Genesis 1:14-16, Psalm 147:4, Psalm 8:3-4

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Genesis chapter one, verse 14

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. (Genesis 1:14-16)

I’m Pastor Pittenger from Bethany Lutheran Church out in Port Orchard, Washington. And I want to talk to you a little bit about those stars. Nowadays scientists, astronomers, they estimate, it’s an estimate because they can’t count, that there are about one septillion stars in the universe. That’s so number one with 24 zeros after it.

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

So that’s a septillion. Whole lot of stars out there. And stars have been important throughout the history of God’s creation, we use them to navigate both on land and at sea. Because of the stars, people were able to sail over the horizon and find their way to where they’re going or find their way back home. But man, one with 24 zeros after it, we can’t even count that high. We can only estimate that high.

Let me share something else with you. Here’s something I think equally or even more amazing. Psalm 147, verse four, speaking about God. Praise the Lord. The psalm begins, but verse four,

He determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names. (Psalm 147:4)

We can’t even count that high. And yet God has got names for all of them, which is absolutely amazing. And but why should we really care about all this? Now flip over to Psalm eight. Psalm eight, verse three.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him? (Psalm 8:3-4)

When you go outside and look up at the stars, and you see how many there are. And if you look up in a book and find out how big they are. Well, who am I? What am I that God should care about me? I am so small. I am so insignificant. Add my sin to that equation. I’m so unworthy of God’s attention, let alone anything good from him.

Well, the answer to that is found in that phrase the Son of Man. That’s reference to Jesus. Hebrews chapter two makes it clear that Psalm eight is talking about Jesus, who was made, as it says, a little lower than the angels, who that is, who humbled himself. God. God the Son became one of us. He didn’t become a star to save the stars from eventual decay and running out of fuel. He didn’t become a bird to save the birds. He didn’t become an angel to save the angels. But he became man, the Son of Man in order to save us.

So next time you’re outside on a nice, clear night and you look up at those stars, marvel at how many of them there actually are or may be. And when you consider yourself in comparison to them and the seeming insignificance that you might feel. Remember the Son of Man has come to save you. God, who numbers the stars, even names those stars, knows your name. And he’s even given you a new name. A name, the name Christian. You’re named after his son, in whom we have eternal salvation, forgiveness of sins, redemption.

Genesis 24:1-6,9

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The patriarch Abraham was very concerned about the influences on his son Isaac. And you should be very concerned about the influences on your children, too. We read from Genesis chapter 24.

Now Abraham was old, well advanced in years. And the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he had, “Put your hand under my thigh, that I may make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell, but will go to my country and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac.” The servant said to him, “Perhaps the woman may not be willing to follow me to this land. Must I then take your son back to the land from which you came?” Abraham said to him, “See to it that you do not take my son back there. So the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master and swore to him concerning this matter. (Genesis 24:1-6,9)

Abraham is very concerned about who his son marries, and you should be too.

Our culture prioritizes youth in all kinds of ways. We appreciate youth style, youth culture, youth music. But that’s not a given in all cultures, and definitely not in the past. Yes, there is a certain youthfulness and optimism and freshness that older people can benefit from, but by far the weight is generally on what is old and what is established and what is proven. And that past tradition is embodied in elders. People who are older, who have gone through the experiences of youth and are able to help those who are younger, learn to control their passions, learn to temper some of that optimism with a realism that will make them truly effective people in the world.

The Fourth Commandment tells children to honor their father and mother that it may go well for them. Kids, this is a call for you to respect your parents, to take their counsel, even when it doesn’t totally make sense to you as a good counsel born out of love. That will be for your ultimate and long term good. Parents, this is a call for you, like Abraham, to step into that role in a way that our culture would not necessarily encourage you to do. Abraham is very meticulous about who his son marries. This doesn’t just apply to who our children marry. But of course, marriage is one of these most important decisions that will have one of the greatest impacts on their lives.

So Abraham says to his servant, who is going to go source a wife for his son, don’t take a wife from the Canaanites among whom I live. Not only do they have a different culture, but that culture is rooted in worship of false gods, and I don’t want my son going astray spiritually. Instead, go to this place which we know from the rest of scripture was Harran, where some of Abraham’s extended family lived. Go get a wife from there. But he’s also very clear. Don’t let Isaac come with. Because God had promised to Abraham’s branch of the family that not only would Abraham have descendants which would be fulfilled through Isaac, but that he would take possession of this land of Canaan. And the people in the land were for the purpose of providing a blessing to all nations.

This is a promise of Jesus, who would be born almost 2000 years later, yet from this earthly human line. Isaac’s life had a purpose that went far beyond himself and his own wishes and desires. For Abraham, there was no other option. This was the promise of a Savior by which Abraham would make it to heaven. This was the Savior who would sacrifice himself for Abraham’s sins, who in the future had already as certainly provided the righteousness that Abraham needed as God had promised it. Abraham knew this was a case of spiritual life and death, not just for himself, but for the world.

Your children are not going to be in the line of physical descent of the Savior. However, they are going to be the ones to carry the same Savior through whom alone we have peace with God, forgiveness of our sins, and heaven ahead of us. They will be the ones to bring it into the coming generation. They will be the ones to bear it into the future. Be meticulous about who they marry.

There’s the old cliché about the father sitting on the porch, maybe cleaning his shotgun as his daughter brings her first boyfriend home. Kind of a blunt form of intimidation, saying, if you don’t treat my daughter well, watch out. But maybe we need a little bit more of that. Maybe we need parents to be more hands on where the culture tells you to fulfill yourselves, we Christian parents should say, fulfill the purpose and plan of God. Which is a much greater purpose than you could ever come up with on your own. And for your Christian children, they should be inviting their spouse to participate in that purpose with them. Now, this goes far beyond marriage to your children’s friends, the music they listen to, the movies they watch, the social media they engage with. And this shouldn’t be done to stifle them, but instead to support them and help them lean in to the great purpose God has for their lives.

Genesis 1:2

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God has built a training into how life works into every moment of your day. This occurred to me recently, and it occurred while I was studying the Holy Spirit, and that the word that is translated spirit in the Old Testament in the original language is this word ruach. Hebrew is a really fun language. You get to clear your throat all the time. Ruach. You say it with me, Ruach. And it’s a word that literally means spirit or means breath or wind. And so you have this beautiful picture in Genesis one of the Spirit, the ruach of God, the breath of God, hovering, and actually that word too describes like a bird hovers. So here we get this beautiful already an image of the Holy Spirit right there, over the waters. And the breath of God as it’s breathed out is what’s there kind of stirring things up and getting creation started.

So as I was thinking about the breath of God, I realized, what do we have to do each moment of our lives? We have to breathe in.

We won’t live if we don’t breathe in this breath that comes from outside of us. If you hold your breath and try to do it yourself, you don’t get very far. We can’t manufacture breath in and of ourselves. Our very existence is dependent on breathing in something from outside of us. God’s training us every moment that we have to receive life from him. Isn’t it foolish, then, that we have this idea, this tendency to try to do it on our own? But that’s what sin is. Sin is trying to do life to live your own way instead of God’s way, acting like we’re God, not him. That’s what happened with Adam and Eve in the garden. That’s what we do again and again today. I’m going to live life my way. But really, that’s just holding our breath. And while it might work for a bit, it only gets us so far. Doing life for our own way, living like we’re God, it’s a path towards not just sin, but also death and eternity separated from God.

But we have a loving God who has made a way for us to breathe in life again. Jesus came, lived, and died and rose again. He has taken away your sin, your guilt, your shame, everything that separated you from God. He defeated death itself to give you life again. And now the Holy Spirit, the Ruach of God, has breathed new life into you. Spiritual life, the ability to believe in God again, to have life from him again. And he’s even built into our daily life as Christians a new way for us to really practice and exercise this. When you take the Lord’s Supper, the bread and the wine with it, you get the body and blood of Christ. What do you have? The life of God. You are taking it into yourself again.

So today, breathe in. Breathe out.

Think about your breathing. Not too hard, that’s when breathing gets weird. Is when we think too hard about our breathing. But just think about the fact that every moment you have to take in something from outside of yourself. And that’s something, is the life that God has given you. And God today has given you new life through the death and resurrection of His Son, and by the work of the Spirit. So breathe in this life that comes from God, today.

Genesis 22

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In the early 1800s, there was an evangelist by the name of Müller who ran a network of orphanages in England, and it’s estimated that over 10,000 children came and went through those doors. So you can imagine how much food it would take to feed all those hungry mouths. But one day, one of his cooks came to him with some unfortunate news, and he said, we have nothing to give these kids. We have no food. Should we send them away?

And Müller’s response was quite interesting. He said, no, don’t send them away. In fact, get them ready for the meal, set them down, prepare the table and we shall pray and give thanks to God for the meal he is about to provide. It wasn’t long after when the front doors of the orphanage burst open and a baker came through with trays and trays and trays of bread, and he said, God came to me in a dream last night alerting me that you guys would need food today. Soon after that, the door burst open again and a milkman came in and he said, my milk cart just broke down. Can you drink this milk before it spoils? You see, the Lord himself certainly provided for Müller and those orphans on that day.

This reminds me of one of my favorite passages in Genesis. (Genesis 22) It’s the account of where Abraham is commanded to give a sacrifice upon the mountain, but with a little twist, because he’s commanded to sacrifice his own son, Isaac. So as they go up the mountain, Isaac notices. He goes, dad, where? Where’s the animal? For the sacrifice? And Abraham, in a very Müller way, responds. The Lord himself will provide the sacrifice.

See, we examine this text in the Lenten season because it’s so clearly foreshadows the coming sacrifice of Christ upon the cross. You see, in Abraham’s case, God commanded a sacrifice. But in my case, and in your case, our sin, your sin demands a sacrifice. Your sin must be punished. Even that secret sin that you’re so ashamed of, it must be punished.

But instead of God placing you upon the altar to sacrifice you, to punish you for the sins that you committed. The Lord himself provides the sacrifice. Yes, the Lord himself provides the Holy Lamb of God caught in the thicket of the crown of thorns, who goes uncomplaining forth and crawls up upon the altar of the Lord’s own, providing where his blood is shed to atone for my sin. The sins of Abraham and Isaac, and you as well. Your sins are forgiven.

So this Lenten season, we cling to the words of Abraham. The Lord himself will provide the sacrifice. Yes, the Lord himself provides the lamb for your sacrifice. He forgives your sin. The Lord himself does it, and the Lord himself is preparing for you a heavenly home where there is no more hunger. There’s no more sorrow, no pain, no suffering. And where the Lord himself will wipe every tear from your eye.

So may we go forth, not only in this Lenten season, but always in the boldness and the thanksgiving for the sacrifice and the provision the Lord is about to give you. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who provides himself as the sacrifice guard and keep your hearts and minds in true faith and obedience to him. Amen.

Genesis 3:15

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Have you ever heard of the protoevangelium? A big word, right? What does it mean? Well, it means the first gospel. Maybe wonder, well, what’s that? Well, that phrase or that word really refers to the verse recorded in Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, following the fall into sin. Where God says this as he’s addressing Satan, but in Adam and Eve’s hearing he says,

I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel. (Genesis 3:15)

Now skeptics have said, well, basically all God is doing is he’s foretelling, in the immortal words of Indiana Jones, “Snakes? I hate snakes.” He’s foretelling that human beings are forever going to hate snakes because of the fallen to sin. Doesn’t seem very profound, especially when we know that Adam and Eve broke the world by their sin and brought upon themselves death and destruction. Really? That’s all God’s saying now you’re going to hate snakes? No, there has to be something more.

So what does that passage mean? I will put enmity between you and the woman. God is talking about hatred and hostility between Satan and Eve. But then, as he goes on to talk about those that are Satan’s seed, or his offspring and Eve’s offspring, those that are children of darkness, as Satan is of darkness, and those that are children of light as Eve, trusting in God as their Savior, that there’s going to be conflict, there’s going to be hostility, animosity between these two. But God goes on. And what does he say? He talks about not just a collection of seeds, but he talks about a singular seed of the woman who will crush Satan’s head and Satan will crush his heel.

What’s that talking about? Now, if you’ve ever walked in the woods, maybe you can imagine yourself doing so and all of a sudden being bit by a snake in the ankle. And let’s say you’ve discovered the poisonous snake. Are you going to die? Well, you very well could if you do nothing about it, but you probably have some options. Maybe you can try to suck out the poison. Maybe you can try to find an antidote, quick. And if need be, you could cut off your leg, I guess if you had to.

But imagine if you’re walking in the woods in a tree branch, a tree limb, fell on your head and crushed it. I mean, you’re done. There is no coming back from that, right?

Well, God is foretelling here is he’s talking about something so great in which a singular seed of the woman, and that’s an interesting way to refer to this woman’s progeny, her seed, her singular seed is going to crush Satan’s head. He’s going to crush his power once and for all. We would say this really refers to Jesus’ death on the cross. You see, when Jesus died on the cross, it was as if Satan had crushed or had struck his heel. It seemed as if he had delivered a death blow to Jesus. But Jesus willingly went to the cross because he knew what actually was taking place. He knew by offering his innocent life on the cross for sinners like you and me, offering his life the life of God as a sacrifice, he could do away with Satan’s power once and for all.

You see, the only thing that Satan really can hold over our head is our sin. And Satan says, you deserve wrath. You deserve judgment for the things that you have done. What did Christ do? He said, I will pay. He suffered your hell, your punishment for your sin on the cross. To take away Satan’s power once and for all. And if that wasn’t enough, he [Jesus] didn’t stay dead. He also rose again to life from the dead, showing his power even over death itself.

You know, this protoevangelium, the first preaching of the gospel in the Bible, really sets the stage for the entire book. That, in fact, is what the Bible is all about. It’s a story about God carrying out his plan of salvation, in which he sends the seed of the woman who comes to crush the serpent’s power and head once and for all. We see it ultimately fulfilled in the one referred to as the Messiah in the Old Testament, fulfilled in the New Testament, in the person of Jesus Christ, as we see clearly, that’s who the Messiah is. He is the anointed One, Christ who has come to crush Satan’s power once and for all, so we can have hope of life forever. Amen.

[This devotion is part of our series on The Apostles’ Creed, you can find all the videos in there series on our Apostles’ Creed Page. The devotions will be added as they are posted.]

Genesis 11:1-8

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I believe in the Holy Christian Church. This statement of faith in the Apostle’s Creed is a wonderful comfort. It assures us that throughout time, from the very beginning, from the very first promise of the gospel given to Adam and Eve. There’s only really been one true church, one saving faith in the very one Savior that we have, Jesus Christ our Lord. And that same faith unites all of us together into one church.

Oftentimes, people come to me with the question, wouldn’t Christianity be better off if we were all just one church? If we put aside all these different divisions and petty arguments and all joined into one giant mega-church? I mean, just imagine all the work we would be able to do. Imagine the pooling of resources and manpower and how much we would be able to get done if we all just join together. And though that makes sense from a worldly human point of view. When we have a problem, what do we do? We throw a lot of resources at it, and that’s going to solve the problem, right?

Well, the part of the Bible I like to take people to is Genesis chapter 11. There’s this fascinating account of life after the flood, where all the peoples of the world have come together and are working together. They’re living in peace. They’re living in harmony. They say, come, let us build a tower that reaches up to the heavens. And God looks down at this vision of tranquility and people working together in harmony. And you know what God says? He says, if as one people with one language, they all work together, nothing will be impossible for them. Isn’t that interesting? Nothing will be impossible for them. And what does God do next? He goes down and he confuses the languages which cause the people to scatter, to fracture, divide into different nations, and ever since then, we’ve been separated. We’ve been divided.

Why does God look down at this cohesive human organization and say that is not good? Well, through your life, you’ve probably experienced that sometimes the larger mass of people that you all have living and working in close proximity together, doesn’t it seem like evil increases exponentially? Or why is it that the bigger the organization, the more cold and impersonal it can be towards people? Or the more power an organization has, the faster and faster it can become corrupt?

That’s what the sinful human nature does when you have a big group of people all working together. The human assumption is always that bigger is better. But when we look at Scripture, we have to argue that. Since when has God ever needed bigger to accomplish his will or his purposes? Look at little frightened Gideon with his 300 water lapping men. Look at David, who overthrows Goliath or Jesus. One man, the God man who throws down the powers of sin, death, and hell. Look at his small band of frightened apostles and how he uses that group of people to spread Christianity across the globe. God does not need our wealth. God does not need our manpower to accomplish his purposes. What he wants, is faith and faith, even the size of a mustard seed, can move mountains.

No. When it comes to the Holy Christian Church, we’re assured by God that there is one head of the church. It is not a human organization. It is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. And in the body, the church. It has many different members, and these members shouldn’t say to the other, I don’t need you. And they also shouldn’t say we should all be an eye. For where would the sense of hearing be?

See, God wants us to recognize that every church and every church body has its unique function in the body of Christ. And what I like to tell people, do you know what the Lutherans are? We’re the kidneys. We don’t have to be big to do our job. It’s not a glorious job, but someone has to filter out the toxins. Someone has to make sure that God’s Word is taught in its truth and purity. Someone has to make sure that the law and the gospel are clearly proclaimed. God wants each of us to focus on our unique task in the kingdom, and to do that task exceptionally well. Our task is proclaiming the gospel. We do our job well and let the Holy Spirit worry about the rest. Let Jesus be the head over his church, the body.

Amen.

[This devotion is part of our series on The Apostles’ Creed, you can find all the videos in there series on our Apostles’ Creed Page. The devotions will be added as they are posted.]

Micah 5:2, Zechariah 9:9, Psalm 41:9, Zechariah 11:12-13, Psalm 22, Genesis 3:15, Isaiah 7:14

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I believe Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. What are the odds of this seemingly simple Bible prophecy coming true? Well, to talk about the odds, I imagine most of you are probably familiar with the lottery. Do you know what your odds are of winning the lottery? It’s 1 in 300,000,000. That number is expressed as three times ten to the eighth power. Eight is the number of zeroes that comes after the three.

If you want to visualize this number three times ten to the eighth power. Picture a football stadium. And if you were to fill that football stadium with golf balls, you would have about 300 million golf balls. So imagine marking one golf ball, dropping it in there, stirring them all up, and three times ten to the eighth power would be your odds of picking exactly that golf ball out of that stadium.

A mathematician by the name of Peter Stoner wanted to know the odds of biblical prophecy coming true. And so he and a team of mathematicians, together with some anthropologists based on population numbers from what we know about ancient civilization, wanted to calculate the odds of just eight biblical prophecies coming true. So they picked some things, like being born in the city of Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), riding into Jerusalem on a colt (Zechariah 9:9), being betrayed by a friend (Psalm 41:9) for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12-13), and being crucified (Psalm 22). They came up with one times ten to the 17th power, were the odds of those eight biblical prophecies coming true.

Let’s visualize that number one times ten to the 17th power. So we actually have to leave the football stadium behind to visualize this number. And we have to go to the state of Texas, the entire state of Texas, 268,000mi². We’re going to cover the state of Texas with golf balls 37ft deep. Take one golf ball, put a mark on it, drop it in and mix them all up, and one time ten to the 17th power your odds of picking that golf ball up. That’s just eight biblical prophecies.

So Peter Stoner and his team wanted to know, what does 16 biblical prophecies look like? The number is one times ten to the 45th power. To visualize this number, we have to leave the planet Earth behind. Go to the center of our solar system and start building a planet with golf balls. If you were to have enough golf balls to have 45 zeros in the number, you would have a planet with a radius that is 2.7 billion miles long in every direction. Your planet of golf balls would have swallowed up the sun, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and have gone just past the orbit of the planet Neptune. Mark one golf ball, drop it in, mix it up. And one times ten to the 45th power is your odds of drawing exactly that golf ball out.

What if we triple it? What if it’s just 48 biblical prophecies coming true. What are the odds of that? Well, the odds are one times ten to the 157th power. That is a number so big that if you were to use golf balls, you would fill the known universe with golf balls and then some. There are over 400 prophecies directly connected to Jesus, and many of which were already fulfilled in his life on earth.

But of all the amazing prophecies that come together in the life of Jesus, the most profound is just one. In Genesis three, when God says that the seed of a woman would come and crush the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15). In Isaiah, when he would promise that the Virgin will give birth to a child and will give him the name Emmanuel, which means God with us (Isaiah 7:14). Just what are the odds of the infinite God who fills the whole universe, coming down to be born of a virgin, getting nailed to a cross and by his foot being struck on the cross that he would crush the serpent’s head. What are the odds of that? Amen.

Genesis 1:27, Colossians 3:10, Ephesians 4:24

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In Genesis chapter one, God says this about Adam and Eve.

God created the man in his own image. In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

That Bible passage tells us that we are created in the image of God. All human beings are created in the image of God, both male and female. What does that mean? I think many times we wonder, does that mean that we have eyes like God’s eyes or nose like God has a nose or fingers and toes like God has? Well, it’s good for us to keep in mind that God, in his essence, is spirit is what the Bible tells us. Obviously, in the person of Jesus Christ, he takes on human flesh, doesn’t he? But in his essence, God is spirit. So he doesn’t have those things like the way that we have. So what does it mean that human beings are created in the image of God?

Well, a very helpful passage for us to consider is Colossians chapter three, verse ten, and it says this.

Put on the new self, which is continually being renewed in knowledge, according to the image of its Creator. (Colossians 3:10)

That passage talks about the new self, sometimes referred to as the new man. Or we talk about as we come to faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ, we are a new person, right? We are born again as well. And it talks about that new self as a new self that is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. So it talks about the image of God in connection with this new self, that it’s being renewed in knowledge. And so I think that gives us a lot of insight into what it means in the Bible when it talks about Adam and Eve being created in the image of God, that they had perfect knowledge of God and of his will, they had a perfect relationship with him as well.

And there’s another passage that goes along with it from Ephesians chapter four that says this

Put on the new self, which has been created to be like God in righteousness and true holiness. (Ephesians 4:24)

Again, it refers to that new man or new self as it mentions there, but it says, what’s the connection? Well, it’s been created to be like God in righteousness and holiness. And so that’s another aspect of the image of God that we are righteous and holy as well too. So both those things are true knowledge of God, a perfect relationship with God, but then also that holiness and righteousness, all of that is part of what it means that human beings were created with the image or in the image of God.

So why aren’t we that way today? You know, why aren’t we righteous and holy? And why do we sin? And why is our relationship with God broken? Well, it’s because of sin, isn’t it? As Adam and Eve fell into sin, they lost the perfect image of God. Maybe another way is to think about it as being clouded or tainted by sin. And so there isn’t that perfect knowledge of God. There isn’t that perfect relationship with God. We were separated or divorced from him by our sin, but also we ourselves aren’t perfect. We are corrupt because of sin.

And yet, the good news for us is to know that by faith in God’s Son, Jesus Christ, through trusting in him, that relationship and that image is restored, that God has given us a new self. We are a new creation, new people in Christ, and that in him God is restoring the image of God in us. He is giving us that knowledge of him. He is sanctifying us by His Holy Spirit, making us holy. And one day we will be perfectly holy as we see God face to face in life eternal, not because of us and the things that we have done, but only because of Christ and what he has done for us, and how he has given us new birth and made us a new creation, giving us God’s image in full, a perfect image once again in glory. Amen.

Matthew 14:22-33, Genesis 1:26-27, 2 Peter 1:4

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Is the Christian faith primarily a red light faith or a green light faith? Here’s what I mean. Is the Christian faith primarily about telling you what not to do, or inviting you into doing and living and experiencing something more? The more I dig into God’s Word, the more I see it is completely a green light faith. I mean, don’t get me wrong. There are things that Scripture tells us not to do. There are definitely things that the world very much endorses today that scripture would say, no, don’t do that. But the reason why it gives us a red light to some things is really to give us a green light to so much more.

Recently, I was studying the account of when Jesus’ disciples are out on a boat at night and Jesus walks out to them on the water, and we’re told that there’s the wind and the waves, and they’re walking out there. (Matthew 14:22-33) And Jesus disciples, when they see him, they freak out. They say it’s a ghost. And Jesus says, it is. I’d take courage, you know, do not be afraid. And then Peter, Peter says, one of the craziest things I have ever heard in my life. I just do not know what prompted him to say this, but he says, if it’s you, Lord, tell me to come out on the water. Like what? How do you go from everybody in the boat thinking it’s a ghost to the next thing, okay, tell me to come out on the water. If I was the other disciples, I’d be like, what? Are you crazy, Peter? But that wasn’t Jesus’s response. Jesus says come.

And so then Peter gets out and he actually walks on water. There comes a point where he does doubt and he does sink. But then Jesus is right there. And while we do see that, he did start to doubt and sink. We need to not skip over the fact that he actually walked on water like Jesus. In the original language, the word is it’s a compound word, which means it kind of amplifies things. It says he walked around on the water. He went on a water walk. Like Jesus. I’ve known for a long time that Peter walked on the water, but it wasn’t until recently that it dawned on me that it was Peter’s idea. It wasn’t like Jesus was like, hey, Peter, here’s a challenge. I want to see you walk in the water. Peter came up with it. It just seems wild and just audacious and just so bold.

And yet when I think about the story of Scripture, I realize maybe it’s not so crazy after all. If you go back to Genesis, we are told that God created humanity to be in his image and his likeness. (Genesis 1:26-27) Not that we physically look like God, but that we were able to live in a way that looked like God, live in a way that showcased his goodness and his greatness, his love, his character. So we’re here to do things and live in a way that looks like God. And so then when I think about Peter looking out at Jesus and saying, okay, you can do that, I want to do it too. Well, maybe it’s not so crazy after all. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that all of us should try to walk on water like Jesus, but there is something to the fact that God created us to live in a way and do things that look like Jesus. To live in a way that looks like God.

Now, unfortunately, sin broke all that, and we don’t naturally live in a way that looks like God. And I wonder today if that reality has sometimes prompted us to not look at Jesus as boldly as Peter did. Do we say, Jesus, I want to live like you and I want to look like you? Or do we just stay in the boat? Sometimes realizing that we are sinful people and that we are going to sin again, we can actually kind of use it as a cop out. We can say, well, I’m going to sin again anyways, so we don’t even try to look more like Jesus. We just expect, well, I’m going to fail anyway. But I had this professor in seminary who had this great line. He said, don’t deny the miracle. The Spirit of God lives inside of you. Jesus did die for you. You are a new creation. You’ve been washed clean in the waters of baptism. If you are someone who’s been confirmed and you take the Lord’s Supper, you are connected to Christ himself. And so it makes sense to say, Jesus where you are. I want to be there too. I want to live like you. Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come. And what we see with Peter is Jesus loves to say come.

Then when we step out of the boat, are we going to start going down into the water like Peter? Yes, we will, but every single time we do Jesus is there to pull us back up out of the water. He died for you. He rose again. You’re forgiven. You are right with God. And invited by God now to look at Jesus and say, Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come. It talks in chapter one of second Peter, about how we get to be participants in the divine nature. (2 Peter 1:4) What? In 1 Corinthians 15 talks about how when we work hard, it’s actually God who’s working in and through us. We get to be part of what God is doing. We are being renewed in the image and likeness of God. God is working in us. So let’s step out of the boat. Let’s look and see. Jesus, I want to live like you. I want to love others like you. I want to live by faith like you. I know I’m not going to do it perfect, but every time I sink, you will pull me up. So, Lord, if it’s to you. And if you want me to come, say come. Let’s be willing to step where our Savior is today. Let’s see what happens.

Genesis 1:1

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Where did we come from? Where did the world come from? Where did the universe come from? Those are important questions that human beings have been asking themselves throughout all of human history. Many people over the course of human history have answered the question this way that they’ve said, well, something must have made this world in which we live, something must have made me. They’ve looked at all the evidence around them. They’ve seen the trees and the grass and the animals. They’ve seen the weather patterns and all the different physical attributes of this world. They’ve analyzed themselves. The fact that they have eyes and ears and nose and mouth, that they have fingers and toes, and they’ve looked at this amazing, complex world and their amazing and complex bodies and has led them to think something must have made all of this. Something must have made this world that I see with my own eyes. Something must have made me because I am pretty incredible as far as my body. This world in which I live is pretty incredible and pretty complex as well.

It was only in recent centuries that human beings have thought different. Instead of believing that there is a creator, they’ve rejected that notion, and they said, that’s mythology. To believe that there is a God is like believing that there’s some spaghetti monster in the sky that doesn’t exist. Why believe that? And instead they’ve replaced that idea that something created this world and created me with the idea that all that we see, and even ourselves, came about by chance, through the big bang and through the course of chance events that occurred over billions of years, it all came into being.

But if you think about that, even that sort of answer to where I came from, where the world came from, still presents a number of problems. You still have the issue of where did the original material come from? Is material eternal, from which the big bang came, or even the question, what caused the big bang? How in the world could that big bang have happened if there weren’t other things that were living that would have caused the chemicals to mix together and things like that as well.

The Bible tells us clearly where we came from, where the world came from, in its very first verse in Genesis chapter one, verse one,

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

The Bible goes on to tell us that God created the entire world in six 24-hour days. He did it from nothing by simply speaking the word. Let there be light and there was light. The Bible testifies that there is a God, and that God is all wise and all powerful, and really explains a lot concerning what we see in our world. It explains all of the complexity that we see in the Earth and the universe, and even in ourselves as well. But the Bible doesn’t just tell us where we came from and where the world came from. It also tells us what has happened to our world. It’s been corrupted by sin, and that’s why the world around us is no longer perfect. That’s why people get diseases and they die. This is why bad things happen in our world. Because sin is in our world. Evil is in our world because humans caused that to be.

But the Bible also reveals that God has a plan to rescue us from this world that’s broken and corrupted by sin, to bring us to be in a new and perfect world, a new heavens and a new earth, as it’s described in Holy Scripture. And he says that the way that we can be there and be part of that new heavens and new earth with him forever, is only through a Savior, Jesus, who has lived and died for us.

So those are some pretty big questions for us to wrestle with. Where did the world come from? Where did I come from? Let us see the evidence around us in creation, in ourselves, but especially in God’s Word. Know and believe what God tells us there that he is the creator of heaven and earth, but he is also the one who has in love, sent his Son to save us. Amen.

(This is part three of a four part devotion series. We’ll be posting the last part of this series in the coming weeks. You can find the other parts on our Born Again Series page. )

John 3, Genesis 3, Ephesians 1:4

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As we look at John 3 and talk about baptism and the rebirth through the Holy Spirit, people often ask, how can your baptism mean anything if you didn’t choose it? Now, I love this question because it betrays so much of how we think as American Christians.

Part of our American culture, in fact, is how individualistic we are. We like to anchor our identity on our personal choices. I chose to go to this college for school, or I chose this as my career. I chose this person to be my spouse. I chose this sexual orientation or I chose this gender. We like to make it all about our choices. Spiritually speaking, your spiritual identity is anchored in a choice. But it wasn’t yours. You see, that choice was made long before you were born. It was made by Adam. Adam was the only human being that really, truly had free choice. And he took his free choice, and he moved himself from being under God and chose to listen to the devil instead and place himself under the devil’s rule and under the devil’s authority. (Genesis 3) And because of Adam’s choice, you and I, sadly, we don’t get a choice.

We are born with the devil as our natural spiritual father. If you ever question whether or not that’s true, just look at the free, “free” choices we try to make in our life. Any time we have a chance to choose, really choose, our default is to listen to the devil. Our default is to sin, and it always has to be a struggle. Even and especially as Christians, it’s always a struggle to have to reject the devil and try to choose what God would want us to choose.

You see, God respects your choice so much that when it comes to talking about faith, he chose to use a picture that does not involve your choice at all. Being born. You see, not one of us got a chance to choose who our parents would be. We couldn’t choose where or when we were born. We couldn’t choose our name when we were born, our national identity. We could not choose our gender, nor could we choose our gifts and abilities. All of these things are given to you by virtue of your birth, by virtue of having parents and a God who loves you.

You see, our salvation, our belonging to God as his child isn’t my choice. It’s entirely God’s choice. God chose to send Jesus as our Savior who would suffer and die on the cross for our sins. God chose to call you before the foundations of the world to be holy and blameless through faith in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 1:4) God chose to send His Holy Spirit into your heart to create saving faith. God chose you to be a citizen of his kingdom through the forgiveness of sins. In fact, when you think about it, the only choice we have is to walk away from all of that. And so my prayer today is that God would strengthen you through His Holy Spirit to keep you strong, firm, and steadfast in his choice that you may rest in his choice. Amen.

Genesis 28:11-18

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Do you like being called a Christian? Or do you like calling yourself a Christian? Maybe it depends with who you are around. If you are around other Christians, maybe you really like saying I’m a Christian too. Or maybe if you’re feeling bold about your faith, you like declaring that you’re a Christian. There may be other times when you are around people who don’t have a great opinion of Christians. And so then maybe in that situation, you’re not as excited to call yourself a Christian. However you typically feel about it. Let’s take a few moments today and dig into what the term Christian really means, and you may walk away with a different feeling about it.

The word Christian, of course, has the word Christ in it, and the word Christ means anointed. It’s actually the Greek version of the Hebrew word Messiah. They both mean anointed. And so as a Christian, you are an anointed one. The practice of anointing in Scripture is pretty interesting. They would use it for some specific roles in the Old Testament.

So first of all, think of like a king in the Old Testament how David was anointed. (1 Samuel 16:13, 2 Samuel 2:4, 5:1-4) This was common with kings. If you were going to fulfill that role, you would be anointed into that role. There also would be the priests who would serve in the tabernacle or the temple. Those priests would be anointed. There also was a concept of anointing with prophets, although it was sometimes described in different ways.

But where this meaning takes kind of a different dimension is with the account of Jacob in the Old Testament. (Genesis 28:11-18) Where Jacob is on the run, going away from his brother Esau, because his brother Esau wants to kill him. And Jacob lays down and he sleeps, and he’s sleeping with his head on a rock as a pillow, which I always think. I don’t know how comfortable that could be, but apparently that worked for Jacob. But when he was sleeping, he had a dream. And in that dream there was a staircase or this ladder to heaven. And when he woke up, he said, surely the Lord was in this place, and I didn’t know it. And then what he does is he takes the rock and he anoints it.

Now, of course, when he anoints the rock, he’s not saying this rock is a king. He’s not saying it’s a priest. He’s not saying it’s a prophet. What is he saying? Well, what did he say? He said the Lord was in this place. See, in the Old Testament, it wasn’t just that these people now can have special positions. Even more so, what it did, it was it signified that God was doing something special here. God was there on that rock. And God was to work through kings, to work through priests, and to work through prophets. Now think about Jesus Christ, the Anointed One, the ultimate Anointed One who is a prophet, a priest, and a king. Who is not just a person God worked through, but who is God Himself, become human. To live the life we were meant to live, to die on a cross, to take the death we deserve to die, to pay for those sins we’ve committed and to rise again to win for us new life with him. He is the ultimate God at work in a person. He is the ultimate anointed one.

And when you and I are brought to faith in Jesus, we are in Christ, we are in the anointed, and we then become anointed as well. When we are baptized into Christ. That’s like our New Testament anointing, if you will. God works through the word and the water and makes us his children. We are buried with Christ and we rise again with Christ. God works in us when we are brought to faith in Jesus. It’s a result of the Holy Spirit working in us. As we continue in the faith going forward in our lives, it’s because God is working in us. The New Testament says that the spirit is in us. Jesus is with us. We are the temple of God. And so when you say, I am a Christian, you are saying I am an anointed one, which means I am someone who God has redeemed. God is at work in me. Jesus has died for me, risen again. The spirit has brought me to life and given me faith. God’s at work in me. That’s what it means to say I’m a Christian.