Engaging Scripture

Is the American melting pot disastrous for Christians? – Characters: Daniel, Part 1

In February 1887 President Grover Cleveland signed into law the Dawes Act which sought to assimilate Native Americans into the culture of the United States. It didn’t go well. Indians ended up losing 62% of the land they held before 1887. There remains much debate about how much people should assimilate into American culture. For a long time we Americans have likened out country to a melting pot rather than a salad bowl. In a salad bowl, each ingredient retains its difference and individuality. But in the melting pot, there is a melding, combining and loss of uniqueness. While America has never truly been a melting pot or salad bowl, Americans have long believed that some degree of assimilation is important and necessary for a healthy society. But as we’ll see, in at least one way of thinking, assimilation can be disastrous for Christians.

This fall we had a mini-series on Characters in the Old Testament. We met people like Jacob, Joseph, Samson and Ruth, all people who were flawed or in crisis, and yet God used them for his Kingdom. In this post we meet one last group who was also in crisis: Daniel and his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

To begin, let’s try to locate the time period the story of Daniel occurs in Israel’s history. You might remember that the last character we looked at was David, and his battle with Goliath. Here’s what happened between the era of David and that of Daniel. David eventually became King of Israel, and then after his son, Solomon’s reign, the nation had a kind of civil war, which led to a North and South split. Ten tribes in the North are called Israel, and two tribes in the South are called Judah. Each nation has a series of kings and prophets and many ups and downs. Generally, the Northern kingdom of Israel chooses to turn away from obedience to God, and God allows them to be attacked and defeated by enemy nations. In the south, in Judah, however, there are many good kings who lead the nation to be faithful to God. But there are also wicked kings from time to time in the South, and eventually they, too, are attacked and defeated. That’s where Daniel story begins. Daniel was a young Jewish man living in Jerusalem when the powerful nation of Babylon defeated Judah. Feel free to pause this post and read what happened in Daniel 1:1-7.

It might be hard for people who experience peace or freedom in their lives to imagine what it would be like for Daniel and his friends. Their country destroyed and occupied. Ripped away from their families, carted off to a different land, with different customs, different language. This is a slavery story. A human trafficking story. But I think much more than that, it is an assimilation story, meaning that Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon wants to steal the best and brightest of Israel and transform them into his servants to benefit him. Nebuchadnezzar wants these Jews to assimilate into Babylon, to become Babylonians, to think and believe and act like Babylonians. So he puts them in a training program.

Would Daniel and his friends resist this forcible training program? Did they give up hope of returning to Jerusalem, to their families, to what was familiar to them? Were they battling with deep sadness and loss? Did they wrestle with God? Did they think, “God, why are you letting this happen? Why are you not being faithful to your covenant with your people?” Or did Daniel and his friends know that Israel had turned their backs on God, and thus they had this coming? Did they want to give up faith in God? Were they scared that they were going to be mistreated in Babylon? Put in prison? Killed? My guess is that they were wrestling with all these thoughts and more.

After they arrive in Babylon and are conscripted into the training program to serve in the king’s palace, it would become apparent rather quickly, I think, that they were in a fortunate position. Sure, if they wanted, they could really fight hard against the king’s wishes and refuse to participate in the program, maybe saying, “Send us back to Israel,” or something like that. If they choose to participate, however, it would seem that they could assume that they would be cared for quite well. Think about it, they were in a training program to serve the king. For foreign prisoners, it probably doesn’t get any better than that.

Daniel and his friends, while still likely sad about missing their family, friends and culture in Judah, could be wiping their foreheads in relief praying to God, “Thank you for taking care of us.” In many ways, for prisoners of war, it seems like they hit the jackpot. But surprisingly, Daniel and his friends don’t view it that way. Check back to the next post, to learn how they respond.

How the Holy Spirit helps us have peace when we struggle with fear – Fourth Sunday of Advent 2019, Part 5

What is at the root of fear? Human nature? Maybe it is just a part of the human experience? We fear that we won’t be taken care of. Clearly so many of us, young and old fear rejection, loneliness, insecurity, or being destitute. We can fear that people will look down on us. There is an emptiness within that can be the cause of all our fear.

This week we’ve been studying John 14:15-31 (starting with the first post here). Why did Jesus bring up fear? Because he has been talking all chapter long about how he was about to leave his disciples. He is preparing them for the deep emptiness that could grip them. He knows that in a matter of hours their world is about to be rocked. First, he will be arrested, then put on trial, beaten, crucified, and die. At that point they could easily have been feeling that they were utterly alone, their leader gone. I think it is also very possible in that moment, that the disciples are not only feeling alone, but perhaps betrayed not only by Judas, but also by Jesus. They were likely totally confused about how this amazing man who clearly seemed to be the chosen one to save Israel could be arrested. They could be wondering if they just gave the previous three of their lives to a lie. They could be feeling embarrassment, shame, or guilt. And worse, they could be next. If the soldiers arrested and killed Jesus, what would stop those soldiers from coming to get the disciples too?

They could easily have felt they were in a life and death situation, and thus there is a sense in which the disciples’ fear is justified. And Jesus knows this. Therefore in John 14 he is best seen as preparing them for the trauma that is just about to come knocking.

What is the solution that Jesus teaches us? The promise that God is with us, and his Spirit can live in us, and he gives us peace. He doesn’t say that he will take our fears and struggles away, but he says that he is with us, in us, and will give us peace! Remember that peace does not mean that life will have no trials, or that we are in control, as if we know what is going to happen. Peace means we have a deep understanding of whose we are, who loves us unconditionally, and that we will be cared for by God, even when we are in the middle of trials.

Have you ever seen a baby, cuddled in its mother’s arms, right in the middle of a loud room, with siblings arguing, and mess all around? And the baby is smiling, sound asleep. Why? It knows it is loved. The baby is cared for and his/her needs are met by their loving mom. They are not worried about the mess going on literally around them. Sometimes you see that little one wake up, look around, see the chaos and start to fuss. But the mom says, “Look here little one,” and the baby looks up at his/her mom and smiles again. It will be okay. Their eyes are on the one that they KNOW loves them and will care for them. We too can have peace, though we are not a perfect world, as we keep our eyes on the one who loves us.

So the message is clear: if we love him, we will show it by obeying him. We can and should do this even in the midst of the fear and struggle, not just because Jesus promises his peace, but also because he promises to be with us and in us.

Let’s talk a bit more about what it means in verse 17 that the Spirit will be in us, and in verse 23, that Jesus and the Father will make their home with us? What does that mean? How are we supposed to understand that? Are we supposed to feel something inside of us? Is Jesus saying that we should feel God inside us simply as emotional peace? Or is he saying that the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is physically within us?

I encourage you to look for the evidence in your life. We can know that the Spirit is truly within us because we will see changes in our lives. Paul would famously call this the Fruit of the Spirit. If the Spirit is within you, there are fruits that will grow from your lives. You can read all about it in Galatians 5. In my back yard, we have an apple tree, an English walnut, a peach tree, blackberries, and red raspberries, as well as a black walnut tree. As Jesus says, by their fruits you will know them. The apple tree shows us it has the biological raw material of an apple tree because it makes apples every year. We aren’t 100% sure what kind of apple tree it is, though. It certainly isn’t a red delicious or honeycrisp, because it never makes those kinds of apples. It only makes the one kind of apple that it is able to make, and we think that is likely Granny Smith, as its apples are tart. Likewise, when we notice the fruit of the Spirit flowing from us, we know that we have the Spirit living within us. Jesus said that the Spirit will bring us peace. Peace is one of the fruits of the Spirit. When we experience peace in the middle of situations that we should not be peaceful, then we can know the reality of the Spirit with us.

Here’s another example: when we obey Jesus, out of love for him, though we really don’t want to, then we know the Spirit is with us. Maybe some of you are anticipating family gatherings over the next few weeks, as we celebrate Christmas and New Years Day. You know there is that one family member who might bring family drama or politics or just has a tendency to rub you the wrong way, yet you treat them with kindness and gentleness and patience and love. Those are Fruits of the Spirit that give you evidence the Spirit is within you.

And we can hear his voice. But it means we have to listen. How many of us say that we can’t hear God’s voice, but we rarely take time to listen for him? We need to consider how noisy our lives are. What can we do to quiet our lives and stop and listen for God? We need to open time for quiet listening.

I wonder how many of us might actually say that we are scared to listen to God who lives within us, because when we hear what he has to say to us, it might be that he wants us to change?

Let us remember that God wants us to flourish in this life. No doubt an antidote to fear is to remember the truth that we have a hope of eternal life with him. But what we have heard in John 14:15-31 is that we can have peace from Jesus in the here and now, and particularly so because he, by his Spirit, lives within us!

As we look to the One who came, this Advent season is about remembering the one who came as a vulnerable baby. Jesus left heaven and became human out of deep, deep love for us and for our best. Long for more of Him. Sit with him. Get to know him. Don’t just read about him, but also look for him in your world. He is there. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your eyes to see him more, to open your heart to understand him more. Look for ways to sacrifice time to sit with him, to get to know him, as you do anyone you really love and long to get to know. From that place of intimacy with him, focus your hearts on who he is and who you are IN him, and in the midst of fears, peace will come.

How God’s Spirit is Alive in Us – Fourth Sunday of Advent, Part 4

Each stream of Christianity has its unique approach to the role and activity of the Holy Spirit in the life of the follower of Jesus. Some Christians feel that they know with certainty who the Spirit is and what the Spirit does. Some Christians have very little certainty. I grew up thinking the Spirit was a mysterious and fairly unknowable person of what is called the Trinity. Where Jesus is our friend and brother, and God the Father is our…well…Father, I was taught that the Spirit was in me, but I didn’t feel anything. Or hear anything. I can still struggle with this. Is the Spirit-in-me just an idea to be believed, or is there something more?

I think Jesus most astounding promise is that if we love him, we will obey him, and then he will come make his home with us. In the previous posts, we looked at what Jesus meant by all this. As we continue studying John 14:15-31, Jesus explains even more about what he means by this.

The first thing he means is that he and the Father will make their home in us, if we love and obey him, but giving us the Holy Spirit as our Counselor. He already said this in verse 16, and he says it again here, “I will send you the Counselor.” The first thing we think of when we hear the word counselor is someone who gives counsel. It could be a guidance counselor at school. It could be a legal counselor, a lawyer. It could be a therapist who we rely on for professional counseling. The Greek word that John uses is parakletos, and even in the ancient world, it had a lot of meanings as well. It could be used for encouragement or comfort, for communication, for counseling. What Jesus is saying is that the Spirit in us can accomplish all these roles and more. It is an amazing promise. All the resources and power and wisdom of God is living within us, IF we show that we love him by obeying his commands.

As the Paraklete, the Spirit, Jesus says in verse 26, will teach us, will remind us of what Jesus said. In that you see the counselor role. This is why I think it is so vital, whenever we encounter the word of God, whether in our own personal reading of Scripture, whether at church, or in a small group, to pray what Paul taught in 1 Corinthians 2:10-13:

“God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.”

God’s Spirit within us can help us to understand what God wants to communicate to us. So whenever you encounter the Bible, whether at church, at a small group, or personally, pray what Paul teaches, “Spirit, help me understand.” I get it, the Bible can be intimidating, but we have the supernatural power of God through his Spirit within us to help us understand it. That doesn’t mean we don’t still use study Bibles and notes, or talk with people about it. There are excellent resources available to help us understand God’s Word, and we should avail ourselves of them. But let us first pray to the Spirit to help us understand.

So the Spirit is our teacher, and our counselor, and then Jesus goes on to say that the Spirit is our Comforter. Look at verse 27. What an amazing promise. “Peace he will give us, but not as the world gives”

Peace. What is the difference between the peace the world gives and the peace that Jesus gives?

To answer that, consider what he says about peace, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.” What do people fear?

Heights, Enclosed places, Financial ruin, Losing your job, That Kids and Grandkids will make bad choices, That we won’t be good parents, Sickness, Death, and how it will happen, Broken relationships, Not being accepted, “Will I make the sports team?” “Will I be chosen?”, Fear of being alone, Fear that my debit card will not be approved, Fear in relationships, “What will that person think of me? Will I disappoint them?” There are so many fears. Have you encountered any of these in your life?

Our past fears can linger, even when our life situation is well past the point of needing to be afraid. Past fear can linger and rise up and still be there. We might have $10,000 in the bank, but when we put our card in the card reader, we still feel those feelings of fear that the card will not be approved. If you were in a negative relationship before, and now you are in a new one and that person has done nothing to make you fear, you might still carry hurts from before that manifest themselves in your current relationship. Fear has a way of sticking with us. Situations from the past can lead to tentacles of fear hanging on to us for years.

What is at the root of this fear? And what can we do about it? We’ll talk more about that in the final post of this five-part series on John 14:15-31.

What is Jesus most astounding promise? – Fourth Sunday of Advent, Part 3

Jesus makes lots of promises. What do you think is his most amazing promise? In this post, I think we just might have a candidate for it. We actually started studying the promise in the previous post. Jesus teaches the promises to his disciples in John 14:15-31, and he crafts in the form of an “if-then” statement. If we do x, he promises to do y.

We’ve heard the “if” side of the promise. I would encourage you to stop reading this post, and go back and read all about the very important “if” side. To summarize, it was, “If we love him, we will obey him.” Now what about the “then” side? What is the promise in this? In verses 16 and 17, he says if we love him, we will obey him, THEN he will give us the Holy Spirit to be with us and in us.

Then in verse 21 he expands on this, saying that if we love him and obey him, he and his Father will love that person and Jesus will show himself to that person. Are you seeing a theme in his description of the promise? Yes? No? Maybe?

Let’s continue looking at verse 23 to see if he expands on the promise any further, and to see if there is a theme to the promise. There he says that “if anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching, and”…here is the promise…”my Father will love him,” which is the same thing he said in verse 21, but he goes on to say that he and the Father will come to that person and make their home with him.

Now do you see the theme? Here it is:

If we love Jesus, we will obey his teaching, and then he promises to stay relationally close to us. It is a wonderful promise. We can have a close relationship with the God of the universe, with the King of the Kingdom, with his Spirit. And it is not just any relationship.

I am reading a book by Christian author Sarah Bessey, and in it she describes how she was surprised to receive an invitation to a conference at the Vatican which would include an audience with the Pope. She and her husband traveled to Rome, spent a week there sightseeing, and then attended the conference. On the first day of the conference, they, along with a big group, had a personal audience with the Pope. They went to the papal apartments, up five flights of stairs and then ushered into a grand greeting room, along with maybe 100 people. Then the Pope came out, walking around the room shaking everyone’s hand. She said it was a great experience. Once in a lifetime. Super memorable and meaningful to meet someone so important.

But the relationship that Jesus promises us is very different from that. Look at the words he uses in verse 17. Jesus says that we know the Spirit, and the Spirit lives with us and will be in us. Think about that. For the true follower of Jesus, he promises the closeness of the Holy Spirit with us and in us! That’s amazing. Do you know what to do with that teaching? God in us? It is just absolutely wonderful to think about.

Jesus is far from done, though. Look how he continues in verse 18. He tells the disciples that he doesn’t want to leave them as orphans. Instead he says he will come to them. Sounds great, right? Remember that earlier in chapter 14, Jesus had been talking about how he was leaving them. Some of his disciples were clearly not thrilled with this idea, saying to him, “What’s going on? Where are you going, Jesus?” Now he saying, “Don’t worry, guys, I’m coming back.” But as he continues in verses 19-20, Jesus gets characteristically mysterious when he says, “Before long, the world won’t see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me, and I am in you.”

I can imagine the disciples scratching their heads, and saying to him, “Is this another one of those parables, Jesus, that no one understands? What do you mean that the world won’t see you, but we will see you? And ‘because I live, you also will live’?” What could Jesus be talking about? Think about it from their perspective, hearing about him being in the Father, and the disciples in him, and he in them…it just sounds strange, right?

I don’t know how much of this the disciples understood at that moment. Eventually they would get it. But it would take some time, including the upheaval of his death and resurrection, when he left them and then came back to them. It would take him spending time walking them through the Bible to understand how the old prophecies were being fulfilled in his death and resurrection, that he was the Messiah. It would take his Ascension, the moment about a month or so later when he actually did leave them for good, for them to have a further understanding of what he was talking about. But it wouldn’t fully and completely make sense until about ten days after his Ascension, when, on the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit would come to them and live with them.

That was day he had in mind when he said in verses 16-17 that the Spirit was coming to live in his disciples. This is what he meant when he said in verses 18-20 that he wouldn’t leave them as orphans, and that he would be in them. This is what he meant in verse 21 when he said that he would show himself to them. And finally this is what he meant in verse 23 when he said that he and the father would make their home in them. Through his Holy Spirit, God is with us and in us and makes his home in us. Check back in to the next post when we will look at verses 25-27 to learn more promises related to the Holy Spirit.

Is it wrong for Jesus to say, “if we love him, we’ll obey him”? – Fourth Sunday of Advent 2019, Part 2

In the previous post, we talked about Jesus makes some promises in John 14:15-31, and the main promise takes the form of an “if-then” statement. If we do x, he promises to do y. So here is the promise:

If we love him, we will obey him, and then he promises to give us what he calls another Counselor to be with us forever.

With this statement, Jesus introduces a concept that is repeated two more times in the rest of John 14. Do you see it? Scan down to verse 21. “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.” And now look ahead a few more verses to verse 23 and 24. There it is again. In verse 23 he says, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.” Then he says it again in verse 24, but from a different direction: “He who does not love me, will not obey my teaching.”

In all three instances, Jesus connects love and obedience. If we love him, we will obey him. It must be important to him because he mentions not 1 or 2 times, but three times. I don’t know about you, but when I think about that idea, that if we love him we will obey him, something about it sounds off. Something about connecting love with obedience. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all about obeying the Lord, and loving the Lord, but something doesn’t feel right about this. Anyone else sense that? What am I getting at?

Think about your human relationships. Would you say to your spouse, “If you love me, you’ll obey me?” Would you say it to a friend? Not in America in 2019, except in the super rare occasion. But marriage vows used to be this way. Maybe some of you remember when the traditional vows had the wife saying to her husband that she would what? “Love, honor and obey” him! In many places around the world, this is still very much the case, especially in those cultures that are patriarchal or male-dominant. In those places women are considered subservient. There they must obey their husbands, while their husbands are not held to the obedience standard. So maybe my trouble with this phrase from Jesus, “If you love, you’ll obey me,” is simply because of my cultural baggage.

It also could be that we humans can have a very hard time placing ourselves under the authority and submission of anyone. We are wired that way, so many of us. Not all of us, of course. But we can have feelings of rebellion and bucking authority when people try to exert their power over us. Even in a situation when it is socially or culturally acceptable, like at work when your boss is telling you what they want you to do. We can inwardly react against them, though hopefully we have enough self-control that they never know it.

It sure helps though, when the person who has authority over us is generous, kind, helpful, wise, sacrificial and loving. When that person literally chose to die for us. And that is exactly what we need to remember when we hear Jesus expressing leadership over us.

I get it if you think “if you love me, obey my commands,” sounds demeaning or authoritarian. Parental. Tying obedience to the idea of love could also come across as manipulative. “If you love me, you’ll do what I say.” If our friend was in a relationship with a person who said that, we’d tell them to break it off. So why does Jesus say this to his followers? Is he being manipulative? Demanding?

Some people sure think so. But I don’t. Instead, I believe Jesus had our best interest in mind. He knows the best possible way to live. He is not trying to twist our arms into following him. He could have forced us to follow him, but instead he choose to give us free will because he loves us and wants the true good life for us. That good life is found in obeying him.

Jesus’ call for obedience from his people is a wonderful balance of what is best for them, and what he desires most. The act of showing your love for Jesus by obeying him, rather than turning out to be manipulative, is actually life-giving, not just in the eternal sense, but in a well-rounded human way. We teach our young children to look both ways before crossing the street and to not jump into the deep end of the pool without swimmers on. Why? Because we are trying to manipulate them? No, because we love them. Because we understand things about the world that they do not know yet at that young age. We can see things that they cannot see . We aren’t trying to control them, but to love them. We want them to love us back, to trust us, and to obey. This is not a perfect example because we are not perfect parents, and we carry our own baggage into parenting. But we can know that God’s heart is perfect. His love is trustworthy. He is not carrying any baggage or manipulation to us, just perfect love for us and for our ultimate best.

We’ve heard the “if” side of the promise. Now what about the “then” side? What is the promise in this? Check back in to the next post to find out.

Why the moon freaks me out – Fourth Sunday of Advent 2019, Part 1

You know how the moon appears larger when it is low on the horizon? There are a few times each year when the full moon is visible low on the horizon straight out our back yard. When that happens, I grab my binoculars, and go out on the deck, kneel down by the railing, and rest the binoculars on the rail, steadying them to get a good look at the moon. The binoculars aren’t as good as a telescope, but they still give me a clear view of the moon’s craters. You can also see lunar mountains on the curvature of the moon. It is amazing. I love it.

I’ll reveal to you a little bit about myself here. Even though I love it, I can’t just stare at the moon endlessly. I look for maybe 20-30 seconds, and then I have to turn away. Know why? Because it freaks me out. I start thinking about how big the moon is. And how far away it is. And then I start thinking about the vastness of our solar system, and the universe, and I start to get the goosebumps. And I have to turn away.

So that night, I came inside, and I started telling my family about the moon, how I was partly freaked out, partly in awe and wonder. I asked if any of them wanted to take a look. And you know how they responded? They started making fun of me. They brought up another topic that really freaks me out. You know what that is? With this other thing, I almost can’t look at it at all. With the moon, at least I want to look at it, and I can for a while. But with this other thing, I have to turn away almost immediately. Blood? Gore? Bad injuries in football games? Nope. I can look at all that no problem. You know what gets me? Pictures and video of sunken ships like the Titanic.

Just thinking about it gives me the chills. It’s so freaky! This giant man-made boat way down at the bottom of the even bigger ocean…just sitting there, dead, rusting, dark. I don’t know what it is about shipwrecks, but they bring out a fear in me.

What do you fear?

Sometimes our fears come out in our dreams.

Ever experience that? I have dreams a lot at night. Always have throughout my whole life. Recently I had one, and it was very vivid. Can you guess what a pastor would have bad dreams about? Preaching and realizing all you have on is your underwear? Close. It wasn’t that, but it was about a worship service. This worship service was its own kind of shipwreck. Everything that could go wrong was going wrong. People participating were forgetting what do to. There were long awkward pauses. It was embarrassing. Still in the dream, after the worship service was over, I was talking with someone about it. The conversation was about how I was going to have to address all the problems that went wrong in the worship service. That would mean bringing it up to people who participated in the service! I really hate confronting people, even if it is the tiniest hint that they are doing something wrong. And it all came out in my dreams. So there you have it. My neuroses. My fears. Partly, I meant this to be humorous, but fear is all too real. Again I ask, what do you fear?

Turn to John 14:15-31, where Jesus addresses fear. This is the final sermon in our Advent series examining our longings, to see if they are in line with what God desires for us. The first week we looked at how our primary longing, the longing by which all other longings are measured, should be a longing for Jesus. From there we looked at dark longing, envy, and how Asaph in Psalm 73 reminds us that the antidote to envy is the truth that God is enough for us. Last week, though it wasn’t on the blog, we had another member of our teaching team, Emerald Peters, help us examine our longings for home and family, and how they, too, must find their fulfillment in the fact that the way, truth and life is in knowing Jesus and him alone. Emerald preached from John 14:1-14, and now this week we are looking at the second half of that chapter. So it makes sense that what we are studying today will be very connected to what we studied last week in John 14:1-14. Before continuing with this post, go ahead and read what Jesus has to say about our longings for peace, stability and security.

Perhaps you noticed that Jesus makes some promises in this chapter, promises I find quite encouraging. Think about when someone makes you a promise. In our day and age it seems that there is a growing skepticism of promises. Politicians make promises to get our votes, but many do not keep those promises. When people marry, they make promises on their wedding day, and in the USA marriage promises or vows are regularly broken. So we can grow to believe that promises are unimportant. “Show me action,” we say. There is a lot of truth to that, right? We want actions that line up with words. We don’t want empty promises. We want people who fulfill their promises.

So it is quite important to remember who is making these promises in John 14. It is Jesus. He’s not some politician that just wants to sound good. He’s not an unfaithful spouse. He’s not an absentee parent. He’s not a boss that keeps delaying a promised raise. He is God, who is the truth, as he mentions earlier in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Jesus not only makes his promises, he keeps them. Even though it might be difficult to imagine, especially if we have had people regularly make and then fail to keep their promises to us, Jesus is different. We can trust in him. He will keep his promises.

He starts with a promise right off the bat in verses 15-17 that reminds me of IFTTT. It stands for “IF This Then That,” and it is a phone app that automates your phone. For example, how many of you have had the experience of hearing the garbage truck at your neighbor’s house, and the realization hits you, “I forgot to take out the trash! Now it will build up for another week…and that will be get really stinky!” To avoid that, IFTTT helped me create an automated reminder about trash day. If it is Thursday at 5 pm, then IFTTT will send me a text message reminding me to take out the trash. If this, then that. Jesus’ promise is like that. Notice how it starts with the word “if.” If you do this, then he promises he will respond in a very specific way. So what does he want us to do, and what will his promise be? Check back in to the next post as we look at it further.

How to have victory over envy and jealousy – Second Sunday of Advent, Part 5

Throughout Advent this year, we are examining our longings. During this second week, we have been studying Psalm 73, learning what to do with envy and jealousy. If this is the first post you are reading in this series of five, I urge you to go back and start at the beginning, as the psalmist, Asaph, takes us on the journey of his struggle with the dark longing of envy. Now we’re at the end of the journey, and there is great hope for those of us who battle envy and jealousy. Asaph has revealed that worship changed everything for him.

Gather with God’s people. The other day we updated our master list of everyone who is a part of Faith Church. 140 people call Faith Church, but our attendance is averaging 80. That means every Sunday, 3/7 of our church family is not with us. What is so concerning about that, in light of Psalm 73, is the opportunity people in our church family are missing to allow worship to reorient their lives in God’s truth.

How many hours do we allow television networks to influence us each day? Think about how many hours we spend scrolling through feeds on social media apps. Think about how much we watch sports. Think about how much we watch movies and Netflix and play video games. And we have the audacity to question God about why he feels so far away. Of course our longings are misplaced. Of course we start to believe that the American Dream is actually important. And going to church on Sunday, or going to prayer meeting on Wednesday, or participating in a small group, or giving money to the church, or spending time on our own reading the Bible, praying, and choosing to give time in our lives to make disciples for Jesus, all of it seems meh. Easy to skip. Not nearly as entertaining as all those screens.

To that, we barely or rarely make a connection to how we spend our time and the vibrancy of our relationship with Jesus. Asaph is saying the same thing in Psalm 73. When he allowed his heart to focus on what appeared to be unjust and unfair, the fact that he was struggling and the wicked were prospering, he became so bitter. Asaph, in that moment, had no idea that his longings had become compromised. But when he worshiped, when he was face-to-face with truth, it was like the trance was broken, and he was able to see life as it really is. He was able to see that God is enough. And more than that, only God is enough, to fulfill our longings.

So let us fill our lives with God. If you haven’t done that, let me caution you that it won’t be easy to start. It won’t feel natural. Your longings haven’t been changed yet. They might rise up inside you with power and force, calling to be fulfilled, like cravings. But if you want true healing and wholeness, it is only God that is enough. That means persistence. Mark a line in your life today. Let today be the day.

From now on, be consistent in gathering for worship. What can you do to be at your church’s worship services more often? What other opportunities for worship does your church have? Prayer meeting? Will you consider making time for that too?

From now on, make consistent participation in a small group a priority, because we need each other in this life. God has given us each other. Don’t believe the lie that your relationship with God is just between you and him. That is totally false. Go back and read Psalm 73 and take note of how important God’s people were to Asaph.

From now on, spend time with him. What can you do to open up time in your life to be with him, to listen for his voice, remembering and believing that he is your portion?

When God is our portion, it shows. When God is our portion, when God is enough for us, the choices we make will clearly demonstrate that. I am convinced that we need a Christian audit system, where people can voluntarily submit their lives to a comprehensive audit. Where a mature, wise, trusted Christian will evaluate honestly for us how we spend our time, talent and treasure. When God is our portion, he is enough for us.

God says he is enough for us, so why doesn’t it feel like it? – Second Sunday of Advent 2019, Part 4

Have you ever questioned something like what the title of this post suggests? I have. My guess is that you have too. What do we do when God doesn’t seem to be enough for us? What do we do when we struggle with envy and jealously, especially of the arrogant and mean people who seem to be carefree and prosperous while we are trying to live God’s way, and yet are struggling.

As Asaph guides us in Psalm 73 through his struggle with envy, though he has taken us to the precipice of losing his faith, in verses 23-24 he remembers the truth that, though he was a mess and the world around him was a mess, God was actually there. God was always there, holding his hand, guiding him. That is striking to me because there are plenty of times, when it seems like God is not there. We don’t always see him or feel him. We can cry out to him, and he doesn’t answer. But the truth is that he is still there. He might be silent, but he is there.

That truth changes the game. Asaph declares in verses 25-26 that God and God alone fulfills his longings. The earth puts forth its attempts to fulfill our longings. But it has nothing compared to God.

When our flesh and heart fail, and they most certainly will, God is our strength and portion, Asaph says. That’s an astounding truth. A truth that, quite frankly, might sound hard to believe. God is better than what the world has to offer? Intellectually or theologically, I think many of us would say, “Yes, of course God is better.” But in our real lives, we so often might think or act differently from that belief.

When I am sick, I don’t say, “God, you are enough.” I say, “God, I want to be healed. How are you letting that jerk at the office be so healthy, and not me?”

When I am facing payment of taxes, I don’t say, “God, you are enough.” I say, “God, I want money. How are you letting the wicked person have wealth and not me?”

When I am facing a broken relationship, I don’t say, “God, you are enough.” I say, “God, why are you letting that idiot be so mean to me?”

If we examine our longings, so often God is not enough. If we examine our longings, we want health and wholeness the way we want them, which is usually immediately and completely.

God says to us, I am enough. Asaph is right, he gets to the proper conclusion. God is the strength of our hearts and our portion forever. God is enough to satisfy all our longings. And only God is enough.

Asaph concludes in verses 27 and 28 with a reminder that the wicked will perish, but for him, it is good to be near to God. Thus he has made God his refuge, and get this, now he will tell of all God’s deeds. Before, in verse 15, he was right to be concerned that he started talking, in the previous state of mind he was in, that he could do damage to God’s children. That’s because he was living out the false story. Now though, his thinking, his heart is in a whole different place, the true story, and he is absolutely going to tell the deeds of God.

Let God change your mind. It starts with worship. Worship music is so helpful in that regard. As I’ve said before, my song of this year has been No Longer Slaves. It has redirected me to the truth that as a child of God we are not slaves to fear. Maybe you have experienced the powerful transformation that can happen in worship. So what should we do? Check back tomorrow as we conclude our study through Psalm 73 about dark longing.

The antidote to envy – Second Sunday of Advent, Part 3

Is there any hope to rid ourselves of envy and jealousy? What are we to do with our dark longings? We can feel powerless to combat them. We hate the way they make us feel. Dissatisfied and grumpy. Convinced that the next iPhone, the next TV show, the next vacation, the next date, the debt finally paid off, the _________ (you fill in the blank) is what we need to fill that empty hole. This is especially so when our friends or co-workers seem so happy and at ease. But when we hit that milestone, we are shocked anew that the emptiness remains. Nothing has changed. New England Patriots quarterback, Tom Brady, was once asked, “How many more Super Bowl rings is enough, Tom?” His response? “One more.” At 42 years old, Brady seems to be longing for another one.

What about our poet Asaph? In this Advent series on longing, we’ve been learning from Asaph in Psalm 73, and he has allowed us to see the dark longings of his heart. Where will he go with his thoughts and his pain and his confusion? He tells us in verse 17. He enters the sanctuary. He goes into the house of God, and then he says he finally understood!

What just happened? After wrestling and struggling, as we saw in the previous post here and here, Asaph teaches us that in worship comes understanding. When we reflect on God, we learn truth.

This is one reason why it is so important to consistently gather for worship. Though we may be struggling with envy, gathered worship draws us to truth. Through the words of the songs we sing, through the testimonies we share and through Scripture we study, we are pulled back into the story of truth. So often our daily lives are caught up in another story. That’s what was happening to the psalmist. He was living life, thinking thoughts, and feeling emotions based on a false story. But he was believing it, and it was killing him.

In our day and age that same false story is very much a part of our American experience. It is the story that says the right possessions, the right amount of money, the right job, the right vacations, the right hobbies, can fulfill your longings. This is why Gore Vidal said that envy is the central fact of American life.

This is also why I chose the picture of the person shoveling dirt into a hole for this post. Our hearts are like holes that we are trying to fill, but those longings are like bottomless pits. As the psalmist discovered, we can’t fill that hole with the seeming wealth and freedom and ease we see around us.

Asaph said that in the middle of this oppressive situation, in the middle of his confusion and bitterness, he entered the sanctuary, and he re-centered on the truth.

In verses 18-20, Asaph explains the truth about the wicked. Poetically he describes that there will come a day when God will deal with them. Though the wicked seem impenetrable, God will have his day. We can bank on that. He is a righteous judge, and though the wicked might not face ruin in this lifetime, they will have to face God in the one to come.

But Asaph, in this psalm is not so concerned about the wicked getting justice. He is rightly more concerned with the shocking revelation that he has about himself. It started in verse 17 when he says he went into God’s sanctuary and he understood. Now look at verses 21-22.

Asaph’s moment of self-awareness is new. He admits that he was really far gone before. When he had allowed his heart and mind, his longings, to be captured by the prosperity and health he saw around him in lives of the wicked, he now knows that he was senseless and ignorant and a brute beast, and he tells God so.

This is Asaph’s cry of confession and repentance. He is saying, “God I was focused on the wrong things, and it turned me into something far from what you wanted for me.” In fact, he describes himself as a brute beast. He is depicting in that phrase the difference between a human and an animal. Big difference, right? Humans have the highest capacity in the animal kingdom for thought, emotion, reflection, and more. Animals are controlled by their instincts, drives, and primarily hunger.

I have no idea if animals have souls or if dogs will go to heaven. I have spent a lot of time with our dog, and there are times I think he has genuine emotion, such that it seems he must have a soul. In fact I recently read an article saying that when a dog puts their paw on you, that is how they say, “I love you.” But there are many other times when I think our dog’s instincts control him almost to the point where he is a soulless robot. If we take him out to do his business in the back yard, and there is a squirrel within range, he will lunge after it every time. Even though he is hooked on a leash, and the squirrel is 20 feet up in the tree, he will try to defy gravity and jump straight up in the air to reach it. Every time. What bugs me the most is his barking when cars pull into our driveway. We’re all inside in the living room, and as soon as hears a car, he starts barking immediately and loudly. You’d think after three years I’d be used to it, but it can still often make me jump. If the person stays in their car checking text messages or something, he continues barking, and he will not stop. I honestly don’t think he can stop. It’s like he has this genetic robotic programming in him that is ruling him. In that sense he is a brute beast. The psalmist says he became like that. He allowed himself to be so caught up in the false story that he could not see life any other way. Bitterness and anger and envy and jealousy was crushing him. It took worship to yank him out of the false story, back into the truth.

Worship is an antidote to envy and jealousy. Check back in to the next post, as Asaph will guide us further into combating envy in our lives.

How envy rots our insides – Second Sunday of Advent 2019, Part 2

Have you ever burned with envy? You’re not alone. Envy is, as we saw in the previous post, considered to be the central fact of American Life. In our Advent series, Longings, this second week we are looking at envy through the lens of ancient poem, Psalm 73. So far we have seen the author, Asaph, tell us that he almost lost his faith because of envy.

Specifically he envied of the arrogant and wicked. You might think, “Why, Asaph? Why envy the arrogant? What about the wicked might make you jealous?” He tells us: their prosperity. He doesn’t want to be like them in their wickedness or arrogance. He wants to be like them in their prosperity.

How many of you have felt that? I listen to a podcast called Slow Burn, and right now they are in Season 3. The first season was about President Nixon and the Watergate scandal. Season 2 was about President Clinton and all his scandals. For Season 3 they went in a completely different direction, and they are investigating the feud in hip-hop rap between the East Coast and West Coast in the 1990s that led to the deaths of one rapper from each side, Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls. There have been times in all three seasons when I have thought something very similar to what Asaph says. All of these people, from presidents to rap stars, behaved with arrogance and wickedness, yet prospered in their wickedness.

It can get us really bitter when we look at them, seemingly with no troubles and loads of cash. That’s what Asaph says in verses 4-12. The wicked seem to be healthy and free, even while they are acting with pride and violence. They are able to persist in evil that knows no limits, to the point where it seems they are untouchable.

They even act and talk god-like (verse 9), as if heaven and earth are theirs, and people eat it up (verse 10). It seems like no one would fall for arrogant, wicked boasting, but plenty of people do. There is part of me that wants to say, “Come on, Asaph, you are exaggerating.” But all it takes is to consider politicians in our society, and Asaph is right on the money, isn’t he? Read the tweets, listen to the interviews and there are plenty of people exactly like Asaph describes. It’s not just politicians, rap stars or sports figures. I’ve heard people, famous and obscure, in all walks of life, talk like this. From teenagers in school cafeterias, to soccer moms, to seminary professors. I’m guessing you’ve heard it too. Arrogance is everywhere.

It might seem crazy, but so often we really do long for it. We long for what appears to be strength, and freedom, and ease and comfort.

Sometimes it is non-Christian arrogance. That’s what Asaph mentions in verse 11. People in their pride challenging God. That’s no joke.

Yet, he says in verse 12, and this is what can be so frustrating, that wicked, godless, arrogant people increase in wealth. It doesn’t seem right! The politician with the horrible comments in interviews wins another election. The foul-mouthed sports star gets another huge contract. The actress that sleeps around is hired for film after film for millions a piece. The CEO who makes a hundred times what his employees make, while he is a total jerk to them.

So our very normal reaction is to look at how the wicked prosper, and then look at how we, striving to follow Jesus, struggle. How many of you have thought to yourself, for example, “Who came up with the pay structure in our society?” Or we say, “I teach kids, or I serve as a first responder, or I am a health care worker, or I am a pastor, and society values me economically less than them? I am giving, I am serving, I am busting my butt.”

This is what Asaph is getting at in verse 13. Any follower of Jesus could think this way when life is hard. “Lord, I have followed your ways. I have tried to give to the church. I did not have sex before marriage. I exercise. And this is what I get?” When we struggle to pay the bills, when we have a health issue, when we lose our job, or lose a loved one, we can really start thinking that it isn’t worth it, all that spiritual toil.

I’m not saying that when we think this way, that we are at all thinking theologically correctly. When we think like that, we often betray what is called a works righteousness theology. Work righteousness theology says, “If I behave well, then I will be saved.” Or “If I do what God says, then God will bless me,” as if God is a spiritual ATM who has to bless us when we behave a certain way.

That’s just not the case. But do we think that way? Maybe more than we realize. When we try to live rightly, and then bad stuff happens to us, we can be really upset. What we are often showing is the true longing of our hearts. We want blessing more than we want Jesus. We want health, we want riches, we want power, we want influence, we want attractiveness, we want good feelings, and often our Christian living is in hopes of getting all that good stuff, rather than just simply living for Jesus. Thus when the bad stuff happens to us, we are crushed.

I hear the crushing disappointment in the longings of the psalmist. Look at verse 14. He says he is plagued. Punished.

He is really wrestling because, looking at verse 15, he wants to let these emotions and thoughts out. He wants to complain, he wants to rant, he wants to post on social media, he wants to text his friends, but he is concerned, and this is a good sign that the condition of his heart is not totally corrupted: he is afraid that he will betray God’s children. I find that fascinating. In the midst of his wrestling with his unfulfilled longings and his envy and his disappointment, he still has a sense of responsibility for how his words will affect other followers of God. After so many verses describing his struggle, we get a glimmer of hope here. Maybe this guy’s not only filled with envy and jealousy. Maybe he is not just focused on himself. In verse 15 we learn that there is still a part of his heart that has selfless longings.

Watching the wicked prosper while he struggles, Asaph knows that this private battle he is having between himself and God must stay private because he doesn’t want to do damage to others by letting it out. This is instructive to us in our interactions with the world. I’m not saying that we lie. Social media can be a way that people really lie, presenting images of themselves as happy, carefree, and always going on amazing cool adventures, when in reality their lives have other sides too. Sure, there are the happy times in their lives, but there are also hard times and sad times, but they never or rarely show the darkness. We Christians should be committed to truth, presenting our lives as they really are. But the psalmist is also right, that we don’t want to needlessly drag people down.

It is important to admit that the struggle is real. He comes right back to that in verse 16. He wants to talk and let it out, but he doesn’t want to hurt people. So he says that he finds this dilemma oppressive. Not to mention the fact that the whole situation is hard to understand. Why does God allow the wicked to prosper, while at the same time there are righteous who suffer? Why do the wicked seem so carefree, while they are still behaving wicked? Yet those attempting to be righteous can struggle and feel plagued and punished. It is hard to understand. It can make us crazy.

We can think that God would be far better off getting people to believe in and follow him if he flipped the script, and made the righteous (or at least those who are really trying to be righteous) to be generally blessed, and allow the wicked generally to suffer. Am I wrong? Isn’t that the dilemma we wrestle with when we are struggling? I am grateful that Asaph is so honest in this Psalm. God does allow the wicked to prosper and the righteous to suffer, and that can make us pull our hair out.

It has led some people to stop believing in God. What does Asaph do? Where will he go with his thoughts and his pain and his confusion? Check back in to the next post where we find out.