daily java

Daily Java:

One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.” Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!” (John 5:5-8)

Jesus saw a man who had been sick for 38 years and asked him if he wanted to get well. The man had a lot of excuses as to why he couldn’t get well, but the main one was that nobody would help him get into what he felt was the magic water.

Jesus got tired of hearing him whine so he healed him and then left. The man got in trouble because of something Jesus told him to do in the healing. Pick up your mat and walk. But it was the Sabbath day when people were not supposed to carry things around. It was an Old Testament day of rest. Instantly the man got crossways with the church police for going against customs and church law.

But Jesus never told him who he was until after he had gotten in trouble. And after he told him, the guy ran back to the police to tell them who it was that made him break the law.

Sometimes you get in trouble for doing something good. And sometimes you get in trouble for doing what other people don’t want you to do even though it is perfectly good. The kids who have their diplomas withheld because they prayed in the graduation ceremony, the woman who lost her job for wearing a cross, the man who got demerits on his job for reading a Bible during lunch hour.

People are stupid. Jesus knew this and told the guy to carry his mat around anyway, even though it was a law not to carry things on the Sabbath. The man probably figured that if he put the mat down, he would get crippled again and he wasn’t about to do that. But the church police were mad because he had broken one of their laws. He was stuck.

When Jesus talked to him later, he told him not to sin anymore or something worse would happen to  him, worse than being crippled. But the man ran back and told the police anyway. A little stool pigeon.

Jesus knew it was against the law and he knew the guy would probably tell. But he did it anyway, even if the guy was afraid and a little ungrateful.

He does the same to us even when we are afraid and ungrateful in our lives. And he didn’t take the healing back when the guy ran and told the police his name.

He really didn’t care what they thought. He was going to do what he was going to do anyway whether they liked it or not.

It doesn’t matter what people think when we try to serve God. We do it anyway. It may break a law, but it was a stupid law and it doesn’t matter, as long as we are serving God. That doesn’t count if we just break laws, but if we are serving God and doing what he wants, we need to do it anyway.

daily java

Daily Java:

Open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in your instructions. (Psalm 119:18)

To a lot of people I am a liberal. And to a lot of people I am a flaming conservative. It depends on who you talk to. And oddly enough, you can be both.

Those who think I am liberal react to the fact that I do not accept things theological as cut and dried. I feel there is always “an other hand”. They get mad when I question their interpretation or when I do not agree with them. As one man in a church I pastored in Houston told me, “When you came I thought you were smart. But now that you are disagreeing with me, I don’t think so anymore.” When I mentioned that one did not have to speak in tongues to be godly it made another church angry. Another had a translation that was from God and all others were from the devil. Another had a certain kind of music. Another ---.

To those people I did not accept their way of looking at things so they considered me liberal. The fact that I could see both sides of an opinion was too much for them. I read things and was willing to discuss rather than accept. One young man who was a preacher near me in the Bootheel of Missouri, when I told him I was going to move, said, “Oh, no! Where will I go to talk liberal?” He had no one else in the denomination to discuss things with freely like he did with me.

And it scared people to know that I questioned what to them was cut and dried. To them all of the interpretations of the gospel had been given over 100 years ago and there was no further need to question. When I did, it scared them and made them angry.

But, on the other hand, to those who are strongly modern liberals in the church, I am a flaming conservative. I believe in the reality of God and the virgin birth. I believe in literal six days of creation. I believe in the bodily resurrection from the dead and the inspiration of the Scriptures. To them I am a horribly, irretrievably knuckle-dragging arch conservative.

Those people cannot believe that anyone who reads and thinks can possibly believe in absolutes. And I do believe in absolutes. I just do not always choose as absolute what others choose as absolute. There are things that I cannot see a Christian as doing without, certain beliefs that have to be there to really be a follower of Christ. That resurrection, the virgin birth, the scriptures – those have to be there or it is all worthless.

But the things we do, the methodology of our worship and our belief is not absolute. As long as you accept the grace of Jesus and his Lordship in your life, you are a Christian. Deny that and you have denied the very basic part of our faith and rendered it worthless.

But the stuff – worship, speaking in tongues, the translation you use, the music you sing, the way you pray, the way you preach – all that is unimportant. The service to God is what matters.

God does not live in the stuff, he lives in the heart. And when the heart is his, the stuff will be taken care of, whether those around like it or not.

daily java

Daily Java:

Open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in your instructions. (Psalm 119:18)

I have always had a couple of problems and they have had an impact on my life. One was the fact that I am restless, always looking over the next hill. I have had wanderlust most of my life.

This meant that I moved every few years or more, never staying anywhere long. I needed the new.

There is nothing wrong with that. The apostle Paul was the same way. He never spent more than three years on one place and one ministry.

But there was a problem with that. The problem is that it gave us no home.

I am originally from Texas City, TX, just over the bay from Galveston. Ella is from Houston. And we have been there some during my almost forty years of ministry. I suppose that I consider that home now. For a while, I considered home wherever I was. My home was home. Where my children were and now where my wife is is home.

But that rootlessness gave root to a second problem: I think too much. I was never one to see one side of a problem. I could always see both sides.

There is a bad problem with seeing things in only one way. The problem is that you can be wrong and not know it because you will not pursue any alternative paths. I spent a long time in a denomination that was sure it was the only one going to heaven. When I began to consider that it was not that way, I had to leave. I moved into another denomination that lived by the “our way or the highway” adage and I had to leave again.

Of course, I spent a short time in one that said all ways were equally good. I thought enough and studied enough that I knew that wasn’t true, so I had to leave. It seemed that I could not find people who agreed with me.

And I never have. I don’t know why I am cursed with this “on the other hand” mentality but I am. And Ella doesn’t always like it, but – on the other hand – she has seen a lot of stuff and been a lot of places she would not have been to if she had married that accountant, Donald, that I tell her she would have had if I had not come along.

He would have been boring and safe and she would have had a good life. For a while. I told her he probably worked for an oil company in Houston and lost his job in the oil bust of the 80’s and got caught embezzling. So she was better off with me. I have not always been smart but at least I never went to jail.

Of course, that is all in my mind. But that will teach her.

But those two things produced in me a dissatisfaction that is hard to get rid of. I am dissatisfied with where I am and I hate it when people come down with theological pronouncements from on high and consider them to be the last word. Even if a denomination votes on it doesn’t necessarily make it right.

Of course, I am not necessarily right either. But I would not be who I am otherwise. Don’t know if that is good or not, but it is so.

Ephesians 3: God’s Mysterious Plan Revealed and Paul Prays for Growth

This is the lesson plan for tomorrow night. If you would like to use it, feel free. Just don't claim it as yours.

Ephesians 3: God’s Mysterious Plan Revealed and Paul Prays for Growth

There are lots of things mysterious to the uninitiated that are not to those who have experienced them. Love is one. Boys make fun of falling in love until one day they do. Sex is a mystery as is holding a job or home ownership. For that matter, even the most mundane things can be “mysterious” if they have never happened to you. Getting hit in the face by someone, falling down, riding a motorcycle, eating an jalapeno, touching a very hot surface, losing a loved one. All kinds of things are mysterious – or at least unfamiliar – to those who have never experienced them personally. The same could be said for coming to know the love of God and being baptized in the Spirit. Those it has never happened to have not the foggiest idea of what it is like. To them it is a stone mystery.

But what is a mystery to one is familiar to another. When I went to Germany in the army, little children were able to communicate better than I could. German (with the exception of something that sounded like Kriskut Schatzi, Hi there Sweetheart, something taught to all GI’s and welcomed about by German women about like a cold slap in the face) was alien until I got a handle on it. When I did, it was no longer a mystery. It was still somewhat unfamiliar as I never got that good at German but it was no longer a mystery. Reading for a child is a mystery until one day it dawns on them. the same is true with math.

The apostle Paul said that he was appointed by God to show them the mystery of God’s plan, his grace and love for them manifested in Jesus. When they heard him and read what he wrote, they understood what he was talking about. It was a mystery to all of humanity before Jesus came, but now is available to all.

As he says in vv6-7, the mystery, the plan was simple. Everybody was welcomed into the kingdom. Not just Jews, but also the rest of humanity had an equal part in the kingdom of God. And Paul marvels at the fact that he was chosen to tell people about it, that God not only saved him, but appointed him a messenger of this plan.
God also uses the church to show this. The church is the sole sphere of God’s influence to humanity and as such is to teach this plan, this revealed mystery. And because of this mystery being revealed, we now know that we can come into the presence of God without the mediation of anybody other than Jesus. We do not have to ask permission or go to a special group of leaders. We just, as Hebrews 9 says, boldly approach the throne of grace.

Paul writes a doxology in vv14-19, a poem of sorts about the greatness of God and his love. Many of these were early church songs that were sung in the assembly. As Ephesians 5:19 says, the early church was singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts. This was one of those early hymns. Psalms were from the Psalms and spiritual songs were lighter melodies.

He ends with a comment on the greatness of God. He is not only able to great things, he is able to do greater things than we can even imagine. And all glory is his forever.

QUESTIONS:

1. How can something common be a mystery? Isn’t it just a matter of perspective?

2. Why would Paul keep on being so amazed at God’s intervention in his life? Doesn’t it seem like he would begin to accept it sooner or later? Wouldn’t his continual surprise be lack of faith in God’s ability to save and forgive?

3. If explaining the grace of God is a privilege, why do more not do it?

4. V10 – How is God’s wisdom shown in this whole thing? What is so wise about it?

5. Why do you think the early writers of the Old Testament couldn’t figure this all out? It seems awfully plain to us.

6. Have you ever experienced that love and power in your life?

7. How can God work more than what we can think?

Daily Java:

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. (John 8:32)

I have found out recently that I am liberal. I never knew it. I always thought of myself as conservative and in recent years as libertarian. The definition of liberal, according to the freedictionary.com is:

“Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.”

Liberal has come to mean people who are willing to involve government in all aspects of their lives. It has come to delineate a group of people who are willing to throw everything away and change society so that it becomes godless.

But that is not what it is. Classic liberalism in fact is defined as this (by conservapedia.com):

“Classical liberalism is a political philosophy that supports individual rights as pre-existing the state, a government that exists to protect those moral rights, ensured by a constitution that protects individual autonomy from other individuals and governmental power, private property, and a laissez-faire economic policy. The "normative core" of classical liberalism is the idea that in an environment of laissez-faire, a spontaneous order of cooperation in exchanging goods and services emerges that satisfies human wants.”

Classic liberalism sounds more Tea Party than Democrat. Real liberals would advocate for freedom of expression while at the same time keeping structure. It would also hold capitalism up as good.

Why is it that we have moved to such a different definition of liberal? The founding fathers of America were liberal, but not like the President and Democrats are liberal. Those people would enshrine freedom where these people enslave us under the guise of helping us. those people valued individual initiative while these people denigrate it under the aegis of government programs.

A libertarian, under the original definition of liberalism, is liberal.

And so am I.

daily java

Daily Java:

Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life. (John 4:13-14)

1969. I was in the army in basic training in El Paso. We were walking through the part of New Mexico that was close to El Paso and part of White Sands Missile Range. It was hot and we were walking, going from nowhere to nowhere.

The drill sergeants wouldn’t let us have anything to drink. There were two reasons for this. One was that they were trying to teach us to go without water. The other is that they were mean and cruel pieces of trash that liked to torment us.

Or that’s what I thought at the time.

When we finally had a break and sat for a few minutes, we got to drink from our green plastic canteens (that was a stupid design). When we finally got a drink, it was the best hot green plastic water I had ever tasted. In fact, it was the best water I ever tasted. It tasted great.

I could have drunk anything at the moment, but it was water my body was craving. I needed water. Not pop, not lemonade, not beer, not whiskey, not even Gatorade. I needed water.

It is the same with our lives. We get so thirsty in life for something and many times we don’t even know what it is. We try work, we try stuff that we can buy, we try sex, we try money – and when it comes down to it, we are miserable.

That is because we are made to serve God, to love him and to be loved by him. When we put other stuff into our lives instead of him, it just doesn’t work. It may be a temporary relief and it may feel just right for the moment. But in the long run, it doesn’t work.

We have what one guy called a “God-shaped vacuum” in our lives. It is a hole in our souls that cannot be filled with anything else but God. Only God will fit the hole.

That is because we were made in the image of God, in his pattern. That means that he is the only One that will complete us.

We can try everything else – kind of like the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament did – but we will find, like he did, that it is all worthless. Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless! he says in the book. Nothing satisfied him except God and his word.

Only the water he gives – his life, his word, his purpose, his meaning – will make us happy. Everything else will leave us empty, wanting something else. Twinkies and junk food never substitutes for steak. Pop never substitutes for water. Sex never substitutes for love. And nothing substitutes for God.

We want the real thing. And the water of life Jesus gives is that real thing.

daily java

Daily Java:

I am innocent,
    but it makes no difference to me—
    I despise my life.
Innocent or wicked, it is all the same to God.
    That’s why I say, ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’
When a plague sweeps through,
    he laughs at the death of the innocent.
The whole earth is in the hands of the wicked,
    and God blinds the eyes of the judges.
    If he’s not the one who does it, who is? (Job 9:21-24)

I am disgusted with my life.
    Let me complain freely.
    My bitter soul must complain.
I will say to God, ‘Don’t simply condemn me—
    tell me the charge you are bringing against me.
What do you gain by oppressing me?
    Why do you reject me, the work of your own hands,
    while smiling on the schemes of the wicked? (Job 10:1-3)

Reading the Book of Job again. I really hate reading this book. But it is in the daily Bible reading rotation so I do. It resonates pretty deeply in my own life. Beating myself to death for the Kingdom of God and God still allows all these things to happen to me.

I am so depressed right now. And it has spread to Ella, usually an upbeat person, quick with a smile. We sit all day, trapped by economics in our home, unable to afford gas to go anywhere.

As Job is, I am disgusted with my life, but there is no one to complain to except Ella and she doesn’t need to hear it. My prayers go to the ceiling and stop.

And then some moron says, Maybe your heart isn’t in the right place. Or Maybe you aren’t asking the right way.

As if I would force my children to phrase things exactly when they requested things from me or I would ignore them.

He doesn’t hear because he doesn’t desire to hear. He is busy elsewhere. My lifetime of service gives me nothing in his sight. I surely wish I had done something else with my life, something that gave me some retirement and a sense of accomplishment.

daily java

Daily Java:

Once I was young, and now I am old.
    Yet I have never seen the godly abandoned
    or their children begging for bread. (Psalm 37:25)

The problem is, I have. I have seen people who came to the end of a life of long and faithful service and have nothing, barely able to even get some place to live. I am one of them.

I do not understand why God has abandoned me, nor do I understand why he has left us in this situation. And I do not understand how it is that, when I have given my life to him in his service, he has put us in this financial situation. If it were not for government housing, I would be begging a place to live. We barely have enough. On top of it all, Ella is crippled and in constant pain, exacerbated by her falling at least once a month, and sometimes more, always hurting herself more in the process.

Now I will have to admit that we have plenty of food. The freezer is full of good things. And I know that is because we are hospitable. He told us that when we share, he will bless us.

But financially is where we have our problems. We have always been generous with our money, yet we are broke. I took early retirement, but the extra we will pay for our housing cuts into that, so we have not gained that much.

I also know that the people of the Bible were not always blessed financially. Hebrews 11 talks about that. But the problem is, why will God on the one hand talk about how the world will see the child of God as being so blessed and on the other hand leave that same child with nothing.

I recognize that God is not fair. He is loving and good, just and merciful. But he is not fair. He will allow one of his children to be homeless. He will not always give them even what they need. As the book of Job points out, he will allow them to be severely damaged without it even seeming to bother him.

“My faithful servant who has served me all my life?” God says of Job to the devil. “Sure. Kill him in all but actual body. Hurt him, maim him, kill his children, damage his health, impoverish him, let his friends turn on him, baffle his wife to the point of madness. Sure. Whatever you want.”

Is that really a God of love?

Now I recognize that probably Job is a epic poem, a parable, maybe based on a real life situation.  But it is in the Bible for us to look at and learn from. What do we learn from the book of Job. We learn three things, he wrote in his normal overly analytical way.

One is that sometimes there is no good reason for something happening. Job’s problems were nothing more than a bet between God and the devil.

Second is that we do not understand sometimes why things are happening and God doesn’t tell us.

Third is that God will not keep bad things from happening to his people, nor will he necessarily send good things, no matter what the rest of the Bible says.

If this book is meant to teach (Romans 15:4 – Such things were written in the Scriptures long ago to teach us. And the Scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises to be fulfilled.) then what it teaches has to be true. It doesn’t teach what we want, but what it teaches is true.

The only problem is that it teaches things I do not really want to know, aspects of God I would rather be without. It shows more of an uncaring God than anywhere else in the Bible, a God who will allow and even encourage the harming of his children for no good purpose. And one who will not tell his children why nor even really answer their questions. In fact, he is a God who will even tell his child to shut up crying out in pain.

Hard picture. But I have seen it too much and I am one of those to which it is happening.

However, that line from the movie Robin and Marian keeps coming to mind. The older Robin Hood (played by Sean Connery) is telling the old Maid Marian (played by Audrey Hepburn) about the horrible things he has seen under the leadership of King Richard the Lionhearted (played by Richard Harris). He has been on the Crusades and has seen and done some terrible things in the name of war.

Marian asks him, “Why did you stay? Why didn’t you leave?”

To which he replies, “He is my King. Where else would I go?”

That reminds me of the apostles in John 6 after Jesus talked about figurative cannibalism in service to him (John 6:53-56). Many disciples thought it repellent and left. He turns to the apostles and asks, “Are you also going to leave?” To which they answered, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.”

He is my God and I will ever serve him. But I do not have to like everything he does. I may be a sheep, but I am not a blind sheep.

daily java

Daily Java:

When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. (Romans 5:12)

There is a reason we die, but it is not the reason we think.

Someone the other day said that there was a reason for a person’s death. And he was right, but not in the way he thought.

Contrary to what we think, the Bible never says that God takes us when he is ready.

For instance, it was Acts 12 and the church was growing and needed its leaders, yet the apostle James, one of Jesus’ inner circle of three, was killed. What’s more, God stops them from killing the apostle Peter. Why did James die and not Peter? Was it James’ time? What about the fact that the church needed James as much as they needed Peter?

In 1979, the entire faculty of my seminary was killed in a plane crash. For what reason? What could God have in mind for taking four of the most godly men I knew? Was there a reason? What could it possibly be that would leave an institution that taught his word without valuable teachers and four families – two of them young families – without their husbands and fathers?

In 2010, I drove through a blizzard to get to Lincoln to preach. That same weekend, that same blizzard, the pastor of a good church in Lincoln flipped his car driving to Omaha and was killed. His wife lived. So a church that turned out to be a bad move for me was blessed and a church that had been there for several years lost it relatively young senior and founding pastor.

What was the reason? There was none. There is not a reason for everything that happens. The reason we die is because Adam and Eve brought sin into the world and humanity was cut off from the Tree of Life. God kept us from living forever in our sin. And so we die.

As Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 says:

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.

A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest.
Sometimes things just happens. My mother-in-law lived for ten years with no mind in her Alzheimer’s and another young man, powerful in the kingdom died early. Some idiot lives into his hundreds and John the Baptizer, one which Jesus called the greatest man who ever lived died at age thirty. A really stupid person lives a life of health and prosperity and a baby born to godly parents dies early with a painful disease. What’s the point?

The apostle Paul said in Romans 8:28: And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. What this means is that God takes the bad that happens – the death, the pain, the suffering, the disease, the poverty – and, if you love him and are called, uses it to his glory.

Small comfort sometimes, especially when it your loved one who is gone or suffering.

It is not the will of God that you suffer or die. There is not a time that God has in mind for each of us to die. That is fatalism or determinism. God does not have our lives controlled down to the time of our deaths. That is not to say he couldn’t know them if he wanted, but he does not take us or punish us with suffering. Job found that out in the book of Job. His suffering was not only without any good reason, he didn’t even understand why and God didn’t tell him why.

All we can do is serve him and allow him to work in our lives, turning those times of suffering and deaths of loved ones to his glory, remaining faithful to him always. He is Lord.

daily java

Daily Java: 

When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.” So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’ But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began. (Luke 15:17-24)

Why do people do what they do? And if they do good things for another reason, say, fear, is it still a god thing. Does the motive have to match the act?

The son took all his father’s money and left and promptly threw it all away. Half of the money the old man had worked for and saved and was going to bless his sons with when he died was gone, wasted.

But when the son was completely flat broke, he was hungry. And he got to thinking about his father’s house where even the servants (at least in his mind) sat down to a banquet each night. They were never hungry, they were never cold, they were never alone. Even the servants were happy.

So he made a little speech which I believe he never really thought his father would require. But just in case, he asked if he could come back as a servant. After all, he had wasted his inheritance and had no right to what was left.

But his reason for doing so was not sorrow at hurting his father, nor was it guilt for hurting his brother or his family. It wasn’t even really a desire to make things right.

The reason he wanted to come back was that he was hungry. That’s really about it.

However, the father really didn’t care what his motive for coming back was. He just wanted his son back. The son came in with his little speech and the father brushed it aside and said in effect, “Nonsense, you were never not my son. And you are more than welcome to come home.”

That was all. No long period of probation, no plan of restitution, no punishment. He didn’t make the son become a servant and gradually, after his trust was restored, he could move into an associate sonship, then after many years of faithful service and all, he could once more become a son.

No. he just said, “My son is back and let’s celebrate.”

Were there repercussions? Probably. The other brother was mad that he got taken back so easily. He felt there ought to be a probationary period or something. And the son had, after all, spent his inheritance. It could even have been that the older brother was mad that it had all been so easy for his brother to just take off, bust himself and come back. He may have never dreamed it would be that easy and was mad he hadn't thought of it himself.

But the overall reason the son came back was that he was hungry. That’s all. And the father accepted that reason.

I have come home in the past because I was hungry and lonely and I was accepted and loved. If people on earth could do that, how much more could God?