Blog | Redeemer Ann Arbor

September 2, 2018 by Bart Bryant

Update from Redeemer Ann Arbor – September 2018

Building

Although the work has lagged significantly behind schedule, we will have our first worship service in our new building this Sunday, September 2! We are excited about what God has given us, and we are anxious to use it as a base of operations to reach our community.

We are not having a single grand opening service because our worship area is so small, but we would love to have you come visit us at a worship service and see how God has richly blessed us.

Growth

We continue to see God graciously working in many different ways. We see visitors most Sundays; some stay and continue to attend. Summers can be slow times in Ann Arbor with much of the student population gone. However, we have seen an increase of the average attendance of 40 last summer to 50 this summer. With students starting to move in, we have already seen a big increase in attendance. We had 75 this past Sunday.

Outreach

Our Ladies’ Book Study continues to reach out to unbelievers as well as Christians, and we have had ongoing conversations and relationships with several women. We pray for growth and fruitfulness in this important outreach.

This fall some of our students and recent graduates are in the middle of more extensive welcome week activities to engage with new students arriving on campus. Over the past week we have given special focus to the many International students arriving on campus. We had a table in the Diag (the center of UM’s campus) and were able to engage with many students. At our welcome picnic this week, we had students from China, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines.

Our small group in Ann Arbor has morphed into the campus study. We continue with the small group north of town in Salem, and we are going to experiment with a new small group south of town this fall.

Our campus study has grown a good bit from last year. Jim has just finished leading the group through a study of the book of Romans. In this coming year, we will expand our campus ministry from our Bible study on Thursday nights to a campus worship night with singing and teaching as well as small groups of students who will meet throughout the week. These small groups will seek to create an enviroment where non-Christians can ask questions on a more personal level. Daniel Miller, one of our members with some experience in campus ministry at UM, will be leading this effort.

Ecuador

We are partnering with La Iglesia Filadelfia in Ambato, Ecuador. After sending a team from Redeemer Ann Arbor over spring break to Ecuador to begin building relationships and to help with various projects, we are now praying for each other and planning to host a joint quarterly prayer meeting via teleconference. Steve Youngren from Ecuador will be preaching for us at the end of September, and Jim is planning to participate in a training session for pastors in Ecuador later this year. Also, work has begun on our next team mission trip to Ecuador during UM’s Spring Break in March of 2019.

Overall, we are very encouraged by God’s work here in Ann Arbor. Please pray for us. Pray that the “Word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored (2 Thessalonians 3:5).” May Jesus Christ be praised!

in Uncategorized 0 comments

January 5, 2018 by Bart Bryant

Update – January 2018

Please join with us in giving thanks to our God who has led us and provided for us during these past several months. Let us share with you what we have experienced and where we are going at Redeemer Ann Arbor.

Morning Worship Services – After initiating morning worship services on July 16 at the Michigan League, we are now switching location for our morning service to the Lord of Light Church at 801 S. Forest until we move into our new building, hopefully in April 2018. We have averaged 51 in attendance at our morning services.

Equip Service – We have held a 5 pm service which we call “Equip” followed by a dinner together at Angelo’s Restaurant this fall. In these services, we worked through “Christianity Explored,” and now we are going through the Lord’s Prayer with a time of teaching, followed by discussion and prayer in small groups.

Formation as a Church – Redeemer Ann Arbor members covenanted together as a church on October 22, 2017. Pastor Aaron Carr from First Presbyterian Church in Trenton, our primary sending church, preached for us. We currently have 30 members.

Ecuador Missions Trip – Later this winter, Jim will lead a team of 8 on a trip to Ecuador to work with Acts 29 missionaries Steve and Sandi Youngren. Steve and Sandi oversee a training center in Lasso, Ecuador where they are working with a number of different Ecuadorian pastors. The Redeemer mission team will primarily work with a church in Ambato, Ecuador with the goal of forming a long-term relationship with this church. Another exciting part of the trip will be visiting Shell Mera and “Palm Beach” where Jim Elliot, Nate Saint and three other men were martyred in attempting to bring the good news of Jesus to the Aucan or Huaorani Indians in the 1950’s. The team will also have the opportunity to visit the Huaorani village where Elisabeth Elliot, Jim Elliot’s widow, and Rachel Saint, Nate’s sister, ministered for a number of years.

Men’s, Women’s and Campus Studies – Women have been meeting on Tuesday mornings to study, share and pray together. This fall they have worked through Ecclesiastes using Better by Tim Chaddick. Next week they will begin The Scars that Shaped Me by Vaneetha Rendall Risner. These meetings have provided wonderful opportunities to build some relationships with women from the community who are not yet ready to come to formal church services. Jim has led students in a study of the book of Romans in our Monday night campus studies. The men have met on Friday mornings to work through Men of God by Trevor Archer.

Building – Construction continues on 611½ East William Street. The basement has been fully excavated (by hand), underground plumbing is in place, and a number of other projects have been completed. The permitting process with both the city and this Historic District Commission took longer than anticipated, but the pace of construction is picking up now. We hope to occupy the building in April 2018.

We thank all of those who have prayed and supported Redeemer in many ways. To God be the glory!

November 4, 2017 by Bart Bryant

Falling… but the Lord helped me

I was pushed hard,

So that I was falling,

But the Lord helped me.

Ps. 118:13

Who pushed him so violently? Though not specifically named, they were his enemies. Doubtless the reference is left indistinct, so we will all be able to identify with the songwriter. Do you and I have those who threaten or oppose or intimidate us?

The songwriter was overwhelmed. Four times it says he was surrounded (v. 10, 11, 12). He was outnumbered, outmanned, outgunned, facing overwhelming odds. Whatever way he turned, there were more enemies. It was intense – like bees, buzzing all around, stinging relentlessly – like a fire among thorns, a blazing hot fire burning dried thornbushes, snapping and crackling loudly.

The songwriter fought back in faith. He did not just fold or collapse. Three times it says when he was surrounded, he didn’t give in or give up, but he cut them off (v. 10, 11, 12). And each time he fought in the power of God, by faith in God – “in the name of the Lord.”

But the songwriter went down. They hit him hard. They got the best of him. Their numbers were overwhelming. Their intensity was ferocious. He lost his footing and was falling. Quickly they would move in to finish him off. Expect no mercy when he goes down. Now to end the fight…

But the Lord helped me. I did not expect this! In my time of greatest need, my greatest weakness, my greatest hopelessness, the Lord steps in to rescue me. He has become my salvation (v. 14). The Lord answered me and set me free (v. 5). This is the Lord’s doing (v. 23).

Who has become your enemy? Are you overwhelmed? Have you been pushed hard? Are you falling?

The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?

The Lord is on my side as my helper. Ps. 118:6-7a

in Uncategorized 0 comments

August 12, 2017 by Bart Bryant

Meditations Toward Purity – #5 – 1 Peter 2:11

Helping you meditate on Scriptures as you pursue purity

1 Peter 2:11 – Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

Passions of the flesh

What is the focal point of this verse? The passions of the flesh (fleshly lusts, NASB). These are desires, strong desires that originate from my body and call me to pursue eagerly the satisfaction of my desire, often paying scant attention to what boundaries I may be crossing and whose property I may be trespassing on as I run like a baying hound chasing a coon. What comes to mind most readily is sexual desire, though Peter undoubtedly has other desires in mind as well.

Let’s go into a little more detail about these passions of the flesh. They are:

Rooted in the body

They are called passions of the flesh, for bodily needs and wants are at the root of these desires. The presence and pull of these desires are inescapable, for as long as I am in my body, I will have these desires. They spring from what I am as human, and they are inextricably linked with my existence in my body. Simply put, I cannot eliminate all desire by training myself to think differently.

Internally sourced, not originating externally

My desires may burst into flame in response to an external stimulus, but my desires were alight, smoldering away within me all along. My desire does not originate in the tempting person, image or object that I encounter. My desires are my desires, proceeding from deep within me. Consider James 4:1, “your passions…at war within you”, or Matthew 15:19, “out of the heart come evil thoughts…” My desires leap into action when I encounter what I have been wanting, but the desire comes from within me.

Opposed to the Spirit

“For the desires of the flesh are against the desires of the Spirit…” Galatians 5:17 These passions sourced in the flesh are by nature in conflict with, in opposition to, the Spirit and the desires He engenders in us. A cessation of these hostilities between flesh and Spirit is not possible because flesh and Spirit are intrinsically opposed to each other. A Christian feels acutely this internal conflict.

Dominant in unbelievers

Paul speaks of “the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind…” (Ephesians 2:3) Unbelievers routinely follow or indulge their fleshly passions. And these desires do not magically disappear when a sinner is converted. The transformed believer still faces old habits and a lifestyle that used to dominate his life; change is not a piece of cake.

Abstain

Now that he has identified this enemy which wages war against the soul, Peter urges his beloved brothers and sisters to take the appropriate action against this enemy, to abstain from the passions of the flesh. To abstain means to refrain from, to keep away, or to avoid contact with or the use of something.

There is another option, of course. Peter speaks in 2 Peter 2:10 of those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion. I face a choice. The passions are real, strong, magnetically attractive, with the pull constantly, undeniably, sometimes overwhelmingly being exerted on me. How do I respond? Do I keep away or give in? Do I say “no” decisively or do I let myself be swept away? Do I abstain or indulge?

Peter urges us to abstain, not just from fulfilling the desire (doing it) but also from indulging or giving in to experiencing the desire (delighting in it) even when we may not give in and actually commit what we want to do. We may refuse to do what we are being tempted to do, yet we can get a certain high or pleasure just from entertaining the attraction instead of immediately turning away or shutting it down.

1 Thessalonians 4:3 – For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality. Fundamental to God’s will for His people on an individual scale is holiness, and if ever there was an area that calls for holiness, it is sexual immorality.

Which wage war against your soul

What is the big deal? Why all the urgency and uproar over lust, something that everyone in the world just accepts as pretty normal?

Many reasons, but one is highlighted here. The passions of the flesh wage war against my soul. In other words, my lusts actively clash with and attack my true self, my fundamental identity, the part of me that will one day give account to God and that will live forever. Why? How?

War against my soul, because the rush of my passions dulls my desire for God, for purity, and for the unseen reality of heaven. The taste and zing and quick high of cotton candy makes steamed broccoli seem a bit drab.

War against my soul, because the guilty after taste from my lust indulged contaminates my conscience, making me instinctively run from God rather than to God. I become reluctant to draw near to God. This is not in the best interest of my soul.

War against my soul, because my passion indulged floods my heart with shame, turning me away from God’s people instead of engaging with and rejoicing in them.

War against my soul, because in the aftermath of my lust I can’t pray, yearn for holiness or a clean heart, find delight in the Word of God, or love others with humility and purity. I find my heart distracted, debased and derailed from faith in God.

War against my soul, because the passions of the flesh are against whatever is good for my soul.

As sojourners and exiles

My home is in heaven, where God dwells in light, perfection and purity. I belong there. As I travel there through this present world, I can never feel at home here. Here the surrounding culture exalts and idealizes giving in to fleshly passions; to restrain yourself is to miss out foolishly on the fun. I am not part of this society; its customs and morals are foreign to me. I must remember my alien status and not let myself get assimilated into the surrounding culture. Visiting foreigners are careful to retain their identity; they do not regard themselves as a part of the host society.

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

Lord, I feel keenly the tug of my fleshly passions. Help me to abstain, not to indulge or give in. I know that as pleasurable as these desires are, they are the deadly enemy of my soul. May your Spirit work in me to choose and to do your good pleasure.

in Meditations toward Purity 0 comments

July 17, 2017 by Bart Bryant

An Update on Redeemer Ann Arbor

The Timeline

August 2015 – God. 4 people. Prayer.

April 2016 – We began meeting for public worship on Sunday evenings at Lord of Light Lutheran Church at Forest and Hill, on the edge of campus. God blessed us in so many ways, and bit by bit we have seen progress: people added, ongoing conversations and relationships with unbelievers, students reached, a growing sense of identity, purpose and community for our core group and more.

January 2017 – Having concluding that it is much slower to grow without a morning service, we began to look diligently for an opportunity to meet within easy walking distance of central campus in order to continue what we have begun. This was not an easy find.

March 2017 – God provided! Marvelously! We purchased 611 ½ East William, a small historic structure built in 1878 for DKE, a fraternity on campus. The building is located where campus meets downtown, a hub of activity and foot traffic. Considerable renovations will be performed over the next several months. We hope to begin worship in this facility by the end of the year, if God wills.

July 16, 2017 – We begin morning services, which we are labelling Worship! We will meet on campus at the Michigan League on the second floor at 10:30 am. “God’s Truth for Kids with Pastor Jim,” classes for children, will begin at 9:45. We also will meet at Angelo’s Restaurant, 1100 Catherine, at 5 pm for a service we are labelling Equip! The Equip! service will be followed by a meal together at 6 pm. Taking the Great Commission seriously, we want to reach unbelievers with the gospel, but we also want to disciple many Christians that we have the opportunity to reach. People come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and we want to equip these believers to serve God in their lives, their vocations, and their churches wherever they may go when they leave Ann Arbor. The Equip! service will be aimed at achieving this objective.

Late 2017 – We plan to move into our newly renovated building at 611 ½ East William Street. We look forward to the opportunities to serve Jesus and to reach people that greater accessibility and visibility will bring.

Today

This year we have been averaging 40 in attendance at our Sunday evening services. This was our first year to reach out to students, and a number of students have come regularly this past year. Some of them will now serve as leaders of various endeavors that we will begin in the coming school year.

Our weekly Mornings Together sessions provide opportunity for women to study, discuss and pray together. These have been fruitful and hopeful as we have developed relationships with several unbelievers who attend regularly. Men meet early Friday mornings; they are currently studying the book of Titus. A weekly campus study has been ongoing through the school year. Evangelistic opportunities have emerged as various relationships have developed with unbelievers.

Tomorrow

We are now in the last few sermons of a series preparing us to organize as a church as we commit ourselves to God and to each other. We will take these steps in the next few months and move forward into a new phase of our existence.

We look forward to another school year and the opportunities that we believe God will bring for us to serve more students.

in Redeemer Ann Arbor 0 comments

February 28, 2017 by Jim Mong

Excellent Sermon from Hosea 4

This past Sunday, Bart, preached an excellent sermon from Hosea 4 that was very convicting and encouraging. I wanted to put his manuscript up here on the blog and encourage those who didn’t hear it to either read it here or check out the audio on the sermon tab of our website.

Here is his manuscript:

Hosea – #8

Thinking About Knowing

Hosea 4

Hosea is God’s prophet in 8^th century B.C. Sent to the nation of Israel, the Northern Kingdom. Why? What’s their condition? What’s the problem? What is his message?

Worship – Who is #1 in their lives? Who is their god? Should be true God, Maker of heaven and earth, Redeemer of Israel (Egypt to Promised Land). Idols. Baal. Golden calves.
Sin – Morality, God’s law, right and wrong. Hos. 4:1b-2
Relationship – Hosea’s marriage to promiscuous Gomer highlights this issue. God loves Israel in a way and to a degree that is in another category from human love. Commitment, perseverance, puts up with offenses. God is calling Israel to return to the God who loves and Husband who is committed.
Knowledge – Israel’s lifestyle, choices, direction is foolish, self-destructive, unwise, and irrational. Not just that what you are doing is wrong, against your God, against someone who loves you, but it is stupid and suicidal.

Chapter 4 opens with “Hear the word of the Lord.” Hosea will now preach with words.

4:1 – The Lord has a controversy… Terminology of a lawsuit. Broken covenant or contract between Lord and Israel. They have egregiously, on a sustained basis, violated their part of the agreement.

Exodus 20:1 – I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. 10 commandments. And how is Israel doing?

There is… (Hos. 4:2)

Swearing – Commandment #3 – You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Lying – Commandment #9 – You shall not bear false witness.
Murder – Commandment #6 – You shall not murder.
Stealing – Commandment #8 – You shall not steal.
Adultery – Commandment #7 – You shall not commit adultery.
They break all bounds
Bloodshed follows bloodshed

4:3 – So the land mourns. Tragic state of affairs. …languish. No one wins in this kind of society.

Problem starts with leadership. Names priest (v. 4b – with you is my contention, O priest) and prophet (v. 5). Again in v. 6-priest, v. 9-priest, v. 18-rulers. They bear an extra measure of responsibility, because they have a responsibility as leaders and people naturally just follow them where they go.

But what is the problem? Multi-dimensional, but we are going to focus on the knowledge problem. First mentioned in v. 1 – there is no knowledge of God in the land.

The Fundamentals – “no knowledge of God in the land” – 4:1

Here is where the problem starts. The fundamental issue.

What do people need to know more than anything? Pr. 1:7 – The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Knowing who God is: Creator, Ruler of his world, His will is always done, I am just a man, transient, subject to God, and I take my place before Him, i.e., I bow before Him and fear Him. Or more fully stated, Pr. 9:10 – The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. A big statement. Know God and you are well on your way in life. Here is true wisdom and here is where true wisdom begins.

Puts me in my place. I am not God, the purpose of my existence, the center of the universe. There is a God, and He exists independently, outside of me. So the world does not collapse when I am not happy. Others do not exist to satisfy my needs.

Puts God in his place. Because God is, there is purpose in life. It is not random. What happens to me is not by chance. Life makes sense; the different parts of time and space integrate and form a unifying theme. Furthermore, God is the purpose; we live from him, for him. There is a right and wrong, and God defines it. God is holy; this has moral demands on me. God is love (2 weeks ago); this is very hopeful for me, for God makes a way to rescue man from his great dilemma. This changes everything.

What happens when there is no knowledge of God? Read Hosea 4:2. All kinds of personal and societal evils. So there may be libraries and databases and heads full of knowledge about everything else, but if we have no knowledge of God, we’re in trouble. Fundamental.

What is this knowledge of God? After all, Israelites had intellectual acquaintance with monotheism, God, the five books of Moses, the sacrificial system, etc. What were they missing? What was God looking for when he said “no knowledge of God in the land?”

Hos. 6:3 – Let us know, let us press on to know. Something more, something personal.

Hos. 6:6 – For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offering. This is all about what God wants, desires. Not just commands or mandates.

Personal rather than public.

Reality rather than empty form of religion.

The egg not just the shell.

My heart rather than my hands.

Inward (what I am) rather than outward (what I do).

This knowledge of God is insight into, a belief in and a commitment to God and His way for me.

The Consequences – “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” – 4:6

Priests had a particular responsibility, not just to offer sacrifices but to teach the people. Deut. 31:9-13 – Read it once every 7 years when nation assembled at Feast of Booths so they may hear, learn, fear and observe – and their children.

So what happens when there is no knowledge of God in the land? The consequences of ignorance of God are destruction. A momentous matter, not simply a matter of personal preference. Some prefer the iphone; some prefer Android. Some wear colored socks, some white and some black. Some eat only organic foods. Some believe in God, some don’t. But this is no optional matter, no mere matter of taste.

Note also, that this is not a naivete, a guiltless ignorance. They had rejected knowledge. Israelites with commandments, five books of Moses, worship of God, prophets, priests. And for us as well, we have the evidence for God. Conscience, a voice within saying this is right or this is wrong. Creation, the world around us, itself tells a story – beauty, power, intricacy of design, the presence of love and joy and relationships. Who is behind all this? Someone bigger than what has been made. What will you do with this evidence of God, this knowledge? Will you believe it? Or will you push it away and reject this knowledge of God?

This is the very thing Paul speaks of in Romans 1:19-21.

Knowing there is a God makes me responsible for finding out more about Him, for finding out what He expects of me and for living as He prescribes. Wisdom is living in light of God, as God would have me live (Proverbs 1), in obedience to His good Word. Rejecting God’s wisdom, God’s will, God’s way is not in my own best interest. Destructive.

Is. 5:13 – Therefore my people go into exile for lack of knowledge. They knew so much, but they didn’t know what matters. A costly ignorance. An ignorance with great consequence.

The Catalyst – “whoredom, wine and new wine, which take away the understanding” – 4:11

Catalyst initiates or accelerates a chemical reaction. So whoredom, wine and new wine accelerate the taking away of understanding.

4:10 – “They shall eat but not be satisfied” – the hamster wheel of sin. You run so fast but you get nowhere. You consume sin and follow your desires. More and more; faster and faster. No accomplishment, no satisfaction. Wake up empty in the morning. Why is this? They have forsaken the Lord to cherish whoredom, wine and new wine. Cf. v. 12c – they have left their God to play the whore. What they left and what they left it for. What is so much better than God, so much more rewarding, fulfilling, exciting, pleasing? Sex, alcohol and spiritual adultery, i.e., idolatry.

Whoredom, sexual pleasure outside the covenant of marriage. Adultery, addiction to sex and pornography. This is what happened to Gomer. This is the scourge of 21^st century Western civilization. It becomes the major source of pleasure in life, the only source of happiness and satisfaction, the only relief in boredom and fear and sadness. You end up with nowhere else to turn other than sex or porn. Sex becomes your god.

Alcohol or substance misuse or abuse is parallel. What is a legitimate source of joy for the heart of man takes a dominant place in his life.

And idolatry is in the same category. Idolatry, spiritual adultery, loving and making something else the focus of my life instead of God, is the point of the book of Hosea. This is what God was saying to Israel through Hosea marrying and loving Gomer, the adulterous wife; your love affair with your idols is leaving Me (your God) for another lover. The question is what do you worship? What controls your heart? What is your north star, giving direction to the rest of your life? Could be money, GPA, publications, athletic achievement, a relationship, vocational success.

Whoredom, wine and new wine (adultery and sexual addiction, alcohol and substance misuse, and idolatry) take away the understanding. These practices begin as a choice; I’ll try this. But they end up running your life, controlling you. You become a slave to your desires, to your fixation. They take away the understanding, the ability to make reasonable decisions. You lose context (life-context, the bigger picture) in your thinking because you are so fixated on one thing, the only thing you can think about, the only thing visible through your windshield, the thing your thoughts keep returning to, the thing that drives you in life. And you make stupid decisions, hurting yourself, hurting the ones you love, hurting your future, diverting your attention from other things that matter in life, depleting your energies and resources. It’s a knowledge problem, and your understanding is being taken away.

2 Tim. 3:6 – led astray by various passions.

And if your pursuit is secret, you come to believe that no one will find out, and you become reckless and comfortable taking outsized risks. Your understanding is being taken away.

Sexual addicts, alcohol and substance addicts, create their own fantasy world and inhabit it (all by themselves). They define what is important (god) – the satisfaction of their big desire, how good it is (no matter they feel empty or guilty the next morning), what are acceptable risks to take to get what they want, how much the rest of life matters that they are sacrificing in their pursuit of their pleasure, and how easily they can leave this lifestyle at any time they want. They lie to themselves so frequently and so extensively that they begin to believe themselves and can no longer distinguish truth from lie. Take away the understanding.

And once the understanding is gone, once you are enslaved to your passions, a return to rationality, to wisdom is rare.

Proverbs 5:11f. the young man who pursues the forbidden woman. “At the end of your life you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed, and you say, ‘How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.’ ”

Proverbs 2:19 – forbidden woman. None who go to her come back nor do they regain the paths of life.

2 Peter 2:14 – false teachers – They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. NASB – that never cease from sin. Can’t stop going back.

Proverbs 23:27 – For a prostitute is a deep pit; and adulteress is a deep well. Not easy to get out once you have fallen in.

Hosea 5:4 – Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God, for the spirit of whoredom is within them, and they do not know the Lord. Their passions and sins have blinded them to reality, that it was God giving them all their good things all along. Hos. 2:8 – she did not know that it was I who gave her… Hos. 11:3 – they did not know that I healed them

Remember they have forsaken the Lord to cherish whoredom, wine and new wine. Not only what they love, but what they leave. What you have sacrificed, thrown away, walked away from?

The Outcome – “a people without understanding shall come to ruin” 4:14

So where does it all end up? Ruin. For Israel, they were on a collision course with the judgment of God, the coming of the Assyrian armies to destroy their nation. It didn’t have to be this way. God was pleading with them to turn from their idolatry and their sins and to return to him. God was warning them of the consequences of continuing in this lifestyle. But they couldn’t see it. They were blinded by their sins. They had lost understanding.

And what about you, today, here in Ann Arbor in 2017? Where are you with God? He has given you evidence that He is there, your conscience, the world around, His work in your life. Do you know Him? Would you begin seeking, Him?

Are you trapped in a course of life in which some idol, sex, alcohol, a substance is taking away your understanding? Jesus says that he who commits sin is the slave of sin (Jn. 8:34). But he also says that if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed (Jn. 8:36). Jesus came to bring light into darkness, knowledge for ignorance, freedom for captivity, forgiveness for guilt, sight for blindness.

in Uncategorized 0 comments

February 8, 2017 by Bart Bryant

Are You a Victim of Injustice?

Are you a victim of injustice? Have you been abused? Forgotten? Betrayed by those who should have loved and protected you? Falsely accused of things, even of crimes, that you have not done?

You are not alone.

The Bible tells the stories of other victims of tragic injustice: Hagar, the Israelites in Egypt, and many others. But perhaps the rawest example of all is Joseph, the man whom history judges as blameless yet who undergoes wave after wave of injustice that threaten to pull him under their sweeping power and drown him. So how does Joseph respond to such blatant injustices? And how does it all end for him?

Sold into Slavery by His Own Brothers – Genesis 37

Joseph came from a big family with 11 brothers and sisters. In big families, you may fight with your brothers, but you stand together against the world. But there was no such bond of loyalty in Joseph’s family. His brothers were jealous of him (v. 11). In fact, they hated him (v. 4, 8) so intensely that they couldn’t even speak civilly to him (v. 4). Constantly harboring this hostility, when they ended up in a remote and lonely moment with Joseph, they conspired to kill him (v. 18-20). Reuben, his oldest brother, talked them out of murder, but the brothers ended up selling Joseph as a slave to a band of Midianite traders passing by on their way to Egypt.

From favored son to anonymous slave in a foreign country, target of the malevolent jealousy of his own flesh and blood brothers, Joseph is the victim of injustice.

Falsely Accused and Imprisoned by His Boss – Genesis 39

Upon arrival in Egypt, Joseph is promptly sold to Potiphar, a ranking member of the palace guard under Pharaoh. Joseph had been a very privileged young man while growing up, but we see nothing of narcissistic entitlement in Joseph when he loses his pampered position in the family. Joseph does not retreat into self-pity or become bitter at God and the world for how they have treated him. Rather, it appears that Joseph is energetic, entirely trustworthy and committed to the success of his new master more than to his own personal prestige or advantage. Through hard work, integrity and wise choices, Joseph earns increasingly more responsibility and authority in Potiphar’s household until he reaches the post of overseer of the entire household.

At this point, Potiphar’s wife notices the handsome and successful young Joseph and repeatedly attempts to seduce him. But Joseph consistently resists her advances and maintains his integrity and purity. Spurned, she lies about Joseph to her husband, falsely accusing him of attempting to rape her. Potiphar angrily has him thrown into prison.

Unjustly accused of the very thing that he had steadfastly refused doing, he is stripped of all his privileges and is chained and imprisoned (Psalm 105:17-18). Once again he is alone in a foreign country, now in prison, yet the Lord is with him, and this makes all the difference.

Broken Promises and Forgotten in Prison – Genesis 40

Does Joseph bury himself in bitterness, resentment and anger? Does he give up on God, on the system , and on ever trying again? Far from it. He fully engages himself in his new life in prison, exhibiting the same kind of wise, trustworthy, selfless service that he had in Potiphar’s household, and God is with him (39:21). The chief prison warden notices the new prisoner and gives him increasingly more responsibility until Joseph is in charge of the entire prison (39:22) with complete executive authority over the entire place (39:23).

Sometime later, two members of Pharaoh’s court are confined to prison and have dreams that foreshadow their fates. Joseph interprets their dreams, correctly predicting that the chief cupbearer will be restored to his favored position before Pharaoh and that the chief baker will be executed, all within the next three days. Joseph asks the cupbearer not to forget him when he is restored to Pharaoh’s service and to intercede for Joseph. Yet when the cupbearer is released from prison and restored to the court, he completely forgets Joseph (40:23). So, Joseph’s hope fades and he languishes for two more years in prison.

How does Joseph process all this injustice? How does it influence and shape his outlook? The answer is clearly seen when Joseph is the chief executive of Egypt and his brothers stand before him (45:4-15). He is not a prisoner of his past; he has no thoughts of revenge. Why and how? The key is Joseph’s faith. Joseph looked behind and beyond the people who trashed him and the injustice of it all to the God arranging these events. And for just this reason he was freed from fixation both on himself and on the pain and injustice that was forced upon him. Joseph knew, and he would not let go of his belief, that God was in charge of his life events and destiny (“it was not you, but God” – 45:5,7,8). Joseph was fully aware of their motives (“you meant evil against me”), but he lifts his eyes to God who overrules all their treacherous designs with His good purposes (50:19-21). Joseph believed that all he had experienced was the best path, wisely chosen by a gracious God for good. Joseph maintained his faith that God is God, that God is good, and that God was Lord of his personal history. Victim of injustice? Or precious child of God, for whom God worked it all together for good?

in Suffering 0 comments