Tag: grace

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

adbLeave a comment

For Grace Over Guilt

Forgiving Father,
Sundays are sacred. As we gather with fellow believers for worship, may we never underestimate the amount of guilt many people bring with them into your house. There are so many burdens and so much baggage that are dragged into worship on Sunday morning. For that reason, as we fellowship and connect with one another each Sunday, help me to reinforce the good news of the gospel every opportunity I get. I want to be a part of sending off my church family for another week with forgiveness on their hearts and minds. May all those who arrive guilt-ridden depart grace-filled. 

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

The Courage of “No”

adbLeave a comment

(Daniel 3:16-28)

As the loud chant bellows out from the nearby minaret beckoning all to bow down in prayer, those around you pause whatever they are in the middle of doing to roll out their prayer rug. They kneel down in the same direction and the sea of random people involved in a variety of activities all around you quickly becomes an ocean wave, curving and swaying as arms and bodies are raised up and then curled back down again in prayer.

You stand out like a sore thumb.

Everyone else is on the ground kneeling in prayer while you are the lone standing figure, as if to announce to everyone around that you are a clueless foreigner. What do you do? Do you go with the flow and lower yourself to the ground, at the very least to avoid drawing attention to yourself? Do you go so far as going through the same motions as everyone else to blend in, even though you don’t worship their false god? 

We can speculate and imagine the mix of emotions that might come over us in such a hypothetical situation. But in Daniel 3, when Nebuchadnezzar’s call and command to worship was sounded, there is no need for speculation over how the three displaced Israelites might have responded. The details of the account are clearly provided for us.

But before we get to their response, it’s important to know that they knew what they were getting into. Prior to their actions, Nebuchadnezzar’s warning had been communicated: “Then the herald loudly proclaimed, ‘Nations and peoples of every language, this is what you are commanded to do: As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace’” (Daniel 3:4-6). It did not matter what religion a person practiced or what language he spoke, to choose not to worship the ninety-foot image of gold was to face imminent incineration.

The flames of jealously spreading from other officials ensured that word would quickly spread regarding the three foreigners who had the audacity to ignore the king’s command. Those three, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were brought before King Nebuchadnezzar, who was beside himself that anyone would so brazenly disregard his command. He said to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? Now when you hear the sound of the… music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?” (v. 14-15). Talk about a terrifying threat!

But Nebuchadnezzar’s overconfidence would be outshined by the courageous confidence of the three men who stood up to him. “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up” (v.16-18). 

See how courageous they were! Compare their courage with today’s version of courage, where activists throw tomato soup or some other liquid on works of art. Where groups of people park themselves in the middle of the road. Where protests are organized and rallies are coordinated. How much real courage do such actions require?

But take note of the radical approach taken by the three. They said “No.” That was it. They didn’t have to coordinate some widespread effort. They didn’t rally the other exiled Israelites to join them in some major rebellious protest. They didn’t manufacture something online in an effort to make it viral.

They simply refused to heed a command to sin by worshiping an idol. Think of it: one of the most legendary of all Sunday school narratives – this account before us – was simply a matter of having the courage to say “no.” Before we jump right to the miraculous conclusion of this account, let’s just linger here a bit on the power of “no.” 

Today (Reformation) has historically been a pretty big deal in the Lutheran church. We are observing the Reformation. It may be a relatively unfamiliar term to many, but Reformation refers to a period of church history often considered to have been set in motion by an event that took place on October 31, 1517. That was the date on which a monk named Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany. Through these theses, his intent was to establish points for discussion with the leaders of the church of his day over concerns he had about what was being taught and practiced. 

Luther had been doing a “dangerous” thing: reading his Bible. Doing so allowed the Holy Spirit to bring to light legitimate concerns that weren’t lining up with the Word of God. At stake amidst these concerns was the very foundation on which the whole of Scripture stands: justification by grace alone, through faith alone, revealed through Scripture alone. The more the Reformation was fanned into flame through the words and writings of men like Luther and other reformers, the more the church of his day dug in its heels. It refused to acknowledge that it had not only drifted away from Scripture in its teachings, but was brazenly contradicting the clear teachings of the gospel, that we are not saved by our own works, but by faith in Jesus’ merits alone.

On numerous occasions, both formally and informally, Martin Luther was expected to take back his words and writings opposing the church so that he might remain in good standing. The most famously recorded incident was before the Diet of Worms, on which occasion he is famously quoted as saying, in response to the church’s demand that he retract and recant, “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.” If you allow me to paraphrase what Luther said and simplify it just a little bit, Luther said directly to the sacred and secular authorities who demanded his compliance, “No.” The refusal that three young Israelites in Babylon had boldly uttered before Nebuchadnezzar was boldly uttered before the highest authority of Luther’s day, too. “No.”

Yes, it takes great courage to say “No.” But there is also great power in “No.” And we don’t have to stand before princes or kings to utter it. In fact, it isn’t likely that any of us will ever find ourselves in that position. But that doesn’t make our “no” any less powerful. Your “no” to the social hour invitation after work that inevitably ends up with inebriated coworkers is powerful. Your “no” to your significant other’s invitation to cross the line sexually is powerful. Your “no” to another of your child’s club team tournaments because it’s on a Sunday morning is powerful. Your “no” to “just try” the drug everyone else around you is high on is powerful.

Your “no” is not nothing. It is much more. It is a yes to what is right. It is yet one step further removed from the edge of the abyss that sin beckons us to stumble over into unbelief. It is a yes to my identity as a believer and child of God who is walking in the light. It is a yes to the blessed paths of righteousness that hold out so much more for us than any invitation to sin ever can or will. 

Notice also that the “no” of the three before Nebuchadnezzar did not need to be accompanied by added insults or denigrating of the king. There refusal was, in fact, carried out quite respectfully. There was no badmouthing behind his back or even to his face.

Could we learn from that? Could our “no” be just as effective – dare I say even more effective, when not accompanied by the disparaging remarks that are so common in our culture today? Can we politely disagree without tearing down the person with a different view? Can we show our disapproval of the words or actions of another without raising our voice or boiling over? How puzzled would others be to see such responses that are so out of the ordinary today? What might result? Could the reaction of others look something like that of the Babylonian King?

Note again his reaction after the three men’s “no” resulted in a date with the incinerator, only for them to walk back out of the furnace, bearing not even the slightest hint of flame, no smoke or singe of even as much as a hair on their head or hands. King Nebuchadnezzar said, “Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God” (v.28).

Yes, the miracle was absolutely amazing, but what was it that truly struck King Nebuchadnezzar? They were willing to die for God! They were willing to give up their lives for the Lord rather than bow down to an idol and easily escape death in that way. 

Yet even on the heels of such a bold show of courage, it wasn’t Shadrach, Meshach, or Abednego whom Nebuchadnezzar praised, but God. Let that sink in! Their “no” resulted in an unbeliever praising God! And their “no” results in believers praising God today, as we are still inspired by their courage. Surely if three young believers in a foreign country can utter a “no” to the face to he most powerful authority in the world at the time, we can courageously do the same much more frequently.

But it isn’t easy! It takes courage! So what empowers our “no”?

Our Savior who said yes.

No, not to sin, but to the condemnation resulting from sin. Jesus knew the furnace of hell awaits all who challenge God’s command of perfection and rebel against it and he said yes to that condemnation anyway. He knew Satan’s relentless efforts to convince him to call the whole thing off and not give his perfect life up for repugnant mankind would only intensify during his weakest moments at the end, and still he said yes. He knew the Father, to whom he had turned again and again during his life and ministry, would turn away from him in excruciating abandonment, and still he said yes. Jesus, and all that he willingly said “yes” to in our place to spare us from eternal hell – he is what empowers our “no.” 

If you’re familiar with the Jack Pine, you know what it takes for its seed to spread and eventually sprout. It takes heat. Not just a hot day, mind you, but the heat of a flame. Only the heat of flames are enough to soften the resin surrounding the seeds that are protected inside the pine cone. So the wildfire, the very source of destruction of so much else in a forest fire, is what allows the Jack Pine to reproduce.

So it is with our faith. Life is relatively easy when all is well. When it is, though, our faith is like a fallow field, resting, unused and mostly inactive.

But when the flames are kindled or when the fire is raging in our lives, faith cannot remain fallow. It will not. Faith responds to the fire by burning brighter, fueled by the gospel and charged by the Holy Spirit. Faith is inspired by the believers who have gone before us, the Shadrachs, Meshachs, and Abednegos, the Martin Luthers, our forefathers and our grandparents and parents. Emboldened and all the more courageous because the fires demand its response, faith grows, it thrives, and tears down enemy strongholds, calling out Satan and those in service to him and with a gospel-generated fearlessness that can’t come from anywhere else. And what does such a bold, courageous faith proclaim? It says… “No,” one of the most courageous words God’s people can ever speak.  

The Glory & Grace of the Gospel

adbLeave a comment

(2 Thessalonians 2:13-17)

Jim Harbaugh, the polarizing head coach of the National Champion University of Michigan football team, has established the practice of asking his players and fans the same question. He brings up the question so frequently that the response is chanted in unison as if just one booming voice. His question? “Who has it better than us?” The response of the crowd? “Nobody!”

As Christians, fresh off another celebration of Christmas and again seeing Jesus reveal himself as the world’s Savior, we can’t help but ask the same question: “Who has it better than us?” “Nobody!”

But when we consider who we were on our own, who we are now in Christ, and what that means for our present and future, do we really know how good we have it? Do we?

Paul wanted to make sure the Christians in Thessalonica knew how good they had it – and why. It wasn’t because of their own achievements or some outstanding accomplishment on their part, but rather because of everything God had done for them through Jesus Christ. So when Paul celebrates them, what he is really celebrating is what God has done for them. He thanks God for them – because they are loved, they are chosen, they are firstfruits, they are saved. And he recounts what brought all of this about: the gospel.

Simply put, the gospel was/is everything. There would be no letter, there would be no celebration, there would be no congregation of believers even gathered in Thessalonica, if not for the gospel. Paul hits that point home directly after all of the reasons to celebrate who they are because of what God has done when he wrote, “He called you to this through our gospel…” (v.14). The gospel was why they were who they were and the gospel is what God used to call them to be who they were.

That is the case for all Christians. Anyone who belongs to God, anyone who has ever believed, including anyone who is right now basking in the sinless joy of heaven while we wait eagerly for the Last Day, is so because God called them.

It’s how he called you and it’s how he will continue to call others. In the Word of God, God has revealed that the Bible is how he has chosen to call us. The gospel message – the good news for sinners that forgiveness of sins and salvation are ours through Jesus – is what God uses to call us today and tomorrow and until he comes again. This good news is God himself calling sinners to him for refuge and rescue. So what Paul wrote to the Thessalonians he might as well be writing to us and to anyone else who ever comes to faith in Jesus: “He called you to this through our gospel…” (v.14). 

Since the gospel is how God calls everyone – anyone – to faith in him, then in that gospel we have everything we need to flourish in the ministry that Jesus has given us. Go then and tell people the good news that Jesus is their Savior because he paid for their sins. That’s it. It’s that simple.

Don’t complicate it. Don’t skirt around it. Proclaim it – so that God can call others to faith through it. Don’t argue about it. Don’t apologize for it. Don’t avoid it. Don’t try to sweeten it. Just proclaim it. Just share it. Just pass it on to others, fully trusting that God calls others through the gospel – and only through the gospel.

What makes this gospel so amazing? Through it we know and will continue to know glory and grace. 

The rest of what Paul writes at the end of verse 14 ought to blow your mind. “He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v.14). What?!? You realize that when we speak of the glory of Jesus Christ that we are on another whole level of glory, right??? Paul described it in his letter to the Philippians, explaining the glory that would follow Jesus’ incarnation (i.e. God becoming man) on earth. 

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11). Jesus is the glory of God the Father! Every knee bows and every tongue confesses who Jesus is – and YOU share in that glory! Page through John’s visions in the Book of Revelation and see the glory of every creature lavishing praise and acclaim on Jesus on his throne – and YOU share in that glory!

Imagine being brought up on the stage for the Golden Globes or Academy Awards, or with a team after they won the championship game. You had absolutely nothing to do with winning, but they still call you up on the stage to bask in the glorious celebration. Although you made zero contributions, nonetheless, there you are, relishing the glory that someone else earned for you. Christ earned a far greater glory, and he shares it with you!

If there is no greater glory we could ever experience aside from the glory we share in Christ, then why is it that we still seek out self glory? Isn’t that really what we’re doing when our pride is wounded or when we insist on demanding a certain level of recognition or acknowledgment for what we’ve done? Why do we resent the teacher for not rewarding our hard work? Why do we feel that the coach only seems to harp on our mistakes but ignores our contributions? After so many years and all I’ve done for my company, why does the boss still hardly give me the time of day? Why won’t my spouse give me the respect I deserve for all that I do for us? I never get recognized for anything I do at my church.

Friends, do we forget the glory that we share with Christ? How could any of these things, or even the sum of them all together, ever amount to the glory that is already ours in Christ?!? And that is why the gospel is so amazing. We could not know of this glory that is ours with Jesus apart from the gospel. 

That same gospel doesn’t just assure us of the glory we’ll share with Christ; it also reveals the radical side of God that is responsible for that glory, which is totally and completely unique to Christianity: grace.

Christians are familiar with the word “grace.” But if we aren’t careful, something so profound as grace, so radically life-changing and unparalleled anywhere else in the world like grace, can become… ho-hum. When that happens, grace seems less and less amazing. Its usage can become so routine and so frequent in how we speak that we begin to be less in awe of what it really is. So how do guard against losing that awe of grace? How do we recapture its greatness? How does it crash into us a like an ocean wave smashing into a rocky cliff so that we are left completely drenched by it, refreshed and and re-awakened?

We remember what makes grace so amazing. Christian author, Randy Alcorn, shared a story about that very hymn, Amazing Grace:  

Before I spoke at a conference, a soloist sang one of my favorite songs, “Amazing Grace.” It was beautiful. Until she got to the tenth word. “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a soul like me!” My heart sank. The word wretch had been edited out! I thought about John Newton, the songwriter. This former slave trader, guilty of the vilest sins, knew he was a wretch. And that’s what made God’s grace so “amazing.” Mind-boggling. Knockdown awesome. If we’re nothing more than morally neutral “souls,” do you see what that does? It guts grace. (The Grace and Truth Paradox: Responding with Christlike Balance)

When we define grace as God’s undeserved love, we have to remember what makes it so undeserved: we do. If grace is just “God’s generic love in general,” it loses so much. It is love that is undeserved. It is love for wretches. It is love for the worst of the worst, love for me. No matter the sin, there is always more grace. We sin in ways old and new. We sin in ways planned and premeditated. We sin in ways unexpected and even unknown. And grace covers all of it.

And it is the good news of the gospel that assures us that God’s love for wretches will never be exhausted. It is that gospel which takes the ugly reality of my sin – all of it – and crosses it out at Calvary, at Jesus’ crucifixion. It takes the whole record of my sin, every last sin that I’ve stored up over the course of my life, and completely empties it, just as Jesus did his tomb.

Dear Christian, who has it better than us? Nobody. Now if that’s true (it is!) and if you believe it (you do!), then let it be plain as day in how we live our lives, just as Paul encouraged: “May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word” (v.16-17). 

A Story of Faultless Fairness

adbLeave a comment

(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

adbLeave a comment

(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. 

The Church Clings to Christ

adbLeave a comment

(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.

Asking – and Answering – the Question That Matters Most

adbLeave a comment

(Luke 18:18-30)

A great question can have a huge impact in a variety of settings. One of the qualities of exceptional leaders is that they ask great questions. In being coached and in coaching other pastors, the value of great questions that force hearers to reflect deeply or differently cannot be overstated. In the classroom, students learn well when teachers ask great questions and teachers can better tune in to the learning needs of students when students ask great questions, too. 

In Luke 18, Jesus was faced with a great question. In fact, Jesus was asked the greatest question anyone can ask: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (v.18). There is no question more important than this one. It both acknowledges an afterlife and also seeks out assurance for what happens to us after we die. This question assumes there is more than just this life and the one asking it wants to be confident of his place in the life to come. 

As great a question as this most important question is, it’s also terribly frustrating that precious few people are asking it today. Why is that? If it is the most important question- and it is – why aren’t more people asking it? It would be lovely to conclude that more people aren’t wrestling with it because they are already confident of the answer.

But sadly, a much more likely reason is that they are simply indifferent to the answer. They don’t care. Perhaps some have thought about what happens when they die and may or may not have their own answers, but so many are perfectly content not giving this most important question the time of day. Chalk it up to the same level of indifference our culture has with so many other important matters. Meanwhile, we wouldn’t dare miss out on the “important” stuff like a scathing sports tweet, the latest celebrity hook-ups or break-ups, or some political rant.

But, rather than lament why so many in our society are content to stick their head in the sand rather than wrestle with this question, let’s focus on you. Are you asking the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” More importantly, are you confident in your answer? As our faith increases, so does our confidence in the answer to that question. 

Speaking of confidence, the man who approached Jesus in this chapter of Luke didn’t seem to lack it. Yet, while he certainly seemed to have confidence in his own standing, there’s no reason to presume he was being disingenuous or that he had some agenda in asking the question. He was asking the right question, the question that matters most. And he wanted to be sure of the answer.

Jesus’ initial response isn’t what we might expect. One might suppose that Jesus could have answered the ruler’s question very simply: “Believe that I am the promised Savior and eternal life is yours.” That would have made for a short and sweet encounter and the man may very well have gone on his way.

But the man would have gone on his way with a jaded idea of what was required for heaven. As we see his dialogue with Jesus play out, the man had a misplaced confidence in his own efforts. And as far as salvation is concerned, when man’s efforts – whether they be great or small – are combined with God’s grace, the result is hell. There is no room in the salvation equation for works plus anything else. So Jesus didn’t give him the good news of the gospel, for it would have done more harm than good. The man first needed to see how much he needed Jesus.

That may also have something to do with why Jesus initially keyed in on the term “good.” Jesus wasn’t trying to avoid the man’s question. In fact, he was likely prompting him to think very carefully about what significance he was attaching to the term “good” in addressing Jesus that way. However, regardless of what the man’s intent was in using that description, look at Jesus’ response: only God is good. 

That should have made something clear to the man asking what he must do to get to heaven (in other words, “How good do I have to be?”): no one is good enough. But he missed the point, as made clear by his response to Jesus bringing up the commandments: “All these I have kept since I was a boy” (v.21). While the overconfidence oozing from the man’s reply is obvious to us, based on his upbringing and understanding of the law, he probably legitimately figured he was measuring up to God’s expectations for him.

There’s a part of us that is right there with him. “You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’” (v. 20). We’ve mostly kept those commandments, on the big stage, at least. Sure, a few small things here and there, but all-in-all, when we think of how others demolish these laws with their sins, we’ve only “bumped into” them a bit. No affairs. No murders. No breaking and entering or grand larceny. No lying under oath. No dishonoring our parents in a way that tarnishes the family name. See, it’s not so hard for our thinking to line up quite well with the self-righteous ruler, is it? 

So Jesus does him a favor and makes a more pointed application of the law. Jesus pointed out that he was still lacking something: he needed to sell his stuff.

To understand how Jesus was helping the man diagnose his sin, consider a visit to the doctor to treat an ankle injury. Suppose you injured your ankle and wanted to see if it was broken. How helpful would it be for the doctor to ask you to move your elbows or your knees to see if something was amiss? How helpful would it be for him to apply a little bit of pressure to different spots on your forearm, asking each time if that hurt at all? In order for him to be able to help you, he’d have to be treating the right part of your body. 

Jesus did just that by applying pressure to the ruler’s spiritual sore spot: his wealth. And Jesus’ effort hit the mark. “[Jesus] said to him, ‘You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy” (v.22-23). The man’s reaction demonstrated that the law accomplished its purpose. It exposed his sin. It showed where the man’s heart truly was. It didn’t belong to God. It belonged to his stuff, and his sorrow showed it.

Had the man measured up to the kind of goodness required for heaven, his response would have been delight. “Is that it? What a great opportunity it will be for me to richly bless the less fortunate, for I have far more than I need. I will gladly give away every penny of my wealth so that it can serve those in need.” For an example of this, see Zacchaeus’ response to Jesus and the good news. The gospel prompted Zacchaeus’ generosity. But in this case, the law had a completely different effect on the ruler. It prompted his despair.

The man seemed like a prime candidate for heaven, based on his own confidence in having kept the law, but now Jesus was saying it was easier for a camel to thread the eye of a needle than for a guy like this to get into heaven. Understandably, that shocked those listening. “Those who heard this asked, ‘Who then can be saved?’” (v.26). Jesus’ hearers must have concluded that if it’s impossible for a pretty upright fellow like that to get into heaven on his own, then what chance of eternal life does anyone else have?

And that is exactly where God wants everyone to be at some point in his life. Hopeless. Helpless. Having the realization that nothing we could ever hope to do and nothing we could ever hope to be is enough to assure us of eternal life. On our own, we are… on our own. The awareness of our inability to be good enough, to try hard enough, to be enough leaves us absolutely and completely desperate. 

To those who have been there, who have experienced that, the words of Jesus that come next are life and deliverance. They are hope. They are just what despairing hearts and ears long to hear: “Jesus replied, ‘What is impossible with man is possible with God’” (v. 27). What is impossible with man? The ability to save himself. What is possible with God? Salvation. 

And it isn’t just possible. It isn’t just plausible. God actually did it! God did what the rich ruler couldn’t. He did what we couldn’t. He got the job done – completed it 100%.

How refreshing in a half-done and undone society like ours! We hire a contractor for this or that project, and only 90% of the job is done, yet he claims he’s finished. The coworker or classmate submits their portion of the work or assignment that is “mostly” done, leaving you to finish it up. Into a “partially-done-is-good-enough” world, God came in the flesh and completed 100% of what was necessary for our salvation, from start to finish. 

Unlike the rich ruler, Jesus didn’t have to fudge the law’s standards just to pretend he had kept most of the commandments, but he kept every one. Unlike our best efforts at trying to make up for wrongs, which could not even on our best day come close to paying for even the smallest sin, Jesus paid for every sin with his very life. And the impossible continued when he defied death and rose to life again, making the impossible possible and guaranteeing our resurrection, too. What is impossible with man is possible with God. Indeed, it has been accomplished in full by God. 

So we have the answer to the question we must ask, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Not a thing. Jesus did the impossible. Jesus did it all. Believe it. 

The First Will Be Last; the Last Will Be First

adbLeave a comment

(Luke 13:22-30)

Why do Jesus’ words this morning stand out so much when he claims, “Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last” (v.30)? His words grab our attention because we live in a world that doesn’t operate that way at all. The class valedictorian is not the student with the lowest GPA. It isn’t last-place competitors in Olympic trials who go on to represent their countries in going up against the best in the world. The sales rep generating the weakest sales numbers for the company isn’t on the shortlist for a bonus or promotion. Our world doesn’t work that way, and that’s what makes Jesus’ words stand out this morning.

And those aren’t his only words that make for this morning’s Hard Truth! He also warned, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to” (v.24). This, too, doesn’t jive with what most of us would like to prefer to believe is true. We want to believe that if there is a heaven, which is what Jesus is referring to here, everyone should be able to get in, regardless of any sort of differences they might have. We don’t want to see anyone left out.

Well, almost everyone. There are of course some types of people we wouldn’t expect to be in heaven. The bad ones. The ones who have done the really cringe-worthy things that are really disgusting or twisted or sick – not those people, of course.

Should we stop right here and list who would be included in our category of disgusting, twisted, or sick people? Because I’m sure we’d all agree on our lists, right (he wrote, sarcastically…)? That would make it easier for us to determine who’s in and who’s out as far as entering through that narrow door.

Did we just expose why what Jesus says is such a hard truth? We tend to hold to two ideals that also happen to stand at odds with each other. The first is that things should be equal and inclusive. This may be why some struggle with organized religion, perceiving that it thrives on judgment and exclusivity. That doesn’t sit well in our everyone-is-equal world. 

But the second sentiment is at odds with it: that of course certain types of people shouldn’t be allowed into heaven. Certain types of people should naturally be excluded. So how do we maintain inclusivity, while also agreeing that certain types should be excluded, while still also acknowledging that we don’t all agree on exactly which types of people should be excluded?

Here’s where the Christian faith is set apart from every other religion: it is the most inclusive religion there is. “Wait just a minute,” you’re thinking. “You literally just read the words of Jesus clearly saying that many who try to get into heaven will not make it through the narrow door. How is that the most inclusive religion there is???” 

There are many places in the Bible that explain it, but one of the more simple and straightforward is Romans 3:23-24: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” All people are in the same boat, as “all have sinned.” That is God’s way of saying everyone has missed the mark; we’ve all failed to live up to his expectation of a life of only bullseyes in what we think, do, and say.

But all people are also in another boat together, as “all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” That’s a wordy way of saying that even though we’ve all missed the mark of perfection in our lives, God has nonetheless declared us, “not guilty” because of what Jesus did for us. All people. Everyone. That friends, is the very definition of “inclusive!” 

While God has declared everyone “not guilty,” what God won’t do is force anyone to believe it. But what he also won’t do is accept any other alternative arrangements folks would like to make to get into heaven. That isn’t because God is some intolerant, narcissistic deity, though; rather, it’s because no other deal or payment will suffice. That’s what Jesus was warning the person who asked him, “Lord, are only a few people coming to be saved?” (v.23).

Why in his response would Jesus tell warn the man to make every effort? If God has declared all people not guilty, then it should be easy peasy, right? Yes, except that Jesus seemed to warn that some people would be in for a bit of an unexpected, embarrassing shock: the Jesus they thought they knew didn’t seem to recognize them. “Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’  Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’  But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’” (vv.25-27). 

Have you had a similar experience? A social function or class reunion brings people together who haven’t seen each other in years or even decades. Seeing a certain familiar face instantly puts a smile on yours. You eagerly approach the individual and begin to recount a memorable shared experience that you had… only to suddenly realize by the puzzled look on the other person’s face that They. Don’t. Recognize. You. At. All. After your initial shock, you immediately begin to remind them of more of the details of the story and your past experiences together, as if those will surely jar their memory and help them recall who you are. But it doesn’t matter – the other person has zero recollection of you or the experience. That’s the kind of experience Jesus was describing.

The question is, who are the people who would fall into the category Jesus is describing? Two categories come to mind: 1) those who wish to redefine God’s expectations, and 2) those who wish to redefine God. 

The first group is dangerous because it twists God’s Word into a playbook or manual to follow as the method of getting right with him. This is the category of religious folks who have been deceived into thinking it’s their self-righteousness that gets them in. They are the modern-day Pharisees who mistake their acts of religion as the badge of honor that will get them through the narrow door. They are diligently at church every Sunday, not as troubled sinners who desire to be reassured of peace and forgiveness through Jesus, but rather to get the perfect attendance sticker. They give offerings, not from a cheerful heart that is head-over-heels in love with their Savior, but because that “Give 10%” box needs to be checked off to get right with God. They read the Bible, not so that the Holy Spirit can breathe new life into them and produce faith-born fruit, but because that’s what religious people are supposed to do, and by golly, they’re going to make sure all their bases are covered.

So when they meet Jesus on that last day, they will be eager to submit their fine resumé of self-righteousness, only to hear Jesus say, “I’m sorry, who are you again?” These are the people Jesus chastised in Matthew 23:13: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” No one who thinks the key code into heaven is the right combination of good works will ever get in. 

But the second category is equally dangerous – not because it misunderstands that man is incapable of earning anything before God; rather, because it misrepresents who the true God is in the first place. One of the dead giveaways of those who fall into this category is some expression along the lines of, “The god I believe in would never do this or that.” That may sound nice, but with all due respect, where did that version of god come from, and how do we reconcile that version of god with the person down the street who has a slightly different take on how his god would respond in a certain situation?

While we passively stand by in our “don’t-step-on-anyone’s-toes” culture and totally respect that other person’s view of god, has anyone bothered to ask God what he thinks of all of these different avatars that are supposedly representing him? By all means, please let him know how he is supposed to respond to that situation today, and this one tomorrow, and so on and so forth.

Isn’t it a little bit ironic that Christianity is sometimes labeled as unreasonable or irrational, while in the meantime, it’s not unreasonable or irrational that ten different people have ten different versions of god and we can all be fine with that? Let’s either acknowledge how silly that is or at least have the decency to come right out and admit that we don’t believe in god. That way at least there won’t be any surprise when the God who does exist doesn’t recognize those who refused to recognize him.

Whether we’re wrong about God in the first category or wrong about God in the second doesn’t matter – we don’t want to be in either category! Instead, we want to be in the third category of those who are absolutely 100% sure we’ll enter through that narrow door! How do we do that?

We can’t. Only Jesus can. Only Jesus did. So how did anyone enter the narrow door to “take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God” (v.29), as Jesus stated? 

Jesus spelled it out: “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture” (John 10:9). Entrance into heaven goes through Jesus. Those who set aside any hope of entrance based on their efforts, those who set aside any expectation of entrance based on their own arrogance or wishful thinking about who God is and how he ought to operate, and instead see Jesus as the promised Savior who through his death and resurrection forgives sin and offers a clean conscience have what it takes to enter into heaven. And oftentimes, as Jesus pointed out this morning, those are the last people we’d expect. 

So sure are we of this narrow door into heaven – Jesus – that our congregation has established and supported an elementary school to teach the next generation this good news. In addition to meeting all of the academic standards to prepare them for the next level of education, building character and confidence, and giving them the social skills to succeed in today’s world, we point them to the gate, the door, the Savior who lovingly promises that all who believe in him have nothing to fear for this life or the life to come. Our teachers not only love and care for their students enough to equip them with what they need to thrive, but also for them to be alive with Jesus by their side during this life, and to be by his side for eternal life.

Strong Weakness

adbLeave a comment

(2 Corinthians 12:7b-10)

The retail store flyer advertises, “The more you spend, the more you save.”  Oscar Wilde wrote that life was much too important to be taken seriously. In the song Hotel California, Don Henley laments “You can check out, but you can never leave.” These paradoxes serve to emphasize an important opinion or truth by stating what appears to be a contradiction. If a person is spending more money, then she is saving less, not more. If life is important, then it ought to be taken seriously. You don’t check out of a hotel unless you are leaving. Yet upon further reflection, we understand the point being emphasized. 

For these final three Sundays of this season of Epiphany, we will see several paradoxes in Scripture: strong weakness, loving hate, and visibly hidden. The intent is not to leave us confused or confounded, but rather comforted and confident, as powerful spiritual truths deepen our appreciation of and our connection to our Savior. Today we want to revisit – and if needed, rewrite – our understanding of what it truly means to be strong.

Our American view of strength has shifted somewhat in recent years, which in some ways is definitely for the better. We can much more openly discuss the matter of people’s emotional health without immediately viewing it as a weakness. In the past an Olympic athlete would not have considered pulling out of an event for anything other than a legitimate physical injury – to do so would have been viewed as being weak. At last summer’s Olympics however, a world-class gymnast was praised for being brave and strong for pulling out of an event because of concerns of emotional health. And in the past, victims of physical or sexual abuse were expected to stay silent; but today they are rightly encouraged and emboldened to be strong and speak up.

Yet the underlying problem remains nonetheless when it comes to the world’s view of strength because the world’s source of strength is the same: self. And no matter how much mankind progresses, we’ll never reach a level of advancement that can escape this reality: when self is the source of strength, it will eventually crumble.

Adam & Eve relied on their own strength and stumbled tragically. Sin has seen to it that the same result will inevitably play out every time we rely on self for strength. A husband and wife who rely on self for strength in their marriage are stacking the deck against themselves. The saint who leans on self for strength in the face of temptation is poised for a fall. The Christian who relies on self for strength instead of Word and Sacrament will not bear the name Christian for very long.   

If self is the source of focus for strength, it will always come up short. Paul was aware of this, even warning the Corinthians of it in an earlier letter he had written to them. He said, “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” (1 Cor. 10:12). Look in the mirror, look at your own two feet, look to self, and don’t be surprised by the inevitable fall.  

So what is Paul’s solution? A paradox. He says, “For when I am weak, then I am strong” (v.10). He says that real strength is found in weakness. And he was speaking from experience! “Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness (vv.7b-9).” We don’t know all of the details, but we don’t need to. We can relate to being conceited – that’s us every time we mistakenly think we’re strong enough on our own! Then God allowed some hardship or suffering in Paul’s life as a “thorn in [his] flesh.” That thorn led Paul to plead for God to take it away. 

And God gave Paul everyone’s favorite answer: no. But the next time you think God’s “no” will leave you worse off in your prayers, pay attention to why God said no to Paul. He said no so that Paul would see something greater than merely the absence of suffering. He said no so that Paul could more clearly see his need for grace, as well as the abundance with which God poured grace out on him. 

Do not let that escape you this morning. God said no, and his no to Paul left Paul far better off than if God had given Paul the yes he hoped for. Maybe that’s something to consider in your prayer life. Instead of, “Lord, take it away,” what if our prayer was “Lord, let it stay?” What if we came to so firmly believe that grace was sufficient for us that our conviction in that truth equipped us to bear up under and endure any hardship?   

Do you know what happens when God uses thorns to make us painfully aware of how good we have it in him? Paul gave us an example when he commended the Thessalonian Christians for getting it. He wrote to them, “For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord” (1 Thes. 3:8). What a contrast to the warning he had given in his earlier letter to the Corinthians, about thinking they were standing firmly in self. To really live is to stand firm in the Lord and his strength. And we simply will not do that until we are emptied of every sense of self strength; until nothing but our many weaknesses are exposed. 

That’s why we confess our sins. We empty ourselves of sin so that grace can fill us up. But when we fail to confess, when we hold on to or hide our sin, when we repeat it willfully or persistently defend it, where is grace supposed to fill in? How can it fill up a vessel where sin refuses to budge? How can grace be sufficient while we also savor sin? 

So we confess. We do it in church collectively as we worship, but if it is good and beneficial to do in God’s house, is it not also beneficial to do in our own house? If it is good to do on Sunday, is it not good to do every day? If it is good and beneficial in our relationship with the Lord, is it not also good and beneficial to do in every other relationship as well? But of course it is! In fact, one might rightly question how well anyone can know grace without equally knowing confession. When we know grace we have nothing to hide. When we know grace we don’t have to pretend. When we know grace we can admit to and own up to every sin and weakness, for grace has already covered it. Completely. That was Paul’s point in verse nine: “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Think about when you’ve had a nice dinner, followed by an outstanding dessert, and the portions were all just right. You’re satisfied – that sweet spot between not being hungry anymore, but knowing that eating any more will leave you feeling worse. What you’ve eaten is sufficient – you don’t need anymore but you didn’t eat too little. That is the idea behind Paul’s words, “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” “Sufficient” and “made perfect” carry the same idea – when we have grace, we have exactly what we need. If we set grace aside, then we’ll be lacking what we need. If we insist on adding something to grace, then we nullify grace. Anything less than all of Jesus is not full power; anything more than only Jesus is an unnecessary and unhelpful addition, undermining the role of grace.

This applies to every area of life in our relationship with God. When Jesus called us to deny ourselves and follow him, he didn’t mean a portion of self or just one area of life where we admit our complete and utter weakness before him, but in every area of life. In work. In relationships. In marriage. In finances. In planning. In managing material blessings. All of it calls for us to acknowledge our weakness so that we might therefore depend on his strength. To the degree that we insist on our own strength in any one area of our life, we will be lacking. Grace cannot fill in and be our strength. Grace isn’t just for forgiving sin, it’s for renewing the whole self. 

When I see that grace really is sufficient, my world changes and I can handle any thorn in my flesh. When another has gossiped or slandered against me behind my back, what if that person who wronged me is never corrected or rebuked, what if she never apologizes? What if justice is not carried out and others believe her slander or gossip against me? Grace is enough. What if my spouse doesn’t appreciate my sacrifice, express thanks, or ever bother to reciprocate it to me? Grace is enough. What if my superior at work either fails to credit me with my outstanding performance on the job or mistakenly believes that I am the one to blame for someone else’s poor performance? Grace is enough. No matter the struggle or the season of suffering, God provides strength in our weakness because grace is enough. 

Grace jars us from seeing ourselves as victims in life and instead takes the view of victors that Jesus has made us by his own victory on our behalf. That’s when we look at things differently. That’s when the words of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts start to make sense. Here is a portion of the speech Roberts gave at his son’s ninth-grade commencement five years ago.  

Now the commencement speakers will typically also wish you good luck and extend good wishes to you. I will not do that, and I’ll tell you why. From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes (access a transcript of the speech here. or watch it here).

That sounds similar to Paul’s summary in verse ten. “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Friends, grace is enough – and not only is grace enough, but there’s more than enough grace. God has at his disposal more than enough grace to cover anything needed in your life. Being confident of that then, go, and grow in your ability to find more of his strength in your weakness.

God Calls Me to Manage His Gifts Faithfully

adbLeave a comment

(2 Corinthians 8:1-15)

I may have lied last Sunday. After touching on the topic of discipleship, we reviewed some of the characteristics of disciples of Jesus – holding to his teachings, loving others, fruit-bearing, and disciple-making, for example. That’s when we got into the challenge of bearing one’s cross. Now if I made the point that cross-bearing was the most challenging aspect of discipleship, I may have to take that back. Cross-bearing may have some competition: giving. 

Have you noticed that none of Paul’s letters start out with, “Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I am writing to you to address the matter of offerings and your giving”? If you have been through the first 15 lessons of our membership class, you may have noticed we didn’t even touch the matter of giving and offerings. That doesn’t come until the second half of the class. If the matter of giving and offerings is so important – and it is extremely important – then why don’t we touch on it sooner?

There is a reason. Well, there are a number of reasons. But, there is one that stands out among all the others. Godly, generous giving is built on a solid foundation of grace, and a solid foundation of grace takes time to build. It isn’t a foundation that is poured in one shot, like the foundation for our storage building north of the school. It is a foundation that is made solid by continuous amounts of grace poured into it over time. So if the topic of Godly, generous giving makes you uncomfortable, leads you to roll your eyes or tune out, be patient – your foundation of grace is still being poured. But please don’t give up – keep pouring more and more grace into it, and eventually your foundation will be sturdy enough to experience the genuine joy of generous giving. 

Paul’s encouragement to the Christians in Corinth demonstrates that growing in the grace of giving requires ongoing attention. In our verses today, he is revisiting the matter of a special offering that was being taken up to support ministry. He concluded his earlier letter to the Corinthians with encouragement and directions on how to proceed with that special offering (cf. 1 Cor. 16). Now, as he reports on the status of that offering here in 2 Corinthians, he cheers on the Corinthians with more grace to equip them to finish what they had started. He is reminding them of their calling to manage God’s gifts faithfully. As he does this, we want to take note of how Paul encourages the Corinthians. 

One way: He points them to other givers, the Macedonian churches. “And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. And they did not do as we had expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will” (v.1-5). Paul held up the cluster of congregations in Macedonia as examples of godly givers. What made them stand out? They overcame an obstacle – a pretty significant one when it comes to giving! – they turned poverty into generosity. They pleaded to participate. They exceeded expectations. 

Turning poverty into generosity would seem to be impossible. It would be, but God is in the business of doing the impossible. If you aren’t familiar with it, there’s a great book you should read that provides examples: it’s called the Bible. Whether providing an abundance of food out of nothing for the Israelites wandering in the desert or miraculously multiplying bread and fish to feed families by the thousands, God can turn poverty into generosity. The Macedonians were examples of this. 

They also pleaded to participate in the offering. If you’ve been around long enough, you know that isn’t natural. When someone approaches me and asks how they can go about directing an offering to this or giving a gift for that, such a request doesn’t come from coercion or law-driven duty; it is rather a reflection of the same attitude present in generous giving, an attitude that realizes that in Jesus Christ we have everything we need and more. That realization compels a person to seek out opportunities to thank God through giving, to express gratitude through giving.

That in turn results in exceeded expectations, just as it did in the Macedonians. If we limit generosity to something that can only apply to the well-off, then we might as well write-off a significant portion of Christ’s church! But the Macedonians are evidence that anyone can exceed expectations when it comes to giving. From a giving standpoint, this is also perhaps easier to understand when we consider that generosity isn’t solely defined by amount, but by attitude. The widow in the temple didn’t give much in terms of amount, but her attitude was more generous than anyone else there – she gave all she had (cf. Luke 21)! Attitude – not merely amount – has as much to do with generosity. Remember that God is the one who enables anyone to manage his gifts faithfully. For that reason, it shouldn’t surprise us at all that Paul used the Macedonians as an example of turning poverty into generosity, pleading to participate, and exceeding expectations. 

How did they achieve all of these? They gave themselves first to the Lord. When we decide not to let greedy hearts govern our giving, but instead give ourselves to the Lord, there is no limit to what he is able to accomplish. In terms of giving, he made the Macedonian churches into a rags-to-riches story, taking their poverty and transforming it into generosity. How does that happen? It’s easy for God to do, for when we give ourselves first to the Lord, he transforms our attitudes, and generosity flows from there in all kinds of amounts. So when we give ourselves to the Lord, perhaps he’s eagerly waiting to make modern-day Macedonians out of us. 

In addition to pointing the Corinthian Christians to other givers, there is a second method of encouragement which Paul uses: he reminds them of their gifts. “But just as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us—see that you also excel in this grace of giving” (v.7). Paul had touched on the matter of spiritual gifts extensively in his first letter, which would lead us to conclude that the congregation had been richly blessed an abundance of such gifts. In that case, not only did Paul encourage them to use their gifts to build each other up, but to continue pursing them and growing in them. In the same way here, then, he parallels the matter of giving with their gifts. “You excel in the area of spiritual gifts,” Paul was saying, “now apply that same pursuit of excellence in the area of giving. Just as God blessed you exceptionally with gifts, so also he can bless you exceptionally in the grace of  giving.” 

Really, in pointing to givers and gifts as encouragement for Godly giving, Paul is appealing to the same underlying ingredient in both examples: he appeals to grace. If you’ve been paying close attention to all of these verses, you’ll see that grace isn’t just one aspect of giving – it’s really woven throughout the whole conversation. Grace is so overflowing in abundance in these verses that you can see it seeping through the cracks of everything Paul writes! Here’s what it sounds like: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (v.9). I don’t need to know what your gross income was on your last tax return was – I already know you are rich! No matter how a shaky stock market affects your investment portfolio – I already know you are rich! Regardless of what your checking or savings accounts say tomorrow or twenty years from tomorrow, I already know you are rich! It doesn’t matter how much – if any – your family member leaves you in the inheritance – I already know you are rich! But here’s the question: do you? Do you know how rich you are when you have everything you need in Jesus Christ? Because when you know that, you will give generously as you manage his gifts faithfully. 

If you’re not there yet, here’s why: even though you might love the idea of grace and think it’s the best thing in the world (it is!), and be absolutely thrilled that grace means you have a place in heaven (it does!), still… you haven’t let grace into your wallet. You haven’t let grace into your purse. It hasn’t yet made its way into your bank accounts and your investment accounts. Because when grace makes its way into those places in our lives, God makes sure that it multiplies into rich generosity. 

Do you notice a common theme here when it comes to this important matter of offerings, of managing his gifts faithfully? God is not a groveler, he’s a giver. God has not, does not, will not, ever come to you begging for money. He doesn’t desperately need your giving to make ends meet. No, God is the one who gives. But as long as you view this spiritual matter of offerings as God taking something from you instead of God giving everything to you, you’ll continue to miss out on experiencing the joy of the grace of giving. You may give, but that’s not the same as enjoying it.

Suppose someone had never experienced the joy of sleeping on a feather pillow. Once the idea of sleeping on feathers had been explained to him, he grabbed a handful of them and placed them beneath his head before going to sleep for the night. After a restless night and a headache in the morning, he was frustrated that he had actually believed that sleeping on feathers would provide him with a good night’s sleep. 

What was his problem? He had not gathered nearly enough feathers! Had he gathered fistful after fistful of feathers and held them together in a bag or a sack, he would have experienced the joy of sleeping on a cloud-like feather pillow! So it should not surprise us that giving for many Christians is not a matter of joy because they cheerlessly give so little. 

Grace, however, changes that. Paul pointed to the Macedonian churches as a prime example. The final question is this: will you let grace make an example of generous giving out of you, too, as you manage his gifts faithfully?