Trust in God

Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place— the Most High, who is my refuge— no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot. “Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.” (Psalm 91:9-16 ESV)

Have you placed your trust in the lord?

Do you feel like you can give over control of your life to God?

Now it does not say here that your life will be a walk in the park. You could say it will be a rose garden. Because even in a rose garden there is a chance you will get a thorn or stung by a bee… you see God never said that life would be easy or with out pain or annoyances but He did promise to be with us and walk with us through everything.

He has even given His angels charge over us to watch over us and help us through things.

So give your life into His hands and walk with Him trusting in His mercy to always see us through.

Welcome one another…

Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name. And again it is said, Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people. And again, Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him.” (Romans 15:7-11 ESV)

Welcome one another as you have been welcomed. But why?

Are we suppose to be nice to each other and welcome all so that they will join our gatherings and give us financial support and make our numbers look good? Are we suppose to welcome others so we get noticed in our neighborhoods and people ask what are they doing there and then come and see what is happening?

No! We are to welcome others unconditionally as we have been welcomed for the glory of God. You see Jesus became a servant to the people of God to show the promises to the patriarchs had been fulfilled and so that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy…

We welcome and serve not for gratification or to get noticed. We do not welcome so our numbers will grow or to up our financial numbers. We welcome and serve to give God glory.

So welcome as you were welcomed so God will smile because one more has experienced His love!

The glory of Jesus quote from Dr. Garwood Anderson

“For as long as we misunderstand the glory of Jesus as the antithesis of his humility, we will be strangers to humility ourselves.  We will think that we are being like Jesus whenever we draw self congratulatory attention to the striking incompatibility between our rank and our menial acts of service.  We will think it is admirable that someone with our status and accomplishments and importance temporarily sets those aside to take up basin and towel.  We will think it notable that someone like us cares so little for his station that he will stoop low.  We will feel slighted when our humility is not admired and noted. Indeed, we will make sure that our humility is as well known to others as it is to us, and our servility will be to us and to them a never-ending source of wonder and admiration.  And, if we are skillful, it will not even look like this is what we are doing.

This is what happens when we think that humility is a path to greatness rather than greatness itself.  This is what becomes of us when we think that our occasional quaint forays into servanthood are meant to adorn our majesty. This is what the church reduces itself to when it sprinkles the waters of baptism onto structures and assumptions and ways of being that are not the way of Jesus.  If we baptize a hierarchical ecclesiology—and we have—then we must go the whole way and not sprinkle blessing upon power, prerogative, and abuse but rather mercilessly drown it all into the death of Jesus so that it may be raised to newness of life by the one who gave his life as a ransom for many sinners.” Dr. Garwood Anderson

he knew his name…

“There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’” (Luke 16:19-31 ESV)

We have all heard this story before. And it is the same as all of the stories we have been hearing for a while now from the pericope. It is not about the rules we follow but how we look out for the other…

You see the thing I am always struck by in this reading is that the rich man has no name. He is simply referred to as the rich man. But in life from the way the story goes, everyone would have known his name. He was in the in crowd. He wore the right clothes, and probably got invited to all the parties, and was more than likely one of the people to know if you wanted to make it in town. He was some body and he had a name. Then there is Lazarus. The poor man who laid outside the rich man’s house and begged for scraps and had the dogs to help him keep his soars clean. In life he would not have been known right? He was a no body and didn’t have the right clothes or run in the right crowds. He was not invited to any parties, and he couldn’t help you at all. He was a burden and there fore a waste of time. You wouldn’t want to know his name. Yet the rich man knows his name…

The rich man does not call out from Hades to Abraham and say “please send the poor man to help me.” He calls and asks Abraham to send Lazarus. Now I don’t believe we are given name tags in Heaven. Maybe it just is that we all instantly know the name of everyone else. But whatever it is the man who had a name now has none and the one who was unknown is known by all. The first shall be last and the last shall be first…

Then interestingly Abraham tells the rich man that if he and his brothers could not listen to Moses and the prophets (the majority of the Hebrew Scriptures) that they would not believe if one came back from the dead! They would not believe even after they killed Jesus and he rose again from the grave! Jesus came and showed us how to live the life that God has told us and the Israelites to live. One that looks out for the other. #1 must become number #2 and we need to think about the other person. Even in life the rich man probably knew Lazarus’ name, but more out of disgust because that man is still here.

You see the one who dies with the most toys, dies! And leaves his/her family more to deal with. The one who helps the other instead of amassing things here, will also die. But will leave his/her family with a legacy of people who have been touched. Being rich does not mean having things, it means being loved by the one who first loved us, and giving that love away as freely as it was given to us.

As you have done, it shall be done to you

Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever. On the day that you stood aloof, on the day that strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them. But do not gloat over the day of your brother in the day of his misfortune; do not rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their ruin; do not boast in the day of distress. Do not enter the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; do not gloat over his disaster in the day of his calamity; do not loot his wealth in the day of his calamity. Do not stand at the crossroads to cut off his fugitives; do not hand over his survivors in the day of distress. For the day of the LORD is near upon all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you; your deeds shall return on your own head. For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations shall drink continually; they shall drink and swallow, and shall be as though they had never been. (Obadiah 1:10-16 ESV)

Have you ever rubbed someone’s face in their defeat?

Or look at it from the other side, has someone ever pushed your loss back into your face? Not fun is it…

I tell my girls it is not whether you win or lose, it is how bad you stomp their heads into the ground… But they know that I am kidding because we talk about that. It is no fun to be on the losing end when the winner is gloating. And you know what we are on the winning end!

I’ve read the story and got an inside scoop that we are going to win in the end! God is the winner and we are on His side, so we are the winners!!!

So does that make playing even more special when we know we are going to win? It should make it easier for us to help those who aren’t on our team to see how good life and the game could be. To not gloat about their situation or tell them that they are losers and need to get it straight before they can come back.

We shouldn’t hold them in their distress or their sin and keep it over them like something they will never over come, because we were there, and God brought us out of it.

Do not cut them off and keep them from coming to our side.

Because the day of judgment is coming, and it is not about how bad you stomped their heads into the ground to get them to change. It is about how much you loved them where they were and allowed God to work in and through you to help them see how much fun the game can be.

What you have done will be done to you. Treat others with love, and you will be too.

Integrity!

Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the LORD without wavering. Prove me, O LORD, and try me;
test my heart and my mind. For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness. I do not sit with men of falsehood, nor do I consort with hypocrites. I hate the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked. I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, O LORD, proclaiming thanksgiving aloud, and telling all your wondrous deeds. O LORD, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells. Do not sweep my soul away with sinners, nor my life with bloodthirsty men, in whose hands are evil devices, and whose right hands are full of bribes. But as for me, I shall walk in my integrity; redeem me, and be gracious to me. My foot stands on level ground; in the great assembly I will bless the LORD. (Psalm 26 ESV)

Vindicate me Lord for I have walked with integrity…

How many of us can actually say we have walked with integrity? Are we sound in everything we do, tested and true to the values that we say we uphold? Do we say one thing and do another? Do we espouse to be inclusive and accepting of others, and then turn around and say that someone is not welcome until they change an aspect of their behavior? Can our lives stand up to the judging we will all have to face? Are we truly people of integrity?

This psalm tells of a man who does everything in his power to be a man of integrity. Not dwelling with evil doers and keeping himself away from those that might cause him to stumble. He proclaims the word of the Lord and tries to walk the narrow path of righteousness. Obadiah tells us of a different story in his vision of the humbling of Edom:

The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, “Who will bring me down to the ground?” Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the LORD. (Obadiah 1:3-4 ESV)

The pride of your heart deceives you. You think you are higher than you are, but no matter how high you think you can soar, God can bring you down. We can not get away from the integrity that God will hold us to. We have to be ready to move at a moments notice however and whichever way God tells us to move.

You see it is not about us thinking we have it all together and following after what we believe we have to do. It is about us living the life that God has called us to and being ready to go when He calls us, and doing what He commands us. Even when that is contrary to what we have been taught is how we follow God, or is following the rules.

When the final testing comes will God see you as a person of integrity, following where He leaded, or a person who upheld the traditions and rules of men to make yourself look good in the eyes of those who will not matter when God comes to judge each of us?

Look for your integrity from the one that will make the judgment on your eternal placement. Worry about what God thinks about you and no one else will ever matter! Have integrity with God and everything else will fall into place.

What is your Idol?

And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” (Mark 10:17-31 ESV)

Ever wondered about this passage? There is an awful lot here to chew on this week… Maybe the camel reference is to help us chew on what Jesus is telling us…

First there is a man who kneels before Jesus and calls Him good and asks what he must do to get into heaven. Now be honest, how many times have you wondered what that magic thing is we have to do to make it to heaven. I mean I know there is nothing I can do, but that is just our interpretation, right. There has to be a magic thing that allows us access to heaven. And that is what this man wanted to know. What must I do to get into heaven? And Jesus answers him by asking why do you call me good, only God is good. Wait a minute isn’t He God? But the rich man doesn’t know this, or does he? He thinks He is a good teacher, but does he know that Jesus is God? But I digress…

Jesus then asks if he knows the commandments. And then Jesus tells him the commandments, “‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” Uhm, Jesus I don’t know if that is right or not. I mean do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness and honor your father and mother are commandments, but I really don’t remember this do not defraud, are you just testing me… But the rich man does not get that, he has the audacity to say, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” Wow. How many of you can say you have not broken a commandment? If we go without Jesus’ expansion of them, I can say I have not broken some of them, but not all of them, and I’m just talking about the 10 commandments. I am human. So this man says I have kept them all since my youth. Then Jesus looks at him and loves him. Jesus looks deep into his eyes into the depths of his soul and sees what this man lacks. He has an idol and it is his wealth. So Jesus tells him to get rid of his idol. Which we have turned into money is bad and wealthy people will not get to heaven. If we take this section literally, then all of us have to sell everything we have and give it to the poor to follow Jesus. This man had a problem with his wealth controlling his life, what would Jesus see if He looked into your soul?

But the disciples don’t get it… Jesus explains that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy man to get into heaven. Now again with the money, but understand that in Jesus’ day that if you had a lot of money you were blessed by God. Those that had were blessed and were first in society… OK maybe not just in Jesus day, do people with wealth think they get to be first, and are to be looked after more than those who do not have. Now that is a stereo type and I know some wealthy people who are are very generous and help in so many ways… But if you are blessed then you should be in heaven, but Jesus is saying that those who think they are blessed because of their possessions do not get it and won’t get in. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of needle also does not refer to the gate in the city walls which were called needle eyes, which would allow a camel to go through, but the rider had to get off and baggage had to be removed. These gates were named this long after it was recorded that Jesus said this.

Then Peter says, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” And Jesus responds, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” So if you have left something to follow Jesus you are going to have many more houses and brothers and sisters and children and mothers and land. Meaning you will have many more things to take care of. Mothers and children are those who needed families to take care of them. They were the least of these, and we will have more of them to take care of. But with all of these things, will come persecutions. We get persecuted with the possessions we get. We get more stuff and have to take care of, and we get persecuted in the process.

So are you ready to be persecuted as Jesus asks you to let go of your idol?

Honor God…

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” (Matthew 15:1-9 ESV)

What is more important following God or following the rules?

One might say they are one and the same. You have to follow the rules to honor God. But does God get more honor out of you washing your pots according to the law or from someone who is hungry eating with dirty hands?

Is it more important to follow all the rules than to make sure the needy are taken care of? You see by saying we can’t help them because the code forbids it means that the code is not honoring God. Did God say, “I’m sorry Jesus didn’t die for you because you did not follow the ritual of cleansing your hands correctly…” No Jesus came so that all might be saved, not cleared to follow the rules.

So see that your heart is following God and the rest will fall into place. Do not try to follow the rules to make God happy, because it just won’t work…