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Pastors have to field many questions, some are very off the wall, but most people have similar types of questions. We all want to know “why” at times (for which there is not always a clear answer), we all what assurance as well, but recently I heard a question answered that really got under my skin (this is not an easy thing to do).

Someone asked the question “can I tell my child that God loves them?”

This is a quite honest and heartfelt question, and one that I think is easy enough to answer, but I was shocked and astounded when the reply was “well, yes and no…”

The “hang-up” for the one answering the question is because he holds to a theological construct whereby Jesus only loves and cares for the church and has left the rest of the world out in the cold. This is false and a direct contradiction to the New Testament.

My answer to that question is “absolutely, we know that God loves everyone, not only that, Jesus died for the whole world!”

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

-John 3:16

This is one of the best and least known verses on earth. It’s best in that most people, even those who are not Believers, can quote it or have heard it before – even if only in an endzone. It is one of the worst known in that, though the words are recognizable, what it means might not be understood.

Briefly, this verse is giving a description of how God loved the world. For most of us, love is primarily a feeling, but true love goes beyond warm-fuzzy to action. Clint Black was right, love is “something that you do.” And so this is how God loved the world, he gave up his one and only son so that if you believe, you can have life without end.

There is so much in this verse, it should be the best known verse in the world.

But I want to focus on the extent of God’s love. He loved “the world.” It says that he loved THE world, not a world, but the article “the” (ὁ) is included. And the word here is κόσμος simply meaning the whole world. It’s not the inhabited world, the known world, the Roman Empire, or the land of Israel, it’s “the world.” God loves the world, the whole world. Anyone who would say that there is anyone in the world that God does not love is contradicting the most widely known verse in the entire New Testament… this is sad.

A second verse that I’d like to look at to “seal the deal” in terms of God’s love for the world is from the Apostle John.

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

-1John 2:2

This is talking about Jesus and how he died for the world. That word “propitiation” is not a very common word in todays vocabulary, but it was known to the Jewish world in the first century.

Basically, this means that Jesus was the sin sacrifice. He died on behalf of the world. This verse is significant because of its degree of specificity. Not only does it say that Jesus died for the world (again ὁ κόσμος), but John goes beyond this to make clear that Jesus didn’t just die for “us” but he died for the “whole (ὅλος) world.”

Even without the modifiers, “world” here means the world. John shows that it’s not only a select group, but the world, not only some in the world but the “whole world” for whom Jesus died.

Jesus’ death was a gift to the world, he died for the whole world, every person in it, as an expression of God’s love to everyone.

YES, not only can you, but you should tell every child and everyone else that God loves them and he loved us so much that he sent his son to die for all of us!

See, having a relationship with God is a free gift, it’s not earned or deserved. Each one of us are sinful and that separates us from God – but it doesn’t cause him to love us any less. God loves YOU! He is merciful and doesn’t want to simply punish you, however, God is also justice so he must have a payment of the penalty for sin.

…the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

-Rom 6:23

Because we sin, we have earned death, but God gave us the gift of eternal life through the sacrifice of his son Jesus. Jesus came to pay the penalty for your sin and purchase your place in heaven. It’s by faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation that we receive this gift.

All you have to do is change your mind/attitude about God with relation to your life that results in a total turnaround of your life (this is called “repent”), admit that you can’t save yourself, believe that Jesus died for you to pay the penalty for sin, and as best as you know how, commit the rest of your life to God through Jesus. Make him your boss (your Lord) and follow him.

Anyone can do this because Jesus died, not only for us, but for the whole world.

The term “Apocalypse” comes from the first part of the Book of Revelation ἀποκάλυψις ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ (The Revelation of Jesus Christ). Some even still call the book “The Apocalypse.”

The term itself simply means “to reveal” or “to show” and only took on the connotation of “the end of the world” because most take the book of Revelation to be dealing with that topic.

In my own life, “End-Times” has always been a topic of fascination and something that I’m very interested in from the perspective of the New Testament. When I went to college I was confident in my opinion and I could draw a detailed chart revealing all the events surrounding the end of the world. Fortunately, I learned that Freshmen Biblical Studies majors know nothing of value 😉

I signed up for a class called “Eschatology” by Dr. William E. Bell Jr. because, in my mind, that would be an “Easy A,” after all, I already know all the answers… (HA!).

As it turns out, I did make an A, but it was not easy… far from it. I was shocked to find that there were “options” of interpretation within conservative theology!

Over the next couple of years I dove into the Bible like never before and started a journey that continues even today of interpreting the New Testament’s picture of “End-Times.”

But here is the problem with “End-Times” studies, most of them are simply repeating the same old tired maxims and applying them to new headlines to convince people that the end of the world is next Thursday.

The latest example of this was Harlod Camping’s prediction of the end of the world in May. (See my blog post Chicken Little Theology)

How many times can people say that the end is happening RIGHT NOW? The problem is, most people present their views as “the Bible says…” and then they present their wacky interpretations, and everyone who heard them have another stone to throw saying “see, the Bible isn’t true…” and after a short time, people won’t even listen any more.

Well, the Bible IS true! And this is a topic that we must tell people about. But because of what I call “Apocalypse Fatigue” they are not willing to hear.

…This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

-Acts 1:11

Jesus is coming back, but let’s be careful to speak only of what the Bible actually says, not what our imagination can come up with.

We see the same thing in politics. Why did we all vote overwhelmingly to “bailout” the banks? Because it was the end of the world if we didn’t. Why did we approve the government putting us TRILLIONS of dollars into debt on a peace-time spending spree unprecedented in the whole human race? Because it would be armageddon (the final war in chapter 16 of the book of Revelation, which is an allusion to Megiddo as a place of great defeat of unrighteous kings 2Kings 9:27; 23:29 or just search “Megiddo” in the OT) if we allowed our unemployment rate to go above 8% (it’s currently 9.2% over 2 years later – not to mention, Gov’t spending, regulation, and unemployment benefits don’t bring down unemployment).

Now the latest “Apocalypse” is congress reaching it’s self imposed “spending limit.” This is ridiculous. Our problem isn’t that the world is ending, it’s that we don’t want to allow ourselves to feel the pain of failure. When we fail it hurts, and we learn not to do that again.

Most of us, now, simply tune people out when they begin to argue that “the world is going to end if we don’t…” – but the problem with Apocalypse fatigue is that there really is a day of judgment coming:

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

-Acts 17:30f

The big picture here is, live your life knowing that God will set everything right one day. The secondary lesson is, don’t listen to “Chicken Littles.”

Jesus is approached by an expert in the Hebrew Law and asked what is the most important thing, and Jesus’ answer is love from the Shema in Deut 6. Mark records Jesus’ quotation of Deut 6 (specifically v.5) as:

…you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

-Mark 12:30

The OT Shema from Deut uses the terms καρδία (heart), ψυχή (soul), & δύναμις (strength) – which is what you find Jesus saying, but in Mark he separates δύναμις into διανοια (mind) & ἰσχύς (strength).

I think this is a good pattern for our lives to keep us balanced in our day-to-day, and perhaps even in our churches. Try to regularly participate in each of these four:

• καρδία – with your emotions, the core of your being, worship God and love his people
• ψυχή – with all of your life, not just on Sunday, engage God and his people with the essence of who you are
• διανοια – challenge yourself to think about God and increase your understanding about him and his word on a regular basis
• ἰσχύς – love God with your actions, with your hands and feet, by loving people

This is certainly not intended to be an exhaustive list, but it’s a great way to seek balance in your life. Each of us probably naturally leans towards one or two of these, and we’d ignore others without being intentional.

Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

The Apostle Paul writes to the church why each person is individually gifted by the Spirit:

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

-1Cor 12:7

So, each one of us has been given a unique “spiritual gift,” but why? Well, Paul says that at least one reason for that is for the “common good.” That is, you are not gifted for yourself. You were not saved and empowered only for yourself, God has a job for you to do, and it’s a job to be done within the church.

If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.

-1Cor 12:15

Paul uses the analogy of a “body” for the church, and specifically the (in this case Corinthian) local church. Do you feel like you’re not a very important part of your church? Well, that doesn’t change the fact that you are (or, more accurately, you SHOULD be). Every member is important, whether they feel like it our not, every person is a vital piece in the puzzel that God has in the mission of each local church congregation, regardless if they think they are “gifted enough” or not.

Maybe you feel like you are not integral part of your church because you have not taken full advantage of the giftedness and ministry that God has given to you, maybe you’ve never thought of it that way. Maybe you’ve always thought of church as “somewhere you go” rather than the body within which you serve.

How many Sundays a year do you skip? Think of it this way, how many weeks of work could you miss in a row before someone said “Hey, where’s <insert name here>.” How many weeks of vacation do you take from work each year? Two? maybe Three? Now how many weeks of church do you skip each year?

“Well that’s different, I have to go to work, that’s how I get paid…”

Really? Why do you have to make as much money as you do? We’ve all made choices in our lives. What if you lived in a home with half the mortgage (or half the rent)? What if you had paid cash for your car(s), and bought a car half the price? Would you then have to work as much as you do?

Don’t get me wrong, work, go for it, and work hard as though you are working for God (because you are cf. Col 3:23f), but if you work so much that you can’t spend time with your church body, are you working “for the Lord?” Which is more important, our money or our church family? Maybe that’s why so many don’t step-up into a vital ministry in their church because they don’t want that responsibility, maybe they enjoy vacations too much (and work won’t let them off).

How vital of a body part are you?

Are you the hands and feet of your church providing real ministry to others, or are you an appendix that no one really knows why you are there?

Are you the eyes and ears of your church looking for and listening to the needs of others, or are you the tonsils that become an irritation if they hang around too long?

Are you the heart or mouth of your church proclaiming the gospel to the world, or are you the gallbladder that can be toxic if not removed?

You are gifted to serve as a vital part of your church. If you realize it or not, there is a ministry for you at your church that cannot function without you. Let me encourage you to rethink the amount of time you spend with your church body. It’s not about attendance, the “roll” will not actually “get called up yander” – what it is about is you becoming an indispensable part of your church, that’s who we are all called to be.

This probably doesn’t mean taking over something that’s already happening at your church, but more likely it’s an opportunity for you to create a new ministry that will lead people closer to Jesus, what an exciting idea!

So, I guess the question isn’t “did you miss 2-weeks in a row this year…”, rather the question should be “could you miss 2-weeks in a row this year…?”. If you can, then perhaps God is calling you to “step-it-up” a bit. When you are not there, it’s not whether or not anyone notices, it’s about whether or not you’ve made yourself such in integrated part of your church body that they can’t fully function without you… that’s how important your giftedness is… that’s God’s plan for you…

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

-1Cor 12:27

We are going through the book of Song of Solomon in my Sunday School class, what a great book on how relationships should be.

Our culture has filled our heads with false notions of what sex and relationships should be. We’ve bought into it, whether we know it or not, we have.

Part of what destroys marriages (and people) in the church is that we think we have to be perfect, we think somehow that we can never make a mistake. We spend all of our time projecting an image of what we think the perfect married couple should be. Eventually, our problems will get so out of control we can’t hide them any more and we’re out, once the “shoe drops” we give up and think “oh well, we blew it…” and the couple divorces thinking they can start over.

This is a terrible way to live life, because we will never be perfect. The Jews in the first century were great at thinking they could follow the law, but no one can. If you think you can follow the letter of the law, you are fooling yourself (see the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5-7).

Even if you did dating & courtship perfectly (and few of us did) you will make mistakes along the way. If you were not pure on your wedding day, you are not alone. If you or your spouse have been unfaithful, this is a terrible thing, but it’s not the end of the world, we serve a God of restoration…

I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten

-Joel 2:25

God will take your mistakes, the things that you wish you had done differently, and he can restore it. Our savior is the carpenter’s son, he fixes things. It’s usually not too late, allow God’s healing power to restore that which has been destroyed.

Our God is a God of grace, not just for salvation at the end of our lives, but for life every day. We’re not perfect, we make mistakes, we always will. It’s not that you have to keep yourself 100% clean, you just need to know where to go to get clean…

Let him heal your life, let him restore your marriage.