Easter Vigil Message
Saturday.
Nobody was expecting Saturday.
They hadn’t signed up for this. Three years earlier Peter, James, and John had been fishermen in Galillee. They were probably your typical man’s man.
I don’t know what the Hebrew is for “huh, huh, huh,” but they probably did it.
Everyday they would go out to work, slave away, and then walk past the Roman soldiers on their way home.
The Romans. They had never known life without the presence of that oppressive empire camped out in their living room.
As Jewish men they had been raised on the hope that one day God would send a Messiah, a new king, who would overthrow their oppressors and reestablish David’s throne in Jerusalem and establish the kingdom of God once again in Israel.
Many had claimed to be that Messiah, but all of them ended up the same way. Hung on a cross by the Romans and left to die like wild animals.
Then one day along comes this man named Jesus. He didn’t just claim to be the Messiah, he demonstrated the power of God through his miracles. He spoke with authority. He healed the sick. He calmed the storms. He raised the dead.
Peter, James, and John had even seen him transformed right in front of their eyes and standing next to Moses and Elijah, the two most powerful prophet leaders of the Old Testament.
When they marched into Jerusalem a week ago they came in with the King. He had arrived to deliver the final blow to the corrupt leadership and establish the Kingdom of God.
That sounded like a good plan. That sounded like a plan worth fighting for. Worth dying for.
And then they took him. They beat him. They killed him.
Now it is Saturday.
Jesus is in the tomb. The disciples are on the lamb.
All is lost. All is darkness.
Hope is gone.
Have you had a Saturday?
Have you ever had something very dear to you taken away?
A child, a parent, a spouse?
A dream, a plan?
Your health?
Maybe you’re in that place right now. It was everything you could do to drag yourself to church tonight. The last place you want to be is a place where they talk about God and God’s plan.
How could God have let this happen? How can it be Saturday?
How many of you were here at the last Lenten Vespers Service?
Rob Bell talked about losing his good friend, Matthew, to a car accident. He talked about the painful experience of receiving that phone call.
Four years ago this month, we received one of those phone calls.
I will never forget the sound of my wife’s voice when she got the news.
Her father was gone. He went to bed the night before, and never woke up. 64 years old. No warning. We had just been with him the week before and he seemed fine.
At that moment life slows down and becomes a slow motion, blurry dream sequence. A few days later I find myself standing up in front of a crowd of people leading my father-in-law’s funeral.
What do you do at a funeral?
You tell stories.
You look back at the person’s life and remember.
One by one family members and friends come forward and they retell the story of that person’s life. Sometimes you laugh out loud. Most times you sob.
But through it all, you remember.
We sit here on Saturday night. It is the Easter Vigil.
It is the time between times.
It is a time when we look back and remember the stories of God. The stories of how God has redeemed his people again and again.
We remember Jesus’ life.
Then we sit in the darkness of the tomb. The Bewilderment and shock of Saturday.
And then we look forward to the morning. To the sunrise. To Easter.
A long time ago, when the early church was forming these rituals, they held the Easter vigil as one long, service that went all through the darkness of midnight and ended with the sunrise.
It was used as a baptismal service.
They would take all the adults that had come to follow Jesus during that year and baptize them.
The service was like an initiation and rite of passage. They were retelling God’s story and then bringing the new followers into that story through baptism.
Earlier in the service you heard a passage read from 1 Peter.
The reason 1 Peter is read is because most scholars believe that this letter is actually the manuscript of a baptismal service. Right in the middle of the text, in between two verses, you can almost hear the water splash as the people are baptized.
Peter speaks to the new followers and teaches them about what it means to follow Jesus.
Take out your Bibles and turn to 1 Peter 4.
In verses 1-8 we see a little snapshot of the message of the whole book.
As I was reading this passage, it hit me.
In some ways, all of life is like the Easter Vigil.
It is like the Saturday that you experience.
The Easter Vigil is a space in which we force ourselves to sit in that inbetween time and look all around us..
The real question is, “How do we get out of Saturday?” How do we break free of the darkness, the sadness, the pain, the confusion.
1 Peter gives us some direction.
Throughout the passage, and throughout all of 1 Peter, and in this Easter Vigil there are three Views that we need to take. Three directions we need to look. Three moments we need to live in.
The first is backward. We need to Come Out of the Past.
There two ways we come out of the past.
The first is to look back and remember that we are the product of everything that has come before us.
We are not the hero of the story. We are players in a long, ongoing story that is continually unfolding.
That is why we spend time on Saturday night retelling the stories from the Old Testament.
Something that my kids always loved to do, they would ask, “Dad, tell us a story of when you were a kid.”
As children of God, we need to hear the stories. We need to be reminded that over and over God has delivered his people. He has rescued them from their own messes. And he will do it again.
That’s the pattern of God’s story.
He creates something beautiful for us.
We mess it up and suffer in the pain of our own consequences.
Then he takes our mess and recreates it into something beautiful again.
Creation, Uncreation, Recreation.
Our loving Father continually redeems his creation and we need to remember that.
We come out of that Past.
There is another way that we come out of the Past.
Look what Peter says:
Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. 2 As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. 3 For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. 4 They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. 5 But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
As a follower of Jesus, we leave the past behind us.
We walk away from the junk that clogged up our lives.
We walk away from the addiction, the distractions, the bondage.
But, how do we do that? How do we walk away from the garbage and baggage of our past?
We die.
That brings us to the second view we must take.
We must Be Buried in the Presence.
That’s what baptism is really all about.
It’s about dying.
It’s about being buried right along with Jesus.
Remember, the Easter Vigil is really a baptismal service. It is a time when people came forward and joined Jesus in the tomb.
The church I served at in Vegas was really into baptism. It came from the Christian Church tradition that practiced immersion baptism. You know, the complete dunking of the whole body.
Lutherans practice pouring water on babies head’s. That church practiced the dunking of a person who had made the conscious choice to join in Jesus’ death. To me, it doesn’t matter, because it isn’t about the water, it’s about the intention of the heart.
In this church we had baptisms every week. Some weeks we might have 20 baptisms during a regular worship service. On Easter there was always at least a hundred. It was amazing.
One thing I liked about the immersion practice was that it was so violent.
You take the person by the back of the neck and you thrust them down under the water. If they were really bad you’d hold them down a little longer J
One time I had to baptize this guy who was 6’8” about 280 lbs. We looked at each other and wondered how this was going to happen. I reached way up and dropped him into the water. A tidal wave sloshed over the side. I think all the people in the front row got wet. It was awesome.
We would say, “You are buried with Christ.”
Buried.
Dead.
Look what Peter goes on to say:
6 For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.
Following Jesus means we have to die.
Jesus told us to pick up our cross and follow him.
The only way we can live in a new life is to die to the old life.
Here’s the thing. Baptism isn’t a one time deal.
That’s not a typo on the screen. We need to get buried in the presence of God.
Every day we need to wake up and die.
We need to die to the idea that we are in control of our lives.
We need to die to the idea that it’s all about us and our pleasure and self-gratification.
We need to bury ourselves in the present reality of God.
Here’s a wild thought. If God is eternal, then, for Him, there is no past or future. There is only now.
If we are going to live for God, then we need to live every moment fully immersed in the present reality of God’s presence with us and in us.
It is God’s Kingdom all around us and we are invited, in every moment to join God there and join him in His redemptive process.
We need to look around every moment and say, “God where are you moving. Who are you helping. How can I join you, right now.”
As pastor Mark often says, we need to “walk wet.” We need to be buried in the presence of God.
Now, look at the last thing Peter says
7 The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. 8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
The final view we need to take is the view toward the future. We need to move forward with Purpose and Power.
What does Peter say?
Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins.
That is what Jesus demonstrated for us on Friday night.
He told his disciples that greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends.
Now, here’s the wonderful thing about the story. The wonderful thing about the Easter Vigil. The wonderful thing about Saturdays.
They don’t last.
It’s easy to say we need to die to the past. It’s easy to say that we need to be freed from the bondage of destructive, addictive behavior.
It’s easy to say we need to move forward and love each other.
But the real question is “How?”
After all, it’s Saturday, right?
Jesus is dead.
The disciples are freaked out.
You are in pain.
If that was the end of the story, then you would have something to worry about.
You probably would be like the “pagans” that Peter talked about.
You would have no hope.
But, that’s not the end of the story.
It’s way past midnight. We’ve been up all night retelling God’s story of redemption.
Just below that horizon, the sun is just waiting for it cue. Tomorrow morning it will rise.
We have a leg up on the disciples. When Peter, James, and John sat in their Saturday, they didn’t know Sunday was coming. They didn’t know that Jesus was going to break free from the bondage of death and change the world forever.
But we do. We know that tomorrow morning we will gather in this place and this altar will be transformed.
We know that Jesus has conquered death.
We know that, by the power of God’s Holy Spirit, Jesus rose from the dead, and that very same Spirit is coursing through us right now, giving us the power to live and walk in a brand new life.
It’s Saturday, but Sunday is coming.
Week 3 Day 3 – What’s in a Name?
Exodus 5:22-6:8
In order to grasp the depth of this passage it is important to define some terms. To Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God revealed Himself as El-Shaddai. Read this definition of that Hebrew word. I am printing the actual Strong’s Enhanced Dictionary listing so that we do not run the risk of reading too much into the meaning of the word.
7703 [shadad /shaw·dad/] 58 occurrences; AV translates as “spoil” 30 times, “spoiler” 11 times, “waste” eight times, “destroy” twice, “robbers” twice, and translated miscellaneously five times. 1 to deal violently with, despoil, devastate, ruin, destroy, spoil. 1a1 to violently destroy, devastate, despoil, assail. 1a2 devastator, despoiler 1b to be utterly ruined. 1c 1c1 to assault. 1c2 to devastate. 1d to be devastated. 1e to violently destroy. 1f to be devastated.1
7706 [Shadday /shad·dah·ee/] 48 occurrences; AV translates as “Almighty” 48 times. 1 almighty, most powerful. 1a Shaddai, the Almighty (of God).2
El means God. When you put El in front of Shaddai, you get the name of God; El-Shaddai. In other words, God presented himself to Abraham as “God, the mighty, powerful destroyer.” Take a few minutes and meditate on that definition. How do you feel about God in light of His name, El-Shaddai?
Now look at the definition for the word LORD.
I. is given Ex 3:12–15 as the name of the God who revealed Himself to Moses at Horeb, and is explained thus: I shall be with thee (v 12), which is then implied in I shall be the one who will be it v 14a (i.e. with thee v 12) and then compressed into v 14b (i.e. with thee v 12), which then is given in the nominal form He who will be it v 15 (i.e. with thee v 12). Other interpretations are: I am he who I am, i.e. it is no concern of yours; I am, (this is my name), inasmuch as I am; I am who I am, he who is essentially unnameable, inexplicable.3
Yahweh (translated LORD in the NIV) means, the God who is and the God who will be with you. Another way to say it is “the God who is present.”
This was a radical concept to the ancient mind. In the ancient world the concept of God was that of a fierce being who lived on top of a mountain somewhere and was in charge of making the crops grow and would hurl thunder bolts at mortals that displeased him. God was “up there” and “out there.”
At this point we must stop and discuss a fundamental point about the nature of God. God always meets us where we are and then takes us to the place we need to be, in the right timing. I believe that God presented Himself to Abraham as El-Shaddai because that was the default understanding of God that Abraham was raised with back in Ur. In order for Abraham to recognize God as God, God had to use a name that Abraham could grasp. Then God took Abraham one step further into truth; God -- the “destroyer” -- made a loving promise to bless Abraham’s descendents. That was a radical shift in man’s idea of God. All the other gods of the world couldn’t care less about mortals. The Baals, as they were called, were wrapped up in their own agenda of fornicating with the goddesses and fighting with the underworld. Humans were insignificant “accidents” that were nothing more than pawns in the cosmos. Now, with Abraham, El-Shaddai broke the mold and gave value to the mortal. And yet, he was still “out there” and something to be feared.
In Moses’ encounter we see a new step towards a deeper understanding and a further revelation of the true nature of God. The God who is “out there” now refers to Himself as Yaweh. In so doing He said to Moses, “Moses, I am not just out there or up on some high mountain. I am what I am. I am the giver and sustainer of life. I am present with you. Not only am I with you, I am for you. I am welcoming you to come into my presence and have a relationship with me. I will be your ‘present God’ and you will be my people.” With this pronouncement the old theological paradigm was shattered. God told Moses that He was there for Him, walking with Him, guiding and protecting Him. God was now “in here”.
Meditate on that definition of the ‘present God” for a moment.
So, what’s the point? All of us must pass through these levels of understanding that the people of Israel had to pass. Unfortunately, for various reasons, many of us are stuck in an El-Shaddai perspective of God. God is nothing but a big and powerful destroyer; a force to be feared; a perfection that can never be achieved. He is so far away that we cannot know Him, so He might as well not exist as far as my everyday life is concerned. The truly sad reality is that many of us learned this perception of God through “Christian” religious institutions.
One of the fundamental mile markers on the journey of Spiritual formation that we must pass is to join with Moses and meet the God who is present. Yahweh is the God who made you, who loves you, who wants your best, and who desires to guide and protect you like a loving Father and a caring Shepherd. Just say those words over in your mind...”God is with me” “God is for me, not against me.”
As we study the entire Bible we will see that this “progressive revelation” of the God who is “out there” to the God who is “in here” will culminate in the person of Jesus. Jesus referred to Himself as “I AM.” In other words, Jesus said that His name was Yahweh. In the person of Jesus Christ, the God who is “out there” (El-Shaddai) revealed Himself as Immanuel, God with us, Yahweh, the God who is “in here.”
Where are you today? Is God still “out there”, a cold and meaningless, somewhat scary notion? Or, is God “in here” through the person of Jesus Christ, giving meaning and purpose to your life?
Remember that God is with you today.
A New Journey with Grace
Yesterday I officially began a part-time position as Director of Spiritual Formation at Grace Lutheran Church in Andover, Minnesota. Over the past year the pastor, Mark Hellmann, and I have gotten to know each other and found a kindred spirit. When he informed me that Grace was beginning an emphasis on Spiritual Formation in 2010 and was looking for someone to lead that charge, the Holy Spirit started tapping on my shoulder. I have to admit that I was resistant at first. Do I really want to do this again? Do I really want to engage with the institutional church? God's response was, "Get Over It! I gave you gifts, now use them!"
I am very excited to begin this journey. It will be an adventure as we meet new people and experience a new culture of church. Having never been in the Lutheran context before, I look forward to exploring and being enriched by the Lutheran sensibility and spirituality. It has already been a refreshing experience to engage in a liturgical worship service. The piece that is most intriguing and liberating for me is that the liturgical service is not focused on the preacher. It is focused on the person and practice of Christ and our continual connection to the body and life of God Incarnate. I like that.
I look forward to the new vistas of growth that will occur in me and, hopefully, in the people of Grace. This Sunday I will be bringing the message. If you are in the area, come on by. Services are: Saturday at 5:00pm and Sunday at 8:00 Traditional, 9:00 Blended, and 10:20 Contemporary.
Another encouraging piece to this new chapter of life is that Mark and the church leadership is very supportive of my artistic self. Spot Studios is not going away. The position at Grace is only 10 hours/week and is actually one of the contracts for Spot Studios. I will continue to grow and develop as a freelance illustrator, animator, and writer.
An Identity Crisis – 1 Peter 2:1-12
1 Peter 2:1-12
Beware! As you read this passage you may experience metaphorical whiplash. In verses 2-3 Peter urges his readers to look at God as an infant would look at the breast of her mother; they are to long for the life-giving sustenance that only comes from the food of God. That food is good. Now, in verse 4, Peter abrubtly switches from a feminine metaphor to a neuter metaphor as he refers to God as the Living Stone. From a life-giving mother to a living and supporting stone -- a wonderful whiplash, don't you think?
Within these rich metaphors Peter encouraged his readers to remember that as they drink from the breast of God that the nourishment they receive is working to build them up to become something strong and wonderful. Just as God is a strong cornerstone, so are they stones that are being placed together to become a beautiful and significant structure that is designed to direct not only their own focus but the focus of all people in the direction of God.
Throughout the first half of his letter Peter instructed his readers to live as strangers -- resident aliens - in the world. In the last section we studied he told them that they need to renew their minds and sharpen their focus on God as the sole source of their sustenance. Now, in this section, he encourages them to renew their identity. Once again we must remember that Peter was speaking to a very Jewish audience. In order to encourge this suffering group he dug deep into the core of their Jewish self-identity and drew upon very familiar metaphors to remind them of who they are and why they should be willing to endure the hardships they were suffering.
What Peter does here is very similar to what Jesus did at the Last Supper. In that meal Jesus spoke to his very Jewish disciples and shared a very Jewish tradition with them -- Passover. Jesus did not negate or deny this rich heritage. Instead he upheld it and encouraged them in it. But he also redefined it and breathed new meaning into it. In the past when they ate the bread and drank the wine it represented the lamb that had been sacrificed on the night of Passover to save the firstborn son of each household of the Israelites. The meal itself reminded them of God's perpetual faithfulness to the covenant He made with Abraham and his ongoing plan of redemption for his people. It also pointed them to the hope of God's Kingdom reigning on the Earth. When Jesus lifted his glass he continued that tradition and told his disciples that God continues to remain faithful to the covenant He has with the house of Jacob and that now a new lamb had come to shed blood and bring redemption for the house of Israel and for the world. Familiar images filled with new life and meaning.
In Peter's letter he uses very familiar metaphors and breathes new life into them. Between verses 6 and 8 Peter quotes 3 different Old Testament passages and ties them together into a single message for his readers. Let's take each quotation in its own context first and then see how Peter merges them.
Isaiah 28
In this chapter of Isaiah, the prophet warns the Southern Kingdom of Judah to become smug in their confidence. At that time in history the Northern Kingdom of Israel was facing imminent destruction at the hand of the Assyrian Empire. Judah, their Southern counterpart, was feeling safe because they had made a treaty with Egypt - a covenant with death, as Isaiah called it -- that ensured that the Assyrians would not conquer them as well. Isaiah warned the leaders of Judah to not put their confidence in this treaty. The only treaty they should honor is the one they already have with God. Isaiah reminds them of God's faithfulness to them and His covenant with them by using a vivid metaphor of stone, storm, and water. Assyria was like a rushing flood that would soon sweep through the land of Judah and go right down to Egypt, bringing destruction in its path. No amount of political alliances would protect them from this devestation and suffering. The only thing that would keep them strong would be their faith in the faithfulness of God. This faithfulness is like a strong stone that God would place in the middle of the torrent. It would be a rock of refuge and a strong foundation on which to build a house that would withstand the flood and be a beacon of hope to all who saw it.
Psalm 118
this is a great Psalm of praise that was used as a Pilgrimage song as the Jews would approach Jerusalem for the great annual feasts. It was the Psalm that the crowd shouted out as Jesus entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. They called out "Hosanna, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." More importantly, for Peter's quotation, it records the words of the victorious king returning to Jerusalem after battle. The King emphasizes the fact that it was only through his trust in the faithfulness of God, not in the power of horses or political treaties, that he was able to be victorious. The stone the builders rejected is reference to the faithfulness of God and the invitation to either place trust in it or to reject it. Those who choose to put their trust in God's faithfulness will find that they can be victorious in the battles they face. This was an ongoing theme in Jewish theology that needed to be constantly reinforced in the face of oppression and dire circumstances.
Isaiah 8
Earlier in Isaiah's life and preaching ministry to Jerusalem he used a very vivid metaphor to convey truth to the nation. His wife - the virgin - was to give birth to a child who was to be called Immanuel. Before that child was grown the nation would be flooded with invasion and suffering. Yet those who clung to God's faithfulness would be able to join with isaiah, his wife, and his child and cling to the rock of God's faithfulness.
In all three circumstances the image of the rock had a dual purpose. For those who cling to the rock it becomes a vehicle of deliverance, comfort, shelter, and hope for the future. For those who reject the rock and cling to their own wisdom, to political alliances, or to military strength, the rock becomes a stumbling block that seems to get in the way of their agenda.
Here, in Peter's letter, he draws upon those same images. The situation was the same, only the names had been changed. It wasn't Assyria that was about to sweep through their land like a mighty flood, it was Rome -- specifically Nero's wrath - the was about to ravage their existence with needless oppression and persecution. They were faced with a choice. They could either give in to the way of being that characterized their Roman peers, or they could cling to the promise of God's faithfulness. They could save their lives by bowing to the Emperor as "the Son of God" "The Lord" and the "The King of Peace" or they could look beyond the immediate and cling to a deeper truth -- a rock that forms a strong foundation.
Now, in the wake of God becoming flesh in the person of Jesus, the "stone" had been redefined. No longer was the stone simply the vague promise that had been made by an abstract God to an ancient ancestor. Now the promise -- the Word -- had become flesh and made his dwelling among them. The stone had now become the Living Stone that beat and breathed the rhythm of real life in a real world. No longer were they invited to cling to empty words that left them feeling like "not a people", but they were invited to embrace a person and a vibrant way of being. Now they were a people, a family, a temple that was alive with purpose.
What was their purpose? Actually, the purpose had never changed, nor has it to this day. Those who cling to the rock are called to be a holy priesthood. What does that mean? The role of the priest is to stand as a servant and a conduit between God and people. In the Old Testament law the people would bring their offerings for God to the priest and let the priest present them in a proper fashion. The priest was a servant.
The nation of Israel had been called out by God to be a holy nation and a royal priesthood to serve the nations in the same way. Israel was to see itself as a servant of the nations, helping to point their focus away from their own self-reliance and onto the rock of God's faithfulness and love. The problem with Israel is that they misunderstood their roll of being called out and set apart as priests. They believed that "walls of their temple" were dividing walls that separated those who were "in" with God and those who were "out" with God. This exclusivistic and self-righteous attitude is what got them in trouble and what caused Jesus to deconstruct their worldview.
Now, in clinging to the Living Stone, the "new Israel" -- the body of Christ -- was invited to serve the same function. Peter reminded them that they were living stones. The walls of the temple were not lines of demarcation between the saved and the damned, but living walls of hope and blessing that, through their very way of being, demonstrated the love and faithfulness of God to all nations. Peter reminded them that there was no better time to demonstrate God's faithfulness than in times of persecution. It was under times of pain that they had the greatest opportunity to demonstrate that there is more to life than the self-indulgence and "desires" that characterize the typical, self-destructive way of being. If they were able to love their persecutor and show grace in the face of injustice, then the Kingdom of God could be revealed and actualized in the societies in which they lived.
In 1 Peter 2:11-12 Peter urged the readers to abstain from evil desires that waged war against their souls. At this point it could be easy for us to assume he meant the typical vices like sexual immorality, drunkenness, cussing, etc. that continually plague us. While those are constant distractions for us, I don't believe that is what he meant. In verse 12 Peter indicates that they were being accused of wrong doing. You see, the Romans had a distorted view of the Christian sect. Wild rumors had spread through the empire that christians were cannibals because they ate the body of their leader. They were also accused of incest because they considered their spouses to be 'brothers' and 'sisters' in Christ. They were also accused of being atheists and a threat to society because they did not worship the emperor and hold to the gods of Rome.
The evil desire that most likely tempted them was that of vengeance. Think about it. What is your first knee-jerk reaction when you are falsely accused and your reputation is damaged? You want to speak out and correct the wrong. That only seems natural. Yet, what typically happens when you are taunted by a bully? You end up having to stoop to the level of the bully to beat him, and thus, in so doing, become the very evil that led you into action.
How did Jesus react to false accusation? He didn't respond to it. He didn't give it fertile soil to grow. He knew the truth about himself no matter what anyone else believed about him. He knew that the truth would set him free.
Peter reminded his readers of this foundational truth. They knew who they were and they knew what they were called to do. They were followers of Jesus. They nursed from God's breast and clung to the Living Stone, being nourished and built up into a beautiful house that would invite all people to enter into the faithfulness and grace of God. If they caved into the pressure of their oppressors now then all that would be lost. It was now that the true test of their faith was at hand. It was the day of God's visitiation -- his leadership -- when they would be given the opportunity to folow in the way of their Living Stone and love their oppressors even in the face of unjust suffering.
So, what's the message for us today? There are many, depending upon your circumstances. One message that I glean from this comes in the form of a question. Do you know who you are? Do I know who I am? In my life right now I am experiencing a bit of an identity crisis. I have recently lost my church of which I was the full-time paid leader. Overnight I went from having a position that defined me to being adrift in the abyss of obscurity. I'm forced to ask myself the question, "who am I?" Has my identity been wrapped up in my role as a "pastor?" Has my security been in my steady paycheck? I realize that I am not experiencing persecution of any kind, nor do I pretend to associate my circumstances with the dire straits of Peter's audience or those of my brothers that are truly suffering in other parts of the world. Yet, in my little life circumstances, this experience has been a bit of a flood that has swept through my "land" and threatened me.
Peter reminds me that God has laid a stone in Zion and invites me to cling to it. He doesn't invite me to analyze it or understand it. He invites me to throw myself upon it. He invites me to rest in it and it alone. I am nothing more than an infant latching on to my mother's breast and drawing in life itself. I am nothing more than a stone in the wall of a great temple that lives and breathes with the grace of God. I am nothing, and I am everything.
Whether I preach to crowds of people or draw caricatures for a two-year old's birthday party, it doesn't matter to God. What matters to Him is how I do those things. Do I do them as a living sacrifice, soaked in grace and love, or do I do them out of a desire to be "significant" in my own eyes.
Now the question is, "Who are you?"
“You Must” vs. “You Will Become”
1 Peter 1:16
Is there a fundamental difference between "Do this" and "you will do this." I find it interesting that in v. 16 the tense of the verb is you will be holy because I am holy. It is the future tense rather than the imperative. Intrigued by this I went back to the ten commandments in the Septuagint (Exodus 20:1-17) and discovered that those are also in the future tense rather than the imperative; "you will have no other gods before me" rather than "have no other gods before me," and on down the list.
Now I may be splitting hairs in my ignorance and creating a false dichotomy where there is none, but...what if there is a difference between the future and the imperative tense? The imperative seems to be an ultimatum given by a harsh dictator -- "do this or die". The future seems to be a promise from a loving father -- as if God is saying, "One way or the other, through the process of knowing me, you will become this because it is the ideal way of living." This idea of promise seems to coincide with the rest of the passage. Peter instructed his readers to set their hope (an imperative, by the way) on the gracious gift that is revealed in Jesus Christ. What is the gift? It is that the Father, who shows no partiality, has promised to bring about transformation in our lives and empower us to make the journey from the slavery of self-centered desires to the freedom of other-oreinted love: to be holy just like he is. "And God demonstrated his love for us that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
We are not forced into the slavery of a dictatorial ruler who delights in stealing our fun and pounding us into mindless "holy drones." Rather, we are invited by our loving Father to follow in his footsteps and experience real life, salvation, that comes through living fully for the other.
Striving for a B
This is the manuscript for a message I gave to the Meadow Creek Youth Group on September 2, 2009.
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Introduction
It is really good to be here tonight. I want to say a special thanks to my kids for not being totally freaked out at the thought of having their Dad come and speak. I promised them I wouldn’t tell any embarrassing stories about them.
However, I can’t guarantee that I won’t embarrass them! But, that was a risk they were willing to take.
It is really good to be here. I’ve been so thankful for this youth group. You know, we just moved here a couple years ago, and this was the first point of contact, especially for Micki and Ethan.
You know, the main reason we chose to connect here, with the Meadow Creek youth group is because this was my home back when I was in high school. It’s pretty weird to be in this room. When I was in high school, we called this the purple palace. It was the main sanctuary for the church. I remember being in choir right up here.
Back then, when I was a sophomore, the youth group had four people in it on the first day I got here. That was wild.
Overall it has been a weird experience to come back to this area after being gone for 20 years. A lot of memories have flooded back.
I went to Coon Rapids. Any Cardinals here tonight? Go Cards!
In high school I played football. Yeah, laugh all you want. My kids still don’t believe me, but its true. Not only did I play football, but I was obsessed with lifting weights and getting really buff. Again, with the laughing. I know, but it is true.
My sophomore year, the varsity team won the state championship. It was an incredible time to jump into a new school. Cardinal Fever was in the air. One of the men in the church took me to the Dome to watch the championship game. It was awesome.
The next year, I was the second string defensive end, right behind a returning senior who had been on the championship team the year before. We went undefeated that year and I got to play a lot because the first string blew everybody out in the first quarter. We lost in an upset during the playoffs, but it was still an amazing experience.
Then it was my turn. I was the starting defensive end my senior year. We were ranked number 4 in the state. We won the first four games of the season and our fifth game was against our arch rivals, Anoka. I had a great game the week before and I got to be a game captain for the Anoka game. Things couldn’t have been better.
We were so pumped for that game. I remember the night like it was yesterday. It was a crisp autumn night. It was Anoka’s homecoming, so there were floats and parades, and all kinds of craziness around their school when we pulled up. The sky was crystal clear and the moon was full.
The game started, and we stopped. We lost that game. But, we didn’t just lose, we got shut out. We didn’t just get shut out, we got annihilated. Are you ready…42-0!
It was one of the worst experiences I ever had. We were completely defeated as a team by that experience. We lost the next 3 games in a row to teams that should have never beat us. On the final game we pulled it together enough to squeak out a 5-4 season. On paper it was a winning season, but in our minds we were the biggest losers our coach had ever known, and we were a disgrace to our school.
I know, you can feel sad for me, go ahead.
Why was that such a devastating event for me? I mean, it’s just a stupid game, right?
I think I had bought into a message that a lot of people buy into in high school. It’s a message that you hear.
There are two messages that I hear being presented to youth today.
The first is what I call the “Gospel According to Disney” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an anti-Disney guy. I love Disney and I think it is a great, positive message. I confess, I watched Camp Rock, and liked it. I like the Jonas Brothers, and Miley, and all those guys – expect for the Suite Life, come on, really?
But, I think there is a subtle message sent by the “Gospel According to Disney” that can be damaging in the long run if you buy into it. The message is
“You can be anything you want to be, if you believe in yourself and work really hard.”
At face value, this is a good message. It encourages students to dream big dreams, to not give up, to work hard in school. That’s great. Without big dreams, we would not have invention and progress and all that.
If Martin Luther King Jr. had not had a dream, where would we be today? Dreams are great.
But, I have a question. Can we really be anything we want to be? In high school, I wanted to be 6’ 9” and weigh 280 pounds. I wanted to be a defensive end for a division I college. I wanted to throw the discus 240 feet.
Here’s a reality check. No amount of belief or hard work would help me accomplish those dreams.
Here’s another message we hear today:
“You are only good if you are the BEST.”
It isn’t said that blatantly, but it is the subtle message. We tend to worship idols. Even in the Christian Entertainment Industry. I went to Rock the River and had a great time. But isn’t it interesting how we idolize these bands? Why? Because they have excelled to the top of their game. They are the best at what they do. Anything less than that and they get booed off the stage, or voted off the island.
In our media saturated culture, we live on a steady diet of the rich and the beautiful. When I watch the Disney channel, and see their current campaign of friends for change, I look at that cast and I see the cream of the cream of the cream of the crop. That’s only 8 kids out of 100 million. And yet, most young girls are gauging themselves against Selena Gomez, or are gauging a boy and a relationship against Edward from Twilight. He’s not only a georgeous guy, that doesn’t cut it anymore, he’s also immortal, with superpowers, and he glitters!
Why was my loss to Anoka so terrible? Because I had bought into those messages. We all thought, “How can we go on now, we aren’t the best? We didn’t win.”
For 99.9% of people, these messages might motivate you through school, but eventually they land you in middle age, in an average life, feeling disappointed and disillusioned.
There are a lot of people just out of college thinking, “Where’s the big payoff?” This is why there is so much depression and addiction out there today. There is nothing worse than a shattered dream.
So, if those messages aren’t true, then what is? If those are false dreams – fantasies – then what is real?
I think there is another message, another dream, that will last a lifetime. And, of course, Jesus is the one who taught it to us.
Let’s look at something Jesus said in John 15:5-8.
Text – John 15:5-8 – Striving for a B [draw picture]
Something to always remember when you read the Bible. You have to know what’s going on around the words. Everything is connected to everything else and takes its meaning from what is most directly connected to it.
Can anyone tell me what this is called? Context.
In John 15, Jesus is hanging out with his closest friends and his most devoted followers. They’ve been making their way toward Jerusalem for the big daddy of feasts, called the Passover.
It’s important to understand, that at this point in the story, the disciples think that Jesus is going to march into Jerusalem the next day and overthrow the government. They believe he is the long awaited Messiah who is going to get rid of the rotten King Herod and become a great king like David was back in the old days.
They also thought that, when Jesus did take his throne, they would get to be his royal advisors and sit in positions of power. They’d be very powerful people.
Then Jesus gave them the teaching found in John 14-17 and turned them on their head. He told them all kinds of crazy things that didn’t make sense. His ideas about greatness and about the kingdom of God went against all logic.
Then we come to our passage:
John 15:5-8 (NIV)
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
Jesus paints a picture for them. So I thought I’d draw a picture for you.
[start drawing the vine]
In this picture Jesus makes an analogy. There are three players.
First, there’s the vine. [draw the trunk of the vine]
This was not some random analogy that Jesus picked out of the air. All throughout the Old Testament Israel was referred to as the vine. Every Jewish person knew that they were a branch and part of God’s elite group of people called the Jews.
Now Jesus is making a bold claim. He says, “he guys, the nation of Israel isn’t the vine any more. I am.”
Second, there’s the branch. [draw the branch, but leave a gap between it and the trunk]
The Jews believed that they were the branches for one simple reason, because they were born that way. Think about it. How do you think you would behave if you believed that you were better than everyone else simply because of your family name? How do you think you would behave if you believed that because you were born a Jew, God loved you and hated everyone else?
Unfortunately, that is the attitude that the Jewish people had taken. They thought that God only loved their country and that he hated everyone else. They were the branches of the only vine in the universe.
Third, there’s the gardener. We see him back in verse 1. Who’s the Garderner? The Father. [write Father behind and at the top]
Question: Why does a gardener grow vines? He wants fruit, right? [draw a cluster of grapes]
What kind of fruit do you suppose the Father would want from His branches? What does God want from us? He probably wants us to do good things. Maybe, like the book you’ve been studying, he wants us to do hard things.
The fruit is the product of our lives. Think back to the messages we talked about. The Gospel according to Disney. You can be anything you want to be. Or the other message that you have to be the best.
Those are fruit messages. They tell you that you can choose the fruit you produce, and that your fruit has to be the biggest juiciest fruit on the vine, or its not worth anything.
So, here’s the question. HOW do we produce the kind of fruit that the Gardener wants?
In this passage, Jesus tells us three important things about producing fruit.
Each one starts with a big IF. I’m going to divide the room into three parts and I want you to each help me remember these three IF’s. OK? You’ll be part 1, you’ll be part 2, and you’ll be part 3. IF, IF, IF. Got it?
If you remain in the vine, you’ll bear fruit. [If you Remain You will Gain]
Here’s the first IF. Verse 5. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
This is really about focus. It’s about where you concentrate your energy.
Here’s an important point. Deep Truth, God’s truth, almost always goes against common logic.
Do we have any martial artists here? I’m not a martial artist, but my first boss was a Black Belt in Aikido and he would give us lessons. He taught us how to punch. A punch goes forward, so common logic would tell you that you should focus your energy into the forward motion of the punch.
The truth about a punch is that you need to focus your energy into the recoil of the punch. You snap it back. This taps into the law of physics that says for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So, in order to put energy forward, you have to focus on pulling back.
The same was true when I threw the shot put. You throw the shot put with your hand and arm, right? That’s what common logic says. The deep truth is that you throw the shot put with your legs and hip. You focus your energy on the snap of the hip and it flings the arm forward. It doesn’t make sense, but it works.
That’s how it is with producing fruit for the Father.
If you are told to go be good, what do you do? Common logic would tell you to make a list of all the good things God wants you to do and go work really hard at doing them. And, perhaps it would tell you to make a list of all the things that are bad, and work really hard at NOT doing them.
So, you go out there and try really hard to feed the hungry, or be nice to the bully, or not gossip, or to stay away from lust, or to memorize scripture. And you work and work and work.
Many times, when we get into this mode, the Christian life is all about doing good things and not doing bad things. We are doing and doing. Do, do, do. Let me tell you something. If all you do is do, then all it is, is doo-doo.
Jesus’ message in v. 5 is to stop focusing on the doing and starting focusing on the Being.
Help me out group 1. What did he say? Remain to Gain.
If you want to bear the fruit that God wants you to bear, then here’s the deep truth. Don’t focus on the fruit. Focus on the relationship with Jesus.
Have you ever noticed that when you spend a lot of time with someone you start to act like that person? I can tell when my kids have been with certain people, because they come home and they have a slightly different inflection to certain words, or they say certain phrases that they don’t normally say. And I think, oh, I can see that person in their behavior.
That’s how it is when we spend time with Jesus. The more we study his life in the Gospels, the more we spend time with Him in prayer, the more his way of being works itself into our way of being.
You guys are at a very important part of your life. You are brainmapping. You are laying down the foundation of what you will be like for the rest of your lives.
It’s like shooting a gun. When you aim it, a slight movement at the barrel will affect huge change at the target.
How you spend your time right now, where you focus your attention right now, is setting the trajectory of your lives.
Where’s your focus? Are you striving for an A all the time. Are you trying to be the best in everything?
Or, or you focusing all your attention on entertainment, or escape, or yourself?
Whatever you invest in that is the fruit that will grow.
Where did Jesus say to focus your attention? On Him.
During this time of sight setting and trajectory setting, I encourage you to do something. Take a deep breath and don’t worry about doing the right thing. Focus on learning everything you can about Jesus. Study the Gospels. Study about Jesus through books and tapes and videos. Talk to Jesus. The more you spend time with Him, the more you will be like Him and guess what…the fruit that the Father wants will naturally come out.
You won’t have to think about doing good, you will be good and everything you do will be what the Father wants. How cool is that.
Now, let’s look at the second IF.
If you are disconnected from the vine, you’ll dry up. [if you turn, it will burn]
If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
OK, group 2, here’s your piece. If you turn, it will burn. Turn away and You will Pay.
Group 1, what’s your IF? Remain to Gain, if you Stay it will Pay, Dwell to do Well.
Now, the second IF, If you Turn, it will Burn, Turn Away and You will Pay.
[draw a pile of branches on Fire]
Wow, that’s intense. This verse takes a lot of heat. Get it, fire, heat?
When you hear the Bible say that something will be thrown into the fire and burn? What’s the first thing that pops into your head? Hell, right?
It is very easy, and very common, for people to read this verse and say, “Oh yeah, that’s easy to interpret. If you mess up your relationship with Jesus, then God is going to throw you into Hell where you will burn forever.”
That isn’t what this verse is saying. This verse isn’t about salvation. This verse is about fruitfulness.
I have two apples trees in my back yard. Last summer was our first summer in our house. We moved into the house in March so we were all excited about having apples. The summer came, and there were no apples. We were so bummed. We thought maybe the trees were duds. This year was a totally different story. We have hundreds of apples. It’s been really fun to watch this fruit develop from pink blossoms to little bulbs, to big, juicy apples.
One morning I’m drinking my coffee and I look out the back door to admire my lovely apple trees and there’s something wrong. One of the trees looks deformed. An entire branch snapped off the tree.
Here’s the question. That branch is no longer connected to the trunk of the tree. What is going to happen to those apples? They won’t grow any more. We had to harvest all these premature apples. They were still really tart.
Where’s that branch now? It’s drying out over on the side of the yard. All it’s good for now is to be cut up and used for firewood. I’m going to burn it. Does that mean I hate that branch? No. It’s just a natural consequence of the branch being severed from the trunk.
Do you remember who originally thought they were the vine and the branches? Israel. This is a really important point to remember if we are going to understand this passage correctly. One of the main messages of Jesus’ ministry was to show the nation of Israel that they had lost site of their original mission.
When God called Abraham, centuries before Jesus, he gave him a promise and a mission. He told Abraham that he would be a great nation, and that the purpose of his nation was to be a blessing to all the nations.
In other words, the fruit of the vine of Israel was to be a blessing to the world. Why, because God loved the world and wanted to draw the world to Him and let the world eat the sweet fruit of His love and grace.
Over the centuries, the nation lost sight of this and got their focus off the mission. They started to believe just the opposite. By the time Jesus got on the scene, Israel believed that God loved them and hated everybody else. In turn, they hated everybody else. They believed that God wanted them to do good things and they focused their attention on obeying the law. On the fruit.
They had taken their focus off of God and put their focus on the doing.
I think, that as Christians, we can tend to fall into that same trap. Many Christians have the same attitude toward the world. They look at the “poor, lost, sinners” of the world and hate them. They think “I’m so glad that I’m connected to the vine and not like those wretched people.” The more they focus on the sin and corruption of the world, the angrier, and more bitter they become.
Why does this happen? Because of their focus. Where is their mind dwelling? It’s dwelling on the ugliness of the world.
Or, other Christians get caught up in the doing good. Eventually they burn out or get disillusioned. Why? Because they are focusing on the fruit.
Jesus’ message was to remind the nation of their original mission. He redefined the image and said, “The vine isn’t the nation of Israel. The fruit isn’t obeying the Law. I am the Vine, my way of being is the way.”
As soon as we turn our attention off of Jesus, we get distracted. We get distracted by our own greed. We get distracted by the overwhelming problems in the world. We get distracted by fear. We get distracted by doing good things.
Jesus tells his disciples, “Guys, just calm down. It’s simple. If you stay focused on me, then the fruit will come. As soon as you turn your attention away from me, the fruit will stop and you will become unproductive. You’ll be a dry branch and only worth burning.”
I said that I don’t think this passage is about going to Hell when you die. I think it is about something more practical and something more scary. It’s not about burning in Hell, its about being nothing more than a dry, scratchy twig.
Think about it. Who wants that kind of life? Jesus came to give us life. He came to show us how to live vibrant, fruitful, lives full of meaning and power. Lives that make a difference.
Is that the kind of life you want? Do you want to be strong and healthy and have a life that is so real and so inviting that everyone who meets you will say, “I want to taste the fruit of that life. It looks great!”
Or, do you just want to live a dry, meaningless life where you go through the motions day in and day out with no purpose or meaning? Honestly, I think that is the worst kind of Hell. Hell is real and people live in it every day.
Jesus said, “NO!” to that. He came to give us the secret to a fruitful life.
What’s it about? Focus?
What’s it not about? Doing?
Group 1? Remain to Gain, Dwell to do Well.
Group 2? Turn and it will Burn, Turn away and You Will Pay
You guys over here, I didn’t forget about you. There is a third IF. Look at verses 7-8.
If you remain, then you’ll have the power of God. [if you stay, God has His way]
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
OK, group three, here’s your piece. If you Stay, God Has His Way.
Group 1: Dwell to Do Well, If you Stay, it Will Pay
Group 2: If you Turn, It will Burn
Group 3: If you Stay, God Has His Way
Again, this verse has been interpreted, and misinterpreted in many ways. At first glance it would be easy to think this verse says, “if I do everything right, then God is like a big vending machine in the sky and I can get whatever I want out of him. Just name it and claim it, as long as I have enough faith.”
That’s not what this verse is saying. Jesus is talking about Focus. He’s talking about a relationship. He’s talking about becoming so familiar and so intimate with Him, that you become like him.
Here’s a verse that often gets lumped together with this one.
Psalm 37:4 (NIV)
4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Delight yourself, Remain, Dwell with, Hang out with the Lord, and he will do what?
Give you the desires of your heart. This can mean one of two things.
It can either mean, he will give you whatever you want.
Or, it can mean he will give you the desires that your heart needs.
Which makes more sense? When I was a kid, I desired to eat junk food all the time and not eat good food. Would my loving parents give me that desire? No way, they love me too much for that. Instead, they educated me and taught me that healthy food is better for my body. As I grew and matured I actually had an authentic desire to eat healthy. They gave me the desire.
That’s what verse 7-8 is teaching us. Jesus is telling his disciples that if they stayed connected to him, if they dwell in his teachings and the model of life that he gave them, then they will be transformed from the inside out and the very thing that God desires to do through them will be the thing that they desire to do. When they ask Him, it will happen, because it is in line with what He wants to do.
Let’s look at this drawing again. We said there are three players. There’s the Father. He’s the gardener. There’s the Son, he’s the Vine. Then there’s the disciple, we’re the branch.
There is a fourth player that is implied. Jesus talks about it all throughout chapters 14-17, so I don’t think it’s a stretch to see it hear.
The fourth player is the Spirit [write SPIRIT along the bottom]
All summer, Pastor Randy has been preaching about cultivating fruit. Does anyone remember what passage that is? Galatians 5:22-23. That’s right.
Who’s fruit is it? Is it the fruit of Steve? Is it the fruit of Micki?
No, it’s the fruit of the Spirit.
The Spirit is the sap, [draw the flow through the vine and to the branch] it’s the energy and nutrition itself that produces the fruit. It grows up from the soil, flows through the vine, spreads out through the branches, and then makes the fruit appear.
According to Galatians, what is the fruit of the Spirit? It’s LOVE. [write LOVE on the grapes] That’s it. I think all the other things are just descriptions of what love is like. Love is joyful. Love is patient. Love is peaceful. Love is patient.
Did you notice something about this fruit? It has nothing to do with WHAT you do.
Jesus didn’t say, “if you remain in me, you will go to church, memorize scripture, give to the poor, go on a mission trip, stay away from sinful behavior, where certain clothes, go to a certain college, get a certain job.”
No. He said, “if you remain in me, you will bear fruit.”
In John 15 Jesus went on to describe the fruit. He said you will bear fruit if you obey my command. What was his command? To love each other. That’s it.
You guys are here in Junior High and High School. Over the next few years you are going to be asking some big questions. You’re going to wonder about where to go to school, what kind of a job you want to have. You’re going to wonder about how you can make a difference in the world for God.
Listen to this. This is the secret of the vine. This is the mystery of the fruit.
God isn’t concerned with WHAT you do. He’s concerned with HOW you do what you do. He doesn’t tell you to go DO a bunch of good things. He doesn’t tell you to OBEY a bunch of rules.
He INVITES you to hang out with him. To dwell with him. To remain with him. To focus on him.
It’s right here [highlight the connection between the branch and the vine] This is where our focus should be.
When we focus on Jesus and not on what other people think about us, or about whether we are doing everything exactly right, or about how scary or terrible the world is, but focus on the love and grace and teaching of Jesus, then we will be transformed by the Holy Spirit from the inside out and the fruit of our lives will be exactly what God wants for us.
Conclusion
God has something very special for each one of you. He designed you. He gave you gifts and talents and passions. Each of you is like an apple blossom. You are young and beautiful and full of potential.
Here’s the bad new. You can’t be anything you want to be. No matter how much you believe in yourself or how hard you try.
But here’s the good news. You can be EVERYTHING God designed you to be, if you stay connected to the vine.
Let’s review it one more time.
Group 1: Dwell to Do Well, If you Stay it will Pay.
Group 2: If you Turn, it will Burn.
Group 3: If you Stay, God gets His Way.
Here is my prayer for you. I pray that you will invest your time in learning everything you can about Jesus. Focus on Him.
And then I pray that you will discover the gifts and passions that God has given you and that your life will be a strong, healthy branch, full of luscious fruit that the world will eat and benefit from knowing you.
Let’s pray.
A Message on Psalm 131
This is the manuscript for a message delivered at Good Shepherd Covenant Church on August 16th, 2009.
Good morning.
I was so honored when Pastor Hollis invited me to come share with you today.
I met him through my Dad, Jim Thomason, who used to be the pastor at Meadow Creek. He’s been here with you before.
It was great to meet Pastor Hollis.
It turns out that we have some things in common. He lived in Las Vegas and then moved away just before I moved there. We compared notes and discovered that we knew some of the same people. What a small world.
We were able to compare notes on what a strange and wonderful place Las Vegas is to do ministry.
It’s the only place I know of where churches don’t take up an offering every Sunday. They just put slot machines in the lobby. Just kidding.
It was a wild place, though. That’s for sure.
I moved to Las Vegas as an artist. I didn’t even know if there were churches there when my wife and I moved. I was offered a job right out of college and they made me an offer I could not refuse.
God has taken us on a wild journey.
Throughout my life I have had two passions.
One is art.
The other is teaching people about growing in a relationship with God and studying the Bible. As I said, I moved to Vegas to be an artist. We got involved in a really dynamic church that was growing fast and I was soon called into ministry.
For 12 years I was a pastor, and I got my Masters of Divinity. In 2002 God called us to leave the big mega church life and be a bi-vocational pastor of a house church. I was an artist and a pastor. The was a wonderful experience.
In 2007 God shut that ministry down and called us to move back home to Minnesota where I am now making my living as a freelance artist and doing a lot of writing.
As an artist I spend an incredible amount of time staring at my computer screen. It’s a good thing that I love technology.
I do love technology.
I’ve had a website and been a blogger for a while, but this year I started using Facebook. Anybody here a Facebook user? You can be my FBBFF (Face Book Best Friend Forever).
Did you here about the new merger on the internet? It’s pretty amazing. YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook are going to combine forces. It’s going to be called You Twit Face.com. Yeah, pretty wild. I wanna get it on that one.
Technology has woven itself into the fabric of our society. We live in the information age.
I think it’s the age of information overload. There’s just too much information to process.
I have a condition, maybe you suffer from it as well. It’s called Analysis Paralysis.
It hits me really hard when I walk up to the counter in a fast food restaurant. I’m dwarfed by this gigantic menu board, crammed full of a thousand tiny little items. I break out in a cold sweat and my brain just locks up on me. The symptoms get worse depending on how many people are standing in line behind me. I stand there like a deer trapped in headlights, with no idea what to order.
The greatest invention ever made was the value meal. Now I just look at that and say, “Give me a number 1, I don’t even know what it is, just give it to me, I have to get out of here.”
With the internet, and Twitter, and 24 hour news linked to live coverage via satellite TV from anywhere in the world, we all suffer from analysis paralysis and information overload.
A lot of people talk about how we are seeing the signs of the end times because of all the wars and violence and natural disasters.
I’m not so sure. I don’t think the world has gotten any more violent or terrible. I mean, people have been killing each other ever since Cain killed Able. If you want violence and mahem, just read the Old Testament. Nations have been rising up against nation, plagues and famine have been wiping out millions of people, volcanoes and tsunamis have been decimating villages for eons. It hasn’t changed.
What has changed is that now we know about it.
150 years ago, when a tsunami wiped out thousands of people in Indonesia, or an earthquake destroyed a village in northern China, the average American had no idea. They were just out plowing the fields. Chances are they didn’t even know there was an Indonesia or a village in Northern China, let alone that there was a disaster that day.
The only Tweet they knew was from an actual bird on the edge of the field.
Life was much simpler. You were aware of the happenings in your area, maybe 50 miles around you. If you did here about world events, it was months after the fact.
The information age has changed all of that.
Today we are flooded with information. It streams into us from every direction like a violent waterfall. There is almost no where to go to escape it.
I was having a discussion the other day with my sister in law about this very topic, and she was telling us how overwhelmed she feels when she hears about all the needs.
When you hear statistics about the fact that 1 billion people will go to bed tonight hungry, not knowing where their next meal will come from. That workers are being exploited by multinational corporations that transcend federal laws. Millions of children are being consumed in human trafficking. The drug industry is booming. And then, you get flooded with a hundred missionary letters telling you about their needs and asking for prayer, and 14 charities a day calling and asking for money. It just gets too much, and you want to shout, “STOP!”
In the wake of this information overload, people tend to react in one of two ways. They either Explode or they Implode.
The people who explode get angry about it.
Many times they get angry, and they get arrogant. Maybe you know some people like this. Their favorite pastime is to bash the president, loudly, and make it known to everyone around them how terrible the government is and how things are going downhill fast. The more they talk the louder they get and the redder their face gets. And then they end up, in exasperation, and just hope that the Lord comes back soon to take them away from this crazy mess. That’s an exploder.
The interesting thing about the exploder is that they don’t really have a clue. They are simply reacting to the thousands of disjointed sound bites that they hear and that scares them. It seems like the louder they are, and the more belligerent and arrogant they are, the less they really know about the issues.
Then there’s the imploder.
This is the person who gets overwhelmed by the issues, often gets overwhelmed by the amount of human need and thinks, “I’m so small, I can’t do anything about it.” This is the “analysis paralysis”. They see it all swirling around them, and they freeze. And do nothing.
In both cases, the exploder and the imploder, the solution tends to be self-medication.
They turn to the things that comfort them and mask the pain. Perhaps it is simply turning on the television and numbing out. Maybe its an addiction to comfort food, alcohol, drugs, or sex.
I believe this information overload is one of the greatest reasons why, even in an era when there is more anti-drug education than ever before, people are still turning to self-destructive behavior.
When all of the world’s problems are streamed in front of you on a daily basis, it is very easy to be swept away in the tide of hopelessness.
That’s the key.
If you were to poll the average kid in America today, and asked them about their hopes and dreams, I think a huge majority of them when simply shrug their shoulders and keep texting their friends.
There is a pervasive sense of hopelessness around us.
Where are you this morning?
Perhaps you are one of the statistics that have come out of our nations latest economic struggle.
When you lose a job, when you lose your home, when circumstances around you bring you to that place, and you listen to all the chatter and speculation about the economy.
What do you do?
At this point you’re thinking. This guy’s a downer. I’m so glad Pastor Hollis invited him to speak. I thought we were doing a series on the Psalms of Ascent, is he ever going to get to the message?
Well, as a matter of fact, we are going to look at a Psalm of Ascent this morning, and its one that might help us with these problems.
Go ahead and take out your Bible and turn to Psalm 131.
I’m sure, since you’ve been studying these Psalms for several weeks now, that each of you could get up here right now and tell us all about these Psalms.
Since I’m the new kid on the block, indulge me for a moment as I review.
The Psalms of Ascent, or the Songs of the Steps, as it can also be translated, were the songs that the people of Israel would sing as they approached the temple to bring their sacrifices to God and celebrate the annual feasts.
So, what’s the point of studying these psalms today?
We don’t have a temple, we don’t make sacrifices, and we don’t have annual feasts.
It’s true that we don’t have those physical things anymore, but we do have the equivalents.
The temple served as a physical representation for the presence of God. God didn’t live there.
The infinite creator of the universe could never be localized and confined to one point in space and time.
However, as finite human beings, it was necessary for God to allow us to build something that represented God’s presence, that allowed us to visualize and understand that it is possible to be standing in a right relationship with God, to be facing God, loving God, and worshipping God.
As with all metaphors and physical items that try to represent God’s presence, the temple got in the way and God had to let it be destroyed.
Let’s clarify something. God is eternal and infinite, and the creator and sustainer of life itself. It is impossible to be physically apart from the presence of God. David said in Psalm 139:7-12 (NIV)
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
So, when we study the Psalms of Ascent today, we are not talking about approaching a physical place to worship God, or a specific time when we worship God.
Coming into the presence of God is not about a place and time, it is about an attitude and a relationship.
Right now I’m standing in your presence.
Now look at me (turn away from people) am I still in your presence?
Yes. But what is my attitude toward you? Is it engaging? Can we communicate?
When children are upset at their parents, what do they do? They huff and turn away. They haven’t left the presence of the parent, but they have disengaged in the contructive relationship.
In essence, the journey into the presence of God, the ascent up the stairs to the bema seat, is a rotation of attitude.
It’s moving from a denial of God’s presence, to an openness and receptivity to God’s presence, coming into the full light of God’s Grace and Wonder and life-transforming power.
Each of the Psalms deals with a different aspect of that journey. Different attitudes that need to change in order to be able to come into God’s presence.
Today we look at one of those in Psalm 131.
My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. 2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. 3 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore.
It is short and sweet, but it speaks volumes about this process of rotation.
This Psalm tells us two things.
First it says what we should not do.
Then it tells us what we should do, or how we should be.
As with all good Hebrew poetry, each point is repeated. Let’s look at the first one again.
My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.
When I first read this I had to laugh a little bit. “My heart is not proud – as a matter of fact, I’m the most humble person I know.” It seemed a bit ironic.
Then I realized that this is a Psalm of David and, as the king, he’s trying to set the example for his people.
He’s telling them that he didn’t become king because he thought he should or because he had great plans and charged in to take over.
He became king because God appointed him and brought him up from being a shepherd boy and made him a giant slayer.
The secret to David’s success was not pride and self-confidence, but humility and reliance upon God’s provision.
There are two ways that we can read this, and there are two messages to two different kinds of people.
The first message is to the overly self-confident.
If you think that you’ve got it all together, that you’re all that, and you are God’s gift to the world, and that if people would just listen to you, and do things your way, then everything would be better,
then there are two words for you.
Sit down.
The message for you today is to take a reality check.
Proverbs 16:18 (NIV)
18 Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
If you are trusting in your own wisdom and understanding to navigate through this life, then it will eventually blow up in your face and some day you are going to look back and see a wake of death and destruction behind you.
That is one message, and if that speaks to you, then take it.
But, I have a sneaking suspicion that most of us are not in that place. I think most of us need to hear the second message from this Psalm.
When I first meditated on this Psalm in preparation to teach today, one phrase drilled into my spirit,
“I do not concern myself with things too wonderful for me.”
That can be translated,
“I do not spend time fixating on things that are way beyond my grasp or understanding or ability to control.”
Has anyone ever been anxious about something?
Do you know what causes anxiety is? Anxiety and worry churns up inside of us when we focus our attention on things we cannot control.
Think about it.
If we focus on things that we can control, and they need to be fixed, then what happens? We fix them, and there’s no worries.
But when we focus energy on something we can’t control, and that thing needs to be fixed, what happens? We freak out.
The economy is crashing. I’m losing my job. Soldiers are dying in war. Children are starving in the streets. A tornado wiped out a neighborhood. Gangs are in our school.
All of these issues pile up around us. They stream into us from every corner of the world and demand our attention.
So, what do we do?
we give it our attention.
We focus on it, but we can’t do anything about it.
What does that lead to?
Anxiety. Fear.
Some of us explode and become arrogant and belligerent.
Some of us implode and become hopeless.
David says, “don’t do it.”
Don’t focus your attention on things beyond your ability to change.
What did Jesus say about this?
Matthew 6:25-34 (NIV)
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
So, if we aren’t supposed to worry about these things, what are we supposed to do? How is it possible to NOT worry about these things?
Look again at the second part of the Psalm.
But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.
When my children were babies, it was always amazing to me to watch the transformation that took place in them.
They’d be screaming their heads off, writhing in pain. They didn’t even understand what was wrong with them, they just knew that it hurt and they were uncomfortable. But Mom knew. Lona would gently pick them up and bring them to her chest and they would latch on and quiet right down. After they had eaten, I would witness one of the greatest images of peace there is. My little baby resting on her mother’s chest. Totally content. Totally safe. Not a care in the world.
That’s the picture here.
I love this Psalm for many reasons.
One of them is because it’s one of the times in scripture where we see God as a mother. God is not male or female.
The image of God as Father carries certain truths about God’s nature and tends to dominate our theological understanding.
But there are times when we need to remember that God is as much mother as father.
When the world is going crazy around us, when our attention is focused on things too wonderful for us, we need to stop, get quiet, crawl onto God’s lap, and rest.
The Apostle Paul wrote,
Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV)
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
And, again, how did Jesus conclude his words about worry?
33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Where are you today?
Where are your eyes?
Are they focused on lofty things, things outside of your control.
Are you worried and full of anxiety?
I’d like you to do something this week.
At least one day this week, I want you to set aside 30 minutes.
Write it on your calendar if you need to. Find a quiet place. Unplug your cell phone, completely. No vibrate, no texting. Turn it off. Be away from your computer. Be away from your telephone. No books, no words, not even the Bible. Total silence.
Sit still and breath deeply. In your mind, think about this message. Visualize yourself as the small child, snuggled up to God’s chest. Safe and warm.
And then, for 30 minutes, I want you to listen.
You are studying the Psalms of Ascent because you are looking at how to prepare yourselves to come into God’s presence.
Remember, coming into God’s presence isn’t about the physical journey of moving from the parking lot into this sanctuary. The journey is a rotation of the heart. It’s an attitude. It is positioning yourself for the relationship.
You are coming to hear Gods voice.
I believe that God is always speaking, the problem is that we aren’t listening.
God’s voice isn’t in the big things.
It isn’t in the “things too wonderful for me”. God’s voice is a whisper.
He says, “I’m right here. I’ve got you. I can handle this. Just trust me. Before you were born, I loved you. Just let me worry about these things. You are my child, and no matter what happens, my love will last forever.”
When we hear that voice we realize that in every moment of our lives God gives us the opportunity to tap into his love and grace and be a conduit of that love and grace to the world around us.
Yes, things are crazy in the world. Yes, you are being bombarded by way too much information about all the craziness.
So, what are you going to do?
Are you going to explode and rant and rave about it, or hope that you can muscle your way through it?
Are you going to implode and just medicate yourself or hope that Jesus comes back to take you away from it all?
Or
Are you going to take the time to crawl up on God’s lap rest in God’s love.
I’ll tell you right now, what the world needs is not a bunch of loud mouth accusers, or weak hearted hiders.
What the world needs is a bunch of God’s children who live in the peace and love of God who don’t let the chaos rattle them. Instead, they draw on the peace and strength that comes from love of God and moves out into the world to carry that peace and love with them.
If we could do that, then we would realize David’s final words in this song,
put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore.
Let’s stand and pray.
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