"To Him be glory forever": September 2018

Sunday, September 30, 2018

No Comparison

Last Sunday morning I was reading from the psalms before we gathered for worship. I was following my ordinary plan for reading through the Bible this year and among the readings for that day was Psalm 77. The title my Bible gives to that Psalm is "In the Day of Trouble I Seek the Lord" and that title fairly accurately sums up the psalm. In the first nine verses we see that the psalmist is in some kind of trouble, and he wonders aloud what God is going to do about it. He wonders if he will ever again know God's favor, or said otherwise, God's kindness and blessing towards him. He wonders if God has forgotten him, or perhaps if God is so angry towards him that God has abandoned him.

But then there is a shift. The psalmist remembers what he knows to be true of God and begins to praise God for these things. He praises God for his mighty deeds in the past, and for the ways in which God's power has been revealed to the peoples of the world. And the psalmist asks this question in verse 13:

"What god is great like our God?"

That question froze me in my tracks. It is a question whose answer is obvious, in that there is absolutely no comparison between any other god in the world and the God of the Bible. What god? Absolutely no other god is great, or anything else, like the God of the Bible.

There are many gods in the world, although perhaps we rarely call them that. They are all the things that we bow down to and make priorities in our lives, at the expense of devoting ourselves to the God of the Bible. Hobbies, sports, families, jobs. These are just a few things that quickly come to mind that we might pursue with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, to borrow from Jesus in Mark 12:30. Addictions and dysfunctional emotions also find service as gods.

To all outward appearances our god may seem to be relatively good, or they might be things that everyone around us recognizes as bad, even harmful. We may have multiple gods, worshiping one at one particular moment and a different one at another moment. But the one thing they all share in common is that they lead us away from the One True God, the God revealed to Israel in the days of the Psalms and Old Testament, the God made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ.

If you can look upon Jesus and see your Savior and your Lord, then you know, in a very personal way, the same God that the psalmist looks to in his prayer. And that God, in his mercy, frees us from all the false gods we worshiped in the past.

We will still struggle with sin, giving our attention, and at times even our devotion, to those gods, but our case is not hopeless. The grasp of Jesus on his children is firm and he promises that on the last day we will be with him. Every chain that every false god uses, even today, to hold us will be broken and we will rest, truly and deeply, in the arms of Jesus.

What god is great like our God? No god is, and for that we thank and praise the Lord Jesus Christ.

Friday, September 21, 2018

Always On Watch

Cats are really, really good at taking naps. Here is an "action" shot of two of the three cats in our home. The one in the foreground is our latest addition, Shiny, whose mom is our outside cat. Shiny is five months old, so more properly a kitten. She is active and playful, but appears to have found a mentor as she moves from being a kitten to an adult cat. I imagine that our indoor cats nap, or sleep, 22-23 hours a day, with the majority of their "waking" hours being used to move from one of their favorite nap locations to another.

In the past few weeks I have found myself reading Psalm 121 during a number of pastoral visits. I initially used it when visiting someone and having the thought during the visit of reminding them, from God's word, where the help they needed in a trying time could be found. Psalm 121:1-2 has the answer:

"I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?

My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth."

Those words were the right ones at that particular time. But the psalm continues to speak of another great truth of God, which in those visits, and also the funeral I preached this week, also needed to be spoken. Verse 3-4 say:

"He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep."

Hard times come in our lives. We wonder what is going on. We wonder how we will great through a particular moment. We wonder what the next day will bring.

But at the very same time, we who look to Jesus as Savior and Lord can go through those hard times, can live with those wonderings, knowing that God is on watch. He does not slumber or sleep. He doesn't take a nap. He doesn't go for a cup of coffee or check his Facebook.

He does what he always does, which is to hold all things in his hands at all times. He watches over each of his children with the same diligence. He does not slumber or sleep, ever. And in this I believe that his children can take great comfort. We may not understand the difficulties or worries of life at a particular moment, but God does, and he is watching over us at each moment of our lives.

Unlike our cats, the Lord is always on watch, and that is a good thing, one that is not merely comforting to us, but also to his glory. Amen.

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Riding Out The Storm

"And he huffed, and he puffed, and he blew the house down."

This week, weather permitting, we are going camping for one night. I say "weather permitting" because when we did this trip last year we spent the night inside a tent while a ferocious thunderstorm raged around us. Wind, rain, thunder and lightning. The whole works, seemingly dialed up to "11." We might have left, except for the fact that we dared not go out into that weather until it passed by, and when it did there wasn't a really reason to leave. We may have been a bit damp, but it was relatively tolerable inside the tent.

When we awoke in the morning and took a look around camp, everyone else seemed to have survived just fine. Not just the group of people camping with us, but everyone else from town who was camping out at that time. Because the occasion was a particular tribal festival there were, literally, several thousand people in the general area. Some traveled back-and-forth to town, but many others came ready to stay for all four days of the festival.

Accommodations varied. Nylon tents like ours. Army-style canvas tents. Campers. Tipis. Lots and lots of tipis. But, as best I could tell, everything was standing. Nothing had been blown down or washed away.

The memory of last year's trip came to mind as I read from Second Corinthians this morning. 2 Corinthians 5:1 says:

"For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

The picture attached to this post is from the parsonage we live in, which is probably the most solid house I have ever called home. It was built in 1914 from adobe, and the walls are about one foot thick, with 8 inches of that being solid adobe brick. If we had been inside our house during last year's storm my reaction would probably have been one of thinking "quite a storm out tonight" before quickly going back to sleep. We live in a solid house, one that offers considerably more protection in dangerous weather than our tent does, but which still could fail in the "right" circumstances. But God offers to all a dwelling that will never be destroyed.

Human life is fragile and transient, subject to all manner of things that might threaten to bring it to harm. Illness, accident, old age. None of us are immune. For each of us the day will come when our life will end. We may see it approaching and be able to take action to put if off a bit, such as feeling something wrong in our body, seeing a doctor, and finding out that we have a bad, but treatable, cancer. And so we take the cure and continue on for a time. Or the end may come in a completely unexpected way. An incident or accident that could neither be anticipated or avoided.

In writing the Corinthians, Paul reminds them, or perhaps teaches them, that in the transient nature of human life, God offers eternal security. Life can be like a storm sometimes. A storm that may seem to have no end. Life will huff, and sometimes puff with a force we never thought possible. And yet, even if it takes away every material thing we own, even if it takes away our very life on this earth, we who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will never be taken from him. Amen.

Thursday, September 6, 2018

The Book That Rewrites Us

Yesterday morning was the time I had blocked out to write Sunday's sermon. Of all the things I do as a pastor, preaching God's word is the most time consuming. The actual act of preaching on Sunday morning only takes 25-30 minutes, but the preparation is another matter. Prayer, study, thinking, writing, editing and reviewing takes time. I only mentioned each of the basic parts once but prayer takes place repeatedly, and the thinking/editing/reviewing parts are also often repeated along the way to Sunday morning.

I have learned through experience that getting the greater part of my sermon done early in the week is the best way to be prepared for any of the myriad unplanned things that might occur before the next Sunday. Whenever possible, I try to have a draft of my sermon done on Tuesday, and so I try to approach each work week with the intention to spend several hours, either in the morning or afternoon, either Tuesday or Wednesday, writing my basic sermon.

So yesterday morning I had my Bible, my study notes and some blank sheets of paper, and sat down to write. I thought I had a basic understanding of the biblical text, John 5:9-18, and a goal for the congregation in the proclamation of that text. I had a rough outline, a sheet of paper labeled "Introduction," and…

And I just couldn’t figure out how to begin. I had an idea of the destination but struggled to figure out how to start the journey. One of the first books I read after graduation seminary was a most excellent book on preaching. There were things I learned in that book that I have used since my first days in Dulce. One lesson, however, never took. That was the idea that a sermon body should be written first, with the introduction and conclusion written last. I've just never been able to put my sermon together that way, and, frankly, I've never been inclined to change my method from what seems to work well for me. Start at the Introduction and keep going to the end of the Conclusion.

And so I thought of beginning one way. Wait, that won’t work. Instead, begin this way. Nope, that isn't right either. Gotta start somewhere, somehow, but where? How?

After a few minutes of mental wrestling with several introduction ideas it occurred to me that in the past few months I have done a fair amount of rewriting in the editing and reviewing phases, so just start writing and if I am completely off base when all is done, then just come back and rewrite the intro. No big whoop.

And then I thought, that's what the Bible does to me as I spend time in it. It rewrites me.

It convicts me of sin and invites repentance. It deepens and strengthens my understanding of God. It encourages me in seeking to know God's will at this point in my life, and then to trust him as my life conforms to his will. And it does so much more.

God will use the Bible in the same way with you. As you spend time in it, you will be changed. Bit by bit, sometimes easily, and sometimes with great internal discomfort, as you read, study and pray God's word, God will be rewriting you.

To borrow from Augustine, "take up and read," so that God can shape you into a person conformed more and more in his image, to his eternal glory. Amen.