Delivered from the Egyptians, Saved from Ourselves

Here is the audio of Sunday's sermon, "Delivered from the Egyptians, Saved from Ourselves," based on Exodus 7-14. You can stream the audio below or download it here.

Jesus or Heaven?

In inviting the first disciples to follow him, Jesus offered no perks, extended no bribes, and promised no tangible rewards. In inviting people to become disciples, we often offer perks, extend bribes, and promise tangible rewards. In fact, it might be fair to say our track record reveals we've prompted more interest in seeking after heaven (offered as a perk, extended as a bribe, promised as a reward) than following after Jesus.

The following "parable" from Peter Rollins's The Orthodox Heretic invites its hearers/readers to reflect upon the nature of their own spiritual journeys: whether they are more interested in seeking heaven or following Jesus. I hope this parable stirs your heart and mind to wrestle with the purpose and meaning of your spiritual journey as it has mine.

You sit in silence contemplating what has just taken place. Only moments ago you were alive and well, relaxing at home with friends. Then there was a deep, crushing pain in your chest that brought you crashing to the floor. The pain has now gone, but you are no longer in your home. Instead, you find yourself standing on the other side of death waiting to stand before the judgment seat and discover where you will spend eternity. As you reflect upon your life your name is called, and you are led down a long corridor into a majestic sanctuary with a throne located in its center. Sitting on this throne is a huge, breathtaking being who looks up at you and begins to speak.

"My name is Lucifer, and I am the angel of light."

You are immediately filled with fear and trembling as you realize that you are face to face with the enemy of all that is true and good. Then the angel continues: "I have cast God down from his throne and banished Christ to the realm of eternal death. It is I who hold the keys to the kingdom. It is I who am the gatekeeper of paradise, and it is for me alone to decide who shall enter eternal joy and who shall be forsaken."

After saying these words, he sits up and stretches out his vast arms. "In my right hand I hold eternal life and in my left hand eternal death. Those who would bow down and acknowledge me as their god shall pass through the gates of paradise and experience an eternity of bliss, but all those who refuse will be vanquished to the second death with their Christ."

After a long pause he bends toward you and speaks, "Which will you choose?"

What do you think?

P.S. The Orthodox Heretic is currently available at Amazon.com as a bargain book for $8.00. Just click the picture to proceed to the product page.

Villains and Hope

Here is the audio of Sunday's sermon, "Villains and Hope," based on Exodus 5:1-6:8. You can stream the audio below or download it here.

Just Go!

Here is the audio of Sunday's sermon, "Just Go," based on Exodus 3:1-4:17. You can stream the audio below or download it here.

Burn Out Bright

It’s incredible how attached we are to comfort. She will shop at the same grocery store every week for years, but when the store’s management decides to reconfigure the layout of the store so that “everything is out of place,” she will walk out the door and never come back as a way of protesting the loss of her comfort zone. He will go to the same place every morning for coffee and a biscuit, but when others who look different and smell different begin to adopt a similar pattern, he will walk out the door and never come back as a way of demonstrating his displeasure with the loss of his comfort zone.

I guess somewhere along the way we also began to think faith was all about our comfort: So some of us have faith because we long to be comforted by the notion that our past sins have been forgiven. Others have faith because we long to be comforted in the present by a God who will make things easy for us or at least make us feel better about ourselves. Still others of us have faith simply because we long to be comforted eternally instead of punished.

Certainly God is a comforting God, who comforts people in distress. But the God who comforts is also the God who calls people to lives of risky sacrifice and service. Perhaps this is why so often when God calls, the people being called try to come up with all kinds of excuses not to answer. Moses and Jeremiah both say they can’t speak well enough. The people of Israel say they would be better off back in Egypt. Some of the folks Jesus calls say they have urgent tasks to complete before they can follow him.

Sometimes we’re not all that different from those we read about in Scripture who grasped for any possible excuse not to move outside their comfort zones into God’s calling. Sadly the consumer attitudes that lead us to boycott our favorite grocery store or abandon our regular breakfast haunt can all too easily find their way into the church. What’s especially dangerous about this is that we can find ways to spiritualize our excuses and relieve ourselves of taking any responsibility for our own unwillingness to get out of our comfort zones. So they will worship with the same congregation every time the doors are open for years, but when the church’s leadership, called into service by the Holy Spirit and the congregation makes intentional and thoughtful efforts to help the congregation grow in faith and live out their faith, they will walk out the door and tell folks they weren’t being spiritually nourished as a way of expressing their frustration with the loss of their comfort zone.

Sadly we often miss out on opportunities to do God’s will when we latch onto flimsy excuses to stay in our comfort zones. Imagine how different the world would be if Moses had refused to go back to Egypt or if Peter and Andrew and James and John had refused to hop off their boats and follow Jesus. May God give us courage to embrace the opportunities to break out of our comfort zones and let our lives burn out bright to the praise of God’s glorious grace!

Here's a song by Switchfoot which first introduced me to this wonderful way of putting the calling of God on our lives: to "burn out bright."

How might you be able to burn out bright this week?

A Box Office Flop

Here is the audio of Sunday's sermon, "A Box Office Flop," based on Exodus 2:11-2:25. You can stream the audio below or download it here.

Cards

Perhaps it is because the tendency to focus on self is universal. Perhaps it is because the inclination to reshape selfless faith into selfish religion is an inherent part of what it means to be human. Perhaps it is because the propensity to get stuck in our own little worlds is as intrinsic to our identity as our gender or the color of our eyes. Whatever the case, the authors of Scripture, the representatives who speak to God’s people on God’s behalf, and even Jesus repeatedly find themselves in the position of having to remind God’s people what it means to be God’s people.

We sometimes speak about the circumstances of life as though they are like a hand of cards that has been dealt to us. As anyone who has played cards knows, as a player you simply have no control over the cards you are dealt; all you control is the way you play the cards. Some hands are stacked with trump card after trump card. Others are full of worthless low number cards. Then there are those hands that are a mixed bag, some good cards and some awful cards. Complicating the analogy is the fact that the quality of the hand depends on the game you are playing. For instance, a hand flush with face cards and spades is perfect for playing Spades but not so ideal for playing Hearts. Then there’s the fact there are different ways to be successful. One could, for example, seek to rack up as many points as possible throughout a hand of Spades by capturing as many books as possible or rack up points at the end of the hand by avoiding capturing any books at all. Regardless of one’s skill, however, what often plays the biggest role in the outcome is sheer happenstance, pure luck; so much depends on the cards you’ve been dealt and the way you play them and the way others play the cards they’ve been dealt.

The Christians James writes were in a situation in which it would have been easy to dwell upon the crummy cards they had been dealt. Everybody deals with a few bad cards, but some of these folks were dealing with poverty, feelings of isolation from other believers, and an environment fairly unwelcoming to their faith. But James, like Moses and the prophets before him, knew that if God’s people get stuck dwelling on the bad hand they’ve been dealt, they will likely neglect one of the major elements of the calling God places on the lives of God’s people: to stand with and support those who have been dealt terrible cards. So James reminds his audience that God desires for them “to look after orphans and widows in their distress” (1:27), that is, others who have been dealt awful hands.

As we survey the hands we have been dealt, each of us can spot cards we wish we could trade. Certainly there are times when the most faithful way we can respond is by begging God to act to change them. But as we have been reminded by the images of the hundreds of thousands of people suffering from the effects of a bad card in Haiti this week, more often the best way to respond is by doing whatever we can to stand with and support others who have been dealt awful hands and to trust God with our own hands.

Who are the "orphans and widows" in your life that God desires you to look after? What are some of the bad cards others they have been dealt? What can you do to stand with and support them as they deal with those cards?