For Heaven’s Sake
For Heaven’s Sake - Sing by Pastor Tim
Soul Food: Abiding Savior Lutheran Killeen, TX
July 2024
“I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you” (Psalm 22:22).
Jesus sang. Friend, if for no other reason you too want to put a song in your heart and sing. After all, Jesus sang.
Some time ago I thought I was helping one of our granddaughters sing with Elsa of Disney’s Frozen “Let it go!” “Let it go. Let it go-o-o-o-o-o-o-! I can’t hold back anymore.” Apparently, this sweet girl felt I could hold back. A small hand was placed on my arm and with pitied eyes she said, “Poppa Tim maybe let’s just let Elsa sing it by herself, okay?” Olaf has a tin ear too, so I don’t feel so alone.
Maybe you struggle to carry a tune with the rest of us Olafs, but God still made your soul for song. Few things, at the right time refresh our spirits like God’s truth or heaven’s praise put to song. So, for heaven’s sake - sing. Hum a hymn. Make your weapon a melody against Satan. Scripture brims with God’s call for his people to sing his praises and for many reasons. But here to me is a motivator for putting God’s truth to music I have often missed:
SING AS JESUS SANG FOR HOPEFUL TRIUMPH EVEN IN SUFFERING
Have you ever sung because Jesus sang? And sang even in suffering with a hope filled heart? Dallas Willard loved to say, “By his grace, be as Jesus was and then do as Jesus did.” Jesus lived a perfect life for us. His innocent death and glorious resurrection assure us our sins are forgiven. Heaven now is our home. A God-given faith through the Word of God worked in our hearts by the Spirit assures us of these treasures. And while Jesus was winning salvation for us on the cross through ignominy and shame he sang in hopeful triumph. The prophet David gave his distant royal Son the script for the darkness of his deepest suffering.
My God, my God, have you forsaken me? … But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. …Strong Bulls of Bashan encircle me. … My mouth is dried up like a potsherd. … They divide my clothes among them …” (Assorted verses of Psalm 22).
However, this Psalm or script does not end in disaster. A turning point occurs as unexpectedly as a resurrection from the grave. Leith Anderson likes to imagine hearing swelling trumpets, booming trombones, and a fanfare for four timpani and then this:
“I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you” (Psalm 22:22).
If all the broken-hearted words before this verse in Psalm 22 made up the prayer of Christ on the cross - and they did - then verse 22 and those following are the lyrics of his praise for his finished work. Theologians much smarter than me suggest Jesus literally says these words out loud on the cross. Wait. No, “says” is not a strong enough word, is it? For heaven’s sake Jesus sang those words Psalm 22. This would be like our Jesus, wouldn’t it? And the Psalms were meant to be sung.
“I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you” (Psalm 22:22).
As saints we love to sing “Holy, holy, holy!” Recently the MLC Choir did a stirring version of Andrew Peterson’s He Is Worthy entitled Is He Worthy? (You do yourself a favor by giving both a listen on YouTube). Who doesn’t love to thrill to the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah?” But friend, this is the Savior’s hope filled song sung in despair by the Savior himself. Hebrews 2 takes up this verse to reinforce that when all is said and done, Christ will sing to the Father with us, his family in heaven.
“Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. 12 - He says, ‘I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters; in the assembly I will sing your praises’” (Hebrews 2:11, 12).
You see it, right? Verse 12 is a quote of Psalm 22:22. “I will sing your praises.” It is as if Jesus will be the soloist and we’re his back up choir. Can you see him signaling us when to come in? Yes, even us Olafs! “You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel” (Psalm 22:23).
Perhaps in heaven our loved ones gone home in the Lord are already gathered in his presence and have often taken up this song with his angelic creatures. But the concert won’t be complete until we are all finally gathered around his throne to hear these words of victory sung from God’s triumphant suffering servant. And make no mistake about it, by faith in Jesus as your Savior from sin one day you will be there soon.
A choir director once called me a “prison singer.” You may have heard that before. I hadn’t. What is a “prison singer?” I was informed that a “prison singer” is always behind a few bars and has lost the key. Olaf, prison singer, tin ear, depressed, downtrodden what is it or what will it be for you? For heaven’s sake, my friend sing. Sing Scriptural truth, words of adoration to a God who loves you. Sing as Jesus sang for, we have a hope no suffering and not even death can take away in a suffering Savior who took our sin away and gifted us paradise forever. Now, don’t you feel like singing?
Avoiding Solomon’s Seduction
February 2023 / Crisis Leadership - Lesson #1
“Praise be to the LORD your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on his throne as king to rule for the LORD your God. Because of the love of your God for Israel and his desire to uphold them forever, he has made you king over them, to maintain justice and righteousness” (2 Chronicles 9:8a).
Tick…tick…tick…tick.
When the queen of Sheba hit town she was stunned by what she saw politically and personally. Jerusalem under Solomon’s reign burst before her, like a platter of treats being served up by a waiter. “WOW!” was the only word for Old Jedidiah’s military, economic, and spiritual leadership. “GINORMOUS!” was the only word for his personal worth and influence. Solomon had asked for wisdom. God gave in spades. And Solomon was successful and then some.
Are not those the characteristics we want others to see in us? …in our sphere of leadership corporately or individually? “That guy there - he is a success at work.” “That lady. See her. She’s indispensable to the team. Her efforts strengthen the company and position it for the future.” And in our personal life, we want others at times to take note of our income, net-worth, family, and influence. Not necessarily in a full blown hedonistic manner, but we all want to be seen as difference makers. People who got in the game. Players successful for family and self.
Tick…tick…tick…tick.
But what was NOT SEEN by others was an attitude in Solomon’s heart. “Solomon brought Pharaoh’s daughter up from the City of David to the palace he had built for her, for he said, ‘My wife must not live in the palace of David king of Israel, because the places the ark of the LORD has entered are holy’” (2 Chronicles 8:11). Sadly, just one verse shows the beginning of the end for Solomon. Against God’s will Solomon takes more than one wife, marrying the princess of Egypt. In the midst of this sin he does rightly admit that because she has no faith in God it would not be right to have her live in the presence of the ark where one is to have a right relationship with God trusting in him as LORD and Savior. He builds her a palace of her own.
But then, as so often happens over time, he doesn’t follow through with the courage to teach her the truth about the LORD. He fails to hold to his convictions about the one true God. Rather he begins to worship not only the false gods of Egypt but later the other false gods of the 700 wives and 300 concubines he takes as his own (Some question his status of wisest to ever live on this basis alone!).
Tick…tick…tick…tick.
Slowly, imperceptibly, the seduction of Solomon takes place until we read: “As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. 5 - He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. 6 - So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done” (1 Kings 11:4-8). In the midst of all the outstanding things Solomon had going for him, he allowed one area of his life to stand “outside his commitment to God.” In his relationship with his many wives he compromised both his morality and conviction for the one true God and tick…tick…tick…tick, as far as we know, went off.
Amazing. All we have to do is choose to leave one area of our life outside of God’s control, one area to be un-yielded to him and it so easily becomes over time a fatal flaw. A disaster waiting to happen. A ticking time bomb. If in quiet moments you can hear the tick…tick…tick…tick in your soul, please, don’t wait any longer. Defuse it through God-honoring repentance. God through Paul implores, “Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God” (2 Corinthians 7:1).
What promises? That in Christ irrespective of what you have done you are never beyond forgiveness. That the penalty of your sin was placed on Christ on the cross. Your past is past. You don’t have to earn your way back to God. You are forgiven. Every day in Jesus is a genesis day. His mercies are new every morning and now thanks to the love of Jesus you have a new zeal to love him anew. Now tick…tick…tick…tick is replaced with the daily lub…dub…dub….dub of the heart of the gospel in Christ.
A Killeen man had a fine canary whose song was unusually beautiful. During the summer, it seemed a shame to keep this Mariah Carey of a canary inside the house all the time. So he placed the cage in a nearby tree off the front porch for the bird to enjoy the fresh air.
Many sparrows frequented this tree and were attracted to the cage. At first the canary was frightened, but soon enjoyed her companions. But gradually and almost imperceptibly she lost the sweetness of her song. By the end of the summer her “singing” was little more than the twitter of sparrows. Unaware of the effect of her surroundings on her she lost the conviction to sing uniquely and beautifully as God had gifted her to do.
Lub…dub…dub…dub.
It’s the heart of the love of the gospel. Hear it often in his Word and Sacraments and keep singing for him as he has uniquely gifted you to. This is good leadership in a culture of crisis.
Listening to and loving Jesus with you,
Pastor Tim
Better Than Instructions
Better Than Instructions by Pastor Tim
Soul Food: Abiding Savior Lutheran Killeen, TX
December 2022
“But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 - to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to son-ship” (Galatians 4:4, 5).
Pastor Clifford Stewart of Louisville, Kentucky, sent his parents a microwave oven one Christmas. Here’s how he recalls the experience:
“They were excited that now they, too, could be a part of the instant generation. When dad unpacked the microwave and plugged it in, literally within seconds, the microwave transformed two smiles into frowns. Even after reading the owner's manual instructions written by and for nuclear physicists they couldn’t make it work. Two days later, my mother was playing sheepshead with friends and confessed her inability to get that microwave oven to even boil water. ‘To get the stupid thing to work,’ she exclaimed, ‘I really don't need better instructions; I just needed my son to come along with the gift!’”
That first cold Christmas aren’t you glad God gave you the gift of his Son wrapped in flesh rather than more religious instructions?! And at the exact ideal time as well? ‘When the time had come God sent his Son…” (Galatians 4:4a). God gave you his Son at just the right period in human history so we all could become sons instead of slaves. And to everyone who trusts what Christ has done for them, he says, “You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests freely.” The people Paul loved at Galatia desperately needed this reminder.
You see, Paul penned his Christmas card of Galatians 4:4-5 in part to help Gentile Galatians recall that formerly they had not known the true God. They were enslaved to demons, who exercised their power through religious practices. “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods” (Galatians 4:8). The danger they were facing now as new Christians in Galatia was that they might turn back and become enslaved again after having tasted the freedom of Christ. Listen to verse 9: “But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits, whose slaves you want to be once more (Galatians 4:9)?”
How would such an enslavement happen? Well, they were being duped into living a faith plus works equals God’s merit kind of Christianity. Judaizers were teaching them to use the law of God as a divine job description to help demonstrate their moral accomplishment to God in the hope of obtaining the wages of his favor. “You are observing special days and months and seasons and years” (Galatians 4:10)!
Religious instructions on keeping Passover, the Sabbath, and New Moons would microwave an acceptable Christianity to Christ. The result? Pride, frustration, and over time a ship wrecked faith. So Paul points them and us back to Christmas - Christ the Creator with a heart is born among us of a woman, under the conditions of the law to redeem us from being kidnapped by a performance bondage that says I somehow earn God’s love by what I do. But do we really need this reminder as Christians today at Christmas?
Honestly, we all long for what the Galatians longed for, don’t we? They wanted to be able to stand confidently before God knowing that they had been approved and accepted. We long to know that we are okay, that we are loved, that our lives count, that they are more than waves on a beach that are there and then gone with nothing left to show for them. And everybody drifts toward self-justification, perhaps especially at Christmas. Remember this classic Christmas card penned for Santa Claus by a 7 year old Norman:
“Dear Santa, there are three little boys who live at our house. There is Jeffrey; he is 2. There is David; he is 4. And there is Norman; he is 7. Jeffrey is good some of the time. David is good some of the time. But Norman is good all of the time. I am Norman.”
We all fancy ourselves at times to be Normans but “good all the time” is not who we are and no amount of keeping religious instructions will make us good. No, we need a Savior and a Savior is what we got in Bethlehem long ago to transform us from slaves to sons. What a gift.
So this Christmas put away the list of how you intend to earn God’s good grace by not being naughty or by being nice and relish a Savior in Christ who has saved you, even adopted you. Whether you have earthly family with you this Christmas or not you are in his family. You are a true child of God, yes, you. And because Jesus became one of us, kept the law perfectly, and took our curse for our violations of the law we now have forgiveness, heaven, and all the right motivation ever needed to want to love him back. One poet put it like this. May his words be your “Put to Memory at Christmas Live in the New Year Challenge.” Jesus see to this.
“To see the law by Christ fulfilled and hear his pardoning voice; Transforms a slave into a child and duty into choice.”
A Promise Driven Life
A Promise Driven Life by Pastor Tim
“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ 19 - Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead - since he was about a hundred years old - and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20 - Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,” (Romans 4:18-20).
“Hudson Taylor, the pioneer missionary to Inland China wrote: “In the greatest difficulties, in the heaviest trials, in the deepest poverty and necessities, God has never failed me: the financial balance for the entire China Inland Mission yesterday was twenty-five cents. Praise the Lord! Twenty-five cents…plus all the promises of God.”
There is great value to living a purpose driven life for Jesus but what does a promise driven life in Jesus look like? Well, in Genesis Moses devoted more than a dozen chapters to Abraham. In part, because the way the LORD dealt with Abraham is the way he deals with every sinner. God, in his grace, deals with us not in terms of demand but primarily in terms of promise.
The Savior God graciously invited first Abram and then Abraham to trust in him as the One who makes the impossible possible. Never perfectly but eventually faithfully, against all hope, Abraham learned to declare in life: “Praise the LORD! Twenty-five cents…plus the promises of God.” Paul punches for us aspects of how God led Abraham to lean hard on the promises of God in Romans 4:18-20.
HE RELIED ON GOD’S WORD: Think of how desperately we want to be able to take people at their word. If someone, anyone, is true to their word and they give you a promise, they offer an island of certainty in a future sea of uncertainty. For example, let’s say you promise to send me a $20 check by mail for this blog post (Pastor Timothy Soukup 212 Briar Croft Lane Killeen, TX 76542 - for those who want to make the illustration come alive!).
A lot can happen from now until I receive your $20 check that I cannot count on. However, this I know for sure if I rely on your word. Come rain, sleet, snow, another pandemic, another, hurricane, another Chicago Bear Super Bowl victory, an end to the Russian/Ukraine conflict, and or I lose 15 pounds - one day because you kept your word a $20 dollar check from you will be mine. There is a word for what that gives me. “Hope!”
“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations” (Romans 4:18). Abraham was one hundred years old and Sarah, his wife, ninety. She was as fruitful as a pitted prune and Abraham’s virility is described this way in the book of Hebrews: “And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore” (Hebrews 11:12). Death on a cracker. Yet Abraham relied on God’s Word and Sarah and friends had a baby shower.
In what area of life are you struggling in simply because you are not relying on a Word from God to help you? Find a promise from God that fits your struggle and live in the good of it. After all, all of God’s promises are “Yes” in Christ.
FINALLY, HE DREW STRENGTH FROM GOD: 19 - Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead - since he was about a hundred years old - and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20 - Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,” (Romans 4:19-20).
God taught Abraham that he needed confidence not just in the promises but in the Promisor! Remember? He even tested him to see if he loved his Isaac more than him. And after God provided the ram in place of his boy Abraham named the mountain Jehovah-Jireh - meaning “the LORD sees to it just right.”
Abraham learned that to rely on God he couldn’t look at the facts, or his own fortitude but the faithfulness of God who had promised to send a Messiah and make him the father of all believers. Having been strengthened then from God in his life he gave him the glory.
Go through the dozen chapters on Abraham in Genesis some time. You will notice that when Abraham is building his altar to the LORD or fresh from it he is humbly bold and courageous. But when he neglects God, as we so often do, he is anything but a model of faith from a fibbing tongue that dishonors God and endangers his wife to a relational disaster he creates with his handmaiden Hagar.
Are you strengthening your faith through the means of grace? Brush up against the body and blood of the Lord often in Holy Communion for the forgiveness of sins and the strengthening of your faith. Hear good gospel preaching that puts God’s truth in your head and heart. For as David declared, “The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7).
Mark Twain said, “Better a broken promise than none at all.” With mankind sarcasm like that sings true but not with “God who is not a man that he should lie” (Numbers 23:19). No my friend, no matter what your station in life in Christ you can say with Hudson Taylor, “Praise the Lord! Twenty-five cents…plus all the promises of God.”
Sheep vs. Wolves
“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16).
In the NFL we have the Lions, the Bengals, the Bears, and the Rams - but not the Gerbils or the Sheep. Something muscular, feisty, and intimidating comes to mind with the first four. They give you pause - command a certain respect. But an NFL team named the Gerbils or the Sheep would only invite scorn and laughter. It just doesn’t fit, right? Although, admittedly, the Chicago Sheep is sounding more and more fitting the further we get from 1985. Da Sheep!
People in Jesus’ day weren’t into professional football but they had an aggressive side. Imposing their will like a lion or tiger on weaker ones came as naturally as it does to us. They knew the difference between being dominated and dominating, as the Romans made all too clear. So imagine the look on the faces of Christ’s disciples when he sends them out to share the gospel for the first time with this charge: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.”
Normally, when a leader gives encouragement, like a coach before a game or a boss before a sales force, they’ll be inspirational. “Win one for the gipper!” “Let’s go.” With Jesus it’s a different kind of talk. After doing some amazing miracles Jesus tells them, “I want you to go proclaim the message of sins forgiven in me. Preach, heal, and drive out demons. Then he summarizes his general strategy. “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.”
“Really, Jesus? This is the plan?!” By the way, what generally happens to a sheep when it just ambles over to a pack of bloodlust wolves? It’s not good news for the sheep, friends. And Jesus goes on to say, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body…” (Matthew 10:28). In other words, what’s the worst thing they can do to you? Kill you. Don’t worry about that. That’s not a problem. This seems like a strange way to encourage outreach, doesn’t it?
Let’s make this personal. How can you gain missional velocity from these words of Christ? After all, as a Christ-follower you are part of this movement to lead others into a transformational relationship with Jesus. Christ has commissioned you, yes you, with the gospel to move people from darkness to light that they flourish and live forever saved by faith in Jesus upon death. It’s sheep vs. wolves and you’re a sheep. How might you be a bold one?
A. FIND THE DIFFERENCE IN “I AM SENDING YOU.” The secret of faithful witnessing is not found in the extraordinary abilities of those who are sent, but rather in the sovereign authority in the one who sends. Without his sending the twelve would have never set out. And without the assurance, “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39), the sheep would have never taken the field.
But they did. And they even believed that when arrested the one sending would give them the words to speak “for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Matthew 10:20). And so what was the final score when they returned? Sheep 12 Wolves 0. When is the last time you were so captivated by the sovereign might and mercy of the one who sent you that you just had to “baah” a bit about the gospel as a sheep before a wolf?
B. THINK ALERT VULNERABILITY. Sheep not only are defenseless but they are famously stupid. Lassie, Flipper, and Trigger were all famous smart animals. Quick, name a famous smart sheep. Shari Lewis’s Lamb Chop, maybe, but even that was a puppet. No, sheep are very slow upstairs. You will look this way when you walk toward wolves to witness. But Jesus can’t mean we are to be dumb in our efforts to represent him because he follows the “go be sheep” charge by saying, “Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16).
Snakes are shrewd. When you uncover them they are usually quick to hide. Serpents are full time censor machines. They also carefully calculate any strike. So vulnerability not stupidity is the point of Jesus calling us sheep. Be like snakes, when it comes to witnessing not like dumb sheep. Go among wolves and be vulnerable like sheep as you share the gospel, but when they lunge at you, step aside. When they open their mouths, don’t jump in. And not only that, be as innocent as doves. That is, don’t give them any legitimate reason to accuse you of injustice or immorality. Keep clean. But risk your lives as vulnerable, sheep-like, shrewdly alert witnesses.
Before going to Europe on business, a man drove his Rolls-Royce to a downtown New York City bank and went in to ask for an immediate loan of $5,000. The loan officer, taken aback, requested collateral. The man replied, “Well then, here are the keys to my Rolls-Royce.”
The loan officer promptly had the car driven into the bank’s underground parking for safe-keeping and gave him $5,000.
Two weeks later, the man walked through the bank’s doors and asked to settle up his loan and get his car back. “That will be $5,000 in principal, and $15.40 in interest,” the loan officer said. The man wrote out a check, got up, and started to walk away. “Wait sir,” the loan officer said. “While you were gone, I found out you’re a millionaire. Why in the world would you need to borrow $5,000?” The man smiled. “Where else could I safely park my Rolls-Royce in Manhattan for two weeks and only pay $15.40?”
Vulnerable. Shrewd. Innocent. Many a person saves or makes money with these. Christ’s charge to his sheep? Use these to make disciples - among wolves. Jesus see to this in your life and mine.
All Dressed Up and Somewhere To Go
“For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:27).
“All dressed up and nowhere to go” was first thrust upon the unsuspecting public by an eccentric female character in “The Girl of My Dreams,” one of the prettiest, cleanest little operas of the 1910 vaudeville season. Quick as a hiccup the phrase was everywhere. Prepared for an event or project that never materialized? You were, “all dressed up and nowhere to go!” Cinderella, of course, had the opposite problem - all ready to go but nothing to wear.
Israel’s high priest had neither problem. He was given strict and intricate instructions about the clothing he had to wear whenever he went about his priestly duties. All dressed up with a purpose to show and a place to go - before God’s people. The priests were “set apart from the common people” so all would know they minister before the LORD (Exodus 28:1). Their sacred vestments symbolized the glory and beauty of God, added dignity to their work, and revealed their consecration to the LORD himself” (Exodus 28:2).
Even today, if you see an NYPD officer in uniform on one of those big bay mares in Central Park it communicates a message, doesn’t it? A higher authority represented with dignity. So, it was with the LORD’s regiment of men serving his people as priests. There was to be no mistake about Aaron’s identity or the dignity of his office. He was God’s man, and his appearance and conduct were to reflect his unique status as one who represented man to God and God to man.
But what exactly did the resplendent high priest communicate about the LORD beyond a holy glory? Well, the ephod (28:6) and the chest piece (28:15) bore precious gemstones on which were engraved the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. As the high priest, uniquely dressed for
the occasion, entered the presence of the LORD in the Most Holy Place, the LORD was “reminded” (28:9) of his people. Inside, the chest piece was placed two mysterious objects call Urim and Thumim that were “used to determine the LORD’s will for his people” (28:30).
Did God need a reminder of the needs of his people? Ah, no, but the ornamental stones served as a vivid reminder to Aaron, as he dressed, that the LORD is the “with us God,” never forgetful of his people. And as Aaron appeared before the LORD, symbolically bearing the weight of the people on his shoulders and over his very heart, he was taking this burden to the LORD. Power point before power point. As if the LORD was saying, “How else can I possibly communicate my love and faithfulness to my people!?”
Aaron was all dressed up and he had somewhere to go - and something special to do. How about you as a modern-day Christ-follower? At your baptism Christ dressed you in his righteousness. “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:27). Forgiven and dressed in your adult faith wardrobe are you living as a chosen child of God, his little priest, in the way you speak and live on behalf of God?
Several years ago, the Barbie Liberation Organization demanded that voice boxes on roughly 30% of G.I. Joes and Barbie dolls be exchanged. Barbie taught passivity in girls. G.I. Joe taught boys to act violently. With these claims the BLO demanded the voice box changes to make their point.
Imagine as a little guy getting a G.I. Joe, dressed to kill in army fatigues, with a machine gun in one hand and a hand grenade in the other. “So cool!” you whisper. You charge him over the couch and activate his voice box and hear in your mom’s voice: “Want to go shopping?” Or “Beauty isn’t always a cute colored flower.” Worse yet imagine a girl getting her new Barbie to talk on Christmas Eve in her fur coat and hat in front of the family and in the voice of Charles Bronson she says, “Beachhead - I want to talk to you about your deodorant!” Or “Down! Down! Meathead - fire in the hole.” The dress doesn’t quite fit the message in either scenario.
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9). Dawn in someone’s darkness with kindness. Be humbly holy in speech even when it’s supposedly cool to be unholy. Invite others to practice the presence of God at home and at your church. Be all dressed up with somewhere to go. Jesus see to it, in your life and mine.
A Perspective On Tragedy
“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 - perseverance, character; and character, hope... “(Romans 5:3, 4)).
“It’s obvious to me that you have never experienced any tragedy in your life!” If someone made such a telling statement about you, how would you respond? My first response was to make a mental list in my own defense: twin brother had a brain tumor removed, lost a father to prostate cancer, a foster brother to a heart attack, …thankfully in angry humility I said nothing. I say thankfully because my second response was that this lady may be right.
A hurricane has never taken my home. By God’s grace, to this day I have never been diagnosed with a chronic disease. Never have I been a refugee. None of the horrific tragedies that headline our news these days have I had to endure. But tragedies are tragedies, aren’t they? They seem to defy a rating system. How do you assign greater or lesser points to the death of a child, bankruptcy, or unwanted divorce? And which is worse, losing your hearing or losing your sight, the death of a mother by COVID or the onslaught of Alzheimer’s in a father?
Sooner or later we all get to taste some stew of tragedy. And if you have not experienced any to date, don’t worry, in the words of Joe Louis, “You can run but you can’t hide.” So when you do get hit by tragedy how will you respond? Some are devastated if not destroyed by lesser tragedies and others rise above horrendous difficulties. For the Christ-follower the big question is how would God want me to respond as his child? What is a right perspective toward tragedy?
Well, St. Paul was no stranger to tragedy. He lost friends, had chronic physical problems, and was left to waste away in a prison. He writes from experience then, as guided by the Spirit, when he lays out an astonishingly simple Christian approach to tragedy in really just seven words: faith; peace; grace; perseverance; character; hope; love. We’ll take only two of the seven for a holy attitude toward tragedy but pass slowly through his wisdom:
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 - through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 - Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 - perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 - And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Romans 5:1-5).
1. Faith in a Sure Someone Sets the Foundation.
Ruth Bell Graham tells a story about her son Franklin: Franklin was sleeping on the front porch with his cowboy boots and toy gun. We were having problems with some polecats (southern slang for skunks), and Franklin told me not to worry because he had a gun. “Franklin, it’s just a toy gun,” I said. “That’s OK, Momma,” he said. “The polecats don’t know that.”
Faith is only as good as the object of your faith. Franklin trusted in that which was not trustworthy. Guess who got sprayed? Trust, ultimately, in anything or anyone other than Christ and tragedy inevitably will make you foul. So how does a person have faith in Christ?
First, the gospel is made known to a person - the historical fact that God sent his Son into the world to die for sinners and to rise from the dead triumphant over death and hell for all who believe in him is heard. The Holy Spirit opens the heart to see in this gospel that Christ is trustworthy and more desirable than all human treasures. And so the heart trusts in Christ for all that God promises to be for us in him by the working of the Holy Spirit.
When that faith happens, we are justified before God. In other words, by that faith the Spirit of God unites us to Christ so that his death becomes our death, and his life becomes our life. God laid on him the sins that we were guilty of, and God laid on us the righteousness that he performed. He takes our sin, though he didn’t perform it. And we take his righteousness, though we didn’t perform it. And so by the faith that unites us to Christ we stand before God forgiven for all our sins and righteous with the imputed righteousness of Christ.
On the basis of that great foundation that makes us Christians, faith, Paul says in Romans 5:1 that we have peace with God, undeserving love that is grace, and the ability to glory in our sufferings through perseverance, character, hope, and love - all in Christ. When tragedy strikes then learn to ask, “What will now be my foundation? Who ultimately will I trust in now?” Then answer with Paul, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith … (Romans 5:1).
2. Perseverance Helps See You Through to the End.
Getting antsy during a day-long church seminar a layman leaned over to the man seated next to him and whispered, “Are you going to stay to the bitter end?” To which Prof. Eugene Ewald replied, smiling, “I am the bitter end!”
If God-given faith is the foundation perseverance will help you endure to the end any tragedy. Perseverance is “hanging in there.” It is refusing to give up on God when things happen that we would never choose to happen. It is remaining faithful by faith. Isn’t one of the more common responses to tragedy by us giving up too soon?
Perseverance is giving God time to help us and heal us - teach us what we desperately need to know. This is a lot more than wishful thinking. Christian perseverance is possible only because of faith, peace, and grace. We trust Jesus. After all, he has proven trustworthy. Jesus settles our hearts and gives us whatever resources we need in order to hang in there to the bitter end.
Recently I was reminded about a little girl who experienced a major breakthrough in her life. She learned to tie her own shoes. Instead of excitement, she was overcome by tears. Her father asked, “Why are you crying?” “I have to tie my shoes,” she said. “You just learned how. It isn't that hard, is it?” “I know,” she wailed, “but I’m going to have to do it for the rest of my life.”
Tragedy, like tying your shoes, is something we have to do our entire life. That brings us back to our question, “What is a right perspective toward tragedy?” Let it be a Romans 5:1-5 attitude. Let it be a perspective that is shaped by these seven words: faith, peace; grace; perseverance; character; hope; and love.
Staying Power for Waiting
“As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. (James 5:11)).
Buck O’Neil has written a baring autobiography as if it was just for you. He lifts the rug of our past as he tells of being a black man who played professional baseball before African-Americans were allowed to play in the all-white major leagues. By the time the color barrier was broken in 1947, O’Neill was considered too old to play in the big leagues, as were most of his teammates.
Many of his friends grew bitter about their missed opportunities. Not Buck O’Neil. He brought gold and light out of injustice and despair. At a reunion of Negro league players in Ashland, Kentucky, a reporter from Sports Illustrated asked him if he had any regrets, coming along as he did before Jackie Robinson integrated the major leagues. Here was part of his response:
“Waste no tears for me. I didn't come along too early. God is never late, seldom early, and always right on time. I don’t have a bitter story. I truly believe I have been blessed.” Guess what title he went with for his autobiography? “I Was Right On Time!”
If it had been in Buck’s cleats I think I would have been bitter or at least jaded. I do not wait well nor am I high on perseverance. How about you? What “not yet” are you waiting for that sure seems like a “not ever?” “Waiting is the hardest work of Christian faith,” Lewis Smedes liked to say. To which we might all at times say, “Amen!” Here are two ways the Holy Spirit through the pen of James inspires us with staying power for waiting.
1. GOD COUNTS HONORALBE THOSE WHO STAY THE COURSE.
Mary sings in her Magnificat “My soul glorifies the Lord 47 - and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 - for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.” (Luke 1:46b-48). And so today few have forgotten what God in his great mercy did by using sinful Mary to be the earthly mother of our sinless Savior. And Mary learned to wait on and trust in the Lord. Remember what her last recorded words in Scripture were? “His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you’” (John 2:5). God counts such waiting honorable.
Job was made bankrupt, helpless, and childless. Left standing beside the ten fresh graves of his now-dead children his misery turned to mystery with God’s silence. Not until the thirty-eighth chapter of the book does God break the silence, however long that took. Even if it were just a few months, can you even imagine? Yet he waited faithfully in all that suffering. The result? “The LORD blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part” (Job 42:12). Why to this day we know his name. The Lord counts honorable those who stay the course.
2. GOD’S MERCY AND COMPASSION WIN IN THE END.
Our times are in the LORD’s hands. He makes everything beautiful by his clock, not ours. Buck O’neil had it right. You and I are right on time. James had been concerned to help believers to overcome the tendency to react like the world to the injustices heaped on them by the world. The world, by its very nature antagonistic to God and his kingdom, will continue to oppose God’s people. But if you hold onto this truth, “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.” James 5:11b), it will enable you to overcome the spirit of worldliness by refraining from a worldly reaction to the world's injustices. You will trust his mercy and compassion to win. After all, he lived a perfect life for you. He died for you and he has risen indeed - for you!
Jim Wallis writes that when the South African government canceled a political rally against apartheid, Desmond Tutu led a worship service in St. George’s Cathedral. The walls were lined with soldiers and riot police carrying guns and bayonets, ready to rumble. Bishop Tutu began to speak of the evils of the long lived apartheid system - how the rulers and authorities that propped it up were doomed to fail. He pointed a finger at the police who were there to record his words: “You may be powerful - very powerful - but you are not God. God cannot be mocked. You have already lost. In the end God wins. His mercy endures forever.”
Then, in a moment of unbearable tension, the bishop seemed to soften. Coming out from behind the pulpit, he flashed that radiant Tutu smile and began to bounce up and down with delight. “Therefore, since you have already lost, we are inviting you to join the winning side now.”
The crowd roared, the police melted away, and the people began to dance.
What are you waiting on? Wait patiently and maybe even get a little jiggy with it while you wait. God’s mercy and compassion in Christ have put you on the winning side.
Apply Some Playful Glue
Apply Some Playful Glue by Pastor Tim
Soul Food: Abiding Savior Lutheran Killeen, TX
June, 2021
“My beloved is mine and I am his; he browses among the lilies” (Song of Songs 2:16).
Mike and Lynn married before money but had what money can’t buy - playful glue. Mike had a Mcgyver quality to him, always inventing from scratch. Lynn called him her “Renaissance Man.” Equally creative Lynn loved spontaneity. Both spelled fun with a capital “F.”
Lynn would hang the wash on a line outside before they could afford a dryer. One day as she pinned one of Michael’s business shirts to the line, for good measure, she pinned an extra clothespin to his shirttail. Mike wore UNTUCKit shirts, so in the rush to work he wore his shirt out the door clothespin dangling behind. A phone call would surely ensue but none came.
At Michael’s Christmas party that year a high powered business executive approached Lynn and asked, “Lose something?” as he handed her a clothespin he’d detached from the back of her suit coat. Talk about embarrassing! Renaissance Man had struck. However, revenge for Lynn was even sweeter.
A week later Mike was beaming with pride as he walked down the church aisle as the newly elected head usher on a glorious Sunday morning. Guess what was dangling noticeably from the back of his suit coat as he received the offering plates from the Pastor? A cluster of snickers and smirks wisped across the congregation.
Over the course of thirty years now that clothes pin has made its way into many locations: purses, bras, sports bags, tackle boxes, wedding tuxedos, even on a master’s graduation cap of Mike’s. It’s all in playful fun and Mike and Lynn even refer to it now as their “close” pin.
When is the last time you have applied some playful glue to your marriage? One of the strangest and most enchanting gifts God has given us is flirtation. Never stop flirting with your spouse - never. Stop flirting as a self-absorbed player outside the covenant of marriage and always invest in this playful glue in your own and you will be blessed.
Flirting (in non-annoying ways men) is playful glue that pays attention. Love pays attention. Jesus never stops paying attention to you as the “with us God.” He is ever the creative lover in painted skies, sacraments, people, and his Word in always saying, “I love you.”
No, Jesus doesn’t flirt but plenty of playful glue is applied by him in his relationship with us his bride all in light of the joy of sins forgiven. So living loved by him apply playful glue in your marriage in what may be called flirtation or having a happy sense of play in your relationship. You watch, if you keep at this you will even generate a unique laughter that signals to each other and the world an exclusive love. But how?
Here’s a bit of gold from G. K. Chesterton: “In order for romance to deepen, you must touch the heart and mind of your spouse before you touch their body.” Use a clothespin, a text, a gift, a surprise, whatever but this is a truth that can change your marriage. Too often, especially we men, reverse the order, don’t we? We want to touch the body and expect our partner to respond. But few things kindle romance in a marriage like a spouse who knows how to touch the heart and mind of their lover before they touch the body.
Notice how Solomon does this with words. Yes, it’s flowery and maybe a bit over the top but in the end the lovers in Song of Songs are simply speaking their love to each other. Aren’t they really flirting creatively with words? “He - How beautiful you are, my darling! Your eyes are doves. 16 - She - How handsome you are, my lover! Oh, how charming! And our bed is verdant (Song of Songs 1:15-16). You’re smiling I know, if not laughing, but I laid that one on my wife in a role play challenge last night and we found playful glue at the end of a busy day. Besides, who wouldn’t want a verdant bed!?
Promise your spouse a Proverb a night on a paper plate, leave a love note in her sandwich, or make your own close pin connection but whatever you do don’t stop having fun with the one you love so dearly. Groucho Marx wryly once said, “Marriage is like pantyhose, it’s all what you put into it.” Entirely true? No. But there’s a lot to that. Put a lot of playful glue in yours.
Facing Death Faithfully
“Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown” (Revelation 2:10b).
An uncanny cave in New Zealand has an unusual species of glowworms. The inside of this cave expands as if it were some natural ballroom, seemingly so at home in the black, these blessed little worms carry out their dance on the ceiling. By the thousand, these phosphorescent creatures set the cave aglow stealing your breath away.
But they are not always on Broadway. Actually, they spend most of their lives as larvae. When they finally hatch and get their wings, amazingly enough they have no mouths. They have no way to feed. They only live for - get this - one single day! They get one day to live their dream. They get one day to attract a mate, get married, have children, and then they die. One day.
On the other end of the spectrum of life, a few years ago oceanographers found the oldest living animal at the bottom of the ocean near Iceland. It was a type of deep-sea clam called a quahog. Thanks to the quahog’s shell, which grows by a layer every year, these scientists determined that the animal was 507 years old. In other words, this mollusk was born in 1499, or just seven years after Columbus sailed to America. Ming was happy as a clam, until (true story) scientists at Bangor University in North Wales inadvertently killed Ming when they opened its shell to find out how old it was. Oops. Somebody got fired!
Here’s the deal. A day or 507 years - in both cases, death struck. It’s the same for you and me, for all of us. God’s word declares “all flesh is like grass.” Barring the return of Jesus Christ all our lives will, in the end, end in death.
Mark Twain wrote of an old spicy grandma, who at weddings would get in the pew behind Twain and his cousins. When the bride and groom were making their vows she’d poke each boy in the ribs and rasp, “You’re next!” She stopped doing this when Twain got in the pew behind her at a funeral. As the minister led the coffin down the aisle Twain poked grandma in the ribs, “You’re next!” You or I may not be next but death will find us. So, for heaven’s sake, really FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, think this question through. How will I face death faithfully?
DON’T DENY DEATH DEAL WITH IT. Here is a declaration of the gospel, “Christ died for sinners.” So the second word of the gospel has to deal with death. Now, why did it have to be the second word of the gospel? Because you and I have a holy inability. Sin is the reason we die and we are sinners. “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).
This is why all will die. This is why death is always around us. It’s not like there is a little pocket of people in your world to whom the message Christ died for sinners doesn’t apply. Everyone you know and rub shoulders with will die. So do you talk to them about death? More importantly, do you share Jesus as the resurrection and the life, the only hope in death, with them? Do you think about the brevity of your own life from time to time? Or do you, like most want to live a life of denial, as if we never die?
Left to themselves people don’t want to think about death. It’s interesting that we buy life insurance. But what do you have to do to collect it? Die. It’s actually death insurance. We don’t call it that though, that would be too depressing. One of our most popular cereals is called LIFE. Think they will ever sell a cereal called DEATH (for people who like to wake up very slowly)?
Your loving service to others is to get them to think about death and the brevity of life. Why? Because in the scary times of life or at the loss of a loved one they will. Then they will remember who loved them enough to bring it up. And once again you can share with them Paul’s profound declaration: “’Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’
56 - The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 - But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:55-57).
THINK HAPPY HOMECOMING WITH DEATH. “Home.” Few words illicit more warm emotions in our hearts than that word. You can have the dream vacation of all vacations, travel wherever your heart desires, stay in only five star lodging, and have the time of your life, but as you pull into your driveway having returned, how will you finish this sentence, “It sure is good to be…?”
Christ’s redemptive work turned death from a hopeless curse to a happy homecoming. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole’” (Galatians 3:13). “Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 - For we live by faith, not by sight. 8 - We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:6-8).
Heaven is our home not here. Cultivate in your life and others a sense of exile here on earth. “You know, we are not home yet!” Don’t let yourself feel too at home here. Think in ways that make it easier to go away than to stay. Because you deny blessings the Lord gives you in this life? No. But because a “pilgrim mentality” makes it easier to go home when death shows up.
Chuck Colson used to tell a story of visiting Mississippi’s Parchman Prison: “Most of the death row inmates were in their bunks wrapped in blankets, staring blankly at little black-and-white TV screens, killing time. But in one cell a man was sitting on his bunk, reading. As I approached, he looked up and showed me his book - a manual on Episcopalian liturgy.
John Irving, on death row for more than 15 years, was studying for the priesthood. John told me he was allowed out of his cell one hour each day. The rest of the time, he studied God’s Word.
Seeing John had nothing in his cell but books and a Bible, I thought, God's blessed me, the least I can do is provide something for this brother. “Would you like a TV if I could arrange it?” I asked.
John smiled gratefully. “Thanks,” he said, “but no thanks. You can waste an awful lot of time with those things and start to think this mud heap here is your home.” For the 15 years since a judge placed a number on his days, John has determined not to waste the one commodity he had to give to the Lord - his time, by getting ready for his real home.”
When death comes for you, and it will, wouldn’t it be great for you to say, “You mean I get to go home? I have been away all this time but now, finally, I get to go home!” You can have this perspective in the Risen Christ. In fact, by faith in the forgiver of your sins and lover of your soul, Jesus, you do have it. Now face death faithfully.
I Once Was Blind but Now I See
“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” (Romans 12:3).
Kudos to the H.E.B. grocery store chain here in Texas for keeping food on the shelves during our recent week of winter blizzard. Power outages, busting water pipes, and delayed trucking were nothing compared to the obstacle of human pride.
H.E.B. shelf stock personnel recently placed bags of sugar, just in, back on the appropriate shelves in one location. An accompanying sign declared “2 bag limit per person.” Task accomplished a man eagerly pushed his cart up to get some sugar and with his right arm swept half of the just re-stacked bags of sugar into his cart. Stunned, the stocker personnel pointed to the sign humbly saying, “Ah, sir, we can’t let you take all that sugar.” Face fire hydrant red the man read the sign. “Well, this makes no sense at all! This is stupid,” he bitterly complained. “I even made sure I was here early - before all the hoarders got here.”
Pride can be so myopic. I see the failings of everyone else but I am a new born baby mole to my own. Paul puts his finger on the root of the problem in Romans 12:3. Inflated views of our self are super dangerous. Now, in America we applaud the opposite, don’t we?
Most of what taps into I, ME, MINE, or MYSELF sells. McDonalds had plastered on their billboards for the longest time the slogan: “Me, myself and my salad.” I-phones are not We-phones and we so easily can make them more about us than really connecting with others. The average youngster now posts a minimum of 14 selfies a day. Do you, like me, check your posts on Facebook a bit too frequently at times to just see how many likes you got? I feel like Sally Field winning her Oscar, “And, I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now. You like me!”
Paul counters all this emphasis on self to prevent blindness to our sin with that which love inspires. Think about your most important relationship. Think Godward. Whatever you do, do not misinterpret yourself as the one who is bringing all or even any good to God on your own. His mercy made us who we are. His grace saved us. To God be the glory.
This is why after the Spirit guides Paul to take eleven chapters to say that we sinners were “declared not guilty” only because of the redeeming work of Christ, Paul pens Romans 12:1 and 2: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God - this is your true and proper worship. 2 - Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Notice “in view of God’s mercy..!” Then Paul makes the first task of the renewed mind the obliteration of pride and the cultivation of humility. “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” (Romans 12:3). What’s new about the renewed mind that loves Jesus for all of his mercy? Pride is put to death; humility begins to grow. Now how?
A. MAKE GOD-GIVEN FAITH THE MEASURE OF ONE’S SELF. A little street urchin pulled on a priest’s robe and said, “I believe in Jesus and I love him most.” Curious as to why, having never met this little guy, the priest asked, “Why do you believe in Jesus?” “Because I did my part and God did his part,” was the kid’s confident answer. Seeing the potential for some correction in his theology the priest pressed on, “Could you explain that to me young man?” “Yes, sir. My part was the sinning. God’s part was the saving. I did all the sinning; Jesus did all the saving. This I believe only because the Spirit has caused me to trust in Jesus as my Savior.”
When you believe the same by faith you want to look away from yourself and to Christ as your true treasure. When faith like this stands in front of a mirror you are not looking at self. Rather this faith becomes a window and sees the glory of Jesus who died to save me, on the other side. Now I genuinely desire to be humble that he be great. And if Christ is more to you, you are actually more, right? And if Christ is less to you, you are actually less, right? So, Jesus, help me please, to know and live as though my God-given faith in you is the true measure of myself.
B. DIFFERENT GIFTS IN DIFFERENT MEASURES FOR HUMBLE INTERDEPENDENCE.
By his grace, I can do what you cannot do in the body of Christ. You can do what I cannot do. But together we can do what Jesus wants us to do for the glory of his name. What we need then is less me and more we. Honest recognition of this necessary diversity engenders humility. Hence Paul says, “… but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” (Romans 12:3).
Nowhere in Scripture is saving faith spoken of in differing measures to different people. Saving faith saves. Period. One person is not more saved by having received more faith than another. In context, Paul rather is alluding to how we use the power or gifts given us by faith in Christ. So, Paul goes on to say in the next two verses. “For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 - so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (Romans 12:4, 5).
Charles Osgood told of a lady named Ruth who lived in a convalescent center. She was sent there after suffering a debilitating stork that left her right side incapacitated. Like many stroke victims she was having a hard time adjusting to her current condition. Making matters worse was her disappointment to play hymns on the piano, her great passion in life.
But then one day the director introduced her to a fellow resident named Margaret. She was also a stroke victim who had been an accomplished pianist. At first Ruth thought the director had brought the two together to commiserate and console each other. You see, Margaret’s stroke had affected her let side, just the opposite of Ruth’s. So, he sat them down side by side at a piano, put an open hymnal in front of them, and encouraged them to play.
It wasn’t easy. Hard on the ears in the beginning, but in time they got better. Before long they were making beautiful music together. As they continued to play together, the gospel was shared and friendship treasured. And remarkably, humbly, they learned to play better than they ever had on their own. And both learned this lesson - in order to make a melody partners must first learn to play in harmony. Friends, let’s be humble together. God-given faith is the measure of our true worth. Less me more we, for then we will see.
Unlocking Love with Vulnerability
Bess Truman could be a bulldog. Indeed, the butler who served her breakfast in the White House was often asked by the other house servants, “Is she wearing two guns or one today?” Maybe when you are married to a President whose reputation is “Give ‘em hell Harry” you have to be, at times, part pug with pistols smoking.
But first impressions are impactful. Here is J. B. West’s sense of Mrs. Bess Truman upon meeting her privately for the first time at Blair House. J.B. West directed the operations of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for 28 years first as assistant to the chief usher, then as the chief usher. In his fact filled best-selling book “Upstairs at the White House” he writes about his first sit down with the new President’s wife.
“As I entered, she indicated a comfortable chair, and smiled. It was the smile of an equal, not of someone who considered herself of superior rank or status. When she spoke, I was aware from her words, from her tone of voice, that there was no distance of class or background between Bess Truman and myself. She seemed like an ordinary person, like someone from Creston, Iowa, or Independence, Missouri. I felt at ease and liked her immediately.”
Do you set people at ease with a similar kind of loving vulnerability in spite of your authority? Do you communicate to others irrespective of social class, gender, or ethnicity that the ground is level at the cross? That we all are sinners saved by the blood of the Lamb? That grace truly is amazing to you!?
I wonder if this might be the key for each of us, to play our own part, in moving past any racial or social inequity we might be guilty of to greater harmony. Let the love of Christ compel us to a loving vulnerability to serve others while setting aside our prideful clinging to authority. After all, we are drawn to powerful people who embrace their vulnerability. When someone once accused the famously homely yet still very Presidential Abraham Lincoln of being two-faced, he immediately responded, “If I had another face, do you think I’d wear this one?”
How is a secure setting aside of authority with loving vulnerability lived out practically? Well, Jesus said it like this: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 - Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 - and whoever wants to be first must be your slave - 28 - just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:25-28).
THINK SERVANT NOT MASTER. “Not so with you.” With those four simple words Jesus radically broke the ambition of thinking up and to the right is where I’m going no matter who I step on to get there. Do you want to exercise authority? Be the one on top? Win baby? Pick up a towel and wash feet. Go low. Or in simpler fashion surrender the need to have the last word on Facebook or with your spouse. Own up to faults. Claim forgiveness in Christ. Admit there is another opinion. Treat those beneath you in structure like Bess Truman treated J.B. White - who became to her like family. And for heaven’s sake, look at the life of Christ, often.
SEEK TO SERVE AS HE SERVED. In The Power and Vulnerability of Love, Elizabeth Gandolfo reminds us, “The incarnate life of divine love begins in a pool of blood… The blood-borne origins of the Incarnation (God becoming flesh) remind us that the invulnerable nature of the divine love becomes not only possible, but also vulnerable in the crimson waters of Mary’s womb.” Did you know even today nearly one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage?
The Cosmic King made himself so very vulnerable to bear our sin and grant us freely his perfection. Now he serves us with his love each day granting us grace upon grace in all his authority. And in the end heaven is ours as well by faith in him. So now, in the words of the hymn writer, “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all…” If serving Jesus is vulnerable loving slavery for others - chain me to the wall!
But does this loving vulnerability mean we never act in authority? We never call out? Insist on something right? Not at all. There was always an authoritative sign on President Truman’s desk: “The Buck Stops Here.” After two presidential terms of serving the Trumans this is what J. B. White wrote about that sign. “However, we all knew the buck didn’t stop there. President Truman packed it in his brief case every night, took it upstairs, and discussed it with ‘The Boss.’”
Loving vulnerability is all the more appealing when authority is rightly used. One day, one day soon, Jesus will rightly use his authority most definitively with his loving vulnerability and if you can believe it, we will love him even more. So now we serve - by unlocking love with vulnerability.
Move Beyond Christmas Melancholy
“So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir” (Galatians 4:7).
If you’re reading this you made it through Christmas 2020. No small feat. It seems the year 2020 is the year that is taking years, for everything. As Christ-followers we believe Christ has made our hearts mangers to hold him in faith as our Savior from sin. It’s why he came that first cold Christmas. The only child actually born not to live but to die was the baby Jesus. Now, by faith in him, it really is Christmas 365 days a year no matter what we face.
However, even well-meaning Christians can let these things happen in their celebration of Christmas. Too much focus on the presents rather than his presence. The spirit of Christmas one ups the Spirit of Christ. We live at a pace with the parties and family gatherings and deadlines that leave us empty and barren. The result? Post-Christmas blues. Let’s call it - Christmas melancholy. If we are not careful it robs us of what we really have in Christ. So, what can help lift us up from a Christmas let down?
Try this. Think on a theology of adoption in the days ahead. Adoption is actually at the heart of the Christmas gospel. “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to son-ship 6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir” (Galatians 4:4-6).
Consider at times in 2021 what this means that our Father, with Jesus, has adopted us into his family. In fact, since the strongest foundation for any human to adopt another human is rooted in God adopting humans, go as far as considering similarities between what God did in adoption for us and what happens in Christian adoption today. Here are just two.
1. Adoption often means a change of family circumstances for the better. Comedian Jamie Ward was adopted by a loving father as a 3 year old boy. His friends will ask him, “Hey, since you were adopted, would you ever consider adoption?” His standard reply is, “Why, yes, of course?! Absolutely. If I ever have kids I want them to go to a good home.” It’s his light hearted way of saying at the heart of adoption, when it is right, is someone is taken from a less than desirable status to a better or blessed status.
God did not find us like a neatly abandoned bundled irresistibly cute baby on a door step. We are by nature rebellious, evil, and ugly. Still born in sin we are. Children that are not easy to deal with. Each a punk in our own depraved way. What’s worse, God the Father himself was rightly angry with us. He hates rebellion and sin according to his just justice. “For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23a).
But God in Christ-Jesus pursued us in adoption. “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 - to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to son-ship” (Galatians 3:4, 5). Because the crib of Christ was in the shadow of the cross where he went to bleed and die for us, we have been adopted into God’s family, receiving all the benefits and blessings as his children. Moreover, we are also full heirs of God’s rich inheritance, overflowing from his grace, mercy, and love. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[a] Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). You are forgiven forever and loved always.
Talk about an upgrade - there is none better. The pattern has been set. Our heavenly adoption didn’t come from the best of situations and the reality is most earthly adoptions don’t today. The joy of Christmas is more readily remembered when one recalls through adoption my circumstances are far better than they were before. A pointer to that heavenly truth is the truth that the same is true for many an adopted child in an earthly family. This has a way of eliminating Christmas melancholy.
2. Adoption often is costly. What does it mean when we hear God tell us through the pen of Paul, “…to redeem those under the law…” (Galatians 4:4)? “To redeem” means to obtain or buy back by paying a price. It costs to redeem someone or something. What was the price that God paid for our liberation and adoption? In the previous chapter of Galatians that question is answered, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a pole” (Galatians 3:13). God the Father paid the highest price. Life for life. Blood for blood. His Son’s life for ours. Thankfully, adopting humans usually doesn’t come with that price tag but the costs are enormous. Some are financial. Many more are emotional.
Our dear friends the Hoeneckes went from America to Russia to pick up the children they made a loving choice to adopt. The trip itself was no picnic. On a recent visit to our home Rachel was recalling how she’ll never forget the flight home, holding their Alex in straight jacket but safe arms on the return flight in her lap. Fear of flying, fear of the unknown, whatever it was Alex just screamed and thrashed wildly most of the flight back. Imagine a frightened and embarrassed mom holding on to a young boy she just met to be her own trying to calm him with tears streaming down her face that say, “Lord, what have we got ourselves into?!”
And as any parent knows the costs in stress and time go on for the rest of your life in adopting children. You never stop being a parent until you die. So there is something very deep and right about the embrace of this cost for the life of a child! After all, it reflects the fact that to adopt someone as your own there is a price to be paid. God’s cost to adopt us was infinitely greater than any cost we will endure to adopt a child but in thinking this through I capture again in my heart the true meaning for Christmas. “For to us a child is born, to us a Son is given…” (Isaiah 9:2a), that we might be forever adopted into God’s family and even call him, “Daddy!”
In December of 2019 CNN reported that when five-year-old Michael showed up at the courthouse for an adoption hearing with his foster parents, he found a group of surprise visitors waiting - his entire kindergarten class. Michael’s teacher, Mrs. McKee got the idea when she encountered Michael’s foster mom dropping him off at school. The two of them devised a plan, and McKee organized the field trip, bus and all. The highlight of the day was during a portion of the hearing where the judge, who’d never hosted an entire kindergarten class before, asked all the students to explain why they were there in support.
As you can imagine there were some pretty touching answers. “I love Michael.” “Michael is my bestest friend.” “Michael makes me laugh - makes us all laugh.” “Michael lets me see his answers and makes me smart.” (Not too smart to admit that one!) But here was, in my opinion the best answer, “Michael has been adopted into his family. His parents love him. Soon it will be Christmas. If we all remember we are in a family at Christmas it can be Christmas all the time!” In Christ, through Christ, and because of Christ truer words could not have been spoken. Merry Christmas and move beyond any Christmas melancholy by thinking on adoption.
What Spectacle Excites You?
“We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away” (Hebrews 2:1).
“You’re Out and You’re Ugly Too” is the catchy title of Baseball Umpire Durwood Merrill’s tell all book as one of baseball’s best umpires. Early in the book Merrill writes of his rookie year umpiring in the MLB. In one of his first games he was behind the plate calling the game for future hall of fame fastball pitcher Nolan Ryan.
When a pitcher is nicknamed “The Ryan Express” you are not yawning as the pitch comes to the plate. On this day a fired up Ryan was pitching BB’s in warm ups to his catcher at an average speed of 101 mph. The second pitch of the game was so fast, Merrill admits he never saw it. As the ball snapped into the catcher’s mit he froze, unable to make the call. Finally, he yelled, “St-i-i-i-i-rike!” At which point the batter backed out of the box, smiled and said, “Ump, don’t feel bad. I didn’t see it either.”
Does anyone else feel that this is the speed at which the latest multimedia pitch comes zipping into our lives? You Tube videos, movie releases, video games, social media updates, fresh Instagram images, Pinterest posts, Netflix second seasons - you can hear them all pop in the catcher’s mit but sometimes one doesn’t even really see them. Then the next pitch comes even quicker, which of course we have to see!! This is life in what they are now calling the golden age of the image, in the age of the eye or as Brian Lowe refers to it, “The age of spectacles…”
It all presents a unique challenge to parents, teachers, leaders, and anyone who gives a rip at all about growing in their relationship with Jesus. All this eye attention competes with ear attention. It just does. Today’s USA Today headlines read: “Teens glued to screens need sleep, reality check.” The article laments the fact that the COVID 19 pandemic has caused devastating tech overuse in teens. What attracts the eyes detracts from the ears. And yet some of our best learning comes through hearing, after all: “Faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the Word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).
And yes, I too am tremendously grateful for the unlimited new opportunities to hear the Word through social media in the age of spectacles. However, only a fool would not identify the challenges to our faith and seek to overcome them. Thanks to our media culture eye images more often get our full attention than ear hearing. So how does the child of God live out this wisdom from the writer of Hebrews, “We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away” (Hebrews 2:1)?
ACTUALLY ASK, “What does this spectacle seek from me?” Author Tony Reinke defines a spectacle as “a moment of time, of varying length, in which a collective gaze is fixed on some specific image, or video, or event.” In a rights based rage society like ours, spectacles are often controversies in sports, entertainment, or politics - “Badminton champion puts the ‘bad’ in badminton with latest DWI.” “Packers’ Rodgers back with Munn in Iron Man 3 - Tells All.” “President Trump now says, “…”
Controversy captivates us - the more graphic the better. Our media is getting faster and faster - a new music video, a sexualized advertisement for beer, or a binge worthy season on Netflix, - yet they all want something from us. My wife and I burned through a season of Frontier on Netflix one Sunday afternoon starring Jason Momoa. We enjoyed it but I also asked myself, “What does this spectacle want from me?” Answers: A. To know that I am an inadequate male specimen compared to Jason Momoa (someone in our home is a fan!). B. To think mindless bloodshed with a life driven by frenzied revenge is heroism at its finest. Images want our approval, celebration, outrage, time, money, you name it but they do want something. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). Teach yourself. Teach your teens. “What does this spectacle seek from me?
GET WITHIN EARSHOT OF THE GREATEST SPECTACLE EVERYDAY. Hebrews 1 is a spectacle of the supremacy and majesty of God’s Son our Savior. It rivals Colossians 1. Jesus Christ is redeemer, ruler, owner, and creator. Angels have to worship him. Earth and sky will wear out but not him. Yet this cosmic King - are ready for this? He died for our sins. He went through death’s dark tunnel and back again by his own might as true man and God. And now by the very faith Jesus gave you, you are his and will live with him forever. He’s in his honored place right alongside God now in heaven. Jesus is the spectacle of all Spectacles!!
So the writer of Hebrews says, “Therefore, we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” (Hebrews 2:1). No hint or suggestion but a demand. We must keep a firm grip on hearing about Christ. When our ears, our hearing attention, neglects Christ, we drift away. It’s the easiest thing to do as the most brilliant Spectacle of all actually becomes boring to us but complete trivia or idiocy in images fascinates us.
“What’s the highest number you’ve ever counted to Pastor Tim?” a public Salem Catechism class 8th grader asked me once, glued to his I-phone before class started. “I don’t know, a 100 I guess, why?” “Well, I counted to 1000 during your sermon this past Sunday and then I had to take out my I-phone for fear of dying of boredom!” Can I improve my preaching? Yes. But it became clear over time this young man had the ear attention of a fruit fly to the Word of God and the eye attention of an Amish librarian to any image. How about you?
Put on your mask and go to church. Hear the Word about Christ. Work at it. Listen intently as if you are in the presence of a Cosmic King - because you are. Listen. Listen. Listen. Then listen again as if your life depends on it - because it does. Be faithful to your favorite podcast about the Word of God. Time of Grace has so many amazing speakers clearly declaring Gods truth. You can rise every morning with Pastor Don Patterson on Facebook as he delivers a relevant meaty morning devotion. Spectacles want your attention and your affections. Christ wants your attention and your affections. So that just leaves this question, who will win in your life?
Delight In Excellence
“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).
There’s no chance you’ve heard of a trunsion. About eighty of them are used to connect the vertical cable of the Brooklyn Bridge to the road way at the river span where she really sways. A trunsion or gudgeon is just a steel joint assembly. It’s a boring uninteresting piece but all of them on the Brooklyn Bridge had been custom made, like every other part and piece of the eighth wonder of the world. When trunsions began to wear then on the Brooklyn Bridge in early 1969 they could only be replaced by remaking them by scratch.
To do so original drawings of the bridge would be needed. A young 29 year old native New Yorker named Francis Valentine got sent to a small brick building beneath the Brooklyn end of the Williamsburg Bridge for those plans. What he found was one of the most remarkable treasures in the whole history of building art - a collection totaling some ten thousand blue prints and drawings, all by hand, of all that went into the Brooklyn Bridge. Most drawings were signed WAR, which seemed odd to Valentine at first. Was there conflict at the construction of the bridge? Then the light went on. WAR was - Washington A. Roebling - the genius engineer who built the Brooklyn Bridge. These were his very own signed drawings of incalculable worth. Here is how historian David McCullough describes the work of these drawings:
“But then, in the last analysis, one comes to something in these drawings impossible to catalog, … It is the incredible care and concentration you feel in even the least of the drawings, the pride, the obvious love - love of materials, love for elegance in design, love of mathematics, of line, of light and shadow, of majestic scale, and yes, love of drawing - this passion in combination with an overriding insistence on order, on quality, that we of this very different century must inevitably stand in awe before. You feel what these people felt for their work and you can’t help but be drawn to them.”
Do you do what you do for God in the marketplace with this kind of passion for excellence? Whatever your hand finds to do as a housewife or pharmaceutical rep, teacher or soldier, or truck driver - do you do it with all your might? Martin Luther said, “The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.” How might the love of Jesus inspire us to delight in an excellence that honors God and inspires others in what we put our hands too?
BE GOD DEPENDENT. Solomon reminds us we are headed to the grave. We are utterly dependent upon God in his grace to get to heaven. All we do now is also only because of him for “in him we live and move and have our being.” The power of God’s grace in the heart of the humble believer who depends utterly on God produces incredible industry. You want to work harder than all the rest, “yet not you but the grace of God in you,” as Paul said. In a best ball golf tournament I played in one year a teammate arrived with a t-shirt displaying the words C-A-M-E-L on the back. “What’s up with the CAMEL t-shirt, bro?” “I am here to ‘carry you all’ again,” came the grinning reply. God is your camel. Each day acknowledge this in humility.
INTEGRITY MATTERS. In an age of image, a popular idea is, “Fake it ‘til you make it.” But rarely can you truly “make it” unless you have integrity. Be meticulously honest and trustworthy in what you do. Give a full day’s work. Always be punctual. “Thou shalt not steal.” We more often rob by slacking than by physically taking. Joseph went from pit to pinnacle in part because he was a man of godly integrity.
HONE YOUR SKILL WINSOMELY. “Do it with all your might,” Solomon says. Get really good at what you do. Develop your skills God has given you. Be willing to put in the time and repetition needed to achieve excellence but don’t be so driven you are a jerk to work with.
Piggly Wiggly’s best bagger and supermarket clerk four years running in Camden, SC finished bagging a large order with a long line still to go. As he lifted the final bag for the customer with his usual efficiency, the bottom of that brown bag gave way, sending the contents crashing to the floor. Everyone waited to see what the all-star employee would say and do. He stepped back, observed his mess, and then shaking his head with a smile he calmly said to the customer, “They just don’t make these bags like they used to. Sorry, that was supposed to happen in your driveway!” There is a winsomeness in the holiness of working hard but not hard headed.
The Municipal Archives now have the physical possession of the treasure of all the original drawings for the Brooklyn Bridge. The drawings give vivid testimony to all who worked on and built what was once the largest most celebrated bridge in the world. Interestingly enough, those workers had little or nothing to say about the bridge after it was built. Roebling, too, said almost nothing about it. All the speeches and editorials extolling its beauty and importance came from others. Roebling and others were, as they often said, “Happy to let the work speak for itself and to a greater one who graciously gave gifts to make it happen.” May this be our mantra too as we seek to build a bridge of excellence between what God has given us and the lives of others.
Winterized by the Word
A deciduous tree knows seasons. In fall mossy green alights into breathtaking orange, but only for a flash. Soon winter strips her bare. Disrobed she will look barren. But motionless, with deep roots resting beneath frozen ground, she ever so slowly grows stronger. In a sense, the tree prospers in winter fulfilling its God intended purpose. Yes, she will appear dead to the untrained eye, the man who told me more than I ever cared to know about this tree assured me, “But what she does in winter will lead to lush green in Spring.”
Are you in winter? Not the slush, salt, bone chilling, chains on tires, six-month stuff of Wisconsin, no. Are you in a spiritual winter? God seems distant. Days are longer. Heart is cold. Weary of the world’s drama. Where is the color in my life? Either you are in a spiritual winter or like the weather winter, soon it will be here for you. Old man spiritual winter is no respecter of persons. He comes to all sooner or later.
Remember this then. The blessed person, likened to the tree in Psalm 1, finds their delight meditating on God, day and night. “… but whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on his law day and night. 3 -That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither - whatever they do prospers” (Psalm 1:2,3).
Planted. Fruitful. Un-withered. Prosperous. Aren’t those the blessings you want? They are yours. All from meditating on God’s word - singing it, crying over the pages, taking your angry heart to his Word for answers, confessing sin, rejoicing in a loving Savior, rediscovering your identity in him, and seeing again how his works and character invite you to fall in faith all over again. Let’s call it being, “Winterized by the Word.”
A father tucked his boy into bed with a good night prayer. He went down stairs to catch the evening news. Fifteen minutes later there was a body thud from his little man’s bedroom upstairs and then crying. Discovering his boy had fallen out of bed the father asked, “Son, what happened?” Blubbering, the boy said, “I don’t know dad. I guess I stayed too close to where I got in.”
We adults make the same mistake in the spiritual realm, in all seasons. Refuse to stay in the same spot spiritually. Stay in the Word, my friend. Grow in grace. Ralph Waldo Emerson was noted for greeting friends with the question, “What has become clearer to you since we last met?” Ask yourself, “What about Christ has become clearer to me?”
Staying in the Word won’t always seem nourishing or even enjoyable. Seemingly barren seasons can convince us it isn’t worth it. But winter is a time when the inside can be nourished even when what is outside feels dead. “What she does in winter will lead to lush green in Spring” - was the counsel I got from my self-appointed tree expert.
So pray through a verse on some days. Other days memorize a passage. Take walks with earbuds filling your ears with Psalms. Discuss a “Time of Grace” video or your Pastor’s sermon with a friend. And for heaven’s sake, yes, literally for heaven’s sake turn off the media! Make it your new goal to be “Winterized by the Word.” And you watch, Jesus will make you even more lush and beautiful and planted than the tree below, all for the glory of his name. Jesus see to it - in your life and mine.
Grow or Plateau?
Few things excite more than growth! By his grace, we were made to grow. We love to be around growth. We buy a house plant and kill it in a month but we always buy another. We want forest preserves set aside. People in frozen places like Wisconsin wait for months for the first blade of green grass to peep up through the snow, enjoy it for two weeks, and then long for it again eleven months later. “Wasn’t the grass green?! Did you see how it grew?!”
My wife and I are watching our grandchildren grow. It looks as though both Emma and Shiobahn will triple their weight, each in only a single year of life. If my math is correct, at the age of four Shiobahn will weigh 523 pounds and little Emma will tip the scale at a pleasant 438. It’s thrilling. But seriously, to hear our older grandkids Luci, Ethan, and Lilly increase in meaning and joy for Jesus in their meal prayers alone is priceless.
Or consider the satisfaction of a founder of a company recovering from this pandemic. In spite of all the setbacks, Chef Brother Luck has his small Colorado Springs restaurant Lucky Dumpling expanding, achieving its mission, and giving vocational opportunities to women and men as he excites taste buds with delicacies from dynamite dim sum to always want more wonton nachos. Brother Luck is living the miracle of growth.
On the other hand few things are more despairing than stagnation. In 2015 Lake Travis near Austin went dry. So did vacation rentals and campers. No one wants a marriage that began with bright dreams of love for the other in Christ but has now plateaued, where two complete strangers live under the same roof each for their own self. ESPN made a best-selling documentary of Michael Jordan’s brilliance as a Chicago Bull called “The Last Dance.” There won’t be one on the Bulls after MJ left called “No Chance.” We love growth but deplore torpor, especially as Christ-followers. So how do you replace spiritual stagnation with transformation?
Want to Know and Enjoy Jesus Better Than Before
It’s no accident that Peter charges us to, “Grow…” in 2 Peter 3:18 and then right on the heels of that imperative he adds, “in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” To grow in Christ, we don’t set out as much to grow; as we do to taste his goodness in his Word and sacraments. “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation - if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Peter 2:2–3).
To hear the joy of my sins forgiven thanks to Christ’s innocent death and glorious resurrection on my behalf, to brush up against his body in the Lord’s Supper hearing, “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins,” this is to grow. To hear Christ say to me in his Word, “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more,” this is spiritual milk I want more of. This is to taste and see that the LORD is good. Now I am knowing Christ better and will enjoy him even more.
Just as God alone is the giver of growth for kingdom citizens through his Word, so Christ alone becomes the main focal point for both his people and his church. We would see Jesus. After all, how does the whole body grow? By “holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God” (Colossians 2:19).
Jesus is the Head of the church (Colossians 1:18); she only grows as she holds fast to him. “From Jesus the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Ephesians 4:16). So make this the goal in your life - not mere effort to be more spiritual not just growth as a goal, no, “but to be the one who ‘understands and knows me, that I am the LORD’” (Jeremiah 9:24). How are you doing at knowing and enjoying Jesus better than before in your life today?
Many years ago now I rented a car to drive to a Pastor’s Conference in Arkansas. At the rental counter they offered a GPS unit. With my tech abilities I declined. Later I came back into the rental company because I could not find the stall my rental was in. Thankfully, the rental lady then insisted she help me install the GPS in the car because – in her words -“Arkansas highways are not like the stripe down a skunk’s back.”
Well, Arkansas is not a state of straight highways for sure. A voice came out of that box that I didn’t really know as I was going through valley after valley. It was a voice with a British accent because the Brits always sound smarter. People are more inclined to listen to them. And it was a woman’s voice because, well…same thing. At one point that British lady told me to take a particular highway. I knew she was wrong and told her so and turned her off. A man can only take being told what to do for so long from a woman not his own and from across the pond!
I got lost as a goose. I eventually turned the British lady on again and she did not say to me, “Blimey, I told you so you sop and now I am not going to help you.” No, she showed me G-R-A-C-E and got me to where I needed to be. I was so grateful. And now that I knew her better I let her talk more freely on the way home, without rebuke but with, dare I say it, a measure of joy. You might say I grew in the “grace and knowledge of that British lady” who got me home as I had gotten to know her better, trust her more readily, and actually enjoy her.
Sorry if I took too long to get here. But I hope you get the point. In an infinitely greater and far more intimate way you can do that with the Son of the Living God, who loves you as if you were and are the only one. For heaven’s sake, taste and see that the LORD is good. Be seeking to know and enjoy him better and you will not plateau, my friend, you will grow.
Marriage Builders
There is a sobering line in the last book of the Old Testament. Malachi 2:16 reads, “’I hate divorce,’ says the LORD the God of Israel.” If something kindles the wrath of the Almighty to stoke loathing against it, you can be sure it matters much to him. God gets emotionally engaged when divorce happens.
Critics of Christ like to say the reason he hates divorce is because he is so distant and aloof from our human problems. “The Christian God couldn’t possibly get the pain of a broken marriage.” But, in reality, it is in part because God himself is a divorcee that he disdains divorce.
Earlier in the Old Testament, in Jeremiah 3:8, God gets quoted saying, “I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister Judah had no fear; she also went out and committed adultery.” God describes his love relationship with the people of Israel like a marriage in which his spouse repeatedly betrayed him. Having been abandoned God divorced the one he specially loved.
“I hate divorce,” then, spoken from the lips of God, are the shards of a broken heart. Yes, God greatly wants marriage to succeed as a blessing for us. Yes, God despises divorce as a transgression against his holy will. But God also says, “I hate divorce,” from the painful experience of all the adultery he’s endured from his people through the ages.
So, you better believe God fights for your marriage. God desperately wants your marriage to be a blessing of joy and not heart break. After all, he loves you. In fact, God wants your marriage to be a parable of his great love for you, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 - This is a profound mystery - but I am talking about Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:31, 32).
How might we avoid what might be called marriage busters and give ourselves to marriage builders? Well, “you can tell a lot about someone’s character by whether he or she picks out all of one color or just grabs a handful.” This was Ronald Reagan’s explanation for why he liked to have a jar of jelly beans on hand for meetings. It was also his go to story when challenging others to work on relationships. “Start with the little things - little things matter more than you know...,” the grinning Gipper would say. Let’s start there too. Here’s “two little marriage builders” God graciously encourages us to live to avoid a busted marriage.
1. Keep At Good Communication.
When pollsters asked married couples across this country, “What are the leading frustrations in marriage?” Poor communication was listed by 4% of the couples. Does this surprise you? Personally, I thought it would be a much higher percentage. Then it occurred to me, perhaps people who are poor at communication might have trouble communicating to the survey takers that they have trouble communicating! Like that popular meme: “If we can’t solve it vie e-mail, zoom, text, twitter, or phone calls let’s resort to talking in person.”
Read through the gospel of John and listen to the clarity by which Jesus communicated his love to us. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Nine “I AM” metaphors leave no misunderstanding as to who he says he is. “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one come to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). If imitating the love of Jesus in marriage is the goal, make a commitment to keep at good communication no matter what.
There’s a simple test to determine if a couple has a communication problem. Ask! Does each person know what the other person thinks and feels and believes? If your spouse asks, of course, don’t play coy and carnal and withhold. Be honest. Ask yourself this: “Could my partner adequately answer almost any question intended for me?” Here’s a rocket booster question of good communication for any marriage: “Honey, what do you need from me in our marriage now more than anything else?”
2. Keep At Kindness.
Kindness is underrated in marriage. We equate it with being just a nice spouse, as though it’s mainly about smiling, getting along, and not ruffling feathers. It seems a rather wimpy virtue.
But the Bible presents a very different and compelling portrait of kindness.
Paul the Apostle basically said to the Christians in Corinth, “You want proof I’m an apostle? Okay, look at me. I’m kind” (2 Corinthians 6:1-13)! True kindness is Spirit-produced (Galatians 5:22). It’s a supernaturally gentle orientation of our hearts toward other people, even when they don’t deserve it and don’t love us in return. God himself is kind in this way. His kindness is meant to lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4) and his kindness gave us his Son as our Savior.
”But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 -he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, …” (Titus 3:4, 5).
Would your spouse say you are kind? Simple kindness goes miles to build a marriage relationship. One of the things that happens in every family is the development of the ability to easily hurt or help other family members. As sinners we all are skilled at learning how to push each other’s buttons in our pride for our own elevation.
Observe other couples and you will see that they have learned how to anger or harm each other with a single word or a certain facial expression. Likewise, most husbands and wives know exactly how to build up and help the other person with a kind word or action. It really is a matter of choice. Those who avoid busting marriage and build marriage have learned to seize every opportunity to genuinely express kindness. It becomes their way to be kind like Christ.
My wife left the top of my fifty gallon aquarium open after feeding my fish once while I was at a conference. The cat ate my prized electric blue ahli African cichlid I had cared for from a baby for four years. I knew exactly what to say to make her feel like dirt when she apologized. “What were you thinking? Or “I guess if it doesn’t matter to you or isn’t yours!” Instead, I said, “Fish can be replaced. It’s okay. No biggie. You matter more than some dumb blue fish.”
I was kind and moved on. I did sell the cat. I have nightmares monthly about that fish pleading for protection and I have my anger counseling sessions down to three sessions a month! But hey, I was kind. No, seriously, a little kindness makes a big difference in building a marriage.
Art historians say that Michelangelo, the genius sculptor, could take a flawed cracked slab of marble and make it into a masterpiece. How did he do it? He studied what he had to work with. He carved around the cracks. He used deformities as part of the design. He spent a ton of time and just hard work in doing it. The result? A marvelous masterpiece for others to behold.
May your marriage be that kind of a masterpiece. Not perfect and flawless, but worth the work, worth the time, worth building and making good - a masterpiece for your enjoyment and for God’s glory. Jesus see to it!
Sustaining Hope
Here’s one good thing about this season of coronavirus. It will not last forever! One day it will be over. Therefore, we hope. We hope for that day when we will no longer be counting spikes in COVID like some awful game. Old and new friends will once again freely hug each other. Businesses will re-start. Restaurants will throw open their doors. To wear the mask or not wear the mask will be a forgotten question. People will return to their jobs. Students will once more fill classrooms and go to proms. All churches will open for worship and finally the people of God will hear an in person Pastor Sermon so pent up it will last for two hours and no one will complain. I hope!
No, but actually don’t abandon your hope, my friend. Never abandon hope. This pandemic will pass. But how does one sustain hope in the meantime, especially in rioting, quarantining, and seemingly endless upside down days? Let’s learn some wisdom for sustaining hope from one of Paul’s profound blessings spoken to those he loved in Rome. Romans 15:13: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
1. Check your trust. What or who are you actually trusting in? Misplaced trust leads to hopelessness. If you are trusting in yourself, mankind, the new normal, anything other than God and his perfect timing for ultimate relief you are setting yourself up for despair. Who is it that Paul wants the Christians in Rome to fill with joy and peace as they trust in him by his Spirit? God - “the God of hope!” Any other foundation will fail.
About 50 years ago, a football player named Joe Namath wrote a book, and the title was I Can’t Wait Until Tomorrow…’Cause I get Better Looking Every Day. Broadway Joe is 77 years old now. I guarantee you that if he has hope for tomorrow it ain’t for that reason. Again, misplaced trust leads to hopelessness. Psalm 33:17 - “A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save.”
Biblical hope believes God is not done. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). Biblical hope is supported by what God has done. “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him” (1 John 3:1).
Trust Jesus to fill you up with joy and peace until you brim over with hope. Maybe memorize Romans 15:13 and live out of the good of its beginning, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him …”
2. Hear God’s Word of Promise. Think of the power a promise kept has to put hope in a heart. After an evening out, some parents returned home to their children whom they had left with the baby sitter. They were pleasantly pleased to find the kids fast asleep. When the sitter had been paid - just as she was walking out the door - she communicated this detail: “Oops - almost forgot to tell you. I promised Sammy that if he would stay in bed, you would get him a pony in the morning.”
Do you think Sammy slept in hope? No child’s face has ever been so hope filled in sleep, right? But probably the pony promise went undelivered. Now, name a promise of God that won’t be fulfilled. William Carey said, “The future is as bright as the promises of God.” This is true in part because all of them - yes, all of them - will be brought true. So sustain hope in the heart, as Paul says, “as you trust in him …” But where are the promises we are to trust in? I don’t see them in Romans 15:13.
Well, they precede this verse. Remember context counts. Paul reminds the Romans in verse 8 that Jesus kept his purpose to serve Jewish insiders that the old ancestral promises would come true for them. “For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, so that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed” (Romans 15:8).
Then Paul lists four prophecies that God would fulfill. These are all promises with only the last one being explicit. The middle two quotes in verses 10 and 11 are commands or exhortations to the Gentiles. Here they are: “and, moreover, that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written: ‘Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles; I will sing the praises of your name.’ 10 - Again, it says, ‘Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.’ 11 - And again, ‘Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles; let all the peoples extol him.’ 12 - And again, Isaiah says, ‘The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations; in him the Gentiles will hope’” (Romans 15:9-12).
Don’t lose sight of why Paul quoted these divine words. He desperately wants to instill hope in the hearts of people living in not so hopeful times. Deep racial animosity existed in Paul’s day too. There were outsiders and insiders. Apparently, once Paul knows the grand scheme of what God is doing in history - folding Gentiles into the covenant people and bringing the wonder of oneness in the body of Christ - he sees hope for Gentiles wherever God woos them or witnesses to them.
So the Apostle is saying, “Those of you without the pure blood of Abraham you have hope in the promises of God.” What government can never do, what sinful mankind cannot accomplish, what we all want in the end, God will do. The root of our ancestor Jesse, will break through the earth and grow to be a tree tall, tall enough for everyone everywhere to see and take hope in by faith in Jesus as their Savior from sin. One Lord. One faith. One family in unity and harmony forever in him. Now that’s hope. Think of the relevance of this to our day!
But please, notice Paul is quoting scripture to instill this hope. When he is on his way to desiring the abounding hope of God for his people in Romans 15:13 he precedes that prayer with God’s word of promise. Hope in the promises of God produces the fruit of joy and peace in the heart by the Spirit who works through the Word. So along with checking out trust we do well to up the frequency on hearing the promises of God. Are you doing that? Among all the clammer and noise of the media, in the busyness of your life, between all the social media choices, are you daily putting hope into your heart by hearing the promises of God in his Word?
Helen Keller, the brilliant, deaf/blind author and activist, who, in 1924 “heard” Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony wrote this stunning description of the famous work - which was written, after the composer himself lost his hearing. Keller felt the music, which was performed by the New York Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, by putting her hands up to a radio speaker.
She wrote: What was my amazement to discover that I could feel not only the vibrations but also the impassioned rhythm, the throb and the urge of the music. I could actually distinguish the cornets, the roll of the drums, deep-toned violas and violins singing in exquisite unison. The great chorus throbbed against my fingers with poignant pause and flow.
Then all the instruments and voices together burst forth -an ocean of heavenly vibration -and died away like winds when the atom is spent, ending in a delicate shower of sweet notes.
I couldn’t help remembering that the great composer who poured forth such a flood of sweetness into the world was deaf like myself. I marveled at the power of his quenchless spirit by which out of his pain he wrought such joy for others.
Let me thank you warmly for all the delight which your beautiful music has brought to my household and to me.
With kindest regards and best wishes, I am, sincerely yours,
Helen Keller
Such hope filled Helen Keller’s heart from “hearing” such excellence in music. For the rest of her days she sustained hope in her heart by daily hearing Beethoven and in her words, “smoothing the wrinkles from her soul.” How much more for you when you actually hear the excellence of divine promise - God’s Word - given to you to hear! “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13).
I’m Bored!
David Plowden has produced some of the most powerful photographs we have of Mid-western working farmland. Time wrote that his prints tell more about our nation than all our environmental studies. He has been compared with Walker Evans, the brilliant chronicler of the Dust Bowl. His work is included in the permanent work of the Smithsonian Institute. Check it out in his book Commonplace. And does David Plowden get excited about his work?!
On a berm in the middle of Lester Fister’s Iowa Hybrid Cornfield, camera in hand, Plowden shouts to his helper, face alight with pleasure, “We’re smack dab in the middle of the corn belt David. Isn’t it great!? No matter which way you look, it’s America. Can you smell it?” Now his shutter is ka-chicking away. “You know what I really love about doing this? In a sense I preserve this little place. I caught it for others. It won’t disappear. I love that feeling!”
But Plowden has found through years of teaching photography that increasingly his students don’t share his zeal for capturing life on film. (Why one enrolls in a professional photography course when one doesn’t have passion for photography is the stuff of another article!) One of the more mystifying and frequent laments Plowden faced from students under his picture taking tutelage was, of all things, “This is boring!”
To begin to free all his students from the malaise of boredom in life Professor Plowden gave his students this assignment: “Go out and photograph something that’s boring. Go out and photograph the state of being bored - to see if it’s possible.” The famous photographer had to admit that some of them did it beautifully. “What did they photograph?” a reporter asked. “Almost all of them photographed something that was very still,” Plowden replied. “A great many of them photographed our classrooms – which I felt made a point. And one of them photographed me!”
Mid-summer American parents of school-aged children know they will soon hear similar complaints to those heard by Plowden. “I’m bored!” Months of COVID quarantine have perhaps already produced cries of, “There’s nothing to do.” Worse yet, if boredom is defined as “a loss in the joy of wonder of what you do” then the truth is many an adult is bored as well - bored to death. So what is boredom? Better yet, how does God’s wisdom help us replace boredom with a bloom in Christ?
1. Remember what boredom is the opposite of. Most Christian writers define boredom as disinterest. It’s valuable to keep this in mind when you hear your children or yourself complain of boredom. Boredom is often the heart finding some task or person or event or even most everything uninteresting, barring health issues or the problems of an impenitent heart. Philipps Brooks said, “The monotony of life is in you not in the world.”
When kids whine, “I’m bored; there’s nothing to do,” do they literally mean there isn’t a single thing to do in the house, yard, or life? If they do we roll our eyes in disgust with our endless list of things that need to get done and feel anger at the foolishness of such a statement, right? But usually what is behind a statement like this is, “I can’t think of anything that interests me.” My brothers and I weren’t the brightest bulbs on the porch growing up but we learned one thing real quick. Don’t ever say to our dad, “I’m bored; there’s nothing to do.” That led in a hurry to you doing something like weeding the garden, or washing the car, or giving Frosty our poodle a bath. Better to be bored!!
But this is why one can be very busy and very bored. By the way, this is why a spouse might think he or she is bored with his or her partner. Boredom often is not the opposite of busyness but it is the opposite of interest. You chose to lose interest in things and feel bored. And almost without exception lack of interest is because of a lack of finding genuine joy or satisfaction in what you are doing.
Think of boredom then as the warning bell dinging, “Someone has lost interest in what truly brings joy.” Let boredom tell you the same thing being on the treadmill for the first time after the gyms open and you can’t catch your breath. In a creative and clear way someone’s capacity in what actually and truly is interesting in life needs to be increased. “Kids here is why making a bird house benefits you and God’s creatures.” “Honey, what do you need from me to help your interest in painting?”
If you feed boredom only the junk food of easy entertainment, titillating stimulation, and more gaming in the end you will only be more bored. Genuine lasting joy is not found in those interests, only a little happiness for a moment. True joy is found in knowing Jesus, loving him, and living for him not in what Jeremiah called broken cisterns. “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13). Broken cistern or budding desire? Delight or dullness? Your choice. Kindle interest. Remember what boredom is the opposite of.
2. For heaven’s sake, forget yourself. Garrison Keillor describes a joy impaired elderly lady named Edith like this. “Edith lived in her own little world, surrounded North, South, East, and West by Edith.” Funny thing is Edith always had a louse in her liver about being bored too. This is inevitable when you begin to think life should always revolve around what you want, what you desire, what you need. This is why Walker Percy accurately describes boredom as “Self stuffed with self.”
Paul writes to the Philippians: “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 - then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 - Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 - not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:1-4).
“For the sake of heaven,” Paul is saying, “if Christ’s humble love has made a difference in your life then put yourself aside and help others get ahead. Forget yourself long enough to love others in Christ.” One of the reasons why boredom has become so much more common is we are too preoccupied with looking after ourselves. The Son of man came not to be served but to serve. His serving love that took our sin away compels us to want to serve others in love. “Hey, kids, you know that elderly lady named Edith? The one who crabs all the time? Yes, she can complain but I asked her if you could paint her garage for her this summer and she actually smiled. You know if you do this for her you are not only loving her but your loving Jesus. Why don’t you give it a try? It might be…interesting!?” I’m spit balling here but you get the idea.
Attached to this article, believe it or not, is the image David Plowden is most famous for. It’s a print of the Statue of Liberty rising, ghostlike from a weedy, rubble-strewn New Jersey wasteland. A grand sprawl of trash and utility poles is leading us to liberty. This is some of what Plowden recently said in capturing this photo: “I have turned to the way I know best to serve others to express my distress over our appalling indifference and misplaced priorities in America. I am so alive when I serve in this way. It’s so interesting and it never gets old.”
I may be wrong but this is an unbelieving photographer who seemingly has banished boredom as a settled disposition from his life. How? He is using gifts given to him by God to serve others. Yes, he seemingly does not acknowledge the LORD as the giver of those gifts. Nevertheless in using them he has served others for over 45 years now and it has never gotten old. Imagine, my friend, the passion children of God might have for serving others with their gifts knowing full well the LORD, who loves us with an eternal love, is the source of them! Surely boredom will be replaced with a bloom in Christ. May it be true for you.