Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Hope Begins With Hopelessness

hopelessOxymoron is not usually the first that comes to mind when we mention things like te gospel, evangelism, and salvation. Yet at its core, the gospel is an oxymoron. The hope filled gospel begins by saying there is no hope. To get to hope, we have to become hopeless. Oxymoron.

In Mark 10:17-22, we watch in disappointment as the Rich Younger Ruler approaches Jesus for salvation only to walk away “sorrowful.” But to fully grasp the magnitude what the story means, we need to put ourselves in the apostles’ shoes. The apostles thought that the Rich Young Ruler was the most ideal candidate for salvation. When they thought about rich people, their minds did not drift to the abuses of the poor that we see on our T.V. screens from the all four corners of our nation. They did not envision morally destitute celebrities or crooked business men pocketing other people’s money. Their minds would have been filled with images of Abraham, David and Solomon, godly men who gained wealth because of their obedience. In other words, they thought that wealth equaled godliness. They fully expected Jesus to welcome the young man with open arms. They could not imagine a moral ideal candidate for salvation. If you had one rose left on the bacheloret, you would give it to this guy every time. The disciples are expected this guy to be the one.

But he is not. The rose is withheld. And now like a bunch of high school girls, the disciples are dumfounded. There whole world is falling apart.  They do not know what to say.

Thankful Jesus does. He turns to his disciples and tells them:

“How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.” And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

Though the disciples saw wealth as an advantage. Jesus saw it as a hindrance. Often those who are wealthy can insulate themselves from the problems and cares that destroy the poor. The rich can afford good housing, medical care, and food. They tend to think of themselves as being self-sufficient. They can mistake the physical wealth for spiritual blessing. Money can blind people to their own sin.

Even more striking than the condemnation of money is Jesus’ condemnation of those who have money. The people we think are most primed for heaven are actually separated from heaven by an impassable gulf. And to make sure the disciples and all of us know that there is no way for the good people of this world to make it to heaven, Christ gives us the analogy of a camel going through the eye of a needle. He says that it is easier for an animal that weighs between 661-882 lbs to walk through a gap millimeters wide than for a rich man to work his way to heaven. Salvation by works alone is impossible.

Now in recent years, some pastors have tried to equate the needle with the needle gate. They claim that a camel stripped of his baggage could walk through the tiny needle gate if it were willing to humbly crawl through the small door. But this is not Christ’s point. The disciples respond in horror, saying “Then who can be saved.” The context of this passage reveals, that Jesus is communicating that no one can work through way into heaven.  He is not saying that salvation is barely possible. He is not saying that salvation will be possible for those who pray a magical prayer or for those who walk down front. He is saying that it is impossible for anyone to save himself. No one can come to Jesus in their own strength. No amount of church attendance, of gifts to our wives, or donations to our church can get us to heaven.

We cannot save any person. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot come up with any method of praying or prayers that get us and others to Jesus. We cannot reach Jesus in our own strength and power. As the Pastor Matt Chandler said,

You cannot scare anyone in heaven….it’s a place for those who love God. You can scare people into coming to your church, you can scare people into trying to be good, you can scare people into giving money, you can even scare them into walking down an aisle and praying a certain prayer, but you cannot scare people into loving God. You just can’t do it.

We cannot do anything to save ourselves or others. Even our church services and revivals have no power to save people from their sins.

So then why do it? Why have church services? Why preach? Why witness? If the wordily people closest to God cannot reach God, then surely there is not hope for the rest of us.

As the disciples have the exact some question, saying, “Then who can be saved?”

A whole bunch of people. Notice verse 27. “With man it is impossible, but not with God for all things are possible with God.” Ah what glorious news. We do not save. We cannot save nor come up with the perfect program, sermon series, or social media platform that will bring the next revival. We cannot do any of those things. But hope is not lost because God saves.

When can tell our lost sister about Jesus for the 100th time, we can encourage the drug addict to repent and believe, we can tell the serial adulterer to repent and expect change to happen because God works. God does not save the self-righteous. He does not save those who think, they have no need of a savior. But, he does save. He saves the most unlikely men and women. He saves the lost cause. He saves the person that society writes off as a failure.

When the rest of our families loses hope, we can and should keep praying because nothing is impossible with God. God can touch the heart and bring life in the twinkling of the eye. In a second, years of death can be transformed into life. Things can and do move past our control and influence. But no person can run away from God. If God can turn murdering Paul into an apostle, he can surely redeem us and our sons daughter, neighbors, and coworkers. Do not lose hope. Nothing is impossible with God.

The great oxymoron of the gospel is that the hopeless have true hope because God saves. God saves those who trust in him for salvation. He saves those who have realized that they cannot save themselves. Hopelessness begets hope.

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Heaven: Why The Divine Nursery Matters

heaven-1We have a ton of images about heaven in our head, but few of them include a divine playground. Jesus says that the kingdom of belongs to little children. Think about this. Christ does not compare the kingdom of God and acceptance into the kingdom upon to our great choirs. He does not compare entrance into the kingdom of God to the great preachers. No, Jesus says that we get the best feel for heaven when we go to the nursery. When we spend time loving and caring for little children, then we begin to see what heaven will look like.

How strange. Today, children are not viewed to be blessing by our culture. They are viewed to be a burden and a cost. According to the Department of Agriculture, the average parent will spend $233,610 to raise a child. Children are viewed in terms of costs. Being expensive, children quickly become a threat to their future parents’ financial, career, and life goals. Consequently, parents delay having children. According to the New York Post, the number of live births per 1,000 women in the U.S. has dropped 9 percent, while the number of small dogs has ballooned to over 40.8 million. As one pet mom said, “Dogs are better!” She is not alone. On the other side of the spectrum, the new slogan goes, “Cats not Brats.”

So why go back and focus on children? Why go back and focus on these helpless little burdens who do nothing but demand time and attention that should be devoted to our goals, hopes and dreams? Why in the world would Jesus make such a comparison?

Jesus makes such a comparison because we are prideful human being who forget our place in the universe. We forget that we are helpless before God.  We need to focus on children because Jesus saves. If we miss the beauty and the value of Children, we will miss the beauty of heaven and of Christ. According to Mark 10:13-16, we need to approach Jesus as a child because Jesus saves.

To come to Jesus as a child, we must abandon the disciples and our propensity for self-worth because Jesus saves. When the mothers with young children (padawans) approach Jesus, the disciples rebuke them. The word rebuke is the same word Jesus uses when he encounters and cast out demons in Mark 1:25 and 9:25. This is a harsh command of separation. They are clearly demarking who Jesus has time for and who Jesus does not have time for. The blessings of Jesus’ touch were to be reserved for those who deserved his blessing and the privilege of being with God. Children were not worth of such an invitation. Thus, the disciples rebuked them.

To understand why the disciples arrived at this conclusion, we need to reflect some on Jewish culture. The Jews and the disciples saw children as a disruption to the advancement of the kingdom. They had the idea that Jesus wanted to only spend time and devote time to people who could help him in his mission. They held to a mantra that Jesus helps those who can help him. 

Consequently, Peter offers to build Jesus a tabernacle on the mount of transfiguration, they are stunned when the rich young walks away, and James and John want to sit on Jesus right and left hand. The disciples were all about networking with people who could help God do God’s plan.

In the process, they became prideful and missed the whole point of the gospel. They essential are acting on the idea that God needs them. They are part of the twelve because they have something to offer to God. They are special.

michael-mims-130838We often tend to view life the same way. We will tell people that they are so special that God died on the cross for them. We say that God died so that you could be happy, have a good marriage, and find a great job. We say things like: “God needs you. Without you, God cannot reach the nations. Without us, God cannot accomplish his goal to seek and safe the lost. Brother, sister, friend, I am so glad God saved you because together we can do so much.”

With this mindset, we charge after the talented. We want every Championship coach to be saved so that they can speak at our banquets. We want our Presidents to pray so that we can finally have a Christian nation. We want the wealthy man or woman to come to our church so that we can finally build a new worship center. We want to devote all our energies to ministering to and to reaching those who can greatly help us, our churches and our families.

We like the disciples do not have time for the children and for the helpless. They are a burden a distraction from our vision statements and our growth. We don’t have time for ‘brats’ because we are focused on the good people of this world.  Like society, we can be tempted to devalue children, because we fashion ourselves as being self-sufficient.  We see ourselves as co-pilots with Christ. And so we rebuke the little children who want to be with the creator. We think we have done God a great service.

But we have not. Jesus gets angry with the disciples. He becomes enraged. The disciples strong reaction is meet by an equally strong reaction from our savior.  The text says, “But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant” (Mark 10:14a). Jesus was angry with the disciples because he never came to seek and save the self-righteous. Jesus never sought out people because he needed them. No man, woman or child can offer anything to God. Jesus did not come to collect his A team. He came to save the sick. As he said in Mark 2:17, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus is mad at the disciples because they have missed represented the gospel. They have given the impression that heaven is comprised of self-righteous men and women who can boast of all they have down for God. In reality those people are not in heaven. They are in hell.

Because the gospel has been misrepresented, Christ cannot remain silent. Truth hangs in the balance, people’s souls hang in the balance. And so, he speaks.

Starting in verse 14, we read: “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belong the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

Jesus cannot tolerate the view of the disciples. We must not tolerate it because their view is a distortion of reality because Jesus saves. And because salvation is not based on our works and on our abilities to contribute to the kingdom of God, Jesus saves all the little children who die.

Those who die before they can grasp the gospel are in heaven because Jesus saves. Yes, their bodies are tainted by sin. If they were free of sin, they would not die since death is a byproduct of sin. And, yes in some cases, those little souls did willfully sin before death. We have all seen a little one cry selfishly or hit their mom in anger. But salvation is a free gift of God. Jesus saves not because these kids are worth it, but because he loves them and covers their sin with the righteousness of Christ. God pays for their sins on the cross and they are in heaven because they have trusted Christ.

Writing to a family who recently lost a little baby, John Newton, the author of the hymn Amazing Grace, said, “I hope you are both well reconciled to the death of your child. I cannot be sorry for the death of infants. How many storms they escape! Nor can I doubt, in my private judgement, that they are included in the election of grace.”

I agree. God saves children and can freely do so because the disciples got salvation wrong. Salvation is not based on us. It is based on Christ.  Because of God’s grace, heaven is in large part the nursery for infants. As John MacArthur notes,

“If children are not readily and fully received into the kingdom of heaven, the analogy to spiritual conversions would be a very poor one. As it is, the analogy is a great one! Children are readily accepted into the kingdom.”

Friends, we cannot cling to our pride, we cannot assume that we have something to offer to God, and we cannot pretend to be self-sufficient if we hope to get into heaven. The kingdom of God is not a senior adult home for weary saints who worked hard nor is it a home for the brave fighters of old like Valhalla who strove valiantly against the world. It is a home for humble infants. Do not be like the disciples here and cherish your works because Jesus saves.

If we are not to boast in our accomplishments, what are we to do?

We are to be like children because Jesus saves. In verse 15, we read: “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” To be right with God, we have to view our works and our ideas correctly. We Jesus tells us to be like children, he is not calling us to be innocent. Rather such a call would point to self-works to purging’s, to great feats of human strength. But as we just looked at this is not Jesus mission. As James Edwards said,

“If we assume that Jesus commends children because of their innocence, purity, acceptability, or even spontaneity, then we must conclude that the disciples acceptability in God’s kingdom depends on similar virtues. But, as Mark’s depiction of the disciples makes repeatedly clear, that I exactly what they are not, nor are we.” 

As the famous preacher Charles Spurgeon said, “If Infants be saved it is not because of any natural innocence. They enter heaven by the same way we do: they are received in the name of Christ.” 

Rather, the call to be a child is a call to helplessness. The disciples are right to assume that the children have nothing to offer Jesus. What they get wrong is their ability. Like the children they have nothing to offer the heavenly father. They are just as worthless as the tiny little children. But, they do not realize it. This is the difference between the children and the disciples, between the children and the Rich Young Ruler, and between the inhabitants of heaven and the residents of hell. The first understand that they bring nothing to God. The second still think they can save themselves.

To embrace Jesus as our savior, we must embrace Jesus and Jesus alone as a child. We must humbly admit that we are sinners. We must agree with Isaiah and declare, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like polluted garments. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” (64:6). When we get to this point and only when we get to the point of humbly depending on God to save us like a child can we enter the kingdom of heaven. They are no prideful, self-righteous people in heaven. There are only children and men and women who are like children. We have to trust Christ and Christ alone to save us. Our boast is the cross. We become nothing and Christ becomes everything. We submit our thoughts, our words, and our actions are all to his divine authority.

The world finds this message offensive. It finds children offensive because they remind us of this truth: We are not God. Children call us to repent. They call us to realize that our good deeds will not save us. The message calls us to admit that our cars, our trips, and our crazy experiences will not satisfy. It is a call to submit to the God of the universe, crying out, “God save me. I am a sinner.” But it is a call, we hate. It is a call we cannot embrace without the aid of the Holy Spirit. But it is the call we have to embrace if we want to enter heaven.

It is good for us to have children, to work with children and to welcome them into our church services. Because as they struggle with eating, with sitting still, and with obeying commands, we grasp a sense of our own condition. We see our frailty, our propensity for foolishness, and our need for our heavenly father to shepherd us through life. I fear that we often want children out of sight and out of mind, because we want to think ourselves sufficient for our spiritual lives. We want to focus on the flashy ministries that are praised in Christian media. We do not want to be reminded of our weakness and need for divine help. Don’t flee from your condition. Embrace it, embrace children, and humbly follow after Christ, proclaiming yourself to be nothing and Christ to be everything.

And the great truth of this passage and of the gospel is that all who go to Jesus as a child will be saved. Notice verse 16, “And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying hands on them.” If we humble ourselves, we will not be rejected. All kinds of prideful pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons will be rejected by God. But all those even the most insignificant of us who humbly embrace Christ while no one is watching will be welcomed into the arms of Christ. He will embrace the children as his sons. He will bless them with the blessing of Christ. And he can do this and do it fairly because he has paid for every single sin we have committed.

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Christ has made a way for the humble to enter the kingdom of God. He offers salvation and entrance into heaven. But to get there, we must do the unthinkable. We stop trusting in our good works and humbly embrace Christ as a child. Are we ready to enter heaven as little children?

Peter Witkowski Evangelism

Is the Cross Plan A?

plan-1Is the cross plan A? It is a simple question and yet a deeply profound question. Did God always plan to die on the cross or was it simply a response to our failings? Is God’s divine plan playing out in the theatre of the cosmos or is he frantically attempting respond to our bumbling use of independence?

The theologians Gregory Boyd and John Sanders advocate for the later. John Sanders writes, “The path of the cross comes about only through God’s interactions with humans in history. Until this moment in history other routes were, perhaps open.”

Commenting on Judas’ betrayal Boyd adds,

If Judas had gone down a different path, he wouldn’t have fulfilled the prophecy of the Lord’s betrayal…perhaps no one would have betrayed Jesus, and the passages that are now read as predicting his betrayal wouldn’t be read as such.

In short, God does not control the universe and the destiny of men and women. There is no ‘blue print’ as Boyd likes to say. Rather, God is responding to our failures out of love, working as best he can through the broken vessels of humanity to accomplish good.

This view easily connects with our hearts. We very much like the thought that God loved us enough to radically change his plan for the universe. We love thinking that God changed to redeem us. But is such a thought biblical? Jesus says no.

In Mark 9:9, we read “And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” Christ did not think his death, burial and resurrection were in doubt. He was not responding to the plans of men and women.

No, he had planned to die from the beginning of time. He knew Judas would betray him. He knew he would hang on a tree and die. He knew it because he had decreed it. Three times in the gospel of Mark, Jesus foretells and prophecies his death (8:31-33;9:30-32;10:32-34).

And, we should not be surprised that God can know the future. In Isaiah 48:9-10, we read

Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,

We are not constantly taking away from and adding to God’s plans. Rather, we are moving within God’s ordained will.

In Revelation 13:8, we read of the “lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Before Adam and Eve took a breathe, God knew they would sin. And even better, God had planned to rescue them and us. He had planned to send his son to pay for the sins of the world, so that Jesus might be the first of many brothers (Rom. 8:29).

And here is the great news for you and for me and for our children. God can be trusted. God is not simply bungling through life like some Greek god who has to manipulate men to get what he wants. We do not pray and call out to him hoping that God might somehow be able to overcome the odds and help us.

No, we call out to the God of the universe who rules all. What makes God so amazing is not that he makes much of us. What makes God amazing is that he redeems us to make much of him. God saves us so that we can experience the glory of the divine.

And this has always been his plan. He is not responding to us. He is doing what he always planned. “He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the other.” (Dan 4:35).

Such knowledge should excite all Christians. Because God rules, we can cry out to God with confidence.  As the Pastor Paul David Tripp wrote,

Your world is not a world of constant chaos controlled by impersonal forces. Your destiny is not in your hands or the hands of other people. You are held in the hands of your Father, who rules everything…Because he rules heaven and earth according to his wise plan, I need not live in anxiety and fear.

We can trust God’s promise to grow our faith. We can trust God’s promise to care for us when we get cancer and when family members hate us. We can trust his promise that sting of death has been removed. We can trust God because he rules.

There is no plan B,C,D. Yes, God reacts to us within the narrative of human history. Yet, ultimately that narrative is of his creation. He planned it, he guarantees it, and he accomplishes it. Because plan A was at work in Genesis 1, we can be sure it is at work in Revelation 1. We can trust God with all our worries and concerns. Do you believe in the cross is plan A?