God’s Good Gifts

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Have you ever considered your suffering as a gift?  I admit that’s a tough concept and I’m not even sure I am comfortable with it.  How can a bad thing be a gift?  How can a good God give a gift like that?  We can argue about whether he does or allows something, but He is the all powerful and all knowing God.  Therefore nothing is beyond His knowledge or control.  If we truly believe what He said through Paul, that He will work all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes (Rom 8:28,) then we must believe that any bad thing that happens to us will ultimately be used for good.  This is how we can look upon our suffering as a gift.  It will lead to something good.

We can see this in the Bible.  I’ve chosen three people who will help us to see it: Joseph, Paul, and Jesus Himself.  I hope that by the end of this message we can all be a little further on our journey to that place where we can ask God, “How can I glorify You in this suffering?”  I am beginning to think of my blindness as a gift that opens doors for me to spread the love of Jesus in places where I would not otherwise have opportunity.  What opportunity might you find through your disability?

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.” (Gen. 50:20 NASB)

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The Lion's Roar
God's Good Gifts
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Economy of Words

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I had a thought this morning as I scrutinized the text of 2 Corinthians in an effort to understand a verse in context.  It was about the density of thought and concept contained in Paul’s letters.  Every line weaves together ideas and principles to build the points he makes.  I considered the difference between studying 2 Corinthians and reading the average online article or even the latest book from a respected author.  There is no comparison.  Few people write at that level of complexity and few will make the effort understand them if they do.

There are a couple of things to note here.  First, the Bible is God’s written communication meant to facilitate the salvation and sanctification of humanity for millennia.  One should expect that kind of work to be pack with more a little more meat than anything else one might choose to read.  Second, it is a book translated mostly from old languages that are no longer spoken in the form that they were written in.  We should expect to struggle a little to follow the thought process.  The level of clarity that we do have is itself a testament to God’s hand at work throughout the ages.

Now here’s the other contributing factor that I think explains the difference.  You see it in the overall quality of literature through time.  I’m hardly a qualified critic.  Just ask my English teachers.  But I will make these observations.  It takes time for a book to mature into a classic.  It has to be read a lot, be unusually well written, and touch us in some deep lace that most cannot reach.  How hard will it be then, in a world overrun with words, to find those few worthy of veneration?

In basic economics, the more there is of something, the less value it has.  The easier something is to produce, the more of it we will have.  Words today are cheaper than ever in history.  It might take me as much as an hour to write this blog post depending on how careful I am about what goes into it.  Yet with one click it becomes potentially available for the entire world to read.  Anyone with a computer and a few extra dollars can self publish their own book.  The world is flooded with words.

Compare that to the effort required in centuries past.  When the works that eventually became the Bible were produced, every stroke was done by hand with crude writing instruments.  Every copy had to be painstakingly written out the same way.  Whether it be a letter to a friend or an epic novel, care was required to make every word count.

It is no wonder to me that even in the pages of writing from the past century we can find a level of depth and nuance rarely seen in anything you pick up today.  We had the printing press, then eventually the typewriter, but still it required considerable investment of time to get one’s words into print and in front of an audience.  Now, words are cheap.  It takes little effort to produce them and even less to publish them for all to see.  We’re all a-twitter, and saying little more than the birds from which we get the term.

Did Hollywood Hanky-panky Really Surprise Anyone?

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The deplorable behavior Hollywood’s denizens has been the subject of stage whispers and titillating tabloid titles for decades.  I can’t imagine anyone being surprised by the latest round of revelations.  But for the sake of argument, we can pretend that no one knew.  What clues might we have?

We might start with the product.  Each year seems to bring us a new low.  Can it be such a leap to imagine that some might bring to reality the fantasies they portray on screen?  I can remember a time when the overriding theme, though often tainted, was good versus evil in some form.  Now there are no good guys.

Now for my own confession.  I’ve been watching House of Cards.  If you don’t recognize the title, It’s a Netflix series chronicling the rise  of a political power couple, portrayed by Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright,  to the office of president.  These two are ruthless and almost completely lacking in moral restraint.  No, it’s not about the Clintons, though if the more sinister stories told of them are true, theirs might have made an equally horrific tale.

I kept hearing about it, and being drawn to all things political I decided to check it out.  disgusted on one level by what I saw, I kept watching, imagining that eventually the show would live up to its title and the “house of cards” would collapse, giving these characters their due.  I guess we’ll never know.  In the wake of the scandal surrounding Kevin spacey’s sexual misconduct, Netflix has let him go.

When I heard that, I thought, “He just acted in character.”  I guess it’s ok as long as your only pretending.  I’m glad to know that there are real-world lines that not even Hollywood will cross at least not with everyone watching, but the accusations leveled at Spacey wouldn’t seem all that far fetch for his on-screen persona.  I don’t recall pederasty making an appearance in the show, but little else has been left out.

I’m not saying that every actor who plays a villain is expressing his own secret desire.  I would hope not. Otherwise we could never create a good story.  Conflict between good and evil is part of what draws us in and gives the story value.  The whole point of acting is… well… acting!

What I will do is draw on some principles expressed by Jesus to suggest that wen our lives are spent in the dumpster, we might end up part of the trash.  At the least we’ll pick up the smell.  This is applicable to all of us.  We blame Hollywood for what comes out of it.  We fail to decry with equal vigor the truth that they can’t cell what no one will buy. We blame Movies and TV for corrupting our society.  I think we need to be looking in the mirror and asking some hard questions.

34 “You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. 35 “The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. 36 “But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. 37 “For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matthew 12:34-37 NASB)

… 18 “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. 19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. 20 “These are the things which defile the man…” (Matthew 15:18-20 NASB)

The Meaning of Love

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I’m back to my favorite subject with this podcast.  Love truly is at the center of everything God has done.  Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 13 together and see what He will show us.  In addition to examining the topic of love, we will also consider the chapter in the context of Paul’s letter.

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The Meaning of Love
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Excuses, Excuses!

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In this podcast I share with you from the book of Luke, chapter 14.  Most of the chapter covers what happened at a dinner that Jesus was invited to at the home of a prominent Pharisee.  After Jesus has given several illustrations that addressed the particular failures of the Pharisees and of many of us, one of his listeners says, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”  In response, Jesus tells this parable in Luke 14:16-24.  He seems to be saying, “Is that what you really think?”  The reality is something else.

Jesus has just given some instruction on how we should live, but in this story the king has done all the work.  He has incurred all of the expense of putting on a feast.  All he is asking of the guests is that they come.  But they don’t want to come and offer up poor excuses for why they can’t.  There’s a lesson for us here.  We get comfortable amidst the trappings of our religious practice, but Jesus says that’s all wrong.  He is looking for relationship.  He has invited us to join Him, but if we keep making excuses, the invitation is eventually withdrawn.  We must come to a place where our livelihood, our possessions, and our relationships are not as important as our relationship with the King, Jesus.  An we see that He will have his guests, even if he has to go out and compel them to come in.

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Excuses, Excuses!
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Love in Disguise

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In this podcast, I’m going to share with you from the story of Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha whom Jesus raised from the dead.  There’s something remarkable in this story beyond the obvious.  Check out these verses in the Gospel of John, chapter 11,

5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was.

I checked a few versions to see if that little work “so” was consistently translated.  It is.  Jesus loved them, so He stayed away.  Would we not think that love demanded the opposite response?  But he had something greater in mind.  I’m sure Lazarus didn’t enjoy being ill and dying from his sickness.  Certainly his family would not have wanted to go through the grief.  Both sisters even say to Jesus basically, “You could have prevented this.”  John doesn’t give us the emotion behind these words, but the question comes through, “Where were you?”  “Why didn’t you come in time?”

We have numerous accounts of people who have supposedly died and come back.  What happened to them is between them and God.  I will not presume, unless their accounts are in clear conflict with the Bible, to criticize their claims.  I wonder if there is significance in the fact that we don’t have such accounts from the people who were resurrected throughout the Bible.  We’re given prophetic visions from various sources, but nothing from these who presumably got a glimpse of Heaven, or Paradise, for themselves.  Why?  Because the focus remains on Jesus.  The Bible isn’t about Heaven, it’s about Jesus.  What makes Heaven great is that Jesus is there.  All of that to say that even though we have nothing from Lazarus himself, I suspect that his perspective was radically different coming out of that grave than it was on the way in.

Jesus waited, so that the blessing in the end was far greater for those involved than it would have been if He came right away.  He loved, so He stayed.  He gets the glory, and everyone around Him benefits from it.

Sometimes it seems that God has forgotten us.  The Psalms are full of such feelings.  But we know that He said that he is always with us.  We may wonder if He really loves us, but sometimes love does things we don’t expect.  Sometimes, love waits.  Listen and be encouraged!

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The Lion's Roar
Love in Disguise
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It Starts with Us

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I preached this after the 2014 midterm elections.  If I had only known what was coming, I don’t know what I would have said.  Still the message remains truth, and though I believe in a God of mercy, I also believe in a God of justice, and I wonder how long He will allow us to continue.

Thank God for the freedoms we enjoy in this nation.  Our Constitution has provided for the best government man can devise, but therein lies the problem.  Man devised it.  I believe that God was with us, but as long as we run things, we will mess them up. We’ve done just that.

How then can I say that it starts with us?  By “us” I mean the people of God.  We often quote from 2 Chronicles 7:14.  We should always use caution and look at the context when we single out bits of scripture.  This one was written to the nation of Israel.  It is a message from God to King Solomon after he has built and dedicated Yahweh’s temple in Jerusalem. I think we should read verse 13 whenever we read verse 14.  God is speaking to a nation that will fall away and entered a period of judgment.  The pattern has already been repeating itself since the time the people of Israel left Egypt.  And so it goes with us.

This is a message to Israel, but the truth is transcendent.  We too are His people who are called by His name.  I believe that we are entering a time of judgment shortly if it has not already begun.  In that day, He does not call upon those who do not know Him to humble themselves and pray.  How can they?  He calls upon His people, called by His name, to humble themselves and pray, turning from their wicked ways.

It is the church who must repent.  It is the church who must speak the truth.  It is the church who must remember the God who saved us, a God of love, yes, but also a God of justice.  We sing of His love and mercy.  We ask His help in time of trouble.  Yet we do not obey Him, and we wonder why He doesn’t answer.  We lament the problems of our country and of the world, but how can it be anything but dark if we are not lighting it up?

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The Lion's Roar
It Starts with Us
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What Now?

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I preached this when we had a number of people who had just come to the Lord or rededicated their lives.  I wanted to provide a primer on what to expect and what to do next.  I remember the excitement of that day.  If you’ve been a follower of Jesus for some time, this might only serve as a reminder, but I hope you’ll also share it with other new believers that you encounter.

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The Lion's Roar
What Now?
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Armed and Dangerous

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In this podcast, I share with you from James 3:1-12. I don’t want to be overly dramatic.  We’re so used to hearing exaggerated speech these days that I think most of us tune it out.  And in a world full of violence, to equate mere words with flying bullets seems like just more over-the-top hyperbole trying and failing by its very nature to make the point.  Yet if more of us took the same care with our words as we would with a loaded gun, much pain and suffering could be avoided.  We all bear the wounds.  Time can heal them, but they always leave scars.  As you can never put the bullet back into the gun once it has been fired, you can never recall a word once spoken.

If you don’t have time for a listen, This blog post gives a little more background for the message.  Though the delivery could use some polish, I consider it one of the most important things I have shared in my short time as a part time preacher.

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The Lion's Roar
Armed and Dangerous
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Ground Breaking News

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A few years ago my pastor spoke from the parable of the sower in Matthew 13, prompting us to examine the soil of our own hearts to see whether it is ready to receive God’s word.  I was inspired to build on his foundation when I gave the message the following week.  Or to retain the farming metaphor, water what he planted.  🙂

What if you come to the conclusion that your ground is not good? You might be wondering if it is possible to change.  Depending on the motivation and the subject matter, the world tends to give us one of two messages.  Either we’re born that way and we cannot change, or all the changing is up to us.  Neither message is the whole truth.  Consider Jeremiah 4:3 in light of Jesus’ parable, and listen as we explore how God changes hearts.

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The Lion's Roar
Ground Breaking News
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