Life on God's Terms

When I was a kid my mom drove a blue Buick Park Avenue. Oh, it was something…what with its faux wood paneling, fancy blue velour seats and automatic windows! Really what it was, was a boat…a big blue boat. But she was proud of that car and drove it forever. Our boat sounded like a boat roaring onto shore as well. This Buick was one of GM’s converted diesels. The program was an attempt to save consumers money back in the day when diesel was cheaper. Program didn't work because the cars with gasoline parts couldn't handle the power of the diesel-fueled engine. As a kid, all I understood was that if we put the wrong kind of fuel in my mother’s car, bad things would happen. I wasn't sure what kind of earth-shattering, axis-rotating, universe-bending horrors would happen. I just made sure she used diesel. Turns out what would have happened is that the diesel engine would have lost power because the gasoline doesn't fire with the same power. Diesel owners who have made this mistake describe their vehicles “not catching speed.” Ultimately, the gasoline has to be drained and depending upon use, cylinders, hoses, and filters have to be cleaned or replaced. Repairs were described costing anywhere between $300 and $10,000. Point being, the wrong fuel left the engine a powerless mess. (*what is she talking about???!?*) Paul tells the Romans in chapter 8 verses 10-11, “But if the Messiah is in you, the body is indeed dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of covenant faithfulness. So then, if the spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives within you, the one who raised the Messiah from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies, too, through his spirit who lives within you.” When Jesus took my heart of stone and replaced it with a heart of flesh, when Jesus wholly saved me from my sin, when Jesus regenerated my life by His Spirit, I got a new engine. And that engine requires different fuel. If I fuel my life with the world’s cheap imitation gasoline, I become a powerless mess. In verses 5 and 6 Paul further explains: “Look at it like this. People whose lives are determined by human flesh focus their minds on matters to do with the flesh, but people whose lives are determined by the spirit focus their minds on matters to do with the spirit. Focus on flesh, and you’ll die; but focus on the spirit, and you’ll have life and peace.” If I fuel my life with the Spirit’s power, I become a powerful force for life and peace. So then if we understand the importance of keeping a diesel engine fueled-up with diesel fuel so that it can run, how then do we understand being filled with the Holy Spirit in order to live life on God’s terms? Really it boils down to asking and receiving. It’s a faith thing, to be sure! But that faith to receive the power of the Holy Spirit is aided by our attention to the things of the Spirit rather than the things of the world. Junk in, junk out, right? That’s why Paul encourages the believers to set their minds on Spiritual, not earthly things. The advice is still valid today. Ask God for more of His Spirit. Set yourself in places to be influenced by His Spirit. Respond to His Spirit. You will begin to feel the influence of His Spirit in your thoughts. When you take corresponding action, you align your will with God’s will and this creates combustion, like the pistons firing that revs the motor! Remember you can’t steer a parked car. So move when the Spirit says move. This is a lifetime work called sanctification. But it is possible, when we live life on God’s terms.

Marriage

Marriage was created for saints, not sinners. God’s intentions for marriage was that it would be a physical demonstration in this world of the covenant that God keeps faithfully with his people. And on our wedding day, we have high hopes for ourselves and our spouses. And then we’re married for about 30 minutes. We’ve all blown it. Not a one of us stands perfect, without fault before God. Most of us don’t have any trouble admitting that. Those that do have trouble admitting that, let me suggest a good place to start. And since we are called to love our spouses as faithfully as Christ loves the church, and submit to our spouses (that is to one another…read it again) out of respect for Christ’s submission to the cross…once we admit and confess we have sinned against God, it’s probably not a huge leap to realize that we have hurt our spouses along the way as well. We’ve all blown it. We all would like to think we’ve blown it a little less than someone else. Sure, we reason, I messed up. But did you hear about so and so? She really made a mess! But we aren’t comparing ourselves to each other (Jesus told us to stop all that speck finding until we had removed our planks). We are comparing ourselves to Christ. And we’ve all blown it. “A wedding calls us to our highest and best—in fact, to almost impossible—ideals. It’s the way we want to live. But marriage reminds us of the daily reality of living as sinful human beings in a radically broken world. We aspire after love but far too often descend into hate.” (Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage) So what are we supposed to do with that? We can know what the ideal is. We can even do our best to strive for it. And we should. But when the reality of our sinfulness hits us like a bucket of cold water, what do we do? We seek a redeemer who covers us with his love. And that’s why Ruth’s story is told in the Bible. Not because Ruth and Boaz had a perfect marriage, but because in this season of their lives they acted in Godly ways. God is able to say, “I want to be the redeemer in your life. I want to cover your shame with my love. I want to bring you in out of the cold. I want to give you my name. I want to love you forever. Here is a good example of someone who did this once. Now, I want to do this every day for the rest of your life…for eternity.” Facebook has been full this week of hamartiology: the study of sin. Lines drawn. Statuses posted. Links shared. Our data plans have been exhausted. I wonder what we have learned? Several threads that really left me hurting were conversations about divorce. I told our worship leader that I was thinking about talking about divorce this week, and he said, “it is the elephant in the room.” In our fallen world, we can’t have a discussion about Christian marriage without also having a discussion about divorce. That’s not a value judgment; that is a statement. How are we supposed to talk about, think about, preach about divorce in our world today? Our world, where it is estimated that 20-40% of all marriages end in divorce; our world, where 1/3 of Christian marriages dissolve. Some point immediately to passages in Malachi, Matthew, and Leviticus that tell us that God hates divorce and remarriage results in adultery. It’s true. It’s all in there. And I have a very high view of scripture, so I am not likely to remove or avoid the parts I am uncomfortable with. But I also have a very high view of God and so I seek to understand His ways rather than lean on my own understanding. I’ve read, and studied, and prayed with the question in mind: God, do you really hate divorce? And here is what I’ve come up with: Yes. This realization came to me this summer as I have stood by the caskets of some hard-fighting men and watched the tears roll down their widows’ cheeks. I thought one day, “I hate cancer. God, I know you hate cancer. I hate what cancer does to people, to families, to communities. There is nothing good about cancer. I know that seasons of fighting cancer has resulted in strengthening people’s faith, their families, their own personal health. I have seen people take a cancer diagnosis and allow God to use it for their good. But cancer. No good. It doesn’t matter whether the person with cancer did nothing to deserve cancer or was told every day “you’re going to get cancer” until the day they were told: “You’ve got cancer.” Cancer is evil. It is the opposite of life. I hate cancer. And I can truthfully say God hates cancer. When one of his children has cancer, God immediately creates a redemption plan: a plan of healing for this life or the next. God knows we are not created for cancer; cancer has no part in God’s original creation; cancer will have no part in God’s new creation. But in this fallen world we deal with cancer. Cancer doesn’t frighten God, but it makes God angry because it hurts his children. God doesn’t become angry at the person with cancer…even if they caused their own cancer. God is angry at the author of cancer. Divorce is like cancer. It has no part in God’s original creation; we were not created for brokenness and pain. It will have no part in God’s new creation. But it is a part of the world we live in now. Sometimes divorce happens because we mess up. Sometimes divorce happens to us. And God hates divorce. Because, God hates to see his children hurt. He hates when we are striking blows at each other. He hates to see us squaring off, not loving, not forgiving. He doesn’t hate us. But he hates to see us hurt others, and he hates to see us hurt. Truthfully, God desires all of our marriages, if we are Christian people, to be an example to the world of God’s faithfulness and love. Paul says of our treatment of our spouses: “This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. Each of you should love your wife as yourself, and to wives: your husband needs your respect.” What happens when our marriages are less than God’s ideal? What does God think of us when we fail each other: when we are selfish, arrogant, rude, unfaithful, violent, cold, or dishonest? God thinks: My children are hurt, and they are hurting each other. It pains me to see them like this. I wish they would not listen to the lies they hear in this world. I wish they would not allow their enemy to take them down paths of self-absorption, paths of fear, paths of greed, paths of sin. I wish they would believe and cling to the truth that sin will always take more than you bargained and leave you with less than it promised. But more than anything, I wish they would just look my way. If I could just catch her eye. If I could just grab his attention. I would remind them that I love them, that nothing can separate them from my love, that I have made a way for them to come home, that I welcome them (dirt and all). I would remind them that I am a God of second, third, fourth, and tenth chances. I would remind them that I already know what they’ve done and I’ve already paid the price of their debt. I would remind them that they are not the sum of their mistakes; they are precious, created in My image, and altogether beautiful. I would beg them to put on Christ, and not the rags of this world. I would hold a mirror of my Son so they could see that dressed in his righteousness they are perfect, without blemish, wrinkle, or stain. More beautiful than their earthly wedding day. I would wrap my arms around them, wipe the tears from their cheeks and tell them as many times as it takes to sink in: I forgive you.”

Messy Families

On a scale of 1 to 10 how messy is your house? With 1 being your home could end up on the next episode of "Hoarders" and 10 being Better Homes and Gardens could set up a photo shoot any time, any day, how messy is your house? I’m afraid I would have to confess that I probably fall somewhere in the bottom half. Not that I’ve ever been a super neat person, but as we added kids to the equation the mess increased exponentially. I remember the day that Joel threw the guest towels in the toilet, poured an entire box of Cheerios on the kitchen floor, dumped my purse into the couch cushions, and then locked himself in the boys bedroom. That was just one day…that was just one hour! Families are messy. Would that the messes were contained to wet towels and Cheerios. The reality however is that the messes our families make are often much more heartbreaking. We fight, fume, snatch, scratch, push and pull our way all the way to family car before heading to church. Then we pout, snort, and cut our eyes at our family all the way to the church doors. Then we walk in the narthex and when asked, “how are you?” we respond with broad smiles, “Fine! Thank you!” We are a mess. Which is why, I think, Paul makes the following address to the church at Ephesus. Notice that right before he talks to the church about being godly families, he reminds them that he is not talking to the world here. He is talking to the church. And the people of the church are expected to behave like the Christians that they are. It is self-evident that Paul tells them to stop being rude, angry, greedy, and dishonest because they’re being rude, angry, greedy, and dishonest. They’re making a mess! “But,” Paul reminds them, “You have put away these behaviors with your old life and you have found new life in Christ. So,” Paul concludes, “forgive each other, love each other, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” People are messy, families are messy, and that makes church messy. It would be great if we could all be fine all the time…but most of us aren't fine even most of the time. That’s why God gave us Jesus and that’s why Jesus gave us the Church: each other to be ambassadors of grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness even when we aren't fine. Now, I have to confess that I have taught my children to say “Fine, thank you,” when someone at church speaks to them. But I hope they are also learning to ask for help, be vulnerable, and accept and receive grace and mercy at church too. That’s the promise we make to each other in our membership vows. To help each other along, to make room at the family table for each other…even the messiest of us. Think about your Thanksgiving table…and the folks who put their knees under it. Be honest…there are a few of those folks that, if they weren't kin you aren't sure you’d let them in the door. But we don’t pick our families do we? We are given to each other…for better and worse! But next year, you’ll invite weird Uncle Perry to Thanksgiving again…because he’s family. WE are family too, with One Father in his One Church. We didn't pick each other, rather we were chosen by our Father to be members with one another in this family*. I may have come to this place because I liked a few of the people, but would I really have chosen to be friends with everyone in this place? Honestly??? And yet, here we are, the whole mess of us. And we are all invited to the table…mess and all. My fear is, in our efforts to be “fine, thank you” we begin to think our job is to protect the table from the people who would gather rather than protecting the divine right of any who would come to the table. The table should be respected and we should be faithful disciples of what we teach at the table, but the table does not need our protection, for the water and the blood and the body on this table were spilled here for the sole purpose of handling our mess! Which means I am welcome at the table, and you are welcome at the table…and we all are welcome at the table…not because of what we can bring or do or give, but because of the promise God has spoken over our lives. And my covenant that I make to them…that you today have made to them is to welcome them (they and all who would come to the family table) in the name of Christ and to practice the family traits of prayers, presence, gifts, and service. That’s how we live out Ephesians 4 together…that’s how support each other in our messes. We may be a mess, but it’s our mess, and God says he is able to make beautiful things out of our messes. (* Thank you to a great author, pastor, leader Ross Parsley. His book Messy Church says all this and more and will make you smile, cry, and love your church family.)