pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: Jesus


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Overflow

Reading: Philippians 1: 21-26

Verses 21 and 23: For me to live is Christ and to die is gain… I am torn between the two!

Paul writes today from a Roman prison cell.  Death looms in the air.  The executioners could come at any moment.  Yet even in this place Paul is full of hope.  He has come to a place in his life where his faith is absolutely secure.  He is assured that if this day were his last that he would depart and be with Jesus – “which is far better”.  This is what Paul means when he says, “to die is gain”.

But Paul also feels this pull to living.  He feels a pull to live so that he can continue in his ministry.  He knows that if he “stays in the body” that he will continue to have fruitful labor.  His work will continue to be about bringing people to Christ and about helping people to grow in their faith.  This is what he means by “to live is Christ”.  He also acknowledges another “better” – it is better for the church in Philippi if he continues to live so that he can continue on with them on their faith journey.

Although Paul is “torn between the two”, there are some lessons in his circumstance and attitude for us.  First, his focus is on others.  It would be far better to be with Jesus in heaven.  Many people today feel this way.  But like Paul they know God has more in store for them.  Paul loves Jesus and the church more than himself so he joyfully remains.  Second, he finds joy in the suffering.  Paul is living into the idea of being worthy to suffer for Christ.  He has stood firm in the faith and gladly faces the consequences for doing so.  And lastly, Paul is reflecting Christ.  His desire and will to serve others regardless of the cost to self models Christ’s example to others.  Just as Paul has chosen to closely follow Christ, his example here beckons us to do the same.  In all we do and say each day, may we strive to allow our “joy in Jesus Christ” to overflow into the lives of all we meet.  May it be so.


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Trust and Live It

Reading: Exodus 16: 2-15

Verse Eight: You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.

Complaining is something we can slip into pretty easily.  When the grass looks a little greener over there, when we did not quite get our way, when we have to wait for something, when we feel we have been treated unfairly, …  There are many reasons we can find to complain.  And sometimes we too may blame God or question God at a minimum.

The Israelites are out in the desert and they are starving.  The quick food they took with them when they hastily exited Egypt is gone and the desert does not provide much to eat.  The people come and complain to Moses and Aaron – if only we’d “died by the Lord’s hand back in Egypt”.  Die in the Passover plagues rather than be free?  But we are hungry!  Oh to be back in Egypt where “we sat around pots if meat and ate all we wanted”.  Oh for the good old days!  The Israelites ‘long’ for death or at least slavery again.  We too can be pretty immature and a bit whiny in our complaints.

When one resorts to complaining, one usually needs to look within oneself to find a cause.  Sometimes we forget all of the blessings we have in our life and focus on that one thing instead.  Sometimes we simply forget to be grateful and skip right to discontent.  We dwell on envy and jealousy and want.  And sometimes we forget to trust God.  We forget all the times God did and we don’t believe God will ever provide again and the grumbling begins.

In our passage today, the people grumble to Moses and Aaron, but they are just the middle men.  Moses says to the people: “You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord”.  It is true for them just as it is true for each of us at times.  We too can flout a sense of entitlement and can put on a pout when we do not get our way or when we feel like we are being treated unfairly.  But this is not the witness we get elsewhere in the Bible when we look at the faithful.  We see Jesus always looking to give, not to receive.  We see Paul being content in all circumstances, even when in want.  We see God providing for His people over and over and over again.  When we really take the time to reflect on our own lives, we see the same constant provision.  May we trust in His Word and His love and may we live it out in our lives this day!


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Say It Well

Reading: Psalm 105: 37-45

Verse 45: …that they might keep His precepts and observe His laws.

This last section of Psalm 105 recounts the exodus from Egypt.  The Israelites left Egypt “laden with silver and gold” and headed out into the desert with a cloud for shade in the day and a pillar of fire for light at night.  God provided for their physical needs with quail and manna and He brought water from a rock.  God led them into a land that other nations had toiled over and developed and built up.  God blessed the chosen people on their exit from slavery in Egypt right up to their entrance into the Promised Land.

It is good for a people to tell their story.  This Psalm that would have been sung in worship reminds the people of what God has done for them out of His great love for them.  We too sing songs that remind us of our faith story.  Whether it is a classic like “The Old Rugged Cross” or “Amazing Grace” or if it is a more modern song like “Trading My Sorrows” or “Come As You Are”, we sing songs of praise to remember His love and His actions in our bigger faith story.  We may know, for example, that Jesus died on the cross for our sins but songs that remind us also remind us of His great love for us.

To be reminded encourages us and strengthens our faith.  It helps us to grow in and to deepen our relationship with God.  It is why we hug and kiss our spouse and children each morning and night, saying “I love you” each time.  They know it but it sure does us good to say it and to hear it.  It is the same when we sing praises to the Lord.  God may know we love Him and we may know God loves us, but it sure does us good to sing it.

There is also a second benefit.  After listing how God gave, God brought, God provided, … the psalmist writes, “…that they might keep His precepts and observe His laws”.  This is also why we must sing of His mighty acts and of His love for us.  It reminds us to say “I love you” back with how we live our lives.  May we say it well today.


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Tell

Reading: Psalm 105: 1-6

Verse Two: Sing to Him, sing praise to Him; tell of all His wonderful acts.

The opening verses to Psalm 105 encourage us to sing our praises to God for all that He has done for us in our lives.  It encourages us to make known to all the nations what God has done.  The psalmist reminds us that the great works of the Lord bring rejoicing and to look to the Lord always to find strength.  It is a wonderfully encouraging opening few lines to a great Psalm of praise.

Remembering and singing of God’s actions in our lives serves two main purposes.  The first is to strengthen and increase our own faith.  When we joyously praise God for all He does for us, then we are reminded of His great love for each of us.  This, in turn, deepens our love for Him.  If we make a regular habit of joyfully thanking God for those times when He was very present to us, they also more readily come to mind in our trials, bringing us a strength and a peace.

The second purpose is evangelism.  These stories of God in our lives that have strengthened and encouraged us and that have helped us mature in our faith are a huge part of our own personal God story.  In answering the Great Commission, Jesus’ call to each believer to share the good news, our God story is the center piece.  Yes, we need to tell of Jesus’ life and teachings and witness, of the gifts of grace and mercy and forgiveness and eternal life, and of the power Jesus had over sin and death.  But we must also tell the story of how God makes a real difference in our lives.  Each of our unique stories of God’s hand at work in our lives will help others to see how God can also bring them the hope, strength, peace, love, mercy, forgiveness, … that they so desperately need.

This day and every day, whether in voice or in deed, may we each, “Sing to Him, sing praise to Him; tell of all His wonderful acts”, bringing God all the glory and honor.  Amen!


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Unity or Less?

Reading: Romans 14: 10-12

Verse 11: Every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.

Paul continues his conversation about diversity in the body of Christ.  He emphasized that most of us are at differing spots in our faith journeys and that we come to the church with our own unique backgrounds and traditions.  Therefore unity must come in and through Christ.  Christ must be the one thing that unites the church.  Jesus is our “bottom line” so to speak – He is Lord of all.

Paul asks why we must judge or look down on our brother or sister in Christ who does not do exactly as we do.  When we choose to judge or condemn or belittle another’s faith or their practices of faith, we are putting ourselves in a place we should not go to.  For example, just because I prefer to read and study and pray in the early morning and another prefers the quiet of the evening does not make one of us “right” or “better” than the other.  If one church uses bread and another crackers, one communion is not better or more acceptable than the other.

The time or particular way we practice our faith are small details we use to accomplish the same goal – to grow closer to Christ as we seek to become more like Him.  This is the goal for all Christians – to become more like Christ.  But at times we fail, so Paul includes a warning, quoting from the prophet Isaiah: “Every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God”.  He will not only want to know what we did with the least and the lost, but also how we treated all of our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Did we practice unity and did we work to bring harmony to the whole body of Christ?  Or did we remain divided, allowing it to be less?


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Shouldn’t You

Reading: Matthew 18: 21-35

Verse 33: Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?

Forgiveness.  It is something we all want when we have done wrong and want to restore the relationship.  It is something that at times we can try and manipulate.  It is something that can be hard to give sometimes.

Just after teaching about how to offer forgiveness in the midst of conflict in the church, Jesus is asked by Peter, “How many times…”?  We do not know if Peter is asking when he can stop forgiving or if he is seeking a goal far past his current practices or if he is setting Jesus up to say we need to always forgive.  In any event, the latter is the point Jesus makes.

Jesus goes on to share a story that illustrates why we must always offer forgiveness to others.  A servant owes the king an amount worth millions of dollars.  The king demands payment.  The servant cannot repay the debt and begs for mercy.  In compassion, the king forgives the debt.  In our minds the servant should be very grateful and thankful.  But as he leaves he runs into another servant who owes him a very small sum.  He harshly demands payment and his fellow servant also begs for mercy.  It is refused and the second servant ends up in jail.

I ask for mercy and forgiveness every day.  Daily I seek forgiveness from my wife and frequently from others in my life.  I often ask my King for forgiveness of my sins and my failures.  It is a practice that I walk through quite often.  Each time the Holy Spirit convicts me, I go asking one more time.  One Sunday a month I am reminded of what led to the open door to forgiveness that we find through Jesus.  Despite my vast experience with being forgiven over and over, sometimes I too struggle to give it.

The king in the story finds out the first servant withheld mercy and he calls him back in.  The king says to him, “Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you”?  Jesus asks me the same question.

Lord, give me the love and strength to be merciful and forgiving this day and every day.  Amen.


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Unity and Strength

Reading: Romans 14: 1-12

Verses 7 and 8: For none of us lives to himself alone… We belong to the Lord.

Paul begins chapter fourteen by imploring Christians to not pass judgement on others because others do not worship and practice their faith just as they do.  Instead Paul urges Christians to model acceptance and to have understanding for their fellow believers.  For the Jews who had accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, they entered their new faith with their old faith’s worship and dietary guidelines still intact.  They wanted the new believers to worship and eat as they did.  In effect they wanted to new followers to be Jewish Christians.  On the other side of the aisle, many of the new converts came with their own cultural background and practices.  Therefore they did not want to change some of these things, especially if they did not see how they were incompatible with what Jesus taught and did.

The same tendencies to judge and condemn others still exists today both within our churches and between churches.  The hot topic can be a wide variety of things.  Between people in a church it can be things like worship style or who is welcome or over what one does on a Friday night.  Between churches it can be over how one receives salvation or it can be over how we practice or understand baptism or communion.  Whatever the case, Paul’s advice is the same: do not judge but seek to accept and understand one another.  Paul says we must do this because ultimately, “none of us lives to himself alone… We belong to the Lord”.

Christ is the one who unites all Christians and all Christian churches.  There is one God, one Christ, and one Holy Spirit.  God created each and every one of us and loves us all dearly and equally.  Jesus taught live and grace to all people He met and went to the cross to give forgiveness of sins and a way to eternal life for all people.  The promise if the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to lead and guide our lives was a promise and gift to everyone.  May we each seek to love God and to love all of our neighbors as Christ loves us, bringing unity and strength to the whole body of Christ, to the church universal.


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Present and Active

Reading: Psalm 114

Verse Three: The sea looked and fled, the Jordan turned back.

This song of praise celebrates God’s mighty acts during the exodus from Egypt.  This journey to the Promised Land is the fulfillment of a promise God made to His chosen people.  For those who were there, it was an amazing experience.  For all the generations after, that is brought back to life every time they sing this Psalm.  These events are just more witness to God’s love and care for the Israelites.

There are three God moments remembered in the Psalm.  The first is when they were hard-pressed.  As the Egyptian army closed in, “the sea looked and fled”.  The Israelites were saved.  The second is when they faced the Jordan River, ready to enter the Promised Land.  Even though at flood stage, “the Jordan turned back” and the people once again crossed over on dry land.  The third came when the people were put hard to the test.  Water was scarce in the desert and the people were almost dying of thirst.  Moses struck the rock with his staff and water poured forth.  God turned the “hard rock into springs of water”.  Once again God saved the people.

Over the course of their history God would act again and again on behalf of the people.  Some were mighty acts like at Jericho when the walls came tumbling down and others were relatively small – the quiet call of Gideon or the simple act of Rahab.  To this day God continues to be present and active in the world and in our lives.  Some are ‘small’ things like the miracle of birth.  Others are ‘bigger’ – someone’s cancer is suddenly gone.  Even in the midst of tragedies and natural disasters, God is present in powerful ways.  Faith-based groups and agencies will have huge impacts in Texas and Florida as they come in to serve as the hands and feet of Jesus Christ, helping to restore people’s lives and their hope.  God continues to love and care not only for His people but to love and care for all people.  May we do the same today as we celebrate and participate in God’s continuing involvement and presence in the world.


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Binding and Letting Loose

Reading: Matthew 18: 18-20

Verse 20: For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.

What do we bind on earth?  What do we let loose on earth?  And more importantly, what does God desire us to bind and to let loose on earth?  Jesus came to establish God’s kingdom here on earth.  If we look at the example set by Jesus, we can get a glimpse of the answers to these questions.  Jesus first sought to bind with love.  Love was at the center of and bound all of His relationships together.  He also spoke of love covering over sin (which we see on the cross in its fullest form) and of love overcoming evil.  When we bind love to things, sin and evil flee.  In addition, Jesus sought to bind joy, peace, kindness, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness to all He said and did.  Jesus bound Himself to these things and they flowed through His very being as He brought the kingdom of God to the earth.  These same things that Jesus bound Himself to here on earth remain bound to Him in heaven.  He says the same will be true for us in eternity.

What did Jesus let loose on earth?  Jesus let loose God’s justice and mercy for all, a radical hospitality that welcomed all sorts of people, an inclusivity that drew all into God’s love, and an unending well if healing and restoration that sought to make all things new and whole.  Jesus burst open the doors of the church and the kingdom of God flowed out into the world.  And lastly, when Jesus departed this Earth to return to the right hand of God, He let loose the Holy Spirit.  He let loose the Holy Spirit to live in and to move amongst us, keeping Jesus’ words and actions fresh in our hearts and minds, ever leading and guiding us to live and love as Jesus did.

As individuals and as churches, we choose what we bind ourselves to and what we let loose here on earth.  When we choose to closely connect ourselves to Jesus, what we bind and let loose mirrors what Jesus bound and let loose.  In doing so, we also bring the kingdom of God here to the earth.  As followers of Jesus Christ, we seek to spread the gospel to all peoples and to all nations.  Jesus encourages us to move out together, promising, “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them”.  May we bind ourselves to Jesus Christ this day as we seek to let loose the kingdom of God here on the earth.


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Conflict Resolution

Reading: Matthew 18: 15-17

Verse 17: If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.

Today’s passage deals with conflict resolution in the church.  Although the church is intended to be the loving body of Christ and to reflect His light out into the world, at times there is conflict in the church.  Sometimes the conflict involves just two people, but at times the conflict can involve larger groups of people.

Jesus chooses to address conflict resolution in the church because it does happen.  And it is no coincidence that this address follows the parable of the lost sheep in Matthew’s Gospel.  Perhaps Jesus addresses it so directly because He knows a second truth as well – when conflict arises most of us avoid it at almost any cost.  If we are hurt or offended or sinned against by another at church we would much rather “get over it” and avoid further conflict than go and talk with that person.  Yet Jesus tells us to do just that – go and talk with them.  Why?  Because unresolved conflict becomes a murmur always humming just below the surface.  It becomes a feeling that can pervade gatherings and can inhibit the church’s ability to function as the loving body of Christ.

Jesus also gives two more steps to try next to try and resolve the conflict.  If a one on one visit fails, Jesus says to go back with one or two other believers.  Bring someone wise and respected to navigate the waters of reconciliation.  He is not saying to make it three on one but to bring in others who will help both sides come to the table to find resolution.  The next step, should the second step also fail, is to bring it before the whole church.  Hopefully more heads will work together to find a solution that leads to repentance and forgiveness.

At each step the goal is always reconciliation and restoration.  In the end, “If he listens to you, you have won your brother over”.  This is the goal: to help one another along on our journey of faith.  We are called to hold one another accountable.  This is true love in the church – being open and honest and transparent and speaking the truth in  love as we all journey together, each seeking to grow in our faith.