Nov 30 - Hebrews 1:2-3

ALERT

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Tomorrow We’re Inviting You to Start Advent

Read How

 

 

whom he appointed heir of all things,

through whom he also created the worlds. 

He is the reflection of God’s glory and

the exact imprint of God’s very being, and

he sustains all things by his powerful word.

When he had made purification for sins,

he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high

Hebrews 1:2b-3

 

Advent starts this week! But before Advent comes Christ the King Sunday. In last weekend’s sermon, I centered on Hebrews 1 and focused on the preeminence of Christ. Some asked for this quote. I found it in a John MacArthur piece, but he lists it as anonymous. I’ll present it in bullet-point form because I think it highlights Christ’s majesty even further …

 

·         [Christ Jesus]

o   came from the bosom of the Father to the bosom of a woman.

o   He put on humanity that we might put on divinity.

o   He became Son of man that we might become sons of God.

 

·         He was

o   born contrary to the laws of nature,

o   lived in poverty,

o   was reared in obscurity

o   and only once crossed the boundary of the land that which He was born

§  (and that in His childhood).

 

·         He had

o   no wealth

o   or influence

o   and had neither training nor education in the world schools.

 

·         His relatives were inconspicuous and uninfluential.

 

·         In infancy, He startled a king.

·         In boyhood, He puzzled the learned doctors.

·         In manhood, He ruled the course of nature.

 

·         He walked upon the billows

o   and hushed the seas asleep.

 

·         He healed the multitudes without medicine

o   and made no charge for His services.

 

·         He never wrote a book,

o   yet all the libraries of the country could not hold all of the books about Him.

·         He never wrote a song,

o   yet He has furnished the theme for more songs than all songwriters together.

·         He never founded a college,

o   yet all the schools together cannot boast of as many students as He has.

·         He never practiced medicine,

o   and yet He healed more broken hearts than the doctors have healed broken bodies.

 

·         This Jesus Christ is

o   the star of astronomy,

o   the rock of geology,

o   the lion and the lamb of zoology,

o   the harmonizer of all discords,

o   and the healer of all diseases.

 

·         And throughout history great men have come and gone

o   yet He lives on.

 

·         Herod could not kill Him.

·         Satan could not seduce Him.

·         Death could not destroy Him,

·         and the grave could not hold Him.

 

·         This is our Christ the preeminent one.

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who needs to

learn to look up in

more and more awe!

START ADVENT TOMORROW: How-To Guide Attached!!!!

Advent is the Season of Preparation

for the coming of Christ.

 

Starting tomorrow, we’re encouraging you

(and your family) to begin praying together.

 

Here’s why … How many of you have said,

“This world is getting crazier and crazier,”

and “My life is getting busier and busier”?

 

If you’re tired of it, it’s time

to put a stake in the ground!

 

For twenty-four Days leading up to Christmas, intentionally reject the crazy busyness of the world and invest 5-10 minutes with your family, slowing down and letting the peace of God fill you.

 

Below is a potential Advent prayer service you could use. (It’s also attached in PDF form.) I really encourage you to spend 5 minutes a day.

 

·        My daily email devotions will match the prayer chains that families made last Sunday

·        But you didn’t have to be at the Advent Festival to do the devotions! Devotions are devotions!

·        Each day in my devotions you’ll find the normal daily devotion … and below it, will be a simpler version for kids and families.

·        Either way, scroll down to the bottom and spend a minute or two to answer a few questions to stir discussion and draw you deeper.

 

Here’s a devotional outline …

 

Advent Prayer Liturgy

m a y   b e   d o n e   a s   a n   i n d i v i d u a l   o r   a s   a   h o u s e h o l d

 

G a t h e r i n g

Invocation

you may mark yourself with the sign of the cross

 

We gather … in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Advent Wreath

as you light the wreath, one person may pray

or this may be read responsively

 

O Lord, be with us as we gather around this evergreen wreath.  

Stir up thy power and shine your light into the darkness that is in and around us. Amen.

 

O P E N I N G    P R A Y E R S

 

Pick one or more elements.

Options that fit your household.

Offerings to help you worship in a manner

(timely enough) that you will continue to pray daily.

 

Where Have You Seen God Today?

Invite those who gather to recall and share where

they’ve seen the presence of God at work this day.

 

If it is morning …

Luther’s Morning Prayer

leader may pray it or all gathered may pray together

I give you thanks, heavenly Father, through your dear Son Jesus Christ, that you have protected me through the night from all harm and danger. I beseech you to keep me this day, too, from all sin and evil, that in all my thoughts, words and deeds I may please you. Into your hands I commend my body and soul and all that is mine. Let your holy angel have charge of me, that the wicked one may have no power over me. Amen.

 

If it is evening …

Luther’s Evening Prayer

leader may pray it or all gathered may pray together

I give you thanks, heavenly Father, through your dear Son Jesus Christ, that you have graciously protected me through this day. I beseech you to forgive all my sin and wrong which I have done. Graciously protect me during the coming night. Into your hands I commend my body and soul and all that is mine. Let your holy angels have charge of me, that the wicked one may have no power over me. Amen.

 

Advent Prayer

can be spoken or sung

Come, Thou long expected Jesus

Born to set Thy people free;

From our fears and sins release us,

Let us find our rest in Thee.

Israel’s strength and consolation,

Hope of all the earth Thou art;

Dear desire of every nation,

Joy of every longing heart.

 

W O R D

 

Look for daily reflections from the church

(or find a set of Advent readings for you own use).

 

C L O S I N G    P R A Y E R S

 

Pick one or more elements.

 

Personal Prayer

One person may pray spontaneously and aloud,

or each individual may be given a chance to pray.

 

Alternative or Additional Prayer

one person may pray or this may be read responsively

 

God of Love, Your son, Jesus, is your greatest gift to us. He is the King of Creation, the Savior of the Nations, and a sign of your gracious love.

As we wait and prepare for his coming, remove our heart’s defensive armor and help us walking in your love. Amen.

 

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

 

C L O S I N G

 

Benediction

one person may speak this on behalf of the household

or you may speak it together and to one another …

 

The Lord bless you and keep you;

the Lord make his face to shine on you

and be gracious unto you;

the Lord look upon you with favor

and give you peace.

Numbers 6:24-26

 

Prayer of Compassion

as we go forth in peace to love and serve the Lord,

the leader may pray or you may pray responsively.

 

O Lord, open our hearts to those who have so much less than we do; those whose lives are so full of pain that they cannot see the light of your love.

Show us how to carry that light to other people. Amen.

 

 

Nov 29 - part 2 - 2 Corinthians 7:1

 

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

 

Do you remember The Beverly Hillbillies?

 

It's a classic fish-out-of-water comedy. Kentucky Hillbillies discover oil, get rich, and move to the foreign planet of Beverly Hills. 

 

Occasionally, the old country wisdom of the Clampett family is worth savoring ... and when I say yesterday's graphic -- with words from 2 Corinthians 7 -- I remembered an old Beverly Hillbillies quote. In the spirit of "Let us purify ourselves," consider the wisdom of Granny ...  

 

Many a time we’ve been down to our last piece of fatback. And I’d say, “Should we eat it, or render it down for soap?” Your Uncle Jed would say, “Render it down. God will provide food for us poor folks, but we gotta do our own washin’.”

 

God will provide ... but we gotta do our own washin.' Therefore, "let us purify ourselves."

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who's discovered

that when I take a step

-- like working to

purify myself --

God will take two steps

... helping me do it!

 

Nov 28 - 2 Corinthians 7:1

 

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

 

Good people do NOT go to heaven!

 

That’s a provocative statement. But sometimes you have to be provocative for people to hear the truth.

 

Of course, among all those who go to heaven, some are “good” … but … it’s not on the basis of their goodness that they get in. In the formula for salvation, “we are justified by God’s grace … effective through faith … apart from works prescribed by the law.” That’s the formula for salvation that the Apostle Paul starts laying out in Romans 3:23. And it clearly says that it’s not our works – our goodness (or badness) -- that save us.

 

So what does save us? It is (1) God’s grace when it is coupled with (2) our faith (and not our goodness or our works). Therefore, it is not “good people” who go to heaven; it’s faithful people who go to heaven. Indeed, it is our faith in Christ the Savior which links us to the salvation our Lord Jesus won for us on the cross.

 

So does our goodness matter?

 

Absolutely!

 

In fact, today’s verse reminds us of this. Scripture repeatedly calls us to “purify ourselves.” And “holiness” is invaluable. Not only does it bless our lives, but it’s a form of worship. We should strive to be holy – it says – “out of reverence for God.”

 

Indeed, we should love him and his ways more than the world and its ways. “Since we have [all of Christ’s] promises [and blessings],” we should love God more than ourselves and our selfish desires.

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who wants to

borrow Christ’s goodness

… not try to manufacture it

on my own

 

Nov 27 - Psalm 27:1

 

The LORD is my light

and my salvation —

whom shall I fear?

The LORD is the

stronghold of my life —

of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 27:1

 

Look at that word "stronghold."

 

Typically Christians, especially those of a more charismatic stripe, use the word stronghold to talk about spiritual (even satanic) bondage. To find the common meaning of this term, I typed "stronghold" into a search engine. Here's the first quick explanation I found ...

 

·         "The devil and his army of demons look for and know how to find the chink in our armour, to enable them to get a toehold, then a foothold, then a stronghold and then a stranglehold in people’s lives. ...

·         "A stronghold is a false view of God and a false view of ourselves, which is not according to God’s word.  It is a set of beliefs or collection of ideas ... which is not of God and which is not the truth and so therefore by default consists of lies." (from a site I don't even know - Truth in Reality)

·         What does this tell us? Satan's minions continually sew falsehood to draw away us from God, and the lies that we choose to believe put us at great risk. They cause us to compromise in areas of attitudes, beliefs, morals, etc. When we bind ourselves to these lies and vices, these corruptions and deceits become a stronghold, a spiritual/mental prison, that is hard to escape.

 

Do you like that definition?

 

Have you experienced it in your life?

 

Well, whether you use the word “stronghold” to define the deceptions that confine you or not, it’s a valid concept. We’re all prone to be tripped, tricked, and imprisoned. But … that’s not how today’s Psalm uses this word!

 

Here the Psalmist celebrates that his stronghold is the Lord! What does that mean? Well, use the preceding definitions … except substitute words like truth for lie and freedom for imprisonment!

 

·         God wants to be a holy stronghold. The Creator and his angels look to deliver us from evil by shoring up the chinks in our armor.

·         A holy stronghold is a true view of the truth God. It’s also an accurate view of ourselves – made in the image of God … but on our own, sinful and unclean.

·         The lies that we choose to believe put us at great risk, but “the truth,” as Jesus said, “shall set you free.”

·         Lies compromise our attitudes, morals, and beliefs. Truth guards us, protects us, breaks the chains of corruption, and sets us free.

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who wants

a stronghold –

a foothold on the

beachhead of truth

 

Nov 23-24 - Colossians 3:15-17

 

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. - Colossians 3:15-17

 

In three verses in Colossians 3, the Apostle Paul says "give thanks" three times. I think it must be important! I believe, indeed, that thanksgiving is a profoundly untapped resource in too many people's lives.

 

1

 

The first time that Paul says some version of "give thanks," he says, "let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts ... and be thankful."

 

From my experiencing -- and from helping shepherd hundreds of lives -- the best way to find peace is to be thankful. It's almost like a prescription! There are two ways to view the world. One is from a myth of scarcity. We worry about what we don't have. Thankfulness transforms hearts by focusing on what we do have ... which is generally so much.

 

Think about it ... Worry focuses on what? Emptiness. But thanksgiving focuses on blessing ... and on the one who blesses! And when we're looking up to Jehovah-Jireh -- our provider -- we are continually reassured that all that we really need is eternally in his hands.

 

2

 

The second time that Paul talks about thankfulness, he says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God."

 

This verse could be a chicken and an egg scenario: Which comes first? Is it the singing of spiritual songs that brings "thankfulness [to] your hearts"? Or is it a thankful heart that helps you sing so joyfully? (I advise singing praise -- even from the valleys -- until we feel thankful. And then out of our thankfulness, to sing praise even more. It's like a joyful upward spiral. Song begets thankfulness ... which begets more song ... which begets more thanksgiving.

 

And, you know, there's one more piece to this phrase -- it's about teaching, admonishing, and God's word dwelling richly. God's Word is Truth. Truth proclaims light in the midst of darkness, hope in the midst of despair, and joy even in the face of sorrow. Is it the Truth of God's mercy and grace that brings "thankfulness [to] your hearts" even in the face of life's trials? Or is it a life of thankfulness that drives you again and again to God's Word -- hungrily -- so that your soul is equipped for those times of trial.

 

3

 

For the third time in three verse Paul encourages us to give thanks. This time he says, "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." When we live with thanksgiving in our hearts, we tend to see God more and more -- and more gloriously -- it this heart of Thanksgiving empowers us to serve more joyfully, more generously, more trustingly.

 

Fini

 

Did you know thanksgiving did all that?

 

May prayer is that this weekend you enjoy good food and blessed fellowship around well-set table. But most of all, I pray that it's really about thanksgiving. God is the generous provider, the true author of all true blessings.

 

In Christ's Love,

a guy who prays that

this weekend inspires

more peace, more song

and a greater hunger

(for more than just turkey)

 

Nov 21 - Romans 12:2

 

Do not be

conformed to this world,

but be transformed by

the renewing of your minds,

so that you may discern

what is the will of God—

what is good and

acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:2

 

"This world is a mess." Have you ever said that?

 

Well, how did we get here?

 

In his book The Benedict Option, Rod Dreher condenses seven hundred years of philosophical history in the West into one quick chapter. Today, I'm going to do it in one quick devotion. And I want to start with the Reformation ... for an important reason.

As a good Lutheran, I'm good at celebrating all of the positive, transformational blessings of the Reformation. Martin Luther helped restore the authority of Scripture, reclaim a Gospel of Grace, and place the Word of God in the average person's hands. 

 

But ... have you ever heard of the Law of Unintended Consequences. What was the curse of the Reformation? It fractured the Authority of the Church, and though it was awesome to finally have Scripture in individual hands, what happened? If individuals didn't agree with a teaching, they'd break away to start their own congregations or denominations. Certainly, the sixteenth century church needed reform, but the unintended consequence has been five centuries of church fractures and divisions.

I'm about to unfold seven hundred years of philosophical trends that have changed the West. And I'm going to admit, up front, most of these trends -- like the Reformation itself -- produced both positives and negatives. I'm also going to admit to quite a bit of over-simplification ... but it's all to make an important point ...

 

 

Seven hundred years ago, everything in the West -- including meaning, purpose, life, philosophy, etc. -- centered around God. What's happened over the last seven hundred years has been a steady, incremental, and now total switch. Self is viewed as the highest good, and God (if He exists at all) is peripheral. Furthermore, Truth is increasingly a bad word; nowadays, feelings tend to trump ideas.

In quick bullet-point fashion, watch how this happened (starting with nominalism in the 14th century) ...

 

• Nominalism invited humanity to question the absolutes -- the timeless universals upon which all thought was based.
• The Renaissance celebrated human potential. (Do you see the beginning of the rise of the self?)
• The Reformation fractured church authority.
• Which meant in the next generation, the likes of Descartes were encouraging people to question all previous forms of thought and authority.
• I'm so glad for millions of scientific advancements. But new ears of Scientific Exploration produced in humanity the pride of Babel -- "Look what we can do."
• The Industrial Revolution had at least three negative effects. It uprooted and splintered families as people moved to the cities to seek work. Culture was suddenly less agrarian, separating most individuals from the intimate connection to the rhythms of Creation (and to the Creator, in whom "we live and move and have our being" -- see Acts 17:28). Furthermore, with individuals producing less and less of their own food and sustenance, money became a more and more central part of human life.
• Deism – was the belief that God is essentially a blind watchmaker. He created the watch/the world, wound it up, and now lets it run without much (if any) interference. The deistic God is, thus, an inactive God.
• Romanticism trumpeted emotion and personal freedom. (Self.)
• Darwinism provided the first real way to explain creation without God.
• And within a generation or two after Darwin, what was rising? Atheism. Communism. Fascism. Eugenics.
• The was also the rise of the Sigmund Freud and Therapeutic. It was the call to self-fulfillment and self-actualization.
• Modernism believed that not only were species supposedly evolving, but human nature and potential were evolving too. But Modernism came crashing down after two World Wars, the Holocaust, the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on civilians, and a hundred million executed by Stalin and Mao.
• This led to the rise of Post-Modernism and its cynicism. If humanity isn't producing answers, then the individual must be the ultimate source of truth (at least for that individual).
• Thus, Relativism rose, proclaiming, "What's true for you is true for you and what's true for me is true for me."
• Materialism – also rose. We're encouraged to purchase our happiness and shop for our meaning.
• The Sexual Revolution is totally self-in-center.
• And I don't even know if there's a name for our current philosophy. It used to be that Ideas shaped Feelings and Actions. Now Feelings shape Ideas and Actions. Which is why we can't have any civil discourse anymore. To discuss Ideas is viewed as offensive, because you're not debating an Idea at the level of Ideas, you're discussing at the level of Feeling and thus perceived as attacking the person.

 

Do you see it? Seven centuries and God has moved out of the center of our modern, Western, philosophical imagination and Self and Feeling are now the highest ideals.

 

Oops!

 

And a bigger oops? It's that you and I are products of this Western culture. It's the water we swim in. We're so accustomed to it that we don't even recognize that we're drowning.

 

Escape takes intentionality. Reclaiming faith takes being deep. Bringing true hope -- rather than temporary satisfaction -- requires caring about ideas. We need Truth. We need God to be in the center -- in our center. And it starts with personal confession. Change must start with us.

 

Do you want change? Well, I don't know about you, but I want God in the center -- for myself and my family -- because I'm increasingly dissatisfied with our messy, modern trends.

 

In Christ's Love,

a guy who wants to be like

the famous sculpture

in today's header.

I want to be transformed ...

and it start by thinking,

by the renewing of my mind.

 

Nov 20 - Revelation 4:11

 

“You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things, and

by your will they existed

and were created.”

Revelation 4:11

 

Have you been worried about our modern American culture in recent years?

 

So have I.

 

See if any of these sound familiar …

 

·         Increasing pace and increasing debt.

·         Growing stress and accelerating busyness.

·         Anxiety. Fear. Depression. And way too much self-medication.

·         Rampant secularism, individualism, materialism, and cynicism.

·         Greater divides, shrillness, and intolerance.

 

Is there hope? Well … if there’s a God, then there’s always hope!!!

 

To reorient our actions and our hope, I’ve spent the last week or two introducing you to the book, The Benedict Option. It offers, as its subtitle proclaims, A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation.

 

Now, I know that we all want to jump immediately to answers and quick-fix-techniques, but before we know where to go from here, it’s important to know how we got here. Thus, author Rod Dreher starts his book with a review of the last seventeen hundred years of philosophical history. (Wait! Don’t let the word philosophy scare you! This is just a summary of how and why people think the way they do.)

 

In picture form, here’s the quick summary of the last seventeen hundreds of thought in the West.

 

 

The picture on the left represents the first thousand years of Christendom. I’ll give you a quote to describe what this looked like in just a minute, but in general, God was viewed as so present and alive that the Lord was clearly understood as the center of all things. And man, on the other hand, was on the periphery. In fact, if humans were to find purpose and meaning (ultimately and exclusively), it was understood that it came only from whatever God-the-Creator ordained. That was the first thousand years.

 

Over the next seven hundred years – step-by-step – God has been philosophically pushed out of the center of the dominant worldviews in the West. The result? We now are dominated by a modern secular worldview. (It’s something like the picture on the right. Trumpeted by the likes of Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs, this modern way of thinking tells us that the highest priority – the center of the circle – ought to be the self. It’s all about self-fulfillment and self-actualization. The individual is preeminent. It’s viewed as oppressive to say that there is an objective Truth. Thus, God – especially, the traditional view of God – is increasingly at the periphery.  

 

If that sounds familiar, I want to paint for you a picture of a more vibrant past. To do that, let me close today with an extended quote from Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option …

 

[For the first thousand years of Christendom, people] lived in what philosopher Charles Taylor calls an “enchanted world”—one so unlike ours that we struggle to imagine it. … Medievals experienced the divine as far more present in their daily lives. … In the mind of medieval Christendom, the spirit world and the material world penetrated each other … Medievals experienced everything in the world sacramentally … effecting a real transformation… [T]hey believed that God was present everywhere and revealed Himself to us through people, places, and things…

 

The only reason the material world had any meaning at all was because of its relationship to God. … Truth was guaranteed by the existence of God … [Thus,] medieval man did not see himself as fundamentally separate from the natural order; rather, the alienation he felt was an effect of the Fall, a catastrophe … His task was to join himself to the love of God and harmonize his own steps with the great cosmic dance.

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who’s tired of

dancing the world’s dance

(disco was king

when I was young,

now it’s the Shmoney,

the NaeNae and the Twerk).

No, I’m a guy who’s tired

of doing the world’s dance,

and I’m ready to dance

God’s cosmic dance