Sanitation Outreach

It has been said in recent years that Christians should be the best environmentalists around. If it is true that God is our creator and has given us access to the resources of the world—not to rape, but to utilize for our good and his glory—then we ought to pursue lifestyles of moderation, protection, and good stewardship of everything around us.

Last week I realized that our care for our environment should not be seen as an isolated area of our faith, but integrated with an overall view of how we interact with, and reach out to, the world. Care for my environment came to mind recently as I have been jogging within my neighborhood. I began picking up trash around our entrances, and along 17th Street (unfortunately, each time I run I can pick up several handfuls of styrofoam, wood, cups, cans napkins and newspapers).

Here is the connection: I don’t think I would have started picking up trash if I had not joined the neighborhood association board (memories of a Seinfeld episode may come to mind for those around my generation). It is not that I felt obligated to pick up trash as a board member, but because of this new role I had some new heightened awareness that we seek to live in a clean, safe and friendly neighborhood. And here is one more link in my thinking: I would not have pursued this role if God had not called me to be salt and light in the world, and to reach out to my neighbors (Christians should not only be the best environmentalists, but also the best neighbor).

And so I come back to picking up trash. As I picked up a nasty flattened coke can last week I prayed, “God, you are a god of redemption, re-creation, and restoration. Use me in this neighborhood, and would you restore the hearts of these people to yourself as I seek to restore in a very small way the beauty of your creation.”

Guide me, O though great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. No, I am a barren pilgrim, limping through this barren land. This week I was barren to the point of despair due to my utter inability to handle difficult relationships which were in need of a wisdom that appeared far beyond and above my ability to grasp. Sometimes we are barren to the point of despair in our lack of hope, sometimes it is due to our physical circumstances, for example our health.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul was enduring pressure far beyond his ability to despair (2 Cor 1:8). Was it persecution? Definitely. Was it related to his “thorn in the flesh,” some physical suffering? Probably. At any rate, every one of us can relate to this deep despair, so dark that we felt in our hearts “the sentence of death (2 Cor 1:9). A couple in our church is literally facing the sentence of death in the waning days of a painful form of cancer.

So often we ask the question, “Why?” Why is there cancer? Why is there suffering? Why am I depressed? Why do I have to feel overwhelmed? Why don’t I have an answer to give in this seemingly impossible situation? One of the most powerful explanations for answering those questions, and the question of suffering in general, is given in the very same verse: “…But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead .”

Why do I feel overwhelmed in some of my pastoral duties? Why does a loved one have chronic back pain? Why are several friends out of work and feel far beyond hope? Why is this dear couple facing prolonged agony and a certain anticipation of death by one of the most insidious forms of cancer? Why? That they might not rely on themselves but on God, who even raises the dead.

God, I am a barren pilgrim; barren, without hope, under great pressure, far beyond my ability to endure, despairing at times, feeling even the sentence of death. Barren…but for the grace of God. Father, may we not rely on ourselves, but on you who are with us, who sustains us—not only through our trials of life, but even through the very trial of death. The God who literally raises the dead.

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of deaths, and hell’s destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan’s side.
Songs of praises, songs of praises,
I will ever give to Thee;
I will ever give to Thee.

Seeking to Understand the Incomprehensible Grace of God

A grace-centered Bible study I’m working through asks the question, “As God thinks of you right now, what is the look on his face? This is in fact a thought provoking question! The answer given is, “If you imagined God as anything but overjoyed with you, you have fallen into a performance mindset.”

Understanding God is so hard…ok, it’s impossible (Rom 11:34). We have been studying Exodus and have seen how God was not pleased with most of the people who participated in idolatry, complaining and sexual immorality. The NT—rather than saying, “God doesn’t get angry anymore,” in fact uses Exodus as an example and a warning to us (1 Cor 10:1-11)! And how about the prodigal son and his father? Was the father overjoyed while his son had turned his back and was living in sin? Yes, he loved him (evidenced by the reunion), but could anyone imagine the father was overjoyed in the midst of the separation?

Perhaps a big part of the answer lies in Heb 6:9. Where, after a serious warning not to sin and fall away, it is written of true believers, “We are confident of better things in your case.” In other words, true believers will not ultimately continue to slop pigs. They will turn back to the Father. And as our heavenly Father looks on us he sees only the righteousness of Christ. With his perfect knowledge, even in our sin, he sees holiness and perfection, and he knows that we will turn back.

Still, we must hold all of this in tension. As beautiful as the gospel is, if it drives us to become less concerned or less serious about the law, then we never have understood it or been changed by it in the first place.

I praise you, heavenly Father, who weave together these infinitely complex and mysterious strands of thought into a perfectly consistent reality and existence, with perfect justice and perfect interaction with your creatures. You are not obligated to reveal to us exactly how this works; in fact our imperfect knowledge drives us back to you in humble, utter reliance upon your grace.

Something absolutely terrible happens to pastors as they begin to lead a church. It is not intentional or conscious, but it happens in the most subtle way. We forget that what Jesus said to Peter and Andrews also applies to us: “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” We somehow forget that the Great Commission doesn’t just mean make the disciples better disciples, but make new disciples.

I was reminded of this recently when a mother and son set up an appointment to meet with me because of some problems they were having. They were not in the church, and they were clearly not Christians. I have to confess, my first thought was, “I don’t have time for this,” and, “This is a distraction.” After all, I have a sermon to prepare, I have a staff meeting to go to. I have a blog to write.

Thankfully, as they walked in I woke up. God, this is not a distraction. This is exactly what I am called to do. It ought to be my chief delight to listen to people’s problems and have the privilege of sharing the gospel.

God, give me a passion for the lost. May I always have some outlet, some area of my life where I have the opportunity to talk with, and listen to, others with different beliefs. And may I not shrink back from sharing with them the love of Christ. And God, may my church not only encourage me to do so, but join me in it as well!

Sometimes I despair at the indwelling sin in Christians’ lives which seems so firmly anchored that nothing could dislodge it. It is helpful to hear Driscoll say, “We ought not be surprised when sinners sin;” but are we not also saints? Does God not promise to perfect those who are being made holy? Yes, with God all things are possible (do I really believe this?), but why do I not more often see him doing that which he promises to do? And why do I not see his saints “running in such a way as to win the prize,” and fleeing from idolatry?”

Perhaps we are not asking God (persistently, passionately, faith-full-y) to change us. Perhaps we are spiritually weak and lazy because we don’t see there is a race going on, and we don’t see the finish line (Col 3:1-3). Perhaps we are sleepy and drunk on the extreme excesses of materialism, capitalism and narcissism.

And perhaps I imagine and assume that we become more Christ-like than is actually the case on earth. Maybe I am looking for perfection; maybe I am looking too much at the externals. The more I contemplate, the more I realize that the most radical, the most extreme transformation will take place…in the blink of any eye. Certainly it is God’s will that we become more and more Christ-like on earth, but I’m also sure that his secret plan includes such instant transformation of ourselves and others that we will be shocked. And when that happens, there will be absolutely no possibility that we will take any credit. We will be utterly amazed, and we will shout, sing and jump in excitement, in praise of our God, in whose presence we will stand.
God, may I live my life in view of that day. And knowing that you are already present in my heart—knowing too that you are the motor and engine and power behind my every good work—may I passionately and joyfully run toward that transformation by faith, even now.

Hide and Seek

People love to hide. They enjoy hide and seek as children, and continue to play as adults, only with more to hide, and more serious consequences than simply losing the game. Only, in Christ and in his Church, the winner is the one who is discovered and found, whose hiding place is opened up and laid bare before the One or ones who are ‘it.’

I am amazed at the number of people who come into the church hiding—why then come into the church? Because they see church as a system of religion, and they see other people as ‘it,’ ones who are judges, ones whose opinions and judgments matter. So they are embarrassed to be ‘found.’ They miss—I don’t know how, it is preached over and over again, they miss the fact that this is not about system of religion, this is about a relationship with a Person, the man Jesus Christ. Jesus is the One who is it, he is the judge and jury. But he has stepped down, he has paid the penalty, and he wants to be our friend. Yes, he calls us and commands us to change, to deal with that which embarrasses us, but only as we walk with him, and only in his power, strength and ability. And he will help, he will come near, only when we admit to him—and others, that we cannot change on our own, that we need his—and others’ help.

Not only does it not matter if we are ‘found out’ by others, but it is in fact important to be found out; for others to see the real you. Perhaps a better (if imperfect) analogy is of an emergency room operating table. To mix metaphors, you are the patient with a gaping wound in your abdomen. The nurses are the church, and God is the Doctor. You have come in for help, God is ready and willing to operate, but he cannot come close to do his work. Because you are irrationally fighting off the nurses—you think that their prepping the area, and giving you anesthesia is actually going to hurt you. So you fight against them and guard your wound.

The church is here to help, as God has created it to be a community of love, support, and one-another-ing, as it points to the ultimate Healer. But it can’t help while you are busy covering up your wounds. Ironically, the opinion of the church doesn’t matter one bit—it is God who is the judge, to mix metaphors once again. But we hide from him too—with our system of religion and good works as a band-aid seeking to cover up a gaping gunshot wound. But hiding from God is about as effective as a kid covering his eyes up to hide from his parents. Not seeing his parents, he reasons that they can’t see him either.

Rebirthing "Born Again"

“Born again” is such a tired, misused concept in our Christian sub-culture. Yet this is a perfect phrase from God’s Perfect Word that needs to be dusted off and polished and admired in its pristine state again. One concept related to this is that of adoption, which I will touch on in a sermon this week.

Adoption has a legal aspect, or course. As a child is adopted, there is a legal process transferring ownership, responsibility, identification, motherhood, and fatherhood from one to another. But the overriding thought in adoption is not legal, but familial. When a child is adopted, the new father says in his heart, “You are mine, I commit myself to you. I give of myself to you, I give you rights to my inheritance because now you are my child, I give you—unreservedly—my love; as close to agape love as is humanly possible. I will never leave you, and when you run away, I will always take you back in. I will always forgive every sin. All this, because now you are my son.

Put yourself in this adopted child’s shoes. Imagine he was born to a crack-user living on the streets with no means to provide food and shelter, and no emotional or spiritual means to provide love. No ability or interest to teach the child how to ride a bike or review school work. No mind to teach and apply truths at home, no money for clothes or college, no chance of marriage, no luxuries and not even necessities available. More accurate to our conditionin Scripture would be that the mother and father are dead, and the child lies unconscious in a ditch on the brink of death.

As that child is adopted into a family, the description of which is the exact opposite of that above; as he is fed, bathed, clothed, and loved, tell me if he wouldn’t say, “I’ve been born again!”