"To Him be glory forever": May 2018

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Power, Seen and Unseen

When I was a much younger man I spent four years in the US Navy, including nearly 3½ of them serving on board the USS Nimitz. It is said that sailors belong on ships, and that ships belong at sea, and my service was no exception. I was part of three deployments to the Mediterranean Sea and when my enlistment was over I had sailed on the North and South Atlantic Oceans, the Indian Ocean and the North Pacific Ocean, and perhaps coming within spitting distance of the South Pacific as we went around Singapore.

This all came to mind as I recently spent time along the seashore. In April we were in San Diego, spending three days of our vacation at the beach, and last week we were in New York, spending part of a morning walking along the beach on Long Island.

Whether seen from the beach, as I did recently, or experienced afloat, as in my Navy days, there is no denying that from up close the ocean has a lot of power within it. Ashore, one wave follows another, virtually without end. Afloat, the swells rise and fall. In each case there appears to be no end to the movement, merely variations in height and intensity. How much power is within those waters that remains unseen?

When we look at the world around us and seek evidence of the power of God, we can see it everywhere. Some of it seems lesser, as the power needed to bring forth a single leaf on a tree. In other places it is much greater, such as the power that brings forth a single human life. And looking at a clear sky at night the power of God on display overwhelms our imagination. And while overwhelming our imagination, what we can see is just a small bit of the power that God truly has.

There are times in the Christian life when it can seem like we are being overwhelmed. It might be the circumstances of life at the moment, or perhaps the temptation of a particular sin that seems to stick like oil paint that has soaked into clothing. It seems as if there is absolutely no way of removing the stain. There seems to be no way of overpowering that which is opposing us.

But as Christians we aren't meant to walk through life on our own. We walk with the constant presence of our Savior and Lord, who is always with us by the power of his Spirit. I'll close this with the opening question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism, which says it so well:

Q. What is your only comfort
in life and in death?

A. That I am not my own, 1
but belong—

body and soul,
in life and in death— 2

to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. 3

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, 4
and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. 5
He also watches over me in such a way 6
that not a hair can fall from my head
without the will of my Father in heaven; 7
in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. 8

Because I belong to him,
Christ, by his Holy Spirit,
assures me of eternal life 9
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready
from now on to live for him. 10

Sunday, May 27, 2018

Giving of Our Best

Every Sunday morning as our congregation gathers for worship we collect an offering. As the deacons bring our offering to the table we sing the Doxology, which says:

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 Doxology states very clearly that our blessings, or all that we have received in life, has come to us as a gift from the hand of God. When we read story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 we also see clearly that even though all that we have comes from God, that it matters quite a lot in what it is that we return to God in the form of our offerings. It is easy to do what Cain did, and give a portion to the Lord. It is often much harder to follow the example of Abel, and to give of our best.

Cain was a farmer and he gave of the produce of the ground, while Abel was a rancher and gave from his flock. The gifts they brought to God were appropriate for their culture. In our day, whatever it might be that we do for a living, the offering we bring to God comes in the form of dollars. It may be a check, a money order, or cash, but in the end they are all dollars, and any one of them is just about as good as any other one. Or are they? Are all dollars given to God equal?

No, they aren’t. All of the dollars may be used in exactly the same way but the difference is in the attitude of our hearts as we give them. When we look at Abel, who gave of his best, the principle we see at work is making it a priority to give to God first. Genesis 4:4 says he

"brought the firstborn of his flock, and their fat portions."

Applying that principle today means that we look at what we have received, and then we give to God first. We begin by separating out the portion for the work of the church, and then have the remainder to use in the ways that we desire. That is the approach of Abel.

The method of Cain would be to take whatever it may be that we have received, use it as we desire, and then see if there is something leftover to give to church. That is a method that considers God to be more of an afterthought, rather than our first thought.

I speak of this from experience. I spent the first number of my years as a Christian saying "What can I afford to give to God?" And then I began to understand this way was the complete opposite of how giving to God should be done. Changing to giving to God first required changing some other "priorities" but in doing so I found that those things weren't quite so important after all.

So this month I invite you to look at God, to look at the gifts he has given you, to look at your giving in return, and see if something needs to be changed.

Sunday, May 13, 2018

A Prayer for Mothers in Dulce

Today is Mother's Day. As a pastor, I don’t attach a lot of significance to planning worship around particular days of the year. Some churches do that kind of thing, making a special emphasis on Mother's Day, Father's Day, the Sunday before Independence Day and such.

I don't.

It's not that those kinds of days don’t have a particular importance, but it is that those days don’t really have a lot to do with the worship of God. God created mothers and we can thank him for that. God created the independence we enjoy in this country, and we can thank him for that as well. But to make mothers, or something else, the focal point of worship drifts too closely, in my mind, to worshipping those things rather than God. And it is God, alone, revealed as Father, Son and Spirit, that we want to worship.

But not planning worship around a particular holiday does not mean that I don’t want to be aware of that holiday, or be insensitive to the things that may be on people's minds as we gather for worship. In the picture are some notes I made before worship this morning of things that I wanted to be mindful of in our congregational prayer. Every Sunday before worship starts I make a few notes of things I want to include in our prayer. Then during worship I ask if people have things that they want to lift up in prayer. Those two things give me a rough outline of the prayer I will pray on behalf of the congregation.

As you can see from my note, mothers were on my mind as I thought about the prayer. I wanted to pray for mothers. I also wanted to be mindful of those women who wanted children but weren't label to have them. And lastly, I wanted to remember those mothers who have lost children.

Among our congregation there are a lot of women who are good mothers. They are doing the hard work necessary to do the best they can for their children. In some cases this includes aunts and grandma's who are actively either helping someone in their family, or who are raising the children as their own. There can be a number of reasons for that last group, and I don’t want to cast any blame. I just want to bring to God a word of thanks for mothers, and to ask him to continue to strengthen and guide women filling that very much needed role.

There are a few women I know of in our congregation who have lived with the disappointment of not being able to have children on their own. They may still have become moms through other means but I know that they are living with a sense of loss over what others had that they couldn't, and a holiday like Mother's Day can be a very painful reminder of that. I don’t recall now what I said during worship this morning, but I hope that it was something that asked God to be tender and comforting towards them.

And then there is a group of mothers who live with the very hard knowledge of having lost children. As parents our general expectation is that our children will survive us, but we know that this isn't always the case. As I thought about my own congregation this morning I thought of six women I know of who are members and who have lost one, or more, of their children. I can't imagine the range and depth of emotions that run through them as their children come to mind, or on a day such as this, when being a mother may be celebrated and they no longer have the child that called them mom.

Mothers are a good gift from God and the role of a mother will change over the course of the life of their child. But something infinitely better is the God who created mothers. The God who never changes. The God whose love for his children is as strong on the first day as it is on the last.

May he strengthen and guide those women who are moms actively raising children. May he provide comfort to those women who longed for children but never had any. And may he comfort those moms whose motherhood is also tinged with grief and loss. Amen.

Thursday, May 10, 2018

Cravings

Not too long ago I had a craving for Oreos. It went on for a week or so. There was something about the deliciousness of Oreo cookies that I felt calling out to me. "Get some Oreos. Open the package. Eat some. Repeat." The funny thing was that as the same time as I was having this craving the package of Oreos in the picture was up in the cabinet, conveniently located right next to the coffee I get there every day.

As it was, at the same time that I was having a craving for Oreos the next marathon on my calendar was drawing near. I am nowhere near as disciplined or driven in my training as I used to be, but I do have some things I still try to hold to during the last month of training. Things like: No Oreos. No chips. No fries. No doughnuts. You get the picture.

Not that I necessarily eat all of those things on a regular basis in the first place, but I do like them and I know that unregulated consumption of those kinds of food have a negative effect on the running experience. I was living with my Oreo craving, while the solution was so close at hand. They called me like a Siren, while similar to Odysseus, my training plan tied me to the mast to prevent a weakening of my resolve.

As this was going on it occurred to me that there was something else going on, or better said, not going on, that perhaps should be. While I knew that I craved Oreos, why did I not have a similar craving for God's word? Why, in the middle of the afternoon or evening, did I not feel compelled to open and read God's word?

That question hung out in my mind for a number of days before the answer occurred to me. I did not have a craving for God's word because nearly each day I was spending time in it.

For the past few years I have followed a modified version of the Bible reading plan developed by Robert Murray M'Cheyne. It is a plan that takes me through the Psalms and New Testament twice a year, and the Old Testament once a year. It means, on average, reading four chapters of the Bible each day, all year long.

Reading through the Bible with the plan I follow doesn't take a lot of time, probably between 15-20 minutes a day. Some days I read with greater diligence than other days, as there are parts that I can really get excited over, while there are other parts that are frankly more of a struggle to get through. Some days I do this reading first thing in the morning, while other days it is a little later. Almost every day my time reading God's word is done by the middle of the morning.

That time in God's word, and in prayer afterwards, is essential to how I go through the rest of the day. I have learned the hard way that exceptions to this practice should be exceedingly rare.

And perhaps this time in the early part of each day is why I rarely have a craving later in the day for God's word. I've already spent some time soaking in it, often with a thought that I come back to several times during the day.

I don’t know what you crave at times of the day or seasons of life. But the best thing we might crave is time with the Lord and his word. And the best way to deal with those cravings is to feed on his every day. Amen.

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Everything Costs Something

Recently we took a week's vacation and went to San Diego. Our primary reason for the trip was to attend our daughter's wedding. But spending time with her and others in our family wasn't the only thing we did on our six days there. We spent parts of several days at the beach, and we took the three children living with us to Sea World.

Sea World is a pretty interesting place to visit, and the children really loved it. It is also expensive. I don’t know what the tickets cost, as Robin handled that before we left home. I saw for myself what the food cost, and I took a picture of the cost of parking as we entered the parking lot. We arrived early in the day, taking the General Parking option. As we walked from our car into Sea World itself it looked like at that time of day spending $5, or $15, for the parking upgrade was like throwing your money into the trash can, for there seemed to be no significant difference in reducing the distance from car to gate. But even if the lot had been full I wouldn’t be able to justify to myself spending $5 more in order to walk ¼ mile less.

As we drove into Sea World we were talking with our younger daughter a bit about the costs of our vacation and visits to places like Sea World. Robin told her "Everything costs something."

"Everything costs something" is true for so many things in life. The provision of our day-to-day needs of shelter, food and clothing. Education. Transportation. Entertainment and recreation. Some of these things are things we pay for ourselves. Others we may receive, with someone else bearing the costs. And digging a bit more deeply, the most precious thing any person might have falls into that latter category, a thing received, with the cost borne by another.

The most precious thing a person could have is salvation from the wrath of God through the forgiveness of their sins. In Romans 3 Paul writes:

"For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith."

"Justified" is a term that means the person who turns towards Jesus in faith, turning from their sin and believing in him as their Savior, is declared innocent before God. God's grace, the forgiveness of sin, has been received as a gift. A gift. Free. It comes at no cost whatsoever to the person seeking it.

The latter part of Paul's sentence shows that there is a cost to our salvation, but that the cost has been paid by Jesus. The cost of our redemption was in the pouring out of his blood. He gave his life, so that by faith in him, we could receive eternal life.

We went to California for a particular event, the wedding of our daughter. It was a big trip, something we prepared for by making a budget and setting aside money ahead of time. There were costs, and we prepared to pay them ourselves. It was a great trip and we are left with wonderful memories.

But there is nothing in life that compares to the value of knowing God through faith in Jesus. Nothing. And this thing that is beyond all other things in value can be yours, absolutely free, as you, or I, make that turn towards Jesus in faith.

The offer Jesus holds out in Mark 1 remains valid today:

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Everything costs something, even a relationship with God. But Jesus paid the costs, for you, for me, because of his great love for all who beleive.

Thursday, May 3, 2018

End Times?

Not too long ago I was talking with man I know casually, a man who is a Christian and who knows I'm a pastor. He was wondering a bit about current events and end times. From his point-of-view there seemed to be a number of things going on in the world that suggested that the end was drawing near.

"End times" is a dicey subject. The Bible teaches of it, but not in such a way as to be crystal clear in all the details. There are a number of different viewpoints, each of which may be valid, without those differences falling outside of saving faith. I am not my friend's pastor, and so I don’t know what his pastor may teach on the subject, or what the faith statement of his church may have to say about it.

Jesus speaks of end times several times, all basically in the same way. In Mark 13:32-33 he says:

“But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come."

If the one I call Savior and Lord doesn't know when the end will come, that is good enough for me. As a husband, father and pastor, he has certainly given me plenty of things to do in his service in the meantime.

But in the same passage he says "keep awake" and so with that thought in the back of one's mind it is easy to read Revelation and to watch the news and wonder if some of the events that will precede the return of the Lord are happening now.

I think that for many Christians their "end times" meter begins to rise whenever anything happens in Israel, or among it's neighbors. But…in my lifetime…there has never been a real, lasting peace between Israel and it's neighbors, or within the countries nearby. Are today's events really any different than what took place in Israel in 1967, or 1973? Or the rise or Islamic nationalism in 1979?

One thing that I do think that the Bible teaches, in a non-specific way, about end times is that things will generally get worse throughout the world. That injustice and evil will increase in ways that are subtle and accepted by a broad swath of people. And in that sense I do believe there is evidence that history is continuing to move towards that time when the Lord returns and history comes to an end. Here are three things that come to mind this morning:

1. The Alfie Evans case. This is an absolute tragedy. Whatever the circumstances may have been from a medical perspective, it was morally wrong for the government of England to intervene against the parents, particularly when another government was willing and able to provide completely for Evan's medical care. A government, which intervenes to bring about death rather than life, is one which may be on the downside of the slippery slope, with no hope for return.

2. The normalization of abortion as "heath care." While in the interview excerpts cited here Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, is vague about the moment life starts, I think that most adults with same basic education about biology would agree that something distinctly human, and distinctly alive, is present at the moment of conception. To have large segments of our population believe that the intentional ending of that life at any point between conception and birth as an act that has no moral difference from birth, something to call "health care", may well be, as in the Evan's case, a sign that our culture is on the downside of the slippery slope, with no hope for return.

3. Attempts in California to regulate free speech. In the time of my childhood we would say to each other "Sticks and stone may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." We said it, and we believed it. Now we have come to a point in time when to write and sell books that would oppose ideas on human sexuality that in less than one generation have moved from nearly impossible to believe in to mainstream must be fought through legislation. Instead of "live and let live" things seem to be moving toward "Let me live and don’t dare tell me that what I'm living is actually a lie."

End times. They are coming, on the Lord's timing. We may not know the specific meanings of some of the events of Revelation, but we do know that for people confessing Jesus as their Savior and Lord, the persecution of those times may be very hard, even to death. But we also know the promises of God to his children, promises that no end times events can alter, and so I'll close with the words of Romans 8:31-39:

"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

True Words

I think that all Christians would say that the Bible speaks God's truth. They may disagree on how much of it speaks God's truth, with some saying it is true from cover to cover, while others hold that some parts of it are true and essential and that other parts are open to a variety of interpretations and understandings.

One way to understand the Bible is to read it, and to ask God to provide understanding in what you read. That should be an easy and natural thing for Christians to do. But like so many other things in life, developing and continuing a habit of reading the Bible and leaning on God for understanding can be a hard habit to start and keep going.

For several years I have been using a Bible reading plan that takes me through the New Testament and the Psalms twice a year, and the remainder of the Old Testament once. For me, following this plan has made me more familiar, in a general sense, with a much greater part of the Bible. I understand the lay of the land better. I see parts connect in ways I had been unaware of before. And, in particular, I find myself seeing deeper meaning in things that I have read, but not really understood well before. I may have read the actual words, but without trying to understand if there was anything deeper going on.

All of which is to say that as I was making my annual trip through the book of Proverbs one half of a verse stopped me in my tracks. Proverbs 30:5 begins:

"Every word of God proves true"

Not some words of God are true. Not most of the words of God are true. Every word of God proves true.

Some of the things God says in his word are easy to understand. Some things brings us great comfort and peace. Some things give us a sure and certain hope, for this life and for what is come. But there are many things in God's word that are hard to understand and hard to believe. They confront us with the fact that God is God, and that we are not God.

Behind the claim of Proverbs 30:5 is a greater truth that is not said, which is that God always tells the truth. Always. A god who did not always tell the truth, whose every word could not be believed and trusted, is a god who is flawed, and not truly god. The world is quite literally filled with these lesser gods. Gods of our imagination and creation, who are not really gods at all.

The God of the Bible, the One True God, the God revealed to us through the Lord Jesus Christ, is a God who always tells the truth. He is the God whose love is unfailing. And he, alone, is the God deserving of our worship.