Performance Review - 1 Corinthians 11

 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 (ESV)

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

Most people who go to work will eventually have a performance review by their supervisor.   The purpose of the review is to make sure that any area that needs growth in their work performance can be addressed.   This experience can be viewed through many lens.  If we see this examination as an opportunity to improve, it can be a great exercise. On the other hand, we can view it as an intrusion in our lives and demanding something from us we do not want to do or address.   It would be hard pressed to see who originated the idea of a performance review.  It probably dates back centuries.   Yet, in the above passage we read from the pen of Paul we read that God demands a self-performance review as we partake of the Lord’s Table (Communion).   Paul is telling the church that they ought not come to the Lord’s Table without examining their walk with Christ.   We are not to partake of the elements of the Table in a known unworthy manner.  His reasoning for this approach to the Table is based upon the purpose of the Communion observation.   We come to the Table and drink the wine and eat the bread because Jesus paid for our sin on the cross.  He shed his blood (symbolized by the wine) and had his body destroyed (symbolized by the bread) for our sins.   Therefore, to come to the Communion service not accepting His payment or with unconfessed sin in our lives, is to come to the table in an unworthy manner.   Jesus died for us so we can live in His power and defeat sin in our lives.   Judgment on our sin was taken care of on the cross in Jesus death.  To eat from the Table in an unworthy manner is to bring judgment on ourselves and miss out on the fact that Jesus took our judgment.  Living in this manner is why many people in the church were sick and even dying.   God does not overlook rebellion or an unrepentant heart.   We can’t take fellowship with him lightly.   God is going to judge mankind through His Son, Jesus.   If were come to Him in praise and adoration (at the Table) we can rejoice in His payment for sin.  But if someone refuses to believe in His payment for sin they are actually taking the bread and wine and drinking to their own damnation.  God demands a performance review.  But the performance review is to review what Jesus did for us.  We are to honor His perfect performance for us on the cross in payment for our sins.  

Disobedience is Rooted in Disbelief - Mark 7-8

Mark 8:11-13 (ESV)

The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” And he left them, got into the boat again, and went to the other side.

Apparently, the religious leaders questioned Jesus’ authority.  They requested that Jesus show them a sign.  It is not unusual that someone from the nation of Israel would request a sign. They were used to signs, as recorded throughout the entire Old Testament.  However, in the OT they were warned about signs.    In Deuteronomy they were warned about prophets who showed signs and then pointed them away from God.   Jesus was not pointing them away from God. In fact Jesus was pointing them to God, with multiple signs.   Notice the miraculous signs that Mark has already recorded.  These signs should have been enough for the Pharisees:

1. Jesus healed an unclean spirit (Mark 1:21)

2. Jesus heals Mary (Mark 1:29-34)

3. Jesus cleanses the leper (Mark 1:40-45)

4.  Jesus heals a paralytic (Mark 2:1-12)

5. Jesus heals a man with withered hand (Mark 3:1-6)

6.  Jesus heals a man with a demon (Mark 5:1-20)

7.  Jesus heals a woman and Jairus daughter (Mark 5:21-43)

8.  Jesus feeds the five thousand (Mark 6:30-44)

9.  Jesus walks on water (Mark 6:45-52)

10.  Jesus heals the sick in Gennesaret (Mark 6:53-56)

11.  Jesus feeds the four thousand ((Mark 8:1-10). 

When asked if Jesus would show them a sign, He could have just said, “You want a sign?  Really? I just showed you eleven!”   The challenge, however, was that the Pharisees were asking for evil intentions.  They were not asking for proof of His deity.   They were asking out of disobedience to the signs Jesus has already done.   He will give them the ultimate sign via the resurrection and they still won’t believe.   Disobedience is often rooted in disbelief.   

Idol Worship - Jeremiah 7-11

Jeremiah 10:9-10 (ESV)

9 Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish,

and gold from Uphaz.

They are the work of the craftsman and of the hands of the goldsmith;

their clothing is violet and purple;

they are all the work of skilled men.

10 But the LORD is the true God;

he is the living God and the everlasting King.

At his wrath the earth quakes,

and the nations cannot endure his indignation.

There is a contrast in the above two verses that cannot be overlooked.  In verse nine, above, we read about the resources used to make the false idols that Israel and Judah worshipped.  In verse ten we read about God and who He is.   Jeremiah is writing to the nations because they followed hard after the gods of this world; the idols that were crafted out of gold and silver and violet and purple.  Notice what is written in the next chapter:

Jeremiah 11:6-8 (ESV)

And the LORD said to me, “Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: Hear the words of this covenant and do them. For I solemnly warned your fathers when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, warning them persistently, even to this day, saying, Obey my voice. Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but everyone walked in the stubbornness of his evil heart. Therefore I brought upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did not.”

Their stubborn hearts lead them to worship dumb idols.   Could that happen today, to our society and community?  Of course it does.  We worship gold and sliver.   Our bank accounts and our shinny possessions are at the center of our hearts.   We worship wood and drywall and plumbing and electricity in our houses we build.   We worship fiberglass in the boats we crave.   We worship knowledge and information in the tech we hold in our hands.   We worship (show something worth) anything we can see, touch and feel.   Yet God, who made the heavens, is the one we are to worship.  The God, who can and will bring His wrath and indignation upon those who worship false gods, is deserving of our praise and worship.   Jeremiah is writing to call the people back to worshiping their true God.   Instead they turn to sticks covered in gold and purple cloth.  

Innocent Suffering - Job 27-28

 Job 27:7-12 (ESV)

7 “Let my enemy be as the wicked,

and let him who rises up against me be as the unrighteous.

8 For what is the hope of the godless when God cuts him off,

when God takes away his life?

9 Will God hear his cry

when distress comes upon him?

10 Will he take delight in the Almighty?

Will he call upon God at all times?

11 I will teach you concerning the hand of God;

what is with the Almighty I will not conceal.

12 Behold, all of you have seen it yourselves;

why then have you become altogether vain?

In the above, Job is continuing his response to the criticism of his friend, Bildad, in chapter 25.  Job’s three so-called friends have been collectively harsh of Job.  They believe in retribution theology, meaning God brings His wrath on the disobedient and blesses the obedient.  To them, you know which camp you live in based upon how life unfolds for you.   They have no room in their theology for the suffering of the innocent.   They only know what they observe.  But they really don’t know who is righteous and who is wicked.  They don’t know.  God does. 

Job has maintained his righteousness and will do so to the very end (Job 27:6).   Job tells them that his observations are that the wicked do not want to reach out to God. His argument is that if his friends are asking him to repent, which will bring blessings on him, then why don’t all those who are wicked repent and find pleasure and blessings from God.  He states that in his observations the wicked do not repent.   So if they are correct and Job is wicked, how then can he repent? By their logic the wicked should cry out and seek relief.  But in Job’s theology the wicked do not cry out and if they did, God is not obligated to hear them ... because they are wicked.   (This is, of course, is the best argument for the need for the Gospel.  There needs to be a mediator between wicked man and a holy God.  Jesus is that man!).   

There is some irony in Job’s argument.  He has maintained, to this point, that he is righteous.   In the above argument he is falsely conceding their thought that he is unholy and sinful.  He is stating to them that if he was as sinful as they say, he has no hope, anyhow.   He will go on in chapter 27 to show the destructive end of the wicked, those who reject God.   Remember, his friends are telling him that he is wicked and he should repent.  In essence, Job is saying, “Okay, okay! I am wicked!  But if I am wicked I would have not have a heart for God and wicked people don’t turn to God.   Plus God will not hear the cries of the wicked.  So if you are correct and I am wicked, then your argument is wrong, repentance won’t do anything to change my situation, anyhow.”    

The real truth is that the friends have it wrong. We know from chapters one and two that God declared Job righteous.  But on this earth both the wicked and righteous do suffer.  But they suffer in different ways and at different times.   But in the end the righteous are delivered from their suffering and wicked are not.   That is the truth of Scripture.   Job is correct in confronting his friends.   His friends are wrong to simply state that all those who suffer are wicked.   We all make these logically wrong assumptions about people who are suffering.  However, God knows the righteous from the wicked.  He hears the prayers of one and rejects the prayers of the other.   In the end, God sorts it out perfectly.  

End An Event With Praise - Psalms 39-41

 Psalms 41:13 (ESV)

Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel,

from everlasting to everlasting!

Amen and Amen.

Psalm 41 brings us to the end of Book One in the book of Psalms.  There are five books within Psalm.  Each of the five books ends with something similar to our above verse:

Psalm 72:18-19 (ESV) 

Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel,

who alone does wondrous things.

Blessed be his glorious name forever;

may the whole earth be filled with his glory!

Amen and Amen!

Psalm 89:52

(ESV) Blessed be the LORD forever!

Amen and Amen.

Psalm 106:48 (ESV) 

Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel,

from everlasting to everlasting!

And let all the people say, “Amen!”

Praise the LORD!

Psalm 150:6 (ESV)

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!

Praise the LORD!

At the end of each of the five books there is a stanza of praise.  There is much speculation as to why the entire book of Psalms is divided into the five books.   We are not told in Scripture either directly from Psalms or from any other book.  The doxology at the end gives us an understanding that the entire book is to be a book that brings praise to God and glory to His marvelous works.   We should have a similar practice in our lives.  We ought to make it a habit that at the end of every project, every challenge, every occurrence of events in our lives we stop and praise Him.   We ought to sing a doxology to Him for what He has done in our lives, no matter how small or great that might be.  

David Kills Bias Before He Kills Goliath - 1 Samuel 16-20

1 Samuel 17:28-30 (ESV)

Now Eliab his eldest brother heard when he spoke to the men. And Eliab's anger was kindled against David, and he said, “Why have you come down? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your presumption and the evil of your heart, for you have come down to see the battle.” And David said, “What have I done now? Was it not but a word?” And he turned away from him toward another, and spoke in the same way, and the people answered him again as before.

There is a difficulty everyone has to eventually overcome.   It can be referred to as a cognitive anchor.  It is a thought that has been put into our heads, over and over, that creates an anchor of belief we can’t seem to overcome.   It has been stated so many times as fact that we have come to believe it as a norm.   It can often stated with the phrase, “This is how it is supposed to be.”  This is something that the above text about David can reinforce for us.   David was sent by his father to check on his older three brothers. They had joined Saul’s army and were now faced with the challenge of Goliath, the giant.  When he arrives at the camp and begins to ask questions about Goliath, he is rebuked by his brother, Eliab.   Eliab had a cognitive anchor that David was just a shepherd.   He ridicules David for even asking about Goliath.  David suddenly wants to defend God and Eliab treats him as a little brother.  The little brother anchor has been driven into David’s head.  The first giant David had to defeat was the giant of bias his siblings placed on him.   Sometime, before the obvious giants can be conquered, the hidden giants have to be faced and defeated.   In just a couple of verses later King Saul would use another anchor to tell David he could not fight Goliath.  Note:

1 Samuel 17:33 (ESV)

And Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he has been a man of war from his youth.”

Eliab’s anchor was, you are but a little brother shepherd.   King Saul’s two anchors were, you are but a youth and Goliath is a man of war.   When you have cognitive anchors in the head you are often hindered at being a giant killer in life.    David had to give all those things to God and could because his bigger cognitive anchor was God’s got this:

1 Samuel 17:37 (ESV)

And David said, “The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and the LORD be with you!”

How Soon People Forget God’s Grace - Exodus 1-4

Exodus 1:8-10 (ESV)

Pharaoh Oppresses Israel

Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”

How could the new Pharaoh not know Joseph?  He must have at least known about Joseph. Or, better, how easy is it for the world to forget the memories of believers who impacted their lives.  This is a truth that is really practical in our day.   People of the world soon forget the impact that Christianity had on the forming of this nation.  Today Christins are looked upon as the problem, not the solution to social needs.   After Joesph died the memories of his wisdom and strategy to save the nation of Egypt died when the famine ended.  Notice what the Pharaoh in Joesph’s day said about him:

Genesis 41:37-40 (ESV)

This proposal pleased Pharaoh and all his servants. And Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find a man like this, in whom is the Spirit of God?” Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has shown you all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command. Only as regards the throne will I be greater than you.”

Now, a generation later, Joesph is unknown and the nation of Israel is a cause of the Egyptian’s problems in life, not the solution.  Such is the attitude of the world.  God, of course, is using this enmity in the new Pharaoh’s heart to create the exodus of Israel from Egypt.   God is stirring this ruler up against His people in order to deliver them by His great strength from this ruler.  This is not unlike the end times.  The nations will begin to rage against the Church of Christ and the governing authority will begin to reject truth and persecute the Church more and more.   That will result in Christ’s return and the nations and rulers of this world to be conquered.   Just as Moses was the sent savior to Israel, so Jesus would be and will be the savior of the Church.   Moses himself will later write to tell the nation of Israel about the future Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth:

Deuteronomy 18:18-19 (ESV)

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.

The nations will not remember what God does for them through His people.  But God will continue to remind them.   And God will continue to deliver His people from the wrath of the world.