Teaching Series: Look Up

Message Title: Elijah Was a Man Just Like Us

Sermon in a Sentence: “Elijah was a a man, just like us. He prayed earnestly (James 5:17a).”

Text(s): Psalm 121:1-2, 1 Kings 16-18, James 5:17

Message Summary:

We started a new series at Water’s Edge this week called Look Up. The theme verse from the series is Psalm 121:1-2:

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth (NIV).

The Psalmist asks where he can turn for help, and he knows the answer.  “My help comes from the Lord.”  When we need help, we don’t look to other things or other people.  We’re called to lift up our eyes and turn to God.  In this series we’ll be learning what it means to live a life a prayer — a life that looks up.

To start off the series I told the story of Elijah.  In fact, most of this first sermon was just that, retelling the story of Elijah.  There wasn’t a list of life lessons to learn or an outline of points to be deduced from the text.  I just told the story.

I started with Elijah on Mt. Carmel, facing down 851 men (450 prophets of Ba’al, 400 prophets of Asherah, and evil king Ahab). 851 to 1 aren’t the world’s greatest odds, so it’s natural to question how did Elijah get himself into this mess.

To answer that question, you have to go back in story a bit.  1 Kings 16 introduces us to King Ahab with a pretty bleak description:

Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the LORD than any of those before him. He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of [his ancestors], but he also married Jezebel . . . and began to serve Baal and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to arouse the anger of the LORD, the God of Israel, than did all the kings of Israel before him (1 Kings 16:31-33, NIV).

That second sentence is truly telling.  Not only was he a part of the downward spiral of wicked kings in Israel, he considered the evil his ancestors had committed trivial, mere child’s play, compared to the evil he himself did.  And this passage also introduces us to the villainess  of the story, Jezebel, a woman so evil we’ve been using her name as a epithet ever since.

In fact things got so bad that God decided it was time to do something drastic to get the attention of the king and to turn the hearts of his people back to himself.  So he sent his prophet Elijah to Ahab with a startling message: “From this day forward, it will not rain in all of Israel, until I say it can rain.”

Now, just to be sure there was no confusion, Elijah clarified.  He’s not just talking below average annual rainfall.  He means no rain. None.  Not a single drop.  Not a sprinkle.  Not a mist.  In fact, there wouldn’t even be dew on the ground.  And not only for a week. Not for a month.  Not even for a year.  There would be no rain until Elijah said so.

And there wasn’t.

Days turned into weeks. Weeks to months.  Months to years.  One year became two.  Two years became three.  There was no rain.  It was like God had taken hold of the water valve in heaven and turned it off over all of Isreal.  Crops dried up.  Grass withered and wasted away.  Animals began to starve from lack of anything to graze.  People began to starve from lack of animals to eat.  This wasn’t an inconvenience.  This was a national disaster.

Of course this angered Jezebel.  And while it’s good to be king, it’s also true that when the queen isn’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.  And Jezebel wasn’t happy.  How dare this Elijah cause all these problems for her husband?  Who did God think he was?

In her anger, Jezebel sought to eradicate the worship of Yahweh, God of Israel, from the land.  She began to hunt down every priest and prophet of God that she could find to kill them.  But executing the priests and prophets didn’t change anything.  The drought continued.

Then, after three and a half years without any precipitation, God said to Elijah, “It’s time to talk to Ahab.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country things were getting desperate for Ahab.  It wasn’t so much a problem of people starving.  Ahab didn’t really care about his people.  He was worried about his horses.  It’s hard to stay king without an army to defend you.  And it was hard to have a formidable army back then without horses. And it’s hard to have horses without any water for the horses to drink, or grass for the horses to eat.

Ahab, in his worry, called Obadiah to his throne room.

Before we go any farther we should introduce you to Obadiah, because it would be easy to get the wrong idea about him.  Obadiah worked for the evil king and queen.  He was one of their royal servants.  But that doesn’t mean Obadiah himself was evil.  In fact, just the opposite was true.

While Jezebel was hunting down and executing every priest and prophet of Yahweh she could find, Obadiah was seeking out the prophets of God and hiding them in a pair of caves just outside the capital city.  He had managed to rescue 100 prophets from the wrath of Jezebel and was daily sneaking food and water out of the palace to care for them.  Obadiah was one of the good guys in this story.

Anyway, Ahab calls Obadiah to his throne room and tells him they must find food and water for the horses.  “You go that way,” Ahab tells him, “I’ll go this way.  We’ll search every spring in the country.  There must be water somewhere.”

While Obadiah was out searching he came across Elijah.  Stunned to see the prophet alive, and worried for Elijah’s safety Obadiah exclaims “Is that really you?”

“Yes,” Elijah replies. “Now go find Ahab and bring him here.”

Obadiah’s not a big fan of this plan.  He knows how prophets work.  They have this funny tendancy of going wherever God takes them.  Here one minute, gone the next.  Obadiah can just see it happening.  He tells Ahab that he found the prophet they’ve been searching everywhere for, brings him back to the place he last saw Elijah, and Elijah wouldn’t be there any more.  Ahab would be so mad, Obadiah would be dead, and there’d be no one to take care of the hidden prophets.

But Elijah reassures him he will speak to Ahab.  Obadiah fetches Ahab, and the two enemies face off.

“I can’t believe you’d have the courage to show your face,” Ahab says.  “Is that really you, the one who caused Isreal all this trouble?”

“I didn’t cause this trouble,” replied Elijah.  I’m not the one who abandoned Yahweh. I’m not the one who lead all Israel into idolatry.  I didn’t cause this drought.  I just announced it.  You’re the one to blame.  Here’s the plan, though.  Gather up all the leaders of Israel and meet me on Mt Carmel.  While you’re at it, bring along the 450 prophets of Ba’al you have working at the palace, and 400 prophets of Asherah that Jezebel likes so much.”

So, looking back, that’s how Elijah got himself into this mess, facing down 850 false prophets and one evil king.  And all the leaders of Israel are gathered around them, waiting to see what happens next.

It’s then that Elijah begins to preach to Israel.

“You are using religion as nothing more than a crutch.  You treat God as if his only purpose was to help hold you up on your weak knees.  And as if that wasn’t enough, not only are you treating God like a crutch, you’re turning away to other gods of your own making.  Like an indecisive cripple you hobble from crutch to crutch, hoping one minute the Lord will save you, asking Baal for help the next.  How long are you going to keep this up?  Do you think the Lord is willing to let himself be used for your own selfish gain?  Do you think he doesn’t mind that you’re also turning to false gods as well?  Quit it.  There aren’t two gods, there is only one.  If Ba’al is god – if he can really help you when you need it – then serve him and forget about the Lord.  But if the Lord is God, then quit running to Ba’al and serve him only.”`

Silence.

The people don’t even know how to respond. So Elijah continues. “Here’s how we’re going to settle this once and for all.  We’ll have a little contest.  Go get two bulls, as closely matched as you can get.”

(Do you think anyone had the guts to say “Hello? Remember the famine? Where are we going to find a bull, let alone two?”)

But Elijah continued, “Then, just so no one can say I cheated, I’ll let the prophets of Ba’al have first choice.  They can choose the bull they want.  Cut it up, lay it out on the altar for a burnt sacrifice.  I’ll do the same with the other bull.  But then instead of lighting the fire, we’ll pray and ask our gods to light the fire for us.  You guys pray to Ba’al.  That should be right up his alley.  He’s the God of lightning and storm, if anyone can send down a bolt of fire and ignite a pile of dry wood, he should be able to handle it.  I’ll pray to Yahweh.  Whichever God lights the fire first, that one is obviously the one true God.”

And so preparations are made.  The priests of Ba’al begin preparing their sacrifice, laying the wood and meat out on their altar.  Elijah on the other hand doesn’t even have an altar to burn on; Ahab had torn down Yahweh’s altar years ago.  But no worries, Elijah just stands back and watches.

When the sacrifice to Ba’al is prepared, the prophets begin to pray.  “O Ba’al, hear us,” they chant. “O Ba’al, answer.”

Only he didn’t.  All morning long they prayed and chanted.  But nothing happened.

When lunchtime came around, Elijah finally started to tease them. “I don’t think you’re shouting loud enough. I mean, I’m sure that as the god of lightning and storm he has the power to answer your prayers. He just must not be able to hear you.”

“O BAAL HEAR. O BAAL ANSWER.” They prayed, they danced, and Baal did nothing.

“Maybe he’s in a daze, thinking about the solution to this drought we’re having. Surely the god of rain can bring an end to a drought.  But this one has him stumped.  Maybe he’s lost in his own thoughts. Louder guys.”

“O BAAL HEAR. O BAAL ANSWER.”

“Or maybe he’s busy lighting some other sacrifice on fire. Did you remember to take a number?”

“O BAAL HEAR. O BAAL ANSWER.”

“No, I know. He probably had a couple too many cups of coffee this morning and is using the john . . .”

“O BAAL HEAR. O BAAL ANSWER.”

“He’s not sleeping is he?”

“O BAAL HEAR. O BAAL ANSWER. O BAAL HEAR. O BAAL ANSWER.” The prophets continued to shout. And when they saw that wasn’t working they got out swords and spears and cut their own skin until they were bleeding, hoping maybe the sight of their own blood would move their god to act.

From midday until evening they continued this – shouting, dancing, cutting themselves, hoping maybe Baal would answer. But there was no response. No one answered. No one paid attention.

As the sun began to set, Elijah decided it was time to get busy on his own sacrifice.  The first thing he had to do was rebuild the altar that Ahab had torn down.  He asked some men from the crowd watching to bring twelve stones to build an altar.  Then he arranged the wood and the meat on the altar for the sacrifice.  Then he dug a ditch around the altar.  (A ditch?)

Finally, he asked four men to bring four jars.  “Fill these with water,” Elijah instructed.

Hello? Drought?  Water?  Yeah, this is going to work…

But somehow they found four jars of water.  And then Elijah told them to pour the water over the sacrifice. “I don’t want anyone saying I cheated,” he explained.

Can you imagine how reluctantly the men poured out the water, how desperately the stared as it ran down the stones and soaked into the dry soil?

Can you imagine how confused they were when Elijah asked for four more jars of water?

And then for four more?

Twelve jars of water, worth more than gold in the middle of a drought, poured out over a sacrifice that would soon, in theory, be set on fire.

Once all that was done, Elijah began to pray.  After the frenzied, shouted, bleeding prayers of the prophets of Ba’al, Elijah’s prayer is starkly different.

“LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, LORD, answer me, so these people will know that you, LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again (1 Kings 18:36-37, NIV).”

The prophets of Ba’al prayed all day, and nothing happened.  Elijah prayed for about 30 seconds…

And fire fell from heaven.  The wood was lit. The meat consumed. The fire was so hot the rocks turned to lava, and the water in the trench evaporated.

Elijah’s pretty impressive, isn’t he.  When Elijah prays, things happen.  He prays, and for three an a half years not a single drop of rain falls on an entire nation.  He prays, and fire falls from heaven and melts a stone altar.  We did’t get to that part of the story yet, but in a few verses he will pray again and the rain will begin to fall again.

It takes a pretty special man to be able to pray like that.

Only the Bible says that Elijah wasn’t all that special.  In fact, James 5:17 says “Elijah was a man, just like us.”  No special superpowers.  No supernatural connection with God.  He was an everyday, ordinary man.  So what made the difference?  The next words explain, “He prayed earnestly.”

Elijah’s power was the power of prayer.  His supernatural connection to God was the same connection we are invited to share.  If God moved when Elijah prayed earnestly, what would happen if we started praying?

As I said earlier, the sermon this week was mainly just telling the story of Elijah.  The whole point was to ask that single question: “Will you pray?”

But what about teaching students to pray? It’s one thing to tell them to pray, shouldn’t we also teach them how?

That’s where our prayer cards came in.  Praying isn’t complicated.  It’s not some magical spell that is unleashed with proper incantation.  Prayer is a conversation with God.  And we don’t learn to have conversations by listening to lectures.  We learn to have a conversation by talking with people.

And so in closing we passed out our prayer cards.  Fourteen simple conversation starters, easy questions or simple instructions, to give students an idea about what they can talk to God about.  The idea is to teach them to pray by giving them the opportunity to do so.  Each day, during their devotions, they are to take a card and talk to God.   (There are fourteen because next week we will not be having a separate youth service as our church is holding special revival services.)

Worship Set: Joyful, Joyful; Happy Day; How He Loves, The Purest Place

Listen to the Sermon:

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Looking at my analytics, several visitors to the site have come here over the last few days searching for examples of an Ash Wednesday order of service, or guidance as to what to say during the imposition of ashes.  I realize this post is probably too late for most planning 2011 services, for future reference, here is our Ash Wednesday service for 2011.

Prelude

Reflection

We will sing “There is None Like You”.  In between verses, the following Scriptures will be read:

• Deuteronomy 32:3-4
• 1 Chronicles 29:10-11
• Isaiah 40:25-26, 28-29

Then we will sing “I Love You, Lord”

Video

Introduction to Lenten Observance

I will introduce the Lenten pattern of giving something up, taking something up and serving others I shared in this post.

Confession

Psalm 51 will be read, and Pastor Phil will introduce a time of confession and repentance.  Participants will be invited to come, write down their confession on slips of rice paper which will be burnt later to make next years ashes (in an adaptation of the customary practice of burning the palm branches from the previous year’s Palm Sunday observance.

The worship team will lead in “Lead Me To The Cross” while the congregation brings their confessions to the altar.

Imposition of  the Ashes

Pastor Phil will introduce the practice of the imposition of ashes and our pastoral staff will come forward to receive the ashes.  After we have each received the ashes, we will spread out across the front of the sanctuary and serve as the congregation comes forward to receive the ashes.

After receiving the ashes, congregants will be invited to remain in the sanctuary in prayer for as long as they would like.

What do you say during the imposition of the ashes?

We will use the traditional admonition: “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return. Repent and believe the gospel.”

Photo Credit: “Penance” by Sarah Korf on Flickr. Used under a Attribution-Share Alike Creative Commons License

Teaching Series: Cultivate

Message Title: Faithfulness and Self-Control

Sermon in a Sentence: Running to win the prize requires a certain trust and disciplined self-control.

Text(s): Galatians 5:22-23, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Message Summary:

This week marked the end of our Cultivate series. We’re still playing catch up from all the weeks we had to miss due to the snow and ice this winter.  While the other catch up combination weeks had a bit of logic to them — joy and peace; patience, kindness and gentleness — this mash-up of faithfulness and self-control wasn’t quite as natural.  Hopefully I did them justice, though to be honest I feel as though I may have shortchanged faith.  I would have liked to spend more time on the connection between faith and faithfulness.

We began by talking about the Olympics. We broke the ice talking about our favorite parts of the modern Olympics, and began to take a look at the ancient ones.  We noted in particular:

• The games were an important source of entertainment as well as a religious festival for the Greeks and Romans. Records indicate the ancient Olympics were held every for years for over 1100 years, from centuries before the birth of Jesus, until after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.  The Olympics were well known during the time of Jesus and Paul.
• The origins of the Olympics are shrouded in myth and mystery. Different Greek and Roman historians tell different stories of where the Olympics started.  Some say the games were created by the Idaean dactyls, the first inhabitants of Crete when the oldest pitted his four brothers against each other in a race.  Others say they were founded by Herakles (you know him as Hercules) after he completed his labors.  Either way, their roots are lost in the mythical religion of the Greeks.
• Competitors in the games were carefully trained, and the winners celebrated. While we may not know exactly how the Olympics were started, by the time Jesus and Paul enter the story of history the Olympics had become a big deal.  Contestants trained extensively, and the winners went down in history as heroes.
• They did not compete for wealth or reward, but rather for the honor of victory. Olympic winners were not awarded money, property, or positions of authority.  Instead they competed for the kotinos, the crown of olive branches that was the winner’s only prize.

As Paul writes what we now know as First Corinthians, he was well aware of the Greek and Roman games.  And in chapter 9, Paul draws of the athletic imagery of the games to make his argument about the Christian life:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. (1 Corinthians 9:24-27, NIV)

This short passage is actually full of vocabulary and imagery drawn from the games:

• Paul speaks of running a race. The word translated “race” here is stadion from which we get our English word “stadium.”  It originally referred to the stadium in which the games were held, and the course which the runners ran.  Over time it also was used as a measurement; distances were determined in terms of the length of the race.
• Paul notes that the runners run to win the prize. The word “prize” (brabeion) actually comes from the word for the umpire (brabeus) at the games who ensured that competition was fair.  The prize is what the umpire would award to the victor at the end of the race.
• Paul speaks of those who “compete in the games.” The word translated “to compete in the games” gives us some indication of how seriously the games were taken.  The word is agonidzomai from which we get our English word “agonize.”  These were not just friendly games played to pass the time.  It was a struggle, pitched competition.  Athletes agonized through the race.
• He notes that in order to agonize through the race, one must train carefully. Here the NIV’s translation strives for dynamic equivalence, but strays from actual equivalence.  The word that gets translated “goes into strict training” is egkrateuomai (pronounced eng-krat-yoo’-om-ahee despite the absence of an “n”) the verb form of the same noun Paul uses in Galatians for the spiritual gift of self-control.  It’s a combination of the prefix en- (in) and the noun kratos (control, mastery).  It means to be in control of oneself, or self-control.  Athletes who hope to complete must learn to be in control of themselves.
• He points out that they run in order to win a crown. Know anyone named Stephen or Stephanie?  Their name comes from the word used in this passage for “crown” (stephanos).  Paul reminds his readers that the prize awarded the winner of the race is not wealth or property, but a crown.  And what is more it is a crown that will soon wilt and wither.  Just a wreath of olive branches, it pales in comparison to the crown of life for which Christians run. If a temporary crown is worth all the training and agony the athletes invest in the hope of being the one lucky individual to receive the prize, how much more is the eternal reward offered each and every one of us who faithfully follow in the way of Jesus?
• To win the crown, one must not run aimlessly. The word translated “aimlessly” (adelos) literally means without (a-) clarity or certainty (delos).  Runners will never complete the race if they are uncertain about the course or unclear about the goal.
• To win the crown, the boxer must first subdue himself. Paul continues to use athletic language here.  He talks about boxers; the Greek word is pukteuo from which we get our word “pugilist” or boxer.  Boxers, Paul notes, don’t enter the ring to compete against mists and shadows, beating the air. In the same way, Paul says he doesn’t swing aimlessly, rather he “beats his own body.”  The word used here (hupopiadzo; from hupos/under and ops/eye) literally means to strike under the eye, or to give a black eye.  Paul says rather that beating the air, he gives himself a black eye, in order to bring himself under control.
• He does all of this so that when the race is finished, he won’t be disqualified. Many of us have watched short track speed skating at the Olympics, holding our breath as the judges discuss, waiting to see if Apollo Anton Ohno will be disqualified or win the prize.  Paul says he does not want to finish the race, only to have the judge look back at his life and disqualify him for straying from the course.  The word disqualify (adokimos) literally means to be tested (dokimos) and to fail the examination.

What do we learn from this first century SportsCenter?

If we wish to complete the race and win the prize, two things are required.

First, we must have a certain goal. Paul points out that he never runs aimlessly.  Literally he does not run in a way that lacks certainty.  However much of life is uncertain.  We might be able to see to the next bend in the course, but at any given point in the race, we have only a vague idea of what the rest of the race might or might not include.  A runner can jog the course before the race starts to get an idea of what the course holds.  We don’t have that luxury with life.

But while we may not be able to have much clarity and certainty about what the course will entail, we can have some certainty about the One who lays out the course before us.  This is where the fruit of faith and faithfulness comes into play.  When Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, he uses the word pistis.  The same word translated as faithfulness in Galatians 5:22 is translated as faith in Ephesians 2:8.  So which is it? Faith or faithfulness.  Is it the confident trust we have in God, or our own trustworthiness that enables others to be confident in us?

The answer is both.  Faith is both the content and the character of our belief.  Faith is the confident trust we have in God, knowing that as he marks out the course for us, the future he has planned for us is better than any we’ve ever imagined for ourselves.  We might not be able to see the whole course, but we can be confident that where it leads is better than any destination we can discover by wandering off in our own direction.

And because we have confident trust in God, we live lives of trustworthiness.  We are faithful to follow the course marked out for us, because we have faith in the one who designed the race.

Second, we must exercise self-control. If we are going to compete in the games, we must go into strict training.  If we’re going to have any hope as we agonize through this race, we must bring ourselves under control.  We can no longer allow ourselves to be led astray by our impulses and desires.  Instead we must make our impulses subject to our faith in God who has set our course.

Here we have to be careful, however.  Throughout this series we have emphasized that the Spirit’s fruit are not something we can produce on our own.  They are attributes that God must cultivate in us.  Jesus in the vine.  We are only the branches.  God is the gardener and he does the cultivating.

But with all this talk about strict training and self-control, it’s easy to lose sight of that.  After all, it is called self-control, right?

It may be called self-control, but it’s not something we can produce in ourselves.  And any attempt to do so will ultimately end in failure as Paul well knows.  (Don’t believe me, read through Romans 7 some time.)  How does God cultivate self-control in us?

• He gives us His Spirit. And His Spirit does not make us timid.  Instead it produces in us strength, love and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7).  Self-discipline isn’t something we master ourselves, it comes from the Spirit.
• He gives us an exit. God’s Spirit will not remove us from temptation.  But the Spirit will break the power of temptation over us. Every time we are tempted he will provide us a way out (1 Corinthians 10:13).
• He gives us an opportunity. The Spirit will not reject temptation for us. Rarely will God send a power outage when we surf into areas we shouldn’t be visiting.  Seldom will God strike us with a  case of laryngitis just as we start to gossip about that one girl.  God’s grace always provides a way out of temptation, but it also always leaves us responsible for taking that exit.  We must make the most of the exit God provides by fleeing temptation (2 Timothy 2:22).

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We kicked off our service with an upfront game of Oodles of Doodles, always good for a laugh or two.

Worship Set: Everyday, Our God, Revelation Song, How He Loves

Favorite Moment: Actually my favorite moment of the night didn’t happen in service, it happened at supper afterward with my son, Brenden.  I struggled with this message all week, even while preaching.  But when I asked my son what we’d talked about, he not only knew the details, but understood the message I was trying to get across.  It was exactly the encouragement I needed, and the reminder that communicating the message doesn’t depend only on me.

Listen to the Sermon:
Unfortunately, due to some technical difficulties, I don’t have a recording of this message.  I do, however, now have a 30 minute wav of silence if you really want it…

You can however, still subscribe to the Water’s Edge podcast on iTunes or via RSS.

Weekend Teaching Series: Cultivate

Message Title: Goodness

Sermon in a Sentence: God does not save us because we are good, He saves us so that we can do good.

Text(s): Galatians 5:22-23, Matthew 19:16-22, Micah 6:8

Message Summary:

This week we continue our Cultivate series by looking at the sixth attribute of the Spirit’s fruit: goodness.  This is a difficult topic to address because in modern English the word “good” is almost meaningless.  What is good?

Don’t believe me? Listen to the answers that were given when passers-by were asked what it means in this man-on-the-street video from sermonvideos.com.  We showed this video to introduce the lesson.

Of course, we’re not the first to ask that question.  Philosophers and ethicists have been trying to define good for millennia. Take the Stoics, who defined good as that which is beneficial.  Or the Epicureans who argued that good is what contributes to ataraxia (a blissful state of tranquility) and aponia (the avoidance of pain or suffering).  Even the Hedonists had their own definition of good; it’s that which causes the most pleasure.

All of these philosophies were competing to define goodness in Jesus’ day.  All of them are still en vogue today.  Ask someone what “good” means and you’ll probably a version of one of those definitions.  It’s what works.  It’s what makes me (or others) happy.  It’s what does not harm and benefits myself and others.

Unfortunately, when measuring things according to these definitions, goodness is typically relative.  We call something good if it is better than the other options.  Take the NBA slam dunk contest last weekend.  I’m told Blake Griffin won.  His dunks were good because they were better than the rest of the competition.  But put him up against Michael Jordan or Spud Webb in their prime and see if he’s still considered all that good.

But how do we know we’re comparing things to the right standard of goodness?  How can we be certain that what we think is good is really good enough?

Jesus addressed that issue in the gospel of Matthew when rich young man approached him with the question: “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life.”  Essentially, he asks “How can I be certain my goodness is good enough.”

Jesus’ response points out the customary flaw in our comparisons.  We judge things according to a relative standard of goodness.  But Jesus proposes an objective standard.  Good isn’t what is better than the other options.  In fact there is only One, Jesus says, who is good.  God is good.

Now that creates a bit of a problem for us, because no matter how hard we try, we will always fall short of that objective standard.  Paul says that very thing in Romans 3:23.  If goodness is required, and God is the standard, we’ll never make it.

Fortunately Jesus says goodness isn’t what is required for entering life; obedience is.  “If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”

But this too is problematic.  Let’s be honest: there are a lot of commandments.  Yes, we know about the ten commandments.  And the greatest commandment.  And the second which is like it.  But there are a lot more than just those.  In fact, when the man asked Jesus his question, there were 613 mitzvot — 613 different commandments — that as a Jew he was required to observe.  It’s understandable that with so many to consider, his natural response was to ask for a clarification.  “Which ones?” the man asks.

Here’s where the story gets confusing to me.  Set aside what you already know about this story and think about it for a second.  Someone comes up to you and asks “Which commandments does God expect me to keep?”  What would be your answer?

I know mine: “All of them.”  Right?  After all “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” It’s right there in James 2:10.

But let’s be practical.  613 is a long list.  Does God really still expect us to go about in tzitzit and tefillin? Do we even remember what tzitzit and tefillin are, much less the mezuzah? Surely there’s a short list.  After all, we know what the greatest commandment is, right?  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”  Jesus himself wrote the Cliff Notes on the commandments.

But here’s where it really confuses me.  Jesus doesn’t even mention the greatest commandment. The man asks “Which commands are on your short list?”  And the most important one doesn’t even make the list! What’s more, Jesus skips over the first four of the ten commandments that deal with how we demonstrate our love for God, lists the ones that have to do with how we relate to others, and then throws in the second greatest commandment just for good measure.

As I hear Jesus list the commandments that are essential to keep for entering life, I find my self wondering why he let this man off so easy.  Murder?  I’ve never had a problem keeping that one.  Adultery? I love my wife too much to even be tempted there. Stealing? That’s like Basic Morality 101.  Yes, bearing false testimony is a little trickier.  But if you interpret it narrowly as a commandment designed to preserve the credibility of official testimony as the rabbis apparently did, even that’s not all that tough to keep.

Now granted, we are about three chapters before the teaching on the greatest commandment.  Maybe Jesus hadn’t thought through this issue. Maybe these commandments were just the first ones to cross his mind.  But somehow I doubt it.  So why, Jesus?  Why these six?

As I’ve thought more on this, part of me wonders if perhaps Jesus understood that while the first four commandments are vitally important, they are also the ones that are easiest to fake.  Who besides you can tell if your worship is genuine love for God or simply religious ritual?

And we do tend to rationalize our treatment of others by trying to balance it out with our love for God.  Maybe we are a little less than honest, but we love God. That’s what really matters, right? Perhaps Jesus was challenging our tendency to excuse our mistreatment of each other with professions of piety.

Whatever the reason, the man answers that he has all of these covered.  “All these I’ve kept from my youth,” he says.  From my bar mitvah, since the day I became a son of the commandments and became bound by the law, I have kept all these commands.

But even so, he seems to sense that there was something missing.  He’s been good.  But has he really been good enough?  So he asks “What do I still lack?”

It’s a good question for a number of reasons.  First, the law will never be able to define good enough.  The Bible says the law is, at best, only a shadow of the good things that are to come.  The law is more helpful in defining the boudaries of bad than in revealing the realities of goodness.

Second, no matter how hard I try, when I attempt to keep the whole law, eventually I fail.  The same Paul who in Philippians described himself as faultless in regard to keeping the law also had to acknowledge that even though he desired to do good, evil was always right there with him, preventing him from carrying out his intentions.

So what do we still lack?  How can we be certain we really are good enough?

Jesus’ answer continues to challenge complacent Christianity to this day.  “If you wish to be perfect,” Jesus says.  Not if you wish to be so good that there is no room for improvement; such a concept of perfection is Greek, not Hebrew.  But if you want to be mature, complete, if you want to fulfill the requirements of citizenship in my kingdom, then go, sell everything you own and give to the poor.  “Then come follow me.”

Jesus says fulfilling the requirements of discipleship isn’t a matter of keeping the commandments; keeping commandments is a byproduct of discipleship.  And fulfilling the requirements of discipleship isn’t about being good; there’s only One who is good, and you fall short of that standard.  The requirement of discipleship is breaking ties with those things which matter most (in the case of this rich young man, his possessions) and following Jesus.

Jesus almost sounds like Paul here, doesn’t he.  Salvation isn’t a matter of works.  It’s not something you can earn by doing.  Salvation is a living in a relationship of grace, responding in continual faith, even while recognizing that faith is not something you can do on your own.  It too is a gift of God, experienced in relationship with Him.

So, let’s recap.  Jesus answers the man’s question about doing good by redefining good, clarifying that citizenship in his kingdom isn’t a matter of goodness but obedience, and encouraging us that the requirements for discipleship aren’t measured by the things we do, but by our relationship with him.

If that’s the case, why does Paul list goodness among the qualities that God desires to cultivate in us?

It’s because we tend to get the whole goodness thing backwards.  The rich young man in Matthew did.  He assumed that if he was good enough, Jesus would grant him eternal life.  Jesus points out that he doesn’t save us because we are good; he saves us so that we will do good.  Goodness is the result of, not the pre-requisite for salvation.  And God does everything in his power to help us do good.

• God saves us so that we can do good. Remember Ephesians 2:8-9; saved by grace, through faith, not by works?  The very next words out of Paul’s mouth are these “For you are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works. (Ephesians 2:10)
• God strengthens us so that we can do good. Remember the whole Cultivate theme?  It’s not that we cultivate these virtues in ourselves.  We’re not the gardener; God is. He is the one cultivating us so that we can bear fruit in every good work.  Paul says the same thing in Colossians 1:9-12.  God strengthens us with all power so that we might have great endurance and patience and bear fruit in every good work.
• God shows us the good we ought to do. He doesn’t leave us clueless; He spells in out in black and white.  Micah 6:8 What is the good God requires of us? To act justly; be agents of righteousness in an unjust world. To love mercy; bring about justice not by punishing every wrong, but by being agents of mercy and forgiveness. And to walk humbly before our God, knowing that it’s not a matter of our goodness, but his that makes the difference.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment:

We didn’t have a Vegetables of the Spirit video this week; our star pea was basking (and toiling) in the southern Mexico sun.  And we turned things around, starting with our service and concluding with our game time (Water’s Edge kickball) for a change. 

Worship Set: No One Like You, Glory to God Forever, Happy Day, Our God, Deeper

Favorite Moment:

My favorite moment this week was playing with the praise team.  We’ve been focusing on a smaller set list this year, as several of our core members graduated last year.  That means lots of repeated songs.  This week we added two new songs to our repertoire: Glory to God Forever and Our God. I was very pleased with how well our team picked up the new songs, especially since most of them had never even heard the Fee song before.  WAY TO GO TEAM! I’m proud of you.

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Weekend Teaching Series: Cultivate

Message Title: Patience, Kindness, and Gentleness

Sermon in a Sentence: God calls us to bear with those who typically would annoy us, actively offer grace to those who have nothing to offer in return, and to serve those “below” us in our social structure.

Text(s): Galatians 5:22-23, Exodus 34:6-7, 2 Peter 3:9, Luke 6:32-36, Matthew 20:25-28

Message Summary:

This week we continue combining some of the fruit in the hopes of finishing the series on time.  I had already planned on combining kindness and gentleness, since as concepts they are so closely related.  And like any good auctioneer trying to make sure everything has a chance to sell, I threw in patience for good measure.  Just trying to keep up with the weather cancellations.

Of course, I’m not the first to lump these virtues together.  In fact, Paul himself frequently connects them.  In Romans 2:4 he links the concepts of patience and kindness. In Ephesians 4:2 he joins patience with gentleness. And in Colossians 3:12 all three are listed among the things in which the Christian should be clothed.  So I’m in good company.

But while it’s easy to see that these words are closely related, it’s a little tougher to understand what they mean.  What are these virtues that the Spirit cultivates in us?

The first word Paul uses makrothumia and is translated as patience or forebearance.  I freely admit this is fairly nerdy of me, but I love the word makrothumia.  It comes from a proud family of New Testament Greek words.

The grand-daddy of the family, the one from which they all come, is the root word thumeo.  It is a word that originally meant to burn or to become hot.  Over time it was associated with human emotions, in particular those which cause us to get hot under the collar.  It’s frequently translated as wrath or rage, but is also used in connection with passionate desire.

Another related word from this family is epithumeo.  Epi- is a preposition, which depending on context can mean on or over.  Epithumeo means to get on fire over something.  Sometimes it’s used to describe the way we get all heated up about things, and in those contexts it’s typically translated as “to covet.”  Sometimes it’s used to describe the way we get worked up over someone that we desire, and in those instances it’s translated as “to lust.”  Either way it means to catch fire for something or for someone.

Makrothumeo and the related noun makrothumia is similar in meaning, but actually means the exact opposite. The thumeo root still means to catch fire, but makro- means big or long.  Instead of being quick to catch on fire with rage or desire, makrothumia means having a long fuse, a slow temper. “Long-suffering” really is a good translation of the word.

But what’s really interesting to me is the way the connotations of the word changed depending on what religious perspective you held.  In Greek philosophy and religion, makrothumia had something of a tragic cast to it.  It necessarily a bad thing, but it wasn’t something you were happy about.  It was what you did to make the best of a bad situation.

Makrothumia was not a word used to describe to the gods and goddesses of Greek religion.  They had neither need nor use for makrothumia.  They lived a blessed existence in which what they wanted came to pass.  There was nothing they had to suffer, long or short, over.

Humanity, however, was a different story.  Humanity was left to the whims of the gods and the vagaries of fate. Often to be long-suffering was the best humanity could hope for, but always it served as a reminder that our existence was far below the blessedness enjoyed by the inhabitants of Olympus.

And so makrothumia was used to describe the desperate persistence of the victims of a siege.  Defeat was inevitable.  Death was just a matter of time.  But they didn’t give up.  They suffered long in the hopes that at least they could die nobly.

Makrothumia was used to describe the perseverance of  a doctor treating a fatally ill patient.  There was not really any hope of a cure, but the doctor continued to do everything in his power to help the patient even though there was no stopping death’s approach.

Makrothumia was used to describe the sailor lost at sea.  The ship was sunk. Shore was somewhere beyond the horizon. Exhaustion was closing in. But the sailor uses the last measure of his strength to swim a little farther, even though he knows he soon will drown.

The city under siege, the doctor at the end of his ability, the sailor drowning at sea, none of those are exactly situations you’d be eager to volunteer for.  And all of them serve as not-so-subtle reminders that the human condition is far below the blessedness of the gods.

But in Judeo-Christian thought, makrothumia appears in a much better light. Rather than just a resigned acceptance, makrothumia appears in biblical thought as a hopeful patience and a faithful perseverance through suffering.

But what makes the difference?

The difference lies in the fact that, unlike the false gods of the Greeks, the God of all Creation himself has patience. The God of the Bible is not like the tyrants of Olympus who sit back at their leisure and enjoy the display of human suffering and strugglse. Instead the God of the Bible has a plan, and only his patience can bring that plan and purpose to pass. Yahweh is a longsuffering God.

In Exodus 34, God is described as:

The LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. (Exodus 34:6-7, NIV)

God is compassionate, gracious and slow to anger. Makrothumos is the word they chose to translate the Hebrew concept of God’s patience into Greek. He is slow to anger, patient, knowing that his plans for us are only accomplished over time.

And it’s not just the Old Testament.  In the New Testament, Peter writes:

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9, NIV)

God’s disposition towards humanity is one of makrothumia, not apatheic lethargy or distanced disinterest, but a hopeful patience that extends to us every opportunity to repent.

As a result, the Christian ideal is not one of resigned acceptance or pessimistic fatalism. We are not condemned to an existence far below the blessedness which the gods enjoy knowing we will never be like Him. Rather we have the opportunity to be like the God we serve in the way we relate to our world. Our God is a God of longsuffering patience, and the fruit of his spirit in our lives produces that same makrothumia in us.

How is makrothumia displayed in our lives?

• As we suffer without complaint. Isaiah describes the coming Messiah as being like a lamb, silent before it’s shearers.  Jesus did not fight back, nor complain about the suffering he had to endure. Why? Because he knew that he did not suffer for nothing. His suffering was redemptive.  And through Jesus we have the opportunity to share in his suffering, to unite our pain with his and let it be redemptive in our world.
• As we persevere without despair. All the Greek examples of patience — the city, the doctor, the sailor — all of them persevered. But they did so in despair.  They knew there was no hope. The Christian also perseveres, but does so with hope.  The Christian knows that nothing, not even death, gets to write the final chapter in our story, and our light and momentary troubles are nothing compared to the eternal glory that will be revealed in us.
• As we bear with one another in love. Makrothumia is revealed in our relationships, not in the patience we show to those we like, but rather in the patience we show those who annoy us and get under our skin.

The second virtue Paul address is kindness. The Greek word here is chrestotes.  Unlike makrothumia, chrestotes does not belong to a rich word family.  Nor does it come with lots of helpful word pictures.  It’s pretty straightforward and kindness is a good translation.  Kindness is the grace and help we give to others, especially when they don’t deserve it.

Like makrothumia, the definition of kindness is not first found in the dynamics of human relationships.  The definition of kindness is the way God treats us.  It is his grace, extended when we least deserve it, that fleshes out what kindness really is.

Unlike makrothumia, kindness is an active virtue.  In many ways patience is passive.  You don’t have to actively help someone in order to bear with them.  You just have to bear with them.  Kindness however is active; it means doing kind things for someone else.

Perhaps most important though is that the measure of kindness is not found in how we treat our friends or what we do for our family. Kindness is measured by how we treat those we like the least.  Jesus spoke of this in Luke 6:

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.  Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:32-36, NIV)

Jesus points out that God is kind, chrestotes, and if we are going to be his children we must likewise be kind.  Not in the cheap kindness that loves those who love you back, or does good to those who have something to offer in return; you can find that kind of “kindness” all over our world.  But God’s kindness is extended to those who deserve it least and who have nothing to offer in exchange.

The third virtue that Paul speaks of which we dealt with this week was gentleness. The word here is praotes the noun form of the adjective praus. It is translated here as gentle, but it’s the same word Jesus uses in the beatitudes when he blesses the meek. It refers to the consideration and deference we show others.

If patience is measured, not by how we treat those we like, but those who get under our skin, and if kindness is measured, not by how we treat our friends, but how we treat our enemies, gentleness is measured not by the consideration we show to those that are in power and authority over us, but rather those over whom we have power, authority or influence.

In Matthew, Jesus’ disciples are arguing over who will hold positions of power and authority in Christ’s kingdom.  Jesus points out that the rulers of the Gentiles love to lord their power over their subjects.  They demonstrate their power by wielding it any way they can.

And our world isn’t all that different.  We’re accustomed to measuring power by our ability to get someone else to do what we want.  We measure influence by how many people we can convince to see things our way.  Authority is a function of how many people answer to us.

But Jesus tells his disciples, then and now,

Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.

In the kingdom of Christ, greatness is not measure by how many people you can force to serve you, but how many you can serve.  In a world, where the powerful tend to take the day, Jesus says it is the gentle, those that instead of wielding power, lay it down to become a servant, will inherit the earth in the end.

We closed by challenging students to examine themselves to see just how patient, kind and gentle they really are.  Not so that if they find themselves lacking in any of these areas they can practice longer and try harder so maybe they will do better.  The fruit of the Spirit are not things we can cultivate in ourselves.  However, if we discover we find a need in ourselves to be more fruitful, the solution is to allow the gardener to do some pruning in our lives.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment:

As with all of our services in this series we kicked off with a Vegetables of the Spirit video.  This week a random act of kindness causes our veggies patience to rub a little thin.

Worship Set: Blessed be Your Name, No One Like You, Forever, Famous One

Favorite Moment: It was a special treat to have Paul Ward drop by and spend the evening with us.

Listen to the Sermon:

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Weather is wreaking havoc on our Cultivate series.  We’ve had to cancel three of our last four services. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but our next series starts on Ash Wednesday. That means we have to double up on some of the fruit if we’re going to finish on time.  Therefore this week I bring you joy AND peace.

Weekend Teaching Series: Cultivate

Message Title: Joy and Peace

Sermon in a Sentence: In a world of suffering and injustice, God calls us to make peace and find joy in the grace He gives.

Text(s): Isaiah 65:17-25; Matthew 5:9, Romans 14:17, Galatians 5:22-23

Message Summary:

One of the challenges in preaching this message is the pre-conceptions people have about what joy and peace are. When we think of peace we think of the absence of conflict.  A peacemaker is someone who smooths over the hard feelings in our world and finds a way to keep everyone happy.

And joy is even more difficult because we have to deal with two sets of preconceptions.  On one hand, when we think of joy, we think of happy people.  A joyful person is that annoyingly bubbly person, always bouncing around, naively giddy, filled with the kind of saccharine sentimentality that sets our teeth on edge…

…Or maybe not.  Because you also have the sermons that explain there is a difference between joy and happiness.  Happiness, we’re told, depends on circumstances.  Happiness is affected by what happens to us.  Joy on the other hand is centered in God and manifests itself as an internal confidence that God is in control.  It’s possible, we’re told, to be in unhappy circumstances and still be joyful.

So we approach the subject of peace and joy with these preconceptions.  The question is are any of these concepts what Paul is talking about when he says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy and peace?

The word Paul uses for joy belongs to a broad family of words in New Testament Greek.  The word for joy is chara.  It’s the noun form of the verb chairo.  Interestingly, it’s closely related to the words for grace charis and gift charisma.  And all of them are related to the word for to thank eucharisteo from which we get our theological term Eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper.

The word family helps us understand what exactly joy is.  Joy means to rejoice, to celebrate, to throw a party.  The biblical picture of joy is the feast, those God ordained events in Israel when all work ceased, when all able bodied males showed up in Jerusalem, and the nation celebrated together.  Joy is the feeling you get when you throw a party! And joy is also the result of grace.  It is inspired by gifts.  When you receive a gift, that sense of gratitude and celebration you feel is joy.

So what about peace?  The word Paul uses for peace is eirene.  Interesting isn’t it?  We’re talking about joy and peace, Kara and Irene.  It’s all about the ladies.  And, at least in the minds of the Greeks, peace is a lady.  That’s a picture of her there on the right.  Like so many abstract concepts, the Greeks personified peace in their mythology, portraying her as Eirene – one of the three Horae or Seasons.  Peace’s sisters are Eunomia (literally, good laws) and Dikē (or righteousness/justice).   And when you stop and think about it, that makes sense for those three right government, justice and peace are often found together.  But rarely do you have one without the other two.

In this image, Eirene is shown holding Ploutos.  No, not Pluto the god of the underworld.  Nor is it Pluto the dog of Mickey.  It’s not even Pluto, formerly known as a planet.  Ploutos literally means plenty, and baby Ploutos is the god of wealth and abundance.  When Eirene’s not holding baby Ploutos, she’s often depicted holding a cornucopia, from the Latin cornus or horn, and copiae or plenty.  When she’s not holding the baby of plenty, she’s shown holding a horn of plenty.  It’s the artists way of depicting the reality that where there is peace, plenty flourishes.

I find all this interesting because the Judeo-Christian idea of peace is very similar.  Granted, we don’t turn peace into an idol and bring the personification of peace offerings in the hopes she will grant us wealth.  But the Bible does recognize the connection between peace and plenty.  Peace, biblically speaking, is more than just the absence of conflict.  Peace — eirene in Greek, shalom in Hebrew — is an abundance of righteousness and justice, and it becomes the environment in which plenty flourishes.

Or here’s another artists rendition of peace; this time it’s Edward Hick’s Peaceable Kingdom.  Hicks was an American Quaker, a member of the Society of Friends during the late 1700′s to the early 1800′s.  And this isn’t the only painting he made like this.  In the background you see the event his is commemorating; in this particular version of the painting it is the treaty between William Penn and the Native Americans.  In the foreground you have a collection of images designed to communicate his belief that what was happening in the American colonies was a fulfillment of the biblical promises of peace.

His imagery comes from Isaiah 65, in particular verse 25:

The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
and dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,”
says the LORD (NIV).

Lion and ox, wolf and lamb, all of them are depicted in this picture of peace from Isaiah.

But look at all peace entails in Isaiah 65:

• Harmony: Yes, obviously harmony is involved.  All these animals that were once enemies are depicted peaceably comingling in verse 25. But there’s more than that.
• Health: In verse 20, Isaiah speaks about people living long, full lives.  You might show up to a funeral for someone who died in their 100′s, Isaiah says, and everyone will wonder why they had to die so young.
• Security: In verse 21, Isaiah says something that sounds unusual to us: “They will build houses and dwell in them;” but he’s talking about a world where people build their houses only to be forced from their homes and taken into exile.  But Isaiah says that won’t happen in the peaceable kingdom.
• Plenty: In that same verse, Isaiah says “they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.”  There’s a harvest in the peaceable kingdom and it isn’t stolen.
• Fulfillment: Verse 23 says, “They will not labor in vain.”  There’s no more spending your lives working for something only to wonder if it was all wasted effort.  No laboring in vain here.

Biblically speaking, peace isn’t just the absence of conflict, it’s all of this together: harmony, healthy, security, plenty and fulfillment.  And given that picture of peace, is it any wonder that peace and joy are so often linked in Scripture?

Listen to how Paul opens every one of his letters.  Take Romans, for example.  He starts by identifying himself. “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God…”

Then he identifies to whom he is writing.  “To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people.”

Then comes his greeting: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.”

See it there?  Joy and peace connected.  Now granted, Paul says “Grace and peace” but remember the word family?  Grace and joy are siblings.  Joy is our natural response to grace.  Chara is the sister of charis.  And Paul greets them the Romans with the words charis and eirene. And it’s not just the letter to the Romans.  Every letter Paul writes opens with charis and eirene. Except Timothy.  Apparently Timothy was special. He doesn’t just get grace and peace.  He gets grace, mercy and peace.

Now maybe you don’t realize that the standard Greek greeting was charein another member of that same joy/grace/thanks word family.  The Greeks didn’t say “Hello” they said “Charein.”   And the Hebrew greeting was (and is) shalom, or peace.  In opening his letters with grace and peace, Paul is bridging the gap between these two worlds, Greeks and Jews.  But I think it’s more than that.  Paul recognizes that grace/joy and peace are absolutely central to life in God’s kingdom.

Want proof?  Check out Romans 14:17:

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

The Kingdom of God is all about righteousness, peace and joy, and it’s all brought about by God’s Holy Spirit.

But what do you do when there isn’t peace in our world?  Because let’s face it, even when there is an absence of conflict, rarely is there the harmony, health, security, abundance and fulfillment that together is what the Bible means by peace.  So what do we do?

According to Jesus, when peace is absent, we are called to make peace.  Remember the beatitudes?  Who is blessed? Who has cause for celebration? Matthew 5:9 It’s those who make peace that bear the family resemblance of the God they serve.  But how do we make peace?

Typically, in the absence of peace, we have two ways we can go.  On the one hand, in the absence of peace, you can fight back until whoever is the oppressor stops.  Someone pushes you, you push back.  If you don’t meet force with force, the violence will never end, so declare war and hold the course until your enemy begs for peace.

The other option is the opposite. Instead of fighting back, you seek to appease.  Smooth things over.  Don’t disrupt what little tranquility there may be. Sweep the injustice under the rug, pretend like it’s all OK, because it’s more important that we get along, than that we do what’s right.

We have a choice between two ways: push back, or pretend it’s OK.  Retaliate or rationalize.  Fight. Or flight.  The bad news is that neither of these two ways works well.  The good news is that Jesus offers what Walter Wink has called a third way…

A Christ-following peacemaker doesn’t fight.  She doesn’t respond to injustice by reflecting the injustice back on the perpetrator.  And the peacemaker doesn’t flee.  She doesn’t pretend that nothing is wrong.  She takes the third way.  She brings attention to injustice without participating in it.

Wink points out that our cultural distance from first century Palestine has led to serious misunderstandings about the third way.  Turning the other cheek isn’t about taking abuse and pretending it didn’t happen.  It’s bringing attention to the injustice of the backhanded slap without participating in the violence.  Giving the plaintiff your tunic as well as your cloak is not just an admonition to non-litigation, it is being (literally) nakedly honest about the injustice of the matter and ensuring everyone sees the wrong that has been done.  Walking two miles when forced to walk one isn’t just about going above and beyond, it’s requiring the oppressor to treat the oppressed as a human and not like a slave.

If you’re not familiar with what Wink has to say about the third way, here’s a link to a short sermon he gave on the subject.

Long story short, the peacemaker does not participate in injustice or pretend that it isn’t happening.  Instead the way of Jesus is creative non-violence that brings attention to injustice and provides the perpetrator that opportunity to recognize the wrong and to repent.

So where’s the joy in this kind of life?  Because quite honesty, this way of living doesn’t sound like a celebration.  It sounds hard.  It sounds lonely.  It sounds like it will often be unpleasant.

The joy doesn’t come from dishonestly pretending nothing is wrong.  Nor does it come from an naively pretending that everything has to eventually get better.  It’s not about closing your eyes to the present reality, or focusing on the future until the present fades from view.  Instead the joy comes from remembering the connection between chara and charis.  As you are making peace, there is always room to remember grace, to recognize the good and perfect gifts that God has given.  Joy comes from honestly admitting what is wrong, and really recognizing what is right and good.  Because in every situation, even those that require us to make peace, there is grace we can celebrate.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment:

There were two fun features of our service tonight.  The first was our second installment of the Vegetables of the Spirit videos.  In this episode we meet two veggies who depict the two ways I talk about in the peacemaking part of the sermon.  On one hand there is Bob, for whom everything goes wrong.  Yet he’s so full of joy he doesn’t even notice.  And on the other hand there’s Pete, who has so much to be thankful for, but is too busy being upset about the little things to be grateful for the big things.

We also broke away from the ordinary by giving students a gift as they came into the service.  It was a cross between a Valentine’s day treat and a post-Super Bowl celebration.  We gave everyone a theater sized candy as they came into the service. And the joy of the surprise gift became an illustration of the connection between chara and charis later in the sermon.

Worship Set: Trading My Sorrows, Happy Day, Forever, Mighty to Save

Favorite Moment:

It’s probably one of those you-had-to-be-there moments, but our worship leader had history’s most epic kick in Water’s Edge indoor kickball.  Our indoor kickball rules include the rule that there is no such thing as a foul, so players can send the ball in any direction they choose.  Bryant managed to get the ball to roll through an open doorway into a dark class room, scoring the first earned home run ever in indoor kickball.

Other rules that make Water’s Edge kickball unique:

• The ball is live until it hits the floor (so fly balls can be caught off the ceiling and walls, though they rarely are)
• Any kick that goes onto the stage area is an automatic out
• Perhaps the most fun of all, runners don’t have to stop at home.  As long as they aren’t on third when the ball is pitched, they can run from home to first (as long as first base is open) for a second lap around the bases.  Of course, they don’t tally runs until they stop at home.  If they get out or the side is retired before they make it back home, they lose the run they’ve already completed.

Listen to the Sermon:


Subscribe to the Water’s Edge podcast on iTunes or via RSS.

Granted, it’s been a while since week in review #20-almost exactly a year to be, well, exact.  So it’s high time to get back to this.

Weekend Teaching Series: Cultivate

Message Title: Love

Sermon in a Sentence: The solution to the problems caused by love is not to give up on love, or to tone love down; it is a radical reorientation of love.

Text(s): Romans 5:1-8; Romans 8:38-39; Galatians 5:13-26; John 15:1-17

Message Summary: This sermon was the second in our Cultivate series for Water’s Edge. It’s all a part of our church’s Homesavers campaign.  From the first of the year through Ash Wednesday, every department of our church, children, youth and adult, are all taking a closer look at the Fruit of the Spirit.

Read more to see our original video The Vegetables of the Spirit and to see a summary of our teaching for this topic.

To introduce the subject of love, we showed an old video of Jackie DeShannon singing “What the World Needs Now”.  I was really hoping the praise team could cover this song live before the sermon, but scheduling conflict made that impossible.  But the video did an adequate job of setting the scene.

We used the video to ask the question: Is more love really the solution to the world’s problems?

Of course the easy answer, the Sunday School answer, is yes.  More love would fix most of what’s wrong in our world.  But we didn’t settle for the easy answer.  Instead we looked a bit deeper.  After all, isn’t it possible that love is not the solution to, but actually the cause of many of our world’s problems?

Just look at the news and see all the crimes of passion caused by the love of people, position and possessions.  Try telling the victim of a crime of passion that all that was needed was a bit more love… Now granted, we might try to explain this by arguing that it wasn’t love but lusts that led to this violence, but where do you draw the line?

And we’re not the first to be asking this question.  People have understood that there is something potentially destructive about love for a long time.  In fact, most of the world’s religions and philosophies recognize this fact.  Buddhism recognizes that love can lead to attachment, and attachment traps us in the cycle of suffering.

The Greeks likewise recognized the potentially dangerous aspect of love.  Eros, the most common Greek word for love, refers to a desire for something.  Eros recognizes something in the object of love that the lover desires for his or her own.  This desire can lead to grasping, as the lover seeks to obtain what they desire. And this can be dangerous.  It’s no accident that when they personified love in their mythology, Eros was an archer.  Sure it’s cute on Valentine’s Day cards; but the Greeks knew, Eros’ arrows leave wounds.

Of course, it’s not just the Buddhists and the Greeks that recognized this fact of human existence.  It’s recognized by the Biblical authors as well.  Eros, the love that sees something it desires and seeks to obtain it for itself, is, by definition, a self-centered way of living.  And in Galatians 5, Paul explains that the natural outcomes of such a self-centered way of living are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness orgies and the like (Galatians 5:19-21). There is something dangerous in love.

Recognizing a problem is easy. The hard part is diagnosing a solution. How do you solve the problems caused by too much love?

The Buddhist solution is to learn to empty oneself of desire. It’s accomplished by a combination of right thinking and right action that seeks to free you from desire so that you can be set free from suffering. Of course, make sure that you don’t desire freedom from desire too much, because that might ruin everything.

The Greek solution is actually quite similar. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explains that while eros is not a vice, it is a potentially harmful excess of a different kind of love, the love of friendship, or philia love. You see, eros is dangerous because it is prone to excess. Based on desire, it’s easy to get caught up desiring too much.

Philia, however, is different because unlike eros, it is not based on something desired because it is lacking.  Eros sees in another something it doesn’t have and wants it for itself.  Philia love instead sees in the other some common bond, some common trait, and loves because it can see itself in the other.  Whether it is the common blood of family, the common personality and purposes of friendship, or the compatibility of romance, philia is based on having something in common.

Furthermore, according to Aristotle at least, philia is always mutual and measured.  Eros can cause problems when it is unrequited.  Philia, however, is always mutual, always reciprocal.  Part of the common bond is shared love for each other.

And philia, properly expressed, is measured.  We love the other in proportion to how virtuous they are.  There is no more loving someone who is unworthy of love.  Philia loves because the other is lovable.

However, one wonders just how well these solutions work.  Because at their heart, they are still both self-centered.  Teaching yourself not to desire through right thought, right action and right attention, is still living a self-sufficient, self-centered, me powered life.  And loving someone else because of how well I can see myself in you is no less self-centered that desiring them because they have something that I want.  And the Bible teaches that the outcomes of a self-sufficient, self-centered, me-powered life are obvious…

So the question is does Jesus offer a better way?

For Jesus, the solution wasn’t to learn not to love, nor was it to tone down eros until it became philia. Jesus’ answer was an entirely different kind of love altogether.

Jesus talked a lot about love… He said things like:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?  Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.(Matthew 5:43-48 NIV)

“The most important [commandment],” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31 NIV)

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.  My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends… This is my command: Love each other.” (John 15:9-13, 17 NIV)

Jesus didn’t suggest avoiding love.  Instead he commanded it.

Interestingly, however, these passages do not command eros.  Nor do they command philia.  They command a different kind of love altogether.  All of these passages speak of agape love (or more precisely, they use the verb form of that word agapao.)  Agape was an unusual word for love in Greek.  It wasn’t unheard of, but it was not frequently used.  And when it was used, it was typically seen as synonymous with philia, if a little weaker. At least one lexicographer describes agapao as “colorless” lacking the magic of eros and the warmth of philia. For the classical writers it meant something along the lines of to show honor to, to seek after, or to prefer.

These passages us the word agapao because it was the word most often used by those who translated the Septuagint from Hebrew into Greek to translate the kind of love that God has. God’s love isn’t grounded in selfish desire like eros, nor is it something that is only offered in situations where love is mutual and measured. God’s love is the extreme, sacrificial, unconditional love of a God who reaches out to humanity regardless how worthy (or more often the case, unworthy) that humanity may be. They took this uncommon Greek word and began to reshape it to reflect the kind of love earthly language cannot on its own imagine.

But what is this agape love really like?

Paul talks about love in his Epistle to the Romans.  Following his argument through the Epistle, we learn four things about this agape:

The very definition of this kind of love is revealed in the story of Jesus

In Romans 5:6-8 Paul notes that God demonstrates agape not in giving up his life for the lovable, as someone operating on the principle of philia might conceivably do.  Instead, God demonstrates agape by dying for the unlovable sinner.  There is nothing measured about the love of God.  It is given sacrificially for the unlovable.

Agape moves God to act on our behalf.

This same passages shows that Agape was far more than just warm fuzzy feelings on behalf of God for humanity.  Agape was not a matter of emotion, it was a matter of action.  Because he loved, Christ died.  In the same way, our love for God is not a matter of the warmth we feel in our hearts when we think about God, or that verklempt feeling inspired by a really good worship song.  Love is action.

Agape is a tenacious love that doesn’t give up.

Romans 8:38-39 is a beautiful hymn about God’s tenacious love, a love from which nothing can separate us.  There is no fickleness to the love of God. We need feel no angst wondering if God still loves us or not.  And because love is an action, we don’t have to worry whether or not God will ever stop reaching out to us.

Finally, God pours out this Agape into our hearts, so that we might love too.

Romans 5:5 speaks of this fact.  God loves us, and pours out his love into our hearts, so that we might love others.  Not in a grasping eros sort of way, nor in a calculating, measured philia sort of way, but with the selfless, sacrificial agape of God himself.

So how do we learn to love like that?

It’s not accomplished in trying harder or doing better.  It’s not something we can teach ourselves to do.  In fact, if we try to teach ourselves to love, our self-sufficient, self-centered, me-powered attempts will inevitable end in some obvious failures.  It will result either in sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery as we grasp after what we desire, or in envy, jealousy and rage as we struggle with love that isn’t reciprocated.

No, love is a fruit that must be cultivated.  And we are not the gardener.  Remembering back to our introductory message in this series based on John 15, we are reminded that Jesus is the vine.  God is the gardener.  We are only branches.  Love isn’t something we cultivate in ourselves.  Love is something that God must cultivate in us.

(I don’t have an online summary of this message, but you can listen to it on our podcast here.  Look for the 2011_01_05 sermon titled “Cultivate: Remain.)

Our part is to remain.  Remain in Christ.  Remain in Christ’s Word.  Remain even though it hurts.

And it will hurt.  There’s a reason Paul, when talking about the Spirit’s fruit, says “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:24, NIV).”  If we’re going to love with God’s love, that old self-sufficient, self-centered, me-powered way of living has to die.  There are parts of our life, parts like the I-Want-I-Want mentality, the Me-First priorities, the Whats-In-It-For-Me selfishness, that have to be pruned away by the Gardner’s loving hand.  And chipping away at these cornerstones of our old way of living will at times be painful.

The question is, will we remain?

Element of Fun/Positive Environment:

As intro material for this series, we’ve launched a series of tongue-in-cheek sitcom-ish videos called the Vegetables of the Spirit which seek to demonstrate what the Fruit of the Spirit aren’t.  This week’s love episode:

We also kicked off the service with an up-front game of Guess-the-Google inspired by the online game by Grant Robinson of the same name.  I’ll be sharing that game in an upcoming post.  Fast-paced and fun, that was a perfect opener for our service, and led to a final slide showing images of “love” to introduce our theme for the night.

Worship Set: Blessed be Your Name, Still, Healer, My Redeemer Lives

Favorite Moment: Simply having service. Weather cancellations meant two weeks without Water’s Edge, which makes it really tough to have a series that runs concurrent with the weekend services.  It was good just being together.

Listen to the Sermon:

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Weekend Teaching Series: Avatar

Message Title: Avatars and Incarnation

Sermon in a Sentence: We do not need to fear rejection when we approach God, because He chose us.

Text(s): Ephesians 1:3-14

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 3 out of 10, Again, a fairly straightforward message that was fun to preach.

Message Summary:

We began by watching the following clip.  (The embedded copy is from YouTube.  We got our clip from WingClips.com.)

In the clip Neytiri shows Jake around the Hometree, explaining to him one vitally important part of Na’vi culture – the Mountain Banshees they call the ikran.  Na’vi hunters and warriors ride these flying beasts.  Each warrior has his or her own ikran, and each ikran its own rider.  The bond formed between them will be one for life.

She also explains that in order to become part of the Omaticaya and to be accepted as one of the Na’vi people, Jake will have to prove his worthiness by climbing up into the Hallelujah Mountains and taming his own ikran. Only by becoming an Ikran Makto, a Banshee Rider, can Jake truly become one of the people.

And to make things a little more nerve-racking for Jake, she explains it’s not just a matter of choosing your own ikran and taming it.  The ikran must also choose you.

We then thought about times in our own lives when we had to wait and wonder if we would be chosen.  I told about the first time I asked Michelle (now my wife) to go out with me, and had to wait to see what she would say.  I asked if they have ever been there themselves, because we all have…

Whether it’s wondering if the person you asked out will accept your invitation,

Or if someone thinks you’re good enough to be chosen for their sport team at school,

Or if anyone likes you enough as a friend to want to sit with you in the cafeteria,

Regardless of how it happens, all of us have worried whether or not anyone will choose us before.

And even if we have a long history of being chosen, all of us from time to time struggle with the question “Am I still good enough to be accepted.”  Even after we get the date, make the team or find someone to sit with at lunch, we worry about something happening that will cause us to lose their acceptance.

In fact, psychologists tell us one of the biggest fears teens face is the fear of rejection.

I read from a poem by a teenager name Dee who expresses the same fears:

I have feelings of love for the guy I see.
Does he love me too, what does he think of me?

I wish I could tell him he makes me whole, but I’m afraid to say
what’s deep in my soul.

I don’t want to lose him, for I would be alone,
and some days I just can’t wait to hear his voice on the phone.

She goes on to finish the poem with these words:

I wish I could tell him what I feel inside,
but I’m afraid of what he’ll say, how he’ll act on the outside.

And Dee’s not alone.  In one Yahoo Answers topic, which asks teens what they feared the most, 17 out of 22 listed fear of rejection.

I also shared about my experience on ChaCha where in my spare time I answer questions.  Many of  the questions I get deal with a fear of rejection.

“How can I tell a guy I like him without him thinking I’m stupid?”

“What happens if all my friends look down on me for pursuing my goals?”

“How do I get people to like me?”

“What can I do so people don’t think I’m boring?”

At the heart of all these anxieties is a fear of rejection.  What if I choose someone, and they don’t choose me?

So whether its Jake standing on a cliff high in the Hallelujah Mountains, or me at a church Halloween party, or you wherever you happen to be, at some point or another we all deal with this fear:

What if they don’t choose me?

From there we went to Ephesians and read 1:3-14.

The passage starts with these words: “He chose us in him before the creation of the world…”

In fact it’s so important, Paul says it twice.

In verse 11 he comes back to the same theme.  “In Him, we were also chosen…”

When it comes to finding love and acceptance, there is one person we don’t have to wait on to decide if he wants to accept us or not. When we call out to God we don’t have to spend the next day worrying about what he is going to say, whether or not he wants anything to do with us.  In fact, long before we ever get to the point where we choose God, God already chose us.

How would the way you approach others change if you knew they already accepted you?

Seriously.

Do you think I would have had so hard a time asking Michelle out if I knew she had already decided to say yes?

Would you get nearly as nervous when it comes time to choose teams in gym class if you knew that one of the team captains already wanted you on your team?

Would you be nearly as frightened about talking to the strangers in the cafeteria at school if you already knew they liked you and were hoping you’d come talk to them?

It’s a whole lot easier to choose someone when you know beforehand that they have already chosen you.

And that’s what the Bible says about God.

God chose you.

Before the creation of the world,

Before the beginning of time,

Before you could do anything to earn his love,

Before you could do anything to lose his respect,

Before you even thought about calling out to Him,

God . Chose. You.

From there we examined what Ephesians says that God chose us for:

He chose to lavish on you the riches of his grace.

God is a God who is good at giving gifts.  And he chose you to be the recipient.

I told a story about growing up as part of a large family.  Every Christmas we drew names to decide who bought presents for whom.  And there was one uncle that everyone hoped would draw their name.  He had a tendency to spoil the person he was giving gifts to.

But as good as my uncle was a giving presents, he had nothing on God.  Talk about the ultimate gift giver.  God invented gift giving, and at no point in human history has anyone come even close to giving better gifts than God.  James chapter one says “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

Every good thing you enjoy, and everything that is good for you is a gift from God.

And you don’t have to wait to see if God chose your name.  It’s not like family Christmas where there are only so many gifts to go around.  There is no limit on how many gifts God can give, and he has already drawn your name.  God chose you to be the recipient of the gifts that he loves to lavish on his children.

He chose you to experience forgiveness and redemption.

Sometimes when we know we’ve done something wrong and need to make an apology, we hesitate because we worry about how the person to whom we are apologizing will respond.  And so instead of admitting it, confessing it and getting it out in the open, we try to pretend that everything is OK, even when everyone involved knows  it isn’t, just because we don’t know how they will respond if we apologize.

We do the same thing with God from time to time, rationalizing away our choices, trying to convince ourself we’re OK because we’re afraid what will happen if we admit that there is something wrong.

But we don’t have to wonder how God will respond, because the Bible says what will happen.  If you will confess your sins, God is faithful and just, and he will forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrightousness.

He won’t condemn you.

He won’t reject you.

He will forgive you.

He’s already chosen you to receive forgiveness.

And it’s not just forgiveness that he wants to give you.  He doesn’t just want to wipe away the past record of your sins and make everything right again, he wants to change you, to help you become more like him.  That’s the third thing he’s chosen you for.

He chose you to be holy and blameless in his sight.

God didn’t choose you just so he can pretend that everything is all right between the two of you.  Having lavished his gifts on you, and having offered you forgiveness, he also promises to help you change – to become the better you that deep down you know he wants you to be.  He has chosen you to become more like him.

He chose you to be adopted as his children.

As if the other things weren’t already good enough, God has also chose you to become a part of his family.  He not only loves you enough to forgive you, empower you and bless you, he thinks you are worthy of bearing his name and being a part of his family.

And when you stop to think about it, that’s a pretty big honor.

Because when you are family, how you behave reflects on the rest of your family.

Anyone who has to go to the same school their older brother or sister went to knows this.  When your teachers have had your brother or sister before you, they already have certain ideas and expectations about you even before you first set foot in their class room.  The choices of your family members effects your reputation.

Normally, we don’t have any choices in this matter.  We don’t choose our families.  Like them or not, we’re pretty much stuck with them.

But not so with God.  God isn’t stuck with you.  He chose to adopt you.  He doesn’t just tolerate having you in his family, he wants you to be a part of his family, and he wants that so much, he even sent his own Son Jesus Christ to die to make your adoption possible.

And finally,

He chose you to know the mystery of his will

God is not the kind of God to hide his plans and purposes from us, leaving us in the dark about what he wants to do in the world, or in us.  Life isn’t meaningless and without purpose – God has a plan and he wants you to know it, and to take part in it. God tells us his purpose is to rescue and redeem the world, and there is a role in that mission that he wants us to play.

Jesus himself noted this.  In John 15:15 he tells his disciples “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” I could just boss you around as if you were my slaves, Jesus says, but instead I invite you to be my friends and partners in the work I am doing in the world.

And you know what’s really interesting about that verse?  The very next words of Jesus are these:

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.”

I chose you.

But that’s not all that Ephesians chapter one has to say about our fear of rejection.   Because the fear of rejection isn’t just that we will never be chose, the fear of rejection is also the fear that the person who chose us one day will change their mind and abandon us for someone else.

Look at the way this passage ends in Ephesians 1:13-14.

Not only did God choose us, he sealed us. He put his mark of ownership on us so that there can never be any doubt.  We belong to him.  And having sealed us, he gave us a deposit guaranteeing our place in his inheritance.

I talked about why our youth group requires deposits on trips.  Sometimes, when there are expenses we have to pay for even in someone backs out at the last minute, we require deposits to cover those costs.  It’s our way of making sure people are certain of their decision before they make a reservation.

God is so certain of his choice of you, he put down a deposit.  He placed his Holy Spirit in you to reserve your place in his kingdom. From his perspective there’s no going back on that choice.

No, he doesn’t kidnap you.  He doesn’t trick you into saying yes to him and then refuses to let you go if you change your mind.  You can still choose to turn your back on God and walk away from him.

But God promises that he will never, ever do that to you.

When you come to God, this is one relationship in which you don’t have to fear rejection.

Then we returned to the question: “How would your behavior change if you knew the person you chose already chose you?”

The fact is God has chosen us, and that should make it easier for us to choose him.  We closed with an evangelistic appeal, sharing how students could accept God’s grace and forgiveness and begin a life with Him.

If you’d like, you can listen to the full audio of this sermon by checking out our podcast on iTunes or by downloading it from our RSS feed.

A busy schedule has kept me from updating my blog recently, but I’m working to get back into the swing of posting regularly.  I’m going to go back a couple of weeks with my reviews to include all three sermons from our Avatar series.

Weekend Teaching Series: Avatar

Message Title: Avatars and Incarnation

Sermon in a Sentence: Avatar provides hints and glimpses of the greatest story ever told, but Jesus Christ is the incarnation of God in whom we can trust.

Text(s): John 1:1-14

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 3 out of 10, A pretty straightforward night with an enjoyable theme.

Message Summary:

In January we launched a three week mini-series inspired by themes from the new blockbuster movie Avatar.  In week one of our series we examined the story of the movie as a whole and asked the question “What makes this movie so compelling?”

We started by watching the trailer for the movie and summarizing the plot premise (attempting to avoid giving too much away.)  We explained the setting on Pandora, the concept of Avatars and the primary conflict of the story: the question over which faction of humans will shape the future of Pandora, the scientists who want to study the planet and do good for the people, or the corporate officials who wish to exploit the resources of the moon for financial gain.

Having summarized the premise of the movie we asked the question: “Why was this movie so compelling?”

Granted the movie is a bit predictable.  It isn’t a new plot, even if it is a technological triumph in filming.  Some have even noted it’s basically “Pocohontas” in space.  Granted it features 12 foot tall blue skined Na’vi, not brown skinned Native Americans, settlers who fly futuristic helicopters rather than 17^th century sailboats, and a hero named Jake Sully, not John Smith.  But other than that, it’s pretty much the same story.

And it contains some troubling connotations that go unnoticed while the viewer is enthralled by the cinematography.  Granted it is set in a fictional fantasy world where the people have their own religion, but the worldview it portrays and endorses reflects what we know as animism – the idea that everything in the world from the people, to the animals, to the plants and even the rocks and dirt itself, have a soul, and that god, known on Pandora as Eywa, and to animists as Gaia or Mother Earth, is the connection that exists between all these souls.  All life is linked together, and everything combined becomes the goddess that is worshipped and served.

What’s more, Avatar clearly also draws on Hindu beliefs as well.  The word Avatar, itself is drawn from Hinduism.  And one only needs to look at the pictures of the long haired, blue skinned incarnations of Vishnu from Hindu thought to see where the design of the Na’vi people came from.  In fact, the obvious connections with Hinduism have caused at least one American Hindu leader to ask James Cameron to put a disclaimer at the beginning and end of the movie that the movie itself has nothing to do with Hinduism and is not an accurate portrayal of what Hinduism believes.

But the moviegoer hardly even notices.  When all the Na’vi people get together and start praying around a tree, you find yourself hoping that Eywa will answer their prayers without even realizing that the movie is promoting an understanding of God that is at odds with our Christian faith.

So, is it all one great big conspiracy to try to force New Age paganism down the throats of audiences or to subtly slip a good dose of Hinduism into our entertainment diet?

Probably not.

James Cameron is a filmmaker, not a guru or a shaman.  His desire is to make the next blockbuster, not convert the world to a particular religion – especially since in a lot of ways he gets the religions to which he alludes wrong.  The religious themes of the movie probably reflect his syncretistic hodgepodge of personal religious beliefs, but Cameron is far more interested in getting you to buy a Blu-Ray than to have you baptized as a neo-pagan.

So given all these troubling features, why was the story so captivating?

Yes the technology of filming it is a stunning cinematic break through. But cutting edge special effects don’t necessarily create a captivating story.  Don’t believe me?  Take a look at Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones.  Cutting edge special effects, yet it sold less than a third of the tickets that Star Wars IV: A New Hope (the first star wars movie) sold. The technology alone can’t explain the fascination of the story.

And, quite frankly, it can’t be the dialog.  Check out the most memorable quote from the movie: “You are not in Kansas any more. You are on Pandora.”  Seriously.  It’s most memorable line is a rip off of The Wizard of Oz.  The movie had no great lines.  And only a few laugh lines.  It appears to have been written to make translation into other languages easy, not for the art of literature.

So why does everyone want to see it again?

I think it’s because at the heart of Cameron’s story, whether he wants to admit it or not, is another story.  Cameron’s story is great because in some ways it reminds us of the greatest story ever told.

As I said earlier, the core conflict that drives the plot of the movie are the competing concerns of the two groups of humans on the planet.  On the one had you have the scientists, who are on the planet to study the native plants and animals, and who also want to do good for the Na’vi who live there.  The scientists have built relationships with the Na’vi and built schools to teach Na’vi children English so they can communicate. The desire is to live with them and do good for them.

On the other hand you have the corporate military, who refer to the Na’vi at best as flea bitten savages and at worst a bunch of blue monkeys. There is no concern for Na’vi civilization or culture.  The guiding principle is the idea that might makes right, and morality boils down to the fact that whoever is the strongest gets to make the rules.

The question is: Which viewpoint will have the power to shape the world of Pandora – compassion and kindness, or violence and oppression?

What’s really interesting to me are the people James Cameron chooses to personify these two worldviews.  The head scientist on Pandora is a woman named Grace Augustine. Do you think it’s an accident that the name that compassion goes by in Avatar is Grace?

And the person who personifies the notion of might makes right is a soldier by the name of Colonel Miles Quaritch.  Interestingly Colonel Quaritch is a name that Cameron stole from a book by Henry Rider Haggard, who incidentally is the same 19^th century author who created the character of Allan Quartermain (one of my favorite literary adventurers).

But I’m more interested in his first name, Miles.  Appropriately, the name Miles is the Latin word for Soldier.

So essentially the story of Avatar is a story which asks the question, which power will shape the world, Grace, or Soldiers, Compassion or Violence?

And the movie is captivating because in the end, Miles, the soldier is defeated, and Grace wins out.

But how does Grace win in Pandora?

With an incarnation from the heavens named the Savior.

Doesn’t get much more obvious than that does it?

Of course the names have been changed for the movie.  The male lead for Avatar isn’t named Savior, he’s named Jake Sully.  But he is definitely a Christ figure.  So much so that in Cameron’s original screenplay his name wasn’t Jake, it was Josh, or Joshua, which means “God saves” and is the Hebrew form of the name Jesus.

And how does Joshua, er, Jake manage to help rescue the Na’vi people?

By becoming an Avatar.

Avatar isn’t a word that Cameron made up for the movie.  In fact you’ve probably heard of Avatars before.  We use the word to describe digital representations of ourselves that we send into a virtual world to embody us on the internet or in games.  But the word Avatar has been around a lot longer than that.

Avatar is actually a Sanskrit word which literally means “He descends.”  It has long been used by Hinduism to describe the incarnation of their deities.  A Hindu god comes into the world by taking on a human form and living alongside humanity.  In fact, it was the use of the word avatar that upset so many Hindus about Cameron’s movie.

Jake Sully becomes an Avatar to the Na’vi because he takes on their form, is embodied in their flesh, and for a time, becomes one of them.

Remind you of anyone you know?  Saving the world by taking on flesh?

John chapter one tells the story this way:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.” (John 1:1-2, NIV)

John goes on to write:

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14, NIV)”

In a lot of ways, the story of Avatar reminds us about the story of Jesus. But Cameron’s story is what I call not quite true.  Despite the fact that the story line points to Jesus and the way in Christ God became human and lived with us, it’s not quite a faithful representation, or what the church would call a true image of Christ.  Despite their similarities, Jake isn’t Jesus.

In Jake we have someone who is strong and brave, but in many ways clueless. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, or how to do it.  And he is as apt to make a mistake as he is to succeed.  The Na’vi call him an infant to his face.  And behind his back they call him a moron.  Everywhere he goes, everything he does, he makes a fool of himself. At least at first.

But Jesus wasn’t a bumbling hero.  Clueless was never used to describe Christ. Not even from the start.  Luke tells us that when Jesus was 12, at the age when a Jewish boy became a man and took upon himself the responsibility of keeping the law, Mary and Joseph took him to Jerusalem.  There he got into some discussions with some aged experts in the law.  And even the men who had studied God’s word all their lives were amazed at his answers and had to admit that Jesus had special knowledge and understanding.  Unlike the Na’vi our fate doesn’t rest in the hands of someone who is likely to fail, and we don’t have to wait and worry to see if he pulls it off or not.

Likewise, Jake is a man torn by competing loyalties.  The driving force of his story line is the question what side will he choose? He’s a marine by training, so there is something about Colonel Quaritch and what he stands for that Jake admires and believes. But there is a growing sense within him that what Quaritch wants to do is wrong.  But as long as he’s trying to please two masters, he is bound to make mistakes.  Ultimately, Jake has to fail, has to betray the Na’vi before he can learn from his mistakes and rescue them.

Jesus on the other hand was not plagued by competing loyalties.  The Bible says that though he was tempted in every way just as we are, he never made the wrong choice.  His first and only allegiance was to God, and because of that he loved humanity.

Perhaps most the most disturbing point of comparison is the way in which the Avatar saves the world.  Despite the fact that in the end Jake represents Grace and what Grace stands for, the means by which they achieve victory is through violence. Jake wins because in the end, he (and his fellow Na’vi) are the last warriors left standing.  They take the fight to their enemies and eventually win.  Jake ultimately triumphs when someone manages to kill the Colonel.  Miles dies, and Jake lives.

However, it wasn’t by violence that the true incarnation of God changed our world.  Jesus didn’t come into our world as a warrior who would eventually win by killing everyone who got in his way or opposed his agenda.  In fact, just the opposite is true.  Jesus knew that lasting victory is not achieved by violence, but by love. Jesus isn’t the victor because he’s the last warrior standing.  Jesus wins when he lays down his life for the world. Unlike Cameron’s version, Jesus dies so that we might live.

So in a lot of ways, Avatar points us to the truth about Jesus.  It gives us hints and glimpses of the greatest story ever told.  Grace wins when a Savior takes on flesh and enters the world.

But in the end, it comes up short.  Jake Sully has nothing on Jesus Christ. His story is interesting and compelling, but on Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, can save our world.

If you’d like, you can listen to the full audio of this sermon by checking out our podcast on iTunes or by downloading it from our RSS feed.

My Apologies: Normally I’d wrap up a weekly review with a recap of our worship set and my favorite memory from the night, but it’s been a few weeks and all those things are running together in my mind.  I’ll go back to including these in future reviews, but they won’t be included in these “catch up” postings.  Sorry.

Weekend Teaching Series: Heroes

Message Title: The Foolish Vow

Sermon in a Sentence: God is not honored when we treat him like the idols that surround us.

Text(s): Judges 10-11

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 3 out of 10, A straightforward night, with one of the tougher stories in the Bible.

Message Summary:

Heroes moved into its sixth week with the story of Jephthah. We’re working our way through the book of Judges with our students, and we’re into the homestretch now.  That’s a good thing, because if you know anything about Judges, you know things are getting bad, fast.

We once again picked up where we left off last week.  Abimelech, son of Gideon, claims the title of king for himself, and sees his reign come to an end when the people rebel against his leadership and a besieged woman drops a millstone on his head.

Following Abimelech’s death, we have a short interlude in which two minor judges are named: Tola and Jair.

We don’t know much about either, but the way their short stories are presented show us that a transition is taking place.

Tola’s story is presented much like the other judges up to this point.  He rescued Israel in a time of distress, led Israel for the rest of his life, and then died and was buried.

Jair, however, is different.  Jair doesn’t rescue Israel from anyone.  He simply leads Israel for 23 years.  During that time he sets himself up like a king, he has 30 sons, gives each of them a donkey and a city, and renames the land Havvoth Jair (the villages of Jair).  No longer is this Israel, the nation that grapples with God.  They are the land of Jair, and their judge is more interested in consolidating his own power than leading as God directs.

In five short verses the book of Judges takes a turn for the worse, and we learn that the downward trend we noticed in the story of Gideon and Abimelech is not just a anomaly, but rather a pattern.

And then the next major cycle of Judges begins.

It starts with Rebellion.

Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD. They served the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites and the gods of the Philistines. (Judges 10:6a, NIV)

The usual suspects, the Baals and Ashtoreths, are here.  But there is also something different.  Notice all the nations listed: Aram and Sidon to the North, Moab to the south, the Ammonites on the East and the Philistines on the West.  North, South, East, West, it’s almost like the author of Judges wants us to know that there wasn’t a god or a religion that the Israelites didn’t chase after.

They liked the idea of being spiritual, and the spiritual ideas of every nation around them were considered equally valid.

Of course, that means that the religious ideas of every nation around them, including their own, were equally untrue.  None were true enough for them to give their lives to.  But they were convenient for making the Israelites feel more spiritual.

Sound familiar?  Interested enough in seeming to be spiritual, they are willing to dabble in everything, but not willing to surrender themselves to anything.  Just enough religion to make them feel better about themselves, but not enough to require them to actually live any better.

What’s more, they were all up in God’s face about this adultery.  They did evil in the eyes of the Lord.  Nothing secret or shameful about the shameful way they were acting.  They were out in the open about their infidelity to God.

Following rebellion comes retribution.

God hands them over to the consequences of their choices, and sells them into the hands of the Ammonites and the Philistines.  Up until now, Israel has been facing regional enemies who pose a threat from one direction.  Now Israel is getting it from all sides, from the Ammonites on the East and the Philistines from the West.  They’ve been selling themselves out to the foreign gods of these lands, so God sells them into the foreign powers of these lands.

Following retribution comes repentance.

Eventually Israel wakes up to the fact that their idolatry is making them miserable.  They cry out to God for rescue:

Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD, “We have sinned against you, forsaking our God and serving the Baals (Judges 10:10, NIV).”

And everyone knows that following repentance comes a redeemer.

God responds to the repentance of his people by sending them a Judge to rescue them.

Only this time he doesn’t.

The LORD replied, “When the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, the Sidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you and you cried to me for help, did I not save you from their hands?  But you have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you. Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble (Judges 10:11-14, NIV)!”

It’s as if God says “Haven’t we been here before?  Haven’t we already done all this?  Every time you’ve called out to me, I’ve rescued you, and still, every time I rescue you, you turn your back on me.  Well, fine.  If you want to serve all these other Gods, if you think your spirituality means you have all your bases covered, then let all these other gods that you are worshipping come and rescue you.  Learn first hand just how empty these idols you keep selling yourself to really are.”

Surprisingly, the people didn’t give up on God.  Even though he rejected their first request for rescue, they followed through on their repentance.  They got rid of the idols they had been worshipping, and they began to worship and serve God and God only.

And only then did God decide to act on their behalf to raise up a redeemer.

Often our poor choices result in unpleasant consequences.  And when we are faced with the consequences of our own poor choices, many times we too cry out to God for rescue.

But just because we repent doesn’t mean that God will always remove the consequences of our choices immediately.  We can know that he will remove the guilt for our choices.  He does forgive us and give us a new start.  But often he leaves us to suffer the consequences of our sin.  It’s his way of teaching us to make better choices next time.

The key is to not give up just because God doesn’t deliver us from the suffering caused by our sin.  The secret is in serving God anyway, trusting him to keep us through the storms of our own making, rather than simply making all our problems go away.

And because that is what Israel did, God acted on their behalf to raise up a redeemer.

Israel has still been suffering from foreign oppression.  It’s become so bad that the Ammonites, the enemies of Israel, are camped out on the very edge of Israel ready to attack.  Gilead, the part of Israel being threatened, has offered to make anyone who is willing to stand up to the Ammonites their leader, if only someone will step up to the plate and lead them into battle.

Judges 11:1 introduces us to this new leader.

Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute (Judges 11:1, NIV).

What do we know about Jephthah?

• He was a Gileadite, this was his home country.
• He came from a dubious background. His mother was a prostitute. And as a result, no one really knew who his father was.  Gilead is the name of a place, not the name of a person, at least not at this point in the story.  Most scholars agree when it says that his father was Gilead, that was just a nice way of saying anyone in town could have been his dad.
• He was a mighty warrior.  It’s the same phrase God used to describe Gideon when he found Gideon threshing the wheat.  But unlike Gideon, this does not appear to be an ironic description for a cowardly farmer hiding out from the Midianites.  Jephthah was one mean dude, and everyone knew it. But rather than making him popular, this actually worked against Jephthah.

No one liked him.  They all knew what kind of woman his mother was, and no one knew who his father was.  To make matters worse, everyone was afraid of him, scared of what he would do next.  Between his history and his personality, he was not popular, and before long the people drove him away from his home.

And Jephthah left.  Judges tells us he gathered around himself a “group of adventurers.” It’s the same phrase used to describe the men Abimelech hired to fight for him. Literally it means empty men, men empty of any sense of ethics or morality, men whose lives had no meaning or purpose.   Together they formed a band of outlaws who lived in the land of Tob and pillaged defenseless villages for a living.

Driven away from his home and his people, Jephthah leaves to become a gangster.

But now things have changed in Gilead.  The Ammonites are camped out, ready to attack.  Everyone is wondering who could be strong enough to defend them.  Someone remembers the bully they chased away.  Could the warrior they feared become the warrior they needed?  They send word to Jephthah begging him to return and defend them.

How do you suppose Jephthah reacted?

Yesterday you were too good for me.

Today you’ve decided you won’t survive without me.

Yesterday you rejected me.

Today you want my help.

Sound familiar?

In many ways this is exactly the same way Israel has treated God.  When things were going well they were too good, too spiritual to be bothered with God.  They rejected him.  Drove him away.  Shut him out of their life.

But when things stared going bad, when there was no way they were going to survive without a miracle, when they desperately needed help, where did they turn?

We wouldn’t do something like that would we?

Anyway, the people turned to Jephthah and beg him to come back and fight for them.  Jephthah calls them on their duplicity.  “Aren’t you the same people who drove me away?”  But the people of Gilead are desperate.  They even promise if he will come back they will make him their leader.

From outlaw to king, life’s looking up for Jephthah.

Only Jephthah appears to know he can’t do it on his own.  He points out that the only way he can win is if God helps them.  He seems to know that there must be a place for God in this plan if it is to have any prayer of succeeding.  Maybe just because he finds himself in a bad place in life, he’s not all that bad of a person after all.  With that provision – as long as God helps us – Jephthah agrees to fight for Gilead.

When he comes back to take over, he doesn’t resort immediately to violence.  Instead, in an act that seems to run counter to his gangster image, but which also reveals a great deal of wisdom on Jephthah’s part, he first attempts to find a peaceful solution.

He sends a messenger with a pretty simple question.  “Why do you want to attack us?”

The Ammonites reply “Because when you came out of Egypt, you Israelites stole our land.”

Jephthah replies “Actually, this land wasn’t yours.  We purposely tried to stay out of your land.  The Amorites were living in this land, and God gave this land to us.  Besides, we’ve been here 300 years now.  If you had a problem with this you should have said something back then.  You live in the land your god gave to you.  We will live in the land that our God gave to us.  And if you have a problem with that, we’ll let God be the judge who decides our case.”

This last little bit wasn’t very conducive to a peace settlement.  It basically was a polite way of saying, let’s go to war and see whose god is stronger.  And that’s exactly what happened.

Ammon marched against Gilead.

Gilead marched against Ammon.

And just before the battle was about to start, Jephthah made a promise to God.  He seems to have understood all along that the only way they could win was if God helped them.  And so he promised God to make a sacrifice.  Everything I have is yours.  Name what you want and I will sacrifice it to you, if only you will give us victory in this battle.

Only that’s not quite how Jephthah put it.

His words: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering (Judges 11:30-31, NIV).”

Now just like in some parts of the world today, the Israelites in Jephthah’s day not only were born in a barn, they lived in one too.  Frequently houses were divided up into two sections, one where they family kept their livestock which provided food for the family, and one where the people themselves lived.  So Jephthah is basically saying to God, “Choose whatever you want that I own, and I will sacrifice it to you if we win.”

But this promise becomes problematic.

Gilead goes to war.

Gilead wins.

Jephthah returns home, remembering his promise.

And what comes out to meet him?

His daughter.  His only daughter.  His only child for that matter.

Jephthah knows he has made a promise he must keep.  But he is distraught.  “What have you done to me?” he says to his daughter.  As if somehow his stupid promise is her fault.  “You have made me miserable and wretched because I have made a promise I cannot break.”

He goes on to explain what he has promised God.  And his daughter accepts it.  “If that’s what you promised God,” she says, “that’s what you have to do.  Just give me two months to go out into the wilderness with my friends to mourn what is going to happen to me, because I will never marry.”

He gives her time.

She leaves to mourn.

Surprisingly, she comes back home.

“And he did to her as he had vowed (Judges 11:39, NIV).”

What are we supposed to make out of this story?

Well there are some pretty obvious questions raised by it.

Questions like “Did he really kill his daughter?”  (Which is a tough one.  It certainly seems like it – what else are we supposed to make out of the words “He did to her as he had vowed.”  Though the fact that her concern seems to be about the fact that she will never marry, as opposed to the fact that she is about to die, makes one wonder if perhaps instead of killing her she was taken to the tabernacle and placed in God’s service for life instead.)

Questions like “Why would God let Jephthah do something like that?”  (Which is pretty tough too.  Certainly Scripture indicates that God is not looking for, nor is he pleased by such actions.  But God lets us live with our own mistakes all the time.)

But laying aside these questions, what is the meaning of this story?  What is it’s point?

I think the core issue in this story, as with the entire book of Judges, is idolatry – mixing the worship of other gods in with the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

You see, Jephthah is a flawed hero.  He is hardly a role model that scripture sets up for us to imitate (though he is listed as a hero of faith in Hebrews 11.)  Jephthah is part of the second half of the book of Judges.  Remember what we said at the beginning of the lesson about Tola and Jair?

Something has happened here.  We’re moving away from the exemplary judges like Othaniel, Ehud and Deborah, visionary leaders who trusted God even when (at times) others had their doubts.  We’ve already seen the problems begin with Gideon, who although he said all the right things about not wanting to be king, still acted like one.  In Jair, we have a judge who didn’t even bother pretending that he didn’t want to be king.  We’ve found our way into a downward spiral, and Jephthah with his foolish vow is another step down, not up, from those who came before him.

And Jephthah’s great mistake was in thinking that Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the one and only true God, creator and sustainer of the universe, was just like all the idols that all the other people worshipped.

We see it in the bribe he offers God.

That’s right.  Jephthah’s mistake wasn’t in being so vague that his vow might possible be construed to suggest he must sacrifice his daughter as a burnt offering, it was in promising God a sacrifice in exchange for victory in the first place.

He should have known better.

Jewish law is clear, judges are not to be bribed.  Both Exodus and Deuteronomy specifically prohibit judges from accepting bribes.  Deuteronomy 27:25 places a curse on anyone who would accept a bribe.  And just in case there was any confusion about trying to bribe God, Deuteronomy 10:17 states:

“For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes (NIV).”

But as soon as Jephthah finished his big speech about appointing God to be the judge in the territorial dispute between Israel and Ammon, he turns around and offers God a bribe if only God will make sure that Israel wins . . .

Why would he do something so stupid?

Because that’s what all the other gods wanted.

Seriously.  If you wanted Baal to do something for you, you left him and offering and in doing so you bought your favor from him.  The same with Ashteroth.  It was even true of Chemosh, the God of the Moabites who Jephthah referenced in his message to Ammon.  If you wanted any of these idols to do anything for you, you had to bribe them with a sacrifice.

Not that they actually could do anything for you.  They were, after all, merely dead statues.  But still, you had no chance at all if you didn’t at least attempt a bribe.

What’s more, if it was really important you offered them your child as a human sacrifice.  2 Kings 3:27 makes reference to this practice when the Moabite king offered his firstborn son as a sacrifice in the hope he could change the outcome of a war he was losing.

Maybe that’s why Jephthah, while disappointed, wasn’t dissuaded from his vow when his daughter walked out of his house.  He assumed that Yahweh was just like Chemosh.  Rumor had it that Chemosh required the sacrifice of a child in exchange for victory.  Why should Yahweh, God of Israel be any different?

Jephthah made the mistake of thinking that God was just like all the other idols the other people chased after.

When in reality, God is nothing like the idols of our world.  He is completely different, wholly other.

And maybe that’s the lesson we’re supposed to take from this story.

You and I will hopefully never be tricked into vowing our children as burnt offerings to God.

But every day people sacrifice their families and friends for the idols they chase after.

Granted, it’s not normally as a fiery bribe to Baal or Chemosh, but people sacrifice relationships for money, power, popularity and pleasure all the time.

I mean, if you are going to get ahead in life, you’re going to have to make some sacrifices.

And every day, Christians come away making the same mistake that Jephthah did – that if we are going to get ahead in this world we have to operate from the same set of values and make the same kind of sacrifices as the rest of the world.

Values like relativism which argues that the end justifies the means or the idea that as long as you’re headed toward the right destination, it doesn’t matter what you have to do to get there.

Values like materialism which argues what matters most in this world is stuff, and whoever has the most of it wins.

Values like egocentrism, which argues you have to take care of yourself first, and then if you have anything left you can afford to look after others.

Our world operates on assumptions like those every day.

But God is different.  He isn’t like all those other liars.

He’s not shallow.

He’s not temporary.

He’s not just an illusion.

He is God.

And because he is different, his people operate from a different set of values.

The ends do not justify the means.  We’re not free to do whatever we want as long as we get where we are going.

Success is not measured in what we have, but what we give.

Our first priority is not how we can look out for ourselves, but how we can love others.

So, having seen in Jephthah what happens when you treat God just like all the other idols, will you make a real vow, a vow that matters, a vow not to live that way any more?

Worship Set: Revelation Song, Hosanna (Brooke Fraser version), How He Loves, The Stand

Favorite Moment: The teaching time.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, attendance wise.  A lot of sickness has been going around, and winter sports have started up.  But we had a great group of students there this week.  And not only did we have a great group of students, they were really engaged in the lesson.  It wasn’t a struggle to keep their attention, they were right there with me.  I love nights like that.