Crashing The Bike (Luke 14:25-35)

In January of 2003, Pastor Kevin and his feisty little wife Monica bought an old motorcycle for a thousand bucks. It was a classic 1978 Honda Goldwing in reasonably good shape. In addition to all the fun factors, Monica and I thought it would give me good opportunities to spend more time with men in the church and local community, several of whom owned motorcycles. It was a ministry tool! In the end, we ended up crashing that old bike, very nearly killing ourselves on the thing and learning some very valuable lessons in the process. For the next few weeks, I’d like to ponder those lessons.

Open your Bibles to Luke 14:25-33 (page 954 in your pew Bibles). Jesus was spending the Passover in a Pharisee’s home. He intentionally violated a strict interpretation of Sabbath law by healing a man right in front of them. He taught very bluntly about true humility and who will get to enjoy the great Kingdom of God banquet to come. And then, turning to the great crowds attracted by his miracles and growing celebrity status, Jesus made it crystal clear who his disciples actually are. In one of His most “seeker insensitive” and seemingly arrogant sermons, Jesus completely crashed the bike of His audience. Listen closely to what He said…

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even life itself—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’ Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.

Our LORD Jesus was not interested in Nielson ratings or popularity polls. This Jesus thing has never been about getting a large number of people into a building. In this passage, we see our LORD Jesus recognizing the teeming crowds for the superficial lemmings they often are. Jesus saw a bunch of people who showed up for their free motorcycle ride. Jesus saw a bunch of people hoping to get a good deal on a cheap bike; people there to get their hair blown back by a cool magic show or enjoy a free meal from a few loaves and fish. They were gathered there to see the new celebrity or maybe to experience an exciting new politician or flashy religious revolutionary willing to stand up to the powerful. Jesus saw a mob for what it was and He very deliberately and directly crashed their bike. Jesus crashed the fantasy.

William Barclay tells the story of a famous professor talking with another professor as a proud young man walked by. As the young man passed, the second professor turned to the first and said, “Wasn’t he once a student of yours?” And the first professor wisely, scathingly responded, “No, he attended many of my lectures, but he was never my student.”

Jesus isn’t ever interested in just getting a lot of people coming to the lecture. Jesus was and is now always looking for disciples; people who fully understand and fully embrace what they are signing up for when they get on this Christian motorcycle. Jesus is looking for disciples; people who understand and fully embrace three great discipleship affirmations.

First of all, Jesus got so feisty and direct in this passage because He wanted people to understand that there is a singular priority in this life. There is a priority. Our LORD Jesus is looking for people who will put Him first and first always. Unless we give up all, we cannot follow Him! Unless we place Him first above and beyond all, we are not His disciples.

There can be no underestimating how scathingly controversial these statements were. Jesus told a people, weaned on the fourth commandment to honor our parents, that they must hate not only their parents but their entire family if they wish to truly follow Him. He said they must place their allegiance and devotion to Him above everything in life, even their own life. And what is worse, our LORD Jesus actually said they must embrace their cross, very possibly the most hated symbol of oppression known to that audience, if they wished to be disciples.

But Jesus wasn’t talking about some new sort of angry rejection of family, friends and God’s best material blessings. Jesus was the one who most famously taught us to love even our enemies. This hate/love conversation was simply an idiomatic, Jewish way of discussing true priorities. Unless Jesus is first, unless Jesus is singularly important, we are not disciples.

It is not politically correct for me to interfere with your priorities, right? Who am I to think I have the right to tell you what your priorities are supposed to be? We’re all supposed to very deeply respect and honor the values and priorities of the people around us, right?

Wrong! I’m sorry, but that very popular, superficially sensitive idea just isn’t biblical. This passage completely crashes that bike all over the highway. This passage, and so many others like it in the Gospels, completely destroys the idea that our LORD Jesus came to earth to be somebody we politely add to our already busy life. Jesus isn’t some dietary supplement we take once a week to be healthy. He isn’t some shiny, but entirely optional piece of chrome we’re supposed to find a place for on the handlebars of our Harley. Unless Jesus is first and foremost in our lives Jesus is not discipling our lives. There is a priority here. This is the first affirmation of any true disciple of Christ. How this Jesus priority expresses itself in each of our lives will vary wildly according to our gifts, but there is only one highest priority for a disciple.

And if we cannot embrace that first affirmation, we will never embrace the second. Not only does a true disciple correctly embrace the priority of Christ, a true disciple also embraces the cost of following Him. A true disciple understands we don’t just put a key in this bike and ride; there are costs involved. Jesus says discipleship is a big-time building project, sort of like that huge amphitheater which collapsed and caused 50,000 casualties a few years ago. This is a very dangerous battle against a much larger enemy, sort of like the battle Herod Antipas lost a few years ago. There are costs to be considered here. There are costs to be counted.

When I bought my motorcycle, I was only thinking of nice, relaxing summer rides through the woods with my sweetie and some good friends. I had not fully counted the cost. I knew there might be some rebuilding, but I had no idea of the time, effort and costs involved. Yup, that’s my motorcycle! Yup, that’s the motor sitting on the table there. As a side note, you’ll notice my friend Dean is smiling much more broadly than I am in the picture. Dean counted the cost much better than I. There was a cost.

There is always a cost. Don’t we almost intuitively understand that? Monica and I are now in the process of buying a house. Well…guess what I’ve been doing furiously over the last several days? I’ve been counting the cost! I’ve made four exploratory trips to Home Depot!

When I stood before a justice of the peace in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 1986 and declared my undying love for Monica, I fully accepted the cost of that decision. It wasn’t some shallow business deal or contractual thing. And after almost 23 years of marriage, we are only now beginning to understand and embrace the full costs a genuine marriage miracle demands.

When disciples make Jesus our singular priority, there will always be costs. Thursday morning, I went over to the Children’s Home Society to see the hats and gloves for children project several of our Elim ladies are involved in. While I was there, Helen Sandberg told me of an elderly woman who knitted at least one pair of mittens for this project every single day of the year. That cost something. There is some obvious, costly discipleship there.

On Tuesday, my pastor friend Ron Saari from Central Baptist took me to lunch to introduce me to Juan and Laura Salazar, who run a drug rehabilitation center in Juarez, Mexico. Laura, who grew up at Central Baptist, fell in love with Jesus and a guy named Juan and now pays a dear cost to follow Jesus. She lives, serves and follows Jesus in a very difficult context.

As German martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer taught us so eloquently years ago, there is a cost of discipleship. If Jesus is our singular priority, there will always be a cost for following Him.

Last Sunday morning, our Misfits class discussed a Catholic priest named Father Damien. This man lovingly and graciously served for years among lepers in Hawaii, knowing full well the risks he was taking, until he himself was killed by the disease. There is a cost of discipleship.

This week, our Hope Avenue ministry received a bunch of shoes, clothes and money from the Sanctuary group at Crossroads Covenant Church in Cottage Grove. It seems their teaching pastor, Brad Kindall, at the close of his message, called people to sacrifice the shoes on their feet that morning, go home barefoot in the cold, so our Hope Avenue folks would not.

There is a cost of discipleship! Almost every single one of these guys died a violent death. Do we get it? They all paid a price. While we are all invited to come along, we don’t ride this bike for free. It cost Jesus everything and it will cost us everything. There is a cost.

This all sounds great so far, huh? Hate your family, count the high cost – die a violent, ugly death in some Nazi or Roman jail cell or Hawaiian leper colony – what’s not to like? Why would anyone sign up for any of this? Where’s the power of your sales pitch here, Jesus?

Look again at the final three verses of the chapter. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.

There is a priority. There is a cost. And disciples fully and happily embrace both the priority of Christ and cost of following Him because we understand there is also a risk.

But a disciple understands the true nature of that risk. If we refuse to make Jesus Christ our priority, if we refuse to accept the inevitable costs of discipleship, we run all sorts of risks. We can argue theologically about the exact nature of those risks but, perhaps the worst risk Jesus describes here is the simple risk of losing the meaningful life God has planned for us. By refusing to accept the priority of Jesus and the high costs of discipleship, we risk losing our opportunity to go really fast on the motorcycle. We risk the opportunity to know what it means to love somebody so much you miss her while you’re at work. We risk the sheer pleasure of knowing some little kid in the state of Minnesota will have warm fingers because of us. We risk the thrill of seeing a Mexican drug addict become a pastor or some Hawaiian leper experience the love of Jesus just once in his life. We risk losing the opportunity to make a difference in the world around us. By refusing to accept the priority and the truly high costs of discipleship, we ironically risk losing all the most exhilarating possibilities of life. We risk losing our saltiness. We risk losing our value to the planet. We risk never becoming all we were created to become. We risk finding ourselves tossed aside, worthless and irrelevant at the end of it all.

A disciple understands these risks. A disciple understands that only those willing to lose their lives will find them. As the Christian martyr Jim Elliot so faithfully and beautifully said over fifty years ago, “He is no fool to give up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

A disciple correctly understands the true risks of discipleship.

If you’re just here for the lecture this morning, don’t be surprised if Jesus crashes your bike somehow. If Jesus really isn’t first in your life, if you’re refusing to accept the high costs of discipleship, don’t be surprised if God takes drastic measures in your life to help you understand the terrible risks you’re taking by rejecting His call.

May Jesus truly be first among us!

Amen.

Lord, Is It Warfare (Ephesians 6:10-20)

Last week was strange and frustrating for me. The Spirit powerfully led my Scripture studies and gave me some wonderful “old man” illustrations to support that direction. I had a very clear, convicting sense last Sunday’s message was going to be a simple, spiritually direct one, culminating in a passionate call from the Apostle to respond in faith. Don’t wait! Today is the day of salvation! But when I got here Sunday morning, all sorts of things went wrong. The sound system had been messed up by the ReVamp folks and wasn’t working properly, the old projection system bulb chose that morning to die, the CD player refused to play my audio disk, my cordless Madonna microphone kept cutting in and out and, in spite of everything our dear Chad and Peter were valiantly trying to do upstairs, at the worst possible moment at the end of my message, we were all distracted by several of these problems expressing themselves all at once. While I know every single one of these problems had a completely rational explanation, I sensed a deeper, more sinister spiritual power at work among us. I called it spiritual warfare.

But judging from your nonverbals last Sunday and some comments I’ve heard this week, I thought it would be wise to take a moment this morning to share my perspective on these often strange spiritual warfare issues. I suspect we may not agree completely, but at least you’ll have a better understanding of why I do and say some of the things I do around here.

This is Gayle Williams. Gayle was shot and killed on Monday morning by the Taliban in Kabul, Afghanistan for “teaching Christianity to the people of Afghanistan.” Under the auspices of Christian Aid, Gayle worked among the disabled with a group called Serve Afghanistan. She was 34 years old when gunned down on her way to work. LORD, is that spiritual warfare?

In recent years, one of the single most effective evangelistic tools in the world has been The Jesus Film. Many of the spiritual warfare and power encounter stories surrounding the use of this film are almost too incredible to truly believe. Paul Eshleman, Director of The Jesus Film Project, reported recently in Thailand a gang of thugs plotted to rob a "JESUS" Film Team of their equipment and sell it for cash. As the team slept, the thieves approached the hut where the equipment was stored. They were startled by two brilliant white beings filling the doorway. Both were over eight feet tall and brandished flaming swords. Frightened, the robbers ran into the darkness and hid in the bushes. Convinced they had seen a ghost, that there was nothing to fear, they approached the back door of the hut. Again, the figures appeared, blocking that entrance. One of the robbers cried out, “If this is the power of their God, we dare not steal from them!” The Jesus Film team only learned about all this later because some of these same thugs came to a showing of "JESUS" and became believers! LORD, is that warfare?

Years ago, Dr. Herb Klem invited a guest speaker from Thailand to speak to our final missions class in seminary. The man had several doctoral degrees and we were expecting a very boring, academic lecture. Instead we were treated to one riveting power story after another. Our speaker concluded his conversation by happily inviting us to serve with him in Thailand. But he included a gentle caution as he closed. He said, “We would love to have any of you come to Thailand and help us, but if you come, you must have real Holy Spirit power. We casting demons out of people and doing fighting all the time in Thailand. And if you don’t have real Holy Spirit power when you come to Thailand, the devil, well…he just eat you up.”

LORD, what is that? What is he talking about? What does all this mean? What are we to think of these things? How do we know what we’re truly struggling against? Is it warfare or just plain old war? Is it warfare or just strange, primitive thinking among primitive people? LORD, is it warfare or is it coincidence? Is it warfare or just a faulty wire or burnt out bulb?

In the end, all we can do is turn to Scripture; opinions will only leave us “eaten up.”

In Genesis, the devil tricked Adam and Eve, controlled the heart of Cain and got the whole miserable mess rolling. In the book of Job, the devil was allowed to afflict Job and his family horrifically. For reasons I suspect none of us will ever completely understand, Job was attacked in almost every way a human being could possibly be attacked. In 2 Corinthians 4:4 we learn “the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” In Luke 13:16, Jesus describes a woman “whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years.” In a very troubling verse to me personally, the Apostle Paul once told the Thessalonian church that “we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, did, again and again—but Satan blocked our way.” How exactly did Satan do that, Paul? A little more detail here would be helpful. In 2 Timothy 2:25-26, Paul told young Timothy how some people have fallen into a “trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.” What does he mean by taken captive? Paul told the Corinthians that Satan “masquerades as an angel of light.” What sort of light exactly? The Apostle Peter said, in 1 Peter 5:8-9 that we are supposed to be “alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your fellow believers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.” Paul told the Ephesians, in 4:27, not to give the devil a foothold in their lives. In 2 Corinthians 2:11, Paul says he forgave people “in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.” What schemes exactly, Paul?

We are certainly not without hope in this deal. James 4:7 encouragingly tells us when we resist the devil, he will flee from us. And wonderfully, in 1 John 4, we are told without any sort of hesitating equivocation that “greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.”

But probably the single most important passage guiding our understanding of these things is the sixth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Most of us know these verses…

“Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.”

Back in the days of the great Pastor Scott Pearson at the Ely Baptist Church, a young couple began coming to the church. They were new to their faith and soaking up everything like a sponge. When Pastor Pearson did a series on the Holy Spirit, this young couple went home and decided to get serious about what the pastor said. They sat at their kitchen table and invited the Holy Spirit to fully enter their lives. But as soon as they prayed this, the woman immediately began to manifest truly bizarre demonic behavior. Her young husband was very disturbed, called the pastor and the two of them spent the rest of the evening quietly exorcising demons from her. That couple remains to this day a vital and important family in the church.

Why can’t all spiritual warfare stuff be like that? Why can’t it all be obvious and easy? Why didn’t God give us a handy list of demonic behaviors in Scripture so we could know what is going on in any and every situation? Weird voices and abnormal power displays, sure – but lost wallets, strange coincidence, finicky sound systems and burnt out light bulbs? I’m not so sure. How can we know of a certainty what is actually going on in the spiritual realm around us?

Most of the time, I don’t think we can know of a certainty. The devil usually isn’t that dumb and obvious. So all we can do is rely on what Scripture clearly tells us. There are many great studies on spiritual warfare, and I’ve done a lengthy teaching series on the subject in the past but, to be honest right now, I don’t really want to spend too much time on this.

Biblically, I believe everything boils down to three constant and very simple activities.

The first activity is watching. Be aware. Be alert because we know we have an enemy who prowls around like a roaring lion looking for whom he may devour.

Do you know why I’m completely comfortable saying the spiritual warfare things I did about our little technical distractions last Sunday? Because I know for a fact the devil doesn’t ever want you fully paying attention when I open the Bible. In a very real and biblical sense, we are always stuck in the middle of a spiritual battle for our eternal souls. This is where we all live! While I don’t know for a fact we were particularly singled out for special demonic attention last Sunday, I do know for a fact the LORD had given me a word the devil did not want any of us to hear. I have dealt with enough spiritual warfare like this over the course of my preaching and teaching ministry to recognize too many coincidental conflicts in the house at one time.

As I was writing these very words on Thursday, our con man friend from back in April showed up to waste my time and steal money from us again. But this time, I didn’t go get Bonnie from downstairs to hear his phony preschool proposals. We didn’t sit down to waste away the morning on his silly, scheming financial stories. He was in and out of the building within five minutes this time. Why? Because we know him now! We know how he behaves. We are familiar with his tricks and deceit. We were alert and ready to stand against him. We were watching. From Genesis to Revelation, we are told to be watching.

In the late 1980’s, I was in Bogota, Colombia on a military mission. We were in a morning meeting at the Army headquarters discussing the situation in Colombia. At one point, a Colombian Army officer told us the story of an Army sergeant reassigned to Bogota after many difficult months fighting leftist guerrillas and narcotraffickers in the countryside. He was peacefully and happily at his guard post in the city when some children came running up to him, telling him about a box sitting by a fence outside a nearby elementary school. The soldier quickly ran to the school, took one look at the mysterious cardboard box, ordered everyone to evacuate the area and proceeded to diffuse a massive bomb literally seconds before it was due to explode. The target of the bomb? The 5 year old grand-daughter of the President!

It is our biblical task to be watching, aware and vigilant. We have an enemy who will stop at nothing to prevent us from hearing or, worse yet, sharing the Good News. We don’t need to navel gaze, carefully define things or waste time analyzing his tactics. We know we have an enemy. We know how he behaves. We have seen enough of his crummy bombs to know what they look like. It might creep us out to feel like we need to maintain this sort of constant, almost paranoid sort of vigilance, but the Bible and our spiritual situation demand it.

The second biblical activity is protection. We must not only be aware and watching, we must take all the spiritual steps necessary to ensure we and everyone we know are properly protected from the enemy. And this is where the Ephesians 6 passage is so helpful. Paul tells us exactly what we need to do to ensure we are protected in our encounters with the enemy. He says we must wrap our lives in whatever is true like a belt holding our whole battle uniform together, so the devil can’t lie to us. We live our lives righteously, so the devil can’t accuse us or coerce us. We embrace a gospel of peace, which makes us ready to love at all times. We fearlessly live our lives by faith, understanding that we can’t actually protect ourselves from the weather, much less the devil. By faith, we trust our God to protect us and that rock, solid faith leaves us fearlessly shielded from the fiery darts of the enemy. We put on the gleaming helmet of salvation; embracing the free offer of eternal life with Christ, again completely unafraid of what the devil might do. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain! And then, like Jesus in the wilderness, we fight back with the Sword of the Spirit, the word of God. We know our Bible so thoroughly we will never be tricked into the sins and suffering the devil always has planned for us. We protect ourselves by throwing ourselves into the arms of our Heavenly Father. We assume this protection is always necessary because we assume our enemy is always out there.

And here’s where it is important we understand something about a pastor’s role in all this stuff. In Hebrews 13:17, we learn we are to “have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account.” I know it isn’t real popular these days for folks like me to talk about you submitting to authority, and I know submission isn’t a strength of many churches in America, but that isn’t the part I want you to focus on today. The second part of this verse describes how I must feel about you. This second part almost completely explains why I will do and say some of the confusing, contentious things I will occasionally do and say in this place, especially in possible areas of spiritual warfare. I’m going to have to stand before Almighty God some day and say, “LORD, here’s what I did with Elim Church.” And because I honestly believe that, I’m sometimes going to get real feisty and direct with our enemy. You may think I’m loopy or exaggerating at times, but I can’t be overly concerned about that. If I’m going to make a mistake, especially in this tricky area of spiritual warfare, I’m going to err on the side of caution. I’m going to err on the side of protection. So sometimes you’re just going to have to humor me, okay?

In the early 90’s, I took my youth group in Panama scuba diving. Because our dive boat operator overloaded the boat and didn’t know how to handle open ocean swells, a wave flipped us over and tossed the whole youth group and all our gear into the ocean. SSG Hanson took over immediately! I yelled at all the kids to get away from the sinking boat, drop anything and everything of value they had in their hands, grab whatever floated and assemble in a tight group. And then I forced the whole group to slowly dog paddle all the way back to shore. The kids treated the whole experience like a game and Monica was a little mad at me for allowing all our expensive gear to sink 60 feet down to the ocean floor. She thought I overreacted and she may well have been right. But all I know is that I got all my kids safely home that night.

And that is my responsibility before God. I keep a small, leather Bible I rescued that scary day from my submerged dive bag at the bottom of the ocean in my office as a reminder of my serious, sober responsibilities before God. I may sometimes look goofy, spooky or silly to some people, I may anger or embarrass you, you may not always understand, but I’m going to do everything I believe is necessary to get my kids safely home! Together, we must all do the great Ephesians 6 stuff necessary to allow God to protect us and then, congregationally, we must understand I am singularly responsible to Almighty God for ensuring that protection.

And then there is the third biblical activity: prayer. From Genesis to Revelation, we are told to pray like crazy, particularly whenever there is any possibility of spiritual warfare. The Apostle Paul closes his great Ephesians 6 spiritual warfare conversation by saying, “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” Nowhere in Scripture, Genesis to Revelation, are we ever given the impression that anything is too small or insignificant for us to pray about or the devil to ignore. We pray constantly about everything, fully understanding our sneaky enemy will use any silly little thing he can to distract and destroy whatever God is trying to do.

When Paul repeats this theme elsewhere, telling the Thessalonian church to “pray continually,” he uses a funny word to describe the sort of prayer he has in mind. The Greek adverb he chooses for “continually” is actually a word used to describe a persistent, annoying, and hacking sort of cough. I’ll admit that isn’t necessarily an attractive picture of prayer, but I think the teaching point is clear. Prayer is a persistent thing that just doesn’t go away. We’re praying about everything; all kinds of prayers and requests. We’re constantly hacking up our concerns to God and that is especially true if we suspect any sort of spiritual weirdness going on around us. We understand we are powerless without God and so we include our God in everything we do and say. We’re talking to God so constantly and comprehensively it would simply be odd not to talk to Him in the midst of something supernaturally strange. We pray!

There’s no fancy formula, perfect words or “binding” prayers we need to learn in order to win our spiritual fistfights. We don’t need to spend weeks and weeks discussing ad nauseum the wiles and ways of our enemy; what he does and does not do. We can cut right to the chase. Almost everything we really need to know about the devil was revealed to us the first time we saw him in Genesis 3! The devil and his demons are out there, they hate you and they want nothing more in the universe than to ruin your life and make God sad. It isn’t personal and yet it couldn’t be more personal. It isn’t about you and yet it has always been exactly about you. It is zero sum game, low and high intensity, conventional and very unconventional spiritual warfare. It is just plain, old, ugly combat. We can pretend the devil isn’t there or that some little stuff is too unimportant for him to care about, but that’s not what the Bible teaches. The Bible says we must have “real Holy Spirit power” or the devil, well, he just eat us up.

But having said all this strange sounding stuff, I can’t close this morning without telling a favorite spiritual warfare story. I’ve shared it with some of you already. Smith Wigglesworth, a very Pentecostal preacher and healing evangelist, was once disturbed by a noise in the middle of the night. When he went downstairs, he discovered a full-fledged manifestation of Satan himself sitting in his living room. Upon this scary discovery, as the story goes, Smith reportedly mumbled, “Oh, it’s just you. Keep it down would you, I really need to get some sleep tonight.”

Folks, this is not a fair fight. When God tells us in His Word, “greater is He who is in us than He who is in the world,” He means it! We have nothing whatsoever to fear, but we must not allow our joy and freedom to lure us into a blind, naïve complacency on these important things. We must watch, we must allow God to protect us and we must constantly be in prayer.

Last Sunday night, I woke up at 2:45 in the morning, very strangely awake and aware. Ten minutes later, outside my open bedroom window in the early morning silence of the night, I heard someone run into the courtyard of our apartment complex. This person was obviously crying and pulling on doors to see if she could find any door that would let her in. Moments after she arrived, a man came running in after her. I didn’t know what was going on, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I said a quick prayer, noisily raised the blinds on my window, stood with my arms crossed in the window, coughed loudly and glared angrily down at the man in the courtyard. He looked up at me, looked at the girl across the courtyard and then said something gently to her in Spanish. From the tone of his voice, it seemed to me he wasn’t angry at her, but simply concerned for her safety. Moments later, the two of them left the courtyard.

I don’t know exactly what was going on there, but I was watching and aware. I made myself available to God for the protection of this girl. And I was praying. Perhaps it was nothing at all to be concerned about. Or perhaps, just perhaps, a father lost control of himself last Sunday night and God woke me up in the middle of the night to be just the faintest little sliver of sanity the moment required. Perhaps the LORD woke me up to save a young girl’s life.

We don’t know what is going on in the spiritual realm around us. So doesn’t it just seem reasonable to listen to what the Bible says and do what it says? I sure think so.

May we be watching!

May we embrace the protection Almighty God offers us!

May we be in prayer constantly that we might be powerfully useful in God’s hands!

Amen.

Politics & Pastors

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.
When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy
went and sold all he had and bought that field.
~ Matthew 13:44

A few days from now, I will make the easiest and most obvious political decision I have ever made; perhaps the easiest I will ever make in my lifetime. While neither of the Presidential candidates are first choices for me, the substantial differences between them makes this an extremely simple decision for me. And as someone who started life as a political science major at Bethel back in 1979, the clarity and simplicity of this decision has made it extremely difficult to keep my mouth shut this year. Excruciatingly difficult!

But I’ve done so. With the exception of a few people I know who generally agree with my views, I’ve kept my political opinions to myself. I’ve said nothing political from the pulpit, in this newsletter, in emails, on my blog or on Facebook with my friends. I have bitten my tongue very hard.

But I don’t do so because I’m worried about silly IRS regulations. I’m not worried about our tax exempt status as a church or what the government might say. Those concerns are very selectively and unfairly enforced as far as I’m concerned. And frankly, there is a good chance those tax exemption concerns are unconstitutional and unnecessary anyway. But I’m not going to get involved in that debate either.

And I don’t avoid these issues because I’m a coward. I have no problems speaking up when I believe I must, even when speaking on difficult and controversial issues. Monica often wishes I would shut up more!

I avoid these issues because I learned something from Billy Graham in the early 70’s. Billy Graham was intensely criticized for not voicing his opinions during the Vietnam War years. With his access to President Nixon and halls of power all around the world, people accused him of cowardice, people pleasing and naïveté. But Dr. Billy Graham’s response was simple. I am called by God to be an evangelist. Why would I trade that away for something less important? While that is a very hard statement to live, I believe it to be true.

I am called by God to do all I can to depopulate hell. As critically important as the currently debated political issues genuinely are (and they really are!), the issues I’ve been given to discuss are more so. If I embroil myself or allow this church to become embroiled in the political arguments of the day, I run the serious risk of losing my ability to discuss issues of eternal importance. As a wise old pastor once said to a man who insisted on wearing his political buttons to Sunday worship, “Sir, what if a terrible sinner goes to hell because your loud politics got in the way of him hearing the Gospel?” Do we really want that?

I know we’re all very wound up about this election. I know our church has people on all sides of the political spectrum. I know there are people reading this article who think I’m either stupid or naïve to believe this election is an easy decision. I know there are people who think the time has come for pastors to speak up from the pulpit on these things; that we are compromising the Gospel itself by failing to do so. There are Bonhoeffers among us who believe the time is now or is soon coming for a new Confessing Church. And then there are those who are so sick of all of this stuff they’re having to force themselves even to finish this article.

Yup, I do get it.

May God help us all to focus on the treasure! May God help us all to graciously walk the delicate and difficult line we are called to walk in these times! May the Holy Spirit help us to listen more than we speak!

Amen.

Our Newness Compulsion (2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2)

This has been a week of old man’s blessing for me...

We’ve been talking about joy over the last several weeks. Last Sunday we listened to the old, beaten and bruised Apostle Paul explaining what it means to be a “cracked pot for Christ.” The old guy explained to us where joy comes from in the midst of great challenges.

Then on Sunday afternoon, Monica and I had the very distinct privilege of hearing the great The Blind Boys of Alabama perform with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band at Orchestra Hall. It was really good church! It was some devil-stomping, Jesus joy and heavenly hope! It was three old, happy, blind men; three cracked pots and some younger friends who have been singing the good gospel together since 1939; three old, joyous, feisty guys who had a hard time sitting still for the show. It was joy. It was old man’s blessing.

And then on Friday morning, with everything going on in my life this week, I was here very, very early working on my sermon studies. I finally got down to the end of all my commentary work and turned to my old, commentator friend Warren Wiersbe. I save his stuff for last because it always has a way of speaking directly to where I believe God wants me to go on Sunday. I wasn’t disappointed on Friday. Once again, I was stunned to see how Dr. Wiersbe settled on exactly the same three points I was feeling led to discuss today. This has happened so repeatedly and so beautifully, I decided to stop for a moment and tell Dr. Warren Wiersbe how much I truly do appreciate him. I did a little research on the internet, found his home phone number and called him. After a few awkward, “who is this creepy stranger calling my husband at breakfast time” moments with his wife, dear Dr. Wiersbe got on the phone and joyously proceeded to make me feel like the most important person in his day. We talked about 2 Corinthians 5, what I’ve been preaching lately and some other good pastor stuff. He told me a Garrison Keillor joke about lutefisk and a very funny old Spurgeon limerick about stealing sermon material (that I wish I could remember now). He told me to take very good care of my leaders and then he prayed for me and adamantly insisted I call again sometime. It was joy. It was old man’s blessing.

Today I was planning to continue our joy conversation, picking up in 2 Corinthians 5 where we left off last week. But as I studied 2 Corinthians 5 more deeply, it seemed to me the LORD would have us go in a slightly different direction. Today is about the old man’s blessing. I believe the old man just wants to bless us with an explanation of the newness compulsion driving him to do to do what he does…

So open your Bible to 2 Corinthians 5, beginning in verse 11. The Apostle has just given a lengthy, thoughtful explanation of his perspective on earthly life groaning in anticipation of the wonderful life to come. He concludes by recognizing his accountability to God for everything he does in this earthly life. With all this as background, he goes on to say:

Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. For he says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation. (NIV)

There are three joyous and critically important things the old man wants his dear friends in Corinth, and all of us here at Elim this morning, to understand about what it means to be a genuine Christ-follower, what it means to be compelled by the newness. We do all we do, we live as we live, we spend our money and our lives as we do because there are three powerful, persistent engines pulling us along; three great newness compulsions we cannot escape.

The Fear of the LORD

The first engine is found in verse eleven. Because we know what it is to fear the LORD, we constantly try to persuade people to follow Him. We share our hope, we share our joy, we live our lives in the way we do because the engine of genuine fear is pulling us down the tracks.

There are many who would water down this “fear of the LORD” idea. But we must never do so! The old man says what he says here because he has just been talking, in verse 10, about one day standing before God Almighty to give an account of himself. While of course we don’t fear God as the world does, we do fully understand the great and terrible God with whom we have to do. Contrary to popular opinion and today’s politically correct preaching, fear is not a bad thing. Fear is only a bad thing when we fear the wrong thing! I fully believe our culture is in the poor spiritual situation it is in because people today fear all sorts of things more than they fear God. When we fear people and their opinions and ridicule, when we fear the world's definition of poverty, when we fear the future, when we fear pain or puniness, when we fear anything more than we fear Almighty God, our soul train has left the tracks.

The old man is not at all interested in how he measures up to the flashy, more spiritual and powerful preachers of his day. He isn’t interested in how successful people consider him to be. He is only concerned with what God thinks of his faithful service. This old man Paul is only afraid of one Man. He is only concerned about what God thinks of his behavior.

People used to call D.L. Moody “crazy Moody” because he left a successful business behind to work in the Sunday Schools and eventually become an evangelist. And yet we don’t know the names of any of those people now, do we? Moody wasn’t afraid of their opinions.

The commentator William Barclay, in his commentary on this passage, tells the story of a man who once boarded a ship with the great General William Booth of the Salvation Army. Some noisy, happy Salvation Army friends came to see him off with songs and tambourines and this other passenger did not approve. Later, after getting to know General Booth onboard the ship, this other passenger told him he did not approve of noisy, inappropriate music. Booth’s feisty response was classic. “Young man, if I thought I could win just one more soul to Christ by standing on my hands and beating a tambourine with my feet I would do it.” I am not afraid! I am not driven by what people think. I am only afraid of what God thinks.

I fully understand, as Jonathan Edwards said so famously in his sermon many years ago, that I have sorely offended the One who holds me by the wispiest of threads like a spider over the fiery furnaces of hell. I understand there is nothing keeping me from hell but the merciful hand of God himself. His hand on my life is the only hand with which I must be concerned.

Dear brothers and sisters, the great and terrifying tragedy of this age is that we have foolishly managed to make ourselves enormous and God very small. The old man pleads with us here to see the insanity of such a situation. He pleads with us to fear and follow the LORD.

But this fear of the LORD engine is only the very first engine pulling him along.

The Love of Christ

The second engine is found in verse 14. We are pulled along, or we are compelled as Paul says here, by the love of Christ. We do the things we do, we love others as we do only because we ourselves were so lavishly loved first. Because He died, we died. Because He lives, we too live and live more fully and joyously than would ever otherwise be possible. His perfect love casts out all fear except the passionate and proper fear of God himself.

We are compelled to love as we do, we have the newness compulsion we do because you and I haven’t just been religiously reformed, rehabilitated or reeducated in some nice way, we have been made completely new. The Greek word for this “newness” used in verse 17 is “kainos” newness, not simple “neos” newness. We are qualitatively, essentially new. We are as new as new as the Garden of Eden; squealing babies in the arms of our Father. We are new creations. I am no longer feisty, furious Saul of Tarsus; I am crazy, cracked clay pot, joyous, prison loving Paul the Apostle! The newness compulsion process begun in us is the same one that will one day culminate in Revelation 21:5, where “He who was seated on the throne says, "I am making everything new!" "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."

We no longer live for ourselves because the self we used to live for is dead now! The love of Christ compels us to do all we do. We have a newness compulsion we cannot suppress!

Warren Wiersbe, in his wonderful commentary on this passage, tells the inspiring story of Frances Havergal who went to Germany in 1858 with her father who was getting treatment for his failing eyes. While in a pastor’s home, she saw a picture of the Crucifixion on the wall, with the words under it: “I did this for thee. What has thou done for me?” Quickly she took a piece of paper and wrote a poem based on that motto; but she was not satisfied with it, so she threw the paper into the fireplace. But the paper came out unharmed! Years later, her father encouraged her to publish her poem and eventually something rescued from the fire became a blessed hymn of the church. I gave, I gave My life for thee, what hast thou given for Me?

We are crazy in love with Jesus! Fully understanding our terrifying, desperately lost position apart from Christ, we fully enjoy our new creation position in Christ. We revel in our newness and we are compelled to share this wonderful newness with all those around us. The love of Christ becomes an engine pulling us, a newness compulsion driving all we do.

The Old Man Mission

And those first two engines culminate in the third. Look again at the end of verse 19 where the old man tells us how “he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” We are driven by the fear of the LORD, the love of Christ and the ambassadorial mission given us.

There is something wonderfully poetic in the Greek behind this word “ambassador” Paul uses here. Did you know that literally translated, this ambassador word means “old man” of Christ? This word was originally used because any emissary, ambassador or representative of a powerful person in the ancient world of Paul’s day would of almost of necessity be an old man, a distinguished, respected elder statesman worthy of a sovereign’s trust and confidence.

And so Paul is poetically saying we are “the old men of Jesus.” We are now the newly distinguished, worthy, truly respected statesmen and women of King Jesus. We are not from this country or any other. We do not fear what this world fears, nor love what this world loves. We have been given the old man’s mission, a newness compulsion, to share love and hope with the enemies of God. We have been sent to the world to help explain to the world that Almighty God has not declared war on them, but peace! We have been given an old man, baby newness compulsion to break through all the silly superficial fears of the people around us and help them to be reconciled to the only One truly worthy of fear. We are the old men sent to tell prodigals daddy is still standing there waiting at the end of the road. We are the old men of Jesus.

We fear the Lord. We love Jesus. We are the old men of the Savior.

And as a genuine old man of Jesus, the Apostle closes this conversation as only a true old man of Jesus always will. He begs us all to be reconciled to God. He begs us all to see that this is the day of salvation. This is the time of God’s favor. Listen to what this old man says…

May we receive the old man’s blessing today! May this old man’s gospel song move us closer to Jesus! May we all fear God, love Jesus and embrace our old man’s mission!

Amen.

Church With The Blind Boys

I finally had the opportunity to see The Blind Boys of Alabama today at Orchestra Hall. They played with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. What a treasure trove of great music!

I immediately came home and downloaded a great collection of their music. Their Spirit of the Century recording is fantastic. I hope the people in the apartments upstairs and downstairs are very forgiving tonight!

What a pleasure!

This Is The Day The LORD Has Made

A picture from my friend Ray Thielbar up in Ely, Minnesota

Greetings Madam!

When the world sticks its nose into the window, you just have to give up a french fry!

Crackpots For Christ (2 Corinthians 4:5-18)

I know what people are saying. I know all the smart people don’t understand me. They just don’t think old Saul's playing with a full deck anymore. They see my life, they listen to my hearty and feisty preaching, they hear my happiness and excitement and they just don’t get it.

I mean…I think of what happened that night years ago in Philippi. We were traveling around Phrygia and Galatia and we were going to turn right and head up into Asia. But the Spirit prevented us so we went down to Troas. And as we were sitting there, wondering what in the world to do, I had a vision of man in Macedonia calling out to us. We were thrilled and took off at once, excitedly convinced God had a great work for us. But when we finally got to Philippi, one of the leading Macedonian cities, there wasn’t even a synagogue so we went down to the river, where we expected to find at least a prayer group of some kind. We found a bunch of women. How funny is that? Almighty God gives me a vision of a man in Macedonia calling out and yet when I get there, we end up planting His church first among the women!

Anyway, we ended up staying with a local business woman and preaching around town. As we were doing so one day, we were bothered by a demon-possessed, fortune telling slave girl who kept following us around yelling out to the crowd who we were. She wasn’t necessarily telling lies about us, but have you ever tried to preach or teach when someone in the room just won’t shut up? Yelling and screaming and carrying on. It was just annoying! So finally I just turned to the spirit inside her and commanded it to come out, which it did. End of problem…

I thought everything was going to be fine, but I underestimated how business people react when they discover their little demon-possessed money maker was no longer demon possessed or, more importantly, a money maker. Never mess with the money train, fellas! Boy, did they ever get mad! They dragged us through town to the magistrates, stripped us, beat the daylights out of us with rods, locked us in irons and tossed us into the deepest, most dangerous part of the prison as if we were the most evil criminals they had ever seen.

And yet about midnight, the Holy Spirit overwhelmed us and, before you know it, we were praying and singing hymns to the LORD. We were having church! And the other poor prisoners down there in the pit were joining in. It was wonderful! What should have been the most depressing, disillusioning experience of my life became a gorgeous moment with God.

But people don’t understand stuff like that. People think you’re cracking up when you start enjoying the awful moments. They just don’t understand where the joy comes from.

So let me take a moment to explain it to you. I know you’ve had some pretty brutal business weeks around here lately. The old slave girl really got the demons kicked out of her, didn’t she? I understand. I know there are many of you wondering right now how much worse things might possibly get and where the joy is supposed to come from when the market gets bad. So turn to the fourth chapter of my second letter to the Corinthians (page 1055) and let me remind you of some things you need to understand about our joy…I like the way I put this.

…We do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken." With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (NIV)

Do you see? Do you understand?

There are four life truths in this passage we’ve all got to grasp if we are ever going to joyously survive the coming darkness and difficulty.

We’re Not Preaching Us

And the first thing we’ve got to understand is that we’re not preaching us. This thing we’re doing, this life we’re leading isn’t about us anymore. In many ways, it never really was. We’re not preaching us. The great Saul of Tarsus, the epic Pharisee and famous student of Gamaliel was tragically killed years ago in a freak riding accident on the road to Damascus! He was knocked off his prideful high horse by a bolt of lightening; he was completely blindsided by the loving voice of the very one he was persecuting. Saul of Tarsus is dead now. This thing isn’t about Saul of Tarsus anymore. I don’t want people impressed by Saul of Tarsus – I want people impressed by Jesus of Nazareth speaking through what used to be Saul of Tarsus.

This thing isn’t about me. We’re not in this thing for ourselves. We aren’t trying to gather a following, win your praise or achieve some sort of prestigious worldly success. We aren’t trying to get rich or build an empire. We’re not preaching ourselves. We’re preaching Jesus. So it doesn’t matter what you do to us, because this thing isn’t about us. You can beat the daylights out of us, toss us in a jail cell and say whatever you want about us and we’ll come up singing because we know we can’t lose.

For us to live is Christ and to die is gain!

We’re Cheap Cracked Pots

The second, fun-filled fact we’ve got to grasp is that, in many ways, the world is right about us. We are cracked pots! We are all cheap, cracked, clay pots struggling to hold water.

God didn’t choose to use any of us because we were so slick and smart. In many cases, He chose us in spite of our slick smartness. God chose leaky, cracked and cheap vessels like us because especially in us, and through the difficult places He brings us, it is that much easier for Him to shine through. God chose us and allows us to go through the things He allows us to go through in life because that is simply the best way to reveal Himself to the world around us.

We’re Just Leaking Jesus

So the world is partially right. We are cheap, cracked and unimpressive clay pots. I am just a happy crackpot! But what the world doesn’t understand is that we are all cheap, cracked pottery. We are all weak, clay vessels struggling to contain whatever we have inside us. The only difference with us is that the leaky pot that is our life is filled up with Jesus. And so when you kick us, when you beat us, when you crush us and break us, what comes out of us is Jesus. We’re all just supposed to be leaking Jesus. That’s the way this whole thing is designed to work. That is the third truth you’ve got to take home today. This is what it’s all about.

So don’t be shocked and surprised when God allows you to go through difficult things. Don’t be destroyed or dismayed when another crack gets beaten into the pot that is your life. We aren’t preaching ourselves. This thing isn’t about us. What matters is what leaks out of us when we are kicked, cracked or broken. This whole thing is about leaking Jesus.

What comes out of you when bad stuff happens? What is leaking out of your life?

We’re Fixing Our Eyes

We don’t continue to preach because we long for bigger crowds, more money or higher honors. And we don’t preach or live the way we do because in some sick, twisted, masochistic way we have learned to love the beatings. Eeew! How stupid would that be? We preach and live as we do because we have weighed our light and momentary troubles in this life against the overwhelming glory and joy we believe awaits us. We have fixed our eyes on Jesus, “the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. We have fully considered him who endured such opposition from sinful men and so we do not grow weary and lose heart.”

We have fixed our eyes on Jesus, who endured far more for us than we could ever possibly endure for him. That is the fourth, final and most important component of the joyous life. Only by fixing our eyes on Jesus will Jesus leak out of us when we suffer. Only fixing our eyes on Jesus will allow us to accept our cheap, cracked pot status. Only fixing our eyes on Jesus will keep us from fixing our eyes on ourselves and preaching ourselves. And so we fix our eyes on Him and we are rewarded with overwhelming joy and lovely songs in our jail cells.

That’s it. That’s all there is.

Do you remember what finally happened that night Silas and I spent in that Philippian jail cell? Do you remember the rest of the story? I sure do! The joy of the LORD descended on that place and an earthquake opened the doors and the chains fell off every prisoner. And when the terrified jailer saw we were all too happy to leave the prison, he fell on his knees and begged to know this Jesus leaking joyously out of us! He took us out of that jail cell that very night, washed our wounds and introduced us to his family. I love the way my friend Luke told the story in his Acts of the Apostles, chapter 16, verse 34: “The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God--he and his whole family.” My jailer found joy because of the joy leaking out of us.

That’s the way this thing is supposed to work.

May you find joy in your jail cell today! May we all so fix our eyes on Jesus we won’t be interested in preaching ourselves anymore! May the joy of Jesus leak out of us constantly!

Amen.

Send Billy Graham A Birthday Note!

I certainly can't imagine a more profoundly positive influence on our world in the last century than Dr. Billy Graham. Please take a moment to greet him and wish him your very best.

How Joy Behaves (Philippians 1)

What am I, boys and girls? How do you know what I am? How do you know for a fact I’m not a super hero? For all you kids know, I could be Mr. Incredible. Maybe my day job as a mild-mannered inner city pastor is just a cover for my real calling as a middle-aged, slightly overweight crime fighter with cool friends. I’m strong you know. Once I helped carry Heather Simon’s piano down some stairs. I could beat any of you at arm wrestling.

Or maybe I’m a closet rock musician with a mumbling problem. I own a bass guitar. My guitar stands right beside my desk every day while I’m at work, just begging me to play with it. So maybe, just maybe I’m a great bass player. Maybe I just took off the sunglasses, cut my hair and settled down with a new Mrs. How do you know I’m not a great musician?

How do people know what you really are? In the Bible passage we’re going to study today, a happy old man named Paul told some good friends to “conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ.” Paul told his friends to live their lives in such a way that people would know they’re Christians by how they behaved; people know us by what we do.

Isn’t that right? Isn’t that obvious? Is this a duck? Of course it is! How do we know? Well, if it walks like a duck, talks like duck, swims like a duck – it’s a duck! Right?

A farmer was once answering a bunch of survey questions. He told the surveyor how old he was, how much money he made, how many children he had, but then his questioner asked the farmer if he was a Christian. And when that question was asked, the old farmer said, “Oh I don’t know about that, you’ll have to ask my neighbors.” Do you understand what he meant? Only people who see my behavior every day can tell you what I really, truly am.

What are you? What does your behavior say you are? I’m no great super hero, am I? Maybe I’m a little strong or at least stronger than you guys, but I’m not super hero strong. I would look silly in red tights. That would be a creepy thing to see! And do you know how you kids can know for a fact I’m no great, bass playing musician? Just ask me to play my bass! I’m a terrible bass player! I’m such a bad bass player they ought to take away my bass guitar…

What are you? What does your behavior say you are?

This certainly isn’t a question just for the kids, is it? Open your Bibles to the first chapter of Philippians. It would be criminal of us to do any study of joyous and genuine Christian faith without spending at least a little time in Philippians. In this short little thank you note from the Apostle Paul to his dear Philippian friends, we are treated to a lovely picture of the joyous, genuine Christian life. We see how joy behaves…

Paul and Timothy, servants [slaves] of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure (“sin cera”) and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ--to the glory and praise of God.
Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. Because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly.
It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.
Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me. Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved--and that by God. For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have. (NIV)

Most people say the book of Philippians is all about joy. They point to the fact that the word joy is used at least 19 times in the letter. But Warren Wiersbe says those folks are wrong. He says the book is about Jesus – Jesus appears over 40 times in the letter. Wiersbe says Paul is just so obviously in love with Jesus, joy just constantly bubbles to the surface. I love that.

But those arguments aside, what I love most about our Scripture passage today is that in this passage we get to see genuine Christian joy for what it really is. We get to see how genuine Christian joy behaves. The Apostle Paul, writing this letter as something of a thank you note for gifts received from the Philippians during his grim Roman imprisonment, is so overwhelmed with his LORD Jesus and his Christian joy it completely affects his behavior. We learn what genuine Christian joy looks like by watching the behavior and attitudes of the Apostle Paul. We learn who Paul is, we learn who Jesus is, we learn what joy is.

In this lovely chapter, we learn how genuine Christian joy always, always, always behaves. There are all sorts of glorious teaching points we could make here this morning, but there are four more important than all the rest. Folks, lest you have any doubt, lest you have any confusion in your mind whatsoever, here’s how joy always, always, always behaves.

Joy Adores The Church

First of all, genuine Christian joy adores the Church. Paul’s joyous love for the Philippian church is not some cold, objective, doctrinal thing nor is it driven by the special perfection of the Philippian church. Look at this passage. Joy recognizes the partnership of other people in this following Jesus, Gospel proclamation thing. Joy confidently recognizes not the perfection but the possibilities in other people also following Jesus. Joy sees the ongoing work of God in the lives of others. Joy fully understands we are all sharing the same grace and struggles. Joy is driven to love “all of you,” even the two cranky, arguing ladies mentioned at the beginning of chapter four. Joy loves the church; constantly thinking of and praying for her. And do you see what joy prays for the church here in verses 9-11? Joy prays for wisdom, discernment, purity, fruitfully righteous and truly glorious lives in every way. Joy adores the church.

It is fashionable these days to love God and despise or disparage the people of God. There is quite literally an entire cottage industry growing up around the idea that denigrating churches is a proper and acceptable sport for truly wise, sophisticated and spiritual people. Oh be careful little tongue, what you say! I don’t believe joy behaves that way. Joy adores the church, even as it recognizes the flaws and unholy imperfections of the people in the church. Joy looks for partnership, possibilities, shared grace and good in all the people of the church. Joy does not sit back and bitterly judge brothers and sisters from a safe distance; true joy is lovingly, prayerfully, laughingly mixing it up with people. Joy can’t help it; joy adores church.

Joy Suffers Sacredly

Secondly, joy suffers sacredly. Look again at verses 12-14. Joy isn’t at all bitter about suffering, injustice and terrible unfairness. While not masochistically enjoying suffering in some twisted way, joy is determined to sacredly redeem suffering for God’s glory. Joy turns what is suffering and fully satanic into something sacred and substantial. These chains have become something sacred to God. The entire Praetorian Guard has now heard the message! Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that the coolest? These chains have even caused some meeker Christ followers to become emboldened, courageous and fearless. While I would certainly love and prefer to be sitting in Philippi enjoying a nice meal and glass of wine with all of you right now, this suffering is sacred and useful to me. Joy rejoices in chains. Joy rejoices in prison cells. Like the great Russian writer and Gulag prisoner Solzhenitsyn once said, joy makes me able to say “Bless you prison for all you have accomplished in my world.” Bless you prison! Joy suffers sacredly.

Joy Is Mission Focused

And then there’s the third one. Joy adores the church. Joy suffers sacredly. And then thirdly, joy is completely mission focused. Look again at verses 15-18. Joy fully understands some preachers are better than other preachers; some friends are more genuine than other friends. Joy is not naïve about other people and other ministries, but joy is not interested in wasting very much time pulling weeds out of the wheat. Joy says “who cares?” to all of that; whether from false motives or true, as long as the Gospel is preached, I am a happy camper!

Do you remember that story of Jesus and his disciples in Mark 9? Some disciples come to Jesus saying, “Teacher…we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.” And what did Jesus say? Don’t stop him! Whoever is not against us is for us! Fellas, we’re on a mission here. We’ve got stuff to do – anyone willing to help in any way with our mission is welcome to participate; there is always room in the club!

On Thursday, I stopped by SuperAmerica for a Diet Pepsi on the way back to the office after seeing Joy Bennett in the hospital. As I was standing in line, I couldn’t help but overhear the happy conversation of two, tiny little Asian girls behind me. Apparently, their young mother allowed them both to buy two large, pink boxes of bubble gum as a special treat. The two girls were very, very happy about the whole thing. For some reason, they began to talk about the people with whom they would now share their enormous supplies of gum. One planned to give some to daddy, the other to daddy and her big brother and then it was a piece of wonderful pink gum for the whole class at the preschool tomorrow. And then, in the most joyous, loud, sing-song and triumphant voice imaginable, one of the girls said, “Well, I’m going to give a piece of my gum to everyone! I’m going to share my gum with everyone in the whole world!”

That’s the truly joyous, mission-focused Christian! There is so much gum in the box, joy can’t imagine being stingy with it! Joy isn’t trying to own everything. Joy isn’t trying to hoard anything for itself. Joy doesn’t care who gets the credit – there is more than enough credit in the bubble gum box to go around. Joy doesn’t care if other people want to help out with gum distribution efforts. Joy just wants everyone to get some gum. Joy is always on a mission.

What would happen in this country if every Christian and every Church suddenly got joyously mission-focused? What would happen if we all stopped trying to police each other’s goofy doctrines and methods and got joyously mission-focused? What would happen if more and more of us actually said, “What does it matter? The important thing is that in every way whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.” Can any of us even imagine the impact we would have if we said that and actually meant it? Can we even conceive of such a wonderful thing? Joy is always on a mission; it is mission-focused.

Joy Is Hope Sustained

And then we come to the fourth and final joyous behavior prominently on display in this passage. Joy always adores the church, it always suffers sacredly, it is always mission-focused and, fourthly, it is always and forever completely driven and sustained by Christian hope. Look again at two of the most joyous, gorgeous and hopeful verses in all the Bible, verses 20-21.

I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Joy is sustained by a sure, rock solid, earnest expectation and certain Christian hope telling us matter of factly that there is no losing this game we’re playing! Even speaking from the dark uncertainty of a prison cell, joy sees only victory. Joy will never be ashamed. Joy will never lack courage. Joy will never disgrace the name of Jesus, because joy is faithfully sustained by a constant hope and confidence. Joy cannot conceive of any losing scenario!

J. Vernon McGee tells the now famous story of a small church pastor who asked his congregation one Sunday evening to raise their hands in the air if they wanted to go to heaven. Everyone raised their hands except a little boy. The pastor stopped the service and asked the little boy, “Don’t you want to go to heaven, son?” The little boy replied, “Well sure, Pastor, but I thought you was getting a group going up tonight!” Christian joy is so bathed, driven and sustained by Christian hope it doesn’t mind if God is planning to get the group together tonight.

Joy doesn’t depend on the hope of eventually being released from prison. Joy doesn’t depend on what the Romans do. Joy doesn’t depend on the condition of the prison cell. Joy doesn’t even depend on how the Philippians respond to this letter or what happens to the Philippian church. Joy doesn’t depend on anybody’s bailout package or superficial political solutions to the nagging problems of life. Joy is only sustained by its rock solid hope in God. A sustaining hope in God is the only thing that will consistently keep our joy alive and kicking.

James Montgomery Boice, in his old 1971 commentary on this passage, tells a strange story from the days of Lawrence of Arabia. Apparently, when Lawrence of Arabia was in Paris after World War I with some of his Arab friends, he took some time to show them the sights of the city. But his Arab friends weren’t very interested in tourist spots. What fascinated them more than anything was the faucet in the bathtub of their hotel room. They could turn it on and off; they could get all the water they wanted whenever they wanted it. Some time later, when they were ready to leave Paris and return home, Lawrence found them in the bathroom with wrenches trying to detach the faucet from the wall. “You see, sir, it is very dry in Arabia. What we need are these faucets. If we have them we will all the water we want.” They liked the faucets, but they had no comprehension of the pipeline making them productive.

While we all quite appropriately might chuckle at that story, how often do we more or less do the same thing when it comes to our Christian joy? How often do we forget joy only flows through our lives when we are solidly connected to the pipeline Jesus made available to us? Joy is properly and meaningfully sustained only by our genuine hope and solid connection to Jesus. Connecting our faucet to any other hopeless pipeline will not sustain joy very long.

Folks, this is how joy behaves. It adores the church, sacredly suffers, focuses on the mission and is sustained by hope. Is this how we behave?

May these lovely words of Paul become a joy standard for all of us.

May we too be known by the joy we display!

Amen.

My new favorite picture of Monica...

Dolphin Extras

A friend just emailed me this. I don't know exactly where it comes from, but I sure thought it was truly a lovely video! What a wonderful world our God has made!

The attached video is of dolphins playing with silver colored rings which they have the ability to make under water to play with. It isn't known how they learn this, or if it's an inbred ability. As if by magic the dolphin does a quick flip of its head and a silver ring appears in front of its pointed beak. The ring is a solid, donut shaped bubble about 2-ft across, yet it doesn't rise to the surface of the water! It stands upright in the water like a magic doorway to an unseen dimension.

The dolphin then pulls a small silver donut from the larger one. Looking at the twisting ring for one last time a bite is taken from it, causing the small ring to collapse into a thousands of tiny bubbles which head upward towards the water's surface. After a few moments the dolphin creates another ring to play with. There also seems to be a separate mechanism for producing small rings, which a dolphin can accomplish by a quick flip of its head.

An explanation of how dolphins make these silver rings is that they are 'air-core vortex rings'. Invisible, spinning vortices in the water are generated from the tip of a dolphin's dorsal fin when it is moving rapidly and turning. When dolphins break the line, the ends are drawn together into a closed ring. The higher velocity fluid around the core of the vortex is at a lower pressure than the fluid circulating farther away. Air is injected into the rings via bubbles released from the dolphin's blowhole. The energy of the water vortex is enough to keep the bubbles from rising for a reasonably few seconds of play time.

Isn't this a lovely thing? Is this just one of God's sweetest extras???

Interrupting The Dominant Narrative

I found this great cartoon in the Star Tribune this morning. This is the first time their comics page has made me laugh in quite a while...

Don't you wonder if this isn't sometimes the way God must feel? Do you suppose many of the hardships and difficulties we go through in life are simply God's way of interrupting our "dominant narrative" long enough to help us get a better grip on reality?

I wonder.

A smart person once said "God never wastes suffering." I like that. I have experienced that. I have a hard time thinking of any moments of suffering I've endured over the course of my life in which I have not grown or learned something useful. Suffering is still suffering - a hammer on the melon is still a hammer on the melon. Let's not kid ourselves. But I firmly believe God sometimes allows a good whack on the noggin to get us to shut up and listen. He doesn't enjoy it, He encourages us to avoid it (i.e. "don't be like a mule who needs bit and bridle"), but it is often necessary. He loves us too much to allow us to run wild.

So I guess we would be wise to hold our narrative loosely, to stop and take a breath now and then just to see what the Doctor thinks about what we're saying, doing and thinking. I'd rather the hammer remain on the silver tray...