How well do you handle interruptions?  Some are diversions, just brief strays of thought, some are bed rest from illness requiring lifestyle adaptation, some are from your child asking a question and your wanting to respond with love instead of irritation, but some are when God interrupts.  His demand a thoughtful response.  God’s interruptions are unsettling and can be life-altering.  Hold that thought as we begin our journey into Still Christmas, our series for Advent 2017, by looking at how to Be Still When God Interrupts.

Poor Zechariah was just doing his job as the Christmas narrative from Luke begins (Luke 1:5-25). 

He and his wife Elizabeth were ordinary people, holding a sorrow of being childless.  Everything is ordinary, typical…full of observance, duty, and custom.  But then God sends an angel to interrupt Zechariah as he’s simply doing the routine work of a priest:

Luke 1: 10 And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside. 11 Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. 12 When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear.

Has God ever scared the living daylights out of you?  I totally get why Zechariah would be afraid.

13 But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. 14 He will be a joy and delight to you,

To a barren couple, this no doubt longstanding prayer being answered could have elicited many responses.  First, maybe “Thank you,” but when you’re gripped with fear you don’t always think of the best answers on the first try.  Zechariah’s was a total miss.

18 Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”

Yeah, wrong answer.  Kind of destroys that whole life-of-faith thing that pastors and priests try to uphold.  Asking God for probabilities, confidence levels, certainties that He’s not just shining you on, it demonstrates that you have no clue about faith even though you’re a priest.

19 The angel answered, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. 20 And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time.”

God’s response of “Silence him” is fitting.  Time out: Be Still.

Zechariah’s response to when God interrupts was to ignore the immediate blessing and ask the Great I AM for reasons why he should believe God. 

Don’t be that guy.

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Be Still.  I AM in possession of knowledge you don’t have.

Be Still.  I AM not asking you to do miracles, only to believe that I can.

Be Still and Know that I AM God.  I AM not limited by laws of nature or worldly norms.  My ways are not your ways.

Be Still and Know that I AM God.  Your heart can find stillness and rest in Me.  Isaiah 55:6 Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near…”For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Questions for Reflection:

1. Read all of Isaiah 55:1-13.  How does God interrupt with an invitation to abundant life?
2. What might be some reasons God interrupts our lives and calls us to silence and stillness?
3. Read Matthew 11:28-30.  How does Jesus invite us to stillness?
4. Read all of John 6:22-59 about the Bread of heaven, especially John 6:28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” 29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”  What is the challenge of stillness in a world of works?

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Still Christmas, Advent 2017 Devotionals began December 3, 2017 and are archived from that date.

“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46:10).  

“Be Still,” God’s Word says.  Do we even know what being still feels like anymore?  How can we get to that place of stillness?  Especially at Christmas.

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This year’s Advent Devotional Series, Still Christmas, is the Advent complement to the Lenten series, Be Still and Know that I AM God.

Every day through Advent, we will look at the birth narrative of Christ and find ways to have a Still Christmas, taking time for appreciating what an amazing and transformative event the birth of our Savior was. 

We will allow ourselves to take refuge in God’s Word and under His mighty hand. 

By doing so, we will learn to relinquish our desire to control our surroundings and in the stillness, find comfort and hope.

Finally, there will be questions for personal reflection designed to carve away all our self-imposed stresses and refocus our pure attention upward. 

Be Still and Know that I AM God.

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Advent Devotionals begin December 3, 2017.  If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the Advent devotionals automatically.  If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so.  Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings.  You don’t want to miss this great way to prepare your heart for the true meaning of Christmas!  See you in a week!

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Acknowledging inquiries about the entire season’s devotionals for your study group’s planning purposes, Seminary Gal’s prior seasons’ Advent devotionals can be accessed via the archives to the right and are as follows:  

• The 2016 season devotionals were called “Timeless: The Message of Christmas for All Ages” and explored how the message of Christmas is timeless truth, for all ages of people, and for all ages at all times.  Timeless hope, encouragement, grace, peace, and love as we looked into the Word, saw the face of our Lord Jesus, and experienced restoration in His presence.  His goodness and His Gospel are truly Timeless. The 2016 devotionals began November 27, 2016.
• The 2015 season devotionals were titled Incarnation and involved digging deep–and yes, I mean deep– in this important mystery of Christian theology.  They began November 29, 2015.
• Carol Me, Christmas! remains one of my most popular offerings and tells the Christmas story through our most beloved Christmas hymns and carols.  You can access all of the numbered devotionals from 2014 via the archives.  They began November 30, 2014.
• The 2013 series was Emmanuel: When LOVE Showed Up in Person and examined the Prologue to the Gospel of John.  It began December 1, 2013.
• The 2012 series focused on Expecting the Unexpected…the unexpected, unlikely, and uniquely divine qualities of God’s perfect plan outlined in Luke’s account of the Christmas story.  It began December 1, 2012.

Give thanks to God in all circumstances. 

Happy Thanksgiving today and continually!

1 Thessalonians 5:14 And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else. 16 Be joyful always; 17 pray continually; 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus..

Reformation Day is complicated, even after 500 years of celebrating it.  You see, I have many Christian friends who worship in the Roman Catholic Church.  For them, it is a familiar worship tradition, a family where they feel at home with Christ, and a place where they learn about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. They enjoy community among the faithful and have personal piety as devotion to their Lord.  I have many Christian friends who worship in Protestant churches of all denominations.  They too enjoy familiar worship traditions, the community of believers, and eagerly learn about Jesus and worship of Christ Alone.  For them, the individual decision to follow Jesus moves their hearts to worship, prayer, and obedience.  For most of my friends, they believe that Christ Alone is Lord and To God Alone Be Glory, (Soli Deo Gloria), the last of the 5 solas we’ll look at with the Reformation we celebrate today on its 500th anniversary.

As I look back over 5 centuries of church tradition, persecution, and growth, I see a Church constantly wrestling with who it is and who it should be, set apart from a world of sin.  That’s what moved Martin Luther to nail “Ninety-five Theses” to the castle door of the church in Wittenberg. 

Since the Reformation, the Church wrestles with each other’s purity and identity so much that we seem to forget Christ Alone is our central bond whether Catholic or Protestant.  I recall the powerful little book, The Mark of the Christian by Francis A. Schaeffer and what he calls the final apologetic—unity in love for the brethren—that gives glory to God Alone.  

In light of pure desire for biblical unity so the world may know Jesus Christ was sent by our Father and for God’s glory, I will admit to an uneasiness, even sadness, when I read nationally-acclaimed pastor John Piper saying about the Reformation,

“I will be celebrating that the finished and complete work of Christ in providing imputed punishment for our sins and imputed perfection for our righteousness was once for all and cannot be reenacted in the Roman Catholic Mass so as to become a necessary point of transfer of that decisive grace purchased once for all for us and given to us through faith in Christ alone…. I have mentioned before in this podcast just last summer’s experience in Europe where a nun was converted at eighty years old and had never read the Gospel of John. So, a Roman Catholic professional religious woman never had read the Gospel of John. That is symptomatic of a deep evil in cutting people off historically and, today, doing things that subtly discourage the personal encounter with God through Christ in his word.”

Right words are there, yes, but also unmistakable zingers hidden like verbal landmines, trip wires, or sniper fire felt intensely by those who worship Christ Alone, just in a different—equally flawed—setting.  

The greatest unintended consequence of the Reformation is precisely this kind of division and spiritual pride, and how it robs God.  Shouldn’t it be Soli Deo Gloria, (To God Alone Be Glory)?

The truth is that for every Catholic I know who relies upon priests, I know Protestants who practically worship their pastors, their professors, and/or their theologians, even Martin Luther, even John Piper. 

For every Catholic I know who thinks Mary had anything to do with the work of salvation, I know Protestants who believe it doesn’t matter how they live because God loves all people and everyone is universally saved. 

For every Catholic I know who thinks baptism at birth into community saves them, I know Protestants who believe they are saved because they prayed a prayer and made a personal decision. 

For every Catholic I know who thinks that works earn one a place in heaven, I know Protestants who think that random acts of kindness and going to church on a Sunday are going to cut it.

On this 500th anniversary of the Reformation, let’s leave the zingers behind and focus instead on the 5 solas. 

• Sola Scriptura and how Scripture Alone gives us authoritative Truth as the Word who was made flesh. 
• Sola Gratia and how Grace Alone makes salvation possible.  It’s a gift of God.  There’s no boasting.  
• Sola Fide and how Faith Alone is our invitation for Christ to dwell our hearts to show us His love and power, to know Him by experience.
• Solus Christus and how Christ Alone saves.  He is the all-sufficient capstone of our salvation, central figure around whom all good theology is built…totally worthy of our worship, and
• Soli Deo Gloria, reminding us that To God Alone Be Glory and He will never give His glory to another god, but He’ll give us glory so that He’ll receive even more when we live for Him.  John 17:20-23

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The 5 Solas of the Reformation began on October 26, 2017 and can be found in the archives. 

In a big box world of dime-a-dozen gods that we can custom-build to our own specifications, Solus Christus (Christ Alone) remains the stone the builders reject and the capstone (Psalm 118:22) of the Christian faith, even among the 5 Solas of the Reformation.  Gospel Coalition writer Stephen Wellum states it this way in Lose Christ, Lose Christianity, 

Solus Christus stands at the center of the other four solas, connecting them into a coherent theological system by which the reformers declared the glory of God.” 

Christ Alone is perhaps the greatest reclamation of the Reformation.

Everything about Jesus Christ and His work stands apart.  He is the only True God.  His work—and His work alone—was completely finished when He died.  It was—and is—thoroughly sufficient to give us life.  He did it all.  It is already done.  There is no other way.  Not even one.  And what Christ Alone did, lasts forever … because He lives. 

Hebrews 7:24 But because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25 Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. 26 Such a high priest meets our need– one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. 27 Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.

This truth revealed in Scripture, artfully repeated throughout the Book of Hebrews, reminds us of the supremacy, the sufficiency, and the self-disclosure of the Father in the sacrifice of Christ.

How can this possibly have any unintended consequences?

Well it does because human sin has a way of ruining just about everything. 

Martin Luther and other Reformers looked at the Roman Catholic Church and what it had become: an elaborate system of works and sacraments, hierarchies of pope, bishop, and priest, mediators and indulgences, all of which served to obscure the Person and work of Christ taught in Scripture.

In this regard, what Luther intended—a Reformation of the Roman Catholic Church of his day— was never achieved.  It resulted in no real renewal until centuries later. 

Reformation Day could easily be called Excommunication and Splinter from Catholicism Day which was an actual consequence.  In 1521, Luther was summoned before the Diet of Worms (and no one wants a diet of worms, but even that would be better than showing up at the Imperial Diet for excommunication, which is what happened.)

Then the “priesthood of believers”–a concept both Biblical and beautiful–kind of went their own way, too.  Sin, power, and politics, yup, it’s a nasty trifecta (trying to win, place, and show) and left Christ Alone at the altar.  They established Lutheranism as the state religion throughout much of Germany (also Scandinavia and the Baltics, and unofficially Minnesota).  It was supposed to be Christ Alone, not Luther’s namesake.

This great divorce within the Body of Christ, however, cannot diminish Christ Alone. 

No amount of sinful outcome can undo what Christ did!  His work of sacrifice (Solus Christus) reigns supreme and sufficient through all history and reminds us not to put our faith in any man beyond Christ Alone.  He alone is the capstone of our faith, the hub around Whom all true doctrine revolves, and the central figure of all history, revealing the Father’s love for us.  The Reformation reclaimed a bit of that and we can be grateful.

We can learn to be more faithful, too, whether Catholic or Reformed.  We can learn from the 5 Solas that Jesus belongs neither to Catholicism nor Protestantism.  Salvation is found nowhere else.  Nothing should obscure this fact: Jesus stands above and Jesus stands alone.  Solus Christus. 

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The 5 Solas of the Reformation began on October 26, 2017 and can be found in the archives. 

1. Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone);
2. Sola Gratia (Grace Alone);
3. Sola Fide (Faith Alone);
4. Solus Christus (Christ Alone); and
5. Soli Deo Gloria (To God Alone Be Glory).

I remember Misty.  She and I had a public conversation online decades ago and what I loved about engaging in discussion, even argument, with her was that she was thoughtful.  She poked holes in everything, finding flaws in assumptions like nobody I’ve known since.  She made me dig and think, one day particularly about Faith Alone (Sola Fide). 

Misty was from the UK as many of my online friends are.  I wouldn’t say she was a seeker because she was agnostic, admitting no particular inclination toward faith or rejecting it.  She seemed happy, or maybe just content, but didn’t “have faith,” something she saw as a fascinating distinction between us.  One day she asked me,

I don’t have faith.  How do I get it?” 

I replied, “It’s a gift that God will give you if your heart is open to it.” 

Her reply, blunt and emphatic: “Well, He hasn’t given it to me.  What am I supposed to do now?” 

Boom.  Thunderbolt to the heart of an evangelist.

I felt the sucker punch and the wind out of my sails.  What was she supposed to do if God didn’t give her faith?  If God’s grace was a gift and faith itself was a gift and if it was through faith alone that one is saved?

She continued hammering, “How can it be grace alone if it’s faith alone?”

<insert Barbara’s cricket collection>

Greater theologians than I have debated the role of the will, of faith itself, and of the grace of God.  It has inflamed arguments and hostility over big theologian words like justification, sanctification, redemption—unintended consequences—pitting Christian against Christian through history.  Arguably, this issue of Sola Fide, Faith Alone, represents a great chasm in doctrine, seen notably between Roman Catholics and Protestants over the issue of works of faith.  But Scripture is clear:

Ephesians 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith– and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

I’ve concluded that God’s grace and my faith are two pillar topics and they can both stand alone in their own right.  God’s grace alone makes salvation possible, no amount of faith will do it, but faith plays a huge role in my experiencing what it truly means.  As Paul writes to Christians, not pagans or seekers in Ephesians 3, “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. (Ephesians 3:16–17).

Faith (as God’s gift and my willful response to God’s grace) is the means by which Christ dwells, abides, continually interacts with power in my life.  I know Him by experience of my faith.  It’s like the man’s plea for help in Mark 9:22 “But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” 23 “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.” 24 Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

“I do believe,” he says. (Faith Alone reaches out as far as any human can).  “Help me overcome my unbelief” (Grace reaches down and bridges the gap as the gift of Grace Alone can.)  And it is a gift that they meet, both Grace Alone and Faith Alone, allowing a personal experience of the living Christ dwelling in any believer.

Circling back to Misty, I hope she has come to the place of humbly doing her part, holding out her hand to receive this gift God wants to give, salvation possible by Grace Alone.  I pray she has been experiencing the ongoing presence of Christ through Faith Alone (Sola Fide) as Christ helps her to overcome her unbelief.

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The 5 Solas of the Reformation began on October 26, 2017 and can be found in the archives. 

1. Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone);
2. Sola Gratia (Grace Alone);
3. Sola Fide (Faith Alone);
4. Solus Christus (Christ Alone); and
5. Soli Deo Gloria (To God Alone Be Glory).