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Rejoicing God and Man
“Shall I bring my new wine that rejoices God and man to an end and go about domineering over the trees?”
(Judges 9:13)
In one of the churches in which I am privileged to preach, I have been working through the book of Judges. It is a rich book filled with the foibles of a people seeking to rule over themselves, acting as if they had no King. Indeed, they may not have had an earthly king like their neighbors, but they had a divine King to whom they constantly refused to submit, preferring to bow before the works of their own hand. Sadly, it would seem that the church has not much changed across the ages, with every man doing what is right in his own eyes.
In this context, there is a point, after the death of Gideon, that his son Abimelek (the son of a concubine) treasonously hires useless men to detain and execute his brothers (all but Jotham). Jotham returns for one final passage where he utters an imprecation against Abimelek in the form of a parable. In this parable, the woodlands seek to find a tree to rule over them as king, moving from arguably legitimate candidates to eventually the illegitimate bramble bush (illustrating their choice of Abimelek).
The whole of the sermon can be heard here:
What is striking, as a principle, is that to rule as king, each of these trees fears losing its God-given fruit. With their fruit gone, how then shall these trees be judged (Matthew 7:16)? Jesus treats the fig tree that bore no fruit quite harshly (Matthew 21:18-22), and out of season at that! With that idea in mind, I spent some time this morning reflecting on the kind of fruit that all of us are to bear (Galatians 5:22-24), namely fruit that is useful to both God and man (the uniting theme of each of these fruits).
So, as you look over your life, ask yourself, what aspects of the fruit you bear bring joy to both God and man? Obviously, what is most important is that we are pleasing to God, and by doing so, often we will earn enemies of men on earth. Yet, if you are pleasing to God, though the wicked may not appreciate it at the time, you will find yourself being useful to men — salt and light as Jesus speaks of in the Sermon on the Mount.
What strikes me is how often we, as Christians, get the language backward. We often worry first about whether men rejoice in us and then let things fall where they may with God. Paul makes very clear the danger of being a man-pleaser (Galatians 1:10), reminding us that the purpose we were entrusted with the Gospel was so that we would please God regardless of whether any people will take pleasure in the message we bring (1 Thessalonians 2:4).
So, Christian, who does your fruit rejoice? Does it rejoice God? Does it rejoice man? Might it even rejoice God and man (in that order!)?
Willing and Ready to Live for Jesus
The first question of the Heidelberg Catechism closes with the affirmation that because Christ has done all this for me, this reality “makes me genuinely willing and ready to live for Him from this time onward.” And indeed, this principle guides the rest of the catechism. It is the guiding principle for the catechism so much so, that if you do not or cannot affirm this very principle, the rest of the catechism is little more than moralistic instruction.
The bottom line is that the most basic desire of a genuine Christian is to please God (2 Corinthians 5:9). True, there are times when we stumble into sin and disobedience, but at the very heart of repentance is the recognition that our actions have displeased our God and Savior and a desire to correct said behavior as we live from that point forward. This seeking to please God does nothing in the way of earning salvation — that has been bought for us entirely and fully by Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:8-9) — but indeed, it is the expression of our gratitude for what Christ has done (Colossians 2:6-7) and out of a desire to live by faith (Galatians 2:20) so that we might please our God (Hebrews 11:6).
And that sounds all fine and great. But, how many confessing Christians seek to do this? Certainly, the last half of the catechism is designed to guide us in how we do it, but what is our intent? You see, living a life to please God is not something that just happens once you become a believer…it is something you must work at and it is something that you must do in an intentional way. So, let alone the nuts and bolts of how — are you genuinely willing and ready to live for Christ from this point forward? Are you willing to live for Christ no matter the cost? Are you willing to live for Christ no matter where God will take you? It can be certain that if you genuinely live like you are not your own but belong body and soul to your Lord Jesus Christ that he will stretch you and take you places you would never have dreamed of going otherwise.
My concern is for those who say that they are willing and ready to live for Jesus but make no effort to do so. They are indeed, much like that rich young ruler who came to Jesus and asked, “What must I do?” but was sent home unhappy because the thing that Christ demanded was the one thing he was unwilling to do. It is that way with many in the church, the real question at the moment is whether it will be that way with you? Are you ready and willing to live for Him? And if so, what does that look like in your life?
The Preacher's Study 