Family Camp 2018 and Other Thoughts

Last week at Family Camp Pam Buchanan was teaching from two books—One Month to Live, and The Four Things that Matter Most. The discussion centered around Psalm 90:12, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (ESV). What would you make sure to do or say if you knew you only had a month to live? We often live as if we have unlimited tomorrows. Early in the week I happened to read the following from Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren:

“Christians are people who wait. We live in liminal time, in the already and not yet. Christ has come, and he will come again. We dwell in the meantime. We wait. But in my daily life I’ve developed habits of impatience—of speeding ahead, of trying to squeeze more into my cluttered day. How can I live as one who watches and waits for the coming kingdom when I can barely wait for water to boil? …Time is a gift from God, a means of worship. I need the church to remind me of reality: time is not a commodity that I control, manage, or consume” (104, 108).

Our priorities get distorted and we often fail to do the things that matter most—seeking God, mending and tending our relationships with others, and making disciples of all nations (starting at home).

Ron Thomas was the Bible teacher at camp, and part of our discussion was on the relevance of the Church in today’s culture. Once again I stumbled across a couple quotes in Liturgy that directly related. (God does that to me frequently.)

“If we believe that church is merely a voluntary society of people with shared values, then it is entirely optional... Our relationship with God is never less than an intimate relationship with Christ, but it is always more than that. Christians throughout history—Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox alike—have confessed that it is impossible to have a relationship with Christ outside of a vital relationship with the church, Christ’s body and bride” (118).

“We profoundly need each other. We are immersed in the Christian life together. There is no merely private faith—everything we are and do as individuals affects the church community. Yet many believers of my generation are not sure what the church is for. Some have denigrated the need for it all together. We have produced a me-centered faith that would be foreign to most Christians throughout history... But if Christianity is not only about my individual connection with God, but is instead about God calling, forming, saving, and redeeming a people, then the church can never be relegated to ‘elective’ status... The preservation of our faith and the endurance of the saints is not an individual promise; it is a promise that God will redeem and preserve his church—a people, a community, an organism, an institution—generation after generation, and that even the gates of hell will not prevail against it” (120).

This dovetails nicely with discussions we’ve been having at our church on what the church is and what it means to be a church member. Church membership is about more than having your name on a list somewhere, or showing up for an occasional service. It is a commitment to a group of people who love Christ and desire to encourage, equip, build up, serve, help, and hold one another accountable. We are to be partners in spreading the good news of salvation and teaching new believers how to follow Christ. We are brothers and sisters in Christ with a bond closer than that of blood.

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Cor. 12:21).

© 2018 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com.

On the Road

I just read this article on The Gospel Coalition: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/lessons-church-recovery-boys/  The author writes:

“One of the great challenges in ministry today is that ‘authenticity’ is more prized than holiness. Recurring struggles and ‘mess’ are more compelling and animating than the prospect of growth and the process of sanctification. Brokenness is simply a more credible currency than righteousness in many churches today, to our shame. Suburban youth pastors feel they must have tattoos and intense testimonies in order to be relatable. But shouldn’t churches and ministers be in the business of making growth, healing, maturity, and wholeness more compelling than sin and brokenness? Can’t righteousness be authentic too? …Pictures of healing are compelling. Growth should be celebrated more than brokenness.”

I understand what he’s saying, but I think he’s overstating the case. Perhaps it’s a matter of perspective. I think most churches struggle to embrace true authenticity. It’s far easier to hide our brokenness and fake our growth. It is true that real growth and healing should be celebrated, but not to the exclusion or shame of those who are still struggling. For most of us, growth comes in small steps that may not really be measurable. It may take years before we realize we’ve made significant change, so it can be hard to celebrate slow growth.

Certainly we want to make “growth, healing, maturity, and wholeness more compelling than sin and brokenness,” but we also need to communicate that it’s okay to not be okay. We are all broken sinners in need of supernatural help to change, and no one has yet arrived at perfection. We are all in process. Some may be further along the path, and they can encourage those of us who come behind them. Every believer is part of the “cloud of witnesses” to what God is doing in our lives and in the lives of those around us (Hebrews 12:1). We need to be authentic so that we can testify to where we’ve come from but also how much further we need to go. While there can be brokenness without sanctification, you can’t have sanctification without acknowledging brokenness.

I’m sure there are some churches where authenticity is “more prized than holiness,” just as there are some churches where sin is embraced rather than crucified, but I think they are comparatively small in number. Any church that values the whole council of God’s Word should be communicating: God loves you just as you are, and He loves you too much to let you stay there. And we as His Body love you in your brokenness, and we will do everything we can to help you grow in healing and holiness, however long it takes.

We’re all in this together. Wherever we’ve started from we should each be learning, growing, and changing by God’s grace and for His glory. Let’s encourage one another and celebrate even the small victories!

“Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:12-14 ESV).

© 2018 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com.

Forgive Us Our Trespasses

In “high church” traditions, the worship service generally includes recitations of confession and absolution each week. Those of us who attend less liturgical churches may not give much thought to the need for confession and reminders of God’s forgiveness. Even when there is a moment of silence for confession, it can be easy to overlook or minimize any sins we should be confessing. It’s true that we can confess and find forgiveness on our own anytime anywhere, but there is something unique and important about the experience of confessing together as the Body of Christ. Tish Harrison Warren writes in Liturgy of the Ordinary:

“When we confess and receive absolution together, we are reminded that none of our pathologies, neuroses, or sins, no matter how small or secret, affect only us. We are a church, a community, a family. We are not simply individuals with our pet sins and private brokenness. We are people who desperately need each other if we are to seek Christ and walk in repentance… Because of this, I need to hear my forgiveness proclaimed not only by God but by a representative of the body of Christ in which I receive grace, to remind me that though my sin is worse than I care to admit, I’m still welcome here. I’m still called into this community and loved” (58).

Although I’m not a big fan of recited prayers, which can often become meaningless repetition, I do think we all need frequent reminders of the seriousness of sin and the gracious forgiveness of our loving God. Martin Luther wrote that “the entire life of believers should be repentance.” And yet how often do we do so? Rich Mullins shared this story:

“Those of you that are young enough to go to camp and rededicate your life every year you keep doin’ it, ‘cause about the time you get to college you’re gonna learn that you have to rededicate your life about every six months. And then you’ll graduate from college and it will become a quarterly thing. By the time you're in your 40s and 50s you’ll do it about four times a day… Never forget what Jesus did for you. Never take lightly what it cost Him” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNYtYRbH6aI).

What might it look like for your church to adopt more regular practices confession and repentance? In many churches, the frequency of communion determines the frequency of repentance for a lot of the members. My church typically has communion quarterly plus a couple special occasions. Why does it take a special service for us to give thought to our need for the grace of forgiveness?

I would challenge all of us to take seriously the call to confess our sins and to walk in the light with Christ and with one another (1 John 1:7-9).

“The Lord is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His works. The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth” (Psalm 145:17-18 ESV).

© 2018 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com.

Me Me Me

I read this the other day and found it to be quite true:

“To most people the greatest persons in the universe are themselves. Their lives are made up of endless variations on the word ‘me.’ What do people think of ME? How will thing affect ME? Will this make ME happy? Do people value ME as they should? …Have we not all, in our own experience, discovered that every endeavor that has ME as its center has no profit in it? You have set your heart, perhaps, on procuring something for the benefit or pleasure of your own great big ME, but when you have secured it, this ungrateful ME has refused to be satisfied and has turned away in weariness and disgust from what it has cost you so much to procure. Or you have labored to have the claims of this ME recognized by those around you and have reared with great pains and effort a high pinnacle on which you have seated yourself to be admired by all beholders. And right at the critical moment, the pinnacle has tottered over, and your glorious ME has fallen into the dust, and contempt instead of honor, has become its portion. Never, under any circumstances has it in the end paid you to try and exalt your great exacting ME, for always, sooner or later, it has all proved to be nothing but ‘vanity and vexation of spirit’ (Eccl. 2:11)” (God Is Enough, Hannah Whitall Smith, 132-133).

ME is an exacting taskmaster, never pleased for more than a few seconds. If your employer treated you the same way, would you not soon quit? Why try to please someone who just sneers and knocks you down every time? Why subject yourself to repeated frustration? And yet we do. “Maybe this time I’ll get everything just right and can enjoy success.” On the other hand:

“Jesus challenges us to forgive everyone we know and even those we don’t know and to be very careful not to forget even one against whom we harbor ill will. Right now someone exists who has disappointed and offended us, someone with whom we are continually displeased and with whom we are more impatient, irritated, unforgiving, and spiteful than we would dare be with anyone else. That person is ourselves. We are so often fed up with ourselves. We’re sick of our own mediocrity, revolted by our own inconsistency, bored by our own monotony. We would never judge any other of God’s children with the savage self-condemnation with which we crush ourselves. We must be patient, gentle, and compassionate with ourselves in the same way we try to love our neighbor” (The Signature of Jesus, Brennan Manning, 174).

We can either keep trying to perfect ourselves and build ourselves up despite constant failure, or we can accept God’s love and forgiveness and trust Him to do what only He can do. I find it interesting that the Apostle Paul’s list of the works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) all have self at the center: “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these” (ESV). But it could reasonably be argued that the Fruit of the Spirit (vv. 22-23) is all focused on God and others: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” If we attempt to produce that fruit while focusing on self, it will be imitation fruit at best, quick to fall to the ground. Even self-control has to come from the work of the Spirit, not from self-effort. Only when we stop trying to grow our own fruit can the Spirit grow His Fruit in us. When we take our eyes off ourselves and our accomplishments and failures, then we can watch and see what God will do.

It’s time to dethrone ME and recognize that God is the King of kings and Lord of lords, and He is making all things new.

“Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:2-3).

  

© 2018 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com.

The Picture Show

Reading through Ezekiel recently I took note of this description:

“I went in and saw. And there, engraved on the wall all around, was every form of creeping things and loathsome beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel. And before them stood seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel… Each had his censer in his hand, and the smoke of the cloud of incense went up… ‘Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of pictures? For they say, “The Lord does not see us...”’” (8:10-12 ESV).

Though written millennia ago, this almost sounds like modern day. We may not be burning incense, but nearly every house in our country has a room of moving pictures that distract us from worshiping the one true God. It’s easy to forget that God sees what happens in our homes even when no one else may know.

David said in Psalm 101:2-3a- “I will ponder the way that is blameless… I will walk with integrity of heart within my house. I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless.” Some commentaries assert that this was written before David assumed the throne, and therefore before his sin with Bathsheba. Even the “man after God’s own heart” didn’t follow through with his good intentions. How much more vulnerable are we?

Brennan Manning wrote, “The gift of radical discipleship is pure grace to those who have no claim to it, for the deepest desires of our heart are not in our control. Were this not so, we simply would will those desires and be done with it” (The Signature of Jesus, 12). While we live on this earth, we live with conflicting desires. As Paul testified in Romans 7, we want to do what is right, but “evil lies close at hand” (7:21). Job said, “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin” (31:1). Few have made such a covenant, and even fewer have kept it. Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount have convicted me lately:

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire… You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28).

When we remember to include our thoughts in the tally, we all sin on a regular basis in one way or another. We look at things we shouldn’t, desire things that we can’t or shouldn’t have, fantasize about some other life, worship recreation instead of God, and carry around bitterness and anger in our hearts.

“The things we think on are the things that feed our souls. If we think on pure and lovely things, we will grow pure and lovely like them; and the converse is equally true. Very few people realize this, and consequently there is a great deal of carelessness, even with careful people, in regard to their thoughts. They guard their words and actions with the utmost care, but their thoughts, which are the very root of everything in character and life, they neglect entirely. So long as it is not put into spoken words, what goes on in the mind seems of no consequence. No one hears or knows, and therefore they imagine that the vagrant thoughts that come and go do no harm. Such persons are careless about the food offered to their thoughts and accept without discrimination anything that comes” (Hannah Whitall Smith, God Is Enough, 122).

“Let the… meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer” (Psalm 19:14).

© 2018 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com.

Gather Expectantly

Nehemiah chapters 8 and 9 have often left me amazed. The people of Israel gathered in the square to listen to the reading of God’s Word all morning, and it wasn’t even the more comforting parts of the Bible they heard, but the Law—those chapters that we’re probably tempted to skip when we read through the Bible. They didn’t respond with boredom but with sorrow because of their sin. The next day they held a training conference for the leaders to study the words of the Law, and for the rest of the week they continued listening to the readings. Just a couple weeks later they gathered again and “read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a quarter of a day [3 hours]; for another quarter of it they made confession and worshiped the Lord their God” (9:3 ESV).

I wonder how it would go over in most churches to hold week-long services for the sole purpose of reading chapter after chapter of Leviticus? Or a six-hour worship service? I was a little surprised that The Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference last week centered around teaching from Deuteronomy and had good attendance. We tend to have short attention spans when it comes to Scripture reading and teaching. If the sermon goes more than 30 minutes, many church members start checking their watches. Cultural influences certainly play a part. Churches of other cultures often have no such time constraints on their services. We can blame technology and consumerism if we like, but the real problem is hearts that are not attuned to seeking first the Kingdom of God. We don’t hear His Word for us because we don’t really care to listen.

I came across this quote from Jason Meyer in David Mathis’s book Habits of Grace: “The ministry of the word in Scripture is stewarding and heralding God’s word in such a way that people encounter God through his word.” How often do we attend church services with the expectation of encountering God? How often do we show up expecting little more than to sing a few songs and hear to someone talk for a while? How often do we prepare for worship prayerfully and not just run in at the last second?

I would challenge all of us to consider our degree of receptivity to the things of God and our level of engagement in corporate worship. Mathis wrote for Desiring God:

“It’s tragically sad to be apathetic and lazy. Corporate worship is too important not to care. This is the single most important hour in the Christian’s typical week — because here we experience, as in no other weekly habit, the coming together of hearing God’s voice (in his word read and preached), having his ear (in prayer and Godward song), and belonging to his body (in the many corporate aspects before, during, and following our gathering).

“It simply matters too much to our own souls, and to the souls of others, to be content with disengaging, whether our lethargy is emotional and stubborn, or simply the product of consistently not getting enough sleep on Saturday night.”

May we gather expectantly this weekend!

“Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!” (Psalm 95:6).

© 2018 Dawn Rutan. Photo © 2018 Dawn Rutan. 

Redeeming Singleness

Barry Danylak published Redeeming Singleness in 2010. As I was reading his extensive survey of Scripture and theology, something came to my attention although he did not exactly address it in this way.

The Old Testament opens with the command to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28) followed by “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24 ESV). That is soon followed by various genealogical listings. In contrast, the New Testament opens with a genealogy pointing to the One born of a virgin, and He never married or had biological children. The new command Jesus gave was “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” (Matt. 28:18). Those facts alone illustrate the nature of the new covenant initiated by Jesus Christ. It is no longer about bearing biological children to fill the earth and carry on the family name. Instead it is about becoming spiritual children of the One True God and teaching others to do the same. This can be illustrated by the chiastic structure:

• Creation
• Command- “Be fruitful and multiply”
• Marriage with children
• Heritage
• Children without marriage
• Command- “Go and make disciples”
• New Creation

I’m sure much more could be said on that, but I’m not prepared to write my own book. On a related note, Danylak wrote:

“There is sometimes a tendency, especially among the idealistic young who presume to have most of their years yet before them, that singleness is a temporary period of one’s life until one finds an eternal soul mate in marriage. This passage [Luke 20:34-36] is a reminder that in the scope of eternity the opposite is actually the case; marriage is for a season and time, until, as the traditional marriage vow reads, ‘death do us part.’ It is as single and free individuals that we will stand before his throne and live for all eternity” (165).

Danylak spends most of his final chapter focusing on Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7. I appreciated his comments on the gift of singleness, in particular because I’ve heard others argue an opposite position (and I may have agreed with them at times). He wrote:

“A spiritual gift is not a talent or bestowment for one’s personal benefit but a divine enablement given for the mutual benefit of strengthening the substance and mission of the church… In view of both Paul’s and Jesus’ statements, we can define the charisma of singleness this way: The charisma of singleness is a Spirit-enabled freedom to serve the King and the kingdom wholeheartedly, without undue distraction for the longings of sexual intimacy, marriage, and family…

“[The] gift of singleness is not simply the situation or status of being unmarried. Unless one marries the day after puberty, one will inevitably live part of his or her life as a single person. There are some who may have to live their entire lives as single people, without the gift of singleness—not ever finding a suitable mate. As we noted earlier, Jesus recognized that some are eunuchs not because they chose to be but because of factors outside their control. However, those who have the gift of singleness can remain single by choice.

“Paul is not suggesting that both singleness and marriage are spiritual gifts… [Marriage] does not entail special manifestation of the Spirit for edifying God’s people and serving the kingdom of God… Moreover, suggesting that marriage is a gift complementary to singleness leaves those who are single involuntarily in an ambiguous state. They do not have the ‘gift’ of marriage, but neither do they have the ‘gift’ of singleness, as their desire is to be married” (199-201).

Or as Sam Allberry put it, “What if someone is married but decides they don’t have the ‘gift’ of marriage?” Even if others disagree, it is worth thinking about whether our beliefs about marriage and singleness are based on scriptural principles or not.

“…The unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit…” (1 Corinthians 7:34b).

© 2018 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com.