Simply JESUS

The Lord has been speaking some interesting things to me recently. He showed me a striking contrast between two major figures in the Bible: one from the Old Covenant, and one from the New.

Moses wanted to SEE GOD!

A false promise of the law (even the laws we make for ourselves and put ourselves under) is that if we can keep them in our own strength, we can please God. When God answered Moses' request to see Him, all he could show him was His hand and His backside (Ex.33:12-23). Even if we could keep the law perfectly, we still couldn't see God's face (WHO HE IS and WHO HE IS TO COME, Rev.1:8), only his provision (His hand—WHAT HE HAS DONE), and where He has been (His backside—WHO HE WAS). In addition to His provision, I believe his hand also represents His protection and His discipline. Under the Law, the Jews were so busy doing everything by their own human effort, they couldn’t see God as a good and loving Father, only a hard taskmaster and disciplinarian.

But, according to Paul, the trickiest deception of the law is that it imprisons and shuts up faith (Gal.3:23), and without faith it’s impossible to please God (Heb.11:6)! Do you see it? Keeping the law blocks faith and therefore, blocks the very thing we’re working so hard to get—God’s approval. I can see God’s hand blocking Moses (personifying the law) from seeing what he wanted most, the look of approval on God’s face. But keeping the law also imprisons and shuts up God’s love from empowering us with His supernatural grace.

When Adam’s eyes were opened and he believed he had become like God, knowing good and evil, he left the garden fully convinced that he was more than able to make his own decisions without God’s help. Adam became the first of a long line of children who would reach the stage in maturity of wanting to do everything on their own without their parent’s help.

The law makes continual DEMAND, with little or no SUPPLY (you’re on your own). Grace on the other hand, provides ultimate SUPPLY, with little or no DEMAND. Living by the law requires us to work (in our own strength) toward someday pleasing God at the end, whereas grace gives us His approval and satisfaction at the beginning. Then whatever we do comes out of His strength, rather than ours (we’re in partnership WITH GOD, rather than trying to do something FOR GOD).

Paul wanted to KNOW GOD!

But through the New Covenant, He provides us with the full-frontal view of Abba (seeing His glory in the face of Jesus Christ, 2 Cor.4:6). While Moses wanted to see God with his eyes, the Apostle Paul wanted to know him with his heart (Phil.3:10). The theme of our Gathering this week, is "Simply JESUS." But I believe it’s safe to assume that you never have and never will hear the phrase: “Simply MOSES!”

For everyone who has tried to please God and win His approval through keeping the law and doing good works, you know that life becomes extremely complex, while continuously feeling like you're still not doing enough. But when you’ve fully exhausted yourself, then Jesus appears, and says, "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Mat.11:28)." When you come to Moses, you find a whole lot more than 10 commandments, you find 613 rules and regulations to try to keep. Under Moses, we become slaves of doing good, but when we come to Christ, He makes us SONS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS!

The Parable of the Prodigal Son

In the story of the prodigal son (Lk.15:11–32), we see two young men: one who was trying to please his father by doing everything right, and a younger son, who figured out that he just couldn't do it anymore. So, he took his inheritance and left. Then when he discovered that going it alone wasn't the answer, he decided to come back to his father and be a servant. In one sense, the older son represents the sons of the commandments, the Jews who were trying to be good, by keeping the law outwardly, but inwardly, they were a mess, filled with frustration, anger, resentment, and jealousy, and totally devoid of love.

They saw love only as an outward expression of doing things they thought would please others. I believe that ever since the fall of man, we all inherited a tendency to confuse love with "people pleasing." But it all came to light, when the younger son, who had jumped off the “being good” treadmill, by taking his inheritance, and spending it all on riotous living. When the elder son realized that his younger brother had returned home, and was accepted, and reinstated into full sonship by his father, he was enraged, making the case for his righteousness based on works, citing the fact that he'd never asked for anything in return, let alone a party with his friends. Living under the law makes us so self-sufficient that not only do we have trouble giving love, but we also have difficulty receiving it. Then the father said something to the older son that he didn't know and couldn't relate to. He told His son that everything he had, and everything the family possessed, already belonged to him. Everything he would ever need was already his. All he had to do was believe it was his to receive it. That one statement describes the simplicity of Jesus and His Gospel. We receive the blessings of God and of the Kingdom, not through earning and deserving them, but by simply trusting and believing that Jesus Christ did all the work for us and receiving our new identity as SONS OF GOD, then living our lives for Him in full display for the world to see that the Gospel is not only simple, but true!

“The Simplicity that is in Christ”

The Apostle Paul was concerned that “the simplicity that is in Christ” might seem to be too simple, so he warned the Church at Corinth that others would come preaching a different and more complicated “gospel,” under a different spirit. That warning is just as valid today for us.

2 Corinthians 11:2–4 2 For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. 3 But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 4 For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it! (NKJV)