Knowing God

 June 1, 2022

What do you know? Sometimes we think we know more than we do, and other times we know more than we care to know. Peter talks a lot about knowing, beginning with knowing Jesus. “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord’  (1 Peter 1:2). The question that comes to my mind is, “What does it mean, to know God?” Some people I imagine would equate knowing God with good feelings in prayer or worship, but knowing someone doesn’t necessarily mean feeling good in their presence. I know people who don’t make me feel good when I’m around them. 

We sing, “I want to know You; I want to see your face; I want to know You more,” but how do we measure our knowledge of God? Peter gives us a few clues.

“By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.” 2 Peter 1:3 NLT

In other words, a godly life is evidence of knowing God. Verse 4 adds, “escaping the corruption in this world through lust.” Am I escaping it or entangled in it? Verse 8 adds growth in knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, love, and fruitfulness. Knowing Christ goes beyond knowing my Bible, attending church, etc. Only if the qualities enumerated above are increasing in me can I say I know God.

I suppose everyone would like some inner witness, some “liver quiver” to assure them that they know Christ, but if that is what I am looking for, I am looking for something outside the witness of the Word of God. Such a quest puts more stock in feelings than faith. Looking to Scripture provides the only reliable assurance, as Jesus himself testified, “If you love Me, keep My commandments…He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”

—John 14:15, 21 NKJV

Not About You

 May 31, 2022

“It’s not about you.” If there is anything we need to learn, it’s this. So much of how we Americans approach life is narcissistic. The only parts of the news that interests us is what affects us personally. Most of the time we are completely ignorant of what is happening in other countries unless it has some bearing on our economy or interests at home. Our passions about covid, inflation, politics, are centered on how we personally are impacted. Take the abortion debates raging since the leak of the Supreme Court’s preliminary deliberations regarding Roe v. Wade. Proponents of abortion on demand chant, “My body; My choice,” giving no weight to the fact that there is another body that is always affected, and always negatively. To be fair, the same thing can be said of arguments in support of the Second Amendment, with which I wholeheartedly agree.

Even in religion, we can be narcissistic and self-centered. We want God to bless us as we see fit, hop from church to church because we don’t like the music, the preaching, or someone in the congregation. If church doesn’t meet all our expectations, we bolt. As a pastor, I often heard people say that the reason they left their church (mine or others’) was because they “weren’t getting fed,” as if they had no responsibility for feeding themselves spiritually or contributing to the well being of someone sitting in the pew across the aisle.

It really gets sinister when we run into unexpected difficulties; a marriage falls apart, the company downsizes, the kids go wild, our investments tank, we get a bad report from the doctor. Our plans are shattered, so we rail against God. “It isn’t fair!” 

In Acts 16, Paul’s plans fell apart. He wasn’t permitted to go to the mission field he envisioned; when he finally set off in the direction God laid out for him, he ended up beaten and in jail on trumped up charges. Locked away in the deepest part of the jail, hands and feet in stocks, backs sore and bleeding, suddenly he and Silas felt a trembling. Earthquake! A dungeon is the last place you want to be in an earthquake. If the whole place collapses, no one is going to bother to dig you out.

As it turned out, the only thing that happened was their chains came loose from the walls, and the prison doors were shaken off their hinges. The jailer came in, terrified that his prisoners were escaping, which was a capital offense. Paul reassured him, and preached the Gospel to him, whereupon he and his family believed and were saved. 

None of the things that happened to Paul and Silas were about them. God was setting the stage for the jailer and his family to know Jesus. Over the course of his ministry, Paul endured all sorts of difficulties. He didn’t complain; he knew everything was for the sake of the Gospel. He even said so in Philippians 3:7-8.

“But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ”

Your troubles are not merely your troubles. They are the means chosen by God to perfect you and to minister to someone else. Don’t take them lightly; through them, God may be setting the stage for someone who needs to know that his great love for them values them so much he was willing for his Son to die on a cross for their sins, and is willing for you to be a part of his plan, as  Peter said, “rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.” —I Peter 4:13 NKJV

The problems are never fun, but they can be fulfilling when through them we see someone else encouraged, challenged, corrected, saved. It’s not about you.

 May 30, 2022

On this Memorial Day, I honor my father with a tribute I wrote back in 2014.

It’ s hard to imagine when the people we've known as mom and dad were young. Dad died at 91, on Father's Day in 2012, frail and worn out with the years. Mom lasted another eight years, passing into the arms of Jesus a month after her 98th birthday. Mom kept the photo albums of dad when he was in basic training, pictures taken of him with his Army buddies. Dad was scheduled to be deployed in the European theater during the war, but a routine physical detected a heart murmur that kept him stateside while his buddies went over the pond, some of them never to return.

One day about thirty years ago when mom and dad were visiting on Memorial Day, he and I happened to be watching a movie on the Turner Classic Movies channel. It was "The Fighting Sullivans," a film about the five Sullivan brothers who were stationed on the USS light cruiser Juneau in the Pacific. The ship was torpedoed during the action at Guadalcanal, and all five of the brothers were lost, along with 682 other sailors. As we watched the movie, I became aware of a snorting sound off to my side. I turned and saw my father in near total meltdown, sobbing like a little child. When I questioned him, he told me of boyhood friends who served and never came home. It was fifty years after the war, and as fresh as the day he first received news of his friends' deaths. 

I've talked with other vets, one who had been a crewman of a WWII bomber that was shot down in Europe and became a POW in Germany. I asked him one day about how it affected him. He came home, raised a family, became a successful local businessman, and even mayor of our little village. He told me of nights when his wife would wake him up to stop his thrashing around from the nightmares he had thirty years hence. 

We are more aware of the tragic effects of PTSD than people knew back then. Everyone then knew ex-soldiers who became alcoholics, abusive, suicidal, but no one seemed to make the connections until Vietnam. Now we are seeing (mostly) men coming home with injuries from which they would have died even thirty years ago to a VA system fraught with fraud and incompetence.  

Today we remember and honor those soldiers who never had the chance to live, raise families, enjoy the peace they fought to preserve. My father came home, leaving many of his youthful friends behind. I am grateful he lived a full life, and honor the other fine men never had the privilege to know because their sacrifice was as Lincoln said, “the last full measure of devotion,” men who answered the call of duty and served, bequeathing to us through their blood, sweat, and tears the freedoms we enjoy today. It is a gift easily squandered; may we instead value and guard it for the treasure it truly is.

How Far?

 May 29, 2022

I had the privilege of preaching this morning on the story of the Philippian jailer’s conversion in Acts 16. There is much to learn here, but first and foremost is the extent to which God is willing to go for someone’s eternal soul. In the ordinary scheme of things, this story should never have happened.

Paul had intended to spread the Gospel in Asia Minor, but twice was prohibited from doing so. The Bible doesn’t tell us exactly what happened, but whatever it was, Paul took it as a sign from God that he wasn’t to go in that direction. While he was trying to figure things out, he had a dream in which a man from Macedonia was calling out for Paul to come help them. That was all it took; Paul booked a flight to Macedonia that very next day (OK, it wasn’t quite like that, but it was the 1st Century equivalent).

When he got there, he had a successful beginning with Lydia’s conversion. Some time after, everything began to fall apart. He was hounded by a demonized slave girl who made quite a tidy income for her handlers by telling fortunes. She kept announcing that Paul and Silas were servants of the Most High God, a true enough statement, but not exactly a prime endorsement. Be careful who praises you; a character reference from Vladimir Putin would not look particularly good on your résumé. 

Paul exorcised the demon, which didn’t set too well with her handlers, who had them dragged before the local magistrates on trumped up charges. Paul and Silas were stripped, beaten, and thrown into jail, even having hands and feet fixed in stocks. If that had happened to many of us, we would be whining and crying, “After all I’ve done to serve you, Lord, why is this happening to me?” Paul and Silas were made of sterner stuff and instead were singing and praying.

An earthquake followed, shaking the prison so hard that their chains fell off and the doors flew open. The guard burst in asking what he needed to do to be saved. He was thinking of his skin; letting prisoners escape was a capital offense. Paul thought of his soul: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved; you and your house.” 

Follow the sequence of events. Circumstances preventing Paul from going to Asia Minor, a vision calling him to Macedonia, harassment by a demonized slave girl, an exorcism, being arrested, beaten, and thrown into prison, and finally, an earthquake. God really wanted that jailer and his family to know Jesus. And he wants no less for you and me.

I’ve listened to people claiming that they were too far gone to be saved. Maybe you’ve felt that way yourself. Don’t believe it! If God was willing to send his Son to the cross, and was willing to arrange all these things for this jailer to be saved, what do you suppose he’s willing to do for you? There is no limit to his love, no extent to which he is not willing to go for you. God loves you that much! Don’t let it be for nothing. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you too, can be saved.

God Hears

 May 28, 2022

“Blessed be the LORD because he has heard the voice of my supplications.” Psalm 28:6. The psalm begins, “I will cry out to You, O LORD my Rock! Do not be silent to me.” For four verses he prays to be heard, then in v.5, he proclaims his faith by declaring that there is a divine cause and effect: “Because they do not regard the works of the LORD…he shall destroy them.”

The writer is trusting God to do justly, to uphold his Word of promise. On this basis, he then declares his faith that God has already heard his prayer because it is in line with God’s character. This prayer is no wistful hope that somehow things will turn out right. It is a calling upon God to be true to his character, and confidence that he will do so.

He ends his prayer in praise for what he knows is already done. In a devotional this morning, my friend Beth Burden said it well: “The devil doesn’t know what to do with our praise in times of trouble. It confuses him.” So in my prayers, I praise because when I pray according to God’s character, he always hears…and saves. 

“Blessed be the Lord, Because He has heard the voice of my supplications! The Lord is my strength and my shield; My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, And with my song I will praise Him.”

So with what song shall I praise him? (V.7). I think it’s significant when he says, “My heart trusted in him and I am helped. Therefore my heart rejoices.” He didn’t say anything about his head; only his heart. When I look at circumstances logically, they often don’t make sense. It’s sometimes hard for the head to trust. But when the heart trusts, the head eventually must follow, and then the heart can rejoice while the head is still trying to figure out what’s going on. So sing, heart of mine! Sing!

Three Men

 May 27, 2022

Three men asked today. Two have no discernible faith they practice, the other Jewish in both heritage and practice. The latter has never met my son; the former are our mechanic and a local odd-jobber. 

I met with Clark to begin Spanish lessons. He is a retired Spanish professor from our local SUNY college who agreed to tutor me just because we are friends. He also happens to be Jewish. The lesson was somewhat informal, and during the course of our conversation he asked me how Nate is doing. 

Tommy is our local odd-jobber. He plows snow in the winter, runs backhoe, hauls gravel and does whatever needs to be done by way of moving dirt. He asked about Nate.

Adam is one of three mechanics who has worked on our vehicles for years. Nate was the first to have them service his vehicles, and has bought a couple from them. He’s spent a fair amount of money having them keep his rather high-mileage vehicles up and running. They asked about him when I picked up my truck from having them replace the rack and pinion steering after my power steering went out last week.

Many of those who over the past month have asked about him are active Christ-followers, but perhaps as many who make no such profession of faith. Each in his or her own way has reached out in support of Nate and ourselves. When I read in the paper or hear on the news of people who are so isolated from significant and meaningful human contact that they can without compunction take another’s life, I am aware that the life I know, with the many caring people in it, is almost nonexistent in our modern world. People live in cities surrounded by others, and are still alone and aloof. 

Gun violence is in the news again, but what doesn’t get said is that most of it is death by suicide; people (mostly men) who don’t believe there is a single other person for whom they matter enough to keep living. I and my family are surrounded by people who care enough to ask, and even if they aren’t normally praying people, will say a prayer for Nate. We are blessed to have these people in our lives, both in and outside the church. This experience makes me aware of the many who don’t believe anyone cares, and drives me to prayer and to making more of an effort to listen and let everyone I meet know they have at least one person who cares enough to pray and to be a friend.

Friends and Brothers

 May 26, 2022

I’m guessing most denizens of the USA who read my posts are familiar with those television ads showing some poor soul stretched out on the floor pushing the button on a device hanging from their neck. “Help! I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!” That’s right—Life Alert. I’m not much of a thespian, but I’m putting the world on notice: I could be very convincing with that ad tonight. 

I don’t know how my co-conspirators feel, but I ache in places I didn’t know I had. Today, for the price of an ice cream cone which wasn’t even a part of the original plan, my friends Harry, Kent, Otis, Doug, and Jerry spent more than three hours blocking up tops from the trees that had been logged on my son’s land. Three hours, and we all emerged from the woods with all our extremities intact! (Thank you, Jesus!) There would have been others, but prior responsibilities kept them away today. Young man Brandon worked alongside us, but had to leave early and so missed his ice cream. 

Here’s the deal (as my son often says): Except for Brandon who had to get back to work, all these guys are retired, which means they like me, are looking at the top of life’s hill in the rear view mirror. I haven’t asked, but if they are as tired and sore as I am, they’ll be heading for bed a bit early tonight. 

The other day I was talking with a fellow retired pastor who like me, spent most of his pastoral life in one church. We talked about the blessings associated with such ministries. Like myself, he has married children of people he married years ago. My comment to him was that every pastor has a choice: We can move around and have a breadth of experience, or we can stay in one place and have depth of experience. We cannot have both. 

These men working alongside me today have been friends for close to forty years. I officiated at some of their weddings, baptized and married their kids, attended conferences together and even vacationed together. We are a Band of Brothers who are willing to drop our own plans to help each other out, have coffee together, pray together. I am blessed beyond measure by them, and thank God for their love for Jesus, for his church, for my son, and for me. Most of the research into such matters tells us that pastors are some of the loneliest people on earth. I was told at the beginning of my ministry that it was inappropriate for me to have friends in the congregation. I am so glad I ignored that conventional wisdom, and wish every pastor could have friends like this.

My brothers, today you were what you have been to me for years—gifts from Jesus Christ, true friends and brothers. Thank you, and thank God! And don’t forget the ibuprofen tonight. If you’re like me, you’ll need it!