“I Do . . . Do You?”

A number of years ago I had the privilege of officiating at my cousin’s wedding.  Up to that point I had used the phrase, “I’m going to marry so and so,” but it sounded a little too red-neck to say that next weekend I was going to marry my cousin.  So here I proudly tell you that last weekend I had the profound privilege of officiating my oldest son’s wedding.

As you can imagine it was a wonderful day and a beautiful ceremony, and we are way beyond pleased to have Nicole as part of our family.  During most of the ceremony they were all but oblivious of me, completely enraptured as they held hands and had eyes only for each other.  What a joyful celebration of their love for each other.  But it was also a celebration of God’s love for us.

Marriage, in part, is intended to be a picture of the love relationship between Jesus and us.  One author has put it like this: Jesus chooses you, pursues you, and woos you.  One aspect of this is expressed in the last phrase of 1 Thessalonians 2:12, “. . . God, who calls you into His kingdom and glory.”

Did you realize that God has called you, and continues to call you into His kingdom and glory?  We often talk about people making a decision for Jesus, like that old gospel song says, “I have decided to follow Jesus.” To a point that is valid, but we usually put all the emphasis on our decision and completely miss or at best mostly neglect that God initiated this.

Not only did God initiate this, but he continues to initiate relationship.  God continuously calls you into His kingdom and glory.  I’m no language expert, but I believe the way it is phrased is in the present continuous tense.  So in other words this wasn’t some invitation given thousands of years ago and now God is sitting back waiting to see if anybody will show up.  God has called and unceasingly calls to you, to invite you into his kingdom, into his glory, into relationship with him.

But this call to his kingdom and glory doesn’t end when we respond.  To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, God invites, even urges us to go higher and further into his kingdom, and to experience more of his glory.  Do you hear God calling to you?  If not maybe you need to stop and listen.

10 Minutes & A Game Misconduct

Well it’s that time of year again: NHL playoffs.  I’ve been in the tractor so I haven’t watched much but I’ve had lots of hours to listen to a great deal of sports talk radio (ladies  don’t roll your eyes).  Once again this year a recurring topic is the way the rules are enforced differently when the playoffs start.  Personally it drives me nuts, but there are many who insist it is better this way, all the while the league insists there’s no intentional difference.

Now it is not my intent to spark a debate as to whether or not it should happen, but it is indisputable that it does.  Whether it is cross-checking, interference, holding, or hooking during the playoffs the refs give the players a lot more latitude than is given during the regular season.  Whatever your perspective is on whether or not it should happen is really not the point here.  The point simply is that it does happen.

It’s a good thing this doesn’t happen in real life.  Imagine if during rush hour everybody knew that the rules of the road were going to be relaxed.  Consider what would happen if the stock exchange was lenient on insider trading because it was the last hour of trading in the day.   Or if the mall cops let a shoplifter go because he didn’t flagrantly steal.  Society would be in chaos.  Of course some may suggest that’s what happens in the playoffs too, but I digress.

In real life if you break the rules you pay the penalty.  This is true in the spiritual realm as well, and in the spiritual realm the Referee doesn’t miss any calls and we have all been sent to the penalty box.  Ok, I’ll drop the hockey analogy, it’s about to run thin anyway.

When it comes to sin we have all broken the rules.  The good news, the only news with any hope at all, is that Jesus paid our penalty for us.  It’s not a matter of if I do the right things or enough right things then God will let it slide.  The penalty is paid in full.  It is done and now it is offered to you.  The only question is will you accept it?

Here’s a little of what the Bible says about it.

Rom 6:23  For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rom 10:9-10  If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

1 John 1:8-10   If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.  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.

(Holy Bible, New Living Translation ®, copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.)

Power To Change

I was detailing my tractor this week.  Well actually it’s not mine; it’s the tractor I drive for cultivating.  I got the pressure washer and cleaned it all up on the outside, then pulled all the tools and the mat out, vacuumed and then washed literally everything down, including the seats.  I even took a scrub brush to the floor and pedals and then finally polished the windows so you can hardly tell they’re there.

If you were my mother you would be amazed right now.  Cleaning was never a passion of mine.  When I had to clean anything growing up I would typically look for the short cuts and hope it was good enough.  Many times mom called me back and told me I had to do it again, and I’m sure I have no idea how often she just let me go and fixed the job herself.  I was sinning because I was living to please myself.

The truth is I’m still not passionate about cleaning.  (I’m happy to cook if Wendy will clean up after me.)  But I am passionate about serving God and, even though it took a long time, I finally get that serving God, in fact worship, isn’t just in preaching and singing and so on, it’s also in the mundane things like cleaning.

Now I can just hear you clean-freaks, perfectionist types, and workaholics shouting “amen!” but hang on a second. Even though your natural bent is more socially acceptable and respected, if your motivation to do a good job comes just from you natural tendency you are still living to please yourself and therefore sinning.

As I reflected on my own transformation I recognized the key to this which applies to every personality type and tendency.  I didn’t change because someone pointed out that a lazy job wasn’t God pleasing.  I know because I was told this. But there is no power to change in simple knowledge.  The change actually came without me consciously making an effort to change.  It happened when my desire for Jesus overcame my desire to please myself.  What I do isn’t the focus, loving Jesus is.  And that affects everything I do.

Take some time to read or re-read Romans 7:15-8:14 but broaden your understanding of sin from simply doing bad things to include doing anything that is self-motivated instead of Christ-motivated.  I know that’s rather overwhelming, but remember the power is not in the knowledge of what is sinful, it’s only in Jesus.

Will You Cross The Creek?

In Isaiah 55 God declares that his thoughts and ways are as distinct and different from our thoughts and way as the sky is high above the earth.  This is not so much a condemnation as a promise that to the extent that we turn from our own thoughts and wisdom and inclinations, ALL of which are wicked and unrighteous, he will give to us his thoughts and lead us in his ways in the same manner Jesus said and did nothing he did not first receive from the Father.

Whew! That’s a load.  I think a story is in order to help unpack some of this.

In ’92 while living next door to my brother, Eric, at a Bible Camp near Caroline, we took on two thoroughbred geldings that weren’t good enough for the track.  They belonged to my younger brother but he’d moved he had nowhere to keep them.  Coming off the track Cisco and Sundance were somewhat broke but had never seen anything like the bush country around Caroline, so we had some work to do.  One of the challenges they had never encountered was moving water.

We were coming back from a short ride and to get back to the corrals we needed to cross a creek or else go a long way around to the road.  I was on Sundance and he crossed with only a little hesitance.  Cisco was not as certain this was the best way home.  He certainly wanted to get across, Sundance was there and the corrals just beyond that, but he didn’t want to go through the water.

Eric kept his nose pointed at the creek, though Cisco did everything he could to turn aside to find a way around, and gently encouraged him step into the creek.  Cisco sniffed and snorted at the water, and pawed and splashed it, but would not take that step.  You could see how much he wanted to be across, but struggled to accept Eric’s thoughts and ways ahead of his own.

It wasn’t until he submitted his will to Eric’s that he finally crossed the creek.  Of course he tried to do it all in one giant leap which still only got them half way and ended up with a great deal of splashing, but he did it.

Our biggest struggle isn’t knowing or doing God’s will.  Our biggest struggle is trusting God enough to submit my will to his.  When I do his thoughts and his ways become his gift to me.

Me A Preacher?!

Being a pastor was never what you’d call a dream of mine.  Preaching was the thing that intimidated me most.  It wasn’t getting up in front of people, I’d been doing that my whole life, it was the thought of having something worthwhile to say every week for the next six months and beyond.  But I’ve discovered that if I depend on God he is always faithful in providing.  So you’d think that after almost 16 years of preaching I’d have this figured out, but this week I had to learn that lesson all over again.

I’ve been preaching through the book of Isaiah and this week we came to chapter 54 which is very allegorical.  I read and re-read and cross referenced and all the stuff I normally do but was really struggling to understand what God was saying, both in the big picture and in application to us.  So what are we all taught to do when we come up against a problem?  Try harder!  So I worked and chewed on it till I had squeezed out a lesson and what that meant for us.  But honestly, it felt forced.  It was Biblically sound, but it had no life in it.

Then Sunday morning as part of my everyday focus time with God I read this in My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers: “Do we really know anything about the indwelling of the risen life of Jesus? The evidence that we do is that His Word is becoming understandable to us . . . (but) our own unyielding and headstrong opinions will effectively prevent God from revealing anything to us.”  In other words God’s spirit, who is literally living in everyone who is a Jesus follower, will guide us through the Bible, teaching us both to understand what is written and how it applies to our individual and collective situations.  The problem is our own “unyielding and headstrong opinions” get in the way.

When I finally acknowledged and asked forgiveness for trying to understand this chapter through my own understanding and wisdom, the passage just opened up and so much insight came I wasn’t sure how I could fit it all in one sermon.

Now listen.  This is not just for pastors.  This relationship with God is offered to anyone who will simply admit their need of it and ask for it.  It is still a process, because God won’t give you more than you can bear all at once, but he will give you all that you need.

Happiness Is . . .

“I just want to be happy” may well be the most commonly expressed desire of North Americans. What few people tell us though is that grasping for happiness is like one of our boys as an infant trying to grab the stream of water from the tap during his bath. He’d get wet but obviously never got a hold of it. We try everything we can to make ourselves happy, and while the effect of some things lasts a little longer than others, ultimately we’re disappointed.

It reminds me of the story I recently heard of a father’s potty training experience with his two year old daughter. She had been doing quite well but this particular afternoon while she was supposed to be napping he detected a foul smell. After tracking the smell to her bedroom he opened the door to find what had been a full diaper on the bed and what had been the contents spread in streaks on the bedding and the walls and the dresser. There were tiny brown footprints wandering around the carpet but no girl in sight.

Then he heard a whimpering, and hiding behind the door was his darling little girl, smudged and smeared and matted and tears making streaks down her face. His heart melted at the look of shame on her face. She had tried to clean it up but every move just made more of a mess. Her daddy picked her up and took her to the bath and cleaned her and then wrapped her in a fluffy towel and held her close, quieting her and assuring her he loved her and that he would clean up the mess. “I love you honey, it’s all right,” he said to her over and over as he rocked her in his arms.

The more we make happiness our goal in life, the more of a mess we are going to make of it. God never promised our lives would be happy but he did promise joy, and a peaceful heart and purpose in life regardless of what circumstances come. Had Jesus’ goal been happiness he never would have died for us. But his goal was to do the will of the Father and so he laid down his life. Counter intuitively, much of what we were hoping happiness would bring us we find when we give up our desperate grasping for happiness and instead make Jesus our focus and primary desire.

Isaiah 53

In preparation for Easter I’d like to give you a paraphrase of Isaiah 53 which, in my opinion, is the most concise, complete and profound description of who Jesus is, what he endured, what God’s plan was and what was accomplished:

Who has believed what we’ve been saying? Who of you recognizes the power of God’s salvation given to us in Jesus?  He grew up before God as a tender young plant, like a root coming up out of dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance. There wasn’t anything special about the way he looked that drew us to him. In fact He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We refused to acknowledge who he really was and even looked down our noses at him.

Yet he suffered the things we should have suffered. He took on himself the pain that should have been ours. We assumed that his suffering was a sentence from God, punishment for his own sins!  But he was wounded, pierced for our rebellion. He was bruised and crushed because we had sinned and done what was evil. The punishment that bought us peace was put on him. Because of His wounds we are healed.  He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth.

All of us are like sheep. We have wandered away from God.  Every one of us has rebelled and gone our own way.  And the Lord has placed on him the wickedness of us all.

He was arrested, sentenced to death and taken away. And did anyone really know what was happening? He died without a thought for his own welfare, beaten bloody for the sins of all people; for my sins.  He had done no wrong, never said one word that wasn’t true, but he was buried like a criminal; put in a rich man’s tomb.

The Lord says “It was my plan to crush him and cause him to suffer.  I made his life a guilt offering to pay for sin.  But he will see all who are brought into the family of God because of him.  In fact, he will continue to live.  My plan will be brought about through him.  When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will know it was enough and will be fully satisfied.  And because of his experience, my righteous one will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins.”