Patricia

Why – Why Don’t I Always Feel the Presence of God?

April 23, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Why Don’t I Always Feel the Presence of God?
Sycamore Creek Church
April 21/22, 2013
Tom Arthur

Peace Friends!

Today we’re wrapping up a series called Why? We’ve looked at some pretty hard questions and if you’ve been talking about this stuff in your small group like my small group has, it has brought up some pretty deep things. These Why? questions get at the deepest longings of our hearts. Today we explore the question: Why don’t I always feel the presence of God?

Have you ever felt the presence of God at some point in your life? Did you feel the presence of God this morning? If not, whose fault is it? Was it your fault? Maybe you were not tuned in enough? Or maybe it was God’s fault? God didn’t like what you wore today? Or maybe it was the worship leader’s fault. He didn’t play songs you like.

I think this brings up another interesting question. How do you know God’s presence? Do you get tingles? Well, so can sitting next to your girlfriend in a movie theater. Do you cry? Cutting onions can make you cry. Do you get a warm feeling? Peeing in a swimming pool gives you a warm feeling too.

Whatever the answer to all those questions, if you do not always feel God’s presence, you are not alone. The Bible itself talks about not feeling God’s presence. The psalmist says:

Psalm 88:13-14
But I, O LORD, cry out to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you. O LORD, why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me?

Today I want to give you five possible reasons why you might not feel God’s presence. Each one begins with “maybe” because it might number one, or it might be number three. Or it may be some mixture of two and four. Or something else altogether. But I think these are five basic biblical principles that can give us some helpful direction for answering the question: Why don’t you always feel God’s presence?

1. Over-sensationalizing
Maybe you don’t feel God’s presence because you’re over-sensationalizing it. You’re looking for the big and the dramatic. “God, show me your presence by making a camel walk into my room!” We read in the book of John:

John 6:30
So the crowd said to Jesus, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?”

They wanted something big, but Jesus wouldn’t give it to them. He rightly understood that spectacle doesn’t necessarily produce transformed hearts.

I grew up in a Pentecostal/Charismatic church. I love the church I grew up in. I didn’t leave it. I just married into the UnitedMethodistChurch. But there were some strange things about my church. They “spoke in tongues.” That meant that they believed that when someone received the Holy Spirit of God’s presence, that you spoke in either a real foreign language that another person from that country could understand or a personal prayer language that no one understood except God. Sometimes this created a two-tier system of Christians: those who spoke in tongues and those who did not. I asked God several times to give me this gift of speaking in tongues. One night there was even an altar call for it. I went forward and several adults laid hands on me praying that I would speak in tongues. They even held my hands up in the air for me. They prayed more fervently than I think I have ever heard before. But after thirty minutes of a valiant attempt to cajole God into making me speak in tongues, we all gave up and called it a night. Now I learned that all you need to do to speak in a strange foreign language is have a baby. Then you speak in tongues every time you see the child!

OK, I do believe in weird stuff like speaking in tongues, but that’s another sermon for another day. What I don’t think is that everyone gets that quite sensational gift. And if we expect it or some other sensational thing, we may just miss the quiet presence of God.

2. Distracted
Maybe you don’t feel God’s presence because you’re simply distracted. Jesus went over to some friends’ house and Martha couldn’t stop doing work to hang out with him. Meanwhile, her sister Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening. Martha got upset that Mary wasn’t helping, especially because it wasn’t kosher back in the day for women to sit and learn with the men. They were supposed to be helping in the kitchen. So Martha complained to Jesus, but Jesus had other ideas.

Luke 10:41-42
But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Some of us are seriously distracted by all kinds of things. Perhaps the biggest distraction is technology. And of all the tech that distracts us, there’s nothing like Facebook to keep our minds buzzing from one thing to the next. Have you seen this commercial? It’s called fifteen status updates in fifty seconds!

We’re super busy aren’t we? You’re a taxi for the kids. You’re keeping the house up. You’re distracted by doing church work, the work of God! You’re distracted right now by the pop-up window telling you a message just came in. Maybe you don’t feel God’s presence because you’re too distracted.

3. Hardened Heart
Maybe you don’t feel God’s presence because you hardened your heart. Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah when he says:

Matthew 13:14-15
With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says: ‘You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn — and I would heal them.’

Sometimes I wonder if someone wasn’t close to God sometime in the past but got hurt by the church. It happens. It even happens in our church. We’re not perfect. I’m not a perfect leader. But what we sometimes do then is we take that hurt that we got from the church and we project it onto God. We get hurt by a church or by a Christian and we transfer the hurt to God. So that we don’t get hurt again, we harden our hearts thinking we’ll protect ourselves from getting hurt again. All we end up with is a hard heart.

4. Sin
Maybe you don’t feel God’s presence because you have built up a wall of sin between you and God. Returning to the book of Isaiah we read:

Isaiah 59:1-2
See, the LORD’s hand is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. Rather, your iniquities have been barriers between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

“Iniquity” is a synonym for sin. And sins create “barriers between you and your God.” If you’re a Christian and you sin, you’re still a Christian. If you continue to live in unrepentant sin and do nothing about it, God’s patience is long but God will eventually give you over to your own sin. And sin always drives us away from God. Let me give you an example. I sin against Sarah, my wife, almost every day. I say something I shouldn’t say. I think a thought I shouldn’t think. I don’t serve her when an opportunity arises. I criticize her rather than encourage her. Each one of these sins is a brick. Now I also take down bricks when I do things like apologize, serve her sacrificially, speak encouraging words to her. But if all I do is put bricks in place, pretty soon there’s going to be a wall in between us that will be, short of supernatural intervention, impenetrable. I think of Toby Keith’s song, A Little Too Late.

Maybe you don’t feel God’s presence because you’ve built a wall of sin between you and God.

5. A Stranger
Maybe you don’t feel God’s presence because you’re a stranger to God, you don’t know God. Do you know about God, or do you know God? Do you believe in God, or do you believe God? I’m talking about the difference between what the head knows and what the heart knows. Jesus was teaching about this at the temple one day:

John 7:28-29
Then Jesus cried out as he was teaching in the temple, “You know me, and you know where I am from. I have not come on my own. But the one who sent me is true, and you do not know him. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.”

If you know Jesus, you know God. Walking with God is not about feeling but faith. It’s not about having the tingles, the warm feelings, crying, or any other emotion. It is about trusting in God when you feel God and trusting God when you don’t feel God. Faith is pleasing to God. In fact, according to the Bible, “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6). Here are three promises you can hang your hat on today.

1. You will find God when you seek God.
When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13

Seek God not as a side gig. Not as a hobby. But seek God as a whole life, full-on, heart-pursuit. I’m not talking about hide and seek. I’m talking about seeking God with everything you’ve got.

So how do you seek God? Here are some basics. Open the Bible daily and read it. Search the Bible for God. Spend daily unhurried time with God. Regularly attend worship, even when you’re out of town! Not just once a month. Not just every other week. Do it weekly. Listen to music and sing it. Celebrate God through music. God is all around you. It’s like cell phone reception. You just have to have the cell phone to tap you into it. The Bible, prayer, worship, music, these are the cell phones that tap you into God’s presence.

2. You can do life with God’s presence.
Seven days a week you can find God’s presence. Not just Sunday. In fact, faith is mostly a Monday through Saturday gig. You don’t have to go to church to find God. You can find God while changing that stinky diaper. You can find God while you’re cooking your dinner. You can find God while you’re sitting in class. Jesus says:

John 14:16-17
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world at large cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you do, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.

God’s presence is here with you in the Holy Spirit, the Counselor, all day long: sunrise, when you go to work, when you come home to your family, and when you go to bed.

3. You can experience God right now.

Acts 17:27-28
His purpose in all of this was that the nations should seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him — though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist.

There’s nothing keeping you back from this right now. It’s not something you earn. It is something that has already earned you. It’s not something you must get your house in order first to receive. It is something that helps you get your house in order. Give it all to God. Everything. It begins with giving God all of you. It continues every day when you get out of bed giving all of yourself to God. It begins right now.

Will you let me pray?

God, I want to give my whole self to you. I want to follow you even if I don’t feel your presence. Give me faith that you are faithful to me and to the world. In the name of Jesus and in the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen.

Filed Under: Sermons

Why – Why doesn’t God answer my prayers?

April 17, 2013 by Patricia 1 Comment

Why Doesn’t God Answer My Prayers?
Sycamore Creek Church
April 14/15, 2013
Tom Arthur

Peace Friends!

Today we continue in our Why series dealing with the question: Why doesn’t God answer my prayers? I recently came across this prayer written by Tina Fey in her book Bossy Pants. Here’s a slightly edited version:

“The Mother’s Prayer for Its Daughter”

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, may she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her when crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it…

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and [making out] in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, that she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for…Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a [witch] in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that…I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

Amen.

Do you think Tina Fey’s prayer will be answered? If not, why not? Well, we all have prayed prayers like this or other prayers. And whether you think God will answer Tina Fey’s prayer or not, you’ve prayed prayers that you thought God could and should have answered but didn’t. You may have even claimed Jesus’ promise in John:

I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.
John 14:13-14 NRSV

It seems that God did some pretty amazing things in scripture. He made the sun stand still for Joshua. I can barely comprehend what that might mean for the laws of physics. He saved Daniel in the lion’s den (and I’m not talking about a porn shop off the side of the highway). Jesus regularly healed people, especially children who were dying or deeply suffering. If God answered these prayers, why doesn’t God answer my prayers for the same thing?

I think about the issues I wrestle with on a daily basis. Sometimes I find myself as a pastor in a paradox. I am often praying for people to be healed when I have my own health issues too. I’ve prayed for body parts to be made well all the while having a bum back that continually gives me problems with aches and pains. What’s up with that?

Maybe you’ve prayed for a girlfriend or boyfriend but none came along, especially the hottest girl you were praying would dig you. You prayed to pass a class in school but you didn’t pass it. You prayed to be healed of a disease but weren’t. You prayed to conceive a child but didn’t. You prayed for your parents not to get divorced, but they did. You prayed for a loved one to come to know Christ, but he only got further away.

If you’re here today as a guest and are not a Christian, you may have the impression that Christians pray and ask for things and always feel like they get what they’re asking for. But that’s not true. Just because you seek to follow Jesus doesn’t mean you experience all your prayers being answered. I certainly don’t. Just because you’re a Christian doesn’t mean you don’t ask, Why doesn’t God answer my prayers? That’s the question we’re here to deal with today. I’d like to make four suggestions of why it might be that God isn’t answering your prayers. Each one begins with the word “maybe” because it might be this or it might be something else entirely. So here are four reasons why God might not be answering your prayers.

Broken Relationships
Maybe God isn’t answering your prayers because you have a broken relationship. Our horizontal relationships with those around us matter for our vertical relationship with God. It’s not like you can compartmentalize your spiritual life from your day to day life. Your day to day life is your spiritual life! Jesus tells us that when it comes to something like forgiveness, how we forgive others will have an impact on how we experience forgiveness from God:

Listen to me! You can pray for anything, and if you believe, you will have it. But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.
Mark 11:24-25 NLT

John, one of Jesus’ closest followers, reflects on how our horizontal relationships affect our vertical relationship, saying you cannot say you love God if you hate your brother:

Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters,are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sisterwhom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.
1 John 4:20 NRSV

Peter, another of Jesus’ closest followers, takes this idea and runs with it in your family:

In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat her with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. If you don’t treat her as you should, your prayers will not be heard.
1 Peter 3:7 NLT

And some of us husbands may not be married to someone who is “weaker” than we are. So you better watch out on both fronts!

The book of Proverbs, a collection of wisdom sayings, takes this into the realm of our relationship with the poor:

Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.
Proverbs 21:13 ESV

Have you been paying attention to the new pope, Pope Francis? I really like this guy. During Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter, he took the time go and wash the feet of youth who were in prison. He washed and kissed their feet! And he broke with tradition by washing the feet of young women. Now here’s a pope who has his ear to the cry of the poor. You better watch out for what Pope Francis is praying for!

Christina Rossetti, a 19th century English poet, sums this up nicely when she says:

I pray for grace; but then my sins unpray
My prayer: on holy ground I fool stand shod.

The way we treat those around us has consequences for our prayer lives. Maybe God isn’t answering your prayers because of the broken relationships you aren’t paying attention to.

Wrong Motives
Maybe God isn’t answering your prayers because you have the wrong motives when you pray. For example, a man was circling the block searching for a parking spot. Finally, after the third time around, he prays, “God, if you help me find a parking spot, I will go to church every Sunday and tithe ten percent of my income.” Immediately, a spot opens up, and the man prays, “Never mind, I found one.”

James, Jesus’ brother, says:

You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.
James 4:3 NRSV

OK, let’s be honest. How many of you have prayed to win the lottery? Now let’s be really honest. What were your real motives? To live a life of luxury or a life of generosity? My dad still to this day plays the lotto. When we were kids he would bring home lotto tickets and give them to us to fill out. One time when my family was having some financial troubles I came within one number of winning $14,000,000! I picked the number 19 instead of 29. Instead we got $2500. Not bad. My dad was bummed at the time, but recently I asked him about it, and he says he gives thanks to God that we didn’t win the lottery. He thinks it would have torn our family apart. And he’s probably right. Most people who win the lotto don’t lead happy lives. Winning the lotto seems to have a negative effect on many who win it. Perhaps that’s because if they were praying to win the lotto, they were praying in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. I’m reminded of Garth Brooks’ song Unanswered Prayers:

Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers
Remember when you’re talkin’ to the man upstairs
That just because he doesn’t answer doesn’t mean he don’t care
Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers

If we turn to the book of Proverbs again we read that our motives are known by the Lord:

All one’s ways may be pure in one’s own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit.
Proverbs 16:2 NRSV

Maybe God isn’t answering your prayers because your motives aren’t the best.

Unbelief
Maybe God doesn’t answer your prayers because you don’t believe God will do it. Whenever I think of belief and unbelief I think of the Grand Canyon Sky Walk.

You can say you believe that it will hold your weight, but your belief is shown by your actions of walking out on the glass, 4000 feet above the Grand Canyon floor!

A father comes to Jesus looking for his child to be healed from a spirit of seizures that throws him into water and fire. He asks Jesus to heal him if he is able. This is what Jesus says:

If you are able! — All things can be done for the one who believes.
Mark 9:23 NRSV

I’m thankful for the honesty of this guy’s response. He says, “I believe. Help my unbelief.” Then Jesus heals his son!

Your faith matters when you pray. You often hear Christians, even myself at times, say something like, “All we have left to do is pray.” No! The first thing we have to do is pray! And believe that God hears our prayers and can and will answer them.

Now this can be seriously misconstrued. I’m not teaching a name it and claim it system of belief. I’m not even saying that all the time the reason God doesn’t answer your prayers is because you don’t believe. Maybe sometimes this is the reason. God is not obligated to answer your prayers. God is not your cosmic sugar daddy. Just because you have faith, doesn’t mean God has to do it, but your faith does matter.

I think of how we’re teaching Micah to say “Please” when he asks for food. He has learned this so well that he now says please whenever he asks for food or just about anything else. Of course, he has learned to say please whether we think it’s a good idea to give it to him or not. Who gets to decide when he says please? We do. Are we obligated to give him something whenever he says please? No. Is it important that he says please? Absolutely!

Again we turn to James, Jesus’ brother:

But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.
James 1:6-7 NRSV

Something Different
Maybe God doesn’t answer your prayers because God has something different in mind for you. In an opening interview with Gary Chapman in the audio book to the new edition of his Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman tells about how he and his wife wanted to be missionaries to Africa. He wanted to teach in a seminary. But the mission board turned them down because of his wife’s health. They did not think she would do well in Africa.

Fast forward many years and Chapman has now written a book that has sold over 5 million copies and has been translated into almost 30 languages. When it is translated to a new language, his publisher sends them a box of the books and he and his wife pray for the people that will read it.

One day when he received a box of books, his wife began to cry. He said, “What’s wrong?” She said, “Remember how we wanted to be missionaries and weren’t able to. Now you’re book is teaching people all around the world.” God has something different in mind for the Chapmans.

God’s will matters more than our will. Looking again to John, one of Jesus’ followers:

And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him.
1 John 5:14-15 NRSV

Notice the key phrase here, “according to his will.” If you ask God something that God already wants for you, you’re golden! That’s a prayer that God wants to answer. When Micah asks me for more lettuce and says “please” that’s a request I want to answer.

But sometimes we don’t get what we ask for because God has something better in mind. In those times I’m reminded of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They wouldn’t bow to King Nebuchadnezzar’s God, so he threatens to throw them in a fiery furnace. Here’s how they answer the king:

If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.”
Daniel 3:17-18 NRSV

In essence they say: I believe God can, I believe God will, and even if God doesn’t, I still believe. Now that’s powerful trust in the goodness of God.

Maybe God ultimately wants something to happen in us in prayer. The movie Shadowlands tells the story of C.S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia which have recently begun to be made into movies, and his marriage to Joy Gresham. At an early age Joy is diagnosed with a terminal cancer. Lewis has married her legally at this point just so that she can have British citizenship. But when he realizes she has cancer he decided to get married to her in the church. He prays for her healing. In one scene, a friend of Lewis’ says that God is hearing and answering his prayers. Lewis responds, “That’s not why I pray, Harry. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God, it changes me.” Maybe that’s the something different, the something better that God has in mind. Prayer changes me. Let’s pray.

God, show me where there might be broken relationships that are getting in the way of my prayer life with you. Give me the courage to confess those areas and to seek healing and reconciliation. God, show me where I am asking for something out of selfish motives. Help purify my intentions. God show me where I say that I trust you but my actions betray my talk. Help my unbelief. God, even when you don’t answer my prayers, let me trust that you have something different, something better in store for me. May my prayers change me. Amen.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: Faith, prayer, trust, unbelief, why

Why – Why do bad things happen to good people?

April 2, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Why do bad things happen to good people?
Sycamore Creek Church
Easter Sunday – March 31, 2013
Easter Monday – April 1, 2013
Tom Arthur

God is good,
All the time!
All the time,
God is good!

Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!

The answer to the question, Why do bad things happen to good people, hinges on these two truths:

God is good.
God raised Jesus from the dead.

Today on Easter Sunday, we begin a new series called Why? We’re going to explore the questions that keep you up at night, the questions that you lay in bed thinking about, the deep and hard questions of life. Today we’re beginning with the question: Why do bad things happen to good people?

There are lots of Why? questions like this that are out there. For example:

Why did children die at Sandy Hook?
Why did Katrina have to kill so many people?
Why do people die from hunger every day?
Why are so many people out of work?

Then there are lots of Why? questions that are not just out there but have to do with me, with each one of us. For example:

Why am I so lonely?
Why did I lose my job?
Why did my spouse leave me?
Why don’t I have enough money at the end of the month?
Why is my family so messed up?
Why was I abused?
Why am I suffering mental illness?

Taylor Swift sings a powerful song asking the question: Why do bad things happen to good people. It’s called Ronan, and it’s about a little boy who died too early. One of the verses says:

I remember the drive home
When the blind hope turned to crying and screaming “Why?”
Flowers pile up in the worst way, no one knows what to say
About a beautiful boy who died

So why do bad things happen to good people? I can’t in any way pretend that I can answer every possible question along these lines, and what I’d like to share today won’t cover every possible particular situation. But I’d like to share with you some ways that Christians have wrestled with this question and some answers they have found in the Bible. Each answer begins with the word “maybe” because, like I said, these are general ideas and may not fit your particular situation. But they are some “maybes” that will help us to find a handhold or hook to place an answer on. So let’s begin: Why do bad things happen to good people?

A Broken Sin-Stained World
Maybe bad things happen to good people because we live in a broken sin-stained world. What is sin? Most of have an innate sense that the world is not quite right. Most of us have a longing that the world would be more just, more loving, more right than it is. “Sin” is the term Christians use to describe the world as it. God created the world and called it good. But the world misses the mark of what God intended. Sometimes this is intentional, and other times it’s unintentional. Sin is like a train that has run off the tracks. Sin is like a weight that burdens us down. Sin is like an overwhelming debt that can never be repaid.

While God created the world and all that is in it good, including humanity, we rebelled against God. We fell away. The results of this running away from God were a broken world, a world that didn’t work the way God intended or created it to work. And so we live in a broken sin-stained world.

Jesus had a sense of the trials that we would face in this broken sin-stained world. He said:

I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.
John 16:33 NLT

Did you catch that? Jesus said we’ll have many trials and sorrows. We can expect it in this world. This isn’t always because you sinned. Sometimes it’s because you’re the victim of someone else’s sin. My wife occasionally says that she’s married to a thirteen-year-old-boy. Exhibit A took place on one of our first vacations as husband and wife. Sarah was driving us down the highway, and I was navigating with the map in the passenger side seat. I don’t really remember what caused the argument, but pretty soon I was ripping up the map into little shreds and throwing it out the window! This did not help us get where we wanted to go, and it did not help our marriage either. Now why did this bad thing happen to a wonderfully good person like my wife? Why did she end up marrying a thirteen-year-old trapped in an adult’s body? Because she married a broken sin-stained man. And if you ask her, she’ll tell you that I married a broken sin-stained woman. Maybe bad things happen to good people because we live in a broken sin-stained world.

Reap What You Sow
Maybe bad things happen to good people because you brought it on yourself. There are some natural consequences to our actions when we don’t act as God intended us to act. There are some direct consequences. If you have an affair, it will hurt your marriage. If you lie to your boss and he or she finds out, it will not go well with you at work. If you hit your child, you will have a lot of hard work to do to regain a lot of people’s trust.

St. Paul says in his letter to the Galatians:

Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow.
Galatians 6:7 NRSV

You reap what you sow. I recently came across a set of pictures on the internet titled, Why Men Die First. When you look at them, you see that the men in these pictures are putting themselves in some pretty precarious situations. I can imagine the tragic end of their decisions meeting with the pronouncement: “He chose poorly.”

http://rense.com/general95/whymen.html

Maybe bad things happen to good people because they chose poorly and brought it upon themselves.

Something Big
Maybe bad things happen to good people because God wants to do something big in your life. Now let me be very careful here. I do not intend to say that everything that happens happens for a reason. I have preached against that way of thinking. When we say that everything happens for a reason, I think we end up making God a monster. We end up saying that God wanted Sandy Hook to happen so that something else would happen. I think that is about as far from the truth as is possible. God cried with us on the day those children and teachers lost their lives. And yet, I do think that sometimes God allows things to happen in our lives because God wants to do something big in your life. Not all bad things happen for this reason, but maybe sometimes they do.

Let me give you an example from the Bible. Jesus and his followers were walking along the road one day when they came across a blind man. Jesus’ followers asked Jesus if this man was blind because of something his parents did (something bad happened to him because we live in a broken sin-stained world) or because of something he did (he brought it upon himself). Jesus didn’t like either of those options.

Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”
John 9:3 NRSV

Maybe it happened because he was the victim of someone else? No. Maybe it happened because he reaped what he sowed? No. It happened to bring God glory. Then Jesus healed him of his blindness.

God often uses the lowest parts of our life to work the biggest work in our life. Why? Because it is at the lowest moments that we are willing to give up trust in ourselves and put our trust in God. James, Jesus’ brother gets at this very hard truth when he writes:

My brothers and sisters,whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.
James 1:2-4 NRSV

After twenty-four hours of labor, Micah, our son, just wouldn’t come out. I’ll never forget our doctor, Amanda Shoemaker saying to Sarah, “I love you and I have to hurt you.” Sometimes God loves us and has to hurt us, or at least allow us to get hurt.

One of the most amazing stories I’ve heard of something like this is the story of Beck Weathers. Beck was part of what became known as the Mount Everest Disaster of 1996. That year eight people died trying to scale the highest mountain in the world. A freak snow storm moved in and guides and climbers made some very bad decisions. In the midst of this was a doctor from Texas who was so badly hurt in the “death zone” (the altitude at which it is impossible to rescue someone) that he was left for dead…twice. Here’s a brief clip from the Imax movie Everest to tell the story.

Beck had his “right arm amputated halfway between the elbow and wrist. All four fingers and the thumb on his left hand were removed, as well as parts of both feet. His nose was amputated and reconstructed with tissue from his ear and forehead.” In his book Left for Dead, Beck answers an interesting question: Would he do it again? Here’s what he says:

“The other most common thing people ask me is whether I’d do it again. At first I’d think, What a stupid question! But as I considered at length, I realized that this is one of the deeper questions to be asked. The answer is: Even if I knew exactly everything that was going to happen to me on Mount Everest, I would do it again. That day on the mountain I traded my hands for my family and my future. It is a bargain I readily accept.”

Beck had been a workaholic. His marriage was in tatters. He was on a course of losing his family. Losing several parts of his body on Mt.Everest shocked him in to reflecting on what was really important in life. It not only shocked him, but it also gave him the motivation to make some real changes. He now looks back on those tragic moments as a moment when big changes in his life happened. Maybe bad things happen to good people because God wants to do something big in your life.

Wrong Question
Why do bad things happen to good people? Maybe there is something fundamentally wrong with the question. Here’s the problem with the question from a Christian perspective. There are no “good” people. If you’re not a Christian, and you’re reading me saying this, you may not be used to thinking in these terms. Christians believe that we’re all broken. We’ve all got a will bent in on itself. We’re all fundamentally selfish.

Maybe “bad” isn’t quite the right word, but “sinful.” We miss the mark as I said earlier. This is the case even from birth. Just hang out with a toddler for any amount of time and you’ll see that selfish inward bent of all humanity. St. Paul says:

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Romans 3:23 NRSV

It takes being honest with yourself to get to this conclusion. Ask yourself: What are my interior motives? How do I manipulate language to make myself look a little bit better than I am? Psychologists call this the self-serving bias. When asked, “90% of business managers and more than 90% of college professors rated their performance as superior to that of their average peer.” Something doesn’t add up. About half of us do not have a very accurate (humble) self picture. For example, my own tendency is to sit on the couch and let my wife handle the fussy kid, meanwhile internally criticizing her for how she’s doing it! We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Maybe the right question should be: Why do good things happen to bad people? This past Thursday our church gathered for a celebration of Maundy Thursday (the day when we remember Jesus washing his disciples’ feet) in the local QD Laundromat to hand out free quarters to whoever showed up. Why did a bunch of sinful people get together to hand out free money to other sinful people? Why did sinful people do good stuff to sinful people?

Christians believe that there was only one time when something bad happened to a good person. It was the day that the world encountered perfect love in Jesus and ended up killing him. Why did that happen? Here’s why.

We were created in the image of God to be in friendship with God. That image was corrupted by sin (missing the mark of God’s plan for us), the friendship with God was broken, and one result was that death (literal but especially spiritual) entered the world. The only one who could restore the image and thus, the friendship, was the one who fashioned and created the image to begin with, Jesus Christ, the Word of God, the perfect image of God the Father. Like a portrait that has been corrupted, the artist did not throw away the painting (for he loved his creation), but had the perfect model of the image, Jesus, sit again for the portrait to be renewed. So Jesus became human to restore the image of God within each of us. But the power of death needed to be broken for that image to be completely restored, so when the sin in the world demanded that he die, he willingly gave his life. And yet, he overcame death when God raised him from the dead!

When we read earlier that Jesus promised us trials and sorrows, we didn’t finish the verse. Here’s what the rest of it says:

I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.
John 16:33 NLT

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
God is good, all the time! All the time, God is good!

There are two extremes that people go to in responding to this Good News. The first is to say, “I am a good person. Why do I need Jesus?” Until you realize your own responsibility in contributing to a broken world, you will never fully understand God’s love. Open your heart to the conviction of God and confess your own brokenness, your own willful sin to God.

The second extreme in responding to the Good News of Jesus is to say, “I have sinned too much. Why would God love me?” Hear in your heart today that God’s love is given freely, that Jesus gave himself willingly for you, that he loved you so much that he was willing to conquer even death, so that no matter who you are, where you’ve been, or what you’ve done God loves you and desires a friendship with you. Why? Because God loves you and there is nothing you can do about it!

Prayer
God, help me to recognize my need for your Son, Jesus, today. Help me to see how my own sin contributes to this broken sin-stained world. Forgive me. God, help me to receive the love that you have shown me in your Son, Jesus. Help me to know that you love me unconditionally. Restore in me our friendship that you desire and created me for so that I might be a healing presence in this broken sin-stained world. In the name of Jesus and in the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: Easter, sin, why

In the Wilderness – The End of Wilderness

March 25, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

The End of Wilderness
Sycamore Creek Church
March 24/25, 2013
Numbers 13:25-30
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

What is the longest “wilderness” you’ve been in? I’m not talking about a literal desert. I’m talking about a state of feeling like you’re in the wilderness. Several long wilderness moments in my own life come to mind. One night when I was a student at Wheaton College, a suburb of Chicago, I drove down to Chicago to meet some friends and watch a concert. It was raining, and I was running late, so I didn’t pay much attention to where I was parking. I just pulled in the first open spot I saw. When the concert was over at 2AM, and I came out to drive home, my car was gone. I looked up and saw a sign posted telling me where it had been towed to. I used the last bit of cash I had to take a taxi to the impound. The impound wouldn’t take a debit card, so I walked a mile in the rain to the closest ATM. The ATM wouldn’t take my debit card either. I broke down. At 3AM in the morning, I called my dad in Indianapolis. I woke him up with my sobs on the other line. I didn’t know what to do. He helped me get my bearings and make a plan which included calling my roommate and having my roommate get the $100 in cash my dad had just sent me as a gift and that I had left in an envelope on my desk. The only problem was that my roommate was at hockey practice at 3AM. They rented ice when it was cheapest. So I had to leave a message. There was a Dunkin Doughnuts within sight so I went there and scraped up enough change to buy a hot chocolate that I nursed for the next couple of hours waiting for my roommate to get out of hockey practice and bring me the money. It was one of the longest nights of my life in the concrete wilderness of a big city.

All of us find ourselves in the wilderness from time to time. There’s the wilderness of not being employed. The wilderness of being employed in a job you hate. The wilderness of a broken family. The wilderness of an abusive relationship. The wilderness of wanting a romantic relationship. The wilderness of homelessness. The wilderness of a dry spell of faith. The wilderness of trying to figure out what to do with your life. The wilderness of reality not matching expectations, like in the movie 500 days of summer:

While we all end up in a wilderness from time to time, wilderness is not where we were meant to live. Wilderness does come to an end. I’m not still sitting in the Dunkin Doughnuts on the north side of Chicago nursing a cup of hot chocolate. Sometimes the wilderness won’t end this side of heaven, but it will end.

We’re wrapping up a series today called In the Wilderness. We’ve been exploring the Hebrew people, the Israelites as they wander through the wilderness for forty years as told in the book of Numbers. We’re seeing what we can learn about our time in the wilderness as a church and our time as individuals. Like the Hebrew people, we too don’t yet have a home. We too have to set up and tear down a tent every time we want to worship. We too are a bit tired and cranky from time to time. We too are on a journey of becoming the people God wants us to become.

Thomas Dozeman, a scholar of the book of Numbers, says, “The wilderness is a road (Isaiah 40:3), and a place of miracles (Isaiah 41:18-19) that signals and may even lead to the return of Zion (Isaiah 53:3). But the wilderness is not Zion.” We weren’t made to live in the wilderness. Let’s get back to the book of Numbers and see what we can learn today about the end of wilderness.

Numbers 13:25-30 NLT
After exploring the land for forty days, the men returned to Moses, Aaron, and the people of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported to the whole community what they had seen and showed them the fruit they had taken from the land.

This was their report to Moses: “We arrived in the land you sent us to see, and it is indeed a magnificent country — a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is some of its fruit as proof.

But the people living there are powerful, and their cities and towns are fortified and very large. We also saw the descendants of Anak who are living there! The Amalekites live in the Negev, and the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country. The Canaanites live along the coast of the Mediterranean Seaand along the Jordan Valley.”

But Caleb tried to encourage the people as they stood before Moses. “Let’s go at once to take the land,” he said. “We can certainly conquer it!”

While most of the scouts sent to spy out the Promised Land come back fearful about the obstacles for bringing their wilderness experience to an end, Caleb (and also Joshua elsewhere) is ready to bring this wilderness time to an end. They trust God’s goodness and God’s provision for their future. Unfortunately, no one else does. This has some pretty dire consequences for everyone else when it comes to the end of wilderness.

At the beginning and the end of the book of Numbers, there are two big census lists. This is where the book gets its English name from, “Numbers.” (The Hebrew name is “In the Wilderness.”) As we read the census list at the end of the book we see that there are only two people who make it out of the wilderness. Out of hundreds of thousands, only Caleb and Joshua were alive at both the first census and the second census.

Numbers 26:63-65
So these are the census figures of the people of Israel as prepared by Moses and Eleazar the priest on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho. Not one person that Moses and Aaron counted in this census had been among those counted in the previous census taken in the wilderness of Sinai. For the LORD had said of them, “They will all die in the wilderness.” The only exceptions were Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

There are three things I think we can learn about the end of wilderness from the book of Numbers. First, some of you are thinking: “I’ve missed the boat. I’ve screwed up. God is no longer going to let me enter the Promised Land of [fill in the blank].” I don’t know if this is true or not, but sometimes there is something in you that has to die before God can bring you into the Promised Land. What has to die in you before you can enter the Promised Land? Second, the Promised Land may be different than you expect. It may not be what you had in your mind. It may not line up exactly with your vision. It may even be very very different. Thirdly, patiently prepare for the “Promised Land.” You may not see the end in sight, but prepare for it. Begin now by taking the steps you need to take to plan for the end of the wilderness. I want to dwell for a moment on this idea of patiently preparing for the end of wilderness even when you can’t see the end.

If you read chapters 28-30 of Numbers, you will find all kinds of preparation for rituals and laws for entering the Promised Land. They haven’t even gotten there yet and Moses is instructing them about how to live once they get there. In chapter 34 you find a division of the land between all the different tribes. Again, they aren’t even there yet, but they’re making plans.

So if you’re in the wilderness and you can’t see the end, then begin to patiently prepare for the end. Pray. Worship. Search the Scriptures. Resist Sin. Seek Holiness. Some of us get stuck on this big question about what God’s will is for our life. What is the “Promised Land” that God wants for me? Sometimes we get so wrapped up in that question that we forget the immediate answer to it. What is God’s will for your life? To be holy. So if you’re in the wilderness and you don’t know which path to take to get out of the wilderness, ask this question: Will A or B lead you to be more holy? If neither is the clear winner, then know that it will delight God for you to do what delights you more. So while you’re in the wilderness, do what you can, wait, rest, and let God do the rest.

Recently I was talking with someone whose marriage had come to an end several years earlier. A lot of bitterness had been present. It was a wilderness time. But one day in worship doing what she was supposed to be doing and waiting for God, she realized that the wilderness had come, almost imperceptibly, to an end. She had spent several years angry full of questions to God. Then that day in worship she realized that she no longer had any bitterness. It was gone and had been replaced with forgiveness. The wilderness was slow to end, but it did end.

Consider this verse from the prophet Habakkuk:

Habakkuk 2:3 NLT
But these things I plan won’t happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed.

Let me speak for a moment about how this end of wilderness might come for us as a community. There is a question on my mind right now: Is a building the Promised Land for SCC? I don’t know the answer to that question. I do know that a building is a good and worthy desire. But a building and desire for a building can also become an idol, something we begin to worship rather than worshiping God.

I recently spoke with someone whose church spent thirty years setting up and tearing down each Sunday in a school. They had it worse than we did. We have a closet we can store stuff in. They had a trailer. In the last year they found a building that had 80,000 square feet that they bought for an amazingly low price of $400,000. Then they promptly put $7,000,000 into remodeling it!

I don’t know how much a building is going to cost in the end. But in the meantime, we are patiently preparing for that day by saving for it. Our current capital campaign likely won’t be enough. So we will have to patiently save some more.

In the meantime, let me share with you what I am sure is the Promised Land for SCC: more and more people ignited with authentic life in Christ, and that spark of faith fanned into an all consuming flame. To this end, we will always be in a wilderness period until every person in every corner of the world knows, loves, and serves Jesus Christ.

Philippians 2:9-11 NLT
Because of this, God raised him up to the heights of heaven and gave him a name that is above every other name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

May God lead us into this Promised Land, whatever form it might take. Amen.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: holiness, patience, prayer

Trial in the Wilderness

March 19, 2013 by Patricia 1 Comment

Trial in the Wilderness
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
March 17/18, 2013
Numbers

Peace Friends!

Leading Sycamore Creek Church has pushed me into becoming more of a risk taker, but I am not by nature much of a risk taker. When I have succeeded, it has not been by taking risks, but by working hard and persevering.

The official Methodist statement on gambling is that it is a menace to society and destructive of good government, but my dad wasn’t a Methodist so when we were growing up he took us to the horse track on vacation and gave each of us $20 to bet on the races throughout the day. My brother would bet on the long shots. He got lucky and won once. But he lost it all the next race. On the other hand, I would make the safest bet you could make. I’d bet on the for-sure horses. I’d not only bet on the for-sure horses, I’d bet that they would place (get 1^st, 2^nd or 3^rd). I walked away that day having won seven of ten races and with $25 in my pocket! I was no risk taker.

I suspect many of you are like me. Many of you run into this problem on a regular basis: the unknown trial is worse than the known trial. You’d rather stick with what you know than venture out and risk something that you don’t know.

We’re in a series called In the Wilderness, and we’re looking at the book of Numbers in the Bible. “Numbers” is the English name for this book, but “In the Wilderness” (or “bu-med-bar”) is the Hebrew name for the book. The book of Numbers or In the Wilderness is the story of the Hebrew people who have come out of slavery in Egypt and are wandering around in the wilderness for forty years on their way to the Promised Land. By the end of the book, there are only two people, Joshua and Caleb, who are left who were present at the beginning of the book. This is due entirely to their own proclivity to choose the known trial (the wilderness) over the unknown trial (conquering the giants in the Promised Land).

We as a church are in a wilderness of sorts. Like the Hebrew People we do not have a solid home. In the wilderness, the Hebrew people set up and tore down a tent whenever they wanted to worship. The tent was called the tabernacle. Like the Hebrew people, we set up and tear down our tabernacle every week. The Hebrew people wandered in the wilderness for forty years. We have been wandering for twelve years. I liken our experience to this: it’s like we have been car-camping for twelve years in the same campground at the same campsite every Sunday morning for six hours.

There are naturally some things we have struggled with.

How to staff set-up and tear down crews.
How to keep these crews motivated.
How to navigate shared equipment/technology/space with Lansing Christian School.
How to improvise when things break down.
How to turn a cafetorium into a “tabernacle” for worship.
How to explain where we’re at. “We meet at Lansing Christian School.” Blank stare. “It’s near Jolly & Dunkel.” Blank stare. “By Trinity Church.” Light bulb goes on.
How to deal with the impression that we worship at our office.
How to decide what’s next?

If you’re a guest here this morning I want you to know something: we do all this to serve you! I was recently asking our volunteers why they do this. I got answers all over the board. Some people have been volunteering for twelve years because they feel like they worship better when they’re serving. Others volunteer because they feel compelled or called to do so. Others volunteer because it builds community. All of us volunteer to serve the guest. We are fiercely focused on the guest among us. We get up early on Sunday morning and we persevere in the wilderness of not having our own space so that we can create an environment where you can encounter God! And yet in the midst of this unified motivation, there are still struggles and trials. What I want to do is look at the trials and struggles that the Hebrew people encountered while they wandered in the wilderness and see if there is anything we can learn as a community about what God is up to in our own “in the wilderness” time.

1. The wilderness is a time when leaders lead and work is shared.

Numbers 11:24-25 NLT
Moses went out and reported the LORD’s words to the people. Then he gathered the seventy leaders and stationed them around the Tabernacle.And the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to Moses. He took some of the Spirit that was upon Moses and put it upon the seventy leaders. They prophesied as the Spirit rested upon them, but that was the only time this happened.

Moses is the primary leader of the Hebrew people. God has a very special relationship with Moses. We’re told that God speaks to Moses “face to face” “like a friend.” It seems that in most churches, God does not give vision to a committee but gives vision to a leader. God calls and equips a leader with a vision for where this community can and will go. This is not to say that the leader lords it over everyone or that leadership is not shared in many ways. We see in the passage above that God shared the Spirit of leadership with many others so that Moses didn’t burn out. The work of leadership is shared.

Here’s how this tends to work in our church. When I came to SCC, I was given a job description that included the expectation that I would be a vision seeker and vision caster amongst us. I seek God’s vision in several ways. I spend time daily in prayer and scripture reading. I take spiritual retreats of silence and solitude regularly. I listen to other church leaders about what God is doing in their churches. I read continually across all kinds of disciplines to learn about our culture and to ponder how God might be at work in our culture. I go to conferences for church leaders. And I listen to all of you. In each of these ways I’m seeking out God’s vision.

What usually happens for me is when I am not looking for it, an idea or image forms in my mind that quickly forces its way to the surface and brings together all of the different conversations I’ve had. I usually write it down and then bring it to the rest of our leadership. If they think this is God’s vision for us, then we bring it to a vision meeting and present it to you. We are testing the vision at these vision meetings. The testing of these visions usually goes beyond the actual meeting. It continues on in informal ways through email, face to face conversations, in small groups, and the like. The next time the leadership meets, we ask the question: what are you hearing Sycamore Creek Church say about this vision? We make a discernment call at that point about whether this is God’s vision for us that we’re ready to move on or whether it is best to wait. In this way, God’s vision comes to a leader, is shared with other leaders, is tested among the community, and then finally acted upon by the leadership.

But it’s not only the work of leadership that is shared. All the work is shared. Listen to how the work of setting up and tearing down the tabernacle was shared:

Numbers 3:8, 25-26, 31, 36-37 NLT
The Levites will also maintain all the furnishings of the sacred tent,serving in the Tabernacle on behalf of all the Israelites… The Gershonite clans were responsible to care for the tent of the Tabernacle with its layers of coverings, its entry curtains, the curtains of the courtyard that surrounded the Tabernacle and altar, the curtain at the courtyard entrance, the cords, and all the equipment related to their use…The Kohathite clans were responsible for the care of the Ark, the table, the lampstand, the altars, the various utensils used in the sanctuary, the inner curtain, and all the equipment related to their use…The Merarite clans were responsible for the care of the frames supporting the Tabernacle, the crossbars, the pillars, the bases, and all the equipment related to their use. They were also responsible for the posts of the courtyard and all their bases, pegs, and cords.

The Levites did some of the work. The Gershonites did other parts of the work. The Kohathites and Merarites took up the rest. It wasn’t just one group that was doing the work. It was shared. As they say, “Many hands makes light work.” Many hands also brings shared ownership. “This is my tabernacle,” everyone can say.

We have an above average percentage of people who help make Sycamore Creek Church worship happen every Sunday and Monday, but there is still room to improve. I’ve contemplated dividing all those who call this their home into groups and assigning them a day for set-up and tear-down each month! What do you think of that idea? In the wilderness, we all have to share the work.

2. The wilderness is a time where we are regularly tempted to complain and criticize.

Lately, I’ve done a lot of reading around what makes a marriage healthy. I’ve found out that psychologists have pinpointed four behaviors that are predictive of a marriage falling apart. One psychologist calls them the “four horsemen.” Criticism is one of the “four horsemen” that predicts divorce: Criticism, Defensiveness, Stonewalling, and Contempt. If criticism is a behavior that tears apart the community of marriage, it is also a behavior that tears apart the community of the church. In the book of Numbers, we read over and over about the criticism and complaining that happens:

Numbers 11:1 – Now when the people complained in the hearing of the LORD…

Numbers 12:1 – Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses…

Numbers 14:2-5 – And all the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron…

Numbers 16:1-3 – Now Korah…along with Dathan and Abiram…and On…took two hundred fifty Israelite men…and they confronted Moses. They assembled against Moses and against Aaron…

Numbers 16:41 – On the next day, however, the whole congregation of the Israelites rebelled against Moses and against Aaron…

Numbers 20:2-3 – So they gathered together against Moses and against Aaron. The people quarreled with Moses…

The people and the leadership seem to be continually butting heads with one another. But that’s not all the complaining going on. Moses complains to God!

Numbers 11:11-15 NLT – And Moses said to the LORD, “Why are you treating me, your servant, so miserably? What did I do to deserve the burden of a people like this? Are they my children? Am I their father? Is that why you have told me to carry them in my arms — like a nurse carries a baby — to the land you swore to give their ancestors? Where am I supposed to get meat for all these people? They keep complaining and saying, ‘Give us meat!’ I can’t carry all these people by myself! The load is far too heavy! I’d rather you killed me than treat me like this. Please spare me this misery!”

In the wilderness I want you to role-renegotiate rather than criticize. Go talk to the person or leader who you have a complaint with and calmly share your broken expectation. Healthy marriages or churches aren’t made by holding in complaints; they’re made by knowing how to express them in healthy ways. I was reading recently about the characteristics of poor performing teams: they argue a lot. I was also reading about the characteristics of high performing teams: they argue a lot. It’s not the disagreement that is the problem; it’s the manner in which you go about arguing. The healthy way to express your broken expectations is to share it gently but have the humility to recognize that your expectations may be part of the problem!

3. The wilderness is a time when following God is a day-by-day process.

In the wilderness you have to pay attention daily to what God is doing. You have to be ready to move when God moves. The way this worked for the Hebrew people was that God would hover over the tabernacle in a cloud. When the cloud stayed, they stayed. When the cloud moved, they moved. You had to pay attention to the cloud daily.

Numbers 9:20-21 NLT
Sometimes the cloud would stay over the Tabernacle for only a few days, so the people would stay for only a few days. Then at the LORD’s command they would break camp. Sometimes the cloud stayed only overnight and moved on the next morning. But day or night, when the cloud lifted, the people broke camp and followed.

Friends, something I have learned as we’ve begun looking for a building we can call home is that it is a day by day process. We find one door open one day and we walk through it. All looks good, but then it shuts. We find another door open another day. All looks good, but then it shuts. We’ve seriously looked at three different buildings or properties. All of them looked like they might work, but then didn’t end up working because of cost, zoning regulations, or parking issues. It has been a bit of a maddening process. But I suspect that some day the cloud of God’s Spirit is going to rise up off of Lansing Christian School and settle somewhere else, and things are going to happen very quickly. That’s somewhat just the nature of real estate. We’re not sure whether that will be buying a building or finding a new place to rent that has the right location and is at the right price, and is a place where we can set up and stay set up.

The reason that the Hebrew people spent forty years in the wilderness and only two of them lived to see the Promised Land is because they missed following God. They sent scouts into the land and came back with discouraging news about the obstacles.

Numbers 13:32-33
So they spread discouraging reports about the land among the Israelites: “The land we explored will swallow up any who go to live there. All the people we saw were huge. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. We felt like grasshoppers next to them, and that’s what we looked like to them!”

There are two problems here:

1. Lack of vision – They didn’t see the goodness of God’s promise.
2. Focused on obstacles – Saw only the hurdles of the people in the land.

Friends, when God moves I want to be ready to have the vision to see it. I want to be able to trust the goodness of God. And when there are obstacles that are in the way, and there are many. We’ve run one capital campaign and will have $150,000 at the end of this year if all the pledges come in. We will likely have to run another one. We’re an awkward size church. Some church growth specialists call us a “transitional size church.” We’re not really small, but we’re not really big. So we are in need of programs, staff, and facilities all at the same time. But the vision is even bigger: seven satellites in seven venues on seven days of the week to reach as many new people as possible with the love of God that transforms lives and our world! I want as your leader to have the ability to see the vision through the obstacles. I’m still growing. We’re still growing. We’re still being tested in the wilderness. As Thomas Dozeman, an Old Testament Scholar says, “The test is whether Israel is able to live the life of faith outside the promised land” (Dozeman, 16).

And that brings us to the point of this whole message: Trust God’s provision for the future and move forward boldly!

Filed Under: Manuscripts Tagged With: following God, leadership, temptation, trials, trust

Birth In the Wilderness

March 11, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Birth In the Wilderness
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
March 10 & 11, 2013
Numbers 14:10-24

Peace Friends!

Today we kick off a new series called In the Wilderness. It’s a series based on the book of Numbers. Before we dive into that I want to give you a peek behind the scenes of how we think about sermon series around here. In the Wilderness is what we call a “Bible Series.” That means that it’s a series where we spend the entire series exploring one book of the Bible. In a series like this we’re trying to help you become more familiar with your Bible and see what the Bible has to say to us whether we’re looking for it or not. We start with the Bible in a “Bible Series.”

While all our series have their basis in the Bible, not every one of them is an attempt to cover a particular book of the Bible. Another kind of series we do we call a “Buzz Series.” A buzz series is generally an attempt to find a felt-need that our culture has and meet that need. We start with the felt-need in a “Buzz Series.” We usually do about three or four buzz series every year, and we really encourage you to be invitational during a buzz series.

Then there are series where we focus on the beliefs and practices of the faith. We call these series a “Belief Series” or a “H.A.B.I.T.S. Series.” In a “Belief Series” we explore some doctrine or belief of the Christian faith. In a “H.A.B.I.T.S. Series” we explore a spiritual practice or habit of the faith. H.A.B.I.T.S. is an acronym that stands for: Hanging out with God, Accountability, Bible, Involvement with the Church, Tithing, and Service. We think those are six basic practices every Christian needs to be doing to grow their spiritual depth.

One last kind of series we do that sometimes overlaps with any of the others is a “Holiday Series.” There are two basic holidays that we celebrate here at Sycamore Creek Church: Advent and Lent. Advents is the 40 days leading up to Christmas and Lent is the 40 days leading up to Easter. Advent and Lent help us prepare our bodies, minds, and souls to celebrate even more fully the joy and miracle of Jesus’ birthday and his resurrection! In the Wilderness is a Bible series focusing on the book of Numbers that also happens to be a holiday series for Lent leading up to Easter.

I chose the book of Numbers to study because it tells the story of the Hebrew people traveling through the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land. The Hebrew name for the book of Numbers is “In the Wilderness.” While the Hebrew people are the in the Wilderness they have to set up and tear down a tent that they call the Tabernacle whenever they want to worship. I thought that their experience had a lot in common with our experience of setting up and tearing down for worship every Sunday and Monday. That setting up and tearing down every week while not having a “Promised Land” building of our own can sometimes feel like we too are in the wilderness. So I chose the book of Numbers to see if it has anything to teach us about what God can do in the wilderness of not of having a home yet.

One of the things about the book of Numbers that turns a lot of people off are the, well, numbers or lists of people and census numbers that are found at the beginning and end of the book. These census numbers and lists of people’s names are completely different. They’re different because at the beginning of the book we find all the people who came out of Egypt as slaves. At the end of the book we find that every one of them except two, have died in the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land. I’d suggest to you that these lists of names should be read in the same way that you’d watch or listen to the list of names being read at the anniversary of 9-11. Every name must be counted. Every name must be said. Every number is a person. Every person is someone who lost their life.

So do you want to watch this video every day? Do you want to read those 3000 names all the time? Probably not. Are you glad that we took time to do it on the anniversary of 9-11? Absolutely! So here’s your off-the-hook moment. If you’re just not into reading those list of names right now, then skip over them. You’ll find a lot of really fascinating stories, and some very troubling ones, in the rest of the book of Numbers.

The Problem:
There’s a basic problem that surfaces in the book of Numbers: God is close but far away, approachable but unapproachable, merciful but holy, immanent but transcendent. Those last two words are big words but they say a lot. Immanent basically means that God is near by. Transcendent means that God is far away. It’s something of a paradox but it becomes particularly true to the Hebrew people when they experience God in the wilderness.

There are times when I feel God close by and times when I feel like God is far away. Recently I was reading through my journal while on a spiritual retreat. I have used the same journal for the last fifteen years of retreats, so I can go back and see what I was experiencing over the last fifteen years in one journal. As I read back over the years I remembered times when God was a mystery to me far away but other times where God is very close. There were times when God comforted me but other times when God convicted me of sin. There were times when I thought I knew who God was, but other times when God seemed like a stranger. God was immanent sometimes and transcendent at other times.

We all struggle with God’s immanence and transcendence, but I think that in our culture we tend to err toward God’s immanence, approachableness, closeness, and mercy. We sin (lie, cheat, steal, promiscuous sex, porn, greed, hoard, ignore the hurting/injustice, etc.) and justify it with the expectation of forgiveness. We are casual and informal as a culture and have lost the reverence and majesty of God’s transcendence. We take God lightly and invoke God’s name over everything. We pray for a parking space while others pray for survival. I recently read about football players who invoked God being on their side in the game! A football game! Jews are so reverent about God’s name that they won’t even say it, and they are even so careful as to spell “God” as “G-d.”

Numbers
In the book of Numbers we see both God’s immanence and God’s transcendence in the wilderness. Moses prays for the people and intercedes for them before God because God is about to wipe them off the face of the earth. After scouts explore the Promised Land they come back and give a report. Some scouts say the land has too many obstacles to occupy including giants! Other scouts think God will help them overcome these obstacles. In the end, the Hebrew people decided not to go into the Promised Land. They form a “go back to Egypt committee” and decide it was better to be slaves in Egypt than wander around in the wilderness or die trying to conquer the Promised Land. In Moses’ prayer with God we see Moses and God navigating the tension between God’s transcendence or holiness (in bold) and God’s immanence or covenant (underlined) of relationship with the Hebrew people, the descendants of Abraham.

Numbers 14:10-24 NRSV
Then the glory of the LORD appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites. ¹¹ And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? ¹² I will strike them with pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.” ¹³ But Moses said to the LORD, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for in your might you brought up this people from among them, ¹⁴ and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O LORD, are in the midst of this people; for you, O LORD, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go in front of them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. ¹⁵ Now if you kill this people all at one time, then the nations who have heard about you will say, ¹⁶ ‘It is because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land he swore to give them that he has slaughtered them in the wilderness.’ ¹⁷ And now, therefore, let the power of the LORD be great in the way that you promised when you spoke, saying, ¹⁸ ‘The LORD is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children to the third and the fourth generation.’ ¹⁹ Forgive the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have pardoned this people, from Egypt even until now.” ²⁰ Then the LORD said, “I do forgive, just as you have asked; ²¹ nevertheless — as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD — ²² none of the people who have seen my glory and the signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tested me these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, ²³ shall see the land that I swore to give to their ancestors; none of those who despised me shall see it. ²⁴ But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me wholeheartedly, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.

This is God’s story for God’s people. Thank you, God!

As I was studying the book of Numbers I came across Thomas Dozeman, a scholar of the book of Numbers. He says of the book of Numbers that “covenant is not easily harmonized with holiness, because it describes the relationship between God and humans, rather than separation.” In other words, the closeness of God, God’s immanence in relationship is not easily harmonized with God’s transcendence, distance of holiness with a broken and sinful people. We see the pivotal moment in these two verses:

Numbers 14:17-18 NRSV
¹⁷ And now, therefore, let the power of the LORD be great in the way that you promised when you spoke, saying, ¹⁸ ‘The LORD is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children to the third and the fourth generation.’

Moses is reminding God of the covenant that God made with Moses when Moses received the second set of tablets of the ten commandments (the first set he shattered on the ground when he came down from the mountain and found the people worshiping a golden calf idol!):

Exodus 34:6-7 NRSV
⁶ The LORD passed before him, and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, ⁷ keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

In the end, God’s covenant or immanence ends up taking precedence over his holiness or transcendence. God’s willingness to be in a loving covenantal relationship with the Hebrew people wins out over his pure holiness and the demands that they too be holy in the same way. It does not negate the demand for holiness, but it puts God’s immanence and transcendence in tension with each other.

The Point
Here’s the point of this whole message: God’s people are birthed in the midst of the tension between God’s immanence and God’s transcendence. And that tension is especially created in the wilderness. It is in the midst of holding together God be close by in relationship and God being far away in holiness that a rag tag bunch of ex-slaves from Egypt become God’s people, the nation of Israel. That’s what happens in the wilderness, and that’s what I think is happening as we as a church travel through the wilderness of not having a home building to call our own.

Worship
But here’s the catch: you don’t need a building to worship God. And so in the act of worship we find that we encounter all of God as the Hebrew people did in the wilderness. We encounter God’s immanence and God’s transcendence. Worship happens most fully when we gather as a community to encounter the living God and respond with everything we’ve got. We encounter God’s glory and respond with praise. We encounter God’s holiness and respond with confession. We encounter God’s mercy and respond with thankfulness. Lastly, we encounter God’s love and respond with mission. God’s glory and holiness are God’s transcendence. God’s mercy and love are God’s immanence. God’s glory and holiness make God seem far away and unlike us. God’s mercy and love make God feel close by and in relationship with us.

As we worship in the wilderness of setting up and tearing down every week, I want you to come to worship God regularly, and I want you to come expecting to encounter all of God, the “hard” and “soft” side of God, the immanence and transcendence of God. And then I want you to respond with everything you’ve got: your time, talent, treasure, testimony. Your prayers, presence, gifts and service. Your body, mind, soul, and spirit. Everything! God’s immanence and God’s transcendence will pull it all out of you. That’s what the wilderness does. And when you come out on the other side, you will be God’s people. Imagine a community where there was a perfect balance of truth and grace, holiness and mercy, confession and forgiveness, power and benevolence, boundaries and freedom, discipline and encouragement, expectation and flexibility, in a word: love, perfect love. That’s what happens when a group of rag tag ex-slaves travel through the wilderness encountering God. They come out of the wilderness birthed as God’s people.

Filed Under: Sermons

Baggage Claim – Sexual Baggage

March 5, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Baggage Claim – Sexual Baggage
Sycamore Creek Church
March 3 & 4, 2013
Tom Arthur

Peace Friends!

Today we wrap up a series looking at claiming our baggage and knowing what to do with it once we’ve claimed it. We began with family baggage, spent two weeks on divorce baggage, and today we finish with sexual baggage.

It’s worth taking a moment and remembering what I’ve meant when I use the term baggage. Baggage almost always has something to do with sin. Sin is missing God’s will for our lives. When we miss the mark God has set for us, we sin, and when we sin we feel guilty. That guilt is baggage. The way we deal with it is we confess it and then we do whatever we can to make things right. But sometimes we confess our sin and guilt persists. That persistent guilt is baggage. Or perhaps someone has sinned against us and left in us scars and memories that won’t go away. That’s baggage too.

We all accumulate baggage over time. Think about the most saintly person you know. They’ve got a past that includes some baggage. Think about the worst sinner you know. In Christ they have a future. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. You can’t do anything to change your past, but Christ can change your future. Jesus can take your baggage and create something new from it.

This isn’t a series of judgment and condemnation. But it is a series of truth telling. We’re telling the truth about ourselves. And when we tell the truth about ourselves, then we have the opportunity for real and true compassion and mercy. Truth telling and mercy aren’t mutually exclusive. They actually walk hand in hand.

Throughout this series we’ve tried to follow the example of Jesus who was presented with a woman caught in adultery. The crowd wanted to know what Jesus would do to her. Would he stone her as the law required? Jesus bent down and began writing in the dirt. As he wrote, each person in the crowd began to leave one by one. Then we read:

Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one sir,” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”
John 8:10-11 NRSV

Jesus tells the truth about the woman when he says, “Go and do not sin again.” But he shows her compassion and mercy in the midst of it when he says, “I don’t condemn you.” So we take that same attitude today and we turn it toward the sexual baggage that we all claim.

I know you all think that because I’m a pastor that I’ve got no sexual baggage. Well, you would be wrong. In my premarried days I didn’t always save sexual intimacy for marriage. That guilt persists at times with me today. I grew up in a church that at times seemed to think that the only sin a teenager could commit was to not save sex for marriage. I internalized that and so I carry around some persistent guilt even today from decisions I made before I was married.

One area that I particularly struggled with was pornography. I’m not sure it was “clinical” but I struggled mightily with a split personality between my private viewing of pornography and my public persona of being a leader in my youth group at church. One day I felt so guilty about this that I felt compelled to go talk to my youth pastor and resign from my leadership roles because of my sin and hypocrisy. So I met him in his office and confessed and “resigned” from my leadership positions. Amazingly, he wouldn’t let me resign! He told me that I was finally being honest about myself, something that a lot of teenage guys weren’t doing. In that moment I met the joining together of telling the truth about myself and having mercy and compassion extended to me.

So what sexual baggage do you carry around with you? Here’s some questions to get you thinking:

Were you sexually active before marriage?
Are you currently sexually active outside of marriage?
Have you looked at porn in the last month?
Have you been sexually abused?
Are you satisfied with your current marital sexual intimacy?

All of these, and probably many more, can be ways we accumulate sexual baggage. I can’t possibly hit on all of these in one message. So here’s the problem I want to deal with today: We think that casual sex has no consequences. We live in a sex-saturated culture that continually tells us we will only be satisfied when we have as many non-committal sexual encounters as possible.

I was recently listening to the NPR (National Public Radio) show, This American Life. The host of the show, Ira Glass, was interviewing a guy about a decision he and his girlfriend made about their relationship to have a month-long “rumspringen” where they could have sex with as many people as they wanted. “Rumspringen” is the time in the Amish culture when a teenager is given the opportunity to “sow their wild oats” before deciding whether to become Amish or not. So the guy Ira Glass is interviewing tells the story of how he goes out and tries to sleep with as many women as possible in this month-long period. The only problem is that he becomes emotionally attached to the women he’s sleeping with. He can’t just have casual sex. He bonds physically and emotionally with each woman he has sex with. Then it’s over.

Of course, over time he learns how to not become emotionally attached, but this is something like taking a piece of tape and sticking it to one thing after another. Over time, it won’t be sticky anymore because it’s being used in a way that it was not intended to be used. After the 30-day period, he gets back together with his girlfriend and they decide they need ninety more days for their Rumspringen. After the ninety days, they decide it’s over. Did you see that coming? Of course you did. Because even if you’ve bought into the culture’s idea that casual sex has no consequences, when confronted with this situation, you know that the culture is lying. Casual sex does have consequences. You either bond with those you have sex with or you have so much bonding and breaking that you become emotionally numb to bonding and have to relearn how to bond with someone.

Let’s take a moment and look at what God’s plan is for sex. We can find this laid out pretty clearly in the first book of the Bible, Genesis. I find in the story of creation four purposes for sex.

Multiplying
When God creates humans, God blessed them and told them, “Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28 NLT). Sex is about creating life. We are made in the image of God and some of what that means is that we too can create living breathing intelligent life that is able to love and communicate and have a relationship with its creator. That’s amazing! Sex is in part for multiplying.

Companionship
When God made Adam he realized his creation was incomplete. We read, And the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion who will help him” (Genesis 2:18 NLT). Adam and Eve were created as companions to one another in a way that was mutually compatible.

Pleasure
Some Christians throughout history have seemed to make sex into some kind of obligation and duty you have to perform and along the way you’re supposed to try to ignore or even suppress the pleasure that it brings. But that’s not the way that we read it in Genesis and many other parts of the Bible. After God creates Eve for Adam, we read, “At Last!” Adam exclaimed, “She is part of my own flesh and bone! She will be called ‘woman’ because she was taken out of a man” (Genesis 2:23 NLT). My Hebrew professor at Duke liked to say that “At last!” was way too tame of a translation. She liked to translate “At last!” as “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Adam is pleased with what he sees. And of course both of them were. They were both looking at one another butt naked in all their original human bodily perfection!

Unity
The author of Genesis sums this story up saying, This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one (Genesis 2:24 NLT). Sex creates a bond of unity that goes so deep that the author of Genesis says they become one flesh. That deep spiritual and physical unity is why Jesus says that if you divorce and remarry you may have dissolved the legal bond, but you can’t dissolve the unity bond that came through marriage and sex. Thus, if you remarry, according to Jesus, you’re committing adultery because you can’t un-flesh the one flesh that comes through marriage and sex. You’ll carry that other person around with you for the rest of your life.

So here’s the whole point of this message: sexual purity is intended for intimacy. Multiplying, companionship, pleasure, and unity create an intimate bond that is nearly impossible to break. We were built for intimacy, a bond between two people that excludes all others, and sex ultimately bonds us with another person.

When you have a life-long committed marriage that has experienced the birth of children, companionship, the pleasure of one another’s bodies, and the unity of becoming one flesh, you’ve got an exclusive bond of intimacy unlike any other. But if you’ve slept around and moved from one relationship to another delighting in many bodies and birthing children with many partners and sought companionship with many, then you don’t have a unity that leads to intimacy because you’ve got a bond that has been shared with many people.

The writer who compiled the book of wisdom called Proverbs, expresses this truth about sex in this way:

Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone, and not for sharing with strangers. Let your fountains be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. May her breasts satisfy you at all times; may you be intoxicated always by her love.

So God’s plan for sex is that it be saved for one person in a life-long commitment of marriage that creates an intimacy unlike any other. Sexual purity is intended for intimacy.

So about this time now, if you’re like me, you’re looking at some sexual baggage that you’re carrying around with you. It may be sexual baggage that is accumulated because you didn’t save sexual intimacy for marriage. Or it could be sexual baggage you accumulated because someone stole that sexual intimacy from you. I want to recognize the latter, but speak mostly of the former. Here’s what I want you to do today:

Stop ignoring sexual sin.
Stop idolizing sexual sin.

Some of us have bought into the culture’s claim that casual sex has no consequences or that God’s plan for sexual purity being saved for the intimacy of marriage doesn’t apply to us. We just ignore the sexual sin in our lives. If you err in this direction, then today I want you to stop ignoring the sexual sin in your life and recommit today to save sex for marriage. It may take a massive reordering of your life to make that happen but I think in the long-run God will bless you for making that commitment to sexual purity. Today receive God’s grace to live a transformed life.

Some of you err in the other direction. You idolize sexual sin. I fall in this category. Because I grew up in a church that seemed to take sexual sin more seriously than just about every other sin, I really tend to beat myself up about this one area of sin. I “idolize” it by making it worse than others. But sin is sin, and we’re all sinners. Today, receive God’s mercy and forgiveness and know that God can take that baggage of guilt from you.

In the book of Luke, we read about Jesus encountering a prostitute amidst a religious leader, Simon’s home-party. Simon isn’t very happy about this woman showing up at his party and is even less thrilled about how Jesus is treating her. We read:

Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I cam in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.
Luke 7:44-47

Jesus shows compassion to the woman who had sexual baggage, while he seems more than a little put off by the self-righteous religious leader. Baggage of any kind, including sexual baggage, draws us to the feet of Jesus where we meet both truth and mercy. We then lay the baggage at the foot of the cross.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: baggage, intimacy, marriage, pornography, sex, sin, truth

Baggage Claim – Divorce Baggage, Week I

February 18, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Baggage Claim – Divorce Baggage Week I
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
February 17/18, 2013

Peace friends!

Today we’re in week two of a four week Baggage Claim series. We’re claiming our baggage, then we’re figuring out what to do with it. We began with family baggage and today we turn toward divorce baggage. We’re going to spend two weeks unpacking divorce baggage. The first week—this message—we’ll claim the baggage. The second week we’ll figure out what to do with it.

Before we dive in to divorce baggage specifically, let’s just spend a moment asking the question: what is baggage? “Baggage” can probably mean a lot of things to a lot of people. When I talk about baggage I mean one of three things and they all have something to do with sin, missing the mark of God’s plan for our lives. Baggage can be un-confessed guilt from past sin. Not all guilt is bad. Guilt that leads to confession is good guilt, and you might even call it good baggage. You deal with this kind of baggage by claiming it through confession and then doing everything in your power to make right the wrong you did. The other two kinds of baggage are harder to deal with and best figured out on a case by case basis.

A second kind of baggage is persistent guilt left after confession of sin. Here we’re talking about the inability to receive God’s forgiveness when we claim our baggage through confession. A third kind of baggage is painful memories or scars created when someone sins against you. These are memories you just can’t shake, feelings of worthlessness, or feeling alone, among many other things.

Here’s a truth: we all accumulate baggage. Every saint has a past, but every sinner has a future. You can’t change your past, but Christ can change your future.

During this series I want to help you not accumulate the baggage in the first place, but if you already have it, to know what to do with it. I want you to be able to name clearly what the baggage is, and to have a clear path forward for how to receive God’s grace to dump it and live a new baggage-free life. And that brings us back full circle to knowing what it is and not accumulating it in the first place.

This is not a series of condemnation and judgment, but it is a series of truth telling. Truth telling and compassion, mercy, and grace are not mutually exclusive. Actually there is no true compassion without truth telling. Jesus models truth and mercy together when he encounters a woman caught in adultery:

Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”
John 8:10-11 NRSV

Divorce Baggage: The Problem and the Point
So here’s the problem I want to deal with today: Marriage costs us something. We think that the feelings of love we have when we get married will see us through our marriage, but marriage turns out to be hard. Sometimes really hard! And sometimes we find ourselves in a very long stretch in our marriage with little to no positive feelings and an accumulation of negative feelings. Psychologists tell us that the healthy ratio of positive to negative feelings in a marriage is five positive for every one negative. Some of us are experiencing five negatives for every one positive!

So here’s the point of today’s message: Marriage is a covenant. It’s a covenant that teaches us something about following Jesus even when we don’t feel the positive emotions we once did. Perhaps we learn the most about following Jesus when we no longer have those positive emotions. Marriage is a discipleship covenant where we learn to practice love even when we don’t feel love. That means that divorce deteriorates discipleship and we, and those around us, accumulate baggage (guilt, painful memories, feelings of worthlessness, and more) in the process. Let’s unpack this idea of marriage as a covenant.

Marriage is a Covenant
Marriage is a covenant. It is a commitment made before God. When you said your vows, if you did so in a Christian marriage ceremony, then you made those vows not only to your loved one, but you also made those vows to God. But the idea of marriage as a covenant goes even deeper than just the commitment you’re making to another individual.

Marriage expresses God’s love and commitment to God’s people. The covenant to love one another through all the ups and downs is a symbol of God’s love and commitment for the community of God’s people. This commitment that God makes goes so far as to remain even when God’s “spouse” is unfaithful. We see this most clearly in the book of Hosea. Hosea is told by God to marry Gomer, a woman who will be unfaithful to Hosea. It’s a pretty crazy situation. Here’s what we read right at the beginning of the book of Hosea:

When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD” (Hosea 1:2 NRSV).

But then later on we read this:

And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy (Hosea 2:19 NRSV).

God’s faithfulness to the covenant remains even when our faithfulness waivers.

Marriage also represents Christ’s covenantal love for the church. In St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he uses the example of marriage to explain how much Jesus loves the church:

Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ…Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Ephesians 5:21, 24-25 NRSV).

Notice the command to submit to one another. Marriage isn’t about the woman submitting to the man. Marriage is a covenant of mutual submission. That first sentence colors everything else Paul says in this passage. Women already know something about this because it’s in our cultural background, but Paul has to explain it to husbands. He says that husbands are to submit to the point of following in Jesus; footsteps: giving yourself up entirely for your wife, even to the point of death! Notice here the connection of loving your wife as Christ loved the church. Marriage is good in as much as both husband and wife represent and replay Christ’s deep unconditional self-sacrificial love for the church.

So marriage is probably best understood as an act of discipleship that is grounded not in feelings of love but the practice of love. It can be hard. Sometimes, maybe even often, you have to pick up your cross and carry it. You may have to learn to love your enemy who sometimes shares a bed with you. You will most certainly have to learn how to forgive. If you want to learn how to follow Jesus, getting married is one way to learn.

Divorce is Covenant Breaking
So if marriage is a covenant with another person and with God and represents the covenant God has with God’s people and the love that Christ has for Christ’s church, what does it say when we break that covenant?

First, divorce breaks a covenant made with your spouse and with God. Second, divorce breaks the sign of God’s covenant with God’s people. Third, divorce breaks the covenant of discipleship that exists between Christ and the church. Maybe this is why God says, “I hate divorce” (Malachi 2:16). What was once a symbol of God’s unconditional love for God’s people becomes an expression of conditional love.

God’s Kingdom
At this point I think it is important to point out something that theologians call the “already and not yet” of God’s kingdom. When we pray in the Lord’s Prayer that “your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven” we are recognizing that we live in a broken world. The way that God designed the world has been damaged in so many ways. We pray that God would heal that world and bring his kingdom and his reign here on earth in the same way that God fully reigns in heaven. But implicit in that prayer is the idea that this is a process and we are not yet there. Thus, God’s kingdom here on earth is already present, but it is not yet fully present.

Covenant Breaking
In a fully present kingdom, there would be no need to ever break the covenant of marriage. But God’s kingdom is not yet fully here, and so the question arises, does the Bible ever think it is OK to break the covenant of marriage? The answer to that question depends on where you look.

Moses seems to allow divorce for “something objectionable”:

Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; she then leaves his house and goes off to become another man’s wife (Deuteronomy 24:1-2 NRSV).

What is “something objectionable”? Maybe Jesus can clear this up for us. Well, it depends on where you look for Jesus to clarify things. In the book of Mark, Jesus interacts directly with this teaching from Moses, and says that Moses allowed divorce because we had hard hearts. He erases the loophole for divorce when he says,

“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:11-12 NRSV).

In Mark, Jesus doesn’t seem to allow divorce for anything, whether “objectionable” or not. When you get married you become “one flesh” as Genesis says, and you can’t “un-flesh” yourself. (On a side note: Jesus raises the woman’s status to equal with a man in this teaching. In Jesus’ day, adultery was technically a sin against a man, because a woman was a man’s property. So when you sleep with a woman who is married, you commit adultery against her husband. But Jesus says that you commit adultery against her.) So when you seek guidance about divorce from Jesus in the book of Mark you seem to get this answer: divorce is never permissible.

But if you keep reading you will eventually come to Jesus’ teaching about divorce in the book of Matthew. Here Jesus seems to qualify his previous teaching saying,

“And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity [porneia], and marries another commits adultery” (Matthew 19:9 NRSV).

What is translated as “unchastity” is the Greek word “porneia.” That probably sounds familiar because it’s where we get our English word “pornography.” Porneia or unchastity is a pretty broad term. And perhaps like the Supreme Court, we can’t define it, but we know it when we see it. There are a lot of sexual infidelities besides just sexual intercourse that would seem to fall under the umbrella of porneia. Thus, in Matthew Jesus teaches that if your spouse is unfaithful in a variety of sexual ways, it is permissible to break the covenant of marriage.

St. Paul takes this a step further. He says in his letter to the Corinthians,

“To the rest I say — I and not the Lord — that if any believer has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. And if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him” (1 Corinthians 7:12-13 NRSV).

So Paul says that if you’re married to an unbeliever, and that unbelieving spouse wants to leave, then what can you do? You let them go. Perhaps the principle behind Paul’s direction is this: you can’t force discipleship on anyone. God gives us the freedom to reject God’s love. Discipleship and covenant keeping is never forced from God onto us. Could this also apply to someone who considers themselves a believer but says they want to divorce you? Again, you can’t make anyone follow Jesus. You can’t make anyone keep a covenant, even if it was a commitment made to God.

An interesting point to notice in Paul’s teaching here is that he says, “I and not the Lord.” Paul seems to be adding to Jesus’ teaching with some of his own. Paul is practicing some continued pastoral discernment for his situation and the situation his churches find themselves in. Maybe Paul is living into the same act of discernment that we see between Jesus’ answer in Mark and Jesus’ answer in Matthew. As both Jesus and Paul encounter new situations and circumstances, they’re finding that God’s kingdom is already but not yet.

In this spirit, I would like to continue some discernment myself. I, and not the Lord, want to suggest that sustained violent abuse (both physical and possibly verbal) is porenia. It is sin against the “one-fleshness” of marriage. You are not treating your spouse as “one-flesh” with yourself when you violently abuse him or her. One problem here is that this kind of abuse is often kept secret rather than made known. What would happen if your spouse hit you the first time or violently cursed you verbally and instead of keeping it a secret, you shared it appropriately with some of the community around you that witnessed the covenant you made together at your wedding? What if that community then became a community of accountability to help a spouse who has trouble expressing his or her anger in healthy non-violent ways?

Something implied in all these teachings is that even if your spouse is unfaithful in one of these ways, and the Bible allows for divorce in that circumstance, it does not require it. God’s grace is always interested in reconciliation even if the brokenness of the world makes that near impossible. Remember, Hosea remained married to an unfaithful spouse to show that God’s love is faithful even when our love is not.

Remarriage?
If divorce is covenant breaking and sex after divorce is adultery, then several questions arise about remarriage. First, is remarriage de facto adultery? The Bible is not particularly optimistic about remarriage. Except for the explicit situations we covered above, the Bible teaches that remarriage is adultery. Please don’t shoot the messenger.

Second, if I’m remarried after divorce and the divorce wasn’t because of one of those explicit circumstances, should I get divorced from my second marriage? No! The Bible always speaks against this kind of ascetic idealism. There is grace and salvation in the midst of brokenness! As Richard Hays, a New Testament scholar, says, remarriage could “serve as a sign of God’s love in the world…A second marriage after divorce could serve as a sign of grace and redemption from the sin and brokenness in the past” (The Moral Vision of the New Testament, pg 373).

Third, what should I do now that I am remarried? Here are several questions to ask yourself:

Did you confess your role of sin in the divorce (if there was sin)?
Did you confess your sin to your ex (if possible)? Or someone else?
Are you doing all you can to live at peace now with your ex?
Are you committed for life to your current covenantal marriage?

Fourth, should I remain single if I have been divorced? Let me suggest that remarriage is best approached as a process of discernment. The Bible isn’t very optimistic about remarriage, but it’s not the only one not optimistic about second marriages. We all are familiar with the statistics about second marriages. Don’t make this decision alone. Include your friends and family. Make sure you’ve got some friends who are providing guidance who aren’t “yes men.” Make sure you’ve got some people asking you hard questions about your motivation and the timing of any particular commitment to a second marriage. Run your previous marriage and any thoughts about a second marriage through the four questions above. Perhaps then, a second marriage can serve as a new covenant that represents how God can and does redeem this broken world.

So today we’ve looked at claiming the baggage of divorce. We’ve spent our time telling the truth about what marriage is, a covenant, and what divorce is, covenant breaking. But this series isn’t just about claiming the baggage. It’s also about knowing what to do with it once you’ve got it. Doing both of those in one sermon was too much. So next week we’ll be looking at what to do with the baggage of divorce once you’ve claimed it. I hope you’ll join us as we seek to take the baggage and give it to God to work something new. Because in the family of God, there are no carry-ons.

Prayer
God, help us to tell the truth about divorce. Help us to claim the baggage divorce has created in our families. And open our hearts to how you can continue to work in and through a broken and wounded world. Help us to renew the covenants that we have made to others and to you. Help those covenants be signs and symbols of your love for us. In the name of Jesus and in the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: compassion, covenant, divorce, grace, marriage, mercy, truth

Baggage Claim – Family Baggage

February 11, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Baggage Claim – Family Baggage
Sycamore Creek Church
February 10 & 11, 2013
Tom Arthur
2 Samuel 13:1-22

Peace Friends!

Today we begin a new series called Baggage Claim. That begs the question: What is baggage? I suspect if we ask everyone in the room what “baggage” is, we’d get a lot of different answers, so let me begin with some thoughts on what I think baggage is.

Baggage is a lot of things and most of them have something to do with sin. Baggage can be unconfessed guilt from past sin. Not all guilt is bad. Guilt that leads to confession is good guilt. Baggage can also be persistent guilt left after confession of sin. Guilt is not always good. Sometimes it is the inability to receive forgiveness from God. Baggage can also be painful memories or scars from sin committed against you, things your memory just won’t shake, feelings of worthlessness, or feeling alone.

We all accumulate baggage. Every saint has a past but, every sinner has a future. This series is about the fact that while you can’t change your past, Christ can change your future.

I recently met an artist who takes old stuff that people have thrown away and turns it into art. He told me that a good part of his motivation is in repurposing things and using them in a way that their maker had not originally designed it for. My imagination was sparked. While our maker did not design us to accumulate baggage, perhaps there is some art that can be created from it.

So what I want to do in this series is to help you not accumulate baggage in the first place, but if you already have it, to know what to do with it. I want you to be able to name clearly what the baggage is, and to have a clear path forward for how to receive God’s grace to dump it and live a new baggage-free life or to have it created into some new piece of artwork.

This not a series of condemnation and judgment, but it is a series of truth telling. Truth telling and compassion, mercy, and grace are not mutually exclusive. Actually there is no true compassion without truth telling. Jesus models truth and mercy together when he encounters a woman caught in adultery.

John 8:10-11 NRSV
Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”

Family Baggage
We’re going to look at divorce baggage the next two weeks, and end the series with sexual baggage. But today we’re looking at family baggage. There’s a great movie called How to Train Your Dragon that is about a father and son that have different expectations about the role for the son. Will he be a dragon slayer or not? Here’s two short clips to set the stage:

Here’s the problem that we all run into: We all want a family, just not ours (sometimes). All our families are broken. Broken from divorce, abuse, a distant parent, an over involved parent, addiction, and on and on. There is no perfect family. And when our families accumulate baggage we tend to deal with the baggage with one of two extremes: severance or silence. We sever the relationship. We kick the offending family member out of the family. We excommunicate them. Or we are silent about it. We pretend it never happened. Or we simply never talk about it as a family. Toward which extreme do you or your family tend to err?

Today I want to take a look at a pretty extreme case in the Bible of a family accumulating baggage. If you’re a guest here this morning, this story may perplex you. You may even wonder why it’s in the Bible. Here at Sycamore Creek Church, we look to the Bible for practical guidance, but the Bible doesn’t always tell us what to do. Sometimes it only reports what happened. It gives us a story to chew on together as a community. That’s what we’re looking at today with the story we’re about to read. It’s not a story that describes how we’re supposed to behave. It probably tells us a lot more about how not to behave, unless we want to accumulate serious baggage. But it clearly illustrates how baggage tends to push us to one of two extremes: severance or silence. Watch for those two extremes as you hear the story of the rape of Tamar.

2 Samuel 13:1-22 NRSV
Some time passed. David’s son Absalom had a beautiful sister whose name was Tamar; and David’s son Amnon fell in love with her. Amnon was so tormented that he made himself ill because of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin and it seemed impossible to Amnon to do anything to her.

But Amnon had a friend whose name was Jonadab, the son of David’s brother Shimeah; and Jonadab was a very crafty man. He said to him, “O son of the king, why are you so haggard morning after morning? Will you not tell me?” Amnon said to him, “I love Tamar, my brother Absalom’s sister.”

Jonadab said to him, “Lie down on your bed, and pretend to be ill; and when your father comes to see you, say to him, ‘Let my sister Tamar come and give me something to eat, and prepare the food in my sight, so that I may see it and eat it from her hand.'”

So Amnon lay down, and pretended to be ill; and when the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, “Please let my sister Tamar come and make a couple of cakes in my sight, so that I may eat from her hand.”

Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, “Go to your brother Amnon’s house, and prepare food for him.” So Tamar went to her brother Amnon’s house, where he was lying down. She took dough, kneaded it, made cakes in his sight, and baked the cakes.

Then she took the pan and set themout before him, but he refused to eat. Amnon said, “Send out everyone from me.” So everyone went out from him. Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food into the chamber, so that I may eat from your hand.” So Tamar took the cakes she had made, and brought them into the chamber to Amnon her brother.

But when she brought them near him to eat, he took hold of her, and said to her, “Come, lie with me, my sister.” She answered him, “No, my brother, do not force me; for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do anything so vile!

As for me, where could I carry my shame? And as for you, you would be as one of the scoundrels in Israel. Now therefore, I beg you, speak to the king; for he will not withhold me from you.” But he would not listen to her; and being stronger than she, he forced her and lay with her.

Then Amnon was seized with a very great loathing for her; indeed, his loathing was even greater than the lust he had felt for her. Amnon said to her, “Get out!” But she said to him, “No, my brother;for this wrong in sending me away is greater than the other that you did to me.” But he would not listen to her.

He called the young man who served him and said, “Put this woman out of my presence, and bolt the door after her.” (Now she was wearing a long robe with sleeves; for this is how the virgin daughters of the king were clothed in earlier times.) So his servant put her out, and bolted the door after her.

But Tamar put ashes on her head, and tore the long robe that she was wearing; she put her hand on her head, and went away, crying aloud as she went. Her brother Absalom said to her, “Has Amnon your brother been with you? Be quiet for now, my sister; he is your brother; do not take this to heart.” So Tamar remained, a desolate woman, in her brother Absalom’s house.

When King David heard of all these things, he became very angry, but he would not punish his son Amnon, because he loved him, for he was his firstborn. But Absalom spoke to Amnon neither good nor bad; for Absalom hated Amnon, because he had raped his sister Tamar.

Sometimes in other churches after the Bible story is read, the person reading the Bible will say, “The Word of the Lord.” And the people respond, “Thanks be to God.” If I was in one of those kind of churches and heard the story read, I’d be inclined to say, “No thank you, God!” This is one seriously messed up family. They are severing relationships and remaining silent in all kinds of crazy ways that just accumulate more and more baggage. So let’s unpack this story and see what we can learn.

Amnon, David’s eldest son and heir to the throne, rapes Tamar, his half sister and Absalom’s full sister. David does little to nothing. He gets angry, but anger isn’t enough in the face of such horrific injustice. Absalom, Tamar’s full brother, and David’s second eldest, takes vengeance for his sister and eventually kills Amnon, putting himself in line for the throne. David’s sons are playing out a familiar story of violence in David’s own life. If you are familiar with David as a king, you will remember that David saw a good looking woman he wanted named Bathsheba, but she was married to one of his elite warriors, Uriah. After getting Bathsheba pregnant, he has Uriah killed on the front lines of battle. David’s own violence begat the violence of his sons, and David has the opportunity to break the cycle but does not. He and almost everyone in this story resort to one of two extremes: severance and silence.

Absalom’s resort to severance is extreme: kill his half-brother. David’s initial response to Absalom after Absalom kills Amnon is also severance. Absalom is cast out of the family and stays away for three years.

Absalom also tells Tamar to remain silent about the injustice. He attempts to silence the victim. But Absalom learned this from his father, who is silent about Amnon’s great injustice. Absalom also speaks neither “good nor bad” to Amnon. He doesn’t confront him, he remains silent about it either way. There is a conspiracy of silence against Tamar. Don’t talk about it. That hurts. It puts our family in a bad light. Let’s just be quiet about it and pretend it never happened. It hurts too much to talk about it. David also remains silent in the long-haul about Absalom’s murder of Amnon. While Absalom is cast away for three years, when he finally is allowed to come back, David says nothing about the past circumstances.

Interestingly enough, Tamar, the victim in the whole story does neither. She is neither willing to sever relationships nor remain silent. When it comes to severing the relationship with Amnon when he tells her what he wants, Tamar uses one of the few cards her culture of the day gives her to play: she suggests that they get married. She suggests this both before and after the rape. In our culture that affords women equal rights as men, it is hard to imagine Tamar offering to marry the man who violates her in this way. But in her mind, the other option in her day was complete disgrace. She chose the lesser of two evils. But when Amnon discards her, and Absalom tells her to be quiet, she does neither. She privately and publicly laments. Tamar is unwilling to sever relationships or to remain silent in the face of baggage.

My family has its own accumulation of baggage. My father had an affair that effectively ended the marriage. My parents were divorced when I was in elementary school. They and my step-parents have gotten along in various spurts that go up and down. It is hard to talk about such things within one’s own family. It is easier to remain silent or to get out of the family all together. But that’s not the best way to handle baggage. It’s really not claiming it all. Baggage in families is best claimed and then dealt with through forgiveness, not the forgetfulness of severance or silence. Here’s the whole point of this message: Family requires forgiveness, not forgetfulness. Family baggage requires forgiveness, but forgiveness doesn’t mean no consequences. Forgiveness is a kind of ability to remain in a relationship even with tension, seeking open and honest truth while also seeking mercy and compassion.

I navigated this with my own dad by spending a year in counseling during my sophomore year of college. That year of counseling culminated in my dad spending a weekend with me at college going to see my counselor with me. It was the turning point in our relationship. We turned away from severance and silence and toward claiming the accumulated baggage and forgiving one another. You may think it odd that I say, “forgiving one another” but over time I have come to see that in my own woundedness, that I had wounded those around me. Confession and forgiveness had to work both ways.

If you’re wondering how in the world you’d break the silence within your family around something painful, let me offer you a way forward: a “fierce conversation.” I was first introduced to a great book by Susan Scott titled Fierce Conversations by John Savage, a mentor and coach of mine over the years. A fierce conversation is not a status update or tweet. Those are not appropriate or helpful forums for dealing with family baggage. A fierce conversation happens face to face. It is fierce because it is honest. Scott suggests several steps in a fierce conversation, but I want to mostly focus on the beginning. A hard fierce conversation often begins with a carefully crafted sixty-second statement. This statement has seven parts:

Name the issue.
Select a specific example that illustrates the behavior or situation you want to change.
Describe your emotions about this issue.
Clarify what is at stake.
Identify your contribution to this problem.
Indicate your wish to resolve the issue.
Invite your partner to respond.

This conversation is requested ahead of time, and this statement is practiced ahead of time (even in the mirror). Let me give you an example of an opening sixty-second statement. I’ve taken my own relationship with Sarah, exaggerated it a bit, mixed in some of the issues that I’ve heard from you, and created an opening sixty-second statement from Sarah to me. She would ideally have asked for this conversation ahead of time and practiced this opening statement. So here it is:

[Name the issue:] Tom, I’d like to talk to you about the effect your actions have been having on our family lately. [Examples:] Tuesday morning while we were sitting at the breakfast table, you snapped at me saying, “Can’t you see I’m reading the newspaper.” On our drive to Ann Arbor Friday night you spoke very few words to me. Sunday night you sat in your chair surfing the internet without interacting with Micah or me. [Describe the emotions:] I’m getting really concerned about the possible consequences this is having on all of us. I feel distant from you in these moments. Sometimes I feel numb or even a little scared. [Clarify what is at stake:] There is a lot at stake here: the long-term thriving of our marriage and our family, and your role in helping Micah learn healthy ways of interacting with his family as he grows up. [Identify your contribution:] I think I have contributed to this situation myself. Sometimes I am very critical of you, or don’t respect when you need some silence. Other times I don’t know what the right questions are to ask you to help begin a conversation. I’ve also not brought this up at helpful times before. [Your wish to resolve the issue:] I’d like to work toward resolving these issues. [Invite response:] I want to understand what is happening from your perspective.

Her next move is to be quiet, and listen. Let me offer three tips for moving forward in the conversation that follows. First, institute the Three Question Rule: ask three questions before you make a statement. When you ask for a response, it is likely that you will begin to feel threatened. Be patient with your partner by asking clarifying questions. This will help your own natural defensiveness subside. Ask questions like, “Tell me more about…Help me understand what you mean when you say…I’m not fully understanding how this is making you feel. Can you clarify…”

Second, substitute “and” for “but.” When you follow a statement someone says with “but” you’re saying their statement doesn’t matter. When you follow it with “and”, you’re saying both statements matter. For example: You want me to complete this project by tomorrow, BUT I’ve got two other projects I have to get done first, is very different than You want me to complete this project by tomorrow, AND I’ve got two other projects I have to get done first. Or here’s another one: You want me to watch the kids this afternoon, BUT I need some quiet time to finish reading my training manual, is very different than You want me to watch the kids this afternoon, AND I need some quiet time to finish reading my training manual. “But” tells the other person that what they said doesn’t matter. “And” invites shared ownership of the problem and shared brainstorming for a solution.

Third, when you want to make a statement, try this approach. Describe the statement as a thought or theory running through your mind that you want input on. Say, “This thought was running through my mind. What do you think of it?” I used this approach recently in a very sticky and delicate situation. I had a working theory in my mind of why someone was doing something that they were doing, but if I was honest with myself, I wasn’t sure my theory was right. So I said, “I have a theory, but I don’t know if it’s right. Here’s my theory. What do you think of it?” Instead of that person getting defensive, I got some extra information from them that convinced me that my theory wasn’t right, and it all happened without either of us getting defensive.

One of the best ways to help discern how to have a fierce conversation that leads to forgiveness and reconciliation is by running your conversation ideas by others. At Sycamore Creek Church, we try to create environments where friendships can thrive that help you have partners in the process of learning how to forgive your family and work through the baggage accumulated in your family. We call these environments small groups. They’re a group of three to twelve people who meet regularly to guide one another in loving God with everything you’ve got and loving your neighbor and your family as you love yourself. What fierce conversation in your family do you need to have this week or next? What small group of spiritual friends do you have that will help you prepare for that fierce conversation?

Imagine with me for a moment having true and honest conversations with your divorced parents about the where-to-stay-or-visit dilemma when you come to town. Imagine having a fierce conversation with that abusive family member who treats you like a verbal punching bag at family get-togethers. Imagine finding forgiveness for that distant parent that never suggests you get together for anything. Imagine figuring out how to not sever the relationship with that over involved parent who regularly calls you offering advice you’re not looking for and haven’t requested. Imagine not remaining silent in your family about the addicted family member who is always missing commitments because of their addiction. Imagine neither severing these relationships nor remaining silent about the pain in them.

Jesus sets the example for this in himself. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17 NRSV). In Jesus, God was neither willing to sever the relationship with his creation or remain silent. And Jesus came showing us what grace and truth look like when they exist together in the same person, in the same family. In the family of God, there are no carry-ons. Lay your baggage at the foot of the cross.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: baggage, communication, forgiveness, relationships, truth

Walking with Bilbo – The Cost of Adventure

January 22, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Walking with Bilbo – The Cost of Adventure
Sycamore Creek Church
January 20 & 21, 2013
Tom Arthur
Luke 9:57-62

Peace friends!

Have you ever watched one of those hoarders shows? Here’s a brief clip from one show about a “collector’s collector.”

We’re in this series called Walking with Bilbo, exploring spiritual themes in The Hobbit. One of the spiritual themes in The Hobbit is the question of hoarding stuff. Bilbo isn’t so sure about joining the adventure because he doesn’t want to leave all the creature comforts of his hobbit hole, and when he finally does join the adventure he exclaims to Gandalf the wizard, “I’m awfully sorry but I have come without my hat, and I have left my pocket-handkerchief behind, and I haven’t got any money.” Bilbo is a hoarder and it gets in the way of adventure in his life.

The problem is that we’re all hoarders in some shape, form, or fashion. I hoard my reputation. I protect very carefully what other people think of me. I want people to think I’m smart and well educated, emotionally together, competent and even excellent, creative, a leader, a compelling speaker, kind but firm, and well organized. Of course sometimes things backfire. A couple of years ago I was sitting at home waiting to leave to go to my yearly evaluation with our Staff Pastor Relations Team when I got a call from Bill Hoerner, the team leader. He said, “Where are you?” I said, “I’m at home. I’m getting ready to leave.” He said, “The meeting started thirty minutes ago.” I had it written down for the wrong time on my calendar. I was late to my yearly evaluation!

I’d like today to take a look at a story of Jesus interacting with several people who want to go on the adventure of following him, and see what we can learn about what kinds of things we tend to hoard in life, what we have to give up to follow Jesus, and what it costs to go on Jesus’ adventure.

Luke 9:57-58 – Stuff that Gives Us a Sense of Security
⁵⁷ As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” ⁵⁸And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Jesus points out to this person who wants to follow him that he’s going to essentially have to give up all the securities of the stability of home. He’s going to be joining the lifestyle of a wandering homeless preacher. He won’t know where he’s going to sleep each night. Now that’s an adventure!

We all tend to hoard stuff that gives us a sense of security. Stuff that gives us a sense of security is anything that you wonder how you’d live without it, like technology. I was sitting behind a guy on a plane recently when he realized he had left his cell phone at home as he was leaving for a week-long trip. He was busy borrowing his friend’s cell phone and talking to his wife. Some of you are feeling the bottom of your stomach drop out right now because you can’t imagine going away for a week and not having your cell phone. What would you do with yourself? How would you live? Of course, technology isn’t just cell phones. Some of us can’t live without our tablets, mp3 players, computers, or TVs. We hoard technology because it gives us a sense of security.

Another thing that gives us a sense of security is money. We hoard money like there’s no tomorrow. Which may not mean actually saving it. Hoarding money may mean simply hoarding its blessings for ourselves. We buy stuff for ourselves rather than pass the blessing around.

Others of us have certain things that give us status and that status gives us a sense of security. Owning a big home in the right neighborhood, a fancy car, designer clothes, extended degrees (like ones from Duke University, not that I know any Blue Devils around here), awards from our jobs, expensive jewelry, the best makeup, the latest hair fashions, the best destination vacations, and of course man-toys like boats, RVs, ATVs, and on and on and on. We hoard status stuff because it gives us a sense of security about our place in the pecking order.

This is kind of a touchy subject, but something that gives us a sense of security that I think can be used for quite a bit of good, but also can draw us away from God’s adventure for our lives is insurance: health insurance, car insurance, life insurance, long-term care insurance, home insurance, renters insurance, umbrella insurance. All these things can give us a false sense of security that can keep us from the adventure that Jesus is calling us on. Would you be willing to give up a job that provides health insurance but isn’t where you think Jesus is calling you for a job that has no health insurance but is on the road of adventure with Jesus?

We hoard stuff that gives us a sense of security.

Luke 9:59-60 – Old Dead Stuff
⁵⁹To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” ⁶⁰But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

Jesus comes across a guy who wants to go bury his father before he’ll follow Jesus. Jesus seems a little harsh in his response, but there is a recognition that following Jesus has a cost. We have to give up hoarding old dead stuff.

Most of us aren’t in the literal situation of having to bury anyone, but speaking more metaphorically, why do we keep doing stuff that keeps not working or that leads to dead ends? We hoard old habits that lead to dead relationships. We hoard old memories, pain, and guilt that lead to a dead spirit. We hoard old fears that lead to dead futures. We hoard old “scripts” that lead to dead ends in our relationships.

Sarah and I have a couple of fifteen-year-long arguments. They’re fifteen years long because we play out the script of the argument over and over in the same way. I’m not sure why we think we’ll resolve the argument this time using the same scripts from the past fifteen years, but we dive in with full vigor attempting the argument one more time. Then we went on a retreat for our 15-year anniversary back in May. We used a DVD marriage retreat from John and Julie Gottman called The Art and Science of Love. The Gottmans have done longitudinal studies of couples over several decades. That means that they’ve followed some couples for thirty or more years. They’ve found that 69% of problems in marriage are unsolvable. You’ll always have them. So how you approach them is key. On that weekend, Sarah and I made some headway on one of those fifteen-year arguments we’ve been having. We have simply learned some new lines to say rather than the old dead ones that we keep hanging on to.

We all hoard old dead stuff that is no longer working in our relationships and our lives.

Luke 9:61-62 – Relationships
⁶¹Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” ⁶²Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Jesus encounters a guy who wants to go back to his home and say goodbye to some of his friends before he’ll follow Jesus. But Jesus realizes that some relationships keep us from the adventure that God has in store for us. What relationships are distracting you from the adventure Jesus is calling you on?

Maybe one of those relationships is your boss at work. You think to yourself, “Let me first get a new boss, then I’ll be able to join the adventure Jesus has for me.” Perhaps your boss is like the CEO who was hired at a company to shake things up. This new boss is determined to rid the company of all slackers! On a tour of the facilities, the CEO notices a guy leaning on a wall dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. The room is full of workers and he wants to let them know he means business. The CEO walks up to the guy and asks, “And how much money do you make a week?” Undaunted, the young fellow looks at him and replies, “I make $300.00 a week. Why?” The CEO then hands the guy $300 in cash and screams, “Here’s a week’s pay, now GET OUT and don’t come back!” Feeling pretty good about his first firing, the CEO looks around the room and asks “Does anyone want to tell me what that slacker did here?” With a sheepish grin, one of the other workers mutters, “Pizza delivery guy.” So this boss is pretty bad, but you can’t wait for a new boss to follow Jesus. Jesus says follow me now.

Others of us say, Let me first find some good friends, then I’ll follow Jesus. Or Let me first deal with my aging parents or Let me first resolve the conflict with my brother and sister or Let me first finish high school, college, grad school, or Let me first find a boy/girlfriend, or Let me first see where this relationship leads, or Let me first raise my kids and get them out of the house, or Let me first get my marriage put together, and on and on and on. You see where this leads. Relationships are supposed to support us in the adventure of God, not keep us from the adventure of God.

We all tend to hoard relationships and let them distract us from adventure with Jesus.

We will never be able to get so “fixed” that we’re now “ready” to join the adventure of Jesus and proclaim the kingdom of God. Joining the adventure with Jesus and proclaiming the kingdom of God is the fix. Elsewhere Jesus says,

Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33 ESV).

Again, the problem is that we’re all hoarders. We try to hang on to these and a million other things. But in hanging on to them we lose the first and most important thing – the kingdom of God.

If you’re a guest here for the first or second time today, I want you to hear clearly a truth that Jim Elliot a missionary to Ecuador spoke. Elliot said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep [security/old dead stuff/relationships] to gain that which he cannot lose [eternal life].”

Today I want all of you to give up everything you’re hoarding and put the adventure of God first. So what can you take with you? Jesus answers that question too.

Mark 6:7-9
⁷He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. ⁸He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; ⁹but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.

In other words, take your shoes, the clothes on your back, and the staff in your hand. The shoes you should wear are the Heavenly Father who is your foundation. Do not take but one heart, undivided and fully surrendered to one Heavenly Father.

No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth (Matthew 6:24 NRSV).

You shall have no other gods before me (Exodus 20:3 NRSV).

The clothes on your back are Jesus who clothes you in righteousness.

Put on the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 13:14 NRSV).

If you want to know what God wants you to do, here it is: be holy. Be righteous. Be right with God and with those around you. That’s the adventure you’re on. If you’re faced with two choices, which one will let you love God and your neighbor more? If neither clearly leads to more love, then it pleases God that you would choose whichever way most pleases you. God’s desire is that you would put on the righteousness, the full and total love, of Jesus.

The staff is the Holy Spirit that steadies and guides you.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God (Romans 8:14 NRSV).

The Holy Spirit is the presence of God with you, the friendship that the Father and Son share. The Holy Spirit invites you into that community of friendship between the Father and the Son.

At the end of The Hobbit, Tolkien says that Bilbo “may have lost his neighbor’s respect, but he gained—well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.” It costs you everything to join the adventure of Jesus, but in it you gain the friendship of God, and that is enough.

Prayer
God, show us where our hoarding keeps us from joining the adventure that you have set before us. Help us to give up everything and follow you. Let us be content to have gained friendship with you. Amen.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: adventure, hoarding, security

Why – Why Don’t I Always Feel the Presence of God?

Why – Why doesn’t God answer my prayers?

Why – Why do bad things happen to good people?

In the Wilderness – The End of Wilderness

Trial in the Wilderness

Birth In the Wilderness

Baggage Claim – Sexual Baggage

Baggage Claim – Divorce Baggage, Week I

Baggage Claim – Family Baggage

Walking with Bilbo – The Cost of Adventure

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