Pause for a second and ask yourself whether you have forgotten that in all your mysteries and confusion and wondering about tomorrow, that God “reveals deep and hidden things, he knows what is in the darkness, ..the light dwells with him” God alone interprets you. He gets you.
And that is the message Daniel went with to the king of Babylon when the king was looking for extraordinary insight— into his dreams.
Daniel didn’t come as another expert. He pointed exclusively to God, saying “but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries” (2:28). This simple saying is a summary of the whole book of Daniel. There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries.
Daniel clarified that God had revealed the mystery of the dream to him by grace alone. He said it was “not because of any wisdom that I have more than all the living, but in order that the interpretation may be made known to the king and that you may know the thoughts of your mind” (v. 30).
Only God can interpret the world. Only God gets you. Because only God can explain to you the deep, hidden questions you have not even asked.
Only God Gets You.
Now in verses 31-45 God uncovered to Daniel what the dream was, and what it meant. This was a special revelation, that was true and without error.
And to summarize, the dream was of a succession of historical kingdoms from Nebuchadnezzars’ at the top down through the Medo-Persian to the Greek and the Roman. They are represented as the image of a man and the different materials from head to toe describe characteristics of the kingdoms.
What is important to recognize at this point is two things:
First, this was a supernatural revealing of world history spanning 600 years and explaining it before it happens. This would be like someone in England in 1419 having just won ownership of Northern France in the 100 Years War, being able to see Britain voting on Brexit in 2019. That prophecy would have seen the Reformation, the French Revolution, WWI&II, the Cold War, the Internet and the iPhone. Only God interprets the world
Second, there are only variations on the Babylonian empire from Nebuchadnezzar onward. There is no mention of any Israelite kingdom, no mention of a kingdom of God’s people that is created by human action. Many heretics and false teachers throughout history have attempted to create what is called, “the Fifth Monarchy”. But you can’t create it, or make it with human hands. People can create a Christendom, but only God can bring the kingdom that never ends.
Into all of the confusion about our world, and even about our own personal selves, wouldn’t it be wise to consider God who is outside of our time-space continuum, who created it and created us, as a being the true interpreter of our existence?
Of all the things Paul could have said to Timothy in his last days, in this last letter, he says, “Do your best to come to me soon” (2 Tim 4:9). Paul wanted Timothy close. This is what friends do. Friends impose on each other when they are needy, because they value each other so highly.
A Precious Friend
Timothy was precious to Paul. Paul called him his ‘son’. Paul had given a pattern of life to Timothy. And of all of the teammates which Paul had, Timothy was different. Paul could describe Timothy to the Philippian church saying, “I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare” (Phil 2:20). So it’s Timothy that he asks for.
Persevering Friendship
Do you have those kinds of deep friendships? Few of us do. It’s hard to develop a friendship that perseveres through difficulties and distances. Paul and Timothy had that.
Paul wasn’t entirely alone. Luke was with him. In some ways, Luke was a friend to Paul like Lord Beaverbrook was a friend to Winston Churchill. Churchill said of Beaverbrook— “He’s a foul-weather friend” (That’s the paraphrase).
Luke was not a fair-weather friend who flies off when things aren’t sunny. He was a foul-weather friend. He’d stick with you through storms. Luke was that kind of friend to Paul. The result is that we have the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles as the fruit of Luke’s ministry, and Paul’s influential friendship.
Strained Friendship
And the other person to note is Mark. Paul says, “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry” (2 Tim 4:11).
You will recall that Mark was one of the early companions on Paul’s mission team. He went with Paul when they set out from their base in Antioch and went to Cyprus (Acts 13). But when they went to the coast of Turkey, Mark quit (13:13). He quit the mission and quit Paul. And he returned to Jerusalem.
How to view Mark became a major disagreement between Paul and another friend Barnabas (Acts 15:39). Barnabas wanted to bring Mark on a new mission trip and Paul didn’t. So there was a break in the friendship between Paul and Barnabas over Mark. And another friend, Luke recorded it in Acts 15.
Repaired Friendship
The point to see here is that friendships can be strained, but they can also be repaired. Mark had been a flashpoint for all kinds of relational stress— not just with Paul but with others.
Yet unlike the wisdom of today, Paul wasn’t proclaiming Mark to be ‘a toxic friendship’ that he forever needed out of his life.
Instead, he made his choice about Mark, but he could still have hope in God that Mark could grow and change and ultimately become, as Paul said, “useful to me for ministry” (2 Tim 4:11).
Friendships are precious and we must have hope that in the long term, even when they are strained, friendships are worth working for, or as Tim Lane called them, “ a mess worth making”.
This article is taken from my sermon, The Legacy of Friends, Enemies and Frenemieshere.
It’s back to school for many households. For some families, it was hard to convince their kids to return to schoolwork (at a school or at home). For others, they’re starting university or for teachers, they return to their classes. Everybody is getting back on schedule whether they like it or not.
In our home, getting back on schedule meant laying out a big white calendar on the table and Christel writing in dates and events in thick red ink. Yes, a big white calendar is pretty analog. But it’s a better start for us when we can’t get all of our calendars to sync across accounts and devices!
There is wisdom in planning. It’s been said that if you don’t make the plan someone will make it for you. Since God created the world in seven days (Gen 1:1-2:3), the day and night 24 cycle has remained with us. So the order of God’s creation encourages us to make plans in keeping with that orderly pattern of time. But the fall of Adam ensures that we will always be fighting the clock, even fighting against the day of our sure death (Gen 3:17-19). As Isaac Watts wrote in his famous hymn, Our God, Our Help in Ages Past:
Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day.
Planning your schedule is wise. And the bible’s wisdom literature has some help for us in our planning. Here are three ways to commit yourself to the Lord in your planning.
Commit your schedule to God, Don’t Ignore Him.
It can be easy to let other priorities crowd out biblical ones. When it comes to child-raising it can be your good intentions that are the greatest barrier to committing your work to the Lord (Proverbs 16:3). It is good to have goals for kids, but they can become demands that crowd out everything else.
Ask yourself whether the activities your child has will take them away from attending church. Will you ever have a sit-down family meal? Can you preserve the priority of family worship and corporate worship with the schedule you are making? In your planning, commit your work to God, and “your plans will be established”(16:3). Like all proverbs, it is not a clear promise but it is wise. When God and his worship are set as non-negotiables, then that priority will make some of your decisions for you.
Guard Against People-Pleasing As You Plan
I’ve heard a few preachers make the comment that Christians in the West today will give the church their money, but not their calendar. In other words, they will not submit their calendars to the priorities of their local church. Often people de-prioritize the church because they want to please people. People-pleasing is a subtle temptation when we fill our calendars. But we need to guard against it. As the Proverb says, “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit” (Prov 16:2).
It happens quickly. The coach, teacher, or after-school group asks for more commitment from students and parents as if there were no other commitments in the world. The challenge in these situations is to have the courage to say no. That means that some people will not be happy with your choice. It may also mean that you count the cost before committing and you don’t sign up. Fear of your child missing out is the biggest motivator for family schedules. But that kind of default people-pleasing will lead to burned-out kids and distorted perspectives.
Make Hard Decisions in Favour of Family Harmony
In our family, we had to make a hard decision about the schedule for one of our sons. We had to decide to drop one sport and begin another. As we aimed to commit our schedule to the LORD, we realized that there was no way to preserve peace in our home if we attempted the odometer-bloating, soul-crushing schedule which our new plans would have demanded. We had to make a tough decision and drop something.
By culling some of our activities, we knew that our son would “miss out”. But instead of fearing that, we were thankful to God for the opportunities he did have and trusted God for future opportunities to come.
When you drop one of your family’s commitments, it can limit the spectre of sibling rivalry. If one child gets to do everything and another child gets the scraps in the schedule, then resentment may grow over time. But as Proverbs 16:7 says, “When a man’s ways please the LORD, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”
Maybe your child might not be the next Wayne Gretzky or Serena Williams, but your family will be saner with siblings living at peace.
As you plan, walk with humility. Don’t be afraid to quit things if it’s the right thing to do. Keep the priorities of church participation (Hebrews 10:24-25) and family worship (Deut 6:7) and trust the Lord for your children’s future.
You can be confident that God’s schedule will always be right.
Ask your average churchgoer what their spiritual gifts are, and you may get a blank stare. Not many of us can say with certainty what God has supernaturally equipped us to do. And yet the Bible is clear that spiritual gifts are not just for pastors (Rom. 12:4–8).
Perhaps it feels audacious to claim discernment as our gift and no less prideful to claim wisdom or mercy. For others, defining their gift puts pressure on them and they’d rather leave ministry to the “professionals.” Still others simply have no idea how to begin to discover what our gifts actually are.
Theologian J.I. Packer’s book Keep in Step With The Spirithas been immensely helpful for me in bringing clarity to this issue. While the gifts function more like a footnote than a main theme in this book, his insight on the topic is invaluable.
What I Learned
1. Every believer has a gift.
According to Packer, “All Christians have gifts and tasks of their own within the church’s total ministry.” Ministry is not just for the pastors and clergy, it is “a necessary part of everyone’s discipleship.”
Many of us have wondered whether our spiritual gifts really matter. We see the highly visible gifts of preaching, teaching, and evangelism as “real ministry” and feel no compulsion to practice our “lesser” gifts with equal zeal. This logic may seem sound, but it is profoundly unbiblical.
The apostle Paul said that Christ gave us the “apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Eph. 4:11–12, emphasis added). In other words, your pastor equips you for the ministry of your local church.
It shouldn’t surprise us then that Paul is so eager to have Christians exercise their spiritual gifts. He warns Timothy, “Do not neglect the gift you have” (1 Tim. 4:14) and seems no less eager to have every member of the Body of Christ participating in their various roles (1 Cor. 12:14–19).
While it may not be essential to nail down with certainty the shape and boundaries of our giftings, it is helpful to have some idea. With so many things rallying for our time and attention, a defined spiritual gift helps us know what to prioritize.
2. Spiritual gifts must be defined as Christ’s work in our midst.
The reason many of us feel presumptuous in claiming a spiritual gift is because we have wrongly assumed that our spiritual gifts are about us. But as Packer points out, “spiritual gifts must be defined in terms of Christ, as actualized powers of expressing, celebrating, displaying and so communicating Christ in one way or another, either by word or by deed. They would not be edifying otherwise.”
They are not natural abilities and skills, nor on the other hand, a sort of “supernatural novelty,” as Packer puts it. Spiritual gifts are given “in Christ” (1 Cor. 1:4, 7), and they are for the common good and edification of the church (1 Cor. 12:7; Eph. 4:12, 16).
We don’t need to feel embarrassed about naming and exercising our spiritual gifts because they are not about us. Instead, our gifts display, celebrate, express, and communicate Christ.
3. It is only a gift if and when God uses it to edify.
This point is closely connected to the last one. There must be outward, visible edification of the church when you exercise your spiritual gift. If there is none, it’s not a spiritual gift. An inward prompting and desire is important, but we must also have outward confirmation that others see and recognize God’s work through us.
Packer says, “We need to draw a clear distinction between use of our abilities rather than the abilities themselves that constitute charismata [spiritual gifts]. If no regular, identifiable spiritual benefit for others or ourselves results from what we do, we should not think of our capacity to do it as a spiritual gift.”
Getting input from pastors, small group leaders, and others in your church is essential. Just because you are a great orator doesn’t mean you have the gift of teaching. And just because you think you have the gift of discernment doesn’t mean you do.
On the flip side, God may empower you to serve the church in ways unexpected and perhaps against your natural inclinations. I will never forget reading about John Piper’s intense fear of public speaking. In his bookFuture Grace, he recounts how he made a vow to God before he had to pray publicly:
“Lord, if you will bring me through this without letting my voice break, I will never again turn down a speaking opportunity for you out of anxiety.”
Thank God that his fear of public speaking didn’t cause him to dismiss the idea that he could be gifted in speech!
4. Gifts of speech and gifts of service are theologically equal.
Many of us imagine a false hierarchy between the gifts of speech and what Packer calls “Samaritanship,” that is, “the loving helpful response to others’ physical and material needs.”
When our giftings fall into the realm of Samaritanship, they are often less visible and prominent than gifts of speech. For this reason, we tend to view them as less important. But the church is not like the world in how it assigns value.
Packer says, “From heaven Christ uses Christians as his mouth, his hands, his feet, even his smile; it is through us, his people, that he speaks and acts, meets, loves and saves here and now in this world.”
Is Christ’s smile any less important than His words? Are His hands and His feet? As Paul says, “If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?” (1 Cor. 12:17). Even those who seem to be weaker are essential members of the Body (v. 22).
We are all “created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Eph. 2:10). When we feel uncertain about our spiritual gifts, the best thing we can do is start serving in our local church and see what God does. When our internal desires line up with external affirmation and identifiable spiritual benefit, we are on our way.
Instead of living in fear of tomorrow, imagine if you were surprised by how good your future could be? Your future could be better than all of your dread. Stop and think about how much time you spend worrying about fearful futures. Now, what if you trusted God’s Word in the 92nd Psalm?
I think you might be surprised.
Outlasting Your Enemies
First, you’ll be surprised to see “the downfall” of your “enemies” (Ps 92:11). Now Jesus commanded us to “love our enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). This action of love doesn’t change the fact that you will have enemies. What the 92nd Psalm is telling us is that the believer will outlast his or her enemies. Charles Spurgeon had confidence in the Lord, that even though his theological stances were unpopular with his contemporaries, he would be vindicated in the future. He said, “For my part, I am quite willing to be eaten of dogs for the next fifty years; but the more distant future shall vindicate me.” (An All-Round Ministry, 360-361).
Some of your enemies might outlast you on this earth. But if you are a Christian believer, you can know that you will look on the downfall of your enemies, since you will live forever before the face of God and they will not. Truly, God is “not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you” (Psalm 5:4). If you believe in Jesus Christ, you will have a front row seat to see and hear “the doom of [your] evil assailants.” (v.11). This is why it is so important for us to “forgive our debtors” (Matt 6:12). We cannot overpower our enemies, but we can outlast them in love.
Spiritual Success in the Church
The second way you might be surprised by your future involves the place you will be most successful— the church. According to verses 12-13:
The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God.
Psalm 92:12-13
Like healthy trees, the believer will prosper most in “the house of the Lord”. In the Old Testament, that would have been referring to the temple. But in the New Testament, Paul says that “we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” (2 Cor 5:1). The church is like a house in which believers are tools or vessels (2 Tim 2:21) or even spiritual stones (1 Peter 2:5), but Jesus is the builder of it (Heb 3:3-6). The place where the healthy tree grows is in the midst of the wise landscaping of the architect, and builder of the house, Jesus Christ. As a godly person gets older, they see more of their successful living in connection to the church fellowship. All of their other achievements will fade away, but the life of the church will cause them to keep growing, even into old age. Fellowship will be sweet. Worship will be sincere. The Word will be received like bread from heaven.
Old Trees With New Fruit
Most people are afraid to get old. They fear a future of weakness that age brings. But the 92nd Psalm promises that believers will “bear fruit in old age”. (v.14). We know that it doesn’t make sense. The end of your life is when you shrivel up, not ripen up. But like Sarah giving birth in old age, God is able to make women and men grow in the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22), even when logic and biology would assume that their lives are nearly gone like an old orchard long since dead. I was in a meeting and I heard one well-known pastor ask for prayer that his seventies would be the most fruitful years of his ministry! Following that, another well-known pastor said that he was in his seventies already, and he could testify that God was making that decade his most fruitful ever!
God has a surprising future in store for you, Christian believer. Maybe it’s time for you to trust in what God can do. He can even make your future “ever full of sap and green”.
When you are being chased by notifications, calendar requests, and the demand to always be ‘on’ don’t you feel like you’re losing control a bit?
Sure you might say that you’re taking control of your calendar, or taking control of your life. But as we all know, there can be a bit of hubris to that kind of talk.
We all know that things can fall apart quickly.
The work piles up.
The unexpected crashed down.
And we are suddenly out of control.
The temptation when that happens is that we grip the one part of our life that we think we can control more easily: our relationships.
When things spin out of control in our circumstances, we can get pretty grippy with people and our expectations for them.
Suddenly we become the person who needs others to come through for them.
Your expectations will get unreasonably high.
Your impatience with other people’s limits will fester.
Your grip on others will seem like the only thing that you can control in your life.
But what happens is that as you squeeze others, you end up trying to make them give you the control over your life that you crave.
And they can’t fix that.
So you have to loosen your grip on people. And you have to relinquish your grip on your entire life. When we do this in submission to God we gain freedom.
“Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.” 1 Peter 2:16
