When Things Seem Futile

[This is the journal entry for my quiet time with God yesterday.]

Look: “‘And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you…

“... it was not you who sent me here, but God…” (Genesis 45:5, 8)

The speaker is Joseph, son of Jacob, grandson of Isaac, and great-grandson of Abraham. He lived about 1900 years before the birth of Jesus. He’s speaking to his brothers.

Years before, resentful of their father’s favor of Joseph and Joseph’s superior attitude toward them, the brothers had sold Joseph into slavery, convincing Jacob that his son had actually been killed by a wild animal.

But now the brothers stood before Joseph, who had been effectively made the prime minister of Egypt.

It would have been an opportune time for Joseph to take revenge on his brothers for his years of slavery and forced separation from his family.

Instead, Joseph believes that, as he will articulate more succinctly in Genesis 50, while his brothers meant their action for evil, maybe even death, to Joseph, God used their action to take Joseph to the exact place he needed to be, to accomplish good. 

Joseph, the dreamer, interpreter of dreams, and person with a gift for administration, was, as head of Pharaoh’s government in Egypt, able to institute a program whereby the government held surplus crops in reserve during flush years for distribution and sale during the subsequent years of famine. By this work, Joseph was even able to save his own people, the descendants of Abraham, ancient Israel, so that they could continue to be God’s light to the nations...and ultimately, become the people from whom Jesus, the Light and the Savior of the world, would come.

Listen: When someone has hurt me, my impulse is to hurt them back. 

Or, at the very least, ignore them, insult them, or be disdainful of them.

Now, when a person is physically, emotionally, or sexually abusive to us, avoidance is a good idea. God doesn’t expect me to deliberately subject myself to danger. 

That’s why Jesus refused the devil’s temptation to hurl Himself from the pinnacle of the temple. We tempt God when we mistake faith for fatalism and simply acquiesce to our own harm. Even though God protects His people, He doesn’t protect them from taking unwise risks, like not wearing a helmet while riding on a motorcycle or texting while driving, to use two examples.

But as Joseph stands before his brothers, he holds all the cards. He has power. His brothers’ families are at risk of dying off from the famine. Joseph is the second-most powerful man in Egypt who has gone through slavery and imprisonment for years because of the actions of his brothers. It would have been so easy--and, in the eyes of the world, justified--to put his brothers into slavery, hold them in prison, or even kill them. 

He sees things differently. He’s grateful to be positioned to save his father’s people and to forgive the brothers.

Joseph seems never to have forgotten God, worshiping and obeying Him even through his long captivity. He had resisted when Potiphar’s wife’s attempts at seduction by saying that he couldn’t violate either God’s will or Potiphar’s trust by having sex with her. He told the Pharaoh that God--Israel's Yahweh--who gives interpretations to dreams.

In the verses that caught my attention today, Joseph sees beyond his own pain to see that God, Who might have seemed far away or even absent during his years of slavery, actually had been with him all along and actually had a reason for sending him to Egypt in the first place.

Not all the painful circumstances we find ourselves in are sent to us by God, of course. Job, for example, endured hardships that came from Satan. Sometimes the fallen world is where our hurts come from. Sometimes those hurts come from our own stupid, silly, or sinful actions.

But wherever we find ourselves, God can transform the seeming futility of painful circumstances and help us live for His purposes within them. Joseph knew this.

I get fussy. I like things to go the way I want them to go and when they don’t, I can bellyache. There’s no record of Joseph bellyaching. He followed God and sought to be faithful where he was.

Respond: Lord, by the power of the Holy Spirit, help me to be faithful where I am today. Forgive my fussiness and bellyaching. Help me to trust that You never forsake me and are always there for me. Jesus' death and resurrection prove that. Thank You for the forgiveness of my sins and for Your resurrection promise given to all who trust in Christ. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen

[The painting is Joseph Recognized by His Brothers by Marc Chagall.] 

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Decide Beforehand

Matthew 4:1-11
I once heard about a financial adviser who’d been told by a couple consulting with her that they found it impossible to put any money aside for savings or tithe money for the purposes of God. “We have no debt, but also no savings” the husband said. “We start out by trying to keep current with our bills,” the wife added.

The financial adviser nodded knowingly. “That’s the problem,” she said. “You should pay your bills, of course. But you haven’t adopted the ‘decide beforehand’ method.” She explained that instead of starting with paying their bills, then deciding how much money they had to save or give to God, they needed to “decide beforehand” how much they were going to save and give. Then they could pay their bills and adjust their spending habits accordingly.

She said: “The best way to deal with the unexpected storms that come along is to make your decision before the storms hit.”

Today’s Gospel lesson, Matthew 4:1-11, finds Jesus facing a storm of temptation and testing from the devil. If Jesus hadn’t adopted the decide beforehand method when it came to His relationship with God the Father, He never would have stood the storm, He would have caved into sin, and you and I would still be condemned for our sin, lost to God forever. So, we can say that if Jesus hadn't decided beforehand how He was going to deal with situations like He faced in the wilderness, salvation would have become a lost cause.

Before looking at Jesus in the wilderness, we need to set the stage. In Matthew 3:13-17, which recounts an incident that happened just before the events in today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus undergoes John the Baptizer’s baptism of repentance. True, Jesus had no sin for which He needed to repent, but Jesus was intent on connecting Himself fully to the sinful humanity--including you and me--who He came into this world to save. John told Jesus that it was he who should have been baptized by Jesus, not the other way around. But as Jesus explained to the reluctant John: “Let it be so for now. For in this way we shall do all that God requires.” [Matthew 3:15, Good News Translation] Having undergone the baptism that His Father required, God the Holy Spirit descended to Jesus as a dove and God the Father called from heaven to say of Jesus: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” [Matthew 3:17] It was a spectacular moment!

Like the spectacular events that happened some time later on the Mount of Transfiguration, it could have been tempting for Jesus to just stay there on the banks of the Jordan savoring the moment. But Jesus had work to do. And before He did that work, He had to get ready for it.

Turn to our Gospel lesson, please. (You’ll find it starting on page 676 of the sanctuary Bibles.) Verse 1: “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”

Why did the Holy Spirit do this? If Jesus had come into the world to offer His sinless life on a cross, wasn’t the Holy Spirit putting that entire mission in jeopardy by subjecting Jesus to these temptations to sin? What if Jesus sinned in the wilderness, caving into His hunger and the taunting of the devil? Why wouldn’t the Spirit just carry Jesus from the Jordan, where He was baptized, and onto Jerusalem for the cross and the resurrection?

As a quick aside, let me give you three quick reasons why Jesus had to undergo temptation. First, as we see from His words to John the Baptist, Jesus had to undergo the same stuff you and I undergo. [Matthew 3:15] All that God required had to happen. If Jesus was never subjected to severe temptation to sin, He couldn’t be said to be sinless. Second, Jesus had to be sensitized to how hard it is for we human beings to resist sin. That way, when we come to our Father in Jesus’ name, He can be an advocate Who understands you and me from the inside out. Hebrews 4:15 says that in Jesus: “...we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” Third, Jesus had to be refined for His mission. The verb, πειρασθῆναι, translated as tempted in our lesson can also be translated as tested.

The devil probably thought that he was in the driver’s seat with Jesus when Jesus arrived in the wilderness. But, in fact, Jesus was there because the Holy Spirit sent Him to be tested, refined. Here, we see that God can use the same events for His purposes that the devil tries to use for his ends.

It's not unprecedented. In Genesis 50:20, Joseph, the dreamer who had saved Egypt and his own people, forgave his brothers for selling him into slavery, telling them, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good…” The brothers acted from evil intentions, but God used what they did to bring good things about, including the refinement of Joseph for his mission of saving a whole region from famine.

The temptations to sin that come to us can be used by God as tests to refine and strengthen our faith and our characters. In 1 Corinthians 10:13, we’re told: “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

In the wilderness, facing temptations that were tests, Jesus learned to rely on His Father to the full extent He needed to rely on Him to fulfill His mission.

If you and I are going to fulfill our missions, fulfill the promise of our lives, and live with God for eternity, we too must learn to rely fully on God when we’re tested or tempted.

So, how did Jesus do this?

He decided beforehand how He would face temptation and He learned to use the most powerful weapon in the universe to do so.

We see this in all three of the exchanges between the devil and Jesus in today’s gospel lesson. But look at just the first one to see what I mean: “The tempter came to him [Jesus] and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” [Matthew 4:3-4]

Every time Jesus was tempted, He responded with God’s Word.

He did that because He had decided beforehand exactly how He would face life’s tests and the devil’s temptations.

Way before He faced off with the the devil, Jesus had stored the Word of God in His heart. He was ready for whatever the devil or the world threw His way, because He had taken time to learn--even memorize--God’s Word.

And even when the devil recited Scripture back to Jesus, distorting it to try to convince Jesus to pull stunts to make God prove Himself, Jesus was ready.

That’s because through His study of God’s Word, Jesus not only knew the Word, He knew His Father.

Jesus was able to resist temptation, face the world’s tests, and fulfill His mission on earth for two reasons: He knew God and He knew God’s Word.

He had decided beforehand that no matter what, He would stick with God and with God’s Word.

The best time to learn how to face tests and temptations is before they happen, not just as they’re threatening to swamp you. Jesus decided before the storm hit to know God the Father and to know God’s Word.

Listen: This is a great Christian congregation.

No church I know has a deeper commitment to mission.

No church I know has a higher percentage of its members who seek after God and take prayer so seriously.

No other church I know would have payed for the salary and benefits of a staffer working at another church, which this congregation did last year.

Living Water has been tested by adversity and tempted to walk away from doing things God’s way. It has chosen God’s way, always, every time.

But we’re in our own building now. We’re growing. We’re comfortable. We feel vindicated in our faith. That’s why this is a spiritually dangerous time for our congregation.

We can expect the devil to attack Living Water. Not a frontal assault (he’s too clever for that), but a nibbling on the edges. He might incite a little gossip here, attack relationships there, create spiritual indifference, cause little disagreements over completely unimportant things. Nothing big. Just a bunch of little things which that jerk named Satan loves to turn into big things.

This is a faithful church and, other than God Himself, the thing the devil hates the most is a faithful church! This is why each of us must internalize the gospel lesson’s call to decide beforehand what we will do when storms hit, when we’re tempted, when we’re tested.

And temptations and tests are bound to come. If the Son of God, God in the flesh, Jesus, was not immune to this reality while on earth, we surely can’t expect to be immune. But even our testing can being God glory. 1 Peter 1:6-7 tells us: “In all this [that is, in your salvation and your relationship with God secured for you through Christ’s cross and empty tomb] you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed [that is, the day Jesus returns].”

If we are to be all that God made us to be and if we are to have life with God, we must know God and we must know God’s Word.

I’m going to repeat that (and know that I’m talking to you, whoever you are): If we are to be all that God made us to be and if we are to have life with God, we must know God and we must know God’s Word.

This is urgent business! You never can tell when life will hit you with another storm. Decide beforehand to be ready.

Decide that no matter what it costs you, you will be committed to knowing God and His Word.

No matter what sins God demands you leave behind, you will be committed to knowing God and His Word.

No matter the effort, you will be committed to knowing God and His Word. If you’re not in a Bible study yet, join one now.

If you’re not spending time in God’s Word on your own a few minutes each day, start now. Start with the gospels of Matthew or John, a chapter a day.

And I invite you to do what I’m starting to do these days, memorize Scripture.

Store up God’s Word in your heart and get to know your Father in heaven with the intimacy that Jesus died and rose to give you. Get to know this Lord Who sent His Son so that all who turn from sin and follow Him are and will be filled with the new and everlasting life of God for all eternity.

Know God.

Know God’s Word.

Then, you’ll be ready for anything.

Amen

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

Does God decide how much we can handle, then unload on us? NO

The subject of this picture came up at our church's Bible study on Tuesday. The picture appeared on Facebook on Thursday.

The saying on the poster is a good antidote to one of the stupid, unbiblical things that people say at funeral visitations. You know the one I mean. People say, "God doesn't give you more than you can handle."

What a lot of rot!

God isn't sitting in heaven figuring the amount of burdens and griefs He knows that we can bear, then dolloping them out to us accordingly. 

Griefs and burdens come to us because this is a fallen and imperfect world. This isn't heaven. 

God doesn't like the burdens of sin and grief and death we have. That's why He came into the world in Christ to defeat and destroy the power of sin and evil over those who trust in Christ. 

But, in this world, we still will grieve and suffer and die.

We inherited the condition of alienation from God and others when we were born. That condition of alienation is what the Bible calls sin. (From this condition, we commit sins.)

So, until we die, we remain susceptible to the pains and griefs of this world. And we die.

But, God's Word tells us that "...the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). 

Hope for an eternal life free from death and strength for this life come as free gifts to all who repent and believe in Christ.

God doesn't give you the things you have to bear. It's living in this world that does that and there is no limit to what suffering might come to you or to any of us. No one is exempt.

However much suffering this world brings to us, if we take the scarred hand of Jesus, God will help us bear it, and eventually, into the resurrection living Christ has secured for His people.

[UPDATE, a further thought: The apostle Paul does write in 1 Corinthians 10:13, "No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it." This may be where the "God won't give you more than you can bear" nonsense started.

Here, Paul is addressing temptation, tests of one's faith, which may be rooted in our own desires or in suffering. But, in either case, Paul is talking about the temptation that may come in any situation to abandon trust in the God we know in Christ. When such temptation happens, Paul says, God will not let you be tempted beyond your capacity to endure, as you rely on Christ. And, this is the part I love, he says that God will give escape hatches for those tempted to abandon the faith. 

This text differs from the common funeral home saying too, because temptation, the subject of the 1 Corinthians passage, does not come from God, any more than suffering does. James 1:13-14 teaches us: "When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed."

God does test us, so that our faith may be strengthened. And He may even use the temptations meted out by the devil, the world, and our sinful selves, to do so. But if God tests and refines us through temptations, we can say to the temptation what Joseph said to his brothers, who had once sold him into slavery, an action that ultimately led Joseph to a position of authority from which he saved hundreds of thousands of lives, "Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good..." (Genesis 50:20).]

[Thanks to Terri, a member of the first parish I served as pastor, for posting the picture which dovetailed with a conversation we'd had surrounding the Old Testament book of Job just two days before.]

Taking Time for Others (How to Be the Church, Part 4)

[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio this past Sunday morning.]

Acts 8:26-40

Many of you already know about what happened on our flight with Southwest Airlines coming back from San Antonio by way of Baltimore a few weeks ago. I found myself sitting down between two women, one in her forties and the other in her thirties. Both appeared lost in their own thoughts and I was glad that I had my Bible and Ellis Peters mystery novel to read during the flight. “Nearly three hours of uninterrupted reading time,” I thought to myself.

God had other ideas.

Nearly three hours later, Danielle and Sara (who turned out to be believers) and I had each been inspired and spiritually enriched by our time together.

We talked about our families and our friends. We talked about the lessons the Lord had taught and was teaching us in life.

I gave each of them the blue wristbands I wear in honor of Sarah, the young woman from my former parish, who loved blue butterflies and was inspired by Psalm 46:10: “Be still, and know that I am God.”

At the end of the flight, each of us commented, “God arranged for this meeting.”

Now, I’m asking God would leave me open to such divine appointments every day.

I’m praying too, that God will orchestrate those kinds of encounters with non-believers so that, whether it’s waiting in the deli line at Kroger or eating at Chipotle, people who need the Savior Jesus as much as I do will be nudged by the Holy Spirit to life-giving faith in Christ through my openness to them.

It can happen. It's simply a matter of not being so wedded to our agendas that we fail to take time for fulfilling our mission as followers of Jesus.

Listen: No one ever had a more serious agenda than Jesus. He was conscious of what He needed to accomplish always. Luke 9:51 says that Jesus had His face set for Jerusalem. Nothing would deter Jesus from going to the cross where He would die for the sins of the entire human race, including yours and mine, then rise from the dead so that believers who turn from sin and surrender to Him can have new and everlasting life with God.

But even with that serious agenda, Jesus was always willing to be interrupted, willing to take the time to share the good news--the gospel--with those in need. If Jesus could take that time for people while He walked on the earth, surely neither I nor my agenda can give way sometimes too. I’m asking God to help me be more like Jesus in this way.

In these Sundays of Easter, we’re talking about how to be the Church. The Church is made up of disciples, followers of Jesus.

Last week, we talked about some of what it means to be a disciple.

Today, we explore the topic further through an incident recounted in the New Testament book of Acts.

Acts tells the story of the early Church, from the risen Jesus’ ascension to heaven until about thirty years later. (So until about 60 AD.) Our lesson is Acts 8:26-40.

The first seven chapters of Acts basically tell us about the Church in Jerusalem as the first believers in Christ told their fellow Jews about Jesus’ death and resurrection and the life available to anyone who believes in Him.

But the events recorded in Acts, chapter 7, usher in a new era in Church history. Stephen, a believer in Christ, is stoned to death for his faith and a general persecution against the Church causes many believers to leave Jerusalem.

This is yet another example of that principle of Biblical faith, first enunciated clearly by Joseph in Genesis 50, that what the world means for evil, God often means for good. That's because when the believers in Christ went to other lands, they didn’t keep their mouths shut or lay low. They told others about Christ so that still more could become believing disciples in Christ’s Church.

No one appears to have been bolder or more dedicated in telling others about Jesus than a layperson named Philip. Early in Acts, chapter 8, we read about Philip sharing Christ with Samaritans, people who Philip, as a Judean, would have been taught to hate from the time he was a baby. But Philip believed that Christ died and rose for Samaritans too, that Christ can transform the life of any person willing to surrender to Christ.

And, Acts 8 tells us that, when the remnant Church in Jerusalem learned that God was anointing Samaritans who believed in Jesus with the Holy Spirit, they decided that Philip was right in preaching to them.

Which brings us finally, to our lesson, Acts 8:26-40. Verse 26: “Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ So he started out…”

In John 10:14, Jesus says, “I know my sheep and my sheep know me.” Philip knew that the angel’s message was from God, because through God’s Word, He knew God. So, Philip took off for where God wanted him to go. Like Philip, disciples are responsive to the Holy Spirit, the Author of God’s Word.

Verse 27: “...and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means 'queen of the Ethiopians'). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet.”

Several things to notice here: First, what the New Testament calls Ethiopia, we call Sudan.

Second, a eunuch is a man who has been emasculated and put into the service of his nation’s royalty.

Third, this eunuch was a powerful man. We might call him his nation’s finance minister.

Fourth, the Ethiopian eunuch had gone to worship in Jerusalem. He was what Jews of that time called “God-fearers.” They weren’t Jews, but they believed in the God of the Jews, even if they weren’t yet incorporated into the Jewish faith.

Fifth and finally, everyone read out loud in those days. So, as we will see, Philip knew the man was reading from Isaiah 52 and 53, which talks about how God would, hundreds of years after the words were written, send a suffering servant who would take the punishment of others and redeem them, save them.

Verse 29: “The Spirit told Philip, ‘Go to that chariot and stay near it.’ Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ Philip asked. ‘How can I,’ he said, ‘unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.’”

When disciples encounter unbelievers who appear interested in Christ, they don’t beat them over the head. They seek and they earn the permission to share Christ with them.

If Philip had just started preaching at the eunuch, he would have gotten nowhere. We must earn permission to share Christ with others not by scoring debating points, but by making ourselves lovingly available to helping others know our God, King, and Savior Jesus.

You’ve heard me mention before Peter’s words for us, 1 Peter 3:15-16: “...Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.”

Now, back to our lesson, verse 32. “This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.” The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.”

Philip was a layperson and he baptized the eunuch!

I know that will make some Lutherans feel uncomfortable.

Philip didn’t go to the church council. He didn’t get an apostle. There were no church councils and no apostles around.

It is true that 1 Corinthians 14:40 says that in the life of the Church “everything should be done in a fitting and orderly.” Under ordinary circumstances, maybe for good order’s sake, a person who had been properly called by the power of the Holy Spirit to the ministry of Word and Sacrament should have baptized by the eunuch. But that wasn’t possible at that moment.

And besides, in the great commission, Jesus commands all Christians to make disciples, baptize, and teach. Listen: Disciples go with the flow of the Holy Spirit. They’re not Lone Rangers, but when the Holy Spirit gives the green light to fulfill the great commission, they go. That’s what Philip did.

And what happened? Verses 39-40: “When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.”

Philip didn’t hang around for a victory lap. God didn’t let him. Philip had done what he was called to do and now it was on to the next place God wanted him to be.

Disciples rejoice in what God does through them and give God all the credit. Disciples know always that it’s the Holy Spirit, not them, who accomplishes the purposes of God, even when the Spirit chooses to do what He does through them. Then disciples move on, knowing that God has more He wants to do through them. 

This is one of my favorite passages of Scripture. I love the simple and amazing picture of what God accomplishes through disciples that it paints. Through it, we know that...

• disciples know the Word and are responsive to the Holy Spirit; 
• disciples respectfully seek permission to share the good news of Jesus with their unbelieving friends; 
• disciples go with the flow of the Holy Spirit, so that when the Spirit flashes green lights, they go; and 
• disciples rejoice in what the Holy Spirit does through them, but know that it’s always the Holy Spirit who does the work. 

More next week, as we explore how to be the Church. Amen