Tag: preaching

A Story of Faultless Fairness

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(Matthew 20:1-16)

Kids love stories. Before they can even identify letters or read words, they are able to pick out their favorite books and have them read to them over and over and over again. As they are able to read on their own, they learn to like different characters and authors and get into book series and appreciate hearing how story lines play out over longer periods of time.

It isn’t just kids who love stories. Everyone likes stories – adults included. Whether they’re romance novels, gripping mysteries, tales of vigilante justice, or historical non-fiction, good stories will be appreciated. It’s also true of movies. While special effects and star power carry some weight, movies that have staying power are popular because of the story. Stories are powerful. Stories are moving. Stories can be life-changing. And so, stories and those who tell them will always have a measure of influence in the world.

Jesus knew the power of stories. Sometimes he referenced true stories from Old Testament history; other times he told another kind of story: a parable. In fact, parables were one of Jesus’ most popular teaching methods. Through parables, he used earthly stories to convey spiritual truths. In so doing, he helped his listeners grasp the important points he wanted them to learn – and in a much more powerful way than just bullet points. It would have been one thing for Jesus simply to tell his listeners to forgive. It was another thing to tell the parable of the unmerciful servant and showcase forgiveness (or the lack thereof!) in a memorable way. It was a story that left a powerful impact. Throughout this series of posts, Tell Us a Story, we’ll hear Jesus tell us a number of stories. May they not only capture our attention, but also our hearts, and may their truths be reflected in our lives.  

The story Jesus tells in Matthew 20 shows how different God’s idea of fairness is from ours. Our fallen world operates with a flawed sense of fairness. How could we really expect anything different? How could we expect two self-serving sides in any negotiation or arrangement to approach it with anything but a skewed sense of fairness? Each side is most concerned with making sure its own best interests are served. When each side has its own subjective idea of what is fair, achieving fairness will be nothing but a pipe dream. Just consider how many different labor strikes across various industries have happened, are happening right now, or are being threatened. Inevitably, employers and employees disagree as to what is fair.

That’s why the surprise of the workers in Jesus’ parable doesn’t surprise us. We’re not shocked to see their shock when the landowner distributes wages at the end of the day. The reason we’re not not surprised or shocked is because we’d likely respond exactly the same way!

No, the surprise comes not in the workers’ reaction, but in the landowner’s decision to pay everyone equally. The landowner determined that those who barely finished tying up the laces of their work boots were going to make exactly as much as those who put in a grueling day’s work. Ironic, isn’t it, that we scream “inequality!” when in reality he gave everyone exactly the same amount. By definition you can’t get more “fair” than that!

So what was the problem? Not with the payment, but with what the laborers felt they deserved. And that is why our sense of fairness will always be flawed. We simply do not apply the same standards to ourselves as we do others. We look differently at others than we do ourselves.

One explanation for this discrepancy between how we judge ourselves and how we judge others is that we draw our conclusions about others on the basis of their actions, while viewing ourselves on the basis of our intentions. So when someone else lies, we conclude that she is of course a liar. She probably lies all the time and hardly ever tells the truth. But if I lie, well, there’s a good reason behind it or I didn’t mean to lie, and I most often tell the truth.

When someone else cuts me off in traffic, they’re a bad driver and likely drive that way all the time. But when I do it, it was simply a very rare case, and I probably had a very good reason behind it. Do you see how hard it’s going to be to maintain any sense of fairness when we naturally tend to tip the scale in our own favor? 

How does that higher view of self on our part factor in to the relationship that matters most – our relationship with God? If we refuse to see how skewed our own sense of fairness is, we will always find it unsettling how a gracious, generous God deals with fallen mankind. Even though by definition, grace is God’s undeserved love for sinners, we nonetheless have our own personal ideas about those who are more deserving of that undeserved love than others. Do you see how nonsensical that is? 

It will always be that way to us as long as we insist on viewing man’s relationship with God being based – even the slightest, itty-bittiest bit – on what man is giving instead of entirely on what he is getting. We simply cannot base our relationship with God on what we give to him, even on our best days.

So although we might think that ideal family-man father or the dedicated single mom or the polite, respectable hard-working young adult all have so much going for them that God should take notice and factor that in to his final assessment of who’s in and who’s out, the Bible has plenty to say about thinking we could on our own give anything of worth to God or show ourselves to somehow be more deserving of grace. “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).

If you want to offer up your dirty, stinky laundry to God in hopes that it’s not as dirty or stinky as the next person’s, you are welcome to try. But at the end of the day, all you’re still offering is dirty, stinky laundry – nothing that would in any way endear God to you anymore, but would actually leave you worse off! So as much as we might try to polish it up or put on a fresh coat of paint or splash some perfume on it, the best we can offer up to God on our own is still nothing but condemning sin.

No, there is no place for our relationship with God being based on what we give. It can only be based on what we get. And in that sense, God’s fairness is faultless, because he treats everyone the same: his undeserved grace is for everyone – no matter when they show up in the work day. So yes, there is grace enough for the death-bed convert. There is grace enough for the death row inmate. There is grace enough for the top-ten list of all-time most wicked, wretched people in history. There is grace enough for your nasty neighbor. There is grace enough for your racist uncle. There is grace enough for the backsliding Christian. There is grace enough for all… so there is grace enough for you. 

If God wants all people to be saved – and he does, based on his own words repeated again and again in the Bible – then the only way that can happen is if he refuses to base salvation on what we pretend we can give him and insists on being the One who gives it to us. What he gives us – all of us – is unmerited, unwarranted, unconditional, unlimited grace. That’s the only way it can be fair. 

That also explains why God is so persistent and committed to making sure everyone is aware of his grace. Did you count how many times in Jesus’ parable the landowner went out to hire workers for his vineyard? Five times! While the number itself is not significant, the message it sends is clear – God continues to make sure his Word keeps spreading. God continues to make sure the good news reaches every ear. God continues to make sure no one misses out so that no one can say, “No one hired us,” that is, that they didn’t know about Jesus and the radical grace God extends through him.

Let us not forget, we are an important part of that. God gathers his church – believers – and uses us to keep sending out the message that God is hiring. There’s more room in his vineyard, his kingdom. There’s more than enough grace to go around. There is more than enough grace to forgive every sin. There is more work that needs to be done in his kingdom, so let us be about that hiring process and bringing others in so that he can lavish them with the grace he eagerly desires to give out. 

Then, let us rejoice – and not resent – when he does. We want to guard against displaying the attitude of the all-day workers in Jesus’ parable, no matter how long we’ve been in the kingdom. When they received their payment, “they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day’” (Mt. 20:11-12).

If their attitude sounds oddly familiar, it might call to mind the attitude of the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son. Just as he resented what he felt was the misdirected forgiveness and compassion of the father to his wayward brother, so those working all day long resented the short-shift workers receiving the same payment as the day-long laborers. If God wants all to experience the full measure of his grace, then let’s throw a celebration every time anyone receives it! 

Because there are still far too many who are outside of the vineyard. Some don’t know about the grace God has in store for them. Others are not interested in the grace God has in store for them. Still others are adamantly opposed to the grace God has in store for them or simply don’t think they need it to manage their way into the vineyard. Whatever the reason, there are still far too many on the outside looking in.

Let’s do what is in our power to do to get them into the vineyard. Let’s tell them the greatest story ever – the reality of the Savior they have in Jesus, a story for all people. Then, let us rejoice – not resent – every single victory that God generously grants through his grace.  

A Quick-to-Forgive Church

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(Genesis 50:15-21)

Joseph’s life has all the makings of an unforgettable revenge story. Jealous brothers plotted his murder. After having tempered their resentment a bit, however, they settled for selling him as a slave instead. Then, despite exceptional performance reviews and a very respectable reputation as a servant in his master’s house, Joseph’s world came crashing down again. He was the victim of vindictive lies and slander that not only ruined his reputation, but landed him in prison. Even in prison, despite his commendable behavior restoring his good name and the assistance he provided to others in his God-given interpretations of their dreams, he was still forgotten and overlooked for a time by those he helped.

Finally, though, the door opened up for him to ascend to the role of the most powerful man in Egypt next to Pharaoh himself! That’s when the opportunity for what surely could have been one of the most memorable stories of revenge presented itself. His brothers found themselves unknowingly in his presence, completely at his mercy while seeking aid for their starving families. Oh, how Joseph could have unleashed his wrath as a result of decades of pent-up spite, bitterness, and resentment! It would have been a story for the ages!

And it was. It still is. But not for the reason we might have expected; not for revenge. Instead, it’s a story for the ages because of something far more powerful than revenge: Joseph’s choice to forgive his brothers. 

As The Church God Wants series wraps up, it shouldn’t surprise us at that God desires that his Church – that believers – be quick to forgive. Forgiveness is both how and why the Church even exists in the first place! The Church is not just the beneficiary of forgiveness, but its executor as well. We receive it and we distribute it. We are filled up with it and we fill others up with it. If there is one thing the Church is to do and be known for, it must always be forgiveness.

Why is that? Because no other group or institution in society bears that responsibility. Your employer is not required to teach or model forgiveness to you. “Forgiveness 101” is not a required course of study in our public schools or higher education institutions. Your kid’s coach or piano teacher is not being paid or volunteering to help your child learn about forgiveness. The government has not established any rules or regulations to foster forgiveness by threat of fine or jail time (which would of course be a bit ironic). Finally, while in many cities you will have no problem finding community centers, homeless shelters, and food pantries, I have yet to hear of anything resembling a “forgiveness facility.” 

You won’t find such things elsewhere because even society – non-believers and believers alike – realizes that forgiveness is really the church’s business. Forgiveness has historically been understood to be the church’s responsibility.

For that reason, those outside the church tend to pay very close attention when those who belong to it – Christians – fail to forgive. Even they recognize that’s what the Church exists to do… even if they don’t fully recognize the how or why, which is of course one and the same: Jesus.

The Church forgives because the Church exists as a result of Jesus’ forgiveness. Remove his perfect life of obedience from the equation and his death on the cross would not have mattered. Take away his death on the cross and the empty tomb would not have been possible. Do away with the empty tomb, leaving a still-dead-today Jesus, and his payment would have been insufficient and death and hell would still reign. 

But, since we have all of those and everything else that we need in Jesus, we have forgiveness. As long as the church has Jesus, she has all she needs to continue as the source of freely-flowing forgiveness. That means we have something both to receive and to give. What is our part in that? Our role involves both hearing and speaking that forgiveness and each case, for various reasons, sometimes that is very difficult and sometimes it comes quite easily.

When it comes to hearing that forgiveness, it can at times be one of the hardest things of all to hear and at other times the sweetest music to our ears. What accounts for the difference? How could forgiveness ever be hard to hear?

When we don’t feel we need it. After all, when a person has “done nothing wrong,” then there’s nothing to forgive. And that would be true… if we could ever actually figure out how to avoid all wrongdoing. Our shortcoming, however, is our failure to see our wrong or identify it as such. If we spent as much time simply owning our sin and confessing it as we do denying it, excusing it, or blaming others for it, then there would be less kicking and screaming and insisting on our innocence and more reconciliation and healing. 

Those are the times when forgiveness is pure music to our ears – when our guilty ears long to hear it and our troubled hearts know we need it. When the law has done its job and exposed me as the fraud I am in so many ways, I am ready to receive the sweet freedom that only the gospel of forgiveness offers. When my stubbornness, my grudge-bearing, my refusal to forgive others, my selfishness, my stinging words, my neglect of God, my reckless spending – when all of this becomes clearly evident and our guilt won’t let go, then we crave the assurance that Jesus gives. Then we soak up his forgiveness. At those times we cannot hear it too much. 

Hearing forgiveness can be hard or easy, depending on how ready our hearts are to receive it. But speaking words of forgiveness can challenge us as well. Sometimes the words are difficult to speak and other times forgiveness seems to ease effortlessly from our lips. Why is that? How could forgiveness ever be hard to speak? When we feel the other person doesn’t deserve it.

But we must stop right there and be very clear about something before we go on. 

It’s only a worldly – and therefore rather limited and virtually impotent – version of forgiveness that attaches any sense of requirement to it. Only the world speaks of forgiveness in terms of the guilty party somehow being deserving enough or sorry enough or pitiful enough for forgiveness. In other words, it’s a limited forgiveness, a conditional one. 

But God’s forgiveness that extends through his Church is not at all like that. It isn’t limited. It isn’t conditional. It isn’t at all dependent on how deserving the recipient may or may not be, because it is entirely grace-based. That means it isn’t ever deserved and cannot ever be earned. So the kind of forgiveness that is withheld because someone has determined the guilty party doesn’t deserve it is not the kind of forgiveness found in the church. 

When we find it difficult to forgive others, it’s because we’re focused on the world’s “forgiveness” and not the Church’s. That happens when we focus on the wrong itself and how awful it was or the wrongdoer himself and how awful he is to have committed it. Where either the gravity of the wrong committed or the degree of wickedness of the wrongdoer himself is the determining factor, forgiveness will always be conditional.

That also means it will be subjective. One person who determines the wrong or the wrongdoer wasn’t really that bad may find it easy to forgive, while another person may struggle mightily with the same sin because of a different personal experience or perception of that sin. So the kind of forgiveness dependent on the gravity of the crime or the wickedness of the perpetrator – a forgiveness not sanctioned in the Bible, by the way – will always be hard to speak. 

Other times, though, words of forgiveness are come easily. When?

When we focus not on the wrongdoer, but on our forgiver, Jesus. Yes, you read that right – when we focus on our forgiver. That is always the best and necessary place to start. I need to put myself at the center of the investigation and lay bare my whole history, my whole track record of sin, remembering all the despicable stuff I’ve done.

Then, when I realize that God has not withheld his forgiveness for any one of my sins, but that Jesus’ blood has covered and washed away every last one, it seems downright laughable that I should stand before someone else and pretend that his wrong is the exception. How absurd that I could accept that my sin should be cancelled but that his sin could not possibly be. Those are the moments when it hits me why Jesus told the story of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18. He wanted to convict me of how ludicrous it is of me to ever withhold forgiveness from someone else until they _______________ (fill in the blank with any requirement you’d like to attach).

No, forgiveness comes so much more easily when I look first at who has forgiven me. When I see Jesus nailed to the cross, imagining a banner with the words, “Paid in full” over him, I see no ground to stand on where I can withhold Jesus’ same payment from someone else. No matter what they’ve done. No matter how much what they did hurt me. No matter how much ongoing damage it causes me. No matter how much I might still be processing it even years later.

When I let go of the burden of trying to pretend the heavy weight of dispensing forgiveness is mine to bear and instead remember that Jesus already carried that weight and earned my forgiveness, then I can freely and fully forgive others. 

That’s why Joseph wept. He had already forgiven his brothers. But he was finding out how hard it can be for that forgiveness to sink in. He had forgiven his brothers 17 years ago, and here they were still terrified that the real punishment they deserved was going to be be exacted upon them after their dad died and Joseph no longer had to “fake” forgiveness. 

But in place of the retribution his brothers expected, they received reassurance. Instead of demanding restitution from his brothers for all the harm they had done to him, he promised to provide for all their families’ needs. No revenge, just forgiveness in its place. Joseph didn’t dwell on the damage his brothers had done to him, but rather on the good God had worked through him. “But Joseph said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.’ And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them” (v.19-21). 

Notice something rather profound in Joseph’s words. He knew full well the responsibility of making sure justice was carried out perfectly was not his, but God’s. “Am I in the place of God,” he asked. Of course not!

However, we are, in a sense, in the place of God today. We are in the place of God when we apply his forgiveness to others who know they need it. We are in the place of God when we withhold that forgiveness from God for those who see no sin in themselves that needs forgiving. God has given that responsibility to his church to forgive, as he has forgiven us. Then alone do we stand in the place of God, as if God himself were the one pronouncing his forgiveness upon a penitent sinner. That is exactly what God wants in us. That is exactly the kind of church God wants – a quick-to-forgive church. May we always be just that, and may others always see that when they look at us. 

A Church Willing to Say Hard Things

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(Galatians 2:11-16)

Your doctor’s office. The boss’s office. Your child’s classroom with the teacher. We don’t typically look forward to being called into any of these places, and with good reason: difficult conversations often follow. Getting called for a consult with your doctor after a recent appointment can mean he has bad news. The boss probably isn’t calling you in to praise or commend you, but to correct or discipline you. Your child’s teacher is not likely in just meeting with you to tell you what a great job junior is doing, but probably to share some concerns. Those can be hard conversations.

Like it or not (most often not!), there is also a place for hard conversations within the church. In fact, that is the kind of church that God wants – one that is willing to say hard things. What exactly does that mean and how do we carry it out?

First of all, realize the reason the church will always need to say hard things, which is sometimes forgotten: every church has in common that it is made up of sinners. That seems like it should go without saying, but sometimes we either get the idea or give others the impression that belonging to a church means we’ve somehow figured out the secret sauce to sinlessness. All the “mostly-good” people gather at church while the “not-so-good” folks out there sin rather nonchalantly as they go about their daily business.

“Sure, we might commit a few minor whoopsies on occasion, but nothing like those major whoppers everyone out there is committing left and right.” But, deny it as much as you will, the hard truth is that the ugly sinful nature that is still a part of each one of us is just as capable of carrying out the ugly sinful stuff we see in the world. So what sets us apart is not primarily the absence of sin in our lives, but the presence of the Savior who forgives it. That is why we gather as the church. 

And it is that Savior and his gospel – the good news of what he’s done for sinners – that both requires us and inspires us to say hard things. When we are discussing hard matters with fellow Christians, we do so in a safe space, because we do so in a space saturated with the gospel. When the gospel as a safety-net beneath us, we have no reason to fear having difficult or even uncomfortable conversations. We have every right to assume that our faith family cares enough about our souls to prioritize those conversations. And we can both speak and hear these hard things because we know that they are gospel-driven and gospel-guided in an effort to be gospel-guarding. That means we can check individual agendas or bones to pick at the door and stay focused on how we can apply the gospel to help God’s church thrive. 

So what exactly are the kinds of hard things that the church needs to say? We see an example in Galatians. Paul was compelled to say a hard thing, and he didn’t shy away from explaining why it had to happen: “they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel” (v.14).

The very gospel was at stake! The message on which the church stands or falls was being compromised. When Paul saw that the gospel was in jeopardy, there was no question – he knew he had to speak up and say a hard thing.

While that reason alone (the gospel coming under attack) is sufficient for speaking up, Paul went a step further to explain what the collateral damage is when the truth of the gospel is at stake: souls are at stake, too.

As much as Paul and Peter (Cephas) were both pillars of the early church, Paul showed his personal care for his brother’s soul. “When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned” (v.11). Paul wasn’t mincing words – if he didn’t address the situation, Peter’s actions could very well have led to his spiritual downfall. 

Do we forget that sin has the potential for doing so much more damage than just a little wrong here or there? We need to think of sin not like that little bit of a beverage that spilled on the counter top and can so easily be wiped up, but more like a semi tanker toppling over and spilling toxic liquid everywhere. Sin doesn’t wish to be contained. It wants to expand its reach until it contaminates everything around it, eventually rendering even faith itself ineffective. Paul had to speak the hard truth to Peter, because he was more concerned about Peter’s salvation than about Peter’s reputation. 

As an example of sin extending its reach to others, Paul recognized how Peter’s sinful actions were influencing those around him. “The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray” (v13). Others viewed Peter’s actions as thumbs up to follow his example, and their collective example then carried enough weight to cause even Barnabas to stumble. See how large the radius of sin’s reach was becoming! Paul had to speak the hard truth to Peter, because he was concerned about the impact his actions were having on the salvation of others. 

How do Paul’s actions relate to us in 2023? Does the church today still need to say hard things? Absolutely. When? What does that look like? As the gospel itself compels us to say hard things, how do we know when those hard conversations need to happen? While there’s no guarantee that saying the hard things will ever be easy, there are a number of things we can consider to guide us in this process. 

First of all, we want to make sure the situation legitimately calls for the hard truth to be spoken. Not every difference or disagreement merits this kind of attention. If we are in the realm of Christian freedom and personal preference, while there certainly may be some discussion around those matters, those aren’t usually the kind that call for a rebuke or a call to repentance. Whether we should have tri-tip or hotdogs for the barbecue does not merit any sort of confrontation. Attending Christmas Eve or Christmas Day worship does not require a rebuke. 

So what sort of criteria does? We look for anyone or anything that might either gloss over the gospel or cast aside the cross by insisting that someone or something else be the central focus. When the gospel is at stake, the church has an obligation to say hard things, because where the gospel is compromised, so is the church. Where the gospel is lost, so is the church. 

Once we are certain of the gravity of the matter, that it is in fact that serious and does require the tough conversation, we do well do run another quick assessment. We want to check our own heart. We might have correctly spotted the need to say a hard word, but we also better make sure that our heart is in the right place to initiae the conversation.

That means it isn’t looking to relish the opportunity to lay into someone else who rubs me the wrong way. That means my heart isn’t approaching this conversation as a means to bump itself up another notch closer to heaven and come away looking more favorable. That means my heart isn’t seizing this as merely a distraction from some personal repair work that needs to be done on me. If any of those things are going on in your own heart, then you’re not the right person to be saying the hard thing.

Another thing to consider: if speaking about spiritual/faith matters and matters of the heart is not normal for you, consider how it might come across to someone else who is not use to hearing you speak about such things. It could possibly cause unecessary confusion if you appear to be bringing it up seemingly out of nowhere.

The wife who has never watched a down of the NFL in her life might leave her husband feeling a little skeptical when she starts making suggestions for his fantasy football draft. A husband who doesn’t realize that Versace isn’t the name of a new Italian restaurant in town is probably going to see a puzzled look from his wife when he starts discussing fashion trends.

So if spiritual matters are not a regular part of your conversation, it might unnecessarily catch someone off guard to hear you speak up with a hard saying. The solution to that is not just to write off ever discussing hard things, but rather to take some baby steps in the direction of making your faith in Jesus perhaps a more natural part of your conversations. 

Finally, Paul spells out in a lengthier description why it matters that we contend for the gospel. “[We] know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified” (v.16). Peter was confusing the good news of the gospel. He was combining a message that is believed for salvation with works that must also be achieved for salvation. To that message of being declared not guilty (“justified”), Peter was adding the need to make sure he stuck with the kosher diet and sat at the right table apart from the Gentiles.

Since he had known previously that his place in heaven had nothing to do with what he ate or where he sat here on earth, it was causing a stumbling block for those around him to suddenly see him revert back to his old Jewish customs. 

When a brother or sister in Christ confuses the gospel in any way at all to imply that any work or effort must accompany the saving work of Jesus’ perfect life, suffering, and death, we have to speak up. We have to have a hard conversation. Their soul depends on it. Other souls will likely also depend on it. The gospel must win, and that means guarding it at all cost.

That’s the church God wants. For that reason, it’s also the church we want to be.

A Self< Church

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(Matthew 16:21-26)

The boss just laid out the plan for the next project at work. The goal was clearly communicated and comprehended so that everyone knew what they were trying to accomplish. All departments understood their specific roles in the project. Each individual team member was provided with the direction needed to help their department succeed and contribute toward achieving success in the specific effort. So it came as a bit of a shock when, after the boss had finished his presentation, one particular employee stood up and simply said, “Yeah, we’re not going to be doing this. This isn’t going to happen. Not on my watch.”

How long do you suppose that employee would remain with the company? Not long at all!

Jesus could have done much more than just fire Peter for his defiant remark. In his Gospel account of the incident, Matthew records for us what had caused Peter to feel compelled to take Jesus to task: “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life” (v.21).

Peter had only a short time ago confessed that he knew Jesus was the One, the Messiah that God had promised repeatedly throughout history. However, Jesus’ explanation of how he would be carrying out his work didn’t align with the political aspirations Peter had for the Messiah. As Peter saw it, Jesus’ suffering and death were not part of his plan, so he had to take drastic measures. “Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!’” (v.22). 

We’re quite used to Peter putting his foot in his mouth. It’s easy to understand why he wouldn’t want to stand by and approve of a plan that involved the suffering and death of his Jesus. He had a heart, after all. He cared about Jesus.

But his objection was actually much more selfish – sinister even. In fact, as Jesus’ response indicated, it was downright satanic. “Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns’” (v.23).     

Whoa! Isn’t that going a bit farther than necessary? Is Jesus doing one of those hyperbole things where he uses an over-the-top extreme to make his point? You hear people joke about temptation from others (“C’mon, just have one more piece of dessert – it’s sooooooo good!”) with a, “Get behind me, Satan,” but Jesus was not at all joking. He was deadly serious. 

Because so is Satan. Peter’s rebuttal to Jesus’ teaching was not just a matter of misguided concern a guy had for his friend. It wasn’t because he had a better plan in mind (as if there could have been one!). Rather, it was an attempt on the part of Satan to thwart God’s plan of salvation. 

Jesus had made it clear that these things (his suffering, death, and resurrection) “must” (v.21) happen. They had to. This was the plan God had in mind to carry out the substitutionary work salvation required. The perfect Lamb, Jesus Christ, had to be offered up as the only sacrifice that could serve as payment for sin. Jesus had to suffer and die. “It must be this way,” he told his disciples. 

So also today, anything that opposes the good news of the gospel – anything at all – comes from the evil one. There is no harmless indifference to the gospel. There are no alternative plans or paths that might work out. There are no religions or false gods that could provide forgiveness and eternal life. There was and there is no other way to a right relationship with God than through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Anything else – anything at all – comes from the evil one.

The scariest part of all of this? Look what drove Peter’s objection: “human concerns.” It wasn’t some deep theological truth that Peter had uncovered that prompted him to rebuke Jesus; it was his own ideas about who Jesus was supposed to be and how he was supposed to proceed.

Peter wasn’t concerned about God’s plans. Peter wasn’t concerned about Jesus’ plans. Peter wasn’t concerned about the other disciples’ plans. No, Peter was concerned about Peter’s plans, and Peter’s plans only. 

Does that same selfish concern that each and every one of us is capable of help you grasp why Jesus explained discipleship the way he did? “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’” (v.24). “You want to be my disciple? You want to follow me? OK, first things, first, we have to get you out of the way. We have to get self out of the picture, or he’ll only serve to provide a platform for the devil to go to work. And the only way to do that is for you to deny the most difficult person on the planet to deny: yourself.” 

I was recently reminded of why this is the most challenging thing of all for us to do by a quote from a little book, What’s Big Starts Small. In it, the author warns about why pride can be so destructive to the growth of our faith. He writes, “But pride offers an objection that makes you the exception” (p.42). That is just another way of saying that self is an expert at pretending it has permission for whatever it wants. “What is wrong for you is clear as day, but here’s why it isn’t wrong when I do it.” 

“Yes, I got a little angry and lost control, but it was justifiable in light of what the other person did.” “Of course the stay-at-home mom shouldn’t be drinking excessively during the day and putting her kids at risk, but my job is 100 times more stressful and a few drinks every night help me relax.” “There is no reason for a guy to ever push a girl around, but our relationship is different and her level of disrespect is unacceptable.” “Blatantly walking a full cart out of the store without paying is one thing, but what I’m skimming from the register is just enough to get me by until things get better and of course I’ll pay it all back.”

Pride – self – makes me the exception. It does the same for you. That’s why Jesus says we must deny it and let it die. “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (v.25). 

But what about the risk of not looking out for ourselves? If we don’t, who else will? How can we be sure that this practice of denying self is going to work out in the end? If we don’t advocate for ourselves, who else will?

I think you know the answer, but let me try to state it a little bit differently than you’re probably used to hearing it. Here is the bottom line: You cannot care about yourself more than Jesus does.

You cannot care about yourself more than Jesus does.

Do you understand? No matter how much you want to buy into the world’s emphasis on the importance of self-care and self-image and self-love and self-esteem and self-discovery and self… etc. – all of that put together into perfect practice will never amount to caring about yourself more than Jesus does. 

If that were not true, it would have been you on the cross and not him.

If that were not true, it would have been you condemned for your sin instead of him.

If that were not true, he would have allowed you to be abandoned and forsaken by the Father and not him.

But since he bore all of that on himself for you, let there never be any doubt that no one ever has and no one ever will care more about you than Jesus. 

So let go of the lie and live free. Shut out the internal pleas to serve self first and everyone else second. Jesus has you covered and now he wants to use you to help make sure everyone else knows they’re covered by him, too.

When we deny self, when we set down self, instead of dragging that care and concern with us wherever we go, then we’ve got free hands. With those hands, we find it much easier to pick up the crosses that are all around us. 

The cross of patient sacrifice in your strained marriage to a demanding spouse is much lighter when you set down self. The cross that comes in the shape of the extra workload you carry at work for the demeaning co-worker who doesn’t miss the opportunity to poke fun at your faith here and there. The cross of confusion over why God continues to permit the chronic pain that you’ve dealt with for years. The cross of abuse and its long-term effects. The cross of addiction that lingers despite the overall progress. The cross of family members struggling with identity and sexuality.

These crosses are not light, to be sure, but we are able to bear them much more effectively when we aren’t also carrying around the weight of self. 

And, we are able to bear them much more effectively when we realize we never bear them alone. We can be confident of this because we know Jesus’ own answer to his rhetorical question at the close of these verses. Jesus asked, “Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” (v.26). Our answer, everyone’s answer, is of course, “Nothing.”

Jesus, though, has a different answer: “Everything.” He literally gave up everything for our souls. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). Only One perfectly denied self. Only One perfectly lost his life. Only Jesus, and Jesus alone is our hope. 

Are you worried about what will happen if you cast off the perceived need to look out for yourself above all else? Worry not, for as much as your old self lies to you about looking out for number one, here is the truth we must remember: You cannot possibly care about yourself more than Jesus does. If that, dear friends, is true – and it absolutely is – then you are freed from yourself. Jesus has you covered. Go and be the church he wants, the self< church. 

The Church Clings to Christ

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(Exodus 34:5-9)

The sender’s name in your email inbox is someone you know, but the email itself sounds fishy. Something doesn’t feel right about it. You know the person well enough that you can’t imagine they’d be asking you to open the weird-sounding file that is attached, click on a link to a picture to confirm it’s you, or send them some money because they’re stranded somewhere while traveling. Then you look closer, not at the name of the sender, but at the actual email address from which it came, and realize it’s gibberish. That confirms it – someone using a spam email address was pretending to be someone you knew. 

And it isn’t just email – it’s voicemails that sound like urgent notifications requiring an immediate response. It’s texts from unknown numbers not in your contact list that are looking to strike up a random conversation. Some sound more legit than others, so how do you know which ones are real and which ones are fake? How do you know which ones you can trust and which ones are setting you up for fraud or something worse? Even if you know what signs or indicators give them away, it isn’t always easy to tell who’s the real deal and who isn’t.

Churches can be the same way. As we continue our series focusing on the church God wants, it’s one thing to know what God wants for his church, but it’s another to be able to determine which churches can be relied on to serve that God, the true God, and not some fraud or look-alike pretender. But what happens when a church serves a fraudulent version of God, an imposter, a pretender? That church may claim to worship the true God, but how can we know? 

We look first to where God has revealed himself to us so that we can know what he is like: his Word. “[The Lord] passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin” (v.6-7). The next time someone says there’s no gospel in the Old Testament and that it’s all law, direct them to this description of the Lord! It is a flood of grace and love! It’s a picture of God that no other religion comes even remotely close to capturing. This is the true God and how the true God wishes to be known. 

While God revealing himself like this is amazing on its own, it stands out even more when we consider his timing in choosing when to reveal himself this way.

God was going to be giving Moses the Ten Commandments a second time. Stop and think about how the world typically operates when laws or rules are given. Authority is flexed. Punishments are threatened. Consequences are emphasized. The effectiveness of the law is based on one thing: fear. So to give it teeth, we make sure those on the receiving end of any laws are very clear on what they need to be afraid of happening to them if they break the rules. That’s how we operate. But not God.

In addition to knowing what God was about to do, also remember what had already happened. Why was God needing to give the Ten Commandments to Moses a second time? If you’re familiar with your history, then you remember what happened to the original set of tablets when Moses came down the mountain the first time: he smashed them to pieces at the sight he witnessed.

There, fresh off their miraculous deliverance from slavery in Egypt by God’s hand, were the Israelites rallying around and revering a hunk of metal shaped like a cow. They were worshipping a golden calf rather than the true God who had just delivered them from a fanatical pharaoh and his army! Being on the receiving end of that level of disrespect, God would have been completely justified in instantly eliminating the Israelites. 

Instead, he revealed himself as “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin” (v.6-7). Compassionate. Gracious. Slow to anger. Abounding in love and faithfulness and maintaining it. Forgiving. These are the calling cards of the true God.

The police sketch artist might help out in a case by speaking with witnesses or officers to attempt to draw a likeness of an alleged criminal to help law enforcement or legal counsel know who to focus on. That sketch artist will take the various descriptions provided by others and use them to sketch out an image that reflects the suspect. In order to sketch an accurate likeness, however, he needs some sort of description on which to base it.

We have in these verses a description from the Lord himself of what to look for if we’re trying to identify the true God. This is what he looks like!

And boy does this description stand out! Compassion and grace are so often MIA in our world when it comes to the plight of those experiencing disaster or distress. “They should have known better. They should have been more careful. They should have made better choices.” We forget that all of those things could be true, but they still don’t relieve us of our responsibility to compassionately care for our neighbor in his need. 

Instead of our anger getting slower and slower, our fuse keeps getting shorter and shorter. Rather than a flood of love and faithfulness, there seems to be a drought of it. We struggle to maintain our loving commitment to one person – our spouse – let alone maintaining love to thousands. We don’t long to see more forgiveness for wickedness and rebellion, but rather more punishment.

How much all of these qualities of God stand out in a world that is without them!

And not just a world that is without them, but our own hearts. Not only do we see so few of these qualities around us; we also lack them within us. That’s when we realize how much the world needs a God who is all of these things that it is not. That’s when we realize how much we need a God who is all of these things that we are not. 

Moses realized that, too. “‘Lord,’ he said, ‘if I have found favor in your eyes, then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance’” (v.9). Moses didn’t ask God to forgive their sins, but our sin. He included himself among the stiff-necked and wicked. He pleaded for God’s people as well as himself. He appealed to all of the qualities that God had just revealed about himself and asked to be treated, not on the basis of his own behavior, but on the basis of God’s benevolence.

So it isn’t just “the church” that needs the true God; we do. It isn’t just the church that needs all of those qualities; we do. It isn’t just the church that can only stand if God’s forgiveness and faithfulness are its foundation; we can only stand with his forgiveness and faithfulness.

And we know that we have it, because we have Christ. We know what compassion looks like, because we know Jesus. We experience what grace means, because we experience Jesus. We know what forgiveness feels like, because we know Jesus. We know what abounding love looks like, because we know Jesus. The church that God wants is the church that clings to Christ. Therefore, the people that make up the church that God wants, are people who cling to Christ.

Do you know what that means? It means all Jesus, all the time. I don’t mean for you to go out and make it weird, but rather make it so regular that it isn’t weird at all.

Jesus is in my marriage. Jesus is at the forefront of parenting my children with patience and grace. Jesus is the filter in all my friendships. Jesus is how I see my enemy in a different light. Jesus is why I am drawn to those in need and want to help. Jesus is who I yearn for my unbelieving neighbor to know. Jesus’ kingdom and its significance is why I can temper my passions for worldly and political kingdoms. Jesus is why I can control my anger.

Jesus is… everything, all the time. Not just occasionally. Not just when we’re talking religion. Not just when I’m surrounded by other Christians. The church God wants – the people God wants – cling to Christ all the time. 

Of all the characteristics of God listed in this description, most are quite familiar, but I want to draw attention to one particular phrase that I think is hugely important for us to understand in the church God wants: it’s God’s “maintaining love to thousands” (v.7). When we think of many earthly infatuations or interests, they so often start off strong, but then fizzle or fade away. The things we thought we loved or couldn’t live without are forgotten. 

But not God’s love for us. He maintains that love. He keeps it going. It is sustained on an ongoing basis and will not die out or run out.

When we gather for worship on Sunday mornings, we see all the different ways. Our whole worship is centered on his Word, from the opening Invocation to the closing Blessing and everything in-between. That is Jesus maintaining his love for us.

When we have a baptism, there God’s love is so clearly on display that he graciously brings a helpless infant into his family through the loving promises of his Word poured out along with the water.

Then we have the Lord’s Supper, as we will celebrate shortly, where Jesus gives to us his very body and blood to remind us of his sacrifice, point us to the price he paid, and assure us that his love flows most freely through his limitless forgiveness. God maintains his love for thousands – for his church, for you – through the work that he does every time we gather together in his house. 

But… what about the part of these verses that describe a God who “does not leave the guilty unpunished…” (v.7)? Shouldn’t that terrify us? Shouldn’t that worry us?

No, not one little bit! For you, Christian, are not guilty. You are in Christ. Since Christ took our guilt on himself, along with the punishment it deserved, all who are in Christ are not guilty.

So how do we tell if the god of any given church is a fraud or a fake? We listen for Jesus. And when we hear him, we listen for more than just an example to follow or a model Christian that we should all strive to be more like. We listen for a Savior. And then we cling to him. That’s the kind of church God wants.

Church Is for Everyone

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(Matthew 15:21-28)

Church is for everyone. At my church we have a tagline that expresses that: Seeking the Lost, Serving the Found. Whether you’re a non-believer or a believer, you fit into one of those categories – lost or found. Either way, church is for you.

But is that really true? Is the church just towing the company line or is it really a church for everyone? Would literally anyone be welcome on a Sunday? I’m guessing that even as that question is lingering in your mind, you are envisioning a person or two – perhaps even a very specific individual – or maybe just a general type of person, that you’d really struggle to sit right next to in church. Would someone who has that kind of history be welcome? Would someone who voted for that candidate be welcome? Would someone struggling with that right now really be welcome?

Regardless of how much a person might struggle individually with certain people being in church, that doesn’t make it any less true: church is for everyone.

In that regard, Christianity is the most inclusive religion of all. No one needs to measure up or be good enough. There is no application. There are zero requirements. There is no vetting process. There is no referral needed. There is no exclusion on any basis. 

When Jesus did what he did, he did it for every single person. Jesus’ perfect life of obedience was carried out so that every single person could claim the righteousness necessary to be good with God. Jesus’ undeserving death on the cross was offered up so that his sacrifice would pay for every single sin of every single person. Jesus effectively rendered hell and condemnation powerless and death a thing of which to be unafraid. Jesus is for everyone, and because he is, so is his church. Church is for everyone.

But it isn’t really for everyone.

Some of you know what I mean more than others. You’ve probably even explained it that way to someone else before: “Church isn’t really for me. It’s not my thing. I’m not the church-going type.” You have your own reasons. Maybe going to church was forced on you as a child, and that insistence on attending church was never accompanied by any grace or compassion that was supposed to flow from church. Maybe going to church rubs you the wrong way because it’s filled with a bunch of hypocritical pretenders whose lifestyles as far as you’re concerned rarely match up with what they claim to believe. Maybe going to church seems antiquated and unenlightened in this advanced age of science and reason. Maybe… I could go on with reason after reason why church just isn’t for some people. 

And you know what? They’re usually right. It isn’t for them. It may not be for you.

But know the right reason why.

It isn’t because you aren’t welcome. It isn’t because you don’t fit some mold. It isn’t because all of the things Jesus did for all people don’t include you. It isn’t because you wouldn’t stand to be blessed by it – you absolutely would.

It isn’t any of those reasons or a host of others that might be offered. 

No, it isn’t for you because you don’t need it. And until you realize how much you need it, it will never be for you. 

The Canaanite woman hounding Jesus needed him. I mean, really needed him. How much? Well, she wouldn’t take “no” for an answer, and she didn’t think twice about clapping back at Jesus after he seemed to dismiss her!

Jesus plainly told her, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs” (v.26). Jesus wasn’t insulting the woman, but rather laying out God’s game plan for him. He was to reach the Jewish people before the Gentiles (non-Jews).

To understand the point Jesus was making, imagine spending time in the kitchen getting dinner ready for the family. Once it’s all ready, the places are set at the table. Then the food is brought over. Then, as everyone sits down to eat, the first thing the family does is fill the puppy’s dog bowl with the food that was just prepared. Then, after he’s had his fill, the family eats whatever is left over.

That is, of course, not how it happens! The family eats, and the pet gets the leftovers. And the Canaanite woman was bold enough to point that out to Jesus. “‘Yes it is, Lord’ she said ‘Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.‘” (v.27).

What prompted such boldness? She was in need. She “came to [Jesus], crying out, ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly’” (v.22). The need was obvious: her daughter was enduring excruciating suffering as a result of possession. But it wasn’t the need alone; it was also what she was asking of Jesus: mercy. 

Realize what mercy is: undeserved help for the undeserving. She knew she didn’t have any business pestering Jesus. But she also knew Jesus, and she knew what right she had in asking him: none.

That’s what mercy is. It is the undeserving asking for the undeserved from the One who can serve it. It is humbly acknowledging, “I don’t ask this of you because I have it coming or because I am entitled to it; rather, just the opposite. I know that I don’t, but I know who you are, Jesus. Mercy is your middle name.” 

So then, church is not really for anyone who has no need of Jesus or his mercy. If we don’t need his mercy or help, then we don’t need his church where he dispenses these gifts. If we’ve got our life pretty much together and lack nothing, who needs Jesus? We’re good folks, good spouses, good parents, good family members, good workers, good friends, good neighbors. We don’t have struggles, no addictions, no weaknesses, no regrets, no guilt. None of those things. Therefore, we don’t need Jesus or his help or mercy. 

But let’s consider another question: what if Jesus needs you?

I know – rather absurd sounding, isn’t it? If God is truly God, what need could he possibly have that he couldn’t satisfy himself, right? Actually, it isn’t about what God is capable of doing, but how he has chosen to do it. And he chooses to use people like you and me to do his work. 

The way Jesus intends to dispense his help and mercy to those in need of it is through people like you. In the book of Isaiah, the Lord spoke of “foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants” (Isaiah 56:6).

How does one minister to the Lord or be his servant? We often confine such thoughts to religious activities, like going to church and giving offerings. We imagine monks and nuns dedicating their lives in service to the Lord. But serving the Lord is so much bigger than any of that!

We minister to and serve the Lord by ministering to and loving others. Loving and serving my neighbor is my love and service to the Lord. When we carry out that service to the Lord, others come to know about him because they experience his loving qualities and characteristics through his people, his church. 

Paul said it another way in the book of Ephesians (cf. chapter 2). What if Jesus is waiting to build you into his church so that through you he can bless and care for others as you speak of the peace and reconciliation they have through the cross? What if Jesus needs you to love and serve others on his behalf? Could that be possible? 

If you think that is a stretch, let’s go a step further and consider the possibility of having a great faith like that of the Canaanite woman! How so? When you realize that you are even less-deserving of Jesus than she was, and yet still relentlessly plead for his mercy, you have what Jesus said she had: great faith. 

Recall in my previous post how Peter demonstrated a similar faith. Right after his own strength left him sinking in the sea, he looked to Jesus for help and deliverance. That was great faith – faith that refocused on Jesus after self-destructing yet again. 

The Canaanite woman’s great faith had little to do with her and everything to do with Jesus. Great faith doesn’t toot its own horn or talk itself up. Great faith is revealed when Jesus is the focus, front and center. 

That reminds me of what is different about our church’s school, as it begins its 50th Anniversary this school year. It isn’t merely a private school. It’s way more than that. It’s a school that keeps Jesus as the focus, front and center. It’s a school with teachers who know something much more valuable than what any technology or textbook can teach: they know a Savior, a Jesus, whose middle name is mercy. And there is nothing more valuable.

Why? Because there we teach children where to turn when they are in need – and they will be in need for the rest of their lives. And the needs they have are not needs that can be met by even the most loving parents, caring friends, or professional practitioners. Sure, some of those needs can be met by some of those listed, but in other areas, only Jesus can meet their needs. 

Only Jesus will ever love them unconditionally. Only Jesus will forgive them without limit. Only Jesus will value and treasure them as priceless. Only Jesus will listen to, hear, and answer their every request at all times. Only Jesus has opened heaven and eternity to them. In our school, children will come to know Jesus better and better. They’ll come to know that Jesus is for them. 

Our teachers are committed to a ministry that consists of reminding their students on a daily basis that Jesus is for them. As they teach each subject and connect with each student, in so many different ways, they have opportunity after opportunity to instill in their students’ hearts and minds that Jesus is for them. Good grades and excellent test scores will serve to richly bless our students in many ways for this life, but Jesus will both enhance those blessings and add to them blessings that will last for eternal life. In our school, students will know that Jesus is for them.

Jesus is also for you, and for all those who need him. Therefore, his church – our church – is for you, and for everyone who needs him. 

Refocusing Faith

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(Matthew 14:22-33)

Regardless of the sport, even superior athletes all have something in common, statistically speaking: they will always miss. The best free-throw shooters still miss free throws. The best wide receivers still drop passes. The best hitters still strike out. 

I realize I am not stating anything that you didn’t already know. But, I want you to see that what is true in the world of sports and competition is also every bit as true when it comes to our faith.

We tend to think that a great faith is one that never misses, never stumbles or falls short, that never experiences weakness. As we wrap up our series that has focused on how we define what it means to be a Christian, I want us to replace the misguided idea that great faith is faith that never falters. Instead, let’s see a great faith as one that excels at refocusing on Jesus every time it does fall short.

If ever there was a disciple of Jesus who had multiple opportunities to put that kind of faith into practice, wasn’t it Peter? How many times do we see Peter’s faith waffle? And yet, how he responds is everything. He gets better and better at refocusing on Jesus.

We can’t help but chuckle a bit at Peter when Jesus meets the disciples on the water. What is Peter’s brilliant idea for confirming that the individual walking toward them was in fact, Jesus? “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water” (v.28).

Two things: First, Jesus’ response, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid” (v.27), really should have been sufficient. Had the disciples – or anyone else in history, for that matter – ever known anyone else who could possibly be doing what Jesus was doing as he stepped along the sea’s surface? Who else would have simply said, “It is I” and expected that to be explanation enough without providing a name?

Second, the proof Peter requests to assure the disciples that it was Jesus, is totally… well, totally Peter. Who else but Peter would have come up with such an over-the-top idea? Wouldn’t it have been enough to ask, “If it’s really you, Jesus, what did we have for lunch yesterday?” or “What was the name of the man you healed last Wednesday?” But no, flashy Peter wants to share the spotlight and be the one to walk on water with Jesus. 

What might be even more surprising than Peter’s audacious request was that Jesus complied! Jesus very well could have called Peter out right then and there. “The first words out of my mouth to you guys were ‘Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid,’ and you follow up immediately with ‘Lord, if it’s you…?’” “If???” “If it’s me???” We could almost envision Jesus smacking Peter upside the back of his head after his response. Instead, though, Jesus grants Peter’s request and invites him to come out to him on the water.

A brief side note: there might be a place here for the reminder to be careful what we ask for. Peter made a bold request to walk on water – and Jesus granted it! However, given how this account played out, one might wonder if Peter initially had in mind the same outcome that Jesus did. We do well to remember that at certain times when God grants us the thing we asked for, he may very well be granting it for an entirely different purpose than what we had in mind. Granted, his purpose will always be for our good – it just might not be the same “good” that we had in mind!

Back to Peter’s faith. As we look at Peter’s actions in this account, I believe he actually showed remarkable faith not once, but twice.

First, he hopped out of the boat on Jesus’ word alone (yes, it did come after his “Lord, if…”, but still!). For all of the grief we give Peter – and much of it is justified! – his trust in Jesus at times stands out, especially when Scripture shows us plenty of interactions between God and men where faith wasn’t so firm (for example, think of Moses waffling at God’s call to lead the Israelites out of Egypt or Jonah making a beeline away from Ninevah instead of to at as God had commanded)! So to see Peter leap out of the boat without any need of extra coaxing is quite commendable – especially given that walking on water was not a very typical everyday practice or habit for most people! 

Could our own faith stand to do a little more of this? Is our faith at times too stifled or short-sighted that it doesn’t leave room for God to do the things that only God can do (like walk on water…)? Is our faith constrained by playing only the favorable percentages or probable outcomes? Do we live the better part of our lives by sight and not by faith, by what can be seen with our own eyes rather than what God has shown in the past and is more than capable of showing in the future?  Are there areas of your own life where your faith needs to get out of the boat a little more or are you just playing it safe, coasting and relaxing aboard your cruise ship through life?

Jumping out of the boat wasn’t the only demonstration of Peter’s great faith. The second time came when right after his own faith failed him. It had happened so quickly, too! Just like that, Peter’s confidence in Christ sank into uncertainty as the wind acted up. But rather than counting on his own abilities, flailing his arms about or kicking his legs harder or taking deeper breaths or any number of things to try and save himself, he looked to his Lord for rescue. He looked to Jesus immediately and cried out, “Lord, save me!” (v.30). And Jesus delivered him. 

Jesus will do the same for us, even after – especially after – our own faith fails us. Too often we get stuck wallowing in our own imperfect faith after we stumble. Of course it’s imperfect! What did you expect, sinner?!? Stop bemoaning your miserable faith and refocus on your merciful Savior. The solution is not to wallow in self-pity over your lackluster faith! Instead, refocus on the one who makes faith great in the first place: Jesus.

Yes, we need to redefine what great faith is. If we are carrying with us the idea that a great faith is one that never stumbles and that our faith will never be great until it gets to that point, we’re in for a world of disappointment in ourselves! Good luck with that idea of great faith! Your faith will stumble, guaranteed! That isn’t the question. The question is, what do you do when it does? Where do you turn? The better you get at refocusing on Jesus as soon as you stumble, the better off you’ll be.

Yes, Jesus did rebuke Peter after rescuing him from sinking, but don’t quickly gloss over the “after rescuing him” part! Jesus rescued Peter, and then he allowed Peter to look back and reflect on what had happened. Why? So that he could learn from his mistake. So that the next time when something much more threatening than wind or waves would arise, Peter would know not to be terrified by the distractions and would instead refocus on the one who delivers. 

To appreciate the confidence Jesus provides us with here, think of the child learning to walk or swim. Few little ones are brave enough or confident enough to attempt such feats by themselves (and often end up learning the hard way how unwise it is if they do!). But if dad or mom is there, holding out their hands, ready and willing to catch them, suddenly the child’s fears are alleviated and they take the first step or jump into the pool and attempt it. They know they’re in good hands. Instead of focusing on falling down or sinking, they are focused on the safety and security dad or mom provides. 

We have every reason to live in confident faith the same exact way. We don’t pretend our faith will never fail us or let us down – it will; it’s imperfect. But the object of our faith – Jesus – is perfect.

So rather than pretending we can somehow work more on our faith to get it to some point of never stumbling, we instead work on focusing more on Jesus, the perfecter of our faith, and the One who will never let us go. He allows us to take big, bold steps out of the boat, just like Peter. And if we sink or fall – or rather when we sink or fall – he will always be there to catch us. That’s what faith does. It doesn’t wait until it’s big enough or strong enough to act; rather, it acts because it knows Jesus is big and strong enough. 

Lest we miss it, there’s another detail in this account that can go a long way in helping us get better at refocusing our faith.

Before he even walked along the waves, pay attention to what Jesus did first. He and his disciples had just had a long day ministering to literally thousands of people. Jesus had been healing the sick and then at the end of the day, carried out one of his most well-known miracles in the feeding of the five thousand. And all of this, mind you, while he was still internally wrestling with the recent news that his cousin, John the Baptist, had just been beheaded by Herod. After all of that, Matthew explains, “Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd” (v.22). 

Having directed the disciples to get a head start in making their way to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus bid goodnight and farewell to the crowds, sending them on their way. Jesus had some downtime alone. How did he spend it?

Naturally, he poured himself a nightcap and settled in to catch up on a few episodes of his favorite show. Well, not really. “After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray” (v.23). Now there is a way to unwind and recalibrate after a long day. Prayer. 

Now there isn’t anything wrong with a nightcap or a few episodes of your favorite show once in a while. Enjoy those gifts for what they are.

But let’s also grow to appreciate that Jesus found something in solitary prayer that may very well be missing from our lives to a greater extent: time with his Father. In prayer with his Father, where we so often find Jesus in the Gospels, he found not a surreal peace and calm, but a real peace and calm. Prayer – not just before or during his busy ministry activity, but after as well – restored and recalibrated our Redeemer to carry out his work on our behalf. 

Surely we could stand to follow his path of prayer more regularly. Doing so also results in our thoughts and attention being more frequently directed to the Lord, which would go a long way toward helping us grow in refocusing our faith on our perfect Savior and his grace and forgiveness.

Let that be a defining mark of your Christian faith – that you always work on refocusing on Jesus again and again. That is a great faith. Christian, strive to get better and better at looking to Christ.

Don’t Doubt During the Drought

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(1 Kings 17:1-6)

When everything in your world is going according to plan and playing out the way you imagine it should be, more or less, we don’t talk about trust. When we have what we need and we’re able to do what we do without interruption or inconvenience, we don’t talk about trust. When health is favorable and finances are fine, we don’t talk about trust. When family is getting along and friendships are thriving, we don’t talk about trust. When there are no challenges at church and we’re on good terms with all of our neighbors, we don’t talk about trust. 

But if – rather when – any of those areas of life start to veer off course or take a completely wrong turn, suddenly trust is a topic of discussion. However, you might not realize it right away, because you may not initially see that as the issue. Instead, it usually starts off with questions about what God is or is not doing, or why he is or is not doing it, or when he’s going to start or stop doing it. We wonder if God has changed his mind about us, has forgotten about us, or is possibly punishing us. When we find ourselves wrestling with those questions, the real concern is not God, but us. God God, who has made it clear he does not change, is not the issue; we are. Or to put it another way, our trust in him is.

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the times we are most likely to talk about trust are the times when trust is tested? This is the case whether a person’s trust appears to be an unraveling mess or an unshakeable mountain. In each case, the best way we assess whether trust is floundering or flourishing is when trust is tested. To know where we stand regarding trust then, our trust must be tried, and times of trial serve as the litmus test.

One historical season of trial for God’s people came during the reign of the kings. With few exceptions, evil and wickedness were the distinguishing marks of the kings after David. Yet, there was one whose wickedness far surpassed all others: Ahab. As if to set his wickedness apart, Ahab receives noticeably more coverage in Scripture than other kings. His marriage to Jezebel helped seal his nasty reputation. Their state-mandated sleazy and morbid worship of Baal and Asherah took Israel’s idolatry to its lowest low.

In sharp contrast to Ahab, we have the prophet Elijah, who comes onto the scene of Scripture in these verses rather abruptly and with very little introduction. Unlike Ahab, Elijah’s faithfulness bears testimony to the meaning of his name, “The LORD is my God.” In contrast to a king and people whose gods were impotent idols, Elijah demonstrated a towering trust in God. How so? By his words and actions.

Elijah’s confidence is clearly expressed in the boldness of his first recorded words to Ahab, which were not words of encouragement but, as a call to repentance, were words of judgment. “Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word” (v.1).

And Elijah wasn’t only the bearer of the bad news of famine; he also boldly clarified where his loyalties laid: with the Lord, the God of Israel (as opposed to Baal and Asherah, who, no matter how much they were worshipped, were certainly not the gods of Israel). Ahab had the power to put Elijah to death (and indeed did hunt down God’s prophets and put them to death!), but that authority didn’t intimidate Elijah enough to topple his trust in the Lord and keep him from speaking. His words revealed where he tethered his trust: to the Lord. 

Not only did his words demonstrate his trust in God. So did his actions. The Lord had instructed him to hide out from Ahab in a ravine, where he promised to provide for him during the drought. How did Elijah respond? “So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there” (v.5).

The Lord directed him and Elijah obeyed. And not just temporarily, until he perhaps tired of it or started to worry once the brook was drying up. No, he “stayed there” until God gave him his next marching orders to go visit a certain widow in Zarephath (where God would continue building up Elijah’s trust with yet another miracle). So we are able to gauge Elijah’s level of trust because there was a season of testing.

If you are not currently in a season of testing, don’t hold your breath – you will be soon. Such seasons at times come on us slowly, allowing us to anticipate and prepare for them. At other times, though, such seasons are relentless, exploding around us like a furious fireworks finale – boom! boom! boom! – one after another after another, with little or no break in between. Either way, no matter the pace, seasons of testing will come. 

Some of you don’t have to wait. Some of you are currently at the beginning, middle, or end of such a season. You are grappling with life after losing a loved one. A financial squeeze is suffocating you, like a python wrapped around you, slowly increasing the pressure one bill at a time. Or, the world’s waywardness weighs on you, taking you to a new low of doubt and confusion over God’s apparent indifference. A relative’s attitude and actions against your family are pushing the exercise of your Christian faith to its limits. Wherever you are in these seasons of testing, these times of drought, you teeter more and more on the edge of doubt as you question God. To be sure, your trust is being tested.

How do we demonstrate where our trust is at? Just as Elijah did – by the words spoken and the actions taken. Pay attention to how you speak to yourself and to others during this drought as your trust is being tested. Do your words reflect that God is good and that in and through Christ you have already been given the victory, which in turn assures you that this, too, shall pass? No, we don’t always speak that way because we often don’t feel that way. 

But that’s backward. Why would you wait until you feel as if it’s true to trust God’s promises? Are your feelings more reliable than the promises of God’s Word? Surely not. So don’t wait to feel as if God is good or that you are victorious in Christ. Instead, start speaking that way during your time of testing. And you know what?

You’ll start to believe it. Too often we let our feelings steer us, as if those will ever be more reliable or trustworthy than God’s promises. Speak his promises. Tell yourself and others what he tells you and promises you. He is good all the time, and in Jesus Christ and through the power of his resurrection, you are victorious.

Then, just as Elijah did, also act as if you believe those truths to be true. Act as if God is good and as if you are victorious in Christ. When our actions follow those truths, we do things differently.

We don’t buy into the lie that a season of testing is a valid or legitimate reason for not gathering with our church family each week to be where we need to be more than anywhere else – reassured and filled up with God’s good gifts of grace and forgiveness.

We don’t wait until we feel like serving others (including the individual or group who very well might be the source of our testing); our love takes action on their behalf.

We don’t spend less time talking to God in prayer because we’re mad at him or can’t understand why he allowed what he did to happen; we spend more time in prayer, pouring out our frustrations and asking God for answers as he wills to reveal them.

We don’t presume we can stick it to God with our pocketbooks by withholding our gifts from him; rather, we continue to thank him with a portion of our gifts even when it seems counterintuitive to being able to pay off our bills.

So we speak and we act in ways that make evident our trust in God during times of testing. We don’t take the all-too-familiar path of doubt during the drought. 

What happened when Elijah trusted during the drought? God was God, doing what God does and keeping his promises. Sometimes, God even uses miracles in doing so. “‘You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.’ So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook” (v.4-6).

Elijah was tested. Elijah trusted. God delivered. 

That’s how God operates in your life, too. We are tested. We trust. God delivers.

God always delivers – that’s what he does. Delivering is his specialty. How much room is there for doubting his deliverance when we consider the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ? Will the One who paid such a price for your sin really follow that up with, “Oh, but I forgot about the food you need, or the clothes, or the fill-in-the-blank?”

Will the One who redeemed your body and soul fail to provide for the body and soul he redeemed?

Will the One who is present in body and blood of the sacrament abandon us at the death of a loved one?

That is not God. That is not what he does. He does not abandon; he delivers. 

The forgiveness that he delivered through his own death, he will continue to deliver through Word and sacrament until he returns again on the last day. And if he is committed to delivering us in that way, he will deliver us in every other way as well.

But for us to see that deliverance, and to see where our trust is, there will be testing. Elijah was tested. Elijah trusted. God delivered. Let the same be said of you. When you were/are tested, you trusted, and God delivered. Remember what God did on his cross for you and you will not doubt his deliverance – not even during the droughts. 

Wealth That’s Worth It

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(Matthew 13:44-52)

What if the answer to the question is “Yes”? What would change? Would your mindset shift, would you reassess your job or career, or would you start paying much closer attention to your retirement plan if the answer to the question, “Can money buy happiness?” is yes? Well, there seems to be more than enough evidence from recent surveys and studies that have led scientists to conclude that money can buy happiness (Google “Can money buy happiness?” and choose from countless hits for a point of reference).

But, it might be wise to look a little bit more into the findings that show a correlation between money and happiness. Because, while it would be hard to deny a relationship between money and happiness, what isn’t really covered in all of the studies is the degree of happiness. In other words, how much happier does money make us, and how much money does one have to make to reach the next level of happiness? 

So if one million dollars increase my level of happiness by the equivalent of, say, simply watching an entertaining movie, is pursuing that one million dollars worth it, or could I find the same level of happiness just by watching the movie? Moreover, does it take a second million dollars for my happiness to jump to the next level? Is that worth it? What studies comparing money and happiness can’t really answer for us is how much happier and whether or not the effort related to that financial increase could simply be spent pursuing happiness in other areas.

After all, isn’t the state of happiness a pretty relative term? Haven’t we heard the stories of children in third-world countries who have only one or two changes of clothes, scraps for food, and yet are happy to be able to kick around a soccer ball all day? Haven’t we heard of the financial planner with clients who purchase two or three of everything presuming that more of something will increase happiness? So discovering that money buys happiness is only part of the equation – we need to determine what defines our happiness. 

Doesn’t it actually make more sense to align your happiness with what you value? So, if retail therapy makes me happy, then yes, more money would allow you to buy more stuff. But what if solid relationships make me happiest? Can you buy those? If getting lost in a book brings me happiness, I can spend nothing at the library to get another one. If good health makes me happy, it doesn’t have to cost anything to get outside or follow a workout video inside. If happiness is a relative term, let’s stop asking how much money it takes to buy happiness and instead focus on the source of our happiness.

In the verses this morning, two individuals appeared pretty happy. A man found a treasure hidden in a field and another man in search of pearls found one of great value. What did they do? The one stumbling upon the treasure “in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field” (v.44), while the merchant “sold everything he had and bought [the pearl]” (v.45). These decisions were not just based on wise financial planning – joy was involved. They joyfully leveraged their net worth to secure the treasure and pearl.

However, when we remember that Jesus’ parables carry with them a deeper spiritual significance, we can’t miss the obvious point of comparison. To what did Jesus compare the hidden treasure and the pearl? The kingdom of heaven. And what, exactly, did he mean by that phrase? 

While there is certainly much more that can be said to explain Jesus’ use of the phrase, “kingdom of heaven,” to keep it relatively simple, let’s consider it to refer to everything that is included in believing in and belonging to Jesus. So the kingdom of heaven cannot be experienced or understood apart from faith in Jesus and the good news of his work of salvation. Along with that are included all the blessings that flow into our lives both now and into eternity. 

So it has been said that the kingdom of heaven is both now and not yet. It includes the present and the future. Current membership in the kingdom of heaven is made up of those in both the church militant (this side of heaven) and the church triumphant (those saints already in heaven). And all of this kingdom is accessed through only one narrow door: Jesus Christ and his atoning work. 

So if the kingdom of heaven includes all the goodness of believing in and belonging to Jesus, now we know the point of comparison in his parables. We better understand what is represented by the hidden treasure in the field and the pearl of great price. They symbolize believing in and belonging to Jesus. And how valuable is that?

It’s worth everything. Literally. Each of the men in the parables immediately liquidated all of their assets – everything they had – for the sake of believing in and belonging to Jesus. Possessions were posted on Offer Up, Ebay, and FB Marketplace. Stocks, sold. Checking and savings accounts, emptied. Retirement plan, cashed out. Anything of temporal value was traded in for something with eternal value. 

How much would you be willing to sacrifice for such a treasure? What would you give up? What would you go without? Which possession(s) would you be willing to permanently part with for something you determined was worth it?

We might consider that to be too great a sacrifice, but the idea of making a sacrifice wasn’t at all the perception of either individual in the parable. They didn’t view it as having to give up anything or make some huge sacrifice at all. Rather, they didn’t miss a beat in trading up. They saw it as an upgrade. In their minds, they were not giving up something, but gaining something greater. They weren’t going without, but were getting ahead. 

Since this is just a parable of Jesus, we might wonder what it looks like in real life. Practically speaking, what does it look like to place such a high value on the kingdom of heaven, on believing in and belonging to Jesus? We look no further than the apostle Paul, who seemed to be describing in real life what it was like for this parable to play out. In his letter to the Philippians he wrote, “What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8). 

Doesn’t that sound like the merchant? Doesn’t that sound like the man who stumbled on the hidden treasure? Doesn’t that sound like… you?

Paul considered all earthly worth as worthless compared to Christ. The men in the parable traded in all they had for the kingdom of heaven. And the thought didn’t even cross their minds that they were making a sacrifice or giving something up, but only that what they stood to gain was so easily and obviously worth it. They would give up everything for it.

What is it worth to us? What would we give up for the kingdom of heaven? Everything? Anything? 

Do you know the treasure you have inside this kingdom of heaven that is yours right now? Do you know the value of believing in and belonging to Jesus? What we have is like the hidden treasures inside Fabergé eggs. As impressive as the intricate details on the ornate exterior of the eggs are, that’s just the beginning. In one particular egg, when a spring is touched, the egg opens up to reveal a golden yolk. Inside that yolk is a chicken. When the wing of the chicken is pressed, it opens up to show a gold crown, bedazzled with gems. Yet that isn’t all! One more spring can be triggered to reveal a hidden diamond ring in the center.

So it is in the kingdom of heaven. Only there is no limit to the treasures that can be discovered by believing in and belonging to Jesus. The riches of the kingdom of heaven are yours. The blessings of believing in and belonging to Jesus are yours.

Will you leave these treasures untapped? Will you leave the treasures hidden? Will you brush off blessings and jettison the joy and forget about forgiveness take a pass on the peace and purpose? Will you forego the chance to build up his kingdom and extend its reach and maximize gospel ministry and be a force for good in the world and make a difference in your community and love your neighbor and care for the overlooked and so on and so forth? Will you consider everything you’re willing to give up for the kingdom of heaven, only to realize you’re not giving up anything, but gaining everything? 

Will you find that happiness is right where you are right now, believing in and belonging to Jesus, and passionately helping others to find that same happiness? Do you realize that as one in the kingdom of heaven, right now you have a wealth that’s truly worth it, for you believe in and belong to Jesus? Nothing will ever be more valuable than that.

Wheat, Weeds, and the Word

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(Matthew 13:24-43)

Weeding is a necessary evil. That is, assuming you want to keep the landscape looking nice or wish to grow anything in your vegetable garden. While I don’t know anyone who would put weeding at the top of their list of all-time favorite activities, most of us acknowledge that it needs to be done whether we like it or not. 

Since Jesus uses so many agricultural illustrations in his teaching (e.g., he likens the life of a Christian to a tree producing fruit or a crop yielding a harvest), we might ex expect that somewhere in his teaching he’d include a spiritual reference to the importance of weeding. Interestingly enough, though, in this section from Matthew 13, Jesus states that when it comes to weeding in his kingdom, we don’t need to weed. It isn’t required. We’re off the hook.

In fact, he goes a step further by actually prohibiting weeding in his kingdom. In Jesus’ parable, notice the question and response regarding the weeds. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull [the weeds] up?’ ‘No,’ he answered” (v. 28-29a). 

“No???” Is it just me, or does that conclusion catch you off guard a bit? On the one hand, it would be perfectly understandable to make the same assumption the servants did: get rid of the weeds so that they don’t choke out the wheat. Don’t let the bad stuff grow and overwhelm the good. This is a natural approach to gardening because if one doesn’t weed, the good stuff doesn’t grow. 

That approach would also seem to line up with warnings elsewhere in Scripture when God warns his people not to have anything to do with the deeds of darkness, to avoid every kind of evil, and not to associate with wickedness. He warns us against being yoked together with unbelievers (cf. 2 Cor. 6:14).

Moreover, doesn’t such wickedness arouse our own sense of righteous anger as we are surrounded by it everywhere? Doesn’t God want us to do something about it? Aren’t we supposed to be ready for spiritual warfare and go to battle against all the kinds of blatant sin and disdain against God that is so prevalent? How can the man’s response to his servants’ request about pulling up the wheat be a straightforward “no”??? How is it that Jesus here can be so nonchalant about the threat of evil growing alongside his wheat, his believers?

Let’s jump ahead to Jesus’ explanation of the parable just to make sure we have all of the details right. Maybe that will help us understand a bit better. “He answered, ‘The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels’” (v.37-39). Jesus’ interpretation is pretty straightforward. He doesn’t really provide any additional insights as to why weeding is off-limits. Now what?

Let’s revisit the man’s rationale for prohibiting weeding. “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them’” (v.29). Ah, there is his concern. God is worried about more than just the possible damage that could be caused by the weeds. He is more concerned about accidentally uprooting the wheat.

Are you surprised by this? In our minds, we view the corruption and wickedness all around us as public enemy number one to our faith. We worry about the world’s influence on our faith. We worry about its open attacks on Christianity. We feel the squeeze of sin and its normalization all around us. Surely the potential damage the weeds could do to the wheat is a greater risk than the possibility of accidentally uprooting some of the wheat?!? Spiritual weed-whacking would seem to be the best option, wouldn’t it?

Apparently, Jesus disagrees. Let that sink in. Jesus is less concerned about the influence the wicked world has on his believers than he is about the possibility of any one of his believers being yanked away along with the weeds.

But how does that even happen? Quite easily, as a matter of fact.

Do you remember when Westboro Baptist Church made headlines? Years ago they were regularly making the news, but not for a good reason. They had groups protesting at the funerals of servicemen and women, claiming that such deaths were deserved and were God’s judgment on the military for accepting gays. They picketed in the name of Christianity, claiming God’s judgment here and there. 

It is one thing to call out sin – and yes, we are to do that; but it is another to do it lacking so much as an ounce of love. Love prompts us to call sin, sin in hopes of repentance that would see a soul turn from sin to forgiveness and grace in Jesus. Guess what was lacking in any of the groups from Westboro Baptist?

Do you suppose their actions had any impact? I imagine they did… but not for the good of Christ’s Kingdom. Instead, their loveless attitude and calloused, insensitive approach most definitely resulted in increased animosity against Christians, as non-believers lumped all of Christianity with “those types of people.”

And undoubtedly, some Christians who were either young in their faith or on the fringes of their faith concluded that if this was how Christians really acted, then they didn’t want anything to do with Christianity.

That’s the concern the farmer expressed when prematurely pulling the weeds – some of the wheat may come with it.

There is another reason Jesus is less concerned about spiritual weed-whacking: his confidence in the Word of God to sustain believers.

When we consider the two parables Jesus tells between this one and its explanation, we see a different emphasis: an emphasis on the power of the Word. In those parables, Jesus compares the Word to a mustard seed and to yeast. It grows exponentially. So it would seem Jesus has such confidence in the Word keeping the wheat that he is less concerned about weeds crowding out the wheat. Maybe we should have the same confidence! 

Another way we might reflect this: let’s focus less on the world’s wickedness and more on how the Word works. The Word works! We can sit around and pout all day about how bad the world, our country, or our state are getting and conclude that Christ’s church is doomed. Or, we can keep trusting that Word still works, it will still bring unbelievers to faith and will continue to keep believers in the faith. Worry less about the weeds and more about how God sustains and grows his wheat, and we’ll be just fine. 

If ever there was reason to fear that the weeds were going to overtake the wheat, it was in the final days of Jesus’ life. Surely it appeared as if the weeds were gaining ground and taking over. In Jesus’ final days, as his enemies had their way with him, It was as if the weeds were going to completely eradicate the wheat. Indeed, that was the conclusion of some as Jesus hung crucified, his life cruelly and undeservedly slipping away from him. 

But it wasn’t as it appeared! The weeds weren’t actually winning. Rather, God was permanently protecting his wheat harvest with a certainty of salvation that no weeds would ever be able to suffocate or choke out. Jesus was guaranteeing a harvest on the Last Day by graciously forgiving all sin and wickedness so that no level of evil could ever overcome it.

Where sin and wickedness have been forgiven – and at the cross they have – what real power do they retain? Who really has the power when sin and wickedness have been forgviven? Christ does! His church does! You do! I do! The weeds don’t win – not so long as forgiveness reigns.

And that is where we stand: in the grace of forgiveness. Surrounded by weeds and wickedness, yes – but they can never touch God’s gracious gifts of forgiveness and salvation in which we stand. So stand in them. Remain in them. Grow in them. Don’t waste your time and attention on how bad the weeds are; focus your time and attention on how God grows and sustains his wheat. The weeds won’t stand a chance. Ask Satan – he already knows it. He just hopes that you forget it and worry more about the damage that he might do than about the saving work Jesus already did.  

What a great reminder for the church to stay on mission. Its mission is not weed-whacking all of the wickedness out of the world. Its mission is to proclaim the gospel and let its light shine. Jesus thinks the potential good from doing that outweighs the potential damage of being influenced by the weeds.

Let’s not forget this. Let’s ratchet up our efforts in trusting the Word by prioritizing it in our lives. Talk is cheap, and frankly, just talking about the importance of the Word isn’t enough to keep the weeds at bay. Reading it, studying it, breathing it, living it, applying it, encouraging each other with it, building each other up with it – these are the things God’s wheat does as we await the glorious harvest. When that harvest comes on the Last Day, God will finally take care of the weeds, and he assures us that his Word-grown wheat will not be left behind, but will “shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (v.43).

Until then Christians, live with the weeds. We aren’t called to douse them with Round-up or feverishly yank them up in hopes of solving the world’s weed problem. Instead, we let the Word do that – in both our own lives and, as it has opportunity, in their lives, too. Focus on being Word-grown wheat, and let God take care of the harvest. It just might be more plentiful than you could ever have imagined.