Autumn blew into Cook County on Monday with an unprecedented fury. Winds from the north, virtually unheard of in our little chunk of earth, gusted from land out over Lake Superior at upwards of sixty miles per hour. Trees uprooted or broken off by the wind took out power lines and transformers. Others toppled on buildings and cars. It's a big mess, and three days later many are without power and water.
Unexpected events like this, though not as severe as a hurricane or other natural disaster, still effect people's sense of normalcy and security and create a level of stress and trauma that can have the same debilitating effect as a low grade temperature does on a body after several days. Energy, enthusiasm, and endurance can all suffer.
Here are a few ways you can help your friends, family, and neighbors cope with the inconvenience and stress of unexpected traumatic events.
First, take a minute and gain some perspective for yourself. We often point out the needs of others as being more intense or acute than our own (or someone else's) need. Please. Don't do this. Not yet. I realize that there are people in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama who are still trying to recover from Hurricane Katrina. I realize that their difficulty is very likely greater than mine, their inconvenience more severe than mine, but that does not diminish the emotional effect of my crisis on me. So, helper, take a moment and prepare yourself to understand my crisis in my context. Don't attempt to dismiss my sense of need because you think someone else has a greater need than I. Get some perspective. If you're going to help me, help me.
Second, let's talk about what happened. Let me tell you my story. Tell me your story. Let me tell you how it feel to be a new homeowner and suddenly lose nine trees, three of which were important in screening my house from highway noise. Let me tell you how it feels to have someone else come and cut up my trees with their chainsaw because they didn't think I was competent enough to use it without hurting myself. Let me tell you about not having the ability to shower or even use the bathroom in my own home while I wait for someone who gets to go home to a hot meal and hot shower every night to come and fix my lines. tell me about your trees, your experience, your outlook, and in the telling of these shared stories we'll identify together the things that are important, the things that are silly, and the things that will help us get both the land and the spirit back to normal.
Third, help as you can, but don't make offers or promises you can't keep. If you'd like to help but can't, say so. If you offer to help but are not able to assist me when I tell you what I need, just say so. Please don't tell me you'll see what you can do, and then do nothing. That simply adds disillusionment to my frustration. You might also want to consider offering what you actually can do. If you're allergic to pine sap and can't help me clean up broken branches, but you can bring me a drink of cold water from the store three miles away (since I'm still without power) then by all means, offer what you can, what you will. I'll understand the heart behind the offer and will be encouraged by your thoughtfulness!
Finally, be patient, especially if I lose mine. We all know the proverb, "This too shall pass." We just forget sometimes, in our instant soup world, how slowly some things pass. If I tell the same story again, be patient. Eventually the event will find its rightful place in my life and I'll move on to other stories. If I cuss the same broken tree over and over, be patient. Soon enough new sprouts will grow from the stump and I'll be complaining about more leaves to rake than ever before. If I stand for a moment, overwhelmed at the result of power beyond my control, be patient. Shortly I will realize the normalcy of that position and find my contentment again. So just be patient. It could be the biggest help of all.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Isaiah and Me
You have to love God's sense of irony. At least, I am coming to appreciate it more and more these days.
I'm thinking this morning of a particular prophet in the Old Testament, a man named Isaiah. Early in his career he saw God.
For real.
No lie.
Isaiah saw God. He writes, "I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple." Now you have to understand, this is very, very unusual. You see, there was only man in all of Israel who might have had the opportunity to see God exalted on his throne in the temple. That would be the high priest who would enter the Most Holy Place, the "throne room" of God in the temple, once a year with a sacrifice for the sins of the people. No one else could enter this room. And even the high priest could only enter once a year and under strictly prescribed conditions.
Isaiah was not the high priest. The vision God gives Isaiah is a special invitation to an extraordinary appointment with the King of kings. While the way to God was closed to others, God opened it for Isaiah for a special purpose. God had a mission for this man.
And that's the irony. God called Isaiah into his Presence. God removed Isaiah's guilt and atoned for his sin, not requiring Isaiah to do these things for himself but graciously doing them for him. Then God poses the opportunity for Isaiah to take up as his own the Lord's purpose in the world. Isaiah writes, "I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?'"
Isaiah is ready. Isaiah is willing. Isaiah cries out, "Here am I. Send me." Can't you just imagine it? Isaiah is seeing God in a way few others ever had. He hears the voices of angels crying out "Glory!" and the voice of God calling out, "Who?" His soul has been relieved of the burden of guilt, and God himself has atoned for his sins. Can't you imagine the majesty, and glory, and freedom, and excitement, and eagerness of the moment? Can't you imagine the enthusiasm that must have swelled in Isaiah's heart to go and do whatever God asked of him? Can't you imagine how he might have thought what a wonderful life it would be to declare the perfections of this God, high and lifted up, Whose glory fills the temple? Can't you imagine how he might have projected that thousands would be overtaken by the glory of the vision God was giving him? Can't you imagine how that would have spurred his eagerness to put himself at God's disposal? Can't you just imagine?
Then God says, "Go, and say to this people: 'Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.' Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed" (Isaiah 6:9-10). God sent Isaiah on a mission where apparent failure equalled success. That's irony. Intentional, divine, glorious irony.
Isaiah would preach and give his life to draw people to God and to his word, and their response would be to pull farther and farther away from God until such time as God judged his people and sent them into exile. Listen, there's no hint of a megachurch in Isaiah's mission statement, just the sad realization that the hearts of his audience were becoming so jaded in sin and selfishness that to them even the good news would be bad news.
The apostle Paul, writing what was probably his last letter to Timothy before being executed by the Roman government, describes a coming day of trouble and difficulty. "In the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying it power" (2 Timothy 3:1-5). How sad that, according to this last phrase, at least some of the people whom Paul describes will call themselves and be identified as Christians. They will have a form of godliness but it will be without any real spiritual, life changing power. They will be people of religion but have no relationship with the One they suppose to worship. Empty shells. Whitewashed tombs. Pharisees of a different color.
What are an Isaiah and a Timothy supposed to do? What is a Christian who loves the Lord and loves his word to do under these conditions where what men love most is themselves and not God and not his word? What are we to do when all our preaching and teaching and loving and living seems to have the opposite effect than what we projected? What are we to do when otherwise religious people look us in the eye and declare, "I don't care what the Bible says, I want things my way?"
Do what Isaiah did. Confronted with the challenge of sharing God's word with a society and a "church" that would not listen and heed the word of God, Isaiah preached and taught and lived and loved anyway. He did not ask for a different assignment. He did not ask for a change of venue, circumstance, or outcome. Isaiah simply asked, "How long?"
There was no question of whether or not he would agree to be sent by God, having already offered to go. He affirmed his faith-filled intent and asked only that God give him a time frame, a means for understanding God's intent for the days of his life. He did not argue with God, nor express disappointment, nor rail against the people, nor call down fire on the heads of his enemies. He simply asked, "Lord, is this a temporary or permanent assignment? When will I know I've done what you asked?"
If you face a sense of futility in your life today, if attempts to share the word of God with others seem miserably ineffective, if your best efforts at living for Jesus seem only to push people away rather than draw them near to Him, then consider Isaiah. His joy, his hope, his strength was not in a pleasant outcome, but in the fact that God himself had called him, cleansed him, and sent him. It was not the men, the ministry, or the moment that mattered, but the Master.
Take strength in the undeniable fact that God has fully revealed himself in Jesus Christ, and if you have seen Jesus, you have seen the Father in his glory. Take comfort in the certain knowledge that through faith in Jesus God has taken away your guilt and in Christ atoned for your sin. Take heart in the reality of the Holy Spirit living in and through you and his power to sustain your faith. Be bold in the now, as was Isaiah of old, because the message is True, the One who sent you fills the temple with his glory, and He sets both the time and the outcome.
I'm thinking this morning of a particular prophet in the Old Testament, a man named Isaiah. Early in his career he saw God.
For real.
No lie.
Isaiah saw God. He writes, "I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple." Now you have to understand, this is very, very unusual. You see, there was only man in all of Israel who might have had the opportunity to see God exalted on his throne in the temple. That would be the high priest who would enter the Most Holy Place, the "throne room" of God in the temple, once a year with a sacrifice for the sins of the people. No one else could enter this room. And even the high priest could only enter once a year and under strictly prescribed conditions.
Isaiah was not the high priest. The vision God gives Isaiah is a special invitation to an extraordinary appointment with the King of kings. While the way to God was closed to others, God opened it for Isaiah for a special purpose. God had a mission for this man.
And that's the irony. God called Isaiah into his Presence. God removed Isaiah's guilt and atoned for his sin, not requiring Isaiah to do these things for himself but graciously doing them for him. Then God poses the opportunity for Isaiah to take up as his own the Lord's purpose in the world. Isaiah writes, "I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?'"
Isaiah is ready. Isaiah is willing. Isaiah cries out, "Here am I. Send me." Can't you just imagine it? Isaiah is seeing God in a way few others ever had. He hears the voices of angels crying out "Glory!" and the voice of God calling out, "Who?" His soul has been relieved of the burden of guilt, and God himself has atoned for his sins. Can't you imagine the majesty, and glory, and freedom, and excitement, and eagerness of the moment? Can't you imagine the enthusiasm that must have swelled in Isaiah's heart to go and do whatever God asked of him? Can't you imagine how he might have thought what a wonderful life it would be to declare the perfections of this God, high and lifted up, Whose glory fills the temple? Can't you imagine how he might have projected that thousands would be overtaken by the glory of the vision God was giving him? Can't you imagine how that would have spurred his eagerness to put himself at God's disposal? Can't you just imagine?
Then God says, "Go, and say to this people: 'Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.' Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed" (Isaiah 6:9-10). God sent Isaiah on a mission where apparent failure equalled success. That's irony. Intentional, divine, glorious irony.
Isaiah would preach and give his life to draw people to God and to his word, and their response would be to pull farther and farther away from God until such time as God judged his people and sent them into exile. Listen, there's no hint of a megachurch in Isaiah's mission statement, just the sad realization that the hearts of his audience were becoming so jaded in sin and selfishness that to them even the good news would be bad news.
The apostle Paul, writing what was probably his last letter to Timothy before being executed by the Roman government, describes a coming day of trouble and difficulty. "In the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying it power" (2 Timothy 3:1-5). How sad that, according to this last phrase, at least some of the people whom Paul describes will call themselves and be identified as Christians. They will have a form of godliness but it will be without any real spiritual, life changing power. They will be people of religion but have no relationship with the One they suppose to worship. Empty shells. Whitewashed tombs. Pharisees of a different color.
What are an Isaiah and a Timothy supposed to do? What is a Christian who loves the Lord and loves his word to do under these conditions where what men love most is themselves and not God and not his word? What are we to do when all our preaching and teaching and loving and living seems to have the opposite effect than what we projected? What are we to do when otherwise religious people look us in the eye and declare, "I don't care what the Bible says, I want things my way?"
Do what Isaiah did. Confronted with the challenge of sharing God's word with a society and a "church" that would not listen and heed the word of God, Isaiah preached and taught and lived and loved anyway. He did not ask for a different assignment. He did not ask for a change of venue, circumstance, or outcome. Isaiah simply asked, "How long?"
There was no question of whether or not he would agree to be sent by God, having already offered to go. He affirmed his faith-filled intent and asked only that God give him a time frame, a means for understanding God's intent for the days of his life. He did not argue with God, nor express disappointment, nor rail against the people, nor call down fire on the heads of his enemies. He simply asked, "Lord, is this a temporary or permanent assignment? When will I know I've done what you asked?"
If you face a sense of futility in your life today, if attempts to share the word of God with others seem miserably ineffective, if your best efforts at living for Jesus seem only to push people away rather than draw them near to Him, then consider Isaiah. His joy, his hope, his strength was not in a pleasant outcome, but in the fact that God himself had called him, cleansed him, and sent him. It was not the men, the ministry, or the moment that mattered, but the Master.
Take strength in the undeniable fact that God has fully revealed himself in Jesus Christ, and if you have seen Jesus, you have seen the Father in his glory. Take comfort in the certain knowledge that through faith in Jesus God has taken away your guilt and in Christ atoned for your sin. Take heart in the reality of the Holy Spirit living in and through you and his power to sustain your faith. Be bold in the now, as was Isaiah of old, because the message is True, the One who sent you fills the temple with his glory, and He sets both the time and the outcome.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Dwight Dear Commits to the Journey
It wasn't so very long ago dwight approached me in the grocery store and said, "Pastor, I want to have God in my life. Can you help me?" Today, Dwight was baptized, testifying to God's work in his life and his commitment to walk with the Lord. Thank you Jesus!
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
I Will Lift Up My Eyes
Jesus faced an emotionally charged, spiritually potent, and physically impossible task. He stood before the grave of his good friend Lazarus. In the eyes of some he had come too late. Had he been there just a few days earlier he might have prevented this death. They had seen him heal, had witnessed the outpouring of compassion and power that rooted disease from its stronghold and set troubled bodies free. He could face down disease and win, but death, who could win over death?
Jesus loved Lazarus. He wept on his way to the tomb. Everyone saw it in his eyes, in the tears coursing down his face. He did not hide his emotions. He let them be just what God had created them to be, mini-revelators laying bare the depths of his heart.
The crowd was marked by diversity. The sisters were there, the real mourners, the ones whose hearts were broken by a loss they could not prevent. The mourners were there, the ones who spilled empty tears, paid to weep and wail but not to feel. The skeptics were there, posting their notes of disbelief on the hearts of any nearby listener. The stone was there, unreasoning, unmoving, a guard and an obstacle all at once.
And Lazarus was there. Dead. Four days decomposed. Smelly but not smelling.
We face occasions like this. Occasions of pain, difficulty, impossibility. Occasions that break the heart and try the soul. Occasions when dreams die, careers give up the ghost, hope fades. Occasions when we stand before an unmoving and unmovable obstacle and thinks to ourselves, "What do I do now?" Jesus came to the tomb. It was a cave. A stone lay against it. A dead guy, his friend, was sealed away inside.
"Take away the stone," he said.
"But Lord, he stinketh," they said.
"Don't miss the glory of God," he said. Don't let the seeming impossibility and unpleasantness of the moment prevent you from seeing the glory of God at work. You see, Lazarus might be dead, but God ain't dead. Not then. Not now.
So they took away the stone.
Then, oh then, Jesus lifted up his eyes. And he said, "I thank you Father that you have heard me." He hadn't said anything yet. He knew that God knew the outcry of his heart. That was the nature of Christ's relationship with the Father: utter confidence that God the Father would know without error or need for explanation the desire of the Son's heart.
E.M. Bounds wrote in his classic little book The Reality of Prayer, "As it was with Christ, so ought we to be so perfect in faith, so skilled in praying, that we could lift our eyes to Heaven and say with Him, with deepest humility, and with commanding confidence, 'Father, I thank thee that thou has heard me.'"
What do you do when your heart is broken and the task at hand bears all the marks of the impossible? Do you lift up your eyes to heaven? Do you speak forth confidence in wisdom, insight, and power of God? Do you plead for life or surrender to death? Do you share with Christ an utter confidence that your Heavenly Father has already heard what only your heart has uttered?
"I knew that you always hear me," he said to his Father. Then he spoke to his friend, "Lazarus, come forth." Right confidence led to right action. I will lift up my eyes in faith. Will you?
Jesus loved Lazarus. He wept on his way to the tomb. Everyone saw it in his eyes, in the tears coursing down his face. He did not hide his emotions. He let them be just what God had created them to be, mini-revelators laying bare the depths of his heart.
The crowd was marked by diversity. The sisters were there, the real mourners, the ones whose hearts were broken by a loss they could not prevent. The mourners were there, the ones who spilled empty tears, paid to weep and wail but not to feel. The skeptics were there, posting their notes of disbelief on the hearts of any nearby listener. The stone was there, unreasoning, unmoving, a guard and an obstacle all at once.
And Lazarus was there. Dead. Four days decomposed. Smelly but not smelling.
We face occasions like this. Occasions of pain, difficulty, impossibility. Occasions that break the heart and try the soul. Occasions when dreams die, careers give up the ghost, hope fades. Occasions when we stand before an unmoving and unmovable obstacle and thinks to ourselves, "What do I do now?" Jesus came to the tomb. It was a cave. A stone lay against it. A dead guy, his friend, was sealed away inside.
"Take away the stone," he said.
"But Lord, he stinketh," they said.
"Don't miss the glory of God," he said. Don't let the seeming impossibility and unpleasantness of the moment prevent you from seeing the glory of God at work. You see, Lazarus might be dead, but God ain't dead. Not then. Not now.
So they took away the stone.
Then, oh then, Jesus lifted up his eyes. And he said, "I thank you Father that you have heard me." He hadn't said anything yet. He knew that God knew the outcry of his heart. That was the nature of Christ's relationship with the Father: utter confidence that God the Father would know without error or need for explanation the desire of the Son's heart.
E.M. Bounds wrote in his classic little book The Reality of Prayer, "As it was with Christ, so ought we to be so perfect in faith, so skilled in praying, that we could lift our eyes to Heaven and say with Him, with deepest humility, and with commanding confidence, 'Father, I thank thee that thou has heard me.'"
What do you do when your heart is broken and the task at hand bears all the marks of the impossible? Do you lift up your eyes to heaven? Do you speak forth confidence in wisdom, insight, and power of God? Do you plead for life or surrender to death? Do you share with Christ an utter confidence that your Heavenly Father has already heard what only your heart has uttered?
"I knew that you always hear me," he said to his Father. Then he spoke to his friend, "Lazarus, come forth." Right confidence led to right action. I will lift up my eyes in faith. Will you?
Sunday, September 20, 2009
A Second Time (Hebrews 9:27-28)
A Second Time
Hebrews 9:27-28
I want to introduce you this morning to a simple but profound comparison that should change the way we live, the way we think, and the way we love while we walk in this world. Throughout this book of Hebrews it has been the Holy Spirit’s purpose to encourage and motivate God’s people to fall so deeply in love with Jesus Christ that we are removed farther and farther from the possibilities of spiritual drifting, practical indifference, nominal faith, and utter ruin that can easily beset of the unconcerned.
The Spirit has pointed out to us the superiority of Jesus over such spiritually exalted beings as angels and over such spiritually exalted persons as Moses and Joshua. Jesus provides a more effective sacrifice than the Old Testament Law, a more powerful ministry than the Old Testament priest, a more personal covenant than the Old Testament covenant. Not only does Jesus transform the nature of our relationship with God, through his sacrifice, our nature itself is changed as we trust in Christ. Our guilt is removed, our shame is healed, our conscience is cleansed and we are adopted, through faith in Jesus Christ, as God’s own sons and daughters.
Besides all this, Jesus ever lives to make intercession for us, permanently residing in the presence of the Father, offering himself as God’s reason to bestow grace and mercy and forgiveness and love upon weak and willful human beings. The ministry of Jesus that God loves and that God loves through is not merely a thing of the past, but a present reality through which each of us receives the fullest measure of God’s grace right now.
James reminds us in his New Testament letter that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17) Every good and perfect gift comes from God and it comes through Jesus Christ by virtue of his superior sacrifice and ministry over the sacrifices and ministries under the Old Covenant. This is the fulfilment of Isaiah 43:19, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” God has made a way for us, in Jesus, to walk in this world with focus, victory, and hope, and I want to show you the way in these verses in Hebrews 9:27-28.
The comparison included in these verses is quite simple but incredibly profound. It is a comparison between you and Jesus, between Jesus Christ and all other human beings. The comparison is made with the words “just as” in verse 27 and the word “so” in verse 28. “Just as it is appointed to man” “so Christ.” There is the basis for the comparison. But let’s look at the three degrees of comparison in these verses and ask how so simple a comparison should so utterly change our lives. We’ll follow the form the Holy Spirit uses here in Hebrews: first we’ll talk about us, then we’ll talk about Jesus.
In setting up the comparison, the Spirit first describes the universal conditions under which every human being lives from the moment they are born. First, every human being dies. It is appointed for man to die.
Romans 5:12 reminds us, “ Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” A chapter later in the same letter the apostle Paul reiterates this truth when he writes, “The wages of sin is death.” These verses tell us that death is included in the life process because of sin. God applies death in response to sin. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, human death entered the world and God appointed the curse of death for all their descendants, for every one of their ancestors. Every human being has a God-set appointment with death.
God told Adam and Eve, when he showed them the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden and told them not to eat of it that if they did so, they would die. Well, guess what. God wasn’t kidding. He did not misrepresent his intentions. He desired and required their obedience and he held to the consequences when they disobeyed. They ate and they died, spiritually and physically, and God appoints the same consequences of sin to all their offspring, including you and including me. Our appointment with death comes not merely by natural process as evolutionary reasoning would have us believe, but by divine appointment. I like what one pastor said, “God plans our birthday and our death day.” This is what God means in Psalm 139:16 when he has the Psalmist write, “In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.”
Our first day and our last day are all determined by God. Our appointment with death is appointed by God. Now listen, there is hope here. Our lives are in God’s hands. There is no room for despair here. No room for discouragement. It is not illness or accident that determines our death. It is not some Satanic or demonic influence that determines the shortness of our days. Fate does not arbitrarily cut the threads that end our life. There is no meaningless ending just because some natural process runs its course. God, the great God himself, Creator of heaven and earth, upholder of the universe and Savior of the world determines our appointment with death and sees that we keep it in his timing, the time he has set for us.
Do you see this? Without having to be concerned about the capricious nature of death, we can trust God all the more for our life! Henry Martyn, a long ago missionary to Persia said, “If [Christ] has work for me to do, I cannot die.” he was right to say this. It is not man or Satan or fate that determines our day to die. It is Christ himself.
But let us take note here that not only is it appointed unto every man to die, it is appointed unto every man to die ONCE. Anyone dreaming of reincarnation and thinking they can come back and try again needs to surrender that dream. It ain’t going to happen. Death happens once and only once. Death doesn’t happen “once in a lifetime” or “once in a while.” Death happens once, period. No next time around. No second chances. The entire point of including this word “once” is to highlight and emphasize the finality of death.
You have once chance to get it right, one opportunity to get right with God. The Scripture tells us, “Today is the day of salvation. Now is the appointed time.” Most of us avoid thinking about death. We don’t care for it. It doesn’t make us happy. But we have to think about it because we have an unavoidable appointment for which we must make preparation. Death is huge. Death deserves some serious consideration. It’s time to stop daydreaming in the now and take some action for forever.
There is an added weight to the need to consider the future. It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment. Death is not the end of our existence. We are not merely organic masses that simply “go out of consciousness and decompose int eh ground.” We have a future beyond death. Beyond death we face God.
Consider Paul’s words to Timothy. He has just admonished his younger protégé to “keep himself pure” and then he writes, “The sins of some men are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later.” He means that some people confess their sins and repent of them and take care of their guilt before they appear before God and in that manner establish their hearts pure in faith. Others however, hide their sins, and when they appear before God, their hands are full and God’s judgment is just. Hebrews 10:27-31 describes the judgment that people face, “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
Wake up and see what lies ahead. See what God in all his mercy reveals to us. Take account of what really matters in this world.
Now, what about Jesus? What is his part in this comparison that should change the way we live, think, and love in this world? Verse 28 takes up this question. So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Please be encouraged by what the Holy Spirit sets before us in his word. Just as men die, so Jesus died. Just as men come to judgment, so Jesus will come to the judgment. But there is an infinite difference here that ought to make our hearts sing out in praise and thanksgiving.
Compare Jesus' experience with our experience and we will discover that though he has similar experiences, they do not parallel our experiences, they transform our experience!
First, Jesus died: “having been offered”. This is good news! We know from the previous verses in this chapter that Someone had to die in order for God's "last will and testament," his covenant with us to be put into effect. Jesus died and all the good that God intends for his heirs to inherit is now available to them.
Verse 28 also tells us that Jesus died once to bear the sins of many. This is also good news. Jesus death to bear the sins of many means that for those who put their trust in him, their death is no longer punitive. He took our sins and suffered the death our sins deserve. Through faith in Jesus we can send our sins on ahead for judgment in him, so that when we arrive at judgment through the doorway of death, we can enter without fear for our sins will already have been judged in Christ on the cross. Christ has transformed death from an occasion of dread to an occasion of joy! This is how we can get right with God in spite of being sinners. Christ took our punishment in his death on the cross.
Verse 28 also tells us that Jesus appears a second time, not to deal with sin, but to rescue sinners who by faith have trusted him for their salvation, not to be judged but to save those who are eagerly waiting. He has dealt with sin once and for all. There is nothing left for him to do in regard to sin. We need to confess our sin to God and trust him to forgive us through Christ, but there is nothing left for Jesus to do to make forgiveness available. He is done dealing with sin. His work cannot be improved upon.
But there is more here. We had to face death, and so Jesus faced death and bore the punishment of death for us. But we also have to face judgment, so Christ comes a second time for us, this time not to deal with sin but to save us from judgment. He will appear a second time not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” This is not salvation in addition to the cross but the application of the salvation gained through the cross. This is the fulfilment of God’s word in Romans 5:9-10. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
Finally we need to ask to whom does this rescue from the wrath of God come? According to verse 28 Jesus bore the sins of “many.” Those “many” are further identified as “those who are eagerly waiting for him.” Those who are eagerly waiting are those who putting their faith in Jesus deeply long for his return, for their rescue from this world and their establishment in his kingdom forever.
This is how “those who are eagerly waiting for him” are described elsewhere in the New Testament:
Romans 8:23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
1 Corinthians 1:7 so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Galatians 5:5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.
Philippians 3:20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
These people have faith that is eager for Christ to come, earnest in their desire for him and for his return. These are people who trust Christ in such a way that makes them eager for him to come. Many people who profess Christ today are not eager for his return. They love the world and the things of this world and they are reluctant to release their grip on the temporal pleasures this world extends. Many who profess Christ are quite happy with the delay in his return and rarely if ever pray, “Even so, Lord, come quickly.”
Eagerness for Christ’s return is an indication, a sign that we love him and believe in him authentically. Can there be any real love for someone whose presence we do not desire? There is a “phony faith,” a false faith that wants to escape hell but has no desire for Jesus. That kind of faith does not save. That kind of “fire insurance faith” that desires deliverance but not the Deliverer is not the faith of those who are saved, those who are “eagerly waiting for him.”
Paul wrote, in 2 Timothy 4:8, “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” Do you wait eagerly for Jesus to come? Do you love his appearing?
I urge you this morning, as one who share with you an appointment with death, turn to Jesus. Trust him. Trust God to forgive your sins on his behalf. Turn to him as your eagerly awaited Savior.
Hebrews 9:27-28
I want to introduce you this morning to a simple but profound comparison that should change the way we live, the way we think, and the way we love while we walk in this world. Throughout this book of Hebrews it has been the Holy Spirit’s purpose to encourage and motivate God’s people to fall so deeply in love with Jesus Christ that we are removed farther and farther from the possibilities of spiritual drifting, practical indifference, nominal faith, and utter ruin that can easily beset of the unconcerned.
The Spirit has pointed out to us the superiority of Jesus over such spiritually exalted beings as angels and over such spiritually exalted persons as Moses and Joshua. Jesus provides a more effective sacrifice than the Old Testament Law, a more powerful ministry than the Old Testament priest, a more personal covenant than the Old Testament covenant. Not only does Jesus transform the nature of our relationship with God, through his sacrifice, our nature itself is changed as we trust in Christ. Our guilt is removed, our shame is healed, our conscience is cleansed and we are adopted, through faith in Jesus Christ, as God’s own sons and daughters.
Besides all this, Jesus ever lives to make intercession for us, permanently residing in the presence of the Father, offering himself as God’s reason to bestow grace and mercy and forgiveness and love upon weak and willful human beings. The ministry of Jesus that God loves and that God loves through is not merely a thing of the past, but a present reality through which each of us receives the fullest measure of God’s grace right now.
James reminds us in his New Testament letter that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17) Every good and perfect gift comes from God and it comes through Jesus Christ by virtue of his superior sacrifice and ministry over the sacrifices and ministries under the Old Covenant. This is the fulfilment of Isaiah 43:19, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” God has made a way for us, in Jesus, to walk in this world with focus, victory, and hope, and I want to show you the way in these verses in Hebrews 9:27-28.
The comparison included in these verses is quite simple but incredibly profound. It is a comparison between you and Jesus, between Jesus Christ and all other human beings. The comparison is made with the words “just as” in verse 27 and the word “so” in verse 28. “Just as it is appointed to man” “so Christ.” There is the basis for the comparison. But let’s look at the three degrees of comparison in these verses and ask how so simple a comparison should so utterly change our lives. We’ll follow the form the Holy Spirit uses here in Hebrews: first we’ll talk about us, then we’ll talk about Jesus.
In setting up the comparison, the Spirit first describes the universal conditions under which every human being lives from the moment they are born. First, every human being dies. It is appointed for man to die.
Romans 5:12 reminds us, “ Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” A chapter later in the same letter the apostle Paul reiterates this truth when he writes, “The wages of sin is death.” These verses tell us that death is included in the life process because of sin. God applies death in response to sin. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, human death entered the world and God appointed the curse of death for all their descendants, for every one of their ancestors. Every human being has a God-set appointment with death.
God told Adam and Eve, when he showed them the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden and told them not to eat of it that if they did so, they would die. Well, guess what. God wasn’t kidding. He did not misrepresent his intentions. He desired and required their obedience and he held to the consequences when they disobeyed. They ate and they died, spiritually and physically, and God appoints the same consequences of sin to all their offspring, including you and including me. Our appointment with death comes not merely by natural process as evolutionary reasoning would have us believe, but by divine appointment. I like what one pastor said, “God plans our birthday and our death day.” This is what God means in Psalm 139:16 when he has the Psalmist write, “In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.”
Our first day and our last day are all determined by God. Our appointment with death is appointed by God. Now listen, there is hope here. Our lives are in God’s hands. There is no room for despair here. No room for discouragement. It is not illness or accident that determines our death. It is not some Satanic or demonic influence that determines the shortness of our days. Fate does not arbitrarily cut the threads that end our life. There is no meaningless ending just because some natural process runs its course. God, the great God himself, Creator of heaven and earth, upholder of the universe and Savior of the world determines our appointment with death and sees that we keep it in his timing, the time he has set for us.
Do you see this? Without having to be concerned about the capricious nature of death, we can trust God all the more for our life! Henry Martyn, a long ago missionary to Persia said, “If [Christ] has work for me to do, I cannot die.” he was right to say this. It is not man or Satan or fate that determines our day to die. It is Christ himself.
But let us take note here that not only is it appointed unto every man to die, it is appointed unto every man to die ONCE. Anyone dreaming of reincarnation and thinking they can come back and try again needs to surrender that dream. It ain’t going to happen. Death happens once and only once. Death doesn’t happen “once in a lifetime” or “once in a while.” Death happens once, period. No next time around. No second chances. The entire point of including this word “once” is to highlight and emphasize the finality of death.
You have once chance to get it right, one opportunity to get right with God. The Scripture tells us, “Today is the day of salvation. Now is the appointed time.” Most of us avoid thinking about death. We don’t care for it. It doesn’t make us happy. But we have to think about it because we have an unavoidable appointment for which we must make preparation. Death is huge. Death deserves some serious consideration. It’s time to stop daydreaming in the now and take some action for forever.
There is an added weight to the need to consider the future. It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment. Death is not the end of our existence. We are not merely organic masses that simply “go out of consciousness and decompose int eh ground.” We have a future beyond death. Beyond death we face God.
Consider Paul’s words to Timothy. He has just admonished his younger protégé to “keep himself pure” and then he writes, “The sins of some men are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later.” He means that some people confess their sins and repent of them and take care of their guilt before they appear before God and in that manner establish their hearts pure in faith. Others however, hide their sins, and when they appear before God, their hands are full and God’s judgment is just. Hebrews 10:27-31 describes the judgment that people face, “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
Wake up and see what lies ahead. See what God in all his mercy reveals to us. Take account of what really matters in this world.
Now, what about Jesus? What is his part in this comparison that should change the way we live, think, and love in this world? Verse 28 takes up this question. So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Please be encouraged by what the Holy Spirit sets before us in his word. Just as men die, so Jesus died. Just as men come to judgment, so Jesus will come to the judgment. But there is an infinite difference here that ought to make our hearts sing out in praise and thanksgiving.
Compare Jesus' experience with our experience and we will discover that though he has similar experiences, they do not parallel our experiences, they transform our experience!
First, Jesus died: “having been offered”. This is good news! We know from the previous verses in this chapter that Someone had to die in order for God's "last will and testament," his covenant with us to be put into effect. Jesus died and all the good that God intends for his heirs to inherit is now available to them.
Verse 28 also tells us that Jesus died once to bear the sins of many. This is also good news. Jesus death to bear the sins of many means that for those who put their trust in him, their death is no longer punitive. He took our sins and suffered the death our sins deserve. Through faith in Jesus we can send our sins on ahead for judgment in him, so that when we arrive at judgment through the doorway of death, we can enter without fear for our sins will already have been judged in Christ on the cross. Christ has transformed death from an occasion of dread to an occasion of joy! This is how we can get right with God in spite of being sinners. Christ took our punishment in his death on the cross.
Verse 28 also tells us that Jesus appears a second time, not to deal with sin, but to rescue sinners who by faith have trusted him for their salvation, not to be judged but to save those who are eagerly waiting. He has dealt with sin once and for all. There is nothing left for him to do in regard to sin. We need to confess our sin to God and trust him to forgive us through Christ, but there is nothing left for Jesus to do to make forgiveness available. He is done dealing with sin. His work cannot be improved upon.
But there is more here. We had to face death, and so Jesus faced death and bore the punishment of death for us. But we also have to face judgment, so Christ comes a second time for us, this time not to deal with sin but to save us from judgment. He will appear a second time not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” This is not salvation in addition to the cross but the application of the salvation gained through the cross. This is the fulfilment of God’s word in Romans 5:9-10. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
Finally we need to ask to whom does this rescue from the wrath of God come? According to verse 28 Jesus bore the sins of “many.” Those “many” are further identified as “those who are eagerly waiting for him.” Those who are eagerly waiting are those who putting their faith in Jesus deeply long for his return, for their rescue from this world and their establishment in his kingdom forever.
This is how “those who are eagerly waiting for him” are described elsewhere in the New Testament:
Romans 8:23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
1 Corinthians 1:7 so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Galatians 5:5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.
Philippians 3:20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
These people have faith that is eager for Christ to come, earnest in their desire for him and for his return. These are people who trust Christ in such a way that makes them eager for him to come. Many people who profess Christ today are not eager for his return. They love the world and the things of this world and they are reluctant to release their grip on the temporal pleasures this world extends. Many who profess Christ are quite happy with the delay in his return and rarely if ever pray, “Even so, Lord, come quickly.”
Eagerness for Christ’s return is an indication, a sign that we love him and believe in him authentically. Can there be any real love for someone whose presence we do not desire? There is a “phony faith,” a false faith that wants to escape hell but has no desire for Jesus. That kind of faith does not save. That kind of “fire insurance faith” that desires deliverance but not the Deliverer is not the faith of those who are saved, those who are “eagerly waiting for him.”
Paul wrote, in 2 Timothy 4:8, “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” Do you wait eagerly for Jesus to come? Do you love his appearing?
I urge you this morning, as one who share with you an appointment with death, turn to Jesus. Trust him. Trust God to forgive your sins on his behalf. Turn to him as your eagerly awaited Savior.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Come, All You Worn Out, Weary Laborers
Who knows for certain where dreams come from or why they have the content they have? I sure don't (even though I suspect pan fried tilapia coated with flour and Emeril's Original Essence at 9:00 PM could have something to do with it.) Last night I had the stupidest dream. I don't remember it, I just remember how dumb it was, silly, nonsensical.
I've been having a lot of dreams like that lately. I wake up early, between 4 and 5 o'clock not really remembering the details, just a lingering impression that these dreams made less sense than a prime time comedy sitcom. They have had two good side effects though. They're waking me up early and each time I've awakened from one in the last week or so (so far), I've awakened with a specific Scripture in mind that I have not been thinking about previously.
This morning's verses were Matthew 11:28-30. Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, andyou will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Some mornings I've gotten up and spent a couple hours pondering the verses. This morning I stayed in bed and laid there thinking. I have stopped wondering, "Why this verse?" and have started focusing on the content of these words themselves.
It is interesting to me that Jesus' words here are both an invitation and a command. So often we interpret invitations as having a built in rejection button, kind of like the end user license agreements on software packages: if you don't agree simply click "decline" and you have no further obligation. Jesus' words don't seem to carry an "if." Come! he says. Yes, you are welcome to get off your duff and get moving. You're weary. You're burdened. Make a bit more effort and do something about it. Come.
But how? That's the question I always ask. When Jesus is speaking to the people who surrounded him, they could make arrangements, pack their bags and take a walk with him. He was right there for them to see and touch and follow. How do I come to him now, when he's in heaven, invisible, not physically here? I'm weary. It's hard to keep the faith sometimes. But how do I come to Jesus now?
It's probably the preacher in me, but I think there are three ways plus one we come to Jesus. I think three happen simultaneously and one rightly follows the others, but I also think we can talk about them separately.
First, we come to Jesus by faith. Hebrews 11:6 says, "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."
I saw a PowerPoint presentation the other night that included slides of people praying at a Shinto shrine in Japan. The presenter said that those who are there praying have no idea if there is anyone out there hearing,and they have little expectation to receive anything in relation to their prayer. Praying is merely ritual that must be followed. No faith is involved. How different is our relationship with Almighty God who sent His Son to die on the cross for us, so that by faith in him we may be certain that our prayers are heard and will be answered. We approach God in faith, certain of what we do not see, certain that he exists, that his "eyes are upon the righteous and his ear is inclined to their prayer."
We come to God in faith. We also come to God in humility, leaving false pride at the door. God "rewards those who earnestly seek him." I find it hard to understand Christians who think that acknowledging God's goodness and his promises to them is sin. These are Christians who proudly decline to ask God for his blessing because to ask anything for themselves is "prideful." Brethren, to refuse to open our hearts and lives to all God has to offer his children is to present ourselves as knowing better than God, being more humble than God, more righteous than God. Is our refusal to accept what God so graciously offers not a greater expression of pride than opening our hands and hearts and receiving with thanksgiving what is so lovingly offered? This preference for "my duty to obey" over God's delight in giving to us is surely not less than sin.
God rewards those who "earnestly seek him" with himself. He gives his Spirit to us. The Spirit of God invests in God's people the full measure of God's life and grace and goodness and compassion. The power that enabled Jesus' sinless life, the authoritative teaching, the miracles, the devotion, the obedience, these all come through the Holy Spirit who is himself given by God to those who earnestly seek God as an act of faith. Come to Jesus by faith, find Jesus by faith.
As we come to Jesus by faith we will also be coming to him in obedience. Come is a command. So are "take up" and "learn." To take his yoke is to join him in relationship and mission. To learn of him is to invest our time and energy in discovery of his person. I remember my first real date with my wife. We went on a harbor cruise in Norfolk, VA. I asked question after question trying to discover whatever I could about her (including what I would need to know to get a second date!) In our conversation, I asked questions and I waited for answers. I probed her answers with more questions. I couldn't get enough of her and the insights she was giving into her heart.
Learning Jesus is not so drastically different. We learn him through the word, through prayer, and through service. The Bible gives us the concepts about Jesus. Prayer provides the personal conviction that what we have learned is true. Service / ministry demonstrates our consecration to the One we have learned the truth about, the One who is True.
Faith and obedience should create expectation, the third way we come to Jesus. he described his "yoke" as easy and his "burden" as light. We should expect that our experience will conform to his revelation. We come to Jesus expecting him to make it easy to know him, easy to love him, easy to relate to him. If we come some other way, without this expectation, or with a different expectation, then we are approaching on our terms rather than his and are not really "coming" to him at all.
That's three ways we come to Jesus. The "plus one" is praise. Jesus opens this invitation to come to him with a prayer of praise to God. I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and have revealed them to little children. Praise God for opening the way for us to "come to Jesus" and find rest, and for making it so simple, a child can do it.
Alright, all you worn out, weary laborers. Come to Jesus in faith, in obedience, in expectation and with praise. Simple. Come.
I've been having a lot of dreams like that lately. I wake up early, between 4 and 5 o'clock not really remembering the details, just a lingering impression that these dreams made less sense than a prime time comedy sitcom. They have had two good side effects though. They're waking me up early and each time I've awakened from one in the last week or so (so far), I've awakened with a specific Scripture in mind that I have not been thinking about previously.
This morning's verses were Matthew 11:28-30. Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, andyou will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Some mornings I've gotten up and spent a couple hours pondering the verses. This morning I stayed in bed and laid there thinking. I have stopped wondering, "Why this verse?" and have started focusing on the content of these words themselves.
It is interesting to me that Jesus' words here are both an invitation and a command. So often we interpret invitations as having a built in rejection button, kind of like the end user license agreements on software packages: if you don't agree simply click "decline" and you have no further obligation. Jesus' words don't seem to carry an "if." Come! he says. Yes, you are welcome to get off your duff and get moving. You're weary. You're burdened. Make a bit more effort and do something about it. Come.
But how? That's the question I always ask. When Jesus is speaking to the people who surrounded him, they could make arrangements, pack their bags and take a walk with him. He was right there for them to see and touch and follow. How do I come to him now, when he's in heaven, invisible, not physically here? I'm weary. It's hard to keep the faith sometimes. But how do I come to Jesus now?
It's probably the preacher in me, but I think there are three ways plus one we come to Jesus. I think three happen simultaneously and one rightly follows the others, but I also think we can talk about them separately.
First, we come to Jesus by faith. Hebrews 11:6 says, "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."
I saw a PowerPoint presentation the other night that included slides of people praying at a Shinto shrine in Japan. The presenter said that those who are there praying have no idea if there is anyone out there hearing,and they have little expectation to receive anything in relation to their prayer. Praying is merely ritual that must be followed. No faith is involved. How different is our relationship with Almighty God who sent His Son to die on the cross for us, so that by faith in him we may be certain that our prayers are heard and will be answered. We approach God in faith, certain of what we do not see, certain that he exists, that his "eyes are upon the righteous and his ear is inclined to their prayer."
We come to God in faith. We also come to God in humility, leaving false pride at the door. God "rewards those who earnestly seek him." I find it hard to understand Christians who think that acknowledging God's goodness and his promises to them is sin. These are Christians who proudly decline to ask God for his blessing because to ask anything for themselves is "prideful." Brethren, to refuse to open our hearts and lives to all God has to offer his children is to present ourselves as knowing better than God, being more humble than God, more righteous than God. Is our refusal to accept what God so graciously offers not a greater expression of pride than opening our hands and hearts and receiving with thanksgiving what is so lovingly offered? This preference for "my duty to obey" over God's delight in giving to us is surely not less than sin.
God rewards those who "earnestly seek him" with himself. He gives his Spirit to us. The Spirit of God invests in God's people the full measure of God's life and grace and goodness and compassion. The power that enabled Jesus' sinless life, the authoritative teaching, the miracles, the devotion, the obedience, these all come through the Holy Spirit who is himself given by God to those who earnestly seek God as an act of faith. Come to Jesus by faith, find Jesus by faith.
As we come to Jesus by faith we will also be coming to him in obedience. Come is a command. So are "take up" and "learn." To take his yoke is to join him in relationship and mission. To learn of him is to invest our time and energy in discovery of his person. I remember my first real date with my wife. We went on a harbor cruise in Norfolk, VA. I asked question after question trying to discover whatever I could about her (including what I would need to know to get a second date!) In our conversation, I asked questions and I waited for answers. I probed her answers with more questions. I couldn't get enough of her and the insights she was giving into her heart.
Learning Jesus is not so drastically different. We learn him through the word, through prayer, and through service. The Bible gives us the concepts about Jesus. Prayer provides the personal conviction that what we have learned is true. Service / ministry demonstrates our consecration to the One we have learned the truth about, the One who is True.
Faith and obedience should create expectation, the third way we come to Jesus. he described his "yoke" as easy and his "burden" as light. We should expect that our experience will conform to his revelation. We come to Jesus expecting him to make it easy to know him, easy to love him, easy to relate to him. If we come some other way, without this expectation, or with a different expectation, then we are approaching on our terms rather than his and are not really "coming" to him at all.
That's three ways we come to Jesus. The "plus one" is praise. Jesus opens this invitation to come to him with a prayer of praise to God. I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and have revealed them to little children. Praise God for opening the way for us to "come to Jesus" and find rest, and for making it so simple, a child can do it.
Alright, all you worn out, weary laborers. Come to Jesus in faith, in obedience, in expectation and with praise. Simple. Come.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Labor Day seemed as good a day as any to begin the landscaping around the new building. We've been talking about it, planning for it, envisioning what it would all look like. Finally we had a day when we could concentrate on working the plan and digging the holes.
First we gathered tools. Then we gathered the shrubs and got them onto the truck , moved, and unloaded at the church. Then we went back and loaded mulch, which we also unloaded at the church. Then we went and picked up, by hand, several hundred pounds of rock for the border. I decided not to unload that until we were ready to use it. Then it was time to take the machine and dig the holes.
The first hole was not so bad. We planted a Russian Olive in memory of Linnie Quarles. The second hole posed no problem. We planted another Russian Olive. The third hole went smoothly as well. In went a Pagoda Dogwood. (That's going to be a beautiful tree.) Then came "the fourth hole."
The tines of the scoop bit into the packed dirt of the gravel parking lot. We had already anchored the backhoe by dropping the bucket and the stabilizer legs. The scoop began it's short journey from starting position to full. It moved four inches out of the expected twenty-four and stopped. The hydraulically powered, mini-mammoth, stopped in mid-scoop. We were digging in Cook County. We found a rock.
What a rock it must have been. The teeth on the end of the bucket hooked on and brought the entire backhoe six inches closer to the hole. The rock didn't budge. Tried again. Once again the backhoe, heavier and anchored, moved but the rock didn't. I envisioned a boulder the size of Massachusetts, or that perhaps we'd tied into bedrock and were pulling against the entire North American continent.
We took a different approach and after some artsy maneuvering managed to get the scoop under the rock and lift it free. It was about fourteen inches long, four inches tall, and six inches wide. (Think four Subway sandwiches stacked two abreast and two high.) It probably weighed ten pounds. The backhoe is twenty feet long, eight feet tall, and weighs a ton. But the rock moved the backhoe before the backhoe could move the rock.
A well entrenched sin, a long standing destructive habit, a deeply rooted lie, these things aren't removed easily from the heart. Like a small stone in a densely packed parking lot, they take extreme force to remove. What force moves these "rocks" lodged in the heart? God's loving grace applied through the death of his Son, Jesus.
Take the lie that many of us buy into: "You're no good. There's no way God could love you." It worms its way deep into the heart, affecting spiritual, emotional, psychological, and even intellectual development. We learn to live in the context of this lie. We build our lives, in one way or another, as an attempt to negate its effect. Words don't dislodge it. Self-effort doesn't remove it, but instead draw us only closer to the abyss of despair. We need more.
So God sent Jesus to die on the cross to show us undeniably that he loves us, to dislodge the lie from our hearts. God's love, demonstrated, proven, in the death of his Son, gets under the lie and provides the spiritual force necessary to remove the lie. His love is the force. Your faith is the machine that applies the force.
First we gathered tools. Then we gathered the shrubs and got them onto the truck , moved, and unloaded at the church. Then we went back and loaded mulch, which we also unloaded at the church. Then we went and picked up, by hand, several hundred pounds of rock for the border. I decided not to unload that until we were ready to use it. Then it was time to take the machine and dig the holes.
The first hole was not so bad. We planted a Russian Olive in memory of Linnie Quarles. The second hole posed no problem. We planted another Russian Olive. The third hole went smoothly as well. In went a Pagoda Dogwood. (That's going to be a beautiful tree.) Then came "the fourth hole."
The tines of the scoop bit into the packed dirt of the gravel parking lot. We had already anchored the backhoe by dropping the bucket and the stabilizer legs. The scoop began it's short journey from starting position to full. It moved four inches out of the expected twenty-four and stopped. The hydraulically powered, mini-mammoth, stopped in mid-scoop. We were digging in Cook County. We found a rock.
What a rock it must have been. The teeth on the end of the bucket hooked on and brought the entire backhoe six inches closer to the hole. The rock didn't budge. Tried again. Once again the backhoe, heavier and anchored, moved but the rock didn't. I envisioned a boulder the size of Massachusetts, or that perhaps we'd tied into bedrock and were pulling against the entire North American continent.
We took a different approach and after some artsy maneuvering managed to get the scoop under the rock and lift it free. It was about fourteen inches long, four inches tall, and six inches wide. (Think four Subway sandwiches stacked two abreast and two high.) It probably weighed ten pounds. The backhoe is twenty feet long, eight feet tall, and weighs a ton. But the rock moved the backhoe before the backhoe could move the rock.
A well entrenched sin, a long standing destructive habit, a deeply rooted lie, these things aren't removed easily from the heart. Like a small stone in a densely packed parking lot, they take extreme force to remove. What force moves these "rocks" lodged in the heart? God's loving grace applied through the death of his Son, Jesus.
Take the lie that many of us buy into: "You're no good. There's no way God could love you." It worms its way deep into the heart, affecting spiritual, emotional, psychological, and even intellectual development. We learn to live in the context of this lie. We build our lives, in one way or another, as an attempt to negate its effect. Words don't dislodge it. Self-effort doesn't remove it, but instead draw us only closer to the abyss of despair. We need more.
So God sent Jesus to die on the cross to show us undeniably that he loves us, to dislodge the lie from our hearts. God's love, demonstrated, proven, in the death of his Son, gets under the lie and provides the spiritual force necessary to remove the lie. His love is the force. Your faith is the machine that applies the force.
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