God and Jesus Planned It
We had a great time tonight in our AWANA class when Joel, our friend and former children’s pastor, came to speak to the 3rd and 4th grade kids. Joel talked to them about Jesus’ crucifixion and about His sufferings for us, about the cruel treatment He endured and mostly about why He did it–why He went through with it all. Joel did a great job and presented a clear Gospel message to the kids. He ended the talk with “7 reasons why Jesus did what He did for us” (culled from John Piper’s “50 Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die,” since Joel only had about 20 minutes!) At one point in his talk, Joel asked the kids to give some reasons Jesus died. Although it wasn’t quite the answer Joel was moving toward, I loved it when one of the boys suggested, “Because God and Jesus planned it.”
They’ve been listening. We have talked several times in class about how Jesus’ death on a cruel Roman cross was the plan of Father, Son and Holy Spirit “from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8), and about how “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, they crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23.) Joel emphasized to them that Jesus, though crucified and killed by these godless men, was not their victim:
“For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father” (John 10:17-18.)
That all crystallizes just fine in the mind of an eight or nine-year-old as “God and Jesus planned it.” How beautiful is the sovereignty of God; how wonderful are His purposes and plans! How kind He is to reveal Himself to us through His word, so that we can grasp, however frailly and dimly, something of His great majesty and mercy. Grasp it enough so that we will sing of it forever, beginning now! Enough so that we can lay down tonight on our beds and have as our last conscious thought of the day this comfort: “God and Jesus planned it.”
March 15th, 2008 at 16:42
i found a comment of yours at the challies.com website.
david and tim repeatedly delete my comments there, in my opinion quite unfairly. while i may come across a little rough-edged at times, i truly believe it’s an unwillingness on their part to enter into legitimate, serious discussion that prompts their actions. i have been called a “troll” several times, but anyone reading the entire range of comments i’ve written can easily see the baseless name-calling in that.
i’m posting this to ask you to look at a recent interchange i had at a post there. i’ve captured the interchange on my blog; click on the link “challies angels” under the heading And Now The News on the right sidebar. i would appreciate any reaction you have after reading it - even if it is of a critical nature.
and, if you’re interested, i also have a lengthy (and still-in-progess) review of Tim Keller’s recent book, The Reason for God. you can access it, too, in the And Now The News section. and, for what it’s worth, i even got an email from Tim that said some people had directed him to the review, and that he appreciated my interaction with his book. needless to say, that put some welcome wind in my sails after all the head-butting i’ve been doing around the web…
thanks for reading.
mike rucker
fairburn, georgia, usa
mikerucker.wordpress.com