The King of the Dump

I recently switched from Directv to Spectrum.  I had a very old TV that is not compatible with Spectrum’s HDMI only cable boxes.  So I bought a new TV and took the old one to the dump.  You have to prove that you are a resident with your driver’s license and a copy of a recent water bill from the city to allowed to dump.  I brought my license and June’s water bill, the most recent one I could find. The King of the Dump raised Cain with me because of my ancient water bill.  Like I moved to Arkansas but was just dying to get over on him by dumping my TV in his dump. “Did you look at the date on this water bill before you came”, he asked.  “Do you know what ‘recent’ means?” I said, “Look, if it’s that big of a deal, I will go home and find the most current water bill.”  He then said, “I’ll let you dump today, but be more careful in the future.” I think he expected me to kiss his filthy boots at this display of grace.  

Bruce Springsteen has a line in a song called “Badlands” that goes like this, “Poor man want to be rich. Rich man want to be king, and a king ain’t satisfied till he rules everything.” We all want to be king of something. Then when we are king of that, we want to be king of something bigger.  This man was the king of the dump.  It was his prerogative to enforce the rules of the dump strictly, or to give grace.  He clearly enjoyed his kingdom.  I’m sure you all have had similar experiences. 

Why is it that we want a kingdom so badly?  I think it’s because we are so out of control in most areas of our lives that we desperately want to be in control of something.  We try to control our health by exercising and eating right, but we could get a bad diagnosis any day.  We try to control our financial security by investing wisely, but the bottom could fall out of the stock market or real estate market without warning.  We try to control what will happen to our assets after we die, but our kids might squander what we have worked hard to accumulate.  We try to control our relationships by treating people well, but find that we have somehow unwittingly offended someone and we can’t fix it.  We realize that we are not in control of anything. We long for something that we can control with complete and unadulterated authority.  

Jesus dismissed the idea that we are in control of anything. In Luke 12, in the great passage about controlling worry and anxiety said, “And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life’s span? If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry about other matters?”   We are not in control. God is sovereign and everything happens in accordance with His will and with His plans.  I thank God for that.  If we accept that God is good and God is omnipotent, then what do we have to fear? Most times in life, when I try to be king of my life, I get out ahead of God and I don’t learn the lesson that God has for me in the moment.  In doing that I miss the blessing He has for me and I make a dump out of my own life. 

I tell myself that I don’t want to be king of my life.  I tell myself that I want to be a faithful subject of the only true King.  But am I being honest?  The only way to be a faithful subject is to surrender my life to the true King and let him rule my life.   That means allowing Him to use me however He wants.  It means being thankful for suffering because of the lessons I learn from it.  Most of us try so hard to control our own lives, and then something happens that makes us realize that we never had control anyway.  God did not make me king of my life.  The more I try to be king, the more I usurp His authority and get in the way of the work He wants to do through me.  We have to surrender our lives to him daily.  People trying to lose weight start a new diet every morning. People who want to surrender their lives to God have do it every morning too.  I pray that we will all have the strength and wisdom through the power of the Holy Spirit to surrender to Him.  He’s a better King than we will ever be!

What Have You Done For Me Lately?

What Have You Done for Me Lately?

In 1986, Janet Jackson released a song called “What Have You done for Me Lately?” I admit that I never read the lyrics to the song before today, but some of them are pretty funny.  Here’s the second verse: “Used to go to dinner almost every night, dancin' 'til I thought I'd lose my breath, Now it seems your dancing feet are always on my couch, Good thing I cook or else we'd starve to death - Ain't that a shame?  What have you done for me lately?”  It’s not Shakespeare, but you get the point. 

Last Thursday night was opening day of football season. The Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles were home to the Atlanta Falcons.  The first half was very sloppy and at halftime, the Eagles were trailing 6-3.  They serenaded with a chorus of boos from the notoriously fickle Philadelphia fan base on their way to the locker room.  Did I mention that the Eagles were the defending Super Bowl Champions?  What have you done for me lately?

When we think about God, we often ask the same question.  Yes God, you are the Creator of all that is.  Yes God, you sent your Son to die on a cross so that believing I might have eternal life. But, really, “What have you done for me LATELY?”  There’s a scene in Monty Python’s “The Life of Brian” (Don’t act like you’ve never seen it!) where the rebel group of Jews called the People’s Front of Judea complain about the presence of the Romans, saying, “They've taken everything we have and what have they ever done for us?!”  Then one of the rebels mentions the aqueduct that the Romans built, and they all reluctantly agree that the Romans did build them an aqueduct. Another mentions sanitation, and again they agree.  After several more things are mentioned, their leader says, “All right, apart from the aqueduct, sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?!”   What have you done for me lately?

The Life of Brian is a comedy. I don’t mean to equate our relationship to God with Jews living under 1^stCentury Roman oppression, but it’s a funny illustration.  It should make us realize how much we take for granted the things that God HAS provided, while constantly complaining and griping about the things He hasn’t.  What has He provided for us that we take for granted?  He gives us oxygen for our lungs, water for our cells, rain for our crops, and food for our bellies.  Most of us have clothes to wear, roofs over our heads and have never missed a meal.  In addition, He’s given us a way out of the sin predicament that we are in.  We can’t get to heaven because of our sin, but God made a way.  He sent His Son to die on a cross to pay the penalty for our sin. All we have to do is believe in Jesus for our salvation and our sins are forgiven and we spend eternity in heaven. Is that not enough?

Human nature being what it is, the answer is often, no.  We always want more.  We’re always complaining.  We forget to thank God for the prayer He did answer, and continue to worry about the prayer He hasn’t yet answered. We want God to be a cosmic genie in a bottle who grants our every wish.  Jesus said in John 6, you seek me not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.  What have you done for me lately?  Life’s difficulties draw us closer to Him and that’s right where we need to be.  Ultimately, we want to be closer to Him not for what He can give to us, but because of who He is.  

The Eagles came back last Thursday night and beat the Falcons and thousands of delirious Eagles fans cheered.  What had the Eagles done for their fans lately?  They won the game.  But the players know that the fans will turn on them the next time they play a bad first half.  Let’s not be like that toward God.  I have been praying a very specific prayer for some time now and yet God has not yet deemed the time to be right to answer it.  I’m sure you have too.  Let’s love and worship God for who He is and not what He’s done for us lately.  John Piper has famously said, “God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him.”  Let’s not ask, “What have you done for me lately?”  Let’s just be satisfied in Him. 

Two New York City Tragedies

I’m sure many of you watched the news coverage remembering 9/11 this morning.  Fox replayed their actual live coverage from that morning.  It brought back the raw emotions of deep sorrow and anguish, along with fierce anger, just as fresh as if it happened yesterday.  I was in Court in Hackensack, NJ, about 10 miles north and west of NYC, representing a client on the morning of 9/11.  It was before the age of smart phone, and so it wasn’t until about 10 am, there I heard rumblings around the courthouse that something had happened at the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan.  When I got out of court and headed for home, I could see the smoke from the WTC and by then had heard the news that both towers had fallen.  Alli was 2 and Brian was 7 months old at the time.  All I wanted to do was to be home with my family.   

I remember as a young boy, my father used to work in downtown Manhattan.  Sometimes over the summer, I would go to work with him.  We would take the subway from Hoboken, NJ under the Hudson River to the WTC stop and then walk the few blocks to his office.  I remember leaning against the buildings and looking up in awe at these buildings that reached literally into the sky.  It would never have entered my mind then or in 2001, that they could be taken down by terrorists.  The memory of the people who died that day; the images of people jumping off the buildings rather than being burned; the sight of those incredible buildings collapsing to the ground will always be ingrained in our minds and hearts.  I still cry thinking about it.  Molly and I and many of our friends from the northeast who will read this post knew several people who died that morning.  We should never, ever forget the evil that occurred that day.

Today, there is another tragedy occurring at Union Theological Seminary on the opposite side of Manhattan.  John MacArthur and other evangelical leaders published a document on September 5, 2018 called “Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel”, which begins, “In view of questionable sociological, psychological and political theories presently permeating our culture and making inroads in Christ’s church, we wish to clarify certain key doctrines and ethical principles prescribed in God’s word.”  The document proceeds to affirm orthodox doctrines of the Christian faith while denying that “political or social activism should be viewed as integral components of the gospel or primary to the mission of the church.  Though believers can and should utilize all lawful means that God has providentially established to have some effect on the laws of a society, we deny that these activities are either evidence of saving faithor constitute a central part of the church’s mission given to her by Jesus Christ, her head. We deny that laws or regulations possess any inherent power to change sinful hearts.” (emphasis mine)

In response to the Statement, Union, which is part of Columbia University in Harlem, issued a rebuttal which begins, “Misguided sociological, psychological and political theories have long fostered biblical misinterpretation.”  The rebuttal then expressly denies the inerrancy of Scripture, denies that “salvation is only found through Christianity, that’s God’s salvific grace is exclusive to any single faith or religion”, and proclaims that “there is no difference in spiritual value or worth between those who are ‘in Christ’ and those who aren’t.  Union affirms that “science and theory’s confirmation that God created humans to live into various sexual orientations and genders-the spectrum of human sexual experience attests to God’s expansive love.  We deny that any love that does no harm should be rejected.”  (emphasis mine) (You can read the full text of the Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel and Union’s response on the internet.)

I searched Union’s website for a doctrinal statement without success.  From the above, it seems that Union subscribes to universalist theology that affirms that all people will go to heaven regardless of what they believe, and that the role of religion and of the church is to do good to others.  While we certainly should do good to others, our benevolence does not save us or the person receiving it from the wrath of God.  The only way we can get to heaven is not by belief in anything we have done, but belief that we can’t do anything to merit salvation. That’s why it was necessary that Jesus Christ died on the cross.  He died to pay the penalty that we deserve for our sins, and He rose from the dead.  Believe that and you will go to heaven.  Anything else is belief that your own good works can get you into heaven, something that the Bible unequivocally denies.  To hold to Union’s universalist social gospel, you must discard or de-value the Bible, sin, the wrath of God, the cross, the atonement, the resurrection, the ascension, and the coming day of judgment.  Union calls itself a Christian seminary, yet joins a long list of seminaries and churches that have done just that. 

A total of 2,996 people lost their lives on 9/11.  It was an unequalled tragedy in the history of our nation.  A more subtle tragedy is the number of people who may ultimately lose their souls as a result of the teaching that is coming from Union Seminary and other like-minded seminaries and churches in our country.  As evangelical Christians, we believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, the need for a Savior due to our fallen sinful state, that Jesus Christ came as God in the flesh, born of a virgin, who died on a cross for our sins and was raised from the dead, and the only way to get to heaven is trust in Him alone for our salvation.  That’s an unpopular message today, but it’s the truth.  The only way to prevent the tragedy of people facing God’s wrath and spending eternity in hell is to preach it.   Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father son and Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.”

So let’s love others by preaching the gospel to them, and making disciples.  If people have physical needs, let's meet them where we can, not because that saves us or them, but because they were created in God’s image, God loves them, Christ died for them, and meeting physical needs often provides an opportunity to share the gospel that does save.

The Problem of 'Schadenfreude'

As most of you know, the NFL season is about to begin.  Praise God! Lots of people are excited about the upcoming season as always.  Some familiar teams like New England and Green Bay will be in the mix as favorites to win the Super Bowl.  Some new contenders include the Los Angeles Rams and the Jacksonville Jaguars.  And of course, little is expected from the perennially pathetic Cleveland Browns, Chicago Bears and NY Jets.  In Las Vegas you can bet on anything.  The saddest story I read gave odds on the first head football coach to be fired.  The favorite to be the first coach fired is Tampa Bay’s head coach, followed by Cleveland and Denver’s head coach.

As I thought about that, I thought about our apparent fascination in America with watching people fail and fall.  I can’t think of any kind of story that receives more press coverage than the stories of failure, or stories of a fall from grace.  Who can ever forget OJ Simpson in the white Bronco, the Matt Lauer or Harvey Weinstein scandals, or the very public moral failures of Jim Baker or Jimmy Swaggert?  I don’t know why these stories are so popular.  Maybe it’s what psychologists call “Schadenfreude”, the emotion of taking pleasure in others misfortune.  The explanation is that these stories make us feel better about ourselves.  We look for qualities in that person that caused their failure, evaluate ourselves to be sure we don’t have that same quality, and then sleep contentedly.  I think we have all probably experienced this emotion ourselves once or twice in our lives. 

Of course, if we do this, we are only betraying our own insecurities.  We don’t know OJ Simpson or Matt Lauer or what makes them tick. We only know that we are not murderers, serial cheaters, or sexual abusers.  This makes us feel safe that the same things that happened to them can’t happen to us.  What this emotion ignores is that we are all sinners in one way or another.  James says whoever is guilty of breaking the law at any point is guilty of breaking the whole law.  Jesus said if a man looks lustfully at another woman he has already committed adultery.   We all know that we are lawbreakers and we are thankful that we are not public figures whose failures will be exposed to the whole world on Facebook and Twitter. But God knows our failures even though the world may not.  

Paul warned us in Romans 12 to not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment.  If we do that, we will not rejoice in anyone else’s failure.  We will say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”  When a brother falls, Galatians 6 tells is to “restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself so you will not be tempted.”  We must always be on guard or failure will come quickly.  Jesus said, “Broad is the gate that leads to destruction and many find it.  Narrow is the gate that leads to life and few find it.”   We know that it is only by God’s grace that we stay on the path toward the narrow gate.  

As Christians, we don’t bet on which coach will be fired first and then root against him.  We don’t watch Matt Lauer’s moral failures and rejoice that someone who seemed to have it all crashed and burned. Schadenfreude is not Biblical. It’s the opposite of the compassion that believers are to have for others, even if their bad decisions led to their failures.  Consider these examples:  David committed reprehensible sin with Bathsheba and yet God spared him.  Paul was a murderer who became the greatest evangelist the world has ever known.  John Mark deserted Paul in Perga, but was later was deemed useful in ministry. Peter denied Christ three times and still the Lord restored him.  God was not be done with any of these men. Failure is one of the tools that God uses to draw people to Himself.  I don’t know what the future holds for public figures like OJ Simpson, Matt Lauer or Harvey Weinstein. OJ Simpson served time, and Harvey Weinstein may as well.  But God still may not be done with them.  When someone in our circle of influence fails, let’s never be part of the problem by rejoicing in it.  Let’s be part of the solution by restoring one where we can Biblically, and helping him walk with Christ again.  

And when we fail, even if no one knows it, know that our story is not yet complete.  God loves us, and the reason that we still have breath in our lungs is that God has a purpose for our lives.  We repent and turn back to Him.  There is grace at the cross for all who will come! 

Be 'Re-Purposed'

When we were shopping for a house in Texas, our realtor frequently used a term that we had never heard before.  The term was “re-purpose”.  She would say things like, “If you don’t like that light fixture in the foyer, you can ‘re-purpose’ it in another room where it will be less conspicuous.”  Re-purposing simply means to use the something in a different place or in a different way than it had previously been used.  The thing doesn’t change, but the way you use it changes.  I must confess that I am more of a ‘chucker’ than a re-purposer.  If I don’t like the light fixture in the hallway, I’m not going to like it in a spare bedroom either, so I’ll chuck it and get a new one.  

I thank God that He’s a re-purposer and not a chucker.  Like many of you, I came to faith as an adult.  I went to church as a kid, and I believed in God, but I didn’t understand the gospel.  As a teenager I left the church, became an atheist, and stopped going to church.  It was a full 20 years before God got my attention again and gave me grace to see that Jesus became a man to live a perfect life and to die for my sins.  God raised Jesus from the dead to show that He has power over death.  I understood that to be raised to eternal life, all I needed to do was to trust in Jesus alone for my salvation.  So I did.  

Every Christian’s story is basically the same. The details differ, but the theme is that God first redeems your life. He shows you the beauty of Jesus and His sacrifice and you believe.  That’s your salvation.  Salvation is not ‘hell insurance’ as a pastor friend of says.  Salvation does save us from the wrath of God and eternity in hell, but it’s so much more than that.  John 5:24: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”  Notice the use of the present tense.  He who believes ‘has’ eternal life now.  Your eternity does not begin at your death.  It’s already begun.  Once you are saved, God invites you to re-purpose your life for better, more productive use.  2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”  We’re the same and yet not the same.  Somehow we are made new, ‘re-purposed’ and called to serve Him in a new way.  

So the question is, how are you spending your eternity today? This life is not a waiting room that we merely occupy before we enter eternity.  This life is our daily opportunity to show our love and appreciation for the salvation that God has freely provided to us by serving Him. God wants you to re-purpose your life to further His kingdom.  What are you good at?  What do you enjoy doing?   Re-purpose yourself so that you use your gifts for the glory of God.  All you have to do is to ask God to show you where He wants to use you.  Notice that you have a choice.  God has made you into something new, but it’s up to you if you will allow Him to use you. 

It’s so easy to let days, months and years pass without ever attempting something great for God.  But if you’re not willing to risk anything for God, you won’t accomplish anything great for Him either.  It’s easy to settle for a comfortable life.  It’s in my nature and yours to seek comfort.  But God didn’t save us to make us comfortable.  He saved us so that we would live re-purposed lives, showing the love of Jesus Christ to whoever we can, however we can.  I need to remind myself of this every day because it is so easy to choose comfort and convenience over serving others.  As Andy Dufresne famously said in The Shawshank Redemption, “I guess it comes down to a simple choice, Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin.”  I pray that we would all use choose to use the precious time and resources that God has given us to get busy living as redeemed and re-purposed instruments for His kingdom and His glory.  

Love Does

 I just finished reading a book by Bob Goff called “Love Does.”  The premise of the book is that God calls us to live with whimsical love. The word whimsy means extravagant, fanciful, or playful.  To love whimsically means that sometimes you have to DO things and not worry about the expense, or whether the thing makes a whole lot of sense.  Goff told story after story of what it has looked like to love whimsically in his life, and I have to admit that I was jealous.  He has lived a life of adventure. As we get older, we get more cautious and conservative.  We worry about things a lot more than we did when we were younger. When I was younger, I didn’t worry about anything, and that’s not good either!  But I never want to get to the point where I don’t DO anything for fear of whether I can afford it, or whether I have time or who will feed my dog, or whether the house will be standing when I get home.

When the prodigal son returned home, his father ran after him and embraced him and kissed him.  He dressed him in the finest clothes, put a ring on his finger and killed the fattened calf so they could celebrate his return. That’s whimsical love.  It’s extravagant, expensive, over the top love. It was so much more than the prodigal could ever have hoped for, especially after the way he insulted his father by asking for his share of the inheritance while his father was still alive. I want to love that way.  

This afternoon at about 3:30 we heard that our nephew Luke will be graduating from US Navy Boot Camp on Friday in Chicago.  He has worked so hard to get to this point. About 5 weeks into the 8 week basic training program, they told him that he was not progressing well enough and they added 3 more weeks to his basic training.  He was devastated.  His graduation date was rescheduled to August 3, but the Navy tells all the families to buy flight insurance if they plan to attend graduation, because any trainee can be held back again at the last minute.  

Molly and I had been talking about going up to Chicago for the graduation but as the days passed with no assurance that Luke would graduate, we gave up on the idea.  But reading “Love Does” has changed my thinking. There’s no reason why we can’t go to Chicago on a moment’s notice to be at his graduation.  Well, actually there are a bunch of reasons why we can’t go, but whimsical love doesn’t worry about the reasons why we can’t go.  Instead, it figures out a way that we can go.  

So here’s the plan. Molly and I will drive through the night tonight to get to Chicago tomorrow morning.  It’s about a 12-13 hour drive.  We are going to go to the Chicago White Sox game at 1 pm.  I’ve never been to the new stadium so I can check another stadium off my list. (I swear that’s not the reason we are going!) Then we will meet up with Luke’s family, that’s Molly’s brother Paul, his wife Lois, and their kids who many of you have met.  They can only get 4 tickets to the graduation, so Molly and I won’t actually get to see the graduation, but we will see Luke after for a while.  I think it will mean a lot to him that we made the effort.  Then we will drive back on Saturday.  

Does that seem crazy? When I was young, I would have done it in a heartbeat.  Now that I am older, I hemmed and hawed.  But love does.  So we are doing it.  We are so proud of Luke and we want to be there to share his moment with him.  When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, that was not convenient.  It was painful, humiliating, shameful and worst of all, He was separated from His Father while He bore His Father’s wrath for the sin of the world.  If He had not done it, none of us could be in heaven with Him someday.  He had to pay the penalty for our sins.  Love Does. That’s how Jesus showed His love for us. In comparison to that, what’s a drive to Chicago and back to show our love for our nephew?  

My New Dining Room

Molly went away on a mission trip last week and left me home.  Whenever that happens I usually take on some home improvement project to surprise her with when she gets home.  I’m sure she is afraid every time she leaves because I’m not the most handy guy in the world and could easily get in over my head.  This week I took on our dining room.  It started out innocently enough, just paint.  After the painting was done, I looked at the disgusting 18 year-old builder’s grade carpet that my dog has used for things I don’t even want to mention here and thought, “It’s time for this to go.”  I peeled it back from the corner and thought hard about whether I could handle carpet removal and installation of a vinyl floor.  I decided to go for it.  It took me a couple of days, and cost me a little more than I had hoped, but the finished product is really nice.  I’m kind of proud of my work.  

That got me to thinking about the lengths that we will go to cover up things we don’t like not only in our houses but in ourselves.  We wear clothes that will best hide our flaws.  Women (and some men!) wear makeup to cover flaws.  When dating, we try to hide the things about ourselves that might make our date run from us.  When we interview for jobs, we never say the things about ourselves that we know will scare our employers off.  We are careful about the things we post on social media.  (Some of us should perhaps be more careful!)   We go to great lengths to hide our real selves.  We can get away with this to a certain extent because the people were are concealing our true selves from are not omniscient.  They don’t know what we are thinking.  They don’t know everything we’ve ever done.  They don’t know every wicked thought we've ever had.

Incredibly, our God knows all of these things and loves us anyway.  Psalm 139 talks about God’s omniscience and His love for us.  Verse 1: “O Lord you have searched me and known me.  You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You understand my thought from afar.”  Verse 4: “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold Lord, you know it all.”  Verse 16: Your eyes have seen my unformed substance and in your book were all written the days that were ordained for me when as yet there was not one of them.”  This psalm instructs us about the dignity of human life from conception to death, but that is not my focus today.  I am focusing on how God, who knows us better than we know ourselves, can love us anyway. Billy Joel sang, “I said I love you and that’s forever, and this I promise from the heart. I couldn’t love you any better. I love you just the way you are.”  How can God love us just the way we are?

I listened to a sermon today by a great friend of mine.  He said something profound.  He was talking about how God has poured all of His love into His Son Jesus.  We can only experience God’s eternal love when we choose to trust Jesus for our salvation.  This was God's idea and His plan.  John 5:21-22 says, “21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. 22 For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, 23 so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.”  God does not judge.  Jesus judges. Jesus gives life to whom He wishes.  The only way to pass His muster is to receive Him as your Savior.  The only way to receive the eternal love of God is to love the Son.  I know that’s hard.  I’m not saying that God does not love everyone.  He does.  That’s why He sent His Son to die for the sin of everyone in the world.  What I am saying is that only those who accept Jesus as Savior will experience the eternal love of God because the only way to love and honor God is to love Jesus who He sent.  

When I looked at my ugly dining room, I saw it exactly as it was.  When God looks at us, He sees us exactly as we are. No flaw is hidden from His sight.  But when we choose to believe in His Son for the salvation of our souls God chooses to see His perfect Son and not our flawed and sinful selves. What a great God we serve!

PS: Check out my new dining room!