OK, to be honest, I wanted to use John Ortberg’s title: IF YOU WANT TO WALK ON WATER, YOU’VE GOT TO GET OUT OF THE BOAT. It’s brilliant, capturing the life of faith in one pithy line. But that’s Ortberg’s title and besides, I’m talking about a different passage of scripture.

The lesson, however, is surely the same: Once you know who Jesus really is, amazement and awe aren’t enough of a response; he calls you to take action. In fact, he calls you to take a risk.

Luke 5:1-11 records the calling of the first disciples, Simon Peter, James and John; partners in a little fishing LLC on the shore of Lake Gennesaret. The beginning of a new adventure came at the end of a depressing shift for the three friends. They’d “worked hard all night,” with nothing to show for it and were cleaning their nets when Jesus asked to borrow a boat to put some distance between himself and the crowd he was teaching. Not being one to lend his boat to a land-lubber, Simon pulled him out a ways and listened as Jesus spoke. No doubt the effect on the rough-hewn fisherman was like that in other places the young rabbi taught: amazement and awe.

That’s when things got interesting.

On finishing his talk, Jesus, who in my imagination must have had a funny grin on his face, looked at Simon and, like a man challenging a friend to a foot race said, “Row out into the deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”

Put yourself in Simon’s sandals for a minute. You don’t know this guy from Adam. Well, OK, maybe his reputation has preceded him, but today is the first day you’ve ever seen him in person, seen him in action. And yeah, OK, he’s a pretty good teacher. But fish? He doesn’t know a carp from a catfish and he obviously doesn’t know anything about their feeding habits. “Ya see Rabbi,” he says politely, “we fish at night, up to sunrise, because that’s the best time for a catch. In fact we fished all night and got nada.” Hint, hint! I’m tired, my buddies are tired. We have more work to do before we can call it a day, and now you’re asking us for uncompensated overtime. But something in Jesus’ eye, something in his body-language must have moved Simon. “Ok, just because you say so, I’ll let down the nets,” but I know nothing’s gonna happen!

Well, you know the rest of the story. The catch was so big Simon had to call for help to pull it in. More importantly, Simon understood he was in the presence of immeasurable spiritual power. Understandably, he asked to be excused. “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”

But Jesus had other plans, plans that would not only change Simon Peter’s life, but the whole world. The catch was that Simon and his partners would have to leave the fish, so to speak. If they were to follow Jesus, they had to leave their boats, leave their home town, leave the only life they knew, leave everything familiar; even leave their livelihood. That’s a tough call for any man.

Here’s the deal. It’s one thing to hear the Word of God and say, “Wow! That was really good. It spoke to me.” It’s another thing entirely to act on what you’ve heard; to so trust the One who is calling you that you will take a risk for him in the land of the familiar, in your boat with your nets on “your” lake. If we do take that step, the likelihood is that we will see something amazing and be compelled to worship. It is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. We may even be compelled to say, “Please go away, I’m not good enough to hang around you.”

That’s when things will get really interesting. “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.” There is no end to what God can do with a repentant man who will put everything on the line to follow him.

So what is Jesus asking you to do this week? Where is he asking you to take a risk? Do it! And watch for what comes next.

How effective are you at overcoming temptation? Americans, on the whole, aren’t very serious about it. In fact, we’re more likely to see temptation as a positive tool in the advertiser’s bag of tricks; something to chuckle about or think hmmm, I’d like one of those, as the commercial fades, rather than run from. But temptation is serious stuff to the spiritually minded because it has marked the beginning of the end of so many good things. Before a family ruins their finances they are tempted to buy more than they can afford. Before a governor betrays his oath he is tempted to justify means by their ends. Before a husband breaks his vows he is tempted to believe that the rules don’t apply to him.

Temptation is serious business indeed.

Perhaps that’s why one of the first things Luke records in the life of Christ is his temptation in the wilderness. It’s helpful to reflect on this as we take our first steps into a new year. Take these four quick observations on Luke 4:1-13 and tuck them away as reminders as you head off into 2015.

First, the temptation took place under devilishly advantageous conditions to the tempter. Jesus was under duress in the desert for an extended time, alone, hungry, and exhausted. We are never more vulnerable than when we are isolated, underfed, and fatigued. We can be in a crowd of hundreds and still be socially isolated; well fed yet emotionally hungry; physically rested yet mentally fatigued. Pay attention to the conditions under which you are operating. The more desert-like your circumstances the more vulnerable you are to temptation.

Second, the appeal of instant gratification can be overwhelming, especially in a time of easy credit. “If you are the Son of God,” the devil said in effect, “what’s in your wallet? Prove it!” Every day we have opportunities to live by feel rather than by faith, to do for ourselves instantly (and on credit) what seems to take too long to do God’s way. The more ability we have, the harder it is to wait for God’s provision, to live on his every word. Jesus took the way of faith, trusting God to meet his needs. So should we.

Third, short-cuts seem best when we want to accomplish tough tasks. I can’t help but hear Darth Vader in the Devil’s offer in verses 5-7, “Luke, you do not yet realize your importance. You’ve only begun to discover your power! Join me, and I will complete your training! With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict, and bring order to the galaxy.” How many politicians have fallen for this line, only to find that the alliance they made with a power broker was a devils’ bargain.

Short-cuts to authority to solve problems aren’t limited to politicians. All of us can be tempted to take power that isn’t ours. But as Chuck Swindoll’s recent Facebook post said: “One of the quickest ways to complicate a mess is to jump in with both feet and try to do it all without God.”

Fourth, as frustration and disappointment mount, so does the temptation to manipulate God. The Devil’s taunt to throw himself down was a direct challenge to Jesus about the goodness and love of his Father. “You believe God loves you? God chose you? Make him prove it!”

Times will come in your life and mine, maybe today, maybe this year, when the enemy of souls will whisper doubts in our ears about God’s love for us. When that happens remember to answer back, “No one manipulates God. He is God and we are not.”

Temptation is serious stuff, but it doesn’t have to be the beginning of the end of good things. When it comes your way this year, remember how our Lord handled it, and let it motivate you to trust God more than ever.

I gasped as my web browser opened to its Google News homepage yesterday. 12 KILLED IN SHOOTING AT FRENCH SATIRICAL MAGAZINE, 15 Wounded. I didn’t need to read the rest of the report to learn that the perpetrators were Islamic jihadists. The pattern is all too familiar.  The Fort Hood Massacre, the Boston bombers, the Australian coffee shop shooter, the Canadian Parliament attack, the Oklahoma Islamist who gunned down and then murdered his co-workers, the “honor killings;” the list goes on and on and is clear evidence that the philosophy of the keepers of Quranic Islam has not changed.

“It is written in the Quran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged the Muslim’s authority were sinners, that it was the Muslim’s right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Muslim who should be slain in battle was sure to go to paradise.”*

That quote amplifies the two things that I believe Jesus would say us on a day like today, when 12 more innocent people have been murdered by Muslim jihadists.

BE REAL: THE ISLAMIC MISSION IS NOT GOING AWAY

Chuck Colson, in a 2006 speech, provided much needed context: In 732, barely a hundred years after the founding of Islam, a very significant battle was fought just outside of Paris at a place called Poitiers. Muslim armies seeking to conquer Europe were stopped. For the next 951 years Crusades were called to throw them back. The Muslims countered until finally, in 1683, the armies of the Ottoman Empire were decisively defeated by Polish and German infantry near Vienna. The date? September 11. Bin Laden didn’t choose that date out of thin air.^

Westerners assume that the conflict we have with Islam began in 2001. It began when Islam was founded and it has never stopped. I think the first thing Jesus would have his people understand is that Islam and its mission to overcome the west is not going away.

The question for us is, how are followers of Jesus to react to this reality? Make up your mind to love people in Islam, even the violent ones, with the love of Christ (Matthew 5:43-48).

I confess that when I hear that there is a man in town trying to start a mosque my immediate reaction is to dislike him. But Jesus tells us otherwise. As a Muslim the man may be an enemy of the gospel. But as a man he is loved by God every bit as much as God loves me. I am to treat him with all of the respect and kindness that I would any Christian.

We aren’t to fear Islam or Muslims. We aren’t to seek revenge for 9-11 or other attacks. Biblically, it is the role of the state to pursue justice and punish evil. As believers we are to seek peace in all of our personal contacts, to overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:17-21).

The second thing I think Jesus would tell us is that loving our enemies and seeking peace doesn’t mean being naïve. I think he would tell us to:

BE ON GUARD
Just before sending the twelve apostles on a mission trip Jesus warned them not to be naïve. He also told them not to be afraid to speak the truth no matter what the cost (Matthew 10:16-28). Paul did essentially the same thing with his protégé Timothy. “Be on your guard…” (2 Timothy 4:14-15). We need to be on our guard against the mission and the mandate of Islam.

Most Muslims are like most other religious people in the world: they are concerned with making a living, educating their children, worshiping their god and keeping food on the table. But the keepers of Quranic Islam, the conservatives who insist on implementing Sharia, aren’t interested in assimilating into Western culture on an equal footing with other religions.

Omar Ahmed, the founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim “civil liberties” group in the United States said:

“Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”**

Many westerners in government and in churches are being foolish about Quranic Islam. They are ignoring the slow and steady insurgency of Sharia into our legal system, and creeping Sharia law creates the conditions from which violence springs.

What is Sharia? After Mohammed finished writing the Quran there was a three hundred year long discussion and argument about how it was to be interpreted and applied. That was settled into what is known as the hadith (a kind of official commentary on the Quran) upon which Sharia law is based.

“Sharia is an all-encompassing legalistic structure for the Islamic way of life, determining what is forbidden and what is permitted. It contains detailed instructions for personal daily life and how to practice the pillars of Islam.”^^

The West is making accommodations to Sharia everywhere. What is important to remember about this is that each time Sharia wins a victory, be it in the legislature or the courtroom or academia or business, any attempts to reverse it or question it, any opposition to it, becomes in Islamic thought not a defense of the Constitution, not a matter of freedom of speech and not a defense of religious liberty; it becomes an attack on Islam itself which, according to the Quran, justifies jihad.

And that brings us back to the attack on Charlie Hebdo. Hebdo is an equal opportunity insulter when it comes to religion. It’s what we call freedom of speech. But we are so committed to the idea of multi-culturalism and so afraid of the charge of Islamophobia that we aren’t taking into account the fact that Islam’s intent is to implement Sharia everywhere, not just in mosques. Thus, we aren’t speaking forthrightly about it. These murderers, along with all the other perpetrators of such crimes, were acting in accord with their Quranically informed consciences, pursuing what they saw as their duty under Sharia law. We are fools to believe that appeasement will bring an end to such things. We need to be on guard.

*Abd al-Rahman al-Ajar, personal representative of the Pasha of Tripoli quoted in Michael B. Oren’s Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present, pg. 27
^Colson, Chuck; Presentation to the Wilberforce Forum Centurions Program Participants, Given March 4, 2006
**Sookhdeo, Patrick, The CHALLENGE OF ISLAM To the Church and Its Mission, pg. 15; Isaac Publishing. Quoting Lisa Gardiner in “American Muslim Leader Urges Faithful to Spread the Word,” San Ramon Valley (CA) Herald, July 4, 1998.
^^ Ibid, p. 25.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. John 1:1-3

Christmas is so much more than a babe in a manger. Christmas is a cosmic event.

According to Charles W. Petit, scientists confront a ‘fine-tuning problem,’ as they examine the heavens. “The universe appears marvelously constructed to produce stars, planets, and life. Scientists have calculated that if the force binding atomic nuclei were just 0.5 percent different, the processes that forge atoms inside stars would have failed to produce either carbon or oxygen—key ingredients to life. If gravity were only slightly stronger or weaker, stars like our sun could not have formed. Yet physicists see no reason why the constants of nature are set just so.”

Contemporary astronomer Allan Sandage, Edwin Hubble’s successor at Mt. Wilson and Mt. Palomar observatories… told the New York Times, “I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God, to me … is the explanation of the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing.” On another occasion, Sandage said, “If God did not exist; science would have to invent Him to explain what it is discovering at its core.”

The truth is that our ability to exist on this planet is due to the fact that the universe is balanced on a razor’s edge in order to facilitate life.

The earth-shaking thing that the Apostle John tells us in the first few verses of his gospel is that ho kosmos (Greek for the orderly universe that scientists observe) was made through ho Logos, the Word – Christ. He is the agent of creation. He’s the one who “hung the stars.”

Paul elaborates on this in Colossians 1:16-17. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

John is clearly stating that the ‘Logos’ – the ultimate spiritual force behind the universe – is responsible for all that is visible. The mud you squish between your toes, the cold morning air rushing at you as you go out to crank the car, the water running through your hair as you shower all were made by Him. The fact that you and I exist in an incredibly complex yet orderly universe designed to sustain life is because this same Logos – who existed before the universe began – made it so.

He is also clearly stating that the “Logos,” the ultimate spiritual force behind the universe, is responsible for all of the invisible forces, not only the physics but the spiritual forces, at work in the universe. “Through him all things were made…”, or in Paul’s words, “whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.”

Physicists make a study of the physical laws, the foundational physical forces that make the universe, or universes, tick. They will tell you that even with all the things they’ve been able to discover they don’t know the tiniest tenth of all of the facts. They know even less about the spiritual world. The only reliable source of information on the invisible world, the spiritual world, is in the Bible.

The point is that the Logos created everything we can see and everything that we cannot see. He fashioned it, he sustains it, he owns it, he rules it, nothing happens in it apart from his knowledge, and nothing can change in it apart from his permission.

That’s the identity of the babe in the manger. So if you will bear with a little cheesy re-write of a favorite song:
When you when you get up Christmas morning,
with your family all around,
remember it was Christ who hung
the star on the highest bough.
And have yourself a cosmic little Christmas, now.

Recent events bring to light how unexpectedly, how quickly disaster can strike. I’ve watched with sadness as happenings related to Ferguson, Missouri and the Garner case amplified the bitterness and strife between races. The tragedy that is Syria also comes to mind, along with the Ebola epidemic in Africa. As Phillip Yancey poignantly asked: Where is God when it Hurts? (That book is worth your while by the way).
The Bible is clear about the ultimate source of suffering – (See Genesis 3: 17-19; Romans. 8:18, 22-25). We live in cursed bodies, with cursed psyches (souls) and cursed spirits, on a cursed planet under a cursed system in a cursed time. Men will commit crimes against one another. Accidents will burn houses down. Even the earth will oppose us and challenge us at every turn until we return to dust.
The Bible is clear about all of that. We should therefore adjust our expectations accordingly. We may not like the answer. But the question is not whether we like it. Rather, does it make sense of reality, as we know it? I believe that it does.
But all of that is abstract. Suffering is very personal stuff. I want to spend the rest of this article being personal.

God’s ultimate answer to suffering is the Cross of Christ.

Thirty-eight years ago we lost my dad in a plane crash. I was not quite sixteen, and traumatized by it. Almost thirteen years ago I accompanied my friend Phil Ramsey to the spot where his eighteen-year-old son Joseph had just died in a totally inexplicable car wreck. My heart wrenched as I watched my friend implode in grief. I spent the next three months so angry with God that I could not speak to him except on a professional basis. How could he let that happen?! Two years later I buried one of my best friends, Steve Kotter, victim of a car hitting his bicycle. Two years after that I answered the phone late one night to the wails of a grieving friend. I then buried her twenty-year old son, a drowning victim. In August 2010 I buried my brother, dead of a sudden heart attack. In 2011 I lost my mission aviation friend, Paul Westlund in a crash. There was no explanation for any of these losses that made any sense to me. And now, this week, we all grieve the sudden loss of Hank Bruining, a pillar of FCC.

What is God’s answer to that? Where is God when that kind of stuff happens to us? Philosophers offer two basic answers: Either there is no all powerful all loving God. Or there is an all powerful God but he just doesn’t care.

But the Bible offers a third alternative. We hear it in one of the most important, yet overlooked things Jesus ever said, one of the last things he said before he died. Theologians call it “the cry of dereliction,” something Jesus wailed aloud from the cross: “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me!?” (Matthew 27:46).

This is God’s answer to our suffering. He is not ‘up there’, distant, aloof, impassive while we suffer. He is ‘down here’ suffering with us. He has taken every single pain, every ounce of tragedy, every shred of injustice, each moment of mindless terror, “rolled it into a ball and eaten it, tasted it, fully digested it, eternally.” God is in Christ, suffering with and reconciling the world to him self. (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).

Where is God when we suffer? Suffering with us.

The Cross is the most stunning proof that God cares about our pain. It is the universal image of Christianity. But we are so familiar with it that we forget how violent, how brutal it was. The Cross is one of the vilest, tormenting, and barbaric forms of cruelty and death the world has ever known. Our word ‘excruciating’ comes from the Latin for crucifixion. Yet we wear it around the neck like a trophy. “Modern day executions are quick and sterile things. This one stretched on for hours in front of a jeering crowd.” In his death Jesus, God in the flesh, fully identified with our suffering and humility in the face of death. He didn’t have to do that. He chose it. He chose full identification with suffering humanity.

When tragedy strikes the promises of God often seem empty. Words on a page, or even from a friend, can’t fill the breach in our souls. Surely the words of Jesus to his friends must have seemed like empty promises as he hung there and died. They hung back in the crowd and slowly dispersed. It was after all, an empty hope they had clung to.

But that was Friday. Easter Sunday was yet to come. When it came, the world, suffering, life and death itself was turned on its head. The Cross tells us that God fully identifies with all the suffering of the world. The resurrection tells us that one day he will turn suffering on its head.

This has had a profound effect on me. God, our heavenly father, is not holding us at arm’s length. He is not a careless cosmic thug. He is embracing us. He is beside us holding us up. He is weeping with us. He knows the emptiness of our grief the hollowness in our souls. He knows these things and shares these things with the whole world of suffering. On the cross he absorbed it and through us he absorbs it still.

This knowledge restored my hope in God. It did something else too. It renewed my understanding of the uniqueness of Christianity. If you take the Cross out of the center of Christianity you remove that which makes it peerless among religions. It becomes just another system of morals and principles. But if you embrace the Cross you find a God there who is unlike any other, a God who will go to unimaginable lengths to commune with his creatures. He will commune with us to the death on Friday so that we can conquer death with him on Sunday.

Repentance is the plow that makes possible powerful personal growth.

Every summer we enjoy another of the benefits of living in a rural community. People bring us things from their gardens. I thought I knew what a fresh tomato was before I moved to Halifax County. But I didn’t know beans (or tomatoes)! I thought I knew what sweet was before I moved here. But then I tasted a Turbeville cantaloupe. I love the way those fresh from the garden things taste!

One of those gardens used to be across the street from our house. We often ate of its fruit. But none of the fruit from that garden would’ve been possible without the gift of another man who lived down the street, Mr. Rice. He didn’t water the ground. He didn’t plant the seed. He didn’t even help in the harvest. He just appeared on his tractor every spring with that most important thing every garden needs to grow – the plow.

The plow is hard. The plow is sharp. It rips through the weeds. It punctures the hard surface. It busts up the clotted dirt. It digs deep down and prepares the ground for everything that comes later. Without the plow there is no garden. The plow makes the growth possible. The plow is the beginning of powerful things in the life of the garden.

There is a parallel for the plow in the spiritual life. It is called repentance. Repentance penetrates hardened hearts. It breaks up the clods that clog our souls. Repentance opens the way for the word of God to work deep down into the soil of personality and bring forth the sweet fruit of a life empowered by the Spirit. Repentance is the first step in ‘putting off the old life’ and ‘putting on the new’. Nothing happens without it.

The Bible talks a lot about repentance. One of the best examples of how to do it is found in Nehemiah, chapter one.

Repentance Reviews the Offense
Repentance calls sin, sin. Nehemiah said, “I confess the sins…we have committed, including myself.” Neh.1: 6b-7.

There goes that plow blade, right into the hardest part of the ground! In order to have any power at all the plow of repentance has to puncture the hardened surface of self. We have to be able to come before God and say, “Lord, I did it. It wasn’t just my school environment, it wasn’t just where I work, it wasn’t even my family environment, I did something wrong and I’m responsible for it.”

The problem for us is that the concept of personal responsibility, like an unused plow in an abandoned field, has rusted away in our “self-esteem is everything” culture.

Repentance gets specific
Nehemiah confessed to sins of commission, doing what we know is wrong. “We have acted very wickedly toward you.” He said. We might say it this way: ‘God I have been corrupt in my dealings with you. I’ve played the religious pretend game. On the outside I look fine. On the inside my heart is far from you.’ Corruption is a heart hardening thing. It needs a sharp plow.
Nehemiah also confessed to sins of omission, failing to do what we know is right. “We have not obeyed the commands… you gave to Moses.” James repeated this idea in the New Testament. ‘Any one, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.’ James 4:17.
Finally, Nehemiah even confessed group sins. He used the plural pronoun “We.” We don’t imagine ourselves as responsible for what our culture is doing around us. But consider what the late Dr. Karl Menninger said in his book, “Whatever Became of Sin?”
“If a dozen people are in a lifeboat and one of them discovers a leak near where he is sitting, is there any doubt as to his responsibility? Not for having made the hole, or for finding it, but for attempting to repair it! To ignore it or to keep silent about it is almost equivalent to having made it!

Thus even in group situations and group actions, there is a degree of personal responsibility, either for doing or for not doing—or for declaring a position about it. The word “sin” involves these considerations, and upon this I base the usefulness of a revival of the concept, if not the word, sin.”

Repentance reviews the offense and takes responsibility. It gets everything out on the table between us and God. That is essential if we really want a response from God when we pray, as a story from the life of Norman Vincent Peale illustrates.

In his book Why Prayers Are Unanswered, John Lavender reported of Peale:
“When Peale was a boy, he found a big, black cigar, slipped into an alley, and lit up. It didn’t taste good, but it made him feel very grown up … until he saw his father coming. Quickly he put the cigar behind his back and tried to be casual.
Desperate to divert his father’s attention, Norman pointed to a billboard advertising the circus. “Can I go, Dad? Please, let’s go when it comes to town.” His father’s reply taught Norman a lesson he never forgot. “Son,” he answered quietly but firmly, “never make a petition while at the same time trying to hide a smoldering disobedience.”

It has been a long time now since we ate the fruit of the garden across the street. The neighbors who tended it died or moved away, and I’m no gardener. But I did run in to Mr. Rice recently, the man with the tractor and plow. He told me something sad. “I’ve been plowing gardens for folks in town here for decades. At one time there were thirty-five that I plowed every spring. Now there are less than five.”

When I look at our culture today and see the poison it is producing, I wonder if the reason is that we have stopped tending the garden of the soul, we have stopped turning over the soil of the spirit with the plow of repentance.

I was a 25-year-old seminary student trying to sort through the meaning of ministry and leadership in a world without heroes. He was a 65-year-old retired U.S. Army Colonel and decorated combat veteran who had built harbors and airstrips from Normandy to Berlin in WWII, then roads and bridges across Korea, often under heavy fire, and twice wounded in the efforts. He had also led an international security agency, and served as police chief in his hometown before taking up the job of construction superintendent where we met.

By the time I met Marc Walters on that job site in Memphis he had survived multiple surgeries which had weakened his once powerful body. He operated out of an old RV that doubled as his home on the hotel project we were building. I was looking for mentors and he was John Wayne writ large, a tangible hero and nothing at all like the well-scrubbed theologians I was studying under at the time. Watching him handle the rough men on that job was an education no seminary could provide.

I was his gofer, aide de camp if you like. Every time we met, over every cup of java, I asked questions, and then just listened; questions about men, about values, about leadership under pressure. As winter gave way to spring, he shared his stories and I worked hard to earn his respect. For he and his wife had been spurned by their small town church because of her alcoholism. And though he was the son and grandson of Baptist preachers, he had not been to church in many years.

I knew that my friend’s health was failing and one morning, as we finished our coffee, he got quiet, lit his pipe, and just looked at me for a moment. “I’ve told my family I may not make it through this next surgery,” he said. “And if I don’t, I’ve told them I want you to do my funeral. You’re an honorable young man and I’m proud to know you.”

It was at once the greatest compliment I’d ever received, and the moment I had been praying about for months, providing the opportunity to talk about his spiritual life and his eternity. God gave us his grace that morning.

My friend survived. Because of our friendship I think some reconciliation took place in his life and family, for which I was grateful. And I learned three very powerful things. First, men who have seen combat; where life is pared down to essential absolutes, know things that cannot be taught in a classroom. Second, there is great value in listening to an older man tell his tale without hastening judgment on his life. Finally, the best ministry is not the kind that comes from pulpits, but the truth that flows between friends over a cup-a-joe in the quiet spaces.

I don’t have much patience for sentimental Christianity. You know what I’m talking about: the religious bookstore stuff of kitschy little trinkets with catchy sayings that don’t stand up in the real world struggle against the “spiritual forces of wickedness.”

Chad Walsh, in his book, Early Christians of the Twenty-first Century, says, “Millions of Christians live in a sentimental haze of vague piety, with soft organ music trembling in the lovely light from stained-glass windows. Their religion is a pleasant thing of emotional quiver, divorced from the intellect, divorced from the will, and demanding little except lip service to a few harmless platitudes.”

I agree with Walsh. I doubt the devil works very hard to keep people away from that kind of church. The spirituality that Jesus has for us is robust, but it can be brutal to a sentimental soul. Paul said we fight “spiritual wickedness in heavenly places.” Peter called the devil a ‘roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.’ We can expect following Jesus to be difficult.

What shape do those difficulties take? All kinds, some obviously evil, some less so, but none of them easy or sweet: boardroom intrigues and back alley deals that blow up careers, lawsuits that threaten a lifetime of savings and work because you took a stand for conscience, children killed in the bloom of youth, betrayal with a kiss from a friend.

These and many other kinds of evil in the world – the murders, the rapes, child molestation, and political oppression – cannot all be accounted for with psychosocial explanations. Evil is transnational, trans-economic, trans-educational, and trans-cultural. Race does not explain it. Nationality does not account for it. Wealth and poverty alike are fertile grounds for it. It reigns among the elite and the illiterate. It is found in the most sophisticated as well as the most common circles. Supernatural evil is present and real in the world. His name is Satan and he has been “a murderer from the beginning.”

Jesus warned us of him. The very first stage of his public ministry was a step into the arena of mortal combat with personal evil. He was tested, tried, in a forty day brawl with a vicious, subtle and deadly enemy whom he called ‘the devil’. Jesus eventually died fighting him. We are foolish to believe that our experience will be any different from his.

But as you know, the story doesn’t end there. Our savior, our leader, our glorious captain and king did not stay dead. No and neither shall we if we walk with him.

So allow me to offer a bit of black coffee theology; straight up spiritual advice for those days when we are not being carried, but dragged kicking and screaming into a desperately unwanted spiritual experience. “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. ”

Jesus hasn’t left, hasn’t abandoned you. “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you,” he said, and he meant it. He is here, he is present, he cares, and he sustains. More than that, he is coming again in justice and judgment and when he comes, you will share his glory. So stand up, brush the sand out of your clothes, ignore the terror and tumult of the waves, fix your eyes on Jesus, and walk. Take the next step, and the next one after that, and the next one after that, your hand firmly gripped around his and he will lead you through to victory.

IF SCRIPTURE REGULATES SOMETHING, DOES THAT MAKE IT OK?

In a recent sermon I differentiated between divorce being allowed by God and homosexuality not being allowed because God “regulated” divorce with specific stipulations. A friend asked: “Can someone take that same line of reasoning and say that God “regulated” slavery (when he tells masters and slaves to treat each other with respect) and therefore slavery is acceptable?”

I don’t know the history of the debate well enough to point to specific examples, but I can imagine pro-slavery folks in the south arguing that way leading up to the Civil War: “God regulates slavery, so it’s obviously OK with him!”

However, the biblical rules for slaves and masters, both Old Testament and New Testament, were extremely counter-cultural in both the horizontal and the vertical dimensions. Horizontally, they required believers who owned slaves to treat them humanely – even as brothers in the New Testament – instead of like property, which is how the pagan world saw them. Vertically, the rules also held masters accountable to God for the way they treated their slaves, again, very counter cultural. So you could say, and I feel certain the abolitionists argued this way, that though the institution was regulated by scripture, the heart of the regulations was that the slave is our brother, a fellow creature made in the image of God. Thus, the question became not, “what are the rules?” but, “what is the order of creation? What is the original design?” And “are we honoring it in this institution or not?” Obviously, like yeast in the dough over a very long period of time, that attitude won the day in Western Civilization, albeit at the point of a bayonet in America’s case.

A similar thing happened with divorce. In Matthew 19:4-6, Jesus took what had become a clever manipulation of the rules Moses laid down – the legalists, mimicking Roman culture, treated women as property and allowed just about any reason for a divorce – and reasserted the order of creation as the standard. This new standard set practicing Christians apart from the pagan world in many significant ways. Sexual intercourse was only acceptable and pleasing to God within marriage. Adultery was never allowed, nor was any sex outside of marriage. Married sex was sanctified and honored as the “one flesh” experience. Women had equal dignity with men and were allowed to divorce their husbands for adultery, something Roman women did not have the right to do. (A Roman husband could divorce his wife, but not vice versa). The upshot of it was that divorce, while never eradicated, became very rare in the Church.

The homosexual man is our brother. The homosexual woman is our sister. We are to love them and extend the dignity to them that we would extend to any other image bearer of God. But in the case of homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and associated issues, there are no such regulations that accommodate a sinful cultural trend while drawing us back to the original design. There is only the call to repent and to live in purity, “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God … For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” 1 Cor. 6:11 & 20 NASB.

As I rolled out of the church driveway last Wednesday something strange registered in my peripheral vision; what’s that in the ditch? I thought, holy smokes that’s a man! He was lying face down in the channel along the highway. I pulled over, hit the emergency flashers, threw the car in park and ran to him, punching 911 on my cellphone as I did so. I was too late. Other passersby stopped to help and the police and EMT’s showed up in record time, and the ER team at the hospital did their best, but the man was gone.

Just two days before that I had visited with a friend who attended our Alpha Course last year. One day he was cruising along, enjoying life and the next they were telling him he had stage four cancers all over his body with less than a year to live.

Some weeks are pretty bleak. The reality of the fall and the effects of the curse (See Genesis 3) are with us still and make their presence known in sometimes shocking ways. Those are the moments we most feel the need for someone to guide us, someone to sustain us, when the vicissitudes of life sap our strength. The Apostle Peter reminds us of who that someone is: “For you were like sheep going astray,” he said, “but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”

How does our Shepherd Jesus sustain us? Last week we saw that, if we will listen, he leads us. He walks the path of life before us. If we find the way hard we know he has been there first.

He not only leads us, he also feeds us. Jesus wants our souls to be nurtured with good things.

“If your son asks you for bread,” he said, “you will not give him a stone will you? If he asks you for a fish, you will not give him a serpent. How much more will your Father give good things to those who ask Him?” Matt. 7:9-11

How does God feed us?

First, God feeds us with His word. When we read it and meditate on it through the day; when his servants teach us on the radio or in church; when we sing it or hear it sung we are feeding on God’s word. The Apostle Paul reminded us to keep “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord;” (Eph. 5:19 NAS). That’s feeding on God’s word.

Have you ever seen someone drinking a lot of bitterness? “Un-forgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” They are poisoning their souls.

Have you ever seen someone feasting on the humility of forgiveness? “Forgiveness is the fragrance that the flower leaves on the heel of the one who crushed it.” You are witnessing someone who feeds on the best kind of soul food.

Second, God feeds us with His goodness. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17. God feeds us with the goodness of the sun; the goodness of the rain; the goodness of the love of family; the goodness of the stars, beauty in the night sky; the goodness of the grass between our toes; the goodness of our friends; the goodness of a boat on the water and a fish on the hook; the goodness of laughter, of peace, of joy, and of music. Every good and perfect gift that we experience in this life is a gift from God.

With all these good things our Father feeds us. He leads us beside cool, still waters and with them restores our souls.

The question is: Are we drinking? Are we feasting on the good things he has given us? Don’t let the poisonous stuff; the stressful stuff, the disappointing and disillusioning stuff that comes to every life make you miss the goodness of God. Keep following the Shepherd and he will feed you.