Set a Fire – A Youth Sunday

1 Timothy 4: 12 “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity.” (NIV) Yes, I’m using a student bible.

I’ll preface this post with a simple statement that my favorite church service is one in which I feel like I could have reached out and touched the hem Jesus’ garment. The reaching would have been up to me. Youth Sunday nearly always provides such a moment and I always look forward to them and am rarely disappointed. I know what you should be thinking; what would it be like if we looked forward to each service, every class, and all the service opportunities with anticipation of the opportunity to touch the Lord? We would rarely be disappointed.

This past Youth Sunday I was met again and was not disappointed. I was the only one of my earthly family able to come for the early service and was surrounded by my spiritual family and joined in the pew by several middle school girls who would be taking part in the service. As we sang the praise song More, “This is more than my obsession…this is more than my confession…All of my fears and failures, I lay them down for something more” I was struck by the honesty of the worship that my young friend next to me was displaying. That broke my heart which for me is a sure sign of God’s presence and the surest way for me to reach out and touch Him.

Psalm 51: 17 “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (NIV)

The next praise song: Set a Fire, “Set a fire down in my soul that I can’t contain that I can’t control. I want more of you God.” We all want more; we need to make sure it’s God we want more of.

The student testimonies by Emily, George, and Xavier carried that same honesty, the same desire for more of Him. Through their simple stories, I was again blessed; by the nervousness at sharing, I was moved to pray for them and thank Jesus for their lives. The Cardboard Testimonies with Katie’s violin were a wonderful opportunity to meditate and bask in the healing touch of the Spirit.

Thank you to all the Timothies; I am blessed to know you because you are doing it, you’ve set the example in simple speech, in your lives, in the way you love each other, and in your impassioned faith. Pursue purity.

 

Why him Lord? Why now?

It has been over twenty years since I sat with a small group of seventh and eighth graders and the other adult leaders of my first Mission Arizona trip and told them a story that had begun nearly twenty years before that and, unbeknown to me, was about to take a blessed turn. I shared with them how I’d lost one of my best friends, Doug Clark, in some freak accident with a drunk driver getting on the freeway the wrong way. Doug was the only one in his car to be killed and the only one in the car not to have a broken bone. I couldn’t understand why this had happened, what good purpose could there be in it? He was the first person that I had prayed with leading him to accept Christ as his Savior. I told the little group about how angry I was and how that I held on to the first question I thought I would ask when I got to heaven myself, “Why him Lord; why then? Why did you take him from me?” Over the years, through a disillusioned breakup of the little church Cindy and our family were in and through years of being outside the church altogether, my anger turned to a bitterness that drove a wedge between me and God.

I wasn’t aware of the tears until I’d been sitting there for a moment after finishing my story when the young intern and my friend, Darren Bottino, gathered the others around me and they laid hands on me to pray. I was healed then of all the bitterness, God seemed so close that I could touch Him, and in all truth, He was touching me with the laying on of their hands. It was a bona fide miracle and the first thing I’ll do when I get to heaven is to thank Him for this small group of believers, their faith, and the sacrifice He made for me. Is it any wonder that I gladly answered His call to go back to Arizona and spend as much time with youth groups and sports teams as I have? My son was a part of that group and I hope that he reads this and understands what a big part he played in setting my feet back on the path God had chosen for me. I hope that many of my young friends read this and understand what a great impact they can have on other’s lives.

I still don’t know the answers to those questions I was going to ask; they don’t seem so important now. I feel like that by giving up the bitterness and anger over it that I’ve somehow honored my friend in it as well as honoring God’s call. I wouldn’t necessarily know what to say to someone else who’s lost someone they love so much, a family member, a best friend, a spouse, a parent…all the old clichés seem so trite when I think of them here. I believe that what I’d do is to simply be there as much as I could, let them vent or just sit there quietly reviewing the life they had with the lost one and what life might be like without them. For certain, I would offer a quiet warning about holding it in and being comforted by the heat of anger and how those things could spread like a disease and affect all their relationships. I can only bring two ears and an open heart to the mourner and help them grieve.

How about you? What things could you do beyond the “He’s in a better place now” solace? What would you bring? What have you already experienced that has shown good effect?

Bless you all to be there when needed, present and in the moment, a representative of Jesus' great peace.

I’d rather be…

I used to have the license plate frame “I’d rather be paddling” that I got from Sports Chalet and many times it was true because I really love being on the water paddling along the river or the lake, or the back bay…anywhere. We see those “I’d rather be…” frames all over the place and why not? They’re free and we love to be doing anything but being stuck in traffic. Then one day as I was driving along to something that I had been looking forward to for quite some time it struck me that I really wouldn’t rather be paddling, I was going to do something really great. Don’t ask me what it was now because it was a long while ago and it could have been any one of many things, worshipping, playing some goofy game with a bunch of Junior High Students, seeing their Talent Show, seeing my own kids, going out with my wife…the list can go on because I’m blessed with an abundance of wonderful people in my life. The point is, I don’t want to drive around advertising my regret if I’m actually doing something I love so I took the plate off.

What got me thinking along this line was during a Saturday Victory Motorcycle Club ride a couple of weeks ago I overheard one of my riding friends say “I’d rather by riding my motorcycle and thinking about God than in church thinking about my motorcycle.” I liked hearing that and applauded it and support the sentiment now. There is no reason why we can’t think about God and worship Him while doing whatever it is we are doing and, in fact, we should do just that. Jesus is the perfect example of this, naturally. He was always about his Father’s business and did nothing that the Father didn’t show him to do. He was in perfect obedience and contact with God. When we are in church, that’s where we need to be focused and not on the game we’re going to right after, or seeking out a fellow member to lodge some complaint, or how we’d rather be on the golf course, or doing Pinterest. When we are in church we need to be present; God is. When we are riding, shooting hoops, or paddling along a lazy river we can and should be in His presence. Others will know it when we are just as they will know it when we aren’t.

A word of caution though before we give up our Sunday services to go and think about God at the matinee, or the mall, or even for a stroll at Descanso Gardens, we cannot and should not forgo the gathering of the saints. Hebrews 10: 25 says “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” We need each other and the corporate times of prayer and worship if we are to hold fast to our faith. I’ve known precious few people, maybe one, who could honestly profess God’s love and yet not be even a part time churchman.

Peace

Psalm 130 – A song of ascents

How fitting that a Psalm of ascents would speak to me so clearly. My Lenten season had degraded to daily skirmishes to the point that a battle raged between my commitment for the season and my habits of escape and withdrawal that resulted in bouts of guilt ridden self loathing. All of this drove me away from the main purpose of Lent; drawing near to Christ and his suffering, embracing the sacrifice and victory that He has already won on our behalf.

Psalm 130: 1 & 2: “¹Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; ²O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.”

The first act of ascending to the foot of the cross is recognizing our need for it, deep within us, until we cry to him with an intensity that rocks our soul.

Psalm 130: 3 & 4 “³If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? ⁴But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.”

Then we confess and repent in order to receive the assurance of His forgiveness with our response of worship and praise.

I really love this next part; I can relate to the watchmen. One of my favorite things about Mission Arizona is to walk about the camp, late at night and into the early morning while watching over the mission team, praying for them, crying out for God to lead us and to dwell in everything we were doing. Under the moonlight with a star-filled sky while hearing the breathing of a couple of dozen people who were out working and serving Him all with the backdrop of coyotes in the distance and even a couple of times drums from the reservation, I was often times answered in the quiet and was assured that all would be well in the camp.

Psalm 130: 5 & 6: “⁵I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. ⁶My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning.”

Psalm 130: 7 & 8: “⁷O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. ⁸He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.”

And we pray it now Lord; we put our hope in You, Your love never fails. Bring us to your redemption, from all our sins, all those things that keep us from having you always before us. We lift You up in victory, risen from the dead, sin and death vanquished. Come quickly Lord!”

Troubled Times - What Would Joel Do?

How odd; I would have thought that when setting out to write something at this time of year that it would be filled with the message of Christ coming to dwell with us or celebrating His birth in some way or the new year with new beginnings. I guess that’s not how the Spirit is working with me and that what’s been on my heart are events launching change and the horrible shootings in Newtown, CT along with all the Facebook postings, murmurings, and rumors. All this is driving me towards commentary I’d prefer not make.

Seeing the various political ramblings, the gun rights activists using the school shootings to suggest that we have armed guards on campus, the gun control activists using the shootings to crank up efforts to further the political drive at legislation to limit sales of various weapons, and the best yet, religious commentators suggesting the shootings are because we’ve legislated God out of the schools or that the states and courts are recognizing gay marriage as a right. In my personal search for the reasons of a senseless act I came up with a somewhat different viewpoint but resisted the impulse to post it as a FB status. I read a friend’s blog on the subject, a thoughtful consideration on where God was in all of this, and offered my un-posted status as a comment; I offer it here and hope that by the end of this post my point becomes clear:

“It’s my fault. I didn’t pray enough for God to protect the children so that he would directly intervene. I am to blame. I haven’t prayed fervently enough for God to raise up men and women of God who would be empowered by the Holy Spirit to see a need and be moved to love somebody enough to take action when that person needed someone to care. It’s my fault that I haven’t prayed enough. God help me pray.”

The other thing that has been of concern can best be described for me as church turmoil caused by poor communications about changes being considered in light of diminishing worship attendance and significant casualties to the church membership, something that’s be in motion over a few years now, at least from what I have observed.

How are we to react to such things; to tragedy, internal discord, or when it seems that events and people pile up against us? The Body of Christ is under assault, innocent victims to senseless acts are accumulating, day-to-day suffering grows, and it seems that the wicked and the opponents of God’s Kingdom are winning. How do we respond? With legislation? Clever ways to draw people in? Disguising the Gospel to make it more palatable or comflaging ourselves to attract new people before they see who we really are? Arm teachers and priests and train them in armed response?

Let’s look at Joel for a few minutes and see what he prescribes. Joel was witnessing an invasion of locusts on the land with horrific effects that promised years of starvation and suffering. Did he suggest that Israel arm all of the children and farmers, every one of God’s people to battle the pestilence? Not so much.  Joel 2: 12 – 17 shows us the way, the heart of it - “¹⁵Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly. ¹⁶Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber. ¹⁷Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the temple porch and the altar. Let them say, ‘Spare your people, O Lord. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

God’s Kingdom is the answer and we can’t legislate it into existence or put up buildings so constructed in design as to bring the Kingdom to fruition. A response of repentance and crying out to our Lord is what will catch His ear and provide the answer. Joel 2: 18-19 “¹⁸Then the Lord will be jealous for his land and take pity on his people. ¹⁹The Lord will reply to them: ‘I am sending you grain, new wine and oil, enough to satisfy you fully; never again will I make you an object of scorn to the nations.’”  Joel’s formula is fairly simple when boiled down to the bare ingredients; separation from God’s will, tragedy and opposition, repentance and seeking His face, forgiveness and restoration, and finally, judgment to evil (see Joel 3).

And so we pray, come quickly Lord. Joel 2: 27 & 28 “²⁷Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed. ²⁸And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”

Point of Aim

The archer stands with feet slightly apart, side on to the target, solid and yet relaxed and confident; after all, he’s just completed a bull’s eye and knows that he can repeat it indefinitely. He pulls to a full draw and adopts a nice tight anchor with the nock of the arrow directly below his aiming eye and sets the point of aim at just the right spot and without thinking, runs through a checklist of items – stance, arm position, tension on the string, wind, anchor, point of aim…let’s fly the arrow and bull’s eye again! The archer knows that with any deviation from repeating the shot the result will be different and that he will not achieve the bull’s eye if his point of aim is off, even a percentage of a degree. If he moves further from the target or even closer, to the right or to the left, he must adjust his point of aim to compensate for the changes if he hopes to achieve the bull’s eye. For him to change his position relative to the target and not change the point of aim is folly and sure failure; the target remains the same, his goal remains the same, he has changed, and so he must compensate to achieve his goal.

As Christians, our lives are like that. The target is always the same, Jesus Christ and His Righteousness. The goal is the same, being welcomed into His Kingdom to hear the words “Well done My good and faithful servant.” The problem is that we change in relation to the target and our goal of achievement does not remain the same. We age, learn worldly wisdom, enter into relationships, gain maturity and responsibility, and sometimes find it difficult to locate the target or even care about it. Then something happens to remind of us of who we are and what He means to us and our desire to hit the target is refreshed. How do we aim from our new position, where do we find our point of aim? We take our stance as before, fully draw the arrow of our commitment, find the tip of the arrow, and we let it fly only to see the arrow fall short or strike to the side, or even sail far and above the target. Life on campus, in the new corporate office, in retirement, becoming a parent, spouse, or from a hospital bed has changed us in relation to the target. So what then? We can’t go back to where we first drew a bull’s eye, we are forever changed by any of those circumstances and the target remains the same. Perhaps we get blessed with an abundance of grace and the first new arrow strikes true. Excellent! What with the next arrow? Still we’ve changed, that’s inevitable and, frankly, desirable since we are clay on the Potter’s wheel and must change to be the piece he wants us to be.

What do we do as archers for Christ when our arrows fall off target? His grace is enough, His sacrifice complete. We ask forgiveness, take out another arrow and adjust our point of aim, and let it fly again! The change in our point of aim does not necessarily need to be radical; actually it probably shouldn’t be radical. A small change, subtle adjustment in the altitude of our aim is probably best most of the time and will allow for each arrow to draw closer to the bull’s eye with precision and prediction. Radical changes in our position to the target may require radical changes to our point of aim but once we see our arrows falling more and more true to our goal, the changes should become more subtle. Remember this; we are not finished until our last arrow falls true to the target.

What is in a Name? Plenty.

Juliet, in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet said, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." I believe that I have to agree with her; after all, if you take away my name I am still employed by AT&T, am 6’3”, bow-legged, don’t have quite enough hair, and smell fairly good after a shower. The only problem in getting rid of our names would be how people would find us. For sure, looking for me someone could use the physical traits I’ve listed and what I do for a living. Do you think someone who doesn’t already know me could find me? There are over 6 billion people on earth but we’ve already trimmed that down to the 300,000 who work for AT&T. You could start using things that define who I am or what I carry in my soul; things like, he loves kids, prays for people, is a bit of a curmudgeon, likes making people laugh and helping them through hard times. You could start describing things I do like; occasionally writes blogs, likes riding motorcycles, was a fair basketball player, liked coaching. We have narrowed it down but there are still a lot of people out there with many of those traits. Just to keep it simple and allow folks to find me because, most of the time, I like being found because I like people; I think that I’ll keep my name.

Over the years I have accumulated a number of nicknames, most of them good and fun; some, not so much. I’m sure we all are collecting them, from our families, our friends, our work friends, teams, and any number of places and they are usually for something we’ve done or do or say or some physical attribute that stands out for some folks. I’ve been jotting mine down while writing this and was up to 20 when I posted it. Some of the ones used to tease me or given to me in a disparaging way I can live without. There is one that I earned as a less than complementary comment on my basketball skills that I came to embrace because it associates me with my high school basketball team that I am still proud to have been a member of.

There are two that I embrace now and love to hear. A few weeks ago I posted a Facebook status of “More melodic than the sounds of the harp, or uplifting than the chiming of village victory bells are the shouts of ‘Opa’ from my grandchildren when I walk into the room.” I got many likes and a few comments on that one and it’s true, I love hearing it and it makes me feel loved. The other one has grown over my years of youth ministry and one that many of the kids, some now young adults, who came through the junior high group and went to Mission Arizona use. When I hear it from these young people that I love, pray for, believe for, and hope for, it makes me feel loved and cared about. They call me Jer-Bear.

 

What, you may ask, does this have to do with Calvary’s Thread? Why, plenty of course. We have a bible full of names for God the Father, Jesus His Son, and the Holy Spirit. I have a list of them at my elbow in two columns, three pages long. They are very descriptive of who God is, what he is to his people, and how he relates to us. When we use them in our prayers, in our worship, and how we describe Him to others, God feels loved and appreciated. We should use them whenever we can because while He is unfathomable, they help us understand who God is and helps us relate to Him.  My friend Courtney recently posted a Facebook status and wrote the name out “G~d” and explained that our Jewish brothers and sisters don’t write out the whole name out of a deep reverence for Him. However we call Him; do it reverently.

Here are just a few names for our God for your consideration:

V  Alpha and Omega, as well as the Almighty in Revelation 1:8

V  Blessed Hope in Titus 2:13

V   Bread of Life in John 3:29

V  Changeless One in Malachi 3:6 and Hebrews 13:8

V  Good Shepherd in John 10:11

V  Helper in Hebrews 6:20

V  King of kings in Revelation 19:16

V  I am in John 18:6

V  Great Physician in Luke: 4:23

V  Lord of the Harvest in Matthew 9:38

V  Rose of Sharon in song of Solomon 2:1

V  Our Shelter in Psalms 61:3

This is the link I found to a nice resource for the names that I’ve used here:

Crown Him With Many Crowns

For our two brothers who will be spending a lot of time in the Gospel of John over the next few months and those of us who will be hearing them, I did a quick scan of this document and found that John’s Gospel accounts for 29 of the listings.

 

I think that it is worthwhile to consider all of the names for God and even to use descriptors from our own creative source because He is, after all, inexhaustible (I didn’t find that one on the list but find it appropriate). Then, when we are done with this consideration, I think that it would be worthwhile to simply empty our thoughts of all names and descriptors to love Him as God.