Three Powerful Prescriptions from Jude

 

Jude 20-21, NLT - But you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will bring you eternal life. In this way, you will keep yourselves safe in God’s love.

 

Right before Jude’s famous benediction (our reflection for next time) we have some succinct prescriptions for staying true to the faith that is Christianity. 

1)      Build each other up

2)      Pray in the power of the Holy Spirit

3)      Wait for God’s mercy

The first key to staying true to faith in Jesus is to NOT try to do it alone.  This seems obvious, but it is even more powerful than many realize.  Of course, it’s easier (most of the time) to do something if you have good help.  This is certainly true of living the Christian faith.  Seeing others doing what I’m trying to do makes what I’m trying to do more accessible and attainable.  Having others encourage me and pick me up when I fail makes it easier to get back on the right track.  Knowing others are watching me adds accountability to my actions.  But when I commit to actively help others live their faith, my faith is strengthened in a way that it can’t be any other way.  This is why Jesus was less interested in attracting crowds than investing in his small group of twelve disciples.  Of course, Jesus helped them, but by them helping Jesus, they became strong in ways they never could by simply being a part of the crowd.  Faith in community is God’s purposeful design.

Next, Jude talks about prayer in a specific way.  Pray in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Sometimes, we get the idea that prayer is simply us talking to God.  While that is certainly part of it, what is happening is much more expansive than that.  In many places in scripture, we are reminded that God resides within us.  Far too often though, we live as if that were not true.  More to the point, we pray as if we are asking a God in a far-off place to come help us with our struggles.  To pray in that way is to neglect the truth that God is literally in the breath we use to speak our prayers.  When Jude tells us to pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, he is reminding us that when we are praying, the idea is to connect with the power that God has already placed within us. 

Finally, Jude asks us to “wait for God’s mercy, who will bring you eternal life.”  I believe several interpretations of this prescription are possible, but I receive it as a call to humility.  Humans seek affirmation in many things, but ultimately we are affirmed by the God who created us, is redeeming us, and will sustain us forever.  Seeking ultimate justification and affirmation from other sources can lead us to pursue things that our unworthy of our divine creator, redeemer, and sustainer.  Living with the conviction that, no matter what anyone else may say or think about us, only God’s valuation of us truly matters in the end.  To the extent that we can live with this assurance, we are free to simply live out what God has called us to do, not being influenced by the pull of other sources of importance, prestige, or position. 

 

Question:  Which of Jude’s prescriptions did you most need to hear today?  What will you do about what you have heard?

 

Prayer:  God, thank you for the power of community, prayer, and humility.  Help us see these powers already at work in us.  Convince us of the steps we can take right now to more fully cooperate with Your power in our lives.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for God to lead you to someone you can help today.

 

Song:  No Matter What – Ryan Stevenson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It_xQ4NYtDQ

Next-Level Living

 

Galatians 6:1-10 - Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.

Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.

Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.

Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.

So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.

Forgiveness and restoration, sharing burdens, taking care of the weak, resisting arrogance and comparison, focus on making a contribution, give back, In short do all the good you can and don’t worry about the rest. It will pay off

At the end of his letter, just before he makes drives home the point about the division of over Torah law (which will talk about tomorrow), Paul gives a healthy dose of what might seem to be unrelated bits of advice.  Work at forgiving and restoring those who have made mistakes.  Take care of each other, especially the weak.  Resist arrogance and comparison; they are both toxic.  Focus instead on doing what only you can do for the community.  Whatever skills and wisdom you have gained from others, be sure to pass it on to others.  Do good and trust that it will pay off.  This collection of prescriptions reminds me of John Wesley’s famous saying about doing good; “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”

The thread that runs through all of these seemingly disjointed instructions is life is community.  You can hear Paul’s heart for the life of the little communities he’s writing to be healthy and vibrant.  To hear about the toxic divisions that have emerged among these people he loves is breaking his heart.  He’s trying to convince them that it doesn’t have to be this way.  The answer to resolving this is to raise their level of consciousness. 

                The default level of consciousness is to think about life as my life. Do I have what I need and/or want?  Am I happy?  Am I being treated fairly?  What is my opinion on a certain matter?  How can I solve the problems I am experiencing?  I could go on and on, but I’m thinking you get the idea.  My default consciousness is self-referencing.  Paul is calling the Galatians to adopt the next level of consciousness – a communal consciousness.  The questions we ask at this level of consciousness change.  What does the community need?  Are there people that are struggling that need our help?  What is the role that I can play in this community that is really needed right now?  Do we have unity?  What’s most important for us right now?  It is a shift from “I” thinking to “we” thinking.  It’s seems very subtle but the effect is revolutionary.  It’s also how Jesus lived and calls us to live. 

The majority of people in Jesus-centered communities that thrive have made this shift.  They think of individual resources as community resources.  They think of their time as belonging to something bigger than themselves.  Their fulfillment and happiness are found in life together.   Furthermore, they find that this is a more joy-producing and fulfilling life than was possible when they were living for themselves.   This next-level consciousness unlocks the beautiful combination of freedom and love for God and others.   

 

Questions:  Try to observe your thought life today.  What do you notice about the reference-point for the majority of what you think about?  What is the interplay between “I” and “We” consciousness?

 

Prayer:  Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer God, you have called us to life together with you and others.  Help us see how we may live into this way of being in the world.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the helpers today.  You can decide who those people are and pray for them.

 

Song:  Life Together – Geoff Moore & the Distance

Getting into Galatians

Galatians 1:6-10 - I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—  which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.  But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!  As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!

Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

 

Today we move to Paul’s letter to a group of churches in and around Galatia (modern-day Turkey).  He writes to them a couple years after the letters to the Thessalonians (55 AD).  The reason for the letter is to try settle a growing movement in these churches that Paul believes is antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  To understand the backstory, we need to remember that pretty quickly after Jesus’s resurrection, many non-Jews had begun to follow Christ.  By the time Paul writes this letter, there are at least as many non-Jews as there were Jews who were part of these early churches.  Because of this, an issue arose as to whether or not non-Jews needed to follow the Jewish law found in the Torah.  Specifically, there were leaders in the Galatian churches who were requiring new non-Jewish converts to be circumcised and to follow Torah dietary laws.  Paul is distressed by this and writes to these churches to call them back to the core of the gospel.

You get a sense of this in the passage above in the opening passage of the letter.  Paul laments how quickly they have strayed from his teaching and began to make up their own new rules.  However, this is hardly surprising when we think about what happens in groups made up of diverse people.  When minorities grow to the point where they are approaching the time when it will no longer be a minority, the majority invariably begins to find ways to re-exert control.  We’re seeing this in our country today as we approach a time when whites will no longer be the majority (most likely by 2050).  The early church was not immune to this all too human group dynamic, so Paul is calling them out in this letter.

We’ll have much more to say about this in the coming days as the whole letter is about this issue.  But for now, let us hear the core of Paul’s correction to these churches.  What he is saying is essentially this;  what you are practicing is not the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It is a gospel of your own making.   We can hear this and say, “shame on those pesky Galatians,”  but to do that is to miss what Paul would be saying to us today.  The core of the gospel is from God and we aren’t free to use the Gospel to gain an advantage over others.  Christian Nationalism is an attempt to do that.  Using passages from the Bible to support unjust immigration policies (ie…putting children in cages) is an attempt to do that.  Those are extreme examples but this kind of thing happens every day in hundreds of ways that do not make the news.  As we work our way through Galatians in the coming days, we will dive deeper.  For now though, here are some questions for reflection:

 

Questions:  Have you ever felt excluded by a rule or practice that was obviously imposed to separate those who were “in” from those who were “out?”  Do you believe God would ever be behind such a practice?

 

Prayer:  God, thank you for loving us just the way we are.  Help us to love others the same way.  Amen.

                                                                                          

Prayer Focus:  Pray for those who feel excluded by the church.

 

Song:  H.E.R. and Tauren Wells – Hold Us Together

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwqU78VEmNc

The Community of Jesus

1 Thessalonians 5:12-24 - Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you.  Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Do not quench the Spirit.  Do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and though. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.

 

This passage pretty much speaks for itself so I will hold my comments to a minimum.  Paul is wrapping up his letter to this fledging church (less than a year old) and he is led to share with them the core principles of what it means to be a God-centered community.  Two thousand years later, these still form the backbone of Community 101.  I would just encourage you to read this passage a few times today. 

You’ve most likely read it once already to get to what I’m writing now.  Read it again, but this time try to think about your experience of being part of a community. 

 

Questions:  Who were the people that did these things?  Who were the “hard workers?”  Who were “idle and disruptive?”  Who were the peacemakers?  Who were the encouragers? The helpers of the weak? Who are you in the mix?  As you read through the description of a healthy community, think about the times you have experienced this kind of community, if only for a short time.

 

After you done that, read the passage one more time.  Before you start, pray this prayer:

 

Prayer:  Lord, speak your word for me today. Show me how I may do my part in building a healthy community.  Amen.

 

Then, read through the passage slowly.  Listen for the phrase or sentence that jumps out as being just for you today.  Spend some time repeating and meditating on that phrase.  Identify one step you can take to act on that leading today.  Make a plan to do it. 

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the leaders of your faith community today.  Ask God to guide them in the coming days.

 

Song:  Zero8 – Blest Be the Tie That Binds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29wxv2tg8F4

Faithing Together

 

Hebrews 10:19-25 - Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus,  by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh),  and since we have a great priest over the house of God,  let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.  Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.  And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds,  not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

 

Continuing to talk about fostering our faith, I call your attention to v. 25 (in bold and underlined) above.  If you have listened to me for any length of time, you have heard me say in different ways that our faith is not primarily an individual faith.  We need to do our faithing with other people.  One of the reasons for this is that we have a really hard time sustaining our faith by ourselves.  But if I practice my faith and talk about my faith and serve with my faith all with other people, all of sudden, it becomes easier.  You all know my favorite thing about being a pastor is teaching.  One of the many reasons I love it so much is that having to teach has done more to grow my faith than anything else I do.  Knowing that I have to teach faith and preach faith with others “makes” me grow my faith.  If you want to grow your faith, make yourself responsible to others for living your faith out loud. 

“Not neglecting to meet together.”  This phrase has definitely taken on new meaning in the wake of a pandemic.  Meeting together right now has been a habit that has been broken for many.  Hugs, handshakes, holding hands, and the like are still a bit awkward.  Singing and hearing others sing around you has never sounded better to me.  Noticing the lady in the row in front of you on her phone and the kid crawling under the pew.  Teenagers whispering a little too loud (By the way, I was that teenager many moons ago).  People giving me a hard time about not wearing a robe or for wearing a robe.  Hearing a “Hmmm” when I say something during the message that makes someone think.  Hearing people laugh.  Watching people’s faces during prayer (I admit it . . .I do that sometimes).  I cherish it all more now.   Meeting together is essential.

I’m going to be honest here.  We gotta fight for this one right now.  We took for granted the built-in gatherings each week that helped us practice our faith together.  In order to do it now, we gotta work for it.  We might have to call someone when you hate talking on the phone.  We might have to learn a technology that we swore we’d never learn so that we can see other Christian faces.  We might even have to handwrite a letter to someone to connect in a deeper way.  But let’s not fool ourselves.  There ARE ways for us to “meet together” even when we can’t meeting together is strained.  But we have to really work for it. 

I have had some really good conversations over the last tow years with people I could not physically be with.  I have connected deeply with people who have emailed or texted me back and forth.  I felt the Holy Spirit connecting us across distance and time while I was leading online communion this past week.    I have connected with friends and family on Zoom when I would have never done that before.  I like to say it’s all been good.  It hasn’t. At times, it is really frustrating.  I find myself crying more often than I did before.  It’s hard work.  But you know what.  I can’t find any scripture that tells me, “faith is easy.”  (Just in case you’re thinking about quoting Matthew 11:28-30 to me, that’s not what Jesus was trying to say 😉).  Let’s take what we learned over the last two years and do it in addition to our coming back together. 

One of my Facebook friends said a while back “I’ve said this a thousand times and will say it a thousand more. If you don’t have a tribe you need one.”  It is so true!  You will always need a tribe – a group that you share life with, get support from, lean on from time to time, AND, practice your faith with. If you’re reading this and you don’t have a tribe, join us.  You can find us at hernandoumcfl.com  every Sunday at 10:00am in person or streaming on Youtube.    If not us, find another tribe. You need one.

 

Prayer:  God, we at HUMC are blessed with a wonderful, loving, crazy and quirky tribe.  Help us to stay connected to our tribe and see our faith grow in the process.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for your tribe or tribes today.

 

Song:  Come Together (Third Day) If you don’t like screaming guitars, at least read the lyrics to this one. I’ve listed them below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv6UMX-yA5U

You can all call me crazy

For the things that I might say

You can laugh all you want to

I know there will come a day

When we all will come together

And learn to set aside our hate

If we could learn to love our neighbors

Just like we would love ourselves

We've got to come together

'Cause in the end we can make it - alright

We've got to brave the weather

Through all of the storms

We've got to come together

'Cause in the end we can make it - alright

We've got to learn to love

You can call me a dreamer

But these dreams will come true

Yes, I am a firm believer

In the things that we can do

If we would all just come together

And let the Lord lead our way

There is nothing that we can't do

There is nothing we can't face

I know that there will come a day

When the Lord will call His own away

To a place that He has made for all of us

But until the day of His return

There's a lesson that we've got to learn

We are brothers and we're sisters

We are one

What the Heck did Jesus Just Say?

What the Heck did Jesus Just Say?

 January 19, 2022

 

Matthew 18:18-20, The Message -  “Take this most seriously: A yes on earth is yes in heaven; a no on earth is no in heaven. What you say to one another is eternal. I mean this. When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I’ll be there.”

 

Today’s passage recalls something Matthew says to Peter earlier in the Gospel (Matt 16:18-19):

 

You are Peter, a rock. This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out.

“And that’s not all. You will have complete and free access to God’s kingdom, keys to open any and every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven. A yes on earth is yes in heaven. A no on earth is no in heaven.”

 

Matthew is careful to draw attention to the fact that Jesus has used the exact same words on both occasions in order to reinforce an important facet of God’s kingdom.  In chapter 16, Jesus confers the “keys to the kingdom,” meaning the authority of heaven is now shared with the community of those who confess Jesus as Messiah.  Don’t miss this; the authority of heaven is now shared with those on earth. Throughout the rest of the Gospel, we will see Jesus expand upon what this means, but here the issue is the boundaries of community.  Jesus is saying to his followers that a community who follows Christ as Messiah has the authority to determine what is acceptable and unacceptable within that community.  Furthermore, the Kingdom of Heaven will abide by it.  This is astonishing.  This is also the subject of endless debate on what that really means and the limits of this surprisingly conferred authority.  I do not propose to settle those disputes in my little devotional here even if I thought that I could (which, by the way, I do not).  I fully expect those debates will continue until kingdom is established in its fullness. 

So here’s what I do what to point out – the incredible importance of community in the Kingdom of God.  Jesus does not invite us to an individual faith.  While I believe it is technically possible to have a relationship with God outside the church proper, it’s clear from this teaching of Jesus and many others that God’s invitation to have faith is an invitation to place ourselves under the authority of a community that all profess Jesus is Lord and Messiah. The last sentence above is Jesus’s promise that where there is a community of followers, Jesus is there.   I think it bears repeating once again; your faith and my faith are not really your and my faith.  It is OUR faith.  My faith is missing something without you and vice versa.  And specifically, this means that the way I live out my faith is in submission to the grater authority of OUR faith.  This is what Paul meant when he said, “do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.” 

In our uber-individualistic society, this is a counter-cultural idea.  It has enormous implications for how we should live which I could not even begin to describe today.  Instead,  I’m inviting you to consider what might be one implication for you.  We all have our own little “kingdoms,” those domains over which we have authority.  Spend some time exploring that for yourself today. Consider the following questions.

 

Questions:  What specific resources, regular decisions, and relationships do you have influence over?  Do you use your influence over those things in a way that reflects a submission to the larger Kingdom of God?

 

Prayer:  Holy God, you are over all things.  We know that and we say that but sometimes we live as if it were not true.  Forgive us.  Help us see one place where we could more fully put your concerns first.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the Church across the world today as we continue to figure out how to be effective in the new realities created by the pandemic.

 

Song:  Where Two or Three Are Gathered – Liam Lawton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNCFPD1L7F0

Matthew 8:1-4 - The Purpose of Healing

 

Daily Devo w/ Pastor Eric September 16, 2021

The Purpose of Healing

 

Matthew 8:1-4, NIV - When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him.  A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

 

Moving to Chapter 8, Jesus has finished the Sermon on the Mount and is still attracting large crowds.  A man approaches him who has leprosy.  Let’s stop right there because a man with leprosy should be nowhere near a large crowd.  The man is putting others in danger (it’s contagious!), but he is also putting himself in danger. Lepers were forbidden to approach people without the disease.  They were often required to carry a bell and ring it when others approached and shout “unclean.”  People with this disease were outcasts in every way.  To this day the word “leper” is a synonym for outcast.  So the man is defying the law in order to speak to Jesus. 

“If you are willing, you can make me clean,” putting Jesus on the spot.

“I am willing; be clean,” is Jesus’s response and immediately the man is healed.

However, the leper isn’t officially healed yet.  Leprosy in Jesus’s day was not curable.  On the rare occasion someone recovered from the disease, the law said the person was to go to the priest to verify the healing.   Only after receiving a written declaration of healing from the priest was the person allowed to re-enter the community.  Jesus knows this and so he says:

“See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

Jesus is not only healing the man’s body; he is giving him the path back into community.  Not only is the man delivered from a physically debilitating illness, he is delivered from shunned isolation.  The man is told not to tell anyone he is healed until he has gone to the priest because he is not fully healed until he is declared restored to community.  We’ll talk more about Jesus’s telling people “not to tell” as get further into this compelling book of Matthew, but for now, let’s focus on the healing.

One of the profound purposes of healing, physical and otherwise is restoration to community.  If you’ve ever been quarantined because of COVID or something else, then you got a just a taste of the isolation.  Being declared “clean” is a moment of joy mostly because you can be with people again.  You time of “being an outcast” is over!   

The “salvation” Jesus offers is more communal than personal.  We are saved, healed, and delivered not to be a saved individual, but to join the community of Christ.  As the apostle Paul put it, we become part of a Body, the Body of Christ.  Watch for this theme as we continue our journey through Matthew, but more importantly, watch for this theme in your own life.  You are saved for community, not just for yourself. 

 

Question:  As you think about your own experience, what is the connection between your sense of being healed and your sense of belonging to a community?

 

Prayer:  Three-In-One God, your very identity as the Holy Trinity models community.  We are in awe that you invite us to share in in this divine relationship.  We are healed by this connection.  We praise you for that God.  We love you!  Help us to bring your healing and restoration to others by the way we love each other. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Spend some time thanking God for specific brothers and sisters in your faith community.

 

Song:  Lean On Me (Bill Withers) | Playing For Change | Song Around The World

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiouJsnYytI