Have you ever felt like God told you to do something? Were you afraid to do it? It’s one thing to feel like God is moving you to have a conversation with someone, or go somewhere, or do something. But what if you’re scared?
A couple months ago, I clearly felt like God showed me something I needed to do. I had some friends of friends who were about to experience the loss of a loved one. They were in a hospital near me with no one to be with them. I easily felt God saying, “You need to go and be with this family. Love them. Minister to them.”
I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to go.
I love thinking about the future. It’s fun to dream. There’s a comfort in knowing that there are always possibilities. As exciting as tomorrow can be, sometimes I have a tendency to forget about what’s going on right now!
It’s easy for us to do the same thing with the Gospel of Jesus - we throw it so far into the future that we forget what it means for us today. We know that through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ we will spend eternity with God. What an exciting truth! But this is not the totality of the good news of Jesus. The Gospel is not only about a destination, but an identity.˜
Have you ever had an experience when you had to experience blind trust?
When I was in college, my brother, my parents and I took a trip to Hawaii with some other families. We were actually on a mission trip, really suffering for Jesus. One afternoon we went to a beach at Waimea Bay. When we arrived, I quickly noticed people jumping off the large rock jutting out of the ocean. I immediately thought two things: (1) “I don’t want to do this” and (2) “I’m going to have to do this.” In addition to not really appreciating the thrill of jumping off something tall, I also don’t do too well with peer pressure.
It’s really important when we read about people from the Bible that we remember their humanity. If you’ve been around church for a while, or you’ve ever watched the history channel, you’ve heard about Peter. He seems to be the most well known disciple of Jesus Christ. Most people remember him walking on water. But Peter was a real person. He was sixteen once. When he was young, he had a first job. He had hopes and dreams of what his life might be like one day. He had a best friend. He even fell in love! But there was a day, a real day, where there was a moment that he met a man who was introduced to him as Jesus. And there was a sort of magnetism about this Jesus. Peter didn’t really know why, but he wanted to hang out with Him.
Do you ever struggle with knowing how to look at your current circumstances?
The book of Colossians is a letter written by the Apostle Paul while he is in prison. Think about that situation! Paul followed God’s calling to share the Gospel, and as a result of that, he’s ended up in jail. For doing the will of God, Paul ended up in prison! There’s a passage in chapter 4 of Colossians where Paul puts his experience in perspective of the past, the present, and the future.
Do you ever find yourself checking out of a situation? You’re sitting there, not really paying attention– and then realizing that you’ve missed something?
Personally, I don’t do well watching movies more than once. I love movies, but the second time around for me just isn’t the same. I find myself zoning out. I think the reason that I really love movies is because I don’t know what’s going to happen – one of my favorite things to do is walk into a movie without ever watching the trailer. I love not knowing anything and just going along for the ride. But it’s different when I know the ending.
Sometimes we can feel this way about Christmas.
The story of the days of Jesus are chronicled in four different books of the Bible – we call them the “Gospels.” These four books are eyewitness accounts of who Jesus was and what He did. They are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Most of them begin in a similar way. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all start with an explanation of their purpose. Matthew starts with a genealogy of the family of Jesus. Mark starts his Gospel by saying, “This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Mark was a simple, obvious guy. I like him for that. Luke starts out his story by explaining how he interviewed different people and wrote out their details.
John is different.
A couple of weeks ago, I went on a fishing trip with my Dad and my brothers to celebrate my dad’s sixtieth birthday. We went backcountry camping and fly-fishing in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This was one of the more remote things we’ve ever done. We hiked miles into the wilderness with our supplies, planning to live on the fish we caught. After our first day of fishing, we felt like we might be in trouble. We didn’t catch enough fish. Dipping into our emergency rations on day one wasn’t exactly the plan. The next day, we decided to split up.
Normally, we fish in pairs, each taking one side of the river. But on this day, we were fishing alone. It was nice because no one knew how many times my fishing line got hung up in the trees. At one point, while untangling myself from a particularly angry shore-bush, I heard a loud THUD come from across the creek. I thought a tree had fallen. Thankful that it missed me, I looked across the water and saw something shocking.
We’ve all heard it before. The simple sentence that makes any class wake up and instantly pay attention. “This will be on the exam.”
There are moments in every class when you know it’s a good time to pay attention.
This morning we’re going to look at a passage where things really get real. In college, I took a computer simulation class, and early in the class the professor told us about the semester-long project that we would be doing in his class. He said that he was going to split us up into groups and the group that did the best would get an A, the second group would get a B and so-on. That was a moment where everyone really perked up! Suddenly, everyone was listening at that point! My group ended up with a B, but we got robbed. That’s beside the point.
In Matthew 7, Jesus is talking to a crowd of people and He says something that I think would perk them up. Jesus begins to talk about what it really looks like to follow Him in Matthew 7:13-14.
Did your parents have a speech that they always left you with before you left the house? Many parents stick with the classic, "Remember who you are and whose you are." I like that. It carries the implication that you are known. It's the idea that you're not walking into the world as a shadow, but you have an identity. You belong to a family.
The Apostle Paul once wrote a similar thing to his friends in the city of Philippi, in Philippians 1:27-28.
When you look at other people, what do you see? How do you sum them up? You may judge them based on the things they have, their lifestyle, or even their appearance. Maybe you estimate them by the way they treat you. Often we think about the position that people have as the sum of their past - what they've been given, what they can afford, or what they've earned.
As we judge the world this way, we begin to think of ourselves in the same way. We fill our arms with our accomplishments, trying to carry all the success we've achieved. We grow proud. We think what we're holding is impressive. And to some people, it is! But their impressions stack up to nothing. In the end, they will not matter.
As we begin thinking that other people think highly of us, we expect God to do the same.
Did you ever have a teacher who would read to your class? I always loved that. Sometimes they had a rocking chair. My teachers always knew how to hold the book just right so that everyone could see. At times they would share stories, but sometimes they would gather everyone around to tell them something very important.
There's a moment in the book of James, where James does just that.
Three strikes and you're out. That's the rule. I was really bad at baseball, so I learned that rule well. Sometimes that's how we think life works, except that we give ourselves fewer chances. We think one wrong choice can be so bad that it sidelines us for life.
The Apostle Peter was a guy who lived with Jesus. He got to see everything firsthand. He saw Jesus preach, teach, and heal people with his own eyes. Peter became convinced that Jesus really was the Messiah - the Savior of God's people sent from God Himself. Peter saw so much in his time with Jesus that he was convinced there was no where else for him to go – in his mind, he was sticking with Jesus forever.
But things took a turn. Jesus started talking a lot more about His death, and Peter started getting nervous.
Are there any parts of Scripture that you remember, but you couldn't find on your own? Sometimes there are illustrations or stories that we remember, but we don't know who said them. You may remember the warning to build your house on the rock instead of the sand. Do you know who said that and why?
It's the ending to one of Jesus' most famous sermons. Here's what He said in Matthew 7:24-27.
Has there ever been any event in your life that didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to? Sometimes we make plans thinking we know the future, but we soon find out otherwise. Things go awry. We tend to think that things go well for those who are following God. It's easy to fall into the mindset that if things are not going as planned, God is upset with us.
There is a story in Acts 16 where some of God’s faithful followers go through something they were probably not expecting.
At this point in the story of God, the Gospel was spreading, and the Apostle Paul was on a mission to take the it everywhere. But as he did this, there were a lot of people who disagreed with the spread of Christianity. What happens is pretty crazy.
The Babylonians came tearing through Israel. They conquered cities, pulled apart families, and took over the land. Eventually they made it to Israel’s pride and joy: Jerusalem. The king of Babylon, the mighty Nebuchadnezzar, led a full-scale assault of the city. He laid siege to it, hoping to intimidate and starve its inhabitants into submission.
Eventually, the king of Judah, a guy named Jehoiakim, gave up. He relented and opened the city to the invaders. The Babylonians always took the best things back with them. They raided Jerusalem, sacked the city, and looted its goods. They even walked into the temple of Israel’s God and took some of the golden vessels. Having gathered the most valuable items around, the king headed back to Babylon.
But Nebuchadnezzar left someone behind: Ashpenaz.
I think my dad might be a genius. He taught me how ride a bike when I was six years old. He simply put me on a bike with a helmet on my head and tied a rope around my waist. I learned to ride my bike while he just stood still. He stood in the middle of our driveway and I rode in circles around him. If I started to fall over he would just pull me back up. If I started to lean towards him he would give some slack, and he kept me from falling over in this way without ever having to move his feet. I learned how to ride a bike by riding in circles. As I did the same thing over and over again, I eventually learned the lesson. I was able to take off the rope and ride my bike wherever I wanted to!
We often do the same thing – we do the same things over and over again until something breaks us free, until something breaks us out of that cycle and we are able to live our lives in freedom. But we struggle so much. We may find ourselves stuck in cycles of sin, struggle, and addiction. We don’t know how to get out, and we’re stuck in our own struggle and selfishness. Every time it happens we feel powerless. We cycle on and on and it distracts us, moves us away from God, destroys our relationships and our attitude. Have you ever felt like you're stuck in the same cycle over and over again?
"Beware" is not a word that it's easy to think about Jesus saying all that much. However, it does seem like a word that we should pay attention to. In Matthew 6, Jesus warns us about living for Him for the wrong reasons. Look at Matthew 6:1-4:
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others.”
Essentially, Jesus is warning us to not miss the point of living for Him. I think it’s easy for us to start doing things for Jesus for people because of the way that WE look at people. How do you evaluate the faith of other people? How do you spot the good Christians and the bad ones? How do you evaluate a "super Christian?"
When we think about reading a post about sex, our minds go to a million different places. You might be taken aback by that, thinking, “What is this going to be about?” You might not be okay with it. “Why is he writing about this?” You might be interested - “I wonder what he’s going to say.” You might think about your family. Your upbringing. You might think about computers. You might think about failed relationships. You might think about regret. You might think about movies. You might think about confusion, excitement, or boredom. Our minds run in different directions.
Sex is owned by someone or something different for each one of us. For some, sex is owned by hollywood. For others, it’s owned by the internet. For some, sex is owned by some family member who harmed us. That’s where sex got its start. That’s where it got twisted or misunderstood. As all of us come from those million different directions, the truth is that God owns sex. He created it. He made it. And it’s a very good thing.
What is a Sunday morning like for your family? I feel like I’ve watched families walk in to church like they have just survived a war. It's got to be hard. It is difficult enough for me to get myself to church on time - I can't imagine getting four other humans dressed and in the right place before I get to church.
I grew up in a family of three boys. There were definitely times when my mom declared “silent car” on the drive to church. I think my parents tried to figure out ways to get us up and going with some kind of consistency on Sunday mornings, and this is partly how they did it:
Chocolate milk.
Do you remember the song, "This Little Light of Mine?"
This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine
This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine
This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine
Let it shine, Let it shine, Let it shine!
It's a simple song that is packed with meaning.
Jesus talked about us shining like lights in Matthew 5:13-16.
I love the Old Testament story of Joseph. Joseph's story is in Genesis 37-50, and it's a fascinating read of family, jealousy, hardship, forgiveness, and God's will. But there is one moment right in the middle of the story that has always intrigued me. Do you ever read something in Scripture and think, "That's not what I would do?" This is one of those moments.
In order to drop into the middle of Joseph's story, we've have to understand what has happened up to that point. Joseph was the son of his father's favorite wife, so naturally, he was the favorite son. If you have siblings, you've probably heard your parents say that they love you all the same. This wasn't really the case in Joseph's family. Joseph was the favorite, and everybody knew it.
You know that moment in a movie or a T.V. show when you hear the record scratch noise and the video stops? There’s usually a freeze-frame and the main character looks confused. You're supposed to ask the question, "What is going on?"
If the Bible had a soundtrack, there's a moment in the book of Philippians where this would have totally happened. If you read through the book of Philippians, you'll read about Paul's experience as a prisoner for the Gospel. He encourages his friends to really care for one another. And then, you get to Philippians 3.
Janie and I just returned from a vacation to the west coast. We spent a few days in L.A. before we boarded a train for a 34-hour ride to Seattle. It was just me, Janie, and the retirees, riding the rails. We took a lot of naps and spent most of the time just staring out the window. It was beautiful, riding quietly through uninhabited places of our country. There were mountains, lakes, forests - all wizzing by.
That was the challenge - if either of us saw anything interesting, it was difficult to point it out before it was gone. Everything whipped by so quickly. It was beautiful, and then it was gone. Slowly, Janie and I learned to stop trying to comment on everything, and just enjoyed the view.
It reminded me of a prayer from Psalms 90 that is actually a prayer of Moses.
I think cellphones have brought a lot of positive change to the world and our lives, but they’ve also brought us endless notifications. Companies invented strings of sounds that are designed to annoy us into paying attention! A ringing phone is the worst. Most people keep their phone on 'silent', but even silent mode isn’t silent! You can hear someone getting a call from a mile away as their phone rattles against everything in their purse. Phones have brought so much convenience, but they require so much attention.
Constantly buzzing, ringing, beeping: begging for attention. And as noise fills our life, we are all too ready to respond. It’s like we wait for the phone to ring. We are right there when the notifications come, and our life becomes one big reaction. Something happens, and we react. We hear the notification; we swipe. We hear about a problem; we’ve got a solution. Someone needs us; we’re ready to answer. We have become reactors.
As a kid, I loved the story of Jericho because we got to yell in church. Usually, we would build a wall with those cardboard bricks and march around it, pretending to be Israelites. If you were really lucky, you were selected to act as the wrath of God and knock down the wall!
We may remember this story with nostalgia, but I don't think we really think much about how crazy it was. God gave Israel quite the battle plan. There wasn't supposed to be any fighting at all. After the people marched around the city and shouted a great shout, the walls would come a'tumblin down.
There are a lot of places where Scripture talks about our eyes. They're very important. Jesus even talked about our eyeballs in the Sermon on the Mount. In this passage He tells us that our lives follow our eyes. What we look at is ultimately the direction of our hearts.
In Matthew 6:22-23, Jesus asks us to think about where we're focusing.
There is a story in the New Testament that I think is really funny. It's funny to me because when we read it, we all aspire to be one particular character, but I think most of us are someone else. This is a story that we love to apply spiritually, but we don't often think about what it would have been like to be there.
This story is about two ladies named Mary and Martha.
Do you ever feel like you just wish someone would tell you what to do? I like leading, but sometimes it's nice to have someone just tell you what to do next. I think this is why I like lists– they're a way for me to get to tell myself what to do. It's the best of both worlds!
So often we feel like there's no one to show us the way with our faith. We ask questions like, "What am I supposed to do next?" "What is God up to?" We have questions that we can't figure out on our own. And then we read stories in the Bible where God seems to tell people exactly what's going to happen next.
I grew up with two brothers. The three of us shared a bathroom that was like a locker-room. There were two stalls with a toilet and a shower in each. In the middle there was a big vanity that went all the way around the room with three sinks. In the mornings, I often found it difficult to wake up on time. After snoozing my alarm repeatedly, I would stumble into the bathroom bleary eyed, where my much-more-disciplined brother would be waiting, standing on the vanity, to jump out at me and scare me! It was awful. That’s not a fun way to wake up. I always thought my mornings would be much more peaceful once I moved out of that house. And they sort of were, until I got married.
My wife Janie loves to jump out and scare me. I don’t know if you’re the spouse who does the scaring, or the one who is constantly waiting to be startled anytime they walk into a dark room, but, on account of scaredy-cats everywhere, can we stop this? I seem to fall for this all the time, jumping like a frightened kitten. I’m expecting to walk into the bathroom, not a haunted house!