Pure Joy

 

Read James 1

 

So, thus far, you have gotten a good dose of “My grace is sufficient for you.” Whatever our circumstances—to include our worst days ever—we celebrate victory.

It is victory in Jesus, and it is ours. We can’t mess that up, even if we are a total mess from now until our heart stops or Jesus comes in the clouds. That victory is ours.

You most recently heard me speak about considering ourselves blessed when we are persecuted for following Christ.  We are blessed when the world won’t claim us because Jesus did.

And what could be next? Your grace is enough, persecuted for the name of Jesus is a blessing, and let’s just throw in consider it pure joy when you endure suffering of all kinds.

Now, we’re pushing the envelope. I can see counting it as a blessing when I am persecuted because I follow Jesus. I actually think that one is cool. I would much rather be rejected by the world and claimed by Jesus than to hear, Depart from me. I never knew you.

I can see the blessing in being disowned by the world and claimed by Christ. I get it, but this pericope says suffering of all kinds. That includes having the flu or Covid or even a man-cold—far more painful than giving birth.

This sort of suffering includes…

It includes having a real nowhere man for my boss.

It includes having to change a flat when it’s icy and the wind chill is brutal.

It includes turning the sofa upside down to get enough change for a loaf of bread. I remember my parents doing this to get a pack of cigarettes. You can still search the sofa for change, but you had better find some serious folding money if you hope to buy cigarettes. Those suckers are crazy high.

It includes all the things that fall under the category of life; some are not much fun, some are unpleasant, and some hurt.

But we are told to be joyful. Consider the suffering experience as a labor of love.

And I come to a place I have come many times before—wind sprints.

Back in the day, wind sprints marked the dreaded end of football practice. You ran until you puked your guts out. Almost everyone hated them, and the coach knew it.

I enjoyed football practice, but I always had this thought in my mind: Wind sprints are coming.

One day in his pontifications about the things of life that may or may not relate to football, the coach noted that a horse will run itself to death. It will run until it drops dead.

Then he added, “A man will pass out first, so why are you holding back?”

Then it was back to wind sprints, but Tom’s mind was hard at work. I would show the coach. I would run with everything I had, and maybe I would pass out, or maybe I would die, but in either case, the coach was going to be sorry.

So, when it was time for the linemen and linebackers to run, I gave it all I had. That was the day that I died, or not.

What actually happened was that I finished my sprint five yards ahead of everyone else.

The next time, it was the same thing. It hadn’t killed me yet.

The third time, I jumped the line and ran with the backs and receivers. I beat them all but one, and I got him the next time.

I never dreaded wind sprints again. In fact, I loved them. It was now something to look forward to—wind sprints, I know. I was getting stronger, and I wanted more. I was all in for whatever the coach threw at us.

James tells us to look forward to, embrace, and consider it pure joy when we face trials of all sorts—anything and everything.

Being patient, waiting on the Lord, sticking it out, pressing on towards the goal, and running the good race are what we do when we face a trial.

We know that we will have trouble in the world. It is not something to be totally avoided. Making wise decisions can reduce the amount of trouble that comes our way somewhat, but we will still face trials.

Do you remember why Jesus told his disciples that they would have trouble in the world, but to take heart, Jesus has overcome the world? Why did he say this?

So, in the midst of the world’s madness, we can still have peace. Trials are just a part of life, but because of what Jesus did for us on the cross, we have already won the ultimate prize.

It’s that God’s way and everything else mindset. We can eliminate the unnecessary pain and suffering that comes from our bad decisions, but we will still suffer and have trials. That’s the way it is.

But if we stay the course, we will be closer to completeness than when we started. Remember that God is the Potter, and we are the clay.

Everything we do is rolled into the masterpiece God is making with our lives. If we remain faithful, trust in the Lord over our own understanding, and simply wait upon the Lord, we will emerge refined at the end of our trial.

Our struggle will not diminish us. Like in resistance training, we grow stronger with each repetition. We have survived 100% of our worst days ever and are stronger for it.

So, consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds. Remember the three things I reminded you of when you are persecuted for the name of Jesus.

So, when you suffer for any reason, also remember:

·       God’s grace is enough. You have already won the ultimate victory.

·       You can handle whatever it is at the moment. It’s momentary. It could take 5 minutes or 20 years and 5 minutes, but it is momentary.

·       Great is your reward in heaven and in the here and now. Great is your reward in heaven when you are persecuted because you follow Jesus. Great is your reward now because if you hold on and trust God through the trial—whatever it is and however it came about—you will grow. And we get to grow in God’s grace, knowing that our salvation is the gift of God and not dependent upon our performance.

We just have to trust and remain faithful.

What does that trust look like? We are joyful in our trials and suffering. It’s just part of the deal, and we come out the better for it.

Amen.

Unencumbered

 Read Hebrews 12

Here we go!

You are God.

My trust is in you.

Show me your ways.

Teach me your paths.

We have been memorizing Psalm 25 verse by verse over the past few months. These thoughts should be familiar. What thoughts?

Teach me.

Show me.

What now?

Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and get rid of your junk. Cast off anything that encumbers you.

Move forward. Seek God and draw near to him.

OK. But what is it that encumbers us? Let’s give it a shot.

·       Anxiety and Worry. We are told not to be anxious and not to worry, but we do it anyway. How effective can we be if we are worried so much? Bad stuff could happen, but if it does, let’s just live through it once. Don’t worry about it before it happens and don’t drag your miscues around with you. Confess and get back in your race unencumbered by worry.

·       Forgiveness. Maybe you think someone wronged you or maybe you wronged somebody, but in either case, we must forgive. We should forgive the person who wronged us and we should have a conversation with the people whom we have injured seeking their forgiveness.  We can’t be a body at rest—the whole inertia thing—we must keep moving forward in this area of forgiveness.

·       Conflict. This is often rooted in insisting on our own way. We want to do things God’s way but sometimes we presume our way to be God’s way, and often it just isn’t so. For the last half of the last century, I proffer that most Americans thought they were Christians even though they didn’t read their Bibles much. They just identify as Christian. God does not need to adjust his will to ours. He is the constant, the steadfast, our rock. We are told that as much as it is possible, try to get along with others. We don’t sacrifice our beliefs if our beliefs truly come from God, but we need to make sure that’s the case. We can live with and love and work together with people who don’t believe or think like we do, but how we think needs to be governed by what God says and not our emotions and comfort zones. Those are just a new paganism for our modern times.  I catch a little flak—mostly in fun—for challenging us to read our Bibles every day. The question is, do you consider reading your Bible and learning God’s ways as a burden or a blessing?

·       Comfort. There is nothing wrong with a little comfort, but when our comfort keeps us from doing what we are called to do, it is weighing us down. It encumbers us.

·       Doubt. Yes, Christians deal with doubt. We can what if ourselves into a dysfunctional state. Believe. Do not doubt. Doubt weighs you down. Doubt creates anxiety and then we are just feeding this confluence of things that weigh us down.

·       Coveting. Sometimes, we are weighed down by our desire for something in this world. That new fishing boat, new car, new job, new shirt, those really old-looking ripped-out jeans—which back in the day didn’t come that way. You had to earn your own rips and tears. Maybe we covet recognition, adoration, or applause. If we desire something—anything—more than we seek and desire God, that’s coveting and it is not healthy. It encumbers us.

·       Control. What about control?  Do we try to control everything? If we do, we are encumbered, burdened by that desire.  We can’t control much in this world. You might have thought that I was out of Marine Corps examples, but here’s one more. Back in the day, when issuing combat or operational orders, the final section of the order is titled:  Command and Control.  For as much as many well-educated Marine officers poured into these orders to make sure they were as thorough as possible in the time available, all the senior officers could do was chuckle and bite our lips when we got to Command and Control. One thing learned over the course of many exercises is that we just don’t control much of anything. Despite the signals and phase lines, boundaries and registered targets, timing, and other factors prescribed by the order, most of us just laughed to ourselves as we set loose armed Marines on the task before them, knowing we could get blown up, they could destroy the wrong target, or total chaos might ensue. If you want to control everything, you are encumbered by that desire.

·       Fear. Let’s not leave out fear. Sometimes we fear failure. Sometimes we even fear success. If fear is a substantial part of your life and your decision-making skills, then fear encumbers you and you need to kick fear to the curb.

·       More. There are more, but we will leave those for your personal exploration and examination.

Long ago and far away, that is in the mid-1980s—I was at Amphibious Warfare School. It’s a school for captains and trains you to command or serve in a staff position in battalions and regiments. As a part of this 3-year school packed into 9 months, we each had to write a paper, something like a thesis for a master's degree.

Mine was on the mobility of the individual Marine. What I learned was that through the centuries, combat weapons have become more lethal. Vehicles can move faster. Communications become more capable and more complicated. Protective equipment got better, at least in some ways.

But the mobility of the man on the ground—the grunt—just got heavier. I knew this from personal experience, but I also did the research. The average load of the infantryman was just over 100 pounds. It was more if you needed clothing and equipment for extreme cold or for chemical and biological warfare.

Maybe 100 pounds doesn’t sound like too much if you are about 200 pounds and in good shape, but I will tell you that 100 pounds gets heavy quickly for just about everyone.  Now, think of a Marine who is only 120 or 130 pounds carrying this load.

Visualize a Marine who weighs 125 pounds with 115 pounds on his back. That’s encumbered.

And then, we add ammunition. That’s heavy.

That’s encumbered. That’s weighed down. And all that modern technology could do was try to distribute the load better. Cartridge belts, packs, and flak vests all became integrated to help spread the load, but the load was still carried by one person.

That’s still encumbered.

Marines will do the pack mule thing again and again, but when it’s time to fight, they have to shed the gear. They can’t be encumbered.

They often shed everything that is not needed for the fight at hand. They can round it up later.

We need to shed some gear too. Anything that encumbers us as we navigate this world trying to put the words of our Master into practice has got to go.

Worry, anxiety, conflict, excess comfort, doubt, coveting, control, fear, and more weigh us down.

I keep small weights in my office. At my age, I need a little something to keep muscle tone. I’m not hauling hay and having to buck bales up onto a trailer. I’m not scaling cliff faces. I’m not going on 25-mile hikes with a full load.

But I do need to do something to keep a little muscle tone, so I have some little weights.

My grandkids think they are huge. They can barely move them, but they continue to try. That’s our nature. We try to carry the load all by ourselves.

Sometimes we need help with our loads and sometimes we need to get rid of a whole bunch of what we are carrying with us.  Worry, anxiety, conflict, excess comfort, doubt, coveting, and more weigh us down.

We have to get rid of the junk if we are going to grow in God’s grace.

So here is what you take with you for this week.

The psalmist said show me your ways and teach me your path. God has done that. Now we must put his words into practice.

In terms of what we read this week, that means:

Eyes fixed on Jesus.

Cast off anything that is weighing us down.

Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and get rid of your junk.

Amen.

 

Speaking the Truth in Love

 Read Ephesians 4

 

The Redbuds are budding, the sun is shining more each day, and it’s baseball season.  What more could we want?  How about some counsel for the Apostle Paul.

 

Let’s look at some words that you know, but let’s understand them fully.  What words?

 

Speaking the truth in love.

 

These words and this thought are good thoughts and perhaps should be applied beyond their original context, but let’s understand this context first.

Paul writes to the church in Ephesus.  He was not liked much in the community as his teaching cut into the business and profits of the makers of idols.  Ephesus had a fantastic temple to the goddess Diana or as she was known in Greek, Artemis.

 

Paul’s preaching here on his second and third missionary journeys accomplished much for the Lord but stirred up those who did not believe and were losing business when their false gods were labeled as false gods.

 

So, Paul is writing to a church that he knows well from whatever abode he has as a prisoner in Rome.  Paul begins encouraging this church by reminding them how blessed they are in Christ.

 

In Christ we have been given every spiritual blessing.

 

We are chosen to be holy and blameless.

 

In Christ we are God’s adopted children.

 

In his blood we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins.

Our hope is in him.

 

We are sealed by him in the Holy Spirit.  We are his.

 

We are made alive in Christ.

 

We are raised up with Christ into the heavenly realm.

 

In Christ, we are God’s handiwork—his workmanship—prepared in advance to do good things.

 

We are joined together in Christ.

 

In him, Jew and Gentile alike become one body and share his promises.

In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

 

We are called to be strong in him and in his mighty power.

 

Paul is writing to a church that he knows well.  He knows their struggles and the ungodly surroundings in which he planted this church.  So he does his best to remind them of the blessings that they have received in Christ Jesus.

 

But, he can’t leave them there.  There is counsel to follow on how to live being so blessed in an environment that opposes you.  So before the counsel begins, Paul includes a prayer.

 

 For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,  so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith… Amen.

 

Paul precedes his counsel with prayer, but here comes the counsel. The first challenge is very general.  Live a life worthy of the calling that you have received.

 

Then he adds some specifics.  Be humble, gentle, patient, and bear with one another.  Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit.

 

We are people of one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father who is all, and through all, and in all.

 

Don’t you get it?  We are one family—God’s family—in Christ.  We have different gifts but we are one.  Elsewhere Paul discussed gifts in the body and how one part of the body can’t say it’s better than another or that another is not needed.

 

But as he writes to the Ephesians, unity in the body is central to his message.  And so we come to this very familiar passage.

 

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.  Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.  From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

 

Speaking the truth in love is about our own growth.  We talked before about speaking the truth to each other.  That is essential to the Christian life.  It is essential to following Jesus, but Jesus said that we who follow him will be known by our love.

 

So we who have professed Jesus as Lord must speak the truth in a spirit of love.  We don’t sugar coat anything but we are not motivated by anything but love.

 

Hey, Tom, you’ve been picking your clothes out by yourself lately haven’t you?

 

I guess that was in a spirit of love, or not.

 

We must speak the truth to each other and do it in a spirit of love.  What this means is that we can speak truthfully to each other even with subjects that are difficult to talk about.  We can do this because we are becoming mature in Christ.

 

It’s easy to say, you had better quit smoking.  Those things will kill you.  That’s a true statement but there’s not much love attached.  Perhaps we first address how important the person is to us and that we don’t want to lose them.

 

I am sometimes referred to as the mean guy when a family with four unemployed adults in the household comes to see me about helping with the water bill.  Sometimes we help and sometimes we don’t but once I say that somebody in the house needs to get a job, then I get labeled the mean guy.

Sometimes, I tell people that they don’t need the most modern smartphone when they can’t pay their electric bill or make their $700 a month car payment.  Maybe, you should trade down until you get an income that will support these things.

 

People start looking for the exit from my office and the church building quickly when I bring up the word budget.  But how can we truly practice love if we won’t address the obvious in people’s situations?

 

Among Christians, we must not permit an Elephant in the Room.  We can’t say we are going to help and ignore the problems.  Speaking the truth in love is about our maturity.  We can talk about real things openly and truthfully in a spirit of love.

 

When we can speak the truth with a spirit of love, we know that we are growing in his grace.  When we speak the truth without the spirit of love, we are often condescending or mean.

 

Too often we back off from the truth because we do not want to be accused of being judgmental, but we must understand that the judgment with which we are counseled to abstain is a condemning judgment.  We are being equipped to jump into the middle of difficult issues and problems.  We can really sort things out instead of dancing around issues out of fear.  Fear gets no purchase when we speak the truth in love.

 

Speaking the truth in love is a measure of how far we have come.

 

Paul continues the chapter with not living in our old ways, taking off the old self, and putting on the new self.  It’s all good counsel for all of us, but it’s hard to follow.  One indicator of whether we are living as this new creation is whether we can speak the truth in love.

 

If we haven’t gotten there already, let’s work on speaking the truth in love.  It’s about our growth and maturity in the body of Christ.

 

Now, you won’t find this in this letter, or maybe anywhere else, but consider this provocation.  If we speak the truth to one another as we are counseled to do and if we speak the truth in love, then we had better be prepared to hear the truth.  We don’t speak the truth in condemnation but in love, but we must be ready to hear the truth and let the Spirit and God’s holy word work on us after we have listened to those speaking to us in love.

 

We need to hear the truth in love from other believers and from God’s holy word.  We must allow God’s word to judge the thoughts and attitudes of our hearts.

Amen.