God Wants to Empower You (Ephesians 3:14-17)

Posted on November 14, 2024 by salooper57

Below are excerpts from this sermon, preached on October 20, 2024.

I suspect – and know this is true of me – that most of us pray because we are aware of a need, of discomfort, or of danger—and that’s good. When we are unaware of such things, we don’t think to pray. That’s not good.

That we don’t think to pray when things are going well exposes a shallow understanding of prayer and probably a false belief: that God left us here to muddle through and keep ourselves intact in the process. When that becomes more than we can manage, then it’s time to pray.

But do you see what this reveals about our view of God? We think he’s like the butler in Wodehouse’s Jeeves novels – the smartest, most capable person around – who (for some reason) has nothing better to do than to get us out of scrapes and make us comfortable. But to think that is to misconstrue our purpose here and God’s, his role and ours.

The Apostle Paul doesn’t think of God as if he were “our Jeeves in heaven.” It’s not that he doesn’t want us to pray about our needs—he tells us to do just that: to present our requests to God (Philippians 4:6). But most of Paul’s prayers in the Bible don’t come out of a sense of discomfort or fear or even need. They come out of an eagerness to serve God in what he is doing. That’s different than an eagerness for God to serve us in what we’re doing.

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The principal request in this prayer is for God to give – Paul knows that God is a giver – the Ephesians strengthening power. He asks him to do this “out of his glorious riches” or, better, “according to his glorious riches.” Paul is not asking God to deplete his riches by giving some of them to the Ephesians. He is asking the Father – the infinitely wealthy, incomparably generous God – to give in a way that is consistent with his famous largesse.

But Paul is not asking the Father to give these Christians money. He’s asking him to give them power; to strengthen them. Did you realize that God wants to empower you? He wants you to be strong and capable. Your strength is vital to God’s purpose.

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Our culture talks a lot about empowering people: women, children, minorities, workers, gays, the transgendered, and, lately, even white men (although it’s usually white men who talk about empowering white men.) Our society has a thing about power: it worships it. Don’t worship power. If you worship power, you’ll be the kind of person who will try to use God. But if you worship God, you’ll be the kind of person who can be trusted with power and will use it wisely.

When our culture empowers a person or a group of people, it divides them from other people. That’s how cultural power works: it raises some up and forces others down. God’s power is not like that. It doesn’t divide. It unites. God’s power does not enable people to get their way. It enables them to walk with others in God’s way. God’s power does not provoke resentment; it generates love. Let this sink in: God wants to empower you. God, said C. S. Lewis, “seems to do nothing of Himself which He can possibly delegate to His creatures. He commands us to do slowly and blunderingly what He could do perfectly and in the twinkling of an eye.”[1] He empowers us.

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I’ve met parents who do not empower their children, even when they are twenty or thirty years old. I could almost believe they preferred their children to remain weak so they could control them. God is not that kind of parent. He wants his children to become strong.

There is an important reason for that. Look at verses 16 and 17, where Paul answers the why question: “that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being …” Why? So, you can be independent? That’s not it. So you can be tough? Not exactly. No, he strengthens you with power (verse 17): “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”

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…the principal request of this prayer: that God will give these Ephesians power to become strong so that Christ can dwell in their hearts through faith. The word the ESV translates as “dwell” is used of a person settling down somewhere. For example, it is used of Jesus moving to Capernaum and making his home there. When we pray this prayer for someone, we’re praying that God will do what is necessary in that person so that Christ can settle in and make himself at home in his or her heart – the command center.

Why do people need to be strengthened for that to happen? Because genuine conversion is like a spiritual earthquake. Christ is bigger than your heart. If he comes to dwell in you, you will need to be renovated. Walls will be knocked out, the structure reinforced.

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A moment ago, I used the word “conversion” in regard to this project. Many people think of conversion as an instantaneous thing: I wasn’t a Christian. I was converted. Now I am a Christian. But that’s not the way it works. A heavenly course change may take only a moment, but an earthly saint takes a lifetime.

Conversion is a process that begins even before Christ comes to live in us. It begins with the Spirit’s work to prepare our hearts and minds. Then, when we say “yes” to God, the Spirit begins changing us on the inside. That’s what is in mind verse 16, where Paul prays for the Ephesians to be “strengthened with power through his Spirit in [their] inner being” – the inside man. Conversion continues throughout a person’s life on earth (and at least until the resurrection). That is why believers in Jesus keep growing, changing, and – if you won’t misunderstand me – getting “bigger.”

The process itself can be uncomfortable. Knocking out our carefully constructed walls can be painful. Raising the ceiling can be scary. The tools God uses to do that are sharp and disruptive. (But no one ever said that being a Christian is for wimps.)

That’s why God’s inside man or woman needs to be strengthened with power. Paul asked God to give that power to the Ephesians and we should ask God to give that power to us. We’re going to need it!

[1] 1 C.S. Lewis, The World’s Last Night and Other Essays (New York: Harcourt, Harvest Books), pp 8-9

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Jesus, Don’t You Care?

Posted on November 9, 2024 by salooper57

In 1901, a Methodist Episcopal minister named Frank Graeff partnered with the composer J. Lincoln Hall to produce a gospel song titled, Does Jesus Care? In the first stanza, Graeff wondered: “Does Jesus care when my heart is pained too deeply for mirth or song, as the burdens press, and the cares distress, and the way grows weary and long?”

I’ve met people, some who identified as Christians and some who had stopped doing so, who have wondered the same thing. Graeff’s answer was: “I know He cares. His heart is touched with my grief.” Other people I have known were not so sure.

We might think ourselves too spiritually mature to ask such questions. Perhaps so. But when the unthinkable happens – I’m remembering the great-grandparents who had to raise their daughter’s infant grandson when a semi slammed into her car and killed her – we might find we are not as advanced as we thought we were.

There are people in the Bible who couldn’t help but wonder if God had forgotten them, if Jesus cared about them. In what is arguably the Bible’s gloomiest psalm, Psalm 88, the friendless, sick, and deeply depressed poet says, “I cry to you for help, O Lord …Why, O Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me?”

Job went further. Instead of wondering if God cared about him, he accused God of hurting him. “I loathe my own life,” he said, and placed the blame for his misery on God. He confronts God in prayer: “Does it please you to oppress me?”

In the New Testament, Luke 10 presents a very homey scene. Jesus is staying with Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary. The three of them would become fast friends. Jesus’s disciples are there too, and while Jesus talks with them, Mary sits and listens. This irritates her (probably) older sister Martha, who is working like crazy, trying to get everything ready for dinner. Her sister isn’t lifting a finger to help her.

When she’s had enough, she interrupts Jesus. Luke writes: “Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

Note the telltale words, don’t you care. Perhaps Jesus only cares about important things like orthodoxy, mission, and world evangelism. Perhaps he does not really care when “the burdens press and the cares distress.”

Martha wondered if Jesus cared whether she wore herself out on domestic duties. Perhaps she was not important enough to warrant his concern.

In a very different setting, the apostles wondered the same thing. They were in a boat, in the midst of a terrific windstorm. (The word St. Mark uses to describe it could be translated as “tempest” or “hurricane.”) The experienced fisherman were straining at the oars, adjusting the sail, and toiling furiously as if their lives depended on it. All the while, Jesus was asleep on a cushion in the stern of the boat.

They woke him, probably by shouting. What did they shout? Again, those telltale words: “Don’t you care that we’re going to die?”

There is something in us that is not quite sure that he does.

During the Korean War, a young soldier named Richard (later, Brennan) Manning was sitting in a foxhole talking with his childhood friend, Ray Brennan. Suddenly, a live grenade came flying into the trench. Ray looked at Manning, smiled, dropped the chocolate bar he was eating, and threw himself on the grenade. He was killed, but Manning was saved (though it seems he suffered some serious PTSD).

When he was back home, Manning went to visit Ray’s mother, whom he had known for most of his life. They drank tea and talked about Ray and about old times, late into the night. Then a troubled Manning asked Ray’s mother, “Do you think Ray loved me?”

Ray’s mother rose from the couch, stood in front of Manning, and shook her finger in his face. She shouted at him, “What more could he have done for you?”

When we are wondering if Jesus cares, his Father could say the same thing to us that Ray’s mother said to Brennan Manning. “What more could he have done for you? He died for you!”

But he is doing more for us. He not only died for us; he lives for us – “he ever lives to make intercession for you.” Even in our Psalm 88 moments, when we feel like darkness is our only friend, Jesus intercedes for us. He knows how to help, and he is ready and able to do so (Hebrews 4:14-16). He does care.

Sometimes, we need to be reminded of that. Consider this a reminder.

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The Christian’s Duty to Pray for the Next President

Posted on November 2, 2024 by salooper57

In 2008, I wrote a newspaper column about the Christian’s responsibility to pray for President-elect Barack Obama. I knew that some of my readers were disappointed that Mr. Obama had been elected. Nevertheless, whether his election was a source of delight or dismay, I made it clear to Christian readers that it was incumbent upon them to pray for him.

A few years later, I was back at it, this time urging Christians to pray for Donald Trump. In 2020, I was playing the same tune, only this time it was for President-elect Joe Biden.

By 2020, I had written what amounts to the same column for every new president elected during the previous four elections. It occurred to me that long-time readers might grow bored with this and not even bother reading the column. So, I came up with a juicy title: “What Should Christians Do about President Biden?” The answer, of course, was that Christians should pray for him.

The title was a mistake. I got a lot of angry mail, mostly from people who didn’t bother to read the article and assumed that I was writing to criticize Mr. Biden and raise hostility toward him. All of those articles elicited negative comments, but the column about President Biden stirred up a hornet’s nest.

And here I am again, writing the same column, telling Christians it is their duty to pray for the president. But for the first time, I am writing the article before election day. I have no idea who will win. The race is neck and neck. But whether we have a President-elect Harris or President-elect Trump makes no difference. Christians are commanded to pray for their leader.

I can anticipate the response of some of my readers: “Donald Trump is not my leader!” “Kamala Harris will never be my leader!”

Sorry, that reply doesn’t cut it. St. Paul urged Christians “…first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone—for kings and all those in authority…” He wrote this to his coworker, the man he had mentored, St. Timothy. He did not urge prayer for nice kings but not others, but “for all those in authority.”

“But,” a determined critic might respond, “Kamala Harris, who defies biblical morality by promoting transgenderism and abortion, was not in authority then.” Or “Paul did not have in mind an arrogant, high-handed leader like Donald Trump, who poses an existential threat to democracy.”

I admit that Rome was not led by a Kamala Harris or a Donald Trump, but it was led by Nero Claudius Caesar, whose moral failures included matricide, murder, and marital unfaithfulness. Nero threatened his political rivals, intent on “eliminating the ills of the previous regime.” And he initiated a propaganda campaign against Christians which led to their deaths in staggering numbers, including both Sts. Paul and Peter.

And yet Paul, writing from prison, urged Christians to pray for all those in authority, including the king. But how does one pray for a leader whose character is flawed or whose policies are harmful? Should one pray for God to give them a short life and take them to judgment quickly?

There is a better way to pray. We can ask God to give the next president a “discerning heart to govern … and to distinguish between right and wrong,” as King Solomon prayed for himself. We can pray for “discernment in administering justice” – a prayer that pleased God – so that we may live “peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.”

We should pray for blessing for the next president, whoever that turns out to be. We should ask God to grant our future president discernment and wisdom. There is, however, another side to this. We may also pray the scriptural prayers of lament and protest – Psalm 10 is an example – that have a bearing on politics. As Christopher J. H. Wright put it, “I see no contradiction in both praying for our rulers and yet also praying against them.”

Whatever our prayers, they must rise above the plane of politics. Politics and politicians are not the most important thing. Whoever our next president is, and perhaps despite who our next president is, God’s kingdom will advance, Christ’s authority will triumph, and his people will be safe in God’s hands. If we believe this, we will be able to obey the biblical mandate and pray for our next president, whoever that may be.

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Know the Unknowable (Ephesians 3:17-19)

Posted on October 31, 2024 by salooper57

Excerpts from Know the Unknowable (Note: I will post the video as soon as it is available.)

We have a house plant that is like something out of a science fiction movie. Someone gave it to Karen – this nice, shiny, dark green plant – and she watered it and took care of it and it got bigger. When it was in danger of becoming root-bound, Karen transplanted it into a bigger pot. I think it might have outgrown that pot as well, so she put it in an even bigger one and now it is threatening to take over our house. We recently set it next to my side of the bed. I have dreams that it is going to eat me in my sleep.

Sometimes plants need to be transplanted to be healthy and strong. Sometimes people do too. In this passage, Paul talks about people being rooted in love, and the good things that can come from that.

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Being rooted (verse 17) is an agrarian image. Being established, as the NIV has it (also verse 17), is a construction image. Paul loves to mix those two metaphors. He does it here. He does it in Colossians 2:7. He does it in 1st Corinthians 3:9, where he calls the Corinthian church both God’s field and God’s building.

Being rooted implies life. A seed without life won’t root, it will only rot. Being established (better, laying a foundation) implies intention. No human has to be involved in a plant taking root (just ask the teams that pull weeds around the church) but a building’s foundation doesn’t just sprout from the ground. Laying it requires planning, intention, and effort. Both images – agrarian and construction – have something important to teach us.

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People who are rooted and grounded in love are strong enough to … what? What are they strong enough to do? The answer is unexpected. We don’t need this strength so to be faster than speeding bullets or more powerful than locomotives. We need it to comprehend (the Greek word means “to grasp” or “to lay hold of”) truth. Sir Francis Bacon said that knowledge is power; this kind of knowledge is a superpower. Being rooted in love is the prerequisite to this kind of power. Being rooted in lovelessness is an obstacle to it.

The Greek word for power here is not the usual one. This one has the idea of being strong enough to accomplish something. It is the word a koine Greek speaker would use to say (for example): “He is strong enough to do 100 pushups.” But, in this case, we are strong enough, verse 18, to grasp the width and length and height and depth of the love of Christ.

Some people simply are not strong enough to lay hold of – to comprehend – the love of Christ.  We tend to think there are smart people who comprehend things and there are strong people who get things done. The smart people wore glasses, walked around with their noses in books, and got beat up a lot when they were kids.

And of course, it was the strong kids who beat them up – the kids who didn’t wear glasses and would have trouble finding a book in the Public Library. But if they did, they’d only use it to hit the smart kids over the head.

But that is a false dichotomy. Nowhere in the Bible does smart equal weak or strong equal stupid. Quite the opposite: there are some things we will never grasp until we become strong.

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Paul prays the Ephesians “may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and so to know this love that surpasses knowledge” (Ephesians 3:17-18). Don’t miss the words, “together with all the saints.” It is not a throwaway clause.  

We will not have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ is in isolation from the saints. We need all the saints – all God’s own people – to get a handle on (to grasp) the immensity of Christ’s love. Even though we can never succeed in measuring or quantifying it, we can grasp it; can know it experientially—but only in partnership with all God’s other people. You know things I do not know, see things I have not seen, just as I know and see things you do not. Only together can we begin to get a handle on – to grasp – the unending, overwhelming love of Christ. Only in partnership with all Jesus’s people does being “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (verse 19) become a possibility.

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No one can accuse the Apostle Paul of thinking small. What a goal! “…that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” This is the goal to which Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians has been headed all along. Paul is praying for the church – not just individuals – to be filled with all the fullness of God. His prayer, which comes right out of the Old Testament, is that God will come to the Living Temple – that’s the end of chapter 2 – as he did Solomon’s temple and the tabernacle before that and fill it with all his fullness. This is not a prayer for Christians in isolation but for Christians in community—Christians in the church. Don’t forget that God wants to demonstrate (verse 10) to rulers and authorities his manifold wisdom through the church.

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The Halloween Post: What the Bible Says About the Walking Dead

Posted on October 26, 2024 by salooper57
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

At the beginning of Ephesians 2, St. Paul writes about the walking dead. “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live…” “Live,” translated literally, is “walk,” Paul’s favorite metaphor for daily life. Spiritual death was once part of daily life for the people to whom Paul was writing.

Just who are the walking dead? Those who are separated from the life of God. In what sense are they dead? They are dead in the sense that they cannot interact with God, cannot respond to him, nor can they sense spiritual stimuli.

Maybe this will help us get the picture. A greedy man dies, and his body is laid out in a casket at a local funeral home. Everyone knows that he was the greediest person in the county. Let’s say his son walks up to the casket and puts a Powerball ticket for the biggest lottery jackpot in history in his hands. Then he watches him closely. But he won’t bat an eyelash; he’s dead to it. Elon Musk comes to the funeral and offers him one hundred million dollars to get up; he doesn’t move a muscle. To be dead is to be unresponsive (and unable to respond) to stimuli. A dead book-lover won’t care if you put a Shakespeare first folio in his casket. A dead baseball fan won’t mind if you take the 1953 Mickey Mantle Rookie card out of his pocket. To be dead is to be unresponsive to stimuli.

A person or animal can be dead to one kind of stimuli and alive to another. A mouse can be alive to the cookie it finds lying on an abandoned math book, but dead to the calculus on which it sits. (So can a high school student.) A politician can be alive to you during the campaign and dead to you once he is in office.

When Paul says that people were “dead in transgressions and sins” he means that they were dead to God. They may have been alive to other things, but they were dead to God. They couldn’t respond to Him—couldn’t hear when he spoke, couldn’t receive the grace and mercy that he offered.

To the spiritually dead, spiritual things are invisible and inaudible. If you could put someone who is spiritually dead in heaven, he would not appreciate it. He wouldn’t see it, smell it, taste it or touch it. He would be utterly dead to it, like the greedy man to the lottery ticket.

(This, by the way, is why it is silly for people to blame God for not allowing everyone into heaven. It would be like someone blaming you because you refuse to allow him to bring the body of his dead friend to your next dinner party. How dare you turn people away!)

 Paul is saying that these people were spiritually dead. They were unresponsive to God. They couldn’t hear him, see him, feel his touch or taste his goodness. They were dead in “transgressions and sins.” Their transgression and sins were not the cause of this deadness, but its result; the way a stench is not the cause of physical death, but results from it.

Paul’s writing gets even eerier in Ephesians 2:2: the walking dead are under the control of a spirit that is at work in them. It directs them to walk “according to the age.” In other words, they don’t have a mind of their own; the age sets the standard for their behavior, speech, dress, relationships, generosity, goals. More alarming still, Paul writes that we have all taken part in this world, all moved by the “lusts of the flesh.”

Into this sinister world, the loving God, rich in mercy (v. 4) came, making the walking dead alive in Christ (v. 5). This is pure grace. He raised us out of the dust (v. 6) with the intention of displaying his kindness to us throughout the ages to come (v. 7).

What began as a horror story has been transformed into a divine comedy. Halloween has given way to All Saints. Lust is being replaced by love. The walking dead have been waked into life by the touch of gracious God.

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Incomparable Power (Ephesians 1:19-23)

Posted on October 23, 2024 by salooper57

I have already posted written excerpts from this sermon (https://shaynelooper.com/2024/10/16/immeasurable-power-ephesians-119-23/). Below is the sermon video. Blessings.

Viewing Time: 23:44.

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Jesus: Liberal or Conservative?

Posted on October 19, 2024 by salooper57

(Read time: approximately 4 minutes.)

I was speaking to someone just this week who said to me, “I don’t know how a Christian can vote for a Democrat.” It is hardly the first time I have heard that sentiment expressed. Yet I know other people who express disbelief that a Christian can vote for a Republican—or at least for a particular Republican.

I think our assumption is that Jesus would vote the way we intend to vote if he were in our place. If we are liberals, we have a liberal Jesus who takes care of the oppressed even when it is costly. If we are conservatives, we have a conservative Jesus who maintains high moral standards even when it is not popular.

So, is Jesus a liberal or a conservative? Is he on our side or is he on their side?

Perhaps we should be asking a different question. Instead of asking if Jesus is on our side, we should be asking if we are on his. Are our values and actions consistent with what we know about Jesus from the Gospels?

There is a fascinating incident in Israel’s history that has bearing on the “whose side is God on” question. The people of Israel had spent 40 years as refugees, wandering from place to place in a barren, mostly unclaimed land. When it was necessary to cross a tract of land that was claimed, they usually faced hostility and sometimes war. After decades of wasting away in the harshest conditions, they were finally poised to enter their own land.

But there was a problem. There were people living there who would not welcome them. They would face adversaries almost immediately who would try to drive them out. As Israel prepared to cross into their new homeland, their leader Joshua encountered a man – he turns out to be “the commander of the LORD’s army” – with a drawn sword. Joshua approaches him with remarkable courage and demands to know: “Are you for us or for our enemies?” The “man” replies, “Neither.”

That is probably not what Joshua wanted to hear, but it was what he needed to hear. The question was not then, nor is it now, whether God is on our side. The question is whether we are on his. Until Christians get that right, whatever choice they make in the voting booth will be wrong.

When it comes to the question of whether Jesus is a conservative or a liberal, I think there is evidence for both, but there is no evidence that he is a Republican or a Democrat. He calls Republicans and Democrats to join his side. He will not join theirs.

There is only one miracle story (besides the resurrection) that appears in all four primary accounts of Jesus’s life: the story of the feeding of the 5,000. In the story, Jesus takes his closest followers away for a private retreat, but the crowds discover their destination and meet them there. Jesus feels compassion for them, teaches them, and heals those who are ill.

Late in the afternoon (Greek is more picturesque: “The day had begun to recline”), Jesus’s apostles told him to “Send the crowd away…so they can find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place.” Obviously, they had been thinking about this and assumed that Jesus, busy as he was, had not. Nevertheless, it is probably not wise to tell the Lord what to do.

Jesus, like a true liberal, had compassion on the crowd. Instead of telling them to fend for themselves like responsible adults, he told his team to feed them. Rather than getting busy with that, the team explained to Jesus why it couldn’t be done. It is probably not wise to tell the Lord that something he chooses to do can’t be done.

When it comes to Jesus, where there is a will there is a way. He proceeded to feed the crowds so that everyone was satisfied. Then, like a true conservative, he told his team to “gather the pieces that are leftover. Let nothing be wasted.”

When conservative Christians complain about liberals, it is rarely because they are liberal. It is usually because their party advocates for issues like abortion, gender transitioning, and the abolition of police departments. These are not liberal positions, even if many “liberals” support them. (However, contrary to media propaganda, polling reveals that few liberals want to abolish the police.)

When liberal Christians complain about conservatives, it is rarely because they are conservative. It is usually because their party opposes compassionate immigration laws, ignores historic injustices, and elevates one race above others. These are not conservative positions, though they are positions that many “conservatives” take.

As a Christian, I want to be liberal in the sense that I want to be openhanded with my (not someone else’s) resources. I want to welcome the oppressed and feel compassion for those who are different from me. I also want to be conservative in the sense that I conserve what is good, whether morality or resources or the God-given gifts and insights of people who are not like me.

It seems necessary to me to reject liberalism as a political doctrine while treating people with liberality and reject conservatism as a political doctrine while conserving all that is just and good.

Liberalism or conservatism is a false dichotomy for a Christian—a fool’s choice. Instead of standing on an “ism” – any “ism” – let the Christian follow the way of Christ. He did not tread some middle way, like Aristotle’s golden mean, but ascended to the summit of love. It is ours to follow him there.

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Immeasurable Power (Ephesians 1:19-23)

Posted on October 16, 2024 by salooper57

Below are excerpts from this week’s sermon on Ephesians 1:19-22, which focuses on a personal (and corporate) experience of God’s power. (Reading time: 3-4 minutes.)

In chapter 3, Paul tells the Ephesians that God’s intention is to make known to rulers and authorities his wisdom – the absolute brilliance and effectiveness of his plan – and to do so through the Church. The Church is his proving ground, his test track. The church is intended to be the working model of what God can do in the world. The Church is on display as the prototype of God’s wisdom and power. That should make us tremble.

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Every year in January, Las Vegas hosts the country’s biggest tech show. People come from around the world to see the latest innovations: ai robots, personal mini-aircraft, a countertop CNC machine, even a transparent TV – you can watch your show and see what the kids are up to at the same time. This year at the tech show, GE introduced its smart indoor smoker, which burns real wood pellets in your kitchen while filtering out the smoke. It also has a separate heating element which you can control from your phone. (Next year’s model will even eat your brisket so that you don’t have to.)

Imagine you are at the Indoor Smoker display at the tech show. The guy running the demonstration looks at an app on his phone, which tells him that the brisket has reached 130 degrees. That’s not high enough, so he touches his phone screen, and the smoker turns up the heat. He shows his audience the phone and smiles knowingly. But then something happens. Smoke starts bellowing from the smoker, the fire suppression system is triggered, and water begins cascading from above. The AI robot assistant in the next display is electrocuted, the entire Expo Center has to be evacuated, and no one wants to have anything to do with GE.

Here is what we need to understand. Earth itself is a kind of Trade Show, and God has a display: the church. He is demonstrating his know-how and power in a group of very imperfect people, transforming them into what Dallas Willard describes as “an all-inclusive community of loving persons, with himself as its primary sustainer and most glorious inhabitant.”

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This transformation happens as we experience God’s power in our lives. Our desires begin to change (that is a fundamental part of the process), as do our attitudes and our relationships, and we gradually become that beautiful community of loving persons. Others, including non-human powers, see what God is capable of doing.

But when we sin and fall short of the glory of God by refusing to give and to forgive, by acting hypocritically, gossiping, manipulating, we catch fire, ruin the display, and empty the pews. And no one wants to have anything to do with God.

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But what if I have doubts? Doubt is not a big problem. Unbelief is. Doubt exists in the absence of knowledge and when knowledge is supplied, the doubter believes. But unbelief – the refusal to believe – is different. It is not motivated by lack of knowledge but by an unwillingness to submit. Doubt is routinely the predecessor to belief. Unbelief is routinely the predecessor to ruin.

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Imagine living six miles south of town on County Road 7 in 1936. You don’t have electricity (and don’t really trust it, either). None of your neighbors have electricity. But then Edna and her husband – he works at the car dealership in town – become the first to sign up. The Electric Company runs a wire from Mishawaka Road to the new pole and then to their house. If you want to see what electricity can do, go to Edna’s house. They’ve put in electric lights, a refrigerator, and even an electric toaster. The only way you’ll see electric power at your house is if lightning strikes, which is not very likely. Just so, God’s power may strike someone who is outside the Church and doesn’t care about Jesus’s mission, but it doesn’t happen very often.

This is hard for us to grasp. Western Christians tend to see a “personal relationship with Jesus” in isolation from Jesus’s mission, his church, and God’s glorious inheritance in the saints. But when God displays his power, it happens where Jesus is obeyed and his mission advanced. Since the Church is the prototype or the test site or the working model for what God can do, it is where we find his power at work.  

Imagine again that it’s 1936 and you’ve just got on the bandwagon and had the electric company run a wire to your house. You’ve got two electric lights in your kitchen, a lamp in your living room, and one in each of your bedrooms. You have five places where the electricity can actually accomplish something in your house.

It’s a good start. Now imagine that its 1966, you’re still in the same house, and those five light bulbs are still the only electricity-using devices in your home. It’s what you’ve become accustomed to, and you don’t think much about it, but you’re not experiencing many of the benefits electricity could provide. You’re still using an icebox and a woodstove. Your wife heats her curling iron over the fire before curling her hair.

Similarly, we will only experience God’s power if something in our life uses God’s power. Our houses have TVs and computers, stoves and dishwashers, fans and hairdryers, and they all use electricity. Is there anything in our lives that uses God’s power?

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One outlet for God’s power is being a witness to Jesus. In Acts 1:8, Jesus linked power with being a witness. Be a witness to Jesus at work or with a friend, and see if God’s power doesn’t flow through you.

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Helping others in Jesus’s name draws on God’s power. The disciples were surprised and overjoyed at the power they experienced when Jesus sent them out to proclaim the good news and to heal those who were hurting. When we engage in Jesus’s mission, we have Jesus’s power.

We need outlets for God’s power in our lives; do you have any? Every time one of us connects to God so that his power flows through us, it’s like a light comes on in the church. When we are all connected, the church becomes the success of the entire exhibition known as life on earth. It becomes, in Jesus’s metaphor, a city on a hill that cannot be hidden.

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The Riches of His Glorious Inheritance in the Saints

Watch last week’s sermon below: The Riches of His Glorious Inheritance in the Saints. (Viewing time:is 23:00.)

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The Power of Community to Shape Us

Posted on October 12, 2024 by salooper57

Community is in vogue. I hear and read the word often, certainly around the church but also in society generally. People are currently into building community. There is a lot of buzz.

It is no coincidence that our interest in community has increased as our practice of community has splintered. We are lonelier than ever. The Surgeon General calls loneliness a public health crisis. A 2019 survey revealed that 58% of Americans felt like no one in their life knew them well. Last year, one in four adults reported feeling lonely.

The Department of Health and Human Services states that the “physical health consequences of poor or insufficient connection include a 29% increased risk of heart disease, a 32% increased risk of stroke, and a 50% increased risk of developing dementia for older adults. Additionally, lacking social connection increases risk of premature death by more than 60%.”

The problem is, however, even bigger than the statistics show. Insufficient connection not only leads to premature death, it leads to underdeveloped people. We exist in relationship, and it is in relationship that we become who we are. We need community. We are not ourselves by ourselves.

We think about things in a certain way because of our community. We desire the things we desire and dread the things we dread because of community. Our openness to new experiences, our pleasure in entertainment, the value we place on possessions – it all has developed as we have been shaped by community.

Community begins with the Creator. Our relationship with him is primal and is by far the most influential in our development. But other relationships, and perhaps all relationships, are also formative. Because the parent/child relationship begins in the womb and continues through the years of greatest development, it is of critical importance. But other relationships also shape us: siblings, friends, authority figures, enemies, TV characters, even pets.

God made human beings malleable with the intention that they would change, develop, become. It was his expectation that humans would be shaped in community—community with him and with others who love and value them. When Adam rebelled, the community that existed with God and with other humans was badly damaged. Humans continued to be shaped in relationship – that was how they were designed – but those relationships were no longer universally characterized by love and value.

Everyone is shaped by community. Some people’s primary community is family. For others, it is the church. For a great many, Facebook, Fox News, or MSNBC – digital media communities – are primary. Whatever our community, the shaping that takes place there can leave us misshaped. We can be formed into shapes of contentment, kindness, and joy, or twisted into shapes of insatiable desire, fear, and anger. Our malleability, so important for our formation in the Imago Dei, makes possible our formation in the imago diabolus.

Theologians speak of the fall of Adam as if it were a done deal, but Adam (the word means “human”) is still falling. And it wasn’t merely a fall; Adam was intending to hurdle into the place of God, deciding for himself what was good and evil. In other words, it was a rebellion. But Adam fell short of the glory of God, and humanity is still falling. Instead of being formed as God lovingly intended, we are warped into distorted images of fear and greed.

Into this mess, Jesus comes to save us. Instead of trying to hurdle into God’s place, as the first Adam did, the second Adam hurtles into the depths, like a skydiver trying to catch someone whose chute has failed. Through him, humanity, which had “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things,” is given the opportunity to be shaped again into God’s image.

All this brings us back to community. By God’s design, this shaping/reshaping happens in relationship – we are not ourselves by ourselves – and it is the closest relationships that shape us the most. This is reason enough to ask if we are in community.

But then, everyone is in community. Which community is the question. Is our community personal or digital, helpful or hurtful? Since we are shaped most by our closest relationships, it is worth asking who is in our closest relationship circle and how they are shaping us.

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Understanding God’s Inheritance in the Saints

Posted on October 10, 2024 by salooper57

Excerpts from The Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation (part 2)

 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe… (Eph. 1:15-19a)

In a mystery novel, the brilliant detective walks into the room and knows almost immediately that the duke slumped over in his chair did not die of natural causes. He’s certain someone else was in the room when his lordship met his untimely death. The police, of course, noted the wine glass on the tray but only he understood its significance: the dead man was a Methodist and a teetotaler.  

Those are clues for finding murderers and exoplanets but what clues would a detective (say, an apostolic detective) look for to determine whether God was in a church? St. Paul knew the signs and referred to them again and again. When you find (v. 15) the presence of faith in Jesus, combined with a love for all the saints, you can be sure God has been there. No one else leaves precisely those clues. They are as good as a fingerprint. They are God’s fingerprint.

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Notice the surprising pronoun: it’s not your inheritance or even our inheritance; it’s his inheritance—his inheritance in the saints. Paul frequently speaks about our inheritance, but here he has God’s inheritance in mind—and it is an inheritance to die for. And someone did. We often speak of Jesus dying to give us eternal life (which is wonderfully true) but he also died to give God a glorious inheritance in the saints. It’s not too much to say that Jesus was dying to have that inheritance.

But what does God need with an inheritance? Doesn’t everything already belong to him? Doesn’t he hold the intellectual property rights, since he thought of everything? Aren’t all use rights determined by him, since he made everything? Does not “every animal of the forests and the cattle on a thousand hills” belong to him (Psalm 50:10), along with every planet and sun and galaxy in the universe. Everything belongs to him by right, including every person who lives, has lived, or will live. But God is not satisfied to have us by right. He will have us also by love. He is not satisfied to leave us in our low estate, plagued by sorrow, sin, and weakness. He will have us exalted in joy, glory, and power. This is the meaning of the extravagant, inordinate, sacrificial life and death of Jesus.

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Paul also uses the word “glory” to describe the saints – “the glory of his inheritance.” When we look at the saints, we see old Mrs. Smudge, who can never manage to put her lipstick on straight. We see Mr. Contrary, who is about as much fun as a toothache. Then there’s Nancy Neurotic, who is a bundle of weirdness and John Washout, who has failed spectacularly at everything he ever put his hand to. And they – how easy it is to forget – see us. It sure doesn’t seem like glory that we are seeing.

Jon Foreman described the saints (including himself) as the “Beautiful Letdown.” He called us “the church of the dropouts, the losers, the sinners, the failures, and the fools.” Where is the glory in that?

It’s there, but it’s down deep and we only just get glimpses of it. But then our spiritual vision is monocular. We lack depth of vision, especially when we look at the saints. We see only two-dimensional, cartoon-like characters: flat, occasionally funny, often sad. But God has great depth perception.

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John of Krondstadt caught glimpses, but God sees Jesus in us with perfect acuity. Add Jesus, even to people like us, and you get glory. After coming here from Russia, comedian Yakov Smirnoff said the thing he loved most about America was its grocery stores. He’d say, “I’ll never forget walking down one of the aisles and seeing powdered milk; just add water and you get milk. Right next to it was powdered orange juice; just add water and you get orange juice. Then I saw baby powder, and I thought to myself, What a country!”[1]

When God looks at us, he sees something others overlook: Jesus Christ. Just add Jesus and you get … glory.

We are spiritually monocular – no depth perception – but we are also temporally myopic: the future is dark to us. But God sees deep and he sees far. He not only sees what we are, he sees what we will be. And it’s not that he looks into the future, like a prophet or fortune teller. He’s already there. He sees us, complete and resplendent in glory. He sees the Church, the Bride of Christ, effulgent, breathtakingly beautiful, unconquerably strong. He sees glory.

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…take a look around. What do you see? Mrs. Smudge? John Washout? Mr. Contrary? What does God see? “The riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.” Ask God to give us the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him so that we can see it too.

[1] From Mark Batterson, The Circle Maker, (Zondervan, 2011), pp. 134-135

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