March 25 - "Man Up!"

March 25, 2012 “Man Up!”

Memory verses:
2 Tim 3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed…”
Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things...”
2 Peter 1:3 “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.”
Reflections or Questions on Scripture?

Passage: 1 Samuel 30

Key verse:
1 Samuel 30:6 David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the LORD his God.

Anointed vs Appointed

Context: David was anointed to be king, but not yet appointed…he had to wait on God’s timing, for the fullness of Saul’s weakness to play out. In the meantime, he had to deal with an insecurity-crazed king who kept trying to kill him, and he had to deal with “worthless” men who weren’t as patient as he was...

Read 1 Samuel 30

Stressed vs Blessed
“David was greatly distressed…” yatsar = bound up,
distressed, cramped, in a tight spot.

Can any of you relate? Of course you can… I happen to know from your own admission that most of you are in this boat with David. The storm has come. Whether you caused it or had nothing to do with it is irrelevant at this point; it’s here, and you’re bound up, cramped, squeezed into a corner, constantly having to make choices you don’t want to make. Maybe you hear people say with a perky little smile “I’m too blessed to be stressed!” and your response is…?

Right.

To make matters worse, not only do you have this struggle, but as is often the case, you have people in the mess with you, also struggling, and since they’re in pain too, their response to the situation is to start reminding you that it’s YOUR fault!

Bitter vs Better
“Each one was bitter in spirit…” marar = bitter, bad taste in the mouth, resentful.

When we’re overwhelmed with the pain of life, whether it involves injustice or shame or disappointment, it’s very easy, very tempting to start looking around for someone to blame, someone on whom we can heap resentment.
This is one of those patterns of the world… don’t mitigate, litigate! (Mitigate: calm the situation; Litigate: bring a lawsuit). Somebody’s gonna pay for my suffering, and it might as well be you! I’m owed some payment, some satisfaction here, and bringing you down might satisfy me a little bit.

It’s sad to say, but we find this not only in the world, but in the church. And this isn’t new; Paul spoke harshly to the Corinthians about their taking each other to court in front of unbelievers. “Why not rather be wronged?” he asked them (1 Cor 6:6-7) But no, instead of “doing unto others as we would have done to us” we “do unto others because they did unto us!” or better yet, “do unto others before they do unto us!”

Instead of coming up with some ideas to make the situation better, we very often do like these fellows: we let our hearts become bitter, and we start seeking a target for stone-throwing practice.

Ugh. Well, we can learn a lot from David here, because his response to this sorry state of affairs was not to lose heart, nor was it to rail against his companions for rising up against him. What does he do instead?

Man Up!
“But David found strength in the LORD his God.” chazaq = strengthen, take courage.

Instead of giving up or getting angry, David found strength in the LORD. The world falling apart around you? Find strength in the LORD! Another way to say it: “Man up!” But by saying this, I don’t mean to just tough it out… David had a way of “manning up” that was different from the world’s way, and that produced abundant blessings for everyone around him.

I’ve borrowed the tea bag illustration a few times, and it’s very appropriate here: When life starts to heat up, when the pot we’re in starts to boil, we can choose to response like a carrot, and egg, or a tea bag.
• A carrot gets soft: succumbs to the stress, shrinking back
• An egg becomes hard: hardens the heart and becomes bitter toward others (Egg)
• A tea bag changes the water: evidences the fruit of Spirit, joy, peace, seed-bearing fruit that generates more fruit, a generous blessing toward others

David had learned a lesson about how to respond to negative people a few chapters ago, back in chaper 25… it’s a great story, and I encourage you to read about it. Basically there was this fellow Nabal who treated David poorly for no reason, and while David was getting ready to take this guy out, Nabal’s wife Abigail intervened and softened David’s heart by blessing him with provision, and reminding him that he was a servant of God, above petty retribution, and that her husband was really not worth David bloodying his hands over.

David thanked Abigail for that wisdom, and calmed himself down, and God ended up taking care of Nabal without David’s help. Judging by the rest of the story here in chapter 30, it seems David learned the lesson well, because not only did he NOT turn against the complainers, but, after God rewarded his faithfulness, he invited them to share in the blessings.

Think about that. If there are accusers around you in your time of trouble, and you decide to stand in faith and God blesses your faithfulness, would you go out of your way to make sure those doubters are blessed along with you? I don’t imagine, for most of us, that it would be our first thought…

But this is the way of David, and while David had his faults and his weak moments, God called him a “man after His own heart.” “A man after God’s own heart.” And THIS is David’s way of “manning up”… he “found strength in the LORD.”

YBH???

Okay, that sounds great, right? Now for the big question: How do we do this? How do we “find strength in the LORD” when it seems like our world is falling apart?

First, how does one NOT do this:
• In own ability or skill … “in the LORD”
• In religious observance
o Hebrews 13:9 Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them.
• In self-deception or arrogance
o Romans 12:3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.
• In recklessness (“heedlessly” Numbers 14:44-45)
o 44 But they went up heedlessly to the ridge of the hill country; neither the ark of the covenant of the LORD nor Moses left the camp. 45 Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down, and struck them and beat them down as far as Hormah.

Yes but how? (YBH) How are we strengthened “In the LORD”? Some ideas from scripture:
• “in grace” (Heb 13:9 again) We are to be strengthened by the fact that God’s grace, His goodness and mercy, are on our side, not because of our outward show of religion, but our inward reality of dependence on Him.
• in the “Joy of the LORD” (Neh 8:10) We are to be strengthened by the fact that God rejoices over our faith, not over our ability to make everything work out and to make everybody like us.
• “in the faith as you were taught” (Colossians 2:6-7) “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” We are to be strengthened by our faithwalk, remembering the things we’ve been taught in the past. This is a reason I encourage journaling because it is such a faith builder to go back and read some of what you wrote before, and to see how far God has taken you, and how He has spoken to you in the past, through personal prayer and through the teaching of the Word.
• Again, “in faith” as Abraham was strengthened. “Romans 4:19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead-- since he was about a hundred years old-- and that Sarah's womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.” We are also to be, like Abraham, strengthened in faith, KNOWING God’s promises and His ability to keep His promises.

There are so many other passages we could look at to see how we ought to be strengthened, but I hope these few have provided you with some encouragement, some ideas for how to endure in your faith when it feels like everything’s falling apart.

Truth is, Christ holds everything together (Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together), and when you live by that truth, your world can’t fall apart, because your world, your sense of wholeness and peace is not based on your circumstances. Truth is, you have already died with Him, and you will be raised with Him, and He holds everything together. All of the passages we read have this in common: they don’t emphasize God’s ability to change circumstances; instead, they emphasize truths about God that transform us, strengthening us in God, so that together with all the saints we can offer those sacrifices of praise, “the fruit of lips that confess His name.”

Conclusion

Today I want to conclude the message with a prayer according to Col 1:9-14, a request that Paul makes for believers, and one that I’d like to echo today. I’d like to ask Him… not to merely change your circumstances, but for you to be filled with knowledge of Him, that you might be strengthened in Him:

Colossians 1:9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10 And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Here is knowledge for you: Godly self-esteem esteems God not self, Godly courage takes heart in GOD not in personal ability, Godly peace rests in GOD not in absence of conflict, and Godly strength leans on God not on our own strength or understanding.

If you are pressed… man up like David, seek God boldly, get His perspective and strategy (ask for help if you need it, and pray for each other to grasp this knowledge). Once you’ve asked, then SHEMA: listen to what He tells you and obey, do what He tells you to do: whether you need to apologize, forgive, release, wait or go - withhold or give (depending on His word to you), just do it. And know that He is with you always.

Closing
Song (Center), Closing Prayer (Lord’s Prayer), Benediction

This is a Test... This is Only a Test...

Memory verses:
2 Tim 3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed…”
Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things...”
2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
Reflections or Questions on Scripture?

Passage: Judges 2 (Provides outline of rest of Judges: Idolatry, Oppression, Crying out to God, Deliverance)

Key verses:
Judges 2:1-3 The angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, "I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I swore to give to your forefathers. I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.' Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? 3 Now therefore I tell you that I will not drive them out before you; they will be thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you."

Judges 2:20-22 Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and said, "Because this nation has violated the covenant that I laid down for their forefathers and has not listened to me, 21 I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. 22 I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the LORD and walk in it as their forefathers did."

Other verses:
• Deut 5:6-7/ Deut 6:4-5= Mark 12:29-30
• Judges 2:2/Joshua 24:14/Romans 12:2
• James 1:13
• Matt 6:13/Luke 22:40/46
• 1 Cor 10:13
• 2 Cor 13:5
• Joshua 24:14/John 4:23
• Romans 12:1-2
• Judges 6
• James 1:2

“Shema”

In today’s passage, we are once again reminded of the importance of obedience to God’s Word. Disobedience leads to greater struggles in life, and even if God still had a great plan for us, that plan will involve more difficulty and trial than was really necessary. “Because this nation has violated the covenant that I laid down for their forefathers and has not listened to me…” He says in our passage, and the word “listen” here is, of course, our word “shema”… listen so as to obey, to heed. Indeed, in John 14:15 we are told that the mark of truly loving God is obeying Him, doing what He says, listening to Him so as to obey… in other words, to love God is to Shema, to listen for Him and to obey what He says.

This leads me to a question: What did He say? What is it the people were supposed to obey? There are many commandments laid out in the books of the Law, but what specifically are the people being judged for here? In Judges 2:2 we see that the people were not to make covenants with the people of the land, and they were supposed to tear down altars, places where the people worshipped false gods. Another good place where this is made clear is Joshua 24:14
"Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.”

Not only were they to reject the gods of the people who were in the land they were moving into, but they were to throw away the gods their fathers had worshipped, as well.

This may seem odd to us, when so many around us do not seem to worship anything, but the reality of human existence is that we do worship, it’s part of our make-up to worship. Others around us may not go to a temple or to church or other traditional places of worship, but I assure you, there is worship in everyone’s heart.
Romans 1:25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator-- who is forever praised. Amen.

If we’re not worshipping God, we will worship something. And with this realization, Paul later tells the Romans, and us, to be no longer conformed to the pattern of the world, this pattern that builds altars to false gods; instead, we are to worship God with living sacrifices, as Jesus puts it (John 4:23), to worship in spirit and in truth. Today, God-willing, we will tear down some old altars and replace them with true worship.
“This is a Test”
First, let’s go back to our passage again, because I want to talk a little about testing. It seems God’s people here had failed a hearing test: “Because this nation has violated the covenant that I laid down for their forefathers and has not listened to me…” Again, the failure was in not listening to God the first time so as to obey Him, and because they did not Shema, God says that, instead of driving out their enemies for them, He would leave those enemies there as a thorn, to test the fidelity of His people.

Here’s another way to look at this testing: God left temptation to idolatry in their midst, in order to test whether the people would still call Him God. God left temptation before the people. Think about this. Have you ever thought that if God would just remove all of your temptations, it would be so much easier to do right? And yet, He leaves temptations there. In James 1:13 we’re told that, when we’re tempted (and temptation in the Greek is the same as the word for testing), we’re told that when we’re tempted, we shouldn’t say that God is tempting or testing us, because God doesn’t test this way. Well, doesn’t our passage in Judges say that God does test this way? The point, in Judges and in James, is that the root and cause of the temptation is not God, but our own sinful desire:
James 1:14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.

But it’s not all bad news, because those who persevere under the trial will receive the crown of life…
James 1:12 Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

And we are also encouraged by Paul in 1 Cor 10:13:
1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

“No Final Exam”

So, is the message simply to bear with trials because they’re a result of our own wickedness, and we deserve to suffer, and anyway, our suffering isn’t that bad? NO, that isn’t all! Thank God, NO!

Jesus encouraged His disciples to pray a certain way about testing and temptation. Remember how it goes? Sure, “Lead us not into temptation” The word here again is the same as in James: Testing, trial. Why would He encourage us to pray against being led into this sort of testing?

Because the way to avoid having to be tested this way is to establish true worship in our hearts now… Think about it. Joey told me yesterday that, at Oxford High School, students who do well during the term are exempt from taking Final Exams. Great picture, don’t you think? If you do well, show that you get it throughout the year, there’s no need to prove anything, you’ve already been proven. Taking this understanding back into the prayer, the whole thing makes more sense. Listen:

• “Our Father, in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name” Lord, we acknowledge that You are God of Heaven and earth, and that You are Unique, Holy… there is no other God but You. Here we are beginning to establish or re-establish TRUE worship of God.
• “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.” We crown You king of our lives. Again, true worship.
• “Give us our daily bread” We acknowledge that you provide for all of our needs. True worship knows where needs are met; needs are not fully met by following the world’s ways.
• “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us…” We acknowledge that You are faithful to forgives us as we confess our sinfulness, and as we release others from any wrong they’ve done to us.
• “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” Lord, restore us in Your covenant, Your holy promises to remove the idols from our midst and to deliver us from all evil, including even the evil inclinations in our hearts. Having thus re-established true worship in our hearts, we can boldly and yet humbly ask Him to remove the enemies of our soul, just as He had promised to do for Israel.
• “For Thine is the kingdom…” Lord, You are and always will be King. We conclude with another affirmation of God’s sovereignty in all things, forever and ever amen!

We’re going to start concluding our weekly services with the Lord’s Prayer, and I encourage you bear this understanding in mind, and let it be a re-affirmation of true worship in your heart whenever you pray it.

Do I believe we really can walk in this? Yes, I absolutely believe this, and I believe God has given us some tools to do so. I believe He’s given us… “everything we need for life and godliness, through our knowledge of Him” and this knowledge that transforms us is found where? “All Scripture is God-breathed…”

“Self-Assessment Tools”

Now, just as Oxford students have to undergo some sort of testing throughout the term in order to assess their knowledge, we can test ourselves. Paul encourages us to do this too.
2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you-- unless, of course, you fail the test?

And yes, “examine” here is the very same word as we found in the other passages. In Greek it’s “peirazo” in case any of you are curious, and peirazo is used in the Greek translations of the Old Testament Hebrew. Not crucial information, but the point you can take away from that is that the same word is used throughout the text.

Okay, going back to our poor Israelites, what was the “pre-test” they had been given? Recall Joshua 24:14
"Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.”

And also Judges 2:2:
“you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.”

As I pondered how we can test ourselves, I realized we don’t have to go beyond what God had given the Israelites: Put away idols and agreement with the ways of the world, including any ungodly thing that had been passed on to us by our parents.

Now, in order to put away any idols we have to first identify them. In Ephesians 5:11 we are told to expose unfruitful deeds of darkness, and so for the first half of our exercise, we’re going to build up altars out of Legos to represent altars to false gods… ways we are tempted to order our lives around serving false gods to get our needs met.

A crude tool that might help here is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs/human motivation:
• Deficiency Needs: esteem, friendship and love, security, and physical needs (if we don’t have these, we are anxious and we won’t strive toward Being Needs)
• Being Needs: Self-actualization/self-transcendence

It’s a crude tool, but it helps us to identify where we might worship false gods… where we fall for the lie that what we need has not been provided. Again we know that’s a lie because ”His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” God has met our needs, but if we perceive lack we will turn from Him to get these needs met… Here are some examples of perceived lack and how we might be tempted to fill it in the world:
• Lack of self-esteem: seeking praise and approval from people
• Lack of love or friendship: demanding to be pursued by people
• Lack of material goods (food/clothing): insisting others provide for you or, on the other side, working beyond your need to store up wealth for yourself
• Lack of security: controlling your environment and other people in order to provide a predictable, stable world for yourself.

When the world’s way of doing things fails you, and it inevitably will, you may experience some other symptoms of idolatry: living in constant fear or anxiety about circumstances, feeling like your life is “falling apart.” You see, the problem is, the world’s way of filling our needs is temporary and incomplete, if it works at all, and it ultimately leads to unhealthy bondages instead of the freedom to strive for holiness, pure love, pure worship.

Solomon found this to be so; perhaps you know his story… great, wise Solomon, perhaps Israel’s most powerful king… but, in exploring wisdom and the depths of human understanding, he indulged his flesh and found that this did not lead to satisfaction. Instead it led to deeper idolatry and apostasy, robbing Israel of truly stellar leadership, leadership which provides for future generations of good leadership.

Now, note that the memory verse says “through our knowledge”… We are transformed by knowledge, by remembering God’s provision, so that even when there is physical lack, we are satisfied, we are content. This is living free, indeed! And it comes not by filling ourselves up, it comes by doing what Paul says in Romans 12:1-2: Offering ourselves as living sacrifices, acceptable to God, and being transformed by the renewing of our minds.

We’re going to attempt to do this for the second half of our exercise. In Judges chapter 6, we read the story of Gideon, one of the people God raised up to deliver Israel again. Great story, I won’t go into all of it, but just point you to Judges 6:25-26
25 That same night the LORD said to him, "Take the second bull from your father's herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father's altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. 26 Then build a proper kind of altar to the LORD your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering."

I’m betting you can guess what we’re going to do next… Yep, tear down those Lego altars that you just made, and build new altars with one of these: (hold up a wooden block). So go right ahead and destroy those altars to false gods!

Now, it’s time to rebuild, to re-establish true worship. Why are we using a wooden block? I’m glad you asked. Once we’re done today, I’d like you to take your block home as a reminder. The world has a way of doing things, and of seeing things… When there are difficulties in life, the world has a way of seeing these troubles as punishment or injustice, things that are too difficult to bear. Because of this, we are tempted to shut down, or to fight, or to steal, or to somehow ease the pain in some other ungodly way. The world sees these troubles as… ROADBLOCKS. But today, I want to encourage you to see these troubles not as roadblocks, but as fuel… fuel for your altar of true worship.

This week I heard of a vision that an intercessor had of a church. There was a fire that had started in the basement, and that had filled almost this entire huge complex… except for the sanctuary, which was dark and had few people, and which had these little dainties to eat that pleased the flesh. When Patty, the one who received the vision, went down to the basement to see if anyone was still there, she found people kneeling and praying, but that they were completely consumed with fire, until there was no more flesh on them… and still they prayed. The burned, and they prayed.

An exhortation for the church is this: do not give in to the desires of the flesh… the soul that wants what it wants and wants it now… the soul that wants comfort, and tasty things, and immediate gratification for minimal labor. No, do not give in to this, instead, test yourself like metal is tested in the fire. Embrace what the world calls a “roadblock” and call it fuel for burning off your flesh.

If this is the altar, what is offered on that altar? Hebrews 13:15, the true sacrifice of praise… “Thank You LORD!” Thank you for refining me! The breath that we release in this praise is like the smoke rising from a fire… and if you think about it, metabolism in our body is the same chemical process as fire. Fire, in a simplistic way, is described as Oxygen + Heat + Carbon-based Item = Heat + CO2. Metabolism, likewise, is described as Oxygen + Heat + Carbon-based item = Heat + CO2… our breath!

Neat huh? Well, it’s the sort of thing a geek gets into… Not everyone is a geek like me, but everyone can participate in this sacrifice of praise, and that’s how we’re going to end today… We’ll sing, then gather for the Lord’s prayer and benediction.

Conclusion
Song (Mighty to Save), Closing Prayer (Lord’s Prayer), Benediction

Graves of Greediness vs Great Gain

February 12, 2012

Memory verses:

2 Tim 3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed…”
Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things...”
2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
Reflections on Genesis through Numbers?

Passage: Numbers 11

Key verses:
Numbers 11:4 NIV The rabble with them began to crave other food (NKJV : yielded to intense craving), and again the Israelites started wailing and said, "If only we had meat to eat!”

Numbers 11:34 NIV Therefore the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food (yielded to intense craving)
Graves of Greediness

“Kibroth Hattaavah” means “Graves of Greediness” or “Graves of Craving” Make no mistake, yielding to intense craving will prove harmful to you. I’m experiencing the fruit of that now; as I get older my body is finding it more and more difficult to deal with the extra weight that comes from yielding to cravings and consuming more than I need.

I’m convinced it’s no coincidence that the first prohibitive or restrictive commandment in the Bible involved food: “Do not eat of the tree in the midst of the garden” Then the fall from grace happened, involving yielding to an intense craving for something beyond what had been given:
Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

I also think it’s no coincidence that some of laws that mark Israel most clearly involve laws pertaining to food… what Israel is and is not allowed to eat. Now of course, we know that Jesus “declared all food ‘clean’.”
Mark 7:19 For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.”)

But recall that Paul tempers this truth with this saying:
1 Corinthians 10:23 "Everything is permissible"-- but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"-- but not everything is constructive.

This restraint is necessary to us, because there is something in our natural selves that says “get everything you can!” and “do what feels good to you!” This is the pattern of this world, and Paul says:
Romans 12:2a Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

The pattern of the world includes saying like this one: “Do what seems right to you” But this is foolishness: we don’t follow what seems right to us, because God has given us direction on what IS right!
Proverbs 14:12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

Here’s another popular saying from the world: “Follow your heart!” NO! No No No! DON’T follow your heart! Later in Numbers God says following your heart is like prostitution!
Numbers 15:39 You will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the LORD, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by going after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes (NASB not follow after your own heart and your own eyes)

Following after our hearts and eyes is like prostitution because it’s selling ourselves to a false god, selling ourselves short to something that only provides temporary satisfaction, and in doing so, we bring harm to ourselves that far outstrips any pleasure we might have received.

So where does that leave us? Do we just commit to avoiding those things we crave and call that “dying to self”? Is that it?

Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t find that very helpful. I personally don’t find it very helpful to only apply natural restrictions, with various fastings thrown in to make me feel like I’m being spiritual. Paul seems to say this too:
Colossians 2:23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Yep, quite true; just following regulations in the flesh have done nothing to restrain my heart’s cravings.

So what are we to do? Let’s take a step back to that first half of Romans 12:2. I believe we can bear hearing it again:
Romans 12:2a Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

We must understand first that the craving is not a physical problem, though it may feel like it. What you crave may feel like a biological need, but I assure you, what you NEED God has given you, and your biological need is less than what you may feel… and far less than what the world will tell you. When we look beyond what He has given, it is not because our body needs more, it’s because our hearts, our minds have entered the realm of greedy craving, and it’s a short step from there to sinning in the flesh.
“What Is It?”
We need our minds renewed with the truth, and this truth is found in Scripture… “useful for training in righteousness” right? The truth is, when something in us, something we might call a “spirit of poverty,” when this voice tells us that that we don’t have enough, that we don’t have what we need, that voice is LYING. God’s Word is true, and the true “spirit of prophecy” spoke through David when he sang about God’s provision in Psalm 23: Adonai Roi, Lo Eksar. We can embrace this truth, too. We see it again in our newest memory verse:
2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
God’s power has given us everything we need… When we read through Numbers and see how God provided for Israel in the wilderness, we find story after story of how the people became dissatisfied with what God had given them. I chose this particular story, where the people were specifically rejecting God’s provision of manna, because it points to what we’ve been given today, and how, if we’re not careful, we can fall into our own “Graves of Greediness” if we reject what we’ve been given.

And here’s what we have been given: “What is it?” What? Exactly. “What is it?” That’s what we’ve been given. Huh? Exactly!

Just like Israel in the desert, MANNA is what we’ve been given, and “Manna” means, literally, “What is it?” That’s what the people said when they saw this “bread from heaven”
Exodus 16:15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, "It is the bread the LORD has given you to eat.
Exodus 16:31 The people of Israel called the bread manna. It was white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey.
Numbers 11:7-8 The manna was like coriander seed and looked like resin. The people went around gathering it, and then ground it in a handmill or crushed it in a mortar. They cooked it in a pot or made it into cakes. And it tasted like something made with olive oil.

It might be an interesting study to consider these qualities and how they reflect the true bread that came from heaven. And who is that? Sure, Jesus. Jesus spoke of the manna in the desert, and then He pointed to Himself as the true bread from heaven:
John 6:31 Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" 32 Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." 34 "Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread." 35 Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

He is the true manna, the true bread from heaven, and HE IS ENOUGH. He says that if we come to Him, if we believe in Him, if we partake of the food and drink He gives … then we won’t “go hungry” that is, we won’t be in bondage to these cravings.

Yet here we are, all of us believers, and still, for so many of us, there is this little Mick Jagger voice in our hearts, crying out: “I can’t get no satisfaction!” This is especially funny because there’s another Rolling Stones song that answers this for us: “You can’t always get what you want… But if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need”

We really do get what we need, and we can choose to look at that instead… We can declare the truth of what God has given us, in the spirit and in the natural… Consider what He has provided, and respond not with the greediness that leads to the grave, but instead with gratitude, the overflow of a content heart.
Great Gain
Here’s the truth: God has given us everything we need. Our response to that determines how we will experience life: are we going to settle for the “Graves of Greediness” or shall we instead press through to something the Scripture calls “Great Gain”? Do you need a little time to decide? “Graves of Greediness”… or… “Great Gain”? Which do you want? “Great Gain?” Good choice. Here’s how we get there:

1 Tim 6:6 “Godliness with contentment is Great Gain”

The Greek text uses the word “Mega” here…being content with godliness brings “Mega-means of provision.” Note also that it’s not just provision, but means of provision for yourself into the future… overflowing provision, an unfailing and abundant source of provision.

In John 7:38, Jesus promised something to those who believed in Him. He promised something to those who came and drank from Him, that is, those who consumed what He was offering and let Him provide nourishment for their souls. Did He say, “whoever believes in Me will be like a dried up river bed, parched and miserable?” NO! This is what He said:
John 7:38 “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."
Attitude of Gratitude
One proof of this overflow is an “attitude of gratitude.” When we know who we are, and “whose” we are, when we stand in the truth of what He’s done and what He’s provided, we overflow with gratitude. Paul speaks about this in Colossians 2:
Colossians 2:6 -10 6So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

He goes on to say…
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. 9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.

Did you see that? You have been given FULLNESS in Christ… HAVE BEEN given, not WILL BE given. How about that? Is that not something to celebrate? Therefore, let us not be taken captive to the world’s pattern, which was found in the “rabble” of Israel, who yielded to intense cravings for food other than what God had given. Instead, let’s offer sacrifices that are pleasing to God, a soothing aroma… sacrifices of praise (Heb 13) and the sacrifices of shouts of joy (Ps 27) Let’s enjoy the spiritual fruits of joy and peace… by His Spirit we overcome the spirit of poverty and greediness. We can truly be satisfied with spiritual fruit, and we can truly walk in godliness with contentment, which is great gain.

We can walk this way, and we’re going to practice it right now! We’re going to close with songs of praise to our Lord, proclaiming His goodness and declaring that He really is Enough. May this truly be your declaration today!

Songs, Closing Prayer (for breaking spirit of poverty), Benediction

Show Me Your Glory!

Today’s key verse: Exodus 40:34 Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.

Context:

“Then” follows a long section, going back to Exodus 34 describing the building of the tabernacle, a big tent for the glory, the presence of God in the midst of His people. One part I love in this section is 36:1-7…

Exodus 36:1 So Bezalel, Oholiab and every skilled person to whom the LORD has given skill and ability to know how to carry out all the work of constructing the sanctuary are to do the work just as the LORD has commanded." 2 Then Moses summoned Bezalel and Oholiab and every skilled person to whom the LORD had given ability and who was willing to come and do the work. 3 They received from Moses all the offerings the Israelites had brought to carry out the work of constructing the sanctuary. And the people continued to bring freewill offerings morning after morning. 4 So all the skilled craftsmen who were doing all the work on the sanctuary left their work 5 and said to Moses, "The people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the LORD commanded to be done." 6 Then Moses gave an order and they sent this word throughout the camp: "No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary." And so the people were restrained from bringing more, 7 because what they already had was more than enough to do all the work.

Can you imagine a church sending out a letter saying, “PLEASE don’t send us anything, we have more than enough and in fact, it’s way too much”…? Right…

We learn in these chapters that God provided a PLAN for the tabernacle, and then He provided the SKILLS and the MATERIALS for building that tabernacle. All that was left was for the people to obey, and once they did, we see this here in verse 34 of the final chapter of Exodus:

“Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.”
The glory of the LORD… what must that have been like? KIVOD means “weightiness” or “value”… but practically speaking, what does that mean? We know from the next couple of verses that Moses was unable to enter the Tent of Meeting because of this glory… This “glory” must be something tangible, or at least perceivable, with human senses. It had an appearance…
Exodus 24:16-17 and the glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the LORD called to Moses from within the cloud. To the Israelites the glory of the LORD looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain
A little time after the glory appeared on Mount Sinai, Moses actually asked to see God’s glory…
Exodus 33:18-19 Then Moses said, “Now show me Your glory”

Why would Moses ask God to show him His glory? Here was a man who knew God better than anyone, and was still not satisfied… he wanted more, he wanted to know God even more, to see even more of Him. He was a God junkie! Oh that we would be like that! This is the kind of heart God is seeking… and He responds to Moses’ request… what does He do? First, He tells Moses that He’s going to show him His goodness, His compassion, and His sovereignty over that goodness and compassion…

Exodus 33:19 And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

So He promises Moses that He will do it, then, after Moses has followed the Lord’s commands, the Lord does what He promised:

Exodus 34:5 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."

Here’s the point I’m getting to here: Moses cried out to know God more, and God responded with greater revelation of Himself. Moses sought God, God responded. Simple. God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Do you believe? Do you believe that He exists? Do you believe that he rewards you if you earnestly seek Him? If you believe that, then are you earnestly seeking Him? Not just casually throwing your requests His way, maybe He’ll answer, maybe not… but earnestly seeking Him, in Spirit and in Truth?

You see, the faith of Moses, and of Abraham, of David, of all the “friends of God” that we know about in the Bible… this faith goes beyond asking Him for this or that, or trusting Him for healing for ourselves or others… I believe we can and ought to ask Him for these things, but I also believe that we have an opportunity to walk even more closely with Him, in His very glory, when we really grasp that He’s given us everything we need to do His will, and then, embracing that provision, we start walking in confident obedience to His calling.

We have everything we need to do His will. We really do.

Last night, writing this sermon, I kept feeling like I didn’t have enough time, and I was bemoaning the fact that I hadn’t spent the time earlier in the week, then recalling that I was booked solid all week long, and felt like I just didn’t have the time I needed to do this… but that’s really not true. The time I had last night was plenty (I’m writing this by faith!) and the other need I was worrying about, the need for rest, was also taken care of… I got plenty of rest, too, and I awakened refreshed and at peace, everything in order, no gaps… full of confidence, not in myself or in this little sermon, but in God… I know He’s given me everything I need to do His will, and I must… WE must… not give in to the lie that says we don’t have enough.

He’s given us everything we need. There’s a freedom and a peace and a rest that comes when we walk in that truth, when we’re not constantly looking at our needs and wondering how God is going to meet them, going from drama to drama like we talked about last week… No, I believe we can walk in the peace and freedom that David expressed in the 23rd Psalm: Adonai roi lo eksar … say that a few times, let it become a part of your heart, and your mind. It means this: The LORD is my shepherd, I do not lack.
You might say, “Oh but I have real needs, real lack!” Sure, I know that. But do you have what you need to live a Godly life? If you think about it, you’ll realize you do. I KNOW that you do because I know His Word is true, and His Word says this:
2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. (NEW MEMORY VERSE!)
Do you see that? HIS power is available to us, we have EVERYTHING we need, and what we need comes through our KNOWLEDGE… of whom? Of God Himself, and He has CALLED each of us, and just as He showed Moses, it’s by His GLORY which is connected with His GOODNESS.
We have everything we need.
Here’s another:
Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Let’s not forget Matt 6:25-31 (have someone read)
And one more:
Matthew 7:11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
And on and on… We have enough. We have everything we need. The question is, will we now obey?

Let’s go back to Exodus 39 and 40…

Remember, He provided more than enough skill and material for the tabernacle, and those who had the skill did everything, “just as the LORD commanded.” You’ll find that statement over and over throughout chapters 39 and 40…
Ex 39-40: “Just as the LORD had commanded”… 39:1,5,7,21,26,29,31,43, 40:19,21,23,25,27,29,32
Then in 39:43, Moses gives the kind of blessing that I think is the only GOOD sort of human approval that we can hope for:
Exodus 39:43 Moses inspected the work and saw that they had done it just as the LORD had commanded. So Moses blessed them.
Moses blessed them for obedience! Oh that we would all be so obedient, and so blessed! That we also might hear those words: “Well done, good and faithful servant!”
He’s given us everything we need to accomplish this, to do His will… All that is left for us to do, if we want to live in light of His glory, is to obey, as good and faithful servants, to walk in obedience to God’s plan with God’s provision (whether skills or material goods or both).

So my question for you to consider, right now and during this coming week, is this: what has He commanded you? What plans is He stirring in your heart? If His plan for you isn’t very clear, maybe you can consider this: what gifts has He given you? What talents, what material gifts has He given you? He stirred the hearts of the people to give abundantly to the work of the Tabernacle… I believe He can stir your heart as well.

Let’s spend some time in listening prayer, and I encourage you to listen for that stirring. What gift do you have? What skill? What idea? What plan? Listen, and if you hear something or remember something or see something, WRITE IT DOWN, however weird or even boring it may sound.

Listening Prayer

Did you hear anything? If not, don’t lose heart; keep asking Him, keep listening. If you did hear something, be sure you write it down, and remind yourself. Share it with your family here, too… maybe today after service, maybe during testimony time next week… If we share these visions, we can help each other walk in them, and we can experience His glory together, and indeed glorify Him together.

Let us pray…

From Drama to Drama, or from Glory to Glory?

Music, Testimony & Announcements (Fridays @ LOHOP, Feb 20th starting weekly study on "Resurrection Life"), Offering, Prayer, Shema

Memory verses:
2 Tim 3:16, Add Romans 8:28 from our Bible study on Wednesday.
Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Today’s passage: Exodus 2:23-25 (we’ll pick up some other verses in the context of the story of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, plus we’ll end up in the New Testament quite a bit.)
Exodus 2:23 Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. 24 So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them.

Questioning the Text (A little detour for Bible study training)

Sometime after I started walking with the Lord, and started attending this church, Pastor Manny sat down with me and the Bible and encouraged me to do a couple of things as I read. These things have been solid, trustworthy tools for me, and they have stayed with me to this day, even after I’ve forgotten some of the first-class tools I gained while in seminary! You want to know what these tools are?

First, he encouraged me to memorize Scripture, and because I’ve tasted the fruit of this time and again, I so appreciate Bible Quiz and I would encourage ANY believer to take up the discipline of Scripture memorization. It’s also why we’ve started memorizing verses together!

The second thing Manny encouraged me to do was to ask questions while I read. I love this, because with God while we’re consuming His Word, we can be like that annoying kid who’s always asking Why… why did this or that happen? What made that person ask that way? What does this or that mean? A lot of times you can get your answers for these kinds of questions from the context, or from other areas of Scripture, or from commentary or other Bible teachers. As you get into the habit of asking, and finding the answers, the questions start to get a little deeper or more complicated, like, Why was this or that detail included at this point in the story? Or, What does this mean for me today?

The whole counsel of Scripture is an important framework for answering these questions; but just as when the prophets of old received dreams and visions from God but didn’t understand them, sometimes special insight can be gained through prayer. The Lord can unlock something for you and give you a glimpse of His heart. Now, while what you hear may challenge you to reconsider what you thought you knew about God, what you learn ought never to outright contradict any portion of the Word. In fact, it will usually illuminate other passages for you, and pull things together that you hadn’t seen together before, and connect things in a way that truly helps you to live in the truth.
I’m telling you this to suggest ways for to approach the Word. You may recall that we just spent a year doing this, asking questions of what we read, and then putting some answers together as a church. Just so you know, this is how most of my messages come together, and today’s message is no exception.

Let’s read the passage again:

Exodus 2:23 Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. 24 So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them.

So what do you suppose is my question? Here it is: Why did God wait until the people cried out? Why did He wait until their suffering drove them to cry out for help, to GROAN? If you know the story leading up to this you might know why I would ask this. You see, back in Gen 15:13-16 we heard God say to Abraham that He had a plan to bring his descendants out of Egypt after 400 years of slavery, and bring them to the land He had promise them. Let’s read it:

Genesis 15:13 Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."

Ok, so I can see here that God wanted to wait for the sin of the Amorites to reach its full measure… that’s another intriguing subject we won’t get into today. But God said only 400 years… later, in Exodus 12:40-41, we learn that Israel was actually enslaved 430 years. Why would God leave them there in Egypt one minute longer than 400 years? Why would He wait until the peopled GROANED in the midst of their struggle?

As I prayed, and considered other Scripture passages, and pondered our own life experiences, I found it actually made a lot of sense, and, as so often happens in these little question-and-answer journeys, I came away with more peace about things than I had had before, and more love in my heart, toward God and toward others, and more joy about just about everything going on around me.

Spiritual Fruit

More peace. More love. More joy. Sounds like spiritual fruit, doesn’t it? Cool! One third of ECHO’s mission statement is to equip the saints to harvest spiritual fruit in their lives, and here’s evidence that our study of the Word can do exactly that! Here’s what’s even cooler… there’s other fruit the Lord wants to produce in us… Remember the fruits?

Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Using KJV here because NIV is a little weak on this; what does yours say? Probably “Patience” which while we know it’s difficult, it doesn’t quite sound like “Longsuffering” does it? “Looooongsuffering…” now that doesn’t sound nice at all! But it gives us insight into how this spiritual fruit is developed. Think about it… how do you become longsuffering? By suffering long!

Struggle Triggers Growth

I want to give you an illustration here from biology, specifically from human physiology. The human body never ceases to amaze me, the brilliance with which God designed us… truly, we can say along with the Psalmist that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made!” When Jeanita and I were at the hospital last Sunday, Shayla’s eye doctor met with us; he let us know he is a born-again Christian and blessed our socks off with encouraging words and assurance that God is great! He also explained in detail the issue with Shayla’s eyes. She has what’s called “Retinopathy of Prematurity” which comes from the blood vessels in the eyes not developing completely. This is basically what you’ll read if you look up ROP on the internet or wherever. What isn’t usually included in the description is why these vessels stop developing in premature babies; this doctor explained why, and because I’m just that sort of person, I went out and studies some medical websites to confirm it and try to understand it a little better.

The reason the vessels stop developing has to do with why they develop in the first place. This is kinda neat… growth doesn’t just HAPPEN, it really doesn’t just follow some DNA plan that is set when we’re conceived. Something has to trigger it… There are a few things that trigger the body to grow new blood vessels, and the biggest and most common trigger is the lack of oxygen. A baby receives oxygen from her mother in the womb, but it’s not as much oxygen as when she’s out in our atmosphere. When there’s a low supply of oxygen, the body grows new blood vessels to take advantage of whatever oxygen is available. The vessels branch out across the eye while the baby is in the womb in search of oxygen, and when the baby is born, the growing stops because POOF! All KINDS of oxygen is now available.

Do you see where this is going?

There’s more to ROP than I can get into right now, including an understanding that we can’t be growing ALL the time… cancer cells are cells that don’t quite get that, and that’s a whole other issue. For today, I want to camp out on this knowledge of how growth is triggered.

As I studied this process (known by many as “angiogenesis” in case you care), I learned that growth is triggered by this lack of oxygen, but also by something called “blood flow shear stress.” I was like, you have GOT to be kidding. It’s so funny, because these medical writers are going on casually throwing these terms around, like lack and stress, and I’m sitting here going, “OH MY GOD! This is SO COOL!”

You mean stress causes growth? Huh!! Well, think about it… For most of us, in order for us to change something about ourselves, the pain of staying the same has to become greater than the pain of changing. We don’t change our behaviors, even some pretty unhealthy behaviors, because in some way, that behavior works for us, it gets us what we need (or what we think we need). It’s when our behavior STOPS working for us, or when it causes too much pain in some other way, that we can be motivated to change. Lack of something needed, or some form of stress, causes us to grow and to change.

This is not just true in medical science and in psychology, but wouldn’t you know it, it was a true principal in the Bible long before science or psychology figured it out! There are LOTS of places we find this principal of suffering producing fruit; I’m going to share a few:

Hebrews 12:11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Sure, some of our suffering is due to our own foolishness, but we see here that when we stray off the path, even the discipline we experience produces good stuff. How about our memory verse:

Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

And elsewhere in Romans:

Romans 5:3-4 …we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope.

Rejoice in sufferings? Yep. It’s possible to do that. It’s possible to find joy, right there in the midst of your suffering, and Paul says it’s because we know that suffering will ultimately produce hope! How is that? I have a few ideas, and I believe that the knowledge of God’s bigger picture can change our perspective on suffering. Here are some truths we can hold onto when we’re suffering:

1. the suffering is temporary (God has a plan, just as we saw in the Exodus story, He had a plan all along and He explained this plan to Moses);

2. the suffering doesn’t mean that you are alone (we saw this also in the Exodus story… we read:
So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them.
Just as God heard the sons of Israel, He hears our cry, He sees, He knows, and in Ex 3:16 we see this precious statement:
Ex 3:16 “I am indeed concerned about you!”
Literal translation is “Visiting I have visited”…
Truly, even if you feel alone, the suffering does NOT mean that you are alone, He has not abandoned you.

So… the suffering is temporary, it doesn’t mean that you are alone, and finally,

3. as we see in our bodies, souls, and in the spiritual teaching in the New Testament, the suffering produces something, for your benefit and for the benefit of others.

Remember another little tidbit from Paul about the benefit your suffering brings to others:

2 Corinthians 1:6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.

He equips you to harvest spiritual fruit, not only in your life, but in the lives of others. That’s ministry, folks!

Now, for some of you, godly fruitfulness isn’t enough to get excited about… if that’s you, I have one sidenote for you: there is a REWARD for suffering!

Hebrews 6:12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience (LONGSUFFERING) inherit what has been promised.

Just as the Lord promised an inheritance to the sons of Israel, He has made inheritance promises to us as well.

Now, I’ve just laid on you A LOT of information. If all of that was not enough for you to be able to agree that suffering, even YOUR suffering, can have a purpose, perhaps it will be enough for you to recall the suffering of the One who paid for your sin.

Hebrews 2:9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

When we’re suffering, when we’re being insulted, we can recall Jesus’ example and maybe find courage to follow it:

1 Peter 2:23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

Perhaps it will be enough for you to know that the apostle Paul, whom we know also suffered for the gospel, rejoiced in his sufferings, and saw in them something that drew him into a sweet fellowship with Christ:

Philippians 3:10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

I could keep going. I really could. That’s the danger in following some of these questions, we find so many threads of truth in the Word that, woven together, provide for us a shelter, a covering to protect us and keep us warm as we walk in this cold world.

Final Caution: SHEMA!

Now. Some may still be sitting there thinking, “yeah, well, you don’t know what it’s like to deal with the suffering I’m going through; it’s easy for you to quote the Bible and say, Rejoice! Have hope!” Well, you may be right about that. There’s a lot I haven’t experienced, and it really is pretty easy for me to stand here and tell you all of this. But that doesn’t mean that what I’m saying isn’t true, and YOU KNOW IT. And this assurance we find in the Word is not false comfort, it’s TRUE comfort, and life and peace.

Take care that you don’t fall into the same trap the people in Israel did, when Moses shared with them words from God that were intended to encourage and to give hope, to turn their focus away from their struggle and toward the goodness of the living God. We’re going to finish with one more little section from Exodus: 6:1-9

Exodus 6:1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country." 2 God also said to Moses, "I am the LORD. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them. 4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they lived as aliens. 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant. 6 "Therefore, say to the Israelites: 'I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. 7 I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. 8 And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.'" 9 Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and cruel bondage.

“They did not listen to him because of their discouragement and cruel bondage.”

Ugh. What good thing might God say to you today, if instead of focusing on the drama going on in your life, you decide to listen, to SHEMA, to pay attention in the midst of your suffering? Will you surrender to despair, or will you let hope rise up in you? Will you deny God’s goodness, or will you acknowledge His ever-present help in your time of trouble?

Here’s a statement I wrote in my journal this week: “Will you keep going from drama to drama, or will you go from glory to glory?”

Let us pray…

Closing Prayer, Benediction

AMEN!

January 15th, 2012 “AMEN!”

Music, Testimonies & Announcements, Offering

Prayer & Shema

“AMEN!” Amen indeed!… this is generally what we say at the end of our prayer and at the end of a message that we agree with… AMEN! Jesus sometimes BEGAN His messages that way, tho: “Amen Amen I say to you…” He would say. What does “Amen” mean? (ask) Often translated at “Truly, truly” or “verily verily”… it is a Hebrew term, from AMAN which means to make stable or establish with certainty, to make firm, to make or to declare to be solid and believable, trustworthy. From it comes the word “EMET” which means that which is TRUE. When Jesus started a statement with “Amen, Amen” He was saying “listen up, this is something you can stand on, something you can build on, something firm, solid, foundational” Of course, being Himself “the Truth” it’s not like everything else He said wasn’t true; but sometimes He made a point of highlighting a particular teaching to be remembered and built upon. He also told His disciples, if your remember, that if we hold to His teaching, that would mark us as His disciples, and that we would know the… what? The TRUTH, and the truth would set us free. If we hold to His teaching… what teaching? Where is it found? Right here, in the Word… this is why the emphasis on the Word in the churches… we talked about that a couple weeks ago, and we also memorized a verse together, didn’t we? Do you remember it? Where was it? (ask) 2 Timothy 3:16: “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness…” Very good.
The Scripture is our all-sufficient source of Truth from God. In the Scripture we find story after story of people clinging to untruth, making decisions based on fear that is rooted in lies, and then experiencing the consequences of rejecting the Truth. We’re going to look at one of these stories today, hopefully letting it be a cautionary tale for us so that we can walk with God and with each other in the Truth that brings freedom. Sound good? Okay, let’s go!
Text: Genesis 33:1-17 (read) Sounds like a wonderful family reunion, doesn’t it? This is sometimes referred to as the “reconciliation of Jacob and Esau”… and if you know what had gone on before, it seems like a happy ending to a difficult story. What had happened up to this point? If you’ve been reading along, you’ll remember that the last time these brothers were together, Esau was threatening to kill Jacob for not only taking His birthright but also the blessing that their father Isaac intended to give to Esau. If you don’t know the story, GO BACK AND READ IT! It will help you make sense of much of the rest of the Bible, including the New Testament.
Ok, so Jacob had left his family and gone back to the land where his grandfather Abraham has grown up, and there he found a wife… two wives, actually, plus two maids, who altogether gave him 13 children. That’s a whole other series of family issues that you should read about more than once… if nothing else it should give you comfort about your own dysfunctional family! But here in Genesis 33, Jacob is on his way back to Canaan, where his father and his brother live, and it’s been over 20 years. God had told Jacob to go back to Canaan, so he went, but not without a whole lot of fear. In Genesis 32:11 we read of Jacob’s prayer asking God to protect him: “Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he come and attack me, the mothers with the children” I love verse 12 here, too, because Jacob gets his courage to go forward from the Truth, from what God had told him: “For Thou didst say, ‘I will surely prosper you, and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’” Very useful illustration for us, when we’re in the midst of fear; bring up what you KNOW, the Truth, and ride that truth right into the face of what you fear.
Ok, so good one on Jacob there, but let’s consider that fear for a moment. Some say “time heals all wounds” but I’m not so sure that’s true… and it certainly doesn’t seem to be the case here as Jacob hasn’t forgotten that Esau wanted to kill him, and he certainly didn’t seem to expect Esau to have forgotten what had happened. You see, for issues that have not been resolved, for wounds that haven’t healed, time stands still. Most of us are carrying around these issues from years ago, and we tell ourselves, “Oh, I’m over that, it was so long ago…” but if we let God show us the truth of the matter, we’ll find that we’re NOT over it, we still carry bitterness and fear, pain and anger from past disappointments, and shame over things we’ve done to hurt others… and those unresolved issues won’t just go away. Let’s go back to the text and see the evidence of this…
Gen 33:14-17… Jacob says “I will proceed at my leisure… until I come to my lord at Seir” (which is where Esau now lived, an area southeast of the Dead Sea and of Israel that became known as Edom). So Jacob says--or at least lets it seem like--he’s planning to following along after Esau. But what does he actually do? V: 17 tells us he headed to Succoth… which we suppose is near Shechem… which is northwest of the Dead Sea, some distance from Esau and his family. Hm. What’s up with that, I wonder?
Well. Maybe God had told him to go there… but we only know for sure in Gen 31:3 that God said: “Return to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.” At any rate, if God had told him to head for Shechem, why did he give Esau the idea that he would come to Seir? Why didn’t he just say, “No, my brother, my God and your God has told me to go to Shechem, and so it’s off to Shechem I go!” Or, if God hadn’t told him to go to Shechem, perhaps he could have said “No, my brother, I’ve got my heart set on this other area up here” for whatever reason…
Does it matter? Isn’t this just a little white lie, not a big deal, a little “social lie” that we do to keep the peace, to smooth things over? Am I making a big deal out of nothing here? I really don’t think so, and here’s why… we know from later passages that the relationship was NOT good between Jacob’s family and Esau’s family… we see them burying Isaac together later on in Genesis 35, but every other encounter between Jacob (now known as Israel) and Esau (now known as Edom) shows that hostility continued between them… sometimes violent, as when the Amalekites (Amalek was Esau’s grandson Gen 36:12) attacked the Israelites when they came out of Egypt years later (Ex 17), sometimes a little more subtly but still clearly threatening, as when Edomites refused to let Israel pass through their land even when they offered to pay (Num 20).
I think it does matter, how we reconcile with each other over issues that come up… and you know those issues will come up, we step on each other, sometimes by mistake sometimes not so much. I think that, even if for the moment is feels like we’ve done well by “smoothing things over” with some evasive little lies, I think that there will be consequences of those little lies, and we end up enslaved and troubled by the barrier that remains. I believe God is not pleased with this half-baked reconciliation, not so much because He’s just this judging God who just hates lies as a matter of principal, but I believe He hates deceitfulness because it ensnares His people, it keeps us in bondage, and it makes fellowship difficult and troublesome, between us and Him and between us and each other.
This truth goes all the way back to the garden of Eden, in Genesis 3… another must-read story! Remember how the enemy, whom Jesus called the “father of lies,” lied to Adam and Eve, and how their response to his lies was to first break God’s command, and to then hide from God and try to deceive Him! This damaged their relationship with God, and resulted in their exile from the garden.
There’s good news though! Thank God for the Gospel, the Good News! Recall that, even though they were exiled from the garden, fellowship with God was still possible. This is important… even though there were consequences of their sin, all was not lost, and fellowship with God was still possible for them. This is important for us today because it’s true for us today: even though we make mistakes, even though we fall short, we still have fellowship with God, and we can still have fellowship with each other.
Let me say that again another way, because I believe this is His Word for us right now, today… The Lord wants to set some of us free with this truth today: even if there is a falling-out, even if there has been a breaking of trust, a disappointment, a hurt… all is not lost, there may be consequences, but reconciliation is available. Keep in mind this reconciliation doesn’t mean saying what the other person did was right, just as it doesn’t mean saying that what YOU did was right; it also doesn’t mean that you have to live next door to the other person and be best friends with them… God had a different destiny for Jacob and it didn’t involve him living with Esau… but even if God doesn’t necessarily require us to be super close to each other, I do know that His requires us to be honest with one another.
How do I know that? Glad you asked. Turn to Eph 4:25, and we’re going to conclude once we’ve looked at this passage.
Ephesians 4:25 Therefore, laying aside falsehood, SPEAK TRUTH EACH ONE of you WITH HIS NEIGHBOR, for we are members of one another.

In context He is describing who we OUGHT to be, setting aside the old way of our fathers, including the way of Jacob and many of the others described in Scripture. Instead of hiding in falseness, he says to “speak truth” to each other.
Do any of you have a text where “Speak truth each one with his neighbor” is in all caps? What does that mean? OT reference here is Zechariah 8:16, where God is describing what He wants for His “City of Truth” (Zech 8:1).
Even though the story of God’s people, in the Scripture and right here with the church of today, even though our story is full of examples of people lying to each other, I believe God is still giving us a vision of this “City of Truth,” He is calling us up into that vision, to BE that City of Truth, where we won’t hide behind social pleasantness and “little white lies” but where we’ll go ahead and let there be awkwardness as we try to be honest with each other. Echo, let’s refuse to be satisfied to live in the self-protective shadows of half-truths, and instead live in the light, as He is in the light.
How do we do that? We start with ourselves, our own relationships, those people in our lives that we haven’t been able to reconcile with. Let the Lord shed His light on the situation, and be open to acting on what He shows you. Sometimes it’s out of our power to reconcile, but most of us can admit that we are partly responsible… and we fail to truly reconcile for various reasons: we don’t want to acknowledge where we were wrong, we don’t want to let the other person or people off the hook, we just don’t like them and how they live… whatever. Sometimes we have trouble getting over how others have lied to us or disappointed us… we know Father’s heart on that matter: all sin is sin against God, so we can decide to not take it personally, we can forgive and we can get over it.
As we spend a little time now in silence, reflect on these things and let the Lord illuminate them for you. Let Him show you where the lie is, and let Him show you the truth, and let Him give you the grace to walk in the truth.
[2-3 minutes silence, followed by song]
Jesus said in John 3:21 that those who live by the truth come into the light so that it may be seen clearly that what he has done has been done by God. Not only does God show you the truth of anything wrong in your life, but He shows you that He is greater than the wrong, and that He loves you and WILL do great things through you. Get into the Word, pray and listen for Father’s voice… this is how we cultivate relationship with Him and each other, this is how we harvest spiritual fruit in ourselves and in each other, and this is how we overcome the works of the enemy in our lives, in our church, and in the world.
And all who would be set free by receive THAT truth, please indicate so by saying “AMEN!”

Closing Prayer: Let’s pray…

Benediction

What's so great about the Bible?

Welcome to 2012, Echo! Below is the first sermon of the year, a preparation for our "through the Bible" following the "Our Daily Bread" plan. Enjoy!

January 1, 2012 “What’s so GREAT about the Bible?”

2012 Reading Schedule introduction: We’re following the Our Daily Bread (odb.org) Bible in a Year schedule. Sermons will be based on prior week’s and/or next week’s reading. If you’ve done the reading and receive some useful insight, each week we’ll give space for one person to share, just before the sermon. Reading suggestion: if you “fall off” read a little each day until the next book starts, then jump in on that day again. Listening to the reading is fine, great to do when driving; I know some can take in and process more through listening, and that’s no problem!

Bible Offering: You may remember that I mentioned taking up an offering for Bibles at Christmas, but I realized I wanted to spend more time preparing you for this, because I believe it’s important enough. We’ll be doing some of that today, and I expect we’ll take up the offering on February 12th, which happens to be the day we’ll be holding an all-church business meeting… we’ll be sharing the finances and accomplishments over the past year and plans for the coming year. That’ll be after the church service that day, and lunch will be included.

Persecuted DVD (From Assemblies of God site: biblealliance.org)

What’s so great about the Bible that these people hunger for it so much? That people will die for it?

The rest of the DVD describes some of the experiences of our brothers and sisters around the world, those who suffer and die horribly for their faith; some are imprisoned just for owning Bible. Their stories may seem far away and feel unrelated to our experience here in America, but these are real, current stories. There really are many believers in the world who, because they won’t reject Christ, are forced to watch their spouses and children being tortured and killed before they themselves are killed.

Why? Why would they hold tighter to Jesus and His Word than to their own flesh and blood?

We know there is a great reward for those who hold to the Word of God and who refuse to deny the name of Christ. We read about it in Rev 3, where the church of Philadelpia is commended for their faith:

Revelation 3:8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

So ok, it makes sense that the reward can be a good motivator… but is that enough? Will it be enough for you when you are forced to choose between your family and your God? Well, to be honest, we don’t know that all of us will have to face that exact choice. The bait, the temptation to deny Christ, is different depending on the culture and on what’s important to us… For many, it doesn’t take the threat of death to cause them to abandon their faith. Will the promise of reward be enough for you when you’re faced with these circumstances…

Will the promise of reward be enough, when the world is in your face and you are being ridiculed for your faith, told that it’s foolish, questioned about your behavior since becoming a Christian, where maybe you’ve stumbled repeatedly and continued in weaknesses that you’ve had since long before you accepted Christ?

Will the promise of reward be enough when you’re asked about God’s provision when you’ve been stuck in poverty, or when you’re asked about God’s healing when you or your loved ones have been struck with chronic illness?

How about that “freedom” Jesus promised, when you’re still imprisoned by bitterness and hurts, by broken relationships and the consequences of decisions made years ago, especially those decisions made by others that continue to affect you?

Will the promise of reward keep you? Maybe it will, maybe that will be enough for you… but I’m not so sure it will keep me, since I know how well the promise of a healthier life motivates me to exercise and eat better!

I believe that what will keep you and me is bigger than the promise of reward. You see, that promise is only a part of something much, much bigger, and that something is Truth… and particularly, the truth of the Word of God, absorbed into our daily lives and walked out day by day.

What will keep us? Knowledge of, commitment to, and trust in Jesus’ teaching, found in the Bible. Here’s what Jesus said His own teaching would do for us if we hold to it:

John 8:31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Hold to His teaching… “Continue in my word” NASB has it… “Meno” = abide, remain, stay, dwell in His Word. This involves continual contact, presence, exposure to the mind of Christ we find in the Bible. Romans 12:2 says to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” and I tell you, it WORKS. Being in the Word will transform how you see and think about things. This isn’t something magical or supernatural, really, because if you spend time immersed in anything you will be transformed by it, your thoughts, your worldview WILL begin to conform, or at least become desensitized to it. Ex. Profanity in movies, violence (ex. On 9/11 a 10yrold boy I knew was watching the live news footage of reporters at the Pentagon and said, “hey wouldn’t it be cool if they had a plane come crashing down behind them?”)

Being immersed in the truth of the Word produces something different in us. Knowing God’s truth sets us free in such a way that the enemy’s attempts to get you to deny your faith won’t work. The enemy will try to play on your insecurities… but the truth is, your security comes from God, not from your own greatness. The enemy will try to play on your fear of loss, loss of loved ones, loss of possessions… but the truth is, all of it belongs to God. (“He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose”) Many believing parents I know speak of surrendering loved ones to God, but in reality they are just acknowledging that they never belonged to them in the first place. The enemy will try to play on your dread of loss of reputation, of being seen as a fool… but the truth is, the only approval that is worth anything comes from God, and the enemy cannot tarnish your reputation before God.

All of this truth is found in God’s Word, and this is why the Bible has been central to our faith since the very beginning, even before the whole Bible was finished being written! What do I mean by that? I mean that when the first apostles were writing the words that would later become part of our New Testament, they were quite aware of the true source and power of God’s written Word, which, for them in that day, contained pretty much what we call the Old Testament.


For example, here’s Paul writing to a younger disciple, his own “son in the faith” by the name of Timothy:

2 Timothy 3:15-17 …from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work

Here’s Peter’s take on how we got the Scripture:

2 Peter 1:20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

They also recognized that what they were preaching was also the Word of God.

1 Thessalonians 2:13 And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.

These, and many other passages, are what really made me start to pursue a more reverential study of God’s Word… I’ve shared my testimony before, of how I was saved sitting alone at home and fell in love with God while reading the Bible. I don’t always share that from that point forward I had a tremendous hunger and sensitivity to the Word, and it was at that point that I heard my pastor say that the Bible is a human book of wisdom about God. RED FLAG! You see, because I had been spending time in the Word, seeing with eyes of faith that God had opened up, this sort of statement didn’t fly with me. I already knew that this was not what the Word said about itself. If she’d said it a few months earlier, I might not have thought anything of it. But from that point on, even though I deeply respected that pastor on many levels, I held her teaching of the Bible pretty lightly. She and I met and she confirmed that, not only had I understood her correctly, but she believes and teaches that Jesus Christ is not the only means of salvation. She understood when I told her believed differently, that Jesus is the ONLY way, and she understood when I left that fellowship a few months later, with a nice farewell dinner and kind words.

Side note: No matter how young you feel in your faith, if there’s something I say, or anyone else here says, that doesn’t seem to ring true with you and what you understand of the Word… don’t be afraid to bring it up. It might have been a misunderstanding, it might have been something carelessly or unclearly stated, but it just might have been error. I admit that I get careless or lazy sometimes and mix Scriptures, use them out of context, confuse them with things I’ve read elsewhere. Please, PLEASE allow yourself that boldness, for the sake of us all. BUT… Please also take the time to bring your question later, so there can be thoughtful discussion. If there was something unclear, it can be clarified not only then but before the congregation at the appropriate time. I’ve done that before, when I’ve shared something and then realized later that I had messed up… I don’t at all mind correcting that.

Ok, back to today’s message… I shared with you just a couple of passages that describe how the apostles saw Scripture, both the Old Testament and the words they were preaching and teaching, and eventually writing. There are whole shelves of books on this topic, like this one here (Norman Geisler’s Systematic Theology), and most of them start with those passages, especially 2 Peter 1:20-21 and 2 Tim 3:16.

From p 229: “The Bible claims to be a book from God, a message with divine authority. Indeed, the biblical writers say they were moved by the Holy Spirit to utter His very words—that their message came by revelation so that what they wrote was breathed out (inspired) by God Himself”

He goes on to discuss 2 Peter 1:20-21 and 2 Tim 3:16, and then a whole bunch of other passages. This is some pretty important foundation for us as believers. In fact, you may or may not know that the #1 foundational doctrine in the statement of fundamental truths for our denomination, the Assemblies of God, says NOTHING about speaking in tongues... Nope, the very first statement is this:

1. The Scriptures Inspired
The Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, are verbally inspired of God and are the revelation of God to man, the infallible, authoritative rule of faith and conduct (2 Timothy 3:15-17; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Peter 1:21).

And there you see the verses I read earlier. In fact, before even getting into the fundamental truths, our Constitution states that “the Bible is our all-sufficient rule for faith and practice.” All of the doctrines that follow flow from a shared understanding of that Bible, and form a “basis of fellowship among us.”

We'll touch on these doctrines as we study the Word together, but if you’d like to go deeper, especially into a better understanding of the inspiration of Scripture, there are several ways to go. You could borrow some of the texts I collected while in seminary. I have these great little “Know Your Bible” booklets too, and I highly recommend that you take one to read along with as you come to each chapter through the year. You could also start with the fundamental truths booklet from the AG, and study out the verses yourself. In fact, I recommend that, and maybe even memorizing one of the scriptures so that you always have that answer ready… 2 Timothy 3:16 is an easy address to remember:

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

Wondering if the part you’re reading came from God? “All Scripture is God-Breathed” Feel like you need to be taught? Rebuked? Corrected? Trained in righteousness? The Scripture is the place for you. Note this isn’t emphasizing the Bible’s usefulness for correcting others, but for your own equipping! See what it says next:

17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Remember what the name of our church stands for? “ECHO: Equipping the church to Cultivate, Harvest, and Overcome.” If equipping is our primary task here, do you see why the emphasis on the Word? Reading it aloud to each other, quoting it in our prayers and in our songs, exploring how it fits together, within itself and within our daily lives… all of these are opportunities for the Word to do just what it says it does: equips us for service.

The Word equips us to walk in power… to overcome every obstacle, not always because the obstacle is removed, but because the truth has set us free, free from the trap that the obstacles are intended to set for us. The enemy loves to get us in a corner, where we only see limited options and none of them GOOD options. What I say next might upset you, but I hope you’ll take it for what it’s worth: almost every issue that is brought to me can be resolved with a perspective shift. The issue may seem to be about health, or about money, or about a relationship, or about, about, about…about all of these things, or other things, or whatever… but I’ve seen things turn around, for me and for some of you, too, when truth is introduced… our perspective changes, and the chains fall off… the enemy’s attempt to shame us or terrify us is exposed, and things don’t look so big anymore. You see, the circumstances are the circumstances… we all got ‘em, some folks seem to have more of ‘em than others, and some folks seem to cause a lot of ‘em for others! But all of these things are being used to shape us, to test and refine our faith, so that we can stand in the end, so that we can truly hold to Jesus’ teaching. When we grasp His teaching, when we see what He’s doing in our lives, when we turn the corner and see that light of truth, WHOA! Everything looks different!

Now, don’t get me wrong, if we can help ease the pain of circumstances for each other, absolutely, I believe we should try to do that as much as possible… it’s hard to know when the pain is a necessary pain for someone else, so I try to err on the side of easing pain when I can. But more than that, I believe we should, as much as possible, encourage each other in the truth, the truth of the Word, to counter the enemy’s lies and half-truths and crafty little insinuations… I said this to someone this week, and I’ll say it to you all right now: I love you and I HATE to see you suffer, but you want to know what I hate even more? I hate to see you give up, to see the enemy convince you that his stinking lies are the truth. This ought not be, and it doesn’t HAVE to be… We can and we must find encouragement in the Word, for ourselves and for each other, in order to counter the filthy lie with the pure truth. This truth, tested and proven in our lives as we walk through and digest the Bible together, this truth becomes our true food and true drink… this is what those persecuted Christians find so great about the Bible that it’s worth dying for, and, I believe, it will be enough for you, too, to make you stand in the face of persecution.

Let’s pray.

The Miracle of Giving Thanks

Some requested that I post the message that I shared at the Oxford-Orion Community Thanksgiving Service tonight... Here it is!

The Miracle of Giving Thanks

One day a year, a great number of Americans sit down to a meal and, before eating, they offer thanks to God… thanks for their provision, thanks for their health, thanks for friends and family, and for many other blessings. Whether or not your family is in the habit of giving thanks before every meal, Thanksgiving is one occasion when most families in our culture are sure to say some sort of formal grace. In this time when so many of our denominational barriers are being broken down through community celebrations like this one and through ministries like Love INC, I thought it was fitting to share with you some examples of how grace before meals is “done” across the body of Christ.

Popular in Ecumenical settings: God is great, God is good. Let us thank Him for our food. Amen.

The variation I knew growing up: God is great, God is good, thank You for this tasty food (rhyming with good… parents took a dim view of this, I think because our giggles spoiled the solemnity).

? Good food, good meat, good God, let’s eat!

Echo. Thank you God for food…Amen!

Common Protestant grace: Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let these gifts to us be blessed. Amen.

Anglican. Bless, O Father, thy gifts to our use and us to thy service; for Christ’s sake. Amen.

Common in religious schools in the UK. For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.

Eastern Orthodox. O Christ God, bless the food and drink of thy servants, for holy art thou, always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Wesleyan. Be present at our table Lord. Be here and everywhere adored. These mercies bless and grant that we -- may feast in fellowship with thee. Amen

Catholic. In the name… Let us pray. Bless us, O Lord, and these, thy/your gifts, which we are about to receive from thy/your bounty. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

One final blessing…

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech haOlam, haMotzi lechem min haAretz

Pentecostal praying in tongues?? Well, sort of… it’s a known tongue though, and here is the translation...Blessed are You O Lord Our God, King of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the earth. Where is the blessing from? To best of our ability to know, this is quite likely the very Hebrew blessing spoken by Jesus before He broke five small loaves of bread and distributed them to 5,000 men on a hill in Galilee, thus performing the only miracle, apart from the resurrection, that is recorded in all four of the gospels.

Each gospel includes the fact that Jesus blessed or gave thanks for the bread before distributing it, and John even repeats this detail in 6:23 ("near the place where the people had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks") It seems there is something significant in this giving of thanks, something about this giving of thanks that was essential in the production of this tremendous abundance of life-giving bread.

So I wondered: If the giving of thanks was part of the miracle, in what way was it so? Was it the fact that Jesus prayed before the meal?

As it happens, prayer before meals was a well-established Jewish practice in Jesus' day, but it’s interesting to note that it is not commanded in the Bible Jesus knew (the OT). What is commanded is a blessing after the meal. We see this in Deuteronomy 8:10: "And thou shalt eat and be satisfied and shalt bless the Lord thy God for the goodly land which he has given thee." To this day, observant Jews fulfill this commandment by giving thanks after they eat. Both the Catholic and Orthodox practices also echo this Jewish fulfillment of the law, the Catholic blessing reading this way: “We give thee thanks, Almighty God, for all thy benefits, and for the poor souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, may they rest in peace. Amen.”

If the commandment is only to bless after a meal, how is it that grace before meals has taken such a place in our religion? Well, we know that the Jewish tradition came about because the Jewish sages before Jesus had established practices that enabled the Jew to go beyond the letter of the Law to express greater piety than was required. If it was required to express gratitude to God after a meal, to do so before the meal was a special, voluntary way to show love for God. As we see elsewhere in Scripture, we know that Jesus kept the commandment to pray after meals, but His example of grace before meals is more often seen in Scripture, just as we see in this story. Thus it makes sense that we would continue the tradition of grace before meals today.

But the fact that we pray before a meal seldom accompanies the sort of miracle we saw with the multiplication of the bread and fish.

So I considered, perhaps there is significance in the prayer itself. The prayer Jesus most likely prayed had already been established by Jewish tradition, so there was nothing earthshattering or magical in the words themselves. But there is something in this blessing that can instruct us today. Note that this blessing is not on the food, nor is it on the people. Some English translations indicate that the Lord broke the bread and blessed "it" but in fact that "it" is not in the Greek text. So who is the object of the blessing? Listen again…

"Blessed are YOU, O Lord our God, King of the Universe..."

As in the commandment in Deut 8 instructed, it is God who is blessed, not the food. The focus is on God Himself, not on us and not on what we have or what we lack. Let us learn from this a key to living an abundant life in Christ, and that key is having a singular focus on God. Let our focus be not on our circumstances, our own strengths, or our own shortcomings, but on our God, our Good Shepherd who IS king of the universe, able to provide for every need, and not only able, but WILLING, for it is His good pleasure to give to His children, not only what we need, but exceedingly abundantly beyond our need. Amen?

The very words used by the gospel writers when telling this story point to our need for a singular focus on God...

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all use a word from which we get the word "eulogy" which means, literally, to speak good words. Jesus took the bread... these 5 small loaves, clearly not enough to feed 5000 men...he took what was available, looked to heaven, and spoke good words about God. We can learn a lot here, as we consider what we have and what we seem to lack. Isn't it true that God is good, ALL the time? Can we not find GOOD words to say in any circumstance? Let us take care with our words, for we know that just as a small flame can set a forest ablaze, so the tongue, such a little part of the body, can bring much pain and destruction when it is not disciplined. "Life and death are in the power of the tongue" wrote King Solomon. We also know that in order to discipline the tongue, we must discipline the heart, because as Jesus told us, "the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart." Let us set our hearts on Christ, and like Paul, may we learn the secret of contentment in any situation... the secret that in Christ is found all the strength and all the grace we need for all things.

Now, in the fourth gospel, we read in 6:11 that “Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish “ … When John says Jesus “gave thanks” he doesn’t use “eulogeo” but instead he uses a word from which we get "eucharist" and, incidentally, from which we derive the term “saying grace.” “Charis” means grace, that is, something given as a gift, and to say grace, to practice a “eucharist” is literally to give a good response for a gift, for a grace, something undeserved. Simply put, it means to give thanks or to be thankful, and thus our Holy Communion is truly a "Eucharist" when we partake with gratitude the precious, unearned and undeserved gift of God, the Body of Christ broken for us, that we might have life.

Of course, this heart of gratitude ought to extend from that Communion to all circumstances, as Paul exhorts us to give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for us in Christ Jesus. Did you hear that? Giving thanks is God's will for us, not just because He "wills" to have people to tell Him how great He is, but because He knows what this heart of continual gratitude will yield... an abundant life, one that cannot help but overflow with richness to others, so that, like the disciples on that hill so long ago, instead of stretching too little among too many people, instead of hoarding what little blessing we have, instead of feeling like people are going to empty us of whatever we have… instead of lives of poverty, we find ourselves living lives of abundance, even collecting leftovers to sustain us far beyond what we thought we could endure.

What is this Miracle of Giving Thanks? Simply this: that even in our poverty... whether material or spiritual... even in our poverty, we find abundant life when we bless God in all things, when we gratefully pour out good words from a good heart, good not because of our own works, but because of the precious gift of God, Christ in us, the bread of life.

Thank You God, for this Food... Amen!