What if Christianity’s massive investment in worship is wrong?

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Is it possible that Christianity’s massive investment in worship is misguided?

Think about it.  We invest a lot of time, money and energy into worship, don’t we?

One morning or evening each week is devoted to it.  Our society is very much oriented toward a weekly schedule that keeps Sunday mornings free.

We also build buildings for worship.  We don’t have to.  We could worship without them.  But it is also not wrong to build buildings.  The simple matter of fact, though, is we build buildings, lots of them.  I don’t know the specific number, but I have heard that there are about 800 churches in Lancaster County, and most of them have buildings and property.  Some are massive, some tiny, and many sizes in between.  Drive around Lancaster County and start tallying up the church buildings and you lose count.  Think about that with me for a minute.  What would you estimate the average value of a church building and property to be?  Now multiply that by 800.  Then add the years upon years of furnishings, utilities and upkeep.  That’s a lot of money, isn’t it?  I wouldn’t doubt the figure is in the billions of dollars.

Then think about the other costs of worship.  Staff is the big one.  That’s me.  The pastors.  Then there are worship leaders and the many other staff.  Multiply that by 800 churches, and here in Lancaster we spend a lot of money on hiring people to be involved in worship and worship programs, don’t we?

Next think of the time involved.  Not just the 1.5 to 3 hours that you spend attending worship service and classes.  Also add in the prep time, the volunteer time.  Multiply that by 52 weeks every year.  The result is a boatload of hours.

Put it all together and what do you have?  We Christians make a massive investment in worship, don’t we?  Why do we do this?  The standard answer, and it is a good one, is that we give so much because God is worthy of our worship.

Not so fast, though.  God is worthy, no question about it, but does that mean we can worship him however we want?

Because we invest so much into worship, it is incumbent on us to evaluate our investment, right?  When you give time and energy and money to something, you are being responsible if you evaluate how that time, energy and money is being used, right?

How many of you would want to stand before God in heaven and hear him say “Your worship was seriously wrong.  All that time and energy and money you spent on Sunday mornings in your buildings with your professional staff and worship services with songs and sermons and classes…I didn’t want you to do that!”  You would want to know that,  right?  And you’d want to know what God wants sooner rather than later, wouldn’t you?  I would.  In fact, even if he said “You were on the right track, you were mostly right, about 75% correct in your investment in worship, but here are some things I wish you had done differently…” I would want to know that too!  I would want to know even if we only got 5% wrong.  Even if it was 1%.  But how can we know?

When I meet people who don’t know much about Faith Church, they often have a series of questions they ask me:  How big is the church?  Is it inter-generational?  And what kind of worship do you have?  When they ask about worship, they’re not wondering about my sermons.  They are wondering about the music!  Is it traditional, contemporary, blended?  We had a guest musician at our church a year ago or so for a special service, and he asked me that question: “What kind of worship do you have?”  When I answered “experimental”, you should have seen the wrinkled up, confused look on his face.  It was great!   More recently I have changed my answer a bit.  I still describe our worship as experimental, but I try to explain it a bit because people don’t know what I mean.

So what do I mean by “experimental”?  People from Faith Church reading this might actually be confused by what I’m saying here because most Sundays we have a typical standby kind of worship.  If you’ve been with us for a couple months, you know what I mean:  welcome & announcements, focusing prayer, worship songs (mixture of old and new), sharing time, prayer, dismissal of kids, sermon, closing song, fellowship time.  Doesn’t sound very experimental does it?

But I say that we are experimental because about once per quarter we try to do something completely different.  Silent Sunday, Church has left the building, Worship in the park, worship in the Fellowship Hall around tables, artistic Sunday, change up the order of worship, change the method of communion, etc.  It has been wonderful having the variety!

Why do we experiment with worship?

We experiment because we don’t ever want to give ourselves the idea that we have worship figured out.  We always want to have the posture of learners when it comes to worship.  There is no one right way to worship. We can learn from many different Christian traditions and new and upcoming styles about worship. Silent Sunday, for example, was informed by Quaker and Taize worship.  We want to keep learning.

Why am I saying all this about experimental worship and being learners about worship?  Because on our next two Sundays in our study of 1st Timothy, Paul teaches Timothy about worship.  This is perfect for people who see themselves as learners of worship.  Learners of worship don’t come to worship expecting to worship how they like to worship. Instead learners of worship come to worship services expecting God to teach them.  That’s you and me. We are learners of worship.  Disciples are learners from Jesus.  And when we come to worship we come with hearts and minds that pray “Lord teach me today.  Teach me how to worship you.  Teach me what you want to teach me.”

Learners come to worship with teachable hearts and minds!  And for the next two Sundays we are going to learn from Paul how to worship.  Paul wanted Timothy to teach the church in Ephesus about worship. You are welcome to join us at Faith Church on Sunday if you want to learn about worship too!  To prepare you might consider reading 1st Timothy 2.  Hope to see you there!

Two things Christians should fight for

Image result for fight the good fightPaul tells Timothy to fight the good fight.  Generally Christians are not supposed to be fighting.  So what fight is Paul talking about?  He calls it a good fight.  Not too many fights could be described as good ones.

Life can feel like a fight.  Have you ever felt that way?  Life seems too hard sometimes doesn’t it?   Is that what Paul is referring to?

Actually, Paul is saying, the fight to stay faithful to the Lord is a good fight. And maybe that resonates with you.  If you are a following of Jesus, you might know the feeling of how difficult it can be to remain faithful to the Lord.  This life is full of temptations which, if we caved in, would lead us to be unfaithful to God.  Sometimes it is our own bodies that tempt us.  Sometimes it is an addiction.  We know that Satan loves to tempt us.  Sometimes it is other people.  Staying faithful to God can seem like a battle.  Paul says it is a good fight.

 

In our study of 1st Timothy, we have come to chapter 1, verses 18-20.  There Paul describes  what he wants Timothy to fight for: first, to hold on to faith, and, second, to hold on to a good conscience.

The image here of holding on is a person who is holding on to an object and not letting go.  It is an iron grip.  I know in life it can often feel like we are losing grip on our faith.  In the next verse Paul is going to refer to some guys that did just that.  Hymenaeus and Alexander, he says, lost their faith.  Part one of fighting the good fight is to hold on to faith.

The second thing Paul wants Timothy to hold on to is a good conscience.  What is the conscience?

One scholar says that it is “the psychological faculty which can distinguish between right and wrong”.  That same scholar goes on to say that “In some languages [this word] may [refer to] ‘the inner voice’ or ‘the voice in one’s heart’ or ‘how one knows right from wrong.’”

So Paul is referring to something that is inherently within us.  We believe that God created all humanity with this inner voice, this true psychological faculty to distinguish right from wrong.  That doesn’t mean that all people will do the right thing.  You can know the right and not do it.  I think we all are very aware of this in our lives.  How many times do we know what is right, but we do what is wrong?  What is worse, it seems that the more we do the wrong, the less we are aware of the right.

We can see why Paul would place such importance on fighting the good fight in the areas of faith and good conscience. Hold tightly on to them!

How do we hold on to a good conscience?

  1. Keep a sensitive ear to the voice of the Lord. The means we should practice prayer.
  2. Remain teachable.  Remember the story of Samson in the Old Testament?  He didn’t even realize that God had departed from him.  He wasn’t teachable.
  3. Read the Bible. It is our instruction.  We need to know who God is and what he wants us to do.
  4. Be doers of the word, which means that when you read the Bible, you then do what it says. This may require change.
  5. Have accountability. This means close fellowship with other Christians.

We have to intentionally work at being sensitive to God. If you let it go one day, it will be easier the next day to grow callous to God.  If you keep letting it go, you can find yourself quite distant from God.

In the physical world, the less food we get, the hungrier we get.  In the spiritual world, it is the opposite: the less food we get, the less spiritually hungry we get.  If you skip lunch, you’re crazy hungry by dinner, right?  If you skip out on spending time with God, though, you start to lose desire for it.  I wish the spiritual worked like the physical in this regard.  I wish I would get spiritually hungrier if I skipped time with God.  But I have found that when I distance myself from God, I only grow more apathetic about him.

It is more like relationships.  When distance is put between two people, they start to fall away.  So we need to fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience.

To successfully fight the good fight, I’d like to talk a bit more about one of the suggestions I made above, remaining teachable.  I have found in the last 20 years or so, that a healthy self-awareness, humility and teachability are perhaps the most important foundation a disciple of Jesus must have.  If we want to fight the good fight, first we must be teachable and humble.

We should be Christians who are seeking out the truth about ourselves.   Think about yourself.  Are you actively seeking people to speak the blunt honest truth about yourself?  Or are you thinking “I’m scared of what people think about me…I want to avoid it.  I don’t want to hear what people think of me.”  Would you rather live in a fantasy world of your own making?

Many of us choose to live in a fantasy world because it is much easier.   In those fantasy worlds, we are generally pretty awesome people who don’t have to change.  In those fantasy worlds we can tell ourselves that we are good.  But a huge part of holding on the faith and a good conscience is being humble and teachable.

It means having a healthy self-awareness, and a willingness to speak openly and honestly about yourself, both your successes and your failings.   And that means that you invite the tough stuff into your world.

So let us fight the good fight, hold on to faith, and a good conscience.

Fighting the good fight implies that it will be tough.  Paul doesn’t say “sleep on a cozy bed.”  “Eat delicious desserts”  “Enjoy a stress-free walk.”

He says “fight the good fight.”  It is good.  And it is a fight.  It is good, worth it, fighting for the mission of the  Kingdom of God. It is a fight against evil, a fight against injustice, a fight against Satan, a fight against selfishness and pride.

But it is a fight, and fights are hard.  They require energy, time, and usually bring pain and hurt.  Disciples of Jesus are fighters.  But they fight the good fight.

Jesus said something about this fighting concept when he said, “take up your cross and follow me.”  He was referring to self-denial.  It is a fight. Often a fight against our inner inclination toward selfishness.

If you don’t want to shipwreck your faith, you’ve got to keep fighting.

How is your faith grip-strength?

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What is your grip strength?  Did you ever take a grip strength test?

Have you ever used grip strengthening handles?  You squeeze them over and over, hoping to strengthen your grip.

It is a good thing to strengthen your grip.

I bring this up, because I want you to think about your grip on your faith in God?

Do you ever feel like your grip on your faith is wearing thin?

Have you ever had a time in life when you lost your faith?  Turned your back on faith?  Or when you really felt distant from God?

Think about it right now.  How close are you to God?  You might feel like you have a strong grip on faith in God.  Maybe it could be stronger?  You might feel like your grip on faith is failing.  You might feel like you have no grip at all.

In our church like ours, I imagine that our church family is all over the spectrum.  It would be unwise and naïve to assume that every single one of us have a strong faith and feel really close to God.

So evaluate your faith.  Do you have a tight grip on faith, or is it weak, or no grip at all.

When we talk about having a grip on our faith, I am insinuating that we have to do something about our faith, that we have a responsibility to hold on to it.  And that we can lose hold of it.  I am saying that we have a responsibility to hold on to our faith.  We are involved in the process.

But am I right?  What is our involvement in holding on to our faith?  Maybe I’m wrong.  Christians have long debated this.  Is faith a work of God or a work of people?

Today as we continue studying Paul’s first letter to Timothy, we’re talking about grip strength, our faith grip strength.

We invite you to join us at Faith Church, as we look at what Paul says about faith grip strength.  To get a preview, read 1st Timothy 1:18-20.

How God feels about sinners…even the worst ones!

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Can God save the worst sinner ever?  Would he want to?  You and I might not feel like the worst sinners ever in history, but we can often feel pretty guilty about our bad choices.  In the middle of the guilt, we wonder, “How does God feel about us when we have screwed up?”

As I mentioned last week in the intro post, our continuing study in 1st Timothy brings us to chapter 1, verses 12-17.  In that section, the writer of this letter, Paul, declares that he was the worst sinner.  He calls himself a blasphemer and persecutor, a man who arrogantly insulted God.  If you want, you can read all about it in Acts 7-9.  Paul is not exaggerating.  He was part of the same religious establishment that opposed Jesus, and now a few years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, Paul was leading the charge to round up Jesus’ followers and crush their movement.

Why wouldn’t God just eliminate Paul?  Instead, Paul tells us in 1st Timothy 1:12-17 that God considered Paul faithful.  Faithful?  That seems incredulous.  How could God see Paul as faithful when Paul was on the brink of destroying God’s new movement to save the world?  The reason is that while Paul had not placed his faith in Jesus, Paul was very passionate about what he considered to be the truth about God, the Old Covenant that God had with Israel.  Therefore Paul considered the Christians a cult, a threat to the truth.

So Jesus stepped in, as you can read in Acts 9, when Paul was headed to imprison more Christians.  Literally breaking out of heaven in a bright light, Jesus revealed himself to Paul, totally changing the course of Paul’s life.   In 1 Timothy 1, at the end of verse 13 Paul looks back on that momentous event when God changed his life, and Paul says he was shown mercy because he acted in ignorance and unbelief.

The word here that Paul uses to describe how much grace and faith and love God gave him is quite vivid.  The NIV uses the image of pouring, but I would argue that there is a better image.  The word is actually a compound word “over fill”.  It is the image of a cup into which a liquid is poured not just to the top, not to the brim, but overflowing.  The liquid pours out over the edges.  The container cannot contain that much!

I love that.  That’s how much grace and faith and love God gives to us!  More than we can handle.  You are the container, and God is filling you with his grace and faith and love, and he is giving you more of his goodness that you can hold!

That’s how amazing God is.

Paul continues talking about this in verse 15 where he refers to the mission of Jesus to save sinners.  Paul was the worst. Paul is using himself as an illustration of how far-reaching God’s grace is.  He was the worst of sinners.  Everyone in the early church knew this.

He was ISIS.  He was their worst enemy.  And how do you think they felt when they heard that their worst enemy supposedly changed into their strongest advocate?

No way, buddy!

How would you feel if a top ISIS leader started saying that he was now a Christian?

No one would believe him!  That’s what Paul was going through.

But the change in Paul was true, and in due time, Paul showed them that it was true.  We see clearly in Paul that Jesus has the power to save anyone and to change anyone’s life.  Even the worst of sinners.

I hear Paul saying in this passage that he was the worst of sinners, and I think “I don’t know if you were actually the worst of sinners even in your own time, Paul, but I can pretty much guarantee that with all the horrible stuff that has happened in the last 2000 years since you wrote this, you aren’t even close to the worst.”

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized it doesn’t matter who is actually the worst sinner, or whether or not Paul was the worst sinner.  What matters is that Paul saw himself as the worst sinner.

And when you can be honest about how sinful you really are, then you start to see how amazing God’s grace and mercy are.  Christian pastor and author Tim Keller has said “We only fully grasp the gospel when we understand, as Paul did, that we are the worst sinner we know.”

I’ll never forget a sight I saw at EC National Conference a few years ago.  We were all singing praise to God, a normal part of our sessions of conference.  One particular song emphasized this theme of brokenness before God, of taking our sin seriously, and a man in the crowd, without any prodding from the worship leader, got up from his seat, walked down the aisle, and got down on his knees in front of the whole assembly.  He was clearly broken up inside about his sin.

Do we let ourselves off the hook?  I wonder if we haven’t fully grasped the Gospel because we haven’t taken our sin seriously?

And if you’re thinking “Man, Joel…this sin talk dire stuff.  Bleak.”  Get ready.  What comes next is a game changer.

In verse 16, Paul says something that many people think is crazy: God showed mercy to the worst of sinners!

God shows mercy to sinners, even to really bad sinners.  And more than that, why would God do this?  Paul says that God showed mercy to him so that Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.

God had unlimited patience for sinners.  That is crazy talk.  Unlimited?  On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is no patience and 10 is unlimited patience, where do you rank yourself?

God is a 10.  He is the only one who is a 10.

When you realize how God is so merciful, so patient with you, even when you feel like the worst of sinners, what do you do?  You do what Paul did!

In verse 17 he bursts forth in praise: “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever!”  Praise Him!  Paul is praising him as he thinks about how amazing God was to him.

This is who God is!  Paul is looking at the depths of evil that was in his heart and how God saved him.  And he bursts with praise.

Paul uses himself as an example of why we should praise the Lord.  But all of us have stories.

If God can save the worst of sinners, of course he can save the rest of us.

Paul is also an example for us in that he is sharing his story.  Likewise we should share our stories of God’s intervention in our lives.  And I’m not talking about only super dramatic stories.  Stories of God’s work in the non-dramatic moments are also amazing.  It is just as astounding for God to save us in a non-dramatic way as it is for God to break out of the clouds and save a Christian-killer like Paul.

All of us should have the words of praise found in verse 17 flooding our hearts and minds!

So if you grew up in a Christian family and you always believed in Jesus, that is just as awesome as if you didn’t grow up in a Christian family and have a more intense conversion experience.

Christians, be reminded of the grace, love and patience of God in saving you, pour out in praise, and tell the story!

Who was the worst sinner ever?

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Have you committed a sin lately?

Might be a question with an obvious answer “Yes!” because we all sin.  Sometimes I hear people say that they sin all the time. Others I’ve heard say they don’t sin much.

Whether many times a day or hardly at all, even one sin can have us feeling guilty.  And that is not a good feeling.  When I feel guilt, it is an actual feeling.  Very similar to feeling sick in the stomach.  And it is connected to my thoughts.  I feel guilty because I think I am guilty.  I have all kinds of negative thoughts about it.  Why did I do that?  What are the consequences going to be?  Will it be costly?  Painful?  Damaging to a relationship?  Damaging to my future?  Will people look down on me?  Will I be fired?  Will people hate me?  You know the thoughts.

What makes the thoughts so devastating is that they are connected to our actions.  We chose to act in a certain way that was wrong.

We chose to sin.  Sin.  We use that word, but what exactly does it mean?

Sin is when we act in a way that is wrong.  For the Christian, the determination of what is wrong is simply anything that God does not approve of.  There are sins of commission, when we do something God does not want us to do.  There are also sins of omission, when we do not do something God does want us to do.  Either way, by doing the wrong or leaving the good undone, God doesn’t approve.  That is sin.

That might make God out to be a cosmic party-pooper, as if he wants life to be miserable and hard.  But those of us who have walked with God for some time have found the opposite to be true.  The way of God Kingdom is actually in our best interest.  Sin, therefore, is an act against the way of God’s Kingdom, and not in our best interest.  This is why I urge you not to believe depictions of Jesus and the disciples as a bunch of ultra-serious bores.  Do you really believe his disciples would have given their lives to follow him, or that thousands upon thousands would have sought Jesus out if he was a terrible leader, dry, icy, and pathetic?  I bet he had them in stitches all the time.  And when you think of Jesus that as a great leader, you can also know that God is like that too.  He’s fun, good, exciting, and loves us.  And the way of his Kingdom is to help shape us into his image.

That’s why when we sin, we should take it seriously.  So again, I ask, have you sinned lately?  How do you feel about it?  Ever feel guilty about your sin?

Sometimes we sin so much, or we have a particular sin that seems to just have a grip on us.  As a result the guilt can be emotionally crippling.  We feel like the worst of sinners.  We’re good at exaggerating our impact, for good and bad.  The worst of sinners?  Probably not even close.  But we can feel pretty guilty.

As we continue our teaching series through the letter called 1st Timothy, we next meet someone who gave himself the title “the worst of sinners.”  If you had to list out the top 10 sinners in history, who would make the list?  Hitler?  Stalin?  There have been some pretty bad sinners.  So who is the worst?  Check out 1st Timothy 1:12-17 to get ready, and join us at Faith Church to learn more.

How to stop the drama in your life

Image result for how to stop dramaAre you a drama magnet?  A drama queen?  None of us likes to admit it, so maybe I should ask “Has anyone ever told you that you are a drama queen?”  Have you ever looked at your life and thought, “Why does drama seem to follow me around?”  In my post last week, I shared some suggestions for determining if you are a drama magnet.  The first step is to open your mind to the possibility.  Would you do that?  Would you open your mind to the possibility?  Read the post to learn more.

Even if you still conclude that you are not a drama magnet, I would venture a guess that most of us on this planet feel like we have too much drama in our lives.  We’d like to deal with it.  We’d like to remove it from our lives.  Know this, it is possible to stop the drama.

Yesterday, we continued our teaching series through the Apostle Paul’s letter to a young pastor Timothy, which is why the letter is called 1st Timothy.  Last Sunday we looked at the introduction, and yesterday we studied Paul’s first instructions, which you can read in 1st Timothy 1:3-11.  He has a command for Timothy.  Simply put, the command is “Timothy, I’ve been hearing about the drama queens in the church, and you must stop them.”

That might sound harsh, but we must remember that Paul started this church.  He knew these people well, as he had spent nearly three years with them.  He loved them, and he wanted them to thrive as a church.  When he hears about the drama, he knows that is not in their best interest, and worse, it has a strong chance of ruining the life-changing work that God wants to do in their town.  The drama has to stop.

But how?

In this passage Paul reminds Timothy that the people in the church need to have a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith, which will lead to love.  Basically Paul is saying that we need to be transformed within, because what is inside us what matters. These qualities turn our lives into fertile soil from which love grows.

As Jesus said, “out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.”  We need to remove the junk from inside and place goodness within.  Then love will flow from our lives rather than controversy.  We’ll notice that we are starting drama much less as we love more. And when drama enters into our lives, as it almost surely will, we will be prepared to respond to it with love rather than more drama.

Paul teaches Timothy a powerful principle about Christian faith.  Disciples of Jesus stop the drama because they have been inwardly transformed.  Disciples of Jesus have a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith, all of which work together to build a solid foundation of love in their lives.  It is a foundation that cannot be shaken by controversy and drama that so often seeks to throw us off kilter.

The question, then, is this: how do we change from the inside?  How do we transform a dirty heart into a pure heart, an faulty conscience into a good one, weak faith into sincere faith?

We had a good discussion about this very question at sermon discussion group yesterday.  Let’s keep that discussion going in the comments below!  Please share your practical suggestions for how to change your inner life.

I have a few suggestions that I believe are basic.  When I played soccer in college, our coach required us to start every practice with 10-15 minutes of working on basic ball control skills.  You’d think that a college-level player should be way beyond that, right?  You’d think that in college we had the basics mastered long ago, so we could spend time on advanced skills and tactics.

My coach was on to something important, though.  We should see the basics as important all the time.  Just as practicing the basics is vital in sports, in music, it is in faith.  So I recommend that if you want to move on to a more sincere faith, if you want to move on to a purer heart and good conscience, then first ask yourself how you are doing with the basic habits of faith?

Basic Habit #1 – Prayer.  Are you praying that God will change you?  How often are you praying?  How can you go deeper in prayer, spend more time in prayer?  Will you need to get someone to help you pray?  Will you need to stop doing something, like watching TV, in order to make more room in your life to pray?

Basic Habit #2 – Study.  Are you reading the Bible?  Are you thinking about what you read?  How often do you read the Bible?  And when you read, how much do you read?  Do you need to get someone to help you understand what you are reading?  Most importantly of all, are applying what you read to your life?

Basic Habit #3 – Accountability.  Are you talking about your inner life with anyone?  Are you isolated?  Who can you talk to about the purity level of your heart?  Who can you talk to about your conscience?  About how to have a more sincere faith?  Disciples of Jesus are not meant to go it alone.  Instead we grow through relationship.  Just like Paul is staying in touch with Timothy through this letter, we need people in our lives to help us grow. This is also why a church family is so important.

What are other habits have you used that help you grow?

 

 

How to know if you are a drama magnet!

drama-magnetAre you a drama magnet?  Of course not!  No one wants to admit it.  But really, are you?

Do you find that your life seems to be filled with drama?  Have you ever considered that all the drama in your life is because you are a drama magnet?

What would you family say?  What would your friends say?  Maybe you should ask them!

Many people have written articles describing drama magnets.  Here is compilation from those articles with some signs that you are a drama magnet:

  1. Perceiving danger around every corner.
  2. Personalizing things that aren’t personal.
  3. Attempting to control things you can’t.
  4. Feeling mistreated or taken advantage of by others.
  5. Being easily overwhelmed or distraught.
  6. Taking on too much responsibility for the happiness of others.
  7. Feeling constantly caught off guard.
  8. Obsession with your appearance.
  9. Stirring up drama.
  10. Fascination with drama.
  11. You’re regularly in arguments with people, but you’re unwilling to apologize.
  12. You love airing your dirty laundry on social media.

Do any of these describe you?  If so, would you like to remove drama from your life?

The reason why I’m asking if you are a drama magnet is that is the first thing Paul talks about with Timothy.  At Faith Church we’ve started studying a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to his close friend Timothy.  Paul was one of the first missionaries in the Christian church.  During his journeys he met a young man Timothy, and invited Timothy to join him.  As they journeyed across the Roman Empire carrying the message of good news about Jesus, Paul trained Timothy to be a minister too.  Eventually, Paul assigned Timothy as pastor over the church in the important city of Ephesus.  What we learned last week is that Timothy was young, the church in Ephesus had some troubles, and Paul was concerned that things might not work out.  So he wrote Timothy a letter continuing Timothy’s training.  What would he tell Timothy?  After a greeting, the first thing Paul teaches Timothy about is drama magnets.

Some people call them drama queens.  Maybe you know one.  Maybe you are one and don’t know it.

Join us at Faith Church on Sunday January 15, 2017 as we’ll be looking at 1 Timothy 1:3-11.

Is there hope during these dark days of Christmas 2016?

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Just in the news on Monday 12/19/16:

  1. The Chinese Navy intercepts a US Navy underwater drone.
  2. A Turkish man assassinates a Russian Ambassador.
  3. A man drives a truck into a Berlin, Germany, Church Christmas market killing 12, injuring dozens more.
  4. The American Electoral College elects Donald Trump president, a candidate whose major proposals included building a wall to keep immigrants out of the USA, and deporting Muslim people from the USA.
  5. Lots of discussion about whether Russia interfered in our election process through hacking of emails.
  6. People fleeing the bombed-out Syrian city of Aleppo.

That was all on one day.  Geesh.  Kinda gives me the shakes just looking at it.

The other day I was driving my car down the road to the church as I always do, and it struck me how normal the drive was.  People in other cars passing me.  Houses.  Trees.  All very normal.  And then I thought, I wonder how life will change in these next four years with our new president.  Will driving down the road be just as normal as it is today?

That might sound like a ridiculous question.  But I wasn’t really thinking about the act of driving, or the technology of a car.  We know that car technology is changing, and in four years from now there will be different cars, with different technology.  Maybe there will be cars that drive themselves, or cars that talk to one another.  Maybe it will be a safer way to travel.  But that’s not what I was thinking about that day.

In my mind I was thinking about the world.  I was thinking about the news and how troubling it all is.  Any one of those news items I mentioned are serious and in bygone eras have been acts of war that led to devastating conflicts.

I think about the song “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”  You know that song?  Here’s how it goes:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head:
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

You’d think the song was written for our time.  But it wasn’t.  The lyrics of the song are based on an old poem.  One of America’s greatest poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote the poem “Christmas Bells” on Christmas Day 1863.

Think with me about what was happening in our country in 1863.  The Civil War.  In March of that year Longfellow’s oldest son, joined the Union Army without his father’s blessing.  Longfellow found out in a letter.

Longfellow wrote the poem on Christmas Day just a month after getting the news that his son was severely wounded in the Battle of New Hope Church in Virginia.  Two years before that, Longfellow had lost his beloved wife of 18 years when she was terribly burnt in a fire.  It was a dark Christmas day for him.

We might not be in Civil War, but the world feels very dark this Christmas Day, doesn’t it?  As we have been learning this past month studying Isaiah, the world was a dark place for the Judean Israelites during Isaiah’s day too.   Armies from all around were constantly threatening to invade them.  The world was dim.  In the next prophecy God talks to the people walking in darkness.

Into that dark world, both theirs and ours, God gives Isaiah a prophecy.  Join us this Sunday, Christmas Day at Faith Church, as we look at Isaiah 9:1-7.  Will we find light and hope to encourage us in the darkness?  I trust we will.  I know this.  We will learn the end of the song.  There are more verses…

If you God gave you one wish… (or what to do when you feel God is distant)

wishIf God came to you saying “I’ll give you anything,” what would you ask for? 

In our study of prophecies of the Messiah from Isaiah, we come to Isaiah 7, and God does something that highly unusual.

In Isaiah 7:10-12, God gives the Judean King Ahaz the opportunity to request a sign.  And not just some simple sign like Gideon’s fleece.  He tells Ahaz he can ask for anything.  I love how Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message: “Ask for the Moon!”

I would be drooling.  I’d be thinking “Okay, God!  Yes!  Thank you!  You remember that one time when you parted the waters of the Red Sea?  How about you do that again!”

Or maybe “Lord, drop a million bucks in my bank account, and I promise I’ll give 90% back to the church and missionaries.”  And I’d still have 100 grand!

This is a unique situation.  God is asking giving this wicked king, Ahaz, the opportunity of a lifetime.

If you’re like me, you’re wondering why in the world YHWH would do this?  Is he testing Ahaz?  Is he giving him a riddle of some kind?

I would like to suggest to you that none of those reasons are why God did this.  Instead this is an instance of YHWH being caring.  Caring?  Yes, YHWH is being caring.  Let me try to explain.

God in the Bible often says “be faithful”, just like he has said to Ahaz in verse 9.  You need to know a few details about Ahaz.  I’ve already said that he is a wicked king, and you can read about that in 2 Kings 16 or 2 Chronicles 28.  What you find there is that Ahaz was a slimy guy.

For example, in 2 Kings 16:2 we’re told that Ahaz did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God.  He walked in the way of the kings of Israel (to the north) and even (this is hard to believe) sacrificed his son in fire, or made his son pass through fire, following the detestable ways of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.  He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places on the hilltops and under every spreading tree.  He went on to pay lots of money to the Assyrians to help him out when Israel attacked him.  And Ahaz even made a new altar to foreign gods, had it installed in God’s temple and put away temple furnishings, shut the doors to the temple, and erected altars in every street corner of Jerusalem.  In other words, Ahaz was a regular dirt bag.

Now in Isaiah 7:1, we find out that two local kings are threatening to invade Ahaz and his kingdom.  Isaiah tells us Ahaz and the Judean people are so scared they’re shaking like trees in the wind.  Where is God?  He seemed distant to them.  They need help badly.

It is at this moment that God shows up!  He comes to Ahaz through in a message from the prophet Isaiah, telling Ahaz to stand strong in his faith.  As we already found out, Ahaz doesn’t seem to have much faith.  Will this message from God’s prophet be enough?

This got me thinking about us.  Will God’s message be enough for us?  God says things like “stand strong in your faith a lot.”  1st Corinthians 16:13 for example: “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.“

And when he says “Be strong” to us, how many of us say “Thank you, Lord, that is just what I needed!”?  How many of us read the words “Stand firm in your faith” or hear those words in a sermon, or in a song on the radio and think “Yes, that is all the motivation I need, and I will now be totally faithful!”?

Especially think of hearing those words right smack in the middle of a difficult time, when you are really stressed out, when you are really discouraged, or when something tragic has happened in life.  When God feels far away and distant.

Just reading those words or hearing those words is good.  But so often they are not enough.  We don’t want words.  We want the difficult situation to change.  When God feels far away, what we want is for him to come close, to clearly show himself, to make things better.

In the middle of pain, we would really love more than just words.  We would love some sign that the word is true.

We’re really hesitant about asking for a sign, though, because we feel we would be coming across as lacking in faith.  Shouldn’t we just trust the word of the Lord?  Do you ever think about asking for a sign that would prove to you that God is actually really close, that he actually cares, that he actually is going to keep his promises? But you feel like you can’t ask for a sign because you are afraid God would consider it a lack of trust in him.  Been there?

What is so amazing about this story is that God not only tells Ahaz to stand strong in his faith, he also offers the sign to Ahaz!  Ahaz doesn’t have to ask for it.  God goes out of his way to give Ahaz a chance at a clear confirmation of the promise to rescue him.

But what does Ahaz do?  He says he won’t ask, that he won’t put the Lord to the test.  Sounds like a wise choice, Ahaz.  Sounds righteous.  Sounds very trusting in God.  But does Ahaz ever say that he believes in God, that he trusts in God?  Nope.  The only thing he says is that he won’t request a sign, he won’t test God.

Here’s the thing though.  Is this situation an example of testing God?

No!  God offered it, so it is not a test.  If Ahaz had asked for a sign, he wouldn’t have been challenging God at all.  God was saying, very graciously I might add, that he wanted to bless Ahaz.  What we actually have here is a pretty rude response by Ahaz, rejecting the Lord.

Here is God saying basically “Ahaz, I want to rescue you and your people, and to show you how much I care. I even want to manifest myself to you through a sign.” In other words, God is saying “I don’t want to be distant from you, Ahaz, I want to be close.”

And Ahaz says “No thanks…”

God, as you can imagine, is quite upset by this.  In Verse 13 he confronts Ahaz for trying his patience, and in verse 14 God gives a sign anyway, the promise of a virgin who will give birth to a son named Immanuel.  Immanuel means “God with us.”

That name is really interesting given this story of Ahaz.  We think of Immanuel every Christmas.  We immediately know that it refers to Jesus and his birth, and that he is Immanuel.

But think with me for a second what Immanuel meant for Ahaz.  Here’s Ahaz, a wicked king, not really concerned about God.  But Ahaz is freaked out about being attacked by neighboring nations.  Maybe God feels distant from Ahaz.  But Ahaz doesn’t seem to have ever walked with YHWH, and is much more focused on pleasing the Assyrian gods.

Then when God comes to him, when God comes close, when God is with him, even offering to show himself to Ahaz through a sign, through more than just the words of the prophet, Ahaz says “No, thanks.”

So what does God say? “You don’t want me close?  You don’t want a sign?  Guess what buddy, you’re getting a sign, and that sign will be a child called ‘God with us’.”  Kind of a slap in the face to Ahaz, isn’t it?

God says “You don’t want me close?  I’m coming close.”  God is a God who comes close.  In the prophecy God promises a day in the future when his Messiah will come and God will be with us.

That is a promise we can apply, that in Jesus alone is the hope of Promise.  In Matthew 1:23, in the story of Jesus’ birth, Matthew quotes this prophecy in Isaiah 7:14, applying it Jesus!

Let’s take a look at how Jesus is Immanuel, God with us.  He is God in the flesh John 1 tells us.  In Philippians 2 we learn that he became human.  In Hebrews 4:15 we are told that “…we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.”

Then think about how the Holy Spirit is God with us.  We are told in 1st Corinthians 6:19 that our body is the temple of the Spirit.  We learn in 1 Cor 2:10-12 that the Spirit helps us understand the mind of God.  In Romans 8:26 the Spirit prays for us.  In John 15-17 is our comforter and guide.  When we read in Acts that the Holy Spirit filled the first Christians, and when we read in Ephesians 5 that we can be filled with the Spirit, we have an amazing way of understanding God with us!

Isn’t it amazing to think that we have Jesus as God with us, and the Holy Spirit as God in us.

So have you been asking “Where are you, God?”  People experience God in a variety of ways. Some super close, some distant, some in between.

Perhaps the impact of “God with us” is lost on us because we have always assumed that he is with us?  We get to read in the Bible about Jesus walking the roads of Israel.  We’ve been told the Holy Spirit is with us.  And at Christmas, with all of the Nativity scenes people put on display, are we looking at the birth of Christ as just a quaint story of a little baby?

But how do we make Immanuel matter to our actual lives?  We might know all the facts about Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but if we are honest with ourselves, we feel distant from God.  Or he feels distant from us.  What can we do if we feel far away from this God who wants to be close?

In James 4:8 we read: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”

We need to see the amazing importance of what God did to be God with us.  Christmas is a momentous event!  It is the radically altered version of life on planet earth.  God took on flesh.  He drew near.  Then he gave his life for us to smash the barrier which separated us from God.  That barrier is sin, and when Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, he tells us that a new way of becoming close to God is now possible.  If we repent of our sins and give our lives to trust in a follow him as his disciples, we are ushered into a new relationship with him.

That’s how it all starts. But many of us have started a relationship with him, maybe many years ago.  Now, though, we feel distant.  Maybe the ups and downs of life have made that relationship fade.

It is possible to draw near to God again!

Do you remember Brother Lawrence?  I’ve been talking about him a lot these past few months because I’ve been reading his book, where he describes how he drew near to God.  The practice of the presence of God.  God was already there in Lawrence’s life, like he is already in yours and mine.  But Lawrence made a choice to deliberately concentrate on the presence of God, to intentionally remember that God was already there.  Lawrence made a choice to acknowledge God’s presence by talking with God.  All the time.

Sometimes, he says, it was an audible conversation.  Mostly, though, it was a conversation in his mind. But it was intentional.  Whether he was working in the monastery kitchen, or on a trip, or in a worship service.  He kept up a conversation with God.  The result was that he experienced the presence of God like never before.  It was such a powerful connection with God, that he could hardly contain his joy.  In fact, he said that he had to wrestle with him emotions because he didn’t want to become a distraction to the other monks or brothers at the monastery.  Lawrence didn’t want to be the center of attention.

I urge you to read his book.  It is available free here.

How will you draw near to the God who is with us?

Church signs and a God who can feel very distant

2016-07 Church Sign - Pokemon GoHow do you feel about the messages that churches place on signs?  Just google “stupid church signs” and get ready for a groan fest.  On second thought, don’t google that.  If you already did, I’m sorry for even suggesting it.  I just spend ten minutes looking at them, and I wish I hadn’t.

As you can see from the picture, Faith Church has a sign alongside our road, and it has a section where we can place messages for passersby.  (For those of you who remember the post about us dropping the word “evangelical” from our sign, quick update: we haven’t done that yet, but the change is coming in the next few months!)

If we don’t have an event that we’re inviting people to, I struggle with what should go on the sign. I don’t want it to be cheesy.  Numerous articles have been written about ridiculous church signs.  I would love for the sign to be humorous, thought-provoking, and engaging.  When people driving by, and we have lots of traffic on our road, read the sign, I don’t want them to roll their eyes and say to their passengers “Why do these church signs always have to be so cutesy?”  I want them to think “that was a good point” or “I needed to hear that.”   There are times when I want the sign to provoke a response, so that they want to ask for more information.  For example, there was the time we put “this church will leave the building on Oct 8th.”  It provoked a response. Three different churches who were renting other spaces contacted us or stopped by asking to purchase the building from us!  To their dismay, we were simply advertising our annual Church Has Left The Building Sunday, where in place of a worship service, we go out into the community and worship by serving.  Then we’re back to regular worship the next week.

One message I placed on the sign a couple years ago hoping for a response, however, did not get much of a response.  The message said “Feeling distant from God? Stop in to talk.”  Or something like that.  The message part of our sign, like Twitter, limits the size of our messages.  That limitation is a very good thing, because it forces the message-maker to be creative and concise, which makes it much easier for people driving by to read.  But this particular message about feeling distant from God did not generate any stop-ins.  Maybe most people feel close to God.  Or maybe most people who feel distant from God don’t care, or feel too awkward about stopping in to a random church to talk about it.

So how about you?  Do you feel distant from God?  If so, why do you feel that way?  Is it because God has distanced himself from you?  Or is it possible that you have from him?

I suspect that God feels distant for many people.  He certainly has seemed so at times in my life.

This coming Sunday at Faith Church, we come to the Fourth Sunday of Advent, and the lectionary reading in the Old Testament brings us to Isaiah 7:10-17.  Take some time and read it.  See if you might be able to discern why this prophecy would relate to God feeling distant.  Then join us at Faith Church this Sunday to learn more!