Learning to Listen.

Pray for our soldiers.

The Ultimate Man’s Man.

The resurrection is the bedrock of the Christian faith. The most consistent event of Christianity is remembering the Resurrection, come on now… What am I talking about? … Christians worship on Sunday in remembrance of the resurrection, of the promise of Christ of eternal life. There is more to life, in Christ this life really is a brief season. Regardless of how difficult this life it, life in the resurrection will be life and life more abundant, as Jesus promised. The hope and promise in Jesus, in the Resurrection gives meaning to our life, our true life is eternal in our Resurrection, in life in Christ, in the New Jerusalem.

Now this is of course pooh-poohed in the world. The world will either give us some vague idea of being part of the universe, being a drop in the eternal sea. Or that our life really has no meaning, once and out, rotting in the ground, or eternal birth, death and rebirth. These are not of a gracious God, these are of a sadist, who wants to take away any hope or meaning. In the resurrection, I will still be Jim, I will be in a very physical body, I was made to be physical and while there will be a time in the spiritual, assuming the Lord returns before I’m called home. But the resurrection will be life that God had originally intended, the ideal world of the Garden. In the resurrection, the world that we have will be familiar, but it will be a perfect world.

So as you can see the resurrection isn’t just a quaint notion, some esoteric bizarre promise, but it is that which through Christ’s death we are made holy/righteous/just through Him. That we are saved to eternity to be resurrected in a perfect body, a perfect world that will not deteriorate, where there will be no sicknessthere will be life eternal, no death. Our lives will be challenging, rewarding, enriching, always something new, there will be love, compassion, encouragement. It will be life on an upward slope. certainly challenges, but always a way to achieve, learning and ultimately over coming, because we will be in the presence of Him who “These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.”
So when we listen to the world, a world sunk in sin, death, no hope, no promise, that it will result in death and destruction just like the death Satan will suffer, you are listening to a world that does not know what it’s talking about and is lost in death, destruction. When we know the resurrection by faith, when the Holy Spirit has put that promise on our heart, we really don’t need “proofs”, but when we witness to others, we can point them to the facts and away from the fantasy and hopelessness of the world.

Tim Chaffey in “Answers Magazine” (April – June 2014 pp 34-37) discusses what the world proposes as “answers” to the resurrection. That it was a case of mistaken identity. Really? On its face its pretty weak, why would the people involved buy into something they knew to be false? Would the Romans execute the wrong person? No! The disciples were good, strong, intelligent men, would they willingly teach something they knew to be nonsense? To what end, at what price? ‘

There’s the “swoon theory” as if a Roman soldier wouldn’t know when someone was dead and would allow him to be taken before he was. That is just ignoring historical fact.

The body was moved. Again ignoring fact, if the Romans, Jews, anyone involved knew where the body was they would have revealed it. Why would people afterward go out and perpetrate an obvious lie?

Visions, that is, the disciples pretty much imagined this whole thing. The premise of a lot of these theories is that the disciples were just kind of stupid country bumpkins, they don’t say so explicitly, but the inference is clear. Jesus’ appearances were attested to by a number of people, one person who was completely antagonistic to Him, Saul of Tarsus, who Jesus renamed Paul when He gave Paul the charge to witness to Him among the Gentiles. There are others, that there was a family tomb. Which is just weak, what difference does it make? If Jesus was dead, where He was buried would be common knowledge. Seance? Really, come on, now we’re just kind of projecting our current culture on to a people who just wouldn’t go there. Annihilation, some unexplained reason the body was destroyed and no one’s discussed it since, that it’s some kind of coverup. Again, that would just be a serious ignorance of history. Wrong tomb?

Chaffey lists out the following: Jesus testified to His resurrection before and after the fact. Luke writes in Acts 1:3, that “Jesus presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs. There are at least ten “post-resurrection” appearances of Jesus. He appeared to Paul, Peter, James, individually, the rest of the apostles and over five hundred at once. “Most of these people were still alive when Paul wrote these words, implying that his readers would check with these witnesses if they didn’t take his word for it.”

James, Jesus’ half-brother, in fact all of His siblings, thought that Jesus “was out of His mind”. After the resurrection, James becomes, essentially, the first Christian bishop of Jerusalem. He continued to be an important Christian leader until he was martyred, dying for the truth of the life, deity and resurrection of his half-brother.

When Jesus was arrested the disciples ran away, after Pentecost, these men willingly went out into the world to proclaim Jesus and were martyred as a result. The resurrection was preached by the disciples from the beginning, the resurrection was the center piece of their teaching, it was what the Christian church was built on. These people weren’t in a position of power to force these teachings on anyone, and yet they were believed, and the church grew, even through martyrdom, persecution and deprivation. Chaffey points out that they did not help their cause by reporting that the first witness to the resurrection was a woman. Like it or not, in that time, the testimony of a woman and one who, may or may not, have been a prostitute, but attested that she had seven demons cast out of her. This would not be a well received testimony, certainly would not have improved the case of ordinary men, making an extraordinary claim.

There is no plausible argument to deny the resurrection, many have been tried, but these arguments deny and/or contradict the historical facts. The resurrection is fact, not just to prove a point, to make a case. But it is fact according the the life and promises of God incarnate, Jesus the Lord, but it is also to give hope to a hopeless world. The world is lost in sin and death, there is no other possible outcome, except for the resurrection promised to us by God the Son 2,000 years ago, by His resurrection from the dead.

The temptations of us

March 9, 2014 First St Johns

There is no doubt Father that we are weak vessels, we are constantly being tempted, we know that our strength is only in You, but there are times when that Old man/the Old Jim will prevail, where we will fail and give in to temptation. We also know that when we bring our failure to You, You forgive us, that You always welcome back Your prodigal child. We ask for your protection every time we pray what Jesus taught us, to remind us that it is through Your strength and power that we resist temptations, but when the Old man overtakes us, it is in Your strength that we are forgiven. Help us to remember Jesus’ example and every time we are tempted we resist by remembering Scripture, remembering our baptism into new life in our Lord Jesus. We make our beginning in the Name of God the Father and in the Name of God the Son and in the Name of God the Holy Spirit and all those who will remember their baptism and the promises of Jesus in the face of temptations said … AMEN

I know, that’s kind of a tall order, to remember Scripture, to remember our baptism in the face of temptations but it is what the Father gives us to resist temptations. That is why we take time to be at worship, to be with brothers and sister in Jesus, to study Scripture, to take time to journal about our experience in confronting and over coming temptations.

Arlo Pullmann takes an illustration from C.S. Lewis: “Turkish delight is a tasty confection used by the White Witch, the self-proclaimed Queen of Narnia, to deceive poor Edmund, the son of Adam. The queen offered the Turkish delight to sate Edmund’s hunger, but the more he ate, the more he desired it. The fact is, she didn’t have what was necessary to satisfy Edmund’s most basic needs. Since she didn’t have it, she could not give it. Instead, through her deception, she caused Edmund’s downfall. He became enslaved to the wicked White Witch and brought trouble on many others, including his own brother and sisters. The deed that brought about the end of trouble and the freedom of Edmund was the self-sacrifice of the ever-good, mysterious lion, Aslan. Aslan had life and was therefore able to give it for Edmund’s sake.

Edmund, by talking to an evil one and eating what the evil one offers, mimics not only Eve in the Garden of Eden (Gen 3: 6-7), but he’s like all of us in that we, too, [give in] to evil temptations that ultimately are not able to satisfy but leave us wanting life. Like Aslan, the Lord of life comes to our rescue. What he has, he gives. He does have life and by giving up his life on the cross, he gives us life and heavenly delight.”¹

So we have bookend readings today having to do with Satan and each have to do with temptation, Satan trying to, and succeeding in, tempting the first Adam/Eve. The next, Satan trying to, and failing, to tempt Jesus, the second Adam. Satan is attempting to get Jesus to put His immediate needs, probably: hunger, thirst, fatigue, general discomfort, cold/heat, to put those needs ahead of humanity’s eternal needs, that of being in relationship with God, to be saved, to have eternal life in the resurrection.

People often say how “unfair” it is that we should all be condemned because of one man’s action. Let’s look at the facts. There they were in the Garden of Eden, does anyone doubt for a second that they had all they needed in the Garden? We all want peace, we all want to feel safe, we all have material needs. Do you think that God did not provide for all these needs in the Garden? There was nothing to be afraid of, I have no doubt that there was plenty of food and drink, that Adam and Eve lived very well, safely, peacefully, they were fully content. All they were told to do was: “See that tree over there, yea that one in the middle of all these good things, all the things that you will ever need, there is nothing I have denied you, so just leave that one little tree over there alone.” But as much as we have, there is always one temptation; to be in control, to run things, essentially, to be God. And that is exactly what Satan appealed to, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God…” And so it goes, at some point, someone, as Satan himself did, was going to decide; “I can do things better, I should run things, I should be God” and would give in to the temptation.

So let’s be honest here, we would probably all give in to the promise of ultimate power and authority. Satan succeeded in deceiving us. Deitrich Bonhoeffer notes: “It makes no difference whether it is sexual desire or ambition or vanity or desire for revenge or love of fame and power or greed for money or, finally, that strange desire for the beauty of the world, of nature. Joy in God is … extinguished in us and we seek all our joy in the creature. At this moment God is quite unreal to us, he loses all reality and only desire for the creature is real’ the only reality is the devil. Satan does not fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God.” Even though Adam and Eve had daily fellowship with God, Satan found a way to make Eve forget, just for a moment, God’s will and insist on her own will. We can readily see why Eve would cave, we are as human as she is, we just might cave. Jimy Akin raises a good question, “How could Jesus be tempted?”. He is God, what could Satan possibly tempt Him with. Akin goes on to say: “The Greek word used here for temptation (peirazo) does not indicate that Jesus had the disordered desire that we refer to in English as temptation. Instead, it means “to try,” “to attempt.” Here the devil tries to get Jesus to sin–and fails.”² Yes, but, let’s never forget, Jesus is as much human as any of us, He is fully God, He is fully human. Why? We don’t know, frankly we don’t need to know. He was born of Mary, He was intended to be human and intended to experience life as much as any of us do. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews tells us: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Heb 4:15) If you’ve been watching the “Bible” series on television, the way this scene was portrayed really drove this home for me. Jesus knows how this plays out, He knows that in a very short time, He is going to be unmercifully beaten, tormented and nailed into a rough cut tree, where He will be left to hang until He dies. So the scene cuts back and forth between Jesus being tortured and crucified and Jesus being crowned, I think one shot has Pilate condemning Him and in the next Pilate is crowning Him. Jesus makes the right call, but that human part of Him had to be divided: “I could be king and not have to go through all that!” But He, the Father, the Spirit are in one purpose, anything other than the sacrifice of Jesus will not free us, will not pay for our sins and that is the main purpose of the incarnation. Jesus knows full well how this has to play out and it will play out that way, but the temptation was real, as the writer of Hebrews tells us. Jesus knows, first hand, what we deal with and in the mercy of the Godhead, and in the righteousness of Christ when we give in to temptation we know we are forgiven. We will be tempted, and temptation is not a sin, Jesus was very much tempted, He showed us that temptation can be resisted, He was confronted with life and power or brutal death. But that is with the realization that we are weak and fallible vessels, we do give in to temptation, but in Him we have forgiveness.

So take some time this week, take that journal out and write out, deal with, some of the main temptations in your life. Remember Scripture, how Jesus refused to give in. If we remember our baptism and how it has made us reborn, born in the Spirit, adopted sons and daughters of the Father, how will that help us to resist the temptations, turn them over to Him and how will we feel when we have won the victory over temptations in the strength and power of Christ our Great High Priest, our Lord and our Savior?

We can act like we are a victim, we can complain that God is trying to keep us from pleasure, we can whine that we’re being cheated or we can trust the promises of Him who endured temptation and endured the humiliation of a Roman Cross, He in whose Name we are baptized and born again and defeat the temptations in our life.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Shalom and Amin.

      As part of our Renewal process at First St Johns, we have decided to make a concentrated effort in terms of modeling, teaching and living discipleship. One of the big things that we have identified in terms of discipling is that we all have to be much better equipped, we have to be much more outwardly focused and we have to recognize that we are in a very different world. Most of us would agree that we are in a “post-Christian” society. Where before the fundamentals of Christianity, church, worship were assumed to be almost universal, that is not the case in this day and age. I was not raised a Christian and I had to “learn” church as an unchurched person.

We may not like it, but as the church is different from what it was 500 years ago and 2,000 years ago, it will be different in the not too distant future. If anything, it will resemble the Acts Church more than anything we have been familiar with. As the Acts church grew in the midst of pagans and philosophies of all types, we see that all around us now. It has been my experience and I genuinely feel a leading of the Holy Spirit that if anything, the church will become much more liturgical, much more of an anchor in the storm vs what seems to be now at full sail in a storm. When a storm came up a ship’s crew would be desperate to quickly “reef” the sails. Three reasons: It would improve the ships stability, if the ship took a heavy wave midships and wind at the same time it might be enough to push it over. Second, it would be difficult enough to maintain a course or try to maintain a position without the sails, reefing would help the ship to maintain a position. Third if the wind tore up the sails, the ship’s main means of propulsion would be gone.

More and more I hear people saying that the church has to return to its roots, that the storm has been brewing and is about to be upon us. We need to be as solid as possible in the midst of the storm. More and more people are realizing the lack of stability in their lives. Government that can’t live up to its promises. Most people in the younger generations come from broken homes; stability at home is rare and very disabling at so many levels. They are moving into an economy that if you can get a job you are doing well, counting on that job being there too long is not realistic. So even while they are employed they are on the lookout for their next job. They are realizing that the that was focused on “entertainment”, on making people feel comfortable, is not realistic. The mega-churches are seeing that, they’ve focused on the unrealistic and when people encounter the trials and tragedies they realize they are not prepared, when this happens (not if).  Who do they blame? Sure their unstable upbringings, their unstable income prospects, the instability of the all sorts of institutions, up to and including the church. There were more Christian martyrs in the twentieth century then in all history combined. Yet the places that are primarily responsible for Christian persecution and martyrdom are the places that have seen the fastest growth in Christianity. Those places are, primarily, Africa and Asia. Latin America has also seen substantial growth, not because of persecution, but much of Latin America still struggles with serious economic hardship as do Africa and Asia. The areas where Christianity has at least plateaued and even declined, significantly, North America and Europe. We are comfortable, we don’t need the church, the church doesn’t deal with the realities of contemporary life, too much of church even at the adult level, is really only advanced Sunday school and when (not if) the trials and tribulations of life come along, the people in the pews aren’t equipped to handle them in a discipling way. Church is seen as heavy on platitudes and pleasure and not as a place that is supposed to instill trust and faith in God’s plan for our lives. We have promises, but it is of some vague ethereal place that when we talk about it is rather boring, there is no promise, hope and faith in Christ. We read the Bible stories, but we really don’t take them seriously, we are Americans, nothing threatens us, until it does and then it’s too late. The church can step in, but is not taken seriously. We as pastors are patronized, endured and then hurriedly sent on our way. Why? We never gave any hope, promise, faith before, how are we supposed to do it in the few hours before a funeral, an operation, a difficult childbirth, job loss, home loss, on and on.

This is where discipleship comes in. We are finishing a Bible study on the Book of Judges. When was the last time you did a study on Judges? There are a lot of creepy, gritty, nasty books in the Bible, but Judges has to rank at or near the top. (Always cracks me up when people say they don’t read the Bible because it’s boring. Just another example of the failure of the church.) That’s not a bad thing, the Bible is describing real life. Remember the repeated line in Judges: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 17 and again in 21) The whole point to the book of Judges was how Israel would be in right relationship with God and then would decide to do it their own way and God would give them a smack down. Judges is then, what contemporary America is.

Bet you didn’t know there were two Micahs in the Bible? One of the minor prophets and also in Judges 17. I will give you a brief buzz through about Micah: He took a lot of silver from his mother to make an idol. He decided to make a Levite his resident priest and actually ordained him (Jud 17:12). A bunch of Danites came, took his priest, took his stuff which consisted of “ephod, household gods, a carved image, and a metal image”, none of which (priest included) Micah had any business having in his house. But since everyone did what was right in their own eyes, Micah went ahead and set up the quasi church of Micah.

So, as for me and my house, we are going back to “classical worship”, something that does resonate today, something that does have a feeling of stability, of true worship versus entertainment, it is not meant for “itching ears” (1 Timothy4:3 “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,”

…hmmm sounds like Micah.

This is where discipleship comes in, why we do what we do, in his book “Building a Discipling Culture”, Mike Breen observes: “The problem is that most of us have been educated and trained to build, serve and lead the organization of the church. Most of us have actually never been trained to make disciples. Seminary degrees, church classes and training seminars teach us to grow our volunteer base, form system and organizational structures or preach sermons on Sunday mornings and assimilate newcomers from the Sunday service. As we look around, as Christendom is crumbling and the landscape of the church is forever changed, a stark revelation emerges: Most of us have been trained and educated for a world that no longer exists.” (Truth be told, we weren’t trained in seminary or anywhere else to grow, form or assimilate, heck that would at least be some semblance of discipling – Driskell)

Breen goes on to say: “If you make disciples, you always get the church . But if you make a church, you rarely get disciples.” Hmmmm, wasn’t that the way the Christian church started?

So the question is how to do that? Not with programs, not with show, not with entertainment, but getting people to sit down (whether they are 8 or 80), getting a good curriculum, Breen’s book was recommended by Dr Seaman, and starting from scratch. I’m here to tell you that the few churches I’ve been in there were people there who thought they knew everything they needed to, but upon closer questioning, it was obvious they had no idea. So don’t let anyone tell you they don’t need this, we all need it (yes even you and I fellow pastor). We are called to be disciples of Christ, you, me, everyone in those pews. The pastor has particular responsibility because as Paul wrote to the Ephesians (4:11-13) “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” This is our responsibility as pastors and I can tell you, that we are not measuring up to this call. We are called to equip the saints, not entertain and amuse the audience. Our Renewal Team is all excited and charged to start two small groups of discipling. We have been wrestling with this, praying over this, studying, journaling and we feel we have a firm basis. We have to make disciples to build/restore/renew/grow the church, otherwise “And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.” (Matt 7:26)