Remember to Wash

“Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

Isaiah 1:18

“Remember to wash your hands!”  That’s what my mom would tell me every evening before we ate dinner.  Every evening I would answer her, “But Mom, my hands aren’t dirty.” “Yes they are!”  “No, look, they’re not dirty.”  “If I say they’re dirty then they’re dirty. I can see dirty that you can’t.  Go wash your hands.”  “But mom, my hands aren’t dirty.  Look at dad’s hands. Now those are dirty.”  “Go!”  “But mom…”  “Don’t ‘but’ me mister. Just go wash your hands.”  So I would go.  I would pour a little water over them, dry them off and come to the table.  She would look at me, smile and say, “You still need to wash your hands.”  “I did.”  “Pouring a little water over them is not ‘washing your hands.’  Get back in there.  This time use some soap and REALLY WASH YOUR HANDS.”  There was no fooling my mom.  She knew the difference between pretending to wash my hands and really washing them.

Our Lord knows that difference too.  In the first chapter of Isaiah, the Lord tells His people to wash up… that their hands were stained with sin.  When the people pointed to all the “religious things” they had done as proof that they had washed, this was the Lord’s answer,  “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. “When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations— I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.  When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.”  God was not fooled.  He knows the difference between pretending to wash and real washing. 

What’s the difference?  Soap!  Absent the soap of repentance and faith, all of our “religious activities” are just pretending.   If all that you and I are doing here on Sundays is just going through the religious motions… if we think we can do as we please because God will forgive us anyway… if we convince ourselves that if we simply say the right words about sin and a change of heart, without our hearts actually changing – we are fooling ourselves.  But we aren’t fooling God. 

God desires a real washing in your life and mine.  Our sin is more than just a matter getting a little dirt on our hands…  Our “sins are like scarlet… they are red like crimson.”  Our sin leaves a stain so deep, that simply going through the motions of religion will not remove it from our hearts.  The stain is so deep that there is nothing we can do to cleanse ourselves. 

We can’t.  But He can!  He has.  That’s why God gave His own Son Jesus to be our savior.  God so desires to wash away sin that He gave Jesus to be “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  Jesus had to take the stain of our sin on Himself.  “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by Himself being cursed for us…”  He bore our sins and carried our sorrows.  He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.  Then on the third day He was raised to life… death’s power broken, sins price paid, everything changed. 

Now He invites us to Himself.  He says to you and to me, poor blood stained sinners, “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.   That’s what He did at baptism.  Jesus washed our robes and made them white in His blood…  There is a modern day parable that really illustrates what Jesus has done.  It is called “the Ragman.”  This big strong man is walking through the city offering new rags for old.  He finds one mother crying tears of grief into her hanky, a little girl whose head is bandaged and bleeding, a man who can’t work because he lost his arm, a drunk man sleeping on the street under an old worn out coat.  Each time the Ragman exchanges one of his new rags for their old ones. With each old rag He receives the affliction and the person He meets is made whole. The mother cries no more, the little girls head is healed, the man has two arms and the drunk man is sober and strong.  But the ragman leaves crying, head bleeding, one armed and drunk.  He climbs to the top of a hill outside the city. There all these ailments take His life.  But only for a while.  For on Sunday morning, low and behold He is alive again.  All those old rags are folded, and neat, washed and made new again.  The Ragman of course is Jesus, the Christ.  The rags are our old sin stained rags, now washed clean.  

In Jesus, your faith is so much more than simply going through the motions.  In Jesus the Father offers to really wash you.  He promises, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  That’s the daily pattern of a faith that is real.  Every time you come to him, He takes your old rags – your sins of thought word and deed, of evil done and good left undone.  He takes the old rags and gives you His new ones.  No matter how deep the stain, He washes your clean.  He keeps this promise… though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.  Amen!

Someone Always Sees

“You have searched me and know me!”

Psalm 139:1

It always boggled my mind.  How was it that my parents always seemed to know it when I had done something wrong?  They could even at times anticipate the dumb thing I was thinking about doing.  I couldn’t hide anything from them.  Well now that I am a parent, I understand. One reason they seemed to know was that they had been kids too. There wasn’t anything I was going to try that they hadn’t tried.  However, the main reason was that parents have a network of informants.  Their network is wide ranging – their friends, your teachers, your friend’s parents, and yes even your siblings.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was one of my parent’s informants.  When my sisters would have friends over, I was often sent down into the basement with them, to let them know what was happening.  This is all part of a very important lesson my parents tried to teach me – “You can’t hide anything,” they’d say. “Someone who knows you will always see you. You will get caught. Someone always sees.

After all, even if we can hide things from each other, we can’t hide from God. God always sees!  That message of Psalm 139.  O Lord, you have searched me and known me!  You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.  You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?   If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

There is nothing that you or I do or say or even think that He doesn’t know.   He is acquainted with all our ways.  He knows the evil we are thinking about saying or doing before a word is even on our tongues.  That’s our parents really secret.  When they told us, “Someone always sees” this is what they were trying to tell us. This is how they knew we would get caught.  Even if you can hide what you are doing from everyone else, you can’t hide it from God.  He will put someone there to see you… I have a good friend from College whose husband was cheating on her.  He kept it hidden for a long time. But then one day he and this other woman had a car accident. No one got hurt physically but he got caught. Someone always sees because He always sees!

Believe it or not there is great comfort in this truth.  For one thing, God loves us too much to allow us to keep walking down paths that lead away from him… that end up hurting us and the people around us. He cared too much about that wife to allow her to keep living with the unknown, with the doubts about her marriage she couldn’t explain.  And he loved that man too much to allow him to continue down that path.  He wants more than anything to forgive us our sins.  But before we will be open to His forgiveness we need to see the miserable truth of our sin.  So, He brings us face to face with our sin.  He makes sure we get caught. Even though that moment of getting caught is terribly shaming and painful, you need have no doubt that God’s chief desire is to forgive.  After all, He gave His own Son.  over to death for our sins and raised Him to life that we might be made right with God.

The comfort doesn’t end there.  The fact that God always sees means He is paying attention to you.  Think of the words of the Psalm.  You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. He knows what’s happening.  He knows what’s coming.  You are never all by Yourself.  He sees.  He is with you.  One woman whose marriage was falling apart, tells the story of one morning when she was in complete despair.  She felt alone and forgotten.  That morning she turned over one of the scripture cards she kept at the kitchen table.  The text that morning?  “In my distress I cried out to the LORD and the LORD heard my cry.”  “I see God was saying to her.  “You are not alone.  I am here.”

 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.  This is a Psalm I like to use when praying with people.  Sometimes they are worried because they don’t understand what’s happening.  Sometimes they are sick and the doctor doesn’t know what is wrong.  What comfort to know that the God who loved us enough to give His own son for us knows what is going on.  What peace there is in knowing that even there His hand will guide us.  When people go in for surgery they are often scared – scared about the surgery, scared about the anesthesia.  Even there God’s right hand holds us fast.  Remember who sits at God’s right hand – Jesus!  The hands that hold you are the nail scared hands of the Savior who loves you.  The hands that hold you are the powerful living hands of your Savior Jesus who conquered death.  It makes me think of the story of a father and his little two year old in a swimming pool.  They start in the shallow end and move deeper. Each step the water rises higher.  The father chants “Deeper and Deeper and Deeper” the little guy holds on tighter.  The reality is that little boy is just as safe in the deep end as he was in the shallow end.  In both places His dad is holding him.  That’s us – whether in the shallow end enjoying life’s pleasures, or in the deep end of life’s troubles – the same God is always watching us… the same God is always holding us… He always sees.  Amen. 

Go Outside and Play!

“There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

Ecclesiastes 2:24-25

Mom said it to us whenever she needed a break from us kids.  This was her solution when I came complaining that I was bored.  When my sisters and I would argue, this is how she restored peace.  This was how she rewarded us when our chores were done.  This is the permission she gave when my friends would come over – Four simple words “Go outside and play.” 

We all understand how important play is for children.  Play is how they learn things.  Play is how children socialize and develop relationships with parents, siblings and others.  As they play children learn creativity, problem solving and more.  What is sad is that somehow we have relegated play to children.  Play is perceived as unproductive, and unimportant for adults.  I remember one day in Germany. We had guests from America.  I was feeling guilty about taking a day to take our guest to the Rhine.  But then one of the members of Trinity told me that was silly.  In essence she said, “Go outside and play.  Besides you will learn more about Germany which can only help your ministry.”  Play is as important for adults as it is for children.  Think of all the things adults do for play – movies, theater, concerts, golf, football, reading a book, going for a walk.  Consider what play does for you – it clears your minds, helps you relax, relieves stress, focuses your attention.  One of the staff members in Flower Mound was having a real hard time with her prayer life.  I told her to go do something she loves and then sit down for devotions.  She went on a long a bike ride.  At the end she sat down in a park to read her Bible and pray.  Playing first helped her to focus. 

Play is important.  In fact, I would say that play is a gift of God.   He wants us to take time to play.  Solomon tells us as much in Ecclesiastes.  There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God…  When God first made Adam and Eve He gave them a garden to live and work in.  He called the place “Eden” which means “a delightful place, a paradise, a place of ultimate happiness.”  It sounds to me like He intended them to do more than work.  It sounds to me like He also intended them to enjoy it.  He gave them a playground to live, work and play in.  Jesus turned 180 gallons of water into wine so that a party could keep going.  He was always ready to go to a dinner party with anyone who asked him.  The disciples of John the Baptist complained how the disciples of Jesus were always feasting while they were fasting.  I love how Jesus answered, “Can the wedding guest mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?”

You might even say that Jesus has redeemed play.  Ask this question - Is there anything that makes ‘play’ different for the believer?  The answer is right here in the text.  “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? It’s the same thing that makes grief different for a believer.  Our grief is not hopeless grief.  “We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.”  In the same way – what makes play different is that we have hope in Jesus Christ.  Ours is not the outlook on life that despairs and says “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die.”  Ours is not the selfish, “You might as well indulge yourself because this is all there is.”  Because of Jesus there is something else, something more in store for us… He has purchased us a place in His Father’s house, at His Father’s banqueting table… Because of Him play is an act of worship. Bethany loves to send us pictures of her getting the boys to giggle.  That’s Bethany celebrating the wonderful little lives God has given to her and Jason.  When Linda and I were with Ben and Anna at a cabin in upstate New York, we remarked on how beautiful the countryside is – we were in fact praising God for the beauty of His creation.  When we play… when we sit with our families to play games, or to swim in the pool we are celebrating that there is purpose, meaning, beauty, a future for all of God’s creation because He is creator and redeemer.  Just as a father or mother takes great joy from the play of their children, so our Father in heaven takes great joy as we celebrate His creation… Solomon was right - “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God,  for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?  So go ahead my friends, “Go outside and play!” Amen. 

Try It! You'll Like It!

“Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

1 Peter 2:2-3

My parents had all sorts of things they taught me about eating. “Don’t talk with food in your mouth.”  “Don’t chew with your mouth open.”  “Don’t play with your food.”   “Eat this.  It’s good for you.”  That was a sure signal I didn’t want to eat whatever it was.  Then there were the times when mom would make something new.  I’d often turn up my nose.  I was very suspicious of new foods.  Inevitably they would urge me, “Come on Wayne.  Try It!  You’ll like it!”   Peter says much the same thing in the second chapter of his first letter.  “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”  As we get close to fall when Sunday School and Bible classes begin anew, He is urging us to add a healthy helping of God’s spiritual milk – His word – to our diet. “Try it!  You’ll like it.”

Changing diet is never easy!  A few years ago the doctor diagnosed me as a Type 2 diabetic.  What did that mean? I asked him. He said, “It means you have to change your diet.  You have to cut back on sugar.  You have to watch how many carbs you eat.  You have to eat less of a lot of the things in your diet.  You need to lose weight.  And you can’t just do this for a couple of months.  You need to change your diet permanently.  I have not done a good job.  Changing diet is not easy. 

The same is true spiritually.  There are things going on our lives that are not good for our relationship with God… not good for our spiritual health.  Peter lists some of those things. “Put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.”  Malice – that has to do with harboring evil intentions in your heart – holding a grudge, harboring resentment, wishing or even working to cause harm to someone.  Deceit involves treachery.  A good example is when Judas, pretending to be a friend, betrayed Jesus with a kiss.  Hypocrisy is pretending to be one thing when you are really another - loudly condemning gossip, then repeating some gossip. Envy is jealousy – the young lady who resented the fact that all her friends were getting engaged but she wasn’t.    Slander is what gossip is all about.  It is all about spreading information about someone, true or false, in order to destroy that person’s reputation.  Can you see how a study diet of such things could do great harm to your soul, to your friendships, to your church, to your faith in God? 

God in His word provides a much healthier diet.  Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation… A diet rich in God’s word has much to recommend itself to us.  For one thing the milk of the Gospel is pure.  Literally the word “pure” means “not deceitful.”  In Peter’s day merchants would water down the milk in order to make it more profitable.  That was “deceitful milk.”  In the word of God, you get pure milk.  You get the whole truth. In His Word God holds up a mirror so that you and I can see the truth about ourselves, about our sinful condition, about our need for a savior.  But He doesn’t stop there.  In the Gospel He holds up Jesus. He shows you how much He loves you.  In the death and resurrection of Jesus He gives us the full picture of His unconditional, no strings attached love.  He waters nothing down. 

Second Peter tells us that the milk of the Gospel is “spiritual milk.”    People are fond of telling you that they are “spiritual” not religious.  I am not sure what people mean by that.  The Bible though is clear.  To be “spiritual” is to have a faith relationship with God in Jesus Christ.  To be spiritual is to know in your heart that God loves you, forgives you, and has claimed you as His own because of Jesus.  That’s the relationship God invites you to in Word.  Here He invites us to commune with Him, to hear the voice of His spirit, to offer Him our prayers.  This is “spiritual milk.” 

Finally, the milk of God’s word is nourishing.    “By it” He writes, “you may grow up into salvation…”  Peter is comparing God’s word to the “mother’s milk” that nourishes a young baby.  God has designed a mother’s milk as the perfect food for newborn babies. It will immunize her baby from many illnesses.  It nourishes her baby for growth.   In the same way He has designed this word to provide all that we need to grow up in our faith.  Although there comes a time when babies are weaned, not so for us and the word. We need to drink freely of the milk of God’s word our entire lives.  There is not graduation from God’s word.  Paul told young Timothy,  But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 

So as the Fall approaches… as Sunday School and Bible classes begin anew – take this advice from my parents, “Try It!  You’ll like it.”  “Try God’s Word.  You’ll like it.”  More to the point, “Try the Word.  You will crave it.”  That’s the literal translation of this text.  Like newborn infants, crave… intensely desire the pure spiritual milk.  Peter says that we should be as motivated as a newborn babe is when he is hungry.  It doesn’t matter if it’s 3 a.m. If they’re hungry, they let you know about it and don’t stop letting you know about it until they get what they’re after!  A Pacifier won’t fool them.  They want to be fed.  That’s how strongly God wants us to desire the pure spiritual milk of His word.  Amen!

How Much Do You Weigh?

“Let us also lay aide every weight and sin which clings so closely and

let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith…”

Hebrews 12:1b-2a

It’s the first thing they do when you walk into the doctor’s office.  Before they put you in a room, they put on a scale and weigh you.  Usually the number stares you right in the face.  I always tell them, “I guess I get the bad news first.”  To be honest it is bad news for me.  I weigh too much.  It affects how my body feels.   My body aches.  I have Type 2 diabetes and… Well I’ll stop there. 

The truth is I have no one to blame but myself.  I know what the things I need to do.  I know that I need to change my diet… I need to exercise more… to do the things I need to be healthy.  I have all sorts of people around me who have and continue to encourage me to eat and live healthy. Being told what I should do is not the same as listening.  Knowing is not the same as doing.    The other day at lunch with our staff, our DCE had salmon and asparagus. I really admire him for his discipline and choices.  He has lost a lot of weight.  I thought I should order that.  I knew it. But I didn’t do it. I ordered wings and fries.  Oh, I did refuse desert, but that was a belated good choice. The truth is I weigh too much.  That’s not going to get better unless I change.

Now I am not sharing this to put myself down or whine.  I share this as an illustration.  I think this applies to us spiritually.  What do you weigh spiritually?  What are the burdens you are carrying that are too heavy – the worries?  The fears?  The guilt?  The ongoing struggles?  Whatever it is, it is a drag on you spiritually, just the way my weight is physically.   Here is how King David described what it was like when he was hiding his guilt over adultery and murder.  “For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.  For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.”  At that moment, David was heavily weighed down by a burden of guilt.

Yet the truth is, he had no one to blame but himself.  He committed the sins. He lied.  He tried to hide what he had done.  In so doing He insisted on carrying all that weight himself and it was too much for him.  The same is true for us.  We have no one to blame but ourselves for the heavy burdens we cry.  We commit the sin.  We cling to our worries like a security blanket. 

What makes that worse is that we don’t have to. David didn’t have to. Just as I have all I need to change my health habits, so you and I have all we need in Christ to be free of our spiritual weights.  We have a God who gave His own Son to save us… a Savior who carried all our burdens to the cross for us… one who overcame those burdens with Him resurrection. He invites us, “Come unto me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”  St. Peter wrote, “Cast all your anxiety upon Him for He cares for you.”    Listen to how everything changed for David when He gave His burdens to God, when he confessed his sin and guilt.  “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover up my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD and you forgave the iniquity of my…”  A verse later you can almost feel that the weight is gone.  “You are my hiding place; your preserve me from trouble; you surround me with songs of deliverance.”

The race of life that God has called us to is a marathon not a 100-yard dash.  How much easier to run without trying to carry all that weight.  All you need do is go to God.  Pray. If it would help come see me or Pastor Bauer or another.  Ask for a Stephen Minister.  Join a small group.  Find a place like AA or Celebrate Recovery.  As we read in Hebrews 12 – “lay aide every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith…”

You know the resources God has provided.  You know what he can do… Now it’s time for the doing… for you to avail yourself of His doing in your life… It’s time to lose some weight.