Are You Really God's Child?

“If you are the Son of God…”

Matthew 4:3b

I think it’s the question most every son grapples with.  Am I really my father’s son?  My dad could take scrap wood and build anything.  I can take scrap wood and make more scrap wood.  My dad could drive a nail home with two blows of the hammer.  In two blows of the hammer I could bend over any nail.  My dad could fix anything.  I can break just about anything.  Now I know that I am, but sometimes I wonder, “Am I really my father’s son?”

This is the question Satan asks Jesus in the temptation.  “The tempter came to him and said, “IF you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”  This comes right after His baptism.  Gods voice has just spoken to Jesus, “You are my Son, whom I love…”  Then Satan goes to work.  He casts doubt. If you are really God’s Son why has He allowed you to starve for 40 days? What kind of father would do that?  If you are really His Son, then tell these stones to become bread.  Then Satan took it a step farther. “I’ll prove to you that He doesn’t really love you.  Put Him to the test.”  “IF you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”  Let’s see if He catches you.  Then Satan pulls his final punch.  He makes his own promises.  The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”  In other words, I care about you more than He does.  I won’t make you go to the cross.  Just call me your father… Bow down and worship me… and I will give you everything.”

That question is at the heart of every temptation you and I face.  “Are you really a child of God?”  es.  “If God really cares about you, why would He allow you to suffer?  That’s the question that entices us to give each temptation a fair hearing.  “Don’t worry about it.  Go ahead and do it.  He’ll forgive you anyway.  After all, you are God’s child, aren’t you?”  That’s the question that raises doubts in our minds.  To the mother who has been praying and praying for her son’s faith is tempted to wonder, “If God really cares, why hasn’t He answered your prayer?”  The tempter even makes you his own promises… makes it seem like he cares more about you than God does.  “Why should you have to stay in this marriage?  Surely you have a right to be happy.”  “So what if you aren’t married.  It feels good doesn’t it.  How can that be wrong?”  Of course when you give in the questions become even more sinister.     If you are really a child of God – how can you lie like that? How can you look at those pictures on the internet?  How can you call yourself a child of God when you talk back to your parents? When you stab your friends in the back?   That’s the question temptation raises – “Are you really God’s child?” 

Jesus was not afraid of this question.  He could look at Himself. He could look the devil in the eye.  Without hesitation He could answer,  “Yes I am the Son of God.”  Each answer he gives to temptation reflects his complete trust that God is His Father.  “Why would He allow me to go forty days without food?  Because, answers Jesus, He has better food to sustain me.  ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”  Jesus doesn’t need to jump from the temple for His Father to prove His love.   Jesus has the word His Father spoke to Him at His baptism.  So Jesus answered, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”  Because Jesus knew exactly where He stood with the Father in heaven, Satan has nothing to offer Him.    
We need not fear this question either.  “Are you really God’s child?”    God Himself has answered this question.  His answer is Jesus.  Jesus answers this question for us by living as the perfect child of God that you and I can never be.  He was tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin.”  Jesus gave His life for our sins on the cross. He rose again on Easter that we might have life forever.  He prepared a place for us in His Father’s house.  In other words, Jesus took our place in death, that we might have His place as God’s child. 

You need not fear that question – no matter what the temptation… no matter how bad your own failure!  In Jesus God has supplied the best answer.  On that day when you and I came to faith… when you and were baptized, the Father said, “Yes You are my Son… You are my daughter whom I love.  In Jesus I am well pleased with you.”  He invites you weekly to sit at His family table… to receive His Son’s body and blood for the forgiveness of sins.  He has made you a member of His church,.  Believers in Christ are your siblings, your spiritual family… and is eager and ready to adopt more and more people as His sons and daughters.  Are you really God’s child?  God answer is beyond doubt.  There is no dispute.  In Christ – YES you are.   

A Place for Everything

“I go to prepare a place for you…”

John 14:2b

“I go to prepare a place for you…”  I have always read those words as Jesus telling us that He is preparing a place for us in heaven.  That is certainly what those words mean.   After all, Jesus prefaces those words with these – “In my Father’s house are many rooms.”  Jesus most certainly died on the cross, rose again on Easter and ascended into heaven that we might have a place in His Father’s house.  But then this morning, in my devotions, I read a prayer written a long time ago by someone named George Matheson.  That prayer got me to thinking – maybe Jesus was promising to prepare more than simply a place for  us in heaven. 

Here are the words of that prayer – “My Father, prepare a place for the child-life that lingers in my heart!  Even in the night teach me the song of the coming day.  Thou hast prepared a place for my yesterday – thou hast cancelled the dark deeds of my past.  Thou hast prepared a place for today – Thou hast promised strength for the hour.  But I have need beyond my yesterday beyond today; I have a yearning for tomorrow. Shall this be the only part of my soul for which there is no environment!  Thou hast provided for memory – Thou hast suffered my heart to see its past glorified.  Thou hast promised for the vision of today – Thou hast sent the energy with the emergency and refuge with the storm.  But is there to be no provision for hope, O my Father!  It cannot be – O My Father.  O my Father, it is not.  Behold the Lamb of God!  He is our Light in darkness, our Song in the night, the bright and morning Star, our joy and hope, the same yesterday, today, tonight, tomorrow, not and to eternity.  Amen.”

It struck me as I prayed that prayer that by going to the cross, Jesus did so much more that reserve a place for us in the Father’s heavenly house.  Mr. Matheson is right.  Jesus prepared a place for our yesterdays.  That place is his tomb.  After all, in baptism, we were each buried with Christ in His tomb so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might live a new life.  Think of it this way, having been raised with Christ, what remains in that tomb?  Our sin.  He left a place for our sins to be left behind, buried forever, remembered no more.  Isn’t that what God has promised, “I will remember your sin no more?”

What’s more by His death and resurrection He has prepared a place for our today!  Wow.  That also is what He gave us in baptism.  “We were buried with Christ by baptism into death in order that as Christ has been raised from the dead, so we too might walk in newness of life.”    Luther tells us that our baptism every day gives us a new day to live – to live under forgiveness and grace.  In the Small Catechism We read that Baptism “signifies that that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die, along with all sin and evil desire, so that daily a new many might emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” 

In Christ, He gives us strength for the hour, energy for each emergency, a refuge for each storm.  I once asked a woman who lived every day for years in bed, able only to move one arm and her head – “How do you do it?”  She answered, “Jesus has taught me to live one moment at a time, looking to Him for each new day.  Yes by His death and resurrection Jesus has prepared for us a new life for each new moment.

And then also, as I have always heard in these words of Jesus, He has prepared hope for us, a place in His Father’s house, a tomorrow that will never end!  “For,” writes Paul, “if we have been united with Him a death like His, we will also be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”  One day He will give us brand new bodies, just like His resurrection body.  He will take us to a place will there will no more death, neither shall there be mourning or cry or pain, for the former things will have passed away.”  Yes that’s how He prepared a place in His Father’s house for us – He gave us a place to leave the past of sin behind… He gives us a place to live each new day on our journey – following and trusting in Him, knowing that on one of these “tomorrows” by His grace we will finally arrive at His home.  After all, Jesus has promised, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am, You may be also.”  He truly has a place for everything. Amen.

Are You a Door or a Window?

“Sir, we would like to see Jesus.”

John 12:21b

I am the youngest child among my siblings.  As such, my sisters would tell you, I was spoiled.  I liked to be the center of attention.  There were many instances of “Hey, Look at me.  Look at me!” coming out of my mouth.  In fact there were times when I would be goofing around in the middle of the family room, trying to get everyone to watch me rather than the TV.  I must have done a good job because my sister would get really annoyed with me.  That’s when I first heard the phrase, “Wayne, you make a better door than a window.”  In other words, “Get out of the way.  We can’t see the TV.”

I think that there are also moments when that is true of us spiritually – when you or I make a better door than a window.  When we make life all about what we want… when we put ourselves at the center of attention… when we become selfish, self-centered…   I heard recently of one Pastor who in his sermons and classes and emails spends a lot of time talking about him and almost never mentioning Jesus.  I remember one church member who would do anything for you.  But he always had this need to point out to everyone the nice thing he had done.   There are times when I can become very negative about things, or very critical of others because things aren’t being done the way I would do them, or the way I think they should be done.   Again and again, I have seen people pout when they don’t get their way - threaten to quit a ministry or leave a church unless they get their way.   At such moments when we shine the spotlight on ourselves, when we make ourselves the focus of attention, we get in the way of people seeing Jesus. We make ourselves into a door, or wall rather than a window. 

Nothing could be sadder.  After all you and I cannot win salvation for anyone.  We cannot restore people to a right relationship with God.  We cannot purchase forgiveness for anyone.  We cannot prepare a place in heaven for anyone.  Only God can do that.  People don’t need to see and be impressed with us.  They need to see and know God.  They don’t need a door.  They need a window.

That is just what God has provided.  Remember when Moses asked God to show him His glory.  The Lord wouldn’t let him see his face, only His back.  The Lord said to Moses, “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see Me and live.”  Why?  Because God is holy and we are sinful.   So what did God do?  He provided a window through which we could see Him and know Him.  That window is Jesus Christ.  “No one has ever seen God,” John writes in His Gospel, “but God the one and only who is at the Father’s side, He has made Him known.”  In order that we might see and know Him, God hid Himself in the flesh and blood of Jesus.  He came down to our level, entered our world, became one of us.  “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have beheld His glory, glory as of the only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  If you want to know God better, than get to know Jesus better.

Those Greeks who came to the disciples in John 12, making the right request.  “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.”  Do you know where I first read those words?  I got up into the pulpit at my home church to preach for the first time.  These words were typed out and taped there for only the Pastor to see.  “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.”  What a great reminder of why I was preaching a sermon – not so people could be impressed with me… but so that people could see Him.  That’s what God seeks from all of us – that we would be windows through which people could see Jesus.  So He puts His Spirit in our hearts.  He puts to death pride, selfishness and self-righteous in us.  He washes away our sin with His forgiveness.  By all of that He daily seeks to make your life and mine to be better windows that doors. 

So, I have a challenge to you my friends.  Find a spot and put these words where you will see them daily.  I am going to go write down and tape them in the pulpit here at Fishers of Men – “Sir we would like to see Jesus,”  We need that reminder daily of just exactly why God places people into our lives and us into theirs… We need and they need to see Him!