The Value Of One, Two, Or Three...Continued from page 2
Let me just read to you the verses beginning with v. 15, "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector." The emphasis here is on restoring someone to fellowship with the church who has sinned or is living in sin. If you are personally involved, that is, he has sinned against you, and you are the right person to go to that person, then take the three steps if needed to reclaim that brother. Do so with humility, gentleness, prayer and love. If he refuses to listen to the church then he becomes a prospect for salvation, as were the pagans and tax collectors. Look at v.18, "I tell you the truth, (I can't imagine Jesus ever telling a lie) whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."
This ministry is so important to God that as we seek His leadership through prayer and obedience in seeking to restore absent members, His authority from heaven will be given through us in seeking to restore each of His erring children. God is actively involved in this ministry of restoration. We have been given the authority from God to be involved as well.
Now hear the value of two or three. Look at v. 19, "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven." Here we see the value of praying for others. This does not mean one person's prayers are weaker than two, but it does promise when there is unity between two believers, then their prayer will be heard and answered by God the Father. The context calls for the matter of seeking to reclaim one from sin, but I know God has heard prayer partners pray and answered them. We have a wonderful promise from Jesus in v. 20, "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." Jesus doesn't just show up on Sunday morning when there is the largest crowd, He's in our small Sunday School classes, He's with us on Tuesday evening when we go out visiting, on Wednesday evening in your AWANA, in Prayer Meeting, in Choir Practice, in small groups that will never make headlines. Jesus has promised to personally be there for us when two or three come together in His name.
Oh how Jesus is looking for believers who agree together in prayer, who study together from the bible, and who meet together in His name. With a church like that surely no one would want to miss or refuse to join.
Back in the 80s I read about a professional golfer by the name of Rick Massengale. Golf had become his life, more important than his wife and his wife knew it. She suggested they go to a Bible study, and he said "no", that he felt he was a Christian and that a Christian was someone good enough to get into heaven. Bible study seemed to be for weak people. His problems continued, and to appease his wife, they went to the Bible study. There he found other golfers and their wives who he learned cared more about him as a person than about beating him on the golf course. That night he found out how wrong he had been about Christianity that it was not solely about getting into heaven. It was about a relationship, a fulfilling, unburdened and beautiful relationship between each person and Jesus Christ. That night he and his wife invited Jesus Christ into their hearts and what a beautiful change came over his life and their marriage.
________________
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
The value of One , two , or Three [page 2 ]
The Value Of One, Two, Or Three...Continued from page 1
Look at v. 12, "What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?" The owner of the sheep leaves in good hands to the shepherds the ninety-nine and goes looking for the one absent sheep. He knows much about sheep. He knows they get lost easy and won't find their way home by themselves. He knows they cannot take care of themselves, so he personally goes after the stray. Why does he care? Because each sheep is of great value to the owner. Let me say that each of us are of great value to God. He loves each of His children as if each were the only one He had. How it must break our Father's heart to see what the world and Satan does to the strays who have dropped from bible study, prayer, church fellowship, and service. They could be so much happier and fulfilled if they stayed with the flock, but for some reason or another, they have wandered off. What do we do with the strays, the absentees? The temptation is to drop them, to ignore them, to pretend like they never belonged. But if we follow Christ we will not be content to leave them alone. We will pray for them, love them, contact them and we will welcome them back. Look at v. 13, "And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off" I am so thankful for those of you who have never wandered off from your church fellowship or fellowship with God. You are to be commended, but do not look down on or neglect to go after those who have.
We have just went thru back in March, the time of tournament basketball. They call it March Madness. We have a challenge to give each of you in Sunday school. We are planning on dividing you into four teams with a coach per team. The emphasis is not on attendance but on contacts. We want to spend the whole month of March contacting absentees and non-church attenders and inviting them to Sunday School and church. These can be friends, families, neighbors, AWANA kids, fellow workers and acquaintances. We will only do this one month out of the year, so please join us in this important outreach. We will call it May Madness at______ Baptist Church. Each team will get points for contacts. Three points for a person to person contact, three points for that person attending Sunday School or church, two points for a phone call invitation, and one point for a card. Email, or letter sent. We can do this if we will realize the value of each one person.
Now look at v.14, "In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost." Normally when we think of lost, we think lost from salvation and on the way to hell. But Jesus is speaking here of being lost to fellowship, to discipleship, to Bible study, to active involvement with other members of the family of God. For all practical purposes they are living unfruitful and unproductive lives as strays or those who have wandered away from the will of God. Each child of God is too valuable to be left alone and lost to the will of God. What if you are the lost, the stray? What would you want others to do for you? I would want someone to care enough to come after me.
Look at v. 12, "What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?" The owner of the sheep leaves in good hands to the shepherds the ninety-nine and goes looking for the one absent sheep. He knows much about sheep. He knows they get lost easy and won't find their way home by themselves. He knows they cannot take care of themselves, so he personally goes after the stray. Why does he care? Because each sheep is of great value to the owner. Let me say that each of us are of great value to God. He loves each of His children as if each were the only one He had. How it must break our Father's heart to see what the world and Satan does to the strays who have dropped from bible study, prayer, church fellowship, and service. They could be so much happier and fulfilled if they stayed with the flock, but for some reason or another, they have wandered off. What do we do with the strays, the absentees? The temptation is to drop them, to ignore them, to pretend like they never belonged. But if we follow Christ we will not be content to leave them alone. We will pray for them, love them, contact them and we will welcome them back. Look at v. 13, "And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off" I am so thankful for those of you who have never wandered off from your church fellowship or fellowship with God. You are to be commended, but do not look down on or neglect to go after those who have.
We have just went thru back in March, the time of tournament basketball. They call it March Madness. We have a challenge to give each of you in Sunday school. We are planning on dividing you into four teams with a coach per team. The emphasis is not on attendance but on contacts. We want to spend the whole month of March contacting absentees and non-church attenders and inviting them to Sunday School and church. These can be friends, families, neighbors, AWANA kids, fellow workers and acquaintances. We will only do this one month out of the year, so please join us in this important outreach. We will call it May Madness at______ Baptist Church. Each team will get points for contacts. Three points for a person to person contact, three points for that person attending Sunday School or church, two points for a phone call invitation, and one point for a card. Email, or letter sent. We can do this if we will realize the value of each one person.
Now look at v.14, "In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost." Normally when we think of lost, we think lost from salvation and on the way to hell. But Jesus is speaking here of being lost to fellowship, to discipleship, to Bible study, to active involvement with other members of the family of God. For all practical purposes they are living unfruitful and unproductive lives as strays or those who have wandered away from the will of God. Each child of God is too valuable to be left alone and lost to the will of God. What if you are the lost, the stray? What would you want others to do for you? I would want someone to care enough to come after me.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The value of One , two , or Three
The Value Of One, Two, Or Three
Matthew 18
Sometimes a cartoon says it all. In a "Peanuts" cartoon, Lucy says to Snoopy: "There are times when you really bug me, but I must admit there are also times when I feel like giving you a big hug." Snoopy replies: "That's the way I am . . . huggable and buggable."
I suppose we can all identify with Snoopy. There are times when we are so very nice and easy to get along with and there are other times when we say what we think and could care less how it affects others. We are huggable and buggable. God has to put up with all kinds of attitudes and actions from His people. Sometimes I hear of churches that split over matters that should never have happened. Maybe you had some difference of opinion with another believer and you have decided it best never to talk anymore. You have drawn an imaginary line and said, "This person shall not get beyond this line." Oh how it must hurt our Father in Heaven for us to act like that. I would be so disappointed in my two children if they had a falling out and refused to speak or forgive one another. Can you imagine how God, our Heavenly Father must feel?
Matthew 18 is a whole chapter on relationships in the church. Jesus says the greatest are the children, the little ones, those who have humbled themselves and admitted their need of a Savior and therefore have entered into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus warns against allowing sin to cause you to miss out on the beauty of relationships in the church or kingdom. In the latter part of the chapter, He warns about unforgiveness. Christians, children of God, followers of Christ must be forgiving even as they have been forgiven. He tells a parable in v.23-34 and then notice the final verse: "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
I want to look more closely at the middle verses of this chapter this morning beginning at v. 10. "See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven." This is mor
e than about guardian angels; this is about the value of each little one in the church of Jesus Christ. No one is unimportant in the church. We come into the church through being born again, being regenerated, becoming children of God, and no child of God is without value. In fact each child has His Father's constant, full attention. We all enter the same way by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we all are equally loved by our Heavenly Father. So we are not to look down on anyone in the church. Each member is important.
Matthew 18
Sometimes a cartoon says it all. In a "Peanuts" cartoon, Lucy says to Snoopy: "There are times when you really bug me, but I must admit there are also times when I feel like giving you a big hug." Snoopy replies: "That's the way I am . . . huggable and buggable."
I suppose we can all identify with Snoopy. There are times when we are so very nice and easy to get along with and there are other times when we say what we think and could care less how it affects others. We are huggable and buggable. God has to put up with all kinds of attitudes and actions from His people. Sometimes I hear of churches that split over matters that should never have happened. Maybe you had some difference of opinion with another believer and you have decided it best never to talk anymore. You have drawn an imaginary line and said, "This person shall not get beyond this line." Oh how it must hurt our Father in Heaven for us to act like that. I would be so disappointed in my two children if they had a falling out and refused to speak or forgive one another. Can you imagine how God, our Heavenly Father must feel?
Matthew 18 is a whole chapter on relationships in the church. Jesus says the greatest are the children, the little ones, those who have humbled themselves and admitted their need of a Savior and therefore have entered into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus warns against allowing sin to cause you to miss out on the beauty of relationships in the church or kingdom. In the latter part of the chapter, He warns about unforgiveness. Christians, children of God, followers of Christ must be forgiving even as they have been forgiven. He tells a parable in v.23-34 and then notice the final verse: "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
I want to look more closely at the middle verses of this chapter this morning beginning at v. 10. "See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven." This is mor
e than about guardian angels; this is about the value of each little one in the church of Jesus Christ. No one is unimportant in the church. We come into the church through being born again, being regenerated, becoming children of God, and no child of God is without value. In fact each child has His Father's constant, full attention. We all enter the same way by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we all are equally loved by our Heavenly Father. So we are not to look down on anyone in the church. Each member is important.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Forgiveness for Bitter Days [continued from page 1]
Forgiveness for Bitter Days ...Continued from page 1
But then Jesus curtails our calibrated grace by relating a two-act play:
Act 1: God forgives the unforgivable.
Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold ? along with his wife, his children and everything he owned ? to pay the debt (Matt. 18:23-25 NLT).
Such an immense debt. More literal translations say the servant owed 10,000 talents. One talent equaled 6,000 denarii. One denarius equaled one day’s wage (Matt. 20:2). One talent, then, would equate to 6,000 days’ worth of work. Ten thousand talents would represent 60 million days or 240,000 years of labor. A person earning $100 a day would owe $6 billion.
Whoa! What an astronomical sum. Jesus employs hyperbole, right? He’s exaggerating to make a point. Or is He? One person would never owe such an amount to another. But might Jesus be referring to the debt we owe to God?
Let’s calculate our indebtedness to him. How often do you sin, hmm, in an hour? To sin is to “fall short” (Rom. 3:23 NIV).
Worry is falling short on faith. Impatience is falling short on kindness. The critical spirit falls short on love. How often do you come up short with God? For the sake of discussion, let’s say 10 times an hour and tally the results. Ten sins an hour, times 16 waking hours (assuming we don’t sin in our sleep), times 365 days a year, times the average male life span of 74 years. I’m rounding the total off at 4,300,000 sins per person.
Tell me, how do you plan to pay God for your 4.3 million sin increments? Your payout is unachievable. Unreachable. You’re swimming in a Pacific Ocean of debt. Jesus’ point precisely. The debtor in the story? You and me. The king? God. Look at what God does.
He [the servant] couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold ? along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned ? to pay the debt. But the man fell down before his master and begged him, “Please be patient with me, and I will pay it all.” Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt (Matt. 18:25-27 NLT). God pardons the zillion sins of selfish humanity. Forgives 60 million sin-filled days. “Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ” (Rom. 3:24).
God forgives the unforgivable. Were this the only point of the story, we’d have ample points to ponder. But this is only Act 1 of the two-act play. The punch line is yet to come.
Act 2: We do the unthinkable.
The forgiven refuse to forgive. But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. “Be patient with me, and I will pay it,” he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full (Matt. 18:28-30 NLT). Incomprehensible behavior. Multimillion-dollar forgiveness should produce a multimillion-dollar forgiver, shouldn’t it? The forgiven servant can forgive a petty debt, can’t he? This one doesn’t. Note, he won’t wait (18:30). He refuses to forgive. He could have. He should have. The forgiven should forgive. Which makes us wonder, did this servant truly accept the king’s forgiveness?
Something is missing from this story. Gratitude. Notably absent from the parable is the joy of the forgiven servant. Like the nine ungrateful lepers we read about in the last chapter, this man never tells the king “thank you.” He offers no words of appreciation, sings no song of celebration. His life has been spared, family liberated, sentence lifted, Titanic debt forgiven ? and he says nothing. He should be hosting a Thanksgiving Day parade. He begs for mercy like a student on the brink of flunking out of college. But once he receives it, he acts as if he never scored less than a B.
Could his silence make the loudest point of the parable? “He who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:47 RSV). This man loves little apparently because he had received little grace.
You know who I think this guy is? A grace rejecter. He never accepts the grace of the king. He leaves the throne room with a sly smirk, as one who dodged a bullet, found a loophole, worked the system, pulled a fast one. He talked his way out of a jam. He bears the mark of the unforgiven ? he refuses to forgive.
When the king hears about the servant’s stingy heart, he blows his crown. He goes cyclonic: “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?” And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses (Matt. 18:32-35 NKJV).
The curtain falls on Act 2, and we are left to ponder the principles of the story. The big one comes quickly. The grace-given give grace. Forgiven people forgive people. The mercy-marinated drip mercy. “God is kind to you so you will change your hearts and lives” (Rom. 2:4 NCV).
We are not like the unchanged wife. Before her conversion to Christ, she endlessly nagged, picked on and berated her husband. When she became a Christian, nothing changed. She kept nagging. Finally he told her, “I don’t mind that you were born again. I just wish you hadn’t been born again as yourself.”
One questions if the wife was born again to start with. Apple trees bear apples, wheat stalks produce wheat and forgiven people forgive people. Grace is the natural outgrowth of grace.
The forgiven who won’t forgive can expect a sad fate ? a life full of many bad and bitter days. The “master...delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him” (Matt. 18:34 NKJV).
Hoard hurts in your heart and expects the joy level of a Siberian death camp. A friend shared with me the fate of a hoarding grandmother. Like the Collyer brothers, she refused to part with anything. Her family witnessed two terrible consequences: she lost sleep and treasures. She couldn’t rest because junk covered her bed. She lost treasures because they were obscured by mountains of trash. Jewelry, photographs, favorite books ? all were hidden.
No rest. No treasures. Squirrel away your hurts and expect the same.
Or clean your house and give the day a fresh chance! “But, Max, the hurt is so deep.”
I know. They took much. Your innocence, your youth, your retirement. But why let them keep taking from you? Haven’t they stolen enough? Refusing to forgive keeps them loitering, taking still.
“But, Max, what they did was so bad.”
You bet it was. Forgiveness does not mean approval. You aren’t endorsing misbehavior. You are entrusting your offender to Him who judges righteously (1 Pet. 2:23 NKJV).
“But, Max, I’ve been so angry for so long.”
And forgiveness won’t come overnight. But you can take baby steps in the direction of grace. Forgive in phases. Quit cursing the perpetrator’s name. Start praying for him. Try to understand her situation.
Let Antwone Fisher inspire you. He had ample reason to live with a cluttered heart. For the first 33 years of his life, he knew neither of his parents. His father had died before Antwone was born. And his mother, for reasons that he longed to know, abandoned him as a boy. He grew up as a foster child in Cleveland, abused, neglected and desperate to find a single member of his family.
Equipped with the name of his father and a Cleveland phone book, he began calling people of the same last name. His life changed the day an aunt answered the phone. He told her his date of birth and his father’s identity. He described the difficult turns his life had taken: being kicked out by his foster mom, serving a stint in the Navy, now holding his own as a security guard in Los Angeles.
Her voice was warm. “You have a big family.” Before long another aunt invited him to Cleveland for a Thanksgiving reunion and filled the week with a lifetime of belated love.
And then, after days of calls and attempts, his family found his mother’s brother. He offered to take Antwone to the housing project where she lived. On the drive Antwone rehearsed the questions he’d longed to ask for the last three decades:
Why didn’t you come for me? Didn’t you ever wonder about me? Didn’t you miss me at all?
But the questions were never uttered. The door opened, and Antwone walked into a dimly lit apartment with shabby furniture. Turning, he saw a frail woman who looked too old to be his mother. Her hair was uncombed. She wore her night-clothes.
Antwone’s uncle said to her, “This is Antwone Quenton Fisher.” Antwone’s mother made the connection and started to moan, losing her footing, holding on to a chair. “Oh, God, please...Oh, God.” She turned her face away in shame and hurried out of the room, crying.
Antwone learned that his mother had tried to get a man to marry her so she could raise her son, but couldn’t. She had gone on to bear four other children, also raised as wards of the state. Over the years she’d been hospitalized, incarcerated and put on probation. And when he realized how painful her years had been, he chose to forgive.
He writes, “Though my road had been long and hard, I finally understood that my mother’s had been longer and harder... Where the hurt of abandonment had lived inside me, now there was only compassion.”2
In the end, we all choose what lives inside us. May you choose forgiveness.
But then Jesus curtails our calibrated grace by relating a two-act play:
Act 1: God forgives the unforgivable.
Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold ? along with his wife, his children and everything he owned ? to pay the debt (Matt. 18:23-25 NLT).
Such an immense debt. More literal translations say the servant owed 10,000 talents. One talent equaled 6,000 denarii. One denarius equaled one day’s wage (Matt. 20:2). One talent, then, would equate to 6,000 days’ worth of work. Ten thousand talents would represent 60 million days or 240,000 years of labor. A person earning $100 a day would owe $6 billion.
Whoa! What an astronomical sum. Jesus employs hyperbole, right? He’s exaggerating to make a point. Or is He? One person would never owe such an amount to another. But might Jesus be referring to the debt we owe to God?
Let’s calculate our indebtedness to him. How often do you sin, hmm, in an hour? To sin is to “fall short” (Rom. 3:23 NIV).
Worry is falling short on faith. Impatience is falling short on kindness. The critical spirit falls short on love. How often do you come up short with God? For the sake of discussion, let’s say 10 times an hour and tally the results. Ten sins an hour, times 16 waking hours (assuming we don’t sin in our sleep), times 365 days a year, times the average male life span of 74 years. I’m rounding the total off at 4,300,000 sins per person.
Tell me, how do you plan to pay God for your 4.3 million sin increments? Your payout is unachievable. Unreachable. You’re swimming in a Pacific Ocean of debt. Jesus’ point precisely. The debtor in the story? You and me. The king? God. Look at what God does.
He [the servant] couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold ? along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned ? to pay the debt. But the man fell down before his master and begged him, “Please be patient with me, and I will pay it all.” Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt (Matt. 18:25-27 NLT). God pardons the zillion sins of selfish humanity. Forgives 60 million sin-filled days. “Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ” (Rom. 3:24).
God forgives the unforgivable. Were this the only point of the story, we’d have ample points to ponder. But this is only Act 1 of the two-act play. The punch line is yet to come.
Act 2: We do the unthinkable.
The forgiven refuse to forgive. But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. “Be patient with me, and I will pay it,” he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full (Matt. 18:28-30 NLT). Incomprehensible behavior. Multimillion-dollar forgiveness should produce a multimillion-dollar forgiver, shouldn’t it? The forgiven servant can forgive a petty debt, can’t he? This one doesn’t. Note, he won’t wait (18:30). He refuses to forgive. He could have. He should have. The forgiven should forgive. Which makes us wonder, did this servant truly accept the king’s forgiveness?
Something is missing from this story. Gratitude. Notably absent from the parable is the joy of the forgiven servant. Like the nine ungrateful lepers we read about in the last chapter, this man never tells the king “thank you.” He offers no words of appreciation, sings no song of celebration. His life has been spared, family liberated, sentence lifted, Titanic debt forgiven ? and he says nothing. He should be hosting a Thanksgiving Day parade. He begs for mercy like a student on the brink of flunking out of college. But once he receives it, he acts as if he never scored less than a B.
Could his silence make the loudest point of the parable? “He who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:47 RSV). This man loves little apparently because he had received little grace.
You know who I think this guy is? A grace rejecter. He never accepts the grace of the king. He leaves the throne room with a sly smirk, as one who dodged a bullet, found a loophole, worked the system, pulled a fast one. He talked his way out of a jam. He bears the mark of the unforgiven ? he refuses to forgive.
When the king hears about the servant’s stingy heart, he blows his crown. He goes cyclonic: “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?” And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses (Matt. 18:32-35 NKJV).
The curtain falls on Act 2, and we are left to ponder the principles of the story. The big one comes quickly. The grace-given give grace. Forgiven people forgive people. The mercy-marinated drip mercy. “God is kind to you so you will change your hearts and lives” (Rom. 2:4 NCV).
We are not like the unchanged wife. Before her conversion to Christ, she endlessly nagged, picked on and berated her husband. When she became a Christian, nothing changed. She kept nagging. Finally he told her, “I don’t mind that you were born again. I just wish you hadn’t been born again as yourself.”
One questions if the wife was born again to start with. Apple trees bear apples, wheat stalks produce wheat and forgiven people forgive people. Grace is the natural outgrowth of grace.
The forgiven who won’t forgive can expect a sad fate ? a life full of many bad and bitter days. The “master...delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him” (Matt. 18:34 NKJV).
Hoard hurts in your heart and expects the joy level of a Siberian death camp. A friend shared with me the fate of a hoarding grandmother. Like the Collyer brothers, she refused to part with anything. Her family witnessed two terrible consequences: she lost sleep and treasures. She couldn’t rest because junk covered her bed. She lost treasures because they were obscured by mountains of trash. Jewelry, photographs, favorite books ? all were hidden.
No rest. No treasures. Squirrel away your hurts and expect the same.
Or clean your house and give the day a fresh chance! “But, Max, the hurt is so deep.”
I know. They took much. Your innocence, your youth, your retirement. But why let them keep taking from you? Haven’t they stolen enough? Refusing to forgive keeps them loitering, taking still.
“But, Max, what they did was so bad.”
You bet it was. Forgiveness does not mean approval. You aren’t endorsing misbehavior. You are entrusting your offender to Him who judges righteously (1 Pet. 2:23 NKJV).
“But, Max, I’ve been so angry for so long.”
And forgiveness won’t come overnight. But you can take baby steps in the direction of grace. Forgive in phases. Quit cursing the perpetrator’s name. Start praying for him. Try to understand her situation.
Let Antwone Fisher inspire you. He had ample reason to live with a cluttered heart. For the first 33 years of his life, he knew neither of his parents. His father had died before Antwone was born. And his mother, for reasons that he longed to know, abandoned him as a boy. He grew up as a foster child in Cleveland, abused, neglected and desperate to find a single member of his family.
Equipped with the name of his father and a Cleveland phone book, he began calling people of the same last name. His life changed the day an aunt answered the phone. He told her his date of birth and his father’s identity. He described the difficult turns his life had taken: being kicked out by his foster mom, serving a stint in the Navy, now holding his own as a security guard in Los Angeles.
Her voice was warm. “You have a big family.” Before long another aunt invited him to Cleveland for a Thanksgiving reunion and filled the week with a lifetime of belated love.
And then, after days of calls and attempts, his family found his mother’s brother. He offered to take Antwone to the housing project where she lived. On the drive Antwone rehearsed the questions he’d longed to ask for the last three decades:
Why didn’t you come for me? Didn’t you ever wonder about me? Didn’t you miss me at all?
But the questions were never uttered. The door opened, and Antwone walked into a dimly lit apartment with shabby furniture. Turning, he saw a frail woman who looked too old to be his mother. Her hair was uncombed. She wore her night-clothes.
Antwone’s uncle said to her, “This is Antwone Quenton Fisher.” Antwone’s mother made the connection and started to moan, losing her footing, holding on to a chair. “Oh, God, please...Oh, God.” She turned her face away in shame and hurried out of the room, crying.
Antwone learned that his mother had tried to get a man to marry her so she could raise her son, but couldn’t. She had gone on to bear four other children, also raised as wards of the state. Over the years she’d been hospitalized, incarcerated and put on probation. And when he realized how painful her years had been, he chose to forgive.
He writes, “Though my road had been long and hard, I finally understood that my mother’s had been longer and harder... Where the hurt of abandonment had lived inside me, now there was only compassion.”2
In the end, we all choose what lives inside us. May you choose forgiveness.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Forgiveness for Bitter Days
Forgiveness for Bitter Days
Scripture Text: Matthew 18:21-35
Theme: Forgiveness
You and I save things. Favorite photos, interesting articles ? we all save things. Homer and Langley Collyer hoarded things. Everything. Newspapers, letters, clothing ? you name it, they kept it.
Born in the late 1800s to an affluent Manhattan couple, the brothers lived in a luxurious three-story mansion at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 128th Street. Homer earned a degree in engineering; Langley became a lawyer. All seemed good in the Collyer family.
But then mom and dad divorced in 1909. The boys, now in their 20s, remained in the home with their mother. Crime escalated. The neighborhood deteriorated. Homer and Langley retaliated by escaping the world. For reasons that therapists discuss at dinner parties, the duo retreated into their inherited mansion, closed and locked the doors.
They were all but unheard of for nearly 40 years. Then in 1947 someone reported the suspicion of a dead body at their address. It took seven policemen to break down the door because the entrance was blocked by a wall of newspapers, folding beds, half a sewing machine, old chairs, part of a winepress and other pieces of junk. After several hours of digging, policemen found the body of Homer, seated on the floor, head between his knees, his long and matted gray hair reaching his shoulders.
But where was Langley? That question triggered one of the strangest searches in Manhattan history. Fifteen days of quarrying produced 103 tons of junk ? gas chandeliers, a sawhorse, the chassis of an old car, a Steinway piano, a horse’s jawbone and, finally, one missing brother. The stuff he’d kept had collapsed on and killed him.
Bizarre! Who wants to live with yesterday’s rubble? Who wants to hoard the trash of the past? You don’t, do you? Or do you?
Not in your house, mind you, but in your heart? Not the junk of papers and boxes, but the remnants of anger and hurt. Do you pack-rat pain? Amass offenses? Record slights?
A tour of your heart might be telling. A pile of rejections stockpiled in one corner. Accumulated insults filling another. Images of unkind people lining the wall, littering the floor.
No one can blame you. Innocence takers, promise breakers, wound makers ? you’ve had your share. Yet doesn’t it make sense to get rid of their trash? Want to give every day a chance? Jesus says: Give the grace you’ve been given.
Take a long look at his reply to Peter’s question: “‘Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?’‘No,not seven times,’Jesus replied, ‘but seventy times seven!’” (Matt. 18:21-22 NLT).
That noise you hear is the sound of clicking calculators. Seventy times seven equals 490, we discover.
Scripture Text: Matthew 18:21-35
Theme: Forgiveness
You and I save things. Favorite photos, interesting articles ? we all save things. Homer and Langley Collyer hoarded things. Everything. Newspapers, letters, clothing ? you name it, they kept it.
Born in the late 1800s to an affluent Manhattan couple, the brothers lived in a luxurious three-story mansion at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 128th Street. Homer earned a degree in engineering; Langley became a lawyer. All seemed good in the Collyer family.
But then mom and dad divorced in 1909. The boys, now in their 20s, remained in the home with their mother. Crime escalated. The neighborhood deteriorated. Homer and Langley retaliated by escaping the world. For reasons that therapists discuss at dinner parties, the duo retreated into their inherited mansion, closed and locked the doors.
They were all but unheard of for nearly 40 years. Then in 1947 someone reported the suspicion of a dead body at their address. It took seven policemen to break down the door because the entrance was blocked by a wall of newspapers, folding beds, half a sewing machine, old chairs, part of a winepress and other pieces of junk. After several hours of digging, policemen found the body of Homer, seated on the floor, head between his knees, his long and matted gray hair reaching his shoulders.
But where was Langley? That question triggered one of the strangest searches in Manhattan history. Fifteen days of quarrying produced 103 tons of junk ? gas chandeliers, a sawhorse, the chassis of an old car, a Steinway piano, a horse’s jawbone and, finally, one missing brother. The stuff he’d kept had collapsed on and killed him.
Bizarre! Who wants to live with yesterday’s rubble? Who wants to hoard the trash of the past? You don’t, do you? Or do you?
Not in your house, mind you, but in your heart? Not the junk of papers and boxes, but the remnants of anger and hurt. Do you pack-rat pain? Amass offenses? Record slights?
A tour of your heart might be telling. A pile of rejections stockpiled in one corner. Accumulated insults filling another. Images of unkind people lining the wall, littering the floor.
No one can blame you. Innocence takers, promise breakers, wound makers ? you’ve had your share. Yet doesn’t it make sense to get rid of their trash? Want to give every day a chance? Jesus says: Give the grace you’ve been given.
Take a long look at his reply to Peter’s question: “‘Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?’‘No,not seven times,’Jesus replied, ‘but seventy times seven!’” (Matt. 18:21-22 NLT).
That noise you hear is the sound of clicking calculators. Seventy times seven equals 490, we discover.
Profane Swearing
Profane Swearing
Traveling on a plane next to a salesman, Billy Graham asked him, "Are you paid anything for all the swearing you do?" "No," was the startled reply, "I do it for nothing." "Nothing?" cried the famous preacher. "You work cheap! You throw aside your character as a gentleman, inflict pain on your friends, break the Lord's commandments, and endanger your own soul - and all for nothing! You certainly work cheap - TOO CHEAP!"
Yes, swearing is not only a "cheap" practice in many ways, but it is also a terrible sin which grieves the heart of God!
Traveling on a plane next to a salesman, Billy Graham asked him, "Are you paid anything for all the swearing you do?" "No," was the startled reply, "I do it for nothing." "Nothing?" cried the famous preacher. "You work cheap! You throw aside your character as a gentleman, inflict pain on your friends, break the Lord's commandments, and endanger your own soul - and all for nothing! You certainly work cheap - TOO CHEAP!"
Yes, swearing is not only a "cheap" practice in many ways, but it is also a terrible sin which grieves the heart of God!
Monday, April 21, 2008
No Fear, if we know the Master
No Fear, if We Know the Master
A sick man turned to his doctor as he was preparing to leave the examination room and said, "Doctor, I am afraid to die. Tell me what lies on the other side."
Very quietly, the doctor said, "I don't know."
"You don't know? You, a Christian man, do not know what is on the other side?"
The doctor was holding the handle of the door. On the other side came a sound of scratching and whining, and as he opened the door, a dog sprang into the room and leaped on him with an eager show of gladness.
Turning to the patient, the doctor said, "Did you notice my dog? He's never been in this room before. He didn't know what was inside. He knew nothing except that his master was here, and when the door opened, he sprang in without fear. I know little of what is on the other side of death, but I do know one thing ... I know my Master is there and that is enough."
A sick man turned to his doctor as he was preparing to leave the examination room and said, "Doctor, I am afraid to die. Tell me what lies on the other side."
Very quietly, the doctor said, "I don't know."
"You don't know? You, a Christian man, do not know what is on the other side?"
The doctor was holding the handle of the door. On the other side came a sound of scratching and whining, and as he opened the door, a dog sprang into the room and leaped on him with an eager show of gladness.
Turning to the patient, the doctor said, "Did you notice my dog? He's never been in this room before. He didn't know what was inside. He knew nothing except that his master was here, and when the door opened, he sprang in without fear. I know little of what is on the other side of death, but I do know one thing ... I know my Master is there and that is enough."
Sunday, April 20, 2008
A God We can TRUST
A God We Can Trust
Psalm 37:1-9
We must be careful whom we trust in this world. People make promises they cannot keep, break confidences on a whim, and come out with statements that are untrue. But there is someone who keeps every promise, never lies, and refuses to break a confidence: almighty God.
We serve a faithful Father. Throughout Scripture, God guarantees His children He will pardon our sins (1 John 1:9), supply all our needs (Philippians 4:19), protect us (Psalm 91), answer our prayers (Matthew 7:7-8), and be with us. (Deuteronomy 31:6) With this set of divine guarantees, a promise can be applied to every aspect of our lives. In fact, we can probably remember many occasions when God has fulfilled one of these scriptural assurances. Spending time recalling His faithfulness is an important exercise for believers because it strengthens our trust.
When we look back over the course of our life, we can also see the constancy of God. He does not change in His person or purpose. That means His faithfulness and trustworthiness are as true today as they were in Bible times, our parent’s generation, and yesterday afternoon. What great comfort we can draw from an unchanging Father during times of upheaval. Some of the most powerful metaphors in Christianity speak to this aspect of His nature—God the rock and God the anchor.
The Lord’s character is perfectly consistent with trust. Because of His love, He commits to fulfilling His promises to every generation of believers. We can trust God to do all He says He will do—and so much more. He will never fail us.
* * *
Psalm 37:1-9
We must be careful whom we trust in this world. People make promises they cannot keep, break confidences on a whim, and come out with statements that are untrue. But there is someone who keeps every promise, never lies, and refuses to break a confidence: almighty God.
We serve a faithful Father. Throughout Scripture, God guarantees His children He will pardon our sins (1 John 1:9), supply all our needs (Philippians 4:19), protect us (Psalm 91), answer our prayers (Matthew 7:7-8), and be with us. (Deuteronomy 31:6) With this set of divine guarantees, a promise can be applied to every aspect of our lives. In fact, we can probably remember many occasions when God has fulfilled one of these scriptural assurances. Spending time recalling His faithfulness is an important exercise for believers because it strengthens our trust.
When we look back over the course of our life, we can also see the constancy of God. He does not change in His person or purpose. That means His faithfulness and trustworthiness are as true today as they were in Bible times, our parent’s generation, and yesterday afternoon. What great comfort we can draw from an unchanging Father during times of upheaval. Some of the most powerful metaphors in Christianity speak to this aspect of His nature—God the rock and God the anchor.
The Lord’s character is perfectly consistent with trust. Because of His love, He commits to fulfilling His promises to every generation of believers. We can trust God to do all He says He will do—and so much more. He will never fail us.
* * *
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