[This was prepared to be shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio on February 2, 2014.]
Luke 11:9-10
Mark 14:34-36
As followers of Jesus Christ, we Christians confess faith in a God of promises.
The Bible, the book we hold to be the perfect Word of God, uniquely inspired by the Holy Spirit, is filled with God’s promises, many already fulfilled, many yet to be.
Some of the promises God makes are wonderful.
Some aren’t pleasant.
And some can cause us confusion, even challenging our faith in God.
One promise that may sometimes comfort us, but other times confuse us, an be found in Luke 11:9-10. Jesus makes this promise about prayer: "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
These words of promise seem to come by way of amplifying what Jesus teaches us to pray in the seventh petition of what we call the Lord’s Prayer. In the sixth, you'll remember from last Sunday, Jesus says to pray: “...lead us not into temptation.” And while the New International Version which makes up our pew Bibles, omits it, many of the most reputable translations have decided that the ancient manuscripts are right when they quote Jesus as teaching us the seventh petition: “...but deliver us from the evil one.”
In The Small Catechism, Martin Luther writes: “We pray in this petition...that our heavenly Father would deliver us from every type of evil--whether it affects our bodies or souls, property or reputation...”
But, this is where it gets confusing.
Generations of faithful believers in Jesus have prayed this prayer, yet evils of all kinds have befallen them and the people for whom they’ve prayed.
In the Name of Jesus, people beg for blessings, but loved ones die, jobs are lost, reputations are subjected to destructive gossip, wars rage.
In telling us to “ask...seek...knock,” has God made a promise He cannot keep or is unwilling to keep?
What are we to think and believe when the things for which we devoutly pray don’t come to pass?
I’ve called this sermon “the mystery of unanswered prayer.” But, in a way, this is a misnomer. Before I preached on this same topic in one of my previous parishes, a man asked me, “Is this the Sunday you’re going to talk about unanswered prayer?” I said it was. He smiled and asked, “Is there such a thing?”
It was a rhetorical question because, of course, for the believer in Jesus who brings her or his petitions to Jesus, there are no unanswered prayers.
But there are answers to prayers we don’t like, that bring pain to us or to those we care about. There are many things that I hope God will make clear to us when we stand before Him after those of us who have believed in Jesus are resurrected from the dead. In the meantime, we have our questions.
One thing that should comfort us when we confront prayers not being answered as we hope they will be is the experience of Jesus Himself. Look please, at Mark 14:34 (page 711 in the pew Bibles). Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane, where He’s gone to pray. He tells the disciples: “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death...”
Jesus, in a sense, always stood in two worlds. As a human being, Jesus voluntarily experienced all the difficulties that we human beings experience--physical pain, relational rejection, death.
Isaiah 53:3, written at least six centuries before Jesus’ birth had foretold of Jesus that He would be, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” It was essential for our salvation for Jesus to be acquainted with the grief that comes to every human being. It was essential because only the death of a perfect unblemished Savior could be a sacrifice pure enough to free us from the death sentence you and I deserve.
So, one of the worlds in which Jesus lived was this world, the one in which you and I live, the world in which every baby who has ever been born has eventually, died. That’s why, as He faced suffering and death, Jesus was “exceedingly sorrowful.”
After asking His disciples to wait and watch while He went to pray, verse 35 says that Jesus “fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him.” “Father,” Jesus is begging, “deliver Me from evil. Deliver me from the cruel intentions of Satan, the evil one.”
Jesus, truly God, truly human, had led a sinless life. He had done everything God the Father had asked Him to do. Certainly, if anyone deserved to have their prayer request to be delivered from evil answered with a Yes, it was Jesus.
But look at what Jesus prays next, in verse 36: "Abba", Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."
You see, Jesus lived in another world as well as in this one. He lived also in the kingdom of God.
It’s the kingdom in which, if Jesus would be faithful to His call to die for us, He would rise into and live in for all eternity.
It’s the kingdom He came to bring to all who will turn from sin, submitting daily to the crucifixion of their old sinful selves, and placing themselves in the hands of Jesus--believing in Him--as trustingly as Jesus placed Himself in the hands of God the Father on the night He prayed in the garden.
And so, in the garden, from the perspective of this world, Jesus prayed, “Deliver us from evil.” But at the same time, as a citizen of the kingdom of God, He prayed, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
You and I are people of this world who live in the kingdom of God by faith in Christ. But we only vaguely understand the grand purposes of God, especially God’s purposes for our own lives. We see, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror.” Other translations say "in a mirror dimly" or "through a glass darkly."
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve prayed that friends and family be delivered from the evils accosting them--marital discord, cancer, job loss, bullying, whatever it might have been--only to see their suffering continue.
It’s only after own resurrections, beyond the gates of death, safely removed from the stranglehold that sin and death have over this world, that we will know God and God’s purposes completely, just as God already knows us completely.
It turns out that God the Father had an answer for Jesus’ prayer for deliverance from the immediate evils He faced that night in the garden. The answer was, “No.”
The reason for this NO is apparent now. Had Jesus been delivered from the threats of the Romans, Herod, Pilate, and the other conspirators that night, the moment God had long ago planned as the precise moment when the Savior would die and rise to give new and everlasting to those who repent for sin and believe in Jesus might have passed.
And having been allowed to cave into His understandable fears of suffering, rejection, and death and moved out of the will of God, Jesus Himself and all of us who depend on His death and resurrection to give us life, would have been delivered not from, but into, the hands of the evil one for all eternity.
In other words, the Father said, "No" to Jesus' prayer for protection from the immediate evils Jesus faced in order to say, "YES!" to protecting Jesus and us from the ultimate evil of eternal separation from God, literally from the fragmentation of God as God the Son separated from the God the Father and God the Spirit.
The people who were around Jesus at the time of His suffering and execution never would have guessed that God would bring good from His suffering and death. And I believe that God often says no to our prayers for protection from the immediate evils we perceive in order to say to yes to giving us protection from eternal evil.
I can’t pretend to know God’s will for our individual lives.
I don’t know why some people seem to suffer more than others.
Or why faithful people die at young ages.
Or others go through undeserved horrors in their personal lives.
But I do take great comfort and encouragement from the God of promise.
I’m strengthened by the promise of the risen Jesus when He says in Matthew 28:20, “I am with you always, even to the close of the age.”
So, even now, as I try to live in this world and in eternity, too, I know that God is by my side, empowering my choices and decisions, affirming me when I take the hard and narrow path rather than the easy, wide path, helping me to love God and love others, giving me strength and hope!
And I look forward with great anticipation to that moment in eternity when Revelation 21:4 tells us that God “will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
By the way, earlier I didn’t share all of what Martin Luther said about the seventh petition of the Lord’s Prayer, "but deliver us from evil."
He says that we’re to ask in this prayer not only for deliverance from the effects of evil on our bodies, souls, property, and reputations in this life, but also pray that “at last, when our hour of death comes, [our heavenly Father] would grant us a blessed end to our earthly lives, and graciously take us from this world of sorrow to Himself in heaven.” Luther is pointing to the ultimate deliverance from evil we all should crave.
And knowing that, through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus, our residence in that world is guaranteed can give us a new passion for fearless living in this world. Unafraid about our ultimate destination, we can be generous in loving and giving and spreading the good news of Jesus and fighting for justice the poor and despised.
After all, death is not the worst thing that can happen to a Christian!
But knowing about our ultimate deliverance--resurrection life with God--can also give us a new sense of understanding when our prayers aren’t answered as we want them to be. We know that God has a plan, even though we’re not in on its details.*
This is what Paul is getting at in Romans 8:18: “I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us.”
This side of the resurrection, God’s answers to our prayers will often baffle us.
They may even make us angry. And that's okay because you don't get angry with a God in Who you don't believe. Even our anger with God is, in a real sense, an expression of faith in God. And God is big enough to take our anger.
But we know that on whatever path God may call us to take in this life, He will be beside us always and that, as the cross and empty tomb of Jesus attest, He is committed to loving us into His kingdom, where, finally...the questions will be answered, the suffering will be ended, the tears will be no more, and we will be delivered from all evil. Amen
*By the way, I have learned that this fact is a lot easier said than
lived. But I pray one day, I will trust God enough to truly and daily
submit to His will to such an extent that I really do accept that He has
a plan and that I don't need to know the details. As a Christian, I confess, that I'm only a recovering control freak. And my addiction to control--the impulse, the Bible tells us, to "be like God"--rears its ugly head all the time. God help me!
Showing posts with label Luke 11:9-10. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Luke 11:9-10. Show all posts
Monday, February 03, 2014
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Living with the Mystery of Unanswered Prayer
[This was shared during the 10:15 worship service with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]
Mark 14:35-36
As followers of Jesus Christ, we Christians confess faith in a God of promises. The Bible, the book we hold to be the perfect Word of God, uniquely inspired by the Holy Spirit, is filled with God’s promises, many already fulfilled, many yet to be.
Some of the promises God makes aren’t pleasant. And some can cause us confusion, even challenge our faith in God.
One that falls in this latter category can be found in Luke 11:9-10. Jesus makes this promise about prayer: “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he [or she] who seeks finds, and to him [or her] who knocks it will be opened.”
These words of promise come by way of amplifying what Jesus teaches us to pray in the seventh petition of what we call the Lord’s Prayer in the last line of Luke 11:4: “But deliver us from the evil one.”
In an explanation of this petition of the Lord’s Prayer in The Small Catechism, Martin Luther writes: “We pray in this petition...that our heavenly Father would deliver us from every type of evil--whether it affects our bodies or souls, property or reputation...”
But you may have noticed something: Generations of faithful believers in Jesus have prayed this prayer, yet evils of all kinds have befallen them and the people for whom they’ve prayed.
In the Name of Jesus, people beg for blessings, but loved ones die, jobs are lost, reputations are subjected to destructive gossip, wars rage.
In telling us to “ask...seek...knock,” has God made a promise He cannot keep or is unwilling to keep?
What are we to think and believe when the things for which we pray don’t come to us?
I’ve called this “the mystery of unanswered prayer.” In a way, this is a misnomer.
A member of the congregation approached me this past week and asked, “Is this the Sunday you’re going to talk about unanswered prayer?” I said it was. He smiled and asked, “Is there such a thing?”
It was a rhetorical question because, of course, for the believer in Jesus who brings her or his petitions to Jesus, there are no unanswered prayers.
But there are answers to prayers we don’t like, that bring pain to us or to those we care about.
And there are many things that I hope God will make clear to us when we stand before Him after those of us who have believed in Jesus are resurrected from the dead.
In the meantime, we have our questions.
One thing that should comfort us when we confront prayers not being answered as we ardently hope they will be is the experience of Jesus Himself.
Look to the verse just before our gospel lesson, Mark 14:34. Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane, where He’s gone to pray. He tells the disciples: “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful even to death...”
Jesus, in a sense, always stood in two worlds. As a human being, Jesus voluntarily experienced all the difficulties that we human beings experience--physical pain, relational rejection, death. Isaiah 53:3, written at least six centuries before Jesus’ birth had foretold of Jesus that He would be, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”
It was necessary for our salvation for Jesus to be acquainted with the grief that comes to every human being. It was necessary because only the death of a perfect unblemished Savior could be a sacrifice pure enough to free us from the death sentence you and I deserve.
So, one of the worlds in which Jesus lived was this world, the one in which you and I live, the world in which every baby who has ever been born has eventually, died.
That’s why, as He faced suffering and death, Jesus was “exceedingly sorrowful.”
After asking His disciples to wait and watch while He went to pray, verse 35 says that Jesus “fell on the ground, and prayed if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him.”
“Father,” Jesus is begging, “deliver Me from evil. Deliver me from the cruel intentions of Satan, the evil one.”
In His agony, Jesus must have prayed this prayer in different ways repeatedly because, look at what we read in verse 36: “And He said, ‘Abba [the very intimate term Jesus has taught us to use at the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer], Father, all things are possible for You. [I know that You can keep this from happening, Lord.] Take this cup away from Me [The cup, in the Old Testament, symbolizes judgment and God the Father expects Jesus to drink the cup of judgment--to undergo death--for us all. Jesus begs that He won’t have to drink this cup of suffering and death. Then He prays...] nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.”
You see, Jesus lived in another world as well as in this one. He lived also in the kingdom of God.
It is the kingdom in which, if Jesus would be faithful to His call to die for us, He would rise into and live in for all eternity.
It is the kingdom He came to bring to all who will turn from sin, submitting daily to the crucifixion of their old sinful selves, and place themselves in the hands of Jesus--believing in Him--as trustingly as Jesus placed Himself in the hands of God the Father on the night He prayed in the garden.
And so, in the garden, from the perspective of this world, Jesus prayed, “Deliver us from evil.”
But at the same time, as a citizen of the kingdom of God, He prayed, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Folks, listen: You and I are people of this world who live in the kingdom of God by faith in Christ, but who only vaguely understand the grand purposes of God, especially God’s purposes for our own lives. We see, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “in a mirror, dimly.”
It’s only after own resurrections, beyond the gates of death, safely removed from the stranglehold that sin and death have over this world, that “we will know” God and God’s purposes completely, just as God already knows us completely.
God the Father had an answer for Jesus’ prayer for deliverance from the immediate evils He faced that night in the garden. The answer was, “No.”
The reason for this NO seems apparent to me. Had Jesus been delivered from the threats of the Romans, Herod, Pilate, and other conspirators that night, the moment God had long ago planned as the precise moment--what the Greek of the New Testament calls the kairos moment--when the Savior would die and rise to give new and everlasting to those who repent for sin and believe in Jesus might have passed.
And having been allowed to cave into His understandable fears of suffering, rejection, and death and moved out of the will of God, Jesus Himself and all of us who depend on His death and resurrection to give us life, would have been delivered not from, but into, the hands of the evil one for all eternity.
In other words, the Father said, "No" to Jesus' prayer for protection from the immediate evils Jesus faced in order to say, "YES!" to protecting Jesus and us from the ultimate evil of eternal separation from God. The people who were around Jesus at the time of His suffering and execution never would have guessed that God would bring good from all that bad. And I believe that God often says no to our prayers for protection from the immediate evils we perceive in order to say to yes to His protection from evil for us for eternity.
I can’t pretend to know God’s will for our individual lives.
I don’t know why some people seem to suffer more than others.
Or why faithful people die at young ages.
Or others go through undeserved horrors in their personal lives.
But I do take great comfort and encouragement from the God of promise.
For example, I’m strengthened by the promise of the risen Jesus when He says, “I am with you always, even to the close of the age.” So, even now, as I try to live in this world and in eternity, too, God is by my side, empowering my choices and decisions, helping me to love God and love others, giving me strength and hope!
And I look forward with anticipation to that moment in eternity when Revelation 21:4 tells us that God “will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
By the way, earlier I didn’t share all of what Martin Luther said about the seventh petition of the Lord’s Prayer--”But deliver us from evil”--earlier.
He says that we’re to ask in this prayer not only for deliverance from the effects of evil on our bodies, souls, property, and reputations, but also that “at last, when our hour of death comes, [our heavenly Father] would grant us a blessed end to our earthly lives, and graciously take us from this world of sorrow to Himself in heaven.”
Luther is pointing to the ultimate deliverance from evil we all should crave.
And knowing that, through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus, our residence in that world is guaranteed can give us a new passion for fearless living in this world.
Unafraid about our ultimate destination, we can be generous in loving and giving and spreading the good news of Jesus and fighting for justice the poor and despised.
After all, death is not the worst thing that can happen to a Christian.
But knowing about our ultimate deliverance can also give us a new sense of understanding when our prayers aren’t answered as we want them to be. We know that God has a plan, even when we’re not in on its details.
This is what Paul is getting at in Romans 8:18: “I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us.”
This side of the resurrection, God’s answers to our prayers will often baffle us.
But we know that on whatever path God may call us to take in this life, He will be beside us always and that, as the cross and empty tomb of Jesus attest, He is committed to loving us into His kingdom, where, finally...
the questions will be answered,
the suffering will be ended,
the tears will be no more, and
we will be delivered from all evil. Amen
Mark 14:35-36
As followers of Jesus Christ, we Christians confess faith in a God of promises. The Bible, the book we hold to be the perfect Word of God, uniquely inspired by the Holy Spirit, is filled with God’s promises, many already fulfilled, many yet to be.
Some of the promises God makes aren’t pleasant. And some can cause us confusion, even challenge our faith in God.
One that falls in this latter category can be found in Luke 11:9-10. Jesus makes this promise about prayer: “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he [or she] who seeks finds, and to him [or her] who knocks it will be opened.”
These words of promise come by way of amplifying what Jesus teaches us to pray in the seventh petition of what we call the Lord’s Prayer in the last line of Luke 11:4: “But deliver us from the evil one.”
In an explanation of this petition of the Lord’s Prayer in The Small Catechism, Martin Luther writes: “We pray in this petition...that our heavenly Father would deliver us from every type of evil--whether it affects our bodies or souls, property or reputation...”
But you may have noticed something: Generations of faithful believers in Jesus have prayed this prayer, yet evils of all kinds have befallen them and the people for whom they’ve prayed.
In the Name of Jesus, people beg for blessings, but loved ones die, jobs are lost, reputations are subjected to destructive gossip, wars rage.
In telling us to “ask...seek...knock,” has God made a promise He cannot keep or is unwilling to keep?
What are we to think and believe when the things for which we pray don’t come to us?
I’ve called this “the mystery of unanswered prayer.” In a way, this is a misnomer.
A member of the congregation approached me this past week and asked, “Is this the Sunday you’re going to talk about unanswered prayer?” I said it was. He smiled and asked, “Is there such a thing?”
It was a rhetorical question because, of course, for the believer in Jesus who brings her or his petitions to Jesus, there are no unanswered prayers.
But there are answers to prayers we don’t like, that bring pain to us or to those we care about.
And there are many things that I hope God will make clear to us when we stand before Him after those of us who have believed in Jesus are resurrected from the dead.
In the meantime, we have our questions.
One thing that should comfort us when we confront prayers not being answered as we ardently hope they will be is the experience of Jesus Himself.
Look to the verse just before our gospel lesson, Mark 14:34. Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane, where He’s gone to pray. He tells the disciples: “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful even to death...”
Jesus, in a sense, always stood in two worlds. As a human being, Jesus voluntarily experienced all the difficulties that we human beings experience--physical pain, relational rejection, death. Isaiah 53:3, written at least six centuries before Jesus’ birth had foretold of Jesus that He would be, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”
It was necessary for our salvation for Jesus to be acquainted with the grief that comes to every human being. It was necessary because only the death of a perfect unblemished Savior could be a sacrifice pure enough to free us from the death sentence you and I deserve.
So, one of the worlds in which Jesus lived was this world, the one in which you and I live, the world in which every baby who has ever been born has eventually, died.
That’s why, as He faced suffering and death, Jesus was “exceedingly sorrowful.”
After asking His disciples to wait and watch while He went to pray, verse 35 says that Jesus “fell on the ground, and prayed if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him.”
“Father,” Jesus is begging, “deliver Me from evil. Deliver me from the cruel intentions of Satan, the evil one.”
In His agony, Jesus must have prayed this prayer in different ways repeatedly because, look at what we read in verse 36: “And He said, ‘Abba [the very intimate term Jesus has taught us to use at the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer], Father, all things are possible for You. [I know that You can keep this from happening, Lord.] Take this cup away from Me [The cup, in the Old Testament, symbolizes judgment and God the Father expects Jesus to drink the cup of judgment--to undergo death--for us all. Jesus begs that He won’t have to drink this cup of suffering and death. Then He prays...] nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.”
You see, Jesus lived in another world as well as in this one. He lived also in the kingdom of God.
It is the kingdom in which, if Jesus would be faithful to His call to die for us, He would rise into and live in for all eternity.
It is the kingdom He came to bring to all who will turn from sin, submitting daily to the crucifixion of their old sinful selves, and place themselves in the hands of Jesus--believing in Him--as trustingly as Jesus placed Himself in the hands of God the Father on the night He prayed in the garden.
And so, in the garden, from the perspective of this world, Jesus prayed, “Deliver us from evil.”
But at the same time, as a citizen of the kingdom of God, He prayed, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Folks, listen: You and I are people of this world who live in the kingdom of God by faith in Christ, but who only vaguely understand the grand purposes of God, especially God’s purposes for our own lives. We see, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “in a mirror, dimly.”
It’s only after own resurrections, beyond the gates of death, safely removed from the stranglehold that sin and death have over this world, that “we will know” God and God’s purposes completely, just as God already knows us completely.
God the Father had an answer for Jesus’ prayer for deliverance from the immediate evils He faced that night in the garden. The answer was, “No.”
The reason for this NO seems apparent to me. Had Jesus been delivered from the threats of the Romans, Herod, Pilate, and other conspirators that night, the moment God had long ago planned as the precise moment--what the Greek of the New Testament calls the kairos moment--when the Savior would die and rise to give new and everlasting to those who repent for sin and believe in Jesus might have passed.
And having been allowed to cave into His understandable fears of suffering, rejection, and death and moved out of the will of God, Jesus Himself and all of us who depend on His death and resurrection to give us life, would have been delivered not from, but into, the hands of the evil one for all eternity.
In other words, the Father said, "No" to Jesus' prayer for protection from the immediate evils Jesus faced in order to say, "YES!" to protecting Jesus and us from the ultimate evil of eternal separation from God. The people who were around Jesus at the time of His suffering and execution never would have guessed that God would bring good from all that bad. And I believe that God often says no to our prayers for protection from the immediate evils we perceive in order to say to yes to His protection from evil for us for eternity.
I can’t pretend to know God’s will for our individual lives.
I don’t know why some people seem to suffer more than others.
Or why faithful people die at young ages.
Or others go through undeserved horrors in their personal lives.
But I do take great comfort and encouragement from the God of promise.
For example, I’m strengthened by the promise of the risen Jesus when He says, “I am with you always, even to the close of the age.” So, even now, as I try to live in this world and in eternity, too, God is by my side, empowering my choices and decisions, helping me to love God and love others, giving me strength and hope!
And I look forward with anticipation to that moment in eternity when Revelation 21:4 tells us that God “will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
By the way, earlier I didn’t share all of what Martin Luther said about the seventh petition of the Lord’s Prayer--”But deliver us from evil”--earlier.
He says that we’re to ask in this prayer not only for deliverance from the effects of evil on our bodies, souls, property, and reputations, but also that “at last, when our hour of death comes, [our heavenly Father] would grant us a blessed end to our earthly lives, and graciously take us from this world of sorrow to Himself in heaven.”
Luther is pointing to the ultimate deliverance from evil we all should crave.
And knowing that, through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus, our residence in that world is guaranteed can give us a new passion for fearless living in this world.
Unafraid about our ultimate destination, we can be generous in loving and giving and spreading the good news of Jesus and fighting for justice the poor and despised.
After all, death is not the worst thing that can happen to a Christian.
But knowing about our ultimate deliverance can also give us a new sense of understanding when our prayers aren’t answered as we want them to be. We know that God has a plan, even when we’re not in on its details.
This is what Paul is getting at in Romans 8:18: “I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us.”
This side of the resurrection, God’s answers to our prayers will often baffle us.
But we know that on whatever path God may call us to take in this life, He will be beside us always and that, as the cross and empty tomb of Jesus attest, He is committed to loving us into His kingdom, where, finally...
the questions will be answered,
the suffering will be ended,
the tears will be no more, and
we will be delivered from all evil. Amen
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Goal-Setting, A Christian Approach, Part 5
In this final installment on goal-setting from a Christian perspective, I have a simple bit of advice: Sin boldly.
The words are from Christian reformer, Martin Luther (1483-1546). Luther offered them as advice to those wrestling with decisions.
The advice will make no sense unless one is a follower of Jesus Christ. That's because Luther's not really commending doing things contrary to God's will. Instead, it's tongue-in-cheek counsel to those grateful for the free gift of forgiveness and life that comes to all who believe in Jesus.
Basically, the Christian who "sins boldly" in establishing their goals in life goes through the following steps:
The thing I notice about Christians--and here I'm talking about the absolutely radically committed Christians--is how free they feel to be utterly idiosyncratic. Their relationship with the God they know through Jesus causes them to be fearless about trying their hands at a million different things.
Business consultant Laurie Beth Jones, in her book, Jesus, Life Coach, writes:
Christians feel free to sin boldly and risk getting it wrong because they believe--I believe--the words of the New Testament, where it says:
The words are from Christian reformer, Martin Luther (1483-1546). Luther offered them as advice to those wrestling with decisions.
The advice will make no sense unless one is a follower of Jesus Christ. That's because Luther's not really commending doing things contrary to God's will. Instead, it's tongue-in-cheek counsel to those grateful for the free gift of forgiveness and life that comes to all who believe in Jesus.
Basically, the Christian who "sins boldly" in establishing their goals in life goes through the following steps:
(1) Puts a relationship with Christ first in their life.The Christian is both the freest person on the planet and the greatest servant. We are called by Jesus to be servants of God and neighbor, as the One we know as God and Savior has served us. [Luke 9:46-48; John 13:12-17] We live in voluntary submission to the purposes of God knowing that He has designed us and has good plans for us. [Jeremiah 29:11] We feel completely free to adopt the lifestyle of loving servants of God and others because we know we belong to God forever.
(2) Remembers the five basic purposes for all of our lives, as revealed in the Bible and summarized in Rick Warrren's book, The Purpose Driven Life:
- to worship God with our whole lives (this begins with a relationship with Christ)
- to fellowship with other believers in Jesus Christ
- to grow into becoming more like Christ
- to serve others in Christ's Name (at home, at work, at play, in the community, and even in church)
- to pass on the Good News of God's free gifts of forgiveness and eternal life for all with faith in Jesus Christ
(3) Fulfills duties to family members, employers, clients, friends, and neighbors.
(4) Looks for ways to best use talents and abilities to pursue the five purposes.
(5) Becomes familiar with God's Word to better know the mind of the One Who designed us in the first place and Who therefore, knows how our lives can function optimally.
(6) Prays
(7) Seeks the counsel of wise believers who both know God and the person seeking counsel.
(8) Finally, Luther would say, if our intentions are to do God's will and we still aren't sure what the right thing might be, we should do the next thing that seems needing to be done. If our intentions are right, Luther suggests, God is loving and gracious. He will make the most of the decisions and goals we adopt even if, as imperfect people, we might take the wrong step.
The thing I notice about Christians--and here I'm talking about the absolutely radically committed Christians--is how free they feel to be utterly idiosyncratic. Their relationship with the God they know through Jesus causes them to be fearless about trying their hands at a million different things.
Business consultant Laurie Beth Jones, in her book, Jesus, Life Coach, writes:
I don't know how anyone attempting to follow Jesus could ever be bored. As author Annie Dillard says, if we truly knew who we were worshiping, we'd all be wearing hard hats in church.No grouping of people I know of feels as much personal security about being themselves as Christians on fire for Christ:
Jesus came not to reinforce your comfort zone, but to set your old small-minded ways on fire.
- Desmond Tutu has fearlessly spoken out for human rights in a clerical collar while dancing the traditional dances of his black African people.
- Jimmy Carter witnesses for Christ at a summit meeting with Leonid Brezhnev and after losing his re-election bid, becomes the most unique ex-President in US history.
- The members of MXPX and POD festoon their bodies with tattoos, play thrashing music that makes its way onto mainstream music charts, and still maintain their Christian integrity, even when featured on MTV.
- Bono may be an "unchurched Christian," but he is in closer community with people from around the world, including the destitute poor and innocent victims of AIDS of Africa, acting as their advocates even in the counsel of prime ministers and presidents.
- The late Mother Teresa and the millions she's inspired feel free to not worry about where their next pennies may come from and have simply taken care of the dying others pass by.
Christians feel free to sin boldly and risk getting it wrong because they believe--I believe--the words of the New Testament, where it says:
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. [Romans 8:28]God wants you to have a fantastic life of significance and meaning. In order to enjoy that life, I invite you to:
Turn from sin and ask God for forgiveness. Sin is the thing that prevents us from enjoying life as God meant for us to live it. Sin is the condition of heart, mind, and will that rebels against God, the One Who designed us in the first place. (Mark 1:15)
Trust (or believe) in Jesus, God the Son, Who took our punishment for sin on a cross and rose again in order to open up eternity with God to us. (John 3:16; Romans 6:23)
Ask God to guide you through your life, including being part of a faith community where you'll be supported, encouraged, and challenged in living faithfully and authentically. (Luke 11:9-10; Romans 12:12-26)
Sin boldly, knowing that God will make the most of your best efforts to live life His way! [Romans 8:28]
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