The Right to Choose

The right to choose is a real a weighty thing.

I choose what I do with my body. That is a great and valuable entrustment.

What difference do those choices make?

There are huge and far-reaching effects.

If I choose to act in compassion, considering others' interests and not just my own, the effects of my choice will be significant. Others will be changed in response to my choice.

If I choose to act in anger, selfishness, or pride, there are consequences to those choices as well. Though I have the right to choose, I cannot manage or control all the results of that choice. There are many factors outside of my control. In addition, the choices I make shape the course of my life and the direction of others. The choices I make matter.

If I choose to harm others with my body, that choice bears fruit. If I should choose to harm my 7-year-old, it would be a terrible and culpable decision. He has certain rights, because he is made in God's image and his body is not my own. Where my choices impact others, there is more to consider than just my own rights.

I also have a 10-month-old baby. He is much smaller than my 7-year-old. He is much more dependent. In fact, he depends on me for nearly all of his care. He doesn't contribute very much to our household, from the standpoint of utilitarian value. His presence impacts my own responsibilities in great ways. It is possible that my own health or sleep or employment may be affected because of the interconnected bonds of our lives. That impact does not mean that his body is under my jurisdiction, that I may do to it what I please. To assert such, to misuse his body in any way, is called abuse, and it is a horrifying reality. That I am stronger than he, more capable than he, more productive than he does not give me permission to use my body to harm him without repercussion.

Slightly more than 10 months ago, my baby was within me. His DNA was the same as it is now. His precious little nose had the same shape. His tiny fingers (already chubby!) had their own unique fingerprint. His little heels jabbed me in the ribs, quite aside from any impulse or effort of my own body.

About 8 months and 8 days earlier than that, his heart was already beating on its own.

Let us not imagine that the decisions I made with my body, the choices I had and have the right to make, were less significant in their consequences on his body than they are now. Nor, in the sight of God, do those decisions have any less weight of responsibility.

That may seem quite a burden. Who of us has perfectly stewarded the right to choose without error? Some have made choices that ended the lives of others. Maybe the others were very tiny and still within their body. Maybe the others were living independently. Some have made choices that did not harm the physical lives of others but harbored anger and hatred for them internally. In a crushing insight, God has said that the heart reality behind anger is the same as behind murder (Matthew 5:21-22). I am guilty. And the hard truth is that my guilt has earned me a consequence. Before a holy God, I have earned death (Romans 6:23).

But this grim, sweeping sentence is not the end of the story. In a shocking move, the Righteous Judge, God Himself, made a choice. He chose to send His only Son, the beloved Son, sent as a helpless baby into His own creation. He lived perfectly but was betrayed. He was judged innocent (John 19:4), yet handed over to death. He could have been delivered (Matthew 26:53), but He chose to give His life. And like a divine exclamation point, God raised Him from the dead to show that the exchange was complete, that the way was opened for us to be made right with God, to receive by faith the perfect record of the Son and by His death the penalty for our sin be paid (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Easter morning dawns tomorrow, reminding us of this cosmic invitation, to trust in One who chose not to be served but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many. I pray you find eternal joy and comfort in Him, whatever choices you have made before. He is worthy.



 

The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ

For several months I have been picking my way through Philippians. Today I'm at the very last verse:

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. (Phil. 4:23)

"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ."

What is this grace?

I would say it is the grace He purchased dying on the cross for us.

We deserved hell, and the only way God could give us anything better and still be a just God is if the punishment were taken by a perfect substitute.

There was certainly no perfect substitute in this world. Just a planet full of deceivers, self-centered cravers, haters, and comfort worshipers.

So God sent God into the world, His Son, a little, helpless, bloody baby. He didn't get the welcome He deserved. He got the welcome typical of a bunch of self-centered haters and idolaters.

He lived 33 years, not easy years.

For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. (Is. 53:2).

He did not catch our eye, since He did not have good looks, a winsome way of spinning popular opinion, or a magnetizing persona. He had God's own perfection--which we found unimpressive and non-compelling.

He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. (Is 53:3)

We esteem the charmed life. We love to look at--and covet--those whose fortunes fall to them sweetly. We'd prefer to ignore a tragic story, lest it be contagious and we catch it. If we do notice, we offer one diagnosis: he got what he deserved.

Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted (Is. 53:4).

Truth be told, He got what we deserved. He joined our broken world and absorbed in Himself all the shards of pain and punishment that should have sliced through us.

But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. (Is. 53:5-6)

What a staggering cost for this grace. What an immeasurable purchase.

At the cross, the written record of our debts against a holy God were pinned on Jesus.

And at the resurrection, God blazened "Paid in Full" across that note.

Then the second half of grace comes in.

Where God looks at us cloaked in the cape of Christ's own goodness.

His charity.
His patience.
His zeal for God's name.
His tenderness to the needy.
His gladness.
His humble service.
His loyalty to the Father.
His self-forgetfulness.
His quiet receiving of God's will.
His ceaseless prayer.
His true care for others.
His peace.
His faithfulness.
His self-control.
His tremendous courage.

Applied to us in Christ.

And we are accepted, welcomed in, adopted, granted full access to the throne.

Never treated as we deserve ever again.

Destined for a future of God's matchless power bent toward us for our good, in a demonstration of His glory.

...so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2:7)

This is a mighty grace.

And for those in the Lord Jesus Christ, it is with us, to our very heart of hearts.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. (Phil. 4:23).

Amen.

Lo, I Come

Read this in 365 days with Spurgeon Vol. 6 this morning (it's yesterday's text):

Mr. Moody tells a story, which I would fain hope may be true; for one would like to hear something good about a Czar of Russia, and especially about our once enemy, the Emperor Nicholas. The story concerns a soldier in the barracks who was much distressed by his heavy debts.

He was in despair, for he owed a great deal of money, and could not tell where to get it. He took a piece of paper, and made a list of his debts, and underneath the list he wrote, "Who will pay these debts?" He then lay down on the barrack bed, and fell asleep, with the paper before him. The Emperor of Russia passed by, and, taking up the paper, read it, and being in a gracious mood signed at the bottom, "NICHOLAS."

Was not that a splendid answer to the question? When the soldier woke up and read it, he could scarcely believe his own eyes. "Who will pay these debts?" was the despairing question. "Nicholas" was the all-sufficient answer. So are we answered, Who will bear our sins? The grand reply is "JESUS." He puts his own name to our liabilities, and in effect, that he may meet them, he says, "Lo, I come."

Your debt of sin is discharged when you believe in Christ Jesus. "Without shedding of blood is no remission;" but the blood of Jesus Christ, God's dear Son, cleanseth us from all sin. You are not now to bear your own sins. Behold the scape-goat, who carries them away into the wilderness! Yea, Jesus says, "Lo, I come!" He takes our sins upon himself, he bears their penalty, and we go free. Blessed word—"Lo, I come": I come to take your weight of sin, your burden of punishment. I come to be made a curse for you, that you may be made the righteousness of God in me.

Sinner, stand out of the way, and let Jesus appear for you, and fill your place! He sets you on one side, and then he sets himself where you have been. Jesus is now the one pillar on which to lean, the one foundation on which to build, the one and only rest of our weary souls.

Isn't that a good thought with which to start the day?

The whole sermon is available here.

What's Wrong With Revenge?

We’ve all had wrongs done to us and felt the struggle against responding vengefully or letting bitterness taint a relationship in the future.

In Genesis 50, when Jacob finally dies, Joseph’s brothers realize that they have lost their fatherly buffer against the wrath of their wronged brother. They spin an ill-concealed little white lie, saying that Jacob charged them to tell Joseph to forgive them, when he was gone.

A humbling response:

“But Joseph said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place?”

Holding a bitter, unforgiving heart is setting myself in God’s place.

God is God. He has purposes in evil that can produce great good … and He has promised that evil will never go unanswered. It will receive its fullest recompense—on the wicked or on His Son, in their place.