Even the Sparrow

I mentioned in a recent blog that I have taped Matthew 10:31 on my mirror: “Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (ESV). Psalm 84:3 presents another interesting picture: “Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at Your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.” Sometimes I feel like the little sparrow that has snuck into the palace through an open window—not necessarily invited, but not rejected either. Allowed to stay for the pleasure of the King. In His presence is the best home and all the provisions that are ever needed. “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Gather feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matthew 6:26).

It’s interesting that just a few chapters apart in Matthew, Jesus reminds His followers that they don’t need to fear or be anxious because the Father cares for them more than the birds. The first instance is preached to a large crowd in the Sermon on the Mount. The second comes after Jesus names the twelve disciples and calls them to go out and proclaim His kingdom. If they were anything like us (which they were), they could well have heard the first sermon and thought “Well, sure, God cares for people more than animals. Nothing new there.” But when Jesus repeated His message to just the twelve, maybe it started to sink in a little deeper: “Oh, God really cares for me personally, not just Israel in general.”

God’s care is further expressed in His invitation to cast our cares upon Him. A devotional book I’ve been reading included a prayer thanking God that we can “come before Him,” but the choice of words made me pause. You “come before” a judge and jury, but you can come to the loving Father. You make petitions to the court, but you can lay your burdens before the Lord.  

I had a dream the other night in which someone gave me an orchid, but almost immediately the stalk broke, and I was trying to find a way to prop it up to save the flower. When I woke I was reminded of Isaiah 42:3: “A bruised reed He will not break, and a faintly burning wick He will not quench; He will faithfully bring forth justice” (ESV). This prophecy was repeated in Matthew 12 as being fulfilled by Jesus.

There are many other metaphors in Scripture to describe God’s love for His children, which I won’t try to list. Suffice it to say that God doesn’t want us to take His love for granted. Here is an old hymn I came across that has been running through my mind all week.

Here Is Love (words by William Rees, public domain)

Here is love, vast as the ocean,
Lovingkindness as the flood,
When the Prince of Life, our Ransom,
Shed for us His precious blood.
Who His love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing His praise?
He can never be forgotten,
Throughout heav’n’s eternal days.

On the mount of crucifixion,
Fountains opened deep and wide;
Through the floodgates of God’s mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love, like mighty rivers,
Poured incessant from above,
And heav’n’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8YOPj5TnUM

He Knows

I’ve been reading through the Old Testament lately, and just came to Exodus 2. Verses 23-25 say:

“During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, and with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew” (ESV, emphasis added).

Just three little words, but they tell so much of the story, and of our story. God knew that the Israelites were in a desperate situation in Egypt; after all, He was the one who arranged for Joseph to be in charge in Egypt during the years of famine. God knew they needed help. But more importantly, God knew that He already had a plan in the works to redeem them through the hand of Moses.

In more recent times, God knew the suffering and decimation of the Jews in Nazi Germany. God knew what was happening on 9-11 as planes were being hijacked. God knew what was happening with every major earthquake, hurricane, and tsunami ever recorded. It’s hard for us to look at massive deaths and destruction and believe that God is both in control and concerned for His people.

And it’s not just the events that make the national news. Friends of mine from college have a daughter who was born with multiple birth defects. She has endured (and thrived) through numerous surgeries, and recently celebrated her 16^th birthday. They will be quick to tell you that she is “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). God not only knew what He was doing, but He “knitted her together” the way He chose.

Ravi Zacharias brings it close to home for me in his book The Grand Weaver:

“To be able to accept the wonder and the marvel of one’s own personality, however flawed or ‘accidental,’ and place it in and trust it to the hands of the One who made it, is one of the greatest achievements in life. His ‘registration number’ is on you. Your DNA matters because the essence of who you are matters and whose you are by design matters. Every little feature and ‘accident’ of your personality matter. Consider it God’s sovereign imprint on you” (28).

He later says:

“Faith is a thing of the mind. If you do not believe that God is in control and has formed you for a purpose, then you will flounder on the high seas of purposelessness, drowning in the currents and drifting further into nothingness” (43).

I’m sure we all go through times when we wonder whether God is paying attention and if or when He might intervene. Nations go to war, churches split, couples divorce, children are left orphaned, and yet through it all God knows. Individuals go through physical or mental illness, all kinds of abuse, and even death, and God knows.

If you read on through the book of Exodus, you see all the details that God worked out to free His people from slavery in Egypt. He is at work today in working out His master plan and weaving His grand tapestry. We may never get to see the bigger picture in this lifetime, but in the life to come we will be awestruck by the beauty He has created out of what seemed so messy and painful at the time.

On my bathroom mirror I have taped Matthew 10:31, which with the context from verses 29-30 says: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

He knows, and He cares.

What Did You Expect?

Typically September has been a month of increasing depression for me. Thankfully, this September has started out better than average. It seems odd that the lack of major depression creates as many or more questions for me than the experience of depression. I guess I don’t want to hope for something that is unlikely to happen (complete freedom from depression). I want all my hopes to be based in scriptural faith, and my expectations to follow, and “In this world you will have trouble.” I want God’s perfect will with or without depression, but I fully expect it to be with depression. After all, it’s been 40 years so far and I don’t see much reason it should change now. Whether it’s September, or monthly, or all the time, I’m pretty much used to it in varying degrees.

Tim Keller made a few points in Walking with God through Pain and Suffering (pp. 190-192):

“First, suffering transforms our attitude toward ourselves. It humbles us and removes unrealistic self-regard and pride… Suffering also leads us to examine ourselves and see weaknesses…

“Second, suffering will profoundly change our relationship to the good things in our lives. We will see that some things have become too important to us…

“Third, and most of all, suffering can strengthen our relationship to God as nothing else can... Suffering drives us toward God to pray as we never would otherwise…

“Finally, suffering is almost a prerequisite if we are going to be of much use to other people, especially when they go through their own trials.”

Keller also quotes research that says:

“The prevailing view is… that the depressive person tends to distort reality in a negative way… [But recent research has] turned this received wisdom on its head, providing evidence that it is not the depressive who distorts reality but the so-called healthy population… Even if depression does distort reality in a negative way… the fact remains that it removes the positive self-biases that are seen in the non-depressed… With recover [from depression], and with the lifting of the mood, a new kind of truth could emerge” (189).

A couple Scriptures come to mind:

Philippians 3:8, 10-11 (ESV)- “For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ… that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

Psalm 139:23-24- “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”

With those thoughts in mind, my prayer has been that God would reveal where my thoughts and expectations are in need of change, where they might be based on human experience and interpretation rather than on truth, reality, and Scripture. So I took the time to read through Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John, and a few things stood out as I read.

1)      It’s all about God’s glory—revealing the Father; worshiping in spirit and truth; doing the Father’s will. “The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood” (7:18).

2)      Fulfillment is found in Jesus—the Bread of Life, the Living Water, the Good Shepherd, the Light of the World, the Resurrection and the Life.

3)      Suffering reveals the glory of God, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (9:3).

4)      Jesus cares for the needy, the wounded, the stragglers, even the leftovers: “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost” (6:12). “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand” (10:27-28).

5)      Jesus faced the sorrow of the lost and hurting and wept over them. “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me…” (12:25-26). “A servant is not greater than his master…” (13:16), and since He was a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53), we can expect the same, along with the hatred of the world (15:18-20).

6)      “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit His prunes that it may bear more fruit” (15:2). Abiding in the Vine can be painful, because no one prunes a branch that is not part of the Vine.

7)      This world is full of sorrow for those who follow Christ, “So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (16:22). I’ve always assumed (or perhaps been taught) that this referred to Jesus’ resurrection and appearance to the disciples. But it seems more likely that He’s referring to the Second Coming, when all the sorrow will be permanently erased and there will be nothing left to interfere with God’s perfect will.

8)      “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (16:33). That overcoming will not be fully realized in this age.  “I do not ask that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the evil one” (17:15).

It is clear scripturally that those who are seeking happiness in this life are more likely to be disappointed than those who expect suffering. Whether it is cynicism or realism, I don’t really expect my feelings to radically improve. At the same time, I feel closer to God in sorrow than in attempted joy. I feel more usable in hearing from God and communicating His love and comfort to others. I’m more aware that sanctification is made evident through humility and weakness as I have to rely more on God.

All that to say (at least for the moment), I’m okay with emotional friability if it means that God can use me for His purposes. I am thankful for the brief respites I have received, which have served to renew my endurance. The story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19 is often on my mind, and I look ahead that “times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19). 

Hope in God's Sovereignty

I recently came across this definition of despair from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

“Despair, ethically regarded, is the voluntary and complete abandonment of all hope of saving one’s soul and of having the means required for that end. It is not a passive state of mind: on the contrary it involves a positive act of the will by which a person deliberately gives over any expectation of ever reaching eternal life” (http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=3797).

While that may be true in a few cases, I don’t believe it applies to most people who would characterize their current life as “despairing.” Even David and Paul spoke of despair in ways that had nothing to do with the loss of the soul (Psalm 69:20; 2 Corinthians 1:8 and 4:8).

I’ve also seen despair described as the determined doubt or denial of God’s character and ability. I think that definition misses the boat for most folks as well. I can only speak from my own experience, but my times of despair are mostly doubts that anything will improve and doubts of my own ability to endure. I have no doubt that God is in control and that He cares how I feel and what I experience. I don’t know how much free will God actually attributes to us, but it’s the choices that I control that scare me, not the part that God controls.

That actually leads me to a greater appreciation of God’s sovereignty. If He is ultimately in control, then I can trust that He will preserve and sustain me through whatever trials He allows in my life. If He knows my thoughts and has numbered my days as Psalm 139 says, then He knows the limits of my endurance and He can either remove the trials in time or He can further strengthen me by His grace.

“Love the Lord, all you His saints! The Lord preserves the faithful but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride. Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 31:23-24 ESV).

“As for You, O Lord, You will not restrain Your mercy from me; Your steadfast love and Your faithfulness will ever preserve me!” (Psalm 40:11).

“Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will sustain you; He will never permit the righteous to be moved” (Psalm 55:22).

Minister, author, and hymn writer John Newton wrote the following in his published letters:

“Your sister is much upon my mind. Her illness grieves me: were it in my power I would quickly remove it: the Lord can, and I hope will, when it has answered the end for which he sent it… I wish you may be enabled to leave her, and yourself, and all your concerns, in his hands. He has a sovereign right to do with us as he pleases; and if we consider what we are, surely we shall confess we have no reason to complain: and to those who seek him, his sovereignty is exercised in a way of grace. All shall work together for good; everything is needful that he sends; nothing can be needful that he withholds” (166).  

It seems to me that it is possible to have hope in the midst of despair, or perhaps it’s a matter of semantics. Desperation in this life leads to greater hope in the life to come, as well as greater faith in the One who holds all things together.

“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” –Jude 24-25

Narrow Is the Way

In recent weeks a couple pastors of mega-churches have made the news with their unwise comments. But even before that happened, I was thinking about the whole mega-church concept and wondering how many of those people attending are actually Christians from God’s point of view.

Jesus said, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13-14 ESV). That certainly implies that the actual number of believers is significantly smaller than we may think. According to Wikipedia, Christianity currently has around 2.2 billion adherents, including Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox branches. Some estimates put the historical total of all Christians around 7-8 billion.

Somehow that number just doesn’t jive with Jesus’ words, “those who find it are few.” Later in the same chapter Jesus said, “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and cast out demons in Your name, and do many mighty works in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness” (vv. 22-23). Yes, Revelation 7:9 does mention a “multitude that no one could number,” but I think it’s safe to say that not all who call themselves Christians will be saved.

I don’t pretend to know who’s in and who’s out, and I’m not saying that mega-churches are necessarily any worse than small churches in terms of the percentage of actual believers. There are red flags that go up when large numbers of people follow someone who is clearly denying significant parts of Scripture, but false teachers can be found in small churches as well.

My biggest concern is that there will be many people who will be turned away from eternal life when the Judgment Day comes because they were deceived into thinking they were followers of Christ when they weren’t. They may have listened to a smooth talker who preached only what he liked. They may have read the popular book of the day. They may have gone forward at some crusade. But they never committed to follow Christ “no matter what” (see Matthew 8:18-22). They never sought to know “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” (see 2 Timothy 2:15). They never questioned whether they were being taught in accordance with Scripture (see 2 Peter 2:1-3).

The author of Hebrews wrote, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (5:12-14). Unfortunately, this seems to characterize a lot of people who call themselves Christians. They never find the narrow way because they can’t be bothered with the “constant practice” needed to know the truth and grow into maturity.

I suppose I’m preaching to the choir with a blog like this, but we could all use reminders of the importance of being thoroughly grounded in Scripture as we go about preaching and teaching and writing. I’ve encountered plenty of authors who can present a great message, but one small error in explaining Scripture detracts from the trustworthiness of the book. (For example, one book I read recently attributed Hebrews to the Apostle Paul with no explanation that the authorship is actually unknown.) From that point on, I’m distracted with wondering whether the writer realized their error and how many readers even notice the misstatement.

None of us are perfect, but I hope we can learn from our mistakes and can accept correction with humility. I don’t think any of us want to be the cause of someone missing the narrow way. So we must be diligent in seeking God, studying His Word, and leading others by His grace.

“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” –James 3:1

Draw Near

Our theme for the church Labor Day Retreat was Isaiah 55:6-9:

“Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts’” (ESV).

As we discussed these verses and thought about some specific ways we need to seek the Lord right now, a couple other Scriptures came to mind for my own needs: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18) and “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8a). A quick Bible search also revealed six instances in the book of Hebrews that illuminate the benefits of drawing near to God—mercy, grace, hope, intercession, sanctification, assurance, and faith.

Then last night I was reading Psalm 69 and took special note of verse 13: “But as for me, my prayer is to You, O Lord. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of Your steadfast love answer me in Your saving faithfulness.” God alone knows the perfect time to answer any prayer, as well as what the best answer should be. In addition, His answers will always be tempered by His love, and His faithfulness assures that He will leave nothing undone that should be done. Those are strong promises to cling to when the way seems dark.

I’ll admit there are two questions that recur in my mind quite often, “Why?” and “How long?” The psalmists asked the same thing, but those are two questions that God never seems to answer, or at least not as fully as I might like. In Cries of the Heart, by Ravi Zacharias, there’s a chapter on “The Cry for a Reason in Suffering” that talks about the life of Job. He draws out several conclusions that are worth considering:

“First and foremost, we must understand that suffering, death, disease, pain, and bereavement are all part of life, whether we be righteous or unrighteous.

“Second, we see that the role of a friend is very pivotal in seeing people through their times of anguish. Let us never underestimate this point. God’s answer for burdened, hurting hearts may well be the shoulders of a friend as we bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.

“Third, we know that most answers of this nature require a process. The questions must become more selfless before the answer becomes more personal…

“Fourth, we have learned, as Job did, that the answer to suffering is more relational than it is propositional. Those who know God personally and understand the cross are better able to find help in the dark night of the soul than those who merely tackle their problems philosophically…” (88-89).

That last point is probably more vital than most of us realize. It’s easy to get sucked into theological debates when what is really needed is an assurance that God is in control and that He cares. If God is God then He doesn’t need to explain His actions, and we wouldn’t live long enough to listen to the detailed explanation anyway. Though we may receive some answers to our questions, we can’t make that a prerequisite for believing and obeying God. Faith and trust grow as we experience relationship with God, not when we have every answer explained in a contractual agreement.

The passage from Isaiah is a reminder that God’s thoughts and ways are beyond what we can comprehend. The instruction is to seek Him and call upon Him, not so we can fully understand what He is doing, but so we can draw near and receive the assurance and hope we need for each day.

“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” -Ephesians 3:20-21

Lessons from Affliction

This morning I listened to three podcast by Alistair Begg on the faithfulness of God (www.truthforlife.org broadcasts for August 19-21, 2014). In the second half of “God’s Faithfulness in Affliction,” he presents ten purposes of God in allowing us to go through affliction, which I thought were well worth sharing:

1. To develop perseverance (James 1:3)
2. To manifest His faithfulness in bringing us to maturity (Hebrews 5:8-9, James 1:4)
3. To assure us of our sonship (Romans 8:17, Hebrews 12:6)
4. To prove the genuine nature of our faith (Deuteronomy 8:1-2, 1 Peter 1:7)
5. To develop humility (2 Corinthians 12:7)
6. To keep us on track (Psalm 119:67, Proverbs 3:11)
7. To deepen our insight into the heart of God (Hosea)
8. To enable us to help others in trials (2 Corinthians 1:4)
9. To reveal what we really love (Deuteronomy 13:3, Luke 14:26)
10. To display God’s glory (Genesis 50:20)

In the broadcast from August 19 on Lamentations 3:1-24, he makes the comment that “the absence of lament in contemporary evangelical Christianity is arguably one of the things that presents to the watching world a substantial sense of a Christianity that is not actually authentic.” If all that the world sees are happy, put-together, on-top-of-the world Christians, they wonder how it can possibly be real. Such a picture can alienate seekers (or even Christians) who feel they can never fit that image. But if they see people who suffer and struggle and lament and yet hold onto their faith, they may be drawn in by wondering where that perseverance comes from.

I recently read A Sacred Sorrow: Reaching Out to God in the Lost Language of Lament, by Michael Card, who urges honesty with God, ourselves, and others in praying and saying what we truly feel. He uses the words of Job, Psalms, and Lamentations as models for our own prayers and living.

It seems to me that songs such as “Come As You Are” by Crowder stir in us an awareness that it’s okay to be broken and wounded. God doesn’t expect us to get our act together before we come to Him, but sometimes the church seems to have higher standards. The unspoken rules create walls instead of bridges: dress nicely, keep smiling, hide your problems, and never under any circumstances admit your sins, temptations, or struggles. Whether we admit it or not, we are proud people and we don’t want to give anyone reason to think less of us. I wonder how many souls have missed salvation because of the fear of going up to the altar?

I hadn’t thought of it before, but one application of Philippians 2:3 (NIV), “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves,” could be that the humility that allows us to be honest before others opens doors for them to be honest as well. And verse 4 doesn’t tell us to neglect our own needs, but implies that we are all better served by looking out for one another. Pride leads to contempt, but humility leads to honesty, openness, and healing.

Looking back over the ten purposes of affliction, I recognize some of the lessons I’ve been learning. One of the comments made by Joni Eareckson Tada in When God Weeps was that those who don’t have to endure suffering have a harder time learning some of these valuable lessons. Holding onto faith isn’t too hard when everything is going well, and easy living can give way to apathy. May we take courage to share in Christ’s sufferings (2 Corinthians 1:5), but also to know that He shares in ours (Hebrews 4:14-16)!

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience… And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Colossians 3:12, 14 ESV).