December 21–27

This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.

 

Lesson 13: “Leaders In Israel”

This week’s lesson is a summary of the value of good leadership and how important it is for each of us, as we walk with God, to be good leaders and examples to those around us.

I do have one concern in Tuesday’s lesson. In recounting the way the people armed themselves in defense and continued to work on the walls, the lesson says this:

“There are times in the Bible when God told people to stand still and watch Him fight, and then there are many other instances when God said, “Prepare to act, and I will give you victory.””

That much is very true, but the next sentence is a little troubling:

“We must do our part if we want to see God’s deliverance and blessings.”

This statement comes perilously close to saying that God won’t bless us unless we first do all we can. It is fitting for the lesson to say this—after all, as Adventists, we all believed what Ellen White said:

“Let none imagine that without earnest effort on their part they can obtain the assurance of God’s love.” RH May 3, 1881

And:

“Christ looks at the spirit, and when He sees us carrying our burden with faith, His perfect holiness atones for our shortcomings. When we do our best, He becomes our righteousness.” EGW, Letter 22, 1889.”

What is “our best”? How much is it and how is it measured? By whose standard? God’s standard is perfection and we can never reach that standard no matter how much we work at it.

But when Jesus was asked what work He requires of us, He replied in John 6:

Therefore they said to Him, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” 

Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” “ (Jn. 6:28, 29).

So, which is it? Do we have to ‘work diligently’ before we can know that He loves us? Or did we accept that on faith when we first came to Him? And continue to believe that based on what the Bible tells us.

Do we have to ‘do our best’ before He ‘becomes our righteousness’, or did He become our righteousness the moment we believed? Before we ever ‘did’ anything to earn it. Think about the thief on the cross and what ‘work’ he was able to do after he believed in Jesus, yet he was with Jesus in Paradise that very day.

This kind of works-oriented, “become as perfect as you can before God will fill in the rest” mind-set is what causes so much discouragement. We know, if we care to admit it to ourselves, that we can never be good enough. Instead, accept what Jesus said in Matthew 11:

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 

Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 

For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Instead of a heavy burden of having to be good enough before God will do the rest, just take Him at His word that in Him, we can finally find true, lasting rest. He won’t burden you with the impossible task of making yourself good enough for Him to accept. He already paid the price and did the work—now it’s up to us to just believe.

Other than that little stumble, the lesson is a good summation of leadership requirements. Good, that is, until the last question at the very end where we are told this;

““For he held fast to the Lord; he did not depart from follow­ ing Him, but kept His commandments, which the Lord had com­manded Moses” (2 Kings 18:6, NKJV). How does one “hold fast to the Lord”? What does that mean? How does holding fast to the Lord relate to keeping His commandments?”

For us in the New Covenant, ‘holding fast to the Lord’ is not a matter of Law but of faith in the grace of God. The Law was never meant to make people right with God but rather it pointed out how they could never make themselves right (Romans 4:13-16). It pointed out sin and drove them to the Messiah (Romans 3:20).

Once we have come to Christ, we have that rest that Jesus promised. Romans 5:1,2 calls it peace with God. The peace that comes from knowing that He loves and accepts us as we are when we come to Him. It is a gift of love that we never have to earn—either before or after we receive it.

Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. 5 But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness (Romans 4: 4).

And Romans 5:1 continues the thought: 

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.

This quarter’s study has been quite good most of the time. It did a good job of telling the story and showing where Ezra’s story and Nehemiah’s story overlapped. It pointed out the human weakness of the people, much like ours, and how their leaders tirelessly turned them back to God.

As they looked forward to the Messiah, they had to observe all the laws and ordinances that set aside their sins until they would be paid for permanently by the death of the perfect Lamb of God.

As we look back on the cross, we no longer walk with God by keeping the Law which pointed forward, but instead, we rely on Jesus’ perfect life and His death to pay for our sins.†