HOPE: Good News About the Future

Posted on February 1, 2021 by salooper57

The Bible gives many reasons for hope. Christians believe that the future will be good – incomprehensibly and incomparably good! This sermon shows us why.

Viewing Time: 25:51

(Excerpts will be posted later in the week.)

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Masks in America: Hiding, Revealing, Transforming

Posted on January 30, 2021 by salooper57

It would not be surprising to learn that the various words for “mask” around the world have been used more in the past year than in all recorded history combined. That is impressive, given the length of time masks have been around. In 2018, archeologists discovered a 9,000-year-old Neolithic stone mask in the Middle East. One could argue that the earliest masks, although not face masks, were worn by Adam and Eve when they donned fig leaf coverings and tried to hide from the Lord. 

Ancient Egyptians wore masks in religious rituals. They also placed masks on the faces of the dead to protect them on their crossing to the afterlife. In the Far East, masks were worn both for religious ceremonies and for theatrical productions. Classical actors routinely performed in masks, which explains why the ancient Greek word for actor was “hypocrite,” which means, “the one under the mask.”

Masks sometimes serve as identity markers. The mask marked the stage performer as an actor, the shaman as a healer, the chief as an authority. In West Africa, certain masks identified their wearers as intermediaries through whom petitions might be delivered to the dead.

More often, though, masks are worn to hide one’s identity. In ancient religious ceremonies, masks sometimes hid the wearer from malicious spirits. Historically, judges in many cultures have donned masks to protect themselves from reprisal from both friends and enemies of the accused. Today, companies are working to design “masks” that hide people’s identity from facial recognition software.

The KKK’s white, cone-shaped hood served both purposes. It both identified its wearer and hid his identity. Whenever anyone saw the white hood, they knew what its wearer stood for and with what group he was associated. At the same time, it concealed his personal identity from authorities who might call him to account.

There is third reason, particularly in primitive rituals, that people wore masks: to transform their identity. When Pueblo ceremonial dancers wore masks, they believed they were taken over by the spirit whose identity they had assumed. In many cultures, masks were considered a means by which their wearers could become one with the character they represented.

In Max Beerbohm’s story The Happy Hypocrite, a dissolute aristocrat falls in love with a virtuous young woman. She refuses his proposal, telling him that she can only marry a man with the face of a saint. The aristocrat then buys a remarkable mask which provides him with a saintly appearance. He marries the girl and immediately begins to change how he acts, returning ill-gotten gains, giving to charity, and adopting a simple lifestyle.

He is, however, soon confronted by a woman who knows his true identity and insists he remove his mask. A scuffle ensues and in the fracas the mask is torn off. To his surprise, his face has come to look like the mask.

It seems to me that the facemasks that people around the world are now wearing serve each of these purposes: to identify people, to hide people, and to transform people.

Today’s ubiquitous masks are certainly meant to hide us (or others) from COVID-19, but they also identify us. In the United States, facemasks – or the lack thereof – quickly became identity markers. Conservatives who wear masks are mistakenly thought to be liberals and liberals who don’t wear masks are assumed to be conservatives. People are identified – or misidentified, as the case may be – by their masks.

Today’s masks also have had a transformational effect, both on those who wear them and those who don’t. By wearing – or refusing to wear – a mask, many people have aligned themselves with a cause. Whenever people do that – whether the cause be political, social, or religious – they adjust their thoughts, attitudes, and actions to the support of that cause.

This transformational effect of masks could be put to good use. Christians should perhaps wear masks that say “Christ-Follower” or feature a Bible verse like John 3:16. All of us could wear masks that simply say, “American.” If we were to adjust our thoughts, attitudes, and actions to these identities, the transformation would be positive and the world would be a better place.

(First published by Gannett.)

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Our Shame and Our Hope

Posted on January 29, 2021 by salooper57

Humans were designed to rule the world but powers they do not understand now rule them. Under God’s rule, they could rule, but the moment they stopped being subject to God, they became subject to fear (verse 10) and were ruled by desire (verse 16). The earth that once cooperated with them no longer yielded to their touch. On the very day of their revolt, there began a struggle between man and God, man and earth, and man and man. They were expelled from the garden, and the world began to fall apart. And so did the humans. And, to all appearances, so did God’s plan.

But the Creator is not easily stopped. In fact, he can’t be stopped. He made the world so that it would fall apart, should the humans turn away from him. It was a safeguard and a mercy. The recalcitrant earth, the relational conflict, the pain, fear and, above all, death were God-designed consequences of man’s rebellion. Why? Because God wants revenge? No. Because God wants us. Sorrow and failure and struggle are a mercy. The Creator knows we will not come to him without them. And if we don’t come to him, we cannot come to ourselves, to our rightful place, and to our joy. Only when we have fully come to God, can we fully be ourselves.

The man and woman were expelled from the safety of the garden into the world they had betrayed. Immanuel – the God with them of the Garden – was now God away from them. And the distance they had introduced into that relationship had also come between them. They were no longer with each other in the same way they had been. Their disobedience introduced a painful new reality into their world: distance. They were far from God, increasingly far from each other, and even far from themselves – the selves they were made to be.

Physicists tells us that the universe is constantly expanding, which means the distance between constellations and solar systems is growing. Theologians tell us that what is happening on the physical level is also happening on a spiritual one. Adam’s and Eve’s sin – not eating a fruit but rejecting their Creator and the role he’d given them; going their own way and setting up as their own god – has been repeated by all of us and has led to heartbreaking distance between humans and between humans and God.

The result of the choice they made (which we too have all made more times than we can count), is chaos. There is injustice, hatred, misunderstanding, malice, and bitterness. And these things not only bubble over in society, they bubble over in us. Chaos without and chaos within. This is what happens when God-with-us is God-away-from-us, and even God-against-us. Nothing can be right while we are our own gods.

The humans rejected the Creator, and that is our shame. But the Creator did not reject the humans, and that is our hope. Instead, he went looking for them. Genesis 3:8 says, “They hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’” Rather than crushing the rebellion, God chose to reverse it. The relationship between the Creator and his creatures was not the same. Groomed to be regents, they had become rebels. The damage had been done and it was horrendous, but God knew how it could be undone and set about the task of undoing it. This is where Jesus comes into the story.

(You can watch the entire sermon here.)

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Creation and the Butterfly Effect

Posted on January 27, 2021 by salooper57

Adam and Even needed to be trained for the awesome task before them, but they didn’t want to wait. They spurned the opportunity to rule under God and the preparation it required and chose instead to rule beside him. They believed that they would be better off – happier, more fulfilled, more who they were meant to be – if they were autonomous. They decided that they knew more than God, which is the mindset that lies behind all our sorrows. When they ate the fruit, they were not acting like naughty children but like rebellious conspirators and, at least to some degree, they knew it. What happened in the garden was not a slip but an attempted leap that ended in a fall – not just for them but for all of us.

Here’s why. God designed the world in such a way that everything exists in relationship to everything else. Because of this, a solitary action may have enormous consequences. Physicists call a system like ours “dynamical.” A small change in initial conditions has the potential to bring vast changes later on. Some such design was necessary if humans were to fulfill their calling to rule the world under God.

The scientist Edward Lorenz famously illustrated dynamical systems by suggesting the beating of a butterfly’s wings in the southern hemisphere two weeks ago may lead to a major storm in the northern hemisphere today. The butterfly’s wings affect one thing, which affects another, and another, moving like a wave across hemispheres. The butterfly beats its wings in the Amazon rainforest and, after a progression of cause-and-effect incidents involving a number too large for us to grasp, Kansas has a tornado.

What Adam and Eve did in the Garden led to storms of evil in the world. The wave that began with a desire in their hearts spread to a thought in their heads, then to an action in their hands, and then to a break in their relationships with God and each other. The wave swept out of the garden and Genesis 3-11 chronicles the wreck and ruin it caused. The relationship between Adam and Eve was damaged. There was envy and hostility between their sons. Families were torn apart. Corruption spread through society as a whole and violence ensued. Successive generations were overwhelmed by it, as the wave caused by the original sin swelled into a tsunami.  

The Bible teaches that Adam’s sin has washed over every one of us and has distorted everything that makes us human: our spirits, bodies, minds, emotions, and relationships. But the wave doesn’t stop there. It pervades the structures humans create: economies, governments, companies, businesses, schools, police departments, service clubs – everything. Even the earth itself has been affected.

(See the entire sermon here.)

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When God Became Immanuel

Posted on January 26, 2021 by salooper57

It was not in a stable that the Creator became Immanuel. It was in a Garden. Do you remember what the Scripture said? “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day…” Genesis 3:8). The Creator, this being of inconceivable wisdom and power, who brought into existence the visible universe and, along with it, realities that are not visible (at least to creatures like us) was with humans: with them in ways they could readily perceive and in ways that caused them to flourish. He was Immanuel. The gospel rests on, and returns to, this happy truth.

The Creator made the earth to be a place that would beautifully and remarkably sustain biological life. We today talk of sustainable resources. The earth was created a sustainable resource. We talk about renewable energy. The humans had it. Everything was perfect. The Creator placed them in an ecosystem (Eden) that was the ideal environment for the kind of biological life he had given them.

The Creator had a plan. Unlike the angels and like the animals, he gave the humans a biological makeup so that they could reproduce and fill the earth. Unlike the animals and like the angels, he gave them a spiritual makeup, so that they could live forever in relationship to him. And unlike any other creature that we know of, he made them in his image. They were designed so that they and their descendants would be like the Creator himself. They were both animal and spiritual, perfectly suited to represent earth to heaven and heaven to earth.

The Creator then conferred on them the awesome responsibility of ruling the earth as his regents. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over … all the earth…’” (Genesis 1:26-27). His plan was to set up images of himself (that is, humans) all over the planet – and who knows, perhaps someday all over the galaxy – to represent him. They were to wisely care for the planet and its creatures as his representatives. Think of the earth and the universe as a kingdom, the Creator as the king, and the humans as the king’s wise and loving regents.

It was for that sacred calling that the man and woman were being prepared. We don’t know how long their preparation in the garden was intended to last. For all we know it may have been hundreds of years: learning how to govern the earth and its creatures wisely is no small thing. Think about what that might entail: A mastery of biology, physics, engineering, zoology, and much more!

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The Backstory to the Gospel Story

Posted on January 25, 2021 by salooper57

The sermon The Backstory to the Gospel Story gives us a big-picture look that will help us better understand and share our faith. Excerpts will be posted during the week, but you can views the sermon below. (Length: approximately 26 minutes.)

The Backstory to the Gospel Story (Genesis 3:1-9)
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Hope, Presidents, and Inauguration Speeches

Posted on January 23, 2021 by salooper57

I write this on the day that Joe Biden was sworn into office as the 46th president of the United States. I thought President Biden’s inauguration speech was well-written and, at times, dynamically delivered. The theme, to which he returned again and again, was the need for national unity.

A secondary theme, a prerequisite for presidential inauguration speeches, was hope. The president brought those themes together when he called all Americans to unite to fight hopelessness. Picking up the hope theme later in the speech, he promised, in the words of Psalm 30, that though “weeping may endure for a night … joy comes in the morning.” Near the conclusion of the address, he said: “Together we will write an American story of hope…”

Every U.S. president in my lifetime has spoken of hope at his inauguration. This may be because inauguration day is a day of hope in the U.S. or it may be that Americans are naturally a hopeful people. They extend hope like a line of credit, placing it at the incoming president’s disposal.

What is the substance of this hope to which presidents routinely refer? Dwight Eisenhower spoke of it as the hope for the healing of a divided world. George W. Bush called freedom the hope of millions worldwide. Ronald Reagan thought of our hope, indeed “the last, best hope of man on earth,” in terms of an “opportunity society” where all of us “will go forward.”

Peace also figures into inauguration day hopes. Jimmy Carter hoped for a peaceful world built on international policies rather than on weapons of war. John Kennedy pledged to engage in a “peaceful revolution of hope” to assist “free men and free governments” south of our border.

Peace, justice, prosperity, and freedom form the substance of hope in inaugural speeches, but how to obtain them is far from obvious. Certainly, the united efforts of the American people play a necessary role. But presidents have assumed another dynamic is in play and that assumption is questionable.

That dynamic can be described in a word: progress. Politicians take it for granted, as they have for nearly two centuries. A world of peace, justice, prosperity, and freedom is coming, and democracy, science, technology and, in some circles, capitalism, are speeding its arrival.

The belief in progress has saturated modern western thinking and lies behind the promises made and believed by so many politicians. But the idea of inevitable progress is a myth, fairly new to the world (dating from the time of the Industrial Revolution), indemonstrable by argument and unverifiable by experience.

The idea of progress draws on and is a distortion of the Christian vision of hope. In the Christian vision, God sovereignly moves all things toward a glorious end. In its utopian knockoff, it is progress itself that is sovereign. In the Christian vision, Christ is central. In its secular counterpart, good-intentioned humans are at the center.

“The real problem with the myth of progress,” wrote N.T. Wright, “is … that it cannot deal with evil.” The inauguration day speeches, so full of hope, have often run aground on human evil. In 1957, Eisenhower called the authority of the United Nations the “best hope of our age,” an authority he pledged to fortify. Sixty years later, another Republican president called the same international body “pointless.”

Richard Nixon, who promised to “set as our goal the decent order that makes progress possible and our lives secure,” ordered the Watergate break-in.

John Kennedy claimed that “man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty.” Lee Harvey Oswald, holding a mail-order rifle in his mortal hands, ended Kennedy’s life.

Eisenhower’s “hope of progress” has proved helpless against actual evil. Greed pushed Kennedy’s hope of ending poverty further away than it was in 1961. Reagan’s “strong and prosperous America, at peace with itself and the world,” has suffered from racial division within and the longest war in its history without.

I’m grateful for hopeful presidents and gladly join them in their hopes. I will not, however, rest my hope on some vague idea of progress. I will instead place my hope in God.

(First published by Gannet.)

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How Can I Talk with Others About Faith?

Posted on January 22, 2021 by salooper57

Do you have friends and family you’d like to talk to about your faith? A good place to start is with talking to God about your friends and family. Ask him for opportunities to speak with them. If that is how you are praying, you’ll be more likely to recognize opportunities when they come – many of us don’t!

A coworker says: “We’ve got a teatime on Sunday morning but one of our guys can’t come. You interested?” That’s an opportunity. A gracious answer might be, “I’d love to, but I go to church. Maybe I could go to early service this week.” Something as simple as that may lead to another question: “You go to church every week?” And that to another. Pray for opportunities.

Second, lead a life that raises questions. “I was sure you were going to tell him off. Why didn’t you?” “Why are you still taking to her after what she did?” “Are you guys always have people over to your house?” “I’ve noticed you don’t put people down. Are you, like, religious or something?” “You volunteer at the food pantry? What’s that like?”

Third, get prepared. Try taking a practical apologetics course. (Christianity Explored is one option offered in local churches around the world.) Read a book on the subject. Ask questions of people who have been around for a while – the questions you’re afraid someone will ask you. There are answers – good ones.

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People want those answers … but they need the Answerer. In the end, answers don’t satisfy; the Answerer does. The best thing we can do for others is to follow St. Peter’s advice and set apart Christ as Lord in our hearts. It’s our relationship with Jesus that makes our kingdom conversations worth having. It makes all the difference.

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The Right Kind of Answer to Skeptics’ Questions

Posted on January 21, 2021 by salooper57

My friend Amy Snapp started coming to Lockwood years ago. Her sister Cindy had been bringing Amy’s daughter Kathryn to our kids ministry. Because Kathryn liked it, Amy started coming and bringing the younger kids too. But dad Glenn was another matter. He told me he identified as an agnostic but was really more of an atheist. He just wasn’t calling himself that.

The fact that his wife was now following Jesus was driving him crazy. She was different! One day he came to my office and for an hour or more he grilled me with questions – some of the ones I just listed for you. I don’t know that my answers were all that helpful, but they allowed Glenn to see that there were answers. He hadn’t known that. Amy later told me that he didn’t sleep that night. He kept thinking about God. He was rattled. God was closing in and he felt cornered.

The answers I gave Glenn were not the effective cause of his conversion; they just removed some obstacles he was hiding behind. After a few miserable days, Amy said to Glenn: “Don’t you want to be like Jesus?” And that was all it took to bring Glenn across the line and into the kingdom. Today, he is a licensed minister of the gospel.

We might think, “But I don’t know enough! My answers need better content. Maybe I should read a book. Maybe I should go to seminary.”

Maybe. Certainly have good content, but content is not the most important thing. There is something else that God will use even more. St. Paul says our speech “should be always full of grace, seasoned with salt.” In Greek, there are no definite articles or conjunctions between “full of grace” and “seasoned with salt.” That probably means that “full of grace” and “seasoned with salt” describe the same thing. Grace is the seasoning.

Remember the instruction from Peter? He told his readers they needed always to be prepared to give an answer “but do this with gentleness and respect.” Remember who is talking here: brash Peter, the loud, assertive apostle. “But do this with gentleness and respect,” he says. Don’t be pushy. Don’t get argumentative. Don’t twist arms.

Paul says, “Make sure your answer is full of grace.” Peter says, “Make sure your answer demonstrates gentleness and respect.” Even if the content of your answer doesn’t satisfy the inquirer, the manner of your answer – the graciousness, gentleness, and respect – will. I suspect more people have been won by gracious, respectful answers than have been won by brilliant ones.

Think about how people talk to each other in our day: The toxic comments on Facebook and Twitter; the malice, condemnation, and vulgarity that pepper remarks from the halls of congress to the elementary schoolyard. But we don’t pepper our remarks with insults. We season them with grace.

Talk about a contrast society! That is not what people expect. It is not what they are used to. It surprises them. I write a column that appears in newspapers nationally and I have received my fair share of unpleasant responses. I have been very intentional about answering them in a Proverbs 15:1 manner: “A gentle answer turns away wrath but a harsh word stirs up anger.” I’ve been amazed to see how effective that is. I’ve had people call me names in their first email who are corresponding like an old friend by their third. What made the difference? Not the brilliance but the gentleness of my answer.

Respect is a rare commodity and, because it is rare, it is valued. Good content is important but good conduct is even more so. “Do this with gentleness and respect.”

One other thing from 1 Peter. The gentle and respectful answer is given in the context of a life of good deeds and blessing (that is in verses 9-11). So we have three things here: good content; gracious conduct; and the proper context of good deeds and blessing. There is a parallel to film, where the three things are: a good script; believable acting; and the right soundtrack.

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Direct Evangelism and Responsive Evangelism

Posted on January 20, 2021 by salooper57

This is the Apostle Peter. “Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? 14 But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.” 15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander” (1 Peter 3:13-16).

Now listen to the Apostle Paul: “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. 3 And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. 4 Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. 5 Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. 6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Colossians 4:2-6, italics added).

Peter and Paul are calling plays from the same playbook. Peter’s, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks” sounds a lot like Paul’s, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” These instruction are for ordinary believers, not just evangelists. Every follower of Jesus should be prepared to answer questions about Christ. That includes us.

All of us, not just pastors, evangelists, and church leaders, have a responsibility to give an answer when asked. The apostles are not telling everyone to “Do the work of an evangelist” (2 Timothy 4:5). They are not saying, “be ‘ready to preach the gospel’” (Romans 1:15, KJV). They don’t order us to initiate conversations. They tell us to be prepared to give answers.

Again: That means they were expecting questions and that is where the church comes in. When the church is the contrast society that God intends, people will ask questions. Being a contrast society means, among other things, that we love and forgive each other, love our spouses and our enemies (and our spouses when they are our enemies), renounce vengeance, operate by a sexual ethic that honors God’s creation and respects others’ rights, are true to our word, refuse to condemn and shame, and put others’ welfare above our success. When a group of us lives like that, people will ask questions.

(Tomorrow: In evangelism, is good content the most important thing?)

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