It’s not
often that a news article brings me to tears, but recently I read one that
did. It’s by David Von Drehle of Time
magazine, titled, “How
Do You Forgive a Murder?” It’s about
the people who were victims of the shooting at Emmanuel AME church in
Charleston, South Carolina last summer, and their families. We all remember that event, we all remember
the hateful racial views of the shooter, and we all remember how the survivors
and families bravely forgave him. But
this story told me who those people really were. It helped me see how difficult it was to
forgive, and how their faith made it possible.
Felicia Sanders was in that room when the shooting started. She was with her adult son and her little granddaughter. The son, Tywanza, was a guy who Von Drehle
says was so joyous and ambitious, “if life was a multiple choice test, his
answer was all of the above.” As he
watched this stranger coldly mow down innocent people who had welcomed him into
their small Bible study, Tywanza bravely approached him and said, “You don’t
have to do this.” The shooter said, “You
rape our women and you’re taking over our country, and you have to go,” and
shot Tywanza at close range. Felicia
Sanders saw her son die, as she crouched on the floor with her
granddaughter. She is certain that the
only reason the two of them are alive today is that they both were so
completely covered in the blood of her son, they looked dead. Sanders forgave the shooter because she felt
she had no choice. If she didn’t, she
was afraid the hate that shooter felt would invade her own soul. She asked the FBI for the Bible her son
carried that night. They said it was unrecoverable. She said she wanted it anyway. So the FBI’s high-tech lab in Quantico
cleaned the Bible as carefully as possible, page by page. This is how the article ends: “She has it
now. The pages are pink with blood that
can never wash away. But she can still
make out the words.”
Thursday, December 17, 2015
He Rules the World with Truth and Grace
Sunday, December 13, 2015
Devotional: Repeat the Sounding Joy
Friends, here is the devotional I shared during the worship concert December 13:
We’ve
just heard “Good Christians All, Rejoice” and in just a moment, we’ll hear “Joy
to the World.” Some people think joy
isn’t particularly spiritual. I’ve been
a pastor a long time, and I’ve heard a lot of people confess a lot of sins, but
I’ve never had anyone say to me, “Preacher, pray for me. I’m just not a joyful enough person. “ I’ve known plenty who should have! I know that would surprise some to hear. I
have a friend who says Christians are people who always seem angry because
someone, somewhere might be having fun.
When we think of a righteous person, we tend to think of a fat,
red-faced preacher screaming about sin and hell, or a severe old woman with her
hair in a tight bun, whose face would crack if she smiled. But get this:
·
Jesus was
a man of joy. It got Him into
trouble. His enemies accused Him
of being a “drunkard and a glutton.” This wasn’t because Jesus got drunk or ate
too much; both of those things are sins, and the Bible clearly says Jesus never
sinned. They accused Him of these things
because they weren’t used to a religious teacher who seemed like He was
enjoying life. Jesus was a man of wit
and warmth, a man who gave His disciples joking nicknames, who made some of His
more spiritual points with humor, and whose personality was so magnetic, people
would spend days just listening to Him talk.
He didn’t fit the profile of a “serious” religious teacher.
·
God is a God of joy. Genesis 1:31 says that after God had created
every thing,
He looked around at it and said, “it is very good.” Psalm 104:31 says, Let the Lord be glad in all His works. In other words, God enjoys the things He
made. In Isaiah 65:18, it says that God
rejoices in His people. And in the parable
of the prodigal son in Luke 15, Jesus pictures God as a father who throws a
party when one of His rebellious children come home. Imagine that: You bring joy to the heart of
God!
·
In the book of Acts there are several stories of
people becoming Christians.
In most of those stories, joy is mentioned. Philip preached the gospel in Samaria, and
“there was great joy in that city” (Ac 8:8).
The Ethiopian eunuch got saved in the desert, and “went on his way
rejoicing” (Ac 8:39). Paul and Silas led
their jailer in Philippi to salvation, and he “rejoiced, believing in God with
all his house” (Ac 16:34). When Jesus
comes into your life, He brings joy with Him.
·
Many times in scripture, we are commanded to
rejoice. We are told to enjoy
the food
we eat (1 Ti 4:4-5), our friendships with other believers (Ph. 4:1), our
physical relationship with our spouse (Pr 5:18-19), and most of all, our
relationship with God (Ph 4:4). We are
even told to rejoice in times of trial (Ja. 1:2, among many others). In Galatians, joy is listed as one of the
fruits of the Spirit. In other words, if
God is alive inside you, you should be a joyful person. That doesn’t mean you
always need to be happy. There are times to weep, times to be serious, even
times to be angry. But joy means you
have a settled state of joyfulness. It means your default setting is to enjoy
life.
How do we get there? Treat it as you would any other shortcoming
in your relationship with God. Confess
it to the Father. Ask Him to teach you
joy. He wants you to have it. Then allow the Holy Spirit to show you what
is present in your life that is stealing your joy. Maybe there is an area of rebellion against
God in your life, and that is what is making you miserable. Maybe you are spending too much of your time
around people or influences that bring you down. Maybe you need professional help. God wants you to have joy. Do what it takes to bring the joy of the Lord
into your life.
There are probably people here
today who have not yet accepted Christ as their Savior. If you’re one of those people, it’s not
surprising if you don’t have joy. We
were created for one thing above all others, and that is a relationship with
God. When we try to live our lives
without that, it’s like putting an eagle in a tiny cage. No matter how much good food, how many
enticing distractions you put into that cage, they can’t stop that eagle from
being miserable. Eventually, that bird
will die because it is prevented from doing the thing it was created to do:
Soar. As long as you live your life
apart from Christ, you are slowly dying.
Perhaps you have found distractions that temporarily keep you from
noticing, but you’re dying, just the same.
You can’t experience real joy until Jesus is your Lord. I can’t say it any clearer than that.
In the African nation of Ghana, the largest Christian group is the
Presbyterian church. It was started over
a hundred years ago by Scottish Presbyterians, and when they would convert
people to Christianity, they would tell them they had to act like, well,
Scottish Presbyterians. In other words,
their worship had to be very somber, very serious, very reverent. But somewhere in the last few decades,
someone wised up and said, “Hey, these folks aren’t Scots. They’re Ghanans. Let’s tell them they can worship God like Ghanans.” And the only thing they’ve changed is the
offertory. For the rest of the service,
they’re somber, serious and reverent.
But when that offertory music starts, they get up. They smile and clap. And one by one, they dance—not walk, not run,
but dance—down the aisle. And they
really get after it. They don’t wait for
the plate to come to them, they dance up to it.
I’m certainly not suggesting we start that tradition around here. I’ve got no rhythm, and I doubt many of you
do either. Offerings would go way, way
down. All I’m saying is this: Isn’t it
interesting that these Ghanans only smile and dance when they’re giving their
money away? Think about that. I think that’s a lesson to all of us. If you don’t have joy, maybe it’s because
you’re holding something back from God.
When you give it all away to Him, that’s when the music starts, and your
heart begins to dance. Try it and see. The reason we sing Joy to the World, the
reason we can have joy in the first place, is because Jesus gave it all away
for us. Hebrews says He died for us “for
the joy set before Him.” The cross was
bearable because He knew joy was on the other side of it. That joy was knowing that His death meant
spending eternity with you and me. So we
chase after Him, and we find joy along the way.
We live it, we shout it, we sing it, and we repeat the sounding joy of
Christ to a world that desperately needs it.
Friday, December 4, 2015
He Comes to Make His Blessings Flow
We live
in a messed-up world, don’t we? It’s
hard to really decide what world problem to be most concerned about. Obviously, there’s the worldwide threat of
terrorism. There’s the devastation of civil war in places like Syria, Ukraine,
and South Sudan. In our own country,
there’s a loss of Christian identity, as the Church and the Gospel we believe
in seem to fade further from public consciousness with each passing day. There’s racial inequality and justice for the
unborn; there’s the spread of diseases like Alzheimer’s as our parents and
grandparents get older, with no cure in sight, and also diseases like cancer
and AIDS that afflict all ages. But one
Christian decided he knew exactly what to be most upset about. He found out that Starbucks was releasing
their annual holiday cups, and this year, they would simply be bright red, with
no traditional Christmas symbols on them, like reindeer or snowflakes. He released a video on social media that went
viral. He said this was yet another sign
of the persecution of Christians in our culture. Really.
So first, I have two things: One, it’s ridiculous for us to expect a
for-profit business like Starbucks to proclaim the glory of Jesus. That’s our
job. Second, reindeer and snowflakes and
Christmas trees have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus or the Gospel He
brought us. And next, I want to steal a
thought from John Ortberg: Imagine this gentleman standing in judgment before
Jesus Christ, and seeing the Lord celebrating all the people throughout history
who have paid the highest price for His cause: He’ll see Stephen, who was
stoned to death, and Peter, who was crucified upside down, and Polycarp, who
was burned alive, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was hanged by the Nazis, and Jim
Elliot, who was speared to death by the very people he came to share the Gospel
with, whose killers later came to know Christ through the witness of his
wife. Not to mention all the untold
numbers of other martyrs, including 21st century Christians from the Middle
East who were beheaded for their faith.
Can you imagine him stepping forward and saying, “Hey, you guys think
you had it bad? I had to drink overpriced
coffee in a cup with no reindeers or snowflakes.” I don’t think so.
The Horror!!! |
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