Who Is Thankful For You? (a Really Really Brief Sermon Summary)
In Ezra 3 the Israelites have returned to rebuild the Temple, to pour the foundations. It’s been over 50 years. Some are excited, glad to be home; some see only the destruction and rubble.
They all know Psalm 79, a song of captivity and an awaited freedom. A desire to praise YHWH for the rescue that follows their cries to Him. But now in the land they asked to return to not everyone is giving thanks, no matter what the passage says.
This thanksgiving we are in the same state: some of us give thanks to God for His provisions; some feel that God has yet to come through. For every praise given in a church or around the table, there is a pain felt by someone close by.
So the question must be changed: not “what are you thankful for?”, but “who is thankful for you?” Who gives thanks to God for your presence in their lives? Who sees the hands and feet of God at work, rebuilding the temple of their lives, through you?
Here is a great place to start answering that question Isaiah 58:6-14
Wrestling, With Trust (sermon Lite From Yesterday)
Theodicy. Why is there evil in the presence of an all-knowing, all-loving, all powerful God? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good things happen to bad people? Why me?
And then we read Matthew 15:21-28 and are confronted with a Jesus who is silent and then insulting in the face of a mother’s pain. Yes, he gives her what she wants in the end, but not before kicking her while she’s down.
What do we do with such a God?
“Wrestling, with trust.” There is a comma in that phrase for a reason. It’s not about wrestling with the abstract of trusting God in difficult times, but wrestling with God and His actions from a starting point of His love for us. Beginning to lash out, question, petition, argue, fight, cry, and pound or fists on the gates of heaven with the proposition “He loves me” held, even tentatively, in mind and heart.
The idea that “Christian stoicism” is stupid: that our lot is not not blindly accept whatever the universe/God throws at us without question, saying “Thy will be done” while swallowing the obvious bitterness. Rejecting the notion that doubt born of fear, pain and real suffering is sign that we are weak in our faith. Allowing others in our community to grieve, share, be frustrated and to ask the hard questions in safety and love, without being judged by their fellow Christians, forgetful of their own dark hours.
We can wrestle with God because He’s a big boy: He can take it. We can “cast our cares upon Him” even when, esp when, those cares are caused by God. We have access to the throne, more so than the widow before the unjust ruler, therefore we will be heard. This does not mean we will get our way. Results may vary:
The Cannanite woman in the passage got her request granted, but so did Jacob, who walked with a limp for the rest of his life after striving with God. Paul’s thorn remained and learned that “power made perfect in weakness” was at hand.
Wrestling, with trust, means we can pray, knowing we are heard and loved. That our cries are not breaking up as they hit a ceiling of celestial glass. They make it through, even when laden with swears, because we are loved.
Do we trust that? Do we trust that God knows what He’s doing, and is willing to lovingly engage us when we ask Him what is going on?
Dear Jepthah, God’s Will In Not A Congressional Bill
You can’t just tack on a rider and think that has anything to do with what God has already purposed. Your stupid vow does not change the vote from the floor of the Throne room. Vote. Singular.
If you really loved your daughter, if you really thought God would demand a life for the broken vow, then why didn’t you take the hit? Stand by your fillabustering convictions and throw yourself on the pyre of divine wrath you feared?
Thankfully, we have all learned from your mistake.
No one ever thinks that what they say on earth must be bound by God in heaven at all times, in all ways, no matter how stupid those words might be. We are far more enlightened. Far more wise.
What Job’s Friends Got Right
Job lost everything. Everything.
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I was asked yesterday as a writing activity to provide a list of the worse things that could happen in the coming week. I thought of my list, but couldn’t stop thinking about Job’s. They were the same:
Complete financial ruin. Family destroyed. Questioning the affection of my wife. Sickness not onto death or healing on a time table. Apparent abandonment of God without an apparent cause to point to. I’m sure he liked some of his livestock: I don’t know what I’d do if all of my kittens suddenly died. His list was my list.
Job could be a real man or an everyman. I don’t really care at the moment. He could be me.
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I’ve just started leading a Bible study on campus about Job. They picked it. I’m waiting for the knock at the door.
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In the last day I’ve been told of terrible events in the lives of people around me. No one very close to me, but students under my sphere of love and care.
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People lose everything, every day.
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At the end of chapter 2, before Job begins his first laments, in the prose section which may or may not be an addition to the text, Job’s friends arrive. Before they begin to speak, at length, for the rest of the story, they rip their clothes, sprinkle ashes on their heads, and sit beside Job.
“For seven days and seven nights.”
They assume his position of suffering and they don’t say a word. For seven days. A week without divine cliches,false explanations, or best intended comfortable words. They just sit and suffer with him in silence.
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I’m still waiting for the knock on the door, but I fear it won’t come.
What Was The Last Thing God Asked You To Do? (sermon)
So I spoke in chapel. Here are the highlights in a nutshell.
update : here is the sermon <- clicky
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When I was an ENC student I heard a sermon in the midst of some struggles. I heard the question, “What was the last thing God asked you to do?” And throughout my life tha's been asked in two contexts:
1. When I’ve been off the path God has for me
2. When I’ve questioned the path God has for me
When I’ve been off the path
At best we get off the path when we’re not paying attention too closely. At Worst we are blatantly ignoring God.
Abram was not an active listener (Read Genesis 12:1 - 13:14). God gave him instructions which he ignored/followed only in part, and suffered as a result. God renews His promise to Abe years later Abe had finally done what God asked and separated from Lot.
Previously he was in the right place spatially/physically, but in the wrong place spiritually/mentally. He didn’t get it (land), because he didn’t get it (instructions).
What was the last thing that God asked you to do? What are we holding on to that is holding us back? What hasn’t been left behind? What are we only doing MOST of? What are we holding on to just in case God doesn’t come through?
Psalm 19:7-11 makes it clear that “Things from God = Good”. We KNOW these things as truth, rewrite them into songs we sing every wed/fri/ and Sunday - but what do we DO about them?
Joshua 3:3-4 shows God instructing the people to follow the Ark, because “you have not been this way before”. We get lost, terribly, when we don’t follow god. We are children in a department store not holding on to our mother’s purse. Crying, blubbering, running in circles with snot running down our faces. It’s not pretty. It never is when we go out from under God’s arm.
And still He comes and finds us, drags us back to where we belong. Until we wander off again.
When I’ve questioned the path
During my first couple years at ENC I wasn’t sure what to do. I knew I was where God wanted me, but I questioned my major - my supposed life plans? Did God want me in education or in church ministry? Were the two mutually exclusive? People wiser than me were making their wishes know, which just confused me all the more.
That’s when I heard this question in chapel: What was the last thing that God asked you to do? Followed by the instructions that God wants me to keep doing whatever that thing is until He tells me to do something different.
This life/walk is not a static one. We don’t have the luxury to sit on our butts and do nothing while we wait for a literal burning bush, ravens to deliver our food, or the clouds to part, and a ray of rosy colored sunshine speaks truth. We must continue to do what we’ve been told to, until we are told something different.
This includes fulfilling the song’s charge to “read your bible and pray every day”, whatever work we have been assigned by our profs, employers, pastors, our families, supporting the ministries around us, and loving our neighbors more than ourselves.
Doing all of it as onto the Lord, until He moves you.
Esther 4:44 says “ . . . and who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Kurt Vonnegut said, “A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”
Walk with eyes/heart open to serve. Learn to stop, look and listen. There was always someone around who needed to be loved.
What was the last thing that God asked you to do?
God said to do what He told me and He’ll make good on the other passions since they are from Him. [Matt 6:33 “seek ye first. . . and all these things . . .”
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What was the last thing God asked you to do? Answer the question and then act on it.