Lenten Walk - Part 25

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Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Then on October 17 of that same year, the Lord sent another message through the prophet Haggai.  “Say this to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Jeshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of God’s people there in the land:  ‘Does anyone remember this house—this Temple—in its former splendor?  How, in comparison, does it look to you now?  It must seem like nothing at all!  But now the Lord says:  Be strong, Zerubbabel.  Be strong, Jeshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest.  Be strong, all you people still left in the land.  And now get to work, for I am with you, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.  My Spirit remains among you, just as I promised when you came out of Egypt.  So do not be afraid.’  “For this is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says:  In just a little while I will again shake the heavens and the earth, the oceans and the dry land.  I will shake all the nations, and the treasures of all the nations will be brought to this Temple.  I will fill this place with glory, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.  The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.  The future glory of this Temple will be greater than its past glory, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.  And in this place I will bring peace.  I, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, have spoken!”  

Haggai 2:1-9^(NLT)

The house of God was a shadow of its’ former splendor by the time the prophet Haggai arrived on the scene.  God told the people three things through this prophecy:

#1.  Do not be afraid!

#2.  Get to work!

#3.  Everything you see belongs to God, and I’m going to shake this place; the glory you remember will be nothing compared to what you will see in the future!

This prophecy is a strong reminder that (as Lent is so good at reminding us) finding ourselves in a very dark place is not the end of light.  And that means the message of Haggai is as strong to God’s people today as it was when God originally gave it.

The time of Haggai was after the 70 year captivity of Babylon.  The prophet was probably born in captivity and had never seen Jerusalem.  When the exiles began returning they found the Temple in shambles.  Work had begun to restore the House of God, but it had stopped abruptly and people were steeped in their own building projects, restoring their personal properties while the Temple lay in ruins.  Reading what God said through the prophet ought to stir our hearts to consider the state of God’s house in our local communities.

Today we live in a dark culture, obsessed with materialism, sex, and whatever new amusement comes on the scene.  On Sundays most houses of worship struggle just to keep the doors open. 

I am not a prophet in the sense of foretelling the future.  However, it is a pastor’s calling to be a prophet in the sense of forth-telling what God has already said, or reminding God’s people of His Word:

God said through Haggai – do not be afraid.  Apply that to the way we live today, in fear of bombers, shooters, stock markets, and elected self-serving glory-grabbers.

God said through Haggai – get to work.  No matter how much it sometimes feels like you may be using a teaspoon to shovel the tide back into the ocean, whatever you do in God’s name can be multiplied beyond your wildest imagination; remember that God can feed a multitude of thousands with a boy’s lunch of a few loaves and fishes.

God said through Haggai – you watch me shake this place.  When God’s people act in faith, get to work, and leave the rest to God, the world will wonder what just happened!

For You Today

Have you looked around at the landscape of things and decided, like an exile returning to the crumbled ruins, that we are beyond hope?  Look up!  Our redemption isn’t that far off!  God specializes in shaking dark places!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

Lenten Walk - Part 24

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Tuesday, March 20, 2018

This is what the Lord says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies:  “I am the First and the Last; there is no other God.  Who is like me?  Let him step forward and prove to you his power.  Let him do as I have done since ancient times when I established a people and explained its future.  Do not tremble; do not be afraid.  Did I not proclaim my purposes for you long ago?  You are my witnesses—is there any other God?  No! There is no other Rock—not one!”  

Isaiah 44:6-8^(NLT)

Three times[2] in the book that bears Isaiah’s name Almighty God delclares that He alone is first and last.  As an echo we hear the same phrase three times[3] in John’s Revelation, the final time near the very end of Scripture:

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”  

Revelation 22:13^(NLT)

There are several significant attachments to this phrase, all of them so important to our theology…why and what we believe about God.  He is first and last in the sense that He is the Creator, but also sustainer.  He was before and He holds it all together, and will be there to restore His creation to glory at the end of time.  Paul gives us this synopsis:

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.  He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.  He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.  Everything was created through him and for him.  He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.  

Colossians 1:15-17^(NLT)

Another significance of this phrase first and last is the idea of preeminence; God was not only the first in the sense of time, but also in the matter of imporance.  As Isaiah records, God isn’t just the most important among all the gods you might hear about; Jehovah is the ONLY God.

One other thought about first and last, which sums up why we can hardly claim we comprehend the vastness of the nature and character of this unseen eternal One, is that He is before time and space, and exists above that realm in which we humans dwell.  As such, God knows the beginnings and endings of all things.  It is like our universe is one very long parade, and God has a drone’s perspective of the banners at the beginning of the parade, and the sweepers after the procession…all at the same time.

For You Today

Lent is that dark time inbetween. 

It is when we turn a corner from Jesus demonstrating his power over what He created, magnificent miracles and heartening sermons…to the shadow of a cross.  In this 40 days of wandering in the wilderness of inbetween, it is important to remember that we are within time and space.  We cannot yet comprehend what life is like above this realm…we can only imagine, as John wrote:

Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears.  But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.  

1 John 3:2^(NLT)

This Lenten promise reminds us that He not only was first, creating and breathing life into us; God is also the last, standing ready to extend that life with Him in eternity. 

In Lent…inbetween…it is enough to know that we will know!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

[2] Isaiah 41:4, 44:6, 48:12

[3] Revelation 1:17, 2:8, 22:13

Lenten Walk - Part 21

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Thursday, March 15, 2018

Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love.  Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins.  Wash me clean from my guilt.  Purify me from my sin.  For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night.  Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight.  You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just.  For I was born a sinner—yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.  But you desire honesty from the womb, teaching me wisdom even there.  Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.  Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me—now let me rejoice.  Don’t keep looking at my sins.  Remove the stain of my guilt.  Create in me a clean heart, O God.  Renew a loyal spirit within me.  Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.   Psalm 51:1-12^(NLT)

Having spent the early and middle years of my life in a religious tribe for which Lent was something those other people did, I missed a lot of opportunity to develop a readiness to do good for my soul.  This thought arises out of one of our idioms which says it plainly, that confession is good for the soul.

Now this idea and the idiom it belongs to is not merely a cultural saying, born from human wisdom; the concept is all over the pages of Scripture. 

Our insides are not equipped to hold onto our sins like a killer keeping his secret:

When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long.  

Psalm 32:3^(NLT)

Holding on to and hiding our sin holds us back from growing:

People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy.  Proverbs 28:13^(NLT)

Leaders of great movements like Nehemiah rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls confessed:

I confess that we have sinned against you.  Yes, even my own family and I have sinned!  Nehemiah 1:6^(NLT)

Relationships can be reclaimed:

“If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense.  If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back.   Matthew 18:15^(NLT)

Our wholeness and physical health depend on confession:

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  

James 5:16^(NLT)

Being forgiven is the entry to an unburdened life with a clear heart:

But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.  1 John 1:9^(NLT)

The question that haunts my understanding of human nature about confessing our sins is:  If confession is so good for us, why are we so reluctant to do it? 

And the answer to that question is no different now than it was for the first pair of humans who sinned and wouldn’t own up to it:

When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden.  So they hid from the Lord God among the trees.  Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”  He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid.  I was afraid because I was naked.”  “Who told you that you were naked?” the Lord God asked.  “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?”  The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.”  Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?”  “The serpent deceived me,” she replied.  “That’s why I ate it.” 

Genesis 3:8-13^(NLT)

Pride – when you stand naked before God with cookie crumbs all over the hands that have done what you’ve been told not to do…well, it’s time to pass the buck!

For You Today

Lent is a time for owning that buck, and releasing it back into the hand of your God.                                                  

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

No More Sermons

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Wednesday, November 15, 2017

“The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah.  This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt.  They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the Lord.  “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord.  “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts.  I will be their God, and they will be my people.  And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the Lord.  “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.” 

Jeremiah 31:31-34^(NLT)

At my age I’m a lot closer to my last sermon than my first one.  I’ve often said (mostly after conducting a funeral) that the way I’d prefer to go out doesn’t involve a hospital room, tubes and waiting for the inevitable.  As much as I value the wonderful work of all our healing and palliative care professionals, such as Hospice, I don’t want to be a client.  Rather I would love to have it be on a Sunday, God having allowed and strengthened me to preach the best sermon of my life; sometime during my afternoon siesta I suddenly awaken and find myself in the splendor of heaven!  But of course, the most important part of that scenario is not a sermon; the best part is seeing Jesus!

Jeremiah gave us a peek at the end of the preaching profession; there will come a time when all the preaching is over.  When the New Covenant is finally put into its perfect fulfillment there will be no need for sermonizing; God will write every part of his will and way on our hearts, meaning love will have been completed.  There will be no need for teaching or preaching, because we will live it as God first intended for humans to act when he placed Adam and Eve in the garden.

God will forgive all our past wickedness and never bring it up again.  We will live in perfect relationship to God.  As John the beloved apostle wrote:

Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.  1 John 3:2^(NLT)

For You Today

None of us is perfect; we all sin through error or, at times, willful disobedience.  Nevertheless, our task is to press-on for the prize of that high calling in Jesus Christ[2] – to be perfected in love.  Today is a good day to move forward in that project!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

[2] Philippians 3:14

Why?

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Monday, November 6, 2017

So Joshua called together the twelve men he had chosen—one from each of the tribes of Israel.  He told them, “Go into the middle of the Jordan, in front of the Ark of the Lord your God.  Each of you must pick up one stone and carry it out on your shoulder—twelve stones in all, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel.  We will use these stones to build a memorial.  In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’  Then you can tell them, ‘They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant went across.’  These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever.”   Joshua 4:4-7^(NLT)

Remarkable events demand to be remembered.  Moses had walked into Pharaoh’s palace and uttered the words God had given him at the burning bush, let my people go. Months later, after 10 plagues and God breaking the stubbornness of Egypt, the Israelites picked up the bones of Joseph and shook 400 years of slavery’s dust off their feet, and headed for Sinai.  Their target was crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land. 

And now the moment was at hand.  As they’d left Egypt, with God dividing the waters of the Red Sea, and His people walking on dry land into the wilderness, they now left the wilderness as God moved back the waters of Jordan.  Only this time God instructed Moses to build a memorial with the stones of Jordan.  The express purpose of this memorial was like any other – to remember and re-tell the story.  The LORD wanted this passage from slavery into freedom told faithfully to all generations.

If you’ve ever had the privilege of parenting you have definitely heard that question, “WHY?”  Inquiring minds want to know the significance of why they’re being forced to go to Grandma’s house, or to school, or made to do anything at all.  Why?  And if you’ve ever run out of patience and been tempted to say, because I said so…don’t do it! 

Why?   I’m glad you asked; because every time a child utters that word there is a teachable moment at hand.  Here’s Paul’s answer to the age old question, WHY:

These things happened to them as examples for us.  1 Corinthians 10:11a^(NLT)

The old saying isn’t strained here; one picture is worth a thousand words.  The freedom memorial built of twelve uncut river stones was a monument to the faith of a people willing to struggle through the wilderness – both a physical wilderness through which they stumbled in a 40 year detour, and the wilderness of faith storms building them into a nation ready to be the descendants of Abraham, and the inhabitants of God’s chosen center of the universe.

Becoming God’s person or nation; THAT is a story well-worth the telling, and hearing!

For You Today

Do you have a story of faith worth telling?  If you’ve been to the crossroad where you had to choose to follow Christ or live your life in selfishness, you’ve got a pile of stones raised up in a river of faith to talk about.   You can help someone else know WHY!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com

Unity

Churches have their favorite songs.  I am familiar with one church that constantly sang a chorus as an opening song-prayer to God, Bind us together, Lord, bind us together...with cords that cannot be broken...Bind us together with love.  The song is a longing for unity – so warm and inviting.  That church needed binding-together; they had split several times in less than ten years.

The reality of division in a church, home or office setting is cold and chilling to the bone.  In disunity there is chaos and wandering.  It makes little difference what preaching you preach, or what songs you sing, if there is no willingness to actually be bound together in love.

By contrast, in unity there is direction and strength to spare.  A young fellow had an old jalopy.  Getting around in a town filled with hills was difficult.  In order to get up one of the steepest of these hills, the young man needed a running start.  As he approached the bottom of the hill at full speed, trying to get up enough speed to make the next hill, he saw two cars crossing the street he was on. 

He calculated that if he slowed down just enough for the first car to pass, he could gun his engine and make it in front of the second car.  The only miscalculation was that he failed to notice the first car was towing the second car! 

He learned the hard way an important theological lesson; it is very difficult to divide things that are bound together.[1] 

Are you in a divided household?  A divided church?  Chaos at the office?  What privilege, what rights, what do possess, and are willing to part-with, that will release the power of God’s Holy Spirit on that situation?  Hmmmm?

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[1]W.A. Criswell, The Bible For Today's World, (Grand Rapids, Zondervan Press, 1965), 32