How many miles on your Dyson?

I love Dyson sweepers. No other vacuum cleaners I've owned have ever come close to the job Dyson sweepers do...and I'm including a Kirby we bought years ago that had a payment book like the ones you used to get when you bought a car.

And speaking of cars, evidently the Dyson people are working on an electric car. Unlike Tesla, the breakthrough manufacturer of electric cars, which this article points out, have achieved cult status, a Dyson car would use solid state batteries.

The company declined to comment but in 2015 it [Dyson] said it planned to invest £1bn in battery technology and in October it bought solid-state battery company, Sakti3, for $90m, which founder Sir James Dyson said had “developed a breakthrough in battery technology”. 

One of Sakti3’s patents states: “The present invention provides a method and system for an all solid-state rechargeable battery and a vehicle propulsion system powered by the battery.”

...three key factors for electric car batteries are low cost, safety and a high “energy density” which gives a long range. But currently they are expensive, he said, and cannot drive as far as petrol or diesel vehicles on a single charge.

Solid-state batteries could provide a tenfold increase in energy density - how much power they pack in - and are also safer. This is because existing batteries use flammable organic solvents as an electrolyte (through which the current flows), whereas a solid electrolyte does not pose a fire risk and does not need expensive safety features. The solid electrolyte also means the battery electrodes can be made of a much more energy dense material, such as metallic lithium.

The article says that other companies are looking at developing solid state batteries for their cars. But given their track record (or maybe, non-track record), I'd put my money (if I had it to invest) on Dyson. It's just a company with a special culture of innovation and a flair for elegant design. (That's the same reason I'd bet on Apple producing a compelling smart car before any other of the current contestants in that technology race.)

The quest for an electric car has been going on for at least five decades. I can remember as a kid back in the 1960s reading an article about General Motors and other manufacturers' work on electric cars. It included pictures of prototypes that looked like something you could pick up at a local car dealer's showroom.

But the ongoing challenge in the development of electric cars has always been ensuring that they stayed charged for significant distances. Tesla has overcome that issue to a great degree, of course.

Solid state batteries offer the potential of longer charges and, unlike other batteries, safety from fire threats.

Even if Dyson is unable to develop a marketable product from their efforts, I hope that their entry into the competition will prod others to get in the race too.

[Thanks to Brit pub and Formula 1 race enthusiast Mark J. Daniels for linking to the Guardian article.]

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

Money

“Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the chief priests and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver.” (Matthew 26:14-15, The Message)

Until this morning, it hadn’t dawned on me how driven by money Judas Iscariot’s decision to betray Jesus to religious officials who wanted Jesus dead.

A woman had anointed Jesus with expensive perfume. Matthew says that all of Jesus’ disciples were angered by the woman’s extravagance. The perfume, they believed, could have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor.

But Jesus applauded the woman, saying that she had anointed His body for burial.

Right then, Judas runs off to see how much money the priests will give him if he provides them with the chance to arrest Jesus quietly.

Judas seems obsessed with cold hard cash. That appears, from this passage anyway, to be his motivation for betraying Jesus.

1 Timothy 6:10 says: “...the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”

Money in itself isn’t evil. (No matter how badly Pink Floyd misquotes that 1 Timothy passage.) Money is a tool by which we exchange value for value.

But the worship or the idolatry of money is a violation of God’s First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before Me.”

Depending too much on money leads to all kinds of evil, as happened when Judas betrayed Jesus.

Today in this passage, I sensed God telling me that while money has never been a driver in my life, I sometimes fantasize about the good I could do if I had more money. But if there are good things I want to do for God or for others, God seemed to say, I can do them with the money, gifts, relationships, and platforms I already have. "Don't put it off," I sensed God saying. "Be generous now!"

Lord, help me to do the good I can do today, with or without money. In Jesus’ name. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

Prayer for Victims of Oklahoma Tornadoes

Lord, we pray for those impacted by the tornadoes in Oklahoma. Give comfort to those who have lost loved ones. Give comfort too, to all who have suffered the devastation of their homes, churches, schools, or businesses. Give healing to those who may have been injured. Grant that those who build new structures will be given Your wisdom, strength, and empowerment. Bless with success the efforts of those bringing relief, recovery, and rebuilding. Envelop all with Your powerful love and use this moment to help all exposed so dramatically to the vulnerability of human existence in this world to turn You, through Jesus Christ. Help all to know You as their "refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." In Jesus' name. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

Finding God in What We Know

"How wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge. If in fact the frontiers of knowledge are being pushed further and further back (and that is bound to be the case), then God is being pushed back with them, and is therefore continually in retreat. We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don’t know."  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

What's Christian Unity? And What It's For?

John 17:20-26
In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus prays, shortly before His arrest and execution, for unity between God and the people who have been won to faith in Christ. Beginning at verse 20, Jesus prays: “My prayer is not for them [that is, the first century disciples who were following Him back then] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message [that’s you and me], that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you...”

Jesus prays for unity among Christians. But what exactly does it mean for Christians to live in unity with each other? It's easier, in some ways, to talk about what Christian unity isn't, allowing that to help us form an answer to that question.

So, first of all, it’s not unity with each other apart from unity with Christ. In a denomination to which many of us once belonged, we were accused of breaking the unity of Christ’s Church when we left. But when a group of people calling itself the Church breaks with Christ, it’s no longer united with Christ. We left that old denomination in order to have unity with Christ and with His true Church. Those who repudiate the authority of God’s Word over the life of the Church and the life of Christians are the ones who break the Church’s unity. Unity with other people without Christ is not unity.

Secondly, Christian unity isn’t coerced uniformity. I knew a man who bragged about his marriage: “I’m so proud that we’ve been married more than fifty years and we’ve never had one disagreement.” But I later learned that his wife had been taking antidepressants and seeing a counselor for years because her husband was a thoughtless dictator. He was happy; she was a wreck. Unity is not coerced uniformity, whether in a marriage or in a church.

Thirdly, the unity for which Jesus prays for His Church does not mean that Christians will never disagree or get upset with one another. In fact, since the Church is Christ’s body in the world, the group of people given the most important mission in the world--making disciples of all nations--conflict and disagreement are to be expected. Only spiritually immature people think that good churches don’t have disagreements! As someone has said, if two people agree on everything, at least one of them is irrelevant...or maybe dead.

Consider the Biblical record of Jesus when it comes to conflict.

• Jesus publicly disagreed with Pharisees and Sadducees for valuing their religion instead of a personal, saving relationship with God.
• Jesus also condemned those among His fellow Jews who refused to believe in Him, despite Jesus being the clear fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah King God would send to save His people from their sins.
• Jesus called His own disciple, Peter, a satan for trying to keep Jesus from following God’s plan for Jesus’ cross and resurrection.

Was Jesus breaking the unity of believers when He said these things? Absolutely not! Sometimes, in the Church, as in our marriages and friendships, it’s only through the clash of ideas (and the clash of wills) that those who have taken a wrong turn--often both parties--can be brought to the right path and truth becomes clearer. But such clashes need not bring disunity.

Fourthly, the unity for which Jesus prays is also not about denominational organizations or even our congregations. As Lutherans, we believe that the earthly institutional Church is not to be confused with Christ’s Church, the body of Christ that exists in both heaven and earth. The real Church, says Article 7 of The Augsburg Confession, one of Lutheranism’s basic statements of faith, “is the congregation of saints...in which the Gospel is purely taught and the Sacraments are correctly administered.” “For the true unity of the Church,” the Confession then says, “it is enough to agree about the doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments.”

As much as I appreciate the North American Lutheran Church, of which Living Water is a part, it is only the Church to the extent that it remains faithful to that Biblically-rooted understanding of the Church.

The same is true of Living Water Church.

Of course, the unity of an individual congregation can sometimes seem to be threatened over disagreements, too. But we know from other relationships that disagreements aren’t unhealthy.

Presbyterian pastor and writer Charlie Shedd once told about a fierce argument he had with his wife Martha one morning. He left home angry. He came back several hours later to an empty house and a note. “Dear Charlie,” it said, “I hate you. Love, Martha.”

Love allows for disagreements, and even a little neurosis. As the sinless Savior Jesus loves and forgives us despite our faults, He makes it possible for us to love and forgive our sisters and brothers in Christ despite theirs.

Of course, Christ doesn’t want us to be united just so we can sit around being happy about our unity. What would be the point of that?

It turns out that Jesus has a particular purpose in praying for our unity as His Church. Look at verse 23 of our Gospel lesson. Jesus prays, “...Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me”

The unity for which Jesus prays has one overriding purpose: to empower the disciples of His Church--you and me--in fulfilling our one and only mission of making disciples for Jesus Christ. That’s it!

I’ve known many churches whose members were so content with each other--and how comfortable and united they felt with each other--that they never thought about welcoming others into their fellowship. They would brag about how friendly their church was, but when visitors came to worship, Bible studies, or church activities, they were only friendly to each other, not the visitors. (That’s a contrast to Living Water, where visitors have to negotiate a gauntlet of unofficial greeters as they make their way to the sanctuary!)

A church united in Christ loves nothing more than making disciples, seeking out and welcoming others so that they can know Christ as their God, Lord, and Friend.

Disciples from united churches love telling the spiritually disconnected and lost about the new life that only comes from Jesus Christ, and calling all our fellow sinners to “come and see Jesus Christ.”

They love taking the time to help others to know and grow in a saving relationship with Christ!

We do this in the passionate hope that those not connected to Jesus will be reached by the amazing grace God extends through saved, repentant sinners like us, disciples of Christ who bet our whole lives on Jesus Christ!

In John 20:30-31, John explains why he wrote his gospel: “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

Like the apostle John, a Church united with Jesus Christ wants to so present Jesus to others that they will come to believe in Him and so have eternal life with God. A united church has the salvation of the lost as its animating passion and purpose, the very reason for its existence!

As someone has famously put it: “The Church is the only organization that does not exist for itself, but for those who live outside of it.”

Jesus prays for our unity so that the world we touch and reach out to will come to believe in Jesus Christ, the only One Who can give human beings forgiveness of sin and the new life that He died and rose to give to those who believe in Him.

Disciples of Christ and His Church believe that Jesus meant it when He said in John 14:6: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

If Christians live in unity for any other purpose than helping people follow Jesus, they may be nice people; but they are not a church. 



One last thing to note about the unity of the Church is that true unity can’t be manufactured by us. We saints who are also sinners are incapable of resolving to be united. Unity in Christ is God’s gift to people who are focused, not on themselves or their preferences or obsessions, but on Jesus Christ alone.

Sometimes, I have Catechism students scatter to different parts of a room and tell them to pretend that a Bible I place on a table is Jesus. Then I tell them to walk toward Jesus. Here’s the deal: As they draw closer to Jesus, they also draw closer to one another.

As we draw closer to Jesus, we grow closer to our fellow Christians. Jesus prays that His Church will be one with God and one another because Jesus knows we can’t manufacture or coerce our unity; unity is a byproduct of a people who turn their eyes on Jesus.

As we pray, read Scripture, receive the Sacraments, and serve others with a focus on Jesus, our hearts will be more dialed into others, not just ourselves.

Words like, “I’m sorry. I was wrong. I think that I may have misunderstood what you were saying, could you explain it to me again? How can I share Christ with others? How can I invite others to know and follow Christ?” will be spoken among us.

More and more disciples in our midst will understand that they too have been transformed by Jesus so that they can be part of His priesthood of all believers, each of us having ministries to the Church and to the world.

As we live each day as part of this community of Christian faith, Living Water, may we turn always to Christ in repentance and renewal and pray that, as we do so, Christ will unite us in doing the very thing that we all were saved by Jesus Christ to do: Turn this dying world upside down by living and dying for Christ alone and by making disciples; reaching up, reaching in, reaching out. Amen

A Prayer for Victims of Fort McMurray Wildfires

Creator God, we know that Your creation groans under the weight of human sin and that trouble is part of life on this earth. We also know You to be the God of healing and help. Bring Your healing and help to the people of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, reeling from wildfires that have destroyed many lives, homes, memories, essential services, and ways of life. Grant that those who have been impacted by this disaster will know Your help and healing. Bless and keep safe those involved in rescue and recovery efforts there. Use this tragedy to draw the lost to Jesus Christ, the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. In Jesus' name. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

General Scaparrotti Takes NATO Command

Mike Scaparrotti, who grew up in Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, where I pastored for six years, is a great leader and a fine man.

Saint Matthew, Logan, and the Scaparrotti family are justly proud of him!

Despite misinformed talk from the campaign trail this year, NATO and other similar alliances and arrangements remain important not just or even primarily for others' security, but for the security of the people of the United States. General Scaparrotti is a wonderful choice for this command.

Please keep him in your prayers, asking God to give him wisdom and safety. Please also pray for his wife Cindy, who is a great person in her own right.



[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

Good News!

"You make me want to be a better man"

There are people who come into our lives who make us feel this way.

Sometimes, we are so confounding for them, so frustrating and infuriating, that we never get the chance to tell them how they make us want to be better people.

Nor do they see what effect they have on our characters, our actions, our thought processes.

I've had people like this in my life. They've never seen how God has used them to call me to repent and how, as the Holy Spirit sent by Christ uses them, calls my attention to the examples of their character, integrity, and honesty, and how God's Spirit is slowly changing me.

This is dedicated to people who have made me and make me want to be a better man.




[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

How God is Speaking to This Recovering Sin Addict

I try to start each day in a quiet time with God. I use the "Stop, look, listen, respond" method for meeting with God each day.

As explained here, I stop, look, listen, and respond in order to interact with God before I "hit the bricks" of everyday life.

A few days ago, I looked at Matthew 16:5-12. This is The Message translation, an rendering of Scripture I'm using right now in order to break open truths from God that I may have previously missed because the renderings of other translations have become so familiar to me that I miss out on God's Word for me. Here's what I read:

On their way to the other side of the lake, the disciples discovered they had forgotten to bring along bread. In the meantime, Jesus said to them, “Keep a sharp eye out for Pharisee-Sadducee yeast.”

Thinking he was scolding them for forgetting bread, they discussed in whispers what to do. Jesus knew what they were doing and said, “Why all these worried whispers about forgetting the bread? Runt believers! Haven’t you caught on yet? Don’t you remember the five loaves of bread and the five thousand people, and how many baskets of fragments you picked up? Or the seven loaves that fed four thousand, and how many baskets of leftovers you collected? Haven’t you realized yet that bread isn’t the problem? The problem is yeast, Pharisee-Sadducee yeast.” Then they got it: that he wasn’t concerned about eating, but teaching—the Pharisee-Sadducee kind of teaching.

As I looked into the passage, God underscored important truth for me. This is what I wrote in my journal:

The disciples realize that they've forgotten to take bread as they travel across the lake. Jesus gives a cryptic warning about avoiding the "yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees," two religious sects who dominate first century Judea's life. The disciples think that Jesus is chastising them for not bringing bread. 

But Jesus asks if they don't remember how He'd fed the 5000 and the 4000 miraculously. 

Bread isn't the issue. Jesus can provide daily bread. 

The problem Jesus is warning the disciples to avoid is in approaching the questions of daily life--like bread--in the same way as Pharisees and Sadducees. Their worldview was me-centered, not God-centered. They even thought of righteousness as their achievement. 

But everything comes from God. 

"Remember," Jesus is saying, "I provide bread without you doing a thing. The religious leaders commend a righteousness of their own making, detached from Me or dependence on God. Be different from them! 

How different we are to be is shown in Matthew 16:24-27. We're to embrace Christ and His cross; that's where life is, not in "the world's bread." Jesus is the bread we need.

Next, I listened for God to tell me what I needed to know and apply from this truth that day.

God has never spoken to me in an audible voice, though I have sometimes heard His whispers in my soul and felt His touch on my shoulders when I'm on my knees in prayer.

But since the Bible is God's definitive word, often I sense Him pressing certain truths on me as I keep silence before Him after I delving into a passage of Scripture.

When this happens, I sometimes write what I feel God is telling me as though He were the speaker. God seemed to say this to me on this particular morning:

Too often, you settle for being half-Christian, Mark. You embrace suffering with the cross until the suffering comes. You seek to live pleasingly to Me, until it becomes inconvenient or threatens your "right" to ease. You fantasize about worldly vindication and success. You splinter your commitment to Me by your commitment to you. I said to follow Me; you follow, but take plenty go selfish detours along the way. That's not following!

One of the things about the devotional method taught by the Navigators that I love is that, when it comes to the "respond" part of our time with God, the method acknowledges our humanity, how hard it is to keep any resolutions for us, especially when we drift into thinking that we must keep them in our own power.

Being a recovering sinner saved by God's incredible grace given to us through Christ is like being a recovering alcoholic, drug addict, food addict, or compulsive gambler.

In this life, we always remain addicted to sin--addicted to our inborn desire to "be like God."

But each day--in a practice Martin Luther called "daily repentance and renewal"--we come back to God to help us face this day, to seek the power of God's Holy Spirit, sent by Jesus to all who trust in Him, to live as free grown-up children of God.

So, the Navigators say, just seek God's help to respond to His Word--be it His Word of direction, correction, promise, or grace--through the day you're entering. Don't resolve to live differently for the entire rest of your life. That's too daunting and way beyond our capacity to fulfill.

This then, was my simple response to what God taught me in Matthew 16:5-12, a few days back:

(1) Today, Lord, help me not to complain; (2) Today, when selfish thoughts come to me, help me to crowd at my self-serving penchant by praising God, thanking God, and praying for someone else.

Within twenty minutes of my quiet time, I was in the shower and a selfish thought crossed my mind. I remembered what I had asked God to help me to do. I filled my time in the shower with praises for God, petitions for the needs of others, and special prayers for friends and family.

I almost remembered to respond to God as I resolved to do through much of the day. Like a recovering alcoholic, I've fallen off the wagon more than once since then. I get full of myself and tell myself to get my attention off of me and back on God and my neighbor. And I ask God to help me to remember.

Last week, during a study of Mike Foss' book, Real Faith for Real Life: Living the Six Marks of Discipleship, I decided to read these entries from my journal to the Living Water folks who were there. Though I occasionally share journaling of my quiet time with God, I don't make a habit of it because my quiet time is all about my own relationship with God, seeking to grow as a disciple of Christ, not a project for my call as preacher, teacher, leader, minister of Word and Sacrament.

But I also want people to know that just because God has called me to this work doesn't mean that I'm not a child of God in constant need of His guidance and reassurance. Fortunately, God makes guidance, reassurance, and so much more in His Word.

Martin Luther said that Christians are the Holy Spirit's workshop. Each day, through His Word, God chisels and scrapes, remodels and renews, those who are willing to submit to Him, and in the submission, experience the freedom of being made over--often slowly and with fierce blows to our egos--into the image of Jesus Christ, heirs of God's grace.

If that isn't as true of the subset of redeemed sinners called to be pastors as it is of laypeople, pastors shortchange God, ourselves, and the people we are called to work among as servant/leaders.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

Teacher Appreciation Day

Yesterday was Teacher Appreciation Day and I posted this on Facebook.

It's National Teacher Appreciation Day. I'm thankful to the many great teachers who have changed my life through the years.

I think of several in particular.

The first is Mrs. Dorothy Everett, my fourth grade teacher. She was demanding and fair, knowledgeable and caring.

Cleo Goldsberry, my fifth grade teacher, deepened my passion for reading as a means of knowing more of the world.

In junior high school, I appreciated Mr. O'Leary. He was our PhysEd teacher and though I was no athlete, he always encouraged me and my love for sports, a lifelong passion.

In senior high school, I especially appreciated Mrs. Rosemary Leuchter, the English teacher who taught us so much and demanded so much of us. Because of her, I was able to proficiency test out of all my English requirements at Ohio State.

Also, my Journalism teachers, Mrs. Becker and Mrs. Dritz, in their roles as sponsors of our high school paper, 'The Occident,' encouraged us to write succinctly and well.

Another high school faculty member, a man from whom I never took a class, had a positive impact on me. He was our head football and basketball coach, who won championships in both sports, Dave Koblentz. As noted above, I was no athlete and he coached a ton of good ones. But he also knew and interacted with every student in our school. Twenty years after graduating from high school, I saw Mr. Koblentz at a restaurant. I went over to him and said, "Mr. Koblentz, you won't remember me, but..." "Mark Daniels!" he said. "How are you?" Good teachers pay attention and Mr. Koblentz clearly did!

In college, I was blessed with so many great professors. Stan Swart, Jim Kweder, and Don Van Meter were just three. Stan was my history professor for my first two quarters at OSU. He used to tease me about coming to class in my West High School jacket, but he became a terrific friend and mentor. He and his wife attended our wedding.

In seminary, the professor and mentor who, more than anyone, challenged me to go deeper with Christ, to live in and study God's Word, to live my faith with passion, to employ whatever intellect I have to God's glory, and who, by the way he lived toward some often scornful critics, taught us how to love those who hate us, was Pastor Bruce Schein. Pastor Schein died just two years after I was ordained. But there isn't a day that passes when I don't think of him and remember what he taught us.
From each of these teachers, at every level of my life and schooling, I learned so much.

The saying, of course, is that those who can't teach. That's not true.

There are some teachers who have no business teaching, of course. But my experience is that the best teachers have a God-given passion for teaching. They love their students and then, out of that love, demand the best from them.

My teachers have, for the most part, been far better as teachers than I have been as a student. But God empowered the really good ones to take this unpromising lump of clay and do things that have changed and continue to change my life each day.

Thanks to all my teachers!

[UPDATE: I should add that I had a number of other great profs at seminary: Merlin Hoops, Tryg Skarsten, Wally Taylor, Jim Schaaf, Ralph Doermann, and Ron Hals.]

When Christ Comes to Us (Understanding Revelation, Part 5)

Revelation 21:9-14, 21-27
In today’s message, the last of our five-part series on Revelation, I’ll be departing from my usual verse-by-verse consideration of the lesson. I’m going to try to summarize what I think should be the big take-away from what God is telling us in the last book of the Bible.

I once read about a reporter who spent time with a young man whose life was, in many ways, a sad inner city cliché.

His father left when he was a baby. He and his mother lived in decrepit housing. All around him were kids his age involved with drink, drugs, and crime. His classmates regarded doing well in school as a waste of time.

Yet this young man was an honor student. He kept out of trouble. He had dreams.

The reporter wondered why this young man was so different. So, he followed him for a week. The reporter had been with him for several days and still didn’t know what made the teen different.

But then he accompanied the young man one Wednesday evening to the balcony of a local church, where there was a prayer meeting. The reporter watched as this teen, often tempted to depart from the straight and narrow, shared the enthusiasm of several hundred others that night in worshiping God.

At times, the teen sobbed with other worshipers over the challenges and tragedies that are an undeniable daily inner city reality.

At others, he called out to God in songs and with fervent amens as he listened to God’s Word being preached.

He sang God’s praises at the tops of his lungs.

The young man had arrived for worship crushed by his burdens, tempted to give in to the easy sins of his environment. But as he praised the God made known in Jesus Christ, he abandoned his fears, sins, and temptations, and took the hand of God to walk with Jesus.

We all need to know that God doesn’t want to be separated from us.

We all need to know that if we truly want Him, God will come to us always, and when He does, He will lift us up!

These are the very things of which God has been assuring us as we’ve looked at the book of Revelation these past five Sundays.

And I believe that the apostle John, exiled on the island of Patmos, back sometime between 81 and 96AD, needed to be assured of these same things as he lived as a prisoner of the Roman Empire for his faith in Christ.

And I believe that for John, it was easier to believe that God was with him when he worshiped God, whether he did so in the company of others or during Quiet Time he spent studying God’s Word and praying.

The book of Revelation was born in worship! I’m not making that up. Scholars tell us that whenever the phrase “in the spirit” is used in Revelation, it narrates a time when John was worshiping God.

In verse 10 of our second lesson for today, John writes: “[One of seven angels]...carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.”

Listen: John worshiped God and God came to him.

Consider some of what John saw. First: He saw what he calls “the new Jerusalem” come down from heaven. God came to him.

Second: John describes this new Jerusalem, which we talked about last week. In this new Jerusalem, there will be no temple, because, John explains, “its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.”

This is what Jesus had been talking about when once, knowing that a conspiracy was being hatched to kill Him, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

Jesus, God in the flesh, is the temple.

Even today, before God sends the new Jerusalem, all who believe in Jesus are part of it and Jesus can come to us where we work, where we go to school, where we live.

If God can come to a man in chains on a little Mediterranean Island, he can come to us when we worship God too!

Third: John tells us that the new Jerusalem will be a place in which the blazing light of God will illumine everything.

Unlike ancient cities, the gates will never be shut. There will be no reason for gates to be closed, locks to be secured, or alarm systems set. There will be no night, no fear.

And, beyond the gates of death, in the new Jerusalem, life as it was meant to be will belong to all who have trusted in Jesus Christ.

God wants to come to you and me with this promise and His presence each day; He will, when we worship Him.

John presents us with staggering images in Revelation. And even if we can’t sometimes fully understand them, when life lays us low or when death stares us in the face, or even when the everydayness of life overwhelms us, these images can sustain and encourage us because in them we see the promise of the new Jerusalem we have in Christ. We are not forgotten ever. Christ will come to us when we reach up to Him, when we worship!

Many know the name of George Frideric Handel. Handel was already writing cantatas when he was nine years old. Not long after that, he presented his music to the king of Prussia.

But then, things took a turn for the worse. His father died. Handel’s music was no longer appreciated. If he were around today, we’d day no one was favoriting his music on iTunes or Spotify. He was yesterday's Elvis to today’s Beyonce. He was passe.

Bankrupt and hopeless, Handel locked himself away for twenty-four hours and in the end, emerged with an oratorio, The Messiah, based partly on John’s vision as recorded in the book of Revelation.

Something like 15% of all adult Americans living today have sung the The Messiah at some point in their lives. That’s pretty good for a musician who died 257 years ago!

But think of that: A work of art composed at what was a low point in Handel’s life has lifted millions of people into an experience of God and of what it means to be blessed by God’s love.

When asked how he was able to compose The Messiah, Handel said, “I [saw] the heavens opened and the great God himself seated on his throne.”

Handel worshiped God and, as he did so, God came to him.

Imagine how God might come to you and me if we daily spent time worshiping God, studying His Word and praying over those words and praising God for being God, for sending Jesus, and for caring about us and everything that happens in our lives!

One of my favorite twentieth century Christian heroes is a man named Frank Laubach.

Laubach was a missionary concerned with the grinding poverty in which most of people lived. He wanted to do something about it, but had no idea what it might be.

So, this man of prayer turned his eyes on Jesus, asking for guidance. It was while praying that God gave Laubach a vision: Teach adults to read, God seemed tell Laubach, and they could learn...about agricultural methods, about the importance of clean drinking water and hygiene, about the God Who loved them in Christ and Who could help them pursue love and justice in their everyday lives. Teach adults to read!

Laubach began what became a worldwide adult literacy movement still active today. Frank Laubach worshiped God and God came to him! (Are you beginning to detect a pattern?)

One of the lessons God is teaching me is that when we take the time to worship God, praise God, thank God, study His Word, and seek the will of God, it displaces things on which our minds and lives would otherwise be focused.

You don’t have as much time or energy, for example, to feel sorry for yourself when you’re intent on worshiping God.

There’ll be room for people you would otherwise ignore when you worship God.

Resentment is replaced by gratitude to God and compassion for others when you worship God.

In short, when we focus more of our lives on God and less on ourselves, we become a lot less distasteful to ourselves and more useful to God and to the people around us.

When we worship God, we learn that God is still God, still there, still for us!

Do you need assurance that God won’t turn you away, now or in eternity?

Do you have a problem you’re trying to figure out?

Is there some need in your family, our community, or our church you’d like to address, but you’re uncertain how?

Do what John was doing when God gave him the book of Revelation.

Do what that inner city youth did when facing the challenges of growing up.

Do what Handel did when his music was hated and his life seemed meaningless.

Do what Laubach did when he wanted to address poverty.

Worship! Reach up to God!

Give yourself over to the praise of God.

Worship God by reading God’s Word, loving God, loving neighbor, surrendering your life to Christ, making disciples, doing your best for everyone because, in fact, whatever good we do for others, we really do for God.

Worship! Reach up and give God the opportunity to descend to you the way He did in the new Jerusalem to John.

Worship, always on Sundays with others and on your own every day!

Reach up and you’ll be strengthened in the knowledge that God really is with you.

Worship and you’ll know that all believers in Christ belong to God forever, including you.

Worship! Reach up to the One Who is always reaching out to you.

And even when things seem dark, God will lighten your way. If we will come to God, God will always come to us.

Besides, one day in the new Jerusalem, we will be constantly worshiping and enjoying God's fellowship. So, we may as well start practicing worshiping and enjoying God right now, here, each and every day!

That, when all is said and done, is the ultimate message of Revelation: Worship God and live! Amen

[This was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, earlier today.]

The love you need, the love you need to share

1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Love. It may be the most overused and least understood word in any language.

I got a text message from my cousin in yesterday; she ended it by saying, “Love you.”

A friend I've known forever writes and says, “Love ya.”

I talk with my son or daughter on the phone and we both say, “Love you.”

When we express our love to different people like this, the chances are that we don’t mean to say that we love each of them in exactly the same way. I don’t love my cousin in the same way that I love my kids, although I do love them both.

And when we talk about the love required to get a marriage started or to keep a marriage going, the nature of that love is different from other kinds of love.

Yet, there’s a commonality among all the ways in which we love, however special or unique a particular love may be.

Eric and Nancy, you’ve chosen as one of your Bible lessons for today 1 Corinthians, chapter 13. It’s often called the love chapter and it’s also often read at weddings.

That’s completely appropriate.

But it should be remembered that the words of the love chapter weren’t written about the covenant of marriage involving a man, a woman, and God established by God.

The love chapter was written by the apostle Paul to a congregation in the first century Greek city of Corinth. The congregation was torn by conflicts and factions.

Some church members looked down their noses at other members because they had the gift of tongues and the people they looked down on didn’t. They thought that made them superior.

Some wealthy members wouldn’t share their food with poorer members when they all gathered for worship.

It was a mess!

Paul was basically saying, “Look, you may have all sorts of faith, God may give you all sorts of spiritual gifts, and you may be filled with hope because God has blessed you in many ways, but if you don’t have love, you’re just pompous noisemakers. Without love, you are nothing.”

Much of what Paul writes in the love chapter is so beautiful that, down through the centuries, people have stitched his words onto pillows and samplers, put them on posters, even included them in songs.

But I’m not sure that people fully take into account the description of love that Paul gives in this chapter. He says, for example: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

Eric and Nancy, a simple question. Do you always love like that? Do you always love each other like that?

Before you embarrass yourselves by answering that publicly, I can tell you, honestly and forthrightly, that I am not always patient or kind. There are times when I do envy, boast, feel and act proud; when I do dishonor others and look out for number one, get angry over nothing, and keep records of the wrongs done to me even by the people I say I love.

So, here is the Christian’s dilemma when it comes to all of our relationships, but especially when it comes to our marriages: We believe that selfless, patient, kind love is what makes marriages work. Yet, when we’re honest, we know that we are incapable of the selflessness, patience, and kindness that are among the basic necessities of marriage, the basic elements of marriages that work.

I say all of this not to try to convince you or anyone else not to get married.

But I say it so that as you marry, I just ask you to remember that good marriages require love like Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians--just as good friendships do.

I ask you to remember this: No human being I know is capable of loving like that in their own power.

This dilemma shouldn’t cause anyone to throw up their hands in hopelessness though!

There is a source for the kind of love needed to make marriages work. It’s found in the God we meet in Jesus Christ.

The Bible tells us that, “God is love.” This doesn’t mean that God is an abstract concept!

God is the supreme being of the universe, who made all of creation--including you and me--out of self-giving, patient, kind, and powerful love.

And this is the God Who so loved the world--including you and me--that He gave His only Son Jesus so that all who believe in Him will not perish but have everlasting life with God.

For marriages to work, for families to work, for friendships to work, for work to work, there must be love.

Not constantly sentimental, syrupy love, though that can have its place.

But love that says, as God says to those who come to Him with their sins, seeking forgiveness and fresh starts, “In spite of everything, I love you. In spite of everything, I seek what is best for you. Despite everything, I am with you through thick, thin, and thinner still.”

The Christian lives in the assurance that, as Saint Paul writes elsewhere, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And those who walk together with Jesus Christ can say, “No matter your quirks or your decisions that don’t quite make sense to me, even when you leave the commode seat up, even when you make social arrangements I’d rather not keep, because I’m a sinner saved by grace through faith in Christ, because God loves and forgives me, because God is patient with me, I won’t hold grudges, I will talk things through, I will stay with you until death parts us. I will love you as I have been loved by Christ.”

Marriages without Christ at their center don’t have a chance of becoming any of what they could be.

Marriages with Christ at their center--expressed in regular prayer and Bible study together, worship together, repentance and renewal together--marriages like that can be celebrations and laboratories of love that give inspiration to others and give confidence and security and joy to the husband and wife who live this way.

Eric and Nancy, may Christ be at the center of your marriage. Amen

Bono and Eugene Peterson talk about the Psalms

Great insights from two great artists: Bono, lead singer of U2, and Pastor Eugene Peterson, writer, poet, and translator of The Message version of the Bible.

By the way, 'Raised by Wolves' to which Bono makes reference, is my favorite song on U2's most recent LP, Songs of Innocence.

Want to Get to Know Jesus Christ?

Depraved Wretch, over on Facebook, posted this last night. Love it! (Have no idea who Paul Washer is, by the way.)

Get to really know Jesus. If you're interested in doing that, start by reading the Gospel of John. (The English translation of John linked is the Good News Translation, the version from which I first read when I came to faith in Christ after spending a decade as an avowed atheist.)

Beyonce's Visual Album

Lots of people are talking about Beyonce's new LP, released as a one-hour set visual album over the weekend. Even PBS Newshour just finished running an interview with a Penn State prof enthralled with the release.

If I were a recording artist, I'd try to go Bey one better. I'd release a visual album, only instead of imagery, I'd post a single message to run through the release's entirety. It would say:

INSERT YOUR IMAGINATION HERE.

By the way, Beyonce has a terrible swing. She could never break into the majors with it.

If we can't elect a Garfield, maybe we each can be a Garfield

On Saturday, returning from a daylong meeting with church members, someone mentioned the name of an Ohio town. "Isn't that where Garfield was from?" I asked, realizing in an instant that people would think I was referring to James A. Garfield, America's twentieth president, and not to the orange cat in comic strips.

Garfield doesn't come up often in conversation and the only biography I've read of him wasn't very good.

But most people who know a little about him remember that he was assassinated. (That was the subject of an excellent recent installment of the PBS series, The American Experience.)

Others will know that Garfield was an ordained minister, the only such person to ever be president.

None of that came up during the Saturday drive. But having briefly mentioned Garfield one day, I was surprised the next day to find an article in Christianity Today's The Local Church about Garfield.

According to Brannon Marshall, the writer of the piece, Garfield also exemplified humility, being one of the few people elected president who didn't actually want the job. (I've talked before how much I would love for us to elect people to public office who aren't desperately grasping for power.)

In this, Marshall asserts, Garfield has a lot to teach modern Christians (and, I'd say, others):

Garfield’s modesty would make him seem wildly out of place in today's political arena, but it fits his role as a lay-minister well. Of the church leaders I’ve known, those who have contributed the most to those in their care have achieved their influence as a result of character that’s unseen and humility that’s steady. It’s never been done through declarative muscle; instead, like Garfield, they faithfully followed the humble path and have inspired others to do the same. They’re the pastors who hang around after everyone’s gone, get out the mop, and clean up red Kool-Aid stains in the church kitchen without thought of recompense or recognition. They’re the tired-but-tireless Sunday school teachers who are in their fifth decade of helping children understand what Jesus meant when he said, “Take up your cross and follow me.” They’re everywhere—but rarely rewarded. And that’s probably how they want things to be...

Garfield’s relative anonymity in history shouldn’t surprise us—an assassin’s bullet tragically ended his life less than seven months into his term. His legacy, however, is important because his story relates an enduring lesson: true, dignified influence is often achieved not through force or compulsion, but through quiet humility.

In the midst of this year's wretchedly depressing presidential campaign, as we watch more than a few candidates pander, grovel, assault, and misconstrue the records or beliefs of others, it would be refreshing to be surprised by the nomination of a Garfield, a candidate not seeking the office, but seeking to do the first thing all leaders must do, serve. It's something to pray for.

But barring that miracle, maybe we who follow Christ could pray that, like Garfield, we could learn what it means to humbly follow the crucified and risen Jesus. We probably won't ever be elected president. But filled with the power of our Lord, God may use us to change the lives of the people we encounter each day for the better. And doing that would be a great ambition for each of us to hold.

"Among the founders, Hamilton was probably the most passionate advocate of national unity...

...He wanted people to think of themselves as Americans, not as citizens of separate states."

Alexander Hamilton was among the foremost purveyors of New York Values, says Cass Sunstein. I think he's right.

And one part of those values is the very American idea that we need not be trapped by our heritage, that we can be more than an indifferent world or so-called fate would have us be. (An idea that we need to extend to more people if we are to fulfill the promise of America.)

This is precisely the story of Hamilton, the illegitimate son of a man who eventually abandoned him, born in the Caribbean, a immigrant to America, where he graduated from King's College (now Columbia University), became a leader in the Revolutionary War, wrote the lion's share of The Federalist Papers, and, while serving as George Washington's secretary of the treasury, created the American economy.

That economic system has led not only to the nation with the most sustained prosperity in world history, it also was one major factor in fostering American national unity.

That represents another of Hamilton's New York Values. He saw himself more as an American than as a New Yorker. Like Washington, he understood the importance for the nation that fought a revolution for liberty to complete that revolution by a commitment to mutual dependence and accountability, resulting in the US Constitution.

Hamilton's commitment to nationhood and his conception of what it means to be a federalist puts the lie to those who squawk about states' rights as a means of avoiding full participation in American national life (liberty and mutual accountability) and undermining America. As Sunstein writes:

Most politicians who run for national office develop a deep affection for the nation’s diverse states, with all their unique quirks and histories. It’s much worse than bad politics for a candidate to complain about “Vermont values,” “Nebraska values,” “Georgia values,” “Ohio values,” or the values of any of the states. In light of the nation’s hard-won unity, it’s a betrayal of the great motto of the United States, which can also be found on our currency: E pluribus unum (from many, one).

Yep.

Hamilton was in a very real sense not only the quintessential New Yorker, but because of his commitment to New York Values, was, along with the Virginian Washington, one member of a new species that has been around now for more than two centuries. Alexander Hamilton was an American.

Uncomfortable (again) by Andy Mineo

I've posted this video for Andy Mineo's Uncomfortable before, back in January. But I was listening to the LP again tonight on the way back from Middle School Ministry (MSM or Catechism) class...and it's so good!

Look up the lyrics here.

"I think I got too comfortable..."

The Spoiler You Can Love (Understanding Revelation, Part 4)

Revelation 21:1-7
Imagine that you’re the fan of a best-selling series of novels. For several years, you’ve been waiting for the last book in the series to be published. You’re so dedicated to the stories, in fact, that you stand outside in the shivering cold to be among the first million or so people who rush into a bookstore in order to snap up a copy of the latest installment just past midnight.

You purchase your copy and head home intent on binge reading through the night in order to know how the central mysteries of the series are resolved. You can’t wait to get started!

On the way home, you turn on your car radio and hear a news report on how millions around the world, just like you, are buying the book.

Then the news reader reports: “By the way, set free by the actions of the series’ protagonist, the evil princess is transformed into the embodiment of good, the evil lord turns out to be the hero’s father and repents, thereby unleashing a millennia of happiness and peace. That’s how the series ends.”

Everything you’d been wanting to learn through hours of enjoyable reading is now revealed to you in a matter of seconds by a big-mouthed radio announcer. You know the end the story.

Will you turn your car around and return the book for a refund, the experience of reading the book now ruined for you?

Will you join a class action lawsuit against the newscaster and his employers for spilling the beans?

Or will you, so in love with the universe created by the author of this series of books, shrug your shoulders and read the final book differently than you would have otherwise?

Will you now, read the book knowing that, while bad things will come, in the end all will be well?

Knowing how things turn out, in fact, may help you to go through the story with a comfort and enjoyment you might not otherwise have. You know what’s important and what plot twists are really red herrings that have no power to change the definite good end the author has in mind.

Today, as we continue our series Understanding Revelation, we near the end of a book designed to let God’s people who follow Christ know that in the unfolding history of life in this creation--in the life of this universe, in our personal and communal lives as Christians--there will be adversity, persecution, and death. But Revelation also comes to tell us that those who endure in following Jesus are part of the new and eternal thing that God began in Jesus Christ.

John, the author of Revelation, the recipient of the great vision from God that makes up the book, would agree with the apostle Paul when he writes in 2 Corinthians: “...if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” Like the big-mouthed newscaster, John wants to tell us how the story ends for those who believe in and follow and trust and worship the God we know in Jesus Christ!

Is John wrong in doing this?

Knowing how the story of this universe ends, knowing how the story of your life ends if you will daily trust and obey the God we meet in Jesus Christ, does it ruin everything?

Do you want to sue God for spoiling the story?

Or, instead, doesn’t knowing that God is in control of history and how it ends and that the Author of life wants you for all eternity, make you want to change how you live each day?

Doesn’t it make you want to side with the whole great story’s writer and hero, Jesus Christ?

Doesn’t it help you to see your life, your relationships, your life’s work and daily activities differently?

I think that knowing how the story turns out for those who follow Christ can do all those things!

And believing that as I do, let me give you a spoiler alert as I invite you to look at our second lesson, Revelation 21:1-7. John is the speaker. “Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.”

The problem with the old heaven and old earth, the creation you and I now occupy, isn’t that it’s intrinsically bad. It isn’t. When God first created this place we now call home, Genesis tells us: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” [Genesis 1:31] The problem with this universe with all its intricacy and beauty, isn’t with how it was made.

The problem is that the rebellion of humanity, the only of God’s creatures made in His image, has dragged the whole creation down to sin, death, and darkness.

So, God has resolved to give a new heaven and earth--a new Eden--to those who turn from sin and the death that comes from sin and turn instead to Jesus for forgiveness and new life.

In the meantime, as Paul says in Romans 8:22: “the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth” for the new creation.

John sees this new creation--the new heaven and new earth. In describing it, it seems sometimes easier for him to tell us what isn’t part of the new creation than it is for him to describe what it actually looks like. He starts by saying “that there was no longer any sea.”

If you’re like me and enjoy oceanside vacations, that may not sound very good. But remember that Genesis 1 begins with God’s Spirit moving over the thrashing seas of chaos. The first creation happened when God pushed back this chaos, carving out a universe of peace and order for His creatures. When humanity fell into sin, we ushered chaos, disorder, and darkness back into our lives. Jesus, the Lord Who, you remember, stilled the stormy waters of the Sea of Galilee, is going to subdue all the chaos, suffering, and death which bedevils us in this world and give all who follow Him a new creation of still waters.

Verse 2: “I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.”

For the ancients, cities were places of safety and light in the midst of a dark, chaotic world, filled with thieves and wild animals. At night, people didn't want to be left outside the city gates because it was beyond the city that real danger loomed. This is part of what gave Jesus' parable of the prodigal son so much power to His original hearers. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was well known as a place beyond city gates where thieves hiding in crags of rock would pounce on defenseless travelers.

God is going to send and usher His people into a new city, a new Jerusalem, which His people will inhabit in eternal safety and joy.

The morning that my great-grandmother died, my mom woke me and said, “Mark, Grandma is walking the streets of gold with Pop today.” Mom was saying that this woman who meant, and still means, so much to me, was in the new Jerusalem. It gave me comfort to know that my great-grandmother was with God. It comforts me now to know that if I will persist in trusting Christ in this world, I too will one day walk on the streets of gold in the city God has in store for His people.

We members of Christ’s Church wait for God to descend to us like brides awaiting the return of their husband.

Verse 3: “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God…’”

In former times, you know, the presence of God on earth dwelt in the holy of holies at the temple in the old Jerusalem. The words will dwell translate the word in the original Greek in which Revelation was written, skenosei, literally meaning, will tabernacle. God will pitch His tent among His people.

This is the same word we find in John 1, which tells us that God in the flesh, Jesus, dwelt or tabernacled in this world.

In the new creation, we will never feel far from God. We will know intimacy with God. We won’t need a holy of holies; we will be living in the holy presence of God. Sin, death, and darkness will never get in the way of our fellowship with Him.

In verse 4, we read: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ He who was seated on the throne [God, then] said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’”

Apparently, God doesn’t think that knowing how the story ends for those who follow Jesus--tears wiped away, death done forever, grief and pain dispensed with--will hurt us. In fact, I think it's safe to say that knowing the end of the story helps us.

When we lose loved ones, knowing that all who trust in Christ live with God forever, can give us strength.

When we know that we belong to God for eternity, it can free us to love even those who hate us and to bring God’s compassion and love to the lost and the hurting of this old creation.

Revelation tells us that death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a Christian.

Beyond the gates of death is perfect life in the perfect city of God!

Knowing how the story ends for followers of Christ can, if we will let it, make us downright bold and reckless about loving God and neighbor!

Verses 6 and 7: “He said to me: ‘It is done.’ [Or, we might hear God saying as Jesus did from the cross, “It is finished. I have completed what I set out to do.”] I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.”

Apparently, those who believe in Jesus Christ, won’t miss the sea with all its chaos, darkness, and sin. Instead, we will be given oceans of fresh and living water!

God will slake our thirst for life and we will inherit a creation rich with the very life of God.

The new heaven and the new earth will make Eden look like it was, just the beginning.

In the end, there will be no end, only God and us living life as it was meant to be lived: filled with new creations, new stories, new adventures, new fellowship, new fulfillment.

God will make all things new.

I hope that knowing the end of the story for those who dare to follow Jesus doesn’t ruin your experience of the story of your life, a life that God wants desperately to make continuously and eternally new.

I hope that knowing how it all ends for those who follow Christ will, instead, help you to do the one thing God most wants you to do: To well and truly live. Amen

Earth Day

"The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it" (Psalm 24). May we care for earth, God's gift to us, our home for now.

Obedience, Faith, & Listening to God

For my daily quiet time with God, I use a method taught by the Navigators called Stop. Look. Listen. Respond. Today, I asked God to show me the truth I needed to see as I read Matthew 12.

In my personal effort to gain the new insights I believe God wants to give all of us when we read His Word, I've been using Eugene Peterson's translation/paraphrase of the Bible, The Message. This is helping me to overcome the danger of familiarity, which is the failure to see things in the Bible exactly because I know the Scriptures fairly well.

Portions of two verses, spoken by Jesus to self-righteous people known as Pharisees especially struck me today. Jesus is speaking of how faith in Him is truly authenticated in our lives:

"...Obedience is thicker than blood. The person who obeys my heavenly Father's will is my brother and sister and mother." (Matthew 12:49-50)

Jesus said this after being told that His family wanted to see Him.

What the Lord led me to see in this passage today wasn't a new truth to me, but one I needed to have underscored for me at two levels.

The first level on which I needed to have this truth underscored is this. I get on myself for the temptations to sin with which I consciously wrestle and the sins I perceive in myself for which I repent.

It's right that I invoke Christ's help in fighting off temptation and in repenting for my identified sins. But sometimes I unconsciously look at the fact that I have to fight temptation or have sins for which to repent as a blot on my character.

But the fact is that fighting my temptations and repenting for the sin I see in myself are both examples of obedience to God, the very thing that Jesus says demonstrates that believers are close to God.

Temptations will come to us. They came to Jesus (Matthew 4:1-11), though He never sinned (2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 4:15). So, we can't be exempt from temptations. They're part of life for every person no matter how close they are to God.

And repentance for our sins is a sign of the Holy Spirit's work in me through God's Word. I wouldn't repent if I weren't close enough to the God I know in Christ to know when the Holy Spirit is pressing me to repent and so, to be changed and renewed by God's grace (Matthew 12:31-32).

This level of the passage's truth was and is reassuring to me, an instance of God's grace for my life.

The second level on which I needed this truth underscored is this. Earlier today, someone to whom I'm close confronted me for a way I had been acting toward them: defensive, snotty, unkind.

I hadn't even been fully aware that this was the case. While I was busy struggling with other issues--temptations and sins I had been open to letting the Spirit identify for me, I was being deaf to the Spirit's clear call to change how I was treating this person.

I need to be careful to not be so focused on evicting one demonic element from my life that, not really attending to Christ's call to obedience to God's commands in all of my life, I let other sins take root in my life.

This is exactly what Jesus warns the Pharisees, so focused on combating some evils in their lives while totally ignoring the ways in which they disobeyed God in other ways, against, also in Matthew 12:

“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” [Matthew 12:33-35]

This is an instance of God's law and command for my life. I need it too as I pursue my relationship with God each day.

I realized again that I need to let Christ be Lord of and let the Holy Spirit speak to, my whole life, to never presume that I see all my sins (and, like the Pharisees, think that I've got it all together).

I also need to relish the knowledge that God gives grace to me to wrestle with my temptations and my sins. The wrestling doesn't show that I'm far from God. The wrestling shows that I'm walking with, listening to, and seeking to obey God.

Lord, help me to stay related to You through Christ and to obey You by seeking to do Your will. Help me also, to seek to do Your will in every facet of my life, heeding what the Spirit tells me through Your Word. Show me the unseen places where I let sin into my life and, as I repent, make me new. In Jesus' name. Amen

Prince

I'm sixty-two. I probably listened to more of Prince than many people my age. How that happened was sort of happenstance.

Prince's heyday was in the early- and mid-eighties. It was the era of big hair and MTV. I was listening a lot to U2, the Police, Stevie Wonder, a bit of Bruce Springsteen, with whom I became less enamored after Nebraska, and later, Bruce Cockburn. And, of course, I was still listening to Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Queen, and David Bowie.

At that time, I was in seminary. During my senior year, I worked as a janitor, cleaning seminary offices and the library after hours. It was a fun gig and it came with some perks.

One was being able to crank up a stereo in the library basement while dusting and vacuuming. I didn't have much money then either. So, when friends loaned music to me, I would often use said stereo to transfer their music to cassettes I could stick into my boom box at home.

The fourteen year old son of a classmate got wind of this perk of my job and asked me to record a bunch of Prince LPs that a friend had loaned to him. Being into piracy, I recorded all of that material for him and me.

For a while after that, I listened to a lot Prince. I thought his lyrics ranged from vapid to the faux sophistication of an adolescent thinking he knows more about sex than his parents. But his musicianship was undeniable: He had a fine sense of melody and rhythm. He played guitar especially well. And his voice was rangy. For about six months, I was sort of hooked.

But, in the end, I was never moved to buy a Prince LP. In fact, I wasn't moved by Prince at all. His virtuosity could move me to appreciation. But his songs never moved me. They didn't encourage me to see my life or the world differently. They were simply the candy by which he showcased his amazing talents.

In recent years, I was aware that Prince was performing some. But I had no idea that he was still releasing new material--some source today said that he had released four new LPs in the past eighteen months! To me, there were many artists older than Prince--McCartney or Dylan, for example--or artists who were his contemporaries--U2 comes to mind--more current than Prince was over the past two decades.

Reading the other day about his plane making an emergency landing because he was ill was like learning of the reappearance of a ghost from the past, similar to his amazing guitar solo on the collaborative performance of While My Guitar Gently Weeps at the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.



So, the response to Prince's death I've seen evidenced online and, briefly tonight, on TV, has caught me by surprise.

Prince is being accorded coverage similar to that which greeted the untimely deaths of Michael Jackson, John Lennon, and David Bowie, or, in less heavily mediated days, those of Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, and Buddy Holly.

While I would have guessed before today that, in the end, Prince might be viewed as more culturally significant than some of his contemporaries like Madonna or even Queen, I wouldn't have anticipated the reaction we've seen to his passing today. In coming years, I suspect that he'll be remembered more for his stunning musical performances, both recorded and live on stage, than for the quality or meaning of his compositions.

But however you look at it, his sudden death is a tragedy and I pray that all who grieve will be comforted by God.

Positano

positano pic.twitter.com/8LP7Ggoswl

— ILoveItaly (@I__Love__Italy) April 20, 2016

Shelter from the Storm (Understanding Revelation, Part 3)

Revelation 7:9-17
One of my favorite Bob Dylan songs is Shelter from the Storm. In it, Dylan's narrator remembers a friend or loved one from whom he has since been alienated. He recalls the shelter she once provided to him, from which he had once drawn hope. Dylan begins the song:

‘Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When darkness was a virtue, the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form
"Come in," she said
"I’ll give ya shelter from the storm.”

From the moment I first heard that song forty-one years ago, I resonated with its lyrics. Everyone of us, I believe, at one time or another, in one way or another, seeks shelter from the storm.

We long for that place and those relationships in which we are known and yet loved, imperfect and yet forgiven, broken and made whole.

In fact, I believe, seeking that shelter is the quest of our lives, whether we know it or not.

If we are wise though, we learn in the course of time, that no earthly place, person, elevated status, and no relationship can completely, fully shelter us from life’s storms, or assure us of our worthiness, or give us peace, or grant us life.

We learn that it’s too much to ask of any earthbound place, person, status, or relationship to give us these things.

We may be blessed with imperfect, temporary shelters from the storms around us and within us: marriages and friendships that last decades until death parts the partners; minds and bodies that serve us well until finally giving out. We should thank God for blessings like these.

But we hunger for more.

Why is that? Are we just inherently whiny, fussy, impatient, intent on having perfection as we define it? The short answer is, “Yes.” But there’s a deeper answer.

We were made for more.

And deep in our hearts, down in our guts, in every synapse of our brains, we know it! We were made for more.

The Bible says that you and I were created in the image of God. God’s imprint, His eternal nature, is written right into our DNA. God did not create us to sin, to hurt each other, to be hurt by each other, to age, to be limited by disease, to die. We’re right to feel that if the world was right, these things wouldn’t be part of our lives, that we would be sheltered from all storms.

We’re related to our Father in ways that no other creature is; He meant for us to share in His perfection, righteousness, love, and eternity. As Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He [God] has...set eternity in the human heart…” We know that we weren’t made to be exposed to the storms, the chaos, over which God’s Spirit first moved and by the force of His love carved out a perfect universe over which we were made to be the godly stewards.

But you know what happened. Adam and Eve, our great-ancestors, fell into sin, bringing all the sins (including our sins, yours and mine) and imperfections and storms that we know too well--into this world.

So, we look for the perfect shelter.

But unless we look for it in the God we meet in Jesus Christ, we will never find it!

As we continue our series, Understanding Revelation, today we encounter people who took shelter in Jesus Christ. And they found that despite the storms they encountered in this life, God sheltered them here in His grace, and when they passed from this life, they entered the eternal shelter for which all of us long and for which we were all made.

Revelation 7:9-17. Follow along with me, beginning at verse 7. “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.”

John is, as was true in last Sunday's message, still in the throne room of God. The robes worn by a crowd from every nation of the earth are white, symbolic of purity. They carry palm leaves, symbolizing victory.

Verse 10: “And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’ All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: ‘Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!’”

In the Old Testament and among Jewish teachers down to the time of Jesus and beyond, whenever you encounter a list with an odd-number of items, you look to the one that stands in the middle. That’s the most important item. What was this throng in white emphasizing? Their thanks to God for the gift of life, for the gift of Jesus, and for the eternal shelter He provides to those who put their trust in Him above all! They were filled with thanksgiving.

Verse 13: “Then one of the elders asked me, ‘These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?’” The elder asked this of John like a teacher using the interrogative method, helping his student own what it being taught.

But John initially only owns his ignorance. Verse 14: “I answered, ‘Sir, you know.’ And he said, ‘These are they who have come out of the great tribulation [That is, those who have lived faithfully in this world despite the obstacles, despite the difficulty of believing good news in a bad news world, despite shunning, dismissive disdain, or persecution.]; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb…’”

John saw many things in the revelation Jesus gave to him at Patmos. He saw God on His throne. He saw the crucified, risen, and ascended Jesus, the Lamb of God. He saw angels. All of that would have caused him--would cause us, were we to see it--to stand or fall on our faces in awe, hearts racing with the majesty and perfection of God.

But nothing John saw would have given him more assurance, more hope, more peace than seeing this throng of believers safely delivered into the perfect, eternal shelter of the God in Whom they put their trust.

John saw that the yearning we know from the moment we’re born--the yearning to live eternally, to live with purpose unencumbered by all the harsh realities of this world--is the yearning God wants to fulfill for us.

God wants to set us free from sin, death, futility, disease, discord, and separation from others.

God wants to set us free to live in loving relationship with Him, our families, our friends, the world.

God wants to banish sin’s power over our lives and actions and relationships for all eternity!

These blessings were meant to be the birthright of every child fashioned in God’s image. We sold off that birthright long ago when sin took us captive. But Jesus Christ has purchased us out of our slavery to sin and death and the devil with the expenditure of His blood.

It’s an inheritance that we can claim when we wash ourselves in the blood of the Lamb, committing ourselves to lives of turning from sin and trusting in Jesus Christ to be our Savior, our Lord, our King, our God, our shelter.

Like Jesus, we will die before we know this inheritance in full. (After all, we’re not better than Jesus and we shouldn’t expect to live or die better than Jesus! So, to each us, death will come.) But even now in this world, those who take shelter in Christ, find that though the storms of life buffet them, wound them, even take our lives, we have God’s peace. We live confident in God’s grace and provision and love.

When I had my heart attack and didn’t know whether they could salvage much of the 60% of my heart still functional, my son sat in the hospital room and read Psalm 46 to me: "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging…[And then] Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

The God revealed to all the world as Lord and Savior in Jesus was my shelter, not because I deserve His shelter (I know me very well and I know that I deserve no blessing God might give to me; I deserve only death and damnation.), but because God loves me and wants me now and for all eternity.

He wants you now and for all eternity too!

Go back to our lesson, starting at verse 14. The elder is still speaking to John about this multitude in white. “‘Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. [There’s the promise that will see us through every storm in this life. And there follows the promise of an eternal shelter through Christ.] ‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them,’ nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”’” What a promise! Eternal shelter!

In Dylan’s song, he says:
I’ve heard newborn babies wailin’ like a mournin’ dove
And old men with broken teeth stranded without love
Do I understand your question, man, is it hopeless and forlorn
"Come in, she said
I’ll give ya shelter from the storm.”

Dylan's narrator voice is wrong to think that the ultimate shelter of his life could be found in another human being, though other human beings who trust in Christ can be the instruments by which we trust that Christ can shelter us here and in eternity. (That’s why the great commission--making disciples of all nations, is the central mission and purpose of every Christian disciple!)

But he's right in believing that all is not “hopeless and forlorn.” We have Jesus Christ. All who trust in Him will share in the eternal blessings John saw in his vision of heaven. If we will remain steadfast in trusting in Jesus Christ with our whole lives, we will be part of the multitude John saw, those who repent for sin, take shelter in Christ, and know that they will live with God for eternity.

With the psalmist, through Jesus we can say of God: “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” Amen

[This was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, earlier today.]