Powerful Prayers: Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation (Ephesians 1:15-21)

Posted on February 13, 2020 by salooper57

(Note: For a few weeks , I will post the manuscript that goes with the audio (posted Tuesdays) from a sermon in the Powerful Prayers series. People have requested the sermon manuscripts many time, but I’ve always been reluctant to make it available for two principal reasons: 1) I never simply read a sermon, so what people read is not exactly what I spoke. The manuscript might be better or it may be worse but it will be different. And (2) because the sermon has not been edited for publication. With those caveats, here is The Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation III (His Incomparably Great Power for Us Who Believe)

I once read about a young Irish woman who emigrated to the U.S. in the first decades of the twentieth century. She had family in New York, who told her she could find work there, so she saved and scraped and purchased a transatlantic fare on an ocean liner.

After setting aside a little money for expenses she knew she’d incur when she got to New York, she packed a bag with food stuffs to carry her through the six-day journey, mostly crackers. When passengers headed to the dining room for lunch and dinner, she went to her small cabin, got out her cracker ration for that meal, and ate every crumb. She did this for five days.

On her final day aboard, someone asked her why she never came to the dining room and she, embarrassed by her poverty, admitted that she couldn’t afford to purchase her fare and buy her dinner. The woman said to her: “But my dear, all your meals are included in the price of your fare.”

For five days, she went without breakfast and ate crackers and drank water for lunch and dinner, even though the delicious meals in the dining room were hers by right. They had already been paid for, but she didn’t know what she had.

The same thing can happen to us who belong to Christ. He has purchased for us (as the author of Hebrews put it), “so great a salvation,” but we may not know what we have. Many Christians live on rations when they could be feasting.

Not St. Paul. He knew that God “has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). Those blessing include being chosen by him, made his sons and daughters, granted forgiveness, and given a role in the most important project in the history of the world: the Headship of Jesus over every person, institution, and thing on earth (Ephesians 1:10).

Grace has been freely given to us (verse 6), even lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding (verse 8). The delectable fare of the grand dining room is ours, yet some of us have shut ourselves in our tiny cabins with our crackers and water. We don’t realize what is available to us.

But Paul prays we will see it. He doesn’t want Jesus’s people eking out an existence when they could be flourishing – and they could be. The opening paragraphs of this letter are a paean of praise to the God who lavishes his people with all they need. But Paul knows that many of Jesus’s people are like that poor Irish girl on the ship. They don’t know what they have, don’t know how to access it, and are living like they’re destitute.

Let’s read out text (Ephesians 1:15-21) For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 

Verse 15 plays a now-familiar tune. When Paul heard about the Ephesians’[1] faith in Jesus and love for all the saints, he knew they were the real deal: a genuine church with enormous potential to serve the kingdom of God and a real adversary who would try to stop them. In other words, they were people in need of prayer.

It should be a warning to us that this church that loved all the saints would be faulted by Jesus himself within a few decades for having “left [their] first love” (Revelation 2:4). If it could happen to that solid, exemplary church, it can happen to us too. The enemy of our souls is too clever to challenge our love for the God who sacrificially loves us, so instead he challenges our love for the saints who ignore us, exploit us, or take us for granted. God’s enemy understands that love works on a circuit. He doesn’t need to break the circuit between God and his people, so long as he can break it between some of God’s people and others of his people. So that’s where he concentrates his efforts.

When Paul heard about the Ephesians’ faith and love, he couldn’t stop thinking about them and wouldn’t stop thanking God for them. Notice how he links thanksgiving with remembering (or, literally, making remembrance) in verse 16. “I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.” If we, like Paul, would take a moment to remember the people we’re praying for – what they’re like, what they’ve done, what they value, who loves them and is loved by them; in other words, if we would make remembrance of them – our prayers would be more powerful. Making remembrance is so much more than rattling off names on a prayer list.

Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians, like his prayers for the Philippians and Colossians, features one principal request. Perhaps we ought to follow his example. I’m not saying we shouldn’t make more than one request for people but that we would do well to have a principal request for each person, one that stands out when we bring that person before our mind and then before the Lord.

After repeatedly holding these believers in his mind, Paul’s one request for them is that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father (literally) “of the Glory” (a loaded phrase, if ever there was one) would give them (literally) “a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.” Yet another Pauline prayer for people to receive knowledge. We pray for peace, for provision, for healing, and for comfort – all good things to pray for – but he prays for knowledge.

When Paul writes of “a spirit of wisdom and revelation,” he probably has the Holy Spirit in mind. Even if he is thinking of a human spirit characterized by wisdom and revelation, the Holy Spirit will be behind it. Wisdom has to do with knowing what you already have – those spiritual blessings Paul cataloged in verses 3-14 – and what to do with it. Go back to our friend on her transatlantic cruise. Wisdom knows what is covered by the purchase of the fare. In our case, wisdom knows what Christ has purchased, what’s available to us, and what’s possible for us.

While wisdom takes advantage of the knowledge we already have, revelation imparts knowledge that we don’t have. Because God is infinite, revelation is, and will always be, needed. So, Paul prays for the spirit of both wisdom and revelation.

Notice it is wisdom and revelation “in the knowledge of [God].” The knowledge of God is of more practical use than the knowledge of economics, philosophy, mathematics, physics, mechanics, or any other body of knowledge. The knowledge of God is life-giving. (That’s John 17:3.) The knowledge of God brings grace and peace in abundance (2 Peter 1:2). Where the knowledge of God is present, men, women, and children flourish.  

That’s why Paul asks God to give these Ephesians the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. But what happens when people are given this Spirit? The eyes of their hearts are enlightened (verse 18).

The NIV 84 translates verse 18, “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.” The latest edition drops the word “also.” The Greek has neither the word “also” nor the words “I pray.” They were probably added as a way to break up a very long run-on sentence. Verse 18 is a continuation of the sentence Paul began in verse 15. He is not making a second request here; he’s stating the desired outcome of the first (and only) request.

He prays that the eyes of their heart may be enlightened. The “heart” in Scripture is the human command center. It is from the heart, not the mind, that decisions are handed down. To have the eyes of the heart enlightened is to have the command center fully informed. It is from the heart that directions are decided.

Donald Miller, the author of Blue Like Jazz and a score of other Christian books, had a bad habit: he chewed tobacco. He knew it wasn’t good for him, but he liked it, and he didn’t want to stop. He couldn’t stop. He’d been told that it causes gum disease, tooth decay, and even cancer of the mouth and throat. He knew he should stop; he just couldn’t.

Then one day he was in the car, listening to the radio, and a public service announcement came on. 30 seconds later, Donald Miller no longer chewed tobacco. In a strange, distorted voice, a man warned of the dangers of chewing tobacco (things Miller already knew). Then he explained why his voice sounded like it did: he didn’t have a lower jaw. Cancer, caused by chewing tobacco, had eaten it away.

During that 30 second PSA, the eyes of Donald Miller’s heart – his command center – were opened. Suddenly, what had been impossible for him – quitting tobacco – became possible, even urgent. He says that as the man spoke, he could visualize his face without a lower jaw. He never chewed tobacco again.

The “eyes of a person’s mind” (which is not a biblical phrase, but you get the idea) are able to see all kinds of things in the Bible – good things, true things, beautiful things – but seeing them has little effect on the person. He might eloquently teach them to others but he’s pretty much the same after he sees them as he was before he saw them. But when the eyes of a person’s heart are enlightened, he is transformed. He not only thinks differently, he acts differently.

That illustration might lead us to assume that whenever the eyes of a person’s heart are opened, they will see bad things, like a chewing tobacco habit. That certainly happens, but mostly they see good things. That is where Paul puts the emphasis. He knows there are wonderful things we will miss without the spirit of wisdom and revelation, chief among them, recognizing God in our daily lives.

Years ago, a tourist to Basel, Switzerland, climbed onto a streetcar and sat down next to the twentieth century’s most eminent theologian, Karl Barth. The two started chatting and Barth asked him if he was new to the city. The tourist said he was, so Barth asked him if there was anything he was hoping to see while he was there.

The man said, “Yes, I’d love to meet the famous theologian Karl Barth. Do you know him?” Barth answered, “Well as a matter of fact, I do. I give him a shave every morning.” The tourist was absolutely thrilled. When he got back to the hotel, he went around telling everyone, “I met Karl Barth’s barber today.”[2]

Without the spirit of wisdom and revelation, we may fail to recognize God when he speaks to us. Without the spirit of wisdom and revelation, we will not make the most of the things God has made available to us. Paul mentions three of those things here. He prays that God will give the Ephesians the spirit of wisdom and revelation and so enlighten the eyes of their hearts so they can know: (1) the hope of his calling; (2) the riches of his inheritance; and (3) his power that is at work on behalf of believers.

The first thing Paul wants the Ephesians to know is “what is the hope of his calling” (literal translation from verse 18). If they know – which they won’t without the Spirit of wisdom and revelation – what God had in mind for them when he called them, their entire outlook on life will be transformed. If they know the hope of their calling, they will be able to come through hardship, pain, and even anguish in ways that will impress the world and glorify God.

Paul knew that hope keeps people from being blown off course by the prevailing winds of culture. Hope enables people who are hard pressed to endure. A shared hope makes it possible for people of different races, from different social classes, with differing educational backgrounds to work together, play together, and be for each other.

Paul refers to this hope as the hope of his calling. Let’s not misread that, as if Paul had written, “the hope of your calling.” This calling is not full of hope because we receive it but because God issues it. It is not just a vocational calling, like a calling to be a pastor or a schoolteacher, but a calling to join Jesus’s side, his campaign, and work for him – to be his special people.

In Philippians, it is referred to as the “high calling” or the “upward call” but we are liable to misunderstand that. “High calling” sounds like the vocation of a doctor rather than a factory worker. That’s not at all what Paul means. If we translate it, as some versions do, as “the upward call,” it sounds as if we’ve been called to leave earth and take an extended – eternity-long – vacation in heaven. That’s not it either.

When I was in high school, hoping to avoid Vietnam, guys would talk about their brothers getting “called up.” They were being drafted, called to active duty, called to serve. That’s more like what Paul had in mind. We’ve been called up.

In high school, getting “called up” did not sound hopeful. So, what does Paul have in mind by “the hope” (literal translation) “of his calling”? The hope of his calling is that our side (that is, Christ’s side) will be victorious. Our king will conquer the enemies of evil, suffering, and death. Heaven will come to earth and there will be peace and no more fear. As Isaiah put it: “…the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9).

If you wanted to sum up this hope in one word, you could hardly to do better than the word “glory.” We are hoping for God’s glory: “We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:3). We are hoping for Jesus’s glory (2 Thessalonians 2:14b), when he is acknowledged head over all things in heaven and on earth (Ephesians 1:10). And we even hope to be part of this glory, since God called us to share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thessalonians 2:14). We hope for the day when our faith will, as Peter put it, “result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:6); the day when, as Paul put it, “the glory … will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

Our calling is to be a part of this with the rest of Jesus’s people. We share the “hope that creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). We hope to play a role in the biggest, most glorious thing in history; a role in making the world come out right, in remaking it. It seems absurd to think that people like us can have anything to do with something so great and glorious and yet, because we’ve been called by God himself (entirely of his mercy and grace), we are a part of it.

You’ve been called up to live for, fight for, and even die for Jesus Christ. It is a calling that is full of glory, full of hope. It portends a better world, a united human family living peacefully, joyfully, lovingly, and creatively with God in our midst. It is not a wistful hope but a living one, already substantiated by Jesus’s resurrection – “the sure and certain hope of the resurrection.”

If you think, “But I have never heard his call,” then listen and hear it now. God is calling, calling you to join his side, to join his people, to serve his kingdom. God is calling you to his glory. Can you hear him? He wants you! Don’t dodge his call.

[1] “Ephesians” is used here as a circumlocution for the Christians in Asia Minor Paul was addressing in this letter.

[2] John Ross, Surrey, England, Leadership, Vol. 8, no. 4.

Posted in From the Pulpit, Prayer, Sermons, Spiritual life | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Powerful Prayers: The Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation

Posted on February 11, 2020 by salooper57

In this incomparable passage on prayer, we’ll discover another way to pray for the people and the church we love.

After Josh Ferrin of Bountiful, Utah, bought his first home, he went poking around and found a little access panel in the ceiling of the garage. He thought it might be a place his kids would like to play. When he investigated, he found eight boxes, each with rolls of cash wrapped in twine – $45,000 worth.

He called the previous occupant, whose family had owned the house for years, and told him to come and get the cash. The owner, a Mr. Bangerter, never realized what treasure he had in his own home. St. Paul knows that Jesus’s people might not realize what treasure they have in their relationship with Christ, so he prays that they might discover it.

Posted in From the Pulpit, Prayer, Sermons, Theology | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

A Different Kind of Climate Change

Posted on February 8, 2020 by salooper57

Though many Americans first became aware of climate science in the last few decades, it has a long history. By the 1850s, scientists investigating large-scale climate differences in past geological ages began to suspect that atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane might have an impact on global temperatures.

Their theories generated debate but not consensus. Nevertheless, interest in vacillating global temperatures (in ages past) grew. By the late 1950s, some scientists were not just thinking about the history of climate change but its future and they saw trouble ahead.

I feel like one of those 1950s climate scientists (minus the math proficiency). Like them, I am warning about climate change, although it is a different climate – the social climate – that concerns me. I too see trouble ahead.

In the earth sciences, climate change is measured by temperature fluctuations in earth’s oceans, on its surface, and in its lower troposphere. In the social climate, change is measured by fluctuations in respect and contempt levels. Currently, respect levels are falling and contempt levels are rising.

Social climate change threatens human flourishing. It puts human institutions like marriage and government at risk. Long-term consequences could include poverty, governmental instability, and the unraveling of the social fabric.

What signs are there of social climate change? One is the long-term decline in respect rituals. Every culture has respect rituals, which are exhibited in greetings, introductions, interactions between people of different ages, genders, or class, and during major life events like births and deaths. These rituals have always been open to modification by succeeding generation.

It appears that certain respect rituals are not so much being modified as dropped. For example, it was once normal to use honorifics when introducing people to each other: “John, this is Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith, this is Doctor Roberts.” In many cases today, the honorifics are not the only thing that’s been dropped; introductions themselves have been abandoned.

As a long-term pastor, I have witnessed significant changes in death rituals. Funerals and memorials services once provided a shared outlet for grief and an opportunity (as people used to say) to “pay our respects.” It is increasingly common today for families to dispense with the funeral service altogether, or to hold a gathering in its place at a restaurant or even a bowling alley.

Not only are respect levels falling, contempt levels are rising. Consider the outburst by the congressman who shouted, “You lie!” at President Obama while he was addressing a joint session of Congress. Such behavior could not have happened a generation earlier; it was unthinkable.

I was in a Barnes and Noble in suburban Chicago recently and was surprised (and dismayed) to see all the recently published books that have the f-word in their title. The use of vulgarity is rooted in, and gives expression to, contempt and is often a precursor of hostility. The rapidly rising level of vulgarity in speech is a clear sign of social climate change.

According to Professor Steven L. Grover of the University of Otago, respectful behavior is “the manifestation of believing another person has value.” If this is true, then the absence of respectful behaviors and the presence of disrespectful ones betoken a belief that another person does not have value.

We’ve seen this before. The twentieth century genocides in Turkey, Germany, Cambodia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina were all preceded by the proliferation of a belief that certain people do not have value. The spread of such a belief inescapably leads to dramatic changes in the social climate, changes that bode poorly for future generations.

In earth sciences, people have come together to take steps to slow or even halt the harmful changes happening to the climate. Changes in the social climate have received less attention, though they are potentially just as destructive. Even the few who have sounded the alarm seem unsure about what can be done.

Jesus, however, understood what can be done and has outlined steps for doing it. They are more demanding than anything suggested by the Kyoto Protocol or the Paris Agreement, which explains why they have been alternately ignored and contested. Yet they represent an achievable approach to securing a healthy social climate in which future generations can flourish.

First published by Gatehouse Media.

Posted in In the News, Lifestyle, Worldview and Culture | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A Prayer for Your Love Life: Philippians 1:9-11 (manuscript)

Posted on February 6, 2020 by salooper57

(Note: For a few weeks , I will post the manuscript that goes with the audio (posted Tuesdays) from a sermon in the Powerful Prayers series. People have requested the sermon manuscripts many time, but I’ve always been reluctant to make it available for two principal reasons: 1) I never simply read a sermon, so what people read is not exactly what I spoke. The manuscript might be better or it may be worse but it will be different. And (2) because the sermon has not been edited for publication. With those caveats, here is The Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation III (His Incomparably Great Power for Us Who Believe)

St. Paul wrote more of the New Testament than any other writer – he is the author of something like one quarter of the New Testament. If we are going to understand his letters, it is important to realize that he wrote them with some basic assumptions in place. He doesn’t argue for these things. He takes them for granted and assumes his readers do the same. For example, Paul assumes that the Creator of heaven and earth is actively involved in what is happening in our world. He is not on vacation. He is paying attention.

He assumes that the Creator, who is the God and Father of Jesus Messiah, is currently at work in our day-to-day world. All people on earth and every institution of which they are a part is known by God, accessible to God, and responsible before God. That includes you and me and Lockwood Church. This is not something Paul argues; he takes it for granted.

He further assumes that this God is pursuing a specific goal and is employing individuals and institutions to achieve it, whether they realize it or not, whether they cooperate or not. That goal is stated this way in the letter to the Ephesians: “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ” (Ephesians 1:10).

We read over that and miss how revolutionary (in the fullest sense of the word) it is. The goal is to bring all things – nations, for example, and their governments – under the headship of one leader: Jesus. The U.S., Russia, China, England, France – and the other 191 so-called sovereign states – will be governed by one head, Jesus Messiah. That’s the plan. Talk about a one-world government – this is it – and it is God’s intention to make it happen.

But it is not just nations. It is people, animals, weather systems, physical processes, spiritual forces – authorities, powers, and dominions – everything. Paul sees God making all things work together toward this goal and Paul has committed himself – even to the point of sacrificing his life – to that cause. He further assumes that the Colossian church exists for the same purpose: the realization of the universal lordship of Jesus; otherwise, they would not be a church.

If we read Paul without realizing this, we will unwittingly substitute some other goal in place of this one. For example, we’ll assume (like most of the people we know) that the goal of life is happiness. We’ll read a passage about prayer (for example) against that background and it will look quite different to us than it did to Paul. We can carefully exegete the passage, do word studies, and have really good insights. We can use the right theological terms to describe it, but we’ll nevertheless miss the point.

Take, for example, the request we looked at last week: that church people be filled with the knowledge of God’s will. That will look very different to us than it did to Paul, if we assume the reason for knowing God’s will is so we can help our children succeed in school or establish our financial security in retirement. Paul assumed the reason for knowing God’s will is to establish the headship of Jesus over all the earth.

This explains why some people try the Christian life for a while and then give up: they thought it was about one thing when it was really about something else entirely. Some years ago, we had a remote control for the TV, another for the VCR, and one more for the DVD player, and we kept them all in the same drawer. Sometimes, I would grab one, push the power button and, when nothing happened (or, at least, nothing I noticed), I’d think: “This thing isn’t working!” But of course it was. I was just trying to make it do something it wasn’t designed to do.

If we think the purpose of knowing God’s will is so we can avoid every difficulty and live a comfortable and prosperous life, we’re bound to come to the conclusion that prayer doesn’t work. However, if, like Paul, we are committed to and engaged in preparing for Jesus to take sovereign rule over all the world, we’ll see that prayer works exactly as intended.

With all that in mind, let’s look at the next prayer in our Powerful Prayers series. Paul prays for his friends in the city of Philippi (Philippians 1:9-11): And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. 

Back to what I was just saying. When Paul writes of “what is best” in verse 10 (we’ll go into that shortly), it is with the goal – the universal headship of Jesus – in mind. What is best is not determined by our ease, comfort, or prestige, but by the establishment of the sovereign rule of Jesus Messiah over all the earth. If you haven’t realized it before, the people of Jesus are insurgents, revolutionaries, preparing for the overthrow of the status quo and the return to power of earth’s rightful ruler.

So, it might surprise us that Paul, the committed revolutionary who for the sake of the cause spent years in jails and prisons all around the Mediterranean, prays for the Philippian revolutionaries’ love life. He’d already written in verse 4 of “all his prayers” for the Philippians and mentioned that he always prays for them with joy. In verses 9–11, he tells them what he prays, and it is about their love. What has love got to do with the subjection of every nation and people and power on earth under one head, even Christ? What’s love got to do with it?

Everything. The revolution to which Paul was committed is a revolution of Love. The Lord to which Paul submitted is the Lord of Love. His rule is the rule of love: To “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’”; and to “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27) is the law of his kingdom.

Life as Jesus’s person begins with, and ends in, love. If your faith does not equip you to love – God and people – something is not right. Jesus called love the greatest command.1 He told his followers that they must be like their Father in heaven and love even their enemies.2

Paul told the Roman Christians to “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law.”3 He wrote, “Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”4 In Galatians, he went so far as to say, “The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself”.”5 James, the first leader of the church at Jerusalem, wrote, “If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing right.”6

Jesus told his disciples that love was their ID card. “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”7The reign of Jesus will not be one of severity and dominance but of love. The revolution is powered by love – love is the Church’s secret weapon. No wonder Paul prayed for the Philippians’ love. We can’t do right when love is absent. We can’t be right when love is wrong.

Paul’s prayer for his friends is that their love will abound. That word is frequently translated “overflow,” like a river that overflows its banks. Kenneth Wuest says the word suggests something that is conspicuous. When the river that flows through some town overflows its banks, it is conspicuous. Paul is praying that the thing about these Christians that overflows, that is most conspicuous, will be their love.

Let’s pause there for a second. Is that the most conspicuous thing about Lockwood people? Is love the first thing others notice about us? God gave the Church no substitute for love. Organizational efficiency can’t replace it. Good preaching won’t compensate for its absence. Superb music is no alternative. Love is what makes a church great. Lack of love is what spoils it.

There are two specific qualities in love with which Paul is especially concerned. He wants love to abound more and more – start overflowing and never stop – in knowledge and depth of insight. Both those qualities merit close attention.

Knowledge is the same word we saw previously in the Colossians’ prayer, and carries the idea of recognition. In Colossians, that knowledge had to do with recognizing God’s will. Correlating love with knowledge seems odd to us because we, influenced by Chaucer and Shakespeare, think that love is blind. Paul thinks that love alone truly sees.

Now, this has consequences. If Paul is right, we’ll never really understand someone we don’t love. Husbands won’t understand their wives, wives their husbands, parents their children, children their parents, without love. The Senegalese poet Baba Dioum had it backwards when he said, “we love only what we understand.” We only understand – really understand – what we love.

That means if you’re having trouble understanding someone – “Why is he doing this? I don’t understand him at all!” – your first step should be to ask God to love him through you. Then love him. Pray for him. Speak well of him. Do good to him. That is the path to understanding.

Paul prays that “depth of insight” will also abound in their love. “Depth of insight” translates a single Greek word, which originally referred to sense perception. Paul is praying that the Philippians’ love will be perceptive. Love can actually heighten a person’s perception.

Think about a quarterback who is totally in the zone: he sees things he wouldn’t otherwise see. Nobody displayed this ability more often than Peyton Manning. When he was on his game, he could see (without realizing he was seeing) the middle linebacker picking up the slant, the cornerback blitzing from the right side, the safety helping out on the wide receiver and the tight end releasing and having about a five-yard opening. Because he perceived all this, he could choose the best option, hit the tight end, and make a first down.

For us, the way to get in the zone is to love. When we love, we perceive things we would otherwise miss: the delay in answering; the tense facial muscles, the hesitation in speaking. We will sense things we would normally not notice. That is love at work.   

When does this “depth of insight” come into play? It comes into play all the time: when we’re raising children; doing our jobs; spending our money; relating to our parents; teaching a class; helping our friends; even playing the piano or building a house. Paul knows that the knowledge and depth of insight available through love will help us discern what is best.

The word translated “discern” is an important one in Paul’s vocabulary. 86 percent of the time it is used in the New Testament, Paul is the one using it. It is a “quality control” word. It has the idea of testing something for approval. It’s the word Paul uses in Roman, when he tells the Christians there that they will be able to “test and approve what God’s will is” (Romans 12:2).

How often we need to do that. Is this opportunity from God? Should I forge ahead or hold back? Should I take this job, volunteer for this ministry? We weigh the pros and cons – which is the right thing to do – but in the absence of discerning love we’re bound to misjudge their weight. We’ll think the financial component weighs more than it does and the relationship component less. We’ll approve or reject an opportunity without realizing we’ve set it on an inaccurate scale. Only love can balance the scale.

If (verse 10) we are “able to discern what is best” we will be able to remain “pure and blameless until the day of Christ …” The word we have here is not the one usually translated “pure.” It is a compound word with two roots: The first meaning sunlight, and the second from the verb to judge. “Something evaluated in the light.” Paul wants his friends to lead the kind of life in which they can see clearly and be seen, without deceiving or being deceived. That has never been more important than now.

The word translated “blameless” is also not the usual word. The idea here has to do with avoiding stumbling. Paul is praying that his friends’ love will enable them to make choices they (or others) won’t stumble over later. I’ve seen people make choices that eventually caused them to stumble and fall out of a healthy relationship with God, with spouse, and with family. Paul doesn’t want that for his friends.

A therapist who specializes in working with millennials says there is a theme that runs through the various encounters she has with her clients. Whether they come to her because they struggle with anxiety or feel like failures, the theme that resurfaces again and again is: “I can’t decide what to do. What if I make the wrong choice?”

What these millennials need is exactly what Paul is talking about: love that overflows with knowledge and insight. It’s what we all need.

The result of this perceptive, discerning love is (verse 11) a life that brings glory and praise to God. Sir Christopher Wren built St. Paul’s Cathedral in London to the glory of God. J.S. Bach composed his music to the glory of God. Handel dedicated his Te Deum to the glory of God. Countless church and school buildings have “To the glory of God” etched on their cornerstones. But nothing brings more glory to God that a person who loves, except a church-full of people who love.

We can only live this kind of life if we are connected to the source of this kind of love. This “Love,” as St. John put it, “comes from God” (1 John 4:7). Paul writes, “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5) It is possible to connect to the source of love, through confidence in his Son Jesus Christ. If you’ve never done that, I invite you to do so today. If you don’t know how to do that, please talk with me after the service or get together with a Christian friend whose life you respect and ask them how they got connected to God.

It’s a little like using a hose. It doesn’t work unless it’s connected to a spigot. The hose doesn’t make water; it conveys it. No water is coming out of it unless water gets into it. It has to be connected. But that’s not all. Once connected, we need to open the valve. The way we do that is by choosing to love. That choice is ours.

A wise man once said, “Do not waste your time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.”12

Choose to love. Choose it again and again. It’s not enough to say you love your spouse. You must choose to love your spouse. Choose to love your friend, your enemy, your teacher, the stranger in the store. Your choice is what opens the valve.

Love – not only a feeling but an attitude; not only an attitude, but a commitment –is eagle-eyed. Love discerns what is best. Love keeps us from making decisions that will trip us up and hurt those around us. Love is what brings glory and praise to God. Dare to love. Choose to love. Live a life of love.

Go and be imitators of God. Choose to love. Dare to love. Live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Amen

1 Matthew 22:37-40

2 Matthew 5:43-48

3 Romans 13:8

4 Romans 13:10

5 Galatians 5:14

6 James 2:8

7 John 13: 35

12 C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Posted in From the Pulpit, Prayer, Sermons, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Prayer for Your Love Life

Posted on February 3, 2020 by salooper57

I’ve often asked myself what must happen for someone to discern what is best in a given situation. Is it best to take this job or stay with the one I’ve got? Should we move to a larger house or continue making do? Shall we retire or should keep working for a few more years? How can we discern what’s good from what’s best?

When we ask: “What must happen in order to discern what is best?” we’re assuming that discernment is primarily a procedural thing, as if discernment is just a matter of following the right steps. I’ve come to think there is a prior and more important question: “What kind of people do we need to be to discern what is best?” The Apostle Paul’s surprising answer to that question is: We have to be people with a healthy love life.

That love life – what Paul elsewhere calls “a life of love” – is critical to godly discernment. And that’s what Paul prays for in tPhilippians 1:9-11: that his dear friends’ “love will abound … so that [they] will be able to discern what is best…”

Posted in From the Pulpit, Prayer, Sermons | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Grief and Hope in the Face of Kobe’s Death

Posted on February 1, 2020 by salooper57
Photo by Fred Kearney on Unsplash

I watched a video clip of Shaquille O’Neal sitting with his sports show co-hosts, talking about the sudden, tragic loss of Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and seven others in a helicopter crash on Sunday, January 26. At several points in Shaq’s monologue, he was forced to pause, overcome with emotion.

Shaq’s grief is understandable: Kobe was a teammate, friend, and, in times past, an opponent in a very public feud. Shaq’s complicated friendship with Kobe would undoubtedly bring a deep and profound grief. But millions of people who never met Kobe, even people who never saw Kobe play, were deeply affected by the superstar’s death.

What accounts for this outpouring of grief? How is it that so many people experienced shock and disbelief when they learned that Kobe died? Most of us who have reached adulthood, certainly those who are middle-aged or older, are well acquainted with grief. We’ve all lost someone – perhaps many someones – we have loved. So why should the death of a celebrity we never met touch us so deeply?

Kobe’s passing brings the reality of death home to us. If a handsome, healthy young man like Kobe Bryant – a competitor, a victorious warrior – could be vanquished, then none of us is safe. Unlike other celebrities who died young, Kobe was not courting death. He wasn’t living a devil-may-care kind of life. If this could happen to him…

Kobe was not only relatively young; he was enormously valued. He was not a throw-away commodity. His ability amazed us and we couldn’t help but respect his indomitable spirit. Watching him, even if one was (like me) rooting against his Lakers, was just plain fun. His death, as John Donne put it, diminishes us all. We understand, with Donne, that when the bell tolled for Kobe, it tolled for us too.

Word of Kobe’s death left many people in despair. Thousands brought flowers and pinned notes to makeshift memorials all over Southern California. Some took off work to process their grief. Others could not get out of bed. The pain of loss was real.

Photo by Fred Kearney on Unsplash

Grief is like crossing a deep river on a swinging bridge. Anyone who has done it knows that when someone steps onto the bridge or advances toward you, everything shakes. Grief is like that. When we are in the midst of it, everything we encounter, even common things like meeting old friends or paying bills or going to church, can shake us. But a swinging bridge has two cables, one on each side, stretched across its entire length. If we grip one with each hand, we can maintain our balance as we cross. There’s something similar in grief, where the two supports are memory and hope.

Too many people make the mistake of holding on to memory but not to hope, lose their emotional balance, and fall into despair. But hold on to memory and hope, to the past and the future, and one can maintain balance in the present. We must grab the future with one hand – setting our hope, as St. Peter says, “firmly on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed” – and with the other hold the memories of the past.

If you are grieving Kobe’s death, take time to remember him. Review his highlights. (Bring popcorn and make it a big bowl – the highlight reel goes on and on.) Celebrate the love he had for his family. Don’t hide his sins – not even the devastating rape accusation or the vulgar abuse he showered on a referee, which earned him a $100,000 fine from the NBA. Remember also his confession of wrongdoing in both cases and the apologies he made.

Be encouraged by Kobe’s faith in Jesus Christ. He had returned to the church. In fact, it’s been reported that on the morning of the tragic accident, Kobe was at church to pray before early mass. While holding onto to those memories, reach out and take hold of hope: the hope that Kobe and his family will be reunited one day; that God’s love will triumph over his sins (and ours); and that the victorious warrior, “Jesus Christ, has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light.”

Posted in In the News, Spiritual life | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Powerful Prayers: Colossians 1:9-12 (Part 2)

Posted on January 30, 2020 by salooper57

(Note: for the next few weeks , I will post the manuscript that goes with the audio (posted Tuesdays) from a sermon in the Powerful Prayers series. People have requested the sermon manuscripts many time, but I’ve always been reluctant to make it available for two principal reasons: 1) I never simply read a sermon, so what people read is not exactly what I spoke. The manuscript might be better or it may be worse but it will be different. And (2) because the sermon has not been edited for publication. With those caveats, here is Prayers God Love to Answer: Colossians 1:9-12, Part 2.)

A college student named Nick Lutz’s got a hand-written, four-page letter from his ex-girlfriend. She acknowledged the mistakes she made in their relationship and apologized. Nick responded by sending the letter back to her, marked up like a term paper graded by a nitpicking professor. He pointed out formatting errors she had made, noted the introduction was too long, and made critical comments in the margins. At the bottom of the last page, he wrote: “Strong hypothesis but nothing to back it up,” and gave her a D-.[1]

If you’ve ever tried to do something right and been criticized for it, you know how exasperating that can be. Oswald Chambers said, “A man who is continually criticized becomes good for nothing; the effect of criticism knocks all the gumption and power out of him.”[2]

Some of you have had all the gumption and power knocked out of you. Maybe it was your parents who knocked it out of you – if you are a parent, I beg you not to knock the gumption and power out of your own children – or maybe you married a professional critic.

Maybe you sat under the teaching of church leaders who led you to believe that God is the professional Critic in the Sky, our Faultfinder who art in heaven, harder to please than any parent or spouse or boss. You take for granted that God is displeased with you. If that’s the case, I have really good news: you can please God; you can be a real part of his ineffable joy. Pleasing God is totally possible – you can do it – and pleasing God will bring great pleasure to you.

So, what do you have to do please God? What’s first? Go to church – a lot? Read the Bible for hours each day? Stop watching TV and read books – mostly boring books that don’t hold your attention? Oh, and fast – twice a week would be a good start. (You can always work your way up from there.)

That’s where our mind goes when we think of pleasing God: what do I do? But what really pleases God is who you become. Doing has an important part to play in becoming but doing is not an end in itself. God doesn’t need us to do things for him because his hands are full. That’s not why he gives us things to do. He gives us things to do because doing them will help us become strong, loving, effective, joyful, thankful people—and that is what pleases God.

In Colossians 1:9-12, St. Paul gets specific about pleasing God and gives us four things that really delight him. Let’s read those verses: For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. 

“…we pray this” – that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will – “in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way.” That translation makes it sound like knowing the will of God leads to two distinct results: living a life worthy of the Lord and pleasing him in every way, but those two things are closely linked. A more literal translation might go like this: “to walk worthy of the Lord unto” – that is, which leads to ­­– “being a complete pleasure to him.”

In other words, when we are trying to live in a way that is worthy of Jesus’s sacrifice, his love, and the high calling he’s placed on our lives, we will be pleasing to God. And it’s not just that we’ll try harder. If anything, we’ll feel less like we’re trying and more like we’re flowing.

There is a clarity in the original language which translations simply cannot match. There is one request – that God fill the Colossians with the knowledge of his will – along with a proposed means for granting that request: through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Next is Paul’s reason for making the request: that the Colossians will live a life worthy of the Lord with the result that they will become completely pleasing to him.

All that is in verse 9 and in the first clause of verse 10. What follows in the rest of verses 10, 11, and the beginning of 12 is a description of what God finds pleasing. So not only does Paul tell us that we can please God, he tells us precisely what pleases God. He lists four things which, in the original language, jump off the page at us because each one is in the form of a Greek present participle. You can recognize those participles in English because they take the form of gerunds – those words that end in “ing.”

See if you can find them in the text. The first is “bearing fruit.” (In Greek, that is one word: fruitbearing.) Next is growing in the knowledge of God. Third is being strengthened. And fourth is giving thanks. If those words describe you, you are pleasing to God. He can’t look at you without a smile on his face.

Let’s look at those four traits, one at a time and, as we do, let’s look at ourselves. For that, we are going to need God’s help, so let’s take down our defenses and ask God to show us plainly where we stand.

The first characteristic that pleases God is fruitbearing. God wants his children to be productive. He loves to see us making a difference. Notice that this fruitbearing happens “in every good work.” That’s why the knowledge of God’s will is so critical: his will for us as individuals and us as a church includes doing certain good works. Paul has written elsewhere that “God has prepared beforehand good works for us to walk in” (Eph. 2:10, lit.).

Do you see how this plays out? God fills us with the knowledge of his will – makes us aware of the good works he’s prepared for us to do. As we go through our day (“walk” is Paul’s metaphor for that), we recognize the works God has prepared for us, engage in them, and produce fruit – things that advance God’s purpose in the world. You will never be as fruitful doing the things you think of to do as you will doing the things God thought of for you to do.

There used to be a character on TV who, nearly every episode, would say: “I love it when a plan comes together.” As we do the good works God prepared for us and start producing results, our heavenly Father’s plan comes together and he loves it – he is pleased.

Of course that means if you’re not doing good works, you’ll not be fruitful. Fruit grows and ripens as we do the good works the wise God prepared for us to do. But that’s not all: as we engage in those works, we also grow in our knowledge of God, and that pleases him too.

Our heavenly Father wants his children to know him. Growing up, I didn’t know my earthly dad as well as I could have. He was an enigma to me. I knew when he was angry but I didn’t know what made him angry. I knew when he was happy but I didn’t know what made him happy. I knew he valued courage and hard work but I didn’t know why. And, unlike my heavenly Father, my dad wasn’t particularly eager to reveal himself to me.

But that changed, especially after I had kids. I started “growing in my knowledge of him,” which I think pleased him and certainly improved our relationship. Most people want to be known – want to share themselves with others – and, in that, they are like God. He wants us to know him, not just because he wants to be known but because knowing him is life changing. More than that, knowing him is life giving. In speaking with his Father, Jesus prayed, “…this is eternal life: that they may know you…” (John 17:3).

Some Christians don’t know any more about God now than they did when they first believed. Some still think God doesn’t want them to have any fun, or doesn’t care about them, or has abandoned them. How sad it must be for God, when his children misunderstand him like that. He longs to be known by his children.

The knowledge of God that Paul had in mind is more than just knowing about him – the knowledge needed to recite the creeds or defend the doctrine of the Trinity. This knowledge is personal. People who are growing in this knowledge “get” God in a way they previously did not. They recognize what he’s after in various situations, like a husband and wife who “get” each other so well that one look, across a room, can communicate volumes.

As we grow in our knowledge of God, we grow in our likeness to God. And this happens, remember, as we are filled with the knowledge of his will and engage in the good works he has prepared for us to do. God not only gave us good works to do so that we could be fruitful but so that we could have the pleasure of getting to know him.

Those are the first two things that please God: bearing fruit and growing in our knowledge of him. The next thing that pleases him – that next participle – is “being strengthened.” God is delighted to see his children grow stronger, build muscle, become unbreakable.

God is a Father and no father ever said, “I sure hope my kid grows up to be a weakling.” No father wants a child who is always giving up, falling apart, and unable to handle the things life brings. God is a Father and he is pleased when he sees us growing strong.

This sentence is eye-catching in the original language. It goes something like this: “being empowered with all power according to his power” (where the final term for power is a different word in Greek). Power. Power. Power. God wants his children to be strong. He is pleased when his children are strong enough to handle what comes their way.

How does that strength manifest itself? Kevin was telling me recently about the kind of strength athletic scouts look for in potential recruits, which is described as explosive power. The best test to display this power is the standing vertical jump. But what test displays the power that God longs to see in his children? There are actually three of them.

First, the endurance test: “strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance.” Among God’s children, strength is measured by how long one can trust God when circumstances are difficult. When sickness comes and doesn’t leave; when promotions are denied; when the car was in the shop three months ago because the brakes went out, two months ago because the muffler rusted through, and this month because the transmission needs to be replaced; when life is harder today than it was yesterday, and will be even harder tomorrow, God wants his children to be strong enough to trust him and go the distance. The endurance Paul has in mind could be defined as faith in God over an extended period of time in the midst of difficult circumstances.

The second test of strength – we could call it second-level strength – is patience. Patience could be defined as love over an extended period of time in the presence of difficult people. Endurance puts up with difficult circumstances without giving up. Patience puts up with difficult people without breaking down. Of the two, patience reveals the greater strength.

This kind of strength can endure unfair criticism. It keeps treating people in a Jesus-like way, even when they are self-centered and difficult. People who develop this second-level strength can even bless those who curse them and pray for those who mistreat them (Luke 6:28). That’s strength!

When a spouse is thoughtless or unkind, they call on God’s strength, trust him, and do what’s right—regardless of what the other person does. And they are able to do that repeatedly, one act of forgiveness, followed by three reps, then five, then ten. Three reps of putting up with annoyance, then five, then ten. Three reps of overlooking a fault, then five, then ten. They are strong and they’re getting stronger.

But we’ll make a serious mistake if we think of it as our strength, a sign of our abilities and accomplishments. This strength comes to us from God. We are strengthened with strength according to his glorious power. Both the strength to endure trials and the strength to be patient with people come out of a connection to God. Disconnect from him, and your strength for these things immediately begins to diminish, just like the strength of your phone battery diminishes as soon as you disconnect it from the charger.

What that implies – you may have already realized – is that if you aren’t able to endure difficult circumstance without giving up; if you aren’t able to be patient with difficult people without breaking down, your connection to God may not be solid. This kind of strength does not originate with you; you need to be recharged.

If the way I take this passage is correct (which is like the ESV but unlike the NIV), there is also a third level of strength. If faith over time in difficult circumstances is a sign of strength; if love over time with difficult people is a sign of even greater strength; then joy in the midst of difficult circumstances and the presence of difficult people is the sign of supreme strength.

In Greek, the word the NIV translates as “joyfully” is really a noun, “joy,” so I think what Paul is saying is this (verse 11): “being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance” (first sign of strength) “and patience,” (second sign) “with joy” (the ultimate sign). Joy in difficult circumstances and with difficult people is evidence of that explosive strength that comes from God alone. Kingdom people who have joy under such circumstances are like top-tier competitors at the Olympics. Their heavenly Father is in the stands, and every time they endure a trial or forgive an offender he jumps for joy.

God is pleased when his children are strong. That was the third thing that pleases him. There is one more. It is at the beginning of verse 12: “Giving thanks” (there’s the participle) “to God the Father…” Gratitude is an indicator – maybe even the indicator – of spiritual health and it pleases God. Most of us can be grateful when things go right, when the terrible thing doesn’t happen but the unlikely blessing does. But spiritually mature people are also grateful when things just go on: when the table is set for supper; when a favorite song comes on the radio; when the furnace works; the car runs; and telephone wait time is shorter than expected. They are even thankful when things go wrong. They regularly and genuinely thank their heavenly Father, whatever the circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

To recap: the four traits that please God are (1) fruitfulness; (2) a growing knowledge of God; (3) strength, manifested through endurance, patience, and joy; and (4) gratitude. With that in front of us, would you say you are pleasing to God? Are these traits evident in your life? If not, are you aware of something that is getting in the way? Do you need to reconnect to God, to be recharged? What is God saying to you right now?

[1] Emily Lund, PreachingToday.com; source: “Fla. Student Grades Ex’s Apology Letter, Sends It Back” NBC 5 Chicago (2-21-17)

[2] Oswald Chambers, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount. Christianity Today, Vol. 30, no. 4.

Posted in From the Pulpit, Prayer, Sermons, Spiritual life | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Powerful Prayers: Prayers God Loves to Answer

Posted on January 28, 2020 by salooper57

http://lockwoodchurch.org/media Colossians 1:9-12 – Part 2 (Listening time 26:00)

How strong are you? How much weight can you bench press? How many miles can you run? (In my case, it might be better to measure in yards.) How high is your vertical jump?

But what about spiritual strength? What does it mean for a follower of Jesus to be strong? Are there tests to measure spiritual strength?

Yes, there are and we learn about them from the Apostle Paul’s description of his prayer for the Colossians. There are three principal tests for spiritual strength. Take the tests – see how you do.

Feel free to comment. Best to you!

Posted in From the Pulpit, Prayer, Spiritual life | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

You Need to Make a Choice: Here’s Why

Posted on January 25, 2020 by salooper57

In the biblical story of the first humans, Adam and Eve face a choice: obey their Maker’s directive or disobey and seek their own way. They chose the latter, at great cost to the race.

We might wonder why God would put them in a place where a choice of this magnitude, with such potentially catastrophic consequences, would be required. One reason seems to be this: if they were to have any hope of becoming the magnificent beings God intended, they would need to become volitional; that is, they would need to become choosing creatures.

The stakes would have been even higher had God waited until there were millions of humans before presenting such a choice. In terms of humanity’s prospects, the one thing worse than a wrong choice by Adam and Eve was a no-choice by Adam and Eve. God made them to be human, which is another way of saying, he made them choosing creatures.

One can think of the world and the entire universe, 46-billion light years across, as a gigantic choice-making factory. It is possible that God created a material universe for this very purpose: to provide humanity with the opportunity to make choices. Life on planet earth constantly creates choice-making situations. From childhood on, each person’s history provides countless opportunities to make choices, some of little, but some of enormous, consequence. People need such choices, sometimes tough choices, heartbreaking ones even, to become fully human – to become the glorious beings God intends and calls us to be.

(This, by the way, is one reason forcing religion on someone is counterproductive. It goes against the way God made us and frustrates the goal he is pursuing. In talking with others about God, there is no place for arm-twisting or manipulation.)

A Christian salesman once told me to frame questions in a way that the person I was talking to could say no, because it is psychologically easier than saying yes. So instead of asking, “Are you ready to trust yourself to the Lord and give your life to him?” which would require a yes answer before proceeding, he wanted me to ask, “Is there anything holding you back from making this decision?” In that case, a “no” or even an “I guess not” answer would suffice. But doing an end run on a person’s volitional responsibility will handicap that person from the very start. Making a choice, a clear, determined choice, is essential not because God needs us to do so but because we do.

When Jesus told his disciples not to cast their pearls before swine, this kind of thing was in mind. He did not want his students forcing their pearls of wisdom on others; didn’t want them pressuring people into decisions for which they were neither ready, nor willing. God knows humans will never be the strong, happy people he intends them to be unless they make choices: the choice to trust in Christ; the choice to give their life to God; to give their money; to deny themselves; to forgive those who have harmed them; to put others first; and much more.

We must make choices. People are not machines to be managed, and we mustn’t treat them, including our own children, as if they were. Making intelligent choices, free of coercion, is crucial to our success.

Even though we raise a battle cry whenever someone tries to limit our freedom of choice, we frequently hesitate over even the simplest choices, because choice brings with it responsibility. Yet people must make choices, or they’ll never be fully human. This reality is apparent throughout the Bible. The drama of decision is played out from Genesis to Revelation.

I have talked with people (as has every pastor) who are anxious to discern God’s will not because they desire to do it but because they think knowing God’s will will help them avoid making a mistake. God is probably less concerned about us making mistakes than we are. He does not disclose his will so that people can avoid mistakes but so they can make informed choices. Either way, they must choose. God will have it no other way.

Posted in Faith, Lifestyle, Spiritual life | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Powerful Prayers

Posted on January 23, 2020 by salooper57

Prayers God Loves to Answer: Colossians 1:9-12

(Note: Each week for the next five weeks or so, I will post the manuscript that goes with the audio from a sermon in the Powerful Prayers series that was previously made available. I’ve been told by numerous people that they get more out of the sermon when they read it, so we’ll give it a try. I’ve been reluctant to post written sermons for two reasons: 1) I never simply read a sermon, so what people read is not exactly what I spoke. It may be better or it may be worse but it will be different. And (2) because the sermon has not been edited for publication. With those caveats, here is Prayers God Love to Answer: Colossians 1:9-12.)

Imagine you find yourself unable to do something you want to do, should be able to do, and have done in the past – say, eat ice cream. You go to your doctor and she does all kinds of tests and discovers that you are missing an enzyme which is necessary for the digestion of ice cream. She then gives you the good news: your body can produce plenty of this enzyme just by eating mangos. But you dislike mangos; dislike them as much as you like ice cream. So what do you do? Do you learn to eat mangos (ugh!) or do you give up ice cream (aww!)?

Let’s pose the same type of question, only let’s change the issue from a physical one to a spiritual one. You find yourself unable to do something you want to do and should be able to do: recognize God’s will. You go to your pastor and he runs a variety of soul tests and comes to the conclusion that you’re missing a spiritual enzyme (of sorts) which is necessary to the recognition of God’s will. That spiritual enzyme is loving relationships with other Christ-followers.

What do you do? You are an introvert. You don’t like big groups. You just aren’t easy with people. Being in a fellowship group or a Bible study is work for you; you think of it with distaste. So do you learn to have loving relationships with other Christ-followers or do you give up on knowing God’s will?

This is a real problem in our society generally and in the church in particular and it is getting worse. We are a ferociously independent, perilously individualistic people. Ironically, the advent of personal computers and especially mobile devices – supposedly communication devices – makes meaningful relationships with others seem optional.

A survey a few years ago revealed that millions fewer people attend church services than they did two decades earlier, yet more people claim to pray daily than they did then. What that means is that people are trying to do the Christian life in isolation, which violates God’s design and cannot be successful.

But like the digestive system in the human body, the recognition system for God’s will in the Body of Christ requires an enzyme of sorts: loving relationships. Humans are interdependent by design. God made us in such a way that we cannot reach our potential without others. It is a paradox, but you cannot fully be yourself by yourself. And you cannot fully perceive and understand God’s will when your Christian relationships are unhealthy.

In Colossians 1:9-12, we have a description of the Apostle Paul’s powerful prayer for the Colossian Christian. In it, he mentions a single request, but it is an important one. He prays the Colossians might be filled with the knowledge (or recognition, as the word is sometimes translated) of God’s will. Paul understood that the recognition of God’s will is critical to the church and to our lives.

(Colossians 1:9-12) For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.  (NIV)

Before digging into the passage, we need to set it in context. When Paul wrote, “For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying,” what reason did he have in mind? What had he heard about the Colossians that jump-started his prayers for them? He’d heard (verse 8) about their love in the Spirit. He mentions something similar in verses 3 and 4: “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints.”

Paul immediately grasped what the Colossians love for the saints meant: their church had what it needed for recognizing God’s will. They had the essential equipment for receiving messages from God.

If I’m on my way to meet you at the coffee shop but you’re trying to call me to let me know you’re running late, I will not get that message because I do not have a cell phone. I don’t have a receiver capable of picking up your message. You can try calling me a dozen times, but I won’t hear your voice. Just so, when a church does not love each other, when they ignore or, worse, show contempt for each other, they will not have a receiver capable of hearing God’s voice. They will not know his will.

When Paul heard that the Colossians had love for all the saints, he knew they could hear from God and discern his will. That’s why he began praying for them to “be filled with the knowledge of God’s will,” which he knew is enormously important to their success. He asked God to convey the knowledge of his will, verse 9, “through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” If love is the receiver needed to capture the signal, wisdom and understanding are the router and the computer that process it. Of the two words, wisdom and understanding, wisdom is the more general. The wise person grasps God’s ways. He understands God’s values and, as such, has the framework into which God’s specific will for churches and individuals fits.

(An aside: The Bible regards God as the source of wisdom, the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom, the Scriptures as a means for gaining wisdom, and humility as the condition for maintaining wisdom.)[1]

The word translated as “understanding” could be, and frequently is, translated “insight.” This is the more specific of the two words. It has to do with seeing how the big truths fit into a particular situation. Paul says the knowledge of God’s will is delivered through spiritual wisdom and insight, which is to say, through wisdom and insight that are sourced in the Holy Spirit. Without the Spirit, we will not have wisdom and insight; and, without wisdom and insight, we will not understand God’s will.

Notice the little big word “all.” The recognition of God’s will comes through all spiritual wisdom and understanding, which presents a problem. You have a little wisdom and understanding and so do I, but neither of us has all wisdom and understanding. That leaves us in need of … each other – and God designed it that way. He routinely sends the knowledge of his will to multiple people and not just one; to the Church and not just the individual. What’s more, he doesn’t usually send all of it to every person but some to one and some to another. That is why someone who is isolated from the church cannot expect to know very much of God’s will.

The way email works can serve as an illustration. Let’s say your childhood best friend is going to be in town tomorrow at noon and wants to meet you for lunch, so he sends you an email. He only has an hour, but he’d sure love to see you. When he clicks “send,” his email is broken down into packets of information, each with an IP address, which are sent separately, sometimes along different routes. When the packets arrive, they are reassembled into a meaningful message. (Well, not always, but you get the idea.)

Like email, God’s will is often broken down into packets, sent and then reassembled by a group of loving believers with Spirit-sourced wisdom and understanding. It’s not that God cannot send the knowledge of his will to one person, but frequently he does not. He intends us to relate to, and rely on, each other. If we insist on going it alone, we forfeit much of the knowledge we need to understand what God is doing in and around our lives.

A few years ago, Phil Vischer, the creator of VeggieTales was in Coldwater and he shared his story. Phil was on top of the world, wildly successful and full of big ideas for the future. In fact, he named his production company Big Ideas Productions. Because things were going so well, he concluded that God wanted to grow Big Ideas into a much larger company, so he spent millions of dollars, hired all kinds of staff, and got himself upside down financially. His cash flow couldn’t handle the skyrocketing bills, Big Ideas went bankrupt, and Phil was forced to sell all VeggieTales copyrights to another company. In a short time, his company and his life collapsed.

Phil looks back and says, “When things were doing so well, I thought that was God wanting us to expand, so we grew like crazy. Now I think it was more me having all these great ideas in my head and being so excited that I wanted to do them all at once.” He wasn’t humble, which he acknowledges. His wisdom wasn’t sourced in God and his word. And he was charting his course without counsel and flying solo. That is a recipe for misunderstanding God’s will.

How important is it for you and me and for our church to receive the knowledge of God’s will? Well, how important is it for an military unit to know whether Central Command is ordering them to attack or defend, to advance or retreat? It is critical. Look at verse 10: “And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way…” There is a reason behind Paul’s prayer: being filled with the knowledge of God’s will is not an end in itself. Such knowledge will help us (1) live a life worthy of the Lord and (2) please him in every way.

The word translated “worthy” is derived from the Greek axios, meaning “to have the weight of another thing.” The terminology developed around the use of ancient scales. Say you went to the market to buy five pounds of wheat flour. The merchant would place weighing stones on one side of the scale then fill the other side with wheat until the scale balanced or achieved “worthiness.”

Some merchants used inaccurate weighing stones or rigged the scale to their advantage, which is why Proverbs 11:1 says “The LORD abhors dishonest scales, but accurate weights are his delight.”

To live a life (literally, to walk) worthy of the Lord is to go through your day in a way that balances your lifestyle with your calling as a servant of the Lord of lords and savior of the world. Without the knowledge of God’s will, that can’t be done. And it can’t be done if we are using inaccurate weights – that is, ones that are calibrated for the non-Christian. If we try to balance our lives with the scale weights of house-size, car value, body mass index, and social media footprint, we’ll never balance out in a way that is worthy of the Lord.

Instead of using such things to measure ourselves, let’s weight the scale with: Jesus’s trust in, and obedience to, his Father; his sacrifice for his friends; his love for his enemies. Place on the scale the Lord’s patience, his care for the needy, his openness to strangers. Set our lives against those weights.

We will of course be light in such virtues, but we can at least use the right scale. God isn’t waiting for us to be just like Jesus in all these things before he’ll be pleased with us. The desire to be like Jesus already pleases him, as does every effort we make toward that end.

That brings us to the second reason behind Paul’s request for these Colossian Christians to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will: so that they can please the Lord in every way. We can please the Lord. The Lord can say of you, “Isn’t he something special!” Or, “I just love her; she’s such a delight.”

You may think it is impossible for someone like us – with all our problems and shortcomings – to please God. Only people who have it all together, famous people like Mother Theresa and Billy Graham, can please God.

It is not so. In fact, if that is what we think, our thinking is precisely backwards. It is impossible to please some people; no matter what we do, they will never be pleased. If you grew up with a mom or dad like that, you know what I mean. It is also impossible to please ourselves, at least for any length of time. We don’t stay pleased.

But it is not impossible to please God. He loves to see his children succeed. He delights in them. He sings over them. He is easy to please – but hard to satisfy. He is delighted by every honest effort his children make, but he always wants more. Not because he is a slave driver but because he knows what we can be and longs for us to experience it. He made us for glory, for perfection, for all joy, and, for our sakes, he will not be satisfied with less.

Recently my grandson Phinehas colored a picture for me and then, in his five-year-old, just-learning-to-make-letters handwriting, signed his name: PHIN. I was pleased with the picture but even more with the signature. I expect that, when he is older, his handwriting will be firmer, clearer, and flow more easily. (Then again, he could be like his dad … or grandpa.) Still, I expect his handwriting will only get better and I want that for him, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t thoroughly pleased with his accomplishment.

So with God. He isn’t hard to please. We, with all our problems and shortcomings, can be a real source of pleasure to God, a joy within the fountain of joy. He even tells us, through the apostle, what pleases him. That is what we’ll look at next week, when we continue with the four things that bring pleasure to God our Father.

In closing, I remind you that bringing pleasure to God and walking worthy of the Lord Christ happens to people and churches who are filled with the knowledge of his will. And that knowledge comes to us like email: in packets (if you will), which often follow different routes and must be put together. This means you need other people in the church, people who are loving God and each other. I repeat what was said earlier: you cannot fully be yourself by yourself. And you cannot fully perceive and understand God’s will when your relationships with others are unhealthy.

So ask God to lead you into healthy relationships with others and to heal those that are unhealthy. Don’t be a loner.

One of my favorite authors, Wendell Berry, was walking with his friend Wes Jackson past a plot of Maximilian Sunflowers, which can grow to nearly ten feet. Jackson pointed to a plant that stood alone, disconnected from the rest.

Wendell Berry saw that this loner plant was taller than most and had bigger flowers. But it wasn’t healthy. Its blossoms were so heavy that the branches were starting to break under their weight. In one sense, the plant had “succeeded”: it was unusually tall and its flowers were impressive. It stood out from the crowd. But Maximilian Sunflowers only thrive and as they grow in community, not in isolation.[2]

That’s true of people too, especially of the followers of Jesus. Enter into the life of the church. Be involved with Jesus’s people. Don’t stand alone.

[1] Prov. 9:10; Eccl. 2:26 and Daniel 2:20; 2 Tim. 3:15; James 3:13

[2] Matt Woodley, managing editor, PreachingToday.com; source: Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace (Counterpoint, 2002), pp. 139-143

Posted in Church, From the Pulpit, Prayer, Sermons | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment