Are You Safe?

"God is our refuge and Strength

An ever present help in trouble..."

Psalm 46:1

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble..."  Psalm 46:1. "Did you feel safe?"  "Were you ever in any danger?"  Those are the kinds of questions people ask when you take a trip to Israel.  I know many don't take this trip because of fears about security.  I understand that.  The news reports in the west make this seem like a dangerous place.   But the truth is that the only violence I've seen since being here was on TV - a news report about rioting in Baltimore.

Oh, there is danger here.  Israel has enemies all around it.   Security is very important here.  You see that in the very thorough check you go through before boarding a flight to Israel.  I often tell people that I never feel safer than when I am flying to or from Israel. Except that wouldn't be true because I hate turbulence.  

That all brings me to my thought today.  Is there any real security in this world?   Recent events suggest that even the White House can not be kept 100% safe.  Every parent who has sent their child out with the car alone for the first time has learned that they can't and won't always be able to protect their kids.  

Is there any place we can feel 100%safe?  These words from Psalm 46 give the answer.  "God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble..."  The only real security we have in this life is knowing that we are in God's hands.  As those baptized into Christ that is precisely where we are!  His hands hold us and they are amazing.  They are the strong hands of the Almighty God who created the heavens and the earth.  They are the loving, nail scared, living hands of our Savior who died for us and rose again.  His are hands we can trust.

Please understand this - this security is not a guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen.  This is a security that knows that even when the worst happens - we will be safe.  Psalm 46 does not say, God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble, therefore everything will always be fine."  No it says, 

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble, therefore we will not fear though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea..."

I read these words to my father in ICUS, when he had his heart attack.  Moments later he died.  Did God fail to keep my dad safe?  No, in fact He kept his promise.  He became in the face of death my dad's most secure refuge!  Now my dad is safe in the hands of Jesus awaiting the Day of the Resurrection.  Even now you and I by faith are in those same hands - no matter what happens.

What Defines You?

"If anyone is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation..."

2 Corinthians 5:17

Have you ever watched one of those TED talks on the internet?  If you haven’t then you should.  Google TED talks and then watch a couple of them.   I love them and I hate them.  I love them because they make me think.  I hate them for the same reason.  The one I watched this morning is the perfect example – it was about shame.   I have been wrestling with what the speaker said all day.  She was explaining the difference between guilt and shame.  “Shame,” she said, “is a focus on self.  Guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is ‘I am bad.”  Guilt is ‘I did something bad.’”  I was tracking with her up to that point.  Then she added, “Guilt – I am sorry I made a mistake.  Shame – I am sorry, I am a mistake.”  That’s what troubled me.  That’s what I have been struggling with.   “Is that what I believe, that I am a mistake?”   Is saying, “I am bad” the same thing as saying, “I am a mistake?”   I don’t think so.  But I have to admit to you that I am really wrestling with this.  Like all of you, I struggle with shame and guilt.  I worry, “If I am bad, how can I possibly love myself?”  Then I looked up on the wall of my office and saw the picture you see posted on my blog today – a picture of a baptismal font. 

That’s why I am down here today, standing by the baptismal font at Trinity.   You see, shame and guilt are all I am left with if I try to define myself by what I have done and who I am.  Baptism points us in a different direction.  In baptism God gives us faith.  Faith defines who you are and who I am by who God is and what He has done. 

Let’s look at this.  Am I a mistake?  Faith answers with a resounding “No.”  You and I are creations of God. To say, I am a mistake is to blame Him.  But God is perfect.   He doesn’t make mistakes.   You are no accident.  Neither am I.  Indeed what the Bible teaches us is that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” 

What about the fact that you and I sin daily and sin much?   Doesn’t that mean I am bad?  Well, the answer is yes  when what defines us  is what we do, and say and think.   However faith points us in a different direction.  Faith points us to who God is and what He has done. .  Faith points us to the cross and empty tomb of Jesus.   Faith reminds us that God loves us so much that He gave His own Son… that Jesus lived and died and rose again to take away our sin.  Faith points us to this place… to baptism.  Here God washed away your sins and mine.  Here God buried us with Christ and raised us with Him to live a new life.  Here God adopted you and adopted me into His own family.  Here you and I were crucified with Christ so that it is no longer you or I who live but Christ who lives in us. 

I don’t have all the answers about what is guilt and what is shame.  I know you and I would carry both as long as our lives are to be defined by us… by the things we have done and left undone.  But that’s the point of baptism.  In baptism God defines us differently.  Now our lives are to be defined by who He is and what He has done for us.  You need no longer hang your head in shame. Because of who He is and what He has done You are loved… You are forgiven… You are a child of God… You are His new creation.  In Him you have nothing to be ashamed of!

A Stroll through Your Cemetery

“After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week,

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary

Went to look at the tomb.”

Matthew 28:1

I am out here today in the cemetery behind the church here in Frankfurt.  I am here today because I want to invite you to take a stroll through the cemeteries of your life – the real ones and the figurative ones.  I know that may sound a little morbid, but hear me out.   This may not be the case for everyone, but for me, one of the most helpful things I have done in working through grief has been to go and visit the graves of those I love – my mom, my dad, my sister.  The first time is always the hardest.  The first time, I came back to Illinois to visit my dad’s grave I just stood there and cried for a good long time.  Each time I go there, I tell my parents things I want them to know about.  Now I know they can’t hear me.  I just need to say those things. It’s part of how God has healed my heart.

So for a moment, I want to invite you to stroll through the cemeteries in your life.  We all have them. Some are real places where the bodies of our loved ones are buried.  Some are figurative.  By that I mean, that we all have things we have “buried” during our walk through life – a painful memory, something we've done or perhaps that we’re doing that we ashamed of… so ashamed of it that we bury it.  We try to hide it from everyone, from ourselves, even from God.  One member of Lamb of God in his testimony talks about helping out at an addiction recovery ministry called Celebrate recovery.  For a long time, he really believed he wasn't like the people who came to that ministry.  He convinced himself that he didn't have the problems they had.  The truth was that he did.  He had simply buried it, hidden it, denied it to himself and others, and then refused to go look in that cemetery.  But burying it didn't make it any less real.  It was only when through that ministry, he started to walk through that part of his life… it was only when he confessed that he had a problem with alcohol, that he started to heal. 

So what are the cemeteries in your life?  What are the things you have buried along the way… the things you have hidden or denied or lied about rather than dealt with.   Now is as good a time as any to go visit those graves. I know it’s not easy but imagine for a moment what would have happened if Mary Magdalene and the other Mary had done the easy thing and stayed home rather than go out to the tomb.  They could have just denied their grief, stayed home, avoided the pain that would surely come from visiting His tomb.  Thank God they didn't avoid His tomb.  When they arrived that morning the stone was already rolled away.  Two men dressed in white greeted them.  “He is not here!” they said, “He is risen!”

They went out to that tomb expecting grief and pain and tears.  Instead they found healing, hope, joy, forgiveness and peace at the empty tomb of Jesus.  Thank God they went to that grave that morning.  For because of what they found, we can go face the graves in our lives.  We can go face our shame because in Jesus our sins are all forgiven.  We can go to those friends we have lost because in Jesus there is reconciliation.  We can go and face the times… the events… the people that have hurt us because in Jesus there is healing. We can confront our addictions, the temptations that really trouble us because in Jesus the victory has already been won.  We can even go and face those very real graves of those we love, whose deaths still bring tears to our eyes and pain to our hearts.  For because His tomb is empty we have a living hope… a living Savior.  In Jesus we come to a place like this and see it entirely different.  This is not a last resting place.  This is a waiting room… waiting for His return… waiting for the Risen One to come again and raise up us and all the dead and give unto all believers in Christ eternal life. It’s a great place to go for a walk.

More Than a Decoration

“But far be it from me to boast

except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,

by which the world is crucified to me,

and I to the world.”

Galatians 6:14

We wear them as necklaces.  We give them as gifts.  We hang them on the walls of our homes.  We place them at the center of our churches.  Has it ever occurred to you that there is something strange about the fact that we use the cross as a decoration?  Think about it.  How many of you would wear hangman’s noose on a necklace?  Would you decorate your home or your church with a guillotine?  Of course you wouldn’t.  Those were instruments of death.  They were used to execute the worst kinds of criminals.  So was the cross.  I wonder how someone from the first century… someone who witnessed a crucifixion would react seeing a cross on the wall of your home.  After all the crucifixion was a cruel, painful way to put someone to death.  The Romans would order the victim flogged just to prepare him for the agony.  Then they would nail his hands and feet to the cross and leave him there to die a slow, agonizing death.  I am told it’s a lot like drowning, only this can take up to three days.   

Why would we use such an instrument of death as a decoration?  Well my hope is that the cross is more than a decoration for you.  I am getting ready to hang this cross on the wall of our home here in Germany.  This was made and given to me by the youth and their adult leaders at Lamb of God.  This was their going away present to me when we left Lamb of God to follow God’s call to Germany..  Each nail was pounded into this cross by one of the students or adults from the youth ministry at Lamb of God. 

To me this cross is more than decoration.  There is so much meaning here.  Yes, each nail represents someone special to me, but that’s not all.  The sheer number of these nails reminds us of how serious and costly sin is.  The price of our sinfulness is high.  God had to give His own Son to pay that price for the sins of the world.  Jesus had to give His own life for the world.  Yet it’s more personal than that.  This is what my sin cost Him!

This cross was given by those students and their leaders to show how much they love me and how much I love them.  Yet this cross is so much more than that.  This cross is a daily reminder to Linda and me that this is how much God loves us…  This is how much Jesus loves us.  “In this is love,” the Bible says, “not that we loved God but that He loved us and gave His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”  God is so madly in love with this world… so madly in love with me… so madly in love with you that this is the price He willingly paid so that He might have our company for all eternity! 

That’s my prayer for you as Good Friday approaches this week – that you would look at the crosses in your church, on your walls and around your neck… and that you would see more than a decoration.  I pray you would look and be reminded that this is the price Jesus paid to make you His sister or brother… that this is how much God loves you… that you and I would say with St. Paul, “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.”

Lenses for the Heart

Ephesians 1:16–19a

"I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe…"

Well one of our first major tasks in settling into Germany is almost done.  We have registered Molly and gotten her a German dog license.  We have opened a German bank account. A little over a month ago we received our two year German residency card.  Thanks Marion Waidlein.  The next step is getting our German Driver’s license.  This should have been the simplest part.  Yet this is where ran into a problem. I flunked the eye exam.   Where Linda saw everything clearly I saw only a blurr.   I need new glasses.  It’s amazing what a good set of lenses makes. Life goes from slightly blurred to crystal clear. 

It strikes me that in the same way a good set of spiritual lenses can make big difference in how we see life. That’s why Paul in Ephesians 1 prays that the Father would give the Ephesians “the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know the hope to which He has called you…” 

Let me give you one example of the difference a good set of spiritual lenses can make.  There was man sitting at the bedside of his wife as she dies of cancer.  Their son sat on the other side of the bed.  As she died there were tears and silence from both of them Suddenly however, the husband raised in his fist in triumph and said, “The cancer didn't win.”  The son was incredulous.  He was furious.  “What do you mean the cancer didn't win?  Of course the cancer won.  Mom is dead.  How can you say that?”  But the father was undeterred   “No it didn't son. The cancer didn't win.  Because of Jesus the cancer couldn't win.” The father was looking through the lenses of faith in Jesus Christ.  Looking at his wife’s death through the death and resurrection of Jesus the father could see clearly that he, his wife and his son were more than conquerors even at the moment of death.  By faith the father was able to clearly see the day his wife, the mother of his son would be raised to life again in Christ… and they would all stand victorious before His throne. 

You know I have known for a while that these glasses needed replacing.  I was just too cheap to admit it.  Think about that and then ask yourself, what is it that keeps you from admitting you need new spiritual lenses for your heart?  Is it the pride that can’t admit your wrong?  Is it some desire like greed or lust that simply doesn't want to let go of some sinful behavior?  I remember one woman for whom it was fear.  She was so afraid of life in this world without her husband that even 2 years after his death she refused take off the lenses of grief.  While grief is very normal, her grief had begun to blurr how she saw everything.  Do you know what finally healed her?  Jesus gently replaced her glasses… His Spirit, the one Paul prayed for, went to work in her heart… helped her once again to see life through the lenses of faith … opened her heart to see that the hope Christ won on Easter morning is one even death cannot take away.  What a difference it makes when we can finally admit we’ve been wearing the wrong glasses and start seeing life clearly through the lenses of faith… of grace, forgiveness and hope in Christ.  Life suddenly becomes clear again!  

The Z Room

Philippians 3:12–14 (ESV)

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Today I want to show you part of our facilities here at Trinity. I want to show you the “Z” room.  I know that is a strange name but let me assure you there is a good reason.  The “Z” is from the German word “Zwischen”  which translates into English as “in between.”  In other words this is “the in between” room. This is the room that connects one portion of our facility to the other.  It sits “zwischen” the Sanctuary and the classrooms.  People stand in here and visit “between” Sunday School and worship.  They have coffee, tea, snacks and fellowship in here “between” the end of worship and when they head home.  The “Z” room is one of the most important rooms at Trinity.

That got me to thinking. We live our lives in the “Z” room.  As Christians we live “between” the old life of sin and the new life of eternity.  We are already saved but not yet in heaven. We are already forgiven but not yet made perfect.  Jesus has already won the victory over temptation but we are not yet done with the daily struggle with sin.  We are no longer dead in our trespasses and sins, but we do not yet have the resurrected bodies God has promised. Through faith in Jesus we are already God’s adopted sons and daughters but we have not yet seen our heavenly Father face to face. 

We are like Israel after leaving Egypt.  We no longer slaves to sin but we have not yet reached the promised land.  We are in between. Like them we live life in the wilderness. Like them we still have struggles to face, obstacles that will stand in our way as we journey to the world to come.

Knowing that is so, how does one live in the “Z” room?  St. Paul answers that question in Philippians 3.  “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”  There is only one way to live in this in between time – trusting in God’s grace in Christ.

Think of what Paul means here.  Leaving the past behind is not easy.  When you have made a habit out of certain sins, we have a hard time stopping.  Sin enslaves.  When you’ve done and said and thought some terrible things… when you have hurt others (and we all have) – it’s hard to leave that behind.  It’s hard to believe that you are forgiven and hard to forgive yourself.  When I coached baseball and a kid made an error, I would tell him to shake it off and get back in the game.  Otherwise, he would get really down on himself and not play well the rest of the game.  The sin in our lives can do the same to us.  It’s easy to get down and think, “What kind of a Christian am I?  Why would God want anything to do with me?”  How can you leave your past life of sin behind when every day that old life seems to still be your life?  There is only one way to shake it off – God’s grace in Jesus Christ.  He has paid for you sin in full.  He has washed you clean, erased the past – forgiven you all Your sin.  “If any man is in Christ Jesus, He is a new creation. The old has passed away.  Behold the new has come.”  Because of God’s grace, as you live in the Z room you can live everyday “forgetting what lies behind.”

The other part of  side of that is living every day in hope .  But how do you that in the midst of a life that still faces many struggles.  People die.  Marriages fail.  Cancer strikes.  Bad things happen.  How do you live with hope in the midst of such a life?  You can only live with hope by faith in God’s grace in Christ.  There is the hope that never disappoints – won for us by Jesus, who though He was dead, on the third day conquered death and rose again.  Through Him and in Him we are more than conquerors. 

How do you live life in the Z room… how do you keep straining towards all that God has promised?  You “fix your eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of your faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame and sat down at the right hand of God.  Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, that you may not grow weary or lose heart.”  That’s how you live your life in the in between.  

Doors that Swing Both Ways

"Jesus said, "Come unto Me..."  Matthew 11

Jesus said, "Go and make disciples..." Matthew 28

I have had the hardest time getting out of buildings since coming to Germany.  Typically, I go to the door, turn the handle, push and walk right into the door.  Then I fiddle with it for a while trying to figure out why it won’t open.  Only then, usually with people staring at me, do I remember that in Germany outside doors open inward, not outward as they do in the US.  This makes getting into a building fairly easy but for door impaired people like me, it means getting out of a building is a problem.    

That got me to thinking.  Which ways should the doors swing on the church and in our lives as Christians?  In other words, “Which should be easier – going out from the church or coming in?”  On the one hand, people should have an easy time coming into the fellowship of God’s people… people should feel invited, welcomes and included.  There is nothing worse to hear than statements like these, “I came to your church but no one spoke to me.  Or “At first everyone was so friendly, but after a couple of Sundays I felt like old news.  No one spoke to me.”   Or “I missed church for a couple of Sundays and no one noticed” “I volunteered.  I signed up but no one ever called me. I hear arguments in the church over how much we should cater to those who are new to the church.  Some say we should not expect people to learn a “new Christian language” when they come into a church. Words like “justification, Kyrie, and Sanctus” are like a foreign language to those new to the church.  Others say, “If new people want to come to church then we should teach them the language.”  To both, I say yes.  Coming to Germany Linda and I are trying to learn the language. We want to know this country, its culture and its people.  The language is key.  At the same time, I also love that people here have been more than patients and spoken our foreign language to help us feel welcomed here.  The church needs to be the same.  Yes we want people to learn and grow.  But first we want to welcome them.  We want to invite them in, remember their names, include them in activities, make friends and speak their language.   We want outside doors that swing inward.  After all, Jesus said, “Come unto me, all who are weary and burdened…”  “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink…”  You and I, our congregations should reflect His warm, welcoming heart.

But then there is the other question.  Should the doors of the church swing outward?   Again the answer is yes.  It’s too easy for us to sit in church like its some kind of private club… as if its mission is only to be a place where people are protected from the world…  to have the attitude that everyone ought to come to us. The problem is Jesus didn’t say “Wait here and make disciples…”  He said, “Go and make Disciples.”  Most unbelievers aren’t waking up on Sunday wondering what church they should go to.   For the most part they aren’t thinking about church at all.  If they are to know Jesus then we have to go to them… be genuine friends and neighbors to them… love and care for them… go out and introduce them to Jesus in our words and deeds.   Our call is reflect our savior… As He came looking for us through the parents and pastors, friends and neighbors, so He sends us out into our neighborhoods and workplaces, homes and schools.  He is the shepherd who leaves the 99 in the open country and goes in search of the one who is lost… We are His search party. Which way should the church doors swing?  Both ways!