10-4-2016

Good Morning All!!

        Leviticus 19:2; “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” 

    “You shall be holy.” or “You SHALL be holy!!” or “You shall be holy??”  It is interesting how we can read the exact same sentence and different people can interpret it differently.  How you read a sentence goes on to determine how you respond and react to it. 

    There are those who read this and see only God’s law.  These people then turn around and show only God’s law to people.  These people will see a situation and say,” your sin caused it and now God is punishing you for it.”  Unfortunately, this is the voice that many non-Christians hear.  They see the church as quick to judge and slow to aid.  Perhaps they have even experienced it.  A woman who had an abortion a few years ago and now is having other related health issues, a homosexual who has AIDS, a drug addict who is homeless; these are examples of people who may only hear the church say “Thou shalt not..”  They have needs and seek comfort but are we there to offer them God’s Gospel?

    We read it differently.  This verse doesn’t speak of our actions or character; it speaks of our relationship with God.  Because of what God has done, we are set apart from the rest of the world.  This doesn’t mean we are better or superior.  It does mean that God has blessed us far beyond any measure that we can conceive of.  We have been redeemed and called the children of God; we are declared heirs of his eternal kingdom.  Because of God’s grace, we have a relationship with him that is different than the unbeliever.  In the Old Testament, the Israelites engaged in many ceremonial rites and laws which clearly set them apart from their neighbors.  We too, should be seen as set apart not so much by our ceremony but by our actions within the society in which we live.  God gives to us the vertical relationship with him and then he calls us to live in a horizontal relationship with our fellow man.  We might call the relationship with God “liturgical” (church speak) and a relationship with our neighbors as an “ethical” (world action). 

    The world should see the results of our relationship with God.  In that relationship, we are forgiven entirely by God’s grace.  We should therefore deal with our fellow man with the same grace.  God has chosen you and he has chosen to reach out to the world through you.  You have been called to a wonderful task; the same task that Jesus lived while here on earth.  We are blessed and privileged to carry it out.  Go with God’s blessings in touching the world. 

Dear Father, by your grace you have set us apart; you have declared us holy.  Give us the courage and the wisdom to live our holy life giving glory and honor to you.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.    

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

10-3-2016

      Good Morning All!!

          Genesis 1:28; “And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

    It is a comment that gets made at many weddings especially the reception.  It is usually an uncle or great-uncle or a taunting brother-in-law.  One of them takes the bride aside and tells her, “Remember, be fruitful and multiply!”  The usual arching of the eyebrows a couple of times occurs.  Often times, the poor bride simply blushes as everyone around her giggles and laughs.  One time, the bride told the teasing brother-in-law to, “Keep up!”  That really caused a fit of laughter as the brother-in-law was embarrassed.

    Most of us know this verse, at least the “be fruitful and multiply part.”  We recognize this for what it is.  Marriage is about having babies.  It is about the continuing of the human race.  Now there may be some who choose not to have children or who may be unable to have children but by and large we see this to be about procreation.  We see this as the biological and physical portion of a marriage.  In this fashion it is true but it is also incomplete.  There is another part of marriage that is often overlooked, even by Christians, and that is the spiritual part.

    As we look at the marriage, we can see that it is the fundamental building block of human society.  A man and a woman marry and form a new being, one flesh.  They then join in fellowship with others to form communities then nations.  Yet God used this basic building block to start the formation of people living in a community together.  In many ways, it is also the basic building block of the church.

    It is no small event that Jesus said, “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of you.”  Two, a husband and a wife, are the basic building block of the church.  Those two are to go forth and spread the Gospel of Jesus; to multiply.  This is the spiritual part of the marriage.  From here, the married couple is to be a witness to their faith for the glory of God.  “Go and make disciples”; “Preach the Gospel to all creatures”.  This is the directive to the Church but it applies to the most basic unit.  It applies to you and to me; it applies to us.

    Through the gift of marriage, we have another way of God’s glory being revealed in this world.  We see his grace in action in our lives.  The gift of marriage is a blessing to all even those who are not married now.  It forms the unit through which society and the Church is built. 

Father of all grace, your mercies are new to us each day.  We thank you for the gift of marriage and the blessing that it gives to us.  Even though it is often hurt in this world of sin, it remains one of your great blessings.  Use those who are married to be your voice of grace as your Church grows.  Bless them with your Spirit and guard all marriages against the attacks of the devil.  Protect them in your loving arms.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret  

10-2-2016

Good Morning All!!

             Matthew 18:21; “Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”

   Have you ever seen the movie “Men in Black”?  The original came out in 1997.  It starred Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith.  They are two special agents of a secret government agency that polices extraterrestrial aliens in the United States.  It is a science fiction adventure comedy and like any good science fiction movie; it has some neat gadgets.  The one I like is a device that looks like a big ball point pen.  It is a memory eraser and when it flashes, the memory of those who see the flash is erased.  The agents have special sunglasses that they put on in order to avoid being “zapped.” I wish I had a gizmo like that.  It would come in handy sometimes.

    It might help us to address one of the toughest things for us to do; to truly forgive our brother.  You hear it often, “I’ll forgive but I’ll never forget.”  Or it might take the form of “everyone gets another chance but not a third.”  There are other variations but they all leave the impression    that forgiveness is not complete.  It might be withholding trust, expecting failure or even putting distance between you and the other person.  This distance might be physical or emotional.

    When we withhold trust, we tend to hold to the past and recall every single instance of pain in our relationship.  We remember how they hurt us in 1999 but we fail to remember the love they showed us at all the other times.  True forgiveness should reestablish and then build trust.  If you find yourself not trusting the other person, you probably haven’t truly forgiven them.

    When we expect failure, it also shows that we are holding onto the past.  When we see a coming event and think, “well, they will hurt me again” we are expecting failure.  We do not see the other person as being capable of not wanting to hurt us.  We think they just don’t care.  We sometimes even make it so that they do fail just to show that we are right.

    The other sign that we aren’t forgiving is to maintain distance from the other person.  We may avoid them in terms of being in the same room as they are or it may be that we are emotional distant, partly because we don’t trust and we expect them to hurt us again so we stay back.  All of these responses are human but are harmful.  Jesus calls us to a higher level.  His call to forgiveness is to bring about healing.  When we fail to forgive, we keep the painful wound open and an open wound is susceptible to infection, just like our relationships are.

   So if these sound familiar to you, repent and ask God to help you change so you can help your relationship change. God wants us to have healthy relationships with each other and, for us, it begins with forgiveness.  It started with God forgiving you, now we need to forgive as well.

Father, help me to forgive others, especially those whom I love.  I struggle, Father, so send your Spirit upon me that I may see that forgiveness is healing, that forgiveness is restoration.  Be with those who especially struggle with letting go of past pain.  Help them to step beyond the pain and into your wondrous grace and mercy.  In the precious name of Jesus, I pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret    

10-1-2016

Good Morning All!!

    Psalm 18:6; “In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help.  From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears”

      When I was in college, I had a couple of classes with an instructor whose methods and manners were very different from my thoughts of what they should be.  He could have just walked of the local commune.  He had hair that looked like it hadn’t (or couldn’t) been combed in a few weeks.  He shaved once a week whether he wanted to or not.  We had an 8:00 am class; it wasn’t unusual for him to be 10-15 minutes late; most of the students didn’t wait.  A few of us did because we had the next class across the hall.  He would come in late, make excuses and then begin his lecture.  I really struggled with the way he presented himself.  The man he replaced was a clean shaven suit and tie kind of guy.

    For about three weeks, I told anyone who listened what I thought about this guy.  I told how poor an instructor he was.  I told how his preparation was weak and his classroom etiquette was a little under par.  While griping to a classmate, he asked me if I ever listened to the guy teach?  Why?, I asked.  Because the guy is a genius, and he was.  He was one of the top men in his field.  So the problem that I had with him was the result of my assumptions and presumptions. 

    How often do we do that?  How often do we place so many structures and restrictions on our relationships that they often go bad before we even try?  Sometimes we go to great lengths to complain about them to others.  Sometimes when we have stress in any of our relationships, we complain to anyone who will listen except to the one who can matter the most.  We need to take our distress to God.

    We often don’t think of going to God with our disappointments or our anger.  We think that this is a form of sin so we won’t do it.  We go to God with platitudes and half-baked verbiage that we hear in church.  But God doesn’t want flowery language or “church words”; God wants us to have an honest and open, prayerful conversation with him.  God already knows our thoughts, fears, desires and worries.  Even if we don’t express it, God knows our heart.  The thing is that by expressing it; we will know our heart.  Had I really listened to my comments about my instructor, I would have heard the distance in the relationship was mine. 

    God will hear your cries, even your cries of distress and anger.  He will use his Spirit to help you if you are faithful in your prayers.  A huge part of faithfulness is total honesty on your part when praying to God.  Anything less will void your cry.  It will come off as sinful selfishness.  Yet God does desire to have a relationship with you and for you to have relationships with your fellow man.  Trust God to help you build them.

Gracious Father, too often we hold our distress out of fear and sadness and in doing so we hold onto the pain of our sin.  Give us the strength to bring our cries to you.  Be with those who are in deep pain and distress.  Send your healing to them.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret