Staring

Job 42:5 ESV

I had heard of you with the hearing of the ear,

                But now my eye sees you;

“I could stay awake just to hear you breathing” -Diane Warren

Job has come to the end of his ordeal. He has remained true, enduring the ridicule of his friends and a youthful compatriot. Enduring the dogs licking his boils, the men spitting in front of him, the foolish advice of his wife. He now comes to the moment he has wanted to stand before God. God comes in the whirlwind and begins to question him. When all is said and done Job stands in awe of God and says “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” He sees that God is truly God and capable of being completely Just in his sovereignty.

In the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-eight I was a youthful high schooler and Aerosmith came out with its hit song “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” in conjunction with the movie Armageddon. Chronicling a man who simply is in raptured with his lover and is scared to sleep because the sweetest dream is going to fall short of the reality of his life. I found out Diane Warren wrote the song for Aerosmith and is an admitted cynic of romance “having never been in love like the people in her songs”. It is an interesting reality that those that no so little of the idea are so infatuated with it and can write so movingly of something they have never known. Looking for the dream they never come to the point of letting the reality become the dream.

I have been guilty of staring at Kelly. Been awed by her beauty and grace. I have done so not to gain anything from her. Recognizing how much she has given to her kids, and to all the kids God has put under her care. Watching as she loses her temper with them and as she snuggles them at things that only make me roll my eyes, only increase my staring. As I mentioned, I do not stare because: I want Kelly to notice and give me something, because I want to find out something new about her, nor because I want to work on our relationship. I stare simply because of what I see and know of her brings me to a point of awe, and so I stare. (Often when I do learn something new, she is forced to endure my staring even more!)

I mention this because how little I simply “stare” at God, meditate being the more spiritual word, or spiritual discipline if you prefer. Meditating on God is something I know I should be doing more. Yet, often I find I come to meditating as a precursor to prayer, where I am asking to get something, or as a means to help me grow in the faith (working on my relationship with God). Thankfully I can only imagine what Kelly would do if I simply stared at her prior to asking for something! Often, I read the text and hear with my ear who and what God is. I don’t see him and therefore I don’t stare in awe as I ought, as he is worthy of. It is something that must be worked on in my life, that is why it is rightly called a spiritual discipline. If we proceed to only stand in awe when we feel like it, or when something specific overcomes us, we will find we are like Ms. Warren, having never experienced the thing we long for.

CORAM DEO

Fear of Man

Proverbs 17:28 ESV

Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.

Looking backwards is always a dangerous thing. Yet, it also helps to see some of the great blessings that God has showered upon you, that at the time you might have overlooked. I was given the rare blessing of reading the book of Proverbs at a very young age. In so doing I stumbled upon this bit of advice from the book. This verse and Proverbs 16:32 have shaped my life more than any other bit of biblical verse, for better or worse. They acted as governors on the impious child and setting the framework of my life. I was blessed also in my life to have Mrs. Russel as my 1^st grade teacher, I say that because I was also blessed to have Mrs. Bolliger as my 1^st grade teacher, some of us just don’t learn as quickly as others. So began my battle to not let people know how little I know, after all it is “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.” (Unknown author)

John Knox was no such man. At his graveside Regent Morton said “Here lies one who neither flattered nor feared any flesh”. Such a testament is very true of John Knox, as you sift through the various events and trials of his life you find a man who “feared nothing but sin and desired nothing but God” (John Wesley). His first great work shows this lack of fear, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women, and how headless he was of the dangers of letting his opinion be known, as this work would hinder his ability as a Protestant Queen would come to the thrown of England. Time and again Knox would mince no words as he would call sin out and address it with individuals suffering from the poison, never failing to publicly address the sins of the unrepentant. In so doing he, by God’s grace, was able to draw Scotland out of Catholicism and poverty, to stand as a pinnacle of Protestant and economic vitality.

Over thanksgiving I had a conversation with another pastor. It came to light that I had preached against hunting. I had to explain that I had preached against; tractors, sports, fishing, new cars, and anything else that would keep the people of God from coming to church. Any time that the people of God choose to be absent from the assembly is sin. God can, and does, providentially hinder, but that is not what happens. Men and women choose themselves and their dreams over union with the body of Christ, i.e. union with Christ. For all those that have come to church, or stopped coming to church, this is not news to them. Why then am I bringing this up? It is far easier to call out these things generally than it is to call them out individually.

To often I have chosen to be silent with individuals hoping that the general rebuke will suffice and they will be able to put two and two together. I have learned that some needed to join me in repeating 1^st grade because the math is simply too hard for them. I have also found that others also see the sin around them and have cowered before it not wanting to rock the boat. We as a church must address individual sins with individuals. Giving grace and mercy freely to those we confront, and expecting that they will do the same for us. John Wesley said “Give me 100 preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God; Such alone will shake the gates of hell.” I disagree with him on one small point, they don’t need to all be preachers. If we as a congregation would fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, WE will shake the gates of hell. As we go into 2021 help me rattle the cage.

CORAM DEO

Spent

Haggai 1:13 ESV

“I am with you, declares the Lord.”

I was five when we made the change. I wasn’t sure at the time why but we started shopping around for a new church. My parents had attended First Baptist Church for ten years and we were now looking for a church. After visiting a few churches, they settled on the quickly growing church in town, Emmanuel United Methodist Church. Since that time Emmanuel has always been with me. Yes, that pun was intended. Emmanuel means God with us. As the Angels declare it from the sky we are to know that, what may come, God is with his people.

As the people have come back and are facing opposition and trials associated with coming back to the land. The funds and leadership needed to rebuild the temple. The people had fallen into slack religiosity, and grown too busy with the needs of life to spend much time on the things of God. God gave them a daunting job to do, rebuild the temple. The fallen down, burned up, pile of stone up on the hill. They were simply overwhelmed by the task at hand. So, God sent them a message.

God declared to his people that no one was like Moses, a man he talked with “face to face”, and yet Moses was overwhelmed, “Why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me?” (Numbers 10:28) As we come to David “a man after God’s own heart” we find a man crying out to God “Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck.” (Psalm 69:1) I come to one of the most celebrated Prophets in Elijah and what do we find a man crying out to God because “I, even I only, am left.” Even though he knew this wasn’t true based on the testimony of Obadiah (1 Kings 18:13). God had pushed all these men to the place that they were simply overwhelmed by their circumstances and the call that God had placed on their lives. Moses was fine shepherding in the desert but God called him to lead a “stiff necked people” and it was breaking him. David had been called out of the field to be king of God’s people, and yet at multiple points prior to his crowning he was overwhelmed, and even on the run from his son. Elijah was called to speak truth to a people so far God they would murder his prophets rather than listen to them, yet he was called and so he did, and the stress made his ministry much shorter than his successor.

Looking at my house of eight children between 12 and 2, and I must admit. This might break me, but I am God’s to break. Moses, David, and Elijah all had calls from God for the task they were given to do and all of them were broken and overwhelmed. I don’t know what your call is, but if you are really called to it, God will probably push you to the point you break. What is the call you have on your life? What task has God given you that you might “spend and be spent” (2 Cor 12:15), with the full knowledge that being poured out for that call might be the full measure God has called you to give?

Just because it has gotten hard doesn’t mean you have not been called to it. As his people are struggling to fulfill their call, he has only one message for them “I am with you, declares the Lord.” Emmanuel, God with us. In the midst of the trials, we have been called so let us take comfort knowing God is with us. Even when we feal we are failing.

CORAM DEO

Murderous Rebuke

2 Samuel 19:1, 7 ESV

It was told Joab, “Behold the king is weeping and mourning for Absalom.” … “Now therefore arise, go out and speak kindly to your servants, for I swear by the LORD, if you do not go, not a man will stay with you this night, and this will be worse for you than all the evil that has come upon you from your youth until now.”

Joab is a hard man. He is David’s nephew and early on joined David. He would persist by David’s side through thick and thin. Yet David was not so foolish as to be lured into Nepotism. He made Joab earn his position as commander of the Army. He would scale the shaft protecting Jerusalem that the fortress might be captured. Twice David relieved him of his position as commander, only to have Joab murder the new commanders through deceit and David would not punish him for those actions. We are never told why David commanded Solomon to judge Joab, even when David would not do so himself. This hard, dangerous man, has just murdered David’s treacherous son Absalom, while he was hanging incapacitated from a tree, and now he lectures David on how he should be acting. And he was right.

Later he would lecture David on the foolishness of a census. After he was unable to persuade David he simply did such a poor job it was grossly inaccurate. In both these cases Joab was right. In judging David’s success by the hand of God not by the size of David’s army he was more theologically astute than David and yet he was a ruthless, ambitious, murderer.

Coming into the holiday season you may wonder why focus on such a man. Going down the street at night seeing the lights, and thinking about how they are to signify the light of the world coming into it two thousand years ago. The Nativities, the family gatherings, any number of things, if you wanted to focus on a murderer why not go for Herod? Coming to Joab I am struck by God’s use of sinful and wicked men to fulfill his ends. In this particular case to rebuke and correct men much wiser and more righteous than themselves.

This time of the year it is easy to get lost in the nostalgia of the moment. Memories of childhood and yesteryear combine at home and at church. Our homes are filled with old and new decorations. Some of the ornaments I decorated as a preschooler at First Baptist Church of Abilene, KS hang on my tree. Sparking memories thirty-five years old. Advent readings and candles push me back to moments in time when my parents read the familiar readings and I longingly wished for my moment to light the candles. Carols that everyone knows ring loud from the organ, and every voice sings, as the church slowly fills more and more every week as Christmas Sunday approaches.

At this moment it is very easy to fall into the trap David fell into. As the Christmas and Easter Crowd makes their bi-annual pilgrimage to the holy sights it is easy to be broken for them, to mourn for the faithless who will not love enough to spare EVERY Sunday for worship with us. To grow distracted from the great victory God has wrought in the incarnation of Christ on earth. Distracted from the miraculous by mourning for the faithless.

Joab’s rebuke of David in both these events is taken to heart. Too often I mourn for the faithless at the peril of the faithful and too often I trust in earthly means rather than the God of my strength. Join me this season by continuing to fix our hearts and eyes on the blessings of 2020.

CORAM DEO

The Sweetest Frame

1 Chronicles 21:14 ESV

So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel, and 70,000 men of Israel fell.

As the writer of Chronicles grapples with the ups and downs of history, many different details come to the fore. Not content with the play-by-play style of 1 Kings the author, looks deeper at cause and effect. Why has this great nation fallen so far? What transpired that so angered God as to release his wrath upon them. This hindsight view of the Davidic reign brought this verse into being. God shows us that David’s sin of trusting in chariots and horses, in armies and personal skill, instead of God was a sin so great that 70,000 men needed to die, in a nation with 1.5 million men. Perspective, COVID has been involved with 238k deaths in a nation of 328 million. This was a devastating blow to say the least and all because its leader had trusted in man power rather than God for safety and success. Trusting in economics, nuclear energy, foreign policy, American know-how… all are part of our national story and tail. How could a boy who had trusted God for the victory over a giant while only armed with his sling, then turn and trust in the things of this world?

The first chapter of Romans shows us the way of the foolish person who would deny God and his help. How he degrades slowly into greater and greater sin. How God with draws more and more of his blessing from him and yet he will not repent. He will not turn from his sin, but simply goes further into apostasy. It is easy to do. Taking the facts and finding the narrative we enjoy, rather than the one the evidence shows. Watching the political theater over the last few weeks it has been easy to see how many choose to place their hope in the things of this world. Looking at those rejoicing and those down cast. Both have failed to place their assurance in the God who gives good gifts, and the God who disciplines nations.

Many of us will celebrate thanksgiving this week. Choosing to thank God as the true source of our worldly bounty. In so doing let us not join the Pharisee. He was a thankful man, thankful for the earthly blessings that God had given him. The sinner, condemned by society, and personal knowledge, was the one who was right in God’s eyes. We are right to thank God for what he has given. Trials and hardships, but our real joy is that he has given us his son. No matter how good it gets or rocky the road ahead might be, Christ has still died for your sins. Christ is still at the right hand of God. Christ is still interceding for you. We dare not trust the sweetest frame, but let us wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

CRUCE, DUM SPIRO, FIDO