OUT OF THE DARKNESS INTO THE LIGHT

A few years ago, while living in North Florida, I took the kids fishing at Watertown Lake. Like all of the lakes there in North Florida the water was very dark. They say it’s from all of the tannins in the oaks. I think it’s beautiful- like a tea that has been steeping for thousands of years. The lake has a long, L-shaped fishing pier that goes out beyond its weedy fringes into deeper water, and after the kids spilled out of the van, my oldest, Bowden, led the charge, clomping out over its rough wooden boards. He ran the length of the pier, with his younger siblings trailing out behind him like a sled dog team. They ran in order of age- Lucy, Jack and little Miles who was just four years old at the time

I watched as Bowden baited his hook and then cast a line into the water. His younger siblings also watched, and then they came running back to me clamoring for their own rods, which I had been carrying for them. I set up shop near the middle of the pier. Lucy  moved a few yards off to my left and gave her new fishing rod, which she had received as a Christmas gift, its inaugural cast.  I was busy untangling Jack and Miles’ fishing rods and baiting their hooks while they peered over the side of the dock looking for “alligator bubbles.” Going fishing with small children requires a lot of patience. Their lines are forever getting tangled, and they can't bait a hook or cast or wait patiently. Basically, they can't fish. Fishing with little kids is really more of an investment in the future. The hope is that they will grow up loving fishing with Dad and that when they are older it will become something for us all to do together. I had finally gotten their lines untangled and was busily baiting their hooks when I heard Miles say something about “bubbles.” I looked up just in time to see him slip head-first off the side of the pier into 10 feet of coffee-black water.

Jack instantly began shrieking at the top of his lungs, “He fell in! He fell in!” while jumping up and down in a tearful frenzy of fear and desperation. Lucy dropped her rod and yelled, “Daddy! Daddy!” A woman, who was also fishing just a few yards to my left and who had also seen Miles fall in, cried out “O, dear Lord, have mercy.” The black water suddenly looked sinister as it swallowed Miles up. Of course, I jumped into the lake after him. The adrenaline took over completely. I didn’t feel the cold of the water or the weight of my clothes. In such a moment a parent exists for just one purpose. I tried to open my eyes underwater, but I couldn’t see anything. So, I moved my arms back and forth until my fingers felt the bundle of sweatshirt and hair and warmth that was my little boy. I grabbed him with more strength than was necessary and brought him back into the sunlight.  I delivered him into the waiting arms of bystanders who hefted Miles back up onto the pier. By the time I had regained the pier myself, Sarah had already whisked Miles away to the van where he was being dried off and wrapped in a blanket. My heart threatened to beat right out of my chest.

But later that night, after I had put the kids to bed, I opened the book I was reading and found a bookmark that Miles had made for me earlier that morning. He had drawn a cross on a piece of paper and had proudly presented it to me. “The cross stands for Jesus,” he had explained. “You can use it for a bookmark if you want.” My heart ached as my mind filled with dread at the thought of what could have been. Then it flooded with relief that Miles was tucked safely into his bed down the hall. It felt like when you wake up from a nightmare and for a few moments you are not sure which world is real.

What if he had died? What if I had been on another part of the pier? What if nobody had seen him fall in? What if? That was too terrible a thought to entertain, and too ugly to look at for long. If Miles had died that day I’m not sure I would have had it in me to come back to the house. I would have wanted to seal the place off and never go there again. I can’t imagine the pain of seeing his bath toys gathered quietly near the drain, or his pajamas hanging out of the side of the hamper, or the spot near the front door where he had scribbled on the wall, or that bookmark he had given me. My life came all too close to being divided into before and after we went to that lake.

But he didn’t die. I jumped in after him, found him, and brought him back.

And this is a picture of Christmas.

I had told Miles not to go too near the edge, just as God told Adam not to eat of the forbidden tree, but when Miles fell in I did not stand on the edge of the dock and say, “Serves him right!” No, motivated by a fierce love, I jumped in after him. That was the behavior of a sinful man, how much more could we expect from the God who is love and righteousness. When all of mankind fell into a place of dark separation and death God jumped in after us as well.

Christmas is a celebration of the moment when Jesus jumped in after us.

Miles was powerless to save himself. He could not swim. He needed someone to come to him, find him in the cold and the dark, and deliver him back into the light. This is also a picture of our condition when we were saved. We were cut off. Hopeless. Helpless. Utterly lost in the darkness. We had neither the wisdom nor the power to move toward God, but he came to us. That coming to us is Christmas!

This is what Luke 1:78-79 says, speaking of Jesus, “…because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” Colossians 1:12-14 says, “…giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

I SEE DEAD PEOPLE

The only formal training I had received in delivering a death anouncement was during my time at the Police Academy. One afternoon, the belt broke on a vacuum as it was cleaning one of the academy's hallways. The TA's were always quizzing us about the various things we were supposed to be learning as well as various terms, statutes and core values that we had been charged with memorizing as well. An unsatisfactory or incomplete answer meant that you were going to be sweaty for dinner. When the vacuum died we had just received a block of instruction on CPR so our minders thought they would use this as an opportunity to test our knowledge of cardio pulmonary resuscitation. They singled out another guy and demanded that he perform CPR on the broken vacuum cleaner. Giggles ran up and down the line as the poor guy struggled to blow on the handle only to be told that the mouth was down near the base. "YES, SIR!" He was all ate up. Who wouldn't be? Especially, with two TA's breathing down your kneck, stetson brims pressed into your forehead, and yelling abuse at you as you struggled to recall how to perform CPR. With horror I realized that they were calling me to help him save the vacuum cleaner. We had also learned two-man CPR. I didn't fare any better. I remember that in the confusion as I violently did chest compressions on the vacuum bag, dust began to fill the hallway, which caused the TA's to hastily declare the vacuum dead. After dinner they had us deliver a death anouncement to the other vacuums in the janitor's closet.

This was what I thought about as my cruiser nosed its way down Lincoln Avenue toward an address on the south side of town. Another police department had called that morning to inform us that a man, whose Mother lived in St Albans, had been found floating dead in the Connecticut River, and they wanted me to drive over to her house and break the news in person.

My cruiser stopped in front of an unassuming two story, white with green trim and a screened in front porch. I reached up over the visor and retrieved the envelope containing a neatly folded piece of letter-head on which I had typed the name of the officer in charge of the investigation and his contact information. Then donning my stetson I stepped from the cruiser and gamely walked up onto the porch.

That is such a strange moment- it's like the calm before a storm that you're in charge of unleashing. It's miserable. I did a gut check and knocked on the door. There were some words that needed to be spoken and, once uttered, I would be free to drive away from this woman's nightmare. I heard feet shuffling down the hall, and I steeled myself for what had to be done. The door opened to reveal an older woman, with thin graying hair and a cigarette smoking in her left hand.

I said what needed to be said in the kindest words I could muster. I asked her if I could call anyone to come be with her. I got her a glass of water from the kitchen. Strangely, even harder than breaking the news of her son's death was making my exit. How can you walk away from a woman who is crying, devastated, and alone? I wished she would take me up on my offer to call someone, anyone, to come be with her, but she claimed to have nobody. She eventually gave me my out by thanking me for coming and showing me the door.

"I'm truly sorry for your loss, Mam."

Those words rang hollow. How empty.

As time passes, my memories from my brief tenure as a police officer have grown dim and kind of fuzzy around the edges. Names and streets elude me now. Unfortunately, however, some memories remain horribly vivid. Like the time I kicked in the door to an old woman's apartment and found her decaying remains in the back bedroom, or the handful of suicides I responded to. There was also "Pie-Dog's" car crash down on the lake road. That's to say nothing of the half dozen or so "untimelies" that I was called upon to document for the state. With latex hands and a screaming heart I turned them over, and ran fingers through their hair, looking for wounds. I noted lividity, counted medications, and diagramed the scene. Every corpse is filed away mentally, catalogued in vivid, macabre detail. I can remember feeling a sort of tingly, light-headed sensation each time as I walked into the presence of a deceased human being.

I want to be macho and say they didn't bother me, but that's not true. They did. They still do. Worse than the corpses though were the walking dead- men and women who were trapped hopelessly in their self-destructive lifestyles. The walking dead haunt me. They were slaves of compulsion, caught up and born along in a current which would lead inexorably to their own destruction. Every time I dealt with them I would come away with just one question- How's it going to end? I wondered if they saw the trajectory of their lives as I did.

I'm not sure I could help them, but sometimes I want to try. I know Christ is the only answer to their problems.

Fellow Christian, isn't it a joyous thing that the Great Commission does not task us with giving death announcements to the living but rather life announcements to the dying.

Here's a life announcement from Ephesians 2:1-6:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,  even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

Go out today in the power of the Holy Spirit to notify the dead that they can find the life abundant in Jesus!

GODLY vs. GODLIKE

Most people read the story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet in John 13:1-17 and interpret it as a command to humble themselves and sacrificially serve others, and that is certainly a right and true interpretation. In fact, it is the primary meaning of that text. However, it is equally true, yet less commonly emphasized, that it is also a command to let others serve us in our neediness.  

There are many in the church today who need to be confronted again with the truth that, as followers of Jesus' example, they must actively use their gifts, and their homes, and their time, and their cars to be a blessing and a help to others through Christian service, but, in the main, I have always found Christian communities to be marked by an open-handed generosity and a willingness to serve sacrificially. Maybe not perfectly, and maybe not everyone, but for the most part Christian communities seem to evidence a wonderful heart of service. This is not only something that I have personally experienced and benefitted from, but, as a pastor, I also often hear the stories from others of the extraordinary and challenging example that some are setting with their radical commitment to serve as Jesus served.

But let me ask you something. Which seems like the harder assignment to you; washing someone’s feet or letting someone wash yours? Which is harder;  to show up like a knight in shining armor in the midst of somebody’s crisis, or to meekly ask for help?

Sometimes the strongest servants have the hardest time allowing others to serve them. Those who love to meet the needs of others often have the hardest time seeking help for their own needs. And. This. Is. Sin.

There is a thin line between trying to become like God in character and trying to become like Him in essence. When we serve others sacrificially we are imitating the character of our God, but when we act as though we are self-sufficient and have no needs we present ourselves as being God’s equal. This betrays a grasping desire for the place of God, rather than a desire to be like Him. Both pursuits are, in a sense, acts of worship but the object of worship changes away from God and toward the self when we refuse to confess neediness within the body. This is spiritual embezzlement and a misappropriation of glory!

Fellow Christian, it is true that you were made by your Creator with certain strengths and gifts, but it is also true that you were purposely designed with limitations and areas of weakness. Both are from God for your joy. You are gifted in order that you might be a blessing and a help, and you are limited in order that you might be blessed and helped. The church is intended by God as a community where we meet needs according to our strengths and have our needs met according to the strengths of others.

Christians are needy people, and this is so because need is the very fuel of worship. If you find yourself unable to enter into worship it is because you feel no particular need for God. As Luke 1:53 says, “He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.”

If we are not honest with one another about the needs in our lives--- if we try to be godlike rather than godly--- we miss out on the joy of having our needs met within the diverse giftings of the body, and we rob others of the joy of using their gifts in service to us. Of highest concern, however, is the fact that we rob God of His glory because if we do not humbly confess our need, instead of our unified testimony being that of a community where needs are being met by Christ through His body, the church, then our testimony is that we are a community of little gods. Self-sufficient do-gooders. Again, This is spiritual embezzlement and a misappropriation of glory! Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, do you wash my feet?" and  “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”

Some Christians need to be reminded of the necessity of joyous service, but others, like Peter, need to be reminded of how needy they are.  

Another question, what is your greatest need today? 

Health scares? Cracked teeth? Marriage in crisis? Depression? Addiction? Sin-habits? Crushing Debt? Wayward children? Are you anxious about something? Are you contemplating suicide? Are you lonely? What is the need in your life that your mind returns to over and over again throughout the day?

Does anyone in your church family know about that need?

You are not designed to carry that load alone. It will crush you if you do not allow others to share. If no one in your church family knows about your need, then you don’t need to be told to wash other people’s feet. You need to be told to let others wash yours.

GIFTEDNESS IS ONLY AS GOOD AS THE CAUSE IT SERVES

I heard a song on the radio. Its sound was bigger than its lyrics. It was like a finely crafted box of the highest quality, whose maker had imagined it filled with beautiful, meaningful things, but whose owners had inexplicably chosen to fill it with a few broken crayons, some candy wrappers and a hair scrunchy. This song was like that.

It had a driving beat and complex layers of sound that danced and flirted before harmonizing into a beautifully simple symphony. However, as I gazed in at the lyrical contents I was sad to find that they were not beautiful or meaningful or worthy. They were not even sufficiently cryptic that I could see in them whatever I wanted to see.

Giftedness is only as good as the cause it serves.

THE WORSHIP WARS

In Joshua 5:13-19 we read about an encounter that Joshua had with an Angel before the battle of Jericho. It says that Joshua, “lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord.”

 Joshua, who apparently didn't recognize right away that the figure was an  angel, essentially asked, “Are you on our side or their side?”

 And the Angel answered, “No.” 

 The angel could not really say that he was on the side of the Israelites. He served God and as long as the Israelites were in the center of God’s will he would be there also, but God will not be pressed into service to a human cause or group or faction, and with a great economy of language the angel reminds Joshua of this dynamic. "I’m on God’s side and you better be also."

 I think about this in connection with the so-called "worship wars." Singing together in worship is designed by God to proclaim our unity with Him and also to create unity within the body as we join our voices together in praise. It’s ironic then that this gift, which was intended in part to display and reinforce Christian unity, has caused more division in modern times among God’s people than perhaps any other. The worship wars have divided more than a few churches, and it’s sad that Christians are fighting over the very thing that should be uniting us.

The fault lines are familiar to us: 

The old hymns vs. Modern Worship Music.

 Do we sing from hymn books or do we project words on a screen.

 What instruments are allowed on the stage?

 Some denominations insist that all songs should be sung acapella.

 I know of another denomination that thinks the church should only sing the psalms we find in the Bible.

 Do we use special lighting? Or does that feel too manipulative?

 Do we emphasize corporate singing or solo performances?

 For some the music is too loud or it’s not loud enough.

 Too amateurish. Too polished.

 It’s too emotional. It’s too stuffy.

 Some prefer an upbeat happy worship experience, others want the service to strike a more somber, reflective note.

 Some don’t like when they introduce too many new songs, but others ask, “Why do we sing the same songs over and over?”

 One person likes a twangy southern Gospel sound, another likes rock and roll.

 Musical tastes and preferences in worship are very diverse within the body, and we tend to pigeon hole others based on their stylistic preferences in worship. 

When I was growing up--- in junior high and high school--- when I would meet other kids for the first time they would always ask me, "What kind of music do you listen to?" It was a ritual, like when two dogs sniff each other, and they weren’t just making conversation either.  What they were really asking was, "what kind of person are you?" Or maybe, to be more exact, "are you my kind of person?" I know this is true because most kids would answer nervously, "I listen to a little bit of everything," which was the same as saying, "I can be anyone you want me to be."

I sometimes get a similar feeling when someone asks me about the worship style at my church. I worry that what they are really asking, “Is your church my kind of church?” or even “Are you my kind of Christian?”

In 2013, Stephen Miller wrote a thoughtful piece for Relevant Magazine entitled "The Modern Worship Music Wars." In it he wrote about the dangers of spiritualizing preference. Preferences are normal, and even to some extent good because God loves diversity, but, as Stephen Miller observed, the real danger lies when people begin to assign spiritual value to their preferences, or a lack of spiritual value to somebody else’s preferences. For example, if somebody is naturally drawn toward a more traditional, hymn-based corporate worship experience, that person might exalt that as the most spiritually helpful and genuine expression of worship, while simultaneously demonizing a worship experience that they deem to be more “flashy” and produced and modern. The reverse can also be true. Someone might wrongly think that the Spirit has gone out of a church whose preferred music style is more conservative and traditional, because they personally prefer a more energetic and emotive worship scene. When Christians think like this and talk like this--- Making our preferences the standard--- we will invariably come away thinking of others who deviate from that standard as somehow less. This is arrogant, and not very helpful. 

In the worship wars everybody seems to think that they are on the side of the angels, but I suspect that if we, like Joshua, actually asked the angels whose side they’re on---are you for us or for that church with the fog machine?--- they would probably answer, “No.” And if we want to experience God’s power in the midst of our worship we need to move beyond asking him to affirm and ratify our preferences toward a greater understanding of what is most pleasing to Him and what is closest to His heart.

DIFFICULT OR IMPOSSIBLE

Is the work that God has called us to difficult or impossible? This is a very important question because how we answer will correspond directly to how we go about fulfilling our Great Commission calling in the church.

Let me illustrate it this way, what if I told you that I would give you two-million dollars if you worked out at a gym for ten hours a day for a whole year? Would that be difficult or impossible? For most people it would be difficult, but not impossible. You could make the job easier by reducing the required number of hours or by increasing the reward. You could also make it harder by requiring that the ten hours be consecutive, but either way this task would still exist somewhere on the spectrum of what is possible. However, what if I offered you a reward of two-million dollars if you could lift a Mack truck up over your head? That would be impossible for a human being, and because this task does not exist on the spectrum of what is possible, it cannot be made harder or easier. It would not become harder if I asked you to do it on a hot day, and it would not be made easier if I increased the reward or allowed you to lift it with an empty gas tank. Either way it would still be out of reach. Impossible.

My point is this, if a task is difficult the solution is clear- marshal resources, put in more hours, throw more money at it, work harder, or get more people on the job. However, if the task is impossible then the solution must be to call upon one who is mightier and more able than you. Lifting a Mack truck is impossible according to the finite limits of a human being’s musculoskeletal system, but there are heavy duty cranes that are equal to the job.

A prayerless approach to the Great Commission reveals that we think the job is difficult but not impossible. Prayer is the act of calling on one who is mightier and more able than us, and if we believe that something can be accomplished without prayer it is the same as thinking it can be done without God.

Fellow Christian, I often hear people say that things are becoming harder for the church today. How can that be? It can never become easier or harder to accomplish impossible things. The God-given objectives of the church are impossible. We have been tasked with nothing less than to make dead people alive (Ephesians 2:1-10, 2 Corinthians 5:11-21). There was never a time when that was easy and there will never come a day when it is more difficult. It will only, ever, always be impossible according to the limits of human strength. So the belief, so often expressed in these days, that things are becoming harder for the church reveals the smallness of our goals (Comfort? Approval? Security?) and an inflated view of what men can accomplish in their own power under the right circumstances.

These days are not harder. They are just a more dramatic backdrop for the coming miracles.

But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26

"I HOPE JESUS WAITS UNTIL UNTIL AFTER CHRISTMAS."

A couple of years ago as I was driving my son to school we were listening to the news on the radio. After one particularly sad story I said out loud, “I hope Jesus comes back soon.”

 My son answered, “I hope He waits until after Christmas.”

I could relate because when I was a boy I would often have similar thoughts whenever someone spoke about Jesus coming back. It’s not that I didn’t know that this way of thinking was wrong. I did. I just didn’t feel the wrongness of it. Sure, I believed Jesus was going to come back, and I knew intellectually that His appearing should be preferred over anything and yet still it could not be said that I truly longed for it. In my heart of hearts, I thought of Jesus’ return not as the “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13) but as the end of all I had hoped to achieve and experience in life. 

So, even though I now long for Jesus’ return more than anything, I could relate to what my son had said. I used to feel much the same.

I felt the need to say something to him, but was struggling to find the words that would help him not just grasp the truth about Jesus coming back but which would actually stir within him a longing for it.

We drove on in silence for a moment and then I asked my son what his favorite part of the school day was. Predictably, he said “recess.”

“It’s the only part I like,” he added.

“What if you got to school today,” I asked, “and right as you were starting your math lesson, they called your name over the intercom and told you to report to the office? And when you got to the office your Mom and I were there and we told you that we were pulling you out of school--- not just for the day, not just for the week, and not just for the rest of the school year, but forever! And what’s more, the reason we were pulling you out was because, we were going to take you on a tour of the world’s amusement parks. We were going to ride every roller coaster in the world, travel, have adventures and eat the most amazing foods!”

“If that happened,” I asked, “would you say to me, ‘I wish you had waited until after recess to come get me?”

“No,” he said, “of course not!”

When Jesus comes it will be like that!  It will not be the end of our fun but the beginning of a higher, more excellent, joy-filled existence with God. It’ll make Christmas break or anything else we might prefer over his coming look pretty shabby. The best experiences in this life are but a pale foreshadowing of the joy to come. Look forward to that day! It’ll be amazing!

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:11

“Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”

2 Timothy 4:8

CHOCOLATE IN THE NOSE IS NOT AS GOOD AS CHOCOLATE IN THE MOUTH

When my wife, Sarah, and I were newlyweds I had a job working as a police officer in a small city up near the Canadian border in New England, and she got a job working the front desk at a motel. My shift would sometimes begin at 5:30 in the morning, and, because we only had one car, I would get up early and walk the mile or so into work so Sarah would have the car to get to work herself later on. My walk always took me past the city’s industrial park, which was home to a chocolate factory. Occasionally I would walk past as they were beginning production for the day and emanating from that factory was a heavenly aroma of cocoa that filled the whole south end of town. It was almost like the very air was flavored.

Thinking about those early morning walks and the smell of cocoa on the breeze reminds me of Christmas. Sometimes, at this time of year, I think we can catch just the slightest hint of what Heaven will be like. Christmas is a time when far flung loved ones are gathered home, and there’s a prevailing atmosphere of cozy togetherness--- The lights and decorations, the excitement, the special food and music, festive gatherings, gift giving, a merry sense of wonder, and special times of worship--- all of these things bring to mind that smell of chocolate as I walked down main street. It blew across town stirring within me a longing for the real thing. The smell of chocolate is good, but its taste is better. Chocolate in the nose is not as good as chocolate in the mouth. Christmas stirs within me a similar longing. This season is good but ultimately it points to something better and more substantial that I long to sink my teeth into, and that something is heaven. When Jesus comes back we will satisfy the hunger that Christmas arouses in our hearts. And It won’t be just for a season, it will be for always.

For nonbelievers tis “THE SEASON” to be jolly. It’s just a season, it’s temporary, and once December 26th arrives the tree is hauled to the curb, the credit card bill comes in the mail, the toy breaks, everyone is sick of the songs and sick from eating too much. All the goodwill and merriness burns away like so much mist before the sun. For those of us who know the full meaning of Christmas, however, this special season, although wonderful and exciting, is really just a pale foreshadowing of the pleasures yet to come. It is sad to think that so many will only ever celebrate the smell of Christmas, but will never actually taste it in its fullness. Christmas, and all the other highwater marks of earthly joy, are all just heaven on the breeze, but only those who have put their trust in Jesus for salvation will ever experience these things in their fullness.

So, brothers and sisters, during this Christmas season as we reflect on the first time that Jesus came into the world, and look forward to the promised day when he returns, let all of your celebration be full of joy and let it fill you with anticipation for the coming day when Jesus will gather all of his far flung loved ones home to be with Him. As Psalm 16:11 says, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

TEMPTED BY THE TREE

I remember one Christmas when we were living in the San Jacinto mountains of Southern California; I found there in the woods, way up on the side of the mountain, a white fir of perfect height and form. If ever there was a tree that begged to be cut down and hauled home for Christmas that was it. Most wild trees thereabouts were scraggly and unfit, but this one stood in the center of a sun-drenched clearing like the belle of a yuletide ball. Beautiful, thick boughs with waxy green needles tapered to a sharp point like a church steeple, and its branches swept out over the snow in such a way that it did not require much imagination to picture brightly wrapped packages underneath.

But, alas, this tree was just a pebble's throw inside the County Park where cutting down trees was strictly prohibited. Like my ancestors, Adam and Eve, I was tempted by the tree. Am I not made of dust? Money was tight, as it always seems to be, and the trees at the lot were wildly overpriced, as they always seem to be. "You could put that money towards presents for the kids," I reasoned. I returned often to the tree in my thoughts and even a few times in person. Once, with a saw in my hand. I felt weak, like Gollum, in its presence, but, in the end, I did not transgress.

It was the reason, however, for the scowl on my face when I forked over $50.00 for a dried up, inferior shrub of a Douglas Fir that we found on a lot in Temecula.

I came back the following year to discover that someone else had cut it down. Truth be told, I was relieved.

EMMANUEL- THE BARRIER DESTROYING GOD

In 1996 I witnessed the changing of the guard at the royal palace of Prince Albert II of Monaco. The spectacle was impressive, especially against the imposing backdrop of the royal residence. At precisely 11:55am Les Carabiniers du Prince, the royal guard, paraded in front of the palace’s main gate. They were dressed sharply in their dress uniforms and had M16 rifles on their shoulders. I wondered if they were loaded.  After much marching, pivoting, saluting and presenting of arms the old guard replaced the new who took their place standing at attention by the gate. 

The Prince himself was in residence on that morning. I know that because someone pointed out a white standard with a red insignia that floated lazily atop one of the palace’s soaring ramparts, and explained that it was the personal flag of Prince Albert II and when it was raised above the palace it meant that he was inside. I wondered what he was doing in there- watching TV? Drinking coffee? Taking a bath? Who knows?- and as I thought about that I was suddenly impressed by the many barriers that kept common people like me away from going into the presence of Prince Albert II. All of the walls, locked doors and M16’s were designed to keep people from entering into the presence of the Prince of Monaco.

How different is the Prince of Peace? We had been walled off behind an impenetrable wall of sin, and He behind a wall of holiness, but, according to Ephesians 2:12-13, Jesus came into the world to tear down the barriers that separated us from Him.  He was called Emmanuel, which means “God with Us.” Because Jesus was born in a stable, among the stink of animals and laid in a manger, the humble shepherds found no barrier keeping them from entering into His presence. What if he had been born in an imposing palace? With guards? The Shepherds would not have been able to come in and behold Him as they did. Jesus had lowered Himself to such a degree that He had become like one of them, a servant (Phil. 2:7) living among the animals. Only those who were too prideful to enter into the stink and the dirt of that place experienced a barrier that barred them from coming to Jesus. It is still the same today. There is no barrier but pride that keeps us from coming to Jesus. Only those who humble themselves and confess their need for a Savior can enter into His presence, but those who pridefully refuse to bend their need and confess their need cannot.

Philippians 2:3-11

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

LONELY DEFEATS, LONELY VICTORIES

When it comes to our struggles with sin, lonely defeats will, one day, bring lonely victories, and God is not glorified in a lonely, hidden victory. “Why would the victory be hidden?,” you might ask. Because, for someone who has hidden their defeats, telling of a victory would be a tacit confession to the “shameful” battles they have been fighting. It would be like discovering that your house had become infested with rats. If this was embarrassing to you it is unlikely that you would announce proudly to your friends, “This morning when I opened the cupboards I found two dead rats in the traps I had set there!” Although you are glad to have exterminated two rats you know that the first thing your friends would probably think is, “Disgusting! I didn’t know he had rats in his cupboards,” so you keep that news to yourself. The prelude to most every sin is “No one will ever know,” and its epilogue, “No one must ever know.” But when we resolve to let no one know about the rat-infested nature of our hearts a perverse thing will inevitably happen- for when, by God’s grace, we are given victory in a moment of temptation, that story of God’s strength, provision and faithfulness in delivering us from sin must necessarily be hidden away because of its shameful association with the very acts of wickedness that we were delivered from. This denies man his highest good, for we were made for the very purpose of worship that the glory of the Creator might be revealed in His creatures, and, perversely, it denies God the praise and glory which are His due. This is the first and most compelling reason for entering an accountability relationship. God spoke the world into being, and created man in His image, that His glory might be revealed through them, and if we have no one in our lives who we have invited into the reality of our struggles we will, by implication, also have no one with whom to share the stories of His goodness. God desires man to experience victory over sin, yes, but primarily He wants to give us such victories that He might be glorified in them.  If we have bundled our defeats and victories together into one shameful package we will never know the kind of practical sanctification that we long to see in our lives, for it reveals that we are not properly motivated by a high concern for God’s glory to be revealed in and through our lives.

A concern for God’s glory should be the first and most significant motivation for entering an accountability relationship. However, if we continue the analogy of the rat infested house I think we will see some additional ways that accountability relationships can be a very practical help in our struggles against sin.

When you confess to a close friend, one who has proven himself faithful in every season, and who you trust to handle the information you share about yourself with love, grace, care and discretion, that your house is infested with rats, your friend might surprise you with his response. For example, he might say, “Me too!” This can be very encouraging, and it has often been my experience with confessing sin within the context of an accountability relationship that the person that I am sharing “the big ugly” with says, “me too.” Paul, writing in 1 Corinthians 10:13, says that “no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.” One of Satan’s tricks is to make you think you’re the only one with rats in the attic, but Paul makes it plain that those areas where we struggle are “common to man.” In other words, you’re not alone. However, as long as you labor under the impression that yours is the only rat-infested heart in the neighborhood Satan will continue to draw you into a double life where the sin you habitually harbor and act upon is hidden away in a secret place. Over time the gulf between who you are in reality and who you are trying to appear to be will widen into a shocking and unsustainable chasm. Much of the power of sin is broken when it is spoken out loud to a brother or sister who will receive that confession with love and care. Satan’s modus operandi is always to get you alone with your sin, and God’s strategy is to draw that struggle out to be shared within the context of loving community (1 John 1:7-8).

So your friend might say, “me too,” and if he does you will be greatly encouraged. Or he might say, “I know exactly what you’re going through. I used to have rats.” As you listen to his story, you will gain some hard-won perspective and expertise in the matter at hand which you can bring to bear in your own efforts to kill rats. Or perhaps your friend knows nothing of rats and has no personal experience with them, but he is a true friend who loves you sincerely. If that is so, he will most likely respond compassionately by offering to come over after work, and with flashlight in hand, go up into the attic with you to see what can be done about this problem, and by this you will have gained some much needed support and help. Every time I have shared sin with a carefully chosen accountability partner I have received one of these three responses- “Me too,” “I used to struggle with that,” or “how can I help?” And each time it was a blessing and a help to me in my efforts to fight sin.

MOVING BEYOND THE PRIORITIES LECTURE

A common sentiment in the church today is that it is difficult to find the time for Bible study and prayer. Most often I hear leaders in the church counter this line of thinking by saying it is all just a matter of priorities. That’s true to a point, but in my experience such lecturing is largely ineffectual. We need to speak the language of worship, for that is what man hungers for in the quiet places of his heart. Man doesn’t hunger for duty, obligation and strategizing. He... was made at the first for worship. It is our design, and that design finds expression in a desire after God. If we understood things perfectly, coming to the conclusion that our job kept us from being in God’s word we would quit our job. Nothing of temporal concern should trump the eternal. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you, but, for one reason or another, the priorities lecture doesn’t seem to get the job done.

Someone might say I have trouble finding time for studying the Word of God and prayer, and instead of speaking about priorites, I say remember the widow and her two small coins that she put into the offering (Mark 12:41-44). She had very little money Just as you may have very little time, but when she gave what she had, though it was scarce and hard to come by, it was received by Jesus as greater than those who gave vast amounts out of their abundance. So you may be a busy person with very little time to spare for studying your Bibles and praying, but think how much it will delight your Father in heaven that you gave out of your time-poverty to worship Him in that way. Yours is a more precious offering to bring. Some with an abundance of spare time might even envy you.

Or someone might say, “I have never been much of a reader. It’s harder work for me to read and study than for others.” Rather than speaking of priorities, point them to Zacchaeus who, though he was a short man, climbed a tree to see Jesus above the crowds. Sometimes it might require more effort to climb above the limits of our design to get a good look at Jesus, but it is always worth it.

We must learn to speak the language of worship because it is worship that man hungers for and responds to. Such reasoning will bear the weight of wonder and desire in a way that speaking of priorities will not.

RACISM- A FLAWED VIEW OF SELF

A few months ago I had a conversation with a friend about the problem of race in our country. Although not an exact quote, he said something to this effect- “A lot of the problem would go away if black and white people would get to know each other better.” I disagreed. This does not strike me as true because the error of the racist does not flow primarily from a misunderstanding of the other, but rather from a fundamental misunderstanding of themselves. As such, contact with people of other races will not usually fix a person’s sin-distorted self-image, but rather reinforce it. If someone whose heart is consumed with ethnic pride encounters someone of another race who confirms their prejudices they will feel justified, and if they encounter one who seems to defy their expectations they will tend to think in their heart, “This one is an exception to the rule. They are good because they are more like my kind than normal.” In the mind of such a person they and theirs are the standard of goodness, and the other rises or falls in their estimation by how closely they proximate their own cherished social norms, mode of living, way of speaking, dressing etc… The cure for racism, therefore, can not be found in having encounters with people of other races, but rather in having a transformative encounter with Jesus Christ. That is the only sort of encounter that will show to people who they truly are, and in so doing, enable them to see others correctly. The Gospel destroys all human pretense and any notion of human superiority. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of a person's heart, gives the capacity for repentance, humility, and obedience. This is why racism and an authentic Christianity can never coexist. Racists boast in their blood. Christians boast only in the blood of Christ.

“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.” (Ephesians 2:14)

But someone might say, "I would not be so quick to throw out that man's advice. Without building relationships across ethnic/racial lines we will find it difficult to understand one-another's perspective."

I would not argue that there is ZERO benefit to holding a summit between the races, anymore than I would say there is zero benefit in bringing a knife to a gun fight. But as long as our primary tools for fighting this sin rest on goodwill and understanding I suspect we will be pouring our efforts into coping with racism rather than conquering it.  The problem with this approach as a primary strategy is that the Gospel teaches us to love others not because of who they are but because of who we are in Christ. Christ loves us not because he got to know us and discovered we weren't so bad after all. As long as we put the first emphasis on finding good in the other person or group as the basis of our love and respect we would be falling short of Jesus' example which was a willingness to love people in whom there was no goodness at all. Jesus loved us because of who He is not who we are. As Romans 5:8 says, "God demonstrates His own love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." The idea behind my friend's first idea was that whites and blacks would get along if they spent more time talking and getting to know each other. This approach still has as its underlying rationale a pernicious clinging to human merit as a basis for our love and consideration. If I squint my ears I can almost hear him saying, "Prove yourselves to one another." Why get together? Because you'll see they're not so bad! Give them a chance. But what if after getting to know them you concluded they were bad. What if every stereotype proved true? (After all, the suspicious heart of prejudiced person is already tipping in this direction.) What if the person you encounter proves to be a total jerk, and, generally speaking, a low specimen of humanity? What then? This last question, "what then," is what the let's-get-everyone-together strategy fails to plan for.

What is needed is to have the eyes of our heart opened (Eph 1:18) so that we see our own sin, and our own lack of merit before God so that we look on our fellow man with compassion rather than arrogant contempt. Philippians 2:3 says, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves." The phrase is "count others as more," not learn or perceive that they are more. When it comes to the sin of racism or any other sin the problem arises not from external circumstances but from within one's own heart. At root, I think this sin arises from an arrogant view of self and not a flawed view of others. To be sure it includes a flawed of others, but  for the racist they are unable to see others rightly because they are viewing all things through the broken prism of self. Only Jesus can open the eyes of a person's heart thereby giving them new eyes with which to see themselves and their fellow man.