How to have a good relationship with money – Part 2: Be Rich Toward God – Luke 12:13-21

 

 

 

How is your relationship with money? I wrote this question on the welcome board in our church lobby.  We always have a question of the day, hoping to get people thinking as they walk in for worship.  As I conversed with one person yesterday, we started joking: “My relationship with money?  We don’t see each very much!”  Whether you love money, hate it, there are so many of us that are very frustrated in our relationship with money.

But here is the good news. It is possible to have a good, even great relationship with money right here, right now.

In Luke 12:13-21, Jesus told a parable about a farmer who had a killer harvest one year.  He thought with excitement that he could build bigger barns, and retire early.  He was going to live it up!  But the Lord came to him with shocking news, “Tonight you will die.  Now who will benefit from your harvest?”

The story reminds us to consider the shortness of life.  In so doing Jesus gives us the secret to having a right relationship with money. In verse 21, he leads us to consider, are we storing up things for ourselves?   Are we amassing possessions?  Or are we rich toward God?

We can be so filled with love toward God that we are not enamored by riches, possessions. When we are enamored with God, we’ll see how inferior possessions are to him.

The band U2 has a song titled Walk On that has a wonderful message about possessions in light of the suddenness and shortness of life.

What U2 is talking about is right in line with what Jesus is talking about. It is the right relationship with money. Money will be left behind. But there are riches that will not be left behind. And Jesus is saying that we should invest our lives in those riches. He says in verse 21 that we should be rich toward God.

How do we focus on being rich toward God? It is an attitude, a heart attitude that leads to action. If your attitude is right, God is glorified.  Here’s a question to ask if you’re not sure how to evaluate your attitude:

By what do I want to be remembered? If you stand before God, we should want to hear him say that we used our time talent and treasure to advance his Kingdom. Jesus does not say that being rich, amassing wealth is in and of itself wrong. What is wrong is if we amass wealth and are not also rich toward God!

So the gaining of wealth is not the issue. It is the heart.

John Wesley famously said “Earn all you can, Save all you can, Give all you can.” There is nothing wrong with being able to make a lot of money. If God has given you that gift, then by all means, amass wealth.

BUT, save it! Don’t spend it. And by “save it” Wesley did not mean what the farmer in Jesus’s story meant. The farmer planned to store his wealth away so he could have a comfortable life. But Wesley meant “do not spend it on yourself.” Instead…

GIVE all you can.

In the wonderful little book, The Treasure Principle, we read about R. G. Letourneau. In the early 1900s he made a fortune in the earth-moving business. He was a committed follower of Jesus and made the decision to give 90% of his income, he lived on 10%. And you know what he said? “As fast as I gave it away, God shoveled it right back in.”

It’s not wrong to amass wealth. If your heart is right, if you love God, amass wealth so you can be lavishly generous with it.

Plan an investment portfolio to be rich toward God.

Pay off debt, so you can be rich toward God.

As people earn more, stats have shown that they are less generous. So fight that trend and give more.

Practice a generous lifestyle. Give your time, talent, treasure.

What do your private choices tell about you? If we could display your bank account transactions on a TV show about your life, what would we learn about you? Would we be able to tell that you are being rich toward God?

If we could display your calendar on that show, what would we learn about you? Would we be able to tell that you are rich toward God?

If we could have camera footage of what happens in your home, what would we learn about you? Would we be able to tell that you are rich toward God?

Let us be a thankful people. People who are thankful remember that he is the giver of all good gifts. Let us not fool ourselves into thinking that we created our wealth, that it is ours. Instead, it is God’s, and he owns it. The capabilities of your mind, your body…not yours. They are gifts given to you by God.

This past summer when a group from our church took a mission trip to Kenya, one of the phrases that we used was that we hit the geographical lottery. We Americans have hit the geographical lottery. We are so blessed here.  We have opportunity.

Why are we rich?…Paul says in 2 Cor 9:11, we are rich so we can be generous. As Jesus will say later in Luke 12:48 “To whom much is given, much is desired”

Maybe you’re thinking, “I’m not rich. I can barely pay the bills, and sometimes, I can’t even pay the bills.”  I understand. My family is carrying some debt right now that bugs me to no end. I want to pay it off.

Remember that we have opportunity here in the USA. Work hard, pay off debt, so you can have more financial space to be generous. For many of us, it is our debt that is keeping us from being generous.

And perhaps, like some good friends taught us, when things are tight, that is the moment we need to show our trust in God and give. Watch him provide.   Plan your life so you are rich toward God.

How to have a good relationship with money – Part 1 – Love it or hate it?

Do you love money?  This guy really does:

As he’s hugging that money, he’s probably singing this song:

Or do you hate money?

Have you ever said “I hate money!”?

I have. It’s usually because I actually love money, but I feel like I don’t have enough of it. I want more. I love money when I can spend it. But when it seems that there are too many expenses and not enough income, I can say “I hate money!” Our microwave recently broke, and immediately I think “I hate money.”

Do you hate money? Or do you really love it, but you feel you don’t have enough?

Jesus talks about money a lot. I’ve often heard, and maybe you have too, that Jesus talks more about money than he does about salvation. I’m not certain that’s true. I did a bit of research and it appears he talks about the Kingdom of God most of all. But there is no doubt he talks a lot about money.

What is fascinating is to compare the topics that Jesus actually spent a lot of time on, like money, and then look into what topics have dominated Christian discussions in the last 50 or so years?

What have we Christians in America fixated on?  Money? I can’t prove it, but I don’t think so.

Instead, when you consider the topics that have been popular in politics, media and, in recent years, social media, what do you find?  Most of the talk has been about abortion, homosexuality, and immigration, to name a few hot topics.

These are all important subjects that that we need to talk about.  They are complex and important in our time.  But while Jesus talks about money repeatedly, those other hot topics of our day pretty much don’t come up in his teaching. Those topics are hot in our time, but they really weren’t issues in Jewish culture. Roman culture, yes. But not so much in Israel, and Jesus primarily ministered in Israel.  It makes sense, therefore, that he wouldn’t talk about them.

And yet, money was a big deal then, and still is today.  It has always been a big deal.  Perhaps that’s a good indication why Jesus spoke so frequently about it.  Why then are we so loathe to talk about it?  There can be a lot of fear in pastors’ hearts when it comes to sermons about money.  We don’t want to offend people.  Money is considered to be a private matter.  We don’t talk about each others’ salaries.  It is striking, then, that Jesus was so bold about money!

That said, we do have to consider why money was so important to him.  Disciples of Jesus, he was intimating, would have a good handle on how to relate to money.  What should our relationship with money be like?  Should we love it or hate it?

This Sunday at Faith Church, we’re going to see a bit of Jesus’ heart toward money. If you want to prepare, read Luke 12:13-21.

Overcoming our fears, Part 2 – God’s role in calming our fears – Luke 12:1-2

People say that their two greatest fears are death and speaking in public.  In Luke 12:1-12 Jesus talked with his disciples about these two fears.  Perhaps what he said will help you overcome those fears!

In Verses 4-7 he refers to the fear of death. Do not be afraid, but do fear God, he loves you. There is a logical flow of thought here.

He says specifically, “Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body. Don’t be afraid of wicked men.”  In the wake of so many mass shootings and terror attacks, it is really easy to be afraid of wicked men.  What is Jesus getting at?

He goes on to say that we should fear the one who can throw us into hell. Who can do that?  God.  So we should fear God.

Fear God? Like…be scared of him?  Should we be afraid of God like we would be afraid of wicked men?  It would be quite odd for Jesus to say that, wouldn’t it?  So what is he talking about?  Throughout the Bible, especially in the book of Proverbs, we are taught to fear God.  The fear of God is about seeing God with awe, with respect!  When we fear God, we aren’t scared of him like my kids who refused to go up to the really scary house this past Halloween.  Instead we love God, we want to be with him, know him, and follow his ways.

So Jesus is saying that we might lose our life, but that is not as important as the loss of faith.  In other words, we should be more concerned about our saving our soul than about saving our life.

He goes on to illustrate this concept of fearing God as the one who can deal with our soul by referring to one of the most common foods in Israel, sparrows.  They were a dime a dozen, and because many of the people were poor peasants, sparrows were a staple of their diets.  Jesus says that though they are cheap, sparrows are not forgotten by God.  So this God we are to fear loves lowly sparrows.

Then he explains further that God knows us so well, he’s got all the hairs on our head numbered. This shows how thoroughly he cares for you, how well he knows you.  And Jesus concludes, then,  that we need not be afraid, because we are worth more to God than sparrows.

This passage resonates with me because I don’t like the thought of death. Frankly, even though I trust in the hope of eternal life, I don’t want to die. But Jesus reminds us that God loves us. He knows us thoroughly, he cares for us. And we are worth so much to him.

How amazing is that! God considers us to be of great worth. Perhaps you need to spend time reflecting on how much God loves you. How he thinks you are worth his time, his energy, his love!

So we do not need to fear to death.  But maybe public speaking will always be terrifying?

In Verses 11-12 Jesus talks specifically about some help for those who are afraid of speaking in public. Specifically he refers to a time when the disciples might get arrested for being a follower of Jesus.

He says, “Don’t worry about how you will defend yourself because The Holy Spirit will give you the words to say.”

We may or may not have to be in a situation where we are arrested. But we all will get in situations where we are sharing our faith, and we can be assured that the Holy Spirit will teach us what to say. We have the Holy Spirit with us! He will teach us what to say.

One of the reasons why people don’t share their faith with neighbors and friends because they don’t know what to say. But Jesus says we have the Spirit. So we don’t need to be ashamed. We don’t need to be afraid!

This reminds me of the story of Nehemiah in the Old Testament.  He was a Jew who had been exiled, and he heard that his beloved city of Jerusalem was in ruin.  He felt burdened to go back home and rebuild the wall around the city.  As a trusted cupbearer to the foreign king, he decided to ask the king’s permission.  What I love is how often Nehemiah prays in his story.  Sometimes the prayers are really short sentence prayers under his breath, or in his head, as he is about to do something.  As he stands before the king, Nehemiah had a distressed look on his face, a display of emotion that was not acceptable when having an audience with the king.  So we read that Nehemiah prays to God before he dives into his request of the king.  I love that detail.  Nehemiah was a man who knew that he needed God’s help before he spoke in public, in a very tense, nerve-wracking situation.

One time Michael Bay, famed movie director, needed help with a public speech, and he didn’t get it.  Take a look at this video.

Jesus tells his disciples that they do need a teleprompter!  If they don’t know what to say, they can depend on the Holy Spirit for help.  That is an amazing thing to consider.  God’s Spirit who lives with us will help us know what to say when we have the opportunity to speak up for him.

Don’t be afraid to speak up for the Lord. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you the words to say! Ask him to help you tell your story.

I found a great article where a professor of evangelism talks about his struggles with it!

Overcoming Our Fears – Part 1: The Two Greatest Fears

overcoming fearWhat do you think are the things that people fear the most? Death is #2. What is number 1? Speaking in public. #1. More scary than death.

I love what Jerry Seinfeld had to say about this:

I think we see this fear at work at Faith Church during Sunday worship almost every week. We want our want our worship service to emphasize participation.  Rather than spectators, we want everyone to get involved.  So we include a brief open mic sharing time most weeks right after we sing praises to God.   Some of you have no problem grabbing the microphone and sharing a story of God’s work in your life or a prayer request. Some of you will share only if the situation is urgent. Others, however, would never, never share. It doesn’t matter if you had the worst week in the history of bad weeks. You will not share.

Why do we hate to speak in public? All the attention is on us. We’re afraid of being humiliated if we mess up, and all those people are looking at us and they’ll see it. That will feel awful! And what if we are boring and no good at it? There are so many other GREAT speakers, who are we to try? We’ll never come anywhere close to being like them. So forget it.

We think we’ll end up like this:

And then there is the fear of death.  A few years ago I had a period of 7 months where I officiated 8 funerals, including at least one in each month.  It was like death kept being thrown in my face over and over.  I’ll admit that I didn’t handle it well.  I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and it really affected me emotionally.  I remember watching an NFL game during that stretch thinking “these guys are so vibrant, but they will all die.”  Every time I got in the car, I thought about how many accidents people have.  It took a long time to shake the fear of death.  Though I have faith in Jesus’ wonderful promise of eternal life, I still struggled, and sometimes still do, with the fear of death.  Studies say that many of you feel the same way.

In the passage we’ll be studying on Sunday, Luke 12:1-12, Jesus addresses both the fear of death and the fear of public speaking. What he says is quite interesting. These two fears matter.  These two fears impact the work of his kingdom. If we cannot address these fears properly, we could be putting ourselves into a very risky situation.

So join us at Faith Church on Sunday as we’ll take a look at how Jesus teaches his disciples to avoid that risky situation.

Woe to you, Christians – Part 2 – How to stop the two main things that will cause your death

Imagine you have been invited to your pastor’s house for dinner and some leaders of the church are there.  It is a nice meal with pleasant dinner conversation.

Do you think you would take this time to point out all the things you didn’t like about the people around the table?

Some of you might!  Some would be mortified of doing that.

Jesus, in Luke 11:37-56 was invited to dinner with a Pharisee, and an expert in the Law was there.  Before dinner Jesus chose to forgo the traditional washing, and the Pharisee noticed and was surprised.  Jesus saw this as a cultural open door, and stormed through it.   Over the course of the next few minutes he proceeds to insult the Pharisees and Law Experts, using a prophetic Woe Oracle against them.  I introduced the concept of a Woe Oracle last week.  Woe Oracles used funeral language to proclaim “if you keep doing what you’re doing, you will die!”

I also said last week that perhaps the American Church would do well to listen in to this sharp conversation.  Stats have been telling us that we are declining.  Maybe there is something that Jesus was saying to the religious leaders of his day that could help us avoid death in our day.

So what were the Pharisees and Law Experts doing that was so wrong?  Two things.  They were being hypocritical and legalistic.  Read through the Woes again and you’ll see how they were not practicing what they were preaching (hypocrisy), and they were burdening people with extra laws (legalism).

Is it possible that the decline of the American Church is attributable, at least partially, to our own hypocrisy and legalism?

I know this is a difficult passage. These are hard and harsh words from Jesus. He is speaking to those who are living a lifestyle of hypocrisy.  I know that we are not the Pharisees, but don’t we all have areas of hypocrisy?  I know not too many of us are living lifestyles of complete and total legalism, but I don’t want to let us off the hook here either.  Instead I think we all should wrestle with a passage like this.  We are disciples of Jesus.  And Jesus certainly called out his disciples, who had areas of struggle, many times, just as he is calling out the teachers of the law here.  I think it is always good for us, as people who are disciples of Jesus, who desire to make our hearts more and more like the heart of Jesus, to take a hard and honest look at ourselves and see what areas we have improved in and what areas we still need to work on. We should always have teachable hearts, ready to make changes and to do the hard work to change attitudes that work themselves out into our actions.

To use the language of the parable Jesus told to the Pharisee, in what areas are we clean cups on the outside and filthy on the inside?  Are we living secret lives?  Are we hypocritical in any way? We need to get that out in the open, confess it, and change.

This does not mean that you need to be proclaiming all your junk to the public all the time – that is not what I am saying. I am saying that our hearts should be beating like Jesus and that will naturally overflow into our actions.

Additionally, we need to address any potential legalism in our lives.  If the Gospel is about grace through faith, not by works, we can hinder people from the Gospel by emphasizing rules.

Do we believe that following these rules define us as a Christian? If so, is it possible that we have led people astray by communicating to them the perception that they, too, if they want to be a Christian must follow those rules?

Let me give you an illustration. In the early church, in Acts chapter 15, the leaders of the church called a conference. At this point the church was maybe 10 years old or so, and it had grown a lot from the original 120 who started out. Guys like Paul and Barnabas had gone on mission trips and non-Jews from outside Israel had become Christians. Some of the Jewish Christians, including some Pharisees who became Christians, heard about these non-Jews becoming disciples of Jesus, and while they were happy, they felt that the non-Jews needed to start following the Old Testament Jewish Laws now. Especially the law of circumcision. Imagine that. These Jewish Christians felt that adult male non-Jews needed to be circumcised! Ouch!

Paul was totally against this. He argued that the message of Jesus was that the Old Testament Law was fulfilled in Jesus, and that Christians, disciples of Jesus, didn’t have to follow those Laws. Those Laws were essentially the treaty or the covenant between God and Israel, not between God and the church. Paul was right, and thankfully the leaders saw things Paul’s way and they did not require the non-Jewish disciples to get surgery. Whew.

Just like them, let us not put rules and regulations in place of faith in Christ and a life of discipleship!  What defines us as a Christian is that we have hearts that beat for the Lord. That we are his disciples, and our lives are totally arranged about being a disciple who makes disciples.

So in conclusion, the message of Jesus’ Woe Oracle to the Pharisees and teacher of the law is that we should remove hypocrisy and legalism from our lives. We should not be one person on Sunday at church and someone very different in our private lives.

Have you heard the story of the police officer who recently committed suicide because he had a double life? Two sets of families?  We don’t ever want to hear Jesus say Woe to you Church, and that means we should live a life fully for him. Ask him to reveal any hypocrisy in your life. And then remove it.

If there are rules you are imposing on others, maybe even unwittingly, would ask God to reveal them to you, so you can present a pure Gospel and not trip people up on legalism?

Woe to you, Christians! – Part 1: How a woe oracle could save the church from death

“Woe!” but not “Woah!”

What’s the difference?

“Woah” is an utterance of surprise, or a command to “Stop!”

But “Woe” is a wailing of sadness.  In the Bible there are Woe Oracles in the Old Testament.  That word “woe” was used in Israel primarily at funerals.  People would loudly proclaim “woe” at the passing of a loved one or friend.  From the descriptions we have in the Bible, it seems like a funeral could have been quite a boisterous, awful display.  Some cultures around the world still today have similar practices of mourning.

A common phrase in our culture is “Woe is me.”  We use this phrase to have a pity party for ourselves, to explain that we are feeling sad.  But in the Bible, the word “Woe” is most often directed at someone else.  In the Bible we don’t read “woe is me”, but instead we often read “Woe to you!”

The biblical prophets often uttered woe oracles crying out the word “Woe” as a part of their prophecy against a nation. In so doing, they were invoking funeral language over that nation.  “Woe to you, who are complacent in Zion” the prophet Amos declared, for the people of Israel lived lavishly while practicing injustice.  There are examples in many of the other prophets as well.  The gist of a prophetic woe oracle, then, was that the nation should be very sad because their funeral was impending!  Thus, a woe oracle is designed to shake people up, to make changes, so that their funeral could be delayed.

In our ongoing series through the Gospel of Luke, our next section is an episode in which Jesus joins the chorus of prophets and proclaims a bold woe oracle.  Who would he say this to?  Like the prophets of old, would he say “Woe” to the nation of Israel?  No.  There was a different group he focuses on.  The religious leaders.  You’ve probably heard of them: the Pharisees and the experts in the Law.

Why would Jesus give a woe oracle against them?  Take a look at Luke 11:37-53, and you can see what he has to say.

As you read this, try to learn why Jesus got so bold.  And then try to imagine what he might say to Christians!  Is it possible that Jesus might have reason to proclaim “Woe to you American Christians…”?

I think he might.  And I think it could be hard for us to hear.

Recently on the Today Show, the hosts each answered one of those “Would You Rather?” questions.  A “Would You Rather?” situation asks you to choose between two options, neither of which is completely desirable.  In this case, the question was “Would you rather know the time of your death or the way you will die?”  I can imagine that the knowledge of either of those could lead to lots of anxiety.  Which would you choose?  I lean toward knowing the way I will die.  But really, I don’t want to know when or how I will die.  When a prophet proclaims a woe oracle they are doing something far better than the “Would You Rather?” question.  A woe oracle is saying “People you will die if you continue living this way!  So make a change and live.”  Therefore, I think we Christians should want to know the woes that Jesus might proclaim over the American church.  We’ve been hearing for years that the American church is in decline, dying.  Perhaps we need a bold woe oracle to shake us up and help us get healthy again!

On Sunday at Faith Church, we’ll study the woes that Jesus proclaims against the religious leaders of his day, and we’ll see if those woes might lead us to woes that he would have for us.

What if we’re totally wrong about what it means to follow Jesus – Part 2

My son walked up to our pantry closet in our kitchen, looking for a snack.  He quickly put his hand over his nose, uttering a muffled “Ugh! What is that smell?”

I looked over at him standing there, and said “What do you mean? Is it the trashcan?”  Our kitchen trash bin is right next to the pantry, which is maybe not the best location.  Because it can get stinky, I thought it must be the source of the smell.

But no, he said, “It smells like poop! And it’s coming from in the pantry!”

I got up from the sofa and went over to check it out.  I caught a whiff of something, which smelled a bit like poop, but not quite either.  It wasn’t strong, so I started to dismiss it in my mind.  I reached down and halfheartedly shifted some boxes on the floor of the pantry, and I didn’t see much beyond some dust.  Admittedly, I was pretty sure the smell wasn’t coming from the trashcan.  And I didn’t really want to deal with whatever was causing the smell.  So I said, “I don’t know.  Let’s not worry about it.”

And with that I put it out of mind, and a few days went by.

A couple days later, I saw my son standing in front of the pantry again with his hand over his nose.  In the ensuing days, I had stuck my nose in there a couple times when I, too, was snacking, and there was definitely an odor.  But it still seemed faint, and I didn’t want to deal with it, so I didn’t.

This past Monday morning, though, the odor had become strong.  Michelle pulled out all the boxes and containers on the floor and found a dead mouse caught in a glue trap.  I will confess that I suspected that all along, and did nothing about it.  We had seen mice sneaking around lately, and eventually caught three.  It took hardly any time or effort to vacuum up the remains of a snack bag a mouse had hidden in the back corner to feast on, as well as the accumulated mouse droppings (I guess my son was right about the poop!), and then wash the floor, and put the boxes back.

Why did I wait to deal with the foul smell in my pantry, when it was relatively easy and effortless to resolve?  Have you ever experienced that feeling of not wanting to deal with the junk of life?  Have you ever let it linger?

Last week I introduced Luke 11:14-36 by suggesting that we might be all wrong about how we follow Jesus.  In that section, Jesus casts a demon out of a man, and people in the crowd confront him with two questions: 1. Did he exorcise the demon by Satan’s power?  and 2. Would he show them a sign from heaven?  To give you a little preview of the answers, they are “No” and “No”.  But these answers gave Jesus the opportunity to talk about what it means to follow him.

I find it fascinating what he does not say.  He does not say “Believe in him.”  Clearly, believing in Jesus, trusting in him, is a good thing, but why would he not mention that?  Christians, and especially Evangelicals, have put a lot of emphasis on believing.  Instead, he says that if we are to be his followers, we should have no neutrality about him.  We are either with him, or we are against him.  And when a person in the crowd shouted out “Blessed is your mother!”, Jesus responded with “On the contrary! Blessed are those who hear God’s Word and obey it.”  Jesus is saying that following him will affect our choices, our behavior.  Following him is not just about belief.  Instead his followers will show what they believe by hearing his word and doing what it says.

There are two primary applications of this, the inward and the outward.  Or as Jesus said “Love God and Love your neighbor”.  Inwardly, God wants to enter the smelly closets of our lives and clean them out.  He wants access to our secret thoughts and actions, our perversions, our addictions, to transform them into something far better than we could ever imagine.  As someone has said, we too often hear Jesus knocking at the door, let him in, and just hope we can hang out with him in the living room of our lives.  We know the place is messy, and we’re embarrassed about showing him around.  But he says “I think I smell poop coming from the pantry in your kitchen.”  And we respond “Nah…it’s no big deal.”

That sinful habit, that addiction, that undisciplined mind, that attitude, that complaining spirit…we know they’re in our lives, and we have a halfhearted desire to allow Jesus to clean us up, but we put it off.  Maybe we have become accustomed to the stink, and we don’t smell it anymore.  Maybe we think that it’s not so bad.  Maybe we’re afraid we won’t be able to change, and this is just who we are.  But Jesus says “hear my word and obey.  Either you’re with me, or you’re against me.”

There are also the outward ways we show that we’re with him.  Particularly, he said “Make disciples.”  The primary way we show that we are his disciples is to make more disciples.  But so many of us are not making disciples.  We say that we believe in him, but we do not do the major task he called us to do in his word: “Make disciples”.

So do you need to allow Jesus to clean up that stinky closet in your life?  Do you need to make disciples?  Are you hearing his Word?  Are you obeying what he says? 

What if we’re totally wrong about what it should look like to follow Jesus? Part 1

We are about to head to the polls again. Who are you for, and who are you against?  Republican?  Democrat?  Third-party?  As the presidential race heats up, who are you for and who are you against?

“For or against” is more than just a way to approach politics.  It is a common way we look at many aspects of life.  Who are you for and who are you against in the World Series?  The Royals or the Mets?  Who are for or against in the big football game?  We use “for or against” reasoning when it comes to reality TV show competitions like The Voice or The Amazing Race.  We use “for or against” reasoning when it comes to our favorite brands, restaurants, and certainly, religion.

So what about Jesus?  Are you for or against him?

You might think, “Against Jesus? Why would you even ask that, Joel? This is a blog introducing a sermon. People who listen to the sermon obviously come to church because they are for Jesus!”  Maybe.  Maybe not…

If you’re thinking something like that, then I hear you. I know that most people who read this blog and come to church are Jesus people and we are for him!

But here’s the concern I have:  what if we think we are for him, but he would look at us and say “You’re not with me. You think you are with me, but you’re actually not”???

How many of us would want to be surprised when we are standing before him and hear him say that?

If you think “Well, that’s not possible, is it?”, I think it is pretty important to raise the question. Is it possible that we would be surprised to hear him say “You think you are for me, but you are actually not”???

In Matthew 7, Jesus tells the story like this: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

Jesus himself says that there will be people who will be surprised to hear him say “I never knew you.” Those people will look at him shocked, and say “Wait a minute…we prophesied in your name, we drove out demons and did miracles even. That’s a lot of great religious stuff that we did in your name. How can you possibly say that you never knew us??? That makes no sense, Jesus. That is wrong!”

But Jesus says “I never knew you.”

So this Sunday, as we continue our study in Luke, we come to a passage where Jesus addresses this very concern.   And guess what?  You can know whether you are for him or against him. On Sunday we find out how.

Prepare for the sermon on Sunday by reading Luke 11:14-36, and then join us at Faith Church as we discuss this further!

How the Lord’s Prayer Matters – Luke 11:1-13

Can you recite the Lord’s Prayer?  Go ahead, give it a try…”Our Father…”

Need a hint?  Click here.

How did you do?

How long has it been since you recited it?  Maybe you recite the prayer often.  Or maybe your church worship uses the prayer weekly?

What does the Lord’s Prayer matter?  Are we supposed to receive some kind of blessing if we pray it?  Is this why people want prayer back in school?  Will our nation be blessed if we require students across the land to recite the Prayer?  Is it actually an incantation that forces the Lord to bless us?

Wait…aren’t we against empty, ritualistic prayer?  Didn’t Jesus have something to say about prayer that is nothing more than meaningless babble?  In fact, he did.  Just before he taught the Lord’s Prayer, he said this:

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.“

Is it wrong then to recite the prayer?

No, not if our heart desires the prayer to be a meaningful communication with the Lord.  But perhaps there is a lot more to the prayer that just a brief recitation.  Is it possible that Jesus was teaching a format for prayer?

 

How to escape the crushing busyness of life, Part 2 – The Solution

So last week I introduced the sermon from Luke 10:38-42 by asking if you feel defeated by the busyness of life?  Do you feel that way?  Do you wish you could escape the busyness, find some freedom, some space some peace?  As we looked at the story of two sisters, Mary and Martha, Jesus taught us how to find that space and peace.

What we learned is that Martha was distracted by the busyness of life, by lesser things. Not bad things, but lesser things. Houses need to be cleaned and cared for. Cars need to be maintained. These are important things. But like Martha, these things can distract us to the point of being overburdened and anxious. But there is something greater. That something greater is making space for Jesus in our lives.

Jesus said that Martha was worried and anxious over lesser things, and that Mary had made the right choice by focusing on learning from Jesus.

Jesus tells Martha that Mary chose better, and that will not be taken from her.

How many of you have desired to grow closer in your relationship with Jesus, but you’ve thought “I can read more from the Bible, when the kids are out of the house. When school is done. When the big project at work is finished. When the project at home is done. In the winter when there is no yard work.”???

We have great plans for growing in our relationship with Jesus, and yet we put it off. We can be distracted by lesser things. How many of you watch spend lots of time watching shows on Netflix or TV, but barely give any time to reading the Bible. Sitting at Jesus’ feet? Listening to him?

How many of you spend loads of time on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or Snapchat, but the Bible app goes unused?

Are you distracted? Are you over burdened? What are you doing with those burdens?

Are you more like Martha or Mary? Again Jesus says that Mary chose better.

So how do we change? We have to actually do something. We have to choose better. We have to make changes. We talk a lot about these things. We talk about not wanting to become legalistic, and so then we do very little. But we can joyously, graciously, non-legalistically change how we spend our time so that we sit at Jesus’ feet more and more often.

It could mean lowering your standards for how clean your house needs to be so that you can free up time in your life to spend with Jesus.

It could mean less TV and more time reading your Bible.

It could mean, like the guy in the video last week suggested, changing how busy your family is, particularly how much the kids are involved in. Less running around can mean more free time for family and Jesus.

As a family, make it a priority to have dinner together.   And bring God into that. In our house that means pulling out the Bible and reading a chapter after dinner. It’s nothing fancy. Usually we don’t discuss the chapter.  I just read.  One small piece of advice I would recommend is that you use a contemporary translation. I use The Message version because it is so readable and easy to understand.

Finally, make participation in worship, Sunday School and small group a priority for your family. It is in those times where we gather together with a community of believers to hear from the Lord together.