Keep Calm and Carry On

In 2 Chronicles 5-6 (yesterday’s reading), Solomon finished building the Temple and proceeded to praise God for keeping his promises.  In today’s reading God sends fire to consume the burnt offerings and his glory fills the temple.  In this theophany, or manifestation of God’s Presence in the Temple; we see a foreshadowing of God manifesting Himself in us.  This is the extraordinary gift of salvation in Jesus Christ.  We’re no longer required to go to the Temple annually and offer sacrifice for our sins.  God gave us his son, Jesus, who took our sin and became the sacrifice that covers and atones for us.  There’s no more need to wonder or worry if we’ve got our bases covered.  He did all the work for us.

Now that He is alive in us, our bodies and lives are the Temple where He resides.  If you’ve been given a new car, aren’t you going to get in and drive it?  Aren’t you going to learn what all the features so you can get the most out of it?   So it is with God. We move and grow deeper in our knowledge and understanding of life together with God.  We work through life from this core reality that He is in us and the more our choices reflect that, the closer we can draw to Him experientially.  God gives us clear instructions on how to do that through Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4.

In the Message translation of 1 Thessalonians 4; Paul instructs the church to live in a “spirited dance” versus a “religious plod.”  I love this. God wants to engage with us.  Going to church for the sake of checking off your “to do” list to honor Him isn’t engaging fully with Him.   He is not far off, distant, nor confined to sitting in church every week.  He is living, real, alive, and accessible right now.  Grab hold of this reality and make the most of it!   Choose to engage fully in the dance with him and walk every step of the journey together with him.

Because He is a pure and holy God, believers that are engaged with God will reflect that purity in every way.  Paul’s points  out that we are to live sexually pure.The purity we maintain reflects that presence of God in us.  We can offer the freedom of life in Christ simply in the choices we make and the way we carry out our lives. We shut God out when we choose otherwise.

Another way He is apparent in our lives is that we take each other seriously and pay attention to each other’s concerns; just as God pays attention to us.  One reason we are to treat others with respect and integrity is that each of us was made in the image of God.  God is present in each of us.  As Paul points out in vs 8, it’s God you’re rejecting and offending when you ignore and mistreat each other.  That’s a sobering thought.

Paul moves on to highlight how important it is to love each other.  While the Thessalonians are already doing this well; loving each other is such a hallmark of the life in Christ that Paul points it out again and encourages them to love even more.

Perhaps what stood out most to me in this chapter is in vs 11.  Paul tells the church to “ Stay calm; mind your own business; do your own job.”  I am reminded of the poster that the British Ministry of Information published during WWII in efforts to boost the moral of Great Britain.  “Keep Calm and Carry On” was the third in a series of motivational messages to the Brits.  It was set to release if the Germans ended up invading Great Britain.  The point was to exhibit to the world that the Brits would overcome the Germans by choosing to maintain their daily lives and not allowing chaos to rule.  We all face challenges, uncertainties and the temptation to doubt God.  Daily we are met with the choice to pull ourselves together or to spin out of control.  But if we truly receive and live the fact that Christ himself is at the core of our reality and our very being; then we will “keep calm and carry on” amidst the storms and turbulence of life.

Life has plenty of struggles and surprises.  But many of us add unnecessary drama to our lives by paying too much attention to the drama going on around us.  We allow ourselves to be drawn in. There is a line between serving each other and meddling in each others’ lives.  As you face the temptation to become worried or anxious or overwhelmed, stop and ask yourself if what you are worried about is really the business God has given you to do today.  Or does it belong to someone else?  How often do we create more difficulty because we are entering into a situation or problem that is not ours to solve.  We are convinced we know the best answer to solve it, of course, but God never asked for our help in the first place.  When we interfere in others’ affairs outside of God’s request of us we actually hinder others from receiving what God has for them.   To “keep calm and carry on” reflects an undivided mind and heart that is yielded to God’s peaceful abiding presence in each of us.  Can you imagine what the body of Christ would look like if we all lived this way? Stop and consider that for a moment.  It would completely change the game.

The remedy for your problems

“But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:21-26)

There has been a trend in some American churches in recent years. There tends to be less talk about sin and righteousness these days. And many people tend not to want to hear so much about sin anymore. And because of this much contemporary preaching and teaching (and a huge number of best selling books) center on making people feel good about themselves or finding life principles by which to live. In fact, you can grow a large church in America these days on this kind of message. And while I’m not against feeling good or beneficial life principles, per se, these things are not the remedy for our problems because they do not and cannot save us.  To focus primarily on these things is like getting a manicure, pedicure, and hair cut, when what is really need is a heart transplant!

Romans chapters 1-3 point out that our great need is not more self-esteem or self-actualization or self-help. In fact, Romans 1-3 show that the self is the problem — that is, the fallen self which is captive to sin and in rebellion to God. Because of sin, the self cannot and will not yield fully to God’s leadership. Sin is the revolt of the self against God. Sin dethrones God as king and replaces him with self. And thus sin ultimately is a a kind of self-deification.  And you just can’t pretty that up to God.

It is crucial that we go to the source of what truly ails us.  We need to soberly receive scripture’s assessment of our great problem — sin and the lack of righteousness before God it creates within us. This is our great problem. This is my great problem before God. And it is your great problem before God. We need not blame our behavior on our genes (“But I was born that way”), or our parents (“They did this to me”), or our education (or lack thereof), or our culture. The problem is in us. I am the problem and you are the problem. But there is a remedy! Our remedy is to flee from God’s just judgment of our sin to the One who has born the penalty of our sin on the cross — namely Jesus Christ. Not one of us has any merit to fall back on nor any excuses to make before God because the problem is us. No one is exempt. None are right before him.

But the glorious good news is this: “God has a way to make people right, and it has nothing to do with the law. He has now shown us that new way, which the law and the prophets told us about.God makes people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. He does this for all who believe in Christ. Everyone is the same. All have sinned and are not good enough to share God’s divine greatness. They are made right with God by his grace. This is a free gift. They are made right with God by being made free from sin through Jesus Christ. God gave Jesus as a way to forgive people’s sins through their faith in him. God can forgive them because the blood sacrifice of Jesus pays for their sins. God gave Jesus to show that he always does what is right and fair. He was right in the past when he was patient and did not punish people for their sins. And in our own time he still does what is right. God worked all this out in a way that allows him to judge people fairly and still make right any person who has faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:21-26 GNV)