June 17, 2012 - Spiritual Gifts: The Three R's - Encouragement

Acts 9:19b-21; 26-31

I was sitting at an intersection the other day when another vehicle pulled up beside me.  It was one of those intersections where the light takes a long time to change.  I noticed a couple about my age occupied the other vehicle.   He was sitting in the passenger seat, so I had a good view of his actions.  He was very, very impatient as he waited on the light to change.  He was bouncing around in his seat, making repeated obscene gestures at the traffic light, and appeared to be yelling at the other person in the car with him.  She looked as though she wanted to put him out of he vehicle and leave him.  When the light finally changed, I was driving along in the lane next to them for a little bit of a distance and he was still wound up, and still appeared to be yelling. 

I really felt sorry for the woman riding with him.  Who wants to be around someone acting in such a way?  Words and actions can either build up others, or tear them down.  When someone is impatient or angry and dumping a load of negativity on someone else it can create a wound that takes a long time to heal.

We are in the midst of a series of messages based on spiritual gifts.  I am grouping the gifts under three headings – Relational, Revelatory, and Redemptive.  Today we come to the gift of encouragement.  Did you know encouragement was a spiritual gift?  It’s a gift of great importance.

Our text for today tells us of a man who embodied the gift of encouragement.  His name was Joseph, although we know him by his nickname of Barnabas.  Acts 4:36 tells us that Joseph was given the nickname of Barnabas by the apostles.  Barnabas means son of encouragement.  Joseph was so well-known for his encouragement that he was given a name to reflect his gift for encouragement. 

As we talk about the gift of encouragement this morning we’ll look at some of the ways that Barnabas lived out his gift of encouragement.

 An encourager is someone who is faithful to others.

Has there been a time in your life when someone demonstrated faithfulness to you?  Perhaps they spoke on your behalf, or stood with you when others wouldn’t.  That’s a powerful experience, isn’t it, when someone is faithful.

One of the ways faithfulness is demonstrated is to speak on behalf of another person.

Our Scripture reading for today relates this interesting event that takes place after Paul’s conversion.  Remember that Paul had been a persecutor of the church and was converted as he traveled to arrest people who were followers of Jesus.  After his conversion there was a great deal of suspicion about Paul.  Many in the early church wanted nothing to do with him.  Luke tells us that when Paul came to Jerusalem he tried to join the other disciples but they resisted because they were afraid of Paul and they didn’t believe his faith was genuine.

It’s not easy to stand up and speak against a crowd.  It’s tough to go against the majority opinion.  But notice what Barnabas does – he brings Paul to the apostles and speaks on his behalf.  Barnabas tells the apostles about Paul’s faith and he is the one who opens the door of opportunity for Paul.  Barnabas stands before the apostles and the leaders of the early church to say you’re wrong about this guy.  Imagine the difference if Barnabas had not been willing to stand up for Paul and speak on his behalf.

Barnabas later traveled with Paul on his first missionary journey, and they took Mark along with them.  Mark did not complete the journey, returning home after completing only a portion of the trip.  When they were preparing for their second journey Paul refused to allow Mark to go with them, because he did not complete the first trip.  Barnabas was caught in the middle, as he felt Mark should be able to travel with them, but Paul was adamant that Mark not be permitted to accompany them.  Barnabas remained faithful to Mark, traveling with Mark while Paul chose Silas to accompany him.

Paul should have given Mark a second chance.  Because Barnabas advocated on behalf of Paul, Paul should have been willing to give Mark another chance, but he didn’t.  Paul was too quick, I think, in his willingness to leave Mark behind, but Barnabas, ever the encourager, was willing to take up for Mark, and to stand with him.  What would have become of Mark, and his ministry, if Barnabas had not remained loyal to him?

I had a time in my life where I felt very alone and abandoned.  It was a very, very difficult time.  One of the things that meant a great deal to me was having people who were faithful to me, and spoke on my behalf.  Life would be very different for me if they had not done so.

An encourager is someone who cares about the needs of others.

In Acts 4:36-37 Barnabas makes his first appearance. The passage relates that Barnabas sold a piece of property and brought the proceeds of the sale to the apostles.  Interestingly, the story that follows immediately is that of Ananias and Sapphira, who also sold some property but only brought a portion of the proceeds, while trying to mislead the apostles into thinking they were giving more than they really were giving.  Barnabas becomes an example of faithful giving, as he offers what he has to care for the needs of others.  Barnabas, along with Paul, later received a collection from other churches to aid the church in Jerusalem.  Many of the members of the church in Jerusalem were in great need, and Barnabas worked very hard to provide for their needs.

An encourager is one who cares about the needs of others, but it’s not just financial needs.  Some people need the gift of time, some need the gift of a listening ear, some need the gift of an encouraging phone call or note. 

For years I was really terrible about writing notes to people, which is odd because I so value receiving encouraging notes from others.  In recent years I’ve tried to do better, and my goal is to write a couple of encouraging letters each week.  Doing keeps me observant of what others, because I’m looking to see if someone needs a word of thanks or a word of encouragement.   I could still do better, but I’m trying. 

Take a few moments to do something encouraging each week.  Take a few minutes and write a note.  Take a few moments and make a phone call.  Take a few moments and make a visit.  You make a huge difference when you demonstrate a caring attitude about the needs of others.

An encourager makes a lasting difference in the lives of others.

Barnabas is not one of the “household Biblical names.”  We are so much more familiar with Moses, Abraham, David, Peter, Paul, Mary, and others. Barnabas receives only a few mentions in the pages of Scripture.  Much of his work was done out of the spotlight. But his work was very important, and his encouragement made a lasting difference in the lives of others.  The encouragement of Barnabas made possible the ministry of others, including people such as Paul, who became much better known.  Encouragement, or lack of it, makes a lasting difference in the lives of others. 

Some years ago I was with a group passing out food.  It was a hot summer day, there was a long line, and we ran out of some of the food items.  A man came through the line and when he came to where I was standing, he started to complain to me.  They weren’t big complaints.  He said he didn’t get some of the food items he saw others carrying.  I was hot, tired, and a bit frustrated, and I unleashed my frustration on him.  In front of all the people who were in that place I told him he was ungrateful, that we were doing the best we could do, and if he didn’t like it that was too bad.

He didn’t say much in response.  Neither did anyone else.  What I did was wrong, it was embarrassing for everyone, and it was also a moment that is hard for anyone to forget, because words and attitudes – positive or negative – reach deeply into our hearts, our souls, and our minds, and they stay there.

The man walked out with his box of food and I tried to convince myself that I was perfectly justified in lecturing him, but I wasn’t.  I went in search of him and thankfully I found him.  I apologized to him and he was very gracious.  He even told me that he had been in the wrong, but he wasn’t.

A discouraging word makes a lasting impression, as does an encouraging word.  I can’t go back and erase what I said.  That man needed an encouraging word and I didn’t offer it to him.  Other people needed to see me as an example of being an encourager and they did not.

An encourager – or discourager – makes a lasting impact in the lives of others.

Who are you a Barnabas to?  Who needs you to be a Barnabas?  The gift of encouragement is one that we can develop.  We can learn to be an encourager.  Be an encourager – there are people who need encouragement from you.

June 10, 2012 - Spiritual Gifts: The Three R's

Ephesians 4:4-6, 11-13

There are some people who possess extraordinary abilities.  A classmate of mine in college is a concert-level pianist.  I would marvel at his ability, and though I haven’t heard him play in years, I imagine he has increased in his ability.  He is the kind of person we describe as possessing a real gift. A gift, we often think, is an ability that rises to the level of being extraordinary. 

Perhaps this is why we sometimes claim we don’t have any gifts.  We don’t see ourselves as possessing any particularly extraordinary ability, so we assume we must not be gifted.  As we continue our series of messages about spiritual gifts I want to remind you that each person has been given a spiritual gift.

In the coming weeks I am going to go through the generally accepted list of gifts and spend a few minutes talking about each gift.  I say the generally accepted list of gifts because there are some variations.  In thinking about how to present these gifts, I decided to place them under three categories – Relational, Revelatory, and Redemptive – the three R’s.  The Relational gifts are, obviously, those gifts that deal with relationships among people.  The Revelatory gifts are those that deal with some matter of insight – something that has been revealed by the power of God.  The Redemptive gifts are those that have the effect of changing the life of another person.

There are seventeen gifts I will be dealing with in the coming weeks, and I will not have the time for any in-depth discussion of each gift.  What I hope to accomplish is to provide you with at least a brief explanation of each gift and also an idea or two of how those gifts can be used.

These are the gifts, according to category –

    Apostleship

   Encouragement

   Evangelism

   Pastoring

   Assisting

   Leadership

    Prophecy

   Teaching

   Knowledge

   Wisdom

   Discernment

   Tongues/Interpretation

    Giving

   Compassion

   Miracles

   Healing

   Faith

Apostle is a word we use to refer to the disciples who were the closest followers of Jesus – the original twelve plus Matthias, who replaced Judas, and also Paul.  The word means to serve as an ambassador on behalf of another person.

The gift of apostleship has a number of expressions but I want to mention a couple in particular.

The first expression is that of being a spiritual entrepreneur.  To explain the idea of a spiritual entrepreneur I’ll tell you about a friend of mine who is a minister, although he never set out to be a minister.  I was his youth minister years ago and he used to tell me that he couldn’t imagine being a minister and that he would never do such a thing.  He is the founding minister of a church and I am always impressed at his intuitive understanding of how to reach people and how to build a church.  He would be a great business entrepreneur, I think, because he just has an instinct for knowing not only how to do things but also an instinct for knowing what to do.  I always ask him the same question – how did you know to do that?

The gift of apostleship is one that brings creativity to people, it is the kind of gift that allows people to think outside of the box and look at life in a unique way.  It is a gift that we really, really need these days, as the world is changing so dramatically and as the old ways of doing things are no longer very effective.

If you find yourself thinking we don’t have to do the same old thing.  We can do something differently, you probably have the gift of apostleship.

Apostleship is also the gift of being able to reach across the things that divide people – the divides of class, ethnicity, language, economics – all those things that create divisions between people.  This was a gift the apostle Paul had in great measure.  While the other apostles were mostly content to stay in the area of Jerusalem and reach out to people with whom they were familiar and comfortable, Paul was the one who was talking the gospel to the larger world.  Paul ventured out into the world of the Romans and the Greeks, and his doing so was very controversial within the early church.  In fact, the book of Acts, in chapter 15, tells us of the Council at Jerusalem.  The Council at Jerusalem was a gathering called to bring together all the leaders of the early church to try and decide what to do about all the people who were coming into the church who were different.  They weren’t Jewish, they didn’t observe the dietary rules, they didn’t speak the same language, and that bothered a lot of people.  Barriers were being erected to try to keep people away because of their differences.  Imagine – so many people were responding to the gospel and some of the leaders were so unnerved by this great response they were trying to slow it down.  Can you imagine? 

Paul was the one who was reaching out to these people who were different.  Peter, the one who was arguably closest to Jesus, even had misgivings about what Paul was doing.  He was nervous about all these new and different people coming into the church.  Paul even says in Galatians 3:11 when Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong.  Ever read that verse before?  Isn’t that an amazing verse?  Peter was wrong and Paul publicly confronted him about his error.

We live in a day and age when we are becoming so afraid of the other.  We find ourselves uncomfortable with those who are not like us and there are those who, for their own purposes and gain, are exploiting those differences and the fear of those differences.

Oh that we could be as Paul, unafraid of stepping across cultural divides and embracing others.  If you love variety, if you love to meet new and different people, if you are embrace rather than fear diversity, you have the gift of apostleship, and in our present day and age how we need that gift.

My mom has been the organist for my home church for almost as long as I can remember.  She also plays the piano for the choir.  My mom had some months of piano lessons when she was young but couldn’t continue because her family couldn’t afford the lessons, so for most of her life she was self-taught.  She took some organ lessons not too many years ago, but it was something she was determined to learn on her own, and she did, and became a very good organist and piano player.  Some years back my home church had a music director who was the wife of the minister.  She was a very nice person, but was one of those people who don’t have a filter on what they say.  Sometimes she would say things that bothered people but she had no clue she had done so.  She once told my mom that she was adequate as a piano and organ player.  Adequate.  Can you imagine?  How would you like to be referred to as adequate?  Go home and try that one out.  Honey, I just want to let you know you’re the most adequate wife ever. You’re an adequate parent.  You’re an adequate employee.  You’re an adequate son or daughter.  Who wants to be adequate?  God doesn’t want you to be adequate – that’s why he has created you as a special and unique person with gifts you can use to make a difference in the world.  

You have something to offer, you have something to give to this world.  Take the gift God has given you and turn it loose for the world!

June 3, 2012 - Spiritual Gifts: The Building Blocks of Unity

I Corinthians 12:14-31

This is graduation time of year, which means a lot of soul-searching about what to do with one’s life.  What a huge question to consider!  Can you remember wondering what to do with your life?  Some of you are asking that question right now (and some of you who graduated years back may be still asking it).  It’s a tough question, isn’t it?

When we think about what to do vocationally in life we are actually asking a much deeper question, I think.  When we consider what to do with our lives we are actually searching for a way to make our lives count, to know that our lives matter, to know our lives make a difference in this world.

I think most people would like to earn a large salary, but I also believe most people would trade money for a vocation that allows them to make a difference in the lives of other people and a difference in the world.  How many of you would prefer to have meaning in life than money?

This morning we begin a sermon series on spiritual gifts, one of the most overlooked – and one of the most important – topics in who we are as people.

I believe God created every person with two things – one, a gift to use to make a difference in the world, and two, a desire to make a difference.  As you look around society today you will see ample evidence of that second truth.  Businesses sponsor days of service to encourage their employees to be involved in making a difference in their community.  Schools encourage community involvement.  And for those of you who have been applying to colleges, you may have discovered those schools are looking at more than simply grades and test scores – they are looking for involvement in service projects.  In fact, I knew a brilliant young man who had off-the-chart test scores.  His SAT was almost a perfect score.  His ACT was near the top.  He graduated with a 4.0.  A brilliant young man.  And yet he was turned down by his first choices of schools, not because he was lacking academically, but because he had not been involved in service projects.

This desire to serve – this expectation to serve – is a direct result of the faith that permeates our culture.  This is one of the gifts of Christian faith to our culture, that we should serve and that we are created to serve.

This is the essence of spiritual gifts – God has given you a gift to make the world a better place and to help others and he wants you to put that gift to use.  We are called as a church to help you discover that gift and to put it to use.

But sometimes churches don’t do a very good job of this, and I’ll tell you why – it’s because churches don’t always understand this is one of the foundations of what they were created and called to do. 

I’ve been in a lot of churches throughout the course of my life, and most churches want to create a sense of unity.  Unity is a good thing, but many churches go about it completely wrong.  Most churches try to build unity on a sense of agreement.  That will never happen, and it shouldn’t happen.  Why should we have to agree on everything?  What a boring world that would be!

The New Testament definition of unity is built on a very different idea, and it’s found in the passage we read this morning.  Paul says unity is found when each person discovers and uses their spiritual gift.  Isn’t that an interesting definition of unity? 

To Paul, the church is like a physical body – each part has a particular function, and when all the parts work there is health in the body.  What do we do when something is not functioning properly with our bodies?  We go to the doctor to get it fixed.  We want everything to work properly, don’t we?

Church health and church unity is not based on agreement and it’s not based on everyone getting along and it’s not based on an absence of conflict – church unity is based on people using their spiritual gifts.

Remember these truths –

You have a gift.

Many people say, reflexively, I don’t have a gift.  Maybe some people feel it’s too arrogant to say I have this gift, but it’s simply recognizing a reality of how we are created by God.

We have provided spiritual gifts tests that help to identify specific gifts, and I hope you have taken the opportunity to work through one of those tests.  But here is one of the simplest tests when it comes to spiritual gifts – what is your passion?  I had a young lady ask me some years ago about how to become a singer.  Like I know anything about singing.  She has a beautiful singing voice and it is truly a gift.  I told her she was a singer, but she started asking questions about how to perform and how to find opportunities to sing.  What she was really asking was how can I make a living as a singer?  If you have a passion for singing, sing.  If you have a passion for writing, write.  If you have a passion for organizing, call me, I need help with that one.

We must learn to separate gifts from vocation.  In our culture we become so concentrated on vocation that we define ourselves by what we do for a living rather than by the gifts God has given us. 

It’s interesting to note that very few Biblical characters are identified by their vocation.  We know there were a couple of fishermen and that Paul was a tentmaker, but for the most part vocation is never mentioned. 

You have a gift, and it is that gift that defines your life far more than what you do in order to earn a living.  Throughout the summer we’ll be talking about some of the spiritual gifts, and I hope it will help you to identify your gift and inspire you to find ways to put it to use.

God desires that you use that gift.

I’m not saying this as a pitch on behalf of the Nominating Committee.  It’s not that God needs you to use your gift, or that the church needs you to use your gift – you need to use your gift.

I’m fascinated at what happens on mission trips or other activities that are based on service.  They are not usually the easiest of circumstances.  They often have bad accommodations, so-so food, it’s hard and tiring work, but at some point in during the trip people will say this has been one of the best times of my life, or perhaps the best time of my life.  In fact, I had a young man on a mission trip once who complained as we traveled to our location that he did not want to be there.  His parents pushed him to go and he kept telling me that he didn't want to go.  By the end of the week, though, he told me it had been one of the best weeks of his life.

How can that be?  How can giving up a chunk of your precious time, sleeping on a hard floor, and eating bad food be the basis for one of the best times of your life?  It’s because we are fulfilling a desire that God places within us.  We certainly enjoy a vacation where we get away and relax and do what we want to do, but when we give of our lives to serve others we touch something far deeper within us – we touch that part of us that makes us understand we are doing something significant with our lives.

You are called to use your gift.

I think we make too much of a distinction when we use the word calling.  Most of the time we reserve the word calling for ministers and people who do ministry as a vocation.  But the reality is that we are all called, and we are called to use the gifts God has given us.

In May of 1978 Tanya and I had only been dating a couple of months.  It was the end of the semester and her brother had come to campus to help her take her things home for the summer.  I was in the lobby of her dorm when he came in.  He’s a year and a half younger than Tanya so at the time he was almost 17, and all punk and swagger.

Mike and I had not met at that point.  I still remember his first words to me.  He came strutting over to me and said, so, I hear God has called you to be a minister.  How did you know, did he whisper in your ear or something?  What a punk.

But he asked a good question.  I know I have been called because we have all been called.

God has given you a gift, and he calls you to use it.  People need you to use your gift to make a difference in their lives.  You need to use your gift to make a difference in your life.

May 13, 2012 - Welcome to the Real World

Genesis 29:14b-19; 21a; 22-23a; 25-28; 30b

Does anyone remember the TV show An American Family?  Premiering on May 30, 1971 on PBS, there were twelve episodes featuring Bill and Pat Loud and their children.  It was the first reality television show, and was quite controversial at the time.  It took a “typical” American family, placed them in front of the lens of a TV camera, and then broadcast their lives to the world.  In the process the family unraveled, and millions of people were riveted to their TV screens to watch.  Before that show, most families were seen on TV as a Leave It To Beaver family, with the appearance that everything is fine in most homes.  An American Family lifted the lid off of the American home and presented the real world of family life.

As I’ve said before, the Bible presents the lives of its characters in all their dysfunction, struggles, ups and downs – it shows us the real world of human life.  There are no illusions or false pretenses given in Scripture.  What churches have tended to do, unfortunately, is to polish up the lives of the Biblical characters, put halos on them, and thus removed them from the reality of every day life.

We can do the same thing with Mother’s Day.  It’s a great holiday but it can also mask a lot of pain that people face – the pain of wayward children, the pain of struggling relationships, the pain of missing spouses, the pain of a missing mother, and the pain of those who were unable to have children.

Our Scripture reading for this morning presents some interesting characters to us, and it gives us a glimpse into the very real world of their relationships and struggles.  This is a small part of the longer story of the life of Jacob, and as we examine what happens between Jacob, his father-in-law/uncle Laban, and his wives Leah and Rachel, we find their real world was one of struggle, pain, conflict, deception, and heartbreak.  I would encourage you to find time and read the entire story of Jacob as found in Genesis chapters 27 – 37 and 49 – 50.  It will make you feel better about your life and family.

Today’s part of the story begins with Jacob living with and working for his uncle, Laban.  After a month Laban comes to Jacob and tells him he would like to pay him for his labors.  Laban had two daughters – Leah and Rachel, and he was certainly aware that Jacob was in love with Rachel.  The Bible describes Rachel as lovely in form, and beautiful.  She was hot.  Leah is described as having weak eyes (17).  Poor Leah!  The good news is she is immortalized in Scripture, but the bad news is that it’s with the description of having weak eyes.  It was a nice way of saying she was not very attractive.  It's the Biblical way of saying she has a nice personality.

Jacob is so head-over-heels in love with Rachel he is easy picking for Laban.  Love is a wonderful thing, but it can sometimes cloud our thinking.  When I first met Tanya I started showing up early in the morning at the library because I knew that’s where she would be.  My roommate had to tell me where I could find the library.  I started going to Shakespeare plays with her, and at that point in my life I had absolutely no interest in Shakespeare.

Jacob has it bad.  So bad, he tells Laban he will work for him for seven years if he can marry Rachel.  Laban, I imagine, was quite shocked.  And Genesis says that Jacob served seven years...but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her (20).  Now there’s a Mother’s Day story.  You know kids, your father loved me so much he worked seven years for my father before we were married.  I’ll leave out the part about your grandfather cheating him and all the other things that happened, but isn’t that a nice story?

The seven years are finally complete and Laban gives a feast but there is no happily ever after.  Jacob wakes up in the morning and finds he is married not to Rachel, but to her sister Leah.  Jacob reaps what he has sown.  Jacob, the deceiver, has been deceived.  Entering his father’s tent, Jacob deceived him in order to steal away his older brother’s blessing.  Now he entered into another tent only to find he has been deceived by his father-in-law.

We could ask how many people find out the person they married is not really the person they thought they knew?  What happened to that kind, funny person I was dating?  There is never any harm in taking plenty of time to get to know the person you are going to marry.  There is never a need to be in a hurry.

Jacob is incensed by the deception and confronts Laban.  Laban, who plotted to do this from the beginning.  Laban calmly tells Jacob it is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one.  At that point Jacob is probably ready to say you could have mentioned that seven years ago!  Laban tells Jacob he can marry Rachel, if he agrees to work for another seven years.  Jacob agrees, and a week later he and Rachel marry, and Jacob goes to work for his father-in-law for another seven years.

Verse 30 gives us this interesting piece of information – and he loved Rachel more than Leah.  Now there’s a reality show for you.  And also a source of clients for a counseling service.  Your father-in-law deceives you, you end up married to two women who are sisters, you love one of them more than the other – what a mess!

But isn’t that where we often live our lives?  How often do we look at our lives, throw up our hands, and say what a mess!  I can’t even trust my own family, my marriage isn’t what I wish, and let’s not even talk about my job!  I’m working in the family business and my father-in-law is my boss and he hired me through a deceitful arrangement!

Is your life looking any better to you?

So here we have a polygamous marriage, a deceptive father-in-law, a deceived son-in-law, and no mention of God anywhere in this part of Jacob’s story.  So what do we make out of this story?

This is who we are – a collection of people who believe we must do what it takes to survive, and doing what it takes to survive can lead us down the road to some very bad decisions and very bad situations.  But these are the people God used, and used in such dramatic ways!

Churches too often communicate that you must get your life cleaned up, shined up, and halo worthy before God is going to be interested in you or willing to use you.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  These are the people God used – Jacob, a deceiver who lived his life by treachery and built his fortune through deceit.  Rachel, the loved wife, but also the insecure wife, who was so jealous for her husband that she later made some very tragic decisions.  And poor Leah, the unloved wife, who had to live with the knowledge her husband’s heart was with another woman.  And the struggle doesn’t end with this generation of the family.  Remember the story of Joseph and his brothers?  Guess who was Joseph’s mother – Rachel.  Do you know who was the mother of the other brothers – Leah.  That explains some of the animosity of the brothers toward Joseph.

God uses people who live in the real world of struggles, and problems, and failures.

When I was a junior in high school we had a very interesting event take place in worship one Sunday morning.  When it came time for the sermon, one of our elders stood up from the choir where he was seated and made his way to the pulpit.  He began to criticize our minister over something he had said in his sermon the previous Sunday.  I remember what he said – if you can’t say something nice about someone you should keep your big, fat mouth shut.  As I remember it most of us laughed and agreed when he said those words.  I imagine this particular elder had it in for our minister, and this was his excuse to get rid of him.  After complaining about the minister using such language from the pulpit, he said I believe we should fire him immediately.  Chaos broke out as people were trying to speak at once.  In the middle of the chaos a young lady who was my age stood up.  She was seated on the other side of the sanctuary from me.  I knew who she was, but I didn’t really know her as a friend.  Everyone in town, in fact, knew who she was.  They knew who she was because she had been the subject of a great deal of whispering and gossip around town, because she was pregnant.  When this seventeen-year-old pregnant girl began showing up in church there were a lot of people unhappy.  But she stood up in the middle of the chaos that day and spoke out.  She said our minister had reached out to her and to her family and so she started coming to church.  Unfortunately, she was met with a lot of stares and whispers, but she kept coming back.  Up until that moment, I didn’t know why she had started coming to our church.  I admired her courage, because it was obvious she had not received much of a welcome.  But I learned something incredibly important that day.  I learned that you do not have to have your life perfectly put together before you come to God, or have it perfectly put together before he will love you, or have it perfectly put together before he will use you.  God used that young lady to teach our church a lesson that day, a lesson we had been to blind to see.

We live in the real world, and that is where God meets us.  You don’t have to have a halo or a perfect life before God will love you or work in and through your life.  God wants you just as you are. 

May we pray.

May 6, 2012 Ancient Stories and Timeless Truths: Rebuilding Life

May 6, 2012

Nehemiah 5:1-12

It’s an interesting perspective from where I stand on Sunday morning.  Choir, don’t you think this is an interesting perspective?  One reason it is so interesting is that when I look out at you I see what could be called the “ducks floating on the water” view.  You know the old saying about a duck casually floating on a pond?  On the surface they seem calm and serene but below the surface they are paddling like crazy. 

When I look out on the congregation I see a group of people who look calm (perhaps some of you are too calm, as your eyes are closed) but I know the reality is very different.  You may appear very calm on the outside, but inside you may be a wreck, and perhaps your life is a wreck.  In a group of people this size it will always be true that some will be going through times of great difficulty.

Today’s message is Rebuilding Life, which is from the book of Nehemiah.  You’ll remember that Nehemiah’s book tells the story of the Hebrew people finally being permitted to return home after years of captivity in Babylon.  When they returned to Jerusalem they found a city in ruins and they began the difficult process of rebuilding the walls of the city.  The people faced immense challenges as they sought to rebuild the city of Jerusalem and their lives.  As Nehemiah writes of the rebuilding of the city walls he is writing about far more than just rebuilding walls of stone and mortar; he is writing the story of rebuilding life.

There is no way I can do justice this morning to all the material we find in the book of Nehemiah, so I will just be skimming the surface.  I hope you will take some time in the coming days and read through the entire book.

Over the years I have repeated a phrase countless times to Tanya.  I will say wouldn’t it be nice to lead a normal life?  But what is a normal life?  If you think everyone but you is living a normal life, think again.  And if you get tired of juggling any number of responsibilities, we’re not the first people in history to have to do so.  As the people rebuilt the wall, there was so much opposition they had to work with one hand while carrying a weapon in the other in order to defend themselves.

Some people may have a vested interest in seeing that we do not change.  Perhaps our decision to change will confront others with the reality that they too need to change and to rebuild their lives.  Some people may simply be skeptical of our commitment to change.  Do not let the doubters stop you from rebuilding your life; do not let the doubters determine how successful you will be in your efforts; do not let the doubters tell you that you cannot change.

But what they also do is affirm that God is the foundation of their lives, and they affirm the ability to change through the power of God.  There is a spiritual component to life, and it is the foundation of life.

 

A very important principle comes from the life of Nehemiah himself.  Nehemiah was a very strong and effective leader.  We certainly need great leaders, but what we must remember is that everyone must lead their own life.  Leadership is not only a commodity in short supply in our nation and even our churches; leadership is also in short supply in the lives of individuals.  Nehemiah was someone who took responsibility for his life and did what he was called to do.  Take a hard look at your life – are you a leader for your own life?  Are you doing what you have been called to do, what you need to do?

In chapter five we find another principle.  In verse ten we find the people complaining about the financial difficulties they were being forced to bear.  After suffering for over seventy years in exile, they were now being taken advantage of by their own countrymen.  They were facing bullies among their own people.

There are bullies in this world who seek to take advantage of others.  We must speak up against the bullies we face.  This is not easy for many, but there are times when we must stand up and confront the situations that are unhealthy for us.  When someone is treating us in a manner that is hurtful to us, we must speak up and confront the situation. As difficult as it can be to confront a situation or a person, there are times when such action is both necessary and justified. 

And we must speak up on behalf of others. As you can see, I’m not a big guy, and I wasn’t a big kid, and I had to face bullies. I remember very vividly when a friend of mine stood up for me when others were trying to bully me.  This is what the people were asking for in the passage we read this morning – they were asking for someone to stand up and speak on their behalf.

There are religious bullies that must be faced as well. In another church where I served, on my first day in the office, I had a visitor who announced to me that their goal was to make my life and ministry as difficult as possible.  The person was a bully who sought to get their way on every matter and had bullied the church for years. A few weeks ago, North Carolina pastor Sean Harris, in a sermon, advocated violence by parents against children who give any indication they may be gay.  I serve on the board of a foster care agency, and what we see happening to children is both heartbreaking and heart wrenching.  When someone such as Pastor Harris gives a religious sanctioning to using physical violence against children, we must speak out and say that it is wrong, as is anyone who advocates violence in the name of Christ.

It is necessary that we ask ourselves the question am I doing anything that is harming someone else or making it difficult to rebuild their life?  If you read in chapter five we find the situation of people returning from exile and then being placed in slavery by the abuse of their own people.  Upon return, many people were in financial difficulties and they were taken advantage of to the point they had to sell members of their own family into slavery.  When they complained to Nehemiah, he called the people together and denounced the practice and it stopped.  Things don’t always work out this way, unfortunately, as people who are doing something to complicate or hurt the life of another don’t recognize – or they refuse to recognize – how their actions are hurting someone else.

When I was attending seminary I had a job working in the Butchertown section of Louisville.  The couple that owned the business bought an adjoining property with an old house they decided to refurbish.  I spent most of a summer stripping layers and layers of old paint of the doors of that house.  It was monotonous work and I was tired of it after several weeks and I was gripping about it one day to Scott, who owned the business.  My opinion was to just add some more paint, but he told me sometimes you have to remove the accumulation of years to make it new again.  And he was correct.  After scraping off that paint I discovered beautiful wood, and they were once again like new.

The years of life add a lot of accumulation to us.  We experience difficulties and get a few scars.  We have some trials and tribulations and we get some calluses.  We receive hurts and disappointments and we put a protective layer around our hearts.  We make a few mistakes and we begin packing around a load of guilt and regret.  But the grace of God removes the accumulation of the years, and the Spirit begins to reshape and rebuild life. 

Perhaps your life needs rebuilding.  What is keeping you from doing what you need to do to rebuild your life?  Have you spent time in prayer, asking God to give you direction and strength about what you need to do to rebuild your life?  Perhaps you believe it is too late or too difficult to start over and rebuild life.  It is never too late.  It may be difficult, but it is not too late.  What will you do to change your life?  What will it take to allow God to enter into your life in a powerful way and change your life?

Do you need to rebuild your life?  If so, will you begin to do so today?