes fixed squarely on him. And this is for our own good. Otherwise, we begin to delude ourselves and think we are actually ultimately responsible for the good things we have in life. “Not so,” says God. “If you want to know the Source of your blessings, you must keep your eyes fixed on me, not on yourself.”

If you are not already doing so, and if you really desire a living and vital relationship with God, then start taking time this Lenten season to transfer your focus to God and away from yourself. When you do, you will find that Jesus really did know what he was talking about when he spoke of finding life in losing yourself (Mark 8.35).

When you begin to focus consistently on God you will find a new depth, richness, and meaning to life that you’ve likely never experienced before because now you are tapping into the strength, wisdom, and power of your Creator and the Source and Author of all life. It is the very strength, wisdom, and power of Jesus, and him crucified. And in him you will discover mercy, grace, and forgiveness that will last you not only for a lifetime but for all eternity.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

–1 Corinthians 1.18-25 (NIV)

You will never see the wisdom of God manifested in the cross of Jesus without going through your own season of Lent. Why? Because without the necessary humbling of self-denial, of confession and repentance, your human pride will inevitably revert back to some form of self-help to repair your broken relationship with God.

But the cross of Christ tells us differently. It tells us we are beyond hope of being fixed by a program of self-help because we are that thoroughly infected by sin. If we are ever to have our relationship with God repaired, if we ever hope to be transformed into the beings God created us to be, we must first acknowledge that we are powerless to fix ourselves and fall on our knees in thanksgiving and humble obedience at the foot of the cross so that we can find God’s forgiveness and be really healed.

We must be humble enough to acknowledge that we can only be fixed by God in Christ through the power of his Holy Spirit working in us. We must be wise enough to believe that God’s wisdom and power are beyond our puny ability to fully comprehend it. And we must have enough faith in God to trust his ways even when we do not fully understand them. Otherwise, we, like the Greeks, will continue to rely on a wisdom that is our own, and at the end of the day, we will perforce find that wisdom to be lacking precisely because it is human wisdom that is fleeting and subject to change. We, like the Jews of Paul’s day, will continue to demand a sign of power and might from God, and we will miss completely the wisdom and power of God made manifest on the cross.

To understand your desperate need for the love and mercy of God expressed in the cross of Christ is the first step toward entering the season of Lent that is necessary if you ever hope to have your relationship with God fully restored. May this season of Lent help open your eyes more fully to the love, wisdom, and power of God made manifest in the cross of Jesus.

Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle toward everyone. At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.

–Titus 3.1-8 (NIV)

In today’s passage, Paul identifies the crux of the issue regarding why we need a Lenten season. It is the human condition. Echoing the account of the Fall in Genesis 3, Paul reminds us that before the gracious intervention of God in Christ, humans and God were alienated against each other. We are foolish and disobedient, enslaved to all kinds of passions and pleasures.

We needn’t look very far in our world today to see that things have not changed since Paul’s day nearly 2000 years ago. Wars and unspeakable cruelty remain rampant. At least in western culture, we appear to be obsessed over sex, money, and power. We are fearful of each other and move with ruthlessness to protect our own little fiefdoms when we think they are being threatened by others. There are extremists who are bent on killing us and who would not hesitate to use weapons of mass destruction on us if given the opportunity. It is not a pretty picture and these are all manifestations of the human condition. When sinful and rebellious people reject and/or ignore God, all hell breaks loose. Literally.

But it is the glorious Good News of Jesus that God has not given up on us. Despite the massive folly that is produced by the human condition, God has acted decisively in our history to end our alienation and exile from him. He has done this through the cross of Christ and he has poured out his Holy Spirit on us as a down payment on this great promise.

For those whose eyes the Spirit opens to God’s Truth in Jesus, this is a wondrous and life-changing process. Powered and animated by God’s Holy Spirit, we realize our desperate and dire straights. We are horrified over our alienation from God, in part, because we realize that when we are alienated from him, we are dead people. There is no life apart from God. Period. That is why the Good News of Jesus is such a mind-blowing and wondrous thing. We realize that despite who we are, that despite our folly, our brokenness, and our rebellion, God loves us and wants us to have a relationship with him starting right here and now and lasting forever. He wants us to have a relationship with him that not even our physical death can break and that is partly what Paul is trying to get us to see in today’s passage.

But we have to do our part to bring about reconciliation to our broken relationship with God. When, by the help of the Spirit, we are able to see the real and terrifying facts of life without God, this typically causes a reaction in us. We want to do something about our fallen nature so that we can respond to God’s gracious love and invitation to us to have life. Part of what we have to do is to tell God we are sorry for all that is in us that is hostile to God and we must really mean it. In biblical terms this is called repentance, the beginning of a real season of Lent for us. But we don’t (and can’t) do any of this by ourselves. We need the help of Christ’s Spirit living in us because only Jesus can change us and help make us become the creatures he created us to be.

This, of course, requires a very healthy dose of humility because the Good News of the cross of Christ has always been an affront to human pride. We bristle at the idea that we cannot fix ourselves, that we need God’s wisdom and power expressed in the cross and through the Holy Spirit to fix us. But if we ever hope to be fixed, if we ever hope to have a real basis in which to enjoy a life-giving and life-changing relationship with God, we must acknowledge that the cross is absolutely necessary, that God has done for us in Jesus what we cannot do for ourselves. In other words, we must indeed humble and deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus. These are the rules God has established and the conditions to which we must submit if we are ever to have any real hope of having life as God intended for us.

But when we do our part, when we submit to the leadership and guidance of Christ in us, our hope of glory (Colossians 1.27), everything changes. When we choose to become disciples of Jesus we have the hope of the glory of the New Creation, when Christ returns and God sets everything aright. You can read about the New Creation, in part, in Isaiah 55, 65-66 and Revelation 21-22.

But there is another dimension to having Christ in us, our hope of glory. St. John’s gospel reminds us that one dimension of Christ’s glorification was his going to the cross and anyone who follows him must likewise take up their own cross. What his means is that if we want to follow Jesus, we must humble ourselves and seek to follow Jesus through our sacrificial and self-giving love and service to others, and Paul gives us a glimpse in today’s passage of what that can look like.

Like Jesus, we are to live peaceable lives. We are to seek healing and reconciliation with our enemies because we understand our human condition and acknowledge that we too are capable of doing wrong toward others. We are to be sin-bearers who are not resolved to take vengeance on those who wrong us. We must not insist on always having things our own way because we understand and acknowledge that we are not the center of the universe. We are quick to forgive and slow to condemn. We are to work to implement God’s Kingdom in the context of our daily lives and situations by embodying Jesus and bringing his healing love to those in need whom we encounter.

And in doing so, we also proclaim  the Good News of Jesus. By our actions we proclaim that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not. By our actions toward others we declare to the powers and principalities of this world that we will not play by their rules, that we are the Lord’s and therefore play by his rules, not theirs. Make no mistake. This is hard work and it will cause us to suffer because the powers and principalities do not like rebellious people and will seek to get us to resubmit to their will for us. But we have the Spirit of Jesus, our hope of glory, living in us, strengthening us to do his will and preparing us to share his glory, both in our suffering and humble service to him and ultimately in the New Creation. Consequently, we needn’t fear suffering for the sake of Jesus, precisely because he reminds us every day that it is through our suffering that we find our glory in him. Cool.

None of this is possible until we get our minds right and acknowledge the plight of our human condition,. None of this is possible without the Power and Presence of Christ in us (the Holy Spirit), our hope of glory. And that is why we need the season of Lent–to help us begin, with the help of Jesus, to get our minds right so that we can start to enjoy life as it is meant to be lived.

When that happens, you will find joy, purpose, and meaning beyond your ability to comprehend or explain. How can you possibly find any of that when you deny your desires to act selfishly? How can you find meaning, purpose, and joy in confession and repentance, in suffering and selfless love and service to Jesus and others? Everything in our culture screams at us that this is impossible, that if we want to be really happy we have to do the things that bring us instant gratification, and it doesn’t matter who we have to hurt or what we have to do to get it.

But that is not what Scripture says. That is not what the Holy Spirit living in us says. And so who are you going to believe? The Lord Jesus or the culture in which you live? Who has the power to raise you from the dead and give you life, both now and for all eternity? Who has demonstrated his jaw-dropping love for you, even when you were ugly and unlovable in his eyes? Who promises you a real hope for glory, the kind of glory that never ends and points others to the Lord Jesus? Who offers you the awesome opportunity to be a Kingdom worker for Christ to be the very embodiment of his love for his broken and hurting world?

Being a disciple of Jesus is hard work, but it is the kind of hard work that you will love doing. You have the very promise of God and the witness of countless other disciples that you are part of something much bigger than you, and which has the ability to satisfy the deepest and best desires of your heart.

The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?” “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.” So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.

–John 1.35-42 (NIV)

Although everyone’s mileage may vary, when we start to take the season of Lent seriously so that we focus on denying the selfish and self-centered parts of ourselves, confessing our sins to God and working hard at replacing our inward focus with an outward focus on pleasing God and serving others, we typically experience God’s renewal, healing, and peace. Not usually all at once, mind you, but gradually and over time the gifts of God’s grace descend upon us and transform us. When we start to really know the love of God in Christ for us, it inevitably changes us and when that happens, we want to share God’s good gifts with others.

Take today’s Scripture lesson, for example. When Andrew and his friend heard John the Baptizer preach about Jesus, they decided to follow him and Jesus invited them to “come and see.” The two did indeed come and see and were so excited and changed by what they saw, at least one of them, Andrew, went immediately to his brother, Simon Peter, to tell him about the good news of finding Jesus the Messiah (God’s holy and anointed one). Andrew’s reaction to finding Jesus is typical for many who have likewise encountered the risen Jesus. We want to share the Good News of Jesus and his healing love with others because when we really do encounter Jesus, it changes our focus so that we take on a new and deeper love and concern for others.

This, then, is one effect that practicing our Lenten disciplines of self-denial, prayer and fasting, and focusing on the Word of God can have on us. It opens us up afresh to the wondrous and healing power and Presence of Jesus and makes us want to go and tell others about him. I am not necessarily thinking about telling others by what we say to them, but rather about telling others about Jesus through our actions, by imitating Jesus in his sin-bearing and sacrificial ways, something that can really catch people’s attention.

Let me give you an example of how this might work using a hot story here in central Ohio. Ohio State’s football coach, Jim Tressel, has recently admitted to not telling his boss about the potential misconduct of some of his players when he originally found out about it, a serious ethical violation as defined by the NCAA. Coach Tressel waited almost 8 months before coming clean with the info he had. As an old football coach, I must confess that I am baffled by why coach Tressel waited so long to come clean–he knows better–and then only apparently after it was brought to the university’s attention by other sources. Coach Tressel is a Christian and I admire him greatly. But in this case I am disappointed and find his explanation for his behavior to be less than convincing.

So what can I do as a Kingdom worker for Jesus? What should be my response to this disappointing behavior? The world’s response, of course, is to call for the man’s head and to show him no compassion whatsoever. Many would condemn him with the implicit assumption that they are better than that and would never be capable of the kind of unethical behavior to which coach Tressel admitted.

But I do not think that is a sin-bearing response. Such a reaction hardly embodies Christ to his broken and hurting world. Instead, a response like that is typically indicative of hubris and sinful human pride.

No, if I were to talk to others about this story (or if I ever had the opportunity to talk with coach Tressel), this is what I would say as a follower of Jesus. I would acknowledge my disappointment over his conduct (not him), but in so acknowledging, I would be quick to remember that I too have not always acted consistently with the standards I hold and profess. I would remember that I am nowhere near being perfect, that I too am capable of doing exactly as coach Tressel did, and this knowledge would certainly temper my response to his situation. In other words, I would be in no hurry to condemn.

Instead, I would have compassion for him and seek to really understand why he did what he did without excusing the unethical behavior. Knowing that I am in desperate need of Christ’s mercy, I would be quick to offer mercy to coach Tressel, provided he showed evidence that he has learned his lesson and repented. And I would seek to restore my trust and confidence in him–gradually, mind you, because restoration of trust doesn’t happen all at once, especially if the trust violated was extremely serious.

If I were talking to others about this, I would demonstrate to them my willingness to meet coach Tressel where he is and to forgive him on the condition I just mentioned. And if I were a friend of coach Tressel’s I would act this way toward him because I have been forgiven by Christ and am willing to help a brother in Christ find that same kind of forgiveness, embodied in how I treat him. In fact, it is vitally important for me that this happens for others. In so doing, I would be providing a witness to Christ and hopefully there would be some who would take notice and want to know more about my reasons for holding this particular point of view.

None of this would be possible without a proper outward and godly focus. None of this would be possible without a proper understanding of the human condition and all that God has done in Christ to address our sin and alienation from him. And none of this would happen without focusing on the Lenten disciplines of self-denial, confession, and repentance because these very things help remind me of exactly who I am and to Whom I belong.

When we take the season of Lent seriously, we open ourselves up to the transformative love and power of Jesus and this helps us embody his love to his broken and hurting world. And as we have seen, when we do, this also presents us with a chance to expose others to the wonderful and healing love of Christ so that they too can enjoy the benefits of having a relationship with the Lord of the universe.

Do you have that kind of relationship with Jesus? Do you know him well enough to want to share Jesus with others by what you do and say? If not, you are missing out on a life-changing relationship and I invite you to take the plunge. Come and see why Jesus is not a way of life but the way of life. You won’t be disappointed. In fact, when you really get to know him, you will want to tell everybody you know about him, and it can all start by taking the season of Lent seriously!

For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.

–Deuteronomy 7.6-9 (NIV)

During this season of Lent we are called to a season of self-denial, of prayer and fasting, and of confession of sin and repentance. Sounds like great fun, doesn’t it? But why would we do that? How we answer this question will make all the difference in the world for us because it will let us know if we really understand the human condition and God’s response to it.

When I was a teenager, my mother would regularly tell me to “remember who you are” before I would go out to hang around with my buddy. She was reminding me to be a Maney with all the responsibility that that entailed. In today’s passage, God reminds his people Israel through the prophet Moses who they are and what God has done for them.

God reminds Israel that they are his called out (holy) people, that he has chosen them to be his agents of redemption for his hurting and broken world. God reminds Israel that he chose them because of who he is, not because of who they are. God also reminds Israel that he loves them and has rescued them from the clutches of slavery so that they can get to work! Just as God has rescued Israel from its slavery, so Israel, as God’s called-out (holy) people, should become God’s light and salt to his hostile and rebellious world. Israel is to keep these two things in the front of their collective mind so that they always remember that God alone is their God and that he is faithful to them forever.

So what does any of that have to do with the Lenten disciplines of prayer and fasting, self-denial, and confession and repentance? Just this. These disciplines help us to take the focus off ourselves and put it on God. We remember that in Jesus, God has rescued us from the darkness of alienation and exile from God, the only Source and Author of life. As long as we are alienated toward God, we do not have life in us. Sure, our mortal bodies are functioning on a biological level, but one day those systems will shut down and then we will dead, alienated from the only One who can raise us from the dead and give us life.

Taking the season of Lent seriously means that we work hard, aided by the help of the Holy Spirit living in us, to get ourselves to the point where we can be Kingdom workers for God. We can follow the example of Jesus and deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him so that he will use us to bring healing and redemption to his world until he returns to finally sets things aright. Denying ourselves means that we are focusing on others. We seek to be agents of Jesus’ healing and reconciliation, not on the basis of our own merits but rather on the basis of his. For you see, like Israel, God calls those who would follow him to be agents of his healing love and redemption. And like God’s call to Israel, we are not to do this solely as individuals but rather together as Jesus’ body, the Church.

Is all this not way too cool? Imagine that. God calls us in all of our brokenness to be his Kingdom workers. Animated and empowered by the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, we are to follow Jesus and become sin bearers to God’s broken and hurting world. We are to be Jesus’ light (a biblical term that refers to God’s Goodness and Presence) and salt (a preservative) to folks who desperately need to meet him (many of whom do not even realize they do!) through us. This means that we are to be peacemakers, even when we do not want to be. It means that we pursue forgiveness and reconciliation with everyone, even the most unlovable among us, even toward those who hate us. It means that we embody Jesus to others in all that we do during the course of our daily lives. All this gives our Lenten disciplines a whole new meaning and purpose!

Are you ready to respond to God’s gracious call to heal and redeem you? Are you willing to follow the One who hung on a cross and died a terrible death for you so that you can extend God’s great love and mercy to others who, like you, desperately need it? If you are–and I pray that you are–it all starts with denying your selfish and self-centered self, and engaging in the recognized disciplines of prayer, Bible study, and fasting to help you get there–the very focus of Lent. As you do, don’t forget to feed and nourish your soul and body by partaking in the sacraments of Christ’s body and blood so that you will not grow weary and faint along the way during this difficult journey.

And as you do all this, remember that while we all must engage in the Lenten disciplines as individuals, you do not do any of this alone. Remember that you have our Lord’s help as well as help from his body, the Church, your fellow believers in Christ, so that you are truly equipped to engage in the ride of your life.