Hudson Taylor in his old age

"I am so weak I can no longer work. I am so weak I can no longer study. I am so weak I can no longer read my Bible. I can't even pray. I can only lie still in the arms of God like a little child in trust."

It's OK when God Withholds and Things Don't Go the Way You Want

Existential Expression and Emotional Experiences of the Christian Life (Acts 13)

• What is your life like/experience as a Christian?
• What do you feel daily as a Christ follower?
• What is your mind's/life's utmost preoccupation?
• What consumes and occupies your thoughts and your plans?
• Does what I believe about Christ translate into my daily experience?
  

Outline. Existential Expression and Emotional Experiences of the Christian Life (Paul's 1st Missionary Journey):

1. Set apart and sent out by the Holy Spirit (Ac 13:2-4; Jn 20:21).
2. Synagogue preaching (Ac 13:5, 14; 14:1; etc).
3. Sincere and intelligent proconsul Sergius Paulus (Ac 13:7, 12).
4. Saul, also called Paul (Ac 13:9).
5. Sorcerer Bar-Jesus/Elymas cursed (Ac 13:10-11).
6. Sadness with John leaving the team (Ac 13:13).
7. Survey summary and synopsis of salvation history (Ac 13:16-22).
8. Savior Jesus (Ac 13:23-37). The sermon's focus: "...they asked Pilate to have him executed. But God raised him from the dead" (Ac 13:28, 30).
• If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn't rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.
  
• While God may not protect you from every bad thing that might, has, or could happen to you- ultimately, through the resurrection, you are safe.
• Christ's miracles were not the suspension of the natural order but the restoration of the natural order. They were a reminder of what once was prior to the fall and a preview of what will eventually be a universal reality once again--a world of peace and justice.
• Ultimately, the gospel is offensive because the cross stands against all schemes of self-salvation.
• The resurrection of Christ means everything sad is going to come untrue and it will somehow be greater for once being broken and lost.
9. Sins forgiven (Ac 13:38-39). Without a knowledge of our extreme sin, payment of the cross seems trivial and does not electrify or transform.
10. Severe warning (Ac 13:40-41). The sermon's conclusion.
11. Speak further about the gospel (Ac 13:42-44).
12. Speaking against Paul (Ac 13:44-46).
13. Salvation to the ends of the earth (Ac 13:47).
14. Surprised by joy (Ac 13:48-49).
15. Stirring up persecution (Ac 13:50).
16. Shaking the dust off their feet (Ac 13:51).
17. Spiritual joy (Ac 13:52; 5:41).
• "Only a heart filled with overflowing joy will want to share the source of that joy with everyone they meet. If you had the cure for cancer, would you keep it a secret? Worship propels us into the world to serve and love." Tim Keller.
• "Mission begins with an explosion of joy. The news that the rejected and crucified Jesus is alive is something that cannot be suppressed. It must be told. Who can be silent about such a fact." Leslie Newbigin.

"When Jesus crucified and risen is not proclaimed, a beige and unthreatening Catholicism emerges, a thought system that is, at best, an echo of the environing culture." Barron.

The Main Problem and the Only Solution

Pay Attention to the Root of the Tree, not the Fruit (AW Tozer)

"Our fathers looked well to the root of the tree and were willing to wait with patience for the fruit to appear. We demand the fruit immediately even though the root may be weak and knobby or missing altogether. So we'll imitate their fruit without accepting their theology or inconveniencing ourselves too greatly by adopting their all-or-nothing attitude toward religion." A.W. Tozer.

Hope in Times of Fear: The Resurrection, Tim Keller, 2021

Faith is a mixture of reason and experience, involving the rational and the existential, the theological and the practical. Only in the cross is divinity and humanity reconciled. With the church there will always be attrition and retention. 

• What is the difference between relative hope in human agency and infallible hope in God? 210-211.
• Christian hope means I stop betting my life and happiness on human agency and rest in God alone.
• If you know--and keep remembering--that resurrection happened and is coming, you won't ever be in utter darkness. 215-216. Epilogue (Ps 118:22-23).
• Darkness can happen to a believer (Ps 88:18), but it doesn't mean you're lost. It can happen at any time as long as this world lasts; only in the next will such things be done away with. It can happen without you knowing why. But there are answers, there is a purpose, and eventually you will know.
• On the cross, darkness was Jesus' only friend. On the cross, he paid for your sins so you know that in your darkness God is still there as your friend.

Christian hope is reasonable, full, realistic and effective. 206-211. Ch. 12 Hope for the Future.

1. Reasonable. Is there any alternative explanation for the eyewitness accounts (1 Cor 15:6)? N.T. Wright.
2. Full. Christian hope is the fullest hope possible. Every tear wiped (Rev 21:4), the wolf will lie down with the lamb (Isa 11:6), this world will be mended, made new, liberated from bondage to death and decay (Rom 8:18-23).
3. Realistic. Cf. Hegel's philosophy: Every age was better than the one before and history was moving upward. But this is not how God works, and not how human life works. Yes, history is moving toward a wonderful destiny, but not in a series of successively better and better eras, going from strength to strength. But it is often through hardship and difficulty that we grow (Ac 14:22), that we finally see truths about ourselves and become all that we should be. The secular idea of progress is naive and unrealistic. Only Christianity gives us a non-cyclical but realistic way to see history.
4. Effective. Christian hope works at the life level, the practical level. Human hope is always relative and uncertain, hoping, wishing anxiously that things will turn out well for you. But when the object of hope is not any human agent but God, the hope means confidence, courage, certainty and full assurance (Heb 11:1; Ps 125:1; Isa 40:31). Real courage comes from self-forgetfulness based on joy, and from a deep conviction that we are trapped temporarily in a little corner of darkness, but that God's universe is an enormous place of light and beauty, which is our certain final destiny. "...weeping may stay for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning" (Ps 30:5). With this assurance abiding "in the eyes of our heart" (Eph 1:18), our immediate fate--how the current situation turns out--can no longer trouble us. Defiance comes from looking at ourselves, but hope comes from looking at God.

Optimists look at troubles as temporary anomalies. Pessimists see the world as a bleak place. 181. The Great Reversal prevents us from wrecking our ship either on naive optimism or on hopeless pessimism. 133.

Ch. 11 Hope in the Face of Suffering. 

• The kingdom of God is marked by weakness, deprivation, loss and exclusion. In the life of God's people will be seen 1st of all a remarkable reversal of values. (Lk 6:20-26). They will prize what the world calls pitiable, and suspect what the world thinks desirable. 173-174.
• The way Jesus saved the world [the Great Reversal] and changed your life, and now becomes our way of seeing and living. So for Christians, they way:
• up is down,
• to true power is to give up power in order to serve [cf, to hold on to power to be in control],
• to true riches is to be radically generous with all you have, and
• to lasting happiness is not to seek your own happiness so much as the happiness of others. 178.
• Theresa of Avila's well known quote: "From heaven even the most miserable life will look like one night in an inconvenient hotel." 177.

Ch. 10 Hope for Justice (2 Pet 3:13). 155.

Ch 9 Hope for Relationships (Lk 14:13-14). 133.

Secular conservatism fights for the liberation of the individual from state power, while progressivism fights for the liberation of oppressed groups through state power. 132. Ch. 8 Hope in Times of Fear

• The Great Reversal, the deep pattern of God's salvation, is how God saves through the death of rejection, weakness and sacrifice, and yet through this death he raises us up, rescuing us from our sins and making us into something great. 131.
• The Great Reversal helps us see obedience to moral rules in a gospel light, not as a means to save ourselves [or to get what we want], but as a way to imitate, delight, and resemble the one who saved us through his death and resurrection.
• Every act of obedience to God is a "death" followed by a resurrection. Every time we obey God we give up the right to self-determination and die to control over our own life. Whenever 2 wills cross, we are given a chance to say no to self and yes to God. Thus. "somebody has to die." But "we die in order to live." [Elizabeth Elliot.]

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Fwd: Tim Keller

Love Jesus Purely without Self-Interest or Self-Love (Thomas Kempis)

"Jesus has many lovers of His heavenly kingdom, but few cross-bearers. Many desire His consolation, but few His tribulation. Many will sit down with Him at the table, but few will share His fast. All desire to rejoice with Him, but few will suffer for Him. Many will follow Him to the breaking of the bread, but few will drink the bitter cup of His Passion. Many revere His miracles, but few follow the shame of His cross. Many love Jesus when all goes well with them, and praise Him when He does them a favor; but if Jesus conceals Himself and leaves them for a little while, they fall to complaining or become depressed. They who love Jesus purely for Himself and not for their own sake bless Him in all trouble and anguish as well as in time of consolation. Even if He never sent them consolation, they would still praise Him and give thanks. Oh how powerful is the pure love of Jesus, when not mixed with self-interest or self-love!"—Thomas à Kempis.