identity

Jul

2024

Called to be alongside of others

A message for the 9th Sunday after Pentecost

Sharing peace in Christ, leaving no one out

by David Sellnow

Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Texas_Tech_University,_Student_Union.jpg

In my early years of ministry, I led weekly Bible studies on campus for a student group at a large public university in Texas. Anybody was welcome to attend. One who began coming regularly was Linda, who was somewhat older than the traditional college-age students in the group. After attending for a couple of months, asking many questions herself and listening to the discussions I led with the group, Linda approached me after one of the evening sessions. She told me, “I’ve decided you’re not a cult leader.” “I’m glad to hear that!” I said. Linda explained she had spent over ten years of her life stuck in a thought-controlling cult. After getting out and getting reoriented, she became a cult interventionist, helping extricate others from similar situations. The religious body that was the parent church for our student organization had a reputation for fixed doctrines that everyone agreed to. That had been a red flag for Linda, and she had decided to investigate our group. Thankfully, I had passed the test and was not a cult leader. I wasn’t mind-controlling anyone or causing spiritual damage. We were digging in Scripture together and sharing thoughts openly and equally.

Sadly, there are religious leaders and religious organizations that dominate in ways that are abusive and harmful. Much research has been done into complex post-traumatic stress disorder, including religious trauma, when religious systems harm rather than help. It happens when individuals are made to feel fearful and trapped and depressed and lose who they are. They experience an erosion of their individual personality. They are compelled to conform themselves to the dictates and decisions and rules of the group (CPTSD Foundation).

Not all stern, unbending churches are inflicting religious trauma in the formal sense of the term. But they may be ignoring the hurts and hopes and needs of many who are looking for good news and instead find mostly restrictions and legalisms.

I knew a young woman whose pastor preached that any and all forms of birth control were wrong. The young woman’s fiance had the same, unyielding view. As he and she talked about marriage, he insisted they should have as many babies as they could. Any attempts to limit that he saw as sin. The young woman was terrified, wondering if her body and mind and emotions could handle so much. Her pastor and her fiance were overemphasizing one thought in Scripture, that a man who has many children has been given a great blessing (cf. Psalm 127:3-5). They meanwhile were ignoring another Bible imperative, that husbands are to show consideration and concern for their wives and honor their needs of body, mind and spirit (cf. 1 Peter 3:7).

I knew young men and women who were training for roles in ministry in the church, who would not talk about internal struggles they had. If they had doubts or questions about any particular spiritual teachings, they were afraid to express them. If they experienced any mental health challenges, such as feeling anxious or depressed, they did not dare admit these things out loud. The church culture that surrounded them made them feel that any admission of weakness would disqualify them from ministry. They feared being dismissed from pre-ministry training because they weren’t good enough, weren’t strong enough, weren’t perfect enough to be pastors or teachers. Somehow they were forgetting the stories of all the human faith leaders we see in Scripture. Scripture openly shows the flaws and shortcomings of Abraham, Moses, David, Peter, Paul, and others whom God called into leadership. Good leaders lead through God’s strength, not their own (cf. Philippians 4:13). We don’t lead—and we are not disciples—because we are perfect people.

Religious groups and religious leaders can lose that understanding and that humility. They can begin to view themselves as having a rightness that’s righter than others, a betterness that’s better than others. They overlook their own failings and inconsistencies and judge persons who don’t adhere to their rules as out of line, as less than, as falling short.

These are the kinds of things that the LORD spoke against, through Jeremiah, saying, “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! … You have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them” (Jeremiah 23:1,2).

In One Coin Found: How God’s Love Stretches to the Margins,” Emmy Kegler points us to Jesus’ parable of the lost coin (Luke 15:8-10). She says, “The thing about coins is that they can’t get lost by themselves. They can’t roll away on their own. Coins get lost because their owners aren’t careful; whoever was in charge was wasteful with them. Coins get lost because they lose their shine, because dirt and rust cling to them, and without careful attention, they turn a color indistinguishable from dust and mess.” Lost and dismayed and scattered souls are often in that condition because persons charged with responsibility in faith and religion have not kept their focus on God’s grace, have not maintained mercy in their preaching and their practice. As a result, people are cast aside—or they pull away because they are afraid, because they feel shamed and judged, because they are not led forward in hope and joy.

Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bob5d/16730007506

Do we do things in our own ministries and dealings with people that make others feel less than, as not properly in line? Are we more concerned about holding onto our own traditions than we are about welcoming others who have different backgrounds and different perspectives? Do we think of the church as our church, as if it belongs to us and anybody coming to us needs to fit in with our expectations and think the way we think? Do we put signs outside our churches and banners on our websites saying, “All are welcome,” but if folks come who aren’t the kind of people we were expecting to join us, make them feel unwelcome?

Back in the early days of the Christian church, the members who had been part of the Jewish traditions of faith did not easily adjust to having Gentiles joining the faith. The new Gentile Christians did not share the cultural context of Judaism, and often were made to feel like second-class citizens. The apostle Paul, who had described himself as the most enthusiastic proponent there could be of the Jewish faith (cf. Philippians 3:4-6), addressed that problem. In the church in Antioch (in Syria), he even confronted the Apostle Peter for going along with the standoffish behavior that Jewish Christians there were showing over against Gentile believers (cf. Galatians 2:11-21). In his letter to Gentile Christians in the Greek city of Ephesus, Paul reassured them that they were fully equal members of the church. He wrote to them, “You were [once] without Christ … aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise. … But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. He is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall between us. … You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:12-14,19). Paul also strongly made this point: Christ “has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace …. Through Christ all of us have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Ephesians 2:15,17-18). Jesus had fulfilled God’s laws for all of us. So laws and rules of the Jewish community were not to create a barrier to Gentile persons finding a spiritual home in the church. The church was not to have rules that made people change who they were in order to belong.

Nearly two thousand years have gone by since Paul wrote those words to Gentile Christians in what was then primarily a Jewish church. Today, do we Gentile Christians, with a long history and tradition in our practices of faith, need to hear the lesson Paul was teaching to Jewish traditionalists back in his day? Have we become so used to the church fabric and makeup as it has been that we don’t (or won’t) open our eyes to new people and new possibilities for the church in our own time? Do we truly welcome everyone, as Jesus welcomed everyone? Or are we sometimes too focused on ourselves to be full of caring and compassion for others?

Think of the ministry of Jesus. He labored with all his energy to reach out to every soul in need. At one time, when he and his disciples were exhausted from their work and had not even had time to eat, he said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while” (Mark 6:31). They decided to cross Lake Kinneret, but the crowds hurried on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them (Mark 6:32-33). What did Jesus do as he went ashore? He saw the great crowd (over five thousand people), “and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd” (Mark 6:34). Tired as he was, he took the time to teach them, delivering words of comfort and hope. And along with his teaching, Jesus then also did a miracle of mercy, providing a meal of bread and fish for that whole crowd, more than they could even eat (cf. Mark 6:35-44). We’re told of the general pattern of Jesus’ ministry that “wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed” (Mark 6:53-56).

We are called by Jesus to carry on ministry in the same spirit as his ministry. Do you remember the woman who had been suffering for twelve years from hemorrhages, who said she just hoped to touch Jesus’ clothes and his power would heal her (Mark 5:25-34)? Do you remember the Syrophoenician woman, from outside of the children of Israel, who came to Jesus for help for her daughter, and said to him, “Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” (Mark 7:28). People of all sorts and all needs reach out for love and acceptance and hope and help. They may not even be consciously reaching out toward the church. But they may be reaching out to you, if you are in their circle of acquaintance. Don’t look down on them. Don’t turn away from them—any of them, no matter who they are or what they are. Reach out to take their hand. Reach out to put an arm around their shoulder. Reach out as an ally to them, as an advocate for them, as a friend and partner. If I may use a Greek word, be a “paraclete” to them. That’s a word that Jesus used when he promised to send us his Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “ I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete [Παράκλeτοß], to be with you forever. … You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you” (John 14:16,17). The Greek word parakletos, literally translated, means one who is called to the side of another. Jesus has been that for us. God’s Spirit has been that for us. We are called to be that for one another, for our neighbors, for our friends, for strangers, for enemies, for everyone.

We are not a cult, trying to control others and make them follow us without question and without thinking. We will not be like the shepherds Jeremiah described, who scatter and drive souls away in fear and trauma, rather than attending to them with care. We hope to be the sort of shepherds the LORD said he would raise up, providing a witness to God’s love and an embodiment of his grace, so that those whom we reach “shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing” (Jeremiah 23:4). We will not demand people fabricate their own righteousness; rather we will point to the Savior God raised up in Jesus, whose very name by which he is called means: “The LORD is our righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6). We are the church, established by Jesus, being “built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God” (Ephesians 2:22)—and for all of his people. Once we were not a people, but now we are God’s people; once we had not received mercy, but now we have received mercy (1 Peter 2:10). Christ, in his mercy, has called us alongside him that we might call others alongside us. We proclaim the mighty acts of the one who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9). Let us be that light, in Christ, to all of our neighbors, near and far.

For a related devotional thought, see this post on The Electric Gospel: https://theelectricgospel.com/the-house-of-disposable-souls/

Scripture quotations, except where otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Apr

2024

The power of Jesus’ resurrection

Easter this year was March 31st … but the Easter season continues into the month of May. And the impact of Christ’s resurrection continues every day, in every season. This message contemplates Christ’s resurrection power in our everyday lives.

We are not zombies. We are alive with Jesus.

You likely are familiar with the miracle when Jesus raised Lazarus from the grave. Lazarus, a dear friend of Jesus, had been ill and died. When Jesus arrived, Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. Jesus asked that the stone sealing the tomb be taken away. Then he called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” Then do you recall what happened? Was it like this?

Lazarus stood up and came out of his grave. He smelled of death, and moved stiffly from rigor mortis. When they took off the grave clothes he’d been wrapped in, they saw that his body had started to bloat, and bloody foam was oozing from his nose and mouth. …

I’ll stop with descriptions of how a human body decomposes after death. You know that is not how it went when Jesus raised Lazarus. Jesus had said, “I am the resurrection and the life.Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:23,25,26). Jesus did not promise some meager reanimation of dead bodies, a zombie sort of life. With Lazarus and others that Jesus raised from death, he brought them back full and whole. He returned them to their families as living, breathing, loving human beings. Jesus came so we “may have life, and have it to the full,” a “rich and satisfying life,” that we enjoy life “abundantly” (John 10:10 NIV, NLT, NRSV). We are not meant to be walking zombies.

The apostle John said, “Beloved, we are God’s children now” (1 John 3:2), reminding us that no one who abides in Christ continues in sin, that we pursue what is right and righteous because Christ is righteous (1 John 1:7). John went on to say, “We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death” (1 John 3:14).

John’s words cause us to examine our lives. Are we sometimes like spiritual zombies, rather than the truly raised-to-life people that we are in Christ? A zombie is a dead person that goes through the motions of life but isn’t really alive. Does that description ever fit us? Let’s think about what dead bodies do, and apply that to the life of our souls.

Dead bodies stink with a foul odor. People turn away because the smell is offensive. What would a dead soul be like? A person who gives off a foul odor emotionally, spiritually. Someone who is hard to be around. You repel people by your irritability or harshness or selfishness. Are you ever like that? Aren’t we all often like that?
Dead bodies rot and decompose. They decay. What would a dead soul be like? A person whose behavior goes from bad to worse. Someone whose bad habits grow like pus and fungus. You don’t get stronger or healthier day by day, but just the opposite—your spiritual life degrades abd gets deader. Are you ever like that? Aren’t we all often like that?
Think of the flesh-eating zombies of the movies or the fungus-infected bodies in The Last of Us video game or TV series. What do they do? They attack. They devour. They have no motive other than their own insatiable appetite. What would a zombie soul be like? Someone who lashes out mindlessly at others. Someone who tears down anyone who stands in their way. You don’t care about anything or anyone, only about what you want. Are you ever like that? Aren’t we all often like that?
Zombies, as portrayed in popular fiction, have no emotion. No feeling. No thoughts.They don’t communicate with you. You are nothing to them. What would a zombie soul be like? A person who is dead to the feelings of others. Someone who has no real relationship to those around them, who exists only for themselves. You don’t love. You don’t care. You just trudge from one moment to the next in your own mindless existence. Are you ever like that? Aren’t we all often like that?
Or think of a dead body, a corpse. What does a dead body do? It doesn’t move. It doesn’t walk, doesn’t run, doesn’t dance. It is lifeless. What would a dead soul be like? Lifeless. Cold. Callous. Inactive. You just stare at life with blank, empty eyes. You don’t move a muscle when there is spiritual work to be done in the world. Are you ever like that? Aren’t we all often like that?

We celebrated Easter a few weeks ago—the glorious good news of Jesus’ resurrection from death. We know that Jesus’ resurrection means our own resurrection one day, our bodies restored from the grave to live forever with the Lord. At our resurrection on the last day, Jesus won’t be unearthing us as the walking dead, as some sort of reanimated corpses. We will be completely alive, renewed, transformed. Death will be swallowed up in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54). Jesus resurrects his people to full, complete, unlimited life—life that will go on eternally.

And—this is important, my friends—the life which we receive from Jesus we have received already now. We have already been brought back from death to life. There is a resurrection that has already happened in you, a reviving of your soul with the life of God. Think of how that resurrection affects your day-to-day life. We are not zombies. We are alive with Jesus.

Think of the difference in the apostles who first witnessed Jesus’ resurrection. They had been cowering behind locked doors in fear. Then, emboldened by seeing Christ alive, they went out into the center of Jerusalem and announced, “You killed the one who leads people to life. But God raised him from death, and all of us can tell you what he has done” (Acts 3:15 CEV). Following his resurrection, Jesus told his disciples (and tells us today) that “repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:47), that we are his witnesses in the world. Our witness to Christ is shown by the life and liveliness, the love and committedness that we show in our lives as Christian people.

Now, admittedly, we struggle with this. Christ knows that we struggle. As he once told his disciples, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). Christ’s apostles knew that we struggle. The apostle Paul described the struggle from a personal perspective. He had written: “How can we who died to sin go on living in it? … We have been buried with Christ by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:2-4). And then, in the same letter, Paul also admitted: ““I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. … it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. … I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members” (Romans 7:15-23).

Our struggle with sin is like going through life with a “body of death” inside us, lingering there (Romans 7:24). We have been raised to new life by Christ our Savior, yet we backslide again and again into habits of sin and ick and decay. We have the power of new life from Jesus rushing through our spirits, by his Spirit … but we still struggle with being cold in our hearts, unthinking in our actions.

We have the rot, the fungus of sin living in us, yes. But Christ is stronger than sin. Christ is the remedy to sin. Christ will one day lift us above and out of all our sin into the heavenly holiness that awaits us. Even now, he cleanses us from our sins. He is life. He empowers us against the sin and selfishness within ourselves. As the apostle Paul said elsewhere, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17)!

What I said before about how zombies and corpses function is false as applied to us now, in our resurrected spiritual lives.

We are new, we are alive, we are refreshed and full of life in Christ.
We exude a pleasant spiritual aroma, making others want to be around us because they can sense the breath of God’s Spirit in our attitudes and words.
We grow more and more alive as the love of Christ grows in us, invigorates us, and motivates us.
Just the opposite of mindless and soulless, our lives in Christ now are mindful of the persons around us, reaching out in relationship, seeking to connect with others’ hearts and souls through the message of Christ. We exist more for the sake of others than for our own appetites.
Not dead but alive, we walk, we run, we dance through life in joy in the Lord. We are active, energetic, lively for the Lord’s work and for serving one another.

That’s how living people live—and that’s who we now are. We are the living people of God, alive by the power of Christ’s resurrection. True, the new life we live is never easy. As long as we are on this earth, we still carry something of that old zombie self inside of us. We still will lapse into the stench and rot that characterizes us as sinners. But we have hope. We can have confidence. We renew our strength daily, because we have an answer. When Paul pondered the struggle within his own life and said, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24 NIV), he immediately answered his own question: “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25 NIV)!

We are not doomed to live as zombies. “God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. … If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:9,12). We need not succumb to sin as our master any longer (cf. Romans 6:13). We live now under God’s grace. God’s grace be with you, as you go out daily as witnesses to the living Christ and live life in his name.

Additional versions used:

Contemporary English Version, copyright © 1995 by American Bible Society
New International Version, copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.
New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.

Apr

2023

Ponderings for Palm Sunday

We Serve the One who Served Us

Do you ever feel like if people really knew you, they’d see you aren’t as good or capable as you appear to be? Psychologists call this “impostor phenomenon.” Some call it impostor syndrome, but that makes it sound like a pathology that applies to just a few, when actually this is a widespread tendency across the human experience. Even the most highly accomplished people can feel like they aren’t good enough. Maya Angelou, the award-winning author and poet, once said, “I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh-oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.’” The impostor phenomenon names the gap that persists between what we know is inside ourselves—multiple, contradictory, incoherent feelings, swirls of shame and regret and competing desires—and how we try to present a more composed, consistent version of ourselves to the world. As one of the original researchers of the phenomenon has described it, impostor feelings come from a conviction that “I have to mask who I am.” (See “Why Everyone Feels Like They’re Faking It,” by Leslie Jamison, The New Yorker, 2/6/2023.)

Beyond the psychological dimension of feeling inadequate about who we are, there’s also a spiritual dimension. In our souls, we are aware of our inferiority. It’s not because we are inferior to each other. We all are equal. But we know deep down that we fail to measure up to the standards of what we should be. In biblical terms, “there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:22,23). Inwardly, we all know that truth about ourselves … but often we are not ready to admit it. We try to mask it. We try to prop ourselves up superficially with self-image and ego, and we minimize our failures. We seek to assert ourselves, our position, and our own opinions as having high importance. In reality, we are all insignificant individuals in the sea of humanity—except for the importance and value given to each of us by a gracious God.

God is important. He is supreme, sacred, superior. Jesus Christ is as perfect as perfect can be. There is no inferiority in him. And yet he was willing to step down and lower himself, to become one with us in our struggling, imperfect world. He did so to lift us up so we can be all that we are meant to be in him. As a result, we can stop hiding behind masks and feeling like we can’t ever measure up. Through Jesus coming down to our level to redeem us and make us his own, we can be confident about ourselves and who we are, because we are God’s people. And we will serve one another and others in the same way Jesus served us.

Let’s consider Christ’s humility and the honor and worship now due to him because of what he did. Ponder these words about our King from Philippians 2:11, quoting from Eugene Peterson’s The Message translation:

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.
Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.

Martin Luther, in a sermon for Palm Sunday concerning this Philippians scripture, commented on the description of Christ as God becoming human:

Unquestionably, Paul proclaims Christ true God. Had he been mere man, what would have been the occasion for saying that he became like a man, and was found in the fashion of other men, and that he assumed the form of a servant, though he was in form divine? Where would be the sense in my saying to you, “You are like a human being, are made in the fashion of a human being”? You would think I was mocking you, and might appropriately reply: “I am glad you regard me as a human being, I was wondering if I were an ox or a wolf. Are you crazy?” (Sermons of Martin Luther, volume VIII, page 176)

Jesus’ original identity is not as a man, but as God. He has existed from eternity. In the beginning he was with God and he was God and he is by nature God (cf. John 1:1). Even in his incarnation, becoming human, Jesus’ divine nature and form remained clear to see. He was flawless and perfect in every action. He taught the teachers, even when he was a boy. He did miracles of power and amazement that only God can do. He preached messages of authority that set him apart from all other rabbis and teachers. Even as a human being, Jesus still displayed the attributes of God. Who he was was obvious from how he was: absolutely powerful and wise and sinless. He is God.

And yet Jesus did not consider this equality with God something he had to cling to or exploit, but made himself nothing to serve us, in our humanity. Though all glory and power was naturally his, Jesus emptied himself of it. In that final week leading up to his death, Jesus set aside his powers as God. Never did he appear more human:

He would be arrested. How do human beings arrest God and take him into custody?
He would be put on trial. How can corrupt human justice accuse the one who is the judge of the universe?
He would be beaten and whipped, pummeled and punched, spit on and mocked. How can God be a victim of abuse?
He would be nailed and hanged, crucified, dead, and buried. How can God die?

God, in Jesus could do all these things, because he emptied himself of his divine rights, did not use his divine powers, and let himself stand in for us humans in fully human helplessness. He became obedient to the Father’s will, suffering for our sins. He became obedient even to the point of a most horrible death. That is how low and how humble Jesus made himself in his work of redeeming us. Again, as Luther described:

He accepted the most ignominious death, the death on the cross, dying not as a man, but as a worm; yes, as an arch-villain, a scoundrel above all scoundrels … Losing even what favor, recognition, and honor were due to the assumed servant form in which he had revealed himself, and he perished altogether. (Sermons of Martin Luther, volume VIII, page 178).

Jesus died a death reserved for only the worst in the world, when, indeed, he is the best and purest of any who ever walked this earth.

Already the way Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday showed his intent to divest himself of his regal, divine privilege. A mighty king or ruler would have ridden in on a mighty steed, an impressive horse of proud bearing and gait. Jesus comes in on a donkey – on a colt, the foal of a donkey. In modern terms, whereas great leaders parade into town in limousines with police escorts and traffic-halting motorcades, Jesus would be coming in on his own, on a bicycle – on a bike with training wheels, the baby of a bicycle. Palm Sunday was a humble entrance to what would be an even more humbling week, as Jesus very literally made himself nothing, to save us nothings and make us something.

And because Jesus did this, we worship him. God has exalted him. The Father has restored him, and Jesus sits at his right hand, in all authority and glory. We bow to Christ in love and trust and admiration, in service and praise. We serve the one who served us. He gave us an identity in him and with him, allowing us to live without putting on a mask to hide who we are.

How do we go about serving and praising Jesus as our Lord? The initial verse of Paul’s psalm of praise in Philippians tells us where we fit in: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). “Think the same way that Christ Jesus thought” (CEV). The way that Jesus humbled himself is to be a pattern for us as we live for him.

So, how humble are we? How selfless and self-sacrificing are we willing to be? How readily do we take on ourselves the form of a servant? Or do we imagine ourselves instead as masters of our own destiny, lords of our own castles, owners of our own bodies, in charge of our own possessions?

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we will not be about pushing ourselves forward. Rather, we will be about serving one another in service to God. We are God’s servants, indebted to him out of love for how he was treated so shamefully for us. We are not merely to be waiting for God to wait on us, like we’re restaurant patrons and church is where God serves up our spiritual Sunday dinner. Certainly he does serve us. That’s why we call the worship hour “the divine service.” God serves us in our souls with his word and sacraments. But if we attend church only to be served by him, to take from him, we are only considering half of the story. Then who is the Lord and who is the servant? Do we treat God sometimes like some sort of waiter or busboy, and we are the very important persons who expect him to be at our beck and call whenever we want something?

My friends, we are not lords and masters, we belong to the Lord, our Master. We remember how the Lord, our Master, lowered himself to come and serve us. Our attitude shall be the same as that of Christ Jesus. He, the God of all creation, gave up his position of power and glory to come and serve us—even to the point of pain and shame and dying for us, to forgive us of all our selfishness. Surely, now in return, we can give up ourselves and our selfish interests and become servants to him, and serve our neighbors as he served us all. We will devote heart and mind, body and soul, money and materials, energy and efforts, and our very lives to God and to his glory, at home and in our congregations and in our communities. May God by his grace and by his Spirit make that happen among us. “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Matthew 21:9) Let us confess and live daily the truth “that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:11), and to the benefit of our fellow, redeemed human beings.

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For a previous Palm Sunday blog post, see:
“Cheering on Sunday, Jeering by Friday”

Jan

2020

A parent’s prayer for a graduate

Originally published on The Electric Gospel on May 29, 2018

A Parent’s Prayer for a Graduate

by David Sellnow

Thinking of you, my child, and the fact that you’ve finished college, I have much in mind that I lay before the Lord in prayer. I hope you won’t mind that these thoughts ramble in no particular order as I write them for you to read and heaven to hear. I know the Spirit above doesn’t mind, because “the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can’t be uttered” (Romans 8:26).

I pray you will hang onto Jesus, to anchor your soul in the firmness of his life and truth, and to lift you up in hope each day. When I pray that you hang onto Jesus, I’m not thinking so much of the formalness of this or that church—though church and formalness can be good spiritual disciplines. My primary prayer is that your heart remains connected to Jesus like a branch growing from a vine. Jesus pictured it that way: “As the branch can’t bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me. I am the vine. You are the branches” (John 15:4,5).

I pray you will hang onto memories—not only of college years but also of childhood. Relish and treasure the good things you’ve experienced, the laughs, the joys, the interesting happenings. Remember times of blessing with family and friends. But also remember the struggles, the challenges, the mistakes. Don’t dwell on them in regret, but learn and grow from them as you take your past and present self into the future.

In that vein, I pray you will see success as an inner, spiritual quality more than as a financial quantity or as a résumé of accomplishments. You may never win a Nobel Prize or a Tony Award or any noteworthy prizes or awards. But being an everyday person in an everyday life is okay also. And you may not make millions or even tens of thousands, but if you have enough to survive, and you maintain integrity in your heart, that is enough. A person’s life “doesn’t consist of the abundance of the things which he possesses” (Luke 12:15). Do your best to succeed where you are, in whatever you are doing, remembering that the truest reward is richness of the soul, being filled with a love and eagerness for those around you.I pray that the path you have chosen for your career will be a blessing to you, and that you will always find satisfying work in your field. But if it happens anywhere along the line that you have to accept a position other than your ideal, I pray that you’ll be able to make the best of that too. The great apostle Paul sometimes needed to support himself by making tents. Sometimes you do what is needed rather than what is desired. Through it all, preserve your character and resolve. “Better is a little with righteousness, than great revenues with injustice” (Proverbs 16:8).

I pray you will network well, connecting with people. That isn’t always easy, because people and relationships can be challenging. An existential philosopher, in a famous line from a play, said: “Hell is other people.” It’s easy to feel the way he felt. But at the same time, we need other people. We need networks—and not just the social media kind that exist online. No person is an island. And even if some were islands, islands need connections to other places in order to meet their needs and access opportunities. I pray that you’ll get along with others in your career and community in beneficial ways. “If it is possible, as much as it is up to you, be at peace with all men” (Romans 12:18).

I also pray that as far as you yourself are concerned, you will be comfortable being who you are, where you are, and how you are in life. Don’t let yourself worry whether you fit in with others or line up with expectations others may have. Life doesn’t need to be a game of keeping up with the Joneses or the Kardashians or whomever else. Allow yourself plenty of leeway for finding your own way. Accept that there will be changes in plans, redirections and do-overs. Remember that you are unique, that you are God’s workmanship, and he has prepared in advance many good things for you to do (cf. Ephesians 2:10). In whatever direction you go, go with confidence in yourself and in the Father above, who cares for you.

I pray you will do better in life than us, your parents. I don’t mean that necessarily in financial or career terms, though that would be nice too. Mostly I mean for you to have happiness, stability, and contentedness to a greater degree than we have evidenced. Though we’ve tried to devote ourselves to you in love and leadership, parents are never perfect examples. For the best sort of leadership, always look toward the Lord himself. “Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children. Walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave himself up for us” (Ephesians 5:1,2).

I pray you will be honest with yourself and with others. I know, I know, I haven’t always been that way myself. I’ve put up false fronts in public and said other things in private. But in the end, that only leads to internal and external conflict. Better to be the way that Jesus described Nathanael, when choosing him as a disciple: “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit” (John 1:47).

I pray you will remain a positive force for good in the world, even when this world seems to have little that is good and positive in it. When you look around and see perpetual crises and conflicts, refugees forced to flee their homes and lands, children growing up in poverty and hunger, and all the other woes of this world, it’s easy to give up on making the world a better place. But remember that the same Bible that prophesied there will always be “wars and rumors of war” (Matthew 24:6), and that “you always have the poor with you” (Matthew 26:11), also said to us: “As we have opportunity, let’s do what is good toward all men” (Galatians 6:10), and urged us to offer “petitions, prayers, intercessions, and givings of thanks” for everyone around us (1 Timothy 2:1). Keep striving to do what you can in your own little corner of the world to make an impact there, even when it’s hard to see much change occurring in the wider world beyond you. Don’t give up on being someone who loves your neighbor, even when the wider neighborhood of the world seems not to notice or care.

I pray you won’t be surprised or devastated when trouble comes along, when plans get derailed, when obstacles block your path. In this world we will have trouble, Jesus said (cf. John 16:33). So if you do encounter painful difficulties, don’t despair. Not all of life will be rosy, and even when there are roses, they always come with thorns attached. So hang onto hope though thick and thin. Endure hardship when it happens, be disciplined by it, grow stronger from it. “All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).

I pray you will savor and be strengthened by the simple pleasures you can find in life—a refreshing beverage, a relaxing evening at home, a walk in the park. I hope too that your life may have its fill of exciting moments and bigger adventures. But when you can’t get away for exotic vacations or extensive travels, I pray you’ll be able also just to appreciate the life that you have, wherever it may be. Just say, “Feed me with the food that is needful for me” (Proverbs 30:8) – that is enough.

Finally, I pray you will remember where home is. You are all grown up and away from us now. But we remain your parents always, and maintain concern for you constantly. You still may need us for advice, for reassurance of love, or just for a hug or a chat. Don’t stay away from home or off the phone from us for too long at a time. And even if you are at a point where you don’t need much from us, we very much need you and yearn to see you and hear from you. So don’t forget dear old mom and dad. As the Bible urges, “Listen to your father who gave you life, and don’t despise your mother when she is old” (Proverbs 23:22). You are our most precious treasure on this earth, and we are always praying for you!

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Just released on Kindle Direct Publishing: Faith Lives in Our Actions: God’s Message in James Chapter 2. Get the eBook for your Kindle, or you can download the free Kindle app to read on any device.

Jan

2020

Who are you?

Originally published on The Electric Gospel on February 2, 2017.
Author’s name withheld by request.

The Value of Your Name

What’s your name? If you’re anything like the typical human being, you’ve been asked this question so many hundreds of times you’ve lost count. In fact, you’ve been asked this question so many times your response has become automatic. It’s been automatic for a while.

“Hello, what’s your name?”

“I’m ______.” Fill it in how you’ve been filling it in for your entire life. With your name.

Names are powerful things. I think in our modern culture today, we’ve really lost the magic and meaning that names have. Now don’t get me wrong, plenty of our modern day names still sound great, and they’re great names. But sometimes I wonder if many of the names people have today really mean something. For example, Suzannah means “Lilly of the Valley.” Peter means “Rock.” You get the picture. I wonder if people even know what their name means. If you don’t know already, go ahead right now and look it up.

Now I’m going to ask you a different question. What does your name mean? What does it say about you?

We all have different names for ourselves, depending on the context and situation. I’m sure you have plenty of names. Take a minute. What are you called? What do you go by? What do those names say about you? Names are powerful, so think about it. Think about it.

I have one more question for you. Who are you?

If you answered that question with your name, you’re only sorta getting it.

Before I explain what I mean by that, let me clarify. By all means, your name is part of who you are. Maybe I should italicize a different word there, though. Your name is part of who you are. Certainly, it tells a lot about you. It has a story behind it. It tells about you, and that’s pretty awesome.

But the answer to that question is more than that, because there is one name that we haven’t mentioned yet. And it’s the most important name you could ever, ever have. It was given to you by the One who cared more about you than anyone else who has ever lived. More than you could ever imagine. He gave you a name. He called you Beloved.

Take a moment and look up one more name. Your name. The name the Savior of the world gave you. What does your name mean? Who are you? Take a look at Galatians 4:7 – “So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.”

You are called God’s “dearly loved” (Ephesians 5:1). You are his beloved.

Maybe you’re going through a sort of Identity crisis right now. Maybe you don’t really know how to answer that last question. But I can tell you the one name you can never change. The identity you can never lose. A beloved child of God. Don’t lose hope. Don’t lose your worth. Because if you find your worth and identity in Christ, you have more worth than the brightest diamond in the sky.

Dec

2019

Faith in God’s timing

Originally published on the Electric Gospel on October 2, 2016.

Faith in God’s timing

by Lauren Ewings

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. – Psalm 27:14

I used to consider myself a very impatient person. I would rush to finish others’ stories for them. Waiting in a line for a ride at an amusement park was absolute torture. Detailed storytellers were my worst nightmare.

Many times I found myself impatiently questioning God’s plan for me.

“This is not what I pictured my life to be like right now.” This is a phrase I oftentimes found myself thinking, while selfishly praying for companionship and becoming frustrated when it seemed like God wasn’t listening or answering. I know that sometimes my sinful expectations of prayer have been that God will answer quickly and he will answer the way I expect him to.

Many times during my early years of college, I expected the perfect man to be placed in my life, thinking, “God, don’t you know how happy this would make me? Don’t you understand that I don’t want to be single anymore?” My selfish prayers were heard … and although I didn’t see it at the time, they were answered as well. God did not answer with an immediate yes as I had hoped. Instead he answered with “not right now.”

Not until my senior year did I finally recognize God’s answer to my prayer. I was student teaching, living independently, miles away from many of my friends and my family, and things were okay. I discovered that going out by myself was enjoyable. I was able to explore the city without feeling the need to be in constant contact with others. I dug deeper into God’s Word and found comfort in his love.

A psalm of David (Psalm 27) reminds us to wait for the LORD, to trust in his plan for our lives, to have faith that he is always working for our good. Faith in God means faith in his timing. It may not always be easy to accept, but know that your prayer is not going unanswered. God is working for your good.

Prayer: Dear God, please help us remember to be patient. Help us remember that you hear our prayer, and that you always answer. Give us strength and comfort, and remind us of your everlasting love while we wait for you. Amen.

Dec

2019

Journeying toward forgiveness

Originally published on The Electric Gospel on September 20, 2015. In a summer class, participants were asked to write a doctrinal or personal article, pondering some aspect of our faith in Christ. Desiree Alge penned a very personal account and has graciously granted permission for me to share her story on The Electric Gospel blog. I deeply admire Desiree for her openness and willingness to talk about difficulties in life and overcoming them through Christ.

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Forgiveness — My Journey

by Desiree Alge

When children wrong their friends or their family, they are taught to apologize and ask for forgiveness. The trouble we find, though, is that it is simple to say the words, but to actually mean them is a bigger task. Sure, everyone makes mistakes, but coming clean and admitting the wrong you’ve done takes much more courage. And even harder is the challenge of forgiveness.

Sometimes I wonder if my mother was ever taught this fundamental lesson. After a rough childhood, she chose to follow the same path as her parents, with alcohol and drugs consuming her life. This vicious cycle led her to be these same people she hated. She became a wife and a mother at sixteen, divorced at eighteen, and was sent to prison several times in her young life. Because of the custody battles, I was sent back and forth between homes until I was six years old. During those years, I was left alone for days, stranded to take care of my baby brother and sister. I was surrounded by parties with alcohol, drugs, and drunk men. I dreaded the days my grandma dropped me off with my mother, and anxiously awaited her arrival to take me home with her. Even years after, my mom bribed me with gifts, but always failed to show up after I’d be waiting on the porch for hours. I felt let down, alone, and unworthy.

I never realized how hurt I was until I became older. Until recently, I hadn’t spoken or seen my mother in over ten years! Our first conversation left me bitter and angry. It contained no apologies or even a hint of regret. I caught myself thinking, “It’s impossible to forgive someone when they don’t even care!”

As I was contemplating all of the mean names I could call my mother, my mind led me to the cross. If Christ had this same attitude towards me as I did towards my mom, I would be sunk. There have been so many times in my life where I’ve been defiant, knowing right from wrong, yet choosing the wrong path. I’ve also ignored repentance, thinking that, “I’m forgiven anyways, so what’s the big deal?” If God decided to forgive only based on apologies received, I would have a lot of sins still on my slate. If Jesus forgives all of the terrible sins that I’ve committed, then who am I to withhold forgiveness from a fellow sinner in desperate need of God’s love?

I am human. I am sinful. I hold bitterness in my heart. I don’t want to be a prisoner to my mother or to resentment. I don’t want her to have this hold on me. Although I may feel like I’m punishing her by withholding forgiveness, I’m actually only hurting myself. The path to heal bitterness is through forgiveness.

No one deserves for their errors to be wiped clean — neither me nor my mother. We are on the same level of sin, no matter the earthly opinion. Whether I’m disrespectful or a liar, I deserve the same eternal punishment just like someone who neglected and abused her children. The words that stem from “forgive” are mentioned in the Bible 127 times and the concept is written many more! It is obviously a beautiful message that God wanted us to know and to live. Because of God’s forgiveness and grace, we receive eternal life! In Ephesians, it says: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). Why wouldn’t we want to share that peace with others?

Dec

2019

Self-worth: You are precious

Originally published on The Electric Gospel on June 1, 2015.

You Are Precious in His Sight

by Emily Hunt

Have you ever seen the PBS television show, Antiques Roadshow? The program features local antique owners who bring in all kinds of obscure items to be appraised by experts. Most often, the owners walk away disappointed after being told that their item is worth about as much as it looks like it would be worth. However, every time I watch this show, I am shocked at the number of seemingly worthless items that receive appraisals of thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars. How can something so ugly be worth so much?

Do you ever feel like the people on this show? Do you feel the need to seek not only the approval of this world, but an appraisal as well? Do you present yourself before the “experts” of this world to ask your worth? I know I do. “Here I am world! Here are all my talents, abilities, personality traits, my looks, and my possessions! What am I worth? Do you want me?”

If you are anything like I am, you may sometimes walk away from the expert appraisers of this world with your head hung low. You thought you had a lot to offer, but why doesn’t anyone else see that? You fought so hard for that position or promotion, but somebody else beat you out. You work yourself ragged day in and day out, yet you never hear those words of thankfulness from the people you love. You gave everything you had to that man who said he loved you, but he left you anyway. You struggle to understand your purpose in this life. You find yourself consumed with questions like, “Why am I not good enough? What is wrong with me? Why doesn’t anybody appreciate me? Why doesn’t anybody want me? Why doesn’t anybody love me?”

Maybe you’re on the opposite end of the spectrum and the appraisal you receive from the world pleases you and in it you find your worth. You are generally well-liked. You got that job you worked so hard for. You live in a highly respected neighborhood in a beautiful house that is the envy of all your friends. You keep up with all the latest fashion trends and can even afford to fill your closet with such things. Life is treating you well and you feel that you have found your place. If this describes you, you must ask yourself: “What if I lost all of this? What if I had nothing? Would I still be content? Would I still feel worthy?”

No matter which end of the spectrum you identified yourself with, we all share the same problem. So often, we run to the appraisers of this world to find our worth. We throw everything we have at them and beg them to tell us that we are worth something. We compare ourselves to everyone else around us and wonder why we can’t have what they have. When did we get the idea that we have to be found worthy in the eyes of the world? Who told us that we need to fit in with this world? The answer is simple: The world itself tells us that. Our sinful, worldly flesh seeks the desires of this world. We look to the world to give us our value.

To understand what is wrong with this picture, I want you to think about a dollar bill. Who determined that a dollar bill is worth 100 cents? The government set that value. What gives the government the right to give a dollar bill its value? The government created the dollar bill. What if the dollar bill gets crumpled up, stomped on, or even spit on. Does it still have the same value? Absolutely.

I hope you are starting to see where I am going with this. What right does the world have to determine your value? Does the world have any ownership over you? No. Then why, WHY do we look to the world for our worth? Just like that dollar bill, our value is determined by our Creator. God tells us in the Psalms that we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). We know who our Maker is, and it is in him and from him that we find our worth.

And our God loves us so incredibly much that he seeks after us when we stray from him and his Word. Our God loves us so incredibly much that he does not count our sins against us; rather, he has already prepared a place for us in his perfect and glorious heavenly kingdom. If you are still struggling with feelings of worthlessness, please let this last truth sink in to your heart. Our God loves us so incredibly much that he gave up his one and only Son. Our perfect Creator sent his perfect Son to live a perfect life and die an innocent death in our place. You probably know these words by heart, but let the words resonate in your heart: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). How is it even possible that we could ever feel worthless after hearing such a beautiful message as this?

Do you remember my question at the beginning of this article about Antiques Roadshow? I asked, how can something so ugly be worth so much? Here we are, the ugliest of sinners, standing before our Maker. Our appraisal should tell us that we are completely worthless; so worthless in fact, that we deserve to die eternally in hell. However, God in his amazing mercy and love looks at us through the grace of Jesus and sees his beautiful children whom he loves unconditionally. God looks at us and sees people who are more precious than gold or silver, so precious because of the blood of his own Son.

When you are feeling worthless, remember that God loves you with an unconditional, all-consuming, and redemptive love. Remember that your appraisal comes from Christ alone. Remember that you are so deeply loved, highly treasured, and mercifully redeemed. Look to the world no longer. Look to Christ. You are precious in his sight.

Dec

2019

A love song

Originally published on The Electric Gospel on September 12, 2014. This post takes a poetic form, a song lyric written by a young musician.

A love song

by Casey Sauer

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Dear, why are you hiding? And who has hurt you?
Your beauty is being locked inside
Please come to me and let me heal you
I am the Rock; in me abide
Your strength can’t help, sorry to say
It only hurts worse, so do not delay
It’s time to surrender and take down this mask
I’m here to help, in any way you ask
So give up your armor and put down your sword
I’ll be your protector, my name is the Lord
No one can beat me, no need to retreat
When it’s up to you, it’s always defeat
Please give me your trust; I will not fail
It’s for your own good that you don’t prevail
Your faith will rise and I’ll open your eyes
Now heart, be free
So run now with grace, ever seeking my face
Just look to the letters I wrote you
They’ll give you comfort, they’ll give you peace
Not like a man, or money, or you
I am different you see, It’s hard to explain
A lot of things about me can never be plain
But a few things are, and here’s one or two
I will never fail, nor will my love for you
So give up your armor and put down your sword
I’ll be your protector, my name is the Lord
No one can beat me, no need to retreat
When it’s up to you, it’s always defeat
Please give me your trust; I will not fail
I’ll shelter your beauty, through storms it will sail
Your faith will rise and I’ll open your eyes
Now heart, be free
You’ll feel the fire of love again
The way it’s meant to be
Just remember darling, in everything,
You’re perfect to me
So give up your armor, and put down your sword
I am your protector, you know me as “Lord”
No one can beat me, no need to retreat
I will stand for you through everything
Your trust in me will be your light
You will be the one shining at night
I’ve filled your heart with mercy and grace
Now heart, you’re free.

A message for the 9th Sunday after Pentecost

Sharing peace in Christ, leaving no one out

We are not zombies. We are alive with Jesus.

We Serve the One who Served Us

A Parent’s Prayer for a Graduate

The Value of Your Name

Faith in God’s timing

Forgiveness — My Journey

You Are Precious in His Sight

A love song

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