“Arise” (Luke 7:12-15)

And when He came near the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother; and she was a widow.  And a large crowd from the city was with her.  When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her, Do not weep. Then He came and touched the open coffin, and those who carried him stood still. And He said, "Young man, I say to you, arise." So he who was dead sat up and began to speak. And He presented him to his mother.

Jesus has power unimaginable to give life to sinners and change your condition. He is not a helpless savior who needs you, but He says to the dead in sins, “arise”, and we stand. He says to the powerless, “Arise. You have power”, and to the wicked, “Arise, I receive you again”. This gracious God who saves the helpless by mighty power is our God in Jesus Christ. Only believe.

First, the Son has power. This man was dead, not sleeping or sick, but physically and spiritually out of it. He had no ability to respond to the call of any human. Only God could give his dead ears life to hear and his dead heart life to pump again.

It is the same with me and you. We're BORN in sins, loving evil, and blind to all righteousness, but God speaks in a way whereby we arise, stand up, and do His will. Paul said to a man, impotent in his legs who'd never walked, “with a loud voice, Stand up straight on our feet! And he leaped and walked (Acts 14:10).” Our hatred is subdued and life shines forth. Our blindness is conquered by grace. An outside of us God overrules the impotence within.

Secondly, the Lord Jesus has compassion. The woman's son was dead, the funeral is moving along with tears, and “when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her, Do not weep” (Luke 7:13). This God owes us nothing, but in pity unspeakable and mercy beyond words, He comes to us, and says, “Do not weep”!

Isn't death our fault? Isn't this woman a sinner? Have we not spurned God? Who is He, but so great a God as to forgive sin and delight in mercy? Micah said, “Who is a God like You, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?” (Micah 7:18). He delights in compassion, and He has it for many.

There is the “willing” compassion that will help any who call on Him, and there is the “saving” compassion that helps all the Father gave Him, for He said, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37). If you are helped, He came to you sovereignly in love, for He says, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion” (Rom 9:16). If you need help, He stands willing with open arms. He WILL do for you, even as He did for this man.

Thirdly, Christ's gift is life, so that “he who was dead sat up and began to speak” (Luke 7:15).

God doesn't save in word only. He doesn't say, “arise” in theory, but people actually get up.

We loved sin, and now we love Christ and hate evil. We feared surrender to Christ, and now we plead for more consecration.

The change that God gives is real, and this is hope. What I am not, I can be. What I cannot do, through Him, I can do.

You and I are not hopeless, so long as Hope Itself has compassion, power, and life to give.

Lastly, hope in God. You see death all around you, men dead in sins, but don't despair. The God who raised you has power to raise the dead, and that means that people you pray for - people you live to save - have hope because God just might come to their funeral procession, as they're on their way to hell, and raise them up again, having compassion on you and seeing your cares. Remember, Christ had compassion on the living, so He helped the dead.

Bless the Mother of Jesus, but Mainly Be the Mother of Jesus (John Piper)

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  December 2, 2009

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The veneration given to Mary in the Roman Catholic church is beyond what is warranted by the New Testament. In fact, it is astonishing how little we see of Mary in the New Testament. Let us honor her unique motherhood. Let us count her blessed as the mother of our incarnate Lord. But let us not put her on a pedestal that neither she nor Jesus would have approved of.

After she turns up with the disciples praying in the upper room in Acts 1:14, she is never mentioned again in the New Testament. This is astonishing to anyone who thinks that the veneration of Mary was an essential part of early church life. It was not important enough to be mentioned in any of the New Testament books after Acts.

In fact, in the one place where Paul comes close to mentioning Mary, he chooses not to, and simply speaks of generic “woman”: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman” (Galatians 4:4).

And when she is mentioned in Acts 1:14, she is “Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.” This inclusion of the brothers has the effect of minimizing any emerging elevation of Mary as having significance only in being the mother of Jesus, rather than the mother of his brothers as well.

Mary is unique among all women in being a virgin when she gave birth to her firstborn son. “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son” (Matthew 1:23). When she asked the angel how this can be, he answered: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).

Yet amazingly this fact—the virgin birth of Jesus by Mary—is never mentioned again in the New Testament. That doesn’t mean it is untrue or unimportant. It simply means that it was not prominent in the life of the church. Celebrating it was not an essential part of the worship of the New Testament church. Otherwise, it would have been mentioned somewhere in the letters to those churches.

When Mary is referred to during the adult life of Jesus in the Gospels, she is not treated in a way that sets her apart in any unusual way. At the cross, for example, Matthew refers to her without even mentioning that she is Jesus’ mother: “There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee” (Matthew 27:55-56).

Calling Jesus’ mother “the mother of James and Joseph” is striking. We know that this is Jesus’ mother because of Matthew 13:55, “Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?” “James and Joseph” are the sons in both Matthew 27:56 and 13:55. So Matthew refers to Mary without calling her the mother of Jesus, and a few verses later, he simply refers to her as “the other Mary” (27:61).

Most striking of all is the way Jesus intentionally deflects a certain kind of honor from his mother. Once a woman in the crowd “raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!’” But Jesus replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:27-28). Jesus ranks obedience to the word of God above the special veneration of his mother.

Similarly Jesus was once told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see you.” But Jesus answered, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it” (Luke 8:20-21). Again Jesus ranks obedience above the standing of his mother.

Mary was a magnificent person.

• Her humility shines (“He has looked on the humble estate of his servant,” Luke 1:48).
• Her faith was profound (“Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord,” Luke 1:45).
• Her suffering was deep (“A sword will pierce through your own soul,” Luke 2:35).
• Her God was sovereign (“He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones,” Luke 1:51-52).
• And her meditations were full of truth (“Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart,” Luke 2:19).

Therefore, remember her. Admire her. Bless her. Be inspired by her. But do not go beyond what the New Testament portrays. Our calling is to be the mother of Jesus more than to venerate her (Luke 8:21).

Loving and learning from Mary with you,

Pastor John

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Christian-refreshing and truth-intensifying: Regarding the Influence of Andrew Fuller (John Piper)

I mention the terms Christian-refreshing and truth-intensifying because in Andrew Fuller’s life, there is a reciprocal relationship between spiritual life and biblical truth, on the one hand, and missions, on the other hand. In one direction, spiritual life and biblical truth give rise to missions. And in the other direction, engagement in the missionary enterprise awakens and sustains new levels of spiritual life and sharpens and deepens and intensifies our grasp of biblical truth. We will focus on the first in this message, but here are some glimpses into the effect missions had on Fuller’s life. On July 18, 1794, he wrote the following in his diary:

Within the last year or two, we have formed a missionary society; and have been enabled to send out two of our brethren to the East Indies. My heart has been greatly interested in this work. Surely I never felt more genuine love to God and to his cause in my life. I bless God that this work has been a means of reviving my soul. If nothing else comes of it, I and many others have obtained a spiritual advantage. (Peter Morden, Offering Christ to the World [Waynesboro, Georgia: Paternoster, 2003], p. 167)

Six months earlier he had written to John Ryland, “I have found the more I do for Christ, the better it is with me. I never enjoyed so much the pleasures of religion, as I have within the last two years, since we have engaged in the Mission business. Mr. Whitfield used to say, ‘the more men does for God, the more he may’.” (Ibid.)

In one direction, when your love for Christ is inflamed and your grasp of the gospel is clear, a passion for world missions follows. In the other direction, when you are involved in missions—when you are laying down your life to rescue people from perishing—it tends to authenticate your faith, and deepen your assurance, and sweeten your fellowship with Jesus, and heighten your love for people, and sharpen your doctrines of Christ and heaven and hell. In other words, spiritual life and right doctrine are good for missions, and missions is good for spiritual life and right doctrine.