Jesus

29
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.

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.

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.
Posted by David Sellnow, 1 comment
30
Oct
2023

A Reformation message: We cling to the gospel

The law condemns. The gospel saves.

by David Sellnow

  • “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ” (Galatians 1:6,7).

  • “To be convinced in our hearts that we have forgiveness of sins and peace with God by grace alone is the hardest thing.” – Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians (1535), translated by Erasmus Middleton (1833).

One day I was driving down the street and did a double take on a church sign. The sign said, “The death of Christ will not be your pardon.” As I drove by, it was like a slap in the face. I stopped; I turned around. Then I realized it was a two-part sign. I had read the back of the sign first. From front to back, the sign said this: “If the life of Christ is not your pattern … the death of Christ will not be your pardon.”

That wasn’t really much better than seeing the back of the sign all by itself. What was that sign telling people? “If you don’t do what Jesus would do, then what Jesus did on the cross doesn’t count for you.” In other words, you’d better straighten up and live right or God won’t love you and Jesus won’t forgive you. That sort of message puts your works first and God’s forgiveness second. The Bible teaches it the other way around: God’s forgiveness comes first, atones for all your sins. By this grace, your heart then becomes motivated to live according to a godly pattern.

It’s easy for us to get that message turned around. It’s not uncommon for individuals to put the burden on themselves to make their salvation happen. I have known persons who made multiple altar calls. They’d go up and devote themselves to Jesus, then when they failed to live perfectly, the onus was on them to start all over again, as if it all depended on them. I know people who have been baptized multiple times. They saw baptism as their own pledge or promise to God. Each time they’d slip in their commitment or break a commandment, they felt they needed to get baptized again, commit themselves again.

Those are law-oriented views. Law condemns. When you read the Ten Commandments, you don’t come away thinking, “Oh, what a good person I am!”  The commandments show you multiple ways you have failed to obey God—how you have failed to love God and love your neighbor as you should. If you make keeping commandments your way to gaining heaven, you are doomed to failure.

This is true no matter what the commandments. Look at the religions of the world. Do Muslims perfectly obey the Five Pillars of Islam? Do Buddhists adhere perfectly to Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path? Do Mormons follow to perfection the teachings of Joseph Smith? We ultimately fail under any system of commandments.

You could write your own commandments. Make them things you think you could do. Let’s say you were to start the First Church of Healthy Living, and you had just three laws:

  1. Do not eat sweets or desserts.
  2. Exercise 40 minutes a day.
  3. Eat a bran muffin for breakfast every morning.

Even if you believed your eternal salvation depended on keeping those commands, there would come a day you didn’t feel like exercising. There would be a morning you didn’t care for a bran muffin. You’d have moments of intense temptation when you just had to have chocolate. You would fail at your own religion. You would fall into sins against your own commands.

Scripture makes it clear:  “All who rely on the works of the law are under a curse. … No one is justified before God by the law” (Galatians 3:10,11). Law can’t save us. Commandments are not stepping-stones into heaven. The law leaves us condemned.

When a religious approach (like the church sign I mentioned) speaks of Jesus but then adds conditions you must fulfill, that isn’t really gospel. Gospel means good news. As soon as you add some obligation of law keeping to the gospel of Christ, you have perverted it. The gospel is pure good news, full forgiveness in Jesus with no strings attached. Other gospels are throwbacks to law-oriented thinking, which is humans’ instinctive approach to religion.  

Daniel Csörföly (Budapest, Hungary), via Wikimedia Commons

There is only one message that saves. It is the message of “grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free” (Galatians 1:3,4).  Grace is unearned, undeserved, unconditional love. God gives grace. He gave his one and only Son, Jesus. Jesus, the Christ, gave himself over to death for us. He rose from death to give us life. Grace is a gift.

That message is the only spiritual message that brings us peace. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (John 14:27). You need not be afraid about your salvation; Jesus guarantees it for you. You need not trouble your heart about which commands you have kept and which you have broken; Jesus forgives every sin. Jesus gives you true inner peace by cleansing away the condemnation in your conscience. He takes away all the guilt of your sin. That is the message of the gospel. It is not the world’s most popular religious message.  As the apostle Paul pointed out, this message does not typically win the approval of men or please people, who are looking for some sort of self-help plan to save themselves. But we are servants of Christ. We are believers in Christ. We will go forward in Christ, continuing to proclaim the one true gospel message.  All other messages condemn because they have their basis in human works, in keeping laws.  The gospel of Jesus is the only message that saves. 

October 31, All Hallows’ Eve, is remembered as Reformation Day, from actions take by monk and priest Martin Luther in 1517.  November 1st is All Saints Day.  For thoughts regarding your place as one of God’s saints, see a previous article here on The Electric Gospel:  “Me, a saint?”

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.

Posted by David Sellnow
07
Aug
2023

Earthly needs, heavenly priorities

While we live amid everyday concerns, we yearn for eternity.  While we live in this world, we yearn for a better world to come. Having a focus on spiritual realities will guide how we live our lives and use our resources in the present, material world.

Earthly Needs, Heavenly Priorities

by David Sellnow

Sometimes comedians are the best truth-tellers.  They can look us in the eye and tell it like it is, because they make us laugh at ourselves and our fallibilities. In the 1980s, which scholars called “The Decade of Greed” or “The Decade of Excess,” sharp-tongued comedian George Carlin said it best. He got at all of us, not just the Wall Street traders and business tycoons. Carlin’s stand-up bit was called “A Place for My Stuff.” He said, “That’s the whole meaning of life, isn’t it? Trying to find a place for your stuff. That’s all your house is. Your house is just a place for your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house. You could just walk around all the time! Your house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff. And sometimes you gotta get a bigger house. Why? Too much stuff! Now you gotta move all your stuff, and maybe put some of your stuff in storage. Imagine that: there’s a whole industry based on keeping an eye on your extra stuff.”

It’s not the 1980s anymore, but Carlin’s diagnosis still rings true. We earthbound persons struggle to live spiritual lives because we have too much affinity for the earthly things –for lands and lawns, for houses and vehicles, for stuff and stuff and more stuff. We easily get attached to our stuff, and our lives tend to revolve around our stuff. That can get in the way of deeper things, of spiritual meaning, of soulful relationships with one another and with God.

Life in this world is a constant tension between that which is healthy and enriching for us as spiritual persons and that which appeals to our material needs and wants. Jesus described the field of this world as a mixture of weeds and wheat growing together, side by side (Matthew 13:38).  He also described how God’s life-giving word is spread across the world everywhere, but for many, it’s like seed sown among thorns. “The cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing” (Matthew 13:22). In each of our hearts there’s always a struggle between weeds and wheat, between invasive concerns of this life and productive fruit of a godly life. We are caught up in the daily struggles of a created world that has been “subjected to futility” and is “in bondage to decay” (Romans 8:20,21), while at the same time we are inspired by hopes that we have inwardly, longing for the redemption of our bodies in the resurrection, looking for eternal realities that we don’t yet see in the visible realm (cf. Romans 8:23-25).

It’s not that earthly things are bad. It’s a matter of keeping our perspectives in order. We can get so concerned about dollars and diamonds and dividends–things that seem to make this life secure–that we forget how insecure eternity can be if we don’t have God in our hearts. Having a piece of what seem rock-solid earthly investments won’t mean much when the earth gives way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea (Psalm 46:2). God has declared, “I am the first and I am the last… There is no other rock” (Isaiah 44:6,8). Even if a person could gain the whole world, what good is it if it costs him his very self, his life, his soul (Luke 9:25)? No earthly gain of any kind can ever compensate a person for the loss of life and soul, for the lack of a relationship with our Creator, our Lord.

The good Lord does know that we have daily needs. He is concerned about the well-being of our bodies as well as our souls. For example, consider a time when Jesus was personally in mourning, after he’d heard the news of how John the Baptist was murdered. Jesus went to a deserted place by himself to be alone, but the crowds of people did not leave him alone (Matthew 14:12-13). They followed on foot by the thousands, looking to him as their helper. Though he himself was in the midst of anguish caused by this world, Jesus could not look away from the troubles of the people who came to him. “He had compassion for them and cured their sick” (Matthew 14:14). Then, because they were in a deserted place and almost no one had brought food along, Jesus did a miracle to feed them all a meal. He multiplied five loaves of bread and two fish into enough food to feed “five thousand men, besides women and children” (Matthew 14:21)–so much of a miracle that they even had twelve baskets full of leftovers after everyone had eaten (Matthew 14:20).

There was a sad aftermath to that event, however. The crowds that experienced that miracle wanted to take Jesus by force to make him their king. They wanted a political icon, an economic savior here on this earth. Jesus had to pull away from them and go elsewhere. When the crowds chased him down and found him again the next day, Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you” (John 6:26,27). The people who clamored after Jesus needed him not just as their bread king, to make their bellies full and their lives comfortable. They needed him as their main source of sustenance, the true Bread of Life. Even if you get manna from heaven as a gift from God, that daily bread isn’t enough to sustain you. Jesus told those crowds, ”Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:49-51).  When Jesus said that, that claim was too much for most people. At that point, many of them turned away and stopped following Jesus, stopped listening to him (John 6:66). They wanted earthly ease and comfort from him. They weren’t in the mood for challenging spiritual realities.

It can be a delicate balance in our lives and in our ministries to maintain–between giving attention to day-to-day concerns and staying focused on our eternal calling.  We pray to the Lord for daily bread, that God would lead us to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving. At the same time, we pray, “Thy kingdom come,” asking God to give us his Holy Spirit, so that by his grace we believe his Word and lead godly lives (cf. Luther’s Small Catechism). Daily bread (meeting our bodily, earthly needs) is essential, but the higher calling of Christ’s kingdom puts all our daily affairs into perspective. His spiritual truths give depth and meaning to the day-to-day aspects of our lives.

People who are called to follow the Lord too easily get sidetracked from spiritual priorities. We can forget what’s important, can become self-important and self-indulgent. It’s hard to stay growing in healthy directions. It’s easy to become entangled, overgrown, unproductive. Weeds are always trying to creep into our own hearts. All churches in this world also will be both weeds and wheat, intermingled. Don’t be too eager to root out what you think is an unwanted plant or unwanted growth. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Even people who seem the most godly may have deep struggles of soul, and some who appear roughest around the edges may, in their hearts, be the closest to God. Don’t be too eager to push aside those you think have rejected the gospel or are unwilling to listen.  After Saul, the self-righteous Pharisee, was turned around to see God more fully, more truly, he did not turn his back on the people from whom he had come. As the apostle Paul, he deeply desired to bring others of his own people, steeped in the heritage of Judaism and the Hebrew scriptures, to see the life and beauty that is in Jesus, to know Jesus as the Messiah the scriptures had prophesied (cf. Romans 9:1-5). Paul toiled and struggled, with all the energy that God inspired in him, to reach out to both Jews and Gentiles, to both slaves and rulers, to everyone and anyone, to make the word of God fully known and reveal the mystery of Christ given for us and living in us (cf. Colossians 1:25-29). 

When we get caught up in the concerns of this world, we can forget that our mission is to everyone and anyone. In our personal lives, we can become more concerned about maintaining our own earthly comforts and neglect the others’ needs. In our church lives, we can become more concerned about preserving our own institutions and traditions than about the spiritual needs of others. We can unthinkingly place ourselves in a position of importance and crowd others out, making them feel unwelcome. Maybe we say all are welcome, but then if they come to us, we try to force them to be like us, think, like us, act like us. We fail to appreciate that God calls all kinds of people, with all kinds of perspectives, into the wide boundaries of his kingdom.

We also can make a mistake if we become so otherworldly that we ignore the everyday needs of those whom we would seek to serve in Christ. Remember that even though Jesus was drawing people to higher, spiritual priorities–and even though many of those following him seemed to want only mundane, earthly blessings from him–he still did not ignore their basic human needs. He healed the sick. He fed the hungry. He lent a hand to those who needed help to stand up, even while he was lifting souls up higher still to a heavenly hope and calling.

I’ve known some church organizations that were inconsistent in their approach to such things. Their stateside congregations very much avoided providing assistance programs to people in their communities. They said (with disapproval) that was “social gospel,” trying to fix and improve our present earthly society. They said the church’s concern should be with eternal things only. As a result, the communities in which these churches operated saw them as aloof, unresponsive, uncaring. Their ministries were stifled by their unwillingness to do what Jesus did, attending to the blind, the lame, the deaf, the sick, the poor (cf. Matthew 11:2-6), and caring “for orphans and widows in their distress” (James 1:27). They cared for their own, within their own congregations’ membership, but did not do so in wider outreach toward others outside, in their communities.

Yet, in foreign fields of work in developing nations, they attended to both the physical and spiritual needs of the people in the villages. They built wells for clean water. They established medical missions to provide healthcare. These things were in addition to and in conjunction with the churches they established and worship they held. That was the better model. When Christians and churches do such things because they truly are concerned about people’s whole lives, this is a sign of love moved by the gospel. Like Jesus’ miracles of love, these things will help people see what the gospel is and does within our hearts.

On the other hand, I’ve also sometimes seen congregations and church organizations offering things to the community just to hook people’s attention, while their real goal is building up their own church numbers. I’ve been at church meetings where it seemed the motivation for outreach was a desire to get more members in the building so they could balance their budget, pay the bills, keep their organization afloat. The same thing that can be said of us as individuals can be said of us as churches: Whoever wants to save their life–to preserve what they have in this world–will lose it, (Luke 9:24). If we are reaching out to others only for the sake of preserving our own institutions, we are losing our soul as a church. We dare not expect the blessing of God on such efforts. When we are willing to lose our lives for Christ and for the sake of the gospel, then we find blessing.

May God give to each of us and preserve in all of us a proper focus for our lives and for ministry. As Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6). Our primary hunger, our greatest need, is the hunger of the soul to have a satisfying relationship with the creator, to have the righteousness that comes from God. At the same time, we won’t neglect the needs of those who are hungry, those who are hurting, those who are homeless, those who are friendless. We will befriend our neighbors and community members in everyday ways, in unassuming ways, with ordinary blessings–genuinely aiming to help others, not promote ourselves. 

Hopefully we can become a little less attached to all our stuff and stuff and more stuff. Our lives do not consist of the abundance of our possessions (Luke 12:15).  We don’t live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).  So, let’s do what we can to share our bread, share our stuff … and share the words of Jesus and the love of Jesus and the spirit of Jesus with everyone we can. God help us to maintain both heavenly priorities of faith and earthly priorities toward our neighbors, in Jesus’ name.  

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.

Posted by David Sellnow
04
Jun
2023

Thoughts for Trinity Sunday

“Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5, World English Bible).

We trust in a God who goes beyond understanding

by David Sellnow

Image by jette55 from Pixabay

There is an ancient Christian creed that says, “We worship one God in three persons, and three persons in one God,” that “the Father is eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Spirit eternal. Yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal Lord God” (The Athanasian Creed). Can you explain that? That makes no sense humanly speaking, mathematically or logically. Yet we declare it to be true.

The conundrum of the Trinity is just one of the many secrets of God. Consider Jesus Christ himself. Jesus is Son of God and Son of Man. In Christ all the fullness of God is present in a human body, the Bible says (cf. Colossians, 2:9). Can you explain how that is possible, that God became human and lived among us? Incredible, isn’t it?  Yet it is also true.

Consider the wonders God has done. Out of nothing, God made everything. He called the universe into being. Can you scientifically account for the intricacies of the created order? The most brilliant scientific minds continue to search and study such questions. God’s word asserts that his divine hand is behind it all. To quote a psalmist: “Heaven is declaring God’s glory; the sky is proclaiming his handiwork. … His lightning lights up the world …  and all nations have seen his glory” (Psalm 19:1; Psalm 97:4,6, Common English Bible).

God tells us that he will one day resurrect our bodies from the grave. Dead tissue will come back to life. Scattered ashes and decomposed bones will rise up again as the same people who once lived in these bodies. Is that something you can devise and do at home? If we understood how resurrection could happen, surely somebody would be building a life-reviving business right now. But we don’t rationally comprehend such things. The miracles and mysteries of God are beyond what we can humanly conceive or do. It’s like Elihu told Job in days of old: “Surely, God is great. … My heart trembles and leaps out of its place” (Job 36:26, 37:1).

We believe in a God who goes beyond understanding. That is good–because where our understanding is limited, God is unlimited. His ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9). Even the revered King Solomon, who was renowned throughout the world for his wisdom, readily admitted his inadequacy before God. It is Solomon who tells us: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight” (Proverbs 3:5). Solomon’s own life story exemplified how following his own instincts became a meaningless “chasing after the wind” (Ecclesiastes 2:11). He learned that apart from God, no one could enjoy life or have what they need (Ecclesiastes 2:25). 

When we ponder God’s triune nature, we may offer analogies like water, ice, and steam (the same substance in three different forms). However, none of our illustrations do justice to the greatness of God’s being. I once tried my own illustration for a children’s sermon. I asked three of the youngsters in church to come forward, and I said I was going to combine them into one person. Then I put my arms around all three of them in a bear hug and squeezed and squeezed. They laughed, but of course, they could not all be one in essence together. Yet God tells us that he is Father, Son, and Spirit, each distinct, and yet all three unified as one together in the divine Being. 

If we try to put God into a framework that fits our way of thinking, then as the author J.B. Phillips said, we’ve made God too small.  As Phillips wrote, the immensely broad sweep of the Creator’s activity, the astonishing complexity of his mind’s processes (which science labors to uncover), the vast sea of what we see as God’s handiwork–all this is only a small portion of who God is. We have only a glimpse of his awesomeness in the small corner of the universe in which we human beings live and move and have our being. 

We accept the greatness of God and all his miraculous doings on faith. Faith confesses that we live and move and have our being in God (Acts 17:28), though we can’t see him. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). We have not seen God, nor can we comprehend everything about him, yet we believe and trust in him with all our hearts. 

And God is worthy of being trusted. He is the LORD, Yahweh or Jehovah, whose name means “He is.” He just is, always the same, always existing, always the Lord. From everlasting to everlasting, he is God (Psalm 90:2). The number of his years is past finding out (Job 36:26). He fills heaven and earth (Jeremiah 23:24). He rides on the wings of the wind (Psalm 104:2,3).  He is beyond our reach and exalted in power (Job 37:23). He does great things beyond our grasp (Job 37:5). His greatness no one can fathom (Psalm 145:3). 

I could go on and on with more quotes from Scripture. The Lord is amazing in every way. An English translation of the ancient creed I mentioned before said it with style: “The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible; and yet not three incomprehensibles, but one incomprehensible.” God is incomprehensible–infinite, uncreated, eternal, almighty. He is the Lord. Therefore, we trust in him–and our trust is not misplaced.

Solomon’s proverb pictures the contrast between trusting in God vs. relying on one’s own brainpower with an intriguing choice of Hebrew words. In English, we read, “Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5 WEB). The idea in the Hebrew word “SHa’aN,” (שָׁעַן) means to lean on something like you’d lean on a cane or walking stick. It holds you up, but barely. It’s a crutch that lets you limp along. On the other hand, for the Hebrew expression describing “trust in” the Lord, Solomon used another word: BaTaKH ( בְּטַ֣ח). It means to feel safe and fully confident, to have an unshakeable sense of security. To picture this, think of a young child finding security in her father’s or mother’s arms. Envision a sick or injured toddler, who is unable to understand the hurt. Still, she feels safe in her parent’s embrace. She will fall asleep there, calm and reassured. That’s what trusting God is like. And God is our Father. He is in control and can cure all ills. He is a very real help and refuge to us at all times, able to remove our fears (cf. Psalm 46). What a blessing to be held up and carried in his everlasting arms (cf. Deuteronomy 33:27)! We need not wobble along with only our own intelligence or ability to prop us up.

We recognize that God “dwells in unapproachable light” and “no one has ever seen or can see” him (1 Timothy 6:16). Yet while God is unapproachable, unimaginable, in so many ways, he does not wish to remain unknown to us or unseen by us. He wants us to be able to stand before his throne and see his face (Revelation 22:4), to know fully and see face-to-face the glory that is his (1 Corinthians 13:12). To that end, he provided a way for us to know him and come to him. While  “no one has ever seen God, It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (John 1:18). That, ultimately, is the basis for our trust in the Lord. We trust in God not because it makes such good sense or we understand every detail about eternity. We trust in him because he’s shown us such great love and safeguards our souls.

Faith consists not in trying to hold ourselves up with the crutch of our own understanding, but relying fully on the strong rock who is God, trusting in the Savior God provided (Jesus), believing because the Spirit has convinced us all this is true. That’s all we really need to understand. We know Jesus, and Jesus is sufficient to meet all our needs (Hebrews 7:26). Jesus bridges the gap between us and God. The peace which God gives us goes beyond all understanding, and keeps our hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7).  We rest assured when we are resting in God and his promises.

Let me add just one more thing as we conclude this meditation. Confessing that God goes beyond our understanding doesn’t mean we stop using our understanding—our minds and all the other good gifts with which God has blessed us. Trusting in the Lord doesn’t mean we go through life saying, “God knows what’s best for me, so I’ll wait for a sign from heaven”–about what job or career path to pursue, or what decisions to make. We use our minds and the skills God has given us. We take stock of ourselves, assess the gifts and abilities God has given us and the opportunities set before us, and we make decisions.  Trusting in the Lord and not leaning on human understanding doesn’t mean that when we get sick, we’ll decline seeing a doctor and just say, “I’ll pray about this, because I know God can heal me.” We will pray, but most certainly also will make use of help and resources available to us in God’s created world. All the while, we know that even if modern medicine cannot cure us, not even death can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord (cf. Romans 8:38,39).

Photo by Jessica Lewis Creative: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-mug-with-religious-text-from-holy-bible-4200823/

Our God has created us with much ability, much understanding, many resources and tools. We will use all those things to navigate our lives as best we can. But as people of faith, we also have this underlying confidence: A loving God who is far greater than us is always with us. When life hits us with challenges bigger than we can handle, when we can’t answer all the questions and dilemmas of our world, when death is on our doorstep or takes loved ones from us, when we are at our wit’s end … we still have our God, our heavenly Father, holding out his arms to fold us into his embrace. We still have our Brother, our Savior, Jesus, who gave his life for us and gives us life eternally with him. We still have our encourager, our Advocate (John 14:26), the Holy Spirit, who fills up our hearts and enables us to live with hope.  Dear friends, fellow believers, we have peace of mind and peace of heart in knowing God. And the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit will be with you, always (cf. 2 Corinthians 13:7).

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.

Posted by David Sellnow
07
May
2023

Blessed Assurance

Easter continues

by David Sellnow

Image credit: Pxfuel

Easter Sunday was a month ago … but our Easter joy is ongoing. Over the past three weekends at church services I attended, we sang these opening hymns:

  • “Alleluia! Jesus Is Risen!”
  • “I Know That My Redeemer Lives”
  • “Hallelujah! Jesus Lives!” 

We don’t stop singing Easter songs after Easter Sunday, because the Easter season continues. Indeed, Sundays became “the Lord’s day” for worship (Revelation 1:10), as Christians commemorated weekly the miracle of Jesus rising from the dead (which occurred on a Sunday).

Some years ago, I wrote Easter lyrics for a familiar Christian hymn, “Blessed Assurance,” emphasizing the consistent confidence we have because Jesus has conquered death for us. 

I’ll share those lyrics here, as we continue our Easter spirit, assured in our faith.

Blessed assurance, Jesus gives me!
His resurrection is my victory.
His death forgives me, purges my sin;
by faith that’s giv’n me, heaven I win. |
Blessed assurance, Jesus gives me!
Promises I’ll live eternally!
Jesus, my Savior, praises I’ll sing–
for the new life that to me you bring.

Blessed assurance, Jesus arose!
I am released from all deadly foes.
Jesus for all the victory won.
Sin’s curse has ended; life has begun.
Hear now my story, hear now, my song–
praising my Savior, all the day long!
Sing loud the story, sing loud the song–
Praising our Savior, all the day long!

Blessed assurance, I will arise,
live with my Savior again, in the skies!
All grief and sorrow will then be gone;
glory will shine in me like the sun.
Blessed assurance, Jesus gives me!
Promises I’ll live eternally!
Jesus, my Savior, praises I bring.
You are my life, my hope, and my king.

Fanny Crosby, from Wikimedia Commons

For information on the original music and lyrics to “Blessed Assurance” by Phoebe Knapp and Fanny Crosby (1873), see this article that was published in the St. Augustine Record newspaper.

Posted by David Sellnow
16
Jan
2023

Eager to connect others to Jesus

We point others to Jesus, sharing what we have seen in him

[For the second Sunday after Epiphany]

Bible reference to read:  John 1:35-46

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In the book, No Wonder They Call Him the Savior (1986), Max Lucado told of a teenage girl who ran away from home to the big city. (See “Runaway Daughter” for the  full story.) Her mother put pictures of herself throughout the city, with this note on the back of each photo: “Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home.”  

Sometimes it’s the simple messages, spoken with love, that mean the most. The same can be said about our outreach to others in Christ. Church researcher Win Arn and his organization surveyed more than 10,000 people, asking how they came to faith in Christ and membership in their churches. They found that:

  • 3 to 5 percent reported that they simply walked in and stayed. 
  • 3 to 4 percent listed a church program as what drew them to church. 
  • The pastor accounted for 4 to 6 percent.
  • Special needs were listed by 2 to 4 percent.
  • Visitation by church representatives accounted for 1 to 2 percent of church members.
  • Sunday school brought in 3 to 6 percent.

That leaves about 75 to 85 percent of lay people in churches that weren’t drawn by one of those things.  How did they become part of the church?  They say friends or relatives are the ones who connected them to Christ and church (Christianity Today).

That says something to each of us. It’s not the person with the theology degree. It’s not the person with years of training who has the best chance of reaching those you care about. It’s you, each of you. We are eager to connect others to Jesus, knowing that relationships built on Jesus are relationships that always endure, that never end. We point others to Jesus and his love. We share with them what we have seen and experienced in Jesus.

We see this process in action in the heralding work of John the Baptist and the calling of Jesus’ first disciples. John the Baptist, preparing the way for Jesus, pointed people to him and said: “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” John used a simple description that meant much to the people of his time. In the religious context of Israel, a lamb was an animal for sacrifice. It was a payment for sin that God had said he would accept. Lambs brought to the temple for sacrifice were regular reminders of the hope the people had, awaiting the Anointed One they were expecting God to send. The Messiah would be the ultimate sacrifice, the one to stand in the place for all people. His life and his sacrificial death would atone once, for all. When John called Jesus “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), the meaning was clear to all who heard him. Jesus is the one designated by God the Father as “the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2).  Jesus is our substitute. Jesus is the sacrifice. Jesus is our Savior.

If we are to communicate the message of Jesus to others, this is something for us to keep in mind. Our message need not be a deep doctrinal treatise full of points and subpoints, with footnotes and a bibliography of all our research. The central gospel message is very simple:  Whoever you are, whatever you have done or whatever you’ve become, it doesn’t matter. Jesus gave himself in love for you. He loves you now, still, and always. So please come home to him.  That simple message, spoken in love, is powerful. Each of you can give that message to those you love and those in your circle of acquaintance. You can point to Jesus just as well as any prophet or preacher could do.

What was the reaction when John the Baptist pointed to Jesus? We’re told what at least two men did. Two disciples (Andrew and John, son of Zebedee) heard John say this about Jesus, “and they followed Jesus” (John 1:37).  Notice that John the Baptist was glad to see those who had learned from him go to follow Jesus. He wasn’t trying to gain a following for himself. Those of us who know Jesus aren’t focused on how many people we can get to follow us into our own particular churches or ministries. We simply want to connect others to the joy and truth we have found in Jesus. We want others to follow Jesus too, wherever he might lead.

Image attribution: TheHymnSociety.org

Andrew right away “found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’” (John 1:41). Jesus gave Simon a new name, “Cephas” (in Aramaic), or Peter (in Greek) which means “rock.” Jesus was going to be the rock of stability and hope for Simon Peter as well as for Andrew and for all whom Jesus would call. When you come to know the solid ground of faith that is found in Jesus, you want everyone else to know the same. Being brought to Jesus means to be drawn up “out of the miry bog,” the sinking sand of all the false hopes in this world, and have our feet set upon a rock, making our steps secure (Psalm 40:2). Andrew was urgent about sharing that with his brother.

The same urgency to lead others to Jesus was felt by Philip, the next apostle that Jesus called. When Jesus found Philip and said, “Follow me,” right away Philip found his friend Nathanael and told him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote. … Come and see” (John 1:44-46).

All of these individuals were disciples Jesus was going to train to be apostles. They would be leaders of the church that Jesus was establishing. But do you notice? They did not wait to complete their years of seminary training with Jesus before they started sharing the good news about him. Sharing the joy and salvation of Jesus is not something you have to wait until you’re an “experienced” Christian or a trained church worker before you can do. Any of us can be active in sharing Christ’s joy daily with others. 

I once was part of a congregation that wanted to do outreach to their community, so they formed an evangelism committee. The committee’s first decision was that they needed to train for the task. It was a noble thought, but the committee kept training and training and training, in a room by themselves at the church, for month after month. They never felt like they knew enough, never felt confident enough to go talk about the faith with others. So while they had gathered with the intention of being an outreach committee, they never actually got out the door. They kept convincing themselves they weren’t ready yet.

We do better if we think of the familiar song, “This Little Light of Mine” as a picture of our witness for Christ. If you are holding the light of the gospel in your hands, like holding a candle, when does that candle start giving off light?  As soon as it is lit. A candle that has been burning a long time does not necessarily burn brighter than one that has just begun to burn. You can be shining your light all around your neighborhood right now, day by day.  Sure, you can also keep training (as Jesus’ first disciples did) to gain greater understanding of the truths revealed in Jesus. But you need not wait to be a witness until you have some sort of degree or certificate in theology. You know what Jesus has meant to you. You can share that news and point others to him, as Andrew did with Peter, as Philip did with Nathanael. Each of them shined their light right away, and lit up another flame.

What Andrew and Philip did was nothing extraordinary. They simply shared what they had experienced in Jesus with a family member, with a friend. What we do for our friends and family and neighbors need not be anything more extraordinary than that. Share with them. Invite them. Simply introduce them to Jesus and what he has meant in your life. Like Andrew, like Philip, we have found the Christ, the Savior. He has made us his disciples, his followers, his friends—a relationship that will last forever. May God’s Spirit be with you and me as we share with others the good news we have found in Jesus. As the apostle John (one of those early disciples of Jesus) later said, we tell others “what we have seen and heard so that [they] also may have fellowship with us … [and] with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ …  so that our joy may be complete” (1 John 1:3,4).  

___

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.

Posted by David Sellnow
01
Jan
2023

Resolution

A brief study at the start of a new year

Prepare to read. Original public domain image from Wikimedia Commons

Several years ago, I was asked to work with writers and edit a series of Bible studies for youth ministry.  The following brief study came from that project. It seems appropriate to share at New Year’s time, on the subject of making resolutions.

This is formatted as a leader’s guide for a group study. If you are reading this on your own, feel free to use it for your own meditation on the selected Scriptures. I’d welcome comments from any readers who come across this post.  As a change from the blog’s usual devotional format, do you find a study outline format like this useful?  

Resolution

Preliminary questions to consider

How many of you have ever made a New Year’s Resolution?  So many New Year’s resolutions fail. Why do you think that is?

  • We may set goals that are so lofty it is all but impossible to keep them. Sometimes we just aren’t all that determined to keep them. Our resolve is weak.  Other times we fail because our sinful nature is the problem.  We try to overcome our sinful nature on our own.

This study isn’t only about New Year’s resolutions. Let’s  think about our resolve in general—our determination to do what we know we should do.  What specific goals have you made for yourself?

  • Answers will vary. Think of some goals you have set in your life, not just New Year’s resolutions.

Consider the goals, resolutions, or promises you have made. Why is it worth putting a lot of effort into them?

  • Answers will vary. Hopefully, our goals are beneficial ones that will result in better health, helping others, and better stewardship of God’s blessings. One good goal always is to devote ourselves to contact with God’s Word and sacraments so that faith will be strengthened.

Sometimes the motivation behind our goals and promises is faulty. What possible faulty motivation could be behind the goals and promises we make?

  • We may be trying to feed our egos. We may be trying to make ourselves look better than others. We may have selfish goals.


Getting into the Word

Verse #1
1 Corinthians 2:2 …  “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

The apostle Paul’s resolve was focused on Christ crucified.  Look at the context of this verse (verses 1-5). What might the people have thought was the motivation behind Paul’s preaching?

  • They might have thought he was trying to make a name for himself by his oratorical skills. Or at least that he was trusting in his own wisdom and eloquence to convert others.

Why was Paul resolved to focus only on Christ?

  • He understood that faith was the working of God’s power through the message about Jesus’ death and resurrection. Finally, the most important thing was for people to believe in Christ as their Savior.

What do these words tell us about the focus of our resolutions, goals, and promises?

  • Our most important goals are those that will have eternal benefits. That’s not to say that we can’t have other goals, and we can make promises related to our day-to-day lives. But it is important to remember spiritual priorities.

In what way can keeping promises to others, as well as faithfully pursuing “non-spiritual” goals, reflect on the cross or have spiritual implications?

  • By our diligence and faithfulness, we are honoring Christ, whose name we bear. As others witness our faithfulness, they may be inclined to listen to the hope we have in Christ.


Verse #2
Luke 9:51 … “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.”

What was the context of this statement? Why are these words from Scripture so comforting?

  • As the time came for Jesus to accomplish his work and return to heaven, he set out, determined to go to Jerusalem and suffer the consequences of our sins. He was resolute in carrying out his mission to redeem us.

Evaluate this statement: Jesus kept his eyes focused not just on Jerusalem, but on the necessity of his death.

  • Jesus knew the cross that awaited him. But he knew that our eternal well-being depended upon him. So he was determined to take the cross upon himself.

 How did we benefit as a result of Jesus’ resolve?

  • The result of Jesus’ resolve is our eternal welfare. We have life now and forever because of his resolve on our behalf.

 How does Jesus’ work influence our goals and promises?

  • Nothing is more important than the hope and peace that is ours through Christ.


Closing Prayer

  • Dear Jesus, our Savior, please help us to keep our resolutions, especially those that have spiritual implications. We live gratefully in you, for you carried out your resolution for us by dying on the cross. You did not shrink back from the most difficult task of all, because you were determined to bring benefit to us all. Instead of running away from our own good goals, help us to trust in you and overcome our fears of failure. In your name, our resurrected Lord, we pray. Amen.

_____________________

Quoted verses from: Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Posted by David Sellnow
29
Oct
2022

We Will Serve the Lord

Thoughts in focus on Joshua 24:13-15, in context of Joshua 24:1-26

As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

Years ago, I was canvassing for a church outreach project. After a less-than-friendly reception at many homes, I came to a house with a lovely engraved door knocker that said, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” I thought, “At least here I’ll find a warm welcome.” Yet when the homeowner answered my knocking, he was irritated that I was on his porch. He brushed me off abruptly and told me to go away. At the time I thought, “Well, so much for him and his household serving the Lord!” As I think back on it now, I’m less inclined to judge his motives. In retrospect, our door-to-door surveying wasn’t particularly helpful to our neighbors. We didn’t exactly go out to the community asking them how we could be of help to them. We weren’t engaging much in service to or projects with the community. We just wanted to add members to our congregation. Perhaps we zealous surveyors needed some rethinking on what it means to say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” 

I will admit, I have no great credentials to be lecturing you on what it means to serve the Lord. I spent much of my elementary school life writing “I will not  ____” 100 times on the chalkboard because of my behavior. I was called into the dean’s office multiple times in high school. I was called into the dean’s office multiple times in college. I’ll spare you the details of my transgressions–the ones back then and the ones since. If you want someone who has always obeyed all the rules to help you understand what it means to serve the Lord, I’m not your guy.  But what I propose is that for you, for me, for our households, serving the Lord isn’t merely making sure you have all obeyed all the rules. Serving the Lord isn’t about mouthing the right words or following a “commandment learned by rote” (Isaiah 29:13), but a matter of hearts that are drawn close into relationship with God. Our God can (and will) hold onto hearts of those who trust in him, even when their lives get complicated and confused and messy. The person whose heart is linked to the Lord, ready to serve, is more likely to be the tax collector who knows he doesn’t deserve heaven but prays, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” rather than the proud Pharisee who announces, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people … I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income” (cf. Luke 18:9-14).

The oft-quoted line, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” comes from a speech by Joshua at the beginning of Israel’s national history. When Joshua and his people had taken possession of lands that would come to be known as Israel, they held a solemn ceremony. Joshua rehearsed their history and called the people to faithful service. Promises were made to Abraham, to turn Abraham’s family into a great nation of descendants with a homeland in mind for them. Israel had grown into a nation within a nation when they were in Egypt. God sent Moses and Aaron to lead them out, to go to their promised land. They escaped Egypt, and Egypt’s army was destroyed. They spent many years living in the wilderness, without an established home. Then they were led to lands inhabited by the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and God handed them over to Israel (Joshua 24:2-13). 

Joshua’s speech summed it up all rather matter-of-factly. And we tend to think of the conquest of Canaan rather matter-of-factly–even in bold, heroic terms. Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, and the walls came tumbling down! But if you ponder it, there are challenging questions to consider. How do you deal with the fact that God’s chosen people were sent on a mission to eradicate other peoples and take possession of their territories? They had been given commands from God through Moses that described their mission in stark terms.  If the people they were dispossessing didn’t surrender peacefully, the Israelites were told to “make war” and “besiege” them and “put all males to the sword. … As for the towns of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance,” they they were taught by Moses, “you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. You shall annihilate them” (Deuteronomy 20:10-17).  

That’s fearsome language.  We’re told that God was using Israel to bring judgment upon those other nations, because of “the abhorrent practices of those nations” (Deuteronomy 18:9). Archaology supports the Bible’s record that those nations’ practices included even the ritual sacrifice of children. In a previous time, when the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah had exhausted God’s patience, fire rained down from heaven in judgment. In the days of Joshua, judgment by God was brought upon Canaan by the army of Israel. God made clear to the people of Israel that it was not because they were better or more worthy that they were being given these victories. It was because of God’s faithfulness to his own promises. He was fulfilling the oath he made to Israel’s ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, that this would be their land (Deuteronomy 9:4-5).  Joshua’s job was to establish a physical homeland for the people of Israel and to safeguard the boundary lines of their nation. This was no easy task in the midst of rival peoples who followed the worst of the tendencies of religion and ritual and power in this world. Within that territory, Israel needed to remain intact in order to keep the bloodline of the family of Abraham intact until the arrival of the Messiah, promised to come from Abraham’s descendants. 

So what it meant for Joshua and the Israelites to serve the Lord faithfully in their day had some very special circumstances. Thus Joshua addressed the people with some very stern language. He laid down the law heavily with them, warning they could come under God’s judgment too if they turned away from faithfulness. Their faithfulness involved following moral, civil, and ceremonial laws given through Moses, to maintain their identity as a people. God did not want them to fall into the ways of the people around them and “do all the abhorrent things that they [did] for their gods, and thus sin” against the LORD God (Deuteronomy 20:18). The LORD God wanted to keep his people from the coercion of idolatrous religion. The idols of the nations really are nothings; they cannot bring rain, they cannot provide hope (cf. Jeremiah 14:22).  Only the true Lord of heaven can send showers and offer salvation. He’s not the kind of God that you can please by burning your child alive in a fiery sacrifice. You may remember how the LORD God once presented Abraham with a challenge of fatih, asking him to sacrifice his own son Isaac–but then stopped him to show this is not how the LORD God is served. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a God who relates to his people, who knows and calls each of his people by name. The God of Abrahm, Isaac, and Jacob is someone who calls us into relationship with him, whose Spirit renews our hearts and minds so that we walk in willing agreement with his principles. Our God is not seeking to impose a way of oppression or slavish obedience to rules and power. The faith and way of life for the people of Israel was to be uniquely different from the ways of the world around them. For them as people of the LORD their God, most of all, their life of worship and faithfulness would be looking forward to and foreshadowing the promised Savior of all nations, who would come through their nation.

Let’s bear that in mind. In the midst of the sternness of the situation for the people of Israel–needing to establish and maintain their integrity in the midst of pagan neighbors–their main focus always was to look toward and trust in God’s promise of salvation.  For them to serve the Lord in ancient days (and for us to serve the Lord in our day) is, above all, a matter of clinging to the promises of God in Christ with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. When we say, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord,” think first of service to the gospel.  When Jesus was asked, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. … This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life” (John 6:28,29,40). Doing God’s will always has been, more than anything, about trusting his gospel promises.

Time and again, the Lord’s prophetic spokesmen reminded that the Lord says, “I desire steadfast love, and not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6; see also Micah 6:6-8, Psalm 51:1-2,16-17, Proverbs 21:3, 1 Samuel 15:22, Isaiah 55:1-7, Joel 2:12-13, Matthew 9:13, Matthew 12:7). It’s never sacrifices for sacrifices’ sake, or ritual for ritual’s sake, or commandments for commandments’ sake.  It’s always about mercy, about rescue, about following a God who chooses the weak, the insignificant, the forgotten, who gives grace to everyone–not rewards to those who think they’ve earned it by how pure or correct or straightlaced they have been.

It’s worth noting that as the people of Israel went forward, often it was not the formal leadership that got what “serving the Lord” truly meant. It wasn’t scribes and Pharisees counting every way to be law-obeyers and ritual-keepers. By the time of Jesus’ arrival, the ones whose hearts were in the right place were simple-hearted souls like a carpenter and his young bride (Joseph and Mary) like a very ordinary, rank and file, elderly priest and his wife (Zechariah and Elizabeth), like simple, devoted worshipers who frequented the temple, yearning for the coming of the Savior (Simeon and Anna). The ones who received the message of Jesus with joy when he arrived in this world were shepherds, fishermen, the sick and disabled, the poor and the needy, societal outcasts, sinners. Jesus said to the high and haughty religious leaders of the day, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Matthew 21:31).

So, in practice, what does it mean for us to serve the Lord?  Serving the Lord isn’t how many church functions you do or how many weekly or daily rituals you observe. Yes, we want to gather together in church. Yes, we want all members of the congregation to feel they have opportunities for service in ways that use their gifts and abilities. But the measure of your service to the Lord is not how many times you attend church or how many committees you join.

Back in the day, when I was doing door-knocking with a community religious survey in hand, one of the survey questions asked about religious involvement with a multiple choice question: “How often do you attend church?” The answer choices were:

___ Weekly
___ Once or twice a month
___ A couple times each year
___ Not at all

There were many community members (in the Bible Belt town where we were surveying) who got very offended at the question.  They would look at that question and respond, “You need another answer on here! I go three times a week–Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night prayer meeting!” They insisted that our survey records give them full credit for how much they were doing for the Lord. I don’t doubt the sincerity of their faith, but many of them seemed to have the emphasis in the wrong place–on their obedience, their diligence, their actions. When Jesus pictured the day of judgment and the Son of Man saying to those who are found righteous, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me” (Matthew 25:35-36), the response of the righteous is not, “Hey, God, you forgot to list how many times I went to church! And you forgot to list the times I helped an elderly lady across the street and how I did my neighbors’ yard work while they were away.”  Those whose hearts are genuine in serving the Lord aren’t keeping a scorecard.  They are simply living and breathing the gospel. God’s Spirit is alive in them. 

Jesus summed up what it means to serve the Lord in a few words:  “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34).  This wasn’t new in the sense of never having been stated before. The primary path for serving the Lord also in Old Testament times was living in love toward others. Joshua and the Israelites had a unique assignment when they were asked to take hold of a physical homeland for their nation.  But the primary calling for God’s people in serving the Lord in their day-to-day lives was: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart” (Deuteronomy 6:5) and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).  The ancient command to love our neighbor has remained always true and was given revitalized emphasis by Jesus and his apostles.  Paul said, if we speak “in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love,” we are just noisy gongs, clanging cymbals.  If we “have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and … have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love,” we are nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-2).  John wrote, “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent us his Son … Since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. … If we love one another, God lives in us” (1 John 4:10-12).

Sometimes church folk have fallen into a misguided way of thinking about our mission in the world: thinking of our service to the Lord primarily as a battle against evil and evildoers. If we overdo that idea, we too easily cast ourselves in the role of godly warriors who stand against our enemies and must beat them down to defeat them. Then we start thinking of every neighbor who is different from us as someone we must oppose and push away. It’s as if we made the specialized mission Joshua and Israel had for a limited time in history into an ongoing crusade for all Christians for all time.  In doing so, we lose sight of our primary mission. Our primary mission, as Peter said, is: “Above all, maintain constant love for one another …. Be hospitable to one another …. Serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received” (1 Peter 4:8-10).  As Paul put it, “The love of Christ urges us on … so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.” We serve the Lord by engaging with our world with a ministry of reconciliation, of hope, of friendship. “We are ambassadors for Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:14-20).

Maybe, a song called “Onward Christ’s ambassadors, reaching out in peace” wouldn’t have the same ring to it as “Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war.” But we’d do well to change our tune in that direction.  We are ambassadors more than we are warriors. God makes his appeal through us to bring others into relationship with us and with God through Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20).  The Lord whom we serve, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is one who desires a heartfelt, deep relationship with each of us, by name. We serve him by living in love and relationship with others.

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.

 

Posted by David Sellnow
16
May
2022

Love for all, good news for all

A message for the 5th Sunday of Easter

“Love for All, Good News for All”

Readings to consider:  Acts 11:1-18, John 13:31-35


All along, God had made his mission clear. While God had chosen the nation of Israel to carry his promise until the promised Messiah came, his promise always was for everyone.  All people were to be told his good news and welcomed into God’s family through faith, hope, and love.  God described, through the prophet Isaiah, that it was too small a thing for the Messiah to be just for tribes of Jacob, the people of Israel. Rather, the Savior would be given as “a light to the nations,” for God’s salvation to “reach to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6).  God’s people in Christ never have been defined on the basis of the blood running through their veins, but rather on faith in the promises of Christ that lives in their hearts. 

The earliest group of New Testament believers—the church that had gathered around Jesus’ message in Judea and Galilee—was a Jewish church.  As they shared the message of Jesus–how he had fulfilled all the long-awaited promises—their natural tendency was to share the message with other Jews, people like themselves. But the Lord showed Peter, one of the key leaders of the early church, that they needed to expand their vision.  

Peter’s vision by Domenico Fetti (1619)

God gave Peter a profound experience in a vision, then brought Peter to the household of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, to see faith in action there. Peter said to Cornelius and those with him, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality,  but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. … All the prophets testify about [Christ] that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:34,35.43). Peter witnessed a strong outpouring of God’s Spirit on the members of that Gentile household. They were people so different from Peter and his colleagues culturally, but they were united by faith as one in the name of Jesus.

If those early Jewish Christians, so deeply rooted in their unique customs and traditions, could begin reaching outside of their cultural community to people very much unlike themselves … what does that say to churches like ours today? We are people who have had the gospel for a long time, who have been blessed richly in our faith community.  But have we been a bit slow, a bit reluctant, a bit hesitant, about speaking of salvation outside of our comfort zone, outside of the rather narrow circles in which our paths usually run?  

Think about the vision God gave Peter–a vision of all kinds of animals for food that would be unthinkable for a Jewish person observing a kosher diet. The vision was about much more than cultural diet laws, though. Peter came to understand God’s essential point–“What God has made clean, you must not call profane” (Acts 11:9)–meant that we should not call any person profane or unclean (cf. Acts 10:28).  Do we tend to think of some persons as unclean, unsuitable, unwelcome alongside us in God’s family?  Do we look at people whose ways are different from ours, or whose background is different from ours, or whose lifestyle is different from ours, and completely overlook them as souls with whom to share God’s love and hope and truth?

God wants us to reach out more boldly, more widely with his good news—not just to people like ourselves, but also to people dramatically different from us.  Otherwise we are putting limits on the love of Jesus. When Jesus said, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34), he wasn’t telling us to love only those already inside our fellowship within the church. Jesus’ call to “have love for one another” (John 13:35) encompasses every other person around us, every fellow human being. Jesus emphasized, as one of the greatest commandments: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). And do you recall how a religious lawyer tried to wriggle away from that responsibility by saying, “And who is my neighbor” (Luke 10:29)?  Jesus responded with the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-35), referring to a people group that Jewish lawyer detested and would have gone out of his way to avoid.  Jesus made quite clear that someone who shows mercy to his fellow human beings–every fellow human being–is the one fulfilling the law of love as a true “neighbor” (cf. Luke 10:37, Romans 13:8-10).

Allow me to share a couple of examples that illustrate how we can be too inclined to limit ourselves and our outreach with the gospel.

A number of years ago, I did a ministry internship in one of America’s largest cities.  The congregations of the metro area were planning expansion, looking at locations for planting additional churches.  I was assigned to do demographic research, to find out which portions of the urban sprawl were projected for population expansion.  This would give cues about where future church work might be warranted.  I didn’t really know the city yet; to me, the research was simply a matter of maps and statistics.  The area I suggested deserved immediate attention, because of swelling numbers of residents, turned out to be a section of slums.  Others on the planning committee looked at me incredulously.  “Put a church where?”  Their pattern had been to put churches in the suburbs, in affluent neighborhoods, so that the ministry efforts could be paid for by offerings from the people who came. The mission planners asked, “How could we afford to start a ministry where the people had no money to support it?” That seemed to go against the spirit of what sharing God’s grace and goodness is meant to look like.* Yes, as we bring others to the gospel, we will urge them to become supporters of gospel ministry themselves. But when the apostle Paul was doing outreach and starting new churches, he made a point not to accept money from people. As he put it, he and his missionary colleagues did not want to put any “an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ” (1 Corinthians 9:12).  A policy of doing outreach only where it seemed the efforts could be financially self-supporting was a form of structural discrimination, neglecting poorer populations who needed gospel love as much as anyone. Such a policy risks Jesus saying to us, “Just as you did not help the least of these who are members of my family, you did not help me” (cf. Matthew 25:40,45). Rather than viewing prospective audiences for the gospel from a worldly point of view, we are called to be “ambassadors for Christ” (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:16-20), reaching out to all persons, without making distinctions. 

Or another story.**  A church had just had summertime Vacation Bible School (VBS).  One young mother had brought her two boys to VBS.  She also babysat another boy who lived in the same apartment complex.  She had asked that boy’s mother if she could bring him to the VBS too, and so she did.

That little boy, who was 5 years old, enjoyed VBS so much that he went home and told his mother, “I want to go to school there all the time!”  [The church had a Lutheran elementary school, starting with kindergarten.]  So the boy’s mother asked about enrolling him for the fall.

The boy’s mother—we’ll call her Sally—was a working mom.  Her profession was the oldest one around, as they say.  She had made her living as a prostitute; had made enough, in fact, to buy the business from … well, we’ll call him the ‘previous owner.’   So now Sally was the proprietor or “madam” for a number of “working girls.”

The church had a policy that any parents who wished to enroll children in its school needed to enroll themselves in a Bible study course.  Sally agreed with that; she said she’d be glad to take the Bible course if they could work it around her schedule.  So, at the next meeting of the congregation’s board of education, the pastor and the ministry intern brought forward the recommendation for Sally’s son to be enrolled in the school … and told them what the woman did for a living.

The school board members panicked.  They erupted with questions:

  • “Pastor, do you really want us to enroll this child in our school?”
  • “Are you sure the mother actually will take the Bible classes?” 
  • “What effect will this child’s presence in our school have on the other children?”
  • “Won’t this cause worries for other parents?”
  • “How can we expect support at home with Bible homework or principles of Christian living when the mother’s life is so at odds with our church’s moral principles?”

The members of that church’s school board were faithful, believing Christians.  But their gut reaction was not from an attitude of new life in Christ.  The pastor reminded them of how Jesus’ own ministry reached out to prostitutes and other public sinners. Still, though, they struggled to get past their aversions.  Each of us typically has the same aversions.   Our thought process is something like, “Well, yes, I know prostitutes and drug addicts and alcoholics and ex-convicts all need to hear the gospel … but do they have to do it in our church?”

Eventually, the Christian love in the hearts of the members of that church committee rose to the occasion.  They talked about the spiritual welfare of the child and how it was unthinkable to turn him away from the gospel he so loved when he heard it at VBS.  They talked about a mother who, in spite of her personal history, was willing to listen to Bible teaching—and about trusting the dynamic power of the gospel’s teaching.  So Sally’s son was enrolled in school, and Sally was enrolled in a Bible information class.  Long story short, not only was Sally’s son nurtured in the good news of Jesus, but also Sally herself was brought to faith and made changes in her life. 

May our attitude as Christians be inspired by the goodness the Lord has shown to us. May we be big-hearted and open-armed and opportunistic when it comes to declaring the praises of him who has called us “out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).  May we not be content declaring God’s name only to persons with whom we feel a sort of safeness, people who look like us or act like us or come from the same sort of background as us.  May we be bold to extend our hands and express our beliefs also to those very different from ourselves—whether that means different racial or ethnic backgrounds, or different religious backgrounds, or different moral backgrounds.  Because, in the end, as human beings, we all came from the same background of needing God in our lives. We ought not think of ourselves as somehow better than others, somehow more deserving than others, somehow more inherently righteous than others. We all do well to say, in a paraphrase of St. Paul, “There, but for the grace of God, go I” (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:9-10). Or, to quote Paul directly from one of his epistles, “There is no distinction [between us], since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God [and] are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:22-24).

That is the message we seek to share, across every human barrier that exists. God’s love is for all. Christ’s good news is for all. We will share that love and good news with all. May God give us eagerness and energy to extend his grace and support the spread of his Word to everyone everywhere. 

Prayer:  “Lord speak to us, that we may speak in living echoes of your tone. As you have sought, so let us seek your straying children, lost and lone” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship 676:1).  Amen.

*This story was previously published in Faith Lives in Our Actions by David Sellnow, available on Amazon.com.

**A version of this story, expanded from the actual events, was included in the book, The Lord Cares for Me, by David Sellnow, available on Amazon.com.

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.

 

Posted by David Sellnow
22
Feb
2022

Why church?

I initially sketched out the thoughts of this post as a conversation starter for a church committee. I’ve reworked the thoughts for sharing here.  Feel free to join the conversation here via comments, or to share with others if you find the thoughts useful.

********

Why church?

Our mutual need for spiritual encouragement

Attendance at church services was dropping year by year before COVID happened. Getting people back into church settings after pandemic lockdowns added further challenges. When anyone can access anything they want online, including spiritual videos and writings, who needs church?

We do need church … although not necessarily in the sense of buildings we meet in. Martin Luther reminded us that a building “should not be called a church except for the single reason that the group of people assembles there.” Those who gather give the house of worship the name “church” by virtue of their assembly (Large Catechism: Apostles Creed). We gather in order to connect with each other and with the Lord, to keep “encouraging one another” (Hebrews 10:25). The first Christians (in the first century) didn’t have church buildings to meet in. They gathered in each other’s homes. They met wherever they could meet, knowing that holding onto hope and living in love wasn’t easy (cf. Hebrews 10:23-24). Like those first century believers, we still need community with each other and communion with God. As another writer on this blog has attested: “The benefit of having a close community with your church is immeasurable–a family of believers who all look out for one another in love, support each other in faith, and build each other up” (The Electric Gospel, 6/13/2014).

Image credit: Liturgy.co.nz

As Christians, we want to share the life and fellowship that we have with others. We invite others to join us in church–to be included in our prayers, in our songs, in listening to words from God together with us. At the same time, we seek to extend Christ’s message outside the church walls too, in every form of outreach available to us. Technology has been a blessing, allowing us to connect with persons near and far through blogs, emails, videoconferencing and live streaming. Where the ancient church used letters (“epistles”), disseminated from congregation to congregation, we rely on the information technologies of our time to stay in touch.  If you’re reading this as someone outside the church, and you’re not yet comfortable stepping inside a church, by all means explore, browse, stream, investigate from where you are. Look for ministries that convey Christ’s love and welcome for all people. Listen for the warmth of Christ that says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). I pray you will find a gospel-focused ministry in your area that could become a church home for you.

I’ve known plenty of people who have been uneasy about churches and ministries, as they had been deeply hurt by religious institutions and individuals. There are now institutes and studies examining religious trauma, which usually stems from struggles within an authoritarian religion or religious group, and then persons begin to “question the true extent of what they’ve been taught to believe” (Apricity Behavioral Health, 2020). There are podcasts, such as Cafeteria Christian, for listeners who want a connection to Jesus but have been disillusioned by the actions of many professed Christians. It’s understandable for non-churchgoers to be skeptical of the church. It’s imperative for those of us who are churchgoers to show our neighbors that they truly are welcome in our community.  The church is to be a place for mutual spiritual uplifting, a place where Jesus guides how we treat one another: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37).   When someone is in need of encouragement and seeks spiritual guidance (whether by attendance at church or accessing ministries online), we want them to know they have a friend in Jesus–and in us.

Let people come together–inside the church and through the extended outreach of the church–in ways that provide mutual spiritual encouragement in the spirit of the Savior.

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Just as I am, though tossed about
with many a conflict, many a doubt,
fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, thy love unknown
has broken ev’ry barrier down;
now to be thine, yea, thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

– “Just As I Am,” Charlotte Elliott (1835)

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.

Posted by David Sellnow