Prayer: It Doesn’t Need to Be Boring

Posted on August 13, 2024 by salooper57
23:43 seconds

Prayer does not need to be boring. This message was preached on 8/4 at California Road Missionary Church. It is based on Colossians 4:2-6. If you have trouble being consistent in your prayers, this text might be just what you need.

For those who prefer to read the ms. (there are always differences between the written version and the spoken one), you can read below. Be sure to post comments!

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Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4:2-6)

A great problem with Christianity in America (and perhaps elsewhere) is that it is boring. Christians spend an hour or more each week in a church service with two-hundred-year-old music and a preacher who drones on for thirty or forty minutes.

Christians read (or are supposed to read) a book that is thousands of years old, which hardly anyone understands. And they are required to pray. But the moment they close their eyes, they either drift off to sleep, or their mind rushes to its worries or escapes to its fantasies.

But guess what? Bible reading and prayer are not inherently boring. They are only boring when bored people are doing the reading and praying. They bring their boredom with them. If we pray boring prayers, it probably means we are leading boring lives. Jesus’s praying was not like that, but then he led an interesting, sometimes intense, and always purposeful life.

Our desire to follow Jesus has been thwarted by a misconception. We think the Christian life is about doing religious things like going to church, reading the Bible, praying—and in some circles, giving ten percent of your income to the church and teaching a Junior High Sunday School Class.

What we’ve done – or our adversary has done to us – is separate the Christian from the life. It is as if we have a life – our real life – to which we add Christian things, like church attendance, Bible reading, and prayer. But a life does not become Christian because a person does religious things; it becomes Christian when a person does everyday things “in the name of Jesus Christ” (Col. 3:17). It was everyday things that the apostle was writing about just before this section on prayer: how one treats a spouse, relates to children and parents, and works a job. 

If prayer is boring, it is because bored people are praying about things that have little to do with “real” life. Boredom is a serious condition. Bored people are easy prey for distractions, addictions, and temptations. So much of what happens today on the American religious scene is focused on alleviating Christians’ boredom.

Until prayer is released from religion and taken into everyday life, it will be boring. It is significant that, while prayer is mentioned over 160 times in the New Testament, it is hardly ever spoken of in connection with a religious service. The only time that I can think of is when Jesus said, “Do not be like the hypocrites who love to pray in the synagogues” (Matthew 6:5).

That means that prayer needs to make its way out of the church building and into our homes, workplaces, and relationships. When was the last time you talked to God when you were at work? Or talked to God about work when you were at home? When was the last time you talked to God about how to love your spouse or be patient with your kids? When prayer is locked up in church, it grows pale and sickly, and is soon too frail to accomplish anything.

But for the person who does whatever he or she does in the name of Jesus (that is chapter 3, verse 17), prayer is not a matter of religious devotion but of personal necessity. You cannot do whatever you do in the name of Jesus without prayer. Now, I am not talking about going off by oneself to pray, though there is a time and a place for that. I have gone on annual prayer retreats for years, and I spend a half-day in prayer once a month. Jesus frequently went to the mountains or into the countryside to pray. Paul went into Arabia.

Private prayer is important, but in this passage, Paul is not talking about going away to pray. He is talking about going about your day to pray—doing your normal things, but all the while communicating with God. And not just when you have something to pray about, but when God has something for you to pray about. You see, when God wants to get something done, he begins by looking for a person who is ready to pray. Prayer is the foundational way we work together with God.

The phrase (v. 2), “Continue steadfastly in prayer,” translates an interesting Greek construction. It reads something like, “As to prayer, kept in readiness.” We find this word in Mark’s Gospel (3:9) when Jesus, “told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him.” “Ready for him” is the same word we have here.

We find it again in Acts 10, where the Roman centurion Cornelius kept a soldier at the ready, in case something should come up. In Romans 13, Paul uses this word for government officials who “give their full time to governing,” as the NIV puts it. It could be translated, “who are always on call.”

God wants us to be on-call for prayer, so that we can engage with him whenever and wherever we are: work, home, restaurant, doctor’s office. He is in those places and is already at work there, and he wants us to join him in what he is doing. This kind of prayer is the catalyst of adventure.

You are in the checkout line at the supermarket. The woman in front of you is losing patience with her four-year-old. God calls you to pray for her, for peace and perspective. While you are praying, he may or may not bring something to your mind to say. But only if you “continue steadfastly in prayer,” that is, only if you are on-call to pray, will you be able to participate with him. Otherwise, you will miss the opportunity.

You are at work, and a co-worker is talking about money problems. If you are on-call you can pray for him. You are at home when an ambulance drives down your street, sirens blaring. If you are on-call, you can pray for the EMTs, the person they are going to help, and for the family of that person.

But prayer is not a substitute for action. C. S. Lewis once wrote, “I am often, I believe, praying for others when I should be doing things for them. It’s so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see him.” The kind of prayer Paul is talking about is not a substitute for action; it is preparation for it.

Now look at the next part of the sentence: “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it…” That is a verb, a participle: literally, “watching in it.” “Be on-call for prayer, watching in it.” Watching for what?

We watch for the things God wants us to pray about. He wants us to join the adventure, to live in the world with him, and prayer is the door through which we enter the adventure. And so, we go through our days with our eyes open, ready to pray at the whisper of the Spirit. Out of that prayer will come action and out of that action will come answers – wonderful answers that will encourage us and others to trust God. Some, who have walked this way many years, have become keenly attuned to God’s call to pray.

When Jim Stegalls was nineteen, he shipped out to Vietnam. He carried a small Gideon New Testament in his shirt pocket, though he never read it. For him, it was good-luck charm. While in Vietnam, Jim saw friends die, and the fear of dying grew inside of him. He was in country when he turned twenty. He was still there when he turned twenty-one.

On February 26, 1968, Jim woke up with the certainty that he would be dead before nightfall. He couldn’t explain it, but he was sure that he was going to die. That day his base came under attack, and Jim heard an incoming rocket. He actually told himself, “Three seconds to live…two…” and then…

A friend shoved him into a grease pit, there was a terrible crash, things falling all around him, and he waited for the explosion. It didn’t come. He couldn’t get out of the grease pit – he was trapped – so he waited, worried all the while that the rocket with which he now shared a room would suddenly detonate. It took five hours for an explosives team to come and safely defuse the rocket.

During that time Jim read his pocket Testament. He started in Matthew 1 and he read through chapter 18. He later said that when he got to verses 19 and 20 of that chapter, he knew he would be alright.

After Jim returned home, he visited his wife’s grandmother, who told him about a night when she had awakened in terror. All she could think about was Jim, in Vietnam. She began to pray to God to spare his life. Because of her arthritis, she couldn’t kneel, so she lay prone on the floor, reading her Bible and praying all night.

Just before dawn she read Matthew 18, verses 19-20: “Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

She called her Sunday School teacher, who got out of bed and went to her house to pray with her for Jim. They kept praying until they felt sure that God had answered.

After telling Jim that story, Grandma opened her Bible to Matthew 18 and showed him where she had marked that passage. In the margin she had written: “Jim, February 26, 1968.” Things like that happen to people who live the adventure with God, who are on-call to pray, and are watching.

What do we watch for? We watch for God to open doors for us to share Christ with others. Verse 3: “…At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ…” We pray for clarity as we relate to others. Verse 4: “that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.” We pray for the people we meet, for opportunities to express God’s love and purpose to them. Verse 5: “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.” We pray for grace and wisdom. Verse 6: “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”                                                                                              

This is not an exhaustive list of things to pray about. These are just a few things. But we watch everything. We understand that our prayers won’t make God act, but we know that’s alright because he is already in action. So, we keep our eyes open to see what he is doing. A teacher once told his students that experiences with God cannot be planned or manipulated. “They are spontaneous moments of grace,” he said, “almost accidental.”

One of his students piped up, “If that is so, why do we work so hard doing all these spiritual practices?”

His teacher answered, “To be as accident-prone as possible.”2

So, we watch for people and things to pray about, but we also watch for answers. The psalmist says, “In the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation” (Ps. 5:3, NIV) That man lived the adventure. He was watching to see what God would do in response to his prayer.

I see answers to prayer regularly. If you do not, it does not mean there haven’t been answers. It may just mean that you were too distracted to notice. “Be on-call in prayer, watching in it.”

We respond of God’s answers with thanksgiving. Our verse says, “Be on-call in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving.” Thanksgiving is the lens through which we watch. Without it, we just can’t see clearly; hence, we cannot pray powerfully.

Before I had cataract surgery, when I was in the barbershop getting my hair cut, people would come in and sit down and start talking, occasionally to me. “Hey, I liked your column this week!” And I’d say “Thanks.” But all the while, I’d be wondering who that person was. Without my glasses, I was as blind as the proverbial bat.

When it comes to recognizing our opportunities and God’s answers, without the lens of thanksgiving, we are as blind as the proverbial bat. Thanksgiving is the lens that corrects spiritual myopia. If you’re not thankful, your missing answers and opportunities.

A few years ago, a man came home to find eight thieves in his house. I suppose they were a gang of teenagers. They fled, but the homeowner gave chase and managed to push one of them into the backyard pool. He immediately realized that the guy couldn’t swim, so he jumped in and pulled him out. He saved his life.

The thief returned the favor by pulling a knife on the homeowner. He still wanted to rob him, even though the man saved his life. So, the homeowner knocked him right back into the pool.

Are we all that different from the ungrateful thief? We demand things of God, then when we get into trouble, we ask for his help. Once he has helped us, we go back to demanding things. It would serve us right if he threw us right back into our troubles, but he usually doesn’t.

Paul says, “Be on-call in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving.” Thanksgiving is not one more of a long list of virtues you need to add to your life. Rather, it is like the paper on which that list of virtues is written. Thanksgiving provides the backdrop on which the other virtues – courage, faithfulness, perseverance, patience, joy – are displayed.

Do you know what kind of person is consistent in giving thanks? A thankful person. If you’re thinking, “That may be the lamest thing I’ve ever heard,” let me tell you why you’re wrong. To be the kind of person you want to be, that God wants you to be, it is not enough to give thanks. Anyone can do that for a short time. You need to be thankful. There is a big difference. When it comes to following Jesus, it’s always more about who you are than what you do.

How do we become thankful people at the core of our beings? Well, we live the adventure we have been talking about. On-call for prayer, watching in it. It is transformative. But let me give you three suggestions that may be helpful for living that way.

First, to live this kind of life, we must be convinced that God is here, is already at work, and wants us to join him in what he is doing. We can’t live this adventure without that confidence. We need more than head knowledge. This needs to be our basic operating assumption. If you are not convinced about this (and most of us are not), ask God to convince you.

Secondly, when you don’t see God at work around you (which will be much of the time since we are all spiritually myopic), choose to walk by faith, not by sight. You cannot do this if you are focused on circumstances, so lift your eyes above your circumstances. I have been lost in the woods before, tried to guess my direction and ended up more lost that ever. But when I looked above the trees and saw the westering sun, I knew which way to go. As the sun towers above the trees that hemmed me in, so the cross towers above the circumstances of life. Trust God’s love. Look up. Look to the cross.

Thirdly, living this way takes practice. The easiest place to start practicing is with thanksgiving. Don’t worry if it does not feel natural. That takes time.

You might be able to walk over to the piano and play a few notes, or even a song or two, without being a pianist. Just so, a person can give thanks without being thankful. But if you ever want to be a real pianist, you must play the piano, and you must play it often. If you want to be truly thankful, you must give thanks, and you must give it often. Practice giving thanks. In good times – meals, warm house, good kids, health. In hard times – sickness, loss, anxiety, disappointment. When you give thanks in hard times, it moves knowledge and commitment from your head to your heart, from what you do to who you are. So, start thanking God for working out his purpose for you in everything. Practice makes perfect.

“Continue steadfastly in prayer being watchful in it with thanksgiving.”

Blessing/Sending (Philippians 4) Rejoice in the Lord always. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. Our Lord is near. Don’t be anxious about anything, but in every situation, bring your requests to God by prayer and petition with thanksgiving. And the peace of our God, which far surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

               2 Philip Yancy, Prayer (Zondervan, 2006)

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Who Is Your Favorite Apostle?

Posted on August 10, 2024 by salooper57

Everyone is taking surveys these days. Political advocacy groups are always calling with their carefully crafted questions, devised to show their candidate in the most favorable light. Online retailers, restaurant chains, banks, and research organizations all use surveys. That led me to wonder: If there were a survey for everyone’s favorite apostle, who would win?

I found a thread on Reddit in response to the question, “Who Is Your Favorite Apostle?” Many people mentioned Peter, citing the remarkable turnaround the flawed apostle made after Jesus’s resurrection. A few mentioned Andrew, who first introduced Peter to Jesus. Others mentioned John, the brilliant apostle whose spiritual discernment was extraordinary. Some Reddit users preferred Doubting Thomas, who became the Apostle to India.

Matthew would have been an interesting choice. After making some terrible life choices, he turned his life around and followed Jesus. Though no one in the Reddit crowd mentioned him, James the brother of John had the distinction of being the first apostle to be martyred. Simon the Zealot is another possibility. He was a political hothead whose efforts were redirected to the kingdom of God.

No one on the Reddit thread chose the Apostle Philip, my personal favorite. That is not surprising. Not counting the lists where his name appears, he is only mentioned in four New Testament passages. He is, nevertheless, my favorite. I wish I were like the brilliant John, but I identify with Philip.

Philip, I realized years ago, was the dull point of the apostolic band. When Jesus and his disciples found themselves in a deserted wilderness with thousands of hungry people – probably festival-goers from the Galilee region – Jesus asked Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for all these people to eat?”

Jesus was not serious about buying bread – an impossibility in that wilderness. He “asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.” But poor Philip was oblivious to Jesus’s intention and burst out, “That would cost a fortune!” If Jesus was testing him, he failed the test.

A couple of years later, things had become very serious. The hostility directed toward Jesus from government and religious leaders – the two were largely the same – had reached fever pitch. Jesus and his disciples were in Jerusalem for the biggest religious festival of the year, and the net was closing around Jesus. He had warned his disciples repeatedly that he would be arrested, humiliated, and killed.

On the very eve of his arrest, Jesus encouraged his disciples: “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.” He invited them to trust God and to trust him. He told them that his Father God was just like him, and, since they knew him, they knew God.

That was when Philip, befuddled yet again, said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Show us the Father? Bring the infinite God into this small, upstairs room and put him on display? Capture the Eternal One in a moment of time, like a lion in a cage? Once again, Philip just didn’t get Jesus.

So, why is he my favorite apostle? Because I am not a great leader like Peter. I don’t have a brilliant mind like John. Like Philip, I am sometimes a dull point. I don’t always get Jesus. But Jesus gets me, just like he got Philip.

He literally got Philip. Of the twelve apostles, Philip is the only one, at least as far as we are told, that Jesus went after to make his own. In John’s Gospel, we are told that Jesus went and found Philip. He wanted him. He chose him.

Jesus didn’t choose Philip because he was brilliant. He didn’t go looking for him because he couldn’t get along without him. There was nothing extraordinary about Philip, at least nothing that other people could see. Jesus chose Philip because he wanted him.

That means there is hope for me, an ordinary guy, who brings nothing special to the table. Yet, Jesus wants me too and went looking for me. That is a source of infinite hope.

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Prayer: It’s Not an Individual Sport

Posted on August 7, 2024 by salooper57
View Time 32:45.

I promised the video for this sermon when I posted the ms. Thanks, Noah Lee, for your work on the video.

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Baptism (sermon video)

Posted on August 4, 2024 by salooper57

I previously posed the manuscript for this sermon but was unable to post the video. Hope you find this encouraging!

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Religious Adventure: It’s Not an Oxymoron

Posted on August 3, 2024 by salooper57

When people think of the religious life, “adventure” is not a word that usually comes to mind. Instead, they picture a monk, sitting alone in his cell, praying and reading Scripture, or working silently alongside a fellow-brother, both under a vow of silence. Not much adventure there.

The religious life seems to be the antithesis of adventure. Isn’t it those who want to avoid risk who take holy orders? Aren’t preachers the Milquetoasts of society?

Our culture would have us think so. In Emerson’s essays, Jane Austin’s novels, and contemporary representations of religious people in television and film, if the pastor is not a selfish hypocrite, he is a pretentious bore. Religious people play it safe. They don’t want any trouble as they tread this earthly sod on their way to an even more boring heaven.

It is ironic that some of the people who have lived the most adventurous lives, full of risk and filled with purpose, have been people of faith. Take Francis of Assisi. After returning home from the wars, Francis abandoned his wealthy father’s business, renounced his inheritance, stood up to the pope, and transformed society.

What about St. Paul? Shortly after his commitment to Jesus as the Messiah, he had to go into hiding. He barely escaped capture, lived in the desert, and then returned to civilization to proclaim the tidings of a God who loves everyone. He faced relentless enemies, was jailed more times than he could remember, was nearly killed in a riot, and was finally beheaded. His life was an adventure.

One needn’t go back to Sts. Francis and Paul to find examples of people of faith who lived adventurous lives. A few years ago, Asia Bibi, a Pakastani Christian wife and mother was attacked by a mob because a neighbor claimed that she had blasphemed Muhammed. Though widely believed to be innocent, she was arrested and sentenced to death. The governor of her province was assassinated for defending her, as was the Minister for Minority Affairs. Hardly a boring life.

In 2008, a man named Cho Kwanghyuk started a secret church in North Korea. Only nine people attended and they had only one Bible between them. When word about the church got out, Cho was arrested. He was tortured and sent to a labor camp, but managed to escape and find sanctuary in the U.S. He lives the adventure.

How could it be otherwise for people who follow Jesus and are determined to be like him? No one ever lived a more adventurous life than their leader. Christian theology takes the story all the way back to God’s decision to enter the world as a fully human being – talk about an adventure – in order to rescue humanity from ruin.

Jesus’s entire life was an adventure. A maniacally paranoid king tried to hunt him down and kill him when he was just a child. His family escaped and fled the country. His public ministry brought him fame and thousands of followers, but it also brought harassment, accusations, and multiple attempts on his life. When he entered Jerusalem on the day known as Palm Sunday, Jesus knew that he was signing his own death warrant.

But Jesus’s life was adventurous even apart from these extraordinary things. He lived out of a connection to his Father God, a connection maintained through prayer. Prayer needn’t be an exercise in boredom—not if it is done right. It can be the door to adventure.

It was for Jesus. God guided him, at least in part, through his prayers. Because he prayed, he recognized God-given opportunities, which he called “the works that the Father has given me.” For Jesus, every day was an adventure, whether he was healing a proud curmudgeon (as in John 5), engaging in lively repartee with a foreigner (Mark 7), or calming a raging demoniac (Luke 8). No one lived a more adventurous life.

When prayer is boring, it is because bored people are praying about things for which they care little. When prayer becomes a means of interacting with God in his redemptive work, the adventure begins and boredom vanishes.

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Praying: It’s Not an Individual Sport

Posted on July 31, 2024 by salooper57

[Praying is not like a hundred-meter dash but a relay. It often requires more than one person. In this sermon from Acts 4, we focus in on the benefits of praying together. I will post the video for this sermon when it becomes available.]

PRAYING TOGETHER (Acts 4)

Imagine you live in a world where Christians are looked down on. Persecution is usually not overt, but even that happens from time to time. Lately it’s been happening more frequently. It’s not that there is a law on the books that forbids belief in Jesus, but people who do believe find it safer and easier to keep their mouths shut.

Can you imagine that world? It’s not hard, is it? We live in that world. There are places where there are laws on the books that forbid a person from believing in Jesus, but there are many more places where it’s just safer and easier to keep your mouth shut. Some would argue that the United States is becoming one of those places.

The Bible offers wise counsel about living as Jesus’s people in a hostile setting. This counsel comes directly out of the biblical authors’ experience. They knew, as millions of people today are learning, what it is to be mistreated for the name and cause of Jesus. After the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2), things went along smoothly for a while. But that eventually changed and, when it did, things got very tense very fast.

Sts. Peter and John found themselves in the crosshairs of the enemies of Jesus. The people who orchestrated Jesus’s execution were coming after them. They were arrested and ordered to stop speaking in Jesus’s name. They responded to that order with a point-blank refusal. They were then threatened – we don’t know what those threats entailed, but they may have included beatings and incarcerations – and then released.

Jesus had told them to go and tell, but the authorities were telling them to stay and be quiet. There was no question about who Peter and John would obey, but what about the thousands of brand-new Jesus-followers who had recently come into the church? They were just getting started and that was hard enough even apart from the threat of government reprisals.

What should Peter and John do? Should they keep quiet about what happened to avoid causing panic among the new Christians? No. They went right back to the church and reported everything to them. Let’s read about that, starting in in Acts 4:23.

When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, ‘Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed’— for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

Verse 23 tells us that Peter and John went back to their friends (or, more literally, “their own”). That is significant. These were their people; they belonged to each other. They were in this together. Church was not something they did on Sunday; it was who they were. Had you asked them to identify themselves, they would not have said, “We are Galileans” (or Judeans, or artisans, or farmers, or merchants, or country folk or city dwellers). They would have said, “We are Jesus’s people.” That kind of connectedness has a lot to do with the power of their corporate prayers. That power dissipates when the connectedness is broken.

What about us? Is our default identity Christian, or is our primary identity about nation, race, or party? The way we pray, and the effectiveness of our prayers, will depend on how we answer those questions.

Notice what the church didn’t do when they heard the threats made against them. They didn’t organize, or protest, or write letters to the Sanhedrin. They didn’t contact a lawyer. I’m not saying that would have been wrong; I’m merely pointing out that is not what they did. As soon as they heard the report, “they lifted their voices together in prayer to God” (Acts 4:24). Too often we go to prayer as a last resort. They went to prayer as their first, best option.

“They lifted their voices together in prayer.” But the original language reads, “They lifted their voice (singular) to God…” Their unity in life made their unity in prayer possible. This is a theme we have seen again and again: As you live, so shall you pray. Your prayer will not rise above your life.

Look at how they prayed. They did not begin with a laundry list of requests as I might have done, had I been threatened. There are only two requests in their prayer, and they come near its end. They begin instead by acknowledging their God and remembering who – and how great – he is. As you worship, so shall you pray. Your prayer will not rise above your worship.

And notice what they pray. They begin by addressing God as “Sovereign Lord,” which in Greek is δεσπότης, from which comes the word “despot.” The idea here is that the One to whom they pray is the Master, the one with all the authority. The Sanhedrin may act like it has mastery, but that’s all it is: an act. The emperor may believe that he holds ultimate power, but Tiberius serves at the pleasure of their God, and only for as long as he chooses. These Christians believe in a big God.

Do do we. The president of the United States, Democrat or Republican makes no difference, serves at the pleasure of our God, and only for as long as he chooses. There is a higher court than the so-called Supreme Court, a Judge who judges them, and he is our God. There is a Law-Giver whose laws cannot be overturned like those of our Congress, and he is our God.

As they pray, their vision of God grows, and the threats made against them take on realistic proportions. The formula goes like this: Big God, small problems; small God, big problems. In their prayer, they recognize that their God is BIG. That’s a good way to pray. Before we raise our petitions, we would do well to lift our praises.

Verse 24 yet again: “They lifted their voices [voice] together in prayer to God.” “Together” may not be the best way to translate the word St. Luke uses here. It appears eleven times in the New Testament, ten of which occur in the book of Acts.

In the gospels, the disciples were at times divided, they argued and got mad at each other. But after the giving of the Spirit, they were together. They were, as the King James translates this word, “in one accord,” They were of one mind, which is how other translations render it. But there is more to this word than like-mindedness. It denotes a shared passion, a common emotion and desire. That doesn’t happen often in a group, and it never happens because people negotiate or debate or make compromises or pass motions. It happens because God’s Spirit takes people with different gifts and desires and personalities and makes them one body of Christ.

The kind of help that is available to individuals when they pray is also available to groups. The Spirit leads, informs, and intercedes. The requests are shaped, pared, and redirected until they are on target with the will of God. The key (whether it is an individual or a group that is praying) is that they are for Jesus, about Jesus, and representing Jesus. There is no technique or procedure that can replace that. When loving Jesus and standing for him is genuine, the Spirit will always be present and answers to prayer will be numerous.

When a group is so led by the Spirit, a remarkable thing occurs. Though various individuals speak, it is just one prayer that comes through them. These people don’t lift their voices; they lift their voice; and it is the voice of the Body of Christ, which is inexpressibly sweet to God’s ears. This is what Jesus was talking about when he said, “I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven” (Matthew 18:19).

It will help us if we remember the context in which these people raised that single voice. We have already seen that this prayer came in response to threats that had been made against the apostles. But to understand it, we need to pan out and see why they were threatened in the first place.

The animosity of the authorities, and the threats they issued, were a response to the Christian’s public behavior. The authorities couldn’t care less what the Christians said and did in private, but what they said and did in public challenged their narrative and threatened their power. What were those Christians doing? Publishing essays on corruption in the Sanhedrin? Calling people to overthrow the government? Planning a political coup? None of the above.

It is important to understand why these believers were persecuted. It was not because they were pursuing political power for themselves or trying to take it away from others. (That may get you persecuted, as some Christian political activists are finding out, but it won’t get you answers to prayer.) There is not the least hint that these believers had any interest in political power. They would no more trade the power they had for political power than you would trade a real Ferrari for a 3-inch die cast model of one. Then why were these Christians persecuted? They were persecuted because they were speaking and acting in the name of Jesus.

Recently, there has been talk about Christians being persecuted for their conservative views. The Jesus-followers in Acts 4 were not persecuted for their views; they were persecuted for Jesus, in whose name they spoke and acted. If we suffer, let it be for the same reason.

Notice that these men and women rooted their prayer in the Bible. This was not some technique they were taught for getting answers. They prayed Scripture because the Spirit that inspired Scripture was inspiring them. The first line of their prayer echoes King Hezekiah’s great prayer in 2 Kings 19. They then quote at length from Psalm 2. But again: this is not a technique. They are not trying to catch God in his words or use his words as leverage to get him to do what they want. They pray this way because they are inspired by the same Spirit that inspired Hezekiah and the psalmist.

Imagine that we are in their place: the U. S. attorney has threatened us with fines and jail time, and we have called a prayer meeting. What do you think we would pray about? Many of us, I suspect, would pray for protection. That is not wrong; it is not selfish or unspiritual. But these Jesus-followers did not pray for protection. Why not?

Were they okay with being humiliated and beaten and locked up? Not any more than we would be. Yet they, under the Spirit’s leading, didn’t ask God for protection. Why? Because they were sure they already had it. They believed that God was protecting them. So, if he allowed them to suffer, as he allowed his only Son to suffer, he would make it right! That is how we must think of God.

People pray for protection when they are on the defensive. These Christ-followers were on the offensive. They weren’t retreating; they were advancing. They weren’t hiding. They were proclaiming. They understood that they were on an important mission. Safety, comfort, and riches were not among the mission objectives. But bringing people over to God and his kingdom was. If some of them – if all of them – had to suffer to accomplish the mission, they would suffer.

So, what did they ask for? They (verse 29) asked God to consider the threats that had been made against them (they were certainly considering them) and to give them courage to speak his word with boldness. It’s as if they – this group of people who were for each other and knew that God was for them – had said: “Master, we’re scared, and we don’t want to fail you because we’re afraid. We need you to empower us to speak your word (about Jesus and for Jesus) boldly.”

When some people hear the line, “speak your word boldly,” they think, “But I’m not an evangelist.” They assume that speaking God’s word is synonymous with persuading people to accept Jesus. But that isn’t quite what these Christians prayed for. The apostles were not arrested for presenting the Four Spiritual Laws but for acting as Jesus’s representatives and speaking in his name.

This whole ordeal started when Peter and John helped a beggar at the temple gate. Do you remember what Peter said at the time? “I don’t have any money, but what I do have I give you in the name of Jesus…” (Acts 3:6 PAR). He acted with what he had (which is something each of us can do), and he did it in Jesus’s name. He dared to interact with a person in need as Jesus’s representative. We can do that. We should do that. And if we will do that, we will learn more about prayer in a month than we would otherwise learn in a lifetime.

When these people asked for boldness, they were expecting God to “stretch out [his] hand to heal.” They were expecting signs and wonders to be performed through the name of [God’s] holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4:30). But they weren’t expecting God to do these things out there somewhere; they were expecting him to stretch out his hand through them. You say, “But I don’t have the ability to heal or perform signs and wonders.” You don’t need it. Give what you do have – money, time, a listening ear, a car, a prayer – and give it in the name of Jesus. Peter didn’t worry about what he didn’t have. He said, “What I have I give you in Jesus’s name.” That’s all you need to do. God can (and will) handle the signs and wonders.

It can feel awkward to say to people, “I’m doing this” – where this may be giving money, driving to an appointment, providing a meal, mowing a lawn, and 10,000 other things – “in the name of Jesus.” Sometimes I have helped people in these ways, and when they’ve thanked me (they usually haven’t known that I’m a pastor), I’ve said something like: “I’m glad to help but I want you to know that I do this because I belong to Jesus.” I’ve yet to meet a person who wasn’t taken off-guard by that.

Sometimes, a wall goes up at the moment. I’m sure some of these people thought I was weird (and, full discloser, I feel weird every time I say it). But those same people, many who never learned my name and wouldn’t remember it if they had, might remember Jesus’s name. And just think what would happen if someone else did something for them in Jesus’s name next month, and someone else two months after that. What an effect it would have! The testimony about Jesus, as in verse 33, would have great power.

People who act in Jesus’s name find that they can pray in Jesus’s name. The two go together. And they see answers. This is verse 31: “And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.”

Now, how do we apply this? First, when an opportunity arises to act and speak in Jesus’s name, be ready to act. But make sure you are not using his name to lend authority to your cause. I’ve seen people do that, especially in the realm of politics. That will compromise your testimony and destroy your prayer life. But if people will act in Jesus’s name in the world, they will be able to pray in Jesus’s name in the prayer closet. And remember what Jesus said: “Whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you” (John 15:16).

Next, find opportunities to pray with others. This is essential. One such opportunity happens every Wednesday evening at Go Deep at 6:30. We begin our time by praying together for our needs and for the church’s mission. I want to start a prayer group during the week dedicated to praying for Cal Road Church according to the Scriptures. But you can start your own prayer group in your home or at a park or in a restaurant. If that idea resonates with you, go for it!

A final reminder: the most important factor in your prayer life is what happens when you are not praying. As we have seen repeatedly, prayers arise from a life, not just a mind or a mouth. If you suspect that something in your life is hindering your prayers, take steps to deal with it—and the sooner the better.

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Baptism: Grave, Garden, Stage

Posted on July 30, 2024 by salooper57

We baptized 7 people this past Sunday in a joyous celebration of God’s work in their lives and their determination to be Jesus’s people. Standing next to the pool where we baptized these committed people, I shared the following brief introduction:

This is a grave; you could say that we are attending a burial at sea. Today, we bury the “old persons” that Andi, Amanda, Travis, Aaron, Jennifer, Hannah, and Melissa have been. When they connected to Messiah Jesus by faith, they doomed the old person they were without Christ to death. This is a grave.

This is nursery, a garden, where we “plant” seeds and watch them spring to life before our eyes. “For if we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.” Or, as the King James wonderfully puts it, “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” These friends will be planted, watered, and will spring up to glory. So far, as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, we have only seen the seed. What wonder will it be to see the flower in bloom?

This is a stage, and we are the audience, watching with fascination as we see the life and death and new life of these loved ones played out before our eyes. But it will be lived out in a world that is full of joys and woes, and they will need us, the people of Jesus, to live it together with them. Let’s help each other live the Jesus way.

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The Case for Judgment: Why It Is Necessary

Posted on July 27, 2024 by salooper57

The Associated Press once ran a story about Fidel Castro’s visit to Venezuela. The Cuban president used the occasion to sign a big oil contract with Venezuela, then toured the country with President Hugo Chavez, and took in an exhibition baseball game between Cuba and Venezuela.

Chavez, who was then in his mid-forties, actually played in the game that Castro watched. He manned first base and went 0-for-3 at the plate. After the game, President Chavez insisted on pitching to Castro, who was then seventy-four, but had been a good baseball player in his day.

Chavez’ first pitch did not even reach the plate. Castro swung and missed on the second pitch. On the third he tried to bunt, and got called for a strike. Then Chavez threw two more balls, so the two leaders were locked in a full count.

Chavez stared his mentor down, took his windup, and launched his best pitch. It sailed right over the heart of the plate, but Castro’s bat remained on his shoulder. The umpire shouted, “Strike three!” But Castro simply said, “It was a ball,” and took first base. Chavez didn’t say a word. The opposing team stood mum. The ump looked away.

Later Castro joked, “Today just wasn’t Chavez’ day.”

There is reason to worry that some of our leaders are growing more Castro-like all the time, thinking they can do whatever they want, overruling others, and ignoring moral judgments. But while Castro could overrule a Venezuelan umpire, even he could not overrule God. The Scriptures everywhere teach that humans will face an ultimate judgment, and no one will overrule that Judge.

On any list of biblical high points – creation, Fall, the call of Abraham, monarchy, the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus – the Day of Judgment must be included. The Hebrew and Greek nouns for judgment appear well over five hundred times in the Bible. The verb form appears almost two hundred additional times. Judgment is one of the Bible’s most prominent themes, and it comes with the repetition of the promise (or warning) that a final, conclusive judgment is coming.

There are not just dozens but hundreds of biblical texts on the subject. So, why is it that judgment, which is such a major part of the biblical revelation, is almost entirely ignored by the contemporary church?  Judgment is, in our time, the Church’s forgotten doctrine.

Perhaps we are silent on the subject because we have been taught to think of Judgment as a threatening, negative thing. We know that we have done things that deserve to be condemned, so we fear it. But there is another side to judgment.

In the Bible, the Day of Judgment is sometimes applauded by people. They speak of it with longing: “Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy; they will sing before the Lord, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his truth.”

Here the writer yearns for God to judge the earth. Similarly, the Apostle Paul refers to the day of judgment as a part of the gospel, that is, the good news. But how can judgment be good news?

It is good news because it promises to give every person the thing for which they are best suited. At the judgment, people get what they are made for, or what they have made themselves for. You can be sure that even the man who finds himself in hell will be perfectly suited for it.

Judgment is good news because it is the means by which everything that has gone wrong will be set right. Creation itself, St. Paul says, echoing the psalms, longs for the day. It is good news because judgment spells the end of evil, pettiness, hatred, and bigotry.

Judgment, while it certainly means the diminution of some, means the elevation of humanity. Judgment is history’s watershed moment, its turning point, when humanity finally grows up and becomes what God intended it to be all along.

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Baptism: What Is It All About?

Posted on July 25, 2024 by salooper57

Note: We are changing the way we post videos, so I will wait until that is completed before I post the video of this sermon. I will post the manuscript (which always differs a little from what it actually said) below.

Next Sunday after church, we’re all going to Mark and Diana Osborn’s house for lunch. After we eat and hang out for a while, we will baptize more than a half-dozen people. In obedience to Jesus’s instructions, we will take each of these people into the pool and dunk them under the water, and we’ll do it in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

When you think about it, that is a strange thing to do. “You want to begin a new life? That’s fantastic! Let’s stick your head under water.”

In the past, I have often officiated baptisms in very public places – on the beach, at the community pool, or in a lake with speedboats and jet skis zooming by. That was intentional. Even now I encourage people to invite friends and relatives to their baptism, but when people who know nothing about baptism see me “push” someone under water, what must they think?

When we baptized people at the city pool, we were required to hire certified lifeguards. I wonder what they thought as they watched us do this strange thing? I’m a little surprised that none of them jumped in to save the poor woman the crazy guy was holding under water.

(If you’re one of the people getting baptized next week: I don’t really “push” people and I definitely don’t hold them under water. I help them under the water, then lift them back up … after the bubbles stop rising. Not really. Baptism is perfectly safe, though it makes people wonderfully dangerous.)

Why did Jesus tell his disciples to do this to people? When I was a boy, a few of us formed a club – there used to be such things in those days: The Blood-Brothers; the Tribe; the Wild Ones. Club members had a secret sign – a handshake or a code word – to identify them. Was baptism some kind of secret sign among those who had joined the insurgency of love? Whenever they met someone who might be part of the insurgency, did they say enigmatically: “Have you come through the water?”

When I speak or teach or even just talk about baptism, it is not uncommon for someone to say: “But you don’t have to be baptized to be saved.” I’m not sure what these folks mean by “be saved” – probably something like, “go to heaven when you die,”– but I’ll grant them their point gladly. Still, I wonder what they’re worried about.

If they’re worried that I might be teaching that water baptism is a soul-saving add-on to the work of Christ, they can relax. I’m not. But if they are trying to say that baptism is an if-you-feel-like-it-but-it-really-doesn’t-matter kind of thing, I’m worried about them. If they think Jesus’s instructions are only important when they are about getting into heaven, do they just ignore what he said about love, truthfulness, forgiveness, and self-denial?

We baptize because Jesus commanded it. The early church was completely convinced of this. When St. Peter, on the day of Pentecost, was asked what his hearers should do about Jesus, he told them: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38). When Philip the evangelist was preaching “the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ” people were “baptized, both men and women…” (Acts 8:12). When the first Gentiles came to Christ in Acts 10, Peter “commanded that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 10:48). When Saul (soon to be Paul) believed in Messiah Jesus, the first thing he did was get baptized. The first convert in Europe, a woman named Lydia, came to faith at a Bible study. We read, “The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message” and “she and the members of her house were baptized…” (Acts 16:14-15). The early followers of Jesus did not see baptism as an if-you-feel-like-it-but-it-really-doesn’t-matter kind of thing. They knew it was important.

But why was it important? What did it mean? When, after his resurrection, Jesus met his people on the mountain in Galilee, how did they understand what he said to them? This is Matthew 28:18-20: “And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”

We tend to think that Jesus was sending the disciples out on a mission trip, but that is a late Western idea read back into the text. If Jesus was telling the disciples to head down to the docks and book passage on the first cruise ship to the mission field, they either did not understand him or they were downright insubordinate.

Then what is going on here? To understand that, we need to put this passage into context. Remember that Jesus was crucified and on the third day was raised from the dead. Over the next 40 days, he met with his disciples and talked to them about the Kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). God’s kingdom – the establishment of God’s rule on earth – was the subject of a forty-day study program, which is why the disciples asked if Jesus was going to restore the kingdom at that very time (Acts 1:6). So, when Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” they understood what he said in a kingdom of God context.

When we read those words, our minds probably don’t go where the apostles’ minds went: Daniel 7. When Jesus announced that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to him, the words of the prophet Daniel echoed loudly in their minds. Daniel wrote about one “like a son of man” (Jesus’s favorite self-designation) who was led into the presence of the Ancient of Days, where (and this is what the disciples understood Jesus to be talking about): “… to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:14).

Remember Jesus had been instructing his disciples for the last forty days – for the last three years, really – in the Kingdom of God. We may miss the point when he announces he has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. The disciples did not.

Now, here is some important background. When Jesus was born, Herod the Great was king of Israel. Herod had been appointed governor of Galilee when he was just 25 years old. Later, because he fought valiantly for Caesar in the Roman Wars, the Senate conferred on him the title King of the Jews. In 37 B.C., he went to Rome to be crowned by the Emperor Augustus. His coronation didn’t take place in the land of the Jews but in the seat of power, in Rome.

What happened to Herod was not unique. Other vassal kings had done the same thing. They went to Rome to receive a kingdom, and authority to rule was given them. Here’s what we miss, but the early church understood: Jesus did the same thing. After his resurrection, he went to heaven, the seat of power, and was crowned king. He is the rightful King of the earth, but his coronation took place in heaven. In theological parlance, his return to heaven and his coronation are called “The Ascension.” We use the term in the same way history books do when they say, “King John ascended to the throne in 1203.”

After Herod was crowned king, he returned from Rome to Israel to take up his rule. And Jesus will return from heaven to earth to take up his rule. This is what the biblical writers understood had happened and would happen. They knew two things: (1) it would be some time before Jesus returned (though they didn’t know how long); and (2) he had already been crowned king. That was what St. Peter was talking about on the Day of Pentecost, when he said: “For David [King David] did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.’” (Acts 2:34-36).

In his first letter, Peter wrote that Jesus “has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.” (1 Peter 3:22). St. Paul says that God “seated him [Jesus] at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church…” (Ephesians 1:20-22a). This is what we miss but the early disciples understood. They regarded Jesus as the reigning king of the world, which is why they were accused of turning “the world upside down” and of “acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus” (Acts 17:7).

In Matthew 28:18-20, King Jesus is telling his key leaders what to do to prepare for his return and coming rule. The Great Commission (as it is called) launches the Great Campaign, in which the followers of King Jesus work from within the kingdoms of the world to prepare for the return of the king. They do not do so by armed rebellion or political activism, but by recruiting and training members of The Insurgency – that is, citizens of the Kingdom of God. That is what making disciples is all about.

Disciples are recruits, loyal to King Jesus, and living as his agents in the world. But they are not only recruits; they are trainees, apprentices, learners. They are learning how to live for God in the Jesus way. And they start by being baptized.

Jesus doesn’t tell us to give new recruits a secret handshake but a baptism because baptism is full of meaning. In baptism, the person is buried under the water. That means something. He dies. His old life is resolutely left behind. He begins a new life, now as Jesus’s person. Baptism is a decisive, intentional break with the God-less or God-lite life. It marks the transition of our loyalties to King Jesus.

Baptism is a public “Yes” to Jesus. The church has for nearly two millennium referred to baptism as a sacrament. The Latin word sacramentum referred to the oath a Roman soldier took when he joined the military. He swore to be obedient unto death. Our baptism is a sacramentum: We decisively join Jesus, regardless of the cost.

In baptism, a person leaves the old life behind just as Israel left Egypt behind when they crossed the Red Sea. St. Paul says the Israelites were baptized into Moses (1 Cor. 10:2) in the Red Sea. They were joined to him. After the deliverance at the Red Sea, their destiny was all tied up with his. The same is true when we are baptized into Jesus: our destiny is all tied up with his.

Baptism reminds us that we are inseparable from Jesus. This is the heart of baptism. In Romans 6, when Paul speaks of baptism, he says in verse 4 that we were “buried with” (note the word with) “him” (Jesus); in verse 5 we were “united with him” (twice); in verse 6, we were “crucified with him”; in verse 8, we “died with him.”

If that is not impressive enough, listen to this. “I have been crucified with Christ,” Gal. 2:20; “We died with him,” 2 Tim. 2:11; were “buried with him,” in Colossians 2:12; “made alive with him,” in both Colossians 2:13 and Ephesians 2:5; and “raised with him,” Ephesians 2:6. My baptism speaks of the union of my life with Jesus’s life and, if you are also united to Jesus, my baptism speaks of the union of my life with yours.

Prior to John the Baptist and Jesus, the kind of baptism with which we are familiar was only performed on Gentile converts to Judaism. A Gentile man would take off all his clothes, go under the baptismal waters and come out naked as he was on the day he was born. It was said that he had been reborn as a Jew. Our baptism means that we have been reborn into Jesus’s family. We are his people now. We have a new identity.

In the Catholic Church, a child is given his Christian name at baptism because baptism is about identity. So, St. Paul could say, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Jesus instructed his followers to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is much more than saying a formula over people when you dunk them. The Greek word βαπτίζω means “to immerse.” It was used, for example, of a sunken ship; it was immersed.

We don’t just dunk people in water. “Baptizing them in [or into] the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” means immersing them in the life and character of God – which is to say, in the reality of who and what God is. This is the church’s principal job. Jesus wanted his apostles to teach people how to live their lives in God’s presence, just as he had taught them. A baptized person comes out of the water, but he or she never comes out of the God-bathed life.[1] They live a baptized life.

Jesus wanted his leaders to bring people (their work, their play, their family, their relationships, their leisure, their trouble – everything) into the environment of God’s life and presence. A fish spends its life surrounded by water. The baptized person spends life surrounded by God. There is nothing in a Jesus follower’s life of which he or she can say, “This doesn’t have anything to do with God.” Everything has to do with God.

This is very different from religion, as popularly conceived. Disciples – recruits, apprentices, whatever you want to call them – are learning to live in (and count on) God’s presence at work, at home, with others, when alone, in sickness, in health, and all the time. Unless they learn this, unless they are baptized into the name, immersed in the reality of God’s life, discipleship to Jesus will simply not succeed.

Churches often try to make disciples by teaching them (this is verse 20) everything Jesus taught. There are two problems with that: One, that’s not what Jesus said. He told his leaders to teach the recruits to keep (in some versions, observe or obey) everything he taught. Just reading the Bible, even learning the Bible, even memorizing the Bible, misses the point if people aren’t keeping King Jesus’s instructions.

The second problem, which is even more foundational, is that obeying Jesus’s commands is only possible when we are living as Jesus lived: immersed in the reality of the present and powerful God. Baptism in water expresses our desire to live that way—the Jesus way. It is our response to God’s invitation to live our lives immersed in his presence.

Maybe you were baptized long ago and you’re thinking: “Nobody told me any of this stuff.” Well, you’ve been told now. Start living this way today: an agent of the Insurgency of Love. Ask for God’s support; he’ll give it.

If you were baptized as a believer in Jesus – you weren’t just an unbeliever getting wet – you don’t need to be baptized again. You need to re-up. Tell Jesus: “From now on … from now on, I will be your person. I want to learn how to live from you. I want to learn to live with you, as an agent of your kingdom, an operative in the insurgency. I want to learn how to live in the presence of God and not go out.

If you have not been baptized, are you ready to join up? Are you ready to confess Jesus as your Lord the king? Are you ready to join him and his people?

Whether you are a member of the insurgency or not, know this: The revolution has begun. No one could have foreseen where it would start—on a cross. It was there that King Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities and triumphed over them (Colossians 2:15). And who can envision where it will end? In joy unspeakable that is full of glory. In a new heaven and new earth, where righteousness dwells. In a perfected and mature humanity, enfolded in the presence of the most joyful Being in the universe, the Blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is the destiny of those who belong to Jesus.

[1] Dallas Willard’s term. See Divine Conspiracy, chapter 3.

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Find Your Part in the Never-Ending Story

Posted on July 20, 2024 by salooper57

We live in a never-ending story of God’s love, power, and goodness, as it plays out in real time in the universe. There we are, on page 9,653,745,853. God has written us into the story.

It is an interactive story and we, in our small way, are contributors to it. We get to write our own lines, at least some of them, and construct our own scenes, at least some of them. God trusts us to share in the making of his story. Or – and this might be more to the point – he trusts himself to make the story come out right even though he allows us a hand in writing it. But we mustn’t forget that it is still his story.

And it is so easy to forget, to think that the story is ours and that we can write it however we choose, even in total disregard of the Author. But the Author will not easily allow us to forget him. He will write chapters into the story that bring us face to face with him – comedies, if possible; tragedies, if not.

The final scene, the death scene, is designed so that we have to face God, whether we want to or not. For those who refuse to be a part of his story, death is a tragedy. For those who choose to be part of his story, death becomes a comedy, a divine comedy in which everything works out in the end. And the end turns out to be just the beginning.

Some people, however, refuse to be part of God’s story, though they may still want him to play a part in theirs, usually as a deus ex machina. Their stories follow a simple plotline: achieve fulfillment, gain respect, and live happily; or do your best, be misunderstood, and suffer as a tragic hero. But whichever plotline a person’s life follows, the story will come to a dead end. Only if a person is written into God’s story will their story continue on, happily ever after.

Some intellectuals insist that life’s story is meaningless and absurd. “It is a tale,” they might say, in the words of Macbeth, “told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” And the truth is, they are absolutely right. Life is meaningless and absurd for everyone who refuses to become part of God’s story. If I refuse to co-author my story with God, then mine really is a “tale told by an idiot.”

When all is said and done, there will only be one story: the glorious, all-encompassing story God is telling. If we refuse to be a part of it, we will lose our place in the storyline. We will be cut out, excised. We won’t make the draft; we will be missing from the final edition.

Will everything in a person’s life fit into God’s story? No. There are always some things that don’t fit, things that must be cut out of a person’s life, the way an editor cuts lines and paragraphs out of a story. That kind of editing is what the Bible calls repentance, and we find that even after we have been written into God’s story, there are plenty of unwise plot elements and flawed character traits that need to be edited out.

Sometimes my editors (my wife or my sons) tell me that some paragraph I’ve written doesn’t fit well in an article. It is invariably a paragraph I like, one with some really good stuff in it. But they are usually right and, with some reluctance, I edit them out.

Something like that happens in our lives. There are things that don’t align with God’s story and never will. So, he gets out his red pen and puts an X through them, and then we have to edit them out of the story. That can be painful, but the story is always better for it.

This story that God is writing is an adventure. It is a love story. It is a mystery. Our part in that story is rarely one of comfort and ease. But it is important. It has meaning. When God writes our story, it is always a masterpiece.

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