Narrow Minds and Shallow Deeds

“Do not be anxious about anything,” St. Paul wrote in chapter 4 of his letter to the Philippian church.

Great advice, right?

The problem is, it makes me anxious.

Yes, hearing the words “do not be anxious about anything” makes me feel anxious about the fact that I’m still anxious about some things even though I know I’m not supposed to be anxious about anything. And then I think I must be doing something wrong in my attempts to not be anxious, and so I get more anxious. And so the command to not be anxious not only makes me feel guilty for feeling anxious (thus making me more anxious), but it’s one more thing I have to do (try to not be anxious), which makes me anxious. And then I get anxious about whether or not I’m ever going to not be anxious. Well, enough of that. It’s making me anxious.

My point is that I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who has not at some point been incredibly anxious about something. We worry about what might happen to our country if the person we didn’t vote for gets elected to office. We toss and turn in the night because we’re distraught about a less than ideal situation in our workplace. We agonize over our children’s behavior, and their safety, and their future. We obsess over financial matters. And yes, Christians get anxious about their spiritual state: Am I growing? Am I sinning too much? Am I praying enough? Am I obeying? Am I keeping myself pure? Am I involved enough in my church? Am I too involved in my church?

Face it. We’re anxious.

Often.

Perhaps most of the time.

And once anxiety grabs hold of us, we find it hard to break free from it.

This is why I love Philippians 4. When we read the verses that surround Paul’s command to not be anxious, we discover that Paul does more than simply condemn anxiety or prescribe a cure for anxiety. He reveals some common reasons why we experience anxiety.

So in light of that, Why are we so anxious?

Paul gives us two common reasons: Our minds are too narrow and our deeds are too shallow.

Let’s consider each of these.

Our minds are too narrow.

In verse 8 Paul writes, “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable– if anything is excellent or praiseworthy– think about such things.”

Though I’d like to think it was easy for Paul to say such things because he didn’t have to live in kind of stressful times that we live in, that’s simply not the case. The culture he lived in was brutal at the time, and his life circumstances were less than rosy. He wrote these words from a dank prison while chained to a Roman guard who never left his side. But Paul didn’t seem to think much about it, which is precisely the point: We think too much about ourselves and our problems. Even when we read the Bible we often think, “How does this help me? How does this apply to my situation?” rather than “What does this tell me about how lovely and praiseworthy Jesus is?”

For that matter, our minds prove to be narrow when we think that lovely, noble, excellent, and praiseworthy things can only be found in the Bible or in Christian things.

Notice Paul’s emphasis on two phrases: “whatever is” and “if anything is”. He doesn’t say “whatever in the Bible is lovely,” or “if anything made by Christians is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.”

Some of you know my friend Aaron Anderson. He’s a pastor in the city of York and he’s one of my best friends in the world. Do you know one of the reasons I love being with him? He makes me laugh! He recently started a Youtube channel featuring comedy sketches by a fictional character who pokes fun at politics and church stuff. It’s a lot of fun, and yet some find it offensive and inappropriate simply because it’s comedy. Somewhere along the line someone started telling the lie that being holy means being solemn and serious. Not sure who started it, but it’s a lie. Paul makes clear that Christians should be characterized by joy (verse 1), which comes from anything that is excellent or praiseworthy.

A few years ago some parishioners of mine were going through an absolutely brutal ordeal in their lives. They were under intense pressure and they were concerned that things would get even worse. They called my favorite preacher and author, Steve Brown, to get his advice. You know what he told them? “Go to a movie!”

Flannery O’Connor made the same case about reading realistic fiction:

The lady who only reads books that improve her mind is taking a safe course– and a hopeless one.  She’ll never know whether her mind is improved or not, but should she ever, by some mistake, read a great novel, she’ll know mighty well that something is happening to her. . . It is when the individual’s faith is weak, not when it is strong, that he will be afraid of an honest fictional representation of life, and when there is a tendency to compartmentalize the spiritual and make it resident in a certain type of life only, the sense of the supernatural is apt gradually to be lost.

So, quit being so narrow minded, easily offended, and religious. It’s only making you anxious.

But Paul gives another reason we’re so anxious:

Our deeds are too shallow.

In verse 9, Paul continues, “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me– put it into practice.”

We know from reading the first three chapters of this letter that the main thing the Philippians had learned from him and heard from him and seen in him was this: he was fixated on Jesus infinitely more than behavior. Not that Paul was against Christians doing good deeds. To the contrary. But he knew that we can easily slip into doing good deeds in order to try and get God’s blessings and merit his approval. The deeds may look good on the outside, but with such motivation we remain unchanged on the inside. In chapter 3 we saw Paul’s passionate plea to quit trying so hard to please God with your good works and just accept that he loves you. You already have his approval! The unchangeable reality is, “The Lord is near” (verse 5). No matter what you do. This is why Paul was such a man of prayer. He loved to pray because he knew God was near and wasn’t going anywhere. And he knew that praying with a thankful heart led to transcendence and peace of mind (verses 6 and 7).

Here’s the point: One of the biggest problems among Christians is our habit of strenuously doing things for God rather than simply enjoying being with God. And it’s making us anxious.

I came across a new book this week and I haven’t been able to put it down. It’s called Good New For Anxious Christians: 10 Practical Things You Don’t Have to Do by Phillip Cary.

Pastors want so much to change people’s lives, to build them up in the Christian life– and that’s good. But somewhere along the line (was it in seminary?) they got the idea that you can only change people’s lives by telling them what to do to change their lives. That might sound obvious but it’s deeply mistaken, for the simple reason that telling people what to do doesn’t help them do it. That’s one of the fundamental insights of the doctrine of grace: telling people how to change their hearts doesn’t help them make a real change deep down in their hearts. . . Yet most pastors I know don’t really feel right unless they’re dwelling at great length on the boring application part of the sermon. . . And here’s the secret most pastors don’t get: the best way to help the bride get prepared for her Beloved is precisely to tell her about the Beloved, not herself. If you take up her time telling her how to live like a good bride, she’ll get bored and fidgety, or anxious, wondering, ‘Am I really good enough for him?’

What a wonderful summary of what Paul teaches in Philippians 4. May God broaden our minds to see his loveliness in all he has made, and may he enable us to rest in his love for us, which is based solely on Christ’s work on the cross, and is not changed by our deeds, whether good or bad.

 

A Different Gospel

Steve Brown once began a sermon on Galatians chapter 1 this way: ‘I saved Galatians 1 for the last sermon in a 10 week series because I was hoping maybe I would die before I had to preach it to you.’

As I began to study this passage I understood his anxiety.

It’s shocking.

Paul even begins by saying “I am shocked that you are so quickly deserting the One who called you and are now following a different gospel”.

But what makes this passage so shocking is that Paul is not talking to people outside the church who reject the Christian faith.  Nor is he denouncing the culture “out there” for having an ungodly influence on our children through movies, music, public schools, liberal politicians, and the sale of Santa Claus figurines.

He’s addressing people who are longstanding members of the church, who resist grace. Those whom one writer termed the “that’s true, but…” people, referring to the way they respond to statements about believers no longer being under the Law.

There’s a great book called Exit Interviews.  It’s written by a man named William Hendricks who traveled the country talking to people who have left the church— not left the Christian faith, but left the church.  He interviewed them, listened to their stories, and made some observations.

Here’s what he concluded:

Most churches preach grace and live works.  Story after story after story bore this out.   The results were invariably tragic.  Perhaps the greatest tragedy was that a system promising forgiveness to people and freedom from guilt ended up making so many of them so very guilty.

Then he has a chapter on what do to about this issue.  He writes:

We need a theology of grace.  Here’s the situation.  Never have the expectations of believers been higher and never have the expectations on believers been higher.  We know too much.  For example, think how much we now understand about family relationships and the development of children. For parents that knowledge translates into a laundry list of shoulds and ideals at which past generations would have gasped.  There are so many of them and they are so very high.  And the family is just one area of responsibility.  Similar lists of what committed Christians ought to do could be generated for the believer’s work, participation in church, involvement in community, responsibility to the world, and it goes on and on.  Add it all up and it’s a crushing burden that is absolutely staggering.  Yet never have people been less able to live up to those expectations.  The standard response to this fact is that ‘of course we’re weak as human beings, but with Christ’s strength we can do all things.’  With all due respect to that point of view, let me state plainly that it is not going to happen that way.  Spirituality is a process and that process must include failure.  However, not everyone who claims to speak for Christ speaks the language of the good news of grace.  And therein lies a crisis, especially for the conservative side of the church.  Based on the stories present here in this book, I believe the church needs to decide how long it is going to coddle legalists in its ranks.  By legalists I mean people who preach grace but practice works, people who inflict guilt on others for being human, let alone sinful.  People who say ‘well, we don’t want to go overboard on this grace thing, because people will take advantage of it.’ The church has made it comfortable for those who hold that position, but at what cost?  It is keeping people out of the church, it is driving people away from the church, and it is poisoning the lives of those who remain in the church.  So why permit it?  Why even tolerate it, especially when Jesus and Paul reserved their harshest words for those who compromised grace.

As a pastor, these words make me shudder because I realize how easily I can slip into compromising grace. It’s much easier and safer to preach and live Law.

Galatians chapter 1 is about the danger of compromising grace.  It is written for those who, though they sincerely believe they are following Christ, are actually following what Paul calls “a different gospel”.  You can sense Paul’s righteous anger over the issue, and his assumption that his readers might even accuse him of compromising grace simply because he is offending them. And when they sensed that they were being accused of following a different gospel they probably reveled that they were being “persecuted” for their beliefs and high moral standards.

That’s the way it was in Galatia, and that’s the way it is with us today, and that’s why we so desperately need to read and re-read and understand the message of this wonderful little book within the New Testament. As Steve Brown says, it’s a “scandalous” book.

 

Changes in Attitudes

Shortly after I became a Christian in the summer of 1990, I was flipping through the new, green, bonded leather Bible my grandmother had given me and I came across Romans 12:9-21, which reads as follows:

⁹ Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. ¹⁰ Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. ¹¹ Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. ¹² Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. ¹³ Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. ¹⁶ Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

¹⁷ Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. ¹⁸If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. ¹⁹ Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. ²⁰ On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

These words stunned me. What a radically different portrait of life and community than what I was seeing in the world and even in the church.

It was at that moment I realized that this thing we call “the gospel” — the good news that Jesus died for our sins and conquered death by rising from the grave– was not simply a message that gave me joy as an individual. It was also a transforming power that enabled all who believe it to make a positive impact in the culture together.

The passage is bracketed by the same exhortation in different wording: Conquer evil with good. (verses 9 and 21). In other words, have a positive impact on a negative world.

So, this obviously raises the question for us as a church:

How does the gospel enable us to have a positive impact on our culture?

These verses tell us the gospel enables us by transforming our attitude toward people, problems, possessions, and peacemaking. Let’s explore these four areas one at a time.

The gospel transforms our attitude toward people.

In the second part of verse 10 Paul exhorts his congregants to: “Honor one another above yourselves.” And then in verses 14 and 16, “Bless those who persecute you. Bless, and do not curse. . . Be willing to associate with people of low position.”

In the first instance he is clearly referring to people inside the church (hence the “one another” phrase), and in the second instance he is clearly be referring to people who are not only outside the church, but those who oppose what the church believes and does (“those who persecute you”). But in both cases, Paul insists that we must deal with people in a loving way.

Why? Is it because the Christian message is wimpy and fails to acknowledge the differences people have with one another? Not at all. It’s because the gospel teaches us that everyone is on level ground. Earlier in Paul’s letter to the Roman church, he wrote, “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:22-25)On the one hand, all are created in God’s image to reflect his goodness.  On the other hand, all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory and are therefore overcome with badness. Everyone is simultaneously beautiful and broken.

Now, let’s explore a few practical, if not uncomfortable, implications of this belief:

Our attitude toward small children: In Matthew 18 Jesus says to a group of adults, “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like a child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”  Most of us would respond to that with an “Amen.” Yet we often give our children the impression that if they want to receive communion they need to behave like responsible adults. Do we really believe they are just as beautiful and broken as we are?

Our attitude toward sinful adults: One of the strongest accusations ever leveled at Jesus was, “This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them.” Yet he never responded with anything even remotely close to a “That’s not true” statement. On the contrary, he told stories to illustrate the shocking reality that everyone is our neighbor and needs to be loved. One such story, known as the parable of The Good Samaritan challenged the religious community to be more welcoming of those viewed as “unclean.”

Tim Keller summarizes the story of the Good Samaritan this way:

“What Jesus is trying to say is that everybody is your neighbor. Gay people are your neighbors, people of other faiths are your neighbors, people of other races are your neighbors. And it is the job of the Christian to do what Jesus did, which is to give himself for people who not only opposed him but didn’t even believe in him. And so a Christian is supposed to say, ‘I serve the needs and interests of all my neighbors in my community whether they are gay or straight, Hindu or Muslim.’ Hindus, for example, don’t believe in the Trinity. That’s a different view of what the Bible says. Gay people have a different view of sexuality than generally what you see in the New Testament. But I’m supposed to love my neighbors.”

If you believe that everyone is equally sinful and equally in need of God’s amazing grace, then you are going to have to wrestle with the implications of that belief. And when you do you will find that the implications are not only uncomfortable but somewhat shocking and offensive.

Some of my readers may think this borders on universalism, which teaches that because everyone is on level ground in God’s eyes, everyone is therefore going to heaven regardless of what they believe or how they live. In reality, however, universalism renders the death and resurrection of Jesus irrelevant, whereas in Christianity, showing love to others regardless of who they are and how they live is possible only because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. And it is this reality that transforms our attitude toward people.

If you’re still reading, let’s move on to the next way the gospel enables us to have a positive impact on our culture.

The gospel transforms our attitude toward problems.

In verse 12 Paul writes: “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer.”

Let’s be honest. The world, and even the church, is filled with problems. Pain, suffering, and dysfunctional relationships. The New Testament never denies the reality and difficulty of these problems that sometimes seem to plague our lives.

Some people dismiss the gospel on this basis, arguing that if God is really good, he wouldn’t permit such problems. Paul, this verse, however, challenges us to look at problems not as evidence that God is absent, but as one of the means God uses to shape us into the kind of people he wants us to be. And in the midst of such “affliction”, we can be joyful, patient, and prayerful.

With such a belief as this, we discover that, ironically, wanting a church without problems is the very attitude that often fills a church with problems.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his marvelous book on Christian community, Life Together, put it this way:

“Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try and realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. . . By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. . . If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, the we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.”

So Paul is able to say that in the midst of problems we must be joyful, hopeful, patient, and prayerful, because the gospel itself proves that good things can and do come out of painful problems.  Jesus rose from death, and one day we will too!

The gospel transforms our attitude toward possessions.

Continuing in verse 13, Paul writes: “Share with God’s people who are in need, and practice hospitality.”

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this one because I am going to devote an entire sermon to this topic in a couple of months.  But for now, let me simply say this: We live in a consumer culture, and it’s killing us. Furthermore, our churches are becoming infected by consumer mindset and we don’t even realize, much less feel bad about it. What does this church offer my family and me? Will I get a lot out of the music and worship? Are the sermons short enough that I’ll be home in time to watch the Nascar race? Will people invite me over for dinner without me having to reciprocate?

Paul’s challenge to the church is not to take and consume and absorb, but to give– to open our pocket books and as well as our homes. And I’m so thankful for the Christians in my church who have lived this way over the years, demonstrating the transforming power of the gospel in our midst.

They are among those who realize that such generous hospitality only makes sense within the belief that Jesus, the Creator and King of all that exists, gave up the riches of heaven for people who were needy and helpless.

So, the gospel enables us to make a positive impact on our culture by transforming our attitude toward people, problems, and possessions. But, there’s a fourth and final way the gospel transforms us:

The gospel transforms our attitude toward peacemaking.

Verse 18: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath.”

This is an attractive statement.  What’s shocking, however, is the way in which Paul says peace is to be attained– namely, by not only refusing to repay our enemies, but by loving our enemies. This is where love proves to be a difficult thing, more than just the sappy and sentimental “can’t we all just hold hands and get along” view that often dominates music, movies and, dare I say, liberal blog articles these days.

Rather than jump to a discussion on whether or not Christians should be pacifists in a militaristic sense, let’s simply ask ourselves how our day-to-day relationships would be different if we obeyed these verses. We all have enemies one one degree or another, and the way in which we respond to them, even in our seemingly harmless efforts to get the last word in, usually reveals a revenge-oriented mindset that lurks within all of us and is contrary to the attitude that has been transformed by the gospel.

True, Paul says, “if it is possible.” This is very realistic. There are some people with whom it is impossible to live at peace. Sadly, even in churches some people are divisive, always against something, always disgruntled, always discontent, always afraid we might be permitting sin if we don’t take a hard line approach on every issue existent. But even then, Paul simply tells us to avoid such people, not punish them or get back at them in any way (Titus 3).

With Jesus, on the other hand, we see someone who operates in a most radical way toward his enemies:

²³ When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. ²⁴ He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. (1st Peter 2)

So, how does the gospel enable us to maker a positive impact on our culture? By transforming our attitude toward people, problems, possessions, and peacemaking.

Last week my wife and I spent the evening with a dear couple in Harrisburg. As we sat in their cozy living room sipping Chianti and discussing the current joys and struggles of our lives, one of them posed the question: “Why are so many Christians so uptight about the world?”

I confess that, while I chuckled, I also couldn’t help but admit that I am often among the uptight frozen chosen myself, worrying about whether or not something is a sin, worrying about whether or not I will have to pay more taxes or help someone I don’t like.  And while I didn’t offer an answer to my friend’s question, I thought to myself, “I wonder if it’s because we haven’t really understood the gospel as deeply as we’d like to think. I wonder if it’s because we haven’t let it penetrate our hearts to the point that our attitudes and not simply our external behaviors are being transformed. And I wonder how it might affect the culture we live in if our attitudes toward people, problems, possessions, and peacemaking were transformed in the radical way Paul illustrates for us in Romans 12.”

I wonder. But regardless, I’m thrilled that even when I fail to live the way Romans 12 commands, and even when my attitude stinks and my supposed love for others is more reflective of Ebenezer Scrooge than Jesus, God’s love for me remains the same. This is why I need to receive communion every week, because it gives me a tangible reminder that when I was doing stupid stuff, Jesus didn’t strike me, but was struck for me, didn’t pour his wrath on me, but took God’s wrath upon himself.  This reveals a Savior who insisted on feeding my soul with the bread of life, and slaking my thirst with the blood of his love– thus offering me, who was once his enemy, something to eat and drink, just as he offered communion to Judas on the night of his betrayal.

If that’s not good news that has the power to transform our attitudes and thus change the world, I’m not sure what is.

 

It Was There

It was there we spent July 4th, 1990.

We declared our independence and celebrated our freedom.

With permission to drive his step-mom’s brown Ford station-wagon,

We drove further than she would know.

We were sixteen, and with wild abandon we took off like two birds on their first flight.

And though we weren’t the first in flight to that destination, the two who were first in flight chose that same destination.

And so we drove, two hours to be exact.

We listened to Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic”

We drank Coke, laughed, and looked forward to seeing the ocean.

We arrived and climbed Jockey’s Ridge in time to watch the sunset on the scenic sound.

We talked about school, music, movies, and relationships.

Within a month I would discover Matthew’s account of Jesus, St. Paul’s letter to Galatia,

and celebrate a different kind of independence and freedom:

independence from the demands of the law,

and freedom from the burden of guilt.

I would experience flight once again, but flight from the fear of sin and death.

I would sail, not out of the world, but into the mystic of the world.

I have returned repeatedly to that stretch of beauty on the Atlantic,

I have kept in touch, if even sporadically, with my friend.

And I have become increasingly convinced

that the beauty of the earth and the joy of friendship

testify that Someone has made us, is giving Himself to us,

and is holding all things together by sheer grace.

It was there.

 

Boisterous with Wine

I started reading a book on Eucharistic theology, entitled Blessed Are the Hungry.

It’s written by a Presbyterian pastor by the name of Peter Leithart (Ph.D. Cambridge).  One chapter in which he comments on Zechariah 9:15 is particularly striking, and worth the price of the book.

So, without further adieu, I give you Zechariah 9:15 and a choice reflection from Dr. Peter Leithart:

 

 

 

“The LORD of hosts will protect them,
and they shall devour, and tread down the sling stones,
and they shall drink and roar as if drunk with wine,
and be full like a bowl,
drenched like the corners of the altar.”  

                                -Zechariah 915

“This suggests one dimension of symbolism of wine in the Lord’s Supper: it loosens our inhibitions so that we will fight the Lord’s battles in a kind of drunken frenzy.  If this sounds impious, how much more Psalm 78:65, where the Divine Warrior Himself is described as a mighty man overcome with wine?  Yahweh fights like Samson, but far more ferociously than Samson: He fights like a drunken Samson!  Grape juice, it must be said, simply does not carry the same punch.  Deprived of wine at the Lord’s table, it is no wonder that we fight our battles so timidly, no wonder we stay so nerdy and are constantly plagued by bullies.  Wine emboldens the soldier for battle, and wine also flows at the victory celebration that follows.  Those who devoured their enemies would devour a victory feast.  This is the feast that we enjoy: the Lord has aimed his arrows at all our enemies, at the greatest of enemies– sin and death– and has driven them from the field.  He makes us boisterous with wine, and He makes us flourish with grain and new wine.”

                       -Peter Leithart, Blessed are the Hungry

 

The Power of Three

St. Paul closes one of his letters to the Corinthian church with these words:

“May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” (2 Corinthians 13:14)

These words take me back to a sunny Spring afternoon when I was in Seminary.  While scurrying across campus hoping to avoid a tardy arrival to my Preaching 101 class, I heard a voice some distance behind me.  ”Excuse me, sir”, he said.

As soon as I turned around we made eye contact.  He said to me, “I’m not a Christian, but I desperately want to understand what you Christians call ‘The Doctrine of the Trinity.’”

“Yikes,” I thought.  ”The doctrine of the Trinity?  The historic teaching that God is One, yet eternally existent in three Persons?  That’s one of the most complex doctrines in the Christian faith!”

But what happened next told me it was more than just an interest in learning complex doctrines that brought this friendly twenty-something guy onto campus that day. He asked if he could take me to lunch to discuss this issue, and before I could answer, he said, “Please.  I am in great pain over this.”

So as we sat in a dimly lit Chinese restaurant slurping our egg drop soup, he explained to me the background of his desperation.  It turns out his girlfriend was a Christian, and she had recently given him an ultimatum: “Believe what I believe or we’re through.”  He told me he believed God was unipersonal, and that he found her belief in a triune God to be bordering on polytheism, if not blasphemy.  Yet, he was filled with pain because he loved her deeply.

I confess that I unloaded a lot of theological jargon upon him, using various inadequate illustrations to show how God could be One yet Three.  I thought I was so smart because I was working on a Masters Degree in Divinity.  But I wish I had approached it differently.  I wish I had given him this one simple sentence by Tim Keller that would I read years later: “If this world was made by a triune God, relationships of love are what life is really all about.”

Keller’s insights on this are striking and worth pondering before we begin to explore St. Paul’s words: If there is no God, and we’re only here because of evolution, then what you and I call love is nothing more than a chemical reaction in your brain.  On the other hand, if God is unitarian, then there was a time when he was not a loving God, since love can only exist in a relationship.  And thus, he created you because he felt incomplete and needed to get something from you.  But…

If there is a Trinitarian God who has always existed in a relational, loving union as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then he created you not to get something from you, but to give something to you.

So the question I want to pose is this: What does the Triune God give us?

St. Paul’s closing words to the Corinthian church tell us that the Triune God gives us three gifts: The Father gives us love, the Son gives us grace, and the Spirit gives us fellowship.

Let’s explore this.

The Father Gives Us Love

Paul prays for “the love of God” to be with the Corinthians.  Obviously he doesn’t explicitly mention the name Father.  But it is implied since throughout the Scriptures the attribute most commonly ascribed to the Father is love.

Of course, some object to this and say, “Well, the God of the Bible doesn’t seem very loving.  After all, the Bible is filled with stuff about judgment and hell.”

That’s a valid point.  However, the stuff about judgment and hell actually reveals just how amazing the Father’s love really is.

Perhaps you’ve seen the movie The Road, based on the best-selling novel of the same title by Cormac McCarthy.  The story involves a father and his young son traveling by foot on a long and treacherous journey.  The world has nearly been destroyed and most of the survivors have become hate-filled bandits who will do anything to obtain food.  When the boy asks his dad if he is going to be safe from the evil bandits, the father clings to him and responds: “I will destroy anything that tries to take you away from me.”

How many people would respond to that scene by thinking, “Boy, that kid’s father is a really unloving jerk”?

You see, if we pull verses about God punishing and judging people out of context it would appear that he is a cranky and vengeful God who doesn’t want anyone to have fun.  But if we understand the Bible as a dramatic story about a love-sick father and his wayward children whose enemies are enticing and attacking them, we begin to see him in a much different light.  This is why the Bible says God is a “jealous God.”  He wants no one else to have us, and will even put his own life on the line for us.  And that leads to the second gift the triune God gives us:

The Son Gives Us Grace

Paul also asks that “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ” be with his people.

The Bible is filled with grace, but the everyday world is not.

Eugene Peterson writes this:

In fifty years of being a pastor, my most difficult assignment continues to be the task of developing a sense among the people I serve of the soul-transforming implications of grace —  a comprehensive, foundational reorientation from living anxiously by my own wits and muscle to living effortlessly in the world of God’s active presence.  The prevailing North American culture is, to all intents and purposes, a context of persistent denial of grace.

I’ve only been a pastor for thirteen years, but my observation and experience leads me to agree with Peterson.

Many Christians desperately want to believe that their obedience, involvement in social justice, frequent church attendance, tee-totaling, strict political stances, and in-depth theological knowledge somehow gain them more blessings from God than the Christians who struggle with or neglect such matters.

But Jesus will have none of it.  Actually, he told several stories in the book of Luke that warn us of how those things can actually feed our sin even more if we’re not careful in our motivations, and like the older brother in Luke 15, the results can be far more damaging than overt sin and rebellion.

In teaching about grace, Steve Brown put it this way: “In retrospect, I’m glad my kids did some bad things when they were growing up.  If they hadn’t, they would have grown up thinking I loved them because they were good, rather than because they were mine.”

Jesus sacrificed his life for you not simply to make you good, but to make you his.  That’s why when Paul explained what Jesus did for us he often used the word redemption.  The Son redeemed us.  That’s grace.  Yet there is something in our nature, Christian or not, that bristles when people say this.

It is significant that Paul ends every letter to a church praying that God’s grace would be with them.  In other words, while they understood that they were “saved by grace,” he is now reminding them to continue to live their lives by that grace.  He’s showing us that grace is not just how we begin the Christian life, but must also characterize the entire way we continue to live the Christian life.  Do you relate to people in a generous, non-judgmental way?  Jesus gives us grace, so we need to give it to others.  But does that mean anything goes?  That leads to the final point:

The Spirit Gives Us Fellowship

Finally, Paul asks that “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

This word “fellowship” is used a lot in churches.  And it should be.  It’s in the Bible!  The problem is,  the image that word seems to conjure up in most of our minds is little more than people hanging out and having fun.  The Greek word for fellowship is “kiononia” and there really is no English equivalent for it.  This is why it is translated several different ways in the Bible depending on the context.  Here are a few of the ways our English Bibles render the word koinonia: fellowship, participation, harmony, holding all things in common, unity, and peace.  It is also significant that the word koinonia is never used in the Bible until after the Day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, when the Spirit was poured out upon God people and all of the barriers that had separated them for centuries were suddenly broken down. The point is, God’s Spirit is at work in his people in a way that is binding them together and pointing them to love of the Father and the grace of the Son.

I am a Presbyterian, which means my church is governed by a body of Elders.  These Elders, both clergy and laymen, take vows when they are ordained to office, the final of which is this:

“Do you promise to strive for the purity, peace, unity and edification of the church?”

In other words, the koinonia of the church.

Striving for the koinonia of the church can be a tremendously difficult task. But think about this: The most unloving and ungracious thing Elders can do is ignore a problem that is disrupting or threatening the church’s koinonia.  And so unfortunately, upholding this particular vow sometimes means having to confront people.

This might involve confronting “those who are insubordinate,” as Paul says in Titus chapter 1.  It might involve warning sexually promiscuous congregants of the spiritual danger they face if they continue to receive communion with no intention of turning from their lifestyle. It might even involve asking those who wish to enforce rules the Bible doesn’t command us to live by to repent of their desire to make the church a law-driven cloistered community.  And yes, it might very well involve reminding the pastor that he is sinning if he gets prideful when attendance is high and resentful when it is low (a sin which I know first-hand and one that is particularly damaging to both pastor and parishioner).

None of these confrontations by Elders are done out of hate or spite, but out of a duty to protect and preserve the koinonia of God’s church.  None of these confrontations are contrary to the love of the Father and the grace of the Son, but are the outworking of the love and grace that come from the Father and the Son.  Bonhoeffer said it this way: “The preaching of grace can only be protected by the preaching of repentance.”  And if koinonia is going to be present in the church, it must be preceded by repentance.  But in verses 11-13 Paul shows us how beautiful it looks when that happens:

“Be joyful.  Grow to maturity.  Encourage each other.  Live in harmony and peace.  Then the God of love and peace will be with you.  Greet one another with a sacred kiss.”

In other words, God gives us love, grace, and fellowship not merely for our private consumption, but so that we will give it to others.

I spent last week at my denomination’s annual meeting known as our “General Assembly.”  Can I be honest?  There have been times when the differing views and practices among the multitude of pastors present not only disappointed me, but irritated me like a mosquito in my ear while trying to nap.  But not this year.  During the worship service on the first night of the Assembly, I looked out across the vast sea of ministers.  We were of different ages, different  cultures, different musical preferences, with different styles of clothing.  Many of us didn’t even know each other’s names.  But we were somehow joined together in love, grace, and fellowship.  Just before we rose to get in various lines for communion (what Paul calls the koinonia in the body and blood of Christ in 1 Corinthians 10), we lifted our voices and our hands and sang the single stanza Doxology, and I was reminded what life was all about: love, grace, and fellowship:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise him all creatures here below,
Praise him above, ye heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen.

 

The Fellowship of Mystery-Stewards

Ears.
We listen to one another.
We share our fears, joys, sorrows, and hopes.
Judgement is never rendered,
Profanity is sometimes uttered,
Compassion is always showered,
Prayer is frequently offered.
These are my pastor friends,
with whom a welded bond exists.

Peers.
We study. We wrestle with biblical texts.
We tremble at St. Paul’s words
that we are ‘stewards of the mysteries of God.’
We exchange ideas. We jab at each other’s quirks:
Some of us cross ourselves,
others of us disdain ritual.
Some of us preach in clerical collars,
others of us in faded jeans.
Some of us are vegetarian lambs,
others of us carnivorous lions.
We are peers and we need each other.

Cheers.
Laughter is raucous and rampant at every meeting.
Beer and wine flow at times,
And coffee always seems to appear.
It’s a safe fellowship indeed:
‘Where everybody knows your name
and they’re always glad you came.’

Tears.
The passing of a grandmother, an argument with a wife.
An insult from an acquaintance, the failure of a friend.
Weeping occasionally makes its entrance.
Cleansing is always the end result.

Years.
We grow. We celebrate.
We wander. We return.
We obey. We fail.
We sin. We repent.
We dream. We awake.
We love. We hate.
We pray. We preach.
We pastor. We persevere.
We are the fellowship of mystery-stewards.

 

The Feast of Ascension

In the liturgical church calendar, this Sunday (June 5th) is known as “Ascension Day.”

Historically, this has been one of the most significant “feast days” celebrated by Christians throughout the world.  Author Philip Yancey writes:

“If Easter Sunday was the most exciting day of the disciples’ lives, for Jesus it was probably the day of Ascension.”

Let’s take a look at the biblical account of this event, and then we’ll explore it’s significance for us.

In Acts 1:1-11 of the New International Version, we read as follows:

¹ In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach ² until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. ³ After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. ⁴ On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. ⁵ For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

⁶ So when they met together, they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

⁷ He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

⁹ After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

¹⁰ They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. ¹¹ “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

I’ve been thinking about a “parental learning experience” I had a couple of years ago. Our family was getting ready to go somewhere and we were anticipating being in the car for quite a while.  All of us were ready to go and getting into the car– except our six-year-old, Carly.  From the garage I yelled up the stairs for her to hurry up.  No response.  ”Come on,” I yelled.  ”Hurry up and do what I asked you to do.  I’m tired of waiting.”

When she came downstairs and into the garage where the rest of us were waiting in the hot car, she was carrying a ziplock bag filled with what appeared to be some type of trail mix.  Before I could ask her what it was, she handed it to me and said, “I was making this snack for you, daddy.  I know you like nuts and raisins, so I thought you might want this for the car ride.”

Some time later it occurred it me how this incident mirrors the way many of us relate to God: We often become so focused on what we want God to do that we fail to see the beautiful things he is already doing.

For that matter, almost everyone, regardless of their beliefs, has at one time or another felt this way about the church; We become so hung up on the way we want the church to be that we miss the beauty of the what the church already is.

Eugene Peterson puts it this way: “The church we want becomes the enemy of the church we have.”

The disciples were guilty of this same error. In the above story, Jesus tells them the most amazing news– that soon he is going to give them the most unfathomable gift anyone could ever receive, the Holy Spirit (verse 4).  Their response?  “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the Kingdom to Israel?” (verse 6).

They had completely missed the point.  They were so focused on what they wanted God to do (solve the political problems in Israel) and the way they wanted the church to be (one in which they held prominent positions of leadership, according to Luke 22:24) that they were failing to see the wonderful work God was really doing in the church.

And this is why the Ascension of Jesus is so important– it shows us how Jesus is working in the church; not the church we want, but the church we have.

Yancey continues: “All along he had planned to depart to carry on his work in other bodies.  Their bodies.  Our bodies.  The new body of Christ.  The church, after all, is where God now lives.”

So the question is: “How is Jesus working in the church?

The account in Acts chapter 1 tells us he is working in three ways.  Let’s jump into this story.

1) He is enabling people to understand his grace.

The first thing we learn in this story is that Jesus was a teacher.  Luke, who wrote the book of Acts for his friend Theophilus, states:

“In my former book (the book of Luke) Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.”  

He goes on to explain that during the 40 days between the resurrection and the ascension, Jesus “spoke about the kingdom of God.”

In other words, Jesus worked hard to help his disciples understand his message, which we know from the book of Luke was a message a radical grace.

When I was in sixth grade, my mother took me to get a new pair of shoes.  I liked the idea of having new shoes, but because I had been wearing my old ones for so long, these new shoes made me walk funny. I felt and looked so stiff.  I didn’t understand why, until my brother laughed and said, “You definitely haven’t gotten used to them.  You need to wear them around for a while, otherwise you’ll walk like a duck.”

You know what the problem is with most Christians?  The problem us we haven’t gotten used to being forgiven.  We like the idea of a God who forgives all our sins, but we walk around so stiff.  We get so uptight about our problems and other peoples’ sins. We haven’t gotten used to the reality of the Gospel.  We need Jesus to enable us to understand his grace.

But how do we do that?  Well, notice verse 4: “On one occasion, while Jesus was eating with them, he gave them this command…”

There’s no way around this observation, which was something Luke frequently pointed out to his readers: The primary way we grow in our understanding of grace is through unhurried, instructional table fellowship.  Gathering for meals with other people, in an unhurried, celebratory way, while you discuss and instruct one another in the Scriptures.  This is why the Eucharist has always been considered the climax of the worship service for the majority of church history– it signifies and solidifies everything Jesus desires for us to understand about his grace.

So, that’s the first way Jesus is working in the church; he’s enabling people to understand his grace.  Let’s look at the second way he is working in the church.

2) He is enabling people to experience his power.

In verse 8 Jesus gives his disciples a promise: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.”

The Bible’s teaching on the power of the Holy Spirit is so rich and deep that it simply isn’t possible to give a comprehensive overview of it in one blog post.  But, if you were to continue following the story of these disciples in the succeeding 25 chapters of the book of Acts, one detail would clearly stand out, and that’s this: The outpouring of the Holy Spirit gave the disciples the power to persevere in the midst of horrific suffering and stress.

Here’s the point I want to make: The most compelling proof that the Ascension really happened and that the Holy Spirit is real, is the fact that the church continues to exist today.

Throughout the world for the past 2000 years, the church grew most rapidly whenever it was persecuted most severely.  Any historian would acknowledge this.  And given the fact that this has not been the case with any other movement of organization in history, this event called the ascension is truly magnificent.

How is Jesus working in the church?  He is enabling people to understand his grace and experience his power.  But there’s one more way he is working:

3) He is enabling people to implement his mission.

Jesus continues in verse 8: “And you will be my witnesses, in Jerusalem, Judea, and to the ends of the earth.”

The terminology of “being a witness for Christ” has been so overused and misused in the American church that it has almost been emptied of it’s original meaning. Find someone who often vocalizes the importance of being a witness, and ask them what they mean by it.  Certainly they will tell you that it has to do with pointing people to Jesus, which is true. But push them to be more specific, and you’ll probably discover that what they really mean by it has more to do with going door to door asking complete strangers if they are going to heaven when they die.  To others, being a witness means showing our heavenly citizenship by refraining from cussing, drinking, and going to movies and rock concerts.

Now, being a witness certainly involves telling people about how to get to heaven, but Jesus has more than that in view in verse 8.  And while certain activities such as cussing and social drinking might present problems in some conservative circles for Christians with weak consciences (as Paul explains in Romans 14 and 15), the rest of the book of Acts reveals that such trivialities are not exactly what Jesus had in view when he spoke of being his witnesses.

So what did he have in view?  A phrase we see over and over again in the book of Acts is “kingdom of God.”  The disciples used it frequently in their preaching, and Luke uses it twice in this very passage.  And what we find whenever this phrase is used is that God’s kingdom encompasses all things in heaven and on earth.  This is why Jesus taught these same disciples to pray “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Notice that in verse 11 the angel does not say, “This same Jesus will come back to earth, and then take you back up to heaven with him.”  That’s because when Jesus comes back, he’s going to bring heaven to Earth.  Some may think that is not an important detail, but it actually is of crucial importance.  Think about it– If you believe Jesus is coming back to take you out of the world, then until that happens you will look upon the world with disdain, and will separate yourself from it to the extent that you no longer have any influence in the world but have only formed a “Christian ghetto” of sorts. You’ll talk a lot about the fleshly sins of people outside the church rather than repenting of the hidden spiritual sins you bring into the church. That’s not being a witness.  It’s separating from the world and letting the world decay rather than helping to renew it and preserve it (which is what Jesus meant by being “the salt of the earth.”)

Here’s the point: Jesus is going to bring heaven down to earth, and until then, he intends for his church to give the world a foretaste of that beautiful day.  It means our churches should celebrate beauty, and spend a lot of time feasting and partying.  It means showing love to people in our community, and working for justice for the oppressed and ill-treated.  It means telling people that God loves them too much to see them be destroyed by their own sin and rebellion, so he has provided a way out through repentance and faith in the one who bore the penalty for their sin and rebellion.  It means not simply inviting people to “get saved” and “go to heaven”, but inviting them into our lives, however messy they might be.  And it means loving, enjoying, and caring for the wonderful creation all around us.  What a transforming and exhilarating thing to be a witness for Jesus!

Meanwhile, there is laundry to do, kids to tend to, bills to pay, a never-ending amount of yard work to plow through, a house to clean, errands to run, health problems to endure, disappointments to live with, and depression to fight.

But that’s the beauty of it.  If you hold to a Christian worldview, you have the assurance that because of Christ’s death and resurrection, even those ordinary, mundane, and sometimes irritating activities are not without meaning.  In fact, they will be redeemed are therefore very much a part of how God is shaping his church.  Perhaps this is why when Martin Luther was once asked what he would do if he knew Jesus would return tomorrow, he answered, “I would plant a tree.”

So yes, we often become so focused on what we want God to do and how we want the church to be that our dissatisfaction gets the better of us.  And that’s why we so desperately need to revisit the story of the ascension on a regular basis.  It shows us that God is so gracious to send his Spirit to enable us sinful, frail, confused people to carry on his work.  To be a church for the world as little by little we understand his grace, experience his power, and implement his mission.

In 1958, author Flannery O’Connor received a letter from a friend which expressed her dissatisfaction with the church.  Flannery responded to her friend with the following:

All your dissatisfaction with the Church seems to me to come from an incomplete understanding of sin. … what you seem actually to demand is that the Church put the kingdom of heaven on earth right here now, that the Holy Ghost be translated at once into all flesh. The Holy Spirit very rarely shows Himself on the surface of anything. You are asking that man return at once to the state God created him in, you are leaving out the terrible radical human pride that causes death. Christ was crucified on earth and the Church is crucified in time. … The Church is founded on Peter who denied Christ three times and couldn’t walk on the water by himself. You are expecting his successors to walk on the water. All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful. Priests resist it as well as others. To have the Church be what you want it to be would require the continuous miraculous meddling of God in human affairs, whereas it is our dignity that we are allowed more or less to get on with those graces that come through faith and the sacraments and which work through our human nature.  God has chosen to operate in this manner.  We can’t understand this but we can’t reject it without rejecting life.”

This is very much in keeping with a song we sing at my church.  Composed by the late Keith Green, it has this refrain:

“Thank you, O my Father

for giving us your Son

And leaving your Spirit ’til 

Your work on earth is done.”

Amen.  Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

 

From Birth to Baptism

This Sunday the vast majority of Christians around the world will gather to celebrate the baptism of Jesus.  It is fitting that this annual centuries-old celebration comes at the beginning of January; what better way to start the year than to reflect upon how Jesus started his ministry?

During Advent we looked at what the birth of Jesus teaches us about who He is.  But now we shift our attention to what the baptism of Jesus teaches us about what He came to do.

The account in Matthew 3:13-17 tells us Jesus came to accomplish three tasks.  Let’s consider them.

Jesus came to identify with us.

In verses 14 and 15 Matthew tells us that when Jesus came to the Jordan River to be baptized by his cousin John,

“John tried to deter him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’”

Why is John so incredulous?  Because baptism was for sinners only.  Not for the sinless Son of God!  In choosing to baptized, Jesus was associating himself with people who needed to be cleansed.  This would have been viewed as scandalous.  It probably would have started rumors that this guy who claimed to be God actually had some things he needed to repent of.

So, why is this important for us?  Because we tend to believe that our failures drive us farther away from God.  But if that were the case Jesus would never have chosen to come near the people lined up to be baptized in the sin-murky waters of the Jordan, much less be baptized in it himself.

In Dorothy Sayers’ play “The Man Born to be King”, there is a scene in which Mary Magdelene says this of Jesus:

“The Master was the only good person I ever met who knew how miserable it felt to be bad.  It was as if He got right inside you and felt all the horrible things you were doing to yourself.”

So, that’s the first task Jesus came to accomplish.  Let’s move on to the second.

Jesus came to obey for us.

In verse 15 we see how Jesus responded to John’s incredulousness: “Jesus replied, ‘Let it be so now; it is right for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.’”

This strikes us as a strange statement.  But if you were a first-century Jew you would have immediately realized that Jesus was alluding to Deuteronomy 6:25, which states: “If we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, this will be our righteousness.”

Here’s the point: Jesus is saying, ‘You’ve tried to obey this law for several centuries and it hasn’t worked.  So I’m going to do it for you and credit my perfect obedience to you.’

As a pastor I have found that this is one of the hardest things for Christians to accept; that Jesus not only died to for us but also obeyed for us.  I must admit that to preach this makes me nervous.  After all, don’t I want my people to obey God?  Of course!  But there’s a sense in which I can start to think that obedience makes God like us more.

Eugene Peterson puts it this way:

“Pastors especially seem to assume that everybody, or at least a majority, can be either persuaded or pushed into righteousness and maybe even holiness, in spite of centuries of evidence to the contrary.”

It was so freeing when I realized that my job as a pastor is not to keep people from sinning, but to point them to Jesus.  The fact is people really do believe that their standing with God is based on their performance.  And the good news is that it’s not.

Barbara Brown Taylor puts it this way:

“We spend a lot of time in the church talking about God’s love for sinners, but we sure do go to a lot of trouble not to be mistaken for one of them.”

This leads to the third and final task Jesus came to accomplish.

Jesus came to approve of us.

In verse 16 Matthew goes on to tell us that when Jesus was baptized, “heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’”

What a beautiful picture of the love the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have for one another.  But here’s what’s so amazing: God not only feels this way about Jesus, but about everyone who knows him!  Paul speaks of Christians as being “in Christ” and even tells the Colossian church that “Christ is in you.”  God not only loves Jesus, He loves us.  He is not only well pleased with Jesus, but with us.  And the truth is, unless we understand that God is pleased with us we will be continually trying to win the approval of others.

Lack of approval can lead people to do strange and even dangerous things.  Consider the biblical character Leah.  She hated the fact that her husband didn’t love her.  So, she had more and more children, each time hoping, “Perhaps now that I’ve given him another son he will love me.”  And it never happened.

You can probably think of examples in your own experience of how the drive to please people and be loved by people eventually leads to disappointment and even bitterness.

This is why God’s approval of us is such good news.  But here’s something to consider: If God told Jesus he loved him and approved of him at the beginning of his ministry, why did he not tell him again three and a half years later when Jesus was hanging on the cross?  It would seem like that would be an even more appropriate time to tell him, seeing as how he had spent those years preaching, teaching, healing, and perfectly obeying.  In fact, Jesus even cried out that God had forsaken him.  Was God absent?  No, just looking the other way, at you and me.  In order for God to tell us he loves us and is pleased with us, he had to turn his back on Jesus and turn his face toward us.  This is why almost every Sunday I close the service by reminding my congregation that “The Lord maketh His face to shine upon you.”  And now that Jesus has buried our sins and ascended to heaven, we are mysteriously with him, no matter what.

So, what did Jesus come to accomplish?  The tasks of identifying with us, obeying for us, and approving of us.  Friends, if this is really true, in the words of Max Lucado, “no wonder they call him the Savior.”

 

Christmas and Van Halen

One night last week as I was putting our four-year-old to bed, I said, “Annie, for tonight’s bedtime story I’m going to read to you the story of the birth of Jesus.”  With all the enthusiasm you might expect in a pastor’s kid, she slumped her shoulders, sighed and said, “I already know that story!”

Her words made me realize the way I and many others often feel about the story of Christ’s birth: We’ve heard it, we’ve read it, we’ve perhaps even memorized it.  And yet, we’re still grumpy, we’re still worried about money, and we still wonder why the Christian faith sometimes feels so disconnected from the concerns of daily life. (For those of you who have never felt this way, don’t worry. You’ll have days like this).

It’s almost as if we want something new, something exciting, when perhaps what we really need is to rediscover the richness of the story of Christ’s birth.

So, I want to pose a simple question: Why does the story of Christ’s birth matter?

The account in Matthew 1:18-25 tells us it matters for two reasons: it shows us the uniqueness of the Christian faith and the pleasures of the Christian faith.

Let’s consider it.

The Uniqueness of the Christian Faith

Matthew points out two traits that are unique to the Christian faith alone:

First, it is radically open-minded.

The story opens up with an angel appearing to a human being, Joseph, telling him the Spirit of God has impregnated his virgin fiance, Mary (verses 18 through 20).  This is where many people tune out the story.  Their point is essentially that it is closed-minded to think this kind of stuff really happened.  But let’s think about this.  Matthew is telling us that there is something more to life than what we can see; a spiritual realm full of mystery and possibility.

I love the music of Van Halen.  Always have.  But contrast Matthew chapter one with the following Van Halen lyrics:

You don’t have to die and go to heaven, or be born again.
Just tune in to what this world has got to offer,
’cause you may never be here again.

Now, with all due respect to the artistic prose of Sammy Hagar, which view of life is more open-minded?

Think about it.

Well, let’s keep going and look at the second unique trait of the Christian faith:

It is radically different from traditional religion: In verse 21, the angel says to Joseph, “You are to name him Jesus, because He will save his people from their sins.”

In our 21st Century American context, I’m not sure we hear those words the same way a 1st Century Israelite would have heard them.  A person living in Israel in the first Century was expecting a Messiah to come and save God’s good people from those other sinful people out there who were oppressing their nation and corrupting their children. But here God makes clear that the sinful people are his people!  The point is, the Christian faith teaches that God blesses us not because of anything we have done or will do, but simply because he loves us.  Even if Matthew chapters 1 and 2 were all we had of the Bible we would see that God obviously chose to build his kingdom through what one writer called “the wrong people.” Though other religions certainly have rich traits we can learn from, no other religion presents God from this perspective.

So, those are two of the unique traits of the Christian faith: It’s radically open-minded, and it’s radically different from traditional religion.

Now, let’s get practical and look at The Pleasures of the Christian Faith.

The Pleasures of the Christian Faith

Matthew shows us two of the pleasures involved in following Jesus: fellowship and freedom.

1) Fellowship: In verses 22 and 23, we are told that Jesus was also referred to as “‘Immanuel’– which means, ‘God with us.’”

We think of fellowship as what we do for a few minutes before and after the church service.  It certainly includes that, but it’s much more than that.

The book of Matthew portrays biblical fellowship probably more than the other 3 Gospel writers.  Through the stories he recounts, we see Jesus simply being with sinners who are struggling to live life together.  In fact, eating with sinful people is one the things people hated about Jesus.  The reason that was so offensive was because when you shared a meal with someone, you were publicly announcing that the others at the table were family. In fact, Jesus even took it further: He did marry an adulterous wife! The Church! And yet, He loves us and cares for us the Bible says.

2) Freedom: Why did the angel have to tell Joseph, in verse 20, “Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife”?  What was he afraid of?  Gossip, criticism, whispers of scandal, to name a few.  But just a few verses later Joseph gladly takes Mary home to be his wife.  Why this change from fear to freedom? Because now Joseph’s identity is wrapped up in Jesus alone.

When your identity is wrapped up in Jesus, you have the freedom to struggle. Freedom not to be worried what other people think of you! The freedom to confess your sins without fear of being condemned. The freedom to grow. The freedom to make mistakes. The freedom to ask questions.

I remember the first time we took our daughter Carly to see Santa.  She was not even two years old at the time.  When she saw him, she was terrified.  She kicked and screamed and pleaded with us not to get any closer to that man in the red clothes. Though it made for a humorous family moment, something occurred to me: She obviously doesn’t know what Santa is all about, because if she did she would want nothing more than to crawl up in his lap and talk to him.

I wonder sometimes: Could the reason so many people want nothing to do with Jesus be due to the fact that someone has given them the impression that he is a scary figure who is just waiting to judge them for being naughty? Could it be that we have forgotten what Jesus is all about?

Now, I realize it might still sound like a stretch to say that believing in this innocent little baby born so long ago should change our lives and make us feel free.  But that’s why we need to go deeper into the story.

Remember how Joseph willingly chose NOT to expose his wife to public disgrace, for fear that she would be killed for her sin?  As heroic as that sounds, God did something more outlandish: He willingly chose to be exposed to public disgrace and to be killed for other people’s sins.

THAT is why the story of Christ’s birth matters.  It shows us the uniqueness of a God who willingly exposed himself to public disgrace, and frees his people from being fearful of him.

Back to Van Halen for a moment.  On the same album of the song I referenced earlier there’s a song that describes the story of Christmas with beautiful accuracy.

Contact is all it takes
To change your life, to lose your place in time.
Contact, asleep or awake
Coming around you may wake up to find
And then you sense a change
Nothin’ feels the same
All your dreams are strange
Love comes walkin’ in.

That’s the story of Christmas: God Came Walkin’ In, made contact, and changed life forever.