Reading the Bible in 2014: Day 14 - Never Letting Go

The story of Jacob wrestling with the mysterious stranger in Genesis 32:22-32 has always fascinated me.  I’ve never been any good at wrestling.  I recently saw an old friend from Dallas who had wrestled in high school.  I remember how easily he could pin me to the ground.  Now he has a son of his own.  I wonder if his son will ever pin his papa.  How good was Jacob?  Was he a good wrestler, or did he just know enough to never let go?

Jacob’s new name honors the striving he has endured and the way he has prevailed.  He has become wealthy with a large family, many children, and livestock.  He has striven with men and has prevailed.  He has striven with God and has lasted.  He has not given up. 

Jacob's life has been filled with suffering: “It was like this with me: by day the heat consumed me, and the cold by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes.  These twenty years I have been in your house; I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times.  If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed.  God saw my affliction…” (Genesis 31:40-42)  Jacob isn’t perfect.  He is even wrong about the household gods that his wife Rachel slipped from her father.  But he has held onto God through the difficulties of life with Laban.  He has prevailed.  And when he wrestles with the mysterious man, he endures.  He never lets go.

Never letting go of the God who never let them go – this is Jacob’s legacy.  It is the way of his future generations.  This is what links Abraham, Moses, Ruth, Job, David and all the rest together.  They don’t let go of God no matter what.  This is the way of following God today.  We aren’t perfect.  We suffer for our sins.  We also suffer through no fault of our own.  God is with us through the suffering.  He will never abandon us.  The story of Jacob reminds us that life is often something to be endured.  Do you trust that God is with you, even if for decades you’ve had to endure life rather than enjoy it?  How is your striving going?

Jacob gave God all the fight he had.  Was the mysterious wrestler of the night actually God?  He is a messenger of God to be sure.  Still, let’s face it – God took it easy on Jacob to let him get out of that fight with just a sore hip.  Jacob prevailed.  But there was a man who strove with God, who wrestled with him, who suffered throughout his life, who didn’t prevail.  He did not walk away with a limp.  He was flattened upon a cross.  Jacob received the name of “Israel.”  A passing centurion called Jesus “the Son of God.” (Mark 15:39)  Jacob wrestled with God at night.  Jesus wrestled with God while praying in a garden at night.  He came to God with all of our sin though he had none of his own.  In this ultimate battle on the cross, Almighty God defeated sin and death through the sacrifice of Jesus.  He established a new life for us in his resurrection. 

In the course of this battle, Jesus held onto God through the worst night ever.  He never let go, even though it appeared God had entirely abandoned him.  Even in the times when we lose hold, when we aren’t as strong as Jacob, and struggle to hold onto God through the long night of job loss, of death before its rightful time, of loneliness or depression, Jesus is holding onto us.  Jesus never let go of God, and he will never let go of us.

Reading the Bible in 2014: Day 7 - Reading and Living

Jessica and I had a restful week in Seattle with her family.  Her mother has a wonderful collection of books and I often will find a book that fits me right where I am spiritually at the moment.  This book was called Shaped by the Word by Robert Mulholland.  As I looked ahead to our year of reading through the Bible, Mulholland’s book filled me with anticipation.  In the midst of our time there, it was wonderful to ask, “how do I allow myself to be shaped by the word?”

Picture us seated on God’s lap as though we were three years old, and God were our parent.  We’re all reading the same big storybook together.  Now picture Jesus’ disciples walking beside him on a road – perhaps the road he took into Jerusalem to be crucified for our sins.  He is speaking and they are listening.  Are the two pictures really so different?  This is Bible-reading.  They are both pictures of being shaped by the word. 

I know we are used to thinking of reading as more of an intellectual activity.  We probably all know ‘readers’.  They might be more like ‘thinkers’ instead of ‘doers.’  More abstract, analytical, and contemplative.  But they don’t have to be.  The way we read should be the way we live.  Down the centuries, words have come to us side by side with the real people who lived them.  They are best kept together.  Words and deeds.  Reading and living.

Two passages from our reading thus far can teach us how to keep our reading and our living close together.  On Day 1, we read Psalm 1, which imaged this life to be like “trees planted by streams of water.”  Let’s think about that.  What is so great about this tree?  That it is planted by the water.  The water takes care of everything.  This is a happy tree.  A happy human life is planted in the words of God and reads them, meditating on them day in and day out.  The disciple can grow anywhere, in whatever circumstances…as long as there is water.  Reading God’s word well is the same as living it well. 

But what about the tree that isn’t planted by these streams?  What about the person who isn’t happily contented in God’s word?  Genesis 3:7 gave us a picture of this on day 2.  Adam and Eve both ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and their ‘eyes were opened’.  They realized they were naked.  This is the opposite of trees being planted by streams of water.  This is trees uprooting themselves from the water.  Their eyes weren’t turned outward to what satisfied them.  Their eyes were turned inward to what they were now missing.

Of course, this describes each of us.  Every one of us is part of the ruinous heritage of Adam and Eve.  We have all sinned.  We all die.  But, the way of Psalm 1 is still open to us.  It was lived by Jesus Christ.  He shares it with us.  Peter says a remarkable thing.  He says that Jesus bore our sins in his body “on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24, ESV), meaning the cross.  Even though we cast our life away in sin, Jesus has become our tree planted by living water.  Through his sacrifice, we gain access to the happy way of life Psalm 1 describes.

Reading the Bible in 2014

Greetings readers,
It has been a little over a year since this blog began.  I'm excited about a new phase for it.  I want to use this post to briefly describe the shift we'll be making.

The blog began over a year ago.  I called it "New Beginnings" to help keep my writing focused on the difference that Christ makes for us.  Trying to live a distinctly Christian life is difficult.  It requires not only a new beginning with Christ.  In addition to this, we must begin again and again with him.  What does this mean?  That is what I have sought to explore.  In the moment when we wake up, or go to sleep, or sit down to pray, or sit down to write a reflection on how great or how poorly the day went, what does it mean that "in Christ there is a new creation." (2 Corinthians 5:17)?  I intentionally framed this to allow for any number of types of written reflection, not knowing what the blog would become half a year, or a whole year down the road.  As you know, the blogs have all been responses to preached sermons at Mandarin Presbyterian Church this past year.

Now, the blog will enter a new phase.  During the year of 2014, this space will be used to reflect at least weekly on MPC's Bible reading plan.  I am very excited about this.  In fact, it's all I have been able to think about for the last several days!  The Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testament is the fountain for our lives of worship and service in the name of Jesus.  It is the authoritative word on everything for the Christian life.  This blog will reflect on the Scripture this coming year.  To keep the clarity of this in mind, the blog will focus on the Bible reading plan, and not on the preached sermons.

If you already receive the blog and would be interested to follow the Scriptures, you can find it online at this site: http://www.mandarinpres.com/readingplan/  Read along with us.  Oh, and don't be intimidated because you are already a few readings behind.  If you take a look at the plan, you will notice that we aren't reading through the Bible sequentially.  I won't go into the reasons now, but we have reason to think this will be helpful for prayerful, Christ-centered reading as opposed to reading just to catch up and be up-to-date.

Thanks, and I look forward to reading the Bible with you!
Chris

Who Would Have Ever Thought...? (A Response to 12/1 Message)

Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem.  It was hidden - nobody was expecting or preparing for it.  Mary and Joseph had no reservation.  They burst upon the scene..."any room?"  That any child would emerge in such circumstances would be stressful to any parent who hopes for better.  But for God's promised child?  Jesus is the "light of the world" (John 8:12).  Yet, Chesterton described the setting and occasion of his birth as "beneath the floor of the world", by which I think he meant that, other than a few shepherds and wise men from the east, the whole world neglected to look for him there.

We also neglect to look for Jesus in the right place in our hearts.  The place we need to look is often the place we would most want to forget.  For us, this is the most obstinate part of our heart, where we store our idols, the one part of our life we hold back from God, even if we were otherwise the picture of perfection.  It is the place where we feel we need Christ least.  Without surrendering here, we still haven't surrendered.  But we rarely know it exists.  We overlook it, in the same way the world overlooked Bethlehem 2000 years ago.  It is the "dark stable" of our heart.  It is where Christ comes to us, but we don't notice.

A word about the word "dark".  Christ's stable in Bethlehem was dark.  It was nighttime.  Sleepytime.  But the stable in our heart is spiritually dark.  It is the same darkness that Jesus talked about before he went to the cross - "the hour of darkness" - when Satan arms himself with all of his power to go up against Jesus.  It is at that hour, when Satan is at his mightiest and when Christ is at his weakest, that our victory is won.  The darkness has exhausted itself and has ended.  In Christ's resurrection, the light of the world has filled our lives with the same light.

And yet we who are in Christ are simultaneously justified and sinners.  We have the fullness of his life.  Yet, we will do what we can to resist him.  We still hide from God, and we must look to Christ and find our true life in him or else we will lose it.  This "dark stable" is where we must look. Where is that?  The one place we don't want to look.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the renowned German pastor noted for his opposition to the Nazis, knew how we deceive ourselves: "The word of forgiveness is invariably a concrete word for concrete sins.  If I do not want to hear it concretely because I want to retain this part of my life for myself, I cannot hear the word of forgiveness at all.  For every other area in my life I soon turn the Word of God into a drug - and one soon tires of drugs as a rule.  The grace of God becomes, in the end, reduced to the grace I grant myself." (Spiritual Care, p. 33, underlinings mine)

"This part of my life."  As we look for meaning this Christmas in events, parties, the giving and receiving of gifts, traveling, and meals, where aren't we looking?  When Jesus was born, everyone was looking to power and might to give meaning.  Where weren't they looking?  I pray we will have a chance this Advent to come to a place of perfect humility to receive Jesus Christ anew into our lives.  And I pray his perfect light will be cast into every corner of our hearts.

1) What parts of your day are you glad, and even excited to give to God?
2) What parts of your day are you unwilling to share with him?
3) I invite you to "come clean" with God today.  Try reading Psalm 80 and praying a prayer like it to get to a deeper part of yourself.  Then, as you reflect on all God has done for you, I invite you to look at Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21.  Jesus has taken on all our burdens.  His gift to us is that we might become the righteousness of God.   

 

Does Prayer Change Things? (Reflection on 9/15 message)

Jesus told us to expect prayer to change things.  Sunday's message spoke deeply to me about how Jesus clearly expected prayer to bring change, and taught us to expect the same.
 
Perhaps this was the atmosphere of Jesus' prayers - he expected change.  And then he lived out his prayers.  He prayed with deep intimacy with a powerful God.  Then he lived in a deep intimacy with a powerful God.  The disciples recognized that as the man prayed, so he lived.  Wading into deeper waters in our prayer life with God will bring us deeper into a God-filled life.

Pastor Francis Chan talks about a memory from camp early in his life.  Waking up to have a quiet time with God, he saw the camp speaker across a field.  Noticing the speaker was having his own quiet time with God, Francis became convinced for the first time that "he probably talks to God differently than I do."  He realized that there are degrees of intimacy with God.

I have been with people who are much more conversational with God than I am.  I have been with people who have a deep stillness that pervades their lives and also their prayer lives.  I feel as Francis did: "this person talks to God differently than I do."  And I realize that there's another degree of intimacy with God ahead of me. 

This is not about who God likes better.  In Christ, salvation has been made available for all.  We often feel that others have it easier than we do when it comes to God.  It is much more likely that we are on a level playing field with God and he doesn't have 'favorites.'  What I mean is that some people really do know the God they are talking to!  It seems there are degrees of intimacy with God. 

One way to put this is that most of us pray as though God hasn't really done anything until he begins by giving me the very thing I am asking for right now.  You may know the feeling.  Instinctively, I cry out to God, but am deeply suspicious that he won't answer my prayer - "well, he's never really given me anything before!"  "Well, maybe if I make some kind of deal with him"...and so on.  But what about what God has already done?  I don't mean just for myself as in just counting my blessings.  I am referring to the story of salvation the Bible tells.  The next degree of intimacy from expecting God to start doing something for me is to ask what has God already done.  The next degree of intimacy is to pray to God what we read in Scripture.

For instance, when Jesus dies, he says the words, "It is finished." (John 19:30).  What does he mean by that?  His life, his work, his ministry - we would have a hard time limiting the scope of these, his last words.  Our prayer shouldn't limit them either.  I'm not just saying we should be thankful for what we already have.  My point is this: how does knowing what God has already given us shape what we desire and want now?  How would we pray if we knew what Jesus meant when he said "it is finished? 

I don't think we would pray less.  I think we would pray more.  I don't think we would be more satisfied with things as they are.  I think we would get hungrier to see more of God, and to see more justice, mercy, and peace.  The reason I think this is because when we pray as though Jesus' work really is finished, then it reminds us that God wins.  We aren't fighting a losing battle with him.  The cross (and resurrection) is D-Day for the ultimate victory that God will have at the end.  Remembering this victory lends expectation, excitement, and eagerness to my dull prayers.

This isn't a ticket to being happy in the midst of sad times.  This is a dark and sinful world.  However, it is a clue as to how Acts 5:41 could possibly happen: "The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name."  Who would ever rejoice at that?  The answer is: people who pray to God all the more because they see the work that God has already finished.

1) What prayer are you still waiting for God to answer?
2) How might thinking of Jesus' last words - "it is finished" - affect the way you pray to God?  What is 'finished' about what Jesus has done for you?

Worth Waiting For (Reflection on July 21 Message)

The Apostle John loved to talk about 'light' and 'darkness'.  Here are a few examples.  "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:5)  "...God is light, in him there is no darkness at all.  If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." (1 John 1:5-7)

Light and darkness are ways for John to talk about God's incomparable goodness and the evil that is the result of sin in the world. 

I guess I've always struggled with this idea.  Of course, walking in light means following Jesus, but don't we all walk in darkness some time - even a lot of the time?  How does the all-or-nothing vision of light and darkness leave any room for the Christian, who is simultaneously light and darkness - a sinner and justified in Christ?

I was up early this morning to pray - seated on Jess' and my back porch.  The world outside was dark and quiet except for the jarring hum of someone's air conditioning unit getting started.  I was waiting for a sense of dependence on the Lord; waiting for a moment of realization that I need the Lord so much more than any of the other things I think I need this early in the day.  Every few minutes I noticed that the sky had grown a little brighter since I last looked.

I thought about light and darkness and about the Apostle John.  He talked a lot about light and darkness.  I wondered if he liked to get up early and watch the sunrise.  Did what he saw there of light and darkness remind him of the way God works?

As I watched the dawning of a new day, two things occurred to me.  The first is that the light really does drive the darkness away.  The shadows flee from daylight.  The second thing I noticed is that this happens slowly.  Every few minutes there's a little more light.  The sky is more blue.  The grass is more green.  The clouds are more white.  My porch rug is more...well, whatever that color is, and everything is less black.  This happens gradually, even slowly.

Light drives out darkness in our lives in this way too.  Through faith in Christ's victory over death, the light has dawned in our lives.  Everywhere in our minds, hearts, and actions where we allow that light to take center stage, it drives out all darkness.  They can't co-exist.  But this also happens gradually.  It happens over time.  We have to be patient.

I think this also connects to God's word to us on Sunday and throughout the series on the fruit of the Spirit.  Galatians 5:22-23 talks about love, joy, peace, patience, etc. as the fruit of the one Holy Spirit.  If he lives inside us - and if you are in Christ, he does - then we already have all of these qualities listed growing inside of us.  We aren't missing any.  But among them is 'patience'.  We still have to wait for something.  We are filled with light through the Holy Spirit's presence within us.  He unites us to Christ in his death and resurrection so that we are like him.  But that light drives out the darkness gradually.  It takes place over time.  I think that is why, among so many other virtues, the Spirit fills us with patience.  We are given patience with ourselves and with our rate of spiritual growth.  We are also given patience to see the work that God is doing in us all the time.

Light has dawned in Christ.  Let the Holy Spirit do his work of driving out the darkness in your life one minute, one day, one month, one year at a time.

1) Do you sometimes wish the full light of day would arrive quicker in your life?  In other words, do you become impatient with your growth in Christ-likeness?
2) When has your patience been most tested with God and his new life for you?  What have you done to find peace in the waiting?

   

Strangers or Family? (Reflection on June 9 Message)

Hearing Jeff reflect on his time in China reminded me of other great, but unlikely friendships that developed in Christ.  I remember going to Mexico on a mission trip two years ago.  Jessica went too, as did three other families with their children.  We spent time with a small Mexican Presbyterian church everyday.  One day we went to the beach.  Another day we played football (not our football, but the world's football - soccer).  We talked about sharing the good news of Jesus with young people.  Strangers became family.  We had never met them before.  By the end of the week, we were in a church member's home for dinner.  This member, a baker by profession, had baked us a magnificent cake.  Our families all intermingled.  New-born Mexican babies were being cradled by kids from Indiana.  I remember wondering to myself, "How does this happen?  How is it that this is so much better than a vacation?  And why is it when I meet new people in the U.S. that we're not having cake together before the week is done?"  Strangers become family.  But why does it happen when it does, and why doesn't it happen when we want it to?

Let me answer by way of Sunday's passage.  The passage is about prayer.  "Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving.  At the same time pray for us as well that God will open to us a door for the word, that we may declare the mystery of Christ, for which I am in prison, so that I may reveal it clearly, as I should." (Colossians 4:2-4).  Paul is the great spiritual leader - the apostle.  The Colossians he writes to are probably new believers.  Common sense tells us that God will listen to Paul.  Military folks know about a chain of command.  But even generals have to limit who has input, who they listen to.  God has the ability to hear everyone.  This is God's greatness - "He is not like us humans with our limited capacity, our inability to give full attention to many people at one time.  He is all-knowing, all-seeking, ever-present, able to focus with love on each one of us individually.  God shows no favoritism, for each of His children is a favorite." (Warren and Ruth Myers, Experiencing God's Attributes, 23)

We all want to be the general sometimes.  I'm sure Paul had his moments of wanting to be the one in charge.  But he knew God.  God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - eternally loving one another.  We aren't God.  But in thinking we are, we have turned in on ourselves.  "Me, me, me!" cries each person's heart in this world.    But in Christ, God has turned his enemies into friends, strangers into family.  The self-oriented, sin nature is put to death.  God is holy, loving, and relational to his core.  Knowing him, raised to new life in him, we become like him - rejoicing in growing new relationships.  Strangers aren't really strangers, for in Christ, we are no longer strangers to God.  Enemies aren't really enemies, for in Christ, we are no longer God's enemies.

Relationships take time.  Paul mentions 11 names in the letter's last section.  The Paul-Colossae connection isn't a simple friendship or an acquaintence.  It is more like a web - each strand connecting to many people.  Why do some relationships grow and others don't?  Trace the web.  How far back does it go?  And is it built on Christ?  Back to Mexico - my team was eating cake in someone's home.  But it wasn't because we all make friends easy.  Years of financial support, personal presence, and prayer had built this relationship.  Our Mexican friends didn't know us.  But they knew the ones we represented.  Every relationship we have should likewise be built on Christ so that we all grow in a holy, outward love together.  It starts with what is true about God in Scripture: We can know him.  Through Christ, we can dwell in his holy presence.  Through his Holy Spirit, we can grow in Christ's likeness.  Receive God.  The desire of our Father is for us to know love.  Having made us family through Jesus' death and resurrection, he will not forsake the rest of the work of making us feel at home.

1) We were once enemies of God.  Through Jesus, we are now family.  Enemies to family - how do you describe how close our relationship is with God?
2)  In this world, unfortunately, even families are subject to the pervasive effects of sin.  How does the notion of being a part of God's family give us strength for our difficult, strained relationships?
3) Think of the people the last question brought to mind for you and pray for them.