Author: Bryan Richardson

Bryan Richardson is the Associate Pastor for Counseling and Pastoral Ministries at FBCSA.

Testimony

Re: Verse reading—John 19:28-42 (day three)
“The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true.”  The testimony of the church is that the Bible is the written word of God, infallible and trustworthy.  But the Bible didn’t just drop in from heaven.  Rather, “men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”  That is to say, it came to us through the eyes, ears, and minds of human beings.  It’s for human beings because it’s by human beings.  It’s what they heard.  It’s what they saw.  It’s what they knew.  It’s the truth.  The glory of the sovereign, triune God’s creative, redemptive work of unspeakable grace got written in a way that human beings can read it and understand it and find salvation through it.  The Bible: the mysteries of heaven revealed through a voice we recognize as one of our own.  Trust it.

Capable

Re: Verse reading—John 15:1-17 (day three) 
“I chose you.”  Every action that a person carries out takes place in a world in which God has already acted.  Before anyone else loved the world, God loved the world, John tells us (both in his gospel and later on in his first letter), and so when we attempt to love someone, we do not do so alone and unaided, for then it would be impossible for us to love.  Rather, we do so as a person who has received love from God, and therefore we can love another person.  In the same way, before anyone else believed the human race capable of making something good out of the good universe God placed us in, Jesus believed it.  Only with his soul-saving power will that happen, but it will happen.  He was the first to declare it so.

Responding

Re: Verse reading–John 14:1-14 (day three)
“…Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” vs 3

Moses made that request before Philip did.  God replied to Moses that no one would be able to endure the sight of God’s face; he would see all of God he needed to see by beholding God at a distance, with his face turned away.  Jesus replied to Philip that he would see all of God he needed to see by beholding the God the Son.  We will not see God on our terms, but on his.  But the view that God allows on his terms is enough to build our entire lives on.  The question, then, is not, “How much of God have you seen?” but, “How are you responding to however much of himself God has revealed to you?”

Live

Re: Verse reading–John 13:1-17; 31-38 (day three)

“He…began to wash his disciples’ feet.”  Jesus saw an opening to love them, and he took it.  It is possible that we’ve thought of Jesus as the author of object lessons, and that we have become dulled to recognizing love when we see it.  Jesus did not do this in order to teach his disciples a lesson, though it did accomplish that.  He did not do this in order to put them in a state of awe that the Lord would be so gracious as to stoop to such a lowly function, though it did strike them with wonder.  Jesus did this because he loved them.  Love is the way God lives.  Therefore, love is the only way to live the eternal kind of life.  At some point, we must stop theorizing and start living.  Jesus will teach us to live.

Promise

Re: Verse reading–John 11:17-44 (day three)

“This sickness will not end in death.”  Jesus fulfilled all the roles of the redemptive work of God among his people: Prophet, Priest, King.  But his statement is less a prophecy and more a promise.  We will see people die; we will see their bodies stop working, we will have their funerals, and we will live life without them.  But they themselves will not have known death.  No one who counts on Jesus will ever see death.  This pathogen-borne disease will not end in death.  This mental illness will not end in death.  This congenital problem will not end in death.  This accident will not end in death.  We will see death come for those we love, but what we understand as death will not end their lives.  No one could ever have made this promise but Jesus.

Mind

Re: Verse reading–John 10:1-21 (day three)
“He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?”  A not-for-profit organization years ago used the slogan, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”  That’s for sure.  God gave human beings a mind, and its unused potential is one of the great stewardship failures of a sinful human race.  The religious leaders confronting Jesus demonstrated this abdication of responsibility when they refused to engage Jesus on the merits of his claims, and instead resorted to name-calling and diversionary tactics.  When you are spiritually bankrupt, that’s all you’ve got.  God gave you a mind as well.  Jesus says to you, “Follow me.”  Do you enter into conversation with the Savior, or do you change the subject?

Indestructible

Re: Verse reading–2 Timothy 4:1-8; 16-18 (day three)
“The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.”
Paul at last knew: He was already living the eternal kind of life. He was already beyond ultimate harm. Hostile forces would still attempt to cut short his freedom, his influence, his very life, but those forces posed no threat to him. Even though he would eventually (tradition tells us) undergo beheading, he knew what Jesus promised: “Whoever obeys my word will never see death.”  So Paul knew that he would not know any darkness or isolation or fear or abandonment, not even for one second, at the moment of execution. He knew. And we can know, too. The promise of Jesus is plain: For all who count on him, the eternal, indestructible kind of life begins now.

Depraved

Re: Verse reading–2 Timothy 1:6-14; 2:1-15 (day three)
“He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace.”  John Ortberg writes:
Somebody once asked Dallas Willard if he believed in total depravity.
“I believe in sufficient depravity,” he responded immediately.
What’s that?
“I believe that every human being is sufficiently depraved that when we get to heaven, no one will be able to say, ‘I merited this.’”
Depravity is the denial of our finiteness.  We claim to be self-validating, unaccountable to anyone.  We say, “I am who I am”—a crude counterfeit of the great I AM.  Ask yourself: Would you want to be at the mercy of a god like you?  Be honest.  Then get to know Christ.  You’ll see the God you’re really at the mercy of.

Lesson

Re: Verse reading–1 Timothy 4 (day three)
“Everything God created is good.”
 Jesus rested in the knowledge that his Father had created heaven and earth, and he walked in this world fearlessly because of what he knew.  From Jesus, Paul learned that same assurance: “Nothing can separate us…”  If fear dwells in us, we can’t extinguish it by changing jobs, changing friends, or changing circumstances, because fear is portable, and we take it with us everywhere we go.  The only remedy for fear is to learn peace from the same God who taught it to Paul.  We begin learning by praying with Paul: If God be for us, who can be against us?  Over time, just as it did with Paul, peace will vanquish fear in us.