Learning to Be Like Jesus

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Matthew 14:13-21

I knew a man named George who served in the army during World War 2.

After VE Day, George was part of the occupying force in Germany. Every day, he encountered families and many orphans who had no food, no place to bathe, and no habitable place to live. It broke his heart and he never forgot it.

This experience became the subject of a promise George made to God. Wherever he found hungry people, George vowed, he would do what he could to feed them.

He lived that promise. For the rest of his life, George would find out about people who needed help and somehow get groceries to them. Fellow members of the Lutheran congregation of which he was  a part got wind of what he was doing and asked how they could help. Eventually, George’s efforts became part of the congregation’s ministries and budgets. Well into his eighties, George was still taking food to people in need. And, whenever his personal resources or those of his church were skimpy, he would call area pastors and ask if they or their churches could help someone whose needs they couldn’t address.

When he died, people were asked to forget about sending flowers and instead, provide money for his church’s ministry to the poor. Thousands of dollars were raised.

George’s life is a story of Christian discipleship.

The word disciple—mathetes in the Greek language in which the New Testament was written—means student.

This doesn’t mean that the follower of Jesus is someone who compiles a lot of religious information, as if Judgment Day were going to be like a final exam deciding whether we get a “passing grade.” To be a student (or disciple) of Jesus means that, by the way we live, we’re learning each day to be more like Jesus.

And being like Jesus is the ultimate goal of every believer. This is mentioned often in the New Testament.

• 1 John, for example, says that when Jesus returns to the earth, “we will be like Him.” 
• 2 Corinthians says that as we follow Jesus, we “are being transformed into” His image. 
• Romans says that followers of Jesus are being “conformed to the image of His Son.” 

All of this is the work of God’s Holy Spirit, of course. We can’t make ourselves more like Jesus. But you and I can make the decision, each and every day, through a life style of "daily repentance and renewal" about whether we will be open to the work of the Holy Spirit to make us more like Christ.

This is why in one of the greatest passages in the New Testament, the apostle Paul says, “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…” In other words, confident in God’s love and grace for you, take the attitude of a servant. Let the Spirit work through your open heart and will to make you more like Jesus. Being like Jesus must mean, as it did in George’s case, being compassionately moved by the same things that compassionately move Jesus.

Our English word, compassion, is a compound meaning to suffer with. In the New Testament's original Greek, a common word for compassion reflects ancient people's belief that our emotions weren't centered in the heart, but in the gut. Compassion is that stirring of the gut that happens when our sympathies are aroused.

• It's what makes you want to pray or send a check to Lutheran World Relief when you see pictures of starving children in Somalia.
• It's what makes you want to intervene and pray when you're at the store and see children being neglected either by parents who fail to discipline them or by treating them unkindly.
• It's what makes you so concerned about the eternal destiny of a classmate or coworker that you want to share Jesus with them.

We give water away during our Kindness Outreaches out of compassion. Those who receive these acts of kindness may not need the water, but they do need the One Who sends us.

Compassion looks at the needs of others and is stirred to sympathetic action.

Compassion is the openness of heart toward others that comes to those whose wills and lives are open to the God we know in Jesus Christ.

In that connection, please pull out the Celebrate inserts and look at today’s Gospel lesson. It begins with Jesus learning that John the Baptist, has been executed. Jesus goes by boat to a spot where nobody lived, no doubt to pray and to consider how John’s execution foretold His own. He needed to process His feelings. But crowds sought Jesus out. We’re told in verse 14: “When He went ashore, He saw a great crowd; and He had compassion for them…”

This isn’t the first place we’re told of Jesus’ compassion for crowds. Another is at Matthew 9:36. Please turn to it in the pew Bibles, page 556. It says: “But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd.”

What aroused Jesus’ compassion for the crowds in these two passages represent the full breadth of God’s concern for all of us. In the Matthew 9 instance, Jesus has compassion for the crowds because of their spiritual condition. They’re disconnected from God, unaware of their need to turn from sin and to believe in Jesus to gain eternal life with God. All they know is that they have a hunger to be with Jesus.

In Matthew 14, in our gospel lesson, Jesus looks at another crowd and sees all that was wrong in their physical condition, their need for healing. Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, shows us that God cares for our whole beings.

As disciples of Jesus, people intent on learning to live like Jesus, our call is to have the same compassion for people that Jesus has. Bob Pierce, the missionary who founded both Samaritan’s Purse and World Vision, often prayed, “Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God.”

And it’s exactly here that, until this past week, I had always faulted the disciples as they’re portrayed in today’s gospel lesson. Look at verse 15. The disciples tell Jesus that they’re in a remote place and that he should send the crowds away so that they can get food.

I had always thought that the disciples were being selfish here, that they wanted Jesus to themselves, and that they didn’t care about the crowd. Some of that may be true. But one New Testament scholar has convincingly written that like the Savior they followed, the disciples felt the crowd’s need for food.

But they didn’t have food to give to the crowd, or very little of it. So, rather than having this whole throng in the middle of nowhere with nothing to eat, the disciples thought that the compassionate thing was to send them away to find food where it could be found, in the nearby towns. Their suggestion wasn’t a failure of compassion, but a failure of faith.

In verse 16, we come to the centrally important part of this entire incident. Jesus tells the disciples that the crowds needn’t go away. “You give them something to eat.” “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish,” they say.

Now, we’ve all heard or read about the feeding of the 5000 many times. But have you ever considered this: What if the disciples hadn’t told Jesus about the five loaves and the two fish?

What if they had pretended, as maybe all of us have when approached by someone asking for money, that they didn’t have anything "on them"?

The disciples felt compassion for the hungry crowd, but this was all they had…a few scraps of bread and two measly fish. What was so little in the face of so great a need?

We know what happened. Jesus took the bread and fish and fed the whole crowd, one composed, Matthew says, of five thousand men plus women and children. A conservative estimate of the entire crowd would be about 15,000 people.

But the feeding of all those people may really be the second miracle in this incident.

The first miracle may be that the disciples were willing to disclose to Jesus (and then give to Jesus) all that they had. The grace of God in Jesus had broken down any selfishness they might have felt and filled them with compassion for others!

How much of ourselves are we willing to give to Jesus?

On the cross, Jesus spent His whole life to buy your freedom from sin, death, and eternal separation from God. Jesus died and rose so that all who surrender to Him can have life forever with God.

The more we yield to Jesus—the more of ourselves we give to Him—the more He will do in our lives and the more He can do through us.

That’s what the first disciples learned the day Jesus fed the 5000. It’s the lesson that my friend George’s life teaches.

It’s a lesson we all can learn as we give ourselves to Jesus every day.

Recently, Ann and I heard from a dear friend. She was excited about exciting new developments in her life, a shot of unexpected joy, possibilities, and purpose. But then, she told us, it shouldn’t really be that surprising. “Not long ago,” she explained, “I did something I’d never done. In the past, I bargained with God. I’d tell God: ‘If you do this, I’ll do this.’ But not this time. I told God, ‘I’m wide open. Whatever you want!’” In the book of Ephesians, we’re called to give glory to the God Who “is able to accomplish abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine.” Our friend is learning that truth.

We all know that bad things happen to faithful people and that we live in a fallen, imperfect world. The mystery of prayers not answered as we expect them to be will be with us for as long as this present world exists. But what Jesus showed when He miraculously fed a huge crowd with the food offered by the disciples is that if we will offer our whole selves to Him, we can become conduits for the blessings of God on a world of great spiritual and physical need.

And as we give ourselves to Jesus, God’s Spirit will move us closer to the goal of being like the One Who died and rose for us. That’s God’s aim for our lives and for the life of Saint Matthew. May it be our aim for our lives and for Saint Matthew too. Amen

Self-Care v. Self-Centeredness

From psychologist and Christian counselor Henry Cloud's book, Changes That Heal:

The Bible never says that doing things for ourselves is bad; it assumes that we need to do some things for ourselves. However, it does speak harshly against making ourselves the center of the universe, living only for ourselves. This self-centeredness is evil.

The Kindness Outreach Chronicles (Part 4)

Once again this morning, members of Saint Matthew hit the streets to give away bottles of cold water to motorists stopped at red lights. We handed out 140 bottles of water in about 40 minutes. (Last night, I simply happened to ice down seventy fewer bottles than I had for the first two outreaches.)*

As always, this outreach was a lot of fun!

Nine Saint Matthew folks participated and each seemed to have stories to tell this morning.

Sarah G. told about approaching a truck. The man driving it held up a can and said, "I'm good. I've got a Sprite." Sarah noticed that he had two dogs with him and asked, "But do your dogs need water?" The man accepted waters for them. Sarah added, "Now take one for yourself, too." He did.

"Will you accept a donation?" a woman asked after she and her passenger had been given waters. "No," was the emphatic answer, followed by an enthusiastic, "Thank you."

It is hard for people to believe that they're getting something for nothing. That's why kindness outreaches present great pictures of God's grace, a love we can't earn and don't deserve. Paul wrote: "God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

Pass it on!

*So far, we've had three Saturday morning outreaches, scrubbing last week's because of a heat emergency. We've given out 560 bottles of water in that time. (Or, as we like to put it, we've perpetrated 560 acts of kindness in Jesus' Name.)

I Love This!

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; ²³they are new every morning..." (Lamentations 3:22-23)

Go Ahead, Pray Those Non-Specific Prayers!

I don't talk back to my television very often. But I did this past Sunday afternoon.

I had just come home from worship and plopped down on our living room couch to do a few minutes of channel-surfing before having lunch. My clicking brought me to the program of a prominent preacher, usually good for a laugh. He was talking about prayer. I'm paraphrasing, but the basic gist of his message was this: "And you must make your prayers specific. God won't answer vague prayers. You say, 'God, give me more money.' How much? You say, 'Bless the preacher.' In what way." He went on to excoriate the limited faith of people who aren't specific in their directives--I mean, prayers--to God.

This is when I started to talk back to my TV set. You see, in worship this past Sunday, our second Bible lesson came from Romans 8 and included these lines:

...the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints* according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27)

The meaning of this passage is simple. Sometimes, we have no idea what to pray for. But as followers of Jesus, Who taught we Christians to pray, "Thy will be done," we don't need to have fine-tuned prayer petitions. We simply submit ourselves to God and trust His good will for us.

Our prayers can be specific, of course. But the real measure of our faith is not the specificity of our prayers, as though visualizing a preferred end is a magical incantation that will force the hand of God. The real measure of our faith is our submissiveness to the God Who sent His Son to die and rise for us and has better plans for us than we can ask or imagine.

*In the Bible, the word "saint" refers to anyone who repents for sin and believes in the God ultimately revealed to all the world in Jesus Christ.

Joe Nelms: Laughter and Prayer?

George Hamilton, a British writer of historical fiction, sent a question my way earlier today. Referring to Pastor Joe Nelms' pre-race prayer at a NASCAR event over the weekend, he asked, "Is it allowable to laugh so much during prayer?"

It's a good question.

Laughter is a good thing, of course. The Bible often tells people to rejoice, to enjoy God and the blessings God gives. Laughter goes with rejoicing.

The Bible also says that laughter and good humor are good for us. Proverbs 17:22 says that "a cheerful heart is good medicine."

And honestly, there are times when I pray that I laugh, whether at God's goodness or my own ridiculous, sometimes pompous, behavior.

But, here's where I think humor in prayer goes wrong: When it calls more attention to the pray-er or to the manner of expression than it does to God. When performance becomes central, prayer ceases.

This is where I personally feel that Pastor Nelms may have gone "off the track," so to speak.

In Matthew 6:5-14, Jesus teaches about prayer. He warns us against praying for show. Pastor Nelms may have unintentionally created a show that caused people to yuck it up rather than to talk with God.

And talking with God, with faith and humble dependence on God, is what prayer, whether private or public, is about.

How Do You Spell "Buggedy, Boogedy, Boogedy"?

I've never heard of Pastor Joe Nelms. But he went viral with this prayer on Saturday.

Don't Fool Yourself

Here.

Obama and Boehner Were Close to a "Grand Deal"

Interesting article.

What's Your Pleasure?

Here

The Kingdom of Heaven is Here, Now!

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
There was a Coast Guard station in the community on Lake Michigan where I did my seminary internship. One day, the commander of the station stopped by the church office and we chatted. He was excited because in a matter of weeks, he would be retiring. “Are you staying here or moving elsewhere?” I asked. “I would never live here or anywhere in the North,” he told me. He went on: “If you drew a line across the continental United States, you’d have to say that everything North is a moral cesspool, a mission field where God can’t be found.”

Apparently not interested in being a missionary to we heathen Northerners, he was intent on heading south, where he was convinced, all the Christians lived.

The five parables Jesus tells in today’s Gospel lesson are a warning to anyone who thinks they’ve figured out who’s right with God and who isn’t, who’s decent and who’s not, where God is and where He can't be found.

To understand these parables, you have to go to the last verse of our lesson, where Jesus says, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

The parables in this lesson are all designed to show us that, whatever people may think—be they opponents of Christianity or, like that Coast Guard captain, snobby, self-righteous Christians--the kingdom of heaven is active and growing in places where many people can’t (or won’t) see it.

In these parables, Jesus, the master of His household—the Church—brings out of His treasure old images, familiar things and places, to show us the new things God is up to…even in the lives of people the world might dismiss or ignore.

Jesus here affirms the power of ordinary lives like yours and mine in which Jesus and His kingdom are present and growing.

In the first parable in our lesson, in verses 31 and 32, Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that grows into “the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree” in which birds make their nests.

The people of Jesus’ day were familiar with mustard plants. They saw them as useless weeds, as welcome in their fields as crabgrass or poison ivy are in our lawns today.

On top of that, every one of Jesus’ original listeners would have known that a mustard plant can never grow into a tree.

Most people would have scratched their heads at Jesus comparing a weed to the kingdom of heaven. But for believers in Jesus, the image brings inspiration.

In the days after Jesus told this parable, He was arrested and executed. His followers scattered for fear that they would be killed for their allegiance to Jesus. The unbelieving world—Jew and non-Jew alike—believed that in crucifying Jesus, the weed of faith in Him as the Savior of the world had been destroyed, that there was no need to repent and believe in Jesus or to acknowledge Him as God. Life could follow its same old path of sin, death, and dog-eat-dog ethics.

But believers know better!

They know that Jesus changed everything when He conquered death on the first Easter. They know that the kingdom has come to all who believe.

They know—we know—that Jesus is in the process, day by day, of transforming us from weeds, sure to be rounded up, into mighty Redwoods rooted in Christ’s love, grace, and power.

As we pray, worship, receive forgiveness for our sins and the Lord’s Supper, and serve in Jesus’ Name, we grow together in Christ’s family, the Church, in ways we sometimes can’t even see ourselves. God is at work in our lives and we know it, even though we can't always articulate it.

We’re like the backwoods Christian I’ve mentioned before who said, “I ain’t what I wanna be and I ain’t what I’m gonna be. But through Jesus, thank God, I ain’t what I was!”

In verse 33, Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like yeast a woman mixed in with three measures of flour until all was leavened.

In those days, leaven was seen as a symbol of moral corruption which like leaven mixed in with flour, could infect families, communities, and nations.

Adding further scandal to Jesus' parable was the fact that the person adding the yeast of God's kingdom was a woman. In the patriarchal societies of Jesus' day, men were seen as pure and women as impure. 

Yet, here was Jesus saying that God’s kingdom is like leaven mixed into flour by a woman!

Jesus was saying that even in the midst of what we may think is rotten or small or worthless or inconsequential, His kingdom can be present.

In my life—and I’m not kidding when I say this—I have never been able to see a thing through a microscope. Not in junior or senior high school nor during college nor at any time since. But I take it on faith that there is an almost infinite variety of life in this world too small to be detected by the naked eye (or by a clueless preacher looking through a microscope). The kingdom of heaven is like those tiny life forms: alive even when the world doesn’t see it, or is too incompetent to see it, or doesn’t want to see it!

In 1886, the first Lutheran missionaries went to Papua New Guinea. Over the next thirteen years, numbers of missionaries, each sharing Christ by words and deeds were sent to work in different parts of Papua. But it wasn’t until 1899, thirteen years after the first Lutheran missionaries arrived, that the first two Papua New Guineans were baptized.

Some looking at what seemed thirteen years of futility on the part of those missionaries might conclude that nothing had been going on, that the missionaries were lazy or unpersuasive or ineffective, that God had been absent.

But it would be wrong to sneer, because in those first thirteen years God was at work, mixing the leaven of his kingdom into the flour of Papua New Guinea’s life. And that would be true even if the Lutheran Church there didn’t today include 900,000 believers in Jesus Christ!

The next two verses of our Gospel lesson—44 and 45—underscore just how precious the kingdom of heaven is for those who see it.

It’s like treasure found by someone in a field, Jesus says. He’s so excited to have the treasure that he sells everything he has in order to buy the field.

The kingdom of heaven is also like fine pearls found by a merchant. He too, will sell everything he has to buy the pearl.

You and I know that citizenship in the kingdom of heaven is a free gift from God. It can’t be bought. Jesus died as the perfect sacrifice for our sins so that all who repent and believer in Him will gain a share in what He won when He rose from the dead, eternity with God.

But we can’t grasp Jesus’ offer of forgiveness and new life for those who repent and believe in Him if with the rest of our lives, we’re trusting in other things to see us through.

You know, it's been my observation that most of the things people value in life can be compared to illegal drugs. We might trust in real estate or ice cream, antiques or computers, music or books (my weaknesses), cars or clothes, sex or power, our families or human potential, prestige or money.

There’s nothing wrong with any of those things. But when we start to depend on them to measure our own worth and value as human beings, we’re in trouble.

We develop needs for them, the way an addict needs heroine.

We give up everything to taste, touch, or keep our obsessions of choice.

They give us a buzz that’s here today and gone tomorrow.

And then these things—none of which can give us life—leave us dead.

Jesus is the only obsession that can give us forgiveness, life, purpose, or joy.

Jesus says that His kingdom is so great that, if we’re wise, we’ll be willing to part with all the temporary pleasures of this dying world in order to grab His offer of eternity.

People will think we’re crazy for putting our whole lives at the disposal of Jesus, to bet our whole eternity on Him.

They’re right! “We are fools for Christ,” the apostle Paul once boasted of his ministry team and himself.

The men in Jesus' parables who gave up everything for the treasures they found would have been seen by Jesus' first listeners as foolish. Financial advisors today tell us how foolish it is to forgo diversified investment portfolios by betting everything on one single investment.

But believers in Christ know it’s foolish to invest one’s whole life in anything but a relationship with the Lord of heaven and earth! At another point in Jesus' ministry when many were beginning to desert Him, Jesus turned to the twelve apostles and asked if they wanted to leave, too. Peter, still figuring things out about Jesus and in the same fog I confess myself to be in many times, said that wasn't an option. "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that You are the holy One of God." If we want a life with God here in the challenges of life and a life with God beyond the grave, investing our lives in Jesus is the only choice that makes sense!

One of the best questions we Christians can ask ourselves from time to time is this: “What really foolish thing have I done for Jesus Christ lately?” “What tangible thing that the world values—that we value—are we willing to lay aside in order to grasp more tightly and dependently on Jesus?”

Ask those questions and you might end up doing something really foolish—and find yourself enveloped by the joy of God’s kingdom!

Drawing from another old familiar scene from daily life, Jesus tells a fifth parable. It reminds me of the parable of the wheat and the tares we looked at last Sunday.

The kingdom of heaven, Jesus says, is like a net thrown into the sea. Fish of every kind were caught. But once on shore, the fishermen sorted the good catch from the bad, putting the good in a basket, throwing out the bad.

Just so, Jesus says, God will one day deputize His angels to separate the righteous, those made clean by Christ and their faith in Christ, from the evil. The latter will be thrown into the furnace of fire--hell, Jesus says, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth—eternal regret for having spurned the new life that comes to those who repent and believe in Jesus. You can bet that Jesus’ first listeners would never again look at old fishing nets in the same way.

For all who confess Jesus as God and Savior, the implications of this last parable should be clear. Jesus calls and commands His Church to be “fishers of people” or, "fishers of men." We’re to push out into our daily lives and strive to bring all into the gracious embrace of Jesus, to invite them to be with us in worship to hear the call to repentance and the good news of new life for all who surrender all to follow Jesus.

Jesus has welcomed us into the kingdom of heaven and now sends us out to bring more to Him, one person, one friend, one family member, one classmate, or one co-worker at a time.

It’s not glamorous. It’s not flashy. It won’t grab headlines.

The world may not notice it, may even disdain it.

They won’t see how God’s kingdom is, right now, right here, making old things new in and through people like us.

But this is how the kingdom of heaven comes to us all: through parents and family members and friends who care enough to share the most precious thing anyone could ever own, citizenship in the kingdom of heaven.

And, long after all the new things we human beings have devised have died and been forgotten, the kingdom of heaven and all who follow Jesus will be ever alive, ever rejoicing, ever new!

In the meantime, allow yourself every day, to live as a citizen of God's kingdom and celebrate the fact that Jesus’ kingdom has come to you, that by His grace, you belong to Him now and forever! Amen

Forget About Seeking Perfection

Seek God instead. Love it!

One of My Prayers

One of my prayers is that, one day, God will help me to be as good a person as people think I am.

Growing Into Forgiveness

Matt Anderson talks about his road to forgiving someone who hurt him deeply:

And so I am beginning to feel that forgiveness isn’t an event, an accomplishment one can check off their to-do list and move on from. That’s what I wanted, and was expecting. I wanted a moment I could look back on and say, “Now I have Forgiven!” But my heart is fickle and easily injured, its pride frequently bruised, and in these moments the old hurts come flooding back, replacing any sense of growth with the same old pain, and making a fool of me and my “moment” of forgiveness.

If forgiveness isn’t an event or decision after all, but is instead much more like many other emotional or spiritual states in its maturation, then growth means living more often in the good, the virtuous, the loving, the kind—ultimately, the Godly—parts of who you are, and that moments of anger, hatred, cruelty, selfishness, or self-pity occur less often and pass more quickly. 

Read the whole thing.

How Do You Tell False Prophets from True Ones?

"Beware of false prophets." Jesus says this in Matthew 7:15.

But what's the difference between a real prophet, a person who speaks God's Word truthfully, and a false prophet?

One major difference is seen in an incident we recently considered at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church. (We're reading the Bible together in a year's time.)

The incident, recounted in 1 Kings, chapter 22, and retold in 2 Chronicles 18, revolves around the preparations of two kings for battle: Ahab, a thoroughly evil guy, of Israel (or Samaria), and a decent king named Jehoshaphat. They had formed an alliance and were getting ready to go into battle with the King of Aram.

Before taking to the field though, Jehoshaphat suggested that they should consult with God on the matter. So, Ahab got a group of four-hundred "prophets" together and asked them to give God's direction about their plans. "Go to it!" the four hundred replied enthusiastically.

But Jehoshaphat must have thought their answer was too glib. "Is there no other prophet of the LORD here of whom we may inquire?" he asked Ahab.

There was one other prophet, Ahab said. His name was Micaiah. "But I hate him, for he never prophesies anything favorable about me, but only disaster," Ahab revealed. Jehoshaphat, the more pious of the two, told his counterpart, "Let the king not say such a thing!"

So, Ahab relented. Micaiah was called to come speak with the two kings, both sitting on thrones. He was warned by one of Ahab's underlings that if he knew what was good for him, he'd tell Ahab what he wanted to hear, that God would give him success if he went into battle.

Initially, his voice dripping with sarcasm, that was exactly the "prophecy" Micaiah gave. Perturbed by his manner, Ahab pressed Micaiah to come clean. Micaiah told the king that he, Jehoshaphat, and their armies would lose the battle. For his honesty, Ahab had Micaiah imprisoned and put on reduced rations.

Of course, Ahab and Jehoshaphat went into battle (a decision Jehoshaphat regretted) and it turned out  as disastrously as Micaiah said that it would. Ahab died from wounds he suffered in spite of precautions he took to avoid being identified by the enemy.

There are several ways to know when someone claiming to speak for God really is speaking for God.

One way is to see whether what they say dovetails with the character and will of God as revealed in God's Word, the Bible.

Another is if they are delivering promises so good that only God could deliver on them (like resurrection for all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ).

But, in the story of Micaiah, Ahab, Jehoshaphat, and the four hundred "prophets," we see another way of telling the difference between true prophets from God and false prophets.

False prophets will always tell you what you want to hear. If you're a person with a lot of money, false prophets tell you that God prefers the prosperous and that those without money are deficient in their faith. If the prevailing winds of culture say that sexual intimacy outside of marriage between a man and a woman is OK, false prophets will tell you that God agrees. If you're a king or president who wants to go into battle, false prophets will tell you that your cause is just, no matter what the Bible teaches about doing justice, loving kindness, or walking humbly with God and that real power doesn't reside in superior arms, larger armies, or fatter war appropriations, but in the God Who, over the long haul, fights for those who humbly trust in Him.

True prophets risk everything to tell you what you might not want to hear, what would be safer for them not to say, in order to help you live in sync with God, the only One Who can give you life, eternity, or purpose.

True prophets are willing to be proven wrong. They don't care the side on which the bread is buttered. Micaiah told Ahab after he'd given a prophecy the king found distasteful, "If you return in peace, the LORD has not spoken by me" (1 Kings 22:28).

False prophets play to human egos.

True prophets make themselves accountable to God and let the chips fall where they may.

That's why they're so rare.

[You might want to check out 1 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 18.]

Suffering Turns Some Away from God

But, Philip Yancey observes what in my thirty-five years as a Christian and in my twenty-seven years as a pastor I have also seen: suffering turns other people to God.

The God we meet in Jesus Christ isn't a good luck charm. Bad things happen to faithful people. Death comes to us all.

Being a Christian is a relationship with a Person Who has "been there, done that" when it comes to human suffering. He suffers with us.

And by His resurrection, we know that in the lives of all who trust in Him, suffering and death will not have the last laughs.

Whether our lives are at ease or we are in pain, we need a relationship with Christ.

Suffering makes no sense. Jesus Christ does!

Audio of Tonight's 'Read the Bible in a Year' Gathering

Garden and Rainbow

Two videos taken about an hour ago here in Logan.

Does God Punish Parents Through the Suffering of Their Children? NO!

Does God cause the suffering or death of children because of the sins of their parents?

As we've been reading the Bible together in a year at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, that awful question has been suggested by our reading of the experiences of David, Israel's greatest king, and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:1-12:17). While Bathsheba's husband was off in battle, David slept with Bathsheba. She became pregnant and to cover up his misdeed, David arranged for Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, to die at the front. Bathsheba married David and the newlyweds then awaited the birth of their child. Through the prophet Nathan though, God told David He was not pleased with things David and Bathsheba had done and that the child Bathsheba would soon birth would die as punishment for their sins.*

I can't begin to explain this strange incident. So, I won't try.

But I don't believe that God causes suffering or death to come to the children of people who sin.

If that were so, every child would suffer and die in their cribs.

That's because we're all sinners who, whether in our minds or in our actions, sinfully violate the will of God.

But I believe that we can turn to the Bible to help us wrestle with this question.

The Bible isn't a how-to manual filled with glib bullet points. Individual passages or chapters of Scripture aren't to be taken in isolation to explain the way God operates. When considering any question, we need to remember a principle set out by Martin Luther, the Reformer: "Let Scripture interpret Scripture."

The Bible is a library of sixty-six books inspired by God over thousands of years. The whole library must be considered when facing tough questions about God, life, and ourselves.

So, what does the whole library of Scripture tell us that might help us understand whether children suffer or die because of the sins of their parents?

One passage that might be brought up is Exodus 34:7. There, God told Moses that while He forgave repentant sinners, He would visit "the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation." But I don't think this passage is relevant to this discussion. The subject of the Exodus passage isn't whether God causes suffering or death to the children of sinners.

In it, God is simply saying that when parents persist in sin--such as failing to honor God as God, for example, or abusing their children verbally, physically, or psychologically--it has an impact on their kids and grandkids.

The words from Exodus are a call and a command to exercise what might be called "intergenerational ethics," recognizing that our sins can have a terrible impact on subsequent generations. Any counselor involved with family therapy will underscore the importance of this warning.

Another Biblical vignette that might merit consideration appears in Genesis 22. There, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Then, just as Abraham is about to do this, God provides a ram to be sacrificed in Isaac's place. God directs Abraham, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me."

"What kind of a sicko God tells someone to kill his kid?" a good friend asked me years ago. That's a good question, especially if the passage is seen in isolation.

But in fact it was told to the people of ancient Israel to draw a contrast between Yahweh, their God, the God of the Bible, and the false idols worshiped by the surrounding culture. The false gods commanded the sacrifice of children. This was reprehensible to the God of Israel and He repeatedly forbade His people from engaging in such barbaric practices.

The lesson Abraham learned was that God will always provide a way to reconciliation and peace with God--Jesus later claims to be the way, the truth, and the life, the only means needed for reconciliation with God. God will never command the sacrifice of a child because of someone's sins, God was telling Abraham.

This truth is further underscored by a passage from the farewell discourse of ancient Israel's leader, Moses, in Deuteronomy. Through Moses, God says:

Parents shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their parents; only for their own crimes may persons be put to death. (Deuteronomy 24:16)

This command is reiterated frequently in Scripture:

[Speaking of Amaziah, a king of Judah] But he did not put to death the children of the murderers; according to what is written in the book of the law of Moses, where the Lord commanded, "The parents shall not be put to death for the children, or the children be put to death for the parents; but all shall be put to death for their own sins."** (2 Kings 14:6, also 2 Chronicles 25:4)

The prophet Jeremiah upholds this same principle when he writes:

...all shall die for their own sins...(Jeremiah 31:30)

Through another prophet, Ezekiel, God says:

"Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine; it is only the person who sins that shall die. (Ezekiel 18:4)

"The person who sins shall die. A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of the parent, nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own." (Ezekiel 18:20)***

But the question before us--whether children suffer or die as punishment for their parents' sins is answered definitively by God-in-the-flesh, Jesus. Check out this familiar incident from Jesus' ministry  (italics and bold print are mine):

As he [Jesus] walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him." (John 19:1-3)

I don't believe that Jesus here means that God caused the man to be born blind, but that his blindness was an opportunity for the power of God to be revealed. Our weakness and need are always opportunities for God's grace to bring us strength and peace with God and ourselves. But more importantly for our question, you see, Jesus repudiates any notion that God causes the children of sinners to suffer because of their parents' sins.

There are lots of questions I may want to ask God when, one day, I see Him face to face. But I'm persuaded from what I know of God through Christ and from the overwhelming evidence in the Bible that God doesn't bring calamity punish the sins of parents through the suffering or death of their kids.

That children suffer in a world weighed down by its alienation from God is a tragic reality. My heart aches for every parent who must watch their children suffer.

But, parents, if God has an issue with you and your sins, He'll deal with you. He won't punish your children.

*In 2 Samuel, the story of David and Bathsheba is seen as the beginning of a downward spiral in David's reign. But when the story of David's kingship is told again in 1 Chronicles, the writer shows no interest in this incident from David's personal life. For him, the moral deterioration of David's reign started when, in his official capacity, he ordered a census of his people. (More on this another time, maybe.)


**More on capital punishment another time, maybe. One sticky wicket at a time, please.


***"For the wages if sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). All sin and deserve death. But forgiveness and new life come to those who repent (that is, repudiate sin) and believe in (trust in) Christ. God only holds us accountable for our own sins, not those of others. And the power of sin to kill us is erased as a free gift for all who trust in Christ.

Don't Try Too Hard to Fit In

Here.

The Kindness Outreach Chronicles (Part 3)

These are pictures snapped by my wife Ann during the Saint Matthew Kindness Outreach of July 9. During the outreaches, when traffic lights at busy intersections turn read, we offer free bottled water to drivers and passengers of stopped vehicles. We share the love of God, no strings attached.

In a world in which we're taught "there's no such thing as a free lunch," it can be hard to convince people that we're actually giving away anything without charge. But these give-aways are a great picture of how grace works. Grace, God's undeserved favor, isn't earned. But God won't force it on you either. You have to be humble and needy enough to willingly receive it.

In the picture above, Dick and Joy hand out bottles of water and Jacob hurries to make sure that everyone in the car gets their free gifts.

Above: Jacob shares another bottle of water.

Above: The preacher in action.

Be Patient: God Will Make Things Right

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
When I was in the first grade, we learned about how seeds become plants. To show us how the process worked, we were each given seeds and some dirt. We were told to take them home and ask our parents for an old cup and then plant our seeds in the dirt in the cup, put the cup in a windowsill where it could catch light from the sun, water the seeds slightly every day, and then watch what happened.

I did everything our teacher told us to do. But after a few days, I got impatient. Nothing had sprouted. I knew from our study at school that, at the very least, by that point, the seed should have been sprouting some roots beneath the surface. But, I wondered, since nothing seemed to be happening above the dirt, if anything was happening beneath it.

I just had to find out, so I could fix things. So, I poked around and found that below the dirt, my seed had sprouted a root that looked just like the one pictured in the mimeographed handout our teacher had given to us.

Just then, my Mom walked into the kitchen and explained that since that I had dug the seed from the dirt, it would no longer grow. (I don't know if that was true or not, but it's what my Mom told me.) My impatience had ruined everything!

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus tells a parable—or story—that tells we Christians to be patient for the full flowering of God’s kingdom. We may not be able to see it clearly, but God has already answered the petition Jesus taught us in the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy kingdom come.”

That’s why Jesus says elsewhere that the time of God’s kingdom “is coming and now is.”* God’s kingdom isn’t yet all that it will be when Jesus returns to this earth. But it is alive in our world and it is alive in all who turn from sin and trust in Christ as their God and Lord.

Our call, as believers in Jesus, is to patiently be about God’s business and to patiently trust that one day, as Jesus promises at the end of today’s lesson, “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father.”

Please pull out the Celebrate inserts and take a look at our Gospel lesson. “Someone” (Jesus says the someone is Himself) sows good seed in a field. The field in this parable, Jesus explains, is the world in which you and I live.

Unlike last Sunday’s Gospel lesson, in which the seeds represented the Word of God, Jesus explains that the good seeds in this parable, are the children of God’s kingdom—those who believe in Jesus Christ.

Once, Jesus says, while everybody was asleep, an enemy—Jesus identifies this as the devil—goes into the field and sows weeds.

It needs to be pointed out that Jesus, in the original Greek in which the New Testament was written, identifies a specific kind of weed that was sown, the weed known as a tare. The problem with the tare is that, like people, masquerading as Christians or children of God, this weed looks exactly like wheat…until the ears appear.

By the time tares are seen to be growing alongside wheat, it’s usually too late to save the wheat!

That explains what happens next in Jesus’ parable. The slaves of the householder—servants of Jesus—discover the tares among the wheat. They go to the Master—Jesus—and ask if they can uproot the weeds and burn them. They think that by this strategy, they (and not their Master) can save the wheat.

This request and the thinking behind it is really no different from what I did as a first grader. I thought that I could speed up or fix the processes for growth that God Himself created by uprooting the seed in the cup on our kitchen windowsill. We need to trust that God knows what He’s doing. He doesn’t need us to “fix” things.

Once, Jesus and His disciples were heading to Jerusalem and passed through a town in Samaria. Knowing that Jesus is a Jew headed for the Jewish holy city, none of the Samaritans in that town would share food, water, or hospitality with Jesus or His disciples. Two of the disciples, James and John asked Jesus, “Do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy this village, Lord?” They wanted to pluck up the weeds of unrighteousness, rather than trusting Jesus to take care of things with His own long-term plan. Jesus, instead, turned to James and John and rebuked (or reprimanded or condemned) them and left the disbelieving village intact, allowing the people there to live and grow with the hope that, somewhere among the tares, wheat—people who trust in Christ for forgiveness and life—might take root and grow there.

We see Christians impatient with the way God does things in our world today.

Some well-meaning believers, for example, insist that courthouse squares must have statues with the Ten Commandments inscribed on them.

Other believers send their bishops to testify before Congress, on the theory that it’s righteous and godly for the federal government to appropriate X-amount-of-dollars to combat this or that problem in the world.

Advocates of such steps are often quick to write off the faith or righteousness of those who disagree with them. But, no coercive step we may lobby a government body into doing will hasten the coming of God’s kingdom.

Both of them exhibit impatience with God and the way He intends to work in this world.

In the Great Commandment to love God and love neighbor and in the Great Commission to share God’s Word about Jesus in its fullness and make disciples, Jesus has shown us the role His followers are to play in the coming of His kingdom.

We’re to be patient. We’re to be patient in accepting that, by allowing wheat and weeds to grow side by side, God knows what He’s doing.

In verse 29 of the Gospel lesson, the Master of Jesus’ parable, instructs the slaves not to gather the weeds for fear that in doing so, the wheat would be uprooted at the same time.

It can be depressing for Christians to look at the world today. There are many things we might like to see uprooted.

We see people relying on material goods rather than on God to give their lives meaning.

We see people ignoring the needs of others so that they can pursue what they call “happiness.”

We see people ignoring God’s will that sexual intimacy is to be expressed between one man and one woman in a lifelong relationship known as marriage.

We hear people violating God’s command that we not bear false witness as they engage in gossip.

We see people consumed with resentment and hatred, murdering one another with words and with guns.

Even more depressingly, if we’re honest, we see how every day, we ourselves violate the Ten Commandments, failing to love God and to love neighbor.

We see how, because of our sins, we ourselves constantly need to come to God, seeking forgiveness in the Name of Jesus. (Personally, there are times, when I consider my sins, that I wonder why God puts up with me at all!)

When will this madness all come to an end?

When will Jesus bring His Kingdom to us in its fullness, ridding the world of its evil and ridding us of the evil that lives inside each of us?

We don’t know the answers to those questions. But we do know two things.

First, we know that evil will come to an end.

In Jesus’ parable, the Master lets the wheat and the weeds keep growing. But at harvest time—or, as Jesus explains, when Jesus returns to the earth—the weeds—all the causes of sin and all evildoers—will be thrown into the furnace of fire. There, Jesus says, there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” as people spend an eternity regretting that they rejected Jesus’ free gifts of forgiveness and new life.

But the reapers—the angels or messengers of God—will also gather the wheat into the Master’s barn. Those made righteous by the grace of God given to all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ, will live with God for eternity!

When God’s people are gathered to Him in eternity, then their perseverance in turning constantly to Jesus for life and hope, forgiveness and new life, will be rewarded.

The apostle Peter says this about Jesus’ promise to gather us into an eternity without sin, evil, pain, or suffering: “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all come to repentance.” The Lord is patient.

And this is why God is patient. God can do something that, so far as I know, has never happened in any farm field: He can turn weeds into wheat.

God can convert those imprisoned by sin and evil into the forgiven children of God. He will do this for anyone who turns from sin and trusts Jesus as God, Savior, and King of their lives.

Jesus hasn’t returned yet because He wants to use His Church—you and me—to share His message with all the world—wheat and weeds.

God wants all people to have the opportunity to live in His kingdom.

If you trust in Jesus, you can live each day in the confidence that Paul expressed in the New Testament: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” The lives we live here, no matter how long or short they may turn out to be, aren't even a fraction of the eternity God wants us to spend with Him!

Meanwhile, while we live this life, our call is clear. As Ephesians puts it, “Be careful how you live…making the most of the time, because the days are evil…”

Even in a world filled with the weeds of evil and sin, you can grow strong as a child of God!

Keep loving God and loving neighbor.

Keep repenting and believing in Christ.

Keep praying in Christ’s Name and keep sharing Christ with others in word and deed.

Know and be happy that you are already at this very moment, part of God’s kingdom.

And know that one day, in the presence of your Lord Jesus, sin and evil will be a thing of the past, and, with all believers in Christ, you will shine like the sun in the kingdom of your Father.

That’s worth being patient for. Amen!

*Jesus used this phrasing several times during His ministry.

The Kindness Outreach Chronicles (Part 2)

As we did last Saturday morning, a group of us from Saint Matthew Lutheran Church hit the streets to give away free bottled water to motorists stopped at a heavily-trafficked intersection here in Logan, Ohio.

It was another of our congregation's Kindness Outreaches in which we share God's love, no strings attached.

Unlike last Saturday when we split into several groups, we all went to a single prominent Y-intersection today, with folks stationed at three different corners.

This morning, we gave away 210 bottles of water in about eighty minutes. Last Saturday, we gave away the same amount of water in seventy minutes.

But overall, we all seemed to have more personal interaction with folks than most of us had last Saturday at other intersections. That's something I love! The reason for this may be that the lights last longer where  Zanesville Avenue, Hunter Street, and Culver Street meet here in Logan. Longer lights allow for the possibility for more good-humored interaction.

They also allow for the development of what I refer to as "positive peer pressure." If people in the first vehicle stopped at a red light say, "Yes" to receiving our free gifts, then those in vehicles in line behind them are more likely to follow suit. By the same token, if the folks in the first vehicle refuse our gifts, then those who follow in line are more likely to turn us down as well.

Of course, it helps to pray. Today, at the corner where I was working, we went through about four red-light cycles during which not a single passenger or driver was willing to accept a free bottle of water. So, I prayed out loud for God to bring us positive peer pressure at the next red light. And what do you know? The occupants in every vehicle stopped at the next red light accepted our gifts meant to show them that God's love is free and available to all willing to receive it. (The fact that happened after I prayed was not a coincidence, by the way. It was a God-incidence!)

As always happens when churches give away free items to strangers, we got questions from people about why were doing this today. Kindness Outreaches refute the common stereotype of churches as only being interested in getting people's money. But we refuse any offers of money! God's love is a free gift and we believe that God has given us all His gifts so that we can share them with others.

But Kindness Outreaches can perplex people.

Today, for example, one woman who looked to be in her late fifties, tilted her head from her perch behind the steering wheel of a minivan and asked me, "Why is it free?" "We're just trying to share God's love, no strings attached," I told her. She took the water.

Another woman pulled out her purse to make a donation. But Joy, from Saint Matthew, told her with a chuckle, "No, I can't take your money. I'll get fired."

A man on a motorcycle with a female passenger onboard stopped for the red light at Zanesville Avenue on west-bound Route 93. We said that the passenger could have a bottle of water. But we told him that we didn't want him "drinking and driving." Both laughed and thanked us, waving as they roared away.

One woman seemed absolutely overwhelmed that anybody would give her and the four other people in the car in which she was the "shotgun" passenger bottles of water for each. She thanked us profusely, a big smile on her face.

Each bottle of water is shared with a business-style card that tells the recipient: "You looked too thirsty to pass up!" with an explanation of why a group of Christians in love with Jesus would be doing such a crazy act of kindness. On the back, there's a little information on Saint Matthew along with an invitation for the recipient to let us know if there are any other ways in which we can serve them.

Eight Saint Matthew folks helped today. We had thirteen show up last Saturday. And everyone of them had fun! Thanks to every one of them!

Kindness Outreaches are the brainchild of my friend, Steve Sjogren. His book, Conspiracy of Kindness, absolutely changed my life when it was first published back in 1993. The people of the congregation I formerly served as pastor, Friendship Lutheran Church in Amelia, Ohio, began doing outreaches shortly after I first read Steve's book and later, conducted them every Saturday for five years, "committing" 15,861 acts of Christian kindness in that period.*

I'm excited that Saint Matthew has now joined the conspiracy of kindness for Jesus Christ!

[To see the simple preparations necessary to do a Kindness Outreach, go here, where you'll find two short videos I did last Friday night.]

*Several years after reading Steve's book, I got an email from him; a mutual acquaintance had told him about me. We became fast friends and have remained so since. And so, I have been doubly blessed: first by Steve's book and work and second by his personal friendship. He's one of the nicest people you will ever meet!

New One from Lecrae: Be Like You

My counseling and conversation indicates that the need for men to "man up," spurning macho misogyny, is more than an issue of black culture, as addressed here by Lecrae.

The Kindness Outreach Chronicles (Part 1)

UPDATE, July 9: Thirteen Saint Matthew folks showed up today and then gave away 210 bottles of water in about an hour-and-ten-minutes. Way to share the love of God in a practical and fun way! Hope to have some pictures to share here soon.

Storms on Saturn

An international spacecraft, as well as telescopes on earth, have tracked a big storm on the planet Saturn:

The storm system, which occurred during the start of Saturn spring, grew in size and intensity, eventually stretching around the planet. Scientists don’t exactly know what stirs up the storms, but they think it could be linked to the change of seasons.

At the height of the storm, Cassini detected 10 lightning strikes per second. Scientists said the electrical activity emitted by the bursts were 10,000 times stronger than lightning on Earth.

The Associated Press article, which I've taken from the CBS Sacramento site, also has a link to a recording of the storm. That helps to answer an ancient riddle: "If a storm happens on Saturn and no one is there to hear it, does it make any sound?"

The cited article also says that Jupiter is a hotbed of storms, while they're rare on Saturn.

(Thanks to Joe Case for tweeting this interesting story.)

Mayor Coleman Shows Off Scioto Mile

This evening brought the grand opening of Scioto Mile, on the riverfront in downtown Columbus. I've gotten a few up-close glimpses of it in the past week and I think it's going to be a great asset to my hometown. Here, Mayor Michael Coleman, shows off Scioto Mile. I look forward to spending some time there this summer.

Audio of Wednesday's 'Read the Bible in a Year' Discussion

This is the audio recording of Wednesday morning's discussion of 1 Chronicles 13 to 2 Chronicles 6, at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio. We have weekly opportunities for discussion, either mornings or evenings, of the chapters we've been reading that week.

Here is a general overview of our approach to Read the Bible in a Year.

And here is the list of readings.

A few notes on this particular discussion:
While the Babylonian Captivity began in 586 BC, as I say in the recording, some of God's people were allowed to return to Judah starting in 538 BC. They didn't have to wait until 400 BC, although many chose not to return ever.

Both 1 and 2 Chronicles were probably written about 400 BC for those of God's people who had chosen to go back to their land, who were interested in looking at their history for guidance on how to reconstruct their spiritual life as they reconstructed the temple in Jerusalem.

I mention Robert Farrar Capon's image of "the hat on the invisible man." It appears in his book, The Third Peacock. But in this image, Capon isn't referring to Christ embodying God--revealing Him, rather to the bread and wine of Holy Communion embodying Christ for us as we worship.

The Galatians passage I was trying to find during this discussion was Galatians 2:20:

...it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ Who lives in me...

Who Do You Say Jesus Is?

[This is a the column version of an earlier blog post. The column will appear in The Logan Daily News.]

The most important question any of us will ever be asked is one that Jesus Christ once asked: "But who do you say that I am?" (Matthew 6:15)

When I was an atheist, my answer to that question was that Jesus was a nice man. But when Jesus first asked it of His disciples, He accepted only one answer, one that came from a man named Peter: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."

“Messiah” was the Hebrew term used by Jews for the anointed king they expected God to send to bring God’s kingdom into the world. "Christ" is the English version of the Greek word, Christos, meaning the same thing.

Jesus also claimed to be “the Son of the living God.” In first century Judea, where Jesus lived, this didn’t mean that Jesus was “a chip off the old block.” It meant that Jesus was God in the flesh!

It's only when we trust that Jesus is Who He says He is—God and King of all kings—that we receive the gifts He came to bring: forgiveness of sin for all who repent and trust in Him, new and everlasting life with God, and the presence and power of God in our daily lives.

Our eternal destinies hang on whether we trust that Jesus is exactly Who He says He is.

Jesus says that “flesh and blood” can’t teach these truths. Reasoning, force, tradition or goose bump-inducing experiences can’t convince us to believe that Jesus is God and King.

That's why the Bible tells us that, "no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:3).

If you're open to believing, God can help you believe in Jesus, Who took your punishment for sin on the cross, then rose from the dead to give you new, everlasting life with God.

If you’re not open to Christ, nothing will convince you otherwise and you will be lost to God for eternity.

You may be an atheist, as I once was. Or you may simply be a skeptic. Whatever the case, I’d like to do a little begging right now:If you’re willing to take Jesus at His word, though you find it hard to believe, then ask the God you may not even be certain is there to help you to see Jesus as Jesus demanded to be seen.

Not as a nice man.

Not as a great teacher.

Not as a good example. (Though He was all these things.)

But as your God and your King. Your God. Your King.

You can’t see Jesus this way “by flesh and blood”; only by the power of God’s Spirit.

But, if you’re willing to let God build faith in Jesus in your life, you’ll see Jesus differently…and because of it, have a brand new life.

As Jesus puts it, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Who do you say Jesus is? It’s the most important question you’ll ever be asked. Ask God to help you see and live the only answer that leads to life with God: “Jesus is God and King and I give my whole life to Him.”

[Mark Daniels is pastor of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, 258 East Hunter Street in Logan. Sunday worship is at 10:15AM.]

"Pray with Boldness"

That's the title of this great sermon by Pastor Glen VanderKloot. He preached it yesterday morning during worship at the congregation he serves in Springfield, Illinois, Faith Lutheran Church. Glen is one of the most inspiring, authentic preachers around and, at a personal level, the real deal as a Christian!

If you live in the Springfield area, you might want to worship at Faith some Sunday morning soon.

The Wisdom of Surrender to Christ

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Matthew 11:16-30
In his book, 90 Minutes in Heaven, Pastor Don Piper recounts what happened to him on January 18, 1989, on a bridge over Lake Livingston in Texas. An eighteen-wheeler hit the 1986 Ford Escort Piper was driving head-on.

For ninety minutes, Don Piper was dead.

A pastor who had attended the same conference from which Piper was driving at the time of his collision, happened on the accident scene. He asked rescue personnel what he could do.

Nothing, they said. The other drivers in the accident were unhurt. The driver of the Escort was dead.

But this second pastor, Dick Onerecker, sensed God telling him to go to the Escort and pray for the body.

Onerecker knew, of course, that you don’t pray for dead people. The dead are either with God or they’re not. No prayers can change the destinies either of those who have repented and trusted in Christ and entered into the presence of God or of those who have spurned Christ and live with the consequences of their decisions.

And yet, Dick Onerecker strongly felt the need to pray for the dead driver of the Escort.

He finally got permission to climb into the wreckage next to the body.

As he prayed, he felt led by God to pray that this lifeless body mangled beyond recognition be brought back to this life without any brain damage.

Onerecker prayed with deepening fervor and then, in desperation, began to sing, What a Friend We Have in Jesus:

Oh, what peace we often forfeit
Oh, what needless pain we bear
All because we do not carry
Ev'rything to God in prayer!

Then something incredible happened! Don Piper, a man who had been dead for ninety minutes, began to sing along. He had come back to life! And, in spite of being dead for an hour and a half, he experienced no damage to his brain.

But the rest of his body was horribly damaged! Since that January day in 1989, Don Piper hasn’t lived a single moment without pain. It started with an initial 105-day stay in the hospital. There have been many shorter ones since. He’s undergone 34 surgeries. To save his left leg, he underwent a gruesome procedure with a device known as an Ilizarov. It’s designed to allow bone that has been lost to grow back by stretching the affected limb through the turning of screws every few hours every day for months.

Any person who goes through agonies like Piper has gone through is bound to ask, “Why am I still living? It doesn’t make sense.”

For Piper, those questions take on more urgency because of what he experienced during the ninety minutes he was dead. He had gone, he says, to heaven. He experienced his resurrected body in heaven along with others he had known who had trusted in Jesus Christ while on earth.

But then, in answer to Dick Onerecker’s prayers, God brought Don Piper back to this world. Since then, Piper has faced a lifetime of pain. There have been times of deep depression for Piper, a depression born, in part, of doubt about God’s wisdom in bringing him back here. What was God thinking? What did God have in mind?

Can you identify with Don Piper?

I haven’t gone through anything like what he has gone through. But I understand his feelings.

Some of the worst times in my life have happened to me since I became a Christian, because I am a Christian. (Or, rather, because I thought--even though I would never say so--that being a Christian entitled me to special privileges not enjoyed by others.)

I haven't had these tough times because of physical suffering, but because God wouldn’t act as I expected Him to act. I’ve sometimes prayed, “Thy will be done,” only to be appalled by what God willed for my life.

As a young Christian, for example, I remained intent, as I had been since I was a little boy, on a life in politics. (Yes, I was a nerd!) After coming to Christ, I figured that with Jesus by my side, I could be both effective and faithful. But while I dreamed my dreams, God awakened me to His call to be a pastor, just about the last thing in the world I wanted to be! In fact, one of the most influential people in my young life, the grandfather for whom I was named, used to tell me, "Never be a pastor. Pastor's are worthless. All they do is take people's money and then don't do anything!"

I wasn’t happy at first with the change of plans God made in my life, even though I now see how wise it was.

We create all kinds of agony for ourselves whenever we pray, “Thy will be done,” while really meaning, “My will be done.”

Every believer can testify to having experienced disappointment and maybe even depression and anger with God because, in spite of all their fervent prayers, things didn’t go the way they thought they should.

At the outset of today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus—God in the flesh—expresses God’s frustration with the people of first century Judea. In words that echo a scene from the Old Testament book of Isaiah in which God puts His chosen people on trial, Jesus asks, “To what will I compare this generation?”

He says that His fellow Judeans are like little children in the marketplace, wanting to order others—in this case, wanting to order God and an emissary from God—around. “We played the flute for you and you didn’t dance!” they whine. “We wailed and you didn’t mourn along with us!” Pointing to the ministry of His earthly cousin, John the Baptist, Jesus says that John didn’t eat sumptuously and never touched strong drink and people claimed that he was demon-possessed. Jesus ate and partied even with sinners and they called His behavior scandalous. They wouldn’t be happy unless God did things the way they wanted God to do things.

Then Jesus says, in verse 19: “Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” The Good News translation puts it this way: “God's wisdom, however, is shown to be true by its results.”

Wisdom isn’t the same as knowledge.

And it’s not what we would call “common sense.”

Wisdom is a gift from God, something that He reveals to those who seek to faithfully follow Jesus Christ.

The wisdom of God can’t be intellectually proven any more than can the existence of God. When Dick Onerecker arrived on that bridge, there was no rational, empirical reason he could offer—to others or even to himself—for going to Don Piper’s body to pray. Don Piper was dead. And yet, God impressed on Onerecker the need to do what didn’t make sense. The wisdom of doing that was vindicated when a dead man started singing, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” The apostle Paul says that even “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom.”

Of course, we don’t have to be in extraordinary circumstances or search far and wide for the wisdom of God. All that we need to know about God, the will of God, the way to a life of purpose here, and the way to peace even in the midst of turmoil in this life has been revealed to us in Jesus Christ. (And, as we’re learning as we read the Bible together this year, the Bible is authoritative in the wisdom it gives because, from Genesis to Revelation, it reveals and points us to Christ.)

In verses 20 to 25 of our Gospel lesson, Jesus mentions two foreign cities notorious for their sinfulness—Tyre and Sidon, and an Old Testament city whose very name is synonymous with evil, Sodom. He says that even places like those would bow to the wisdom of God and bow to Him as God-on-earth had they seen the miracles He performed in some of the Judean cities and towns to which He had gone. On the day of judgment, Jesus says, those places of evil will be in better shape than the places that had seen Him and heard His call to turn from sin and believe in Him and yet spurned Him. Wisdom and salvation were revealed to them in Jesus. But they rejected them when they rejected Jesus.

The same thing happens today. Often I have conversations with people who are living unrepentantly in sin, then wonder why they have no peace in their lives. When I was called to start my former congregation, I knocked on thousands of doors. Once, I was welcomed into a beautiful home set on a golf course. Living there was a man whose father was a Baptist pastor and a woman whose father was an Assemblies of God pastor. They had both been previously married and gone through divorces. Now they were living together. They knew what they were doing was wrong. Yet they wondered why they didn't have peace in their lives. It wasn't obvious to them that anyone who knows the God revealed to all the world in Jesus Christ couldn't deliberately flout God's holy commands and actually have peace. There's no mystery in that.

Nor is there any mystery in the lack of peace committed Christians sometimes feel--and I sometimes can be included in their number--who try to tackle life's problems and challenges on our own. Without even meaning to, we can refuse to give Christ control of our lives. We would rather rely on our own intellects, our own common sense, or our own stubborn wills rather than on God. We can have no peace when we do that!

We’re just like our parents, Adam and Eve; we want to “be like God.” The result is untold and unnecessary worrying, stress, sleeplessness, and illness.

Relying on anything but God will get us nowhere.

In verse 25 of our Gospel lesson, Jesus prays: “I thank You, Father…because You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.”

Jesus isn’t telling Christians to check their brains in at the Baptismal font.

We don’t need to dumb down. But we do need to wise up!

God told King Solomon 1000 years earlier: “There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way of death.”

Intelligence uninformed by God’s revealed wisdom might tell you that since you’ve never seen God, God can’t exist.

Common sense might tell you that since there’s no such thing as a free lunch, the love and forgiveness of God couldn’t possibly come to those whose sins deserve death.

And yet, God’s wisdom has been revealed.

Through Christ, we know that the creation has a Creator and we know that Christ has paid the price for our sin, meaning that all who repent and believe in Christ can claim eternal life and forgiveness as free gifts.

God doesn’t help those who help themselves. God helps those who turn to God for help.

Are we humble enough to recognize our need of God in any situation?

And, when we rely on Christ, God can do even more than give us help in getting through life. Pull out the special insert and read verse 28 with me. Jesus says: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

God wants you to know peace. This side of heaven, we never will have all the answers. We won’t have it all figured out. And we will never be insulated from the evil that exists in this world, which lurks like thistles among the wheat. But in this world, we can have Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord Who sticks with us through everything and because of His cross and empty tomb, can promise all who trust in Him eternity with God.

God is still in the miracle business. And I still pray for miracles for those who suffer. I've seen God answer prayers for miraculous intervention too many times to believe that they're all just coincidences. When people pray humbly and helplessly in the Name of Jesus, God does things--great and wonderful things--that wouldn't happen otherwise.

But more than answers to our questions or our prayers, more than control, and more than our own ways, we need Jesus.

And when we take hold of Him, we have peace. In Jesus, even in the midst of life’s uncertainties, we can live in the certainty of His peace.

If you’ve been holding back any part of your life from Christ, turn to Him now. Tell Him, “Lord, Thy will be done. Truly, Thy will be done.”

If you’re like me, you’ll have to pray that prayer countless times every day.

But as we surrender all the pieces of our lives, the peace of Christ will come to us.

We’ll find rests for our souls.

To trust in Christ is the way of wisdom and, one day, God will vindicate all who trust in Him.

May the peace of Christ fill you now and always. Amen

But What is Freedom? (More Thoughts Inspired by the Fourth of July)

The sad truth is that, except possibly for the benefit of close family and friends, we human beings value freedom more than just about anything, more even than we value love. We'd a lot rather have our own way than to ever give way. It's part of our fallen human nature, inherited from Adam and Eve and all the other parents in between then and now.

Love, from the standpoint of God and the Bible, is not an emotion. It's a tough commitment to what honors God and helps others. It’s what the apostle Paul was talking about when he told the first century Christians at Philippi: “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.”

Real freedom resides in being so secure in yourself and your place in God’s kingdom that you don’t need to “look out for number one.” You know that, in Jesus Christ, in His death on the cross, and His resurrection from the dead, God has already looked out for you and will keep looking out for those who repent and believe in Christ, for all eternity. You have the mind of Christ and are set free, as Christ was while He was on earth, to truly live, whether you're living in a penthouse or the big house, whether you're being commended or being condemned. You have the freedom to become the person of steely love and obedience to God you were made to be.

None of us will experience this freedom in its fullness on this side of death. Personally, I admit that I do, say, and think things every day that have me turning to God to ask for forgiveness and to seek the power to live my daily prayer, “Thy will be done.”

But those who follow Jesus Christ have freedom in ways that no Declaration of Independence and no Constitution, no matter how cherished or important they may be, can ever bring.

True freedom--freedom from sin and death, freedom to live this life without fear--comes to all who trust in Jesus Christ, no matter the governmental system under which they live.  I hope that you're experiencing the freedom that comes from Jesus Christ alone on this Fourth of July weekend.

Thoughts on the Fourth

Monday is the Fourth of July, the day on which we Americans celebrate the Declaration of Independence, approved by the Continental Congress in 1776.

The Declaration's second paragraph contains the famous words Thomas Jefferson borrowed and reworked from John Locke and other political philosophers: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The Fourth is a great day to remember. But we might do well to celebrate September 17 as much as we do July 4.

In 2004, Congress established September 17 as Constitution Day. It commemorates the day in 1787 when the United States Constitution was signed. But barely a murmur will be heard about that day when it comes.

Maybe that’s because the Constitution deals with things we don’t like to talk about as much as we like to talk about freedom, things like personal responsibility and mutual accountability, things that prevent personal liberty and freedom from becoming what the Bible calls “license.” License is doing anything that may come into our heads—good or bad, right or wrong, helpful or hurtful. It's freedom without checks, balances, or concern for others.

From 1781 to 1789, this country tried to govern itself under the Articles of Confederation with freedom as its only principle. The result was a nation descending into chaos. Under the Articles, the new United States couldn’t defend itself or ensure political or economic opportunity or security for its people. That’s why the Constitution came into being. That's why it was essential.

“We the people of the United States,” the Constitution begins, “in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Many historians say that the Constitution completed the American Revolution. Without the responsibility and mutual accountability it imposed on the willing and the unwilling alike, the American experiment of freedom would have failed long ago. I think that’s worth at least a few fireworks.