The Church: what it was, is and is becoming

Matthew 16:13-20; 13:31-32

Sorry of the delay in posting these notes.

This is a sermon I have been wanting to preach for sometime. The effect of post-modernity on our society has been studied from many perspectives and the impact on the church has been written about by many people with more specialized training in sociological stuff than I have. However, I am living it. Having been raised in the church and now having provided almost 40 years of leadership, has given me some perspective that I would not have otherwise. Also, having worked with the church in a non-western culture for a season has been extremely beneficial on a number of levels.

Anyway, these are extremely stressful times for churches and church leaders. But my gut tells me it is good. As society falls apart around us, we are forced to return to our roots, which is Jesus and his teaching, and to be more focused, more radical, more clear and more intentional about who we are and what we are called to be. It is no longer enough for a church to simply be busy running programs--we must be focused on personal transformation so that we become strong in our faith to with stand the forces being imposed on us by an increasingly hostile world. Actually, churches that are busy with program that is not transformational in nature, will find themselves in worse shape, in my opinion, than those which don't do anything.

Maybe the most important point I make in the sermon is this: We do not go to church; we are the church!

In the sermon I quote Sky Jethani, who is an editor for Leadership Journal, a premier publication for church leaders. I am currently reading his book The Divine Commodity and With. I commend them both to you. The first discusses the impact of our current consumer culture on our lives, faith and church. The second explains why we changed our mission statement from Living for Jesus so others may know him to Living with Jesus so others may know him. I wish I had With back when we changed the slogan--it is a great read which also looks at what is wrong with the way we think about God and our faith today.

Next week's sermon will continue with this topic, with a closer look at what all this means for us as followers of Jesus.

Thanks for digging deeper.

What is that in your hand?

Exodus 4-1-5 (all of chapters 3 and 4).

I have always wanted to preach on this passage, but never have. As I considered what to share on this Sunday when we honor those graduating from various schools, I was led again to this text. I think for a number of reasons.

This is a great moment in the life of Moses. He's standing, as it were, at a crossroad in his life. Of course, right in front of him is the burning bush, and God is speaking to him from the midst of it. He could turn away, or he could stay. He chose to stay and hear God out.

God had a great task for Moses--go to the most powerful ruler on planet earth and tell him to let God's people go free. (Remember, the Israelites were providing untold hours of free labor for the Pharaoh.) It is no wonder that Moses had some excuses. The dialog between Moses and God, though somewhat anthropomorphic, shows  God's extreme patience with us, his willingness to provide for our fears, and his awesome power which takes what little we have to offer and empowers that with his power.

And that is the message I hope to convey in this sermon.

Sort of related to this sermon, but not really, is the question of the location of Mount Sinai, where Moses first encountered the burning bush and later came with the Israelites and received the 10 Commandments. The traditional site is in the southern section of the Sinai Peninsula. If you are interested, here is a site that reviews the info, and another one that argues for a different location. I also like this Rabbi's conclusion.

Thanks for digging deeper.
(By the way, I will be on vacation the next to Sundays.)

Choosing Where to be Planted

Psalm 1

I'm back after two weeks off from preaching (one week to attend our newest grandson's dedication and another to speak at the 100th anniversary celebration of a church I previously served as pastor).

Thanks for hanging in there. And its Memorial Day weekend, so many people are away for the weekend.

Anyway, I felt led to speak on Psalm 1, for several reasons which I mention in the sermon.

For background, it would be good to review some of the basic characteristics of Wisdom Literature, as it appears in the Bible. Here are two web sites that give good, general background. one two

The psalm uses images from the ancient agricultural practice of harvesting grain. You may be more or less familiar with the steps of harvesting and winnowing, depending on your background. Here is a good video that summarizes the process, as it would have been done in biblical times, and is still done today in many parts of the developing world.

In the sermon I state that we can each choose where to be planted; or we can choose to live among the godly or the ungodly. I mention that that choice is up to us to make; it is not chosen for us. The out come of this choice is predetermined and predestined, but the choice is not. Some readers may react to that statement, believing that sovereignty and predestination extend to the choice itself and are not limited to the outcomes of our choices. You may be right, however after years of contemplation on these topics, and the study of Scripture, I have rather made peace with this idea.

I think God has granted us fee will while, naturally, knowing full well the choices we will make. But knowing them and controlling them are two different things. If I offer you a million dollars, no strings attached, I know up front what choice you will make. You will take it. But I am not controlling your choice; you could reject the gift. If a human can make such a judgment on something so simple, why can't God know all things on all topics in advance, without even blinking an eye. I believe he can and he does.

However, the outcomes of choices we make are predetermined. If I choose to live in disregard of God and his ways, I am headed for a life of sadness that leads to judgment and a future alienated from God. No one can change that. Only by making a different choice in life, can I change the outcome.

People who choose well, live well and die well. This being Memorial Day weekend, let's honor those who have modeled the good life for us.

Thanks for digging deeper.

Nehemiah: Walking in the Fear of God

Nehemiah 5:1-13

This is the last sermon in this short series on Nehemiah. I finished it feeling like we could have just kept going.

As I developed this message, I was led to focus, at least in the last half, on the way in which we see Satan attacking the work of God in the book of Nehemiah, and how those tactics are still used today. If you missed the sermon, you will need to listen to it to catch all of that.

By stopping the series at this point in Nehemiah (basically through chapter 6), we miss the great celebration that ensured when the wall was completed. You can read that celebration in chapter 12:27-47. It is said that the "rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard far away" (12:43).

In the sermon I spent some time talking about the heavy taxes people had to pay to the Persian government, which levied a huge burden on the individual families, especially considering there was a general famine going on and that most of their time was taken up working on the wall. What bears mention in all this, and which I did not take time to mention in the sermon, is the posture Nehemiah took as the Governor. As a Persian King appoint ruler, he could have demanded a tax from the people, but he did not, and he could have lived very well off the allotted rations that were his right as the Governor. Rather than indulge in all this for himself, he used it to feed 150 people a day at his table, as well as other visitors. He did not claim any land and he did not add to the burden of the people. What a man. Read 5:14-19 for this information.

Finally, I came across another great resource on the Book of Nehemiah in the course of this study. It is a book called Jerusalem in the time of Nehemiah by Leen and Kathleen Ritmeyer. Leen is a well-known archaeologist who has worked on any number of digs around Jerusalem. The book is not large, but is filled with color maps and reconstructions that really help you visualize what the city was like in Nehemiah's time. I got my copy through Christianbook.com. Amazon has it too.

Thanks for digging deeper

Nehemiah: Prayer, the Fabric of Our Lives

Nehemiah 4:1-9

Just by way of reminder, from Sunday's sermon, the book of Nehemiah is divided into three major parts:

Nehemiah’s memoirs (written in 1st person) – Chps 1 - 7
Ezra’s continued reforms (written in 3rd person) – Chps 8 - 12:31
Nehemiah’s memoirs (written in 1st person) – Chaps 12:31 - 13

The two 1st person sections are peppered with the prayers of Nehemiah, both planned and spontaneous in nature. A study of them is an excellent devotional exercise, from which one can learn much.

Section I records 7 prayers   (1:4-11; 2:4; 4:4-5; 4:9; 5:19; 6:9; 6:14)

Section II records 4 prayers  (13:14; 13:22; 13:29; 13:31)

There is much we can learn from Nehemiah's prayer life, and that is the focus of the sermon, so I will not repeat it here. I do want to develop a bit more what I just introduce in the sermon, related to the prayers of Nehemiah which seem harsh or vindictive in nature. These prayers occur in response to the opposition Nehemiah had been experiencing.

There is one particularly sharp prayer in the book (4:4-5) and two that tend toward being imprecatory in nature (6:14 and 13:29). These prayers join with other passages in which biblical characters express, often in prayer, ill wishes upon their enemies. The most famous of these passages are a number of psalms that include imprecations. One that might fit well here is Psalm 137, which was written by Jewish exiles living in Babylon and remembering the fall of Jerusalem. Take a moment to read the psalm, especially verses 7-9.

In regard to Nehemiah's prayer against his enemies, we must remember, as I stated briefly in my sermon, that Nehemiah is guarding the work of God against those who would seek to stop it. He is not concerned for his own work or his own reputation, but he is very passionate that God be honored and that His work be done. He knows that those who oppose the building of the wall, are opposing God and that is a very serious thing.

Nehemiah never takes things into his own hands. He wants retribution for the evil done to his workers but he does not seek that himself. He knows the Bible in which God clearly says that vengeance is not ours to take (Leviticus 19:18, Deuteronomy 32:35, and repeated in Romans 12:19). But even though he does not act upon his feelings, he does have feelings, as we all do. But rather than suppress those feeling and much better than acting on them, Nehemiah offers them up to God in prayer.

Prayers like these and Psalms and other passages that include this kind of expression help us see that biblical characters are human and real. They were just like us. And they show us a godly way to process our feelings. If you are interested in reading more on this topic, click here for a good article.

As I was working through this my mind went to a often misinterpreted passage of scripture--Matthew 25:31-46. In this parable of the Sheep and the Goats, at the end of the age the nations are judged based upon how they had responded to the "lest of these brothers and sisters of mine" (or the "least of these my brethren" in older translations). We often assume that the "least of these" are people in need (the hungry, naked and imprisoned, as the parable states). Therefore, the parable becomes an encouragement for the church to reach out and care for the needy of the world. This is, of course, something the church ought to do, however it is not what this passage teaches.

The key to understanding this passage lies in how Matthew uses the phrase "my brethren" (or however translations render it). Whom does he have in mind when he uses this phrase? It is clear from Matthew 12:48-49 and 28:12, that for Matthew, "my brethren" are those who believe in Jesus and follow him. So what Jesus is saying in Matthew 25:31-46 is that in the end, Nations (and individuals) will be judged according how they treated the Christian community in their land and communities. This is something significant to ponder.

How does it relate to Nehemiah--simply like this. Sanballat and Tobiah and others who opposed Nehemiah, were actually opposing God and they will be held accountable for how they have treated the people of God. Nehemiah knew this and offered up his prayers to God, seeking God's honor and allowing retribution to rest in the hands of God. I for one would not want to be Sanballat or Tobiah on judgment day.

Thanks for digging deeper.

Nehemiah: Everybody on the Wall

Nehemiah, chapter 2

To all my blogger friends--sorry for the delay in getting this post up. What can I say--not lazy, just busy.

Anyway, I wanted to share a bit more about Nehemiah's Jerusalem. In chapter two of Nehemiah we have a brief account of Nehemiah's night-time examination of the condition of the walls around Jerusalem and then chapter three gives a very detailed account of the teams that were rebuilding the wall, and what sections they were working on. This is the best biblical description (and non-biblical, for that matter) of the Jerusalem of the post-exile period and it is rather intriguing. It leaves us and scholars trying to picture what Nehemiah's Jerusalem was like, particularly, how big was it--where did the walls actually run. A lot is still up in the air. But here are some maps and diagrams that help us picture what it might have been like.

First of all, we might ask what was the size of Jerusalem just before it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC? In the diagram below, notice the area called "City of David" just below the rectangular Temple Mount. That was the city when David took it from the Jebusites (2 Samuel 5). He quickly moved the Ark of the Covenant there (2 Sam. 6:15) and began to make plans to eventually build a permanent temple (2 Sam 7, 1 Chronicles 22), but was forbidden by God to do so (2 Sam. 7). The task of temple building would be left for his son, Solomon. However, David began assembling material and eventually purchased the threshing floor of Araunah (2 Sam. 24:16 and 1 Chron. 21:15), which was the high ground north of the City of David, which became the Temple area and today is the Temple Mount.

This area (City of David and Temple Mount) seems to have remained the walled in city of Jerusalem for some time.Solomon expanded the walls to include his palace (which lay between the City of David and the high ground on which the Temple was built (1 Kings 3:1), but it does not seem that he extended the walls West, though no doubt some people were living there outside the walls of the old city.

We know that with the fall of the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC, there was an influx of people into Jerusalem from the North. This was during the reign of Hezekiah, and he extended the walls (2 Chron. 32:5) to include the Western Hill (the black lines on the map above).

By the way, the faded lines on the above map show the line of the current walls of Jerusalem, built by Suleiman the Turk in the 1500's.

And finally, the red line in the above map marks an additional expansion, perhaps under Hezekiah's son, Manasseh (2 Chron.33:14) or during the reign of Josiah (2 Kings 22:14, 2 Chron. 34:22), for this is the first time we read of the "New Quarter."

So on the map above, the City of David and Temple Mount walls, along with the black line of Hezekiah and the red line of later additions, comprised Jerusalem before it was destroyed in 586 BC.

But how much of that did Nehemiah rebuild. There are two views held by scholars, neither of which can be proven with any certainty. Here they are in map form. The first is the view that assumes a smaller (shorter) wall. (Note the current city walls which are not shaded and given for comparison.)

However, the other view point would suggest a larger city. Here is another map assuming longer walls.

Which is correct--don't know, but I would expect the smaller (shorter) of the two. Remember, the task was finished in 52 days.

I like this image, which is built on the shorter wall viewpoint. Link here Nehemiah's Jerusalem.

So much for the history lesson. As important as that is, it is the spiritual lessons we are really trying to learn, which I tried to lift up in the sermon for this week. if you did not hear it on Sunday, give it a listen via the link on the side of the blog.

Thanks for digging deeper.

Nehemiah: Broken over Brokenness

Nehemiah 1:1 - 2:5

This sermon begins a short four-sermon series drawn from the life and experience of Nehemiah. To get the most from this series, you would benefit from digging into the history of the post-exile period of biblical history. Reading Ezra will add information that precedes that which is recorded in Nehemiah, and then reading the three last prophetic books in the Bible (Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi) will add insight since these three prophets spoke their messages during this time period. I will have only limited time to deal with this history part of things in the sermons themselves, not to mention, it would bore most people.

As we may remember, the Jewish nation of Judah had fallen to the Babylonians and Jerusalem, along with Solomon's Temple, was finally destroyed in 586 BC with many of the leading Israelites taken captive back to Babylon to live. Jeremiah and others had prophecies that this captivity would last 70 years. During those years, the Jews taken to Babylon adjusted to their new life there and for the most part fared rather well. The books of Esther and Daniel record events related to the Jews living in the Babylonian, and later, Persian empires. Back in Jerusalem, the Jews who were not taken to Babylon as captives, settled into life there, many being assimilated in the larger culture. We meet up with these in Ezra-Nehemiah, mostly around the difficulty of inter-marriage.

In 539 BC, the Persians, under the leadership of Cyrus the Great, defeated the nation of Babylon. Almost immediately, Cyrus issued a decree allowing deported peoples to return to their homelands and encouraging them to rebuild the cities there, and specifically, the temples to their various Gods. Some Jews took him up on his offer and returned to Jerusalem. Ezra-Nehemiah record these Aliyahs (this is what Jews call returns to the Holy Land, even today). The first return in 538 was led by Zerubabbel and Jeshua with the aim of rebuilding the Temple, which was completed in 516 BC. The next return was led by Ezra in 458 with a goal at bringing spiritual reform and the third major return was led by Nehemiah in 444 BC with an aim at rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem. In all, over 50,000 Jews returned from their deportation.

This sermons series will be drawing from experiences during this time of wall building.

I discovered one thing of interest while rereading some of the history of this period. It relates to the purpose lying behind Cyrus' benevolent degree to allow peoples, not only Jews, to return to their lands and rebuild their cities and temples. In 1879 archaeologists working in ancient Babylon found a clay cylinder which has written on it an account of Cyrus' defeat of Babylon and the decree which he issued. Wikipedia has a good article about the Cyrus Cylinder. You can read a translation of the full text of the cylinder here. Scroll down to frames 34, 35 and 36. This is what I found to be very interesting regarding the motive of Cyrus. It seems he was being true to his pagan beliefs in many Gods. If he could do something nice for the gods of the nations around him, then maybe they would do something nice for him.

Doesn't sound much different from the bartering we do with God in his "modern" age!

Thanks for digging deeper.