The Courage For True Success

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The Courage for True Success

Acts 14:19-20

Dr. Jim Denison

Dr. Bill Austin, the former Baylor chaplain, enjoyed telling this story on himself. Years earlier in his ministry, God led him from one pastorate to another. An elderly lady in the church he was leaving came to him with great sadness. “We’ll never find another pastor as good as you,” she said. “We’ll never find someone who can preach as well or lead as well.” “Oh, yes you will,” he assured her. “You’ll find a man who can preach much better than me, and lead much better than me, and be much better than I have been.” “Oh, no,” she shook her head, “that’s what they said the last time.”

It takes courage to follow God’s will. The message today is about the courage we must have to give sacrificially of our time, lives, and money to our Father. Now, how does this subject of courageous, sacrificial giving make you feel?

Before I became a pastor, whenever I learned that the sermon would be about giving I expected to be made to feel guilty or pressured. To be asked to do something I didn’t really want to do, because the pastor told me I should. I thought the goal was to raise as much money as possible.

My favorite cartoon about giving pictures two men walking out of the church in their underwear. The first says to the second, “That was the best sermon on giving I’ve ever heard.” Do you wonder if that’s my goal today?

Well, it’s not. There’s a much better way to understand this subject. A way to give courageously and sacrificially to God because we want to. Because we’re thrilled to. As life’s greatest privilege and honor.

We’ll find that way today, for our money, our lives, and our souls.

Why did Paul sacrifice?

For weeks we’ve been learning about true success from the Apostle Paul. Today we see the courage of such success, in a very dramatic way.

Paul and Barnabas are on what we call their “first missionary journey,” in the south-central part of modern-day Turkey. Here they established the churches to which Paul wrote Galatians. And here, in the town of Lystra, one of the most dramatic events in Scripture occurred.

In Lystra, God uses Paul to heal a man with crippled feet.

The pagans decide that Paul and Barnabas are gods in human form. The priest of Zeus brings bulls to sacrifice to them. Paul and Barnabas immediately begin to protest, and to preach to the gospel to the excited crowd (Acts 14:8-18). No preacher ever spoke to a more enthusiastic audience.

But fame is short lived, and people are fickle: “Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead” (v. 19). The crowd wanted to sacrifice to Paul. Then they sacrificed Paul.

Bruised, battered, bleeding, knocked unconscious, so beaten that his enemies thought him dead. What would we do? Call 911? File charges? Go back to these very people, to preach the very words which had gotten us stoned? This is probably not our first impulse.

But it was Paul’s. Here’s the point for our souls this morning: “…after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city” (v. 20). He sacrificed himself again, courageously, to preach to them the word of God. To obey the will of God. To serve God. He chose to do it. He wanted to do it.

And not just in Lystra: “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea. I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?” (2 Corinthians 11:24-29).

Did Paul want to make such courageous sacrifice to his Lord? “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is to be praised forever, knows that I am not lying” (vs. 30-31).

Paul wanted to give himself so courageously, so sacrificially to his Lord. He counted such sacrifice a privilege: “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him” (Philippians 3:8-9).

Paul knew the joy, the privilege of courageous sacrifice to God. He was not the first.

Noah spent a century building his ark and preaching to his neighbors. Abraham left his home to “go out not knowing” where God would lead him. Moses brought God’s people from slavery to the edge of their glorious future.David, who wanted to fight Goliath. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who chose to enter the fiery furnace rather than worship the king’s idol.

Peter chose to be crucified upside down rather than die in the same manner as did his Lord. So did James, beheaded by Herod; John, exiled to Patmos; Andrew, James the less, and Simon the Zealot, all crucified; Bartholomew, beaten to death; Jude, Matthew, Matthias, Philip, and Thomas, all martyred. Each could have refused to preach and save his life. Each chose courageous sacrifice.

And the pattern continues among us today.

Some of our members feed the homeless downtown; some volunteer their time sacrificially to serve in missions and benevolent ministries around our city; some are in Cuba today, giving their time to the Lord and our Cuban sisters and brothers; some serve with great sacrifice in the lay leadership and ministries of our congregation.

This week I talked with a dear older saint in our church. She has given at great sacrifice to help our church, giving money she very much needs personally. But she has chosen to give that money to God. She was delighted to give it. Her quote was simple: “You cannot out-give God.” She is right.

Why does God expect sacrifice?

Such sacrifice has been at the heart of true faith, from Adam to this moment. The courageous sacrifice of time, abilities, and resources. Sixteen of Jesus’ thirty-eight parables were about money and possessions. God’s word contains 500 verses on prayer, less than that on faith, but more than 2,000 on money and possessions. Why is God so concerned with this subject? Why does he expect financial sacrifice from his people?

For this simple reason: God knows that our money reveals our heart, our soul, our priorities. If he is Lord of our finances, he is Lord of our lives. If he is not, he is not.

Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21).

Jesus gave us the first commandment: love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (Matthew 22:37). Scripture adds: “Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have” (Hebrews 13:5). We are to love our Lord more than our money.

God knows that the way we handle our money reveals our character and souls: “If you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?” (Luke 16:11).

If we are not willing to submit our money to God, we have not truly submitted our lives to him. Money reveals our heart. That’s why Martin Luther said every person needs a three-fold conversion: the head, the heart, and the wallet. That’s why General Sam Houston insisted on wearing his wallet into his baptism, so it would belong to God as well.Has your wallet been baptized yet?

Now our Lord has led our church family into a commitment of enormous sacrifice. The work we must do to prepare for the next generation and to reach our community requires the largest capital project in our history. This project requires more financial support than any single group in our church can give. God has led us to a vision which requires sacrificial, courageous giving of every one of us.

Why has God so led us?

God’s purpose in this capital campaign is to grow us spiritually. The result will be buildings and ministry. His goal in these days is not to raise money but souls. Not to construct buildings but to build faith. To teach each of us the joy and responsibility of courageous sacrifice.

You see, God can only give his best blessing, joy, peace, and purpose to those who are fully yielded to him. He always gives his best to those who leave the choice with him. When we are self-sufficient, living a convenient faith, we exclude God’s will and power from our lives. We keep him at the margins of our soul and daily priorities.

But when we yield our money, our time, our ambitions, our will to his, he can then do so much more with us than we can do for him. Then his power works through ours. Then Jesus lives his life through us. Then we have the character of Jesus—his love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Then we are crucified with Christ, and Jesus lives his life through us.

One author calls this commitment “the key to triumphant living.” Another calls it “the Christian’s secret of a happy life.” Watchman Nee calls it “the normal Christian life.”

Jesus wants us to give sacrificially and courageously to his Kingdom through this project, so he can control and bless our lives.

It has been truly said: all you are unable to give possesses you.

But each time we ask more of ourselves than we think we are able to give, and then manage to give it, we grow. In fact, this is the only way we grow.

Courageous sacrifice to God uses our temporal, temporary possessions for eternal purposes. In the 1920’s, a Methodist layman gave $100,000 to build a college in Liberia. By the 1940’s, the college had grown and was reaching many young Africans. On a special anniversary of the college’s founding, the administration determined to thank their founding benefactor.

It took months to find that layman. He had lost everything in the crash of 1929 and was living in a little house on the south side of Chicago. Twice he refused to see representatives of the mission, but finally agreed. He was flown to Africa for a gala celebration of the college’s anniversary. As he looked over the campus filled with hundreds of smiling students, he whispered to the college president, “The only thing I have kept is what I gave away.”

One day, we’ll all say that.

Conclusion

Can you say that your life is yielded sacrificially and courageously to God this morning? The best way to know is to ask the same question of your money. Our church cannot fulfill God’s vision for us unless each of us gives with sacrificial courage. It will not be done otherwise. God does not want it to be done otherwise. He is using this project to call us to spiritual renewal, to our knees, to sacrificial and courageous surrender of our wills and our money to his Lordship.

Have you answered his call yet?

In 1815, the Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo. The Duke’s most recent biographer claims to have an advantage over all previous biographers: he has found an old account ledger which shows how the Duke spent his money. That, says the biographer, is the best clue to what the Duke thought matters most.

If someone wrote your biography based on your giving to God, what would your story say? Let’s write the next chapter, today.

The Crown or the Cross

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Topical Scripture: Luke 9:51-62

We’ll begin with some good news: we have a second moon.

It was first spotted on February 15. It’s about the size of a compact car, so it’s being called a “mini-moon.” Scientists say it is an asteroid that got trapped in our planet’s gravitational force in 2017 and began orbiting us, but nobody noticed.

Here’s the bad news: it’s leaving us as soon as next week or as late as April.

By my calculations, it would take 1.1 billion minimoons to match the diameter of our moon. And three moons to match the diameter of the Earth. And 109 Earths to match the diameter of the Sun. And that’s just our Solar System, which is one of as many as 100 billion solar systems in the universe.

And the God we worship this morning made all of that.

As we’re dealing with the spreading coronavirus epidemic, the stock market fluctuations, the tornado disaster in Tennessee, and everything else in the news, it’s good to remember who is charge of the world. And the fact that he has a plan and a purpose for every one of our lives today.

We’re watching Jesus change lives on the way to Easter. Today, we’ll watch our Lord deal with people who miss their purpose. As we do, let’s determine that we will not miss ours. It has been said that there is in every human heart a crown and a cross. If we are wearing the crown, Jesus must wear the cross. If we will wear the cross, he can wear the crown.

What does it mean to give Jesus your crown, to submit to his purpose for your life? How can you do that today?

Choose God’s purpose and no other

Our text begins, “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem” (v. 51). “To be taken up” refers to his crucifixion. “Set his face” means to be firm in resolve, especially when facing difficulty or danger. “He chose and would not be deterred” would carry the sense of Luke’s phrase.

If you and I are to follow him fully, we must be as committed to God’s will for our lives as Jesus was to his own. How do you know God’s purpose for your life?

First, believe that your Father does in fact have a plan for your life today. Some evolutionists say that life began as a chance coincidence, with no particular plan or purpose at all. Existentialists say that this life is all there is, and life is chaos. Martin Heidegger, for instance, wrote that we are actors on a stage, with no script, director, or audience, and courage is to face life as it is. Postmodernists say that truth is relative, that there is no overriding purpose to life.

So, does God have a plan for us, or is life a random coincidence? In the words of Shakespeare, are we “sound and fury, signifying nothing”?

Here is God’s answer: “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). His will for you is “good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

Second, ask him to guide you into his perfect will. He will lead you rationally through Scripture, practically through circumstances, and intuitively as his Spirit speaks to your spirit. He wants you to know his will even more than you want to know it. Ask him to lead you and trust that he will. His will is not a floodlight that reveals the entire path but a flashlight that reveals the next step.

The ultimate question is not if we can know his will but whether we will follow it.

Love those God loves (vv. 52–56)

So, Jesus determined that he would embark on the journey which would end in his execution. It was customary in his day for a rabbi to send messengers ahead to make things ready for his arrival in a town (v. 52). He and his band of disciples would need food and lodging, as their trip to Jerusalem would take three days by foot. Travelers’ inns were few and far between, while bandits preyed on unprotected groups such as theirs. At the least, he did not wish to be a burden on those who might offer hospitality to his group.

As they were traveling from Galilee to Judea, their journey took them through Samaria. Most rabbis went to the east and around this despised area and people. They considered Samaritans to be half-breeds and infidels. But Jesus’ ministry to the woman at the Samaritan well two years earlier showed his compassion for these rejected people (John 4).

Tragically, this Samaritan village refused the same grace: “The people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem” (v. 53). The Samaritans usually presented no obstacles to those traveling from the south to the north. But those journeying south to Jerusalem clearly rejected the Samaritan claim that Mt. Gerazim was the proper place of worship and sacrifice.

And so, Samaritans along the way took great pains to make such journeys more difficult. Josephus even claims that they murdered Jewish pilgrims on occasion (Antiquities 20.118). If Jesus and his followers would not worship at Mt. Gerazim, they would not find easy passage to the Temple at Jerusalem.

We can understand something of their antipathy. It is human nature to slander those who slander us, to feel justified in our anger against those who hurt us first. While Jesus understood the Samaritans’ reaction, his disciples did not: “And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, ‘Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?'” (v. 54).

In response, Jesus “turned and rebuked them” (v. 55). There is a week’s worth of theology in this short verse.

Luke records Jesus’ “rebuke” of the storm (Luke 8:24), a fever (Luke 4:39), and demons (Luke 4:41). But only one other time in Scripture do we find Jesus rebuking a person: when Peter tried to prevent his decision to face crucifixion, Jesus “rebuked” him. In fact, he said to him, “Get behind me, Satan!” (Mark 8:33).

For Jesus to treat James and John as he treated Satan working through Peter was a stern response, indeed. It showed his displeasure with their racism and superior pride. It demonstrated his compassion for all people, whatever their status in society. And it stands as God’s requirement for those who follow him today: we must love those God loves.

Are there any Samaritans in your circle of relationships? Someone dealing with the pain and suffering of divorce? Someone facing their first Easter without a loved one? Someone far from home?

It’s been said that the best test of character is how we treat people we don’t have to treat well. If you’ll ask God to show you a Samaritan this week, you can be sure that he will. If you will show that person his love in yours, you’ll prove that you follow Jesus (cf. John 13:35).

Pay any price to be faithful (vs. 57-62)

In contrast to the Samaritan refusal of his band, Jesus next met three who wanted to join his disciples. Luke reports their stories because they are ours as well.

Go where he leads

One said he would follow Jesus “wherever you go” (v. 57). So Jesus told the man just where he would go: while even foxes and birds have places to reside, “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (v. 58). Since beginning his public ministry, he had lived in Peter’s home in Capernaum, and with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus while in Bethany (cf. John 11). Now the Samaritans had offered him no lodging. His reception in Jerusalem would be far worse. To follow Jesus is to accept a future filled with potential danger and distress.

It is true that the will of God never leads where the grace of God cannot sustain. But it is also true that there are times in the will of God when the grace of God is all that sustains us.

Have you placed restrictions on God’s will for your life? Are there places you will not go, people you will not serve, resources you will not give? Sins you will not confess? We are not truly his disciples unless we go where our Master goes—and his way led to the cross.

Go when he calls

Jesus called another man, “Follow me” (v. 59a). “Follow” means “be my disciple.” But the man desisted: “Lord, let me first go and bury my father” (v. 59b), incurring Jesus’ stern response: “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (v. 60).

At first glance this seems a callous and cruel request by our Savior. A man has just lost his father, the funeral is pending, and Jesus wants the grieving son to desert his family to follow him. But this was not the situation at all. This text is an example of the importance of historical exegesis, knowing the culture and customs behind the biblical narrative.

If the man’s father had actually died, the son would be at his home arranging the funeral already. Jews buried on the same day the person died whenever possible, as was done with Jesus’ corpse. If his father had died, the son would be exempt from social requirements for up to a year as he mourned his death.

But in Jesus’ day it was common for the son of elderly parents to use their advancing age and declining health as a means of avoiding life’s responsibilities. They would sometimes cite this concern as an excuse for not working, paying their bills, or serving in the military. The father was not yet dead; his son was looking for ways to avoid Jesus’ call.

And our Lord knew it. That’s why his response seemed so stern. The man’s avoidance of God’s call would cost him the chance to know and follow the Messiah of God. Tragically, it did.

Is there a call to service which you are ignoring today? A hurting person you know you should help? A witness you know you should give? A financial contribution you know you should make?

Do not mortgage today for tomorrow. “Today” is the only day which exists. God measures obedience in present action, not future intentions. What does he think of yours?

Don’t look back

A third man offered to follow Jesus if he could first go back and say good-by to his family (v. 61). Again, this seems a reasonable request met with a stern reply: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (v. 62). But the setting explains the sense of the text.

Imagine a man plowing a field who looks backward more than he looks ahead. Envision the wreckage such neglect would cause the field. Now envision an athlete who constantly leaves the game to talk with his family in the stands, or a soldier who abandons the field of battle regularly to visit his home.

It’s impossible to see where we’re going if we’re constantly looking at where we’ve been. Jesus wants full-time disciples, those who will be unwavering in their loyalty to his cause. Is there a distraction in your discipleship today? A temptation you will not reject forever? A personal agenda you wish to serve while serving your Lord?

You cannot plow in two directions at the same time. Every hour spent in the wrong field is an hour subtracted from the field assigned to you. It is an hour subtracted from the dream and passion of God for your life. It is an hour you can never regain.

Conclusion

This week we have learned how to follow Jesus fully: we are to be focused on his call, gracious to all he loves, and unconditional in our obedience. Now we are responsible for the truth we have learned.

That minimoon we discussed today is miniscule compared to our planet and our sun, but it’s bigger than we are. Here’s the amazing truth: if we give ourselves to the purpose of God, we will accomplish things of significance millennia after this planet is gone.

Winston Churchill noted: “It’s not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something.”

What is your “something” today?

The Cure for a Crowded Life

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The Cure for a Crowded Life

Mark 1:35-39

Dr. Jim Denison

Have you heard of the new organization, “Sink Eaters Anonymous”? This is a support group for those who are too busy to sit down and eat a meal, so they stand at the kitchen sink and eat with their hands as quickly as possible. We are busy people. Too busy.

We are lonely people as well. Mother Teresa said that the great epidemic of our time is not AIDS or leprosy, but loneliness. Last Sunday our deacons spoke with ninety-three people who called in response to the television broadcast, and found loneliness to be the common theme in nearly every conversation. One woman said she would close her eyes and die if she could, she is so lonely.

And some of us are confused people as well. Some of us don’t know who we are, or why we’re here.

Alexander Curry is a thirty-something Wall Street trader for a large brokerage house. He lives in a luxurious Upper East Side apartment with the latest of everything. Yet he says, “I feel that there is a lack of purpose in my being. I don’t understand why I’m here. I don’t really try to understand why I’m here because I think it would probably be futile. It does provide a real hole in my existence.”

A psychologist spent four and a half years surveying over four thousand executives who would be considered very successful by the world’s standards. Six out of ten said their lives were empty and had no personal meaning. Six out of ten!

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were a spiritual discipline you and I could practice which would help us with our busyness, our loneliness, and our confusion? Actually, there is. It is the ancient discipline of solitude.

The simple fact is that our souls need time alone with God. God made us this way. But it isn’t easy, is it? When were you last alone with God for a long time? Has it been a long time? You may wonder, Why practice the discipline of solitude? How? Is it even possible, or are our busy, lonely, confused, crowded lives the best they can be?

I have a word of hope and encouragement from Jesus for every crowded life here this morning.

The Scripture on solitude

“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went to a solitary place, where he prayed” (v. 35). Jesus has just spent an exhausting day. He started the day by preaching in the synagogue at Capernaum, the most important town on the northwest side of the Sea of Galilee. He exorcised a demon in the worship service. He healed Peter’s mother-in-law. He spent the evening healing all the sick of this large town.

If I were to preach this morning, and cast a demon out of someone right here in church, then go to a member’s house for lunch and heal his mother-in-law; then spend the evening until late counseling with people from all over North Dallas who have come to me with their problems, I would feel tomorrow like Jesus feels here.

Now it’s the day after the Sabbath—Monday morning to us. I know a preacher who doesn’t take Mondays off because he refuses to feel that bad on his day off. Jesus, on the other hand, gets up before dawn, around three or four in the morning. He leaves Peter’s house in Capernaum and walks out of town. He goes to a “solitary place,” literally a “wilderness place” in the Greek. Some place where no one else would see him, off the road, out in the country. If I were to get up tomorrow morning around 3 or 4, get in my car and drive out of the city, pull off the road, and hike out into a field alone, I would do what Jesus did here.

And he “prayed.” The Greek “imperfect” tense indicates that he continued to pray, all morning long. Not for just a few minutes, but from 3 or 4 until daybreak, two or three hours of solitude with God. When’s the last time you spent this much time alone with God? Have you ever?

But this is bad church growth strategy. Imagine planting a church and preaching the first Sunday to standing-room-only crowds, then not coming back for the next service. Jesus’ movement is just taking off, and he’s left town.

So Peter and the others come to help Jesus out. They “hunt him down,” the Greek says. They look all over for him until they find him, so they can bring him back, so he won’t miss his big chance. But Peter and the others are disappointed, and all Capernaum with them. Jesus says, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come” (v. 38).

He goes to the people, where they are, as they are. To the “villages”—we would call them the “county-seat towns.” To their “synagogues” (v. 39), where he could reach the most people. Jesus was a master strategist, knowing where to invest the most to reach the most. And this entire tour, which occupied weeks and even months of Jesus’ precious time on earth and led to ministry and healing with untold thousands, was birthed early one morning when Jesus practiced the spiritual discipline of solitude with his Father.

Clearly, Jesus needed the discipline of solitude. Do we?

Why solitude?

For this simple reason: you and I have exactly the same needs in our lives as Jesus experienced here. For one, he needs to know his life purpose. Here he faces something of an identity problem: who would he be? The local pastor of Capernaum? A faith-healer of great reputation and power? If he stays here, these are inevitable. The decision he makes here will determine the very future of his ministry.

And he faces this issue by time alone with God. Now he can say, “This is why I have come,” or “this is what God sent me to do.” He knows the “one thing,” because he has spent time alone with God.

This was not the only time Jesus answered an identity issue with solitude with God. After his baptism he spent forty days alone, determining the future of his ministry. Before his chose his disciples, the men who would carry on his work after his ascension, he spent the entire night alone with God in prayer (Luke 6:12). In the Garden of Gethsemane, facing the cross, he agonized alone with his Father (Mark 14:32-42). Each time, his time alone with God gave him the leadership and direction he needed.

Do you ever struggle with your life purpose? Of all the good things you could do, what should you do? How can you best spend your time, and your life? According to Jesus, the best way to know is to get alone with the Father, so he can tell you.

And Jesus faced a second problem you and I experience today: power to fulfill our purpose. The old professor once said to me, “Son, be kind to everyone, because everyone’s having a hard time.” We all need a touch from God today. A word of hope, encouragement, joy, grace. Power to fulfill the purpose God has given us.

So did Jesus. If he is to preach the gospel and defeat the demons, call the crowds and teach the disciples, die on the cross and rise from the grave, he will not do this alone. He must have the power of God. He must stay connected to his power source. This he does through solitude.

I have long subscribed to John Haggai’s life motto: “Attempt things which are doomed to fail unless God be in them.” But to do God-sized things, we need God’s power. We must be connected to our Father, as Jesus was, through solitude.

Here’s the results for our Lord:

He knew where to go—to the nearby villages.

He knew what to do—preach and heal.

He knew why to do it—this is what the Father sent him to do.

And he knew how to do it—by staying close to his Father.

We need no less, and no more, than this.

Albert Schweitzer said, “The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.” This great physician, musician, and theologian didn’t get “used up”—he was awarded the Nobel Peace prize at age 77, and worked until he was 89.

But here’s how it works. Oswald Chambers said, “There is only one relationship that matters, and that is your personal relationship with a personal redeemer and Lord. Keep that at all costs, and God will fulfill his purpose in your life.”

Steps to solitude

So, how do we step into this discipline of solitude? The first step is simply to begin, in prayer. This is something nearly everyone does some time. 90% of all Americans pray; 60% do so daily; even 20% of atheists and agnostics say they pray, though we’re not sure to whom. All of us pray on occasion—before meals, perhaps, or when we need something.

Let’s make this the first step into solitude.

Then I would guess that most of us try to make a time for prayer alone with God on a regular or daily basis. A “quiet time,” as we sometimes call it. A time set aside, usually in the morning, usually accompanied by personal Bible study. Jesus did this daily. I hope every one of us does as well.

Luther said, “If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day.” Mother Teresa said, “Spend an hour each morning adoring Jesus, and you’ll have all the power you’ll need for the day.”

We’ll make this the second step into solitude.

Now I want to challenge you to take a third step into the discipline of solitude: to make an extended time, on a regular basis, to be alone with God.

Dr. John Stott, one of the great expositors of our day, has a simple formula for his soul: he spends, alone with God, an hour a day, a day a week, and a week a year. I’ve tried to follow that pattern myself, and find it a worthwhile goal.

But whether you do that or something else, make a plan for a regular, extended time to be alone with God. I can attest personally to the value of this. The two-day silent retreat our staff experienced in Atlanta has had an enduring, life-changing impact on me.

We’re going to schedule such retreats in the coming months for our church family. Start by making a morning, or an evening or a day a week for God. Next week I’ll make available some guidelines for such a time of solitude with the Father, and the other disciplines we’re studying during these weeks of preparation for Easter. For now, I want you to decide simply that you will do this.

Now we come to the last step: the daily, internal discipline of solitude. It is possible to be alone with someone, even when you’re not alone. To be alone with your spouse or date in a crowded restaurant or at a movie. To be so focused on them that the rest of the world is secondary in your attention. In the same way, you and I can go through the day conducting an inner conversation with God.

Frederick Buechner has long been one of my favorite writers and novelists; I consider him one of the most perceptive thinkers in Christianity today. In one of his autobiographies, Now and Then, he speaks of his father’s suicide: “‘He was a fine swimmer and dancer and was at home everywhere,’ I had one of my characters say of him. ‘But he had no private home inside of himself, if you understand me. . . . So when troubles forced him home, there was nowhere to go because he didn’t have any home. Or if he ever had had, he’d forgotten his way there'” (Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation [San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1983] 36).

Our souls need a “private home inside ourselves” where we can be with God, all through the day.

To do all this, we must make it happen. It won’t just “occur” for us, any more than it did for Jesus. The good is always the enemy of the best. We have to get away from technology and people, to be alone with our Father. If even Jesus needed time alone, away from the very humanity he loved enough to die for, so do I. And so do you.

Conclusion

So, your soul and mine needs the discipline of solitude. We need to take the next step, today. Now, here’s the most amazing fact I can share with you this morning: God wants time alone with us. The Creator of the universe wants time alone with us, even more than we do. We do this for what it will do for us, and for him. We do this because he loves us, and because we love him.

The “desert fathers” were a medieval group of men who forsook their homes to live alone in desert solitude. Someone asked one of them why he had made such a drastic change in his life. The father poured water and some sand into a jar. As he shook the jar, the water became clouded and murky. But as he allowed the jar to rest, the sand settled to the bottom and the water became clear again.

How clear is your soul today? How clear would you like it to be?

The Cure For A Hungry Soul

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The Cure for a Hungry Soul

John 6:25-40

Dr. Jim Denison

We have too many choices to consume. That’s the conclusion of Barry Schwarz, author of the bestseller The Paradox of Choice. His thesis explains why so many people tell pollsters they are unhappy despite living in a world of greater material prosperity than ever before. We buy something and then experience the second thoughts known as “buyer’s remorse.” We then respond with “regret aversion” by storing it rather than giving it away. “Maximizers” accept only the best and often experience the paralysis of analysis. “Sufficers” settle for whatever is good enough. More of us are “maximizers” than “sufficers,” to be sure. It’s never enough.

Now you can buy a lawn mower with an automatic transmission, cruise control and power-steering, a CD player and cup holder, all for $17,000. Or a robot to mow your lawn for $2,400. Or running shoes which adjust their cushioning levels automatically while you jog, for $250. Or a tiny digital camera for $3,900, and a chrome-plated MiniDisc player for $1,900. Or binoculars which instantly replay what you just watched, for $600. All in time for back to school. But it won’t be enough.

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (v. 35). His bread is enough—enough to feed our hungry lives.

So where is your soul hungry today? Where are you dissatisfied and disillusioned with your life? You’ve climbed a ladder only to find that it’s leaning against the wrong wall. You’re wondering if this is all there is.

You’ve been in school long enough to learn that there’s always another grade to make, a friend to impress, a touchdown to score. You’ve been working long enough to learn that there’s always another client to sell, another goal to achieve, another rung to climb. You’ve had children long enough to learn there’s always more that they need, that you’ll never be finished.

Where do you need something more? How do we come to his table to find the “bread” we need?

For what are you hungry?

Jesus has just fed the 5,000. Now they find him in Capernaum, his ministry headquarters. Meeting them there, perhaps in his hometown synagogue, he warns them, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you” (John 6:27). His words are not a suggestion, but an imperative.

The consensus of counselor, psychologists and philosophers is that you and I have four basic “hungers” in our lives. We need four kinds of “food.”

Once our essential physical needs for clothing, shelter and food have been met, these four hungers drive us. In fact, they drive all we do.

All our desires, hopes, and wishes reduce to these four: knowledge rather than ignorance, pleasure rather than pain, power rather than helplessness, and wealth rather than poverty. Whatever you desire today fits into one of these four.

In preparing this message I sought knowledge. Today I desire the pleasure of teaching God’s word well, and the power of being used by his Spirit to do so. You came to church seeking one or more of these four.

Now here’s my one request, my “ask:” take your hunger to Jesus’ table first. Whatever it is you need or desire. Go to him first. Pray first. Worship first. Seek his word first. Submit to his will first. Go to his table before you go to any other.

Why come to his table first?

Why? Because he claims to be the bread of “life.” Not the bread of church, or of religion, or of Sunday. “Bread for life” is another translation—the bread we need for every dimension of our lives. “The” bread—the only bread of life. We find our needs met with him first, or not at all.

Why come to his table first? Because he promises the bread of knowledge, meeting your intellectual needs in his will.

“The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord” (Isaiah 11:2).

Christ is the one “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). Wherever you need guidance, you can come to his table.

Why come to his table first? Because he promises the bread of pleasure, meeting your physical needs in his will.

“Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people” (Matthew 4:23).

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11).

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Wherever you have physical or emotional needs, you can come to his table.

Why come to his table first? Because he promises the bread of power, meeting your relational needs in his will.

“Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me'” (Matthew28:18).

“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24).

“On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (Revelation 19:16). Wherever you feel powerless, you can go to his table.

Why come to his table first? Because he promises the bread of wealth, meeting your financial needs in his will.

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:3).

“My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). Wherever you have financial needs, you can come to his table.

No other bread will do. We seek that which humans cannot supply—that knowledge, pleasure, power and wealth which our fallen lives and world cannot fully find. They are found at only one table, from one Host. The One who died to provide what you need. The One whose death we remember with gratitude today.

Conclusion

How do we come to his table?

The crowds asked the same question: “What must we do to do the works God requires?” (v. 28). Jesus answered that there is only one “work”: “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (v. 29). Don’t just “believe” with intellectual assent. Believe “in”—the preposition means to place complete trust in him.

Make this Host your Savior and Lord. Then “everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (v. 40).

Go to his table first. Pray first. Seek his word and will first. Not as a last resort, but as a first option. Develop the reflex of bringing every hunger to the table of Jesus. Start with your need, your worry or discouragement or burden today. Now.

And expect to find what you need: “He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (v. 35). No exceptions. Everyone.

Until that day when we come to this table and receive its elements from nail-scarred hands. In the third Lord of the Rings movie, titled “The Return of the King,” war has come to the city of Gondor. The city is virtually surrounded by the evil hosts of Mordor. The cause is hopeless. The city’s inhabitants will soon be slaughtered without mercy.

The little Hobbit named Pippin comes to the wise wizard Gandalf. Pippin is terrified, and tells Gandalf that he is afraid to die. Elderly Gandalf leans back, looks into the distance, and tells Pippin, “Our journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path. One we all must take.” Gandalf explains that this grey world in which we live is rolled back to reveal “silver clouds. And then you see it.”

Pippin asks, “See what, Gandalf? See what?” Gandalf replies, “White shores. And beyond, a far green country, and a swift sunrise.” Pippin considers, “That isn’t so bad.” And Gandalf agrees, “No, no it isn’t.”

Until you come to that table, come to this table. Every day. Starting today.

The Cure For A Joyless Soul

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The Cure for a Joyless Soul

John 10:7-11

Dr. Jim Denison

After my recent travails with my new electric trimmer and the two power cords I cut, one of our members sent me this story. It seems a pastor was out riding his bicycle when he saw a young boy with a lawn mower for sale. “How much do you want for the mower?” he asked. “I just want enough money to buy a bicycle,” the little boy answered. After considering for a moment, the pastor asked, “Will you take my bike in trade for it?”

After examining the bike, the boy made the trade. The preacher took the mower and pulled on the rope a few times with no response. He called the boy over and said, “I can’t get this mower to start.” The boy said, “That’s because you have to cuss at it to get it started.” The pastor replied, “I’m a minister, and I can’t cuss. It’s been so long since I’ve been saved that I don’t even remember how to cuss.”

The little boy looked at him happily and said, “You just keep pulling on that rope. It’ll come back to you.” We’ve all owned a mower like that one, I fear.

When Johann Sebastian Bach returned from a concert tour to discover that his wife and two of their children had died, he wrote in his diary, “Dear Lord, may my joy not leave me.”

Filmmaker Ingmar Bergman described a period in his life when his health was bad and his spirits low. He confessed to a friend, “I’m about to lose my joy. I can feel it physically. I’m running out. I’m just drying up, inside.” Bergman said he wanted to rediscover what Bach had called his joy.

Maybe you need to discover or rediscover your joy today, the “abundant life” Jesus said his followers would experience. A deep sense of well-being and purpose which transcends your circumstances. The feeling that all is well with your soul, no matter how things are with your life. A trusted friend told me this week, “Everybody’s hurting, or about to.” Despite it all, how can we find “life to the full” today?

Admit you need a shepherd

According to our text, we are sheep. Forty-four times, the Bible describes us that way. In fact, did you know that “sheep” is the most common metaphor for human beings in all of Scripture?

This is not a compliment. Sheep are beautiful animals to view from a distance, but among the dumbest animals on earth.

Have you ever seen a sheep in a circus? Can they be trained for anything?

Sheep are totally defenseless against every predator. Ever seen a sign on someone’s fence, “Warning: vicious sheep inside”? Sheep must be guarded and led every day. The shepherd must live with them and watch them constantly or they’ll wander into trouble. God is not trying to increase our self-esteem when he calls us sheep.

Well, surely this isn’t true of us all. Surely some of us are smarter and more self-sufficient than sheep. But listen to Isaiah 53:6: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way.” God thinks we’re all sheep, every one of us.

None of us wants to admit that fact. But we can never have a shepherd until we admit that we need one, that we are sheep.

We cannot find the abundant life until we admit that we don’t have it. We cannot experience the joy of Jesus until we admit that we need the joy of Jesus.

Self-sufficiency is the enemy of joy. Self-reliance is the enemy of “life to the full.” Imagine a sheep taking on a wolf by himself, or wandering through the wilderness by himself. You’re picturing most of the people you know. And maybe yourself as well. We think we’re shepherds, but we’re not—we’re sheep.

To find the joy of Jesus, begin by admitting that you need the joy of Jesus. Admit that you’re a sheep, in need of a shepherd.

Find the “gate for the sheep”

Now we come to Jesus’ fourth “I am,” the fourth time he uses God’s personal and holy name for himself: “I am the good shepherd” (v. 11). “Good” is emphatic in the Greek. The word meant to be lovely, attractive, not just moral but beautiful and desirable. How could he make this claim for himself?

Because “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep” (v. 7). “I am” is emphatic. “The” gate uses the definite article—he’s the only one.

Sheep in the countryside stayed at night in sheep-folds, walls enclosing a space. There was no door of any kind. When the sheep were in for the night, the shepherd would lay down across the opening. No predators or thieves could get in, and no sheep could get out, without crossing over his body. He was literally their only door.

Scripture consistently makes this claim for the Lord Jesus. He said of himself, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Paul said, “Through him we have access to the Father” (Ephesians 2:18). The writer of Hebrews said, “we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body” (Hebrews 10:19-20).

Now Jesus is the gate for the sheep, the doorway to the Father. Think of him as the heavenly doorman, opening the way for us to come into the Father’s mansion.

How did he provide this door? He came to die for his sheep: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (v. 11).

That’s how much he loves us. Jesus is the shepherd who would leave the 99 to find the one lost sheep (Matthew 18:13). He’s come to find you, today.

Has anyone else died for you? Has anyone else offered to forgive your every sin and mistake, to redeem your every failure? To love you no matter where you’ve been or what you’ve done? To like you even when you know you don’t deserve it? Has anyone else laid down his life for the sheep?

Make him your shepherd

Here’s the catch: we must walk through this “gate.” We must make this shepherd ours. How? First, as we have seen, we admit that we need his joy, that we are sheep in need of a shepherd. We repent of our own self-righteousness and self-reliance. We see ourselves as God sees us—sheep. And every sheep needs a shepherd. Wolves love to find self-sufficient sheep. Do you know that you need him?

Next, we make him the shepherd of our souls.

Peter described each of us before we came to faith in Christ: “You were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Peter 2:25).

To make him your shepherd requires a personal decision, a personal relationship. Salvation is not joining the church, or being baptized. It is not trying harder to do better. It is not the product of your works and righteousness. No good deeds a sheep can do can replace its relationship with a personal shepherd.

If you’re not sure you’ve made that personal decision, you likely haven’t. But we’ll introduce you this morning, if you’ll let us. Wolves love to find sheep without a shepherd. Do you really know him?

Now we stay close to our shepherd. We start the day under his leading. We turn to him when the wolf comes near, or when the grass runs out, or when the water begins to rush by, or the storm clouds gather. We walk as closely with our shepherd as we possibly can. Wolves love to find sheep far from their shepherd.

So, when last did you spend a day, or an hour, practicing the presence of Jesus? Are you close to him today?

And we stay with the flock. You’ll never see a sheep out on its own. Where there’s one, there’s two or three or thirty. They know they’re not safe on their own. Some of us are not that smart. We don’t know that we need each other, that we cannot do life on our own. We keep our problems to ourselves, refusing to allow the body of Christ to be his arms and hands for our hurting hearts. But wolves love to find isolated, lonely sheep. So, what sheep is standing at your side today?

Conclusion

Here’s the payoff, the Shepherd’s promise: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (v. 10). This is not a feeling. Nowhere does the Bible describe what it feels like to have God’s joy. It is not a circumstance. The joy of Jesus is not “happiness,” which depends on “happenings.” You can have joy even in hard times. Nor is his joy a temporary experience. You can have the “abundant life” no matter what the past has been or the future holds. This is your shepherd’s will for your life, no matter how rugged the terrain or barren the landscape of your life. If you will stay close to your shepherd and his flock.

I was discussing this sermon recently with Tommy Sanders, our Minister of Childhood Education, and he sent me this story:

“Children who are sick or handicapped have a special sensitivity to [the Good Shepherd picture]. Maria, two years and ten months old, was being treated in the cancer ward of the Bambino Gesu pediatric hospital in Rome. She came from the south of Italy, so her parents lived far away.

One cannot describe the sadness in her small, pale face nor the impossibility of establishing any rapport with her. ‘She is always on her own,’ related the other children, ‘sometimes she cries and cries but she says nothing.’ A [teacher] went to the hospital with the intention of speaking to Maria about the Good Shepherd’s love, but her endeavors to make contact with the little girl seemed completely in vain. While the [teacher] presented the parable materials to a small group of children who had gathered around her bed, Maria appeared to be far away, if not actually asleep.

However, as the [teacher] read the parable, Maria’s breathing became gradually calmer; when the [teacher] started to rise slowly from the chair beside her bed, Maria stood up abruptly, threw herself into the [teacher’s] arms and kissed her. Discarding her doll, she cleared a space on her bed for the materials and indicated in an obvious way that she was waiting for a new presentation of the Good Shepherd.

Then she took the parable book herself and suddenly began to say a number of things that unfortunately the [teacher], who was a foreigner, could not understand. But communication had been established just the same: Maria wanted to be held in her arms, carried around the room, and fed when the dinner arrived. When it came time for the [teacher] to leave, Maria refused to let anyone else hold her and let her leave only after she promised to return the next day. The night nurse heard Maria singing softly: ‘He knows my name.'”

Maria was right.

There is an old story of an elderly pastor and a young man in the same worship service. As part of the program each of these speakers was to recite the Twenty-third Psalm from memory. The young man, trained in the best speech technique and drama, gave the words of the Psalm. When he had finished the congregation applauded loudly, amazed by his resonant voice and remarkable talent.

Then the elderly gentleman, leaning on his cane, stepped to the pulpit and in a weak, shaking voice repeated the same words. But when he finished no sound came from the congregation. People seemed to be deep in prayer and worship. In the silence the young speaker stood and said, “Friends, I wish to say something. You clapped when I quoted the Psalm, but you remained silent and moved when my friend was done. The difference is simple. I know the Psalm, but he knows the Shepherd.”

You know the Psalm. Do you know the Shepherd?

The Cure For A Lonely Soul

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The Cure for a Lonely Soul

John 4:21-26

Dr. Jim Denison

My father-in-law recently sent me this story. It seems that a young preacher was asked by the local funeral director to hold a graveside service at a small local cemetery. The deceased had no family or friends. The preacher got lost getting to the cemetery. Half an hour late, he saw a backhoe and its crew, but the hearse was nowhere in sight and the workmen were eating lunch.

The diligent young pastor went to the open grave and found the vault lid already in place. Taking out his Bible, he began to speak. Feeling guilty because of his tardiness, he delivered an impassioned and lengthy message. As he was returning to his car, he overheard one of the workmen say, “I’ve been putting in septic tanks for 20 years and have never seen anything like that.”

At least the preacher was passionate. We could do worse today.

This morning we begin a biblical series titled, “Knowing the Great ‘I Am.’” In these weeks we will see God as he really is. Not the God our culture imagines, a kindly Grandfather in the sky who never interferes with our lives and makes no demands of us. Nor the God some religions imagine, a Judge with religious requirements and legalistic rules.

I’ll be showing you God as he really is. How do I know? Because we will study Jesus’ own autobiography. Eight events where he says, “I am.” Eight stages where he pulls back the curtain and reveals himself to us. Eight invitations to worship him as he requires, and to be transformed by the experience.

We begin today with the first “I am,” and its call to worship God “in spirit and truth.” This morning we are called to worship the Great I Am with personal passion and intensity. Unless we offer such worship, our souls are lonely, weak, and impoverished, more than we may know. Here is their cure.

Rejoice in his grace (vs. 1-6)

Jesus is in the first year of his public ministry. The Pharisees learn of his growing success; to avoid conflict at this early stage of his work, he leaves Judea for Galilee. And so “he had to go through Samaria” (v. 4). Not geographically, but spiritually.

Samaria was that land between Judea to the south and Galilee to the north; it was the most direct route for Jesus’ journey. But most Jews avoided it like the plague, for reasons we’ll soon see. They crossed the Jordan River to the east, traveled north through Perea, and then re-crossed the Jordan into Galilee.

But not Jesus. He was compelled by the Spirit of God to go through this forsaken, despised, rejected region.

He found himself at Sychar, the modern village of Askar. It was an important place historically; Joseph’s bones were buried there (Joshua 24:32), and the “well of Jacob” was located half a mile south. The well is 100 feet deep; you can still drink its water today.

It is the “sixth hour” (v. 6), 12:00 noon, the hottest part of the day. So Jesus sits on the wooden platform built around the mouth of the well. And talks to a Samaritan woman, one of the most shocking things our Lord ever did on this planet.

Why the shock?

She is a Samaritan, and “Jews do not associate with Samaritans” (v. 9). When the Assyrian king captured the Jewish Northern Kingdom, he replaced the Jews in Samaria with foreigners who worshiped the Lord but also their own idolatrous gods. The Jews despised them, so they built their own Temple on Mt. Gerazim to rival the one in Jerusalem, rejected all the books of the Jewish Bible except the first five, and made their own high priest.

In 129 B.C., John Hyrcanus led the Jews to attack Samaria and destroy their temple. In retaliation, the Samaritans worked with the Romans against the Jews. They welcomed all who had been excommunicated by the Jews. And so the Jews considered them the worst of the human race. And this woman is one of them.

She is a woman. And no Jewish rabbi would speak to a woman in public—not even his own wife, daughter, or sister.

And she is a sinner. She has had five husbands, and is living with a sixth man now. She is so rejected by her society that she must walk half a mile, past 80 springs in the area, to get water during the heat of the day.

What would people think if they saw a visiting rabbi, a single man, alone with the most notorious adulteress in town?

Jesus doesn’t care what the crowds or disciples will think. He cares only for this lonely soul. If he cares about her, he cares about you. And me. If he knows her past, he knows ours. If he knows her failings, he knows ours. He knows our troubles at work, our problems at school, our frustrations with our parents or our children. He knows our temptations and weaknesses. He knows who we are when no one else is looking. And if he would accept her, he will accept us.

But there’s a string attached.

Worship him with the passion he deserves (vs. 21-26)

The woman has asked Jesus where they should worship—on Mt. Gerazim or in Jerusalem. Hear his reply: “…a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks” (v. 23). Why? Because “God is Spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (v. 24).

Anyone can worship God. As Augustine said, we can trust our past to God’s mercy, our present to his love, and our future to his providence. Any of us can know God as he truly is. But only if we worship him “in spirit and truth.” Let’s explore both.

First, we must worship God “in spirit.”

Ancient religion specialized in rituals and routines, in physical acts and appearance. If you went to the right temple, offered the right sacrifices, and performed the right religious actions, you had worshiped God.

Most world religions still focus on such externals. A good Muslim is one who prays five times a day, gives 2.5% of his goods to the poor, visits Mecca, observes the fast of Ramadan, and says out loud that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet. A good Buddhist or Hindu is one who observes the ascetic disciplines of his or her faith tradition. A good Jew, especially in the Orthodox tradition, is one who keeps kosher dietary laws, Sabbath regulations, and the rest of Torah.

A good Baptist is one who comes to church services each weekend, gives some money, fulfills his or her responsibilities to the choir or Sunday school class or committee, and lives morally. At least that’s what some of us think.

I will confess that “worship” for much of my Christian life was defined by such religious, external actions. Worship equals going to church, singing hymns, listening to the choir and pastor, giving money. It is a noun, an activity, a thing. Answer honestly: is that “worship” for you?

It is not for Jesus. He says we “must” worship God “in spirit,” not in “flesh.”

Worship “in flesh” is worship in externals, in appearance. Worship in “spirit” is worship with personal passion. It is worship with intensity, with internal commitment and interaction.

Because God is Spirit, he knows our spirits, our thoughts and minds and attitudes. He is the “righteous god who searches minds and hearts” (Psalm 7:9). These must be right, or our worship is not real, and he knows it.

William Barclay got at this issue well: “A man’s spirit is the highest part of him. That is the part which lasts when the physical part has vanished. That is the part which dreams the dreams and sees the visions which, because of the weakness and faultiness of the body, may never be carried out. It is the spirit of a man which is the source of his highest dreams and thoughts and ideals and desires. The true worship is when man, through his spirit, attains to friendship and intimacy with God. Genuine worship does not consist in coming to a certain place or in going through a certain ritual or liturgy or even in bringing certain gifts. True worship is when the spirit, the immortal and invisible part of man, speaks to and meets with God, himself immortal and invisible” (The Gospel of John 1:161).

If you have encountered God “in spirit,” with personal passion and intensity, you have worshiped him. If you have not, you have not.

We “must” worship God “in spirit” but also “in truth.” With biblical and theological integrity. And with our minds engaged.

Jesus commanded us to love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds (Matthew 22:37). We do not leave our intellect at the door. We do not merely sit through a sermon. We come to worship each week expecting to hear his truth for us. To read the Bible as “God preaching,” as J. I. Packer says. To hear its truth as “love letters from home,” as Augustine put it.

And to think hard about what we discover. I grew up thinking that I wasn’t supposed to think about my faith. If I had questions or intellectual issues I was to keep them private. Faith meant that I had no doubts or questions. Then I realized that Jesus cried from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” If he could ask his question, so can I. So can you. If he could struggle, so can we.

To worship God “in truth” is to seek his truth with our minds and hearts. It is to listen intently to his Spirit as we study his word, to wrestle with what we hear, and to work with its truth until we have found its relevance for our lives.

If you have encountered God today “in truth,” hearing his personal word for you and applying it to your life, you have worshiped him. If you have not, you have not.

Conclusion

When we worship God with personal, passionate, intellectual engagement, here’s what happens: we encounter Jesus. This woman and her fellow Samaritans have been waiting for the Messiah, for centuries. Now she hears this Jewish rabbi say, “I am he.” I am God’s Anointed, the One he promised would redeem his people and purchase their eternal life. Not just a rabbi or a prophet, but the Messiah himself. God himself.

Have you heard from God today? Not from a rabbi or a prophet, but from the Messiah? Here’s how to know: you will leave changed. You cannot meet the living God and stay the same.

The woman had to take the news to her town, and the town to her new Lord. They saw a change in her life which they wanted in theirs. They “believed in him because of the woman’s testimony” (v. 39); when last did that happen with your life?

Then they concluded: “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world” (v. 42).

Changed people change the world. No one else can.

I found an interesting item in this week’s newspapers. It seems scientists have identified the origins of a meteorite which landed in Oman about 10,000 years ago and was discovered in 2002. Its chemical composition leads them to know that it came from the Lalande Crater in the Imbrium basin, a large area on the near side of the Moon. It was impacted by other asteroids 2.8 billion and 200 million years ago. 340,000 years ago, something struck it and hurled it into space, sending it to Earth.

And that’s just one very small part of a very small moon of a very small planet in a small solar system of a small galaxy of the universe made by the Great I Am. The One who is sitting beside your well today.

How the conversation goes is up to you.

The Cure For A Lost Soul

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The Cure for a Lost Soul

John 14:1-9

Dr. Jim Denison

Two weeks ago a dear friend told me this deeply spiritual story. It seems a lady phoned a Baptist pastor to say that she’d been visiting and wanted to join. “That’s wonderful,” he replied. “Yes, but first I’d like to ask you something. My dog just died, and I’d like to bury him at the church.” The pastor was shocked: “Ma’am, we don’t do such things in the Baptist church. Maybe the Methodist church down the street would do that for you.” “I’m so sorry,” she replied. “I was thinking of giving half a million dollars to the church.” The pastor immediately answered, “Oh, you didn’t tell me it was a Baptist dog.”

Being Baptist or Methodist has never mattered less than it does today. A new study reports that for the first time in American history, Protestants will soon comprise less than 50 percent of the total population. The proportion of Roman Catholics in the general population will remain stable at 25 percent. But the group growing the most quickly is those who declare no religious affiliation at all.

The watchword in our culture today is “tolerance.” After 9-11, for three years we heard from every side that adherents to Islam and Christianity worship the same God, that we must learn to respect and affirm each other’s faiths. To claim that Jesus is the only way to God is to persist in the kind of intolerance which led to 9-11.

Most Americans believe that. Many Christians believe that. Perhaps some of you believe that this morning. But should we? And what difference does the answer make?

The claim to Christian uniqueness

Let’s begin with a quick review of four facts Jesus claims in our text today. I’m not assuming we all agree with these facts, but at least I want us to understand what Jesus actually claimed for himself.

First: he is God (v. 1). “Believe in God; believe also in me” he says. In v. 9: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” Earlier the authorities tried to stone him to death “because you…claim to be God” (John 10:33). Other religious leaders claim to reveal God; Jesus claims to be God.

Second: he is preparing heaven for us (v. 2). “Prepare” means to go before and make ready for the arrival of others. Other religious leaders told their followers how to get to heaven; Jesus is preparing heaven for us.

Three: he will take us there himself (v. 3). “Take you to be with me” means “to walk alongside of.” Other religious leaders pointed the way to heaven; Jesus will take us there personally.

Four: he is the only way to God (v. 6). His Greek was emphatic: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Later he was even more emphatic: “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18). No one in all of human history ever made this claim. Other religious leaders said, “I know the way, truth, life;” Jesus claimed to be the way, truth, and life.

Are we clear on these claims to uniqueness?

I am God; I am preparing your place in heaven; I will take you there; I alone can take you there.

Acts 4:12 says, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” The Bible clearly claims that Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father, the only way to heaven.

The case for religious relativism

Now, this claim to absolute truth flies in the face of contemporary culture. These statements are politically incorrect, to say the least.

93 percent of Americans say that they alone determine what is moral and what isn’t in their lives.

Only 13 percent of us believe in all ten of the Ten Commandments.

Only 2 percent of Americans are afraid of going to hell.

62 percent of us say it doesn’t matter what we believe about God, so long as we’re sincere.

Here’s the result: I can claim that Jesus is my way to God, and find little or no resistance in the public square. But the moment I tell this culture that Jesus is their only way to God, I am immediately branded a radical, hypocritical, judgmental, narrow-minded, intolerant fundamentalist. People think that for three reasons. Those who believe John 14:6 is true have three opponents in the debate.

The first is called “relativism:” truth is subjective and personal. No “objective” absolutes exist. Everyone “knows” that’s so.

We don’t know reality, only our perception and experience of it. Words do not describe reality, but only our version of it. There can be no objective truth claims, only subjective experiences.

And so it doesn’t matter what you believe so long as you’re sincere, and tolerant of the beliefs of others. I heard recently about an Ivy League school whose promotional video shows a student saying, “The greatest gift this university has given me is the ability to be an intellectually-fulfilled atheist.”

Richard Dawkins of Oxford even claims that “religion is a virus which has entered the human software and somehow must be expunged.”

Most people we know wouldn’t go that far. But neither do we necessarily believe in our hearts that every person who has not accepted Christ as Savior and Lord is destined for an eternity in hell, because all truth is relative.

Our second opponent is “universalism,” the idea that we’ll all end up in heaven. A loving Father could not condemn one of his children to hell. Could you send one of your children there? The idea is abhorrent. We’ll all be in heaven, no matter what we believe, because God loves us all.

Our third opponent is “pluralism,” the notion that all religions lead to the same destination anyway. 64 percent of us say that all religions pray to the same God. And 56 percent say that you can work your way to heaven by being good, no matter what religion you claim.

Here’s the result: since truth is relative, God wants us all in heaven, and all religions lead there, John 14:6 is wrong, and we are right.

My kind and decent neighbor who loves his kids and works hard, who believes in God and lives a moral life but happens not to have experienced salvation as we have—he’ll be fine. A loving God would not send such a good person to hell.

And we who claim to follow Jesus personally have no right to tell others they need to follow him. How would you feel if a Mormon or Buddhist told you that you were going to hell unless you accepted their religion?

So continue to follow Jesus if you like, if that’s what works for you. But don’t tell me that I have to believe what you believe. Live and let live. Tolerance is the way to a world filled with peace and harmony. So says pluralism.

The case for Christian uniqueness

What do we say to a culture which is so sure it is right, and the Bible is so wrong? Let’s address our opponents in reverse order. First, here’s the case against pluralism: the world’s religions are not different roads up the same mountain, but very different mountains.

Hinduism believes we are ultimately absorbed into reality, and cease to be. Buddhism seeks a “nirvana” or ‘blowing out” whereby we cease to be. Islam believes that we will be in heaven to the degree that we are obedient to the Koran and follow the teachings of Mohammed. Judaism worships Jehovah God, but refuses to believe that he has a Son or that heaven comes by him.

If any of these are right, Christianity is wrong. These are not different roads to heaven and God, but very different heavens and gods. They are not the same.

Here’s the case against universalism. This theology argues that God wouldn’t make just one way to heaven, because that would be unloving and unjust. Christianity answers that one way is enough if it works for everyone and is available to us all. And the gospel does, and is.

Fortune magazine recently profiled Don Wetzel, a Dallas man who pioneered the now-ubiquitous ATM machine. Mr. Wetzel has never used one himself. But there’s now one of his inventions for every 284 American households. But here’s the catch: you have to have the right plastic card with the right magnetic strip. Your friend’s ATM card won’t work for your account. Only one card will work, no matter how sincere or moral you are. If one card is right, none of the rest can be. So long as one card will work, that’s all you need.

And here’s the case against relativism: to deny absolute truth is to affirm it. If I say, “There is no such thing as absolute truth,” I’ve made an absolute truth claim.

We don’t accept relativism with the Holocaust, do we? With our doctor when we’re sick, our food when we eat, the airplane when we board, or our keys when we get ready to leave today? Just with our religion and our ethics, when relativism is convenient.

Jesus’ claim to be the only way to God may be true, or it may be false. But it cannot be subjective, merely personal. Either Northwest Highway will take me to this church campus, or it will not. If it works for me, and you live on my street, it works for you as well.

And if Jesus is the way to God, then he’s the way for your friends and neighbors and family members as well. Do not allow their eternal destiny to rest on the naïve belief that all truth and religions are the same, since God loves us all. Believe that the Bible is right and our culture is wrong, that Jesus is the only way to heaven. You owe it to those you care about to tell them what you know. So do I.

Suppose that you and I have the same kind of cancer. I have found a single chemotherapy which has cured my malignancy and saved my life. It is indefensible for me not to give it to you. You can decide whether to receive it or not, whether to believe that it is your only hope or not. But if I care about you, I must give you what has worked for me. I don’t have an option.

Conclusion

My appeal today is first to those who have not made Jesus their way to the Father’s paradise. Don’t wait another day. If 9-11 taught us anything, it is that we are not promised tomorrow. Come to him by faith today.

But my appeal is also to those who have made Christ their Lord but have lost their passion for helping others know him. Those who have accepted a practical universalism, the religion of tolerance, the pluralistic universalism which decides to live and let live, just to all get along. If that position is right, God’s word is wrong. It’s that simple. Do you want to stake eternal souls on popular opinion, or the word of God?

Helmut Thielicke was a pastor in the city of Stuttgart during World War II. Bombing raids reduced his city to ashes. As the pastor stood before the concrete pit of a cellar which had been shattered by a bomb, a woman came up and introduced herself. Then she said, “My husband died down there. His place was right under the hole. The clean-up squad was unable to find a trace of him; all that was left was his cap. We were there the last time you preached in the cathedral church. And here before this pit I want to thank you for preparing him for eternity.”

Who will thank you?

The Cure For Affluenza

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The Cure for Affluenza

Matthew 6.5-8, 16-18

Dr. Jim Denison

“They were running hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all [Alice] could do to keep up with her: and still the Queen kept crying ‘Faster! Faster!’… The most curious part of the thing was, that … however fast they went, they never seemed to pass anything … ‘In our country,’ said Alice, … ‘you’d generally get to somewhere else—if you ran very fast for a long time as we’ve been doing.’ ‘A slow sort of country!’ said the Queen. ‘Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that'” (Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, in Arthur Simon, How Much Is Enough? 49).

Psychologist Jessie O’Neill specializes in the treatment of what the doctor calls “Affluenza”—runaway consumerism which drives us to stress but leaves us unfulfilled.

Here’s an example of the problem. Gerard Straub, network TV producer, explains why he abandoned his lucrative career: “The joys I’ve experienced in life have all been lined with sadness … All around me, I see people fighting to suppress the sadness by searching for joy in a wide array of ways: sex, power, fame, fortune, drugs. We crowd into gigantic malls and gobble up all the goodies on display. We consume more than we need because we think we need more than we have … But the sadness remains” (How Much Is Enough? p. 19).

Author Art Simon comments: “The problem is not that we’ve tried faith and found it wanting, but that we’ve tried [materialism] and found it addictive, and as a result find following Christ inconvenient” (p. 21).

All the while the prophet Isaiah asks us, “Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?” (Isaiah 55:2).

Richard Foster says there is misery when people lack provision, but there is also misery when we try to make a life out of provision. He’s right.

How do we escape the affluenza which surrounds us? How do we find lives filled with purpose which lasts beyond the next promotion or purchase? Deep joy which cannot be lost in the stock market? Transcendent peace which the morning news cannot steal? Let’s ask Jesus.

Trust God with your time (5-8)

Jesus’ Sermon addresses two issues in our lives today. The first is prayer—dos and don’ts. What Jesus teaches may surprise you. “And when you pray,” he begins. Jesus assumes that his hearers would pray.

He was right. Frequency of prayer was not their problem.

The central affirmation of Jewish faith was the “Shema,” a statement which required memorizing 20 verses from Deuteronomy and Numbers. The Jews said it every morning as soon as possible, and every evening before 9 p.m.

They repeated another set of 19 prayer requests every morning, afternoon, and evening.

They prayed specifically when they lit a fire, saw lightning, comets, a new moon, a storm, or the sea, received good news, used new furniture, and entered or left the city.

Their Rabbi Levi taught, Whoever is long in prayer is heard.” The problem was not the amount but the motive.

Some would pray standing in the synagogues. Standing was the usual posture of prayer. The synagogue was where the religious gathered. To pray standing before them is obviously to be seen by them, as would be the case if any of you stood and began praying right now.

Some prayed standing on street corners. These were where crowds stopped for business or to talk, and could be seen from all four directions. Picture a street-corner in downtown Dallas, and you have the idea. Jews were required to pray each day at 9 a.m., noon, and 3 p.m. They could arrange their schedule so as to be in the synagogue or on a street corner when the hour of prayer arrived. And they often did.

To pray for these reasons was to be a “hypocrite,” literally an actor who played more than one role. Actors only act before crowds. Spiritual actors only pray where they will be seen praying.

Many kept on “babbling like pagans” as well (v. 7), thinking that they could impress God with their many and eloquent words.

Jesus had to warn his followers about praying to impress people, which shows that the problem is a very real temptation. It still is.

Last weekend Janet and I visited the LBJ library and museum. It was a fascinating trip back in time, and reminded me of the time Bill Moyers was at a meeting with the president and was asked to lead in prayer. As Moyers was praying, President Johnson said, “Speak up—I can’t hear you.” To which Moyers replied, “I wasn’t speaking to you, Mr. President.”

So how are we to pray?

Regularly: “when you pray” (v. 6a). Have a set appointment to meet with your Father every morning, and through the day.

Secretly: “go into your room, close the door” (v. 6b). “Room” meant a closet or storeroom where the treasures were stored. Set aside a place where you will not be distracted by work or anything else, where you can meet only and secretly with God.

Intentionally: “pray to your Father, who is unseen” (v. 6c). R. A. Torrey: “we should never utter one syllable of prayer, either in public or in private, until we are definitely conscious that we have come into the presence of God and are actually praying to Him.”

Expectantly: “your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (v. 8). He promised through the prophet: “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear” (Isaiah 65:24).

Let’s summarize.

Why pray? Not to tell God what he already knows, but to agree with his will. To surrender to his purpose. To trust our need and lives to his care. He can only give what we will receive. In prayer his Spirit molds our spirit, his heart our heart.

How do we pray? Trusting our unseen Father to reward the commitment of our hearts and lives. Not to impress others, but to commune with him. Not to earn his favor, but to receive his blessings.

How long since you prayed like this? Why not more often? Here’s the answer for my soul: it’s a trust issue. I must believe that the time I sacrifice to pray will be more than compensated by God when I do. What I surrender in time, commitment, and devotion will be blessed with the power and purpose of God. What I give, I get.

Here is the cure for “affluenza.” Will you receive it?

Trust God with your body (16-18)

Now Jesus turns from the spiritual to the physical: “when you fast.” To “fast” is to abstain from the physical for the sake of the spiritual. The ancients practiced this discipline regularly.

The Jews fasted on the Day of Atonement, at other prescribed times during the year such as New Year’s Day, and for personal reasons such as mourning or repentance. The Pharisees fasted on Thursday and Monday, since these were market days and crowds would see them.

Again the problem was not the means but the motive. They disfigured their faces to show men they were fasting. They colored their faces to look pale, sprinkled ashes on their clothes, and left their hair and beard unkept.

By contrast, Jesus teaches us to fast “so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father who is unseen” (v. 18a). With this promise: “your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (v. 18b).

His words apply to anything physical. You are fasting if you turn off the television to read the Bible, silence your pager or cell phone to pray, abstain from newspapers and computers for a morning to be alone with God. You are fasting properly if you are doing so not to impress us but to please your Father.

When was the last time you did this? Again, it comes to a trust issue. I must believe that what I give, I get. The food I forego to pray is more than compensated by the time with my Lord. Bible study will bless and help me more than the newspaper. Communion with God will encourage and empower me more than the computer or television.

Author Tom Sine asks, “Why settle for more and miss the best?” Such belief is the cure for “affluenza.” Would you consider it today?

Edna St. Vincent Millay was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. She wrote these impressive words:

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—

It gives a lovely light.

But how “lovely” was her life, a candle burned at both ends? She was promiscuous with men and women, drank, partied, used drugs, had affairs and abortions, married, had more affairs, and died an alcoholic at age 58.

By contrast, St. Francis gave up wealth and pleasure to become an impoverished fool for Christ, embracing lepers and preaching so effectively to the poor that he became a major force for renewal in the Catholic Church.

By contrast, Corrie ten Boom risked her life again and again to rescue Jews from the Holocaust. While in a concentration camp, she praised God for the lice and bedbugs which kept the Nazi guards at bay.

By contrast, Maria Nuri of Guatemala City gave up a profitable profession of telling fortunes and casting spells, even though it means living with her son in a shack at the edge of a ravine. “I don’t feel that I gave up anything,” she says. “I now know Jesus as my Lord and the Savior of my life, and nothing can take that away from me.”

Do you have their joy this morning?

Conclusion

What is God asking you to trust to him, to sacrifice in faith? A sin you must refuse to commit or continue? The gift of your money, time, or abilities in serving him? When last did it really cost you something to follow Jesus? When last did you sacrifice time to pray or material comfort to grow closer to Jesus? Do you believe that what you give, you get? That what you lose, you gain?

Psychologist Carl Jung once wrote that the great question of the second half of life is whether we human beings are “related to something infinite or not.” Is “affluenza” afflicting you this morning?

The Supper we have celebrated today is proof of God’s unconditional, sacrificial, surrendered love for us. Now he waits for our reply. He waits to give back more than we will ever lose, to empower us with purpose and significance beyond all that faith will cost us. But he can only give what we will receive.

A spiritual mystic said, “There is one thing that must never be forgotten. It is as if a king had sent you to a foreign country with a task to perform. You go and perform many other tasks. But if you fail to perform the task for which you were sent, it will be as if you had done nothing at all.” Have you done what you were sent to do?

In that light, there once were two dogs. The first dog spent all of the time and energy it could muster chasing its tail. The second dog watched and finally asked, “Why do you chase your tail all the time?” The first dog replied, ‘I have studied these matters, and I have learned that happiness lies in my tail. That is why I chase it.” “I understand,” said the second dog, “for I, too, have studied and learned that happiness lies in my tail. But I have also learned that if I chase my tail I never catch it; but if I fulfill my purpose, my tail always follows.”

The Cure For An Injured Soul

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The Cure for an Injured Soul

John 9:1-7

Dr. Jim Denison

Readers’ Digest recently reported on the Wacky Warning Label Contest and some of the actual warning labels it recognized this year. In 4th place: a five-inch fishing lure with three steel hooks and the label warning that it is “harmful if swallowed.” Let’s hope fish can’t read the label. And the Grand Prize winner: a bottle of drain cleaner which contains this warning: “If you do not understand or cannot read all directions, cautions and warnings, do not use this product.” If I couldn’t read or understand the label, how would it help?

These examples aside, life really does need warning labels. Florida is still recovering from Hurricane Charley. The fledgling democracy in Iraq is still under constant barrage and terror attacks. The three-year anniversary of 9-11 is approaching. Our world has never been more fallen or flawed than it is today.

This morning we will discover the cure for injured souls. In our text Jesus claims, “I am the light of the world.” The “I” is emphatic. He is the light of the “world,” not just the church, or religion, or Sunday. Light for every room of our lives, no matter how dark.

Where are you in the dark today? What guilt from the past or fear of the future plagues you today? Are you worried about the new school year for yourself or your kids? Are you worried about the economy and the election? Is your marriage or body in pain? Do you know someone whose eyes need healing today? Here’s what to do.

Know that God knows your pain (v. 1)

Our story occurs on a Sabbath (v. 14). Jesus has returned to Judea, where he has been teaching in the temple courts (John 8:2). It is mid-October; the annual Feast of Tabernacles has just occurred.

Now Jesus notices a man who could not see him: “As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth” (John 9:1).

The Greek word translated “saw” here means to fix the gaze, to look earnestly. Jesus gave him more than a passing glance—he paid attention to his predicament.

And when he saw the man, he saw his need: he was “blind from birth.”

Simple observation could not have told him this. How would anyone know when the man’s blindness had begun?

It’s possible that the man told him, or that his reputation preceded him (cf. v. 8). But the syntax suggests to me that the instant Jesus saw the man he knew that his blindness was congenital. If he could heal this man’s blindness, he could certainly determine its source. And he knew this man had no medical options. He needed not a physician, but a miracle.

What Jesus knew of this man, he knows today of you: “My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious concerning me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand” (Psalm 139:15-18). The Physician who saw this man and his need sees yours. The blind man could not see Jesus, as we cannot see him today. But the one who cannot see is visible to the One who can.

He sees you and your problems today: “…your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:8). Our prayers do not inform God of our needs; rather, they yield them to the only One who can solve them.

Pain is isolating. We think no one knows our problem. But the One we cannot see, can see us. Where you are, at this moment. He has stopped at your side today, whether you know it or not.

Bring your pain to your Father (vs. 2-7)

The disciples relate to the man not with compassion but curiosity: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (v. 2).

The rabbis taught the same: “There is no death without sin, and there is no suffering without iniquity” (Rabbi Ammi, Shab. 55a). The Pharisees said to the man, “You were steeped in sin at birth” (v. 34).

Hindus believe that present suffering is punishment for previous wrongs. Buddhists teach that all suffering is due to wrong desire. Muslims believe that the pain we experience is part of Allah’s will for our lives.

Christians know that much of life’s pain is the result of our own misused free will. We’ve seen marriages end because of adultery, drug users contract AIDS, alcoholics die of cirrhosis of the liver.

And so it is easy to think that all suffering is our fault and God’s punishment.

But Jesus disagrees: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (v. 3). A better translation is, “this happened with the result that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”

Some suffering is the result of sin. If that’s the case for you, God is waiting to forgive every sin you’ll confess, and give you his healing and hope (1 John 1:8-10).

But much of the world’s grief and pain is not the result of anyone’s sin or failure. Remember Job’s plight; think of the 9-11 victims; remember Jesus’ innocent crucifixion. To attribute all suffering to sin often increases the suffering of the innocent.

So bring your hurting eyes to your Father, however they were blinded. Do not allow your grief or guilt to keep you from him. We need a doctor most when our pain is at its worst. We don’t wait to bathe until we’re clean. We don’t avoid the kitchen until our hunger passes. Come to God with your pain today.

He’ll meet you where you are. Jesus “spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes” (v. 6), even though such work was forbidden on the Sabbath. But ancient doctors believed saliva could cure illness; the blind man knew this action to be accepted medical practice. To our knowledge, he had no previous information regarding Jesus’ healing powers. Had the Divine Physician not acted as a human doctor, it is likely that his patient would not have accepted his cure.

He touched the man, even though the theology of the day said such contact with a “sinner” would contaminate him. He will touch us wherever we hurt, even when no one else will.

Then he gave the man something to do: “‘Go,’ he told him, ‘wash in the Pool of Siloam’ (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing” (v. 7).

Jesus asked the man to trust him. Washing in the pool of Siloam was not part of any accepted medical practice, so it required obedient faith on the part of a blind man. Not to earn God’s help, but to receive it.

The man immediately “washed” his eyes—the word means that he bathed his eyes, not merely splashing or washing them. And he “came home seeing.”

Jesus healed his eyes, so he could heal his soul. He found the man later in the story and led him to saving faith: “the man said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshiped him” (v. 38).

And he used the man to touch others.

The authorities were dumbfounded that a blind man has been healed, and by an itinerant Galilean who broke the Sabbath to do it. They called them man before their court and tried to get him to agree with them: “Give glory to God” (an ancient legal oath)…”We know this man is a sinner” (v. 24).

Now comes my favorite act of witnessing in the entire Bible: “One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” (v. 25). People may reject our theology, but they cannot dismiss our experience. Changed people change the world. No one can deny the fact: “I was blind but now I see!” Can you say the same?

Conclusion

Now Jesus stands ready to do the same with us. To heal us, and then to use us.

He knows your pain and is ready to help. He will meet you where you are, touch your hurt, and tell you what to do next. He will heal you on earth or in heaven. He will remove the pain or give you strength to endure it (perhaps an even greater miracle).

But you must be humbled and obedient enough to receive what he wants to give. If the man had chosen to heal himself, he could never have been healed by Jesus. A doctor can only help a patient who is willing to do what the doctor says. The self-sufficiency and consumerism of our culture are the worst enemies to the power of God in our lives. You can mark it down: the Lord will not do for us what we try to do for ourselves.

The only plight worse than being blind is being blind and not admitting it. Pretending we’re just fine. Running into walls and denying that we did. Pretending we’re fine when we’re not. Keeping up appearances at all costs.

The Bible is often misquoted to say “Pride goeth before a fall.” In fact, God’s word warns, “Pride goeth before destruction” (Proverbs 16:18). We are all blind unless our eyes have been healed by Jesus. We are all broken people unless we have been helped by him.

The first beatitude says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Mathew 5:3); a better translation is, “Blessed are those who know how much they need God.” Are you that “blessed?” When last did you admit your brokenness to the Father, your blindness to his Son, your need to his Spirit? What pain should you trust to him this morning?

He will heal and help us, and he will use us, for God never wastes a hurt.

If Jesus has saved your soul, he wants to use you to save other souls. If he has comforted your grief, he wants you to comfort others in mourning. If he has strengthened you in trials, he wants you to strengthen others.

The One who called himself the “light of the world” also taught his disciples, “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). We are to reflect his light as the moon reflects the sun. And so our mirror must be clean, and pointed at its Source.

We are instructed to “let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (v. 16). We are wounded and need healing, or we are wounded healers—there’s no third option.

Thursday morning, Janet and I drove Ryan to Baylor University, then drove home. But “home” will never be quite the same again. His bedroom is cleaner than it has been for 18 years. Our food budget will be lowered significantly. And things will never be quite the same again.

The 18 years of his life have been the best 18 years of my life. Every morning for 18 years I have prayed for God to bless and protect our son; I’ve never missed a day. But I know he belonged to his heavenly Father before he was given to his earthly father and mother. We now must trust his future into his first Father’s hands. We must trust that the God we cannot see is the God who can see us, and him. The God who will walk at his side for the rest of his life. We must trust our son to his Son.

So many of you have helped us. You’ve walked this path and have called or written to help us walk it. Your encouragement has been a gift to our hearts, more than you may know.

It’s that way for us all of life. Each of us is either blind needing help to see, or sighted needing to help the blind. Which are you today?

The Cure for Cracked Pots

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The Cure for Cracked Pots

Genesis 39

Dr. Jim Denison

Families and relationships face brand-new challenges these days. This week’s Dallas Morning News reported that the ten-year project to decode the human genome, the operating manual for how human beings are constructed, will be completed next month and available to the world over the Internet. We will be able to cure diseases, but also to design offspring and change human nature.

The Internet is fast becoming the “Evernet”—anything with electricity is having chips embedded in it, from pagers to toasters to cars, and connected to networks. As a result, the new Mercedes 500 has more computing power than the 747-200.

And you will be able to surf the Web everywhere, but the Web will also be able to surf you, to know where you are and what you are consuming, what your family is doing, all the time.

Technology presents great challenges to our homes and relationships. But these are not the greatest problems we face. Our gravest problems have not changed since the Garden of Eden, because human nature does not change. Joseph’s relational problems were exactly our problems. Joseph’s relational solutions will still work for us today.

Let me show you what I mean.

The story of strong clay

Our metaphor for this series on relationships is taken from Jeremiah 18, where God is the Master Potter who molds the clay of our hearts and homes. From this analogy we discover that the clay the potter uses must be pure, or it will crack under pressure. It will collapse under the fire of the kiln or the weight of use. The integrity of the clay determines the strength of the vessel.

So it is with our souls and relationships.

When we last left Joseph, Rachel had just given him life and his name, “The Lord adds.” Joseph drops out of the Genesis narrative for the next six chapters, but resurfaces as a teenager in Genesis 37. Here we watch Jacob honor him above the other brothers, and Joseph brag about his dreams of future superiority. And you know the result.

This teenage boy with dreams of greatness becomes a slave in Egypt, sold to Potiphar, the captain of Pharoah’s guard. These are Pharoah’s elite personal troops, and Potiphar is their leader. Alfred Edersheim, the Jewish historian, says that he was “chief of the executioners.”

But God is still with him, for he “gave him success in everything he did” (v. 3). Indeed, “The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field” (v. 5). God is redeeming Joseph’s suffering for his own glory.

Now the test comes. It came for Jesus; it came for Joseph; it comes to us all. Everything is going so well, but this is typically when the enemy strikes: “Joseph was well-built and handsome, and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, ‘Come to bed with me!’” (v. 7). If this were a Hollywood movie or television show, we all know what would happen next.

But it’s not—it’s the story of a man of great moral courage and personal integrity. Listen to Joseph’s response: “No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife” (v. 9a). He will not sin against the master who has been so loyal to him.

And he will not sin against the Master who has so blessed him: “How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” (v. 9b). He continually defends his heart and his integrity: “Though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her” (v. 10).

Unfortunately, Joseph must pay for his integrity. Potiphar’s wife accuses him of attempting to seduce her, and he moves from Potiphar’s home to a prison cell. But all is not as it seems, as we’ll see in a moment.

Put your integrity first

Webster defines “integrity” as “the quality or state of being of sound, moral principle; uprightness, honesty, and sincerity.” This Joseph demonstrates in abundance. If he were preaching this sermon today, he would say to every one of us: put your integrity first. Why is it so important?

Integrity enables us to withstand temptation. Joseph’s character gave him the strength to withstand perhaps the greatest temptation a man can face. We’ll see how in a moment.

Integrity enables others to trust us.

According to Egyptian law (and Jewish legal statutes as well), Potiphar would have executed Joseph for this crime if he had believed his wife. Jail was never the result of such sin by a slave against his master, especially when that master is the chief of Pharoah’s executioners. Potiphar put

Joseph in jail because he knew he didn’t deserve to die, but he couldn’t have him in his house around his sinful wife.

His integrity saved his life, because Potiphar believed him. It enables others to believe us as well.

Most of all, integrity enables God to use us. Joseph’s character was the reason God could use him. The Holy Spirit can only use a vessel yielded to him in godly integrity.

Four times this chapter says, “The Lord was with him.” Why? Joseph didn’t earn or merit such blessing; he simply received it because the integrity of his heart could. A cracked pot cannot contain much water.

And so even at the end of the chapter, God is still blessing Joseph: “while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did” (Genesis 39:20-23).

The world condemned Joseph, but God celebrated him. And soon the world would know the truth, on that day when Joseph became Egypt’s Prime Minister and Potiphar’s boss, and his wife had to honor the slave she had condemned. All because of the hand of God on his life.

A potter can best use clay which possesses integrity. The same is true with God.

Guard your heart

So we must put integrity first. How do we do it? How do we guard our hearts from the “Potiphar’s wives” who surround us? First, refuse to be alone with someone who tempts you.

Look at verse 10: “He refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.” The latter made the former possible.

It was only when he was alone with her through no fault of his own that the situation becomes a crisis. If others had been in the house, she could never have made her accusations and cost him his position. Refuse to be alone with anyone who tempts you.

Second, never say “maybe.”

Proverbs 5 is a chapter-long warning against the adulterous woman (or man). It offers this excellent advice: “Keep to a path far from her; do not go near the door of her house” (v. 8). Stay away.

Paul agrees: “Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2:22). Never say “maybe.”

Joseph kept this advice. The text is clear—he never considered her offer. He didn’t even stay and talk with her. He left immediately.

And notice how he left: “he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house” (v. 12). The “cloak” was actually his undergarment. He fled unclothed, at great dishonor and yet with his honor completely upheld. He refused to compromise with sin, whatever his courage might cost him.

The late United Nations leader, Dag Hammarskjold, said it well: “He who wants to keep his garden tidy doesn’t reserve a plot for weeds.”

Say no, now.

Third, fear the results of failure.

If Joseph had failed here, how different would the rest of Genesis be? The rest of Scripture? No Hebrew nation; no Messiah. The future of God’s plan to redeem all of humanity was at stake.

Count on it—if the enemy thinks this issue is worth tempting you over, it’s worth resisting. It’s graver than you know. Satan is a great economist. He always tempts us at that place which will cause the greatest devastation. That’s why government officials are tempted at the point of character and leadership, bankers at the point of financial integrity, and preachers at the point of morality. If you’re being tempted, know that the enemy is up to something disastrous. Every time.

We’ve said it so often: sin will always take you further than you wanted to go, cost you more than you wanted to pay, and keep you longer than you wanted to stay. Joseph knew it. Do you?

Last, trust the results of integrity. Joseph’s refusal of Potiphar’s wife cost him dearly, but God redeemed his integrity for an even greater purpose.

Notice the little phrase in v. 20: “Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. This was a special jail, where Joseph would meet prisoners who knew the king.

What if Joseph had not gone to jail, and specifically this jail? He would never have met Pharoah’s cupbearer and baker, and interpreted their dreams. He would never have been known to Pharoah. He would never have become #2 in the nation, saved Egypt from starvation, and restored his family. He would simply have died the faithful slave of an army captain.

And we would never have heard of him.

When we pay the price of integrity, God redeems our character for a far greater purpose than we can know.

Conclusion

Now, who is “Potiphar’s wife” in your life? Is she a person? A job? Possessions? Goals? Anything which wants you to compromise your integrity is your enemy, and the enemy of your home, family, and ministry as well.

Seeking the help and leading of the Spirit for character and integrity is essential to a life well lived and blessed of God.

In 1948 crusade evangelism was just beginning to become a major movement in this country. Many such evangelists were active, and a number of them had already begun committing the sins and experiencing the failures we associate with this work.

So it was that a little-known evangelist asked the three members of his team to meet with him in his hotel room during a crusade in Modesto, California in November of 1948. The four resolved to handle their offerings with integrity and draw only a salary; to count the crowds based on the lowest numbers produced by objective sources; never to criticize local clergy or leaders.

And they determined most of all to maintain absolute moral integrity. They would never meet alone with a woman; they would never get on an elevator alone with a female; the evangelist would even send an associate into his hotel room first to be sure no women were present.

As I said, this evangelist was just one of many active in the country, and little-noticed. But the next year, I believe as a direct result of his integrity and character, his Los Angeles crusade catapulted him to international fame. You know his name, of course.

By the way, that evangelist has broken his rule never to be alone with a female only once, when Hilary Rodham Clinton and he met for lunch at a table in the middle of a Little Rock restaurant.

Could he or the Joseph he emulates speak to us today, they would have the same message: guard your heart. Whatever it costs to do it. Your integrity is your greatest possession. This is the warning, and the promise, of God.