Citizenship Shows (05/23/24-05/24/24)

We shall find Paul touching on this matter of citizenship throughout this epistle, but this is the first glimpse we have of it.  As I have noted, and will no doubt note again, Philippi was proud of her status as a free Roman colony.  They had a high degree of self-rule as compared, say, to Israel in that time.  And they were proud of it, careful of it.  They were not about to let anything upend their status.  If we go back to Paul’s first visit to Philippi, and the charges brought against him, it was not that he was declaring some alternative God.  It was not even that he was declaring fealty to another Lord in Christ.  It was this:  “They are proclaiming customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or observe, being Romans” (Ac 16:21).  They knew, it seems, of Claudius having expelled the Jews from Rome, and took guidance from this.  We cannot accept anything of Jewish custom, lest it comes across as a rejection of our citizenship, or leads to a revoking of citizenship.

The church in Philippi was, of course, drawn from the populace of Philippi, and not just the Jewish portion.  Quite likely, it was not even predominantly the Jewish portion.  Like any other body of believers, these folks had brought their worldview with them.  And don’t for a moment suppose that we are somehow the exception to this!  We come with baggage, every one of us.  We have experiences which color our perceptions, and the operation of this coloring is so subtle as to go unnoticed until and unless God opens our eyes to those preconceptions that guide our thinking.

A large part of the impact of the gospel is in the renewing of our minds, which is the most significant aspect of our transformation at present (Ro 12:2).  We are no longer conformed to this world and its views.  Or, at least, we ought not to be.  Rather, we seek to be conformed to God’s will, knowing that His will is good, perfect, and always in our best interest.  But as I say, we come with a worldview attached, and it takes a bit of time and a lot of work to see that worldview removed.  Frankly, apart from the power of God and the work of the Spirit indwelling us, it simply won’t happen.  And even as it does, such is our nature that we may very well find it taking hold once more.  It is a place for utmost diligence, for we are surrounded by voices seeking to shape our worldview to the view of the world, and we must stand fast.

That is the clarion call of this passage.  “Live as citizens!”  But not at citizens of the nation in which you happen to find yourself.  Without being overly dismissive, the nation in which you happen to find yourself is quite beside the point.  We ought, certainly, to pray for that nation, to seek that God might supply us with godly leadership, and to seek how we might serve Him in establishing a godly worldview amongst the populace.  But as we do so, I think we must remain realistic in our expectations.  Or perhaps we ought not to remain realistic.  Perhaps we would discover ourselves having greater impact if we had greater expectations of God’s power to transform.

There have, of course, been times and places where the power of the Gospel broke through the worldview of the public at large.  We know, for example, of the Great Awakening that so defined the beginnings of the American experiment.  It is reasonably argued that apart from this move of God, the impetus for becoming an independent nation would not have got off the ground.  And, in spite of the deistic tendencies of many of the fathers of the nation, it was assuredly true that this move of God had significant impact on the founding documents.  There have been other times and places when God broke through the haze of societal convention to establish a larger body of believers.  Were it not so, there would never have been a church, and there certainly wouldn’t be at this late stage.

So, we have this call issued.  “Live as citizens.”  But it’s not as free citizens of Rome or of the USA or any other nation or state.  No, live as citizens of heaven.  Here is your highest loyalty.  You have been called out of the nations, are no longer of the world though you remain in it.  Hear it from your Lord.  “If you were of the world, the world would love its own.  But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (Jn 15:19).  Yet, we are still in the world (Jn 17:11), and so our Savior prays for us, not that we be taken out of the world, but that we be preserved in faith, sanctified truly in the Word (Jn 17:15-17).  This is your calling.  So, to live as citizens is to live a sanctified life of faith.  And that is exactly where Paul’s thoughts take us in this brief passage.  Live as citizens.  Walk worthy.  Let your manner of life reflect your true citizenship.  That’s the message.  Let your conduct demonstrate your citizenship.  Let your every word, your every action, your interactions among yourselves and your interactions with those around you, be such as are appropriate and suitable to one who is a citizen of heaven.  And understand that it is this suitability of lifestyle which is emphasized here.

The question to be pursued is, what does that look like?  And the answer is given:  unity in steadfast faith.  Taking from the Amplified, this worthy manner consists in, “standing firm in united spirit and purpose, striving side by side and contending with a single mind for the faith of the glad tidings (the Gospel).”  Notice that even in our effort to stand firm there is unity expressed, for our stand is taken in striving side by side.  You could perhaps lose that in the NASB, with its ‘striving together’.  That sounds like conflict, but that’s not the message.  Clearly, it cannot be.  How can we be in one spirit, if our entire experience is defined by strife with one another.  But it’s not strife.  It’s striving.  It’s encouraging one another, pushing one another forward, if you will.  It’s a team effort, and that’s a key takeaway here.

Holiness of life is a team effort.  We can’t achieve it alone.  We can’t even achieve it in our own power.  It needs the power of God, the transformative work of the Spirit, to bring it into being, to sustain it, to mature it.  To be sure, we come alongside God in this exercise, and we do our utmost, including encouraging our brothers and sisters to their utmost exertion in seeking to walk holy in this unholy world.  And I’m sorry, but internet chats will not suffice for this, though they can assist.  Indeed, weekly attendance at church will not suffice, though it is most assuredly a means of grace supplied by God to just such an end.  It takes community.  It takes fellowship.  It takes this working at it together, side by side, each of us lending our strength and experience to aid our brethren.  We are one body, after all, depended from one Head, Christ Jesus.  The body either functions as one, in harmony amongst its many limbs and organs, or it self-destructs.

You need but consider the average day in your life to see the need.  For the vast majority of us, the bulk of our day is spent in close contact with the world around us.  We must go to our workplaces, or our schools, or what have you, and when we do, we become a distinct minority in short order, at least up here in New England.  I’ve been places where it felt somewhat more natural to allow faith to enter into casual conversation in public, but up here, it’s uncomfortable.  I could again think of Malawi, where even the editorial page of the newspaper inclined towards biblical language and perspective, and it was truly refreshing.  I could think, as well, of driving through Detroit of a Sunday, and hearing gospel music broadcast in the streets.  And that, too, was truly refreshing.  But it refreshes in part because it’s such a rarity in my experience.  It stands out for being unusual in a positive way.

Add to it that the daily influx of information from any news source, any entertainment, any form of media, really, is likewise chock full of ungodliness, and insists on positing a most ungodly perspective as right and proper, and we are in a siege situation.  We are surrounded by a culture grown daily more thoroughly antithetical to the life to which we are called.  “Woe is me, for I sojourn in Meshech, I dwell amidst the tents of Kedar!  My soul has its dwelling with those who hate peace.  I seek peace, but they are for war” (Ps 120:5-7).  Does it not feel that way at times?  Or have we become too numbed by the constant, abrading contact with ungodliness?  Well, perhaps we should continue to the next Psalm and refresh our spirits.  “I will lift my eyes to the mountains.  From whence shall my help come?  My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth” (Ps 121:1-2).

We need reminding of this!  The world wants us cowed and dismayed, but we must not be so.  We must remember Whom we serve.  They may appear powerful and strong today, but the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth, is Lord even of those who spitefully use us, and He will be honored as such.  He will not long suffer Himself to be thus disregarded and despised.  He is patient, yes, and longsuffering.  But never dismissive.  As it happens, Table Talk gave reference to Nahum this morning, and it is apt to this line of thought.  “A jealous and avenging God is the LORD.  The LORD is avenging and wrathful.  The LORD takes vengeance on His adversaries, reserves wrath for His enemies.  The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and will by no means leave the guilty unpunished” (Nah 1:2-3a).

We are not the first, by any stretch, to face a world that despises us, nor is it likely we shall be the last, for all that we feel that the end must surely be near this time.  Well, to be sure, it’s nearer than ever before.  It always is.  And the time of God’s vengeance will come.  Of this there can be no reasonable doubt.  But whether this is the culmination of evil or just another smoldering fire of rebellion, who can say?  I mean, many feel that they can, but God has made it sufficiently clear that those who think they are able are quite incorrect, and I would maintain, rather incorrectly focused.

Our task in this life is not to go shaking our heads at the unbelievers around us, nor is it to simply accept them as is.  Honestly, our function is not to be focused on them at all, except as potential brothers in need of hearing the gospel which has been entrusted to us.  But our focus?  That remains on Jesus Christ our Lord.  That remains on seeking to live godly in this ungodly world, which can only be done by keeping our eyes on Him, drawing our strength from Him, supplied by His abundant grace.  And that, in turn, requires our obedience to His ways as He works in us, and His ways instruct us to come together, to edify one another, to strive together, not alone.  Who strives alone quickly loses steam.  Solomon saw it, and God saw to it that he recorded it for our benefit.  “If one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him.  A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart” (Ecc 4:12).  Don’t try and do this alone.  You will be overpowered.  It’s inevitable, really, for at some point you must let your guard down.  And when you do, happy the man who has a brother to watch his back.

So, citizen, walk worthy.  Put your back into this exercise of holiness.  See to it that you conduct yourself in a manner worthy of this gospel you have received, of this Lord who has received you.  “Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven.”  I draw that from the NLT.  That’s the message.  Whatever nation you dwell in, whatever the governing powers of this world, your citizenship is in heaven.  Every one of us has dual citizenship, but our highest allegiance is due our highest Lord.  In Him we live.  In Him we move.  In Him we have our existence (Ac 17:28).  Apart from Him there exists nothing that has been created, no being, no creature, no power; nothing (Jn 1:3).  And this Almighty, all-powerful, all-knowing God has called you to Himself, claimed you as His own, made you sons and daughters of His holy kingdom, given life and purpose; the purpose of exhibiting His holy character to this unholy world, that through His work in you, others of your brothers might come to see Him, to know Him, to love Him.

Don’t go native.  The tendency is in you, just as it is in me.  And we are urged to it at every turn.  Those in Rome come to behave like Romans.  Those in Corinth, we might observe, tended to act like Corinthians.  It is worse for us, because we are by nature Romans and Corinthians, born and raised in that atmosphere.  It is hard to lay aside the past, to shed the habits of a lifetime, but those habits of a lifetime are habits of death, and we have been called to life, granted life, called up higher.  We need to come up higher, and in order to do so, we need the support and encouragement of our brothers and sisters.  We need to strive together, else we will fail apart.

Lord, how I feel this.  Too much, I am on my own, or feel myself to be.  I grant that it is my natural inclination to seek my own space, to pursue my pursuits without being bothered by the needs of others.  But that is not the way.  It’s not the right mindset, nor is it healthy for my own growth.  You created us as social beings, and such we are.  So much is at work, seeking to prevent us from our social interactions, and we must rise against that urging.  I must seek Your strength and influence to overcome that urge in me.  Help me in this, Father, for I feel the isolation, and I grow far too used to it, far too comfortable in it.  Even in the home, given how different our perspectives are, it feels like being alone in my faith.  I have sought to come to a place of feeling the unity rather than the differences, but how, Lord?  Open my eyes to the solution.  Be the solution.  My need of You is great, and my sense of it too often small.  Let me see the urgency of this message that You have been pouring out through my fingers this morning, and seek You on it, seek the answers You provide, and act upon those answers as they come.  Blessed be Your name.  Help me to represent.

Evidence (05/25/24-05/26/24)

Paul gives definition to this manner appropriate to the kingdom.  It consists primarily in a firmly held unity.  This is not unity at all cost, such that we happily welcome whatever beliefs you may have, and we all sing happy, but ultimately empty songs together, giving nodding approval to one another.  Neither is it a unity so stringent as to demand unison.  It is a unity amidst diversity, or encompassing a rich diversity.  Yet, even in that diversity, the children of God, having one Father, abide as one spirit, one soul, pursuing one faith, one gospel.  There are core truths to which we have assented, and upon these, there can be no allowance for being at variance.  There are many other points upon which we may have strong, and strongly disagreeing perspectives without truly disturbing that unity.  Now, I will confess that such strongly held views may make it necessary to worship apart in the name of unity.  That, I am quite sure, sounds like a paradox, an oxymoron.  But hold on.

I had asked the question of how we are to reconcile the myriad denominations that define the Christian landscape today with this call to unity of spirit, soul, faith, and gospel.  I think this begins to give me an answer to that question.  For my part, I have sat in churches where some of the things preached from the pulpit were very much at odds with views I hold.  I am quite comfortable that those views are well founded upon a careful searching of Scripture.  I am equally confident that said pastor held his views on the same basis.  There are points, many of them, about which men of faith may discover themselves holding quite opposite viewpoints.  And many of those points have been matters of debate about as long as there has been a Christian faith.  So, what is one to do?  Do we sit in a pretense of shared beliefs, and simply weather the disagreeable content?  Do we renounce one another as heretics and part ways with high animosity on one or both sides?  No and no.  But we may find it a healthier sort of spiritual unity if one of us leaves the other to his views in a community of those who hold like views while we depart for a communion whose beliefs more fully align with our own.

This was a large part of my deciding to change churches in the last instance.  I hold no animosity towards my former pastor, think rather highly of him, honestly.  He was and is a good man – as fallible as any other, myself included, but assuredly a man with a heart for God.  I trust he feels much the same about me, if he gives me any thought.  And while I have very little contact with any of my former community of friends, they remain in my heart and in my thoughts, dear brothers and sisters whom I miss.  But, for my part, departure to become part of this other body of believers required a setting aside of those former connections.  I don’t know if that was right or wrong, to be honest.  It’s more to do with who I am, and avoiding divided loyalties, than with any divine influence.

I have also witnessed similar reactions by others in this current body, and I would have to say, witnessed departure done wrong.  There have been those who, in departing, sought to harm the church, to encourage division, maybe even a split.  It wouldn’t have been the first time for this particular church, sadly.  And what was the cause?  Strong feelings in regard to secondary, even tertiary matters of doctrine.  Departure was understandable.  The animosity was not.  Are they, then, not Christians after all?  I would not say that, no.  I would say that the same distinguishing marks apply.  They, like me, are sinners saved by God.  They, like me, remain fallible, and capable of being very much wrong both in thought and in deed, to the hurt of others.  We all of us remain in need of repentance and forgiveness.  We all of us have need of walking humbly with our God, which includes, most assuredly, hearing His corrective voice, and taking action upon what we hear.

But all of this, all of this sifting into denominations on the basis of secondary matters of belief, need not become an end to unity.  In my earlier years in the church, down on the Cape, we would often come together with other churches in the area in pursuit of some demonstrable act of worship or service.  That we were Pentecostals and they were Baptists or Charismatics or Catholics or whatever their particular flavor really didn’t enter into the matter.  We might set aside certain of our more peculiar distinguishing practices, and they might well find it needful to do likewise.  We were well taught by our pastor on this.  For one, we might well be availing ourselves of the baptistry at the church down the street.  Open waters are cold much of the year, after all.  And when we did, we were reminded that the spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet.  We did not need to get our spiritual gifts display on while we were with these brothers and sisters.  It’s sort of the Christian form of, “when in Rome.”  I don’t need to come to your church and cause offense by disagreeing with your practices or insisting on mine.  That is not unity, and that is not Christian faith in strong display.  That’s little more than pride, a rather Pharisaical false piety.  There is far too much teaching in the Scriptures against this sort of thing.  We could begin with the simplest, the instruction to count others as more important than yourself.  Yes, you are at liberty to worship as you believe right.  But liberty is not license to force your system on others.  Oh, but I’m going to submit to God, not man!  Yes.  I get that.  So are we.  But submitting to God does not consist in demanding, ‘my way or the highway’, on these things.  They are not central to our unity.  They are part of the rich diversity that God in His infinite wisdom has seen fit to make part of His church.  And Christian love insists that you and I set aside these insistent behaviors in deference to one another, not at we reject one another over what are, however strongly we may feel about them, minor disagreements of no salvific import.

So, where are we?  Stand firm in one spirit.  Join each other in striving with one mind to walk worthy.  Okay, the NASB has one mind, but the Greek is more appropriately one soul.  Unified in pneumati and in psuche.  And already, there will be some ready to take offense.  But the soul is soulish, fleshly.  Surely, we are seeking to subjugate the soul, and be led by the Spirit.  Well, yes.  But the fact remains that we are, by Scripture’s definition, a tripartite being:  Spirit, soul, and flesh.  As is observed in the lexicons, spirit and soul are both references to the immaterial aspect of life, and often times, there is distinction made between the two, with spirit indicating the higher faculties held to be unique to mankind:  Rational thought, moral determination, will, and feeling, for example.  Soul may be used synonymously, but it may also be used to distinguish what are more matters of desire and affection.  We might, in our context, make the distinction between mind and heart.  But then, we would be back at things that are often felt to be at odds with one another.  One could, at risk of censure, suggest that there is something of a male/female divide here, but the fact is that each of us consists in both heart and mind, both things driven by emotion and desire, and things driven by thoughtful consideration.

And in both of these realms, we are called to unity.  Let me tell you – I know I often do – that faith is, and always shall be, a thing arrived at rationally.  That’s not to suggest that we can arrive at faith by reason alone.  By no means!  Apart from the work of the Spirit we would never arrive at a saving belief on the basis of our own powers of thought.  Yet, the God of all creation calls out to His own and says, “Come, let us reason together” (Isa 1:18).  And then, He proceeds to lay out reason to hear and obey Him.  In all fairness, the whole of the New Testament is primarily an appeal to reason.  The Gospels lay out historical fact for your consideration.  They provide you with the record of our Savior’s birth, life, ministry, death, and the impact He had upon those who encountered Him.  And these were delivered by first-hand witnesses.  I have loved that introduction to John’s first letter since first I began to study in earnest.  “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, seen, beheld, and handled with our own hands, concerning the Word of Life.  That life was manifested before us.  We saw it, and now, we bear witness to you as to this eternal life.  This Word of Life was with the Father and He was made manifest to us.  Now, we proclaim to you what we saw, what we heard, so that you may have fellowship with us, and with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1Jn 1:1-3).  Seriously, you could spend a good month just absorbing that.  But this is the whole New Testament:  We were there.  We saw it all, experienced it all, and by the grace of God, came to understand it all.  We were reasoned with, and now, we reason with you.  Here are the facts.  Only believe.

I have noted often enough that faith, pistos, has its roots in being convinced by the evidence, pietho.  We’ve already seen those two in conjunction in this letter.  Faith is reasonable.  It is the reasonable response to thoughtful consideration of the evidence.  But all that being said, if faith consists solely in intellectual assent to the truth presented, it is not yet faith.  It might be philosophy.  It might even provide some moral underpinning for our thinking.  But it’s not yet faith.  If faith has not led to a meeting of heart and mind, it is incomplete.  What, after all, is required of us?  To love God and enjoy Him forever.  That, of course, is the well-known formulation of man’s purpose as presented by the Westminster Catechism.  But, let’s allow God to define it.   Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength.  There is your first and greatest commandment (Mt 22:38).  And then, put it into practice.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Love as God has loved you.  Beloved, you cannot love apart from the heart.  While we need to shape our understanding of love, particularly that agape love of God, by His definitions rather than the Hallmark perspectives we are bombarded with, it will still involve feelings and affections.

Now, it may be of some value to lay hold of an observation made by Thayer in his exploration of these terms.  He observes, as we have noted, that often spirit and soul are set forth in contrast one to another.  Typically, in such contrasting displays, the spirit is the uniquely human aspect, the power of reason and such, and the soul is more the animating principle, that which we share with all forms of life.  But, Thayer observes, this contrast is never in view in Paul’s writings.  For him, they are always parallel, even synonymous concepts.  And let me suggest this.  For the Christian, this truly ought to be the case.  It’s kind of there already in what Paul said about his dilemma, if dilemma it was:  To live is Christ (Php 1:21).  Or take his point to the Galatians.  “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20).  This defines the Christian life.  I have died and now live in Christ, He lives in me.  Beloved, understand this:  The soul is every bit as renewed as the spirit.  Now, it may still suffer the fallout of sin in this season.  So does your spirit, and don’t think to deny it.  Your spirit is renewed, to be sure, but we all know the continuing struggle with sin.  And that is not merely the flesh dragging us earthward.  It’s not merely the lowly animal soul seeking dominance over our better spirit.  No, our mind is there as well.  We don’t sin without thought.  We don’t sin without moral culpability.  How could we?  We are moral agents, and unlike the animals around us, our actions are not mere instinct, mere emotional response.  They involve thought, however clouded.  God is at work in us, to be sure, that our thinking might come to be more like His own, and that our feelings, as well, might come to be informed by His own.  But in this life?  Yeah, we have conflict.

“The members of my body are at war against the law of my mind.  I am a prisoner to the law of sin in my body” (Ro 7:23).  Well, dear ones, my soul and my spirit are yet in my body.  The struggle, as they say, is real.  But the struggle, in this war, is empowered by divine power.  We do not war, even against our own flesh, according to the flesh, but with divinely powerful weapons capable of destroying those lofty speculations of sinful thought that seek to usurp the very knowledge of God.  By His power we are made capable of taking our every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2Co 10:3-5).  Isn’t that something?  I think we tend to look at that passage as applying primarily at our battle with the world around us, the dark influences of society, and so on.  But wisdom says the first battle remains internal.  We have our own fallen nature to battle with, and that battle is fought for a lifetime.  We have quite enough to attend to on that front, and if we would indeed attend to it, we might find ourselves far less preoccupied with worldly sorrows around us.

So, then, a unity of spirit and soul, of heart and mind.  We hear of it in the earliest church.  Luke writes, “Those who believed were of one heart and soul” (Ac 4:32).  Okay, here we are talking kardia and psuche, which differs slightly, but still, the unity of feeling and thought, of desire and action.  And Paul writes to Corinth, “I exhort you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to agree – all of you!  Allow no divisions, for you were made complete in the same mind and judgment” (1Co 1:10).  The head is firmly in the game, but while our tendency toward division may seem to be driven by reason, it is far more often the feelings and desires of the heart that push for division, particularly for unwarranted division.  How often are our decisions presented as, “I feel that…”?  Honestly, in this day and age, it’s a rare person who can honestly say, “I think.”  Most of us don’t.  We react.  We feel.  We are trained to empathize rather than to rationalize. Rational thought is so, oh, I don’t know, stuffy and old-fashioned.  But still God says, “Come, let us reason together.”  He doesn’t ask us how we feel about it.  He doesn’t call for an emotional response.  Emotional responses are fleeting.  We may feel one thing today, and quite the opposite tomorrow.  But rational belief, the conviction of faith that has come to sufficient knowledge of God to trust Him and be at rest in the confidence of His love for us?  Yeah, that’s not going anywhere.

We have as well a notice of being not alarmed by opposition.  We ought not to be alarmed by it, certainly not surprised, for we stand as those warned of its inevitable coming.  By many trials we must enter the kingdom of God (Ac 14:22).  Funny how often that passage comes to mind anymore.  It is such an odd encouragement, and yet, so needful.  It is of this that we must remind ourselves daily.  Opposition is to be expected, but it only means we are in position.  We are fulfilling our purpose, living godly in the midst of this ungodly world.  And this, too, we cannot achieve in isolation.  It needs our brothers beside us.  It needs the common bond.  It needs this every bit as much as it needs our firm connection to the vine, Christ Jesus.  We are designed that way, to be in need of our Lord, and to be in need of our fellow believer.  We are always incomplete in ourselves, insufficient and powerless.  But where two or three are gathered?  There is Christ in their midst, and suddenly, they are become a resilient fortress against the enemy.  Glory to our God!  We stand!  And we stand as one.

There is our message.  You would walk worthy of Christ?  Stand as one!  You would be at peace amidst the turmoil of life?  Stand as one together, striving together as one for this faith, for it is in this faith you stand, and that, too, is from God.  It’s not cause for boasting.  It’s cause for wonder.  It is a cause of wonder first to ourselves, as we experience the resulting courage in ourselves, find ourselves standing in situations which we never thought we could withstand.  We find ourselves holding fast to holiness in situations that we know would previously have had us riled to sinful response.  God is at work here!  He has been at work, and we hardly noticed.  But look where we are now!

But we are a sign, as well, to those around us, that unbelieving mass of humanity who stand witness to our calm, loving steadfastness in the face of their abuse.  We are a sign because our standing, and standing in such a peaceable strength, is unnatural.  The man of flesh can hardly accept it, hardly believe it possible.  But there it is.  It is a proof.  It is a manifestation of God indwelling.  It is evidence that faith is real, and far more importantly, that faith’s object is True.  You are God’s evidence.  I am God’s evidence.  This is both an honor far beyond any reasonable expectation, and also a firm call to duty.

You are a sign.  You are a sign placed by God Himself, and that, to a purpose.  Those around you are lost, know not the way.  They may not care to, but we don’t know.  They may be feeling the Spirit’s movement themselves, and not understand it.  They may be hearing the call, but as yet, remain unable to interpret the message.  But, lo!  Here is a sign!  This is the Way.  Here is one living the life he was created to live.  Here is humanity restored to its fulness.  Here is the ideal towards which the thoughtful have longed to progress.  But they have been misled.   They have been not only without signposts, but amidst all manner of misdirection.  But here you are, sign.  See to it that you, knowing who you are in Christ, point in the right direction.  Give evidence of His true goodness.  Stand fast in His good truth.

Now, the problem with signs is even those who see and understand them may yet choose to dismiss them.  You and I are called to live as evidence of God’s presence, to point those around us in the direction of redemption and salvation.  But not all will heed that direction, and we shall have to accept this.  For, the sign really points in two directions, doesn’t it?  This way to salvation.  That way to destruction.  And wide the road that leads there, and many there are who insist on taking it.

But, how do we get our sign aligned?  See it laid out here.  I’m probably regurgitating the point by now.  God is One!  And here you are, living examples of the faith you hold in Christ.  It is demonstrably present, manifest in your unity with your fellow believers, and that, whether they are of your particular body of believers, or another.  And you are at peace.  Amidst all that is going on, amidst all the efforts to stir you to anger and dismay, you are at peace.  You are of good cheer.  Why?  Because you are content to know yourself in God’s hands, your trust is in Him, not your flesh. And you know He is trustworthy.  He has you, and He won’t let go.

“So don’t let your opponents intimidate you in any way.”  Thus reads the GWT.  “This is God’s way of showing them that they will be destroyed and that you will be saved.”  They may get it, they may not.  They may get it and remain antagonistic in spite of it.  They may even be stirred to greater animosity by it.  But the sign points truly.  This is defeat for them, and victory for you.  Just keep on keeping on.  Continue making progress in faith, and let that progress show in your steadfast commitment to Truth, in your unity with those who join you in that pursuit, in your peace amidst the fray.

And then we come to that rather ambiguous conclusion.  “And that too is from God.”  But to what does ‘that’ point?  Well, let’s see.  It’s neuter and singular.  I see two neuter singulars in the vicinity; the one spirit and the gospel.  If I am to choose on the basis of this, I would point it back to the gospel.  The gospel is assuredly from God.  And in that case, you and I, together peacefully pursuing our faith, are evidence of this point.  And if the gospel is true?   Well, then, what is happening is of God, both in us and in them, though to very different ends.  For us?  Salvation; the assurance of a welcome home to be with Christ forever.  For them?  Destruction, an utter perishing, but not the nihilistic expectation of simply ceasing to be at all, no.  Rather, it is another forever future, but one apart from God, with no hope, for all eternity, of ever being joined with Him Who is Life. 

It is death eternal, not oblivion that awaits those who reject our Lord.  That may not seem serious to them, but it certainly ought to be a matter of concern to us.  God, we are told, is unwilling that any should thus perish.  Yet, His Justice requires it.  We, for our part, are set as a sign, positioned to call those around us to repentance, that they might live, that our enemies might become our brothers.  We are called to labor and to pray that He might indeed save even those who have most thoroughly bashed us, and sought to destroy us.  We, after all, are indestructible in Christ, and we ought to know that.  This body may be destroyed, but then, it was going to be destroyed anyway.  There’s a new body waiting.  What’s the big deal?  But it should pain us as it pains God to contemplate so much as one image-bearer condemned to such a state.  We cannot drag them to the Truth, but we can keep the Truth planted before them.  And we can keep praying, while yet there is life in them at all, that they might yet receive God’s Truth, receive His love, and repent of their wicked ways, and be restored into His good graces.

Live this, then:  Your steadfast, unified progress is from God, a token from Him, confirming the Gospel you bear in His name.  Bear it well.  Bear it proudly.  Proclaim it to any who will listen, and pray for them.  Pray with them if they are willing, but pray for them.  May God be pleased to change hearts and minds, and to expand the population of His kingdom once more with those we know, those we meet, those who hear of His lovingkindness and forgiveness, whether by our ministry, or by that of others who know and love our One Lord, who believe in this one Gospel.