Avoiding the Greater Condemnation - part three

Luke 5:31 And Jesus answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.   32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

There are a lot of self righteous, conservative religious people who think they have no need of spiritual physician.   It is a common disease in conservative churches.    It can be contagious!  (Look at how the apostle Peter got sucked in, Galatians 2:11-16.)  Please examine your heart to make sure you don’t get caught up in that stuff!  Looking down on people who don’t go to church, or people who drink and smoke and cuss.  Those attitudes and behaviors stink in the nostrils of the Lord!

Or judging people who disagree with your political views!  I am a political conservative – you may like that or hate it.  But it is what I am.  But Jesus wasn’t a Republican.  He wasn’t a Democrat either.  GOP does NOT mean “God’s Own Party”!  Our gospel cannot be restricted to any one political party or political view.  Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Socialists and even Communists need to get saved!

            But self righteousness is not restricted to conservative religious people!  Anyone who thinks they are better than others is self righteous.   Secular folk and liberal folk are often self righteous too.  I hear and read them saying things that make it obvious they look down on us “poor ignorant Christians”!

What makes self righteousness so blame dangerous is the erroneous belief that we are all right and we don’t need anyone to fix us!  If you think you have all the answers and think you have it all together, you sure don’t need a Savior!  If you think you are exempt from the disease of sin, you fail to realize you need Doctor Jesus!  If you think you’ve got your act together, you think have no need to get saved!  - or, no need to grow, no need to become more like Christ!

In fact, in a sense, if you think YOU have all the answers, you’ve gone into the Savior business yourself!   In a way, you’ve gone into the god-business!  Only God has all the answers!  And God doesn’t take lightly to competition!  “Thou shalt have no other gods before me!”  This includes yourself!  Just ask Lucifer how God reacts to little phonies trying to take His place.  God is not insecure.  But He will not allow His glory to be mocked or His beloved people to be misled.   God will not share His glory with another!

If you run into Pharisees or Sadducees who think they have all the answers – YOU CANNOT ARGUE THEM OUT OF IT!   My advice is to speak the truth, then walk off and pray for the Holy Spirit to open their eyes!  Pray for them, and seek to honestly and humbly live the Christian life in front of them.  You can’t force them to change.  If you get angry and mean you only reinforce their prideful self righteousness.

Jesus said, 32 “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”Even Jesus could not fix the self righteous while they were entrenched in their self righteousness.

He came for those who know they are sinners, those who know they are a mess.   He came for people who have hit bottom and know they cannot fix themselves.  He came for the straight sinner and the gay sinner.  The church going sinner and the bar hopping sinner.  Rednecks, mentally ill, promiscuous, drug addicts, sex addicts, child abusers, house wives who gossip, Deacons who lust after their neighbor’s wife, financial advisors who steal from their clients.

John Calvin, “He came to quicken the dead, to justify the guilty and condemned, to wash those who were polluted and full of uncleanness, to rescue the lost from hell, to clothe with his glory those who were covered with shame, to renew to a blessed immortality those who were debased by disgusting vices.”

            But don’t miss He came to call us all to repentance!  To repentance! Just this week someone asked me what repentance is.  In NT “repentance” translates a Greek word, “metanoia”, meaning, ; “(1) religiously and morally, as a change of mind leading to change of behavior, repentance, conversion, turning about.” (Bibleworks)  

“a change of mind leading to change of behavior”.   Repentance means accepting God’s verdict on your behavior, your thinking, your values, and choosing to change them all with God’s empowering!  You can’t repent on your own.  You can’t change on your own.  You need the power of the Holy Spirit to change you from the inside out!

            You don’t get saved by just saying a prayer someone tells you to pray.  You get saved by repenting of your sin and believing that Christ is God become a man,  who died on the cross for everyone who will believe in Him and on the third day God raised Him from the dead!

This is the Gospel!  This is the good news!  Do you believe this?  Have you repented?  Have you turned from your sin and cried out for God to forgive you and change you?  If not, you need to do that right now!

            If you have believed, my question is, have you kept your heart open to Him?             Have you avoided self righteousness and pride and hypocrisy?   Is your heart broken by your own sin and failure?  If not, my beloved brother or sister, fall on your knees before Him and cry out for change!  Be ruthless with your sin and with any hint of self righteousness.  

May God grant that we can look at the people around us without self righteousness, without pride and have our hearts broken by the sad condition of our country.  I’m not talking about the economics or politics – they are in sad shape.  But it is the moral collapse and spiritual confusion in America I’m talking about.   I believe they are at the root of the other problems.

This week Billy Graham wrote, "My heart aches for America and its deceived people. The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance."

            I believe in Christians being involved in the political process.  But my friends, no election is going to fix what is ailing this once great nation.  No politician can fix the twisted hearts and minds of our people.  A mean spirited, self righteous church will not fix this nation. 

            America needs a humble, broken church that is on its face before God for her own sins.  You need to get down before God in repentance for your sins!  And I need to be right beside you in repentance for my sins! 

            Then, and only then we need to cry out for conviction and repentance to sweep through this land with a might move of God.  “The healthy do not need a doctor.”  But my friends, America needs Doctor Jesus!  We have hope because He came to call sinners to repentance, and we are a nation full of sinners.

They do not need a feel good “Gospel” that tells them Jesus loves like they are and will not judge any one. 

And they do not need hypocritical, mean spirited self righteous judgment from a church dead in its own pride and sin. 

They need loving, broken servants of Jesus who plead with them to repent AFTER they have repented themselves and AFTER they have pled with God to turn the hearts of the lost to Himself.

Pray for America – for our children and Grandchildren, for churches and pastors,  For hard hearts to be broken and blind eyes to be opened by the Holy Spirit.

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.
Acts 3:19 NIV

Getting to the Other Side of Loss and Grief part two

THEOLOGICAL TRUTHS TO CHEW ON WHEN YOU ARE READY. 

If you are in the midst of an excruciating period of life, you may not be able to receive some of this.  “True” is not always “helpful”.   (See my reaction to “She’s in a better place” in part one of this.)  When you are between the floods of trouble is the time it is the most helpful to consider these truths and store them up for the hard times.

Lamentations 3:31-33  ³¹ For no one is cast off by the Lord forever.

 ³² Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.

 ³³ For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone. (Lam 3:31-33 NIV)

            HE WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU & NEVER FORSAKE YOU – HE WILL BE WITH YOU TO THE END OF THE AGE!!

“Though HE brings grief…”  = God is Sovereign in all the circumstances of life, yet He is loving and wise!  “When God allows you to go in the furnace of affliction He keeps His hand on the thermostat and His eye on the timer.”

Romans 8:28 ²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28 NIV)

            All things are NOT good.  Some are wrong, hurtful, tragic, even evil.  But God promises His children He will eventually work some good even out of this things!  If God causes it or allows it in the life of a believer, He will redeem it in some way at some time.

2 Cor. 1:4 ⁴ who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”

One reason God allows us to suffer is it makes us better able to help others when they suffer!  Often when someone is suffering they can receive help best from one who has walked a similar valley.  After my first wife’s death, when I encountered believers who had lost a spouse at an early age I really listened to what they had to say!  One minister and wife who had each been widowed were especially helpful to me.  Wounded healers are usually the best healers!  Let God minister out your brokenness to other broken people.

1 Peter 5:10 ¹⁰ And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. (ESV)

Romans 8:18 ¹⁸ For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

This really is not our home!  The best is yet to come.  If your faith is in Christ, a new Heaven and a new Earth are being prepared for you.  There we will have no sorrow, no sickness, no death.  God will be in our midst and He will be our God and we shall be His people!

 

Amen and amen!

 

Getting to the Other Side of Loss and Grief.

(This is a shortened version of a presentation I gave in a Sunday School class recently.)  Grief is not restricted to when we lose a loved one to death.  EVERY LOSS OF ANY KIND INVOLVES A GRIEF PROCESS OF SOME KIND – i.e. divorce, job loss, significant financial loss, moving, graduating, losing a friendship, finding out a respected person has been involved in major dishonesty, immorality or unethical behavior, etc.

WHAT IS THE MOST PAINFUL EXPERIENCE OF YOUR LIFE?  How was loss involved in this?  (i.e. What did you lose?)  How fully have you grieved this loss?

GRIEF IS PAINFUL AND MESSY.

                Many talk of “5 Stages of Grief” or“7 Stages of Grief” or“3 Stages of Grief”. 

                Reality – there are common emotions most of us feel during grief (sadness, fear, anger, anguish, loss, etc.) but EVERYONE GRIEVES DIFFERENTLY !  And it is likely that each time you grieve a loss your grief will be different.  And the process always hurts and it is always messy.

COMPLICATED OR COMPOUNDED GRIEF CAN BE EVEN MESSIER AND TAKE LONGER – I.E. Your husband leaves you for another man, you lose your job, your finances collapse and you have to live with the parents who abused you, and a beloved pet dies, and the next day your teenage son is arrested.  HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THAT?

IF THE LOSS IS SIGNIFICANT IT IS COMMON TO START WITH SHOCK AND DENIAL.  “This can’t be real!”  “This isn’t happening!”  “No, that’s not true!”

Pain, sadness, anguish are common emotions.  

DEEP GRIEF DISRUPTS YOUR EMOTIONAL EQUILIBRIUM!  = Don’t make major life decisions soon after a major loss.  You are not at the top of your game!

ANGER is extremely common in loses such as divorce, job loss, losing a friendship, but also is common in loss due to death.  You may be angry at your loved one for dieing!  You may be angry at God for allowing the tragedy that has struck you.

THE ONLY WAY THROUGH IT IS THROUGH IT! A man once told me that day after wife died he went on a 2 year binge!  When he finally sobered up all the pain and loss were still there!  Unfortunately, we have to feel the pain to get past the pain.  You can stuff it or run from it, but sooner or later in some form it will catch up with you.

HOW DO WE GO THROUGH IT?

                Give yourself permission to feel all you feel – even if it is numbness – that will pass!

                Choose to lean on Christ in the midst of storms that don’t make a lick of sense.  Think of Matt Redman's song "Blessed be Your Name", "You give and take away, You give and take away.  My heart will CHOOSE to say, blessed be Your Name!"

                Find safe people to tell your story to – probably over and over!  A huge part of the healing for most people comes in telling the story repeatedly.

                When you are ready, work at applying your faith and theology to your circumstance – don’t rush it, don’t let others give you pat answers.  – “She’s in a better place Pastor” = urge to maime!  True but not helpful at the moment!  Now that truth is very helpful. (See part two to be posted soon.)

                At some point down the road you have to choose to let go of the pain, the hurt, perhaps the anger.  We need to be forgiving even when our offender is unrepentant and undeserving of forgiveness.  We are the one set free when we forgive.

WITH DEEP LOSSES WE DON’T GET OVER THEM WE GET THROUGH THEM BY THE GRACE OF GOD!    Perhaps it is even better to say we learn to live with the loss.  Eventually we are able to do so with somewhat less pain if we honestly deal with it.

                Getting to the other side of loss and grief will always involve accepting a new normal!  Life is never the same after a life shattering experience.  WE are never the same.  We can be bitter or we can be better.

Feeling Fatherless on Fathers' Day

I have moments that I feel fatherless.  My natural father died this past November.  My step-father, who raised me from age 7, died in 2006.  My first wife’s father, who was a father to me from my teens, died in 2000. 

Much of my childhood I felt fatherless.  My step-father seemed cold and distant when he was sober, briefly warm and loving with a few drinks.  But he became dangerously angry and verbally threatening when really drunk.  My natural father wasn’t there (See “Lament for a Father I Hardly Knew).  As an adult I came to know that my step-father had always loved me in his own way, as much as he was able.  I suspect the same may have been true of my natural father.  But the 10 year old boy didn’t understand that.  I had a hunger and a wound and a feeling of incompleteness.  I felt inferior to schoolmates who had fathers who seemed involved in their lives.

God in His merciful providence brought good out of that, I believe.  I was determined to be the father I never had if I ever had sons.  I was not a perfect father – just ask any of my three sons.  But I was there for them and I tried to be involved in their lives. 

My freshman year in high school God brought me to saving faith in Jesus Christ.  After a year of trying to sort out what that was about, in my sophomore year I got grounded in a Bible teaching church.  A Sunday School teacher and the pastor filled some of the father void in my life.  But more importantly I discovered the truth of Psalm 68, ^ESV  Psalm 68:5 Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. (Psa 68:5 ESV).

I began consciously looking to God as my Father.  I turned to Him for direction, correction, assurance.  Loving He has kept bringing human father figures into my life.  He knows there are times we need someone with skin on them!

So this Fathers’ Day weekend I mourn the deaths of my earthly fathers.  I miss them.  I rejoice in what they positively did for me.  I grieve what their broken humanity kept them from doing.  I grieve that my brokenness kept me from reaching out to them more.  There are moments I feel fatherless.  And I chose by His grace to lean on my Father who has never failed me.

If you’re wondering, this was written with tears.  Tears and prayer, pain and hope.  Hope that I will see some of those men again and we will have talks we couldn’t have here.  Hope that the failures I had as a father were mixed with enough strengths by God’s grace that my sons have more of a foundation than I had.  Hope this blog might spur one father to seek God’s help to do a better a job.

What Does the Atomic Bomb Have to Do with Human Nature, Theology and Your Marriage? ... (or Glory, Shame, and Hope)

Genesis one declares that the first humans were created in the image and likeness of God.  That is an unbelievably complex and profound statement.  In Genesis three we are told about the entry of sin into human experience.  In stark and frightening terms the inspired writer informs us that in some sense Adam and Eve died the moment they broke covenant with God by eating from the forbidden tree.  

I believe when these two events (creation and fall) are viewed through the lens of the rest of Holy Scripture we see that now we are fractured image bearers.  We still bear the image and likeness of Almighty God, yet that image has been marred, twisted, contorted into sometimes nightmarish shapes.  Adolph Hitler shows the image of God in inspiring and powerfully leading a nation in a new direction.  But the direction is hellish and demonic!  In the same time period teams of scientist in the United States working on the Manhattan Project brought into fruition nuclear technology.  This technology begins to get into the very building blocks of creation!  The first use of that technology is a bomb.  A bomb that may well have saved the precious lives of many American servicemen yet took the equally precious lives of 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki, Japan.  Such tremendous knowledge and learning that yielded a technology with awesomely wonderful and fearful potential.  Created by fractured image bearers.

In each of our lives we are fractured image bearers with wonderful and fearful potential.  We are capable of kindness, unselfishness, deceit, cruelty, generosity, and insensitivity.  And sometimes all of the above in the same day!  

At our best we try to minimize or even eradicate the evil inside of us.  Often we try to hide it from others, and even ourselves.  We use various defense mechanisms to do this.  Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV), “The heart is deceitful above all things,   and desperately sick;   who can understand it?”  

Let me suggest some practical applications of these truths:

#1 We should not be surprised that we (and everyone around us) are a confusing mish mash of excellence and failure.  Sometimes we will shine, but at other times we will fall flat on our faces.

#2 We should not be surprised that marriage takes a lot of work.  Every marriage involves bringing two broken image bearers together with all their mix of glory and fallenness.  AND these broken image bearers were raised by other broken image bearers and live in a world of fallen image bearers.  So why does anyone think “If I just find the right person, marriage will be easy”?  My friend, you and I are so messed up even if we find “the right person” THEY will have to work to make being married to us work!

#3 We are utterly and completely dependent on the grace of God in Christ Jesus for lasting joy and satisfaction in this life (as well as eternal life in the life to come).

#4 Sometimes we need the help of other fractured image bearers, who are trying to humbly lean on God’s grace, to help us deal with the pain, frustration, and confusion of this life.  An objective voice that is led by the Word and the Spirit can be of great help along the way.