Past Articles from 2004 until last year. Many important lessons can be found in each of these articles.
If you were at worship yesterday you might be wondering why we began by reading Luke 5.9-10, but never referred to it again. Well, let me explain.
When I write a sermon, I write a line, not an outline. An outline explores facets, seeks to thoroughly manage information. A line presents the shortest distance between points A and B. I do the latter. This strategy offers great advantages in delivery - since the preacher is supposed to take the congregation on his journey with him, it is easier to keep everyone together if you are walking in a straight line, instead of meandering around. If you get the beginning right, and then move logically forward, you never have to ask if the congregation is still with you. There are disadvantages, however - if you forget something, you can’t really backtrack.
Yesterday I skipped a point on the line and had no way to get back to it without disrupting the narrative arc and momentum of the sermon, which is something I can’t bring myself to do. So I am appropriating this space to try to make up for my failure yesterday to put Luke 5.9-10 squarely on the line.
Yesterday we concluded the series of lessons on the “one another” passages in the New Testament. We were discussing the command in Hebrews 10.24 which instructs us to “consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.” I pointed out that the word “stimulate” in the original Greek is never used in a positive way outside this verse. It is a word that means “to incite,” “to provoke.” In the New Testament it is used in Acts 15.39 to describe the conflict between Barnabas and Paul. It survives in English is the word “paroxysm” which means a seizure, or a sudden outburst. We are commanded to incite, to provoke one another to love and good deeds. I used the phrase “pushing each other’s buttons” to describe the meaning of the word in context – motivating one another to do what our heads know to be right, but our hearts resist.
What I left out is this: We can observe Jesus doing this very thing – pushing the disciples’ buttons. Like a great coach who knows just the right thing to say to inspire his players, Jesus doesn’t just teach – he motivates. In the sermon I was going to use Peter as a case study.
When Peter is feeling sinful Jesus says “Don’t be afraid, from now on you’ll catch men” (Luke 5.9-10 There it is!). When Peter makes the good confession Jesus says “Blessed are you Simon, son of John” (Matthew 16.17); but in the same chapter he says “Get behind me, Satan” (Matthew 16.23) when Peter has the hubris to object to God’s plan. After Peter’s thrice denial, Jesus insists that Peter confess his love three times (John 21.15-17).
This is best illustrated by what Jesus says to Peter before his denial. “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”
Wow. Notice how he uses Peter’s given name. Note the bluntness of the warning. Notice that initial failure is assumed. Listen to those marvelous words “I have prayed for you.” Take in the assurance of victory “when you have turned again”, and the challenge of purpose “strengthen your brothers”. Could these words be the very reason Peter didn’t follow Judas into the Potters Field, but was there to stand up at Pentecost?
As always, when the New Testament asks us to do something, Jesus personally demonstrates how we are to do it.
So that is why I read Luke 5.9-10 at the beginning of worship yesterday, and why I am motivated to explain myself today.
Be still and know that I am God…Psalm 46.10
It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. Lamentations 3.26
Absolute silence is impossible to achieve. If you didn’t know this before, just stop for moment and list the number of things you can hear. If I turn off the Julie London album I have playing I can hear: cars, crows, a mockingbird, a siren, adult voices, children’s voices, the fax machine, two clocks ticking, the wind, my own breathing. If go to one of the baptistery rooms – which are the quietest in the building – I can still hear the trickle of water, the buzz of a motor, my watch ticking, and my own breathing. If I were to enter a perfectly sound-proof, anechoic chamber I would find that I could hear my heart beating, and the blood circulating in my veins. It seems as long our pulmonary and circulatory systems are working we will never experience perfect silence.
In fact we rarely experience even a small measure of quiet. The Clean Air Act and The Clean Water Act have done much to unsully our environment these past forty years. But noise pollution just seems to increase. This is a problem. This is a problem because our brains have to process all this noise, and that distracts focus and energy away from what we have tasked our brains to focus on. It is a problem because we have been told that silence is a necessary element of our connection to God.
Jesus tells us to enter our inner room to pray (Matthew 6.6). Indeed, he regularly sought out empty places to pray (Luke 5.16). The verses cited above both emphasize the element of silence as a prerequisite for encountering God. If silence is in short supply we have a problem.
Psalm 46.10 is particularly appropriate to this discussion because it more precisely describes a state of calm, rather than just a state of silence. We know that even though we might be in that anechoic chamber, alone with our breathing, our heartbeat, and our thoughts – those thoughts can be louder than a brass band or the front row of a Deep Purple concert. Aural quiet may not achieve mental quiet by itself.
We think of quiet and calm as passive. My point is that they will have to be actively, deliberately achieved, if they are to be achieved at all. In order to have space and time to think, to pray, to meditate, to process, to yield we will have to create that space deliberately. We will have to carve it out of the hard hectic rock of our daily lives or it will not exist at all. Quiet won’t just happen. We have to generate it, insist upon it. We cannot neglect quiet, not for long. To neglect quiet is to neglect God.
Is someone listening to you if they have ear-buds in their ears, if their eyes are glued to a hand held screen, and their thumbs are tapping a keyboard? Are we listening, thinking, yielding if we are similarly distracted?
“Be still.” “Wait quietly.” Those are commands, unless I am mistaken.
Quiet is not a luxury. It is a necessity.
In the wake of the terrible tornado that swept through Joplin Missouri, in May 2011, survivors found their possessions scattered as far as 70miles away. Next to the loss of life, the loss of memories seemed to be the toughest to take for many families. The destruction of family homes, loss of heirloom furniture, documents of historical significance, and family photographs – especially the family photographs - was difficult to bear.
Abi Allmandinger of Carthage was trying to find a way to help her distressed neighbors when she heard someone on the radio mention they had found a box of family photos. Allmandinger, a veteran cropper, had found her way to help. She set up a Facebook page where found family photos could be posted, and those who had lost photos could search for the one’s they’d lost. She has collected more than 5000 photos, and more than half have been claimed. The response of gratitude of the ones who have their memories returned has been overwhelming. The healing that happens when family photographs are returned goes beyond the reception of an image of a past birthday party, high school graduation, or 30th anniversary trip. It goes even beyond the memory of the event itself because what has been lost is now found.*
Tornadoes are not the only way family photos can be lost. They can be lost while still in the frame or photo album. A grown woman looks at a snapshot of herself as a happy child with a loving family. She remembers that day, and the subsequent divorce of her parents, and somehow that photo is lost to her. A man looks at the same photo, remembers all he destroyed when he shattered his family, and the photo is lost to him too. Our sin, or the sin of others, can leave a swath of destruction wider and more severe than any tornado, and can steal more of our past than any natural disaster. No cropper, even the most gifted, can make the photograph pretty and sweet, and sentimental again.
Maybe no one can. Not fully. Not this side of the Jordan. So much depends on our own willingness. But God can give us our past back if we are willing to accept it.
Joseph’s brothers hated him, discussed killing him, sold him as a slave and pretended he was dead. In an instant they took home and family away from him, seemingly forever. But one day they came, hat in hand, asking for grain. The story takes too many twists to recount here, but Joseph is able to reconcile with his brothers. He is able to fall on their necks in tears of gladness. The reason isn’t because he has accepted or forgotten their hatred. It is because God has given him grace.
Do not be afraid. Am I in God’s place? As for you, you meant evil against me but God meant it for good – in order to keep many people alive. (Genesis 50.20-21)
Joseph is reunited with his father, with his brothers because God’s grace gave him another way to perceive and interpret his past. God gave him his past back.
Joseph is able to forgive his brothers and recover his past because of God’s grace. Paul is able to forgive himself. Paul, back when he was Saul, and an up-and-comer with the Sanhedrin spearheaded the persecution against Christians. He brutalized and imprisoned mothers and fathers, hauling people out of their homes – and he never forgot it. But because of God’s grace he can look back on his past and see the path that brought him to God.
It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am the worst of all. And yet, for this reason I found mercy, in order that in me as the worst, Jesus Christ might demonstrate his perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life. (I Timothy 1.15-16).
The fuller passage (vv. 12-17) is richer in this awareness. So also are passages like Philippians 3.1-16, and II Corinthians 11.16-12.10 – Paul is clear – his past sins, his hardships, his deprivations, his weaknesses are all part of his identity and that identity is of a man redeemed by grace. He owns his past; it doesn’t own him, because Jesus has purchased it with blood and returned it to him.
How many photos would we like to have back? We know they can only truly be returned by grace, not by Facebook.
* “Most productive Use of Facebook,” in Mental Floss, September 2012, p.59.
The note was a response to a letter Nutting sent on March 10 informing the Rolex company that his watch, a Chronograph Oyster No. 122, had been taken by his captors, and he would need to replace it. Hans Wilsdorf, a German expatriate living in Geneva was the founder of Rolex. At the time Rolex watches were virtually unknown in the States, but British airmen almost universally wore them because of their accuracy. This became known to American pilots, who brought the brand back with them after the war, and today Rolex is not just the symbol of excellence in timekeeping, but is an icon of excellence generally.
In the note, Wilsdorf personally promised to replace the watch at no cost to Captain Nutting. It was the policy of Rolex to guarantee to British airmen that any watch confiscated by German captors would be replaced at no cost. The guarantee was meant to be more than just a promise of replacement. It was supposed to communicate confidence that the allies would ultimately prevail – that things would one day be back to normal. The guarantee was received as such.
We are at war (Ephesians 6.10-20, II Corinthians 10.1-6). We have been given guarantees. We have been guaranteed victory (Romans 8.37, Revelation 3.20). We have been guaranteed an inheritance that cannot be defiled, despoiled, or confiscated (I Peter 1.3-9). We are guaranteed that during the battle we will receive provision, leadership, and protection (Matthew 28.20, II Peter 1.3, Psalm 23).
We have been given an earnest of these guarantees. We have it written down, ink-on-paper. We have the Word of God. And we have more:
In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we take possession of it, to the praise of His glory. (Ephesians 1.13-14)
He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. (II Corinthians 5.5)
When we are baptized we are promised forgiveness and the Holy Spirit (Acts 2.38). He (the Spirit) is described as doing so many things: helping us to pray (Romans 8.26), fostering unity (Ephesians 4.3), doing all that is associated with our sanctification (I Peter 1.2). Paul, in the passages above asserts that when we experience the work of the Spirit, we are reminded of our guarantee – that He IS the guarantee of all God has promised.
We have the Word and the Spirit in us as guarantees His promises are true. And so we are reminded to not lose heart. We are reminded that this is all temporary, that victory is assured, and that no one can take these truths away from us.
It is all guaranteed.
So I was reading about this guy named Josh. He was maybe 30, and had come home with some friends to visit his mother. They tagged along with her to a wedding. At the reception, they ran out of punch. So Josh’s mom came over to him and said: “They’re out of punch,” like it was Josh’s responsibility to do something about it. He said “Okay – how is that my business?” But she just told the caterers Josh would handle it, and walked away. What did she want him to do – make a beverage run to Food Lion or Seven-11? She didn’t say what she expected him to do, except that she made it clear she expected him to handle it. Really? Really?? I mean – moms – ‘nuff said.
So this is how Josh handled it. Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” They filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it.
When the wedding coordinator tasted the water, it had become wine – I mean it was like really expensive stuff - he was angry with the groom. He said, “Dude, everybody knows you serve the good stuff first.” The wedding coordinator was angry because he didn’t know a miracle had happened, but Josh’s friends knew, and His disciples believed in Him (Luke 2.1-11. 1-5, 9-10 my paraphrase, 6-8, 10 from the ESV).
“Jesus” is, of course, the Greek version of the Aramaic Yeshua, or the Hebrew Joshua, which was as common a name as John or Joe or Josh is today. In Cana, and Nazareth Jesus was a guy named Josh. He was a guy named Josh who had a trade, whose dad had died, and whose mom had different notions about his responsibilities than he did. He was also the Christ, the Son of God who could change the molecular structure of water and turn it into wine in an instant.
Jesus reconciles us to God not only through his death, but through his life. He contains “the fullness of Deity” (Colossians 2.9). At the same time he has personal experience with “all our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4.15). This gives us confidence when we have to come before the throne of God with those weaknesses. At God’s right hand is His Son – who is also this guy named Josh from Nazareth. Jesus makes sure that we come to a throne of “grace” and that we find specific help for our need (Hebrews 4.16).
It is important to know about Jesus – to know the doctrines concerning salvation, grace, forgiveness. But it is also important to know Jesus. To know who He is, how He thinks, how He acts. We are given more than ample opportunity. The Holy Spirit has given us four gospels. We need to spend time in Nazareth or Jerusalem or Bethany or Capernaum every day. We need to watch Jesus, listen to Him, pay attention to Him. Mary of Bethany left so many things behind to sit at Jesus’ feet. We need to nudge in next to her. Jesus welcomes us there, and says what we gain there will never be taken away (Luke 10.41-42). Because when we get to know this guy named Josh, we get to know God.
