Bye Bye to the Mint Cruiser

Rosalind and I are very grateful that only our Cutlass was totaled yesterday and no one was injured. You can see the car by going to the church website. You can either click on all the blue lines at the bottom of the email or go to faithsonoma.com, then to “contact us,” then to my name “Tim’s” on Tim’s mobile and just click on it. I looked down for a moment at my radio, looked up to a decelerating car on 12 making a right hand turn onto Cavedale road. I slammed on my brakes and just managed to nick him before slamming my mint station wagon into the embankment. I remember paying close attention to the speed limit seconds before the accident to make sure I was obeying the law. (I’ve had problems with this as you know). What to learn from this?

Yes, any split second you take away from concentrating on driving can result in disaster. Keep your eyes on the road. Stay focused on the task at hand. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

The big lesson for me though is this: God sovereignly allows things to happen to us that help us really know what is in our hearts. To know what is our true “heart throb” is so eternally important. We can be fooling ourselves into thinking that Jesus is really our essential source of joy, security, satisfaction, self worth, when really, buried deep in our hearts, is what we are really holding on to for dear life. When our Heaven Father removes something from us, or heats up our lives in some way, He actually gives us the priceless opportunity to find out what is really in there.

Here are some key Scripture on this:

In Deuteronomy 6 Israel’s God commands his redeemed that He alone should the treasure of our hearts, ⁴ “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ⁶ And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your children…

Then in Deuteronomy 8 the Lord informs his people of the purpose of that wilderness experience: ² And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. ³ And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Jeremiah 17 states how easy it is to be fooled that our hearts are not really trusting God:

The heart is deceitful above all things,

and desperately sick;

who can understand it?

“I the Lord search the heart

and test the mind,

to give every man according to his ways,

according to the fruit of his deeds.”

Psalm 139 teaches us that since our hearts are so deceptive we need to ask God to open our eyes to our true heart condition:

Search me, O God, and know my heart!

Try me and know my thoughts!

And see if there be any grievous way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting!

Jesus reminds us in the beginning of his most famous sermon that only the pure in heart will see God (Matthew 5: 8). Actually this is the only desire, the only “lust” that will ever be filled. All other heart throbs will fail us at best and destroy us at worst.

In Matthew 6, Jesus gives us one of the most common things our hearts tend to latch on to: ¹⁹ “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, ²⁰ but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

In Matthew 12, Jesus connects our mouths with the condition of our hearts: For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

In Matthew 15 Jesus quotes Isaiah 29 to get the super religious to take a deeper look at their spiritual condition:

“ ‘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.’ ”

While we are commanded to circumcise our hearts, Jeremiah tells us how impossible it is to actually change them:

…the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. ¹⁶ Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. ¹⁷ For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. ¹⁸ He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. (Deuteronomy 10)

Can the Ethiopian change his skin

or the leopard his spots?

Then also you can do good

who are accustomed to do evil. (Jeremiah 13:3)

But in Ezekiel we learn that God is all about exerting his loving covenantal power to change his people’s hearts:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses,

and from all your idols I will cleanse you.

²⁶ And I will give you a new heart,

and a new spirit I will put within you.

And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh

and give you a heart of flesh.

²⁷ And I will put my Spirit within you,

and cause you to walk in my statutes

and be careful to obey my rules. (36)

And the writer to the Hebrews picks up that glorious promise in Jeremiah that the updated covenant sealed by the blood of Christ has internal power to transform our hearts rather than merely imposing upon us external law that, because of the weakness of our hearts, can only condemn us:

¹⁰ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel

after those days, declares the Lord:

I will put my laws into their minds,

and write them on their hearts,

and I will be their God,

and they shall be my people. (Hebrews 8 quoting Jeremiah 31:31-34)

So, any inkling to turn to God in times of loss or stress is evidence of God’s heart-changing redeeming work in us.

Philippians makes this clear: 2 ¹² Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³ for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

The loss of my car is a small thing compared to what Christians are facing in the Middle East. Even secular magazines are picking up on this horror. Click on http://www.thedailybeast.com/videos/2012/02/06/the-war-on-christians.html for recent news. But for any Christian, every loss can be viewed as the golden opportunity to find out what the heart really trusts, treasures, and obeys, and if it’s not Jesus, cry out to him for that deep change that He alone can grant.

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. ² In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. (John 14)

I have stored up your word in my heart,

that I might not sin against you. (psalm 119:11)

Full of thanks,

Pastor Tim

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Making the Most of Lent

                                         

Yesterday was “Fat Tuesday,” “Mardi Gras” in French, referring to the last day the faithful are allowed to eat richer foods before the beginning of the observance of Lent the following day. It’s disturbing to me that Mardi Gras gets so much more press as it plummets ever deeper into debauchery, while Lent is almost completely forgotten. Don’t get me wrong. Christians should be the happiest, most celebrative people on earth. They know where all their material and spiritual blessings have come from and should be moved on occasion to raise up a joyous storm of praise to their good God and feast on his material blessings in his name. Carnival, which means “farewell to meat” has come to mean “hello to the flesh”—very tragic for our culture.

Lent literally means “lengthening,” referring to spring time, when the light of each succeeding day lengthens. For many pre-modern cultures this period is called “the hungry gap.” It was the time when last year’s harvest was about to give out and planting for the new harvest was about to begin. Its purpose among professing Christians is to prepare for the celebration of the key events in history upon which our faith depends—the crucifixion and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Lent directs us how to prepare.

The first day of Lent, called Ash Wednesday, is traditionally the time to begin a period of personal examination, confession of sin, and a deep turning of the heart toward all God has done for us in his Son. Dust and ashes are the biblical symbols for true sorrow for sin and the desire to repent, to turn from sin to God’s mercy and restoration (See Jonah 3:6 as a great example).

The Lenten season extends this period 40 days, not counting Sundays. The number forty has many Biblical references all of  which deal with testing:

Ø     God made it rain for forty days and forty nights in the days of Noah as His mode of judgment upon the entire world (Genesis 7:4);

Ø     Moses spent forty days in the very presence of God on Mount Sinai receiving his holy law, (Exodus 24:18);

Ø     discouraged and shaken to the core Elijah spent forty days and nights on his way to Mount Horeb, where God met him in a whisper and assured him of his saving power (1 Kings 19);

Ø     Israel wondered forty years traveling to the Land God promised to Abraham, while God tested them to find out what was in their hearts (Numbers 14:33);

Ø     Jonah, after being tested himself preached in his prophecy of judgment gave the city of Nineveh forty days in which to repent (Jonah 3:4).

The most biblically memorable period of testing is the time that Jesus, after God his Father affirmed him as his only begotten Son baptized him with the Holy Spirit, he retreated into the wilderness, where He fasted for forty days. There the devil met Him and tempted Him, trying to get him to doubt his identity and derail him from his mission. (Matthew 4:1-2, Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-2). Jesus overcame all three of Satan's temptations by citing Scripture. Thus, having defeated the adversary, he begins his earthly ministry which he completed on the cross. His finished work for our redemption was confirmed by God raising him from the dead. And for forty more days he “proved” to a significant number of eye witnesses that his risen body could walk, talk, eat, drink and be touched.

Our Savior assumed that his followers would pray and fast "when the bridegroom shall be taken from them" (Matthew 9:15). So the tradition of giving up something for Lent has its roots in the Gospels.

But the purpose of the fast is not intended to lead us only to depravation, but to fullness. We fast in anticipation of greater spiritual intimacy with the Lord Jesus as we repent of all that is preventing that sense of his nearness and impeding greater  spiritual fruit. Those who fast well describe the benefits as a banquet feast. The psalmist exclaims, “You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound (Psalm 4:7).

So you see Lent is more that giving up candy or coffee till Easter. It is the opportunity to seek the Lord, to pull our hearts away from the secondary that we’ve made primary, and pull us into the Life that is truly Life, secured for us by that cross and that empty tomb.

May your Lenten season transport you to deeper riches in Christ, that you may bear fruit that lasts into eternity.

Pastor Tim

Good Work!

Most people do good works to get God to accept them.  This assumption is rarely spoken.  It's more like a sneaking suspicion, "if God is really out there, and if I will be accountable to him someday, I better make sure I give money, or spend some of my time once in awhile helping a charitable organization.  The points I rack up can't hurt. The more I give, the more I do, the more assured I will be that I'm in, whatever that means."

The message of the Bible is radically different from this. Even in the Tanach, the first section comprising the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, written as a covenant to the Jews and all who attach themselves to the God of the Jews, works come after redemption, not before.

It was only after God demonstrated the supremacy of his power over the most formidable empire on the planet at the time, and freed his people from oppressive slavery, that he then gave them the ten commandments.  Their obedience was to be a faith response to his redemption.  "I am the Lord God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of slavery" is the preamble to the big ten.  "I am your God, you are my people, we are in covenant together, and I have worked a mighty salvation for you, therefore here is how you can demonstrate your appreciation for who I am and what I have done for you. "You shall have no other gods before me..."

So God's people obey because they have been saved, not to earn salvation, even in the Old Testament.

Good parents don't conditionalize acceptance of their kids on the basis of their performance.  They rejoice with their children when they obey and then reward them, and grief with them when they disobey and must discipline them, but their love and acceptance does not change.

No one is capable of living according to the perfect standards of the commandments anyway.  Everyone of us knows we could do more.  All of us know of times that we did our own thing and completely blew God off. If perfect obedience to God's standards becomes the criteria for his acceptance, we are doomed.


But the Bible declares something spectacularly wonderful. Here's just one example of where good works fits in Christianity: In one of the apostle Paul's letters he gives a command, but gives it in the context of God's previous saving work.  "Be tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you."   You are commanded not to be harsh, defensive, resentful and hold grudges, but instead be empathetic, open and forgiving, not to gain salvation, but because God in Christ has been tenderhearted and forgiving to you already.


This is indeed good news.

How Could this be Loving?

Our love is too mushy, too accommodating. Look how Jesus responds when confronted to explain a brutal military crackdown on a recent uprising. Government operatives had quelled the insurgents by actually killing some of them in as they were worshiping at the temple, their blood actually mingling with the blood of their sacrificial animals. 

And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

As if that answer wasn't harsh enough, Jesus gives his own example, not of political terror, but natural disaster.


Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” 

Does this strike you as loving? We tend to think of catastrophe as something unfair that happens to innocent people.  Jesus reminds us here that because of our spiritual condition we all deserve immediate devastation. His double warning to "repent," that is, to change my mind, heart, vantage point, attitude, and direction, requires a reinterpretation of the events.  I must first confess to him that I am as deserving to be in the path of Japan's disasters or Kadafi's rockets as anybody else. But because these horrors didn't happen to me startles me back into a fresh appreciation of his patience, his willingness to forgive, restore and redeploy, AND THEN TO GO TO HIM.

As a natural born people pleaser, this account forces me to rethink what love must be willing to do. I must be willing to appear uncaring and even brutal if it means helping people realize their real peril and what to do about it.

What exonerates Jesus from the charge of being uncaring is his own willingness to suffer so for our sakes. His suffering shallows out ours and eventually brings it to an end. What exonerates us is our willingness to suffer in his name for those we love.  Give generously to disaster relief.