St. John Studies

Ephesians 2:10  “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

You know a major theme of chapter 2 is that we live our lives as if they will go on forever.

They won’t.

We know that, but we push those thoughts out of our minds because it is too sad to think about.

Why think of our mortality all the time?

Because it may create within us a sense of urgency and maybe it is good to have that.

No sense of urgency may lead to a wasted life, as A.W. Tozer says, “A man by his sin may waste himself, which is to waste that which on earth is most like God.  That is man’s greatest tragedy and God’s heaviest grief.”

What about those days when you are just not in the mood to do good works?

What about those conditions of the mental and physical body when mentally and physically you are worn out?

Does God say “take the day off.”  Does God say “you are ok to check out; you don’t have to do anything; I will give you a pass.”

I don’t think so.

We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works.

Pastor Chan speaks in the video that accompanies this chapter about his quiet time with the Lord.  He treasures it.  He longs every day to have it.  It is hard because he needs to clear his mind of other things because other things impinge on his thinking so much.  But he needs his quiet time because he needs God to tell him what to do.

Let me suggest a dangerous thing for you to do every morning.

Don’t do this if you approach it like it is just an exercise.  If that is the case, it will mean nothing.

Pastor Chan does it and I have done it.

When you have quiet time with the Lord in the morning, ask Him to show you what to do today.  Even more, ask God to use you.

You must be careful, because He will.

He will position you where he wants and needs you and some of the situations He will put you in will make you uncomfortable.

But that is ok.

God does not want you to be comfortable.  God wants you to grow.  God will lead you throughout your day, guiding you where you are supposed to go, showing you what He wants you to do.

It’s God-directed life.

Don’t let your mood get in the way of this God-directed life.  Don’t let your mental and physical infirmities get in the way of this God-directed life.  He will use you no matter what you have to offer, no matter how weak you are or how strong you are.  Remember, ”you are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works.”

But what does this do?

It will create a sense of urgency.

None of us knows when our time will come.

None of us knows when we will be meeting God face to face.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to leave this world doing God’s work?

This past week, we were all shocked by the tragedy in Charleston S.C., but those nine people met God while attending a Bible study.  It may sound strange but what a blessing to die in those circumstances.  Just think about what they were doing when God took them.  They were actively trying to learn more about Him.

I believe God honors that.

They got up the morning of their death and none of them thought, “This is my last day on earth” but it was.

As I watched part of the funeral services for Pastor Clementa Pinckney today, I was struck by the sadness of the ceremony but I was also struck by the gladness of the ceremony.  At times, there was a profound confidence that God was working it all out.  Shouts of joy rang out.  Smiles broke out from time to time.  I even heard laughter.   The ceremony was respectful but there seemed to be knowledge that Pastor Pinckney was a man who allowed God to work through him.  The other eight were God fearing people who welcomed their killer in their midst, allowing God to work through them.

Hebrews 11: 13  “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.”

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works.”

“Rejoice in the Lord always.  I will say it again: Rejoice!”

Did you catch the way Paul writes these lines in Philippians?

Always [my wife gets upset when I use that word but always means “in every instance, for all time.”]

Paul says it again, this time capitalized and with an exclamation mark.

Do you think he is trying to make a point?

I think so.  Paul is trying to communicate that it is important to be able to rejoice about our lives, no matter what life throws at you.

Pastor Chan talks about his encounter with stress and all of us have that to deal with that.  We can relate.  His stress manifested itself in heart palpitations.

They are not fun.

I was with my young son when he came home from college to celebrate Christmas with his family.  I remember all six foot four inches of him stretched out over the bed with his hands clutched to his chest tell us that he heart was about to burst out of his body.  Maybe that was a bit dramatic but the boy was not feeling well at the time.  Stress.

We took him to the emergency room to find out that he was overwhelmed with his life at that point and he was having a tough time coping.  Stress.

Pastor Chan’s heart palpitations were due to the mountain of pastoral duties that he felt he had to perform at Christmastime.

His take on his palpitations was different.  He knew Paul’s message and if you know anything about Francis Chan, he takes the word of God quite literally.  How could he be stressed out?  He was supposed to be rejoicing in the Lord.   God had commanded him to rejoice and he as not rejoicing at all; he was having heart palpitations.  Chan takes it even further; he feels he is disobeying God because he is letting his responsibilities as a pastor trump God’s command.

Worry and stress are sins.

Have you ever thought about that?

My wife and I have talked about that before.  When we are worried and stressed, it seems “bad”.  It seems like we are not trusting God to take care of our troubles. You know the familiar straight talk from Jesus in Matthew 6: 25-27:  “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?   And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?”

That’s pretty clear isn’t it?

Pastor Chan says that worry and stress “reek of arrogance.”

Wow Susan and I have a lot of repenting to do I guess.

When we are in the midst of a stress and worry causing crisis, we forget God.  We forget that we have been forgiven.  We forget that life is short and God has it covered [literally]. We forget we are heading to a place where we won’t ever have to worry again and finally, in the context of what God is juggling, our little worries and stresses are small indeed.

We just forget.

Life is short, God has control and He will take care of you regardless.

As Christians, our job is to “rejoice in the Lord always.”

As we do and people see that we do, it sends a powerful message, that we are seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness and we know all these things we need for life will be given to us.*

“I will say it again: Rejoice!”

*Paraphrase of Matthew 6: 33.

Chapter 2 is not for the faint of heart.

I heard someone say that old refrain, “Growing old is not for sissies” the other day; reading chapter 2 is not for sissies.

How about that part in the God Movie?

I don’t know where he got the idea and I don’t know where he got the length of time but the scenario Pastor Chan describes is sobering.  Of course, the movie of life is about God  and how we live our lives?  We live like we are the star in the movie but that’s just not so.  God is the star.

Pastor Chan said we would be an extra in the God Movie.

If we asked our friends and relatives to go to the God Movie, we would not be on screen very long, in fact the back side of our head would be all that would show.

And our part would be 2/5ths of a second long.

Sobering…

That is the length of our life…in the God Movie

Pastor Chan says “You need to get over yourself.”

Kinda rough isn’t he, but maybe he needs to be.

My take on this is Pastor Chan is challenging us to be big enough to accept how small we are.

We all have to deal with what life throws our way and it is how we “deal” that matters.  If life is pretty good right now, count your blessings that God has given you and truly be thankful.  Show your thankfulness by being devoted to your Lord and Savior.  He is the source and not you, yourself.

How much we want to take credit.  But don’t take it and be a witness for God.  People will notice you singing His praises.

If life is tough right now and you are in a struggle, God has allowed hard things in your life so you can show how a true believer copes.  Your peace in the face of hardship speaks volumes to others.  Believe me, some people will wonder what drug you are taking.  You can tell them the drug is God.

It is hard to admit that we are on this earth for such a short time, then we will die and our friends and family will die and we will fade from memory.  Eventually our photo may wind up in an antique shop as an antique photo for a dollar.

Unknown person in an odd pose wearing old clothing.

I am saddened by this as you may be, but it is true.  It is harsh truth, sobering truth.

What are we to do?

Pastor Chan says live our lives for the highest purpose we can, which is praising God.  He quotes 1 Corinthians 10:31 “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”  He writes, “whether eating a sandwich on a lunch break, drinking coffee at 12:04 a.m. so you can stay awake to study, or watching your four-month-old take a nap. The point of your life is to point to Him.”

Always remember the movie of life is the God Movie and He is the star.

We are not.

It is our blessing to be offered a part, even a 2/5ths of a second part.

The big question we all must answer is can I be big enough to accept my part and play it well?

Can I be big enough to accept how small I am?

Chapter 2 is tough.

Thinking about death is no fun, especially your death; my death.

No fun.

Especially poignant in chapter 2 is the story of the death of Stan Gerlach.  He was delivering a eulogy and spoke the words “You never know when God is going to take your life.  At that moment, there’s nothing you can do about it.  Are you ready?”

He sat down.

Fell over.

And died.

You probably don’t remember Harold Camping.  Harold was an evangelist and radio pastor who broadcast out of California and his messages went to 150 radio markets throughout the US.  Harold specialized in messages about the “end times” and he made a bold prophecy in 2011, that the world would see Jesus again on May 21, 2011 whereupon the saved would be taken up to heaven in the rapture, and that there would follow five months of fire, brimstone and plagues on Earth, with millions of people dying each day, culminating on October 21, 2011, with the final destruction of the world.

Pastor Harold was wrong of course but he got lots of media attention due to his prophecy.

I remember where I was on May 21, 2011.

I was in Chicago attending my son’s graduation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Pastor Camping was on my mind for some reason.  He had garnered a lot of attention from national media outlets.

We had attended the graduation ceremony and it was time to tour the Senior Art Show, where all the graduating seniors got a chance to show an example of their best work for parents and the public to see.

As we toured the show, the galleries were packed with lots of what I would call “cutting edge” art.  For the most part, the seniors were young people and their enthusiasm about their skills led them to try to do new things.

Some of the pieces were shocking.

I came to one gallery and my wife and I were looking at a multi-media display.   The artist incorporated video into the piece.  As we watched the video, it was a couple having intercourse.

We were a bit taken aback but tried not to be too flustered.   The gallery was full of people who were probably more “worldly” than we were.

I turned to Susan and commented, “ I hope the world does not end at this moment.  I would be watching this video as the last thing I did on earth.”

It made for a good joke because Pastor Camping was not accurate in his prophecy.

But what will you be doing?

Stan Gerlach was telling people about Jesus.

His son said about him: “I’m so proud of him.  My dad died doing what he loved most.  He was telling people about Jesus.”

Chapter 2 is designed to make us think about how we are spending our time.  Are we wasting it?  Are we using it for good purposes?

Pastor Camping was incorrect in his end time prediction but everyone has an end time.

Where Will You Be?  What Will You Be Doing?

Pastor Chan cites Matthew 10:32-33 “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my father in heaven.  But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.”  You know those words brought a lot of comfort to Stan’s family.

Stan Gerlach’s family was heartbroken that Stan had to leave them but they knew Stan was in a good place, a place that Jesus refers to in John:  “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.  In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.   If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.…”

The assurances are there but what are we doing with our time?

Are we wasting it?  Are we using it for good purposes?

There’s no better purpose than living life for our Lord and Savior.

Chapter 2 in Crazy Love has a title that seems sobering.

“You might not finish this chapter.”

When you begin reading the chapter, it is sobering.

It’s about dying.

Not a thought you want to think about every day is it.

I began considering death when I was called on to handle my Aunt Babe’s affairs.  Her real name was Anna Ruth Revel but everyone called her Babe.  She had many relatives but for reasons that I will not elaborate on, she picked me as her executor in her final arrangements.

It was a real learning experience.

I had help from her Episcopal Church family in Paducah [lots of it].  She lived in Paducah at the end of her life.  I was not able to be there for her as fast as they were and I was very thankful for them.  I was the relative that they called when the emergencies occurred.

There were many.

It began with an operation on her arm which revealed a weak heart and then progressed to late stage esophageal cancer.  I found out that death for some is not sudden.  It is a long, drawn-out affair.

I was terrified that I was not up to the job most the time.

I had never been so close to someone as they died.

She was a Rector at her church, which means she had the rights of a pastor and was ordained.  She did not have a full-time ministry.  She was a psychologist by trade.  She did preach.  I inherited her sermons, books of them.

Being an ordained Rector, I watched her go through the process of death.  I discovered that she was a human being first and a Rector second.  She had emotions that overflowed at times.  Regret that she could not do much, frustration that she did not feel like taking on projects, irritation that her care took so much time and money.

She was a genius; had a high enough IQ that she was in the 98^th percentile of all human beings.

She loved travel and had been all around the world.

She loved her church and they loved her.

She just had a lot of trouble loving her family.

I came late to the game.  She had already divorced her husband and became estranged from her adopted daughter when I came along.  She did not get along with her big sister at all and thought her little brother was a “nut case.”

She loved my Dad but Dad was too sick himself to be of much help to her as she was dying.

That left me.

Other relatives did things to her that she considered unscrupulous but as I said above, I won’t elaborate on those things.

I will never forget the instructions she gave me about her arrangements.  Some people just leave the details a little open with vague instructions that give an executor reasonable “wiggle room” about dispersal of possessions.

Not Babe.

She had it all worked out and the instructions were very specific.

She was a downsizer but she still had lots of stuff when she passed.  She gave every family member something and they had to take it and sign off that they were ok with what they got.  She had a notebook detailing the value of dishes, antique items, jewelry and silver.  She told me where to go for appraisals and I had to raise as much money as I could as I liquidated her possessions.

She had details about a garage sale which I held in my mother’s garage in Marion.  Every penny had to be accounted for and the whole affair was to raise as much money as possible for her final request.

This is where I got one of my strongest messages about death.

I saw her dreams unfinished.  I had to sell them.

Paintings unpainted, music un-played and needlework undone.

I had always heard the old expression that when you “go”, your in box would not be empty.  Someone will have to come along and empty it for you.

That’s what I did.

I emptied her in box.

You may have caught the idea above that she was an ordained Rector in the Episcopal Church.  You may have caught the idea that she had a hard time loving her family.

She did.

However, she did not have a hard time loving her church family.

And they loved her.

She was an amazing woman.  My life was enriched for getting to know her at the end of her life.  I wondered why I had to come along so late.

God has His reasons.

All that work I had to do carrying out her detailed wishes was to raise money for her bequest to her church.   Family did not get much and that was tough, but the love was not there.   The love was there for the church and from the church.

Young people will get help with college for years to come from what Babe gave that church.

Yes when Babe died, it was a real learning experience for me.

I learned that family comes in many forms and Christians like to toss the term “Church Family” around a lot, but Babe knew what that meant.

Now, I do too.

Thanks Babe.

This first week, we have been given radical advice.  Can you imagine a pastor asking us to stop praying?

As you study chapter 1, you begin to understand why.  You have all heard the old expression that “talk is cheap.”  Of course it is and today it is getting cheaper in my opinion.

Pastor Chan takes a shot at technology when he says “We are a culture that relies on technology over community, a society in which spoken and written words are cheap, easy to come by and excessive….We are slow to listen, quick to speak and quick to become angry.”

Every day we find new people finding their way into the news.  It could be Toya Graham, the Baltimore mother who slapped her son and berated him for participating in riots instigated by the shooting of Freddie Gray.  It could be Donald Trump with his presidential announcement and his comments about Mexicans:  ““When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best…. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with them. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

I am not bashing Toya and I am not bashing Donald.

I am just providing two examples of talk.

Today, thanks to technology, anyone can get their words and images recorded.  Everyone has their opportunity for fame if their words and actions are outrageous enough.  What a dream come true if the comments go “viral.”

Let’s stop a moment and ask a tough question.

Do you think God really cares?

What has technology fueled?  Man is in love with man.  We think we are special because of what we can say, especially if it gets views on YouTube. Toya Graham got 120,000 views and then an interview on CBS news with 205,000 more.  She got an interview on “The View”, she got a phone call from Oprah and some are touting her as “mom of the year.”

Toya is an ordinary person, not a celebrity.  Donald Trump is another case.  He can command an audience on his name recognition alone.  Who has not heard of him?  His presidential announcement was covered by the three cable news 24 hour networks and his YouTube video has half a million views so far.  Donald is not shy about sharing his words.

At this point, we may begin to understand Pastor Chan’s ideas.  Let’s put them in the context of scripture.  “Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.”  Psalm 100, vs. 3 KJV.

I am not a fan of Facebook but I look at it from time to time.  I have family members who will post about anything on it.  At times, I wonder why they just don’t call each other and keep the information within our family.  However I strongly suspect that the need for attention is behind the popularity of Facebook.  People love to share their feelings on Facebook.  We have to photograph our food, our vacations, our pics of our cars, our loved ones, our pets etc.

Do you think God really cares?

Maybe I should lighten up and just have fun but it is hard to have fun when people post political statements about race, gun control, our national leaders and other serious topics.

Do you think God really cares?

I have reread chapter 1 many times for Chan’s thoughts but let’s go further.

Today in church our pastor read from Mark 5 vs. 35-41.  The context is different but let’s imagine Jesus looking at our rants on YouTube and reading our posts on Facebook.

What he did in Mark He could do to us.  When in the boat with his Disciples, they encountered a storm and it was so violent the Disciples thought they would die.  Jesus was asleep in the stern of the boat, sleeping on a cushion.  He got up and rebuked the wind saying “Quiet!  Be still!”

Could He do that very thing to us?

Of course He could.

Should He?

Yeah.

“He that hath made us, and not we ourselves.”

How do you drive my wife crazy?

Tell her one thing and do another.

How do you drive me crazy?

Tell me God is indescribable and then try to describe Him.

That’s what Pastor Chan tries to do in Chapter 1.

It’s not easy.

He says “God is holy” and then tries to explain that God is set apart from us by His holiness.  “There is no way we can fathom all of who He is.”  How can we know a God who is unknowable?  For most of us that is hard.   We want to conceptualize God somehow so we create a visual of the devout God, or the fatherly God or maybe the angry God in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel.  Once we have the image, we personalize the image, giving God human attributes…no that does not work, says Pastor Chan.

He says “God is eternal” and then blows our minds with the idea of God existing outside time.  We are solidly within time.  We have a moment when we were born and we will have a moment when we will die.  But God is.  He always has been.  To understand this concept, you must understand the eternal statement Moses makes in Exodus 3:14 “God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.'”

He says God is all knowing.  That’s a tough one.  It basically means that God knows all about you, all day long, every day.   He knew you in the womb.  He knows your future.  He knows what you are going to do before you do it.  Nothing you could ever do surprises God because God knows all.  Is this maddening?  Of course it is because we think we can hide our sin from God.  What a joke.  He is right there.  Can you hide your sin from the world?  Yes, and many people are very good at that, living false lives.  But your best accountability partner is God because you can’t hide anything from God, we just think we can.

We are a society that thrives on possessing things.   We have the conception that the bigger, the better, the more lavish, the happier we will be, the flashier the item, the more positive the image.  But what does God care?  Colossians 1:16 says “For by Him all things were created; things in heaven and on the earth, visible and invisible…all things were created by Him and for Him.”  It all belongs to God anyhow.  We possess only while we have it in life and it can go in a blink.  Ask the family who has lost its home in a fire, a tornado victim whose house has been flattened or a homeless person who is on the street after losing everything.  It truly is “easy come and easy go” when it comes to possessions, yet the distracting drumbeat of buy, buy, buy comes at us every day.  God knows, it is all His anyway.  He is all-powerful.

Finally Pastor Chan tells us the God is fair and just.  God has told us what to do and what not to do, yet we go about our lives ignoring the warning.  That is not smart but who said we are smart?  We have the attitude that we are “tolerating” God but what does God say in his first three commandments? “ 1.You shall have no other gods before Me  2.You shall not make idols  3.You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.  Do these three commandments sound like we should just tolerate God?  Pastor Chan says “God instructs us to worship and fear Him.”  Yet because we are frail humans we forget that “He is worthy to be worshipped and loved.   We are to fear Him.”

Yet we go about our merry lives, thinking God is our “good buddy” and that God understands our urgency and is going to grant us our prayers.   We think we can hide our indiscretions from Him, snapping up this and that hoping for happiness and spending our lives accumulating and expecting to get off the hook when we sin.  Maybe a little hand-slap God?

Why does Pastor Chan tell us that God is indescribable and then tries to describe Him?  Because He knows we are humans and we have our limits.   We need words and images to help us come to any understanding of the indescribable.

In researching this entry, I stumbled on a beautiful song sung by an African-American gospel singer named William McDowell and most of us would say that a small child could write the lyrics of his beautiful song “My Heart Sings.”

The lyrics are as follows:

How could I describe

A God that’s indescribable

How could I explain

A love that’s unexplainable

I’m at a loss for words.

Oh Oh Oh My heart sings Oh Oh Oh

That’s all there is to it, but it is truly beautiful in my opinion.  McDowell says that he can’t describe God and he does not try to, yet the emotion of his music is evident.  He is feeling God and he is singing to children—you and me.

To the Jews, Pastor Chan says, “saying something three times demonstrated perfection, so to call God, “Holy, Holy, Holy” is to say he is perfectly set apart, with nothing and no one to compare Him to.

Maybe we could substitute “Oh Oh Oh” or maybe we should just be silent.

The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan think tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world.  They do a lot of polling.  Recently they released their poll about the changing religious landscape in America and the news is not good but it may be in line with what Pastor Chan is saying in Crazy Love.

Let’s wonder about those numbers.

The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the number of U.S. adults who do not identify with any organized religion is growing.  That’s the bottom line but let’s parse the numbers a little.  First of all, this research is based on a poll that was conducted with 35,000 Americans.  If you know anything about polling, that is a respectable number.  If the poll was conducted properly, the conclusions mean something from a sample size that big.

The drop in Christian religious affiliation was 8%, from 78.4% in an equally massive Pew Research survey in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014.   Where have the people gone?   The poll states: “the percentage of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated – describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – has jumped more than six points, from 16.1% to 22.8%. And the share of Americans who identify with non-Christian faiths also has inched up, rising 1.2 percentage points, from 4.7% in 2007 to 5.9% in 2014. Growth has been especially great among Muslims and Hindus, albeit from a very low base.”

“The drop in the Christian share of the population has been driven mainly by declines among mainline Protestants and Catholics. . . . The United Methodist Church (UMC) continues to be the largest denomination within the mainline Protestant tradition. Currently, 25% of mainline Protestants identify with the UMC, down slightly from 28% in 2007.”

What is wrong with Church?

Some of you will think that this is crazy but church is not very important for most people today.  What is important?  Our leisure time.   Leisure time and the options for filling it today are phenomenal.  We work so hard and don’t have a focal point.  When the weekend comes, it is not a priority to devote some time to God.  We are too selfish and want to do what we want to do, even if that means sleeping in on Sunday.   Pastor Chan says “ We see Him [God] as a benevolent Being who is satisfied when people manage to fit Him into their lives in some small way.  We forget God never had an identity crisis.  He knows that He’s great and deserves to be in the center of our lives.  Jesus came humbly as a servant, but He never begs us to give Him some small part of ourselves.  He commands everything from His followers.”

That’s the problem in a nutshell.

We don’t want to give Him all of us.

I suspect that the attitude that many followers in mainline churches have is that God is ok to believe in, as long as He is in His place and He does not impede their further activities.  For people who are searching for something to believe in, this attitude does not seem authentic at all.  People who believe this don’t exhibit any sign that they are different from any other person walking down the street. People who are searching for something to believe in want to see someone who is different, someone who is real, someone who is committed.

Or they just give up and become “unaffiliated.”

Pastor Chan says that “most of us know that we are supposed to read our Bibles and pray so that we can get to know Him better; that we are supposed to worship Him with our lives.  But actually living it out is challenging.  It confuses us when loving God is hard.”

But sometimes it is.

He demands so much but it is the demanding that makes us experience the blessings that He has in store for us.  You see God does not need us.  We need Him.  We read the results of the Pew Poll and think God needs us in his house of worship so the numbers will be better.   God needs us serving on the food line at Micah Mission Center. God needs us giving money to missions.  Today we think we are more important than we really are but God is on His throne.

Pastor Chan says He is holy, eternal, all knowing, all powerful and fair and just.

We are the one who has needs to be met and we try everything except God to meet those needs.

What a waste of time.

In my opinion, if church was a place where people truly worshipped, left church and lived out their faith throughout the week, others would flock to the church because they would realize the church is doing a great job of making the world a better place.  The unchurched would say “where can I get some of that ‘religion.’”

God is ok to believe in, as long as He is in His place and He does not impede my further activities.  That kind of attitude will continue the decline.

One day we will look back on today and wish the drop was only eight per cent.

1 Corinthians 18-20 [Paul writing to the Corinthian Church]  “For the message of the cross is foolishness of those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.  For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’  Where is the wise man?  Where is the scholar?  Where is the philosopher of this age?  Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”

Pastor Chan is trying to prove to us that God is much more intelligent than any of us.  He says things like “loving God is hard” and “The wise man comes to God without saying a word.”

Because we just can’t understand God’s infinite wisdom.

Humility is called for.

Why does it have to be so hard to understand?  We get an inkling of that in Paul’s letter to the Corinthian Church quoted above.

The Bible is full of expressions that are hard to understand but one of the hardest to understand is the emphasis on the death of Jesus.  Through the death of Jesus, man gets “new life”.  The circumstances of the death could have been very different but they were not, on purpose.  In the upper room, Jesus broke bread as a symbolic expression of his body broken for man.  Jesus served wine in memory of His blood that would be shed for man.  He could have arranged things where man would remember him for his teaching, or his words or his works but instead, he followed the plan of God, that he be remembered for his body given and the blood shed in his death.

The cross, according to John Stott became the centerpiece symbol of the church and the fact that it did was truly remarkable.  “In Greco-Roman culture the cross was an object of shame.”  The central symbol could have been a crib [Jesus’ incarnation], a carpenter’s bench [the dignity of manual labor], or a towel  [symbol of humble service to others] but the church settled on the cross.  Brian Moynahan writes in his book The Faith: A History of Christianity, “at first there was no Christian art other than the cross, since the second commandment forbade graven images.”

Let’s go back to 1 Corinthians 22-25: “Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.”

Is it not ironic that the “man” who was to come to earth and save mankind would come and live a simple life, filled with acts of love and die an undignified death, never even trying to stop the process, a process that He knew He had to endure.

Yet it worked.

It worked because of God’s infinite wisdom.

I don’t often do this but sometimes the news of the day compels me.  The reason I don’t do this is confirmation.  I heard of this gospel singer from Virginia named Marcus Stanley who wrote a powerful message on the alleged killer Dylann Roof’s facebook page.  I don’t have confirmation that any of his post is real.   Mr. Stanley has a powerful testimony himself as he was shot 8 times and survived the attempt on his life.  But as I copy his message to Mr. Roof from Facebook, I just want to say one thing:  as Christians, we are supposed to do what Mr. Stanley has done.