Learning God's Story

 As people, we dearly love stories. We like to read stories. We like to watch stories unfold on the small screen (TV) and the big screen (movies). There is just something about a story that captures our attention, draws us into a different place and time, and keeps us focused until the end.

God's story is much the same way, only on a much larger scale. It is a story that has a lot of drama in it, more than a few comedic places, and tension that grips us and keeps us on the edge of our seats. That story also explains a lot about why our world is the way that it is, and how we are best designed to live in this world and among other people.

One of the biggest challenges that we face is finding time to engage God and His story. At a conference I sat in on last fall, one remark that was made was that people almost need a step to take place before they start to read God's story in the Bible. That first step is to learn how to set aside the time to actually be able to read the story. And when we think about our busy schedules and everything that life throws at us, having a guide to help us learn how to even set apart that time is a necessity.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to work with this blog to help us think about ways to set aside a little bit of time to engage God and His story. I'm also going to be suggesting some easy entrance points to reading God's story and learning it. It will be a journey, and just like a journey, it will likely have its unexpected stops and detours along the way. That's okay. Be gracious to yourself if you are following along and find that the road is closed, or that you need to take a quick pitstop. 

To get us started, I want to suggest one thing. Let's start off with something simple. Something that is not too long to read, and that we can find engaging with our attention. I suggest that we start with Psalm 100. It's only a few verses long, and so doesn't take a lot of time to read through. Small steps are good to take as we get the journey going.

So for our first step, I'm simply going to suggest that you read Psalm 100 at some point today. Bookmark it, as we will come back to it as we get this journey underway. And if you find that God gives you a few extra minutes, read on ahead to the next Psalm. But for us as we take our first steps together, let's start small and work our way up. Then, let's check in tomorrow to see what our next step might be together. 

God and His Story

 At Lord of Life, where God has placed me at present to serve His people, we have been working through a curriculum called "The Story." This breaks down the biblical story into 30+ chapters, with a primary look at the lives of God's people in chronological order. It helps the reader to get a grasp of how God's story with His people unfolds. It does not seek to get into all the deep theological points, but rather presents the overview of His interactions with His people and their interactions with each other and the world around them.

Over the years, I have come to realize that there are many people who are faithful followers of Jesus, but perhaps miss how His life fits in with the overall story of God's people. We hear often of the different people of the Bible, but without putting them into their place in history, it can be challenging to place them, or to know who came first or who came later. This also has an impact when we hear God speaking to His people, such as through the prophets. Part of what makes their words impactful is the situation into which they spoke. That might mean that, at one part of history, God would have one message for His people, but at a different point in history, they might be doing something different, and so God spoke in an appropriate way for their current circumstances.

Understanding this history can help us get a growing perspective on just how patient and caring God is for His people. When you consider that, in a couple of different instances, God waited for hundreds of years to take action, it shows how long He is willing to wait, to give people a chance to change, to return to Him, and to remember what it means to be His people. A word from the old King James version sums this up nicely: long-suffering. God is willing to wait, far longer than you and I, to see His people change their hearts and minds.

That's why we look at the history of God's people. We also end up seeing ourselves reflected in their lives, even though they lived long ago and far away. We'll cover that in a future post. Until then, I hope you enjoy or make an effort to get to know God's story as it happened and learn from Him.

Christians and Wisdom

A common occurrence at the new year is for people to think about things that they want to change as the new year is ushered in. Some call them resolutions, others call them goals, but the point of them is that there is a desire to change something for the better in our life. We want to do these things for a variety of motivations, but the desire to improve is there.

There is wisdom in this desire to improve one's life and circumstances and situation. In fact, God speaks really highly of wisdom. In Proverbs 9, we have an image painted for us. It is of a lady named Wisdom, who cries out to the people who walk by her. She wants to be found by them. She calls for those listening to leave their simple ways and to walk in the path of insight and wisdom.

God created this world to operate in specific ways. He designed us human beings to live in certain ways when it comes to our interactions with each other. The wisdom that God gives, the wisdom that cries out to be found and embraced, is the wisdom of seeing God's design for life and then working to live according to that design. So when we see God laying out His commandments, we see God's wisdom at work. For example, when God says "You shall not steal," we see the wisdom of what God intends. We tend to get along better with each other when we aren't taking things that belong to others. God designed us to live in relationship with each other according to wisdom.

As you consider God's wisdom, where is God calling you to grow in greater wisdom? Is it in a specific relationship you have? Is it in handling some of what God has given you (such as your finances or possessions)? Is it in simply trying to learn more about how God designed you to live with others? Wisdom recognizes these areas where we can grow, and then adopts a way to address them. So my prayer is that you may grow in seeing and seeking God's wisdom in this new year.  

Relationship Dynamics

 This past Sunday at Lord of Life, we focused on adopting a lifestyle of submission to the good of others. We see this dynamic at work in the relationship between Jesus and the Church, where mutual submission for the good of the other is at the heart of all that each does for the other. This then extends into the relationships we have with each other, as Paul points out in the last part of Ephesians 5 and the first part of chapter 6.

Today I would like to focus a lot on the last part of this brief selection, specifically Ephesians 6:5-9. Now, the wording that you likely find in there is sure to raise a few eyebrows in our day and age. After all, we simply do not talk that way, and it makes us think back to a part of American history that is not viewed in a positive light. While that may be the case, what Paul is talking about here is the dynamic of the worker and the person over the worker. For the sake of clarity, I will simply use employer and employee, though there are many nuances to this relationship.

What would it look like if your employer were submitting to your good in order to make your work environment the best it could possibly be for you and others? I encourage you to think about that for a moment before proceeding on. Even write it out on paper. (Here is where you pause to do that!) You have ideas for what would make a vibrant workplace, don't you? You have things that would make going to work something that you look forward to on a day by day basis. It would be great if your employer did that for you, right?

So, suppose you took that picture and went up to your employer and demanded such a work environment. How would those in charge react to such a demand? While there might be some value that they would take from the picture you paint, the fact that you are demanding might cause them to raise their walls of defense. They might look instead to show you why they do the things that they do now, rather than looking at the picture you are painting. In general, demanding that things be done the way you envision likely will not lead to ready adoption.

Now, consider this. What if you demonstrate that you are looking to do good for your employer? Not that you cross boundaries of work and home, or overwork yourself, but that you simply show that you dedicate yourself to your work and to the good of your employer as you should. If you prove to be an employee who is looking out for the good of your employer, you are likely to gain an audience when you have suggestions. Rather than demanding, you can show them the benefit of the changes they could make to encourage people such as yourself to work in similar fashion. 

Looking to the good of others is a lifestyle that mimics what God did for you in Jesus. That applies to your work environment as well. Whether you are employee or employer, God would have you work for the good of your work environment, but even more, especially for your coworkers and their good. God has redeemed you for such an outlook, and believe it or not, such an approach is likely going to stand out in your workplace. Don't be surprised when it is viewed both with suspicion (people wondering what you're trying to gain for yourself) and with disdain (at people who just don't like seeing others doing what they are unwilling to do). After all, Jesus simply did what the Father had sent Him to do, and it resulted in your redemption and salvation. It might not amount to the same in your workplace, but you just never know what doors might be opened when you look to the good of others there.

So what is appropriate?

 "Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving." Ephesians 5:4

I love the phrase Paul includes in here, "which are out of place." As he considered what it meant to be one of God's people, he knew that God has set apart His people for a different way of life. God had redeemed them and given them new purpose. Being re-created in Jesus, they would have the design for which God had created them as their new walk.

One of the realities of those who are God's people is that we are set apart. We are HOLY, and that word bears a bit of explanation. In its bare meaning, the word holy means to be set apart. If you have a recipe for mashed potatoes that you only use at Thanksgiving, that recipe is holy. It is set apart. And such is the same for God's people. We are purchased by God through Jesus, made new through His sacrifice and resurrection, and are now set apart. We are holy people.

Being holy, being set apart, means that there are simply things that God has set us apart to do, and things that God has set us apart that we will not do. There are things that are simply out of place for us to engage in. In the verse above, Paul lists out filthiness (more than just being dirty, but rather having a mindset that looks to degrade the dignity of being God's special creation), foolish talk and crude joking. These are just not appropriate for God's people.

I'm going to jump on a soapbox for a moment that may challenge a few of you reading. It is inappropriate for God's people to speak sarcastically. Sarcasm is always hurtful. We might think that we are only joking, or that we shouldn't be taken so seriously, but the very nature of a sarcastic remark is to hurt, to damage. It is condescending to others. It doesn't look to build them up, which is what God designed our speech to do. Being fluent in sarcasm may very well be an indicator that we have some spiritual soul-searching to do when it comes to our attitudes toward others.

That's why we ask ourselves a simple question. As God's set-apart people, is what I am about to say appropriate? Is this what God has set me apart to do, or to say? If you cannot reasonably come up with an answer in the positive, then it likely means that it is inappropriate. My hope and prayer is that God guards our thoughts and our tongues from the inappropriate, and instead tunes them to thanksgiving and building up.

Walking as One

 As we consider the first half of chapter four in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, we start to realize that there is a lot of content in the first 16 verses. At Lord of Life, we covered a few things, mostly dealing with maturity and our growth into Jesus as the head, but the reality is, we barely touched some of the other parts of this meaty chapter. So today we're going to dive in to a bit of this that we didn't touch earlier.

As Paul concludes his opening thought in chapter four, we have this statement. "...eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call--one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." As you read this statement, a particular word likely stands out: one.

Paul makes a great emphasis here on unity and being one. As Christians, we are brought into one body through the work of the one Lord, our Lord Jesus. As God claims His people, His one Spirit resides in those who are His people. This claiming finds its origin in baptism, which is a connection to the one primary baptism, that of Jesus, and now we are connected to Jesus through that one baptism (read the first part of Romans 6 to get a good idea of how this happens). 

In that same way, we aren't brought into the one body because of a bunch of different beliefs, but because we put our hope and trust in one thing, God the Father, His Son Jesus, who is our Lord, and the one Spirit that the Father and Son give to His people. We are joined in the one body because we have a common belief that Jesus has done what is needed to restore us to God and to give us the hope and promise of being made new. 

Paul points this out because there are a lot of things out there that try to tell us that the specifics of what you believe don't matter, that you simply have to believe in something, and that all roads lead to the same place. It was no different in Ephesus some 2,000 years ago, and it's the reality we find ourselves in today. If you try to say that there is one Lord, one Savior, and one hope, at best you might be looked at as naive or misguided. There is a strong push to simply coexist with others, not to be specific, but to speak generically about beliefs. 

Yet, that has never been God's design. He points to Himself as the one true God, the only one who actually exists. (As an aside, the name of God that He spoke to Moses and that is indicated by the word LORD in the Old Testament is actually the root of the verb, to be. In other words, God's name is "The One who actually is." Pretty cool, eh?) All others are human creations, intended to submit to our will and design, rather than have a claim on our lives. 

As Christians, that one faith in one Lord through one baptism stands out. It makes us different, and that means that we will find ourselves standing out from others because of it. As difficult as we may find that to be at times, we still have the hope and comfort of the one God who has rescued us through His one Son, that we share a common life with Him that will never end. 

Inner Strength

 If you listen for it, you can hear a lot out there in our current society talking about inner strength. Phrases like "you got this" seem to abound. The message behind them is that you are stronger than you think you are. All you have to do is dig a little deeper and you'll find that you already have what you need inside of you. It's basically a message saying that you are your own master, and you don't need to rely on anyone else. You just have to focus, dig deeper, and find that strength and commitment within yourself.

That all sounds really good in our ears. After all, who doesn't want to think that we have everything we need, and we just have to look inside ourselves to find it. Then we don't have to depend on anyone else. We are sufficient for ourselves. Sure, we may need cheerleaders along the way to help us find it, and perhaps coaches or therapists to give us a little assistance. But we don't have to rely on them. We have all we need.

As you read through those two paragraphs, you'll notice that the attention and focus is on the self. So it sounds really strange to hear something like what Paul wrote to the Ephesians when he wrote, I bow my knees before the Father...that...he may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being (Ephesians 3:16-17). It sounds like we need God the Father to strengthen us with his Spirit. It sounds like we aren't the source of the strength or power. It comes from somewhere outside of us.

The reality is that Paul is hitting on something we'd rather not be the case. We simply do not have strength or inner power in ourselves. If that were the case, then why aren't we all super-disciplined people who are able to solve our problems easily? If it's inside of us, then why hasn't someone shown us the trick to unlocking all that power? Doing so would seem to eliminate a lot of the problems we see in this world.

But then, if you keep reading, you find it even stranger. What is the strength and inner power that Paul is asking that the Father would give? It's that you would know the love of God in Jesus. It's that you would be rooted in Jesus. Essentially Paul is saying that God gives us power and inner strength to be rooted in the love that God has for us in Jesus. God gives us power so that we will know how much God cares for us, and so that we will be firmly planted in God's grace toward us through Jesus, his life, death and resurrection for us.

That sounds like a strange way of looking at power and inner strength. It comes from outside of us, and it is utilized by God to grow us in knowing what we mean to God and what God has done for us in Jesus. And yet, that is where strength and power is found. When we know that we are God's, that God has made us His own in Jesus, we have the strength of knowing who we are. We have the inner power to know that God has a sacrificial care for us that He has shown in Jesus. 

God gives us the power and inner strength to know Him, to know Jesus, and to know what God has done to give us an identity and make us His own people. That identity is then a source of strength as we face the world in which we live. That gives us strength when hard times happen. It keeps us grounded in our identity in Jesus when good comes our way. When the unexpected comes up, we have the security and strength of knowing that we have our grounding in the God who knows all things and is working for our good in them all. That is inner strength worth having.