Rejoice

Our church publishes a newsletter every month called The Mustard Seed. I try mightily to actually publish something in it each month, though I am not always successful. Here's my latest submission:

Rejoice

The world at the end of 2009 can seem like a much less hopeful, happy place than the world of last year. The global economy went into meltdown, with millions of homeowners and credit customers suddenly going into default. Unemployment across the country stands at near 10%, and locally around 12.5%. The Middle East seems to be heating up again, with Iran desperate for a nuclear bomb with which to threaten us. The Aghan War is going poorly. Even the weather seems to reflect the nation’s mood with a cooler, wetter summer than usual and a fall that is quickly turning gray and cold. In the midst of all this bad news it’s easy to be depressed and discouraged.

But we as believers in Jesus Christ have a lot to be encouraged by and a lot in which we can rejoice. First and foremost, we can rejoice because our sins are forgiven (1John 2:12). Our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Rev. 21:27). We are the sons and daughters of God himself (1 John 3:1) and possess already the eternal life which God promised to those who follow his Son (1 John 5:11-13). Our salvation is ours forever because we are kept in Christ not by our own efforts at righteousness, but by the perfect holiness of our loving Father (Jude 24-25). On top of these things, God chose us before the foundation of the world to give us his glorious grace in redemption, adoption, sealing and empowering through the Spirit, and blessing us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms (Eph. 1:2-14). And now, since God has already done the most for us in our glorious relationship with him, He can only do “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph. 3:20).

I believe that in the midst of what has been a very challenging year for our church that we are still seeing God work to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine. For example, we have seen God use our congregation to reach four adults on our Evangelistic Relational Sphere of Influence (R.S.I.) wall of prayer. We had 60+ kids come and participate in VBS over the summer. There are 20+ women involved in MOPs, many of whom do not attend our church. We have 60+ kids coming to AWANA each week, learning God’s Word and hearing the Gospel faithfully proclaimed. We baptized 10 people at Great Oaks in August and have added 7 new members as of the end of September. God provided funding for the L****** (name withheld for security) people group prayer guide to be printed by our Missions Team so that people all over the world can begin using it to pray for a people without the Gospel. We have distributed dozens of Bibles to prisoners across the US. We have given food and financial assistance to a large number of our community’s families, touching their lives at the point of their need so that they might “see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). Kids are continuing to come and hang out, study, and play at the Café, experiencing Christ in the love they are shown there and our Youth Ministry is reaching out to all types of students in our community – rich and poor, band kids and skateboarders, athletes and academics.

For none of these things can we take credit. It is God, after all, who did the work through us and deserves and glory for the results (Phil. 2:13). But in these things, as well as all of the other things that God has already done for each of in our salvation, we can rejoice. And we have plenty of reasons to do so. So even as 2009 winds its way toward 2010, let us not forget in the midst of all the challenges that we can (and should!) REJOICE!

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” – Philippians 4:4

Happy Birthday Steven!

My younger brother is 29 today. Hard to believe that he is still that young, when he has accomplished so much and has so much less hair than me. Still, 29 is a great year. Happy Birthday, bro!

When the Frost is on the Punkin'

Years ago, when I was a student at Taylor, our much loved president, Jay Kesler, would recite this old James Whitcomb Riley poem at the first chapel in the October. He knew it cold from memory, and it was such a tradition at TU that I can hardly feel the first crispness of fall in the years since but my thoughts return to chapel at Taylor and these lines.

When the Frost is on the Punkin'
WHEN the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock,
And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens,
And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it's then the time a feller is a-feelin' at his best,
With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here—
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees,
And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees;
But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin' of the tangled leaves as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries—kindo' lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin' sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover overhead!—
O, it sets my hart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
Is poured around the cellar-floor in red and yaller heaps;
And your cider-makin's over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With theyr mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and sausage too!...
I don't know how to tell it—but ef such a thing could be
As the angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on me—
I'd want to 'commodate 'em—all the whole-indurin' flock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

I Spy

My son Nathan has gotten into playing "I Spy." He makes his fingers into little glasses and then says, "I spy, with my little eye, something [red, or blue, or black, or whatever]." If you don't guess what it is on the first try, he can't contain himself and tells you what it was immediately. Clearly, we need to work on the helping him understand the rules of the game a bit better. But it's still fun to play with him, especially when he gets to laughing and blurting out the answers before you've had a chance to even guess.

I was reminded of this as I was reading the chapter for tomorrow's men's group meeting. We're reading Donald Whitney's Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health. It's a little book, with short chapters (a prerequisite with some of the guys), but each one is packed full of profound insight and deep probing of your spiritual life. This week's question is "Are You More Sensitive to God's Presence?" At one point, Whitney suggests that we briefly stop reading and quickly identify everything blue that we can see. Our eyes quickly filter out everything else to see only the blue objects in the room. In the same way, as we grow spiritually, we need to develop "God eyes" as it were, so that we filter out the noise of our world to see God's presence with us in every situation.

The more that we remind ourselves that God is present with us everywhere at every time, the more it seems that we see His hand at work, and have the sense of His presence. The more that we meditate on His word, the sharper the focus of our spiritual eyes. But the less we practice the presence of our Lord, the more we act like Moses in his pre-burning bush days:

"Glancing this way and that and seeing no one..." - Ex. 2:12 (NIV, emphasis mine)

Yet God is always there, is He not? Oh Lord, open my eyes that I may see You.

Navigating the middle passage

There are two opposite, but equally dangerous traps into which Christians can fall. One of them is legalism, which is identifying standards for yourself, either biblical standards or extra-biblical ones (legalism often includes both!), and then simply gritting your teeth and working hard to obey with all your might, but with little reliance on God’s grace coming to you through the Holy Spirit. The other danger is the sort of “let go and let God” folks, who think that somehow they will advance toward holiness without any conscious effort on their part. Neither is true, and both of them are destructive to the authentic spiritual life.

But if you look closely at Philippians 2:13, Paul gives the truth. He writes, “It is God who works in you, both to will and to act according to his good purpose. God is so sovereign that his purposes are accomplished both in what we choose and what we do. But it is still we who do it. Instead of divorcing God’s sovereignty from our responsibility, as a lot of people try to do, Paul stitches them tightly together here. As the commentator John Murray wrote,

God’s working in us is not suspended because we work, nor our working suspended because God works. Neither is the relation strictly one of cooperation as if God did his part and we did ours so that the conjunction or coordination of both produced the desired result. God works and we also work. But the relation is that because God works we work. All working out of salvation on our part is a the effect of God’s working in us…The more persistently active we are in working, the more persuaded we may be that all the energizing grace and power is of God.

God is working in us by His Holy Spirit. The fact that we even have the desire to change and grow to be like Christ is from the Spirit. Moreover, the harder we work to change, the more we realize that any growth we experience isn’t our doing, but God’s. God will accomplish His purpose in us, but He chooses to do so through the effort we put forth toward change in response to His Holy Spirit, which is already working in us.

Fear and trembling

A week ago Saturday Karen and I took the kids to the Peoria Zoo. While we were there, we stopped by the lion cage. Within a span of 5 minutes, both of the lions walked by within inches of us. All that separated us was 2” of heavy-duty glass and 4” of air. And I’ve got to tell you, there was an aspect of that which was pretty exhilarating. I could see the muscles ripple under the skin, the power in their stride, the length of their fangs, and the deep predatory gaze of their yellow eyes staring back into mine, unblinking. I was in awe of these creatures, but I was also just a little bit afraid, and very glad that we were separated by that heavy-duty glass. If I were inside the glass, I strongly suspect that the mixture of awe and fear would be radically reversed, with the balance heavily tilted toward fear. The reason, of course is that while a lion truly is an awe-inspiring creature, it is also one which is fully capable of destroying you. Those 3.5" long claws and teeth aren't decorative, after all.

And something like that healthy fear is, I think, what Paul has in mind when he writes:

continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling - Philippians 2:12b

A lot of people want to downgrade the word “fear” in this passage to something like “reverential awe.” But I think that when we do that, we are somehow trying to domesticate God, cutting Him down to a size where we can deal with Him. We know that the wild, untamed God of the Bible really exists, but a God who is smaller, less fearsome, and more cuddly seems to be...well... so much more comfortable than a God we ought to have a healthy dose of plain old fear of. Because after all, we don't need to be afraid of God as believers, do we? I mean, God loves us, doesn't He? Which is of course true. God does love us and He will never destroy us as He will destroy the wicked one day. But I suspect at least part of us wants God to be less fearsome, to be less the Warrior who treads the wine press of God's wrath (Rev. 19:15) than the gentle shepherd who carries the lamb on his shoulders. We want less the Lion of the Tribe of Judah and something more along these lines...

But back in verses 10-11 of the same chapter, Paul said that something pretty fearsome would happen to all humanity one day. One day, the Day of Christ, we will stand before God in all of his glory and bow our knees before the Lord Jesus. And even though God loves us, even for us who know Jesus, standing before the ascended and glorified Son of God will be awe mixed with a healthy amount of just plain old fear. After all, if being in the presence of a lion, which is just one of the host of creatures that God was powerful enough to create ex nihilo is enough to cause us to (quite rightly) get that tightness in the pit of our stomachs, then why do we think standing in the presence of THE LION will be somehow less mixed with fear and even trembling? God does love us, and those of us who love and follow Jesus don’t need to be terrified that God will destroy us, but a healthy dose of what the Bible calls the fear of God is not a bad thing, but a motivator to flee from sin. Because who wants to stand before God and give account for rebellion? Not me.