God Loves You

When I help people prepare for the important step in their journey of faith of becoming church members, we cover a lot of material from ways to enhance your study of Scripture to learning how Presbyterian government works. But I emphasize three elements as the essential components of every Christian’s life, and I urge them to make them part of their own. Beginning this month, I’ll reflect on each of them in these messages, and I urge you to consider their place in your life.

First, our relationship with the Lord hinges upon the knowledge that GOD LOVES US. When Karl Barth, one of the greatest theologians of the twentieth century, was asked to describe the Christian faith in one sentence, he paused and then sang “Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so.” A simple childhood rhyme can capture this profound truth, but we spend our entire lives trying to wrap our minds and souls around it.

We struggle to accept and understand God’s love for us because it contradicts everything we think we know about relationships. It doesn’t take long for the youngest child to discover that they’re worth depends upon what they do. If you eat your veggies and clean up your room, your parents will praise you. Work hard in school and they put you on the honor roll; work hard at your job and you’ll get a raise or a promotion. Act and dress the way people like and you’ll become popular. If you want to be someone, and if you want people to think you matter, do what it takes to measure up. This message surrounds us so completely that we don’t even realize how much it shapes who we are.

And then God comes into our lives (or we recognize that he’s been there all along), and he says, “I love you.” If it were anyone else, we would ask “Why? What have I done, or what is it about me, that you like so much?” When it comes to God, we can’t accept that his love for us is even possible. We may be able to fool others into thinking that we’re admirable or desirable, but God knows every cranny of our lives. He knows the dark corners of our psyche that we refuse to let even ourselves see. He’s seen the shameful things we’ve done that haunt us for years. If God knows us so well (and he does), then how could he love us? This is God we’re talking about, after all. His standards are so much higher than anyone else’s. How could he look upon us with anything but disappointment and disgust?

And yet, God loves us. Before the world was created, and we were able to do anything to earn or disqualify ourselves from anyone’s love, he loved us. At the most awful, hateful times in our lives, God loves us. After the mountains melt away and the rivers run dry, God loves us.


God’s love for us does not depend upon what we do, or what we don’t do. It doesn’t depend upon who we are, or who we aren’t. God’s love depends only upon his grace: his desire for us and our well-being simply because it is what he chooses to give. It is a choice that he cemented for all eternity and proclaimed through all creation with the unspeakably immense gift of his Son for our behalf.  

Finding Our Community

Last year in January, God hit us between the eyes with a theme verse for our congregation: “Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing” (1 Thessalonans 5:11).  Both in our individual activities as agents of Old Union and in our church activities, we have been seeking ways to honor the spirit God has given us to share with each other and the community around us.  In the process, the Lord has renewed the spirit brought vitality to Old Union in many ways.

It would be easy to stop here.  “Encourage one another and build each other up” could become empty words that we recite mindlessly at the end of each worship service, and God’s intervention in the life of our church could slip into nothing more than a happy memory.  Your session has been seeking ways that we can develop our spirit of encouragement, both within the life of our church fellowship and also in our witness to the community around us.  I invite you to join them in asking the question: how can Old Union offer even more encouragement to our neighbors?  Here are three suggestions and two tips.

SUGGESTIONS:

1. Visit places in our community where you normally never venture.  For example, if you have a washer and dryer, visit the laundromat.  If you don’t have children in your family, spend a morning at the soccer fields.  If you don’t play golf, go to the clubhouse and see what you find.  Our community offers a tremendous variety of gathering spots.  Visit some, and you may be surprised.

2. Take a prayer walk or a prayer drive.  You don’t have to say a word to anyone other than the Lord, if you don’t want to.  Walk or drive slowly through our community’s neighborhoods, and pray for the people you encounter and the homes and businesses you pass.  Remember that prayer is not only us talking to God, but God speaking to us.  Listen for what he tells you about our neighbors.

3. Missioninsite.com is a community research firm designed for churches and other faith groups.  Through the Presbytery, we have free access. Check with me for the username and password.  Poke around and see what the numbers and research reveal about our own little neck of the words.

TIPS

1. Don’t rely on your own ingenuity as you seek ways for Old Union to encourage and build up our neighbors.  Open yourself to the creativity of the Holy Spirit to guide you.

2. Consider the gifts, resources, and character that our church and its members already have, and consider how they can be used to touch our community.  God has equipped us for where he is sending us.  How can we use what we have, and be who we are, in service to our community in God’s name?

Please pass along your ideas of encouragement and up-building to me or to a session member as we seek to be faithful to the One who loves us and calls us.

Duane's Syndrome

I have Duane’s Syndrome.  My doctor discovered it during my annual physical last December and had me consult with a specialist to confirm the diagnosis.  Duane’s Syndrome is an eye disorder that prevents my left eye from moving the whole way over when I look to the left.

But here’s the funny thing: I’ve had Duane’s Syndrome my entire life and never realized it.  No one in my family and none of my friends noticed it.  For 52 years I’ve had something wrong with me and had no clue.  It hasn’t affected how I live my life, except for having to squint a little when doing things like checking my blind spot while driving.  If my physician hadn’t noticed it, I could have gone through my entire life blissfully unaware of this defect.

The Bible tells us that God’s law is like my physician.  We are incredibly gifted at turning a blind eye to our faults.  I wouldn’t know about my Duane’s Syndrome without the doctor, and as Paul wrote, “I would not have known what sin is except through the law” (Romans 7:7).  When we read about God’s desire for our lives in the Bible, we discover the ways in which we have strayed from it.  We recognize our sin, and we come to understand how it damages our lives and ruins our relationship with God. 

God does not reveal our sin to make us feel bad about ourselves.  He wants us to see what is wrong in our lives and in our world so we can do something about it.  But when we try, we discover that we can no more fix our sin than I can make my eye move the way it’s supposed to.  God’s desire is for awareness of our sinfulness to motivate us to seek the grace and wholeness that Jesus Christ offers us through his redeeming death and victorious resurrection.  Through him, we find not only healing and forgiveness for our sin, but we receive the power of God’s Spirit who works in and around us to reshape our lives and our world more into a fuller and richer existence.  My physician couldn’t cure me of Duane’s Syndrome, but the loving work of God in our lives can heal our sin.

It doesn’t happen overnight.  The life of a Christian is an ongoing adventure of growing closer to God and his will, and of finding joy and peace in it all.  There are advances and retreats, growth and dormancy.  But over time, we can see how the power of sin is losing its grip on our lives and how the Spirit of God is filling our spirits.

The adventure is never complete, at least on this side of glory.  The closer you draw to God, the more aware you become of how far away from him you still are. Each injustice that is righted and each temptation that is overcome makes us notice even more the temptations and injustices that remain.  And God lovingly, patiently works with us and in us to bring us closer and closer to the goal of holiness and purity.

What Kind of Disciple Are You?

What kind of a disciple are you?

Put simply, a disciple is a follower and a student.  As Christians, we disciples of Jesus Christ: following as he guides, and learning as he teaches.  Each time we come to him in prayer, study his word, gather with his people, and act in his name, Jesus works in our spirits and our lives to draw us closer to him.

We are being discipled in other ways as well, however.  Jesus is not the only one who seeks to teach us and lead us, to shape how we live our lives and understand the world.  Every waking moment of every day, we receive messages from others who seek to conform us to their values and practices.  Our culture constantly teaches us and leads us.  We are influenced in ways we never even recognize.

As one example, consider advertising.  Corporations and brands try to implant themselves in our brains so the next time we plan to buy a car or hire someone to fix our roof, they are the ones that come to mind.  And it is frightening effective.  For example, see how well you do on this quiz about insurance companies.

• Which insurance company does the cute little lizard represent?
• When Peyton Manning goes through his day humming things like “Chicken parm, you taste so good” which insurance company is he thinking about?
• Fill in the blank: “We are ______, bump, ba dump bump, bump bump bump.”
• When the little girl starts talking to her father in a deep voice, which insurance company is she talking about?
• Who does Flo work for?

If you know the answers to these questions, congratulations!  You are a successful disciple of the American advertising industry.

We constantly receive information and guidance that influences how we think and how we act.  If we are not purposeful about being disciples of Jesus Christ, his message and leadership will become a smaller and smaller part of our lives.  It is not enough occasionally to dabble in Christian stuff occasionally, or to rely upon Sunday School lessons learned long ago.  It is not enough, because none of the other influences in your life have slowed down or decided that you’ve learned it all and don’t need to learn any more.

When you read the Bible daily, pray regularly, and take part in the life of our congregation, you make the choice to have your life shaped by Christ.  You make the choice about whom you will follow, and who will teach you.  You decide that the message and the life that Jesus offers are more important to you than the ones you absorb without even realizing it.

What kind of a disciple are you?

Lent: Spring Cleaning for the Soul

Lent has been around since about the year 200: only a little more than 150 years after the time of Christ.  It was originally a time of preparation for those planning to be baptized on Easter.  The preparation included study and spiritual reflection.  It continues to serve the same purpose for Christ’s followers today.  It is a season for reflection: how am I doing in my relationship with God? Am I experiencing and living the new life that he offers me?  If not, what repentance should I be doing?  What are the blocks in my way to Christ (or more properly, his way to me) that need to be cleared away?

Traditionally, many households go through “spring cleaning” each year.  The week to week house cleaning is fine, but once a year it’s time to give the house a “deep cleaning.”  Get rid of the 30 years’ worth of National Geographics moldering away in the attic.  Move the couch and get rid of the dust bunnies.  Wash the curtains and clean the windows so the sunlight can get in.  In the same way, disciples of Jesus Christ (otherwise known as Christians) spend the year reading the Bible, praying, and worshiping.  But once a year it’s time to clear out the junk in our souls, chase down the spiritual dust-bunnies, and allow the full light of God’s love to pour into our lives.  This is what the season of Lent is all about.

But let’s be very clear.  Lent is not a time for us to become better people.  We aren’t able to do it.  If we try, we will fail, and feel miserable.  That miserable feeling will drive us farther from the Lord.  Lent is a time to open our lives to God, to become aware of and to present before him everything in our lives that prevents us from enjoying the fullness of his love.  It is a time to invite the Lord to be at work in our lives in a more powerful way, and to welcome the transforming power of his Spirit.

This Lent, I invite you to do a little spiritual housecleaning.  Find the obstacles in your life that prevent you from receiving the joy, hope, love, and peace that God desires so deeply for you.  I offer you the following checklist of dust bunnies, grease stains, and accumulated trash for you to give to the Lord, so that he can do a new thing in you.  For each item, consider the particulars of your personal spiritual struggles, and find encouragement from Scripture.  I then encourage you to employ the classic spiritual disciplines of study, prayer, fasting, and alms-giving to open the front door of your spiritual house so the Lord can enter with his cleaning crew.

SPIRITUAL HOUSECLEANING FOR LENT

What things in my life are preventing me from enjoying the fullness of God’s love?

1.    A temptation that continues to ensnare me

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)

2.    A memory or baggage from the past that hinders me

“Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)

3.    Concerns or hopes for the future that blind me from seeing God’s way for me

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

4.    Anger about a situation or a person

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.  Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:31-32)

5.    Hurt or sadness about a situation I am dealing with

“The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth.” (Isaiah 25:8)

6.    Worry and anxiety

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?(Matthew 6:27)

7.    A loss or deficiency

“He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

8.    An unwillingness to seek God’s regular presence and guidance in my life

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” (Revelation 3:20)

9.    A focus for my life that eclipses my devotion to God

“You shall have no other gods before me.  You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” (Exodus 20:3-4)

10. Pride or selfishness that prevents me from noticing the needs and desires of others

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” (Philippians 2:3-4)

Come, Make Mediocre Music

Come make mediocre music with us at Old Union Church.

Over the past few years, many churches have begun “contemporary” worship, which typically features a praise band providing music at the beginning of the service.  Often, the band members are excellent musicians singing songs that are more complex than the “four verses and a refrain” that you’ll find in traditional hymns.  The quality of their music is exceptional, even if the style isn’t your cup of tea, and at times the production can be quite elaborate.  One of our neighboring congregations even uses a fog machine during the time of singing praise music.  You’d swear you were at a concert.

There’s just one problem.  Worship is not a spectator sport.  When the music leaders are offering professional-quality songs, you’ll want to be quiet and enjoy their music.  And if songs go beyond the what you’re able to sing, you’ll just stand and follow along with the words.  Church then becomes a place where you come to watch other people worship God, rather than praising him yourself.

You don’t have to attend a church with contemporary music to confront this issue.  Even when we sing the old familiar hymns, you may be tempted not to join in.  “I shouldn’t sing,” you may say to yourself.  “I don’t have as good of a voice as Sally or Stan.  I’d be embarrassed if anyone heard me sing.  All I’d do is ruin this hymn for everyone else.”  So you may open your hymnal and read along, or stand and listen while others do the singing.  When my father was growing up, his aunt told him that he didn’t have a good voice and that he shouldn’t sing in church.  No one should ever give this message to anyone seeking to worship God!

At Old Union Church, we are committed to being a place for each of us to share in worship together.  Our goal is to have music that every person in the sanctuary can use to sing their praise to God.  Worship is about participation, not observation.  We’ve just installed projection screens in the sanctuary not to change how we worship God, but to make it easier for everyone to engage more fully in the service.  Our gifted musicians don’t give a concert each week; they lead as we join our voices together in praise.

We have music in worship in order to lift up our voices to the only Audience who matters, our Lord and Savior.  He thinks that your off-key, half-a-beat-behind singing is more beautiful than any angel chorus.  After all, Jesus didn’t lay down his life for the sake of any angels.  He did it for you and me.  God is the one who gave you that tin ear and trembling voice, and he wants you to use it, and everything else that makes you who you are, to express your love and devotion to him.

If you want to hear concert-quality music, sung only by trained musicians, worship somewhere else.  But if you want to be one of the saints who offers your all to the One who gives you life and makes it worth living, join us at Old Union Church.

Being "Spiritual"

There’s something cool about being “spiritual.”  A growing number of people in the US refer to themselves as “spiritual but not religious.”  Typically, they mean by this that they don’t want to be part of any organized or institutional religion, but that they have a sense that there’s more out there that we usually recognize.
 
The fact is, we are all spiritual, whether we realize it or not.  It’s part of what makes us human, like having 23 pairs of chromosomes.  The human being is more than flesh and blood, muscle and bone.  We are an inseparable blend of the physical and the spiritual.  We share a physical nature with the animals, and we share a spiritual nature with the angels.  But only in human beings do the two natures come together in such a wonderful way.  To call yourself “spiritual” is about as remarkable as saying that you have red blood or that it hurts when you step on a nail.  It is valuable to be aware of this, but that awareness does not make you more spiritual than anyone else.
 
We have a special admiration for “spiritual” people, whose prayers seem to be so special, who spend time every day studying the Scriptures, or who have some sort of a glow about them that leads you to believe that they’re in touch with God more than the rest of us.  That’s not what it means to be spiritual, either.  Being “spiritual” has nothing to do with how eloquently you can pray, or how much you can feel the presence of God around you.
 
To be spiritual – or to put it more accurately, to live out your spiritual nature – is to allow your awareness of the spiritual dimension of life and your familiarity with the things of the Holy Spirit to shape your life.  Being spiritual isn’t about thinking spiritual thoughts.  It’s about living spiritually: having your words and deeds flow from the workings of the Holy Spirit within your spirit.  Or as Paul wrote to the Romans, it is about “living in accordance with the Holy Spirit,” and having our “minds set on what the Spirit desires” (Romans 8:5).
 
Being spiritual means acting in a way, and treating others in a way, that reflects the change in your life that comes from the Spirit of Jesus Christ within you.  As Galatians 5:22-23 puts it, it is a life that bears the spiritual fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
 
If you want to be spiritual, it’s important to recognize the spiritual dimension of who you are.  The disciplines of prayer, Scripture reading, and church attendance will help you become more attuned to how the Holy Spirit is at work.  But you don’t become “spiritual” until all of this changes how you live.  After all, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).