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Hall of Tyrannus

a place to discuss and learn together what it means to bring the truth of Jesus Christ into a secular world by words and deeds

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Location: Central Asia or Kentucky--quite a range huh?
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  • Sunday, August 27, 2006

    A Meditation

    Note: I wrote this mediation during Holy Week of 2006. I was not blogging at the time. I thought I would go ahead and put it up now. I benefitted greatly from reflecting on this passage and Hannah's situation. I hope someone else may find it helpful.


    A Mediation for Holy Week
    May We Approach the Cross with Hannah’s Attitude


    I had the pleasure and privilege recently of reading the story of Hannah and her baby son Samuel with my wife. The story is found in 1 Samuel chapters 1 and 2. As we read the story and discussed it, we focused on the contemporary issues and lessons, that is what God was teaching Hannah and those involved about Himself while this story was unfolding. But as I began to reflect on the story my thoughts turned to what this display of the power and glory of God could teach us as we live in God’s kingdom on this side of the cross of Christ. As I thought about the story this week while reading in the Gospels about Holy Week and what our Lord went through, one thing was impressed upon me: I am in the same situation Hannah was in and I want to have her attitude.

    I will not take the time to recount the entire story of Hannah. It is enough to say here she was without children and her physical condition was such that she would continue to be without children (1:6). To make matters even more horrific for Hannah she was not the only wife of her husband and his other wife, Peninnah, had borne children. Peninnah was not content to simply enjoy the children. She would go as far as to openly mock Hannah for her childlessness. So here is Hannah with no children and, in the hard world she lived in, seemingly nothing of value to offer her husband.

    Hannah was in a position that she could not remedy. No matter what she might do, she could not, in a million years, convince her body to bring forth life in the form of a newborn baby. It was beyond her power. Now Hannah was human. She was weak and broken. She spoke of her condition using words like anxiety and vexation. She said she was deeply distressed. She wept. She mourned. She went without sleep.

    But Hannah also did something else. She poured out her soul to her Almighty God (1:15). The priest Eli saw that she prayed but without the usual forms. He thought she was drunk. But she was pleading with God. She was petitioning the One True Giver of Life. She was begging His mercy on her life. She promised the Lord that if He should give her a son that she would dedicate his life wholly to God. God, in His abounding grace, answered her prayer and gave her a son, Samuel. Hannah made good on her promise and brought Samuel to the temple to live with Eli and minister and worship God in the temple. This miracle baby that Hannah had longed for and likely dreamed about was to live out his entire life away from Hannah. And Hannah rejoiced. Not because she did not love her son. Not because she hoped to, in some way, pay God back for the gift. No. She rejoiced at the power and glory of the God of Israel. She poured out her worship to God and delighted in His greatness. Read her words from chapter 2 verses 1 to 10:

    “My heart exults in the Lord;my strength is exalted in the Lord.My mouth derides
    my enemies,because I rejoice in your salvation.
    “There is none holy like the
    Lord;there is none besides you;there is no rock like our God.Talk no more so
    very proudly,let not arrogance come from your mouth;for the Lord is a God of
    knowledge,and by him actions are weighed.The bows of the mighty are broken,but
    the feeble bind on strength.Those who were full have hired themselves out for
    bread,but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger.The barren has borne
    seven,but she who has many children is forlorn.The Lord kills and brings to
    life;he brings down to Sheol and raises up.The Lord makes poor and makes rich;he
    brings low and he exalts.He raises up the poor from the dust;he lifts the needy
    from the ash heapto make them sit with princesand inherit a seat of honor.For
    the pillars of the earth are the Lord's,and on them he has set the world.
    “He
    will guard the feet of his faithful ones,but the wicked shall be cut off in
    darkness,for not by might shall a man prevail.The adversaries of the Lord shall
    be broken to pieces;against them he will thunder in heaven.The Lord will judge
    the ends of the earth;he will give strength to his kingand exalt the power of
    his anointed.”

    She is not melodramatic. She means it when she says that the Lord raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from ashes to sit with princes. She knows how it feels to be that needy. She also knows that salvation belongs to the Lord and she praises Him for it. Hannah makes it plain that she knows that God is in control when times are bad and when they are good (2:6, 7). The author makes it equally plain in chapter 1 verse 6. God was firmly in control of this heart wrenching saga and Hannah worships Him and exults in His sovereignty, His power, and His mercy.

    And so we are as we come to Holy Week, the most wonderful of all Christian celebrations. As we come before God and meditate on Calvary and the great and terrible events of Good Friday, we can look to the story of Hannah as a model. As we celebrate the resurrection of our Christ on Easter, we can look to the prayer of Hannah as a fitting way to worship our Savior. For we come to cross just as Hannah came to Shiloh, if not worse. We, in our flesh, are the needy in the ash heap. We are the poor, the broken, and the useless. We come as people who, apart from Christ, are dead in our sin with absolutely no hope of bringing the slightest hint of life to our flawed bodies. It is a hopeless situation and we cannot remedy it.

    But the remedy is there at Calvary. The Almighty God who gives life and takes it away decreed that He would make a way to give life to dead sinners who hate Him. He sent His own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin in order that we may be able to worship and enjoy Him forever. When we realize this truth, that the man Jesus Christ and what He did at Calvary is our only hope, we will worship Him. When we realize that this is the grace of God poured out onto dead people to give them life, we will turn and exult in the Lord and His might as Hannah did. We will glory in the fact that we are alive in Christ in communion with God. We will rejoice with wide-eyed wonder at our weakness made perfect in the strength of Jesus. We will be awestruck by the fact that we, the dead bodies from the ash heap, are now princes—heirs of God the King and joint heirs with His firstborn, Jesus.

    Like Hannah, we will not stop there. When we realize that we are not our own because we were bought at a terrible, terrible price we will turn to God and offer Him the life that He has given us through His Son Jesus and say, “this body, this life, these talents that You have given me are Yours all the days of my life!”. It will not be a duty to God or some sort of trade with God. It will be the only response that makes sense. It will be the most joyful and worshipful response possible.

    Heavenly Father, as we stand now in the bring light of Christ and pray Hannah’s prayer that she prayed only in His shadow, we rejoice in Him. We are more thankful the means of grace and the hope of glory offered in Him than any of your gifts. Father, change our hearts and our minds to be like Hannah’s. Take our focus off all things besides our Lord Jesus. Let us seek Him beyond all the things of this world. Let us exult in His strength and seek His face all the days of our lives. In His name, Amen.

    Tuesday, August 22, 2006

    Another Example

    As I come across people blogging who seem to doing the sorts of things I want to talk about here (bringing the good news of Christ into a secular world by word and deed), I want to point them out and, when appropriate, comment. Hopefully, this is a regular thing I can do to point out what all is going on around the net and in our communities.


    Joe Thorn comments on his blog about an effort of his church. They attended a town festival and gave away water. Joe is very clear to point out that the water was given away with no strings attached. It was just helping neighbors so to speak. I think this is a great point to make and remember as we look for creative ways to engage people with the gospel. Check out the comments under Joe's post also. By the way, Joe has a quality blog that I would recommend visiting regularly.

    Monday, August 21, 2006

    Examples from the Blogosphere Part 1

    Some thoughts about a great example I saw of a person in the trenches trying to bring the Good News of Christ into into the world...

    The other day I was reading the conversation at The Boar's Head Tavern and came across an interesting comment by Aaron, one of the fellows there. Here is the link to the comment. It is very short and you should read it along with this additional comment Aaron wrote on the matter. Basically Aaron has taken a "secular" job to be involved in the neighborhood where he is involved in planting a church. He isn't talking about this or theorizing, he is in it. In his thinking about how to relate to the folks at his job he says:

    "The odd thing is I felt like letting people know I am a Christian would
    ruin my witness."

    I had to read this a few times. At first, of course, this sort of hurts your ears. But as it sinks in, you start to think, 'maybe this isn't so goofy'. I don't want to put words in Aaron's mouth so I won't go on about what I think he meant or anything like that. But I would like to think about his quote. Could there be a reason to think this way? Does the term "Christian" have so much baggage with it in some contexts that we are better off to ditch it?

    Certainly, we are not obligated to use any one word to name ourselves. It seems that the early apostles were content to be known as followers of the Way. It is also generally accepted that the word Christian started as a insult of sorts and then believers simply embraced it and began using it as their own. Of course the other side of the coin is that the early church fathers did embrace the name and wore it to point of persecution and death. So do we have a responsibility to be loyal to these 2,000 years of history?

    In our modern world the word Christian can mean many things to many people. Aaron laments this very thing and then states:

    "I want to show them by my actions and love for them that I follow Christ not
    just because I say I am Christian."

    So where can we find a practical, workable balance? When is it necessary to verbally embrace the label of Christian, even though it will mean implicitly embracing (at least in the eyes of others) many many aspects of history and many individuals that poorly represented Christ?

    Jesus was straightforward in saying, "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This seems to, at the very least, show just how much actions can show others.

    Personally, I have found in the university here in the states in a very short time spent in Central Asia that I often avoid the term Christian if I am in control of the dialogue. What I mean by that is if someone says, "are you a Christian?", I will say yes. However, if the question is "what is you religion?" or if I am simply talking about my life I say "I follow Jesus." This tends to cut through a lot of the fog.

    This is really turning out to be a rambling post with many, many questions and no answers. So I will just end it that way--with more questions.

    Is there a real disadvantage to having people lump you in with their version of Christianity before the acutally know you?

    At least in early stages of relationships, can we let our actions alone speak Christ and be true to His mission in the world?

    I would love to hear thoughts and experiences about this.

    We Love the Kid’s Stories but Can We Live With Grown-up Endings?

    One of the first books we read to our daughter was a little children’s Bible. It was brightly illustrated and had thick board pages she could turn. It was (and is) great. As she “graduated” to bigger books, we read to her from a different children’s Bible that her grandpa gave her. She loves it. She will sit and look at the pages on her own and will frequently request (well, maybe demand), “read Bible”. These little books have been a nice way to spend time together as a family and share the basics of a few of the chapters out of God’s great story of redemption. So please do not read what I am about to write as a slam on all children’s Bibles. Please do not think that I see no use for them or that I will be discarding our copy any time soon. But I would like to share a thought I had about an aspect that is common to many of the stories. That is, they end earlier than they do in the Bible.

    A Few Examples

    The picture Bible we read to my daughter is a fairly popular version published by one of the larger Christian publishers. I won’t cite the book because the purpose is not to be critical of a specific book. The comments I have are very broad and directed at story Bibles in general. I have not done a comprehensive survey on children’s Bibles but from what I remember growing up and from what I have seen among the 3 or versions we have owned the phenomena of moving the ending of stories up is fairly consistent. Take, for example, Noah and the flood one of the favorite all-time kid’s stories. Our Bible tells it in four installments beginning with ‘God said he would make it rain until there was water everywhere! Noah believed God’ and ending with ‘Then Noah thanked God for keeping [his family] safe’. This is obviously a magnificent Old Testament story. It is, of course, the story of salvation and it is marvelous. But the tale did not exactly end there. Noah did thank God by planting a vineyard. He then made wine and got really, really drunk. Then all kinds of shenanigans ensued.

    But Noah’s story is not alone in its abrupt termination. Remember, Abraham and Sarah (or Abram and Sarai). The story begins ‘Abraham and Sarah were sad. They didn’t have any children.’ Two more sentences tell how God promised a son and delivered on the promise by giving them Isaac. The story concludes ‘Abraham and Sarah were very happy’. Great story. Patience in Lord, God’s provision, God doing the impossible. All those things are right there in five sentences. Lessons to teach your child and, when they are older, discuss with them. But the truth is the story did not really end up like that, did it? Once Sarah had Isaac she was really mad about Abraham’s other son who was born of the servant Hagar. Never mind that it was Sarah’s plan to have him father the child. Sarah then demands that Abraham send Hagar and the young boy off into the desert to die. He does what she says. God promises to protect the woman and her young son.

    If another story rivals Noah’s ark for all-time favorite it would be David and Goliath. No children’s story Bible is without it. Ours is no exception. The formidable giant is introduced as a clear enemy of God and soon the story ends with a triumphant ‘the stone hit Goliath between the eyes and killed him!’. Amen. Again, God does the impossible and he involves humans in the great drama. One of the many foreshadows of how God’s great work through Christ would take place. But David did not just cheer and high-five King Saul to celebrate the victory. He used Goliath’s own sword to cut off the giant’s head. Then David carried the head back to his tent. Wow, what a great opportunity for a color illustration missed.

    Moving on through the Bible, we get to Jonah. That famous “reluctant missionary”, as some have called him. This story is also great. God wants Jonah in Nineveh. Jonah wants otherwise and runs off on a ship in the other direction. Of course you know what happens next. Jonah gets tossed into the sea, swallowed by a whale and spit out onto dry land. In our book the story ends with ‘Then Jonah went where God told him to go’. Our smaller story Bible actually took us with Jonah to Nineveh and ended with ‘the people of Nineveh obeyed God’. But either way, Jonah’s story isn’t finished. No, Jonah, our hero, sulks out of the city mad at God that He would actually spare the people of Nineveh. He sits under a large, fast-growing tree (weed?) for shade. God kills the tree and Jonah is left sulking and angry in the hot sun. Seriously.

    So What?

    At this point you might say ‘so what?’. Do we have to give all the gory details to a two-year-old? Go ahead, throw in the story of Elisha and the bears that ate the kids—complete with pictures, that would be great before bedtime. Of course, as I said earlier, this is not my point. The story Bibles are good. But I wonder how many adults (for example, me) still really prefer these versions of the stories. I wonder how many folks are very content to remember and reflect on these stories with their neat-and-tidy fairy tale endings and do not give any thought to messiness of the real endings. I would guess many.

    I think it is comforting for us to stay in that little picture Bible. Where heroes are unstained by shortcomings or faults and a happy ending means no unanswered questions and no loose ends. It makes life easier. But then again, it doesn’t tell the truth about life. We are living in a fallen, broken world. Sin has corrupted every aspect of creation. That is reality. Another reality is the God is redeeming and will redeem every aspect of creation through Jesus Christ. But it is slow and seldom, if ever, neat and tidy.

    Noah was labeled as the only righteous man on earth in his time. He loved God. God saw fit to punish the world for its sin and saw fit to carry Noah and family safely through the punishment. To show his gratefulness, Noah sinned foolishly. God chose Abraham as the person through whom He would bless the world. He told Abraham this. Abraham believed God to the point of packing up his life moving to an unknown world. But Abraham still did stupid things. He still fell into sin. Not just your garden-variety sin that evangelicals might confess to their small groups. No. We’re talking about adultery and attempted murder. As long as we have these saints (I sincerely mean saints. There is NO sarcasm here) as obeying God, reaping the blessings, and keeping on the right track we are comforted. We can aspire to be like them and point our kids that way. But when we see that these people struggled knee-deep in sin, things get messy.

    What about David? As long as he is that shy, good-looking teenager who triumphs in spite of his youth, he is a safe role-model. But when we see that he is really a warrior, bent on finishing the battle with Goliath so that there is no doubt that the victory belongs to God, then what? When we have to deal with the fact that God is so deadly serious about His enemies that He would sanction this barbaric act, things get messy.

    As long as Jonah is simply “reluctant” but really comes through for the team in the end, who wouldn’t want to tout him as a hero? It is perfect. Someone is waffling on being obedient to God in their life—look at Jonah. What, you won’t trust God to use you to advance the kingdom? Remember Jonah. But then when we see that even in the success of God’s work, Jonah wasn’t happy, we are confused. When we see that God used Jonah to do His work and Jonah complained that he was a part of the whole deal, it is hard to process. In other words, things get messy.

    This is a very real part of God’s story. Things are messy. As I have written, God has ordained to use humans in taking the message of Jesus into the world. Because He works with, in, and through fallen, broken people, things are not always clean and neat. We need to realize this. More than that, I believe we need to embrace it. I freely admit that there are many days that I am content to stick with the picture Bible stories and pretend that is the whole story. But that just won’t do. As we walk through our own crooked and perverse generations and try to live among them as lights in the world, we need to be prepared for messiness. When the reality of our sin or the sin of other saints comes crashing down on us like a nine-foot giant, we need to be grounded in reality—in the reality of God’s word. We need to see that, unfortunately, sin will always be around in humans, even believers. We need to see that God calls us to do the radical, the impossible and He calls us to do things completely for Him. Nothing held back. We need to know that being involved in God’s work does not always equal a peachy-keen situation, from a human standpoint. But, more than these things, we need to remember that in spite of the messiness, we know how the story really ends. We know God that will prevail. We know that He didn’t choose to work through Abraham, Sarah, Noah, David, and Jonah by accident. He chose them and His plan worked even in all the messiness.

    So, even though I am sometimes tempted to stop at the children’s endings with my daughter, I will not. Even though my human nature prefers a story-book with all questions answered and all issues resolved, I will keep reading. I will face the messiness and know that all the unanswered questions and all the unresolved issues knowing that all these things have actually been answered and resolved in Jesus. I will draw confidence in the fact that God has always been in the business of working in a messy world with messy people. He will continue to do that and no one will thwart His plan. I will read the grown-up endings.

    Friday, August 18, 2006

    Another Try... or finding a new way to waste time

    I am going to try (again) to do some blogging. A few people have humored me by saying I should do it and I have been arrogant enough to believe them. I don't know if anyone will read or not but writing is a blessing to me, so I might as well stick up the stuff I write here for no one to read instead of leaving it on my hard drive for no one to read.

    Anyway, I would really like to see discussion and interaction taking place as that sort of thing usually brings some growth. So, read, listen, enjoy, and please comment.

    Milk Please!

    NOTE: I wrote this about 2 months ago. Since then, the "milk, PLEASE!" phenomena has pretty much subsided but the lesson remains.

    Our daughter is 18 months old. By my rough calculation we have fed her milk at least 2,300 times. We have given her milk on every day of her short life. The majority of these were when Angela nursed her and I am also including bottles of formula and (now) cow’s milk served with meals. Now, Jadon knows this, to some extent. She does not know how much we have thought about her getting milk. She does not know that Angela worried and probably lost sleep over Jadon nursing. She does not know that we have tried to measure her milk supply and make sure that she gets enough. She almost certainly does not know that, from the moment she was born, we would, if necessary, ourselves go without eating, give up material things, or suffer hardships to ensure that she got enough milk to survive. But we would, without a doubt, do these things.

    Often at meal time we now have a rather comical routine. Once it is near time to eat, Jadon will ask for milk—‘milk, please’. This will usually continue for a few minutes until we explain that there will be milk with the meal. Sometimes that is good enough, sometimes not. Sometimes she continues to ask with added emphasis—‘milk, PLEASE!’. Add in any daily trauma, such as being really sleepy, being sick, or being really hungry and things go south. The asking turns into loud asking and then into yelling. She has, on occasion, sat at the table with milk in full sight, after being told she could have it in a minute and cried until her face was red saying, you guessed it—‘MILK, PLEASE!’.

    Now this is sometimes sad, sometimes frustrating, and sometimes ridiculous. We try to teach her to appropriately voice her needs and then exhibit patience. Of course, as I mentioned, she is 18 months old. So we go on with the teaching, hoping that as she grows she will “get it”. But what is interesting is what I am learning from this experience. I have seen too much of myself in her demands for milk. I realize that, like Jadon, I too have been cared for in every way. I realize God, my Father, has given me everything I need. He has never failed to sustain me or my family. He has never forsaken us and He never will and, unlike Jadon’s father, He is perfect.

    But still I doubt. Still I sometimes wonder if this will be the day that He doesn’t come through. If this will be the one day in the history of the universe that God doesn’t make good on His promise and then I complain. I demand what I want and get angry for not having it now. I know in my heart that, if I had been there, I very well could have been among the number that asked Moses if there weren’t enough graves in Egypt (Exodus 14:11). I know that if I had been among the thirsty at Massah and Meribah (Exodus 17:1-7) I would have very likely demanded water immediately, even after seeing proof of God’s work and seeing manna drop from heaven. And so is our nature. Like an 18-month-old, we often see the here now and not the big picture. We see our current needs (or wants) and not far beyond. We demand that that giver of all good things operate on our time table. Deep down, we are certain that our case must be an exception to all the other cases in the world. But God is patient and kind and does meet our needs (Phil 4:19).

    So as Jadon grows in stature and (hopefully) wisdom I do pray that she learns to deal with her feelings and wants in a more positive way. But I also pray that I (and she) might see the silliness of worrying and doubting when God has been so faithful. I pray that I can learn that I am even more dependant on God for sustenance than my daughter is on me. I pray that when I am tempted to do the equivalent of crying and hitting the table and yelling ‘milk, please!” that I can remember His goodness. I pray that He would write Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 12:9 on my heart:

    But 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 of my
    weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

    A first attempt at audio...

    This is a sermon I had the privilege to share at a small church in Columbia, KY on August 6, 2006. It is focusing on the so-called "great commission" in Matthew 28:18-20. I really believe that to understand Jesus' oft-quoted words in verse 19, we MUST frame them between the great promises in verses 18 and 20. That is the motivation beheind this sermon. It is about 31 minutes.

    Sermon Audio: What is the Great Commission?

    Photo hosted by HDDWeb - www.hddweb.com


    NOTES:

    If there is a problem with access or quality of this file, please let me know in the comments. This is my initial effort at getting audio up and I took the easiest route I could find :)

    In the audio I use the KJV text. This is out of respect to the church I was visiting, which prefers that teaching and preaching be done from the KJV. I will likely rewrite my notes around the ESV text for any future use, but content won't change.

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