Graced (6/1/2021)

 

 

“Sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:14).

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).

“Each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift” (Ephesians 4:7).

“Live in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Ephesians 5:2).

 

            Why this sampling of numerous New Testament verses about grace?  We are “graced” people.  We are saved by God’s show of grace, the sending of his beloved Son on our behalf.  The hope we have for eternal life is a gift God gives us.  If we understand we have been gifted with grace, we will be eager to extend grace to others.

            Opportunities to give grace come up in every encounter in life.  A most present and immediate application for grace is the awkwardness of emerging from COVID-19 quarantines, back into fully engaged life.  Those vaccinated and ready to take off masks need to have patience and give grace to those who insist we still need to wear masks.  Those not quite ready to be fully open can extend grace to people running around without masks on.

            Some people have not been vaccinated and there are still new cases of COVID-19 in our area every day.  Those under 12 years of age aren’t eligible for vaccination yet.  Vaccinated people can be carriers of COVID without getting symptoms themselves.  When they wear masks, they are “living in love” (Eph. 5:2), showing love for vulnerable, unvaccinated neighbors. 

            Whatever one feels about masks, vaccinations, and COVID-19, when we are in Christ, our priority is to share self-giving love to our neighbors as Christ gave himself for us.  If we approach others in a spirit of self-giving love and extend grace, we’ll get through the awkward conversations.  We’ll get past the tribulation of the pandemic.  Our purpose is to bear witness to the gospel of Jesus.  One of the ways we can do that is to give love and grace. 

By Grace we have been Saved (Ephesians 2:5, 8)

            I have little tricks that I use when I am talking with people.  I use this in preaching too.  It’s not sinister or disingenuous, but it is intentional.  Whether in a one-on-one conversation, or in a sermon, I will say something to try to get you to like me, or at least trust me.  If I know I am about to give a message that will rile people up, raise someone’s hackles, maybe anger someone, then I at least want to gain credibility.

            I played high school football and rode the bench for a year in college.

            I was in the military, the National Guard.

            I am from the south; moved to Roanoke, VA in 1982.

            I am from the Midwest; lived in Michigan before moving to Roanoke at age 12 in 1982.

            I spent a summer working in a factory.

            I spent a summer working landscaping.

            I have traveled the world.

            I have a mixed-race family.

            I read Dostoevsky and Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn.

            None of that is much of a big deal to anyone really, but if I think it will help me gain credibility, I weave it into conversations or into my presentation.  I want you to hear my accomplishments and my experiences.  I want you to think it is worth your time and your mental energy to listen to what I have to say.  I am trying to relate to you.  I hope you’ll find me relatable.  And at a deeper level, I hope you’ll find me worthy. 

           

            I am not unique in this.  People want to be liked.  People want to be respected.  You do.  I do.  People want to be welcomed and to belong.  You may use different methods to achieve this than I do, but I suspect you do it.  And achieve is the word, especially in the American cultural landscape.    

The spirit of the American way of thinking, our cultural ethos, highly values the self-made person, the rugged individualist.  Stand on your own two feet.  If you’re going through tough times, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. 

In the movie Saving Private Ryan, Captain Miller lay dying, knowing he had given his life in combat to save Private Ryan.  His dying words to Ryan are “You earn it.”  In other words, you better darn well live a life that was worth the sacrifice that was made for you. 

Can we a take a second to acknowledge the absurdity of this?  How can John Ryan live well enough to account for the entire squad of army rangers who died trying to save him?  What measurement determines whether a life is well-lived or not? 

In my own life, how foolish is it for me to recite my life resume in hopes that I’ll be worthy of your attention, your respect, and maybe even your friendship.  Such futility.  I say I played football, the other guy was named to the all-state team.  I come with my National Guard experience, the other guy was regular army special forces.  I causally mention that I read War and Peace, the other guy read it and actually understood it.  There is always someone smarter, someone taller, someone with a better physique, someone with a better education, someone who did cooler things in life, someone who achieved more, or has more than you and me.  Always. 

Trying to earn respect and affection and friendship is futile.  It is a complete waste of time.  Furthermore, the harder we work to prove ourselves worthy and good, the further we move away from the foundation of the Gospel.  I do not condemn all competition.  My sons are both playing sports.  I want them to try to be the best, the fastest runner in Cross Country, the hardest hitter in football.  Maybe you work in a competitive industry and part of your success is being a leader in attracting new customers.    

That’s fine.  Be competitive.  Try your hardest in whatever you’re doing in work and in life.  But, as followers of Jesus, we have to listen to what the word of God says about our value.  Upon hearing the Gospel story, we have to adjust how we value other people in light of how Jesus values us. 

We’re going to spend the next couple of months thinking about our church family as a household. Beeson Divinity School professor Sydney Park writes, “The house of God is not a physical construction, but a living organism composed of people who are now members through Christ’s sacrifice.”[i]

When you think of us as “members,” imagine your fingers and your toes and how connected these digits are to your body.  When we imagine church as the household of God, we see ourselves connected to each other in that way.  Cut off my finger, and something is missing.  Cut me off from you and you from me, each one of us from each other, and we feel it.  That’s the kind of intimacy and interconnectedness we want in our church. 

For me to be the pastor of this kind of tight-knit family, the shepherd of this community of self-giving love, I have to move away from constantly trying to win you over by reciting my life resume.  I can share about football and the army and school and Michigan and Virginia.  But my sharing should not be an effort to impress.  It should come out of my willingness to share my story.  You give me the gift of showing interest in my story.  And you give me another gift: you share your story with me.  We share our lives with each other. 

We move away from attempts to be found worthy, and instead reach for grace and generosity.  It is essential that we are honest about our weaknesses, wounds, and vulnerability.  We all have scars.  I don’t need to bleed all over the stage every Sunday, but it would be dishonest for me to stand up and pretend I am perfect and have it all together.  For us to be Christ to each other in this household of God, we have to recognize each other as wounded healers.[ii]

When we do that then we’ll be ready to embrace what I am quite certain is God’s call on this church.  This church is called to be the household of God.  That means whenever we gather, we answer this question: what must we do to help people feel at home here, in the household of God?  What changes must we make to help feel like they are at home here?

We’re not dealing with those questions today.  Today, we face the futile search for worthiness.  Today we openly admit that we aren’t going to impress each other, that we can’t, and we shouldn’t try.  Instead, we love each other exactly as we are.  No matter how messy or broken, we give each other the love of Christ.  Change comes for each person because when one meets Christ, change is inevitable.  He makes us new creations, but that is at God’s initiative.  Our starting point is love.

In Ephesians 1 and 2, note what is said about Jesus. 

He is Lord (1:3) – master of everything, master everywhere.  He’s not a lord, he’s The Lord.

He is Christ (1:3), the anointed one of God, sent to save God’s people from sin, death and destruction.  When Jesus came, we discovered the wonder that he saved Israel, but not only Israel.  All who come in repentance to the Jewish Messiah are saved.

He is eternal.  Verse 4 – “[The Father God] chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.  “In Christ” is the key phrase.  God was at work in Christ before the foundation of the world.  Our lives only make sense when we understand them in Christ.

He is the means of our adoption as children of God, he is God’s means of grace, he is God’s beloved, and he is the vessel of redemption (1:4-7). 

Jesus is flush with grace; verse 7 God lavished grace upon us.  That means the best things in our lives, the realities that give us life are gifts we did not earn, but rather blessings God gives freely and extravagantly. 

He is the revealer of mysteries, the reconciler of all things, and the enabler of life (1:7, 9; 2:5).

Ephesians 2:6 says we are raised up with him.  Jesus rose from the grave, defeated death, and takes us with him.  Death is next after this life, but it’s not last.  Each one of us who is in Christ has resurrection ahead, after death. 

When Ephesians says in chapter 2, verse 9, that we are made for good works, that also happens as we are in Christ.

All the good we experience comes about because of who God is and we know who God is because we know God in Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the embodiment of God’s gift, giving us salvation, that which we do not deserve and have not earned.  In Christ, our sins are washed away, we are made new, given joy now, a meaningful life now, and promised eternal life with God after resurrection.

This is summed up in chapter 2 verse 5 – “by grace we have been saved.”  And then so we don’t miss the point, it is repeated in verse 8.  We are saved by grace through faith.  It is not our own doing.  It is the gift of God, not a result of our efforts.  Ephesians 2:10 says, “We are what he has made us.”

This is a core Christian confession, but we rarely stop to recognize just how hard this confession is to accept.  We Americans are individualistic in our thinking and merit-driven when we talk about value.  You assess another person’s worth based your evaluation of their worthiness.  I do it.  It’s an American thing and it is the antithesis, the opposite of how it works in the Kingdom of God.

For us to be the household of God, we must pray for release from this kind of individualistic, merit-based thinking.  We need to spend a long time asking God to free us from this and to guide us into grace.  We need to see the world and to see one another through the eyes of grace. 

Our default is to revert to assessing worthiness.  Do you deserve for me to give you respect?  Have I earned the right for you to give me your time and your attention?  That’s where we go automatically. 

The change comes when we are able to live in the grace God’s lavished on us and then that grace spills out from us onto those around us.  And we will begin existing as the true household of God when collectively we are characterized by grace.  When people come among us and they know they are welcomed and loved and they meet God here, then that will be the fruit, the evidence that we are a graced community. 

The reflection questions for this morning are “what do you have that you’ve earned,” and “what do you have that has come as a gift?”  Look over the attributes of Jesus mentioned in Ephesians 1 & 2.  Especially remember 2:5 & 8.  “By grace we have been saved.”  Imagine how life looks when it flows out of the gift of new life God has given.  We don’t see and interact with the world based on an achievement mindset.  Rather, we wake up every day basking the radiant light of the joy-filled grace God has poured into us.  And from there we step into the world.  When we do it that way, what does life look like?

AMEN

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[i] M. Sydney Park (2012) in Honoring the Generations, M.Sydney Park, Soong-Chan Rah, and Al Tizon, editors, Judson Press (Valley Forge, PA), p.3.

[ii] Peter T. Cha and Greg J. Yee (2012), Honoring the Generation, p.89.

Freedom from Stone Laws

            I have enjoyed Sabbatical for the past months.  In 7 days, I return to my work as a church pastor.  I will sit with people over cups of coffee or lunch at Mexican restaurants.  In the same conversation, I will listen as they share their fears that the Tar Heels aren’t going to have a good season and their fears that their young adult children aren’t going to live good lives.  I will talk with our administrative assistant and our associate pastors about the daily details of life in the church.  I will get that email that the surgery has been scheduled, and then I will meet the family at the hospital at 6AM, and together we will pray.  We will pray that all will go well and she will be fine.  And as I leave the hospital, I will pray that my presence there helped with the anxiety, even just a little.

            And sermons.  I will be back to the work of studying scripture and studying our congregation and studying our culture and world, and all that study will merge on the interstate highway of ideas.  After merging, one focused idea will exit the off ramp that leads to the next Sunday’s message.  Yes, I am ready and very excited about returning to the flowing motion of sermon writing and worship planning.

            To all of this, I am ready to return.  Who am I, the man returning to this life?  I’ve written in previous posts that I want to learn to be gentle.  I want to be known as a person who gives graces.  I pray that I can grow into gentleness.  I pray that I can live grace-filled and be extravagantly generous in giving grace.

            What obstacles overshadow my efforts?  There are many, but one stands out from my time of personal Bible reading.  I’ve been making my way slowly through 2 Corinthians.  In chapter 3, Paul contrasts the old covenant[i] and the new.  Now, as an aside, I caution Christians not to be dismissive of the Law of Moses (see Exodus-Deuteronomy, books 2 through of the OT).  We must not see the coming of Jesus as rendering that scripture as obsolete.  Jesus fulfills that Old Testament word of God.  Jesus does not negate it.  Gospel is found in the Law, but we see the law through the light of Jesus.

            When Paul writes about the old covenant, the discerning reader has to be very attentive.  In 2 Corinthians 3 he says, “The Old Covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life.  The old way, with its laws etched in stone, led to death” (see verses 6 & 7).  Ends in death.  In order for sins to be atoned, an animal sacrifice was required.  Something had to die.  In the new covenant, something comes after death – resurrection: first Jesus, then us.  The new covenant leads to eternal life.

            Etched in stone.  That can be taken literally.  Moses ascended the mountain and came down with laws that were inflexible – etched in stone tablets.  But living out that fixed law requires a dynamic relationship with God because questions arise.  What if someone is in a situation where he has to “bear false witness” (tell a lie) to prevent a murder?  Is he breaking the law if in doing it he prevents another of the commands from being broken?

            The new covenant it written on our hearts (Romans 2:29).  Our very inclinations, motivations, and impulses are guided by the Spirit – the Spirit of the same God who gave the law that was originally etched in stone.  There is continuity from the tablets Moses held to the way of God the Holy Spirit who is active in our daily lives.  However, we must live on the far side of history, the post-resurrection side, where we live responsively.  Our lives are a dance in which the Holy Spirit is the leader and we the follower, the responsive dance partner. 

            What’s obstructed my path to gentleness and grace are the laws etched in stone: laws I have etched in the rigidity of my expectations.  In some ways, this has been my own personal bugaboo for my entire life.  I expect things to go a certain way (in relationships, in ministry, in sports).  Then life turns our differently than I expected.  The girl breaks up with me, my kids do the opposite of what I say, the church doesn’t like my new idea, my team loses.  And I am disappointed, angered, and defeated.  My poor children bear the brunt of this when I get angry at them for not being who I expect them to be instead of loving who they are.  If I can just learn to be gentle with them and give them (and my wife too) grace, lots and lots of grace, I will change as a person.  I will become a “graced” person.  Or more accurately, I will begin living in the graced identity Christ has already given.

            One of my favorite Christian role models, Tony Dungy, writes, “Your real influence [as a Christian] comes from the foundation of your character.”[ii]  I want God’s grace to be the foundation of my character.  That Rob Tennant, man.  That guy is full of grace.  When people talk about me, that’s what I hope they will say.  This is the “greater glory” under the “new way,” which makes us “right with God” (Apostle Paul – 2 Corinthians 3:8, 9).  

            I am not there yet.  I know from the ways I have harangued my 15-year-old the last few days, I am not even close.  But because God is so grace-filled, God’s grace for me is never exhausted.  I fail and then, with tail tucked between my legs, come repentantly to God.  My sin is before me and I have to sit with it a while, but the Holy Spirit showers grace and forgiveness down on me, and cleansed, I try again. 

            My life rhythm is about to change.  I’ll return to the world of church work.  I come back with goals and hopes and dreams, but the big story, for me, is the prayer that I will follow the Spirit and walk alongside the Law (old covenant) down the path that leads to life in Christ (new covenant).  The further down that path I walk, the more people will see newness in me.  My life will emit the fragrance of Christ (2 Corinthians 2:14-16). 

            To walk that path, I have to do what I have struggled to do my entire life.  I will need to turn my expectations over to God.  I need to be freed from the stone laws I have set over myself, the unyielding determination that things will turn out the way I think they should.  I need freedom from the yoke with which I burden myself.  One of the songs we sing at church has this line in it.  “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.”  That’s 2 Corinthians 3:17.  In the next verse says, “The Lord – who is the Spirit – makes us more and more like Him as we are changed into His glorious image.”

            As I get ready for the world of church work, I yearn for freedom the stone laws, freedom to live in the dynamic of the Spirit. 

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[i] I use “old covenant,” “Law of Moses,” and Old Testament interchangeably in this post because each phrase represents the content that we find in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, & Deuteronomy, and I read these texts from a Christian/New Testament perspective. Thus, I also use “new covenant,” “Christian,” and New Testament interchangeably. 

[ii] T. Dungy and Nathan Whittaker (2011).  The Uncommon Life Daily Challenge, Tyndale-Momentum (Carol Stream, IL), September 8 entry.  This book uses calendar dates, not page numbers.

The Two G's: Gentleness and Grace

I owe thanks to Becky Heatley, the daughter of the Christian philosopher and apologist Dallas Willard.  She compiled the text of many of his speeches, and produced the book The Allure of Gentleness.  It was amazing to me to be able to read another Dallas Willard book after he had gone on to be with the Lord.  I read it while our family traveled throughout Russia and Ethiopia.  By the time we arrived in Egypt, I had finished the short book.

            Gentleness.  I think I actually achieve it, a bit, in some circumstances.  But, in the most familiar places of life, the times with my wife and children, I am too harsh, too quick to judge, and too sharp with my tongue.  It’s the last great spiritual horizon.  Can I learn to be gentle with the most important people in my life? I am praying I can.  I’d love it if I could learn to yield to the presence of the Holy Spirit and be gentle with my immediate family before my kids grow up.  What if my kids, when grown, could look back and remember that their dad was gentle with them?

            I think if this happened, that Christ-inspired posture of gentleness would bleed over into the other relationships in my life.  But it has to happen in that direction: from my home outward to the rest of the places of my life.  And for it to happen in my home, it has to begin in my own heart.  For me to become gentle in my own heart, I need to receive the forgiveness God has for me and see myself as a forgiven person, washed by grace, and clean.  I have to lean on God, live in total dependence on the Holy Spirit.

            If I lived as one who has been ‘graced,’ I will be filled with grace and love, and I will be prepared to share grace and love.  That’s the wonder with love.  The more we look to God, the more we are filled with love.  The more we share grace and love, the more we are filled with both. 

            I came into Sabbatical supposing there were grand mega-lessons to be learned, and upon learning them, I’d see with entirely new eyes.  Now, I realize, I do indeed need to see with new eyes, but that seeing won’t come through mega-lessons.  It comes through simple lessons, new vision through the two G’s, gentleness and grace.  I have to be gentle, and to be gentle, I need to give grace.  My first reaction to people, especially my wife, two sons, and daughter, needs to be grace.  I will be inclined to give grace if I can train myself to live gently.

            Dallas Willard has taught me such life redirection definitely requires spiritual training (a/k/a ‘spiritual discipline’).  Just as dieting requires behavior modification (eating less fatty foods, disciplined work-outs), changing one’s behavioral posture also requires discipline.  In the case of spiritual discipline, the exercises are done in alignment with prayer and spiritual and emotional dependence on the Holy Spirit.  God the Spirit actually works the change in the heart.  The spiritual discipline simply positions the disciple to be ready to be transformed by God.

            I will begin with daily prayer and daily attentiveness.  Tomorrow, I will ask God to heighten my awareness when those moments arise.  My wife says something that triggers a negative response from me.  My children don’t listen to a simple instruction – for the fifth time!  In those moments, I might, by habit, snap, or say something snarky or mean.  The moments will come.  It’s inevitable.  I will begin the day praying into those moments, asking God to prepare me to (1) lean on the Spirit, (2) speak and move gently, and (3) give grace.

            In addition to prayerful attentiveness, a second discipline will be to ask God to help me focus my gentle intentions at those times of day when I am most fatigued.  When I am tired, I am least likely to be gentle.  I will ask God for extra grace in those moments. 

            A third discipline (after prayerfully beginning and the prayer for grace in times of low-energy) is the active seeking of opportunities for gentleness.  In interactions with my family, I will look for times to do something more gently than I would have a week ago, or a month ago.  I am attempting to retrain my emotional response muscles.  I pray these disciplines of praying, receiving grace, and seeking new response will position me to be a gentle grace giver.  I am certain that as I grow in the two G’s, gentleness and grace, I will see more of God in the most normal places of my life.  

First Sunday of Lent - Forgiveness (Psalm 32)

            This Psalm begins, “Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven.”  Doesn’t that assume that the transgressor feels guilt and shame because of his misdeeds?  If he didn’t, he would not need the forgiveness to feel happy.  Maybe the sin itself gives him a thrill, a guilty pleasure, if you will. 

            Have you had that experience with sin?  You know a particular word is offensive, an abhorrent word, but you giggle when you hear it or say it.  Gossip; does it really even count sin?  And systemic sins – sinful systems; who ever heard of such a thing?  Am guilty for benefitting in a sinful system?  Seriously, who feels guilt over sin whether it’s individual or systemic?  You know the phrase.  I’m only human.  Why even make a big deal about disobeying God? 

            But this singer, in Psalm 32:3, says, “While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.”  Kept silence; he, or she, the singer, kept it inside.  Whatever the sin was, he buried it deep in his heart.   This Psalm is attributed to David and his most public of sins was to have an adulterous affair, try to cover it up, and then have the wronged husband, Uriah, murdered in a way that would protect him from guilt.  David committed both individual and systemic-power related sins in the Bathsheba episode.  You can read about it in 2 Samuel 11-12.  Psalm 32 is one of David’s confession songs. 

            However, the Psalms are portable.  What David sang, you or me or anyone could sing in reference to our own sins.  We could sing, if we feel guilty.   David had help feeling guilty.  He says in Psalm 32:4, “Day and night your hand, [O Lord], was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.”  The way God’s hand fell on heavy David was through the confrontation provoked by the prophet Nathan. 

            God’s heavy hand sets upon us until we have to face our sin, the damage it does, and the guilt it throws on us.  Two of history’s most acclaimed authors have captured this guilt sin has wrought.

            We’ve already mentioned that a parable from the prophet Nathan provoked King David’s guilt.  In 1843 Edgar Allen Poe published “the Tell Tale Heart.” In the poem, the narrator is driven by his own madness to the kill the old man.  He thinks the murder and brilliant cover-up has relieved his gnawing insanity, but it only drives it all the more. 

            A couple of police officers come to the door because a neighbor heard a midnight cry.  The narrator has successfully hidden the body and the police officers are about to leave the house when his screaming madness awakens with a vengeance. 

Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men --but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I foamed --I raved --I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder --louder --louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! --no, no! They heard! --they suspected! --they knew! --they were making a mockery of my horror!-this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now --again! --hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! here, here! --It is the beating of his hideous heart!"

            Day and Night, God’s hand is heavy upon us in our sin.

           

            Twenty years or so Poe published his account of agonizing guilt in ‘The Telltale Heart,’ Fyodor Dostoevsky’s presents a similar theme in his novel Crime and Punishment where the gifted but starving writer and student Raskolnikov bludgeons the old woman Alena Ivanova.  She is stingy with her money and has no pity on this able, but poor young man.  The police suspect someone else in the crime, and that man commits suicide.  Raskolnikov is in the clear.  But, we are never in the clear. 

            Leaving Lieutenant Elia Petrovitch, Raskolnikov knows he is free, but when he steps from the police station, there she is waiting, his beloved Sonia.  She knows what he has done.

Her countenance expressed the utmost despair.  At the sight, Raskolnikov smiled, but such a smile!  A moment afterwards he had gone back to the police-office.  Elia Petrovitch was in the act of ransacking some papers.  “Ah!  There you are again!  Have you forgotten something?  But what is the matter with you?”  With pale lips and fixed gaze, Raskolnikov slowly advanced toward Elia Petrovitch.  [He] allowed himself to sink into a chair that was offered, but could not take his eyes off of Elia Petrovitch.  For a moment, both men looked at one another in silence.  “It was I – “said Raskolnikov.  “It was I who killed, with a hatchet, the old moneylender and her sister, Elizabeth, and robbery was my motive.”  Elia Petrovitch called for assistance.  People rushed in from various directions (p.421).

In the Psalm, David sings, day and Night, God’s hand is heavy upon us in our sin.  We are not murders like Raskolnikov or Poe’s narrator, or David for that matter, but sin rests just as heavy on us.  Our sense of guilt is enough to crush us and when it does not, God’s Holy Spirit convicts our soul.  When our conscience is dull and we seem content in spite of our words and deeds that hurt others, not bothered that we are agents of pain and deception, then God steps in and pricks the conscience and convicts the soul.  As long as we deny our need for forgiveness, we waste away, groaning all day.

However, there is hope – the best of hopes.  That’s the point of Psalm 32 and the simple message of this day.  There is a way out of this fog of sin, a fog so thick it is only cleared after God the son is murdered by us all when he’s nailed to the cross.  There’s a light that shows the path from crippling guilt and shame to unfettered freedom, a freedom that enables us to soar to the heavens. 

Again, the Psalm: “Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  Happy are those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt, in whose spirit there is no deceit” (32:1-2).  David knew that happiness because he confessed, received forgiveness, and rose to stand as a new man.  He says as much in the Psalm.  “I acknowledged my sin to you … and you forgave” (32:5).  It is a basic, central Christian belief.  When we confess our sins by name, repent of those sins by turning away from them, and turn to Jesus, we are forgiven and we are made new.

In this Psalm, God is not an angry judge waiting to crush us in our guilt.  It is our guilt itself that crushes us.  In the Psalm, God’s heavy hand is meant to lead us to confession that we might be forgiven and rescued from the weight of our sins.  Verse 6 says, “Let all who are faithful offer prayer to you.”  And in the next verse, the singer sings to God, “You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance” (32:7).

Confession is freeing.  We fear it because walking through our guilt is painful, but God walks with us.  And the church must walk with people so they don’t have to face their own shame alone.  We cannot be a judging community that compounds the pain and shame of the guilty by rejecting them.  We have to imitate our Lord by forgiving as God forgives. We have to be a community of grace, a community in which grace is extended to all.

In this way, and only in this way, does confession bring freedom.  And, O, what freedom it is!  Dostoevsky captures it well at the end of Crime and Punishment.  Sonia goes with Raskolnikov to Siberia.  She will wait for him to serve out his 7-year prison sentence.  She has been his conscience, by her purity forcing him to confess, and staying with him when he did.  She did not preach at him, but she lived her faith.  She gave him a New Testament, but never forced him to read it.

On the last page, he sits in his sell, holding the closed Bible, contemplating all that has happened: his crime, his confession, Sonia’s love for him.  He notes that as hard as things have been for her, “nothing could take her joy!”  And thinks to himself, “Her faith, her feelings, may not mine become like them” (p.434).  The books ends, “Now a new history begins: a story of the gradual renewing of a man, of his slow, progressive regeneration, and change from one world to another – an introduction to the previously unknown realities of life.”  Those are the realities of the happiness and freedom we have when we turn to God in Christ and receive forgiveness. 

A final note from the Psalm reiterates the necessity of grace from God to us and from us to one another.  Verse 10 says, “Many are the torments of the wicked.”  And we might expect the next stanza to say, “But great are the delights of the righteous.”  However, it does not say that.  It says, “Steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.” 

The contrast is not between the wicked and the obedient, the sinful and the righteous.  David, the singer of this Psalm, knows we all sin.  The contrast is between those who are miserable because they are stuck in sin and don’t see the way and just suffer the pain of it all, and those who, in the midst of the messes of their own making, turn to God and trusted God.  God can be trusted with our junk, with our messes.  “Steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.”

Enter that freedom today.  Fully confess your sin today and look to the cross and know that you are forgiven.  One of the ways God makes things right in the world is the gift of freedom.  God frees us from our own sins by forgiving and making us clean and new.  Confess today, and receive the new life God offers.

When we do that, then the final verse, Psalm 32:11 is ours.

“Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart” (32:11). 

AMEN

Grace & Gratitude; Competition, NOT Comparison

            I’ll be taking a 4-month sabbatical from my daily and weekly ministry activities in 2017.  I am excited and a bit apprehensive.  It’s like I am just taking a break and releasing control of my church (as if I have control now).  My associate pastor has repeatedly told me this sabbatical is part of my vocation.  While I am not preaching sermons, leading meetings, counseling members, and casting a vision for our church, I am still within my calling while on sabbatical.  And the church is what it has always been: God’s not mine.

            In order to prepare to adjust my daily rhythms from work to rest, I have begun seeing a spiritual adviser and she has me praying the prayer of examen.  In this approach to daily prayer, the one praying begins in silence building awareness of and attentiveness to the presence of God.  I do the best I can to silence all other outside noise (actual audible noise and the noise in my head).  I just get quiet and focus on the present God.  This is usually 2-5 minutes, though I would like to work up to longer periods.

I have done this before, but the examen has been particularly beautiful for me with what comes next.  The second step is to express gratitude.   I usually do the examen when I first arrive at my office, about 7:30AM.  In my mind, I go back through the previous 24 hours and note all the moments of thankfulness, all the things of life for which I am thankful.  This has been amazing! 

Before this discipline, I rarely paused to reflect on the past (in this case the most immediate past – just 24 hours).  I was not aware at how much my life is just charge ahead. I live directionally – forward!  My life question seems to be “What’s next?”  It has been a refreshing blessing to stop, look back, and thank God.  I have always known how important it is to live in gratitude.  Prior to examen I had a thanksgiving practice, one done with my wife.  Before going to sleep each night, she and I list three things each that we’re thankful for.  This exercise centers us, forces us to go to bed in gratitude and not some other emotion (anger, bitterness, etc.).  Sometimes we have to force it, but it is worth it to keep up the habit. 

The examen prayer of gratitude has taken my discipline of living thankfully to another dimension.  My wife and I still do our thanks, but now, I am starting the day aware that I have much to thank God for.  I am a blessed guy.  I am a graced guy.  When I miss the examen on busy, rushed mornings, I feel like I have missed something very important.  I have skipped a part of my morning that normally pours life into me. 

Another effect examen has had on me is a tendency to recall why I am thankful throughout the day.  When I want to get frustrated, a voice in my head (the Holy Spirit?) reminds me to be thankful because so much grace has been poured on me and into me.  Because of the examen and my nightly ritual of gratitude (with my wife), saying thanks to God is slowly becoming a default response for me. 

A couple of ways of seeing life emerge from living with an eye toward gratitude.  First, I know my life is a result of grace.  I am because of God’s grace.  I have blessings because of God’s grace.  I serve as pastor in a wonderful church because of God’s grace.  Saying this does not negate my own hard work and accomplishment.  I put forth a lot of effort and stretching outside my comfort zone to earn a doctorate of ministry.  That degree (with a focus in counseling) equipped me as a pastor and made my resume more attractive.  I have labored for over 2o years in 4 different churches in pastoral work.  It has been a joy and at times an arduous journey. 

But, I can’t fall into a trap of taking credit for anything.  I work hard and commit myself fully to ministry because that is an appropriate response to the grace God has given.  Also, let me not exaggerate my own work ethic.  I have lazy days.  I mess up.  Whether by my good or in spite of my failure, I acknowledge that I appreciate where I am and I thank God for my life.  I pray that if extremely hard times hit, I will have the spiritual wherewithal to continue giving God glory.  I don’t know that I could do that in the face of unspeakable personal loss.  I pray that I could.

Acknowledging that my life is graced and basking in God’s grace is a first way of seeing life that comes out of living in gratitude.  A second way of seeing might seem more surprising.  My gratitude compels me to be competitive.  That’s right!  I think Christians and pastors should compete hard, the way a Michigan running back leans toward the end zone or the way my beloved Detroit Lions race to be the first to clean out their lockers after yet another season without the playoffs.

Here’s what I mean by competition.  When I attend a conference and hear about what other pastors are doing, or I talk with pastors in our area and find out churches and ministries that doing great works of compassion or Kingdom pronouncement, it should inspire me to strive for greatness in our ministry at HillSong.  We should try to help people with such effectiveness that people in our community say, “Oh, you know that HillSong, they help people.”  Our ministry should equip believers in such a way that when people in the community meet our folks out and about and marvel at how loving they are and how grace-filled and compassionate they are and then discover they are HillSong people, they say, “Of course!  That’s the type of person that comes out of HillSong.  That’s what we expect from HillSong.”

We should compete to be outstanding ministers of the gospels, disciples of the Master, and proclaimers of the word.  We live missionally and as disciples for the sake of dying to self and rising in Christ.  We become so filled with grace and with the Spirit that the Gospel pours out of us in a torrent.

However, competition should not breed comparison.  If the church up the road preaches a robust gospel and doubles its membership and begins ministries that actually reduce hunger in our community, we must not compare ourselves to that church.  We should rejoice in what’s happening there.  I must not compare myself to that pastor.  The comparison will eat me up.  In the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), Jesus did not critique the one who had 4 talents (v.22-23).  Jesus praised that one.  He did not say, “Why didn’t you reproduce as much as the one who had 10?”  Jesus commended him for growing from the grace he had been given.  And Jesus said to him, “Enter the joy of your master.” 

We must not become jealous if the church up the road outpaces us in membership.  I cannot be down on myself because I don’t lead a ministry that is as “big” as the one led by the pastor on the magazine cover.  There are many ways a ministry can be big, and God can do big things while working through small groups.  God has lead me to my role as disciple, husband, father, pastor, and friend.  I appreciate the grace God has given me and I compete to make my 2 talents become 4, and then the 4 to become 8.  When I think of myself, it is not a downplaying of what I have done.  Come on Rob!  Why aren’t you as “successful” as that pastor 10 years younger than you who leads a 1000-member church?  No, it cannot be that.  Such a posture of jealousy would mock the grace God has blessed me to receive. 

I want to live in constant gratitude, aware that my life is full of grace.  And aware of that, I want to compete hard in all the roles I fill, so that my 1 talent becomes 2, and then 2 becomes 4, and so on.  For me this approach to discipleship is challenging, satisfying, and joy-producing.  Moreover, it lands me in the middle of God’s work in the world.

The Gospel (a partial Definition) - Romans 3:25

I preached this sermon July 3rd.  I am sorry to posting it two weeks late.

God has done something about it. 

Now hear this, because this is the Gospel.  We hear about “Gospel” music, and the four “Gospels.”  The word “Gospel” has come to mean something that is the essential truth.  Maybe Steph Curry can preach the “Gospel” of shooting a basketball, or Dave Ramsey can preach the “Gospel” of saving money.  And maybe there is essential truth in the pure mechanics of shooting a basketball or the life style discipline in saving.  But the concept of Gospel is not about sports or finances.

Perhaps you have been in church long enough to know that “Gospel” comes from an ancient Greek word that literally means “good news.”  If this is new to you, let me state it again.  The literal meaning of “Gospel” is “good news.”  The idea of Gospel was taken by the writers of the New Testament and applied in a specific way to Jesus.  In a way that can be true of no other, Jesus, who he is and what he did in walking the earth as God in human skin, fully man, fully God – Jesus is the Gospel. 

God has done something about it.  Remember that it.  Write it in the inside cover of your Bible.  Write it on the back of your hand.  Set it as a reminder in your Gmail updates.  Put it in a little frame on the magnet on your refrigerator.  Put it on a bumper sticker on your car. 

God has done something about it.

My wife will tell you one of my pet peeves is the pronoun without an antecedent.  Oh how I hate that.  It makes my blood boil.  And now here I am guilty of the infraction I despise. 

God has done something about it.  God has done something about what, exactly?  To what does the ‘it’ refer? 

ISIS.  The Traditionalist Worker Party.  Al Qaeda. Westboro Baptist Church.  Hamas.  The KKK.  Al Shabab.  Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army.  Islamic Jihad.  Boko Haram.  The ‘it’ in the sentence God has done something about it refers to terrorism.

Mass shootings – there have been 136 in the United States this year and since the year 1966 almost 1/3 of the mass shootings – gun incidents in which as least 3 people die – have happened in the United States.  A slew of high profile incidents in which unarmed young people die in conflicts with police.  Thousands of death due to people driving while under the influence of alcohol.  The ‘it’ in the sentence God has done something about it refers to violence and death.  God has done something about violence and death because God opposes those things.

Racism.  Homophobia.  Judgment and scorn.  Fear of foreigners.  Rejection of people.  Poverty.  The ‘it’ in the sentence God has done something about it refers to the things that erect walls of division between people.  God knocks down those walls because God is love and God’s intent is that we live in relationships of love.

The hateful words we speak.  The addictive drinking your uncle does because of the way his life has fallen apart.  The fact that because of a stupid argument, your father and your brother haven’t spoken in 10 years.  Your secret lusting accompanied with the indifference you show your wife.  The way you are unable to speak without spewing offensive profanity in every direction.  The contempt you show for people you think beneath you.  My short tempter, judgmental tone, accusatory slant, and confrontational approach.  The ‘it’ in the sentence God has done something about it refers to all the small ways you and I live in brokenness and act in ways that hurt ourselves and one another.  God hates that. 

As much as God hate terrorism, racism, fear of all things foreign, and the spectacular destruction in acts of war, God hates the little things we do that slowly destroy our lives.  And because God hates the destruction of His world and because God is God and God is love, God has done something.

The book of Romans says it this way.  “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  Some in our world giggle at the thought of sin and secretly or not so secretly desire the erotic pleasures and deviant stimuli they believe come from sin.  The sin might be sexual or drink or drug induced, or it might be a sin of power or a sin of self-centeredness.  People laugh and say, “Mmph.  Church?  No thanks.”  “God?  Whatever!”  “Jesus?  Please.”  Those same people are getting high or are glued to porn sites, or they are given to enraged verbal explosions aimed at the people in their lives.  Or they routinely commit the sin of omission, where you know there’s a good you should do, but you refuse because it’s inconvenient.  Or, they withhold the love God commands us to share.  Sin comes in countless forms and the enemy convinces us sin feels good.  But God hates it because sin actually destroys us.  Sometimes all at once, sometimes little by little. 

Sin is the word that sums up has happened to God’s world.  And it is widespread, universal.  “All have sinned,” the Bible says, “and fall short of the glory of God” (3:25).  We hear this familiar passage, but do we grasp it?  Sin damages, cuts us off from God.  The only possibility of joy and true love is slashed by sin, and every person you meet is a serial sinner.  Worst of all, the one you see in the mirror sins without ceasing. 

The extent of the damage is worldwide.  Sin is so deadly Paul writes in Romans 8 “The whole creation has been groaning in labor pains” (v.22).  Paul lived in a time before anesthesia.  Many birth resulted in the death of the baby or the mother or both.  Induced labor – not an option.  C-sections – not an option.  Epidurals – not an option.  When he thought of childbirth, he thought of something extremely painful and horrifyingly unpredictable.  At the same time, it came with the hope of new life.  When he writes of creation groaning in labor pains, he has in mind the pain sin brings to the entire world, but also the hope that God will bring out of the pain something new and beautiful.  His picture hurts and inspires.

Yes, sin hurts; it hurts the entire world.  But God has done something about it.

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”  Justified.  This word identifies what happens in salvation. God makes us right.  But more than making me suitable for a right relationship with God, or making you right, God makes everything right.  Our church.  The world.  The way the book of Revelation puts it, it is like Heaven and Earth fade and are replaced by a new heaven and a new earth (see Rev. 21). 

Several scholars apply Paul’s sensibility here, especially found in 2^nd Corinthians 5:17.  I appreciate our associate pastor Heather helping me understand this line of thinking.  It is not that the earth and Heaven are replaced.  Rather just as 2^nd Corinthians says we become new creations, this Earth and the Heaven where Jesus currently resides in his raised body are made new.  Our bodies die, but at resurrection are raised and made new.  All of this is related to Paul’s word in Romans 3:24 where he says we are justified.  Sin has made us completely unfit for relationship with God, but Jesus makes us right.

Also in that same verse Paul writes of redemption.  In first century Rome, the world in which Paul used this imagery, this specifically referred paying what needed to paid to redeem a slave so he was no longer a slave.  His freedom was purchased.  We are slaves to sin and cannot purchase our own freedom. But Jesus has. In his death on the cross, he buys our freedom. 

Over and over, I have read that the Bible doesn’t exactly say how this works.  How is it that by dying as he did, Jesus, accomplishes salvation?  Did he satisfy God’s justice?  Did he defeat evil?  Did he pay a ransom owed to Satan?  Did take our punishment on himself?  Even if we can answer each of these questions, it still doesn’t show how his death on a cross in the first century accomplishes anything for you or me in this century.  The “how” is not answered.  However, repeatedly the New Testament asserts that the death of Jesus on the cross is the vehicle of our salvation.

I have tried to be clear from the start of this series a few weeks ago that I believe the only way we can fully understand the Gospel is by seeing the cross and the resurrection as inseparable events.  The cross alone is tragic and evil.  Only when we realize that it ends with an empty tomb is our account of salvation complete.

For now, our focus is on what happens when Jesus dies the cross and Romans 3:25 gives a key piece of the story.  Leading to this verse, it has been established that sin destroys what God made good.  Sin brings death.  And all of us sin.  In verse 25 we read that God put Jesus Christ forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood.  Worship as it is established in the book of Leviticus is based up confession and repentance and then expressed through the sacrifice of an unblemished animal.  However, that sacrifice had to be repeated because sin was repeated and that sacrifice could not bring atonement for future sins.  The death of Jesus on the cross brings atonement for all sins. 

We can say two things at this point. First, God is satisfied.  Does that mean God demanded blood?  Is God a sadist whose thirst for blood must be satiated?  Or is there a deep divine justice that demands death?  What I can say about that is I don’t see the cross that way.  On the cross, I see the love of God.  We looked at verse 24 which mentions redemption and justification.  Beneath those accomplishments, what drove Jesus to the cross is the love of God.  For God so loved the world, he gave his only son.  Whatever the price of sin is when God sees Jesus on the cross, God it satisfied.  The faith of Jesus is sufficient for us.  God is “well pleased,” as the Gospels say, with Jesus.  Thus, when an individual is in Christ God is well please with that person.

Second, sin is wiped away.  In the matrix of Jesus on the cross and you or me putting our trust in him, repenting of sin, and receiving his grace, we become free.  As we know well, even after people commit to Christ, they still sin.  As individuals and as a church, we are not perfect.  But in Christ, we are made right.  God is satisfied and our sins are removed.  The sacrifice of Jesus brings this atonement. 

That’s the “it” when we say God has done something about it.  I recited sins earlier.  Racism.  Violence and death.  Rebellion.  Hatred of other humans because of their accent or because of their ethnic origins or because of their religion.  Sin is awful. And for us, the most awful sins are the ones we commit, or the hurts inflicted upon us.  The ultimate fulfillment of God’s solution – our salvation – comes at the return of Jesus on Judgment Day when we are raised in resurrection. 

That’s the ultimate fulfillment and it has not yet come.  Not yet.

For now, today, we live toward that future day by living out Kingdom of God values even as we live here.  For us, “here” is the United States.  Our country celebrates our independence tomorrow.  I think the Bible clearly shows that our allegiance is to the Kingdom of God, not to America.  In the Kingdom, we live as people of peace, mercy and grace, joy, selfless willingness to help others, and with a spirit of gentleness and kindness. 

I know some of my fellow Americans would be quite unhappy to hear me say that as Christ followers our allegiance should be to the Kingdom, not the United States.  To them I pose this question. What kind of America would we have if all the Christians truly lived their salvation?  If the millions in our country who claim to follow Jesus commit to live as people of peace, mercy and grace, joy, selfless willingness to help others, and with a spirit of gentleness and kindness because we know who we are in Christ, what would America look like?

That would be a country worth celebrating.  That would be a society transformed from within by people who live in light what God has done in Jesus.  Sin destroys the world.  On the cross, God has done something about sin.  I pray our lives will show what life can be like based on what God has done.

AMEN