Doers of the Word, James 1:22-27

Shiloh Lutheran Church

August 30, 2015

(Note: this is an edited version of a sermon that appears earlier in this blog in the James series.)

I used to work with a guy who spent lots of time playing basketball video games. He understood how the game worked and knew how to develop a good strategy. He could get his players to make the right moves to win the game, both for offense and defense. He knew what it took to win a basketball game. But he didn’t play the game himself. He was overweight and out of shape; his connection with basketball was purely imaginary. He didn’t even watch real games.

When I was a young Christian, I talked with a man I had known all my life, who had never shown even the slightest interest in spiritual things. As I was talking with him, he informed me that he believed the gospel. He believed Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior of the world, and he had read several books on the end times. I was so amazed by his response that I didn’t know what to say. I said, “so you believe it’s all true?” And he responded, “yes.” So I asked him whether he was ready to stand in God’s presence, and he said, “no.” But he didn’t seem to be terribly bothered by that fact. He believed in the truth of the gospel, but his belief had no impact at all on his life. This kinds of divisions in our lives are common, and we get used to the lack of connection between our internal and external worlds.

Satan’s goal is to destroy us spiritually, and if he can’t achieve that by preventing us from coming to faith, he’ll try to isolate our faith so that it’s purely inward. The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis, is a series of letters from a senior demon to a junior demon. When the man they’re trying to destroy comes to repentance, Screwtape advises his nephew: “The great thing is to prevent his doing anything. As long as he does not convert it into action, it does not matter how much he thinks about this new repentance” (p. 60). As long as it’s a purely inward thing, not ever converted into action, it’s in the realm of imagination.

That’s the problem James is addressing in these verses. Faith in the gospel is not just a sense of inner conviction. It’s not the sort of thing that can be confined to one dimension of our lives. God calls us not only to hear His Word and believe it with our minds, but to respond to it in obedience. Those who don’t convert their faith into action are self-deceived, James says: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” They persuade themselves that because they like listening to the Word, because they enjoy learning about it, they must be OK spiritually. But Jesus gives a very stern warning about this in the Sermon on the Mount: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). James wants us to know that genuine faith involves more than saying, “Yes, I believe the Bible is true.” Faith in the gospel brings us into fellowship with the living God, who then sets out to transform every area of our lives in preparation for that day when we will see Him face to face and live in His presence forever. Believing the gospel is the beginning of the process of purification and transformation into the likeness of Jesus Christ.

The first thing James calls us to in this passage is attentiveness to God’s Word. There’s some discussion among commentators about the words James uses in verses 23-25. When he describes a person looking in a mirror he uses one word, and then he uses a different word to describe a person looking at the law of liberty. This contrast comes across in the NIV: “like a man who looks at his face in a mirror.... But the man who looks intently into the perfect law....” It’s even stronger in the NEB: “He glances at himself and goes away.... But the man who looks closely into the perfect law....” The first is a careless, superficial glance, and the second is a focused gaze. But other translations make no distinction at all. The NRSV, for example, uses the word “looks” in both places, and some commentators argue that there’s really no significance in the word change, that James used different words for the sake of variety but that they both mean the same thing.

The difficulty with a discussion like this is that all the commentators and translators are more familiar with the original languages than any of us, and our temptation is to simply choose the position we like best, the one that fits with our assumptions. I like the first idea better, that James is drawing a contrast between two different ways of listening. That fits more neatly into my sermon. But as I’ve read the various commentaries, the second position seems to have a slightly stronger case.

But that’s not terribly important anyway. Maybe there isn’t an intentional contrast between these two words, but the point is that James is talking about two different ways of listening. Some hear in a way that doesn’t lead to obedience. Their hearing remains on the surface of their minds. If we want to avoid falling into the same trap, the place to begin is with attentive listening to God’s Word. We need to know the truth before we can obey it. We can also say that obedience is rooted in attentiveness to God’s Word, and that mere hearing is often (though not always) rooted in superficial attention. The words pass through our minds, and we say, “oh yes, I believe that,” and then we go on with our lives. But the words never get any deeper. They don’t lead us to genuine repentance, which is a change of direction, a new way of living. They don’t connect with our lives in the world. It may or may not be that James used two different words to underscore this point, but the difference is there in any case, so translations like the NIV are on the right track in emphasizing two different ways of paying attention to God’s Word.

So whether or not James is contrasting two different words about hearing, if we want to become doers of the Word, rather than mere hearers, we need to listen to God’s Word attentively. Psalm 1 describes people who are doing this: “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.” They take delight in God’s Word and meditate on it day and night. They’re attentive to it. Their listening is not superficial.

The second thing James emphasizes here is the importance of remembering. Those who are mere hearers look and then immediately forget what they’ve seen; “But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget... they will be blessed in their doing.” This is a frequent emphasis in the Old Testament. When Moses was reminding Israel of the law, he said: “So be careful not to forget the covenant that the Lord your God made with you....” (Deuteronomy 4:23). Later in the same book, Moses is confronting Israel with their stubbornness and he says: “You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you; you forgot the God who gave you birth” (Deut. 32:18). The prophets make the same complaint. Here’s one example from Jeremiah: “[The false prophets] plan to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, just as their ancestors forgot my name for Baal” (Jeremiah 23:27). Israel got into trouble again and again because they forgot the truth.

This kind of forgetfulness is a spiritual problem, not a mental one. We can be regular church attenders, we can even be consistent in our personal devotions, and be forgetful hearers at the same time. We go to church on Sunday, and even if we don’t say it this way our attitude is “well, now that’s out of the way and I can get on with the things I want to do.” Then we approach our personal devotions in the same way. Everything is compartmentalized; spiritual exercises may make us feel better, but they don’t connect with our lives. We spend time in Bible reading and prayer, then when we go to something else we leave it all behind. There’s no connection between the spiritual compartment of our lives and the other things we do.

If we want to become doers of the Word, we need to find ways to break down the walls of these compartments. One way we can begin to do this is by allowing God’s Word to confront the way we’re living our daily lives in the world, asking God for wisdom and direction by considering questions like: “what kinds of changes might God be calling me to make in response to this passage?” Or “what does this truth that I’ve just encountered have to say to some of the other compartments in my life?” “How can I put this into practice?” These kinds of questions can help us remember who we are and who we belong to as we leave our spiritual exercises and go out into the world.

This leads to the third thing James emphasizes, which is obedience. James is calling us to respond to God’s Word with concrete, specific acts of obedience. Mere hearers think it’s enough just to hear. Paul is confronting people like this in Romans 2 when he says, “For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law will be justified” (Romans 2:13). God calls us, not only to listen attentively and to carefully remember what we’ve heard, but to follow up on this with obedience.

That’s the point of verses 26-27, where James contrasts true religion and false religion. He’s not saying “religion is a bad thing; all you really need is a relationship with Jesus.” He’s not contrasting religion and relationship. He’s contrasting true and false religion. Religion has to do with the outward implications of a relationship with God (see Luke Timothy Johnson, The Letter of James, pp. 210-11). Christian discipleship is not only an inward relationship, it’s a relationship with God that shows itself in outward actions. The word “religion” has to do with these outward actions. One commentator explains it this way: “Religion is... a comprehensive word for the specific ways in which a heart-relationship to God is expressed in our lives” (J.A. Motyer, The Message of James, p. 75).

The question is not whether or not we’re religious. The question is whether our religion is true or false. In describing the difference, James focuses on three areas: bridling the tongue, showing compassion for those who are vulnerable and in need, and avoiding the pollution of the world. False religion is confined to the spiritual compartment; it doesn’t lead to transformation in the way we use the gift of speech, in the way we respond to people who are in need, or in our attitude toward the world. We may be very diligent in our religious duties, but otherwise we look no different than those around us who make no profession of faith at all. James is saying that when this happens we’ve accepted a counterfeit religion. We’ve been self-deceived and our religion is worthless.

He wants us to know that Christian salvation is about more than going to church and having devotions. God calls us, not only to hear His Word and believe it with our minds, but to respond to it with obedience. He calls us to grow in obedience in each area of our lives: in our relationships, in learning to bridle our tongues; in the ways we use our resources, sharing with those who are vulnerable and in need; and in the way we relate to the world, being in this world but not being polluted by it. When we cultivate a life of obedience, James says we are blessed: “But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act – they will be blessed in their doing.”

Notice how he describes God’s Word. He calls it the “law of liberty.” It sets us free to live the kind of life we were created to live. God’s Word isn’t like a straightjacket which keeps us from doing what we want to do. It’s the Word of the God who created us and who knows what is best for us. “True freedom is the opportunity and the ability to give expression to what we truly are. We are truly free when we live the life appropriate to those who are created in the image of God.... The law of God is the law of liberty because it safeguards, expresses and enables the life of true freedom into which Christ has brought us. This is the blessing of which James speaks (25), the blessing of a full life, a true humanity. Obedience is the key factor in our enjoyment of it” (Motyer, p. 71). Being doers of the Word is the best thing for us; it leads to the kind of life God created us for, a fully human life.

This passage is closely related to one earlier in the chapter which says “welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.” This Word that we’re being called to obey is the Word that saves us. James is saying that if we claim to believe this Word but aren’t growing in obedience we’ve deceived ourselves. Our faith is worthless and will not save us. This doesn’t contradict Paul’s teaching on justification by faith. James is saying that genuine faith can’t be confined to our inner lives; it will manifest itself in outward acts of obedience.

How we respond to this “word that has the power to save” our souls is of the greatest importance. We can’t afford to allow more “urgent” things to crowd this out. C.S. Lewis reminds us of the infinite dimension of our lives and the lives of those around us: “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.... There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal” (The Business of Heaven, pp. 147-48). Each of us is headed in one direction or the other, and we are influencing the direction of others whether we’re aware of it or not. None of us are mere mortals. In the light of such overwhelming possibilities, how can we allow ourselves to be deceived? Since we live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, since we are all moving, and are influencing one another, in one direction or the other: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” Listen attentively to the Word, then remember what you’ve heard as you go about your duties, and order your life in obedience to His commands. Those who do this are blessed.

God is With Us, Psalm 23

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
State College, PA
7/19/15

The great English preacher Charles Spurgeon pointed out that in the first 22 psalms there are no green pastures or still waters. In Psalm 2 we find the nations raging against God, followed by lamentations of psalmists surrounded by enemies, leading up to the 22nd Psalm, which Jesus quoted on the cross. Spurgeon says “It is only after we have read, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ that we come to ‘The Lord is my Shepherd.’ We must by experience know the value of blood-shedding, and see the sword awakened against the Shepherd, before we shall be truly able to know the sweetness of the Good Shepherd’s care.” Psalm 23 follows Psalm 22 because we know God as our shepherd in a world that causes us to cry out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And the message of Psalm 23 is that God is with us and is committed to taking care of us all through our lives, through all different kinds of experiences.

This psalm describes God with two pictures. In the early part of the psalm, verses 1-4, God is described as a Shepherd. And, in verses 5-6, He is pictured as a gracious host. But the main idea, all through the psalm, is that He is present with His people. The words, “for you are with me,” are at the precise center of the psalm. Excluding the superscription, “A Psalm of David,” which was written hundreds of years after the psalmist wrote this prayer, there are 26 words in Hebrew both before and after these words. Hebrew poets liked to play with words in that way, and it seems likely that the author of this psalm puts these words intentionally at the center as the way of giving them special emphasis (see James Limburg, Psalms, p. 74).

God often comforts and reassures His people by reminding them that He is with them. Isaac, the son of Abraham, seems to have struggled with fearfulness. At one point, after an especially difficult time, God appears to him and says: “I am the God of your father, Abraham.... Do not be afraid, for I am with you and will bless you” (Genesis 26:23-24a, NLT). When everything was going wrong in Joseph’s life, the author of Genesis assures us: “The Lord was with Joseph and blessed him greatly as he served in the home of his Egyptian master” (Genesis 39:2, NLT). Later, after he’s been unjustly thrown into prison, the author says again: “But the Lord was with Joseph there, too, and he granted Joseph favor with the chief jailer” (v. 21). When Jeremiah was called to become a prophet, preaching a message which he knew would be unpopular, God reassured him with these words: “And don’t be afraid of the people, for I will be with you and take care of you” (Jeremiah 1:8). As he carried on his ministry, Jeremiah often didn’t feel like the Lord was with him. But he had this assurance from the beginning, and God was with him to the end, even during the dark times when he was ready to give up hope. Paul faced many difficulties during his ministry as an apostle; he was beaten with rods, flogged, shipwrecked; his ministry in Ephesus and Jerusalem led to riots. Most people would have given up in the face of such things. But while he was in Corinth, God reassured him: “Don’t be afraid! Speak out! Don’t be silent! For I am with you, and no one will harm you because many people in this city belong to me” (Acts 18:9-10, NLT). “I am with you.” That’s the thing this psalmist understands, and he puts it at the very center of the psalm to give it prominence and emphasize it. God is with us and is committed to taking care of us all through our lives.

He reinforces this idea, in verses 1-4, by picturing God as a shepherd. Shepherds were responsible for the physical survival and welfare of the flocks under their care. One Bible dictionary points out that, “In comparison with goats, which tended to fend for themselves, sheep depended on the shepherd to find pasture for them..., Shepherds also had to provide shelter, medication, aid in lambing time, and provision for lameness and weariness. Without the shepherd the sheep were helpless” (ISBE Revised, vol. 4, pp. 463-64). Sheep are dependent upon the shepherd. So the point, in verses 1-4, is that God is dependable. He is with us. He won’t desert us, because He is a good Shepherd, who cares for His sheep, knowing that they depend upon Him.

The psalmist lists some of the things that God, our Shepherd, does for us: 1) He leads us to refreshment and rest. Life in this world can be wearying. Sometimes we feel like we have been drained of all our resources, and that we have nothing left to give. When we’re in need of restoration and rest, our great Shepherd leads us beside quiet waters and restores our souls.

2) Our Shepherd also leads us in the right way, He “guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” When we depend on our own resources and wisdom we end up going the wrong way. Isaiah says “all we, like sheep, have gone astray.” We are in the habit of going astray, and we live in a world that tells us, over and over again, that this is the right way to go. So we need to turn continually to our great Shepherd for direction.

3) Our Shepherd also keeps us safe during times of darkness. In the English Standard Version, which is what we read in the service, the translators have a footnote with an alternate translation of the words, “valley of the shadow of death.” The alternate is “the valley of deep darkness.” Other versions offer similar suggestions, and all of these are a more common way of rendering the words in verse 4. For example, Psalm 44:19: “But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals and covered us over with deep darkness.” Or Isaiah 9:2: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light....” Why is this important? The psalmist isn’t only talking here about times when we’re facing death. This world is full of darkness, because it’s under the shadow of death. Our times of darkness are connected with the reality of death in this world. He’s saying that God is with Him during all the dark times of life, those times when we think we’ve lost our way, when we feel like God has deserted us. At all those darkest times of life, God our Shepherd is with us, even though we don’t feel His presence.

Abraham Kuyper was the prime minister of Holland, the founder of the Free University of Amsterdam, and he was also a theologian and a preacher. The first serious theological book I ever read was his book, The Work of the Holy Spirit. I was a fairly young Christian, and I felt guilty reading it. Everything I’d heard about theologians was bad; I’d heard that they weren’t interested in living as true Christians but were only concerned with arguing and studying about insignificant details. I’d heard that Theology was irrelevant and divisive. But I forced myself to keep going, and I learned that the things I’d been told were false. Here’s something I read in that book, on the work of the Holy Spirit as Comforter: “Comfort is a deposited treasure from which I can borrow; it is like the sacrifice of Christ in whom is all my comfort, because on Calvary He opened to all the house of Israel a fountain for sin and uncleanness. But a comforter is a person, who, when I can not go to the fountain nor even see it, goes for me and fills his pitcher and puts the refreshing drops to my burning lips” (vol. 3, ch. 22). When we’re walking through the valley of deep darkness we can’t see where we’re going, and we lose sight of God’s precious promises. We don’t know where to turn for comfort. But we’re not on our own. The Comforter goes to the fountain for us, fills His pitcher, and brings us the refreshment we so desperately need.

There is a great example of this from the life of Jeremiah. In the book of Lamentations, he is grieving over the fall of Jerusalem. The temple has been destroyed, and the people have been deported to Babylon. God's people have been subjected to terrible suffering and cruelty at the hands of the Babylonians. In chapter three we find him at the end of himself. "I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is. So I say, `My splendor is gone, and all I had hoped from the Lord'" (vv.17‑18). He is overwhelmed with grief, and has given up hope even in God. Then, three verses later, he says this: "Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope; Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness" (vv.21‑23). What brought about this change? Why did he call these things to mind? Was Jeremiah capable of reviving himself at this point? No, he was experiencing the work of the Comforter. The Holy Spirit has reminded him of the truth and has renewed his hope. The psalmist, in verse 4, is saying the same thing. God, our great Shepherd, is with us when we go through times of darkness. We’re not on our own, and even when we lose sight of the truth, even when we lose hope, He comforts us with his rod and staff as our Shepherd. We are helpless without Him, like sheep without a shepherd. But He has promised to be with us always, even to the end of the age.

In verses 5-6, the psalmist uses another image: he pictures God as a gracious Host, showing hospitality to His people. Despite the peacefulness and confidence of this psalm, it’s clear that the author is not experiencing easy times. He’s weary and in need of rest and refreshment; he’s going through a dark valley; and even in verse 5, when he’s experiencing God’s gracious hospitality, there are enemies present. God is with him and is committed to caring for him all through his life, but that doesn’t keep him from experiencing difficulties.

The psalmist says three things in verse 5, all of which revolve around the comfort he finds in worship: 1) “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” God is giving him good things in the midst of his difficulties. His enemies have evil intentions, but God is there, doing good things for him. That enables him to keep going. His enemies are speaking evil of him, telling lies about him, but God is blessing him in their presence, showing that He rejects what they’re saying about him. 2) “you anoint my head with oil.” In Scripture, oil is a symbol of God’s spirit, and the anointing oil was used to set a person apart as a priest. The psalmist is anointed with the oil of the Holy Spirit, and he is part of a community of other people who have this same anointing. He’s connected, in the Spirit, with the congregation of God’s people. This leads to the next thing: 3) “my cup overflows.” Listen to this invitation that Jesus gave: “‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive” (John 7:37-39). When we come to Jesus, as part of His body, He pours out His Spirit upon us, and we’re able to say, with the psalmist, “my cup overflows.” He prepares a rich feast for us, in the presence of our enemies, He anoints us with His Spirit and we’re filled to overflowing.

But it’s never enough merely to experience comfort in the present. We need assurance of God’s gracious care in the future, and we need to know that life will not always be what it is now. We won’t always be going through times of deep darkness which threaten to overwhelm us. We won’t always be living in the midst of enemies. The psalmist takes comfort in the gracious care he’s experienced from God, and it enables him to say this about his future: “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Listen to how this verse reads in The Message: “Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life. I’m back home in the house of God for the rest of my life.” Often the Psalmists complain of enemies pursuing them. But here the image is reversed. Goodness and mercy, beauty and love, are chasing after him, and they’ll continue to pursue him all through his life. God’s Word calls us to seek and to hunger after Him. But it doesn’t depend on our seeking. We get distracted and lose our way in the darkness. We go off on tangents. We get sick, and we don’t have the energy to order our lives the way we want to. But He is seeking us, as our Shepherd. He pursues us, to invite us to the great feast at His table.

God, our Shepherd, won’t keep us out of the valley of deep darkness, but He will walk through it with us and His rod and staff will comfort us, often without our awareness of what is going on. We’ll feel like we’re on our own, like He’s deserted us and is no longer blessing us as He has in the past. But somehow we’ll get to the other side of the valley and we’ll find that He was there all the time, and that we’ve gotten through only by His help. He is with us, watching out for us, carrying us when our faith is weak, seeking us when we lose our way, refreshing us with His presence at the times we least expect it.

In the light of all this, let’s make it our aim to walk with Him, whatever else is going on in our lives. Pray this Psalm regularly. Pray this psalm, along with the rest of the psalter, and immerse yourself in God’s Word, reminding yourself often of God’s promises to be with His people. And be regular in corporate worship; when we gather together as God’s people to worship, we’re anticipating the worship we’ll experience around God’s throne in heaven. Even more, we’re taking part in the worship that is happening right now before God’s throne. The refreshment that God gives us when we gather in His presence anticipates the Marriage Feast of the Lamb: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true’” (Revelation 21:1-5). This is what we have to look forward to, and our great Shepherd is caring for us, watching over us, until we arrive safely in His presence.

An Eyewitness to the Resurrection, John 20:1-31

Third Sunday of Easter, 2015
Shiloh Lutheran Church, State College, PA



In 1978, I spent two weeks with a missionary who made a lasting impact on my life. He, more than anyone I’ve ever met, convinced me that it’s worth it to keep going, that it’s a great thing to arrive at the end of our earthly lives knowing that we’ve finished the work God has called us to do. When I met him he was 92 years old and had been diligently following the Lord throughout his long life. It was a great thing to see him at that point, to see the fruit of a “long obedience in the same direction.” The presence of God was a tangible reality with that man, and every time I was around him I found myself stirred with a desire to know God and to walk with Him until the end.

He and his wife had served as missionaries in India, and then retired at 65. They had gone to live in America (he was from England, but his wife was American), and as far as they knew at that point, their ministry was over. They’d completed their work, and now they could sit back and do whatever they wanted. This was their time. But God had other plans. After two years, they were certain that God was calling them to return to India. So they went back, not to their old field, but to a completely new area, where there were no churches and no missionaries. They lived in a tent for the first two years, until they were able to build a mud hut. And when I met him, 25 years after their return to India, he said that God had been at work through them in ways that they’d never experienced before their retirement. The Hindus in the area had given their mission a name that meant “the dwelling place of peace,” because when they went there they recognized something different about the place. So, this man and his wife had come to what they thought was the end of their ministry. They had closed the door and returned to the West, planning to live out the rest of their lives in retirement. They had laid their ministry to rest, thinking maybe that they were too old to be of any use on the mission field. But then God had done something new, something that went beyond anything they’d experienced in their previous work.

Something similar is happening to the disciples in chapter 20 of John’s gospel. They’ve seen Jesus crucified and laid in a borrowed tomb. All their expectations centered around His ministry are over. These are not naive, gullible people. They know people don’t rise from the dead. They’re living in a time before modern medicine, when even something like a simple infection could easily be fatal, because of the lack of antibiotics. They’ve experienced death. They’ve experienced its permanence. They know that when a person dies, that’s the end of it. The 3 ½ years they spent with Him in ministry have come to nothing. It’s now time to put all that to rest and to find something to do with the rest of their lives. But then they find that this is different than all the other deaths they’ve experienced. They learn that He is risen from the dead. He even appears to them in the flesh. And, as a result, they come to know God in ways they couldn’t have during Jesus’ public ministry. Here are the steps: their faith is destroyed by the crucifixion; then, when Jesus rises from the dead their faith is restored, but it’s not only restored. It becomes something more than it had been before the crucifixion. Their whole relationship with God is transformed as a result.

First, notice that their faith is not an irrational leap into the dark. We too often, in our culture, assume that it is. We say, “well, this is my belief, but maybe you believe something else.” When I was in college, a visiting professor shared about how he lost his faith in graduate school and then came to a stronger faith by examining the evidence for the resurrection. Several students were talking to him after the lecture and one said, “faith has nothing to do with reason.” Faith belongs to a different realm altogether and has nothing to do with history and rational proof. Faith has to do with things that we “feel” are true, not things that can be demonstrated by historical and logical arguments.

This is completely different than John’s understanding of faith. The disciples aren’t interested, after the crucifixion, in persuading themselves that Jesus is really alive in some mystical sense. They know that He’s dead. They’ve seen Him die. The only thing that will persuade them of His resurrection is seeing physical evidence that something miraculous has happened. It doesn’t matter what they “feel” is true, as long as Jesus’ body is still laying there in the tomb.

The Resurrection is well-established by people who were eyewitnesses. John, who wrote this gospel, was there. This was the last of the gospels to be written, but the apostles had been preaching the truth of the Resurrection now for over half a century. They’d been preaching the Resurrection as a historical fact. Especially in the beginning, when they were preaching in Jerusalem, it would have been very easy for their enemies to discredit them by producing the body of Jesus. But they didn’t do it, because the tomb was empty. And those who preached as witnesses to the Resurrection paid a great price for the things they were saying. Many of them died as martyrs. They were willing to suffer great loss for preaching the Resurrection, because they were eyewitnesses and they knew it was true. They knew beyond any doubt that Jesus had risen from the dead.

The faith of the apostles was not an irrational leap in the dark. But, at the same time, their faith didn’t give them complete understanding. It didn’t do away with all their questions. It didn’t immediately clear everything up for them. John describes the graveclothes when they arrived at the tomb: “He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.” After the Resurrection, Jesus is still in a body, but His body is different. He appears to the disciples when they are hiding behind closed doors for fear of the Jews. He is no longer hindered by physical barriers. When Lazarus was raised from the dead he had to be freed from the graveclothes that were wrapped all around him. But Jesus had no need for this. He simply passed through them and left them laying there in the tomb. John got to the tomb first, but he didn’t go in. Then, after Peter was inside, John says this: “Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” John “took one look at the evidence and believed” (The Message). But he still didn’t understand Jesus’ teaching that the Resurrection was prophesied in Scripture.

As I listened to that visiting professor arguing with students who saw faith as a totally irrational thing, I thought he went too far. He made the Christian life sound like an intellectual exercise, as if the whole business of following Christ is primarily about ideas. I’m not sure that he really thought this way; he was trying to introduce some sanity to people who were at the opposite extreme. When I commented on some things he was saying, he agreed that the picture he was painting was unbalanced. Faith is rational; the Bible presents us with good, strong evidence for God’s intervention in real history. But faith is not limited to what we can explain and understand. Faith is rational, but it is not limited by our rationality.

We can come to genuine faith while we still have questions about many things. We can have genuine faith while our understanding is still cloudy. The evidence is sufficient so that believing the gospel is not intellectual suicide; but we don’t need to have all our doubts and questions fully answered before we can believe. Here’s something Jesus said earlier in His public ministry: “Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own” (John 7:17). If we have a genuine desire to be obedient to God our creator, we will know the truth. Often our doubts and struggles are a smokescreen. It’s not that we doubt the truth. It’s that we don’t want to obey God, and our intellectual questions become an excuse for disobedience. As finite human beings, we never have complete understanding about anything. So, in the life of faith, it’s no surprise that there are going to be things that we don’t understand. Many of our questions will be answered over time, but there will be others that we won’t fully answer in this life. Having genuine faith doesn’t mean that we fully understand everything.

The last thing to notice is this: their faith was not an end in itself. Faith brings us into a living relationship with God. It’s common, in our culture, to put all the emphasis on faith, to say things like, “it doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you’re sincere.” “The important thing is to have faith in something.” Is this true, that faith has value in itself? Many people, in the history of the world, have believed in and practiced human sacrifice. They sincerely believed that God would be pleased if they sacrificed their children to Him. They were sincere, but they were sincere about the wrong thing. Or, what if I say “I believe I can fly.” I could spend a lot of time and energy concentrating all my faith on that one idea, to believe without doubting that I can fly. I may be perfectly sincere in this belief. But what will happen if I go to the top of a tall building and try to fly? I’ll have a very short vertical flight down to the pavement below. The important thing is not that we believe in something. The important thing is that we believe the truth. The truth is that I wasn’t created with the ability to fly. It’s important, for my continued well-being, that I believe the truth about this. Faith has no value in itself. It only has value in connection with the truth.

Thomas goes through a struggle to arrive at faith. At first, when the other disciples tell him they’ve seen the risen Lord, he says “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” He’s not gullible; he doesn’t want to be taken in. But then, a week later, the Lord appears to him and he immediately cries out, “My Lord and my God!” When he does come to faith, it leads him into a new relationship with Jesus; for the first time, he recognizes the truth about who Jesus is. He sees the truth of what we are told in the prologue to this gospel, that Jesus is the Incarnate Son of God, the Word made flesh. Genuine faith is not an end in itself. It leads us into a life-transforming relationship with God.

That’s the point John makes at the end of the chapter: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” Believing the truth about Jesus leads us to life. Believing the truth about Jesus brings us into a relationship with God. Listen to what John says at the beginning of his first letter: “We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life–this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us–we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 3:1-3). He’ speaking as an eyewitness, but his purpose in telling the things he’s seen is so that his readers can enter into fellowship with God. Faith is not an end in itself. It brings us into a life-transforming relationship with the living God.

John writes as an eyewitness. He’s not writing edifying religious stories to help us cope with the meaninglessness of life in this world. He’s telling us what he has seen and heard and experienced. But he also records these words of Jesus: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” We’re not eyewitnesses of the Resurrection, but we have the testimony of those who were. And Jesus says we are blessed, or happy, if we believe their testimony.

Peter writes to some people like this in his first letter. He’s writing to people who were suffering persecution for their faith, and he says this about their relationship with Jesus: “Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8-9). They haven’t seen Jesus, but they have believed the gospel and have come to love Him. And believing in Him, they’ve come into a life-transforming relationship and they are experiencing “indescribable and glorious joy” in His presence, despite the fact that they are suffering persecution. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Jesus is indeed risen from the dead. He has paid in full the price for our sins and has risen to give us new life. This is what we are celebrating during this Easter season. May God grant us grace to live more in the light of this truth.

Following Jesus in Emptying Ourselves, Philippians 2:1-11

Palm Sunday, 2015

Shiloh Lutheran Church

The singer-songwriter Ken Medema has a song called “Flying Upside Down.” It begins with these words: “All your life you have been learnin’/ Every kinda way to get ahead/ You’ve got to build yourself a future/ Those are the words your daddy said/ Now there is another calling/ It’s tellin’ you to change your mind/ Tells you finding leads to losing/ Tells you losing lets you find.” He’s paraphrasing Jesus’ words in Matthew 10:39: “If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give it up for me, you will find it” (NLT). Or Matthew 20:25-28: “You know that in this world kings are tyrants, and officials lord it over the people beneath them. But among you it should be quite different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must become your slave. For even I, the Son of Man, came here not to be served but to serve others, and to give my life as a ransom for many” (NLT).

Following Jesus leads us to live in ways that don’t make sense to the world. As we seek to live in obedience to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, we find ourselves valuing things that the world thinks are worthless, ordering our lives according to priorities that are exactly opposite those of the world. Donald Kraybill wrote a book on the Kingdom of God entitled The Upside Down Kingdom. Here’s something he says in the book: “The Gospels portray the kingdom of God as inverted or upside down in comparison with both ancient Palestine and modern ways.... Kingdom players follow new rules. They listen to another coach. Kingdom values challenge patterns of social life taken for granted in modern culture. Kingdom habits don’t mesh smoothly with dominant cultural trends. They may, in fact, look foolish” (p. 19).

This passage in Philippians calls us to act in ways that run counter to everything we do by nature. Paul tells us here that following Jesus involves laying aside our desire to be first, our tendency to grasp for what we want; it involves considering the needs of others, especially others in the body of Christ. By nature, as fallen people, we are self-centered. Advertisers encourage us to focus on ourselves. We deserve a break. We deserve the best. If we don’t grasp for what we want, someone else will get it. We only go through life once, so we need to reach for everything we can.

This is the culture in which we find ourselves, a culture that tells us over and over again that it’s both good and right for us to be absorbed with ourselves, that to do anything else is sheer foolishness. But in the midst of this self-absorbed environment, Jesus calls us to lay aside our desire to be first. He calls us to care for others, to sacrifice ourselves for the good of the Body. He calls us to “fly upside down,” to live by the values of the “Upside Down Kingdom.”

The Philippians were in some difficulty. Near the end of chapter one, Paul makes it clear that they were suffering persecution: “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him” (v. 29). But they were also beginning to have conflict within the church. Paul is at pains throughout this letter to address all the saints, and he wants to be sure that they are standing “firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel” (1:27). In chapter two he has this strong exhortation about unity, and in chapter four he pleads with Euodia and Sytyche “to agree with each other in the Lord” (4:2). The situation wasn’t yet out of control: Paul was able to pray joyfully for them (1:4), and the tone of this whole letter is very warm. But they were in danger. They were under pressure from the surrounding society, and they were beginning to grate on each other.

I’ve sometimes heard Christians speak romantically about the effects of persecution on the Church. I’ve heard people describing some of the spiritual problems plaguing Christianity in America say “what the church in America really needs is a time of persecution.” It’s true that, by the miracle of God’s grace, Christians have often borne powerful testimony during times of persecution. Tertullian, the North African church father, was right when he said the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church. But that’s not the whole story. Persecution puts tremendous pressure on God’s people, and one of the by-products of this pressure has often been disunity. One of the major controversies in the early centuries of the Church was over how to deal with those who turned away during a time of persecution and later wanted to return to the Church. Those who’d suffered and lost loved ones wanted them banned. After all, they’d denied Christ to save their own lives at a time when others were willingly facing death in His name. But, at the same time, many recognized the need to show grace and forgiveness. So it’s true that God’s people have been enabled to bear a powerful witness during times of persecution. But it hasn’t been easy, and the difficulty of bearing up under the pressure of opposition has often led to tension and disunity in the church. This seems to have been the case at Philippi.

The chapter division here interrupts Paul’s thought. There’s a strong connection with what Paul has been saying in chapter one. Most translations begin 2:1 with the word “therefore” (or some variation). For example, the NASB has: “If therefore there is any encouragement in Christ....” The Greek text has the particle oun, which is normally translated “therefore.” For some reason the NIV leaves this particle untranslated, but the flow of Paul’s thought seems clearer in the other translations (some of the commentators criticize the NIV at this point). Paul is drawing a conclusion from this earlier discussion, so the thought goes like this: “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.... Therefore... make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.”

The first thing Paul does here, in verses 1-2, is to exhort them to make unity a priority on the basis of their common experience in Jesus Christ. Here’s how Peterson translates this in The Message: “If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care....” It’s interesting that he doesn’t begin with the assumption that they all think the same way. Churches all too often find their identity by stressing the things that set them apart from other churches. In 1976, I visited a church in Norfolk, Virginia, that had these words on the sign out front: Independent, Fundamental, Premillennial, Pretribulational. “Independent” stressed that they were not a part of a denomination, but independent churches of this type have certain things in common, in the same way that denominational churches do. “Fundamental” identified them with the conservative response to the fundamentalist/modernist controversy of the 1920's, and the other two labels advertised their beliefs about eschatology. Once we got inside, we found that they also identified themselves by a commitment to the King James Bible as the only acceptable English translation, along with a long list of other defining features. This is what bound them together as a body, and anyone in the church who had serious doubts in any of these areas would very quickly become an outsider. The thing that bound them together, the basis for their unity, was agreement with a very large set of standards.

What is the thing that binds us together as God’s people? It’s true that there are certain things we believe, but the primary thing, the thing that’s the basis for our unity, is that we are one in Jesus Christ. The Philippians have been united with Christ, they’ve known the comfort of His love, they’ve experienced the reality of fellowship in the Spirit. They’ve experienced these things as part of their “common life in Christ” (NEB). They may have little in common as individuals; we know the early church was made up of slaves, slave owners, Roman citizens and Roman subjects, Jews and Gentiles. These weren’t people who normally spent time together. These people, for the most part, saw each other as adversaries. But in Jesus Christ they became part of one body, and on the basis of this common bond, Paul urges them: “make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.”

This raises a question: if we are bound together in this way in Jesus Christ, what causes divisions? And how do we cultivate the sort of unity Paul describes here? We may recognize our common bond in Christ, but what are we to do about it? Paul answers both of these questions in vv. 3-4. The major causes of divisiveness in the church are 1) selfish ambition; 2) Obsession with our personal prestige; and 3) Concentration on ourselves (William Barclay, pp. 31-32). And the way to cultivate unity in the church is to follow Paul’s instructions here in these verses. These three things -- selfish ambition, obsession with personal prestige, and concentration on ourselves -- often go together and they inevitably lead to dissension. John’s third epistle has an example of someone like this. John had written earlier, instructing the church to welcome itinerant preachers and show hospitality to them. He says: “I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will have nothing to do with us. So if I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, gossiping maliciously about us. Not satisfied with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church” (vv. 9-10). He’s full of selfish ambition, vain conceit, and obsession with only his own interests. He “loves to be first.” I think we’ll one day be shocked to learn how many church splits have been caused by people like Diotrephes, who justify their actions with theological and biblical language, but who are really just grasping after first place.

Chronically divisive people like Diotrephes really belong under the subject of church discipline. Paul instructed Titus to “Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him. You may be sure that such a man is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned” (Titus 3:10-11). But we all struggle with the kind of selfishness in verses 3 & 4. What can we do? The first step is negative: we refuse to continue cultivating a self-centered spirit. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.” Every time we feel compelled to act out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, we stop ourselves. And we refuse to continue being preoccupied with only what we want. When we find ourselves dwelling on our own desires, growing anxious and resentful because of things that are standing in the way, we stop, and refuse to continue cultivating this attitude.

But we won’t get very far if we stop here. In fact, we really don’t want to dwell too much on the negative side of the process, as that will only make things worse. We need to be alert enough to notice our own selfishness, but then we need to repent of it, lay it aside and cultivate the opposite, positive qualities. Getting rid of selfish ambition and vain conceit is not our primary goal; our purpose is to cultivate a humility that values others and seeks the best for them. Our purpose is not to forget about our own interests, but to lay aside our own desires long enough to care for the needs of others. So we don’t stay with the negative. We face and deal with our self-centeredness, but then we go on to cultivate humility and concern for others.

But Paul is not interested in setting up an abstract ethical ideal. Those who reduce Christianity to an ethical system really miss the whole point of the New Testament. We cultivate these qualities Paul describes in the context of a relationship with Jesus Christ. He is the perfect example of self-denial and self-sacrifice. “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” We want to be first, we want our own way. But Jesus “did not demand and cling to his rights as God” (NLT). Adam and Eve grasped after equality with God. And we follow them when we grasp after the best for ourselves. Jesus “had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what” (The Message). He laid aside His own rights as God; and having done that, He continued to humble Himself, submitting to death as a common criminal. He didn’t take care of His own interests, but He laid aside His interests for our sake. This passage in Philippians is a more extended version of what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8:9: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”

And because of this, God has exalted Him. Jesus refused to cling to His equality with God, and because of this God has given Him a name that is above every name. He humbled Himself, and God exalted Him. We’re afraid that if we don’t fight for our own interests we’ll lose in the end. We’re afraid others will get ahead of us. But when we think like this we’re leaving God out of the picture. We’re part of an upside down kingdom. Things don’t work here in the same way that they do in the world. The surest way to lose the things that matter most is to selfishly grasp them for our own benefit. The world’s way, seeking the best for ourselves, watching out for number one, leads to death. “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:25-26).

The eternal Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, who had every right to claim first place, laid aside His privileges for our sake. Following Him, being His disciples, means laying aside our desire to be first. We don’t have the right to claim first place anyway. He laid aside what was rightfully His; we grasp after what is not ours, that which we could only have by displacing God Himself. George Whitefield was the leader of the Evangelical Revival of the 18th Century. He introduced John and Charles Wesley to the idea of open air preaching, and had established religious societies all over England. When he traveled to the American colonies for a preaching tour, he left John Wesley in charge of his societies. Wesley was a capable leader, and the two men were close friends. They had theological differences though. Wesley was an Arminian, which means that he put more emphasis on the necessity of a human response to God; and Whitefield was a Calvinist, putting a stronger emphasis on the absolute sovereignty of God, that He is in control of all that happens. (There’s a lot more to it than this, but this is enough for our purposes today). By the time Whitefield returned to England, four years later, the Methodist movement had developed into two parts: Calvinistic Methodism, following Whitefield; and Arminian Methodism, following the Wesleys.

During Whitefield’s absence from England, there had been a growing rivalry between the two branches of Methodism, and Whitefield’s followers expected him to give leadership to their faction. They expected him to take a stand for the truth, to defend the correct position. But he didn’t want any part in the schism. He “was determined to have no part in the prevailing competitive spirit, but rather to do everything in his power to quench it” (George Whitefield, vol. 2, p. 249). He gave up his position as leader of a movement and determined that he would serve both branches of Methodism, becoming, in his own words, “simply the servant of all” (p. 251). Here’s what he wrote shortly afterwards: “I have disengaged myself from the immediate care of the Societies, and am now still more at liberty to preach the Gospel of the blessed God. I have no party to be at the head of, and through God’s grace I will have none: but as much as in me lies, will strengthen the hands of all of every denomination that preach Jesus Christ in sincerity” (p. 246).

George Whitefield is comparatively unknown today, because he was willing, for the good of the Church, to say “may the name of George Whitefield perish.” He followed the One who “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant....”

How do we become like that? Cultivating thoughts of our own worthlessness clearly leads us in the wrong direction. It just makes us more self-absorbed. The way to grow in humility is to know more of who God is. Early in his ministry, Paul said “I am the least of the apostles” (1 Cor. 15:9). Later on he calls himself “the least of all God’s people” (Ephesians 3:8). And, near the end of his life he says this: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners -- of whom I am the worst” (1 Timothy 1:15). The more he knew of God, the more he became aware of his own sinfulness and unworthiness. The way to grow in humility is to seek God and spend time in His presence. The way to become less self-absorbed is to become more absorbed with God. “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18).

People like Paul and George Whitefield became the way they were because they were imitators of Jesus Christ, who laid aside His right to be first and emptied Himself for our sake. That’s what we’re celebrating on Palm Sunday as we enter into Holy Week. Take time this week to meditate on Jesus’ self-emptying and the suffering He endured to reconcile us to God, in anticipation of celebrating the resurrection next Sunday.

Waiting in Expectation, Luke 2:25-38

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church

First Sunday in Christmas, 2014

In the early 1980's, Anne and I worked with Operation Mobilization, on the ship Logos. We joined the ship in Sri Lanka, then traveled up the west coast of India, then to Pakistan and Dubai, and then into the Red Sea, visiting Sudan and Jordan. In each port, we sold books (both Christian and secular) and had conferences for local Christians on various subjects. In some of these countries our programs were restricted, but we were at least able to minister to local churches, and in most places we had evangelistic programs as well.

The Middle East was difficult, because of all the political tensions, and because of the restrictions we had in some Muslim countries. We were in Dubai and Sudan during Ramadan, and the local people were grouchy and impatient because they couldn’t eat during the day. In Jordan, we had a large book exhibition in the capital city of Amman and sold lots of books, but it was a tense, difficult time. We always had the sense of being watched, and one of the political officials was determined to coerce us into giving him as many free books as possible. By the time we left Jordan, many of us were exhausted and fed up with the Middle East.

From Jordan, we sailed through the Suez Canal and into Alexandria, Egypt, to begin our scheduled program there. But as soon as we lowered the gangway, armed guards boarded the ship and wouldn’t let anyone leave. The next day, we were sent out to anchor while the line-up team talked to officials, trying to find out what was happening. All the necessary permissions had been obtained well in advance, and local churches were looking forward to the visit. We sat at anchor for a week, within sight of the city but unable to reenter the port. We finally learned that the Islamic Brotherhood had made terroristic threats against the ship, and that the Egyptian government was unwilling to take the risk of letting us carry on in the light of these threats.

During that week while we sat at anchor, we had days of prayer and fasting, asking God to reopen this door that had closed. Some of the ship people were really enthusiastic, rebuking Satan and claiming victory, perfectly assured that God would reverse the Egyptian government’s position so that we could carry on our program there. But some of us were so fed up with the Middle East that we didn’t want to go back into port. We didn’t really care that the program in Alexandria had been canceled. We were happy to go somewhere else and found it impossible to pray fervently for the doors to reopen. We were emotionally and spiritually drained. But none of us–those who were claiming victory or we who were cynically pleased for a temporary reprieve from the tensions of ministry in the Islamic world–had any idea what God was going to do. Our ministry–carefully planned and prepared in advance–had come to a stop, and it soon became apparent that God had something else in mind.

After a week, we sailed to Cyprus, and then to Lebanon, just north of Beirut, where God had miraculously opened a door. A week before our arrival in Lebanon, a ship had been sunk at the very place where Logos sat at anchor, and it wouldn’t have been safe for us to be there. A week after we left, the president had been assassinated and conditions in the country deteriorated. This was probably the only week during that decade when we could have visited. But God provided, in a surprising way, this brief period, during which we were able to openly and boldly proclaim the gospel.

Christianity is not just a system of ideas or a code of morality. We have to do with the Living God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. The Christian life is not primarily about what we do for God. It’s about what God is doing. This is exciting, but it can also be unsettling, because He will often lay aside our plans and programs because He has something better in mind. We usually have very definite ideas about what He should be doing, but He doesn’t consult with us. He doesn’t submit to our careful planning. Following Him is unsettling, because we are not in control.

When we arrived in Lebanon, we were startled by the people’s outlook on life. They had no sense of hope for the future. They had been living constantly in the presence of violence and death, and they had come to expect the worst. They were amazed, they told us, that someone had been willing to come from the outside world to minister to them, and they spent money like people who had no thought of the future. They were intent on grasping any joy they could find in the present, because they had no assurance that they would still be alive the next week.

The lives of the people in Jerusalem when Jesus was born were similar, in many ways, to the lives of these people in Lebanon. They lived under foreign occupation, ruled by people who didn’t understand or sympathize with their religious practices. There had been repeated attempts to seize power from the Romans, but these had been crushed mercilessly. The Roman governors maintained order, so things didn’t become chaotic like they were in Lebanon. But the people of Israel hated being ruled by an idolatrous nation, and violence and death were a regular part of their lives, especially the lives of the poorer people (which those in Luke 2 seem to have been).

The thing that stands out when we read this passage in Luke 2, is that these people were full of hope. They were waiting in anticipation of this One who would come to deliver them. Many things had happened over the past centuries to crush their hope. There had been a brief time, under the Maccabeans, when it looked like they had won their independence as a nation again. But it didn’t last long, and soon they had once again been conquered. From time to time their conquerors had committed atrocities in Jerusalem. Some had intentionally desecrated the Temple. During this period, Roman rule was very strong and rebellion was crushed immediately.

But the people in Luke 2 are full of hope. Their experience of violence and death and poverty, and the failures of the nation to achieve independence, have not crushed their hopes for the future. They stand out from the people we met in Lebanon, who were intent on grasping whatever joy they could in the present. But they also stand out from some other groups who lived in Palestine during this time. There was a group called the Zealots, who opposed paying taxes to a pagan emperor, and who placed their hopes for the future in armed revolt. The Zealots believed God would enable them to overthrow the idolatrous people who were ruling them, and they actively looked for ways to carry out their mission.

Simeon and Anna, and the others at the Temple on that day, didn’t put their hopes in armed rebellion against the Romans. William Barclay describes them as the “Quiet in the Land.” “They had no dreams of violence and of power and of armies with banners; they believed in a life of constant prayer and quiet watchfulness until God should come. All their lives they waited quietly and patiently upon God” (Gospel of Luke, p. 21). They were full of hope, not because of their own abilities and plans. They were full of hope because they knew God and they trusted Him to intervene and come to their rescue. They weren’t just religiously going through the motions of worship; they weren’t just following a system of theology or morality. They knew that they were dealing with the living God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. Because they knew God, their lives were marked by a sense of expectation and anticipation.

Listen to these words from Hebrews 11: “What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see” (Hebrews 11:1, NLT). The life of faith is a life of looking forward to what God is going to do in the future. It’s a life of joyful anticipation and expectation based on the certainty that God will fulfill His promises.

Look, first of all, at Luke’s description of Simeon in these verses. He “was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.” He was seeking to live in a right relationship with God, submitting himself to God’s lordship. That’s the general idea behind the words “righteous and devout.” J.B. Phillips translates: “He was an upright man, devoted to the service of God.” He made it his aim to live in obedience to God’s Word. But the Pharisees also sought to do this. Their aim in life was to be obedient to the Law, but there was something lacking in their spirituality. They were proud of their obedience, and they looked down on everyone else. They were so obsessed with themselves and their accomplishments that they weren’t attentive to God.

Simeon was obedient, but he didn’t celebrate his obedience. His focus was on God, not on himself. He was “a man who lived in the prayerful expectancy of help for Israel” (The Message). He didn’t spend his life looking at himself, saying “Lord, I thank you that I’m not like other people.” He lived in anticipation of God’s faithfulness to His promises. He was attentive to God. The Holy Spirit was upon him, and he’d been given this special revelation that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Christ. Why would God give him a promise like that? He doesn’t seem to have been a religious leader. This is the only time we encounter him in Scripture. We know nothing about his accomplishments. But he was a man who walked with God for a lifetime, “righteous and devout.... waiting for the consolation of Israel.” As he walked with God, praying for the good of the nation, God spoke to him and gave him this special promise. Because he was walking with God, he was attentive to God’s leading and went into the Temple at just the right time; because the Holy Spirit was upon him, he recognized the child for who he was, when all the leaders of the nation were oblivious. The most important event in the history of the Temple was taking place, and all those who spent their lives ministering in the Temple missed it completely. But Simeon recognized what was happening, because he walked with God and lived in anticipation of His promises.

When Simeon saw the baby, he took him in his arms and praised God. In verse 29, he says that he is now ready to die: “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace.” The fulfillment of God’s promise means that his life here on earth is nearly over. But this doesn’t seem to bother him. He’s ready to die. His whole life is caught up in what God is doing for His people. He’s engrossed in something much bigger than himself, and his life–even in the face of death–overflows with praise and wonder.

In verses 30 & 31, he elaborates: “For my eyes have seen your salvation.” We don’t know much about Simeon, whether or not he had family members still living, what sorts of things he enjoyed doing, whether he had any unfinished projects. There may have been things he still wanted to accomplish, or people he wanted to spend more time with. But at this point in his life the central thing, the thing that mattered more than anything else, was God and His purposes. Having seen God’s salvation, he was ready to let go of everything else. Simeon’s emphasis here is not on the great things he’s been able to accomplish for God’s glory. He’s lived a long life and has been faithful; he has a vibrant, lively relationship with God. It seems safe to assume that he’s been a blessing to many people over the years. But that’s not the thing in focus here. The thing that stands out is his realization of what God is doing. And God is doing something greater than anyone ever could have anticipated. This little child before them is: “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” He’s the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies that the people have been hearing in worship every week.

Simeon’s hope for the future is firmly rooted in the past, and it’s strongly tied to the community of God’s people. It’s important for us to take note of this, because our culture is highly individualistic and thinks the past is irrelevant. Christopher Lasch, in The Culture of Narcissism, said: “A denial of the past, superficially progressive and optimistic, proves on closer analysis to embody the despair of a society that cannot face the future” (p. 26). An autonomous individual, with no strong ties to community, and also cut off from the past, can only live for the present. What Lasch observes about our society is also true for individuals. “A denial of the past... proves... to embody the despair of a [person who] cannot face the future.” I believe part of the explanation for the superficiality in much of American Christianity is that we’ve been infected by the excessive individualism of our culture. Too much of our focus is on “Jesus and me,” with no sense of being involved in a community that includes all those who call on the name of Jesus Christ, both on earth and in heaven. We’ve also accepted our culture’s opinion about the past and have lost the sense of our great heritage as part of a body that stretches back to the beginning of time. Our picture of the Church is too small, and our worship and prayer are impoverished. Simeon had a strong hope for the future. He’d spent his life “waiting for the consolation of Israel.” But his hope was tied to the community of God’s people–it was “the consolation of Israel” that he was looking for–and his hope was firmly rooted in God’s promises, given hundreds of years before. It wasn’t just “what God is doing for me.” It was “God is fulfilling His promise to His people, and He’s graciously included me.”

While all this is going on, Anna approaches them, and she also immediately recognizes what is happening. These aren’t the only other people in the Temple. There would have been priests there, carrying on their regular ministry. Joseph and Mary would have dealt with the priests in making offerings to fulfill the requirements of the Law. These were people whose whole life revolved around the Temple and the Law, but we don’t hear anything about them. The One who is the fulfillment of the whole Old Testament sacrificial system is present. And the priests–all of them–miss the whole thing. And what is even more remarkable, given the status of women at that time–one of the two people who recognizes what is happening at that moment is a woman.

Anna was a widow whose life revolved around worship and prayer. She may have been 84-years-old, as most translations render verse 37, or she may have been a widow for 84 years, making her over 100. In any case, she had been widowed while she was still a young woman. Life for widows was difficult in that culture. But she hadn’t grown bitter over the years. Suffering can affect us in two different ways. It can make us bitter and resentful, closed in upon ourselves. Or it can open us up to God with a strong sense of need. The difficulties that Anna had faced early in her life drew her closer to God. Rather than diminishing over the years (as happens when we become bitter), she was known to others as a prophetess, a woman who knew God and spoke in His name. And when this great moment took place, she was attentive to the Spirit and recognized what was happening, even though all the leaders of the nation and Temple were oblivious.

Anna did two things when she came up to them. She gave thanks to God. She was like Simeon. She recognized that the most important thing going on at that moment was not all the great schemes of the political and religious leaders. The most important thing going on was God’s work of redemption. She expected Him to fulfil His promises, and she was waiting with anticipation. So the first thing she did was to give thanks to Him for the great things He was doing. The other thing she did was speak about what she saw: she “spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.” Notice how these people are described. They’re not just people who believe and do the right things. They’re people who are waiting expectantly for God’s intervention in the lives of His people. Remember what we observed early in the sermon: The life of faith is a life of looking forward to what God is going to do in the future. It’s a life of joyful anticipation and expectation based on the certainty that God will fulfill His promises. All the people who gave God glory for the things He was doing that day were people who were attentive to Him, who were waiting expectantly on His deliverance.

All this happened a long time ago in a completely different culture. What difference does it make for us? Simeon stresses, in his words to Mary in verses 34 & 35, the importance of our response to this child who was being presented in the Temple on that day: “This child will be rejected by many in Israel, and it will be their undoing. But he will be the greatest joy to many others. Thus, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed” (NLT). Those who reject Him do so to their own undoing. Our eternal well-being is tied to the question of how we respond to Jesus Christ. So where are you in relation to Him? Are you submitting to His lordship? Have you given up all hope of saving yourself, of pleasing God through your own efforts? Have you committed your life to Him and cried out to Him for mercy, and are you seeking each day to live in ways that are pleasing to Him? Does the thought of seeing Jesus face to face fill you with joy, or dread? Where are you in relation to Him?

As we observe this brief Christmas season and prepare to begin a new calendar year, let’s set our hearts to be attentive to what God is doing. He may be doing things that lie outside our comfort zone, things that we don’t expect. If that happens, may He enable us to be like Simeon and Anna rather than the religious leaders who were going about their business and missed the most important event in the history of the Temple. Set aside time to spend in His presence, and cultivate an expectant attitude in worship. We’re not just going through the motions when we worship Him. We have to do with the Living God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. Be attentive to what He is doing. We never know when He is going to intervene in an extraordinary way. When that happens, may He find us waiting expectantly.

The Church of God in Corinth, 1 Corinthians 1:1-3

Shiloh Lutheran Church, State College PA
First Sunday in Advent, 2014

In 2002, Jack Whittaker won $315 million in the lottery, the largest undivided jackpot in U.S. history up to that point. This is just the sort of thing many people dream of, a solution to all the job hassles and financial pressures that can make life miserable. It’s this hope of becoming suddenly rich that drives a person who’s already struggling financially to spend $20.00 or more on lottery tickets (I’m familiar with this because many of the people I work with spend substantial amounts of money on lottery tickets even though they’re living on disability with very limited income). Jack Whittaker’s story sounds like a dream-come-true. But I read a quote from Jewel Whittaker, his wife. She said, “I wish I would have torn the ticket up.” In the two years after winning, her husband was arrested twice for drunk driving and once for assault; he was then ordered to enter into rehab. It doesn’t sound like winning the lottery was such a good thing in his life. Advent, at its most basic level, is about looking forward, anticipating a better future. But often our hopes for the future become distorted and we end up hoping for the wrong things.

We’re not very good at discerning our true needs. William Willimon, a Methodist pastor, tells of an advertisement he saw for a local church: “We’ve got just what you are looking for, come and get it.” He responds: “Perhaps it’s because I work with young adults, but I thought to myself, ‘I know what these people are looking for – some of it is both immoral and illegal! Is that church giving them that?’” (“It’s Hard to be Seeker-Sensitive When You Work for Jesus” in Circuit Rider, September/October 2003, p. 4). One of the problems with catering, as a church, to people’s “felt needs” is that we’re usually wrong about what our needs are. Very often getting what we want is the absolute worst thing that can happen to us.

Willimon goes on a little later: “Jesus is not simply about meeting my felt needs; he is also about rearranging my needs, not only about fulfilling my desires; he is also about transforming my desires. Jesus is wonderfully nonchalant about so many of my heart-felt desires. It’s amazing how many of my needs (material affluence, sexual fulfillment, happiness, etc.) appear not in the least to interest Jesus. Many of you can testify that Jesus, the better you got to know him, did not fulfil all your needs but sometimes gave you needs you did not have before you met Jesus!” (p. 5). In our market-driven culture, it’s become increasingly fashionable for churches to appeal to felt needs as a way of winning people to Christ. Many churches grow very large doing this, and it’s difficult to resist the temptation to imitate their methods. But the danger is that in catering to felt needs in this way our message becomes distorted. Willimon asks, “When... do we pull out the cross? When, as we’re touting all the benefits of choosing Jesus, do we also say to them, ‘By the way, Jesus said that anyone who bought into his message would also suffer and die’” (p. 5).

The thing that is clear in these opening verses of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, is that the Church is primarily about God and His purposes. The purpose of the Church is not to minister to our felt needs. In the Church, we’re not at the center. Our desires are disordered by sin; we don’t clearly know what is best for us, and getting our own way is often the worst thing that could happen. The Church is about God and His purposes. But a surprising thing happens when we bow our stiff, proud necks, and accept this: we find that in laying aside our desires and putting Him first, our needs are rearranged and transformed. God gives us better things than what we were hoping for. But it begins by accepting the fact that we are not the ones in charge. The Church is not here to give us what we want, or even what we think we need. The Church is primarily about God (which is why our worship is structured, not to make everyone feel good, but to direct our hearts to God).

Notice, first of all, what Paul says about himself. He says he is “called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” Paul’s vocation, the thing that consumes his life, wasn’t his idea at all. He was going about his business, being a good Pharisee, thinking he was doing God’s will in seeking to destroy the Church. And he was good at it. He tells the Galatians: “I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors” (1:14). He had a good career; he’d invested years in training. He was gifted and committed. But then something happened: “God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me” (vv. 15-16a). God intervened in his life and said, “I have other plans for you.” Not plans that Paul would have found appealing; God’s plans were just the opposite of what Paul had in mind. God told Ananias, a believer in Damascus, “he is an instrument who I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:15-16).

That’s what Paul is saying here at the beginning of this letter. He wasn’t a Seeker; God was the one doing the seeking, and He intervened in Paul’s life at the most unexpected time. Everything Paul says in verse one puts God at the center. God was the one who did the calling. The word “apostle” means “one who is sent.” Paul was sent to deliver a message that didn’t belong to him. And, to make sure that there is no misunderstanding, he adds “by the will of God.” It wasn’t his idea. The whole thing came about because of God’s plan. This fits with another observation Willimon makes: “the Bible hardly ever, almost never depicts anybody seeking Jesus. Rather, the story is about God’s relentless seeking of us in Christ” (p. 5). Paul was “called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.”

But, of course, we’re likely to say that because Paul was an apostle his situation was exceptional. So it’s important to pay attention to what he says about the Corinthians. Remember that this church is in trouble; Paul is writing because there are serious problems and the church is in danger of splitting into several factions. So he’s not just writing to the leaders; he’s writing to the whole church: “To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be saints, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ – their Lord and ours.” His description of the church is meant to remind them of who they are; he’s trying to put their priorities back in order.

First, he calls them “the church of God.” He wants to remind the Corinthians that the Church doesn’t belong to them. I’ve heard people say sometimes in business meetings of churches, “We don’t want to be that kind of church.” The proper response to that is, “the church doesn’t belong to you, so it’s not up to you to make that decision.” The place to begin is by reminding ourselves that the church is “of God.” It belongs to Him. Gordon Fee says this in his commentary on 1 Corinthians: “The church belongs to God..., not to them or to Paul (or Apollos).... Paul disallows at the outset one of their tendencies – to think too highly of themselves” (p. 31).

This is true, not only of our individual preferences, but also of our denominational tendencies. All our denominations have something of the truth, but they all have inherent weaknesses as well. The Church of Jesus Christ is larger than any of our denominations. The temptation, when we’re confronted in the church with something new that we don’t like, or something that makes us uncomfortable, is to say, “that really isn’t consistent with our identity.” Our denominational concerns, much of the time, are variations on what Paul says about the Corinthians: “one says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ and another, ‘I belong to Apollos’” (1 Corinthians 3:4). Klaas Runia, writing on the need for reform in the Church today, said: “Our only or main motive must never be the desire to retain our own denominational identity at all costs. Such a motive is not scriptural at all. We must never forget that our denominations are not really important at all” (Reformation Today, pp. 127-28). The important thing is not that we are Lutheran or Methodist or anything else; the important thing is that we are part of the “church of God.”

Paul then goes on to describe them as those who are “sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be saints.” “Sanctified” means “set apart for God and His purposes.” What Paul says about himself – that God had set him apart before he was born and called him through grace – is also true of them. Here’s Gordon Fee again: “Believers are set apart for God, just as were the utensils in the Temple. But precisely because they are ‘set apart’ for God, they must also bear the character of the God who has thus set them apart” (p. 32). They’re “sanctified,” set apart, and they are also “called to be saints,” called to be holy. They’re called to live out the reality of their identity as God’s people. “I send this letter to you in God’s church at Corinth, Christians cleaned up by Jesus and set apart for a God-filled life” (The Message). But they don’t do that alone, isolated from other churches. Paul reminds them that they are united with “all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” God is preparing the Church as a bride for His Son, and He has graciously included them. It’s not just “the church of God in Corinth,” but “the church of God in Corinth... together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So then, having reminded them of who they are and what their calling is, Paul pronounces this blessing in verse 3: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” All God’s gifts come to us by sheer grace, not because there is any worthiness in us, but because God is gracious and merciful. And what God graciously gives us is “peace,” which is a translation of the Old Testament word “shalom.” It means “well-being, wholeness, welfare” (Fee, p. 35). Here’s how verse three reads in The Message: “May all the gifts and benefits that come from God our Father, and the Master, Jesus Christ, be yours.”

When Paul says “grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” he’s saying “may the deepest longings of your hearts be fulfilled.” What people are seeking when they buy lottery tickets, hoping to become instant millionaires, is peace, or “well-being, wholeness, and welfare.” They have an aching, a longing in their hearts for something more than what they have, but then they go seeking in all the wrong places. God doesn’t address us as consumers; He doesn’t say: “I’ve got just what you are looking for, come and get it.” We feel the need, but we’re looking for the wrong things. Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25).

But then, when we bow before Him in repentance and follow Him in the way of the cross, we find that, while He hasn’t given us all the things we wanted, He has given us something better. He has given us Himself. Remember these words from St. Augustine: “You awake us to delight in Your praise; for You made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You” (The Confessions of St. Augustine; a modern English version by Hal M. Helms, p. 7). Our hearts are restless until they find rest in God; everything else will disappoint us, because we were made to find rest in God.

This is true in our personal lives, and it’s also true in the life of the Church. When we come as consumers, demanding to have our needs met, expecting the church to cater to our personal preferences, we not only harm the church, we diminish ourselves. We’re putting ourselves at the center, the very thing that is destroying the church at Corinth. The Church is not here to meet our felt needs; the Church is here to worship God and to teach us to live under His lordship. The place to begin is by putting things back in their proper perspective. When we come together in corporate worship, we’re doing something completely different from all the other things we’ve been doing throughout the week. We’re coming together as “the church of God” in State College, “those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And then, as we bow before His sovereign Lordship, remembering that the Church belongs to Him, we receive “grace and peace... from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

As we begin this Advent season, let’s remind ourselves that what we’re looking forward to, what we’re waiting for, is God Himself, who appeared in the flesh more than 2,000 years ago and who has promised to come again at the end of this age. Advent is a time to realign our dreams and expectations in the light of the great future we look forward to in Christ.

The Joy of God's Provision, Psalm 30:1-5, 11-12

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
State College, PA

A German friend of mine was travelling through Italy on a Sunday with a team of young people. They were members of a short-term mission group and had a long way to go that day, but they were low on gas, and every station they passed was closed. Things were looking pretty grim as the day went on; they had prayed for an opportunity to fill the tank, but nothing had turned up. They were close to giving up hope, looking for a place to camp for the night, when a Porsche pulled up alongside and waved them over. Bernd stopped and got out of the van to see what the other driver wanted, but before he could say anything the guy pulled a gas can out of his car and started pouring gas into the van. They didn’t exchange any words, and when he was finished emptying the can, he jumped back into his Porsche and drove off (ignoring Bernd’s offer of money to pay for the gas).

Bernd, who told me the story, is as unlikely as anyone I’ve ever known to exaggerate this kind of thing, so I have no doubt that what he told me is true. They cried out to God and He provided in a surprising and startling way. They had no idea who had given them the gas or why he had done it. But God had provided for them in this strange way. When we think about God as our provider, we usually have this sort of thing in mind, that God provides us with the things we need materially to get through our lives. And He does provide for us in this way, as Jesus says in Matthew 6:33: “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” God provides all the things we need to get through our lives in this world, but these things are not at the center; it’s as we seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness that He promises to provide everything else.

The passages we read this morning are focused on God’s provision for our spiritual well-being. The reading from Ezra tells about God’s people worshiping Him to celebrate their return from exile to the land of promise (6:19-22); in John 6, Jesus proclaims Himself as the bread of life who nourishes His people with his own body and blood (6:35-51); and in Acts we see Philip proclaiming the gospel, which leads those to receive it to be filled with joy, because they’ve been reconciled to God. In Psalm 30, which is the main focus of this sermon, we see that God provides what we most need to become the kind of people He’s called us to be and that at the very center of this is the joy that is rooted in an encounter with God Himself.

The first thing God provides is mercy (vv. 1-3). Notice the words “you spared me” (v. 3). God had kept him from experiencing what he deserved, protected him from the natural consequences of things he had done. This is what mercy is about, receiving something better than what we deserve.

The background of these words at the beginning of the psalm are in the middle section, vv. 6-9 (which we didn’t read together earlier in the service). “As for me, I said in my prosperity, ‘I shall never be moved.’” Everything was going well and he became presumptuous. He forgot that his security had come from God and God let him see the reality of his situation: “By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed.” God withdrew from him, let him experience something of what life is like without His provision and he says he was dismayed. This led him to cry out to God for help: “To you, O Lord, I cried, and to the Lord I made supplication…. Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!’”

Things were going well in his life, but rather than giving thanks to God he started congratulating himself. “I’ve done pretty well. I’m not like some of the losers I know; I have a good job, I work hard, and I have a stable life.” What he forgot was that his ability to have a stable life was a gift from God, so God let him experience instability. Everything started going wrong, which reminded him of the truth and led him to come to his senses and cry out to God for mercy. The thing we so easily forget is that we are dependent on God’s mercy every day, every moment, of our lives. But when the psalmist remembers and cries out to God he finds that God is not anxious to punish him for his foolishness and presumption; what he experiences is a fresh realization of God’s mercy: “O Lord my God, I called to you for help and you healed me. O Lord, you brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit.”

Of course, in our morally lax culture it’s easy to get the wrong idea about God’s mercy. We too easily think, “It’s not really such a big deal; God knows our weaknesses and forgives us anyway.” We sometimes picture God as an indulgent, grandfatherly figure sitting in heaven wringing his hands over our wrongdoing, wishing we’d straighten up but knowing it’s not going to happen. God, from this perspective, just decides to overlook our sins.

But that’s not how God shows us mercy. He shows us mercy by providing redemption, by providing a way for our sins to be forgiven (vv. 4-5). The psalmist doesn’t deny the reality of God’s anger over his sin. He says “his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping [as a consequence of God’s anger] may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” The background of God’s redemption is His anger over our sin and rebellion. If you’re ever in doubt about this, spend some time thinking about Jesus on the cross; when He took our sins upon Himself, the Father turned away from Him, leading Him to cry out “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me!” God doesn’t wipe away our sins as if they didn’t matter; He wipes away our sins by calling His only Son to bear the penalty in our place.

God is displeased with our sins, but the wonderful truth announced in the gospel is that He has provided a way for us to escape the consequences of His displeasure. And the psalmist tells us that He comes to us as Redeemer without delay: “For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” God, when He confronts us with our sinfulness, doesn’t expect us to wallow in self-reproach. He doesn’t call us to spend time engaging in the wrong sort of penance, going around condemning ourselves and trying to be miserable. Penance, by the way, as I’ve read in Catholic spiritual writers, is not about trying to earn God’s forgiveness (because this has already been freely given); it’s about correcting our bad habits, training ourselves to act differently than we’ve been doing. Penance is about training ourselves to bear the fruit of repentance, which we all should be doing whether we are Protestant or Roman Catholic. But in any case, God doesn’t want us to wallow in misery and self-pity when we come to a new realization of our sinfulness. He has provided for our redemption and His forgiveness comes to us immediately: “His anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”

This leads to the final point, in vv. 11-12: God provides us with joy. Redemption is not the end of the story. It’s not like a “get out of jail free” pass, where we receive Christ as our Redeemer, which gets us a ticket to heaven, and then get on with living our lives the way we want to. God is not just providing a way for us to get to heaven; He is providing what we most need to become the kind of people He has created us to be, and at the very center of this is joy that grows out of an encounter with God Himself.

But this joy is rooted in our poverty and need for mercy. This isn’t where the psalmist started out. He got into trouble because he forgot about his own spiritual poverty, so his happiness was superficial; it was based on his presumption that he would never be shaken. But then he got into trouble, which is what we, as sinful human beings, do best. So he cried out to God and was able to say “you turned my mourning into dancing.” When he turned to God in repentance, God didn’t say, “I’ll forgive you, but you need to be miserable for a while so you can learn to properly appreciate what you’ve received.” He’s already been miserable. He’s experienced his poverty of spirit, so at the moment when he cries out for help, God grants him the privilege of rejoicing. When he turns to God for help, he is then able to say “You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.”

But we often get the wrong idea about joy. It’s something more, something different, from circumstantial happiness. We tend to feel happy when everything is going well; this is perfectly natural and is part of the way we were created. There’s nothing wrong with feeling happy when we experience good things in our lives. But joy is more than this.

I love the hymns of the 18th century English hymn writer Isaac Watts. One of his most-famous hymns is “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” He had a strong grasp of Scripture and a deep experience of Jesus Christ. He has a hymn that starts out, “Alas! and did my Savior bleed And did my Sov’reign die? Would He devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?” The verses go on in wonder over what Christ did in laying down His life to redeem us. Unfortunately, someone in the late 19th century thought the hymn needed a more positive element and added this refrain: “At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light, and the burden of my heart rolled away; it was there by faith I received my sight and now I am happy all the day.” Is this true for you? Are you now “happy all the day” since you encountered Jesus Christ? The Old Testament book that is most-often quoted in the New Testament is the book of Psalms, and the lament is the largest category in the Psalter. Why is this so? Because we, as people living in a fallen world, often find ourselves in trouble, and the Psalter, as the prayer book of the Bible, reflects this reality. We often find ourselves in trouble and cry out to God for help. We’re not “happy all the day.” It’s more truthful to say that “You turned my wailing into dancing [but in the meantime, the wailing was real and heartfelt]; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.” Things go wrong; we get off track and lose sight of who we are and who God is. But then we turn to God and He shows us His mercy.

Frederick Buechner has a good description of the difference between happiness and joy: “We need to be reminded… that joy is not the same as happiness. Happiness is man-made—a happy home, a happy marriage, a happy relationship with our friends and within our jobs. We work for these things, and if we are careful and wise and lucky, we can usually achieve them. Happiness is one of the highest achievements of which we are capable, and when it is ours, we take credit for it, and properly so. But we never take credit for our moments of joy because we know that they are not man-made and that we are never really responsible for them. They come when they come…. Joy is a mystery because it can happen anywhere, anytime, even under the most unpromising circumstance, even in the midst of suffering, with tears in its eyes. Even nailed to a tree” (Listening to Your Life, p. 287).

William Cowper was a poet and hymn writer in 18th century. He was also a member of John Newton’s church (the former slave trader who wrote “Amazing Grace”). Cowper struggled with mental illness for much of his adult life and more than once tried to commit suicide. There were periods when he was fairly stable, but even during those times he was highly sensitive and anxious. During his periods of acute depression he became psychotic and had to be institutionalized. But he experienced God’s help and faithfulness again and again. He couldn’t sing “and now I am happy all the day.” From time to time he became overwhelmed by darkness and depression, but even then the Lord brought him through, and joy at times took him by surprise. (There’s a very good overview of his life in the book Genius, Grief and Grace, by Dr. Gaius Davies). Here’s a well-known stanza from one of Cowper’s poems:

Sometimes a light surprises
The Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord who rises
With healing in His wings;
When comforts are declining,
He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining,
To cheer it after rain.

That’s the kind of joy Buechner is talking about; it’s not something we bring about by our efforts to find a happy life. God comes to us “with healing in his wings” and takes us by surprise. He provides us with joy we didn’t expect, maybe even at a time when it doesn’t make sense to feel joyful.

God our Provider provides the things we need to get through our lives in this world. Most of the time He does this in ways that seem ordinary, in ways that might lead us to take credit for it ourselves. But sometimes, when we find ourselves in situations where we’re in over our heads and nothing we try is working, He provides in more extraordinary ways. But more fundamentally, He provides what we need to become the kind of people He’s created us to be. He provides mercy, because we are sinners who violate His law. He provides redemption, because our rebellion has inescapable consequences and can’t just be ignored as if nothing has happened. And He provides us with joy, because this is at the very center of who He has called us to be as people created in His image.