Nov 18-19 - Psalm 23:6

Surely your goodness and

mercy will follow me

all the days of my life, and

I will dwell in the house

of the Lord forever.

Psalm 23:6

 

One of Mary Louise's favorite sayings is that each of us should look like a sheep from the front and shepherds from behind.

 

You know what that means, right? From the front, we should look like sheep ... because we're eager to follow after pastors, spiritual mentors, and Jesus himself, right? Meanwhile, from the back, we should look like shepherds, investing our lives in others, mentoring them in wisdom and Word.

 

On another day, I'll ask you who you are mentoring! It's important. We learn five times more as a teacher than a student. And Jesus' preeminent call is for each of us to "make disciples" of others (see Matthew 28). Yes, on another day, I'll ask who is following after you as a sheep follows a shepherd. But today I have another question ...

 

In today's passage, if the Lord is my/our Shepherd, and you are a faithful, following sheep in his pasture, what is following you?!

 

Read the verse.

 

Do you see it?

 

So many go chasing after happiness. If so, we're pointed in the wrong direction. We need to keep Jesus in front of us - not some temporary, illusive, fickle, goal of some transient human emotion. Rather, if we want to find blessing, we simply need to follow the Lord ... and then "goodness and mercy (and every other human blessing) will follow (after us) all the days of (our) lives."

 

In other words, if you want blessing, chase God ... don't chase the things of the world.

 

In Christ's Love,

a guy who thinks

life would be easier

if I were a dog --

I'd be fed, well-rested,

and busy chasing

after good things, like

play-balls and squirrels

(Wait, that's what God

wants to give us.

Follow the good master

and life is a blessing.)

 

Nov 16 - Joshua 24:15

 

Some of Joshua’s

final words to God’s People:

“Choose this day whom

you will serve, whether the gods

your ancestors served

in the region beyond the River

or the gods of the Amorites

in whose land you are living;

but as for me and my house,

we will serve the Lord.”

Joshua 24:15

 

Yesterday – as a summary of last Sunday’s sermon (per your request) – I listed a handful of things that define our modern American culture. Self-diagnose yourself. As a quick review, how many of these apply to you and your family …

 

·         Increasing Pace and Constant Change

·         Carpool Lines, Unending Busyness, and Growing Exhaustion

·         Self-Medication: with mindless, mind-numbing activities like too much TV, Social Media, Computer Games, etc.

·         Self-Medication: with an increasing middle-class, middle age epidemic of Drugs, Alcohol, Pornography, Promiscuity

·         Self-Medication: with Materialism, Shopping Therapy, and Drowning Debt

·         Too many Weekend Chores and Sunday Activities – which increasingly preclude physical rest and spiritual refreshment

·         Anxiety and Fear – as a result of inflationary costs and deflating salaries.

·         And the final word … Whirlwind

 

How many of us feel like we’re trapped in a whirlwind?

 

And what seems to go first? Our ability to slow down enough to listen for and hear God.

 

Relax. We’ve been here before. For example, the prophet Elijah – at his very lowest point in life – heard these words from God. “‘[Elijah,] go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks into pieces … but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice” – 1 Kings 19:11-13.

 

Where do we find God? Where do we find hope?

 

Here’s a more recent illustration … Commentator Rod Dreher started his book, The Benedict Option, with a story that went something like this: The weatherman said it was going to be a wet weekend – maybe four inches or rain over the next four days. Nothing that uncommon for southern Louisiana. But when the rain stopped a few days later, thirty inches of rain had fallen. Places that hadn’t seen water on their lawns in a hundred years were now drowning under twenty feet of water. Thousands and thousands of people hadn’t thought to buy flood insurance, because since the West “discovered” this continent, no one had ever seen this much water.

 

This was the literal Thousand-Year-Flood, said Dreher. But don’t you know that spiritually the Church in the West in undergoing a fifteen-hundred-year flood. As the pope-before-last (Pope Benedict) said in 2012, “The spiritual crisis overtaking the West is the most serious since the fall of the Roman Empire.”

 

Or as Rod Dreher says, “American Christians are going to have to come to terms with the brute fact that we live in a culture, one in which our beliefs make increasingly little sense. We speak a language that the world more and more either cannot hear or finds offensive to its ears. [So] could it be that the best way to fight the flood is to stop fighting the flood? That is, to quit piling up sandbags and to build an ark.”

 

What does that mean?

 

Well, I will talk about practical ark-building details more in next week’s sermon, but here’s a hint of a hint of a solution … To stop fighting the flood of culture, to stop doing a split (the last two days’ image), we need to quit putting one foot in the world and one in the church. We need to “Choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served [in past days] or the gods [and priorities] of [the] land [in which] you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who is praying …

God,

I don’t want to live a divided life,

with one foot in the church and

one foot in a broken culture.

Help me take the hard

but life-giving step of

coming home fully to you.

 

 

Nov 15 - Deuteronomy 30:19

 

“See, I have set before you life

and death, blessings and curses.

Choose life so that you

and your descendants may live”

Deuteronomy 30:19

 

Yesterday, I showed a picture of a man with one leg going one direction and the other leg going the other.

 

Essentially, he’s doing a split.

 

Well, let me tell you in no uncertain terms that men shouldn’t do splits! Our bodies just aren’t built for this!

 

And neither are our souls!

 

To this end – and per your request, a summary of last Sunday’s sermon – I invited us to consider the state of the world that many of us are so desperately clinging to, so desperately trying to keep a foot in. And I asked: Why? Why would we want to keep a foot in an increasingly broken world?

 

To that end – and to get a simple diagnosis of our current culture – I started googling things like The State of The Good Old, Middle-Class, American Dream. Here’s a quick analysis of our modern American culture …

 

·         Increasing Pace

·         Constant Change

 

How many of you feel like the pace of life is continually accelerating? It is! Indeed, we’re living in a period that social scientists are calling “Liquid Modernity.” This modern world is changing so fast that before a new normal solidifies under our feet, it’s changing again. Thus, our cultures foundations are increasingly liquid.

 

·         Carpool Lines

·         Unending Busyness

·         Growing Exhaustion

 

When I laid out this next set of words, tired heads across the congregation were nodding. And I pointed the congregation to two resources. The classic Christian book on finding peace and margin in a busy world is Dr. Richard Swenson’s book, Margin. (One of our small groups read this about ten years ago … and keeps referencing it.) Next, I pointed to a more recent book that one of my sons just pointed me too. Kevin DeYoung (an author for The Gospel Coalition) has a book out entitled, Crazy Busy. I love the illustration on the cover. I love the subtitle more: A (Mercifully) Short Book about a (Really) Big Problem.

 

·         Self-Medication

·         TV, Social Media, Computer Games

·         Drugs, Alcohol, Pornography, Promiscuity

 

As a pastor, my heart breaks as I watch too many friends battling this modern epidemic of busyness and exhaustion. What the modern solution? Self-medication. Some of things we self-medicate with are mindless, brainless. Exhausted, we fall on the couch and numbly watch TV (or scroll through social media or peck away at computer games), only to get up three hours later (more tired than when we started) to go to bed and start the process all over again.

 

But there’s a second, darker form of self-medication that is swallowing increasing numbers of lives. We increasingly numb ourselves with drugs and alcohol. And even more insidiously, too many are increasingly compromising with pornography and promiscuity … (just so they can “feel something”).

 

Need I say that marriages are increasingly disintegrating as we become less and less of who God has created us to be?

 

·         Materialism

·         Debt

 

This is another way we modern Americans self-medicate. We call it shopping therapy. After all, isn’t The Pursuit of Happiness, our highest goal? It was codified as our manifest destiny in the Declaration of Independence, right? But while I was researching this, I found a research paper’s title that haunted me: Johnna Montgomery talks about The Pursuit of (Past) Happiness. That’s the insidiousness of debt. How many of us are still paying for what we thought would make us happy five years ago?

 

·         Weekend Chores

·         Sunday Activities

 

How many of us are so busy during the week that weekends aren’t for relaxation and refreshment anymore. Rather, we have to cram a week’s worth of shopping and chores into two, too-short days.

 

And how many of you remember when Sundays were exclusively for God, church, family, and church family? Now, and with the best of intentions, parents are saying, “I want my child to have the opportunity to be in the same things that I was in when I was a kid.” But now, those activities are increasingly on weekends. And we’re forced to choose between church and world. And church is increasingly losing out. (Now that may not effect a parent’s faith and salvation which is probably shaped and formed and secure, but what are these compromises teaching our children? That church is optional … if something better comes along? Jesus said, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” – Mark 8:36. Or “For what does it profit our children to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”)

 

·         Anxiety

·         Fear

 

In my searching things like “The Good Old, Middle Class American Dream” I found that in the last eight or ten years in America health care costs have skyrocketed. (Up about 40%.) So have college costs. (Again about 40%.) Meanwhile the average household income has gone down about 1%. And we’re increasingly trying to do more and more with less and less. And what’s creeping into the system is more and more fear.

 

·         Whirlwind

 

And I called this toxic brew a “whirlwind.” (More on that tomorrow.)

 

Now, this is a depressing place to end a devotion. Diagnosis is never fun. Tomorrow – and in next Sunday’s sermon – I’ll begin pointing to a godly cure. In the meantime, if you’re too many of those are hitting too close to home, maybe it’s time to start praying: God, I don’t want to live a divided life, with one foot in the church and one foot in a broken culture. Help me take the hard but life-giving step of coming home fully to you.

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who is praying …

God,

I don’t want to live a divided life,

with one foot in the church and

one foot in a broken culture.

Help me take the hard

but life-giving step of

coming home fully to you.

 

 

Nov 14 - 1 Kings 18:21

 

How long will you go limping

with two different opinions?

If the Lord is God, follow him!

1 Kings 18:21

 

Several people have asked me to publish some of the things that I talked about in my sermon last Sunday. Over the course of the next few days, here it is …

 

To briefly summarize, I said that the church in American used to look like the picture on the left (see below). Most American Christians had a foot in church and a foot in the world. And in a nation still dominated by (nominally) Judeo-Christian values, most assumed that to-be-a-good-Christian-was-to-be-a-good-American and to-be-a-good-citizen-was-to-be-a-“good”-Christian.

 

 

Things have changed in recent decades (see the picture above on the right). This is a picture of church and culture today. Our American culture is increasingly hostile to God, faith, church, and religion. People of faith are increasingly seen as narrow-minded and bigoted. And not only is the pace of this change accelerating, but those who keep trying to keep a foot in both worlds find themselves increasingly and impossibly stretched.

 

 

Statistically – according to studies by Christian researcher George Barna – only about 9% of American Christians have quit straddling this divide and have rooted their whole lives (and both feet) in God, faith, and church. Let’s assume an equal 9% of those-who-call-themselves-Christian are totally sold out to the world. With both feet there, they are Christian-in-name-only. So where does that leave the remaining 82%? Trying to keep a foot in both camps. Straddling the great divide. And finding life increasingly impossible.

 

Scripture has a name for believers in this posture: Lukewarm. To some that may not initially sound too bad … that is until we read Jesus’ judgment against this state of spiritual compromise. To the church in Laodicea, these words were proclaimed: ““I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. But because you are lukewarm … I am about to spit you out of my mouth” - Revelation 3:15-16.

 

God-through-Moses proclaimed a message to God’s people … that powerfully relevant to us today. He said, “See, I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who is praying …

God,

I don’t want to live a divided life,

with one foot in the church and

one foot in a broken culture.

Help me take the hard

but life-giving step of

coming home fully to you.

 

Nov 8 - 1 Peter 5:6

 

Humble yourselves, therefore,

under God’s mighty hand, that

he may lift you up in due time.

1 Peter 5:6

 

I shook a man’s hand recently. It was huge. Like a tree trunk.

 

I shook, and he didn’t move.

 

He shook, and he almost through me across the room.

 

I almost asked, “Where did you play football?” I should have. I could have gotten an autograph. He was former Super Bowl champion!

 

That’s my most recent experience with a “mighty hand.” But while a defensive tackle’s hand is strong, “God’s mighty hand” is absolutely massive. It is powerful. With it, he parts the Red Sea and comforts a crying widow. With his mighty hand, God provides food for the hungry and protects his children from harm.

 

Biblically, it is an awesome gift when God’s hand of protection rests upon you. Israel, for example, was invincible when God guided and guarded them. Ezra once cheered – Ezra 8:22 – “Our God’s hand of protection is on all who worship him, but …” But is a hard word in Scripture. Throughout Scripture, God tends to bless the faithful … but … after seasons of rebellion, God would often remove his hand of protection and allow his people to fall into a different hand – the hand of the enemy.

 

So … do you know the secret of being blessed by “God’s mighty hand”? It is to “humble yourselves.”

 

Now, that’s a hard thing to do. God is so big. He’s mighty. He’s powerful. He could toss me further than a pro football player. Do I truly trust myself to his care? Will you really and truly humble yourself? Will you follow his ways? Will you trust that he knows better for you than you do?

 

Well, when you trust in the Lord, “God’s mighty hand [will] lift you up.” And if you don’t, then another hand will inevitably crush you.

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who trusts God’s

big hands to lift me up;

rather than death’s

inevitable fingers

to pull me down

 

Nov 7 - Psalm 85:8

 

I will listen to

what God the Lord says;

he promises peace to

his people, his faithful servants

— but let them not turn to folly.

Psalm 85:8

 

Sometimes there is an obvious path … and sometimes there is an unexpected turn.

 

The obvious path with this verse is a reflection on what kind of “peace” is “promise[d]” here. And to be honest, I probably would have jumped immediately to military peace rather than the brutality of war. We all want that peace.

 

On a more personal level, we want peace in our families, rather than anger and division. We all want that peace too.

 

And when two parties “listen to what God the Lord says” – whether those parties are husband-vs-wife or parents-vs-children or nation-vs-nation – then “peace” is the blessing. Unfortunately, one party or the other too often turns to selfish desires and “folly.” And the peace we desire is elusive.   

 

That’s the obvious path for today’s lesson … and the advice really is simple: “Listen to what God the Lord says” and you will discover more “peace.” Good advice.

 

But … I’m righting this immediately after writing yesterday’s devotion. In my randomly generated list of key Bible verses, yesterday’s verse also talked about peace. Colossians 3:15 invites us to “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.”

 

That’s a different kind of peace. Instead of the battle being between two people or two nations, perhaps we also need to consider the battlefield that’s within our own hearts. In Galatians 5, the Apostle talks about desires of the flesh which are set against the fruit of the Spirit. In Romans 6, Paul explains this battlefield like this: “The good that I want to do, I do not do, but the evil that I don’t want to do, that’s the very thing I do.” The heart is a battlefield. So is the mind.

 

Do you ever feel like that? Do you want to gain a victory?

 

How?

 

Well, today’s verse tells us. It’s time – with ever more attention – that we “listen to what God the Lord says”!

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who realizes

that in order to see peace,

I must “listen” first

with my ears –

I must “listen to what

God the Lord says”

 

Nov 4/5 - Job 13:9

 

Can you deceive God, as

one person deceives another?

Job 13:9

 

I don’t like that Spirit of Joy has finally entered the Twentieth Century. (We just put up security cameras.)

 

But I do like that Halloween didn’t bring any pranks to our property. There was no traffic in or around our building with people seeking to cause mischief.

 

Why? Could it have been the cameras? Did they deter this?

 

Well, here’s what I commented to the staff: “In our worldview class, The Truth Project, we’ve learned that too many of us (including too many “good Christians”) are practical atheists. We say we believe in an omniscient, omnipresent God, but we live most days as if he’s not seeing our actions and not knowing our thoughts.

 

“Maybe just the threat of a security camera,” I mused, “got pranksters to behave as if someone really was watching.”

 

And hence the thought: Do we act like God is watching? Do we respond like God is there and cares? Do we think – as today’s verse suggests – that we can “deceive God, as one person deceives another”? Who are we fooling? We say that we believe in a transcendent, omniscient, omnipresent God, but do we act like it?

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who gets stopped

short occasionally when

he remembers Galatians 6:7 –

“Do not be deceived;

God cannot be mocked”

 

 

 

Last Chance: November Prayers - How Can We Pray?

How can we pray

for you this month?!

 

Also, Sunday is All Saints’ Day.

Who has passed away in the past year

that you’d like for us to remember.

Please give me the full name and how they’re related to you.

Nov 3 - 1 Timothy 1:15

The saying is sure and

worthy of full acceptance,

that Christ Jesus came

into the world to

save sinners.

1 Timothy 1:15

 

The Apostle could have just said, “Jesus came to save sinners.” So why did he say more? He wanted to make sure it stuck!

 

“The saying is sure.” It’s reliable. Dependable. Trustworthy. And yet, it’s still more than that. The old word “surety” is a banking term. It’s the collateral you put up to insure a loan. It’s the lender’s security against loss or damage. Sometimes, a person acts as a form of surety – like the co-signer of a loan, we can provide surety for another person’s debt by assuming legal responsibility in case they default.

 

I don’t know about you, but I’m not likely to co-sign anyone’s debt! It’s generally bad business. It too frequently costs relationships. So if I do co-sign a loan, I have to absolutely believe that this person, this cause, is worth risking everything for. Meaning: I’d rather go into utter debt myself than miss this opportunity.

 

So read this verse in that light. “That Jesus … came to save sinners” is definitely “worthy of full acceptance,” but it’s also worth risking everything – including your finances – for!

 

And that’s not a new thought to Paul or that verse. It is the thrust of several of Jesus’ parables: A man finds a treasure in a field. He re-buries it, and goes and sells everything he has to buy that field and acquire that treasure. It’s pearl of great price, said Jesus. The kingdom of God is worth risking everything for.

 

What would it take for you to become that urgent in your faith?!

 

In Christ’s Love,

a young man who once risked

a job and support for his family

for the kingdom.

(What are you willing to risk?!)

 

 

Nov 2 - Romans 10:10

 

For one believes

with the heart and

so is justified,

and one confesses

with the mouth and

so is saved.

Romans 10:10

 

How would you summarize your theology? 

 

Martin Luther summarized his theology with a layered symbol. What became known as Luther's seal is depicted here in a stained glass window. In fact, in this window Luther's seal is surrounded here by a Reformation era rally cry. Seven "solas" (the Latin word for "alone") steered the Reformation. Along with principles like salvation being by "faith alone" and "grace alone," the Reformers cheered that our faith was grounded on the "Word alone."

 

So ... what is the layered message within Luther's Seal? Luther himself described it in a 1530 letter to a colleague, Lazarus Spengler ... 

 

·         First, there is a black cross in a heart that remains its natural color. This is to remind me that it is faith in the Crucified One that saves us. Anyone who believes from the heart will be justified (Romans 10:10). It is a black cross, which mortifies and causes pain, but it leaves the heart its natural color. It doesn’t destroy nature, that is to say, it does not kill us but keeps us alive, for the just shall live by faith in the Crucified One (Romans 1:17). 

 

·         The heart should stand in the middle of a white rose. This is to show that faith gives joy, comfort, and peace—it puts the believer into a white, joyous rose. Faith does not give peace and joy like the world gives (John 14:27). This is why the rose must be white, not red. White is the color of the spirits and angels (cf. Matthew 28:3; John 20:12). 

 

·         This rose should stand in a sky-blue field, symbolizing that a joyful spirit and faith is a beginning of heavenly, future joy, which begins now, but is grasped in hope, not yet fully revealed. 

 

·         Around the field of blue is a golden ring to symbolize that blessedness in heaven lasts forever and has no end. Heavenly blessedness is exquisite, beyond all joy and better than any possessions, just as gold is the most valuable and precious metal.

 

In Christ's Love,

a guy whose symbol for

the last thirteen years is a

bold cross (the instrument of life),

surrounded by a rainbow of color

(the Genesis 6-9 promise of grace),

enlivened by a white dove

(symbolizing the movement

of God's Holy Spirit).

 

Sent from my iPhone