Get Real
Ash Wednesday
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, February 25, 2004)
This past Sunday afternoon, Mike Cheney and I had to go to Loveland on an errand. That’s simple enough, isn’t it? We just had to take I-275 up to Loveland, make a few turns, and we’d be where we needed to be.
Somewhere around Milford, Mike said, “Hey, pull off here. There are some things I want to show you.” Since we both knew our way around and this would only be a minor detour, I readily agreed.
But you can guess what happened. We got thoroughly lost. There was one road I know that we must have either been on or crossed five times. Forty minutes into our little side excursion, we realized that we had succeeded in making a gigantic circle and still weren’t sure how to get to our original destination.
While I did gain some comfort from finally meeting a person with as poor a sense of direction as I have, I had to agree with Mike about the lesson we’d learned. “Next time,” Mike said, “we’d better bring a map.” Or, at least, I thought, we should ask for directions.
Life on this earth is a journey. God’s Word, the Bible, says that it’s a journey through a foreign land. Our real home is in heaven with God. If we’re to make it through this life and get to our ultimate destination, we dare not go through this life without a map, without direction from God.
Lent is a season devoted to our getting real with God and recommitting ourselves to getting our directions from Him. We know that this life is only practice for the real life that awaits us beyond the grave. We won’t get this life perfect. Our sin will get in the way of that. But we can be moving in the right direction. Our hearts can be in the right places. We can be moving toward God.
And make no mistake: This is deadly serious business. A young boy was excited to be taking a beach vacation with his family. His parents were excited for him too. But during the trip to the beach and even after they’d arrived at their condo, they warned their son, “Billy, the ocean is big and powerful. We want you to have fun here. But remember, never venture into the water unless one of us is with you. Never go to the beach without telling us where you want to go.” It can be deadly when you and I ignore God’s directions for us. It’s deadly when we rely on anything or anyone more than God. It’s deadly when we quit moving toward God. It brings eternal death when we try to earn God’s love or other people’s appreciation.
In our Bible lesson for this evening, Jesus warns us about one of the false directions we can take in life, thinking that we know what we’re doing. Jesus tells us that we need to quit fibbing to ourselves, as Mike and I did when we got lost last Sunday. And we need to stop fibbing to God and the world. We need to get real.
Above all, Jesus tells us tonight, we need to get real when, as He says, it comes to “practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them.” Piety, dictionaries tell us, is religious devotion. People who make a show of their religious devotion are moving in the wrong direction. They think that by convincing others (or themselves) of how devoted they are to God, they’re doing things God’s way. But Jesus says they’re more lost and separated from God than people who’ve never heard of God or darkened the door of a church building.
So, Jesus says, when you give charity to the poor, don’t make a show of it; do it quietly.
When you pray, don’t pray out in the public square, using flowery words; even public prayer is meant to be communication as intimate as what goes on between a husband and wife.
When you give up food in order to focus on God, don’t begin every sentence with, “I’ve been fasting now for five days...”; instead privately empty yourself of your dependence on the things of this world so that you can fill up on God.
And don’t use your money so that you can live like a sated lab rat; instead, use the riches God gives to you to glorify God and love others.
Jesus doesn’t condemn these actions. God likes it when we give to the poor, when we pray, when we fast, and even when we spend and save money. But Jesus says, God wants us to do these things in the right ways, for the right reasons. If we do any of these acts in order to be noticed or applauded for how wonderful we are, Jesus says, we’ll get precisely the reward we seek. Other people will say nice things about us. They may even give us honors and erect plaques in the town square. But inside, out of the glare of public scrutiny, our hearts will be as dark and selfish and far from God as the hearts of the local pornographer, prostitute, drug dealer, or murderer.
In Psalm 51, ancient Israel’s King David, having been confronted by the prophet Nathan for committing adultery and murder, tells God, “You desire truth in the inward being...” It’s only when we get real with God that our hearts and wills become tuned to Him and He can give us direction for our lives.
In just a few moments, I’m going to ask you to take a short amount of time and write on the little half-sheets we gave you as you arrived tonight. On those sheets, I want you to write those things in your life that may be preventing you from loving God and loving your neighbor completely. I don’t want you to show what you write to anyone. Instead, I want you to fold those sheets and put them in your pocket or your purse or your wallet. And then, sometime each day throughout this Lenten season, I ask you to pull out that half-sheet and tell God something like, “Lord, without You, I’m lost. Through prayer, Bible-reading, worship, and fellowship with other believers, give me Your direction. Show me how I can overcome these things that are preventing me from living life Your way.”
God is anxious to give us direction as we journey through life. But, He won't force direction on us; we need to ask Him for it.
Tonight I want to tell you that no matter how lost you may feel, God can change the direction of your life. Turn to Him each day, be honest with Him, be real about your hurts and hopes, your sins and your failings, and He will fill you with life, purpose, and peace. Tonight, as this Lenten season begins, let’s ask God to help us to not be religious and instead, be completely devoted to Him. Let’s resolve each day to turn to God and become the people God made us to be!
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Sunday, February 22, 2004
The Friendship Vision,
Faith on Fire:
Change, For God's Sake
Acts 18:1-11
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, February 22, 2004)
A young pastor had just finished delivering his first message at a new church. Afterwards, a member approached him and said, “That was a really dull sermon.” All week long, the pastor was haunted by that comment. The next Sunday, the same man approached him and said, “That message was one of the shallowest I’ve ever heard.” By the third Sunday, the young pastor was shaken, his self-esteem about as low as it could get. Craving affirmation, he asked this same man, “Did today’s message help you at all?” The man told him, “That was the worst one yet. You didn’t say anything worthwhile.” Crushed, the pastor pointed the man out to the church council president and asked about him. “Oh, don’t pay any attention to him,” the council president said, “He just repeats whatever he hears everybody else saying.”
Criticism is part of this life. And, it’s a fact that in order for us to grow in our personal relationships with Jesus Christ, in order for us to be useful to God and others, in order for us to fulfill our missions in life, we will usually have to endure criticism.
In the whole history of the Church, God has used the criticism of others to make His people’s faith stronger and to help His Church reach out to others with God’s love. In today’s Bible lesson, the first century preacher and evangelist Paul travels to the Greek city of Corinth, the center of Greek business and politics. When Paul arrived in Corinth, he did the sensible thing—he carried the good news of Jesus to the people most likely to be open to it first, his fellow Jews. But after trying and trying to tell them that Jesus had fulfilled the Old Testament’s promise of a Savior, Paul just ran into one critical, disbelieving comment after another.
Frustrated, Paul “shook the dust from his clothes,” his culture’s way of saying, “Forget about you,” and said, “From now on, I’ll just hang out with and share the Good News of Jesus with non-Jews, Gentiles.” He even moved into the house of a non-Jew who believed in the God proclaimed by the Jews and who had come to follow Jesus.
When Paul did that, amazing things happened! First, the leader of the synagogue, a devout Jew, came to faith in Christ, along with his family and slaves. The company of believers in Jesus—Jewish and Gentile—began to grow in numbers and one night, Paul received a vision telling him to, “Go for it! Tell everybody about Jesus Christ because there are many people here just waiting to be told that all who believe in Jesus don’t face eternal separation from God. They hunger to know that God loves them and wants to have them with Him forever!”
Paul learned, as we must learn, that as hurtful as criticism may be, it cannot destroy the follower of Jesus. In fact, if we will let God do it, He can use others’ criticism to bring positive changes in our lives. We see this in three ways in our Bible lesson.
First: We see that we can learn from criticism. God can use even unfair criticism to help us grow. Today is the actual birthday of one of my heroes, George Washington. As a young man, hungry for glory and fame, Washington led an ill-conceived attack by colonial soldiers during the French and Indian War. Not only were many of the men under Washington’s command slaughtered, he barely escaped with his own life. Prominent people in Britain and the American colonies all wanted to see the young Washington court martialed or hanged for his rashness. If Jay Leno or David Letterman had been around, Washington would have been humiliated and forced from public life forever. Instead, Washington learned from his critics. He took a look at himself and gave up being a glory-hound. Honors and accolades came to Washington later in his life precisely because he put his duty ahead of those things. He’d learned from his critics.
In our Bible lesson, Paul listens to the critics who savage him and decides to change tactics. He began sharing Jesus’ offer of new life for all who turn away from sin and let Him be the Boss of their lives with people he might otherwise have ignored.
Second: From our lesson, we see that our critics can strengthen our resolve. When we’re criticized for doing the right thing, we can either cave into peer pressure or we can reaffirm our resolve to do the right thing. Criticism forces us to take a new look at our actions and values. Our college-age daughter loves the internship she's doing right now, loves the work, loves the class on organizational leadership she’s taking, is getting to know some wonderful people. But she catches flak all the time from lots of her fellow interns because, while not condemning anybody else, she refuses to be on the prowl for sex or booze or drugs. There have been times when she has had to decide to do the right things in the face of withering criticism...and worse. But the criticism has only strengthened her resolve to live her life God’s way and that makes us very proud...and very grateful.
When Paul caught criticism from his fellow Jews for proclaiming Jesus, he became more firmly resolved to share Jesus, even if it meant changing his target audience and his tactics.
Third: We see that criticism should lead us to seek comfort from our fellow believers in the Church. That was certainly true for Paul, as he found a whole city ready to hear the Good News of Jesus he wanted to share. It’s true today!
When little Bobby was a boy, his farm home in Iowa was all abuzz when an uncle, a missionary to China home on furlough, came to visit. Bobby never forgot the moment when this godly uncle put his arms around the boy’s shoulders and said, “So, this is Bobby? Bobby, I have been praying for you and I am sure that one day, you will be a well-known preacher of God’s Word.” The boy grew up and moved to California. In spite of critics who condemned him, Bob became certain that God wanted him to change the way the Church usually reached out to others with the love of Christ. At an Orange County drive-in movie theater, he and his wife started a new church. Often, when critics hounded him and there was no money to pay the bills, Bob was sustained by the encouragement he’d received long before from his uncle. It’s a good thing because the ministry of Robert Schuller and his Crystal Cathedral Church have touched millions around the world with the love of Jesus Christ!
My prayer is that Friendship Church will also be a fellowship of believers that gives encouragement to people as they face their critics and adversaries in life!
When criticism comes to the follower of Jesus, we can learn from it, we can be strengthened in our resolve to do things God’s way, and we can seek comfort from the community of believers. When we let God do these three things in our lives, we will grow, we will change for God’s sake. Knowing this, the first prayer we can offer when a critic comes after us is not, “God, make this criticism go away,” but “God, help me to change for the better in the face of this criticism.” (Hard as that is!)
A few weeks ago, Ann asked me, “Mark, what will you do if you lose this election?” I told her, “You know, I’ve thought about that and I’ve decided that I’ll just go back to being a regular old preacher.” Ann smiled and said, “Honey, you may grow old. But you will never be just a regular preacher.”
I’m not sure what she meant by that, but I got to thinking: that’s true for all who follow Jesus. The Bible says that God has made everyone who follows Jesus brand new. God’s Spirit has come to live inside of us and our call is to keep changing...for the better, turning from sin and death and getting pumped full of God’s life, love, and goodness. We may all grow old, but we never need to be just "regular" believers. If we will let the God we know in Jesus Christ be the Lord and God of our every moment, He can help us to learn from our critics, to be strengthened in our resolve to follow Jesus, and gain comfort from other believers as each day God makes us newer and better than we were the day before! We can change...for God's sake and by God's power.
[The story of the young pastor is told by Philip Longfellow Anderson in his book, The Gospel in Disney: Christian Values in the Early Animated Classics (Minneapolis: Augsburg Books, 2004).
[The true incident of George Washington's humiliating defeat resulting from poor judgment is told in many biographies. My personal favorite is Patriarch by Richard Norton Smith.
[My memory of Robert Schuller's encounter with his missionary uncle---told in Schuller's book on prayer, among others---was refreshed by a sermon written by Michael Foss.]
Faith on Fire:
Change, For God's Sake
Acts 18:1-11
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, February 22, 2004)
A young pastor had just finished delivering his first message at a new church. Afterwards, a member approached him and said, “That was a really dull sermon.” All week long, the pastor was haunted by that comment. The next Sunday, the same man approached him and said, “That message was one of the shallowest I’ve ever heard.” By the third Sunday, the young pastor was shaken, his self-esteem about as low as it could get. Craving affirmation, he asked this same man, “Did today’s message help you at all?” The man told him, “That was the worst one yet. You didn’t say anything worthwhile.” Crushed, the pastor pointed the man out to the church council president and asked about him. “Oh, don’t pay any attention to him,” the council president said, “He just repeats whatever he hears everybody else saying.”
Criticism is part of this life. And, it’s a fact that in order for us to grow in our personal relationships with Jesus Christ, in order for us to be useful to God and others, in order for us to fulfill our missions in life, we will usually have to endure criticism.
In the whole history of the Church, God has used the criticism of others to make His people’s faith stronger and to help His Church reach out to others with God’s love. In today’s Bible lesson, the first century preacher and evangelist Paul travels to the Greek city of Corinth, the center of Greek business and politics. When Paul arrived in Corinth, he did the sensible thing—he carried the good news of Jesus to the people most likely to be open to it first, his fellow Jews. But after trying and trying to tell them that Jesus had fulfilled the Old Testament’s promise of a Savior, Paul just ran into one critical, disbelieving comment after another.
Frustrated, Paul “shook the dust from his clothes,” his culture’s way of saying, “Forget about you,” and said, “From now on, I’ll just hang out with and share the Good News of Jesus with non-Jews, Gentiles.” He even moved into the house of a non-Jew who believed in the God proclaimed by the Jews and who had come to follow Jesus.
When Paul did that, amazing things happened! First, the leader of the synagogue, a devout Jew, came to faith in Christ, along with his family and slaves. The company of believers in Jesus—Jewish and Gentile—began to grow in numbers and one night, Paul received a vision telling him to, “Go for it! Tell everybody about Jesus Christ because there are many people here just waiting to be told that all who believe in Jesus don’t face eternal separation from God. They hunger to know that God loves them and wants to have them with Him forever!”
Paul learned, as we must learn, that as hurtful as criticism may be, it cannot destroy the follower of Jesus. In fact, if we will let God do it, He can use others’ criticism to bring positive changes in our lives. We see this in three ways in our Bible lesson.
First: We see that we can learn from criticism. God can use even unfair criticism to help us grow. Today is the actual birthday of one of my heroes, George Washington. As a young man, hungry for glory and fame, Washington led an ill-conceived attack by colonial soldiers during the French and Indian War. Not only were many of the men under Washington’s command slaughtered, he barely escaped with his own life. Prominent people in Britain and the American colonies all wanted to see the young Washington court martialed or hanged for his rashness. If Jay Leno or David Letterman had been around, Washington would have been humiliated and forced from public life forever. Instead, Washington learned from his critics. He took a look at himself and gave up being a glory-hound. Honors and accolades came to Washington later in his life precisely because he put his duty ahead of those things. He’d learned from his critics.
In our Bible lesson, Paul listens to the critics who savage him and decides to change tactics. He began sharing Jesus’ offer of new life for all who turn away from sin and let Him be the Boss of their lives with people he might otherwise have ignored.
Second: From our lesson, we see that our critics can strengthen our resolve. When we’re criticized for doing the right thing, we can either cave into peer pressure or we can reaffirm our resolve to do the right thing. Criticism forces us to take a new look at our actions and values. Our college-age daughter loves the internship she's doing right now, loves the work, loves the class on organizational leadership she’s taking, is getting to know some wonderful people. But she catches flak all the time from lots of her fellow interns because, while not condemning anybody else, she refuses to be on the prowl for sex or booze or drugs. There have been times when she has had to decide to do the right things in the face of withering criticism...and worse. But the criticism has only strengthened her resolve to live her life God’s way and that makes us very proud...and very grateful.
When Paul caught criticism from his fellow Jews for proclaiming Jesus, he became more firmly resolved to share Jesus, even if it meant changing his target audience and his tactics.
Third: We see that criticism should lead us to seek comfort from our fellow believers in the Church. That was certainly true for Paul, as he found a whole city ready to hear the Good News of Jesus he wanted to share. It’s true today!
When little Bobby was a boy, his farm home in Iowa was all abuzz when an uncle, a missionary to China home on furlough, came to visit. Bobby never forgot the moment when this godly uncle put his arms around the boy’s shoulders and said, “So, this is Bobby? Bobby, I have been praying for you and I am sure that one day, you will be a well-known preacher of God’s Word.” The boy grew up and moved to California. In spite of critics who condemned him, Bob became certain that God wanted him to change the way the Church usually reached out to others with the love of Christ. At an Orange County drive-in movie theater, he and his wife started a new church. Often, when critics hounded him and there was no money to pay the bills, Bob was sustained by the encouragement he’d received long before from his uncle. It’s a good thing because the ministry of Robert Schuller and his Crystal Cathedral Church have touched millions around the world with the love of Jesus Christ!
My prayer is that Friendship Church will also be a fellowship of believers that gives encouragement to people as they face their critics and adversaries in life!
When criticism comes to the follower of Jesus, we can learn from it, we can be strengthened in our resolve to do things God’s way, and we can seek comfort from the community of believers. When we let God do these three things in our lives, we will grow, we will change for God’s sake. Knowing this, the first prayer we can offer when a critic comes after us is not, “God, make this criticism go away,” but “God, help me to change for the better in the face of this criticism.” (Hard as that is!)
A few weeks ago, Ann asked me, “Mark, what will you do if you lose this election?” I told her, “You know, I’ve thought about that and I’ve decided that I’ll just go back to being a regular old preacher.” Ann smiled and said, “Honey, you may grow old. But you will never be just a regular preacher.”
I’m not sure what she meant by that, but I got to thinking: that’s true for all who follow Jesus. The Bible says that God has made everyone who follows Jesus brand new. God’s Spirit has come to live inside of us and our call is to keep changing...for the better, turning from sin and death and getting pumped full of God’s life, love, and goodness. We may all grow old, but we never need to be just "regular" believers. If we will let the God we know in Jesus Christ be the Lord and God of our every moment, He can help us to learn from our critics, to be strengthened in our resolve to follow Jesus, and gain comfort from other believers as each day God makes us newer and better than we were the day before! We can change...for God's sake and by God's power.
[The story of the young pastor is told by Philip Longfellow Anderson in his book, The Gospel in Disney: Christian Values in the Early Animated Classics (Minneapolis: Augsburg Books, 2004).
[The true incident of George Washington's humiliating defeat resulting from poor judgment is told in many biographies. My personal favorite is Patriarch by Richard Norton Smith.
[My memory of Robert Schuller's encounter with his missionary uncle---told in Schuller's book on prayer, among others---was refreshed by a sermon written by Michael Foss.]
Sunday, February 15, 2004
The Friendship Vision,
Faith on Fire:
Following Holy Nudges Through God's Open Doors
Acts 16:6-10
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, February 15, 2004)
Several months ago, Ann and I joined a local gym. In the course of my time there, we’ve become somewhat acquainted with a young man who works there. I’ll call him Chad. Chad has always struck me as a hard-working guy. He gives tours of the place to potential members about the gym. Often, when I’m on the elliptical running device or straining to push a five-pound weight, I’ll see him, exuding enthusiasm, as he talks about various exercise stations. While Chad and I have had a few conversations over time, none of them have been much beyond perfunctory. Nonetheless, we always seem to run into one another when I go to the gym.
The other night as I was leaving the gym, I had the sense that I should seek Chad out in his office. To tell you the truth, I was busy and had other things to do. But I had this feeling that wouldn’t go away. Even as I walked toward Chad’s office though, I kept thinking, “This is silly, Mark. You should just leave.” But something told me to see Chad.
I wasn’t even sure what I was going to say. When I reached his office, Chad looked up at me with a tired look on his face, something not characteristic of someone usually so energetic and so young. I plopped down in the chair in front of his desk and, not really knowing what I was going to say, asked, “Chad, are you happy working here?” Before I even had the chance to wonder why I’d said that, Chad said, “I’m not going to lie to you. I’ve been looking.” He went on to tell me that he was working close to seventy hours a week and hardly had time to see his fiancé. He told me that while he loved the job and the opportunity to help people, it was beginning to wear him down. He’s a young guy, just out of college and I remembered those days in my life—I’d worked in a paint store and as a substitute teacher that first year I was out of college. “Can I sound like a father for a second, Chad?” I asked him. “This working lots for little pay right out of school is usually just part of the drill. You will be okay.” We talked more and eventually, I was able to give Chad the name and telephone number of someone I thought might be able to mentor him a little in his field. Chad shook my hand and thanked me as I got up to leave.
Driving home, I wondered, “What made me do that? And what exactly caused me to begin my conversation with Chad with a question about whether he was happy with his job?” You know something? God has an impeccable sense of timing. He also knows how thick I can be. He laid in my lap an example of the very thing He knew that I was going to talk with you about this morning. You see, God had given me what I call a holy nudge.
A holy nudge is that prompting that God’s Holy Spirit gives to people who follow Jesus Christ. It’s that sense we have of things we should do and things we shouldn’t do, of doors we should enter and doors we should pass by. Lest you misunderstand me, I am not talking about living life on the bases of hunches, good luck charms, and voices in our heads. People who live life like that are superstitious or, in some cases, even psychotic. But when we have a relationship with the God we know through Jesus Christ, when we get to know Him and His character, His love, and His holiness through His Word, the Bible, God gives us discernment.
Discernment is the ability to tell the difference between what’s true and false, right and wrong, necessary and unneeded, helpful and hurtful. Discernment allows us to know whether the prompting that crossed our minds is likely a holy nudge or the result of last night’s stop at Gold Star Chili or worse, the sin that lives inside us.
When God nudges us, He may prompt us to do things that will express our love for Him or for others. He may also prompt us to avoid things that will be hurtful to Him, to others, or to ourselves. Bill Hybels is the senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, a massive congregation near Chicago. The congregation was in need of a staffer to head a major ministry arm. One man’s name had come up time and time again as Hybels made inquiries about the right person for the job. He and others from the congregation had interviewed the man several times. The entire leadership team had been favorably impressed and Hybels was authorized to offer the man the job. A luncheon appointment was arranged. During lunch, every time Hybels began to make the offer, he sensed he was being told, “Don’t do it, Bill. Don’t do it.” Lunch came to a close and the man asked Hybels, “Was there any particular reason you wanted to get together today?” Hybels said, “No, no. Just wanted to get to know you better.” After the lunch, Hybels was unable to explain to his mystified staff and volunteer leadership why he hadn’t made the job offer to the man. But a few weeks later, it was clear why. The man to whom Hybels had been prepared to give a major job at his church was at the center of a huge scandal that broke in the news. Hybels said that after learning of the man’s scandal, he ran to his office and prayed, “Thank You, God. Thank You for watching out for us.”
Part of the vision for Friendship Church is that we will enjoy such a close relationship with Jesus Christ, that we will all learn to be sensitive and respond to the nudges of God in our every day lives and in the life of our congregation.
Our Bible lesson for today is an intriguing one for several reasons. One reason is that it’s part of that section of the New Testament book of Acts that contains what are known as the “we” passages. You see, Acts was the second volume of two written by the Jesus-follower, Luke. The first volume, the Gospel of Luke, is one of four New Testament books that tell us the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Acts then takes the story from Jesus’ return to heaven—His ascension—through the first thirty years or so of the Church. Through most of those two books, Luke tells the story in the third person: He did this, He said that, she went here. But in some sections of Acts, Luke recounts events in which he was immediately involved and he switches to the first person: we did this, we went there, and so on.
In today’s lesson, Luke is traveling from town to town with Paul and Silas, sharing the Good News that Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord of the world, offers new life to all who will turn from sin and receive forgiveness from Him. During their travels, the group gets a series of holy nudges—don’t go into this place right now and do go there. What amazes me is that they are immediately responsive to these nudges. They accept the doors that God closed and they boldly walk through the ones God opens.
I don’t know about you. But I have wasted an awful lot of time in my life trying to force my way through doors that were locked to me and I should have just moved on with my life.
There have been other times when I knew God didn’t want me to take a certain pathway, but bent on doing things my own way, I crashed through locked doors! Doing that has caused the saddest, most regrettable passages of my life, creating pain in the heart of God, the lives of others, and in my own life.
So, just a few points for you to think and pray about this week. First: The best way to become sensitive to God’s holy nudges in your life is to get to know Him intimately. God will never give you a bum steer. When we take time to know God through Bible reading and prayer, we’ll get to know His character so well that we’ll know the difference between His nudge, on the one hand, and Satan pushing us over a cliff, on the other.
Second: Decide in advance to be open to the crazy things God may call you to do, as well as to the sensible ones He may call you not to do. If the thing you feel nudged to do entails foregoing short-term pleasure in order to please God over the long-haul of your life, it’s probably a holy nudge. If your nudge asks you to do something too big for you to accomplish in your own power, it’s probably from God. If people around you might consider you nuts to do the thing you feel nudged into doing, it’s probably from God.
Ann and I were happy as I served as pastor of my first congregation. We loved the church and the community. Some of you have met the people from that first parish and you know how wonderful they were. I just assumed that I would die there. (Not because I thought folks would kill me...but because it was so wonderful.) Then, one day I received a telephone call from a representative of the Lutheran Church, asking if I would be interested in starting a new congregation in southern Ohio. While I prayed long and hard about it, I know that even as I spoke with that man, I was packing my bags in my mind. It was a crazy thing to do...and it was so right! This congregation is the result of Ann and I opening ourselves to God’s nudge...and we feel so blessed for it!
Finally, when confronted with situations in which you’re not sure what to do, Know that as long as your intent is to love God and love your neighbor, you can’t go very wrong in the eyes of God. God understands our hearts and when our hearts are with Him, He is quick to forgive and gently correct.
A woman once asked a prominent English preacher, “Do you think we ought to pray about even little things in life?” The preacher replied, “Madam, can you think of anything in your life that is big to God?” The fact is that God is bigger than our little and our big problems. If we will tune into Him and surrender our every moment to Him, He will guide us through all the problems, challenges, mountains, and valleys—big and little—that we may face. The God we know through the risen Jesus Christ has offered to be with us always. Let’s take Him up on that offer and follow whenever and wherever He nudges us to be. Amen!
Faith on Fire:
Following Holy Nudges Through God's Open Doors
Acts 16:6-10
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, February 15, 2004)
Several months ago, Ann and I joined a local gym. In the course of my time there, we’ve become somewhat acquainted with a young man who works there. I’ll call him Chad. Chad has always struck me as a hard-working guy. He gives tours of the place to potential members about the gym. Often, when I’m on the elliptical running device or straining to push a five-pound weight, I’ll see him, exuding enthusiasm, as he talks about various exercise stations. While Chad and I have had a few conversations over time, none of them have been much beyond perfunctory. Nonetheless, we always seem to run into one another when I go to the gym.
The other night as I was leaving the gym, I had the sense that I should seek Chad out in his office. To tell you the truth, I was busy and had other things to do. But I had this feeling that wouldn’t go away. Even as I walked toward Chad’s office though, I kept thinking, “This is silly, Mark. You should just leave.” But something told me to see Chad.
I wasn’t even sure what I was going to say. When I reached his office, Chad looked up at me with a tired look on his face, something not characteristic of someone usually so energetic and so young. I plopped down in the chair in front of his desk and, not really knowing what I was going to say, asked, “Chad, are you happy working here?” Before I even had the chance to wonder why I’d said that, Chad said, “I’m not going to lie to you. I’ve been looking.” He went on to tell me that he was working close to seventy hours a week and hardly had time to see his fiancé. He told me that while he loved the job and the opportunity to help people, it was beginning to wear him down. He’s a young guy, just out of college and I remembered those days in my life—I’d worked in a paint store and as a substitute teacher that first year I was out of college. “Can I sound like a father for a second, Chad?” I asked him. “This working lots for little pay right out of school is usually just part of the drill. You will be okay.” We talked more and eventually, I was able to give Chad the name and telephone number of someone I thought might be able to mentor him a little in his field. Chad shook my hand and thanked me as I got up to leave.
Driving home, I wondered, “What made me do that? And what exactly caused me to begin my conversation with Chad with a question about whether he was happy with his job?” You know something? God has an impeccable sense of timing. He also knows how thick I can be. He laid in my lap an example of the very thing He knew that I was going to talk with you about this morning. You see, God had given me what I call a holy nudge.
A holy nudge is that prompting that God’s Holy Spirit gives to people who follow Jesus Christ. It’s that sense we have of things we should do and things we shouldn’t do, of doors we should enter and doors we should pass by. Lest you misunderstand me, I am not talking about living life on the bases of hunches, good luck charms, and voices in our heads. People who live life like that are superstitious or, in some cases, even psychotic. But when we have a relationship with the God we know through Jesus Christ, when we get to know Him and His character, His love, and His holiness through His Word, the Bible, God gives us discernment.
Discernment is the ability to tell the difference between what’s true and false, right and wrong, necessary and unneeded, helpful and hurtful. Discernment allows us to know whether the prompting that crossed our minds is likely a holy nudge or the result of last night’s stop at Gold Star Chili or worse, the sin that lives inside us.
When God nudges us, He may prompt us to do things that will express our love for Him or for others. He may also prompt us to avoid things that will be hurtful to Him, to others, or to ourselves. Bill Hybels is the senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, a massive congregation near Chicago. The congregation was in need of a staffer to head a major ministry arm. One man’s name had come up time and time again as Hybels made inquiries about the right person for the job. He and others from the congregation had interviewed the man several times. The entire leadership team had been favorably impressed and Hybels was authorized to offer the man the job. A luncheon appointment was arranged. During lunch, every time Hybels began to make the offer, he sensed he was being told, “Don’t do it, Bill. Don’t do it.” Lunch came to a close and the man asked Hybels, “Was there any particular reason you wanted to get together today?” Hybels said, “No, no. Just wanted to get to know you better.” After the lunch, Hybels was unable to explain to his mystified staff and volunteer leadership why he hadn’t made the job offer to the man. But a few weeks later, it was clear why. The man to whom Hybels had been prepared to give a major job at his church was at the center of a huge scandal that broke in the news. Hybels said that after learning of the man’s scandal, he ran to his office and prayed, “Thank You, God. Thank You for watching out for us.”
Part of the vision for Friendship Church is that we will enjoy such a close relationship with Jesus Christ, that we will all learn to be sensitive and respond to the nudges of God in our every day lives and in the life of our congregation.
Our Bible lesson for today is an intriguing one for several reasons. One reason is that it’s part of that section of the New Testament book of Acts that contains what are known as the “we” passages. You see, Acts was the second volume of two written by the Jesus-follower, Luke. The first volume, the Gospel of Luke, is one of four New Testament books that tell us the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Acts then takes the story from Jesus’ return to heaven—His ascension—through the first thirty years or so of the Church. Through most of those two books, Luke tells the story in the third person: He did this, He said that, she went here. But in some sections of Acts, Luke recounts events in which he was immediately involved and he switches to the first person: we did this, we went there, and so on.
In today’s lesson, Luke is traveling from town to town with Paul and Silas, sharing the Good News that Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord of the world, offers new life to all who will turn from sin and receive forgiveness from Him. During their travels, the group gets a series of holy nudges—don’t go into this place right now and do go there. What amazes me is that they are immediately responsive to these nudges. They accept the doors that God closed and they boldly walk through the ones God opens.
I don’t know about you. But I have wasted an awful lot of time in my life trying to force my way through doors that were locked to me and I should have just moved on with my life.
There have been other times when I knew God didn’t want me to take a certain pathway, but bent on doing things my own way, I crashed through locked doors! Doing that has caused the saddest, most regrettable passages of my life, creating pain in the heart of God, the lives of others, and in my own life.
So, just a few points for you to think and pray about this week. First: The best way to become sensitive to God’s holy nudges in your life is to get to know Him intimately. God will never give you a bum steer. When we take time to know God through Bible reading and prayer, we’ll get to know His character so well that we’ll know the difference between His nudge, on the one hand, and Satan pushing us over a cliff, on the other.
Second: Decide in advance to be open to the crazy things God may call you to do, as well as to the sensible ones He may call you not to do. If the thing you feel nudged to do entails foregoing short-term pleasure in order to please God over the long-haul of your life, it’s probably a holy nudge. If your nudge asks you to do something too big for you to accomplish in your own power, it’s probably from God. If people around you might consider you nuts to do the thing you feel nudged into doing, it’s probably from God.
Ann and I were happy as I served as pastor of my first congregation. We loved the church and the community. Some of you have met the people from that first parish and you know how wonderful they were. I just assumed that I would die there. (Not because I thought folks would kill me...but because it was so wonderful.) Then, one day I received a telephone call from a representative of the Lutheran Church, asking if I would be interested in starting a new congregation in southern Ohio. While I prayed long and hard about it, I know that even as I spoke with that man, I was packing my bags in my mind. It was a crazy thing to do...and it was so right! This congregation is the result of Ann and I opening ourselves to God’s nudge...and we feel so blessed for it!
Finally, when confronted with situations in which you’re not sure what to do, Know that as long as your intent is to love God and love your neighbor, you can’t go very wrong in the eyes of God. God understands our hearts and when our hearts are with Him, He is quick to forgive and gently correct.
A woman once asked a prominent English preacher, “Do you think we ought to pray about even little things in life?” The preacher replied, “Madam, can you think of anything in your life that is big to God?” The fact is that God is bigger than our little and our big problems. If we will tune into Him and surrender our every moment to Him, He will guide us through all the problems, challenges, mountains, and valleys—big and little—that we may face. The God we know through the risen Jesus Christ has offered to be with us always. Let’s take Him up on that offer and follow whenever and wherever He nudges us to be. Amen!
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Today is the birthday of America's sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln. He was born on February 12, 1809.
While Lincoln was far from perfect, he is an enduringly intriguing character. He wrestled with the great moral questions of his day and, as is true of all great people who have left their marks on nations, families, or individuals, showed an enormous capacity for personal growth and change.
Today, my colleague Glen VanderKloot, pastor of Faith Lutheran Church of Springfield, Illinois (Lincoln's home throughout much of his adult years and the place where he is buried), shared these devotional thoughts in his daily emailed inspiration called, OnLine with Faith.
It's true that life only makes sense when the God we know through Jesus Christ is at the center of it all.
Your Friend in Christ,
Mark
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
A Thought for the Day
Some of Abraham Lincoln's famous quotes about God:
In 1861:Lincoln leaves Springfield after a stirring address at train depot, including these words: "Without the assistance of that Divine being…I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail."
Civil War starts on April 12, a month after being sworn in as president.
In 1862: Lincolnn states privately, "God's purposes" may be "something different from the purpose of either party."
In 1863: On March 30, he calls for a national fast for the nation that in his words has "forgotten God."
On Oct 24, he tells a delegation of Presbyterians from Baltimore, "…amid the great difficulties of my administration , when I could not see any other resort , I would place my whole reliance in God, knowing that all would go well, and that He would decide for the right"
On Nov. 19, he gives the Gettysburg Address. Read the Gettysburg Address and highlight the phrase "this nation, under God!"
In 1864: Lincoln tells a group of African Americans who have given him a special presentation Bible. "In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it we could know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it."
Special Note: "In God We Trust" first appears on US coins in 1864.
In 1865: On March 4, in the Second Inaugural Address Lincoln says that both North and South "read the same Bible, and pray to the same God," and also quoting Psalm 19:9 "that even if God should let the war continue until "every drop of blood drawn with the slavers lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword,…still it must be said `the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether'"
April 9 Lee surrenders.
On April 14th, Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth and on April 15th, he dies.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Bible Verse
Ezekiel 36:23 –
"I will show the holiness of my great name, which has
been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned
among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord,
declares the Sovereign Lord, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes."
Prayer
Lord, let us learn like President Lincoln that life only makes sense when it is centered in you.
Help us to depend on you for guidance in all things. Let us keep your name holy. Amen.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
While Lincoln was far from perfect, he is an enduringly intriguing character. He wrestled with the great moral questions of his day and, as is true of all great people who have left their marks on nations, families, or individuals, showed an enormous capacity for personal growth and change.
Today, my colleague Glen VanderKloot, pastor of Faith Lutheran Church of Springfield, Illinois (Lincoln's home throughout much of his adult years and the place where he is buried), shared these devotional thoughts in his daily emailed inspiration called, OnLine with Faith.
It's true that life only makes sense when the God we know through Jesus Christ is at the center of it all.
Your Friend in Christ,
Mark
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
A Thought for the Day
Some of Abraham Lincoln's famous quotes about God:
In 1861:Lincoln leaves Springfield after a stirring address at train depot, including these words: "Without the assistance of that Divine being…I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail."
Civil War starts on April 12, a month after being sworn in as president.
In 1862: Lincolnn states privately, "God's purposes" may be "something different from the purpose of either party."
In 1863: On March 30, he calls for a national fast for the nation that in his words has "forgotten God."
On Oct 24, he tells a delegation of Presbyterians from Baltimore, "…amid the great difficulties of my administration , when I could not see any other resort , I would place my whole reliance in God, knowing that all would go well, and that He would decide for the right"
On Nov. 19, he gives the Gettysburg Address. Read the Gettysburg Address and highlight the phrase "this nation, under God!"
In 1864: Lincoln tells a group of African Americans who have given him a special presentation Bible. "In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it we could know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it."
Special Note: "In God We Trust" first appears on US coins in 1864.
In 1865: On March 4, in the Second Inaugural Address Lincoln says that both North and South "read the same Bible, and pray to the same God," and also quoting Psalm 19:9 "that even if God should let the war continue until "every drop of blood drawn with the slavers lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword,…still it must be said `the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether'"
April 9 Lee surrenders.
On April 14th, Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth and on April 15th, he dies.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Bible Verse
Ezekiel 36:23 –
"I will show the holiness of my great name, which has
been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned
among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord,
declares the Sovereign Lord, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes."
Prayer
Lord, let us learn like President Lincoln that life only makes sense when it is centered in you.
Help us to depend on you for guidance in all things. Let us keep your name holy. Amen.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Monday, February 09, 2004
The Friendship Vision,
Faith on Fire:
Seeing and Showing God Clearly
Acts 14:8-18
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, February 8, 2004)
Don, a member of our congregation, sent a story to me this week via email. It may not be factual, but it sure has a lot of truth to it. One Sunday morning an old biker entered a church building just before services were to begin. Although the old man and his clothes were spotlessly clean, he wore jeans, a denim shirt and boots that were very worn and ragged. In his hand, he carried a worn out old leather jacket and an equally worn out Bible. The congregation was made of people from an upscale and exclusive part of the city. The building was the largest and most beautiful church facility the old biker had ever seen.
The people of the congregation were dressed in expensive clothing with all the right appointments. As the biker took a seat, people moved away from him. No one greeted him, spoke to him, or welcomed him. Everybody was appalled at his appearance and didn’t attempt to hide it. The pastor gave a long sermon that included hellfire and brimstone and a stern lecture on how much money the church needed to do God's work.
As the old biker was leaving the church, the pastor approached him and asked the biker to do him a favor. “Before you come back in here again, have a talk with God and ask him what He thinks would be appropriate attire for worship." The old biker assured the pastor he would do just that.
The next Sunday, he showed back up for the worship service of that same church wearing the same ragged jeans, shirt, boots, and leather jacket. Once again, he was completely shunned and ignored. The pastor approached the man and said, "I thought I asked you to speak to God before you came back here." "I did," replied the old biker.
"If you spoke to God, what did he tell you the proper attire should be for worshiping with us?" asked the pastor. "Well, sir, God told me that He didn't have a clue what I should wear. He says He's never been in this church before."
The Church, you know, isn’t a building. For twelve years, this congregation worshiped in a school gym, held Catechism class in the basement of my house, held small group Bible studies in mall restaurants and food courts and living rooms. We didn’t have a building, but we were a church. Part of the vision for Friendship Church is that we would be a people so on fire from our relationship with Jesus Christ that whether in worship or out in our everyday lives, we will see God working clearly in our lives and unlike the congregation the biker visited, we’ll show God clearly to others as well.
In our Bible lesson for this morning, two early evangelists of the Church were in a town called Lystra. One was Paul, about whom you likely know a lot. The other was a more obscure figure and one of my favorites, Barnabas. While in Lystra, Paul and Barnabas encounter a man who has been crippled since birth, as happened when two other early evangelists, Peter and John, were in the Jerusalem in our Bible lesson of a few weeks ago. Paul saw faith in this paralyzed man and “in a loud voice,” tells the man in the Name of Jesus Christ, to rise and walk. The man does just that!
The crowd was, as you can imagine, stunned and amazed. Believers in the false idols of Greek and Roman mythology, they begin shouting that Paul and Barnabas are gods walking among them. They’re certain that the two of them are really Zeus and Hermes. Local legend in Lystra said that once upon a time, those two Greek gods had visited their town and because only one old couple offered them hospitality, they killed everyone in the city but them. Anxious to avoid a similar fate, the fearful people begin to fall down and worship Paul and Barnabas. Even the local priest gets in on the act, bringing some oxen to sacrifice to these gods so powerful that they healed a paralyzed man.
When Paul and Barnabas see what’s happening, they’re shocked and appalled. (And unlike Justin Timberlake, who claimed to have been shocked and appalled by what happened at the end of his Super Bowl appearance with Janet Jackson, Paul and Branabas really are shocked and appalled.) In the ancient Jewish gesture of grief, they tear their clothes and shout to the people, “Knock it off! We’re only ordinary people like you, not gods. But we’ve got good news. You don’t have to live in mortal terror of God or fear that your sins have given you one-way tickets to hell.”
They go on to explain to the crowd that they can turn from their sin and receive the free gifts of forgiveness, hope, and everlasting life that goes to all with faith in Jesus Christ. “Surrender to Jesus,” they tell the crowds. “Jesus is God in human flesh and He can change your lives forever! He’s the One you need to worship.”
Paul and Barnabas were desperate to show people that the God we meet in Jesus Christ is the One Who can help our lives make sense. They wanted people to see God clearly in Jesus Christ. That’s what we need to be about at Friendship as well.
I can’t tell you how happy as I am as the pastor of this congregation to hear evidence that because you let Jesus live in you, people do see God a bit more clearly. This past Wednesday night, as the latest session of Friendship 101, our new members class, began, I asked folks to talk about how they’d come to Friendship and what their first impressions were. I was really interested when Gary E. said that in most other churches, he felt that people were judging him right away. It seemed to him that they were saying, “Why haven’t you been here before?” But, Gary says, he immediately felt welcomed at Friendship.
That’s the way it should be in Christ’s Church. We should never forget that the most important people among us are people who don’t belong to our congregation. That’s who you and I are here to serve and welcome and shower kindness upon. Like Barnabas and Paul, we’re ordinary human beings whose sins have been forgiven and whose lives are being transformed by the extraordinary God of the universe Who sent His Son Jesus to die and rise for us and the world around us needs to see that!
And it seems that even young people who are touched by the ministry of Friendship Church get to see God clearly and pick up on how large His love is. This past Thursday, I was chatting with Stephanie W. about her trip to the emergency room on Sunday. She’s doing pretty well now and will undergo an ultrasound on Tuesday. But Stephanie also wanted to tell me something that Sydney, her and Mark’s four year old daughter, had said during nighttime prayers that evening. Unprompted, Sydney offered prayers for the troops in Iraq. She also asked God to bless “the bad guys.” Sydney sees clearly that God loves all of us, good guys and bad guys.
People have lots of wrong-headed ideas about God. Like the people in Lystra, they can think that He’s a bloodthirsty tyrant just looking for the chance to kill people who don’t please them. But I have also learned something over the years. People are desperate to see God, desperate to know that God cares, that God forgives them their faults, that God wants what’s best for them.
This past week, the interim pastor of Peace Lutheran Church of Georgetown, Ohio, was on vacation and I was asked to visit a man from that church who was having quadruple bypass surgery at Good Samaritan Hospital. There was a mixup on the time of the operation and so I arrived just as he was being wheeled into the cardiac intensive care unit following surgery. I found the family in the waiting room. We talked for about ten minutes and we prayed together. Nothing could have been more ordinary. But the next day, after the man had been moved to a regular hospital room, his wife called me up to say, “I just wanted to thank you for being here. It meant so much to us.” I remembered Paul and Barnabas, I suppose, and I told the woman, “Thank you. But remember, whatever good I do in my life...and I mean whatever good I do, comes from God, not me.”
There is absolutely nothing of lasting value we can accomplish if God’s hand isn’t in it. But when we surrender our lives and wills to the gracious, charitable God we know through Jesus Christ, there is no end to what He can accomplish in and through us. As long as we let Jesus have control of our lives, Friendship Church will always be a people in whom others can see God clearly. May it always be so!
Faith on Fire:
Seeing and Showing God Clearly
Acts 14:8-18
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, February 8, 2004)
Don, a member of our congregation, sent a story to me this week via email. It may not be factual, but it sure has a lot of truth to it. One Sunday morning an old biker entered a church building just before services were to begin. Although the old man and his clothes were spotlessly clean, he wore jeans, a denim shirt and boots that were very worn and ragged. In his hand, he carried a worn out old leather jacket and an equally worn out Bible. The congregation was made of people from an upscale and exclusive part of the city. The building was the largest and most beautiful church facility the old biker had ever seen.
The people of the congregation were dressed in expensive clothing with all the right appointments. As the biker took a seat, people moved away from him. No one greeted him, spoke to him, or welcomed him. Everybody was appalled at his appearance and didn’t attempt to hide it. The pastor gave a long sermon that included hellfire and brimstone and a stern lecture on how much money the church needed to do God's work.
As the old biker was leaving the church, the pastor approached him and asked the biker to do him a favor. “Before you come back in here again, have a talk with God and ask him what He thinks would be appropriate attire for worship." The old biker assured the pastor he would do just that.
The next Sunday, he showed back up for the worship service of that same church wearing the same ragged jeans, shirt, boots, and leather jacket. Once again, he was completely shunned and ignored. The pastor approached the man and said, "I thought I asked you to speak to God before you came back here." "I did," replied the old biker.
"If you spoke to God, what did he tell you the proper attire should be for worshiping with us?" asked the pastor. "Well, sir, God told me that He didn't have a clue what I should wear. He says He's never been in this church before."
The Church, you know, isn’t a building. For twelve years, this congregation worshiped in a school gym, held Catechism class in the basement of my house, held small group Bible studies in mall restaurants and food courts and living rooms. We didn’t have a building, but we were a church. Part of the vision for Friendship Church is that we would be a people so on fire from our relationship with Jesus Christ that whether in worship or out in our everyday lives, we will see God working clearly in our lives and unlike the congregation the biker visited, we’ll show God clearly to others as well.
In our Bible lesson for this morning, two early evangelists of the Church were in a town called Lystra. One was Paul, about whom you likely know a lot. The other was a more obscure figure and one of my favorites, Barnabas. While in Lystra, Paul and Barnabas encounter a man who has been crippled since birth, as happened when two other early evangelists, Peter and John, were in the Jerusalem in our Bible lesson of a few weeks ago. Paul saw faith in this paralyzed man and “in a loud voice,” tells the man in the Name of Jesus Christ, to rise and walk. The man does just that!
The crowd was, as you can imagine, stunned and amazed. Believers in the false idols of Greek and Roman mythology, they begin shouting that Paul and Barnabas are gods walking among them. They’re certain that the two of them are really Zeus and Hermes. Local legend in Lystra said that once upon a time, those two Greek gods had visited their town and because only one old couple offered them hospitality, they killed everyone in the city but them. Anxious to avoid a similar fate, the fearful people begin to fall down and worship Paul and Barnabas. Even the local priest gets in on the act, bringing some oxen to sacrifice to these gods so powerful that they healed a paralyzed man.
When Paul and Barnabas see what’s happening, they’re shocked and appalled. (And unlike Justin Timberlake, who claimed to have been shocked and appalled by what happened at the end of his Super Bowl appearance with Janet Jackson, Paul and Branabas really are shocked and appalled.) In the ancient Jewish gesture of grief, they tear their clothes and shout to the people, “Knock it off! We’re only ordinary people like you, not gods. But we’ve got good news. You don’t have to live in mortal terror of God or fear that your sins have given you one-way tickets to hell.”
They go on to explain to the crowd that they can turn from their sin and receive the free gifts of forgiveness, hope, and everlasting life that goes to all with faith in Jesus Christ. “Surrender to Jesus,” they tell the crowds. “Jesus is God in human flesh and He can change your lives forever! He’s the One you need to worship.”
Paul and Barnabas were desperate to show people that the God we meet in Jesus Christ is the One Who can help our lives make sense. They wanted people to see God clearly in Jesus Christ. That’s what we need to be about at Friendship as well.
I can’t tell you how happy as I am as the pastor of this congregation to hear evidence that because you let Jesus live in you, people do see God a bit more clearly. This past Wednesday night, as the latest session of Friendship 101, our new members class, began, I asked folks to talk about how they’d come to Friendship and what their first impressions were. I was really interested when Gary E. said that in most other churches, he felt that people were judging him right away. It seemed to him that they were saying, “Why haven’t you been here before?” But, Gary says, he immediately felt welcomed at Friendship.
That’s the way it should be in Christ’s Church. We should never forget that the most important people among us are people who don’t belong to our congregation. That’s who you and I are here to serve and welcome and shower kindness upon. Like Barnabas and Paul, we’re ordinary human beings whose sins have been forgiven and whose lives are being transformed by the extraordinary God of the universe Who sent His Son Jesus to die and rise for us and the world around us needs to see that!
And it seems that even young people who are touched by the ministry of Friendship Church get to see God clearly and pick up on how large His love is. This past Thursday, I was chatting with Stephanie W. about her trip to the emergency room on Sunday. She’s doing pretty well now and will undergo an ultrasound on Tuesday. But Stephanie also wanted to tell me something that Sydney, her and Mark’s four year old daughter, had said during nighttime prayers that evening. Unprompted, Sydney offered prayers for the troops in Iraq. She also asked God to bless “the bad guys.” Sydney sees clearly that God loves all of us, good guys and bad guys.
People have lots of wrong-headed ideas about God. Like the people in Lystra, they can think that He’s a bloodthirsty tyrant just looking for the chance to kill people who don’t please them. But I have also learned something over the years. People are desperate to see God, desperate to know that God cares, that God forgives them their faults, that God wants what’s best for them.
This past week, the interim pastor of Peace Lutheran Church of Georgetown, Ohio, was on vacation and I was asked to visit a man from that church who was having quadruple bypass surgery at Good Samaritan Hospital. There was a mixup on the time of the operation and so I arrived just as he was being wheeled into the cardiac intensive care unit following surgery. I found the family in the waiting room. We talked for about ten minutes and we prayed together. Nothing could have been more ordinary. But the next day, after the man had been moved to a regular hospital room, his wife called me up to say, “I just wanted to thank you for being here. It meant so much to us.” I remembered Paul and Barnabas, I suppose, and I told the woman, “Thank you. But remember, whatever good I do in my life...and I mean whatever good I do, comes from God, not me.”
There is absolutely nothing of lasting value we can accomplish if God’s hand isn’t in it. But when we surrender our lives and wills to the gracious, charitable God we know through Jesus Christ, there is no end to what He can accomplish in and through us. As long as we let Jesus have control of our lives, Friendship Church will always be a people in whom others can see God clearly. May it always be so!
Sunday, January 25, 2004
The Friendship Vision,
Faith on Fire:
Endless Joy
Acts 8:1b-8
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, January 25, 2004)
Many of you have probably heard of Joni Eareckson Tada. As a young, athletic woman, she became paralyzed after a swimming accident. One might have expected her to have been utterly dispirited by the tragedy that befell her, angry at God and her lifetime sentence to a wheelchair. Yet, Tada became a follower of Jesus Christ, successfully tackling music, painting, writing, and public speaking.
Once, Tada says, she was in a women’s rest room during a break at a Christian women’s conference. A woman, putting on her lipstick, turned to Tada and said:
“Oh, Joni, you always look so together, so happy in your wheelchair. I wish that I had your joy!” Several women around her nodded [Tada writes]. “How do you do it?” [the woman who’d applied her lipstick wondered] [Tada replied,] “I don’t do it...In fact, may I tell you how I woke up this morning?”
“This is an average day...After my husband, Ken, leaves for work at 6:00 A.M., I’m home alone until I hear the front door open at 7:00 A.M. That’s when a friend arrives to get me up.
“While I listen to her make coffee, I pray, ‘Oh, Lord, my friend will soon give me a bath, get me dressed, sit me up in my chair, brush my hair and teeth, and send me out the door. I don’t have the strength to face this routine one more time. I have no resources. I don’t have a smile to take into the day. But You do. May I have Yours. God, I need You desperately.”
“So, what happens when your friend comes through the bedroom door?” one [the women] asked.
“I turn my head toward her and give her a smile sent straight from heaven. It’s not mine. It’s God’s. And so,” I said, gesturing to my...legs, “whatever joy you see today was hard won this morning.”
After recounting that incident, Tada concludes, "I have learned that the weaker we are, the more we need to lean on God; and the more we lean on God, the stronger we discover Him to be."
Most of the people of the world are in a chase after something they call happiness. The Declaration of Independence, one of the foundational documents of our nationhood in America says that all human beings have a right to pursue happiness. That’s all well and good. But it’s been my observation that when we attain happiness, it’s sort of like “fool’s gold.” The plumbing goes out in the dream house. The car you acquire by hook and crook proves to have a disappointing blue book value at trade-in time. The person you've sought to conquer sexually with no thought of their personhood, loses his or her allure.
"Happiness" is fleeting; it doesn’t last. It’s like a drug: the more we make happiness our object, the more it takes from us and the more of it we need to feel good, sometimes for just a few seconds.
But joy, that thing that Tada told those women about in the restroom, is real gold, the genuine article. It’s not a smile that fades away. It’s not a thrill over something we’ve conquered and made our own, only to become bored with it or immune to its attractions.
Joy comes to those desperate enough to admit their emptiness. Joy is that infusion of power for living, of hope in a future that never ends, of a belief that even in the midst of heartaches, setbacks, and challenges, living is still worthwhile. And joy comes not to those pursuing the stuff that we and this world think will make us happy. It comes to those who cry out to God with honesty and openness and say, “Lord, you’ve given me this life to live and frankly, today, I don’t think that I can make it. I need You, Lord. Through Jesus, fill me with the life-giving power of Your Holy Spirit. Help me find my purpose once more today and fill me with the joy that comes to those who are living their lives in sync with You!”
The fact of the matter is that Joni Eareckson Tada is a kind of metaphor for each and every one of us. All of us can be and often are paralyzed by one thing or another in life. Grief can paralyze us. The experience of failure can do it. So can personal insecurities. The guilt we carry for past sins can paralyze us, as can painful experiences from childhood. All of these things, the result of our alienation from God—what the Bible calls sin—act as joy robbers. And when we fail to let Jesus Christ come into the very center of our beings, we mine tons of the fool’s gold of happiness, without knowing joy. Joy comes in surrender to the God we know through Jesus Christ.
This is something I keep having to learn. I find myself continuously falling prey to the lie that if only I work to capture the happiness the world offers, I'll be okay. I have to keep being reminded that if I'll only embrace living life God's way, He'll give me deep, down-in-my-soul contentment and joy that lasts forever!
Our Bible lesson for this morning comes at an interesting time in the history of the early church, not long after Jesus Christ’s death, resurrection, and return to heaven. A man named Stephen has just been murdered because of His faithful witness that everlasting life and forgiveness come to those who surrender to Christ. After that, the Church experiences persecution that causes Jesus’ followers to be scattered hither and yon. We see that while the enemies of God meant to crush the Jesus Movement out of existence, they really caused it to grow as Jesus’ followers—like seeds blown around by the wind—planted the Church in new places.
A Jesus’ follower named Philip even carried the Good News that all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus as God and Savior will live with Him forever to Samaria. Samaria, you’ll remember, was a place that the people of Judea, Jesus’ native country and the spawning ground for the Church, usually hated. But here was Philip sharing God’s love with the enemies of His people. It would be sort of like you and me going to an Al-Qaeda terrorist training camp and telling bin-Laden and his crew, “God loves you and so do I.” And the result, in Philip’s case, was interesting. In one city, Samaritans by the droves came to faith in Christ. The upshot? Our Bible lesson tells us:
So there was great joy in that city.
The vision for Friendship Church has always been that this would be a congregation so on fire for Jesus Christ, that like the early church, even when the terrible things that happen in this life come to us, we will still have joy.
That can only come to people who remain aware of their own insufficiency and, of the incredible super-sufficiency of the God we know through Jesus, and turn to God for help and power.
This past week brought one of the saddest passages in the life of our church. The loss of Isaac Hauke was above all, a tragedy for his parents and extended family, of course. But it hit everyone of us. Ann and I got the news as we drove back from Florida, where we had taken our daughter for her internship. The entire way back after that, I thought and prayed about what awaited us on our return. Personally, I already felt spent and a little emotionally drained from leaving our daughter in a town so far from us. Isaac’s death made me sad and frankly, angry. “God,” I said, “I’m empty. I don’t know what to say or do. Fill me with Your Spirit. Give me the words and the silences, the gestures and the sensitivity that comes from You. Fill my emptiness with Your joy.”
When I got back, the people of Friendship Church—as you always do—came through in remarkable ways. You did a thousand-and-one things, big and small, to help make Friday's events come off as they needed to come off. You also sent me e-mails and made phone calls to talk about the events of this sad time. And you took time to say, “We’re praying for you, Mark. We’re praying that God will help you do what needs doing.” I loved that because you weren’t giving me a rah-rah pep talk about how you were counting on me. Instead, you were telling me, “Mark, we’re counting on God.”
And that is how joy enters our lives. Joy comes to us in good times and, as was true of the early church in our Bible lesson for today, in sad times. Unlike happiness, joy can exist even in the midst of sadness because joy, the gift of certainty that God’s love is bigger than anything and everything that may hurt us in this life, is real gold. It’s resilient and indestructible faith that no matter what, God is still in charge...God still loves His people...God still has lots of life up His sleeve.
May we always be helpless enough to admit our need of God and may we always be a church filled with joy!
[The incident involving Joni Eareckson Tada at the women's conference comes from Perfect Illustrations for Every Topic and Occasion, edited by David P. Barrett. (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2002)]
Faith on Fire:
Endless Joy
Acts 8:1b-8
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, January 25, 2004)
Many of you have probably heard of Joni Eareckson Tada. As a young, athletic woman, she became paralyzed after a swimming accident. One might have expected her to have been utterly dispirited by the tragedy that befell her, angry at God and her lifetime sentence to a wheelchair. Yet, Tada became a follower of Jesus Christ, successfully tackling music, painting, writing, and public speaking.
Once, Tada says, she was in a women’s rest room during a break at a Christian women’s conference. A woman, putting on her lipstick, turned to Tada and said:
“Oh, Joni, you always look so together, so happy in your wheelchair. I wish that I had your joy!” Several women around her nodded [Tada writes]. “How do you do it?” [the woman who’d applied her lipstick wondered] [Tada replied,] “I don’t do it...In fact, may I tell you how I woke up this morning?”
“This is an average day...After my husband, Ken, leaves for work at 6:00 A.M., I’m home alone until I hear the front door open at 7:00 A.M. That’s when a friend arrives to get me up.
“While I listen to her make coffee, I pray, ‘Oh, Lord, my friend will soon give me a bath, get me dressed, sit me up in my chair, brush my hair and teeth, and send me out the door. I don’t have the strength to face this routine one more time. I have no resources. I don’t have a smile to take into the day. But You do. May I have Yours. God, I need You desperately.”
“So, what happens when your friend comes through the bedroom door?” one [the women] asked.
“I turn my head toward her and give her a smile sent straight from heaven. It’s not mine. It’s God’s. And so,” I said, gesturing to my...legs, “whatever joy you see today was hard won this morning.”
After recounting that incident, Tada concludes, "I have learned that the weaker we are, the more we need to lean on God; and the more we lean on God, the stronger we discover Him to be."
Most of the people of the world are in a chase after something they call happiness. The Declaration of Independence, one of the foundational documents of our nationhood in America says that all human beings have a right to pursue happiness. That’s all well and good. But it’s been my observation that when we attain happiness, it’s sort of like “fool’s gold.” The plumbing goes out in the dream house. The car you acquire by hook and crook proves to have a disappointing blue book value at trade-in time. The person you've sought to conquer sexually with no thought of their personhood, loses his or her allure.
"Happiness" is fleeting; it doesn’t last. It’s like a drug: the more we make happiness our object, the more it takes from us and the more of it we need to feel good, sometimes for just a few seconds.
But joy, that thing that Tada told those women about in the restroom, is real gold, the genuine article. It’s not a smile that fades away. It’s not a thrill over something we’ve conquered and made our own, only to become bored with it or immune to its attractions.
Joy comes to those desperate enough to admit their emptiness. Joy is that infusion of power for living, of hope in a future that never ends, of a belief that even in the midst of heartaches, setbacks, and challenges, living is still worthwhile. And joy comes not to those pursuing the stuff that we and this world think will make us happy. It comes to those who cry out to God with honesty and openness and say, “Lord, you’ve given me this life to live and frankly, today, I don’t think that I can make it. I need You, Lord. Through Jesus, fill me with the life-giving power of Your Holy Spirit. Help me find my purpose once more today and fill me with the joy that comes to those who are living their lives in sync with You!”
The fact of the matter is that Joni Eareckson Tada is a kind of metaphor for each and every one of us. All of us can be and often are paralyzed by one thing or another in life. Grief can paralyze us. The experience of failure can do it. So can personal insecurities. The guilt we carry for past sins can paralyze us, as can painful experiences from childhood. All of these things, the result of our alienation from God—what the Bible calls sin—act as joy robbers. And when we fail to let Jesus Christ come into the very center of our beings, we mine tons of the fool’s gold of happiness, without knowing joy. Joy comes in surrender to the God we know through Jesus Christ.
This is something I keep having to learn. I find myself continuously falling prey to the lie that if only I work to capture the happiness the world offers, I'll be okay. I have to keep being reminded that if I'll only embrace living life God's way, He'll give me deep, down-in-my-soul contentment and joy that lasts forever!
Our Bible lesson for this morning comes at an interesting time in the history of the early church, not long after Jesus Christ’s death, resurrection, and return to heaven. A man named Stephen has just been murdered because of His faithful witness that everlasting life and forgiveness come to those who surrender to Christ. After that, the Church experiences persecution that causes Jesus’ followers to be scattered hither and yon. We see that while the enemies of God meant to crush the Jesus Movement out of existence, they really caused it to grow as Jesus’ followers—like seeds blown around by the wind—planted the Church in new places.
A Jesus’ follower named Philip even carried the Good News that all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus as God and Savior will live with Him forever to Samaria. Samaria, you’ll remember, was a place that the people of Judea, Jesus’ native country and the spawning ground for the Church, usually hated. But here was Philip sharing God’s love with the enemies of His people. It would be sort of like you and me going to an Al-Qaeda terrorist training camp and telling bin-Laden and his crew, “God loves you and so do I.” And the result, in Philip’s case, was interesting. In one city, Samaritans by the droves came to faith in Christ. The upshot? Our Bible lesson tells us:
So there was great joy in that city.
The vision for Friendship Church has always been that this would be a congregation so on fire for Jesus Christ, that like the early church, even when the terrible things that happen in this life come to us, we will still have joy.
That can only come to people who remain aware of their own insufficiency and, of the incredible super-sufficiency of the God we know through Jesus, and turn to God for help and power.
This past week brought one of the saddest passages in the life of our church. The loss of Isaac Hauke was above all, a tragedy for his parents and extended family, of course. But it hit everyone of us. Ann and I got the news as we drove back from Florida, where we had taken our daughter for her internship. The entire way back after that, I thought and prayed about what awaited us on our return. Personally, I already felt spent and a little emotionally drained from leaving our daughter in a town so far from us. Isaac’s death made me sad and frankly, angry. “God,” I said, “I’m empty. I don’t know what to say or do. Fill me with Your Spirit. Give me the words and the silences, the gestures and the sensitivity that comes from You. Fill my emptiness with Your joy.”
When I got back, the people of Friendship Church—as you always do—came through in remarkable ways. You did a thousand-and-one things, big and small, to help make Friday's events come off as they needed to come off. You also sent me e-mails and made phone calls to talk about the events of this sad time. And you took time to say, “We’re praying for you, Mark. We’re praying that God will help you do what needs doing.” I loved that because you weren’t giving me a rah-rah pep talk about how you were counting on me. Instead, you were telling me, “Mark, we’re counting on God.”
And that is how joy enters our lives. Joy comes to us in good times and, as was true of the early church in our Bible lesson for today, in sad times. Unlike happiness, joy can exist even in the midst of sadness because joy, the gift of certainty that God’s love is bigger than anything and everything that may hurt us in this life, is real gold. It’s resilient and indestructible faith that no matter what, God is still in charge...God still loves His people...God still has lots of life up His sleeve.
May we always be helpless enough to admit our need of God and may we always be a church filled with joy!
[The incident involving Joni Eareckson Tada at the women's conference comes from Perfect Illustrations for Every Topic and Occasion, edited by David P. Barrett. (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2002)]
Saturday, January 24, 2004
The Certainties We Have, Message for the Funeral of Isaac
Many readers of this web log have been kind enough to include Isaac, a five-and-a-half year old member of the congregation I serve as pastor, in your prayers. Last April, Isaac was diagnosed as having cancer in his brain stem. From the beginning, his prognosis was horrible. There were rallies since the original diagnosis was made. However, Isaac died this past Tuesday. Thank you for your prayers on his behalf. Please now, pray for his parents, Matt and Sheila, and for all who mourn, asking God to give them encouragement and hope. Below is the message I shared at the funeral today.
Message for the Funeral of Isaac (1998-2004)
John 11:32-35; John 14:1-3; Romans 8:31-39
January 23, 2004
Matt and Sheila: Let me begin today by confessing a simple truth to you. It's this: There is nothing that I or anybody else can say that can make sense of Isaac's passing. It doesn't make sense. That one so sweet, so young, so fun, and so joyful should be taken from you cannot be explained. Every person here today—and the many around the world who have prayed for Isaac and you—who have offered their help, who have exulted in his rallies and rued his setbacks, everyone agonizes for you and is praying for you now. Each of us wishes that somehow you could have been spared what you have gone through and what you are going through. And none of us can answer that searing, horrible question of, Why?
You should also know that while none of us suffers from the grief and loss with which you're dealing, Isaac's death leaves a hole in many hearts. He was a special little boy. I've told people that from the moment Isaac first sauntered into a Friendship Church worship celebration, back when we were still in the school, everybody knew who he was. He had the most wonderful, memorable personality. We all will miss his stories and his laughter. I loved to hear him giggle! And I will personally especially miss him during the children's messages on Sunday mornings, which he routinely managed to hijack and make better. My wife always teased me, saying that whenever Isaac was around, I was sure to be his second banana. Frankly, I and everybody here this afternoon, as we contemplate Isaac's death, wrestle also with the question of Why?
But today, I want to talk not about our uncertainties, which are many. Instead, I want to talk today about a few things I know to be true. I hope that from these truths you and all who mourn can gain some small measure of comfort and some glimmer of hope for the days and years and eons ahead.
The first thing I want to tell you is that God shares the tears of all who mourn. In one of our Bible lessons, we're told about something that happened in a small village called Bethany back when Jesus, God in the flesh, was walking the earth. Jesus had learned that a friend of His, a man named Lazarus, had died. Jesus went to Bethany, which was Lazarus' hometown. Lazarus had two sisters and one of them, Mary, hearing that Jesus had gotten into town, ran to talk with Him. "Lord," she told Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died." Jesus observed Mary's tears and touched by her sorrow, the Bible tells us, began to weep.
Even though we often cannot explain the horrible things that happen in this life, that true story from Jesus' life tells us that whenever we cry, God cries with us. Jesus understands our tears and offers us the broadest shoulders in the universe for us to cry on.
There is a second certainty I want to share with you. It's this: Even Jesus wondered why. The Bible tells us that when He went to the cross, Jesus did so knowing that it was God the Father's plan for Him. But in His suffering, Jesus called out and asked, "My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me?" Matt and Sheila and all who loved or prayed for Isaac: You may feel abandoned, angry, hurt, or let down by God today. All those feelings are understandable and anybody with an ounce of Christian compassion won't try to talk you out of them. But you're not alone in wondering why. The Savior of the world, Who died and rose for Isaac and for all of us, went through those same turbulent emotions. Whenever they rush over you, know for certain that Jesus has been there and understands and is right there with you.
There is a third certainty that I want to share with you. It's my favorite one. Jesus, Who wept over the death of a friend and agonized over the mysteries of death and grief, of prayers seemingly unanswered and feeling alone in the face of this world's cruel realities, has written a different ending for the lives of those who follow Him.
One of the first times Jesus proved that He had power over death and the power to give life came when He went to the grave of His dead friend, Lazarus, and called Lazarus to walk and live again. Later, Jesus Himself would bring the final death to death when He rose to life on the first Easter Sunday. That's why Jesus tells us, as He has every generation whoever dared to believe in Him:
"Do not let your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and I will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also."
You may be sure that God had a special place ready for Isaac. He's there now, telling stories and spreading the same laughter and joy that he brought to all of us here on earth. And God is preparing a special place for all who believe in Jesus so that one day, we all can be together with God for all eternity.
The good news is this. This world may try to kill our hope. It will use all sorts of weapons to do so, from crosses to cancers. But the Savior Who calls all of His children to Himself has risen from the dead so that we can live this life with all of its uncertainties and also face life beyond death in the greatest certainty of all. It's the certainty that our third Bible lesson for the day celebrates. No matter what befalls us, "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord..."
In the end, the only certainty any of us have is the deathless love of God given to us through Jesus Christ. It's what I pray for you, Matt and Sheila, and for all who mourn today. Amen
[The outline of this message is based on a message composed by Pastor Mark Thomsen and appearing in Planning a Christian Funeral: A Minister's Guide by W.A. Poovey (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1978).]
Message for the Funeral of Isaac (1998-2004)
John 11:32-35; John 14:1-3; Romans 8:31-39
January 23, 2004
Matt and Sheila: Let me begin today by confessing a simple truth to you. It's this: There is nothing that I or anybody else can say that can make sense of Isaac's passing. It doesn't make sense. That one so sweet, so young, so fun, and so joyful should be taken from you cannot be explained. Every person here today—and the many around the world who have prayed for Isaac and you—who have offered their help, who have exulted in his rallies and rued his setbacks, everyone agonizes for you and is praying for you now. Each of us wishes that somehow you could have been spared what you have gone through and what you are going through. And none of us can answer that searing, horrible question of, Why?
You should also know that while none of us suffers from the grief and loss with which you're dealing, Isaac's death leaves a hole in many hearts. He was a special little boy. I've told people that from the moment Isaac first sauntered into a Friendship Church worship celebration, back when we were still in the school, everybody knew who he was. He had the most wonderful, memorable personality. We all will miss his stories and his laughter. I loved to hear him giggle! And I will personally especially miss him during the children's messages on Sunday mornings, which he routinely managed to hijack and make better. My wife always teased me, saying that whenever Isaac was around, I was sure to be his second banana. Frankly, I and everybody here this afternoon, as we contemplate Isaac's death, wrestle also with the question of Why?
But today, I want to talk not about our uncertainties, which are many. Instead, I want to talk today about a few things I know to be true. I hope that from these truths you and all who mourn can gain some small measure of comfort and some glimmer of hope for the days and years and eons ahead.
The first thing I want to tell you is that God shares the tears of all who mourn. In one of our Bible lessons, we're told about something that happened in a small village called Bethany back when Jesus, God in the flesh, was walking the earth. Jesus had learned that a friend of His, a man named Lazarus, had died. Jesus went to Bethany, which was Lazarus' hometown. Lazarus had two sisters and one of them, Mary, hearing that Jesus had gotten into town, ran to talk with Him. "Lord," she told Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died." Jesus observed Mary's tears and touched by her sorrow, the Bible tells us, began to weep.
Even though we often cannot explain the horrible things that happen in this life, that true story from Jesus' life tells us that whenever we cry, God cries with us. Jesus understands our tears and offers us the broadest shoulders in the universe for us to cry on.
There is a second certainty I want to share with you. It's this: Even Jesus wondered why. The Bible tells us that when He went to the cross, Jesus did so knowing that it was God the Father's plan for Him. But in His suffering, Jesus called out and asked, "My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me?" Matt and Sheila and all who loved or prayed for Isaac: You may feel abandoned, angry, hurt, or let down by God today. All those feelings are understandable and anybody with an ounce of Christian compassion won't try to talk you out of them. But you're not alone in wondering why. The Savior of the world, Who died and rose for Isaac and for all of us, went through those same turbulent emotions. Whenever they rush over you, know for certain that Jesus has been there and understands and is right there with you.
There is a third certainty that I want to share with you. It's my favorite one. Jesus, Who wept over the death of a friend and agonized over the mysteries of death and grief, of prayers seemingly unanswered and feeling alone in the face of this world's cruel realities, has written a different ending for the lives of those who follow Him.
One of the first times Jesus proved that He had power over death and the power to give life came when He went to the grave of His dead friend, Lazarus, and called Lazarus to walk and live again. Later, Jesus Himself would bring the final death to death when He rose to life on the first Easter Sunday. That's why Jesus tells us, as He has every generation whoever dared to believe in Him:
"Do not let your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and I will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also."
You may be sure that God had a special place ready for Isaac. He's there now, telling stories and spreading the same laughter and joy that he brought to all of us here on earth. And God is preparing a special place for all who believe in Jesus so that one day, we all can be together with God for all eternity.
The good news is this. This world may try to kill our hope. It will use all sorts of weapons to do so, from crosses to cancers. But the Savior Who calls all of His children to Himself has risen from the dead so that we can live this life with all of its uncertainties and also face life beyond death in the greatest certainty of all. It's the certainty that our third Bible lesson for the day celebrates. No matter what befalls us, "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord..."
In the end, the only certainty any of us have is the deathless love of God given to us through Jesus Christ. It's what I pray for you, Matt and Sheila, and for all who mourn today. Amen
[The outline of this message is based on a message composed by Pastor Mark Thomsen and appearing in Planning a Christian Funeral: A Minister's Guide by W.A. Poovey (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1978).]
Sunday, January 11, 2004
Faith on Fire, The Friendship Vision
Sharing a Deeper Healing
Acts 3:1-10
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, January 11, 2004)
She was a member of my former congregation in northwestern Ohio and she was dying. Some of you have heard me speak of her before. In spite of many prayers and the care of top-flight oncologists at the University of Michigan’s hospital, she was losing her fight with cancer. It was only a matter of time when they brought her back to our area, to be kept comfortable at a local hospital before she passed away. One day, near the end, we talked for a long time and I asked her, “Alvina, are you mad at God?” “I was at first,” she told me, “but then I remembered that God knows exactly what it’s like to suffer pain and to die. Every time I start to feel sorry for myself, I think of God being right here with me in this room. I think about how very soon, I’m going to be with Jesus and all my pain will be over.”
Another member of my former congregation, a man, then in his early thirties, had done a good deed for some neighbor boys. They wanted him to use the torch in his workshop to cut a barrel in half. He cleaned the barrel out. He drained it. But there was still a chemical residue in it. When he lit his torch, the flame immediately made contact with the chemicals in the barrel. There was an explosion. The barrel crashed into his forehead with the velocity of a jet plane. It cracked his skull open and caused his brain to swell. He was life-flighted to a hospital in Toledo. I drove like a madman to the emergency room, where the doctors had just completed their examination of him. When the nurses ushered me to where he lay, I hardly recognized Loren. He looked like the pictures I’d seen of wounded soldiers after battle. Later, the doctor came to an ER waiting room and told the family that Loren’s prognosis was horrible, that if his brain continued to swell at its current rate, he would die before the night was out. And even then, they implied, if he survived this ordeal, he might well be a vegetable for life. As soon as word of what happened got out, people began to pray. It seemed for a time that everyone in a four-county area prayed for Loren. Many months later, after intense physical therapy, excellent care, and lots of those prayers, Loren came home. The only lasting physical after-effect for Loren following all he went through is that there are some foods he can’t taste very well. Some of you may have met him when he and his wife Patsy were here in November for my surprise fiftieth birthday party.
Both Alvina and Loren received what Pastor Mike Foss calls priceless healing. I call it a deeper and more significant healing. I believe that Alvina experienced this healing by being given the strength that comes to the followers of a Savior Who suffered, died, and then conquered all that is horrible by rising and giving eternity to us. And I believe that Loren, whose life was forever changed by his suffering and the physical healing God gave to him, experienced this deeper healing, the kind of healing that helps us rely on the risen Savior Jesus.
The God we know through Jesus Christ calls His followers to bring healing to others’ lives. We see this illustrated in the first miracle to happen in the history of the Church after Jesus had died, risen, gone to heaven, and sent the Holy Spirit to His followers. Two of Jesus’ most prominent followers, Peter and John, were at the temple for one of three daily prayer times there. A man who had been crippled for years and regularly panhandled at the temple, near a place called the Beautiful Gate, was also there.
Peter and John had gone for prayer with perhaps, low expectations. They may have been like the church member a pastor told me about many years ago. “How does the weekly Sunday message help you with your every day life?” the pastor asked. The member looked at him as though he had three heads. “Help me with my every day life? How on earth could a sermon do that?” That man had low expectations.
Peter and John, like that man sitting through worship on Sunday mornings, were only doing what they were supposed to do. But they didn’t really think that praying would be life-changing.
By the same token, the lame man, when Peter and John approached them, clearly expected nothing more than some coins. But Peter was prompted by God to believe that something more could be given to this beggar. The lame man was given more than he dared hope for. “In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,” Peter says to him, “get up and walk.”
The man did that and more. He got up, and jumped, and danced, and celebrated. Now, not every lame person in Jerusalem was healed in Jesus’ Name that day. But every person whose life was marred by sin and death could see that Jesus Christ, Whose powerful Name can bring healing against all odds, can also give life that never ends!
You and I can bring God’s priceless healing to the world around us. Whether it’s through our praying or our actions or our words, you and I are meant to heal in Jesus’ Name. But how do we do that?
We do it first of all, by understanding that God gives us more than we ask for and more than we can imagine. Several times each year, I serve for two-week stints as a volunteer chaplain at Clermont Mercy Hospital. When the spiritual care department is done for the day or the week, we volunteers get paged if a pastoral emergency arises. Almost always, we’re paged to help the families of someone who has died or is dying. At about 1:00 in the morning on December 26, I was in a deep sleep when the pager beeped. I called the hospital and was told that yes, I was needed. A woman had just died unexpectedly and her daughters wanted to talk with a pastor.
I have to make a confession to you. At moments like those, as I pull on some clothes, drag myself to my car, and drive to the hospital, I always feel inadequate. So, I pray over and over again, “God, help me. Help me not to mess up. Help me to say the right words and keep the right silences.” What amazes me is that God always seems to answer those prayers! It happened again that night. I spent about an hour with those two shocked daughters. I prayed with them. I arranged for a funeral director to get their mom’s body. I hugged them and assured them of God’s love for them.
I’d entered the hospital with low expectations and desperate prayers. When I left, I was thanking God for making more of my meager efforts than was really there. You see, over the years, I have learned that when I try to achieve anything on my own, the results are mediocre at best. But when I invite God in, He goes beyond my expectations and brings real blessings...to those I touch and to me too!
The second way in which we can bring God’s priceless healing to others is to see them through Jesus’ eyes. I’m not just talking about seeing people with compassion. I mean seeing them in the way that Peter and John saw the lame man that day at the temple. They saw the possibilities that exist in even the most helpless of situations when we invite Jesus Christ to help us.
Finally, we bring God’s deepest healing to others when we give the best thing we have to offer: Jesus. Peter told the lame man, “I don’t have any silver or gold. But I do have the power of Jesus.” That’s a power than heals memories, relationships, and lives. It’s the best that we can give to others.
People sometimes wonder why Jesus Christ’s presence isn’t so apparent today. But it may be that we don’t perceive Jesus’ presence and power in our lives because we don’t expect for Him to be present and so don’t ask Him to be present. I often fail to remember that. But whenever I do remember it, God amazes me.
Last week, after the corporate board meeting for the Boys and Girls Club of Clermont County, prosecuting attorney Don White, who also serves on the board, struck up a conversation with me. He knows about this little extracurricular thing in which I’m involved these days, running for the state house of representatives. “Mark,” he said, “I’m having a big breakfast for my campaign tomorrow. Why don’t you come too? I can introduce you to the group and you can talk with people.”
I went, praying that God would grant that I not embarrass Him or myself and that maybe it might help my campaign in some way. You know what? I found myself doing ministry a good chunk of the morning, listening to and bringing comfort to some folks going through some rough times. You see, like Peter, John, and the lame man, my expectations of God had been low. But He did so much more than I expected.
Here’s one thing I’ve learned. I offer my puny prayers and God doesn’t hold their puniness against me. I picture God saying, “Well, Mark may be an unimaginative dolt. But at least he had the sense to call out to Me in Jesus’ Name. I’ll take that prayer as permission to use him more and to bless him more than he bargained for.” When in prayer, we give God an inch, He always takes a mile...or two...or five.
As I’ve told you before, God isn’t looking for people with ability; God is looking for people with availability. If you and I will make ourselves available to God, we can bring the deeper healing of Jesus Christ to a broken world. Let’s pray as a church that God will use each of us to help others experience God’s ultimate healing: life forever with Jesus Christ!
Sharing a Deeper Healing
Acts 3:1-10
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, January 11, 2004)
She was a member of my former congregation in northwestern Ohio and she was dying. Some of you have heard me speak of her before. In spite of many prayers and the care of top-flight oncologists at the University of Michigan’s hospital, she was losing her fight with cancer. It was only a matter of time when they brought her back to our area, to be kept comfortable at a local hospital before she passed away. One day, near the end, we talked for a long time and I asked her, “Alvina, are you mad at God?” “I was at first,” she told me, “but then I remembered that God knows exactly what it’s like to suffer pain and to die. Every time I start to feel sorry for myself, I think of God being right here with me in this room. I think about how very soon, I’m going to be with Jesus and all my pain will be over.”
Another member of my former congregation, a man, then in his early thirties, had done a good deed for some neighbor boys. They wanted him to use the torch in his workshop to cut a barrel in half. He cleaned the barrel out. He drained it. But there was still a chemical residue in it. When he lit his torch, the flame immediately made contact with the chemicals in the barrel. There was an explosion. The barrel crashed into his forehead with the velocity of a jet plane. It cracked his skull open and caused his brain to swell. He was life-flighted to a hospital in Toledo. I drove like a madman to the emergency room, where the doctors had just completed their examination of him. When the nurses ushered me to where he lay, I hardly recognized Loren. He looked like the pictures I’d seen of wounded soldiers after battle. Later, the doctor came to an ER waiting room and told the family that Loren’s prognosis was horrible, that if his brain continued to swell at its current rate, he would die before the night was out. And even then, they implied, if he survived this ordeal, he might well be a vegetable for life. As soon as word of what happened got out, people began to pray. It seemed for a time that everyone in a four-county area prayed for Loren. Many months later, after intense physical therapy, excellent care, and lots of those prayers, Loren came home. The only lasting physical after-effect for Loren following all he went through is that there are some foods he can’t taste very well. Some of you may have met him when he and his wife Patsy were here in November for my surprise fiftieth birthday party.
Both Alvina and Loren received what Pastor Mike Foss calls priceless healing. I call it a deeper and more significant healing. I believe that Alvina experienced this healing by being given the strength that comes to the followers of a Savior Who suffered, died, and then conquered all that is horrible by rising and giving eternity to us. And I believe that Loren, whose life was forever changed by his suffering and the physical healing God gave to him, experienced this deeper healing, the kind of healing that helps us rely on the risen Savior Jesus.
The God we know through Jesus Christ calls His followers to bring healing to others’ lives. We see this illustrated in the first miracle to happen in the history of the Church after Jesus had died, risen, gone to heaven, and sent the Holy Spirit to His followers. Two of Jesus’ most prominent followers, Peter and John, were at the temple for one of three daily prayer times there. A man who had been crippled for years and regularly panhandled at the temple, near a place called the Beautiful Gate, was also there.
Peter and John had gone for prayer with perhaps, low expectations. They may have been like the church member a pastor told me about many years ago. “How does the weekly Sunday message help you with your every day life?” the pastor asked. The member looked at him as though he had three heads. “Help me with my every day life? How on earth could a sermon do that?” That man had low expectations.
Peter and John, like that man sitting through worship on Sunday mornings, were only doing what they were supposed to do. But they didn’t really think that praying would be life-changing.
By the same token, the lame man, when Peter and John approached them, clearly expected nothing more than some coins. But Peter was prompted by God to believe that something more could be given to this beggar. The lame man was given more than he dared hope for. “In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,” Peter says to him, “get up and walk.”
The man did that and more. He got up, and jumped, and danced, and celebrated. Now, not every lame person in Jerusalem was healed in Jesus’ Name that day. But every person whose life was marred by sin and death could see that Jesus Christ, Whose powerful Name can bring healing against all odds, can also give life that never ends!
You and I can bring God’s priceless healing to the world around us. Whether it’s through our praying or our actions or our words, you and I are meant to heal in Jesus’ Name. But how do we do that?
We do it first of all, by understanding that God gives us more than we ask for and more than we can imagine. Several times each year, I serve for two-week stints as a volunteer chaplain at Clermont Mercy Hospital. When the spiritual care department is done for the day or the week, we volunteers get paged if a pastoral emergency arises. Almost always, we’re paged to help the families of someone who has died or is dying. At about 1:00 in the morning on December 26, I was in a deep sleep when the pager beeped. I called the hospital and was told that yes, I was needed. A woman had just died unexpectedly and her daughters wanted to talk with a pastor.
I have to make a confession to you. At moments like those, as I pull on some clothes, drag myself to my car, and drive to the hospital, I always feel inadequate. So, I pray over and over again, “God, help me. Help me not to mess up. Help me to say the right words and keep the right silences.” What amazes me is that God always seems to answer those prayers! It happened again that night. I spent about an hour with those two shocked daughters. I prayed with them. I arranged for a funeral director to get their mom’s body. I hugged them and assured them of God’s love for them.
I’d entered the hospital with low expectations and desperate prayers. When I left, I was thanking God for making more of my meager efforts than was really there. You see, over the years, I have learned that when I try to achieve anything on my own, the results are mediocre at best. But when I invite God in, He goes beyond my expectations and brings real blessings...to those I touch and to me too!
The second way in which we can bring God’s priceless healing to others is to see them through Jesus’ eyes. I’m not just talking about seeing people with compassion. I mean seeing them in the way that Peter and John saw the lame man that day at the temple. They saw the possibilities that exist in even the most helpless of situations when we invite Jesus Christ to help us.
Finally, we bring God’s deepest healing to others when we give the best thing we have to offer: Jesus. Peter told the lame man, “I don’t have any silver or gold. But I do have the power of Jesus.” That’s a power than heals memories, relationships, and lives. It’s the best that we can give to others.
People sometimes wonder why Jesus Christ’s presence isn’t so apparent today. But it may be that we don’t perceive Jesus’ presence and power in our lives because we don’t expect for Him to be present and so don’t ask Him to be present. I often fail to remember that. But whenever I do remember it, God amazes me.
Last week, after the corporate board meeting for the Boys and Girls Club of Clermont County, prosecuting attorney Don White, who also serves on the board, struck up a conversation with me. He knows about this little extracurricular thing in which I’m involved these days, running for the state house of representatives. “Mark,” he said, “I’m having a big breakfast for my campaign tomorrow. Why don’t you come too? I can introduce you to the group and you can talk with people.”
I went, praying that God would grant that I not embarrass Him or myself and that maybe it might help my campaign in some way. You know what? I found myself doing ministry a good chunk of the morning, listening to and bringing comfort to some folks going through some rough times. You see, like Peter, John, and the lame man, my expectations of God had been low. But He did so much more than I expected.
Here’s one thing I’ve learned. I offer my puny prayers and God doesn’t hold their puniness against me. I picture God saying, “Well, Mark may be an unimaginative dolt. But at least he had the sense to call out to Me in Jesus’ Name. I’ll take that prayer as permission to use him more and to bless him more than he bargained for.” When in prayer, we give God an inch, He always takes a mile...or two...or five.
As I’ve told you before, God isn’t looking for people with ability; God is looking for people with availability. If you and I will make ourselves available to God, we can bring the deeper healing of Jesus Christ to a broken world. Let’s pray as a church that God will use each of us to help others experience God’s ultimate healing: life forever with Jesus Christ!
Monday, January 05, 2004
Faith on Fire, The Friendship Vision:
A Witness of Infectious Joy
Acts 2:1-21, 37-42
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, January 4, 2004)
A story that may or may not be true. At a church building one day, a fire broke out. The volunteer fire department was called. Sirens blaring, they arrived to put out the flames. The pastor, standing by, concerned, recognized one of the volunteers. “Jim,” he said, “I haven’t seen you in worship in a long time.” “Well,” Jim answered, “there hasn’t been a fire in the church for a long time.
Today, we begin a series of messages on the vision of Friendship Church. Above all, the vision for this congregation from the very beginning has been and remains that it would be a group of people who are on fire for Jesus Christ. This morning, I want to talk about the first aspect of being a church on fire for Christ.
Our Bible lesson is well-known to most everybody here, I imagine. It’s a passage I’ve talked about many times in the past and as long as God keeps me on this planet, will do so many times in the future. We usually read it on Pentecost, but along with a number of other Lutheran congregations across America today, I've decided to focus on this passage. It recounts the events that happened ten days after the risen Jesus ascended into heaven, fifty days after He rose from the dead. A portion of the early church, about 120 believers in Jesus, huddled together in a locked room, terrified that the people around them who had murdered Jesus fifty-three days before might come after them as well. There also existed in them a small ember of expectant, hopeful faith.
And so, in their time of big fears and little faith, they gathered together and they called out to God. After that, the Holy Spirit came to this pathetic pack of praying people like tongues of fire resting on each believer and then sent them out into the Jerusalem streets. In the city at that time, there were Jewish believers from throughout the world. But the Spirit made it possible for Jesus’ mostly uneducated people to speak in the languages of all these foreigners so that all the foreign visitors could understand the Good News that God wants all people to live with Him forever by turning from their sin and receiving Jesus Christ as their Lord, Savior, and God. God set a once-afraid band of Jesus-followers on fire and by their contagious faith, they brought 3000 other people to faith in Jesus that day.
At Friendship Church, we believe that God’s Holy Spirit is still alive and still working in the lives of those who in desperation and faith, ask for God to work in their lives, who are willing to let God use them pass the Good News of Jesus onto the world. Our Bible lesson gives us the blueprint for how our congregation and each one of us can be used by the Holy Spirit to change the world and ourselves the way the church was used by the Spirit on the first Pentecost Day two-thousand years ago. It boils down to three key words which I want to ask you to jot down somewhere this morning.
The first word is desperation. People who want to be of any use to God, the world, or themselves must be desperate. They have to realize that, as Jesus said, without Him we really can’t accomplish anything that matters, certainly nothing that can last for eternity. We need God.
Richard Whetstone’s church had a weekly prayer time. People arrived on Tuesday evenings, the pastor gave everybody lists of prayer requests, folks found a quiet place by themselves to pray, and then, each participant went through the lists, asking for God’s help.
One night, the prayer list was rather sparse and Richard had prayed for everyone and everything on the list...twice. There were still fifteen minutes left in the sixty allotted for the prayer time. Richard thought, “There has to be something more I can pray about.” Then, his son Teddy came to mind. It had been twenty-seven years since Richard had seen him. There had been a divorce and Teddy had been taken by his mother to another state. Several years later, Richard’s ex-wife remarried and her husband wanted to adopt Teddy. “I agonized over the decision,” Richard says. But fearful that a custody battle would destroy any chance his son might have for a stable life, he waived his rights. Some time later, Teddy’s mother effectively disappeared, leaving Richard without a forwarding address. During the minutes left in his prayer time, Richard remembered his son and the ache that had existed in his soul all those years. He prayed simply:
“Lord, my son is a grown man now. I love him and I miss him. Please just let me know what kind of man Teddy has turned out to be. Anything more than that I leave in your hands. In fact, Lord, I don’t even know where to start looking for him, so I am truly leaving it all up to you. Please, let me know my son. Amen.”
Richard says that he went on with his week, almost forgetting his prayer. On Saturday, he ran into his pastor at the post office where he was picking up his mail. As he and the pastor spoke, Richard scanned his mail and found an envelope from an unknown address. Curious, he absently opened it as he and the pastor chatted. As he read the letter inside with rising interest, tears rolled down his face and he found himself incapable of speaking. “Are you okay?” his pastor asked. Richard was okay because the writer of the letter was Teddy. The son had been writing Richard Whetstones from all over the country. “Are you my father?” Teddy wondered. “Then,” Richard says:
"...I noticed the postmark: It was dated Wednesday, the day after my Tuesday night prayer. This wasn’t a coincidence. This was a direct answer to my prayer."
If you and I are to be a church of contagious witness for Jesus Christ, we begin, like the church on the first Pentecost, with desperation. We must desperately seek God in prayer. When we do, we must prepare ourselves for God to do what we can't do by ourselves!
In response to our desperation, God will next give us inspiration, our second key word. On Pentecost, the first Jesus-believers who, a few moments before had been afraid of their own shadows, left the room in which they were gathered, inspired to be bold witnesses for Christ.
In his book, Conspiracy of Kindness, Pastor Steve Sjogren, the inventor of modern kindness outreaches, talks about being with a friend on a neighborhood outreach one day, giving gifts as a sign of God's gift of love and forgiveness from Jesus. They happened to meet a woman just as she was arriving at her house. Steve and his friend gave the woman whatever gift they were using for the outreach and they all began to chat. As they did, Steve noticed a car seat in the back of her vehicle. Steve is a very practical fellow, not one to usually have what might be called mystical experiences. But he had a feeling. Silently, he asked God if he should proceed on his hunch and felt compelled to do so. “Did a child recently die in this household?” he asked the woman. She was stunned and then began to cry, explaining that her baby had just passed away. Steve and his friend were able to share the comfort and the hope that we have through Christ with this woman and subsequently, she became part of his congregation.
When the desperate early church prayed, God inspired them with His Holy Spirit, making it possible for them to speak the languages of people who needed the hope that only Jesus gives. At Friendship, we try to speak the languages of people of today, sharing the story of Jesus through the stories we tell in worship, the songs we sing, the service we render, the prayers we offer. To be witnesses who attract others to Christ, we need God’s inspiration. We need to let God inspire us to be free from the selfishness and laziness that often causes churches to do things for their own comfort, rather than the comfort of our neighbors!
God's inspiration can lead then to our third key word: proclamation. When our son Philip, now twenty-two, was in the first grade, a little boy in his class had no connection to Christ or the Church. During recess sometimes, Phil would tell the boy about Jesus. There on the playground and at other times during the school day, Philip, inspired by the Holy Spirit, told his classmate about Jesus and the church, the fellowship where God fills people up with hope. When Friend Day came along in October of that year, Philip invited the boy to worship with us. The interest this little boy showed in Christ and the Church caused his parents to start attending a church closer to their house. After we moved to Cincinnati, we learned that the boy, his sister, and his mother all were baptized. Our Bible lesson for today makes clear that God wants all people to follow Jesus and so have everlasting life. And God wants to use us to proclaim the Good News of Jesus to the world around us.
God wants Friendship Church to be, as we say in our mission statement, “a welcoming and caring people who seek to share the kindness of God so that all metropolitan Cincinnati may grow in the faith, hope, and love of the living Christ.” Into our very human hands, God has entrusted the awesome responsibility and privilege of sharing Christ so that our lives and the lives of those we touch can be changed forever. But it won’t happen automatically. We need the power for living and loving that only the Holy Spirit can give to Jesus followers.
So, how can we be the exciting, magnetic, contagious church that God wants us to be? How can we be a church on fire with faith? It begins with desperation that leads to inspiration and results in a joyous, attractive proclamation of the Good News of Jesus. May these always be elements of the life of Friendship Church!
[The true story of Richard Whetstone and his son Teddy is told in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Living Your Dreams. The true story of Steve Sjogren's kindness outreach is told in his book, Conspiracy of Kindness. The fictional story at the beginning of the message comes from the staff of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville, Minnesota, who have partly inspired the series of messages I'm currently doing.]
A Witness of Infectious Joy
Acts 2:1-21, 37-42
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, January 4, 2004)
A story that may or may not be true. At a church building one day, a fire broke out. The volunteer fire department was called. Sirens blaring, they arrived to put out the flames. The pastor, standing by, concerned, recognized one of the volunteers. “Jim,” he said, “I haven’t seen you in worship in a long time.” “Well,” Jim answered, “there hasn’t been a fire in the church for a long time.
Today, we begin a series of messages on the vision of Friendship Church. Above all, the vision for this congregation from the very beginning has been and remains that it would be a group of people who are on fire for Jesus Christ. This morning, I want to talk about the first aspect of being a church on fire for Christ.
Our Bible lesson is well-known to most everybody here, I imagine. It’s a passage I’ve talked about many times in the past and as long as God keeps me on this planet, will do so many times in the future. We usually read it on Pentecost, but along with a number of other Lutheran congregations across America today, I've decided to focus on this passage. It recounts the events that happened ten days after the risen Jesus ascended into heaven, fifty days after He rose from the dead. A portion of the early church, about 120 believers in Jesus, huddled together in a locked room, terrified that the people around them who had murdered Jesus fifty-three days before might come after them as well. There also existed in them a small ember of expectant, hopeful faith.
And so, in their time of big fears and little faith, they gathered together and they called out to God. After that, the Holy Spirit came to this pathetic pack of praying people like tongues of fire resting on each believer and then sent them out into the Jerusalem streets. In the city at that time, there were Jewish believers from throughout the world. But the Spirit made it possible for Jesus’ mostly uneducated people to speak in the languages of all these foreigners so that all the foreign visitors could understand the Good News that God wants all people to live with Him forever by turning from their sin and receiving Jesus Christ as their Lord, Savior, and God. God set a once-afraid band of Jesus-followers on fire and by their contagious faith, they brought 3000 other people to faith in Jesus that day.
At Friendship Church, we believe that God’s Holy Spirit is still alive and still working in the lives of those who in desperation and faith, ask for God to work in their lives, who are willing to let God use them pass the Good News of Jesus onto the world. Our Bible lesson gives us the blueprint for how our congregation and each one of us can be used by the Holy Spirit to change the world and ourselves the way the church was used by the Spirit on the first Pentecost Day two-thousand years ago. It boils down to three key words which I want to ask you to jot down somewhere this morning.
The first word is desperation. People who want to be of any use to God, the world, or themselves must be desperate. They have to realize that, as Jesus said, without Him we really can’t accomplish anything that matters, certainly nothing that can last for eternity. We need God.
Richard Whetstone’s church had a weekly prayer time. People arrived on Tuesday evenings, the pastor gave everybody lists of prayer requests, folks found a quiet place by themselves to pray, and then, each participant went through the lists, asking for God’s help.
One night, the prayer list was rather sparse and Richard had prayed for everyone and everything on the list...twice. There were still fifteen minutes left in the sixty allotted for the prayer time. Richard thought, “There has to be something more I can pray about.” Then, his son Teddy came to mind. It had been twenty-seven years since Richard had seen him. There had been a divorce and Teddy had been taken by his mother to another state. Several years later, Richard’s ex-wife remarried and her husband wanted to adopt Teddy. “I agonized over the decision,” Richard says. But fearful that a custody battle would destroy any chance his son might have for a stable life, he waived his rights. Some time later, Teddy’s mother effectively disappeared, leaving Richard without a forwarding address. During the minutes left in his prayer time, Richard remembered his son and the ache that had existed in his soul all those years. He prayed simply:
“Lord, my son is a grown man now. I love him and I miss him. Please just let me know what kind of man Teddy has turned out to be. Anything more than that I leave in your hands. In fact, Lord, I don’t even know where to start looking for him, so I am truly leaving it all up to you. Please, let me know my son. Amen.”
Richard says that he went on with his week, almost forgetting his prayer. On Saturday, he ran into his pastor at the post office where he was picking up his mail. As he and the pastor spoke, Richard scanned his mail and found an envelope from an unknown address. Curious, he absently opened it as he and the pastor chatted. As he read the letter inside with rising interest, tears rolled down his face and he found himself incapable of speaking. “Are you okay?” his pastor asked. Richard was okay because the writer of the letter was Teddy. The son had been writing Richard Whetstones from all over the country. “Are you my father?” Teddy wondered. “Then,” Richard says:
"...I noticed the postmark: It was dated Wednesday, the day after my Tuesday night prayer. This wasn’t a coincidence. This was a direct answer to my prayer."
If you and I are to be a church of contagious witness for Jesus Christ, we begin, like the church on the first Pentecost, with desperation. We must desperately seek God in prayer. When we do, we must prepare ourselves for God to do what we can't do by ourselves!
In response to our desperation, God will next give us inspiration, our second key word. On Pentecost, the first Jesus-believers who, a few moments before had been afraid of their own shadows, left the room in which they were gathered, inspired to be bold witnesses for Christ.
In his book, Conspiracy of Kindness, Pastor Steve Sjogren, the inventor of modern kindness outreaches, talks about being with a friend on a neighborhood outreach one day, giving gifts as a sign of God's gift of love and forgiveness from Jesus. They happened to meet a woman just as she was arriving at her house. Steve and his friend gave the woman whatever gift they were using for the outreach and they all began to chat. As they did, Steve noticed a car seat in the back of her vehicle. Steve is a very practical fellow, not one to usually have what might be called mystical experiences. But he had a feeling. Silently, he asked God if he should proceed on his hunch and felt compelled to do so. “Did a child recently die in this household?” he asked the woman. She was stunned and then began to cry, explaining that her baby had just passed away. Steve and his friend were able to share the comfort and the hope that we have through Christ with this woman and subsequently, she became part of his congregation.
When the desperate early church prayed, God inspired them with His Holy Spirit, making it possible for them to speak the languages of people who needed the hope that only Jesus gives. At Friendship, we try to speak the languages of people of today, sharing the story of Jesus through the stories we tell in worship, the songs we sing, the service we render, the prayers we offer. To be witnesses who attract others to Christ, we need God’s inspiration. We need to let God inspire us to be free from the selfishness and laziness that often causes churches to do things for their own comfort, rather than the comfort of our neighbors!
God's inspiration can lead then to our third key word: proclamation. When our son Philip, now twenty-two, was in the first grade, a little boy in his class had no connection to Christ or the Church. During recess sometimes, Phil would tell the boy about Jesus. There on the playground and at other times during the school day, Philip, inspired by the Holy Spirit, told his classmate about Jesus and the church, the fellowship where God fills people up with hope. When Friend Day came along in October of that year, Philip invited the boy to worship with us. The interest this little boy showed in Christ and the Church caused his parents to start attending a church closer to their house. After we moved to Cincinnati, we learned that the boy, his sister, and his mother all were baptized. Our Bible lesson for today makes clear that God wants all people to follow Jesus and so have everlasting life. And God wants to use us to proclaim the Good News of Jesus to the world around us.
God wants Friendship Church to be, as we say in our mission statement, “a welcoming and caring people who seek to share the kindness of God so that all metropolitan Cincinnati may grow in the faith, hope, and love of the living Christ.” Into our very human hands, God has entrusted the awesome responsibility and privilege of sharing Christ so that our lives and the lives of those we touch can be changed forever. But it won’t happen automatically. We need the power for living and loving that only the Holy Spirit can give to Jesus followers.
So, how can we be the exciting, magnetic, contagious church that God wants us to be? How can we be a church on fire with faith? It begins with desperation that leads to inspiration and results in a joyous, attractive proclamation of the Good News of Jesus. May these always be elements of the life of Friendship Church!
[The true story of Richard Whetstone and his son Teddy is told in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Living Your Dreams. The true story of Steve Sjogren's kindness outreach is told in his book, Conspiracy of Kindness. The fictional story at the beginning of the message comes from the staff of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville, Minnesota, who have partly inspired the series of messages I'm currently doing.]
Sunday, December 28, 2003
Following God's Lead
Matthew 2:13-18
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, December 28, 2003)
Makenzie Snyder was seven years old and she had a big dream. It all started after she entered an essay contest that found her as one of ten children representing the United States at the Children’s World Summit in Paris. While there, she got to know two boys who were foster children. She learned that often, foster children are separated from their brothers and sisters and that frequently, when these children are picked up by their foster parents, they’re given only a trash bag in which to carry what they will take to their next home. Makenzie was horrified by this. As she puts it, “Trash bags are for trash, not for kids to carry their belongings in.”
On returning to America, this little girl asked her mother to go to garage sales and buy suitcases and duffel bags that foster children could use. She also suggested that each bag should contain a stuffed animal, something to bring comfort to a child being thrust into a new situation away from the people and places with which they were familiar. Makenzie was so perseverant in her project that soon, some senators and congresspeople learned of what she was doing and told people in the media. The Washington Post told the story of the little girl who was collecting thousands of suitcases and stuffed animals to give to foster children. President Clinton read that and invited Makenzie and her family to the White House. He also sent along some bags of Beanie Babies from his own personal collection. Her story was featured in an edition of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. She’s been on the Rosie O’Donnell Show and just this past week, was featured on Peter Jennings’ newscast on ABC television. The organization formed around Makenzie’s dream, Children to Children, continues to provide bags and stuffed figures for foster children. Now twelve years old, she says that her dream is provide all 530,000 foster children in the US with duffel bags and stuffed dolls.
Dreams come in different forms. Sometimes, they come to us in the middle of the night. Sometimes, they come as an idea or a passion that will not go away. But however, they come to us, our dreams are precious things.
Dreams play a pivotal role in our Bible lesson for this morning. Just before it begins, the baby Jesus has been visited by wise men—magi—from the east. On the evening of their visit, God uses a dream to warn them not to go back to see King Herod as they had promised to do. Herod, they were told, wanted to kill the baby, who he understood was a threat to his reign. So, they took a different route to their home lands. Then, there was a dream that came to Joseph, the man to whom the young virgin Mary was married and who was to act as Jesus’ earthly father. In this dream, God told Joseph to take the child and his mother to Egypt, a country where there were many Jewish emigres anyway, and to wait to bring them back to Judea only after Herod had died.
The reason for these instructions from God become clear when we see what happened in the town of Bethlehem after Herod had learned that the wise men had eluded him. Herod, uncertain of the exact time of Jesus’ birth, had the male children two years of age and under killed. This is consistent with all that we know about Herod who once had three of his sons murdered and who left behind a standing order that when he died, a member of every family in Judea was to be killed, an order that was followed. The dreams that God gave to the wise men and to Joseph insured that the Savior of the world would live to fulfill His mission of dying and rising for the whole human race.
Do you have any dreams? Or, did you stop dreaming years ago? This past week, Philip gave me a copy of the American Heritage History of the United States by Douglas Brinkley as a Christmas present. It begins with a quote from the painter Grant Wood:
"Almost all of us have some dream power in our childhood but without encouragement it leaves us and then we become bored and tired and ordinary...We are carefully coached in the most modern and efficient ways of making our bodies comfortable and we become so busy about getting ourselves all nicely placed that we are apt to forget the dream spirit that is born in all of us."
Because human beings are made in the image of God, we are the only ones of God’s creatures who have the capacity for imagination, to see a future that is different from our past or present. Often, we misuse this power by worrying.
We also can use it to imagine our way toward committing sin. The late Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, founder of the positive thinking movement and Guideposts magazine wrote in one of his books about a Hollywood producer he once knew who had created a world of hurt for himself and others because he so consistently imagined or fantasized an affair with a particular young star until it came about.
But if our dreams come from God, as was true for the wise men and for Joseph, good things happen. We see how to discern whether our dreams, both the ones we see in our sleep and those we entertain while we’re awake, are from God in today’s Bible lesson.
First: A dream is from God when it’s consistent with God’s witness about Himself in the Bible. From the Old Testament, Joseph and the wise men knew that God was planning on sending a Savior. From the same place, Joseph knew that throughout the centuries, Egypt had often been a place of exile for God’s people. Their dreams of sparing the life of this child and of how to do that and how long to do it were consistent with what they knew about God. You know that a dream can’t be from God if it asks us to do something that is directly contrary to God’s will.
I’ve told you many times about the dream for a new church that I carried here to Clermont County thirteen years ago. I dreamed of a church that was welcoming and caring, a church where people could experience God’s grace and presence and love, a church that was relaxed in its atmosphere while being reverent for God. I felt certain that this was the kind of church God wanted me to plant here not just for all the rational, sensible reasons I might mention, but most importantly because when I looked at the accounts of the early church in the New Testament book of Acts or at how the Old Testament people worshiped together in their synagogues, this was precisely the atmosphere and style that pervaded their life with God. In spite of numerous predictions from people who supposedly knew what they were talking about, God has helped and is helping us to be the church of my dream...and now it’s your dream, too!
Second: A dream is from God when, even if it offers personal rewards, is mainly about the Kingdom of God. Neither the wise men or Joseph had much immediately to gain by protecting the baby Jesus. Any of them might have been murdered for harboring and keeping safe this rival king to Herod.
People who stubbornly cling to the pursuit of God-given dreams have higher priorities than self-preservation. One of the songs we sing often here at Friendship is a simple one based on Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:33, a part of his Sermon on the Mount. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” we say. A dream is from God when it calls us to pursue God’s highest purposes for Jesus-followers: to love God and to love neighbor in our own unique ways.
Third: A dream from God almost always entails risk of one kind or another. Joseph and the wise men knew that their dream of seeing the Savior of the world to adulthood involved risk. They could have been killed or imprisoned. If our dreams aren’t too big for us to handle on our own, God probably isn’t involved with our dreams. God wants us to tackle things that are so big that we can only pursue them with His power and help and protection. It’s only when we go out on a limb that we learn to truly trust the One Who tells us, “I am the vine, you are the branches” and “Apart from Me, you can do nothing” and you “can do all things through Christ Who strengthens” you.
Often the risk you take involves having others thing you’re crazy. I read recently about a young follower of Jesus Christ who dreamed of becoming a Hollywood film-maker. His parents’ friends were appalled. How could they let their son go to such an evil place?, they wondered. But the young man’s parents explained that first of all, their son was old enough to make his own decisions. Besides, they pointed out that if the early church had decided not to have any contact with people they might consider evil, then the good news of Jesus would never have been passed on or changed people’s lives. What better place, in spite of the risks, these parents wondered, could their son go to have a positive impact on the world?
Do you have a dream? If it’s consistent with what we know about God’s will from the pages of Scripture, and if it puts the God we know through Jesus Christ first in our priorities, and if it entails risk then, by all means, your should pursue it. When we follow God’s lead for our lives, the road won’t be easy. It certainly wasn’t for Joseph. But our faithfulness can produce wonderful results. I wish that for all of us in 2004.
[The story of Makenzie Snyder is told compellingly in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Living Your Dreams.]
Matthew 2:13-18
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, December 28, 2003)
Makenzie Snyder was seven years old and she had a big dream. It all started after she entered an essay contest that found her as one of ten children representing the United States at the Children’s World Summit in Paris. While there, she got to know two boys who were foster children. She learned that often, foster children are separated from their brothers and sisters and that frequently, when these children are picked up by their foster parents, they’re given only a trash bag in which to carry what they will take to their next home. Makenzie was horrified by this. As she puts it, “Trash bags are for trash, not for kids to carry their belongings in.”
On returning to America, this little girl asked her mother to go to garage sales and buy suitcases and duffel bags that foster children could use. She also suggested that each bag should contain a stuffed animal, something to bring comfort to a child being thrust into a new situation away from the people and places with which they were familiar. Makenzie was so perseverant in her project that soon, some senators and congresspeople learned of what she was doing and told people in the media. The Washington Post told the story of the little girl who was collecting thousands of suitcases and stuffed animals to give to foster children. President Clinton read that and invited Makenzie and her family to the White House. He also sent along some bags of Beanie Babies from his own personal collection. Her story was featured in an edition of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. She’s been on the Rosie O’Donnell Show and just this past week, was featured on Peter Jennings’ newscast on ABC television. The organization formed around Makenzie’s dream, Children to Children, continues to provide bags and stuffed figures for foster children. Now twelve years old, she says that her dream is provide all 530,000 foster children in the US with duffel bags and stuffed dolls.
Dreams come in different forms. Sometimes, they come to us in the middle of the night. Sometimes, they come as an idea or a passion that will not go away. But however, they come to us, our dreams are precious things.
Dreams play a pivotal role in our Bible lesson for this morning. Just before it begins, the baby Jesus has been visited by wise men—magi—from the east. On the evening of their visit, God uses a dream to warn them not to go back to see King Herod as they had promised to do. Herod, they were told, wanted to kill the baby, who he understood was a threat to his reign. So, they took a different route to their home lands. Then, there was a dream that came to Joseph, the man to whom the young virgin Mary was married and who was to act as Jesus’ earthly father. In this dream, God told Joseph to take the child and his mother to Egypt, a country where there were many Jewish emigres anyway, and to wait to bring them back to Judea only after Herod had died.
The reason for these instructions from God become clear when we see what happened in the town of Bethlehem after Herod had learned that the wise men had eluded him. Herod, uncertain of the exact time of Jesus’ birth, had the male children two years of age and under killed. This is consistent with all that we know about Herod who once had three of his sons murdered and who left behind a standing order that when he died, a member of every family in Judea was to be killed, an order that was followed. The dreams that God gave to the wise men and to Joseph insured that the Savior of the world would live to fulfill His mission of dying and rising for the whole human race.
Do you have any dreams? Or, did you stop dreaming years ago? This past week, Philip gave me a copy of the American Heritage History of the United States by Douglas Brinkley as a Christmas present. It begins with a quote from the painter Grant Wood:
"Almost all of us have some dream power in our childhood but without encouragement it leaves us and then we become bored and tired and ordinary...We are carefully coached in the most modern and efficient ways of making our bodies comfortable and we become so busy about getting ourselves all nicely placed that we are apt to forget the dream spirit that is born in all of us."
Because human beings are made in the image of God, we are the only ones of God’s creatures who have the capacity for imagination, to see a future that is different from our past or present. Often, we misuse this power by worrying.
We also can use it to imagine our way toward committing sin. The late Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, founder of the positive thinking movement and Guideposts magazine wrote in one of his books about a Hollywood producer he once knew who had created a world of hurt for himself and others because he so consistently imagined or fantasized an affair with a particular young star until it came about.
But if our dreams come from God, as was true for the wise men and for Joseph, good things happen. We see how to discern whether our dreams, both the ones we see in our sleep and those we entertain while we’re awake, are from God in today’s Bible lesson.
First: A dream is from God when it’s consistent with God’s witness about Himself in the Bible. From the Old Testament, Joseph and the wise men knew that God was planning on sending a Savior. From the same place, Joseph knew that throughout the centuries, Egypt had often been a place of exile for God’s people. Their dreams of sparing the life of this child and of how to do that and how long to do it were consistent with what they knew about God. You know that a dream can’t be from God if it asks us to do something that is directly contrary to God’s will.
I’ve told you many times about the dream for a new church that I carried here to Clermont County thirteen years ago. I dreamed of a church that was welcoming and caring, a church where people could experience God’s grace and presence and love, a church that was relaxed in its atmosphere while being reverent for God. I felt certain that this was the kind of church God wanted me to plant here not just for all the rational, sensible reasons I might mention, but most importantly because when I looked at the accounts of the early church in the New Testament book of Acts or at how the Old Testament people worshiped together in their synagogues, this was precisely the atmosphere and style that pervaded their life with God. In spite of numerous predictions from people who supposedly knew what they were talking about, God has helped and is helping us to be the church of my dream...and now it’s your dream, too!
Second: A dream is from God when, even if it offers personal rewards, is mainly about the Kingdom of God. Neither the wise men or Joseph had much immediately to gain by protecting the baby Jesus. Any of them might have been murdered for harboring and keeping safe this rival king to Herod.
People who stubbornly cling to the pursuit of God-given dreams have higher priorities than self-preservation. One of the songs we sing often here at Friendship is a simple one based on Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:33, a part of his Sermon on the Mount. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” we say. A dream is from God when it calls us to pursue God’s highest purposes for Jesus-followers: to love God and to love neighbor in our own unique ways.
Third: A dream from God almost always entails risk of one kind or another. Joseph and the wise men knew that their dream of seeing the Savior of the world to adulthood involved risk. They could have been killed or imprisoned. If our dreams aren’t too big for us to handle on our own, God probably isn’t involved with our dreams. God wants us to tackle things that are so big that we can only pursue them with His power and help and protection. It’s only when we go out on a limb that we learn to truly trust the One Who tells us, “I am the vine, you are the branches” and “Apart from Me, you can do nothing” and you “can do all things through Christ Who strengthens” you.
Often the risk you take involves having others thing you’re crazy. I read recently about a young follower of Jesus Christ who dreamed of becoming a Hollywood film-maker. His parents’ friends were appalled. How could they let their son go to such an evil place?, they wondered. But the young man’s parents explained that first of all, their son was old enough to make his own decisions. Besides, they pointed out that if the early church had decided not to have any contact with people they might consider evil, then the good news of Jesus would never have been passed on or changed people’s lives. What better place, in spite of the risks, these parents wondered, could their son go to have a positive impact on the world?
Do you have a dream? If it’s consistent with what we know about God’s will from the pages of Scripture, and if it puts the God we know through Jesus Christ first in our priorities, and if it entails risk then, by all means, your should pursue it. When we follow God’s lead for our lives, the road won’t be easy. It certainly wasn’t for Joseph. But our faithfulness can produce wonderful results. I wish that for all of us in 2004.
[The story of Makenzie Snyder is told compellingly in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Living Your Dreams.]
Friday, December 26, 2003
Please keep the thousands of people whose lives have been impacted by the massive earthquake that occurred there early on Friday morning. Current estimates are that 15,000 people have lost their lives. Ask God to facilitate international efforts to bring relief to survivors, to encourage the people there as they rebuild their lives, and that in the midst of the pain and mourning, God will send "workers into the harvest," who will proclaim the compassionate, life-changing Good News of Jesus Christ!
Pray also for the people of southern California who have been hit by first, wildfires, and now, mudslides. Ask God to keep the people there safe, to comfort those who mourn, and to encourage first-responders and rescuers in their important work. Ask God also to use this tragedy to help all to see how fragile life on this planet can be and of the need we all have of a personal relationship with Jesus!
Thank God that the international community--including French and U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies--were able to foil apparent attempts by Osama bin Laden's organization to perpetrate terror on one or more U.S. targets. Ask God to continue to thwart those who would commit acts of terror in our world, to bring terrorists to justice, and to create a hunger and thirst for the Prince of Peace, Jesus, in those tempted to solve the problems of the world through the use of terror.
Pray also for the people of southern California who have been hit by first, wildfires, and now, mudslides. Ask God to keep the people there safe, to comfort those who mourn, and to encourage first-responders and rescuers in their important work. Ask God also to use this tragedy to help all to see how fragile life on this planet can be and of the need we all have of a personal relationship with Jesus!
Thank God that the international community--including French and U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies--were able to foil apparent attempts by Osama bin Laden's organization to perpetrate terror on one or more U.S. targets. Ask God to continue to thwart those who would commit acts of terror in our world, to bring terrorists to justice, and to create a hunger and thirst for the Prince of Peace, Jesus, in those tempted to solve the problems of the world through the use of terror.
Thursday, December 25, 2003
As we celebrate the birth of the Savior, Jesus, God bless you with a sure sense of His love for you and presence with you!
The Simple Christmas Message
Luke 2:1-18
(shared with the people of Friendship Church on Christmas Eve, 2003)
Tonight, I have to make a confession to all of you. I’ve been a pastor now for nineteen years and I face the same dilemma every Christmas Eve. What should I say? I know that may come as a shock to many of you. After all, it seems, I have the gift of gab. But presenting the message of this night isn’t really about the gift of gab.
Yet it’s a message that you’ve likely heard many times, a message that may seem to us worn from overuse. Each and every Christmas, our society's celebrations of this holiday season become more and more elaborate, the lights and decorations brighter and bigger, the gifts more complicated. Every year, there’s a new Christmas movie that dazzles us with its special effects. In a media-jaded society, how can a simple preacher stand up before a group of people on Christmas Eve and somehow, some way tell the story of the first Christmas in a way that gets their attention...that helps them remember the true meaning of this holy night...that encourages them to embrace Jesus as their Savior...that incites gratitude, wonder, and awe for the gift of the Bethlehem baby?
I confess that I am incapable of being as interesting or as exciting as the gifts and lights and colors that surround us.
But maybe that’s the point. When I look at the TV commercials hawking the latest gadgets, video games, cars, colognes, and perfumes this time of year, I see a common theme. “Buy this,” the advertisers tell us, “and you’ll be popular, appreciated, superior, desired, needed, in control, on top of the world.” In short, we’re told that for three simple payments of $39.95 per month, plus shipping and handling, we’ll be certifiable masters of the universe, gods over our own little kingdoms. The world seems to constantly push us not just to keep up with the Joneses, but to grind the poor old Jones family into the dirt.
Christmas—I mean the real, true Christmas—comes to us with an altogether different message. On the first Christmas, we’re told, the God of all creation came into the world.
He came not as a gift you buy, but as a gift you receive.
He came not as an imposing giant—Jesus wouldn’t have been as physically impressive as A-Rod, LeBron, or Arnold, even when He reached adulthood. Instead, He came as a little baby, needing to be fed and burped and changed like any other child.
He came not promising to make us little gods, but to be our one and only God.
All of these elements of the Christmas story make it more than a little counter-cultural, a bit scandalous, and offensive to us...and hard to preach. The advertisers know well that we all like things that we can see, touch, hear, and smell. Christmas calls us to accept things on faith. The advertisers know too, that we want our egos boosted. Christmas calls us to trash our egos and do as the shepherds did on the first Christmas: to humbly worship and accept that this baby is God Almighty in the flesh.
Tonight, I can’t compete with the glitz of the world and I won’t. All I can do is give you the testimony of a satisfied customer of Jesus-given grace. Once upon a time, I refused to receive Jesus as my God. My life was okay. But I was driven in a way that reflected my belief that I had to be my own god and make my own way. After I received Jesus as my God, I still wrestled with my insecurities and I still sinned—I still do. But Jesus gives me the grace to accept His acceptance of me and to accept His forgiveness of me and to move on with my life, confident that the God Who made the universe—the God Who came to us at Christmas—will never stop loving me, providing for me, listening to me, helping me. He will do the same for you!
On an episode of the old All in the FamilyTV show, Edith and Archie attend Edith’s high school class reunion. Edith encountered an old classmate named Buck who, in the years since their graduation had become exceedingly obese. Edith and Buck talked with one another for a long time, remembering their old times together. Edith didn’t seem to notice how much weight Buck had put on at all. Later, Edith and Archie spoke and she said, “Archie, ain’t Buck a beautiful person?” Archie got a disgusted look on his face and said, “You’re a pip, Edith, you know that? You and I look at the same guy and you see a beautiful person and I see a blimp.” A puzzled look crossed Edith’s face and she said, “Yeah, ain’t it too bad?”
What do you see when you look at Christmas? I have learned that when I look at Christmas as it’s presented to us by God on the pages of the Bible, it doesn’t induce panic, but comfort, hope, fulfillment, joy, peace. But we must choose. We must decide whether we will see Christmas God’s way or the world’s way.
And so tonight, I present the simple truth of Christmas. When God observed how lost and hopeless we had become because of sin and death, He rolled up His sleeves and went to work doing the most amazing thing ever. The God Who made everything—the God Who made you and me—became one of us, entering our lives as a baby so that as the one pure, sinless representative of the human race, He could sacrifice Himself on the cross and give us all new life when He rose from the dead. The Christmas message is as simple, as profound, and as true as that. This Christmas, welcome Jesus to your celebrating and no matter what pains or difficulties you face and in fact, no matter what successes you may enjoy (because success can sometimes be harder to handle than failure or adversity), He will give you reason to celebrate.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
The Simple Christmas Message
Luke 2:1-18
(shared with the people of Friendship Church on Christmas Eve, 2003)
Tonight, I have to make a confession to all of you. I’ve been a pastor now for nineteen years and I face the same dilemma every Christmas Eve. What should I say? I know that may come as a shock to many of you. After all, it seems, I have the gift of gab. But presenting the message of this night isn’t really about the gift of gab.
Yet it’s a message that you’ve likely heard many times, a message that may seem to us worn from overuse. Each and every Christmas, our society's celebrations of this holiday season become more and more elaborate, the lights and decorations brighter and bigger, the gifts more complicated. Every year, there’s a new Christmas movie that dazzles us with its special effects. In a media-jaded society, how can a simple preacher stand up before a group of people on Christmas Eve and somehow, some way tell the story of the first Christmas in a way that gets their attention...that helps them remember the true meaning of this holy night...that encourages them to embrace Jesus as their Savior...that incites gratitude, wonder, and awe for the gift of the Bethlehem baby?
I confess that I am incapable of being as interesting or as exciting as the gifts and lights and colors that surround us.
But maybe that’s the point. When I look at the TV commercials hawking the latest gadgets, video games, cars, colognes, and perfumes this time of year, I see a common theme. “Buy this,” the advertisers tell us, “and you’ll be popular, appreciated, superior, desired, needed, in control, on top of the world.” In short, we’re told that for three simple payments of $39.95 per month, plus shipping and handling, we’ll be certifiable masters of the universe, gods over our own little kingdoms. The world seems to constantly push us not just to keep up with the Joneses, but to grind the poor old Jones family into the dirt.
Christmas—I mean the real, true Christmas—comes to us with an altogether different message. On the first Christmas, we’re told, the God of all creation came into the world.
He came not as a gift you buy, but as a gift you receive.
He came not as an imposing giant—Jesus wouldn’t have been as physically impressive as A-Rod, LeBron, or Arnold, even when He reached adulthood. Instead, He came as a little baby, needing to be fed and burped and changed like any other child.
He came not promising to make us little gods, but to be our one and only God.
All of these elements of the Christmas story make it more than a little counter-cultural, a bit scandalous, and offensive to us...and hard to preach. The advertisers know well that we all like things that we can see, touch, hear, and smell. Christmas calls us to accept things on faith. The advertisers know too, that we want our egos boosted. Christmas calls us to trash our egos and do as the shepherds did on the first Christmas: to humbly worship and accept that this baby is God Almighty in the flesh.
Tonight, I can’t compete with the glitz of the world and I won’t. All I can do is give you the testimony of a satisfied customer of Jesus-given grace. Once upon a time, I refused to receive Jesus as my God. My life was okay. But I was driven in a way that reflected my belief that I had to be my own god and make my own way. After I received Jesus as my God, I still wrestled with my insecurities and I still sinned—I still do. But Jesus gives me the grace to accept His acceptance of me and to accept His forgiveness of me and to move on with my life, confident that the God Who made the universe—the God Who came to us at Christmas—will never stop loving me, providing for me, listening to me, helping me. He will do the same for you!
On an episode of the old All in the FamilyTV show, Edith and Archie attend Edith’s high school class reunion. Edith encountered an old classmate named Buck who, in the years since their graduation had become exceedingly obese. Edith and Buck talked with one another for a long time, remembering their old times together. Edith didn’t seem to notice how much weight Buck had put on at all. Later, Edith and Archie spoke and she said, “Archie, ain’t Buck a beautiful person?” Archie got a disgusted look on his face and said, “You’re a pip, Edith, you know that? You and I look at the same guy and you see a beautiful person and I see a blimp.” A puzzled look crossed Edith’s face and she said, “Yeah, ain’t it too bad?”
What do you see when you look at Christmas? I have learned that when I look at Christmas as it’s presented to us by God on the pages of the Bible, it doesn’t induce panic, but comfort, hope, fulfillment, joy, peace. But we must choose. We must decide whether we will see Christmas God’s way or the world’s way.
And so tonight, I present the simple truth of Christmas. When God observed how lost and hopeless we had become because of sin and death, He rolled up His sleeves and went to work doing the most amazing thing ever. The God Who made everything—the God Who made you and me—became one of us, entering our lives as a baby so that as the one pure, sinless representative of the human race, He could sacrifice Himself on the cross and give us all new life when He rose from the dead. The Christmas message is as simple, as profound, and as true as that. This Christmas, welcome Jesus to your celebrating and no matter what pains or difficulties you face and in fact, no matter what successes you may enjoy (because success can sometimes be harder to handle than failure or adversity), He will give you reason to celebrate.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Thursday, December 18, 2003
This comes from today's daily e-mailed inspiration by my colleague, Pastor Glen VanderKloot. If you'd like to subscribe to this uplifting daily e-mail, contact Glen at pastor@faithlutheran.com.
****************************************************
A Thought for the Day
A television interviewer was walking the streets of Tokyo at
Christmas time. Much as in America, Christmas shopping is a big
commercial success in Japan. The interviewer stopped one young
woman on the sidewalk, and asked, "What is the meaning of Christmas?"
Laughing, she responded, "I don’t know. Is that the day that Jesus died?"
There was some truth in her answer.
SOURCE: Donald Deffner, Seasonal Illustrations
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Bible Verse
Luke 4:43
But Jesus said, "People in other towns must hear the
good news about God's kingdom. That's why I was sent."
Contemporary English Version
Prayer
Lord, help me to make sure that the Christ child is the center of my Christmas
celebrations. Lead me to share with others the good news of Christmas.
Amen.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
****************************************************
A Thought for the Day
A television interviewer was walking the streets of Tokyo at
Christmas time. Much as in America, Christmas shopping is a big
commercial success in Japan. The interviewer stopped one young
woman on the sidewalk, and asked, "What is the meaning of Christmas?"
Laughing, she responded, "I don’t know. Is that the day that Jesus died?"
There was some truth in her answer.
SOURCE: Donald Deffner, Seasonal Illustrations
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Bible Verse
Luke 4:43
But Jesus said, "People in other towns must hear the
good news about God's kingdom. That's why I was sent."
Contemporary English Version
Prayer
Lord, help me to make sure that the Christ child is the center of my Christmas
celebrations. Lead me to share with others the good news of Christmas.
Amen.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
A Christmas Statement of Belief
I believe in the God Who sent His Son, the very reflection and embodiment of Himself, to our world on the first Christmas. Long centuries before, God had fashioned the world and created the human race in His image. When sin had overtaken us, God reached out to His fallen children and called the people Israel into being. Israel became the cradle in which the Son, the baby Jesus was laid. At the right time, Jesus called the world to repentance and promised new life to all who would turn from sin and follow Him. Offended by Him and His claims on our lives, our human race rose up against Jesus and killed Him on a cross. But the love that imagined the universe into being and that created the first Christmas could not be so easily thwarted: Jesus rose from the dead, promising a share in His triumph to all who confess Him as their Lord. Today, the Holy Spirit lives in the Church and all who follow Christ, proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus and reminding us of the Good News sung to the shepherds by the angels on the first Christmas night! Amen!
I believe in the God Who sent His Son, the very reflection and embodiment of Himself, to our world on the first Christmas. Long centuries before, God had fashioned the world and created the human race in His image. When sin had overtaken us, God reached out to His fallen children and called the people Israel into being. Israel became the cradle in which the Son, the baby Jesus was laid. At the right time, Jesus called the world to repentance and promised new life to all who would turn from sin and follow Him. Offended by Him and His claims on our lives, our human race rose up against Jesus and killed Him on a cross. But the love that imagined the universe into being and that created the first Christmas could not be so easily thwarted: Jesus rose from the dead, promising a share in His triumph to all who confess Him as their Lord. Today, the Holy Spirit lives in the Church and all who follow Christ, proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus and reminding us of the Good News sung to the shepherds by the angels on the first Christmas night! Amen!
Sunday, December 14, 2003
Advent: God Sends a Servant
Luke 3:7-18
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, December 14, 2003)
Many years ago, on a cold morning, a newspaper boy in a large city was out on the street, selling his papers. He stood barefoot, warming his feet on a grating that had a bakery below. A woman came along and, seeing how the boy was shivering, asked him if he owned any shoes. No, he said. She then asked if the boy would like a pair. Yes!, he replied enthusiastically. So, the woman took him to a nearby department store and bought socks and shoes for the boy. The kid excitedly ran out of the store and resumed selling his papers. He didn’t even take the time to say thank you. The woman was a little disappointed by this ingratitude. But just as she was leaving the store, the boy ran back into the store and asked, “Lady, I wanna ask you a question. Are you God’s wife?” The woman didn’t know what to say and finally stammered, “No, but I am one of His children.” The boy replied, “Well, I knowed you must be some kin of His.” People can tell when we have a relationship with the God we meet in Jesus Christ!
In today’s Bible lesson, Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, is doing his special ministry of preparing people for the entry of Jesus into their lives. John calls the people to repent, that is, to turn away from their sin so that their hearts will be emptied of evil and they can receive the unconditional love and forgiveness that comes to all who receive Jesus as the God and Lord of their lives. To signify their changed lives, John calls the repentant to be baptized in the Jordan River. Crowds show up in droves to hear John’s preaching and to be baptized.
John should have been pleased. By the standards of the world, he was a great success. He set up shop to preach and lots of people were taking the Interstate to the desert suburbs of Jerusalem to hear him. He called people to be baptized and they lined up by the hundreds. But John was suspicious. He didn’t want to be the latest fad. John wanted people’s lives to be changed as they surrendered themselves and their sins to God.
So, John starts chastising the crowds:
“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits that are worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor.’ [It isn’t enough to say, “My mom and dad always went to church.” Or, “I’m a member in good standing of Friendship Church.” John goes on to say...] for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham...”
It’s all very good for us to repent, expressing sorrow for the ways we’ve hurt God or others. But, John says, unless we change the direction of our lives, our repentance is nothing more than a hollow religious act. When we truly repent, we become like the woman who bought the shoes for the newspaper boy. By our changed lives, others see that we’re kin to God. That’s why to one group of people after another in today’s lesson, John says, “Live your repentance. God has planted the seed of love and forgiveness in your life. Now bear fruits of repentance.”
There is nothing odder or more appreciated than the life of a person genuinely changed by the love of God, somebody who is bearing the fruit of genuine repentance. Just this past week, I was talking with an acquaintance. They told me about a habit they have. These days you know, it seems that young people are so dependent on calculators that many are flustered by having to count out change at retailers’ cash registers. This person says that often, a young person working at register will give them too much change. This person will say, “Excuse me. I think you’ve made a mistake.” And just as the young clerk is about to get defensive, they’ll explain, “You gave me a dollar too much.” When this happens, the mystified clerk will say something like, “Thank you so much. If I had been off, I wouldn’t have made my bank and been here all night long trying to figure what went wrong.”
I really do wish that those of us who follow Jesus would confound and mystify the world like that all the time. I wish that I would! Can you imagine the positive impact we could have on people if, with any consistency, we did as John the Baptist suggests today: bore the fruit of repentance, lived as people grateful for Jesus?
Little Marty Rayner had returned from a secret mission with an unexpected item, a gift for his friend Kenny. Marty’s mother, Diane, watched her son wrap the gift in bright Christmas paper. Because Kenny’s family was poor but too proud to accept gifts they couldn’t reciprocate, Marty snuck across the pasture, under an electric fence, and up to Kenny’s front door. He pushed the doorbell and then, ran like the wind.
The two boys were like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, always getting into little adventures together. Marty was deaf in one ear, but never complained about it. Kenny never seemed to mind his friend’s problem. Marty had bought a compass for Kenny with his own money and after Diane had explained about Kenny’s mom’s “admirable pride,” Marty decided that nobody ever needed to know who had left a Christmas present on Kenny’s front porch.
Diane was proud as she watched her eight year old son share a gift with no expectation of being rewarded. She thought to herself, “This must be what Christmas is all about!”
But when Marty came back from his errand, he was wobbly, his eyes filled with tears. What was wrong?, Diane wondered. As Marty came into the kitchen, Diane saw it: a bright red welt emerging on his face. In a hurry to escape from Kenny’s house undetected, Marty had run straight into that electric fence. It had knocked him down and stunned him. As Diane hugged her sobbing boy close, she wondered, as I suppose any parent would, how God could have let a boy doing something so wonderful be hurt like this.
Christmas day came. Diane and her family opened their Christmas presents. She could see that happily, the burn on Marty’s face, extending from his mouth to his ear, wasn’t serious. But even then, she wondered how God could allow such a cruel thing happen to somebody who was so giving.
Later on Christmas morning, Kenny came to visit Marty. Kenny showed off his new compass and Marty just smiled and congratulated his friend. He never did tell Kenny that he’d been the one who gave this Christmas present Kenny so cherished.
“That’s when Diane noticed it. As the boys were talking closely with one another, Marty seemed to be hearing with the ear that was totally deaf. [There had been a Christmas miracle.]...the school nurse confirmed that Marty had full hearing in that formerly deaf ear. The doctor could only guess at what had happened—when Marty hit that electric fence, the doctor surmised that somehow the electric current had shocked that ear into hearing.”
I wish that I could tell you all this morning that if we live our faith the way Marty did, then miracles of healing and provision will come our way. But that’s not the way things work in this imperfect world. We bear fruits of repentance—we perpetrate acts of love and kindness and service—not so that we can earn heavenly miracles or get dibs on God’s love. We serve others because of the incredible service God has done for us. We’ve learned that God isn’t a miserly old coot from whose clenched fists we have to pry love or blessings. As followers of Jesus Christ, we live our faith because on the first Christmas day 2000 years ago, God already gave us the best Christmas present ever: His love and the possibility of new life through Jesus Christ. Jesus loved us enough to bear a cross for us. He loves us enough to share His victory over death with everyone who will genuinely turn from sin—repent—and follow Him. Little Marty had no thought of his deaf ear when he gave that compass to Kenny. His eyes and his thoughts were on one thing only. He was thinking of the baby in the manger. He was thinking about Jesus.
This Christmas season, I hope and pray that all of us—including me—will put our focus on Jesus where it belongs. When that happens, we might find ourselves doing odd and amazing things—maybe even volunteering a day each week at the new Boys and Girls Club in Amelia. But however we respond to Jesus’ love, may this Christmas season find us all moving from feeling our faith to doing it...from believing to living...from being blessed to being blessings. Two thousand years ago, God came to us as servant born in a barn. By our service in the Name of Jesus, let’s show the world that we really are kin to God. Amen!
[Marty Rayner's true story is told in a message dealing with this Bible lesson by Pastor Mike Foss.]
Luke 3:7-18
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, December 14, 2003)
Many years ago, on a cold morning, a newspaper boy in a large city was out on the street, selling his papers. He stood barefoot, warming his feet on a grating that had a bakery below. A woman came along and, seeing how the boy was shivering, asked him if he owned any shoes. No, he said. She then asked if the boy would like a pair. Yes!, he replied enthusiastically. So, the woman took him to a nearby department store and bought socks and shoes for the boy. The kid excitedly ran out of the store and resumed selling his papers. He didn’t even take the time to say thank you. The woman was a little disappointed by this ingratitude. But just as she was leaving the store, the boy ran back into the store and asked, “Lady, I wanna ask you a question. Are you God’s wife?” The woman didn’t know what to say and finally stammered, “No, but I am one of His children.” The boy replied, “Well, I knowed you must be some kin of His.” People can tell when we have a relationship with the God we meet in Jesus Christ!
In today’s Bible lesson, Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, is doing his special ministry of preparing people for the entry of Jesus into their lives. John calls the people to repent, that is, to turn away from their sin so that their hearts will be emptied of evil and they can receive the unconditional love and forgiveness that comes to all who receive Jesus as the God and Lord of their lives. To signify their changed lives, John calls the repentant to be baptized in the Jordan River. Crowds show up in droves to hear John’s preaching and to be baptized.
John should have been pleased. By the standards of the world, he was a great success. He set up shop to preach and lots of people were taking the Interstate to the desert suburbs of Jerusalem to hear him. He called people to be baptized and they lined up by the hundreds. But John was suspicious. He didn’t want to be the latest fad. John wanted people’s lives to be changed as they surrendered themselves and their sins to God.
So, John starts chastising the crowds:
“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits that are worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor.’ [It isn’t enough to say, “My mom and dad always went to church.” Or, “I’m a member in good standing of Friendship Church.” John goes on to say...] for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham...”
It’s all very good for us to repent, expressing sorrow for the ways we’ve hurt God or others. But, John says, unless we change the direction of our lives, our repentance is nothing more than a hollow religious act. When we truly repent, we become like the woman who bought the shoes for the newspaper boy. By our changed lives, others see that we’re kin to God. That’s why to one group of people after another in today’s lesson, John says, “Live your repentance. God has planted the seed of love and forgiveness in your life. Now bear fruits of repentance.”
There is nothing odder or more appreciated than the life of a person genuinely changed by the love of God, somebody who is bearing the fruit of genuine repentance. Just this past week, I was talking with an acquaintance. They told me about a habit they have. These days you know, it seems that young people are so dependent on calculators that many are flustered by having to count out change at retailers’ cash registers. This person says that often, a young person working at register will give them too much change. This person will say, “Excuse me. I think you’ve made a mistake.” And just as the young clerk is about to get defensive, they’ll explain, “You gave me a dollar too much.” When this happens, the mystified clerk will say something like, “Thank you so much. If I had been off, I wouldn’t have made my bank and been here all night long trying to figure what went wrong.”
I really do wish that those of us who follow Jesus would confound and mystify the world like that all the time. I wish that I would! Can you imagine the positive impact we could have on people if, with any consistency, we did as John the Baptist suggests today: bore the fruit of repentance, lived as people grateful for Jesus?
Little Marty Rayner had returned from a secret mission with an unexpected item, a gift for his friend Kenny. Marty’s mother, Diane, watched her son wrap the gift in bright Christmas paper. Because Kenny’s family was poor but too proud to accept gifts they couldn’t reciprocate, Marty snuck across the pasture, under an electric fence, and up to Kenny’s front door. He pushed the doorbell and then, ran like the wind.
The two boys were like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, always getting into little adventures together. Marty was deaf in one ear, but never complained about it. Kenny never seemed to mind his friend’s problem. Marty had bought a compass for Kenny with his own money and after Diane had explained about Kenny’s mom’s “admirable pride,” Marty decided that nobody ever needed to know who had left a Christmas present on Kenny’s front porch.
Diane was proud as she watched her eight year old son share a gift with no expectation of being rewarded. She thought to herself, “This must be what Christmas is all about!”
But when Marty came back from his errand, he was wobbly, his eyes filled with tears. What was wrong?, Diane wondered. As Marty came into the kitchen, Diane saw it: a bright red welt emerging on his face. In a hurry to escape from Kenny’s house undetected, Marty had run straight into that electric fence. It had knocked him down and stunned him. As Diane hugged her sobbing boy close, she wondered, as I suppose any parent would, how God could have let a boy doing something so wonderful be hurt like this.
Christmas day came. Diane and her family opened their Christmas presents. She could see that happily, the burn on Marty’s face, extending from his mouth to his ear, wasn’t serious. But even then, she wondered how God could allow such a cruel thing happen to somebody who was so giving.
Later on Christmas morning, Kenny came to visit Marty. Kenny showed off his new compass and Marty just smiled and congratulated his friend. He never did tell Kenny that he’d been the one who gave this Christmas present Kenny so cherished.
“That’s when Diane noticed it. As the boys were talking closely with one another, Marty seemed to be hearing with the ear that was totally deaf. [There had been a Christmas miracle.]...the school nurse confirmed that Marty had full hearing in that formerly deaf ear. The doctor could only guess at what had happened—when Marty hit that electric fence, the doctor surmised that somehow the electric current had shocked that ear into hearing.”
I wish that I could tell you all this morning that if we live our faith the way Marty did, then miracles of healing and provision will come our way. But that’s not the way things work in this imperfect world. We bear fruits of repentance—we perpetrate acts of love and kindness and service—not so that we can earn heavenly miracles or get dibs on God’s love. We serve others because of the incredible service God has done for us. We’ve learned that God isn’t a miserly old coot from whose clenched fists we have to pry love or blessings. As followers of Jesus Christ, we live our faith because on the first Christmas day 2000 years ago, God already gave us the best Christmas present ever: His love and the possibility of new life through Jesus Christ. Jesus loved us enough to bear a cross for us. He loves us enough to share His victory over death with everyone who will genuinely turn from sin—repent—and follow Him. Little Marty had no thought of his deaf ear when he gave that compass to Kenny. His eyes and his thoughts were on one thing only. He was thinking of the baby in the manger. He was thinking about Jesus.
This Christmas season, I hope and pray that all of us—including me—will put our focus on Jesus where it belongs. When that happens, we might find ourselves doing odd and amazing things—maybe even volunteering a day each week at the new Boys and Girls Club in Amelia. But however we respond to Jesus’ love, may this Christmas season find us all moving from feeling our faith to doing it...from believing to living...from being blessed to being blessings. Two thousand years ago, God came to us as servant born in a barn. By our service in the Name of Jesus, let’s show the world that we really are kin to God. Amen!
[Marty Rayner's true story is told in a message dealing with this Bible lesson by Pastor Mike Foss.]
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