Love God and Neighbour – Are you a “why” person, or a “how” person?

July 13, 2025 — Leave a comment

Deuteronomy 30:9-14
Psalm 25
Colossians 1:1-14
Luke 10:25-37

May only the Truth be spoken, and may only the Truth be heard,
in the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

I have a question for you this morning.
Are you a why person, or are you a how person?
What’s your mind’s go-to response? Why? or How?

Our lessons today deal with the law of God – the wonderful, life-giving, freedom-filled gift which is God’s law. Not a burdensome set of rules, nor is it something that should fill us with fear because of our natural and universal inability to fulfil it without a lot of God’s help; but a gift. As we read in Deuteronomy, it’s in living into and living out the Lord’s vision for how we should live that we will find true blessing, true prosperity, the lasting inner peace that can carry us – together – through the ups and downs of life.

And Jesus sums it all up for us in a way that I’m sure many of us have committed to memory.

Hear what the Lord Jesus Christ says: (say it with me!) you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

If you haven’t committed that one to memory, take it home. It’s on the front page of your bulletin. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And Love your neighbor as yourself.

What does it mean to live a Christian life? Love the Lord your God…
What does it look like to follow Christ? Love the Lord your God…
How should we live if we want to see the Lord’s blessing? Love the Lord your God…

It’s all pretty straight-forward, right?
Look again at Deuteronomy: God, through Moses, suggests that this is all rather easy! The Law is not far away, hidden in heaven or buried in the depths that we need someone to bring it to us. The Law, God says, is not too hard for you. In fact, it’s very near, it’s in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.

Easy, right?

(…well, lets just say I won’t ask for a show of hands for those who think they’ve succeeded!)

But I will say this: the Law is easy, in as much as it is easy to understand.
When God says something, He means it. He doesn’t throw words around lightly.

When He says “all”, it’s simple enough to understand – He really does mean all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. Hold nothing back. Go all in.

And when He says “to love your neighbour”, again it’s simple enough – there’s no bones about it, no beating around the bush: the word is agapeo, agape, that fullest, sacrificial definition of love, the love that prefers the other above the self, the love that is defined as a desire to see and bring about the well-being of another. On the one hand, it’s that simple: love your neighbour, desire and seek to bring about what is best for him or her, all the way.

It’s Simple enough… until our minds get in the way!

“It’s in your mouth and it’s in your heart”, God says, “so that you can do it”.

But did you notice what God did not say?

The Law is in your mouth and in your heart… the issue, though, is that, for us sinful human beings, we like to follow our minds.

And that’s not where God says the Law has been written, even for those who are redeemed, who are filled with the Holy Spirit. The Law isn’t found in your rational mind. Yes, by grace, over a lifetime of sanctification, we pray along with Romans 12 that with God’s help we can be transformed by the renewing of our mind, or with Ephesians 4 to be made new in the attitude of our minds, or with Philippians 2, that we would come to have the mind of Christ in us as we learn to decrease our self-interests so that the Body of Christ may increase.

My brothers and sisters, we have to be aware of this: yes, the Law is to be found in your mouth, each and every ordinary Christian, sharing that Good and life-giving News, and yes, God’s law is written deep on each and every human heart… but be aware – your mind, my mind, won’t live out God’s law naturally.

So let me as you… are you a why person, or are you a how person?

When you hear the law of God, what is your first response?
Are you a why person? No shame, I think all of us are “why” people by nature.

You hear someone like me say “God wants you to go all in”… and, the natural human response is to say “what? Why would I do that? I’m not a preacher. I put my money in the plate, I pray for my church family, I come out on Sundays, I read my Bible most days. Surely that’s good enough, or it at least counts for something, right?

Why should I need to do more? Why should I need to be made into more or “transformed” any more than I already am? I’m already doing so much more for the Lord than most people are, most can’t even be bothered to get out of bed on Sunday morning. …No, I can’t say that I love God with all my heart or all my mind, but come on, why should I need to? And hey, while we’re at it, it’s not like you’re living a perfect life either… and on and on and on it goes.

Are you a “why” person?

Are you one whose nature, whose natural reaction, is to hear the simple, straightforward, but all-encompassing law of God, and whose first reaction is to explain why it’s not asking anything more of you than what you’re already doing, or why that simple command might apply to someone else who is doing less than you, but you’re alright.

Or, perhaps you hear “love your neighbour as yourself” – and you hear a crazy preacher who went back and looked at the Greek in Luke and Matthew and at the Hebrew in the quote from Leviticus that Jesus was referencing, and who says, no, it doesn’t mean “care about your neighbour”, it actually means agape, that all-in, self-sacrificing, deeper-than-your-love-for-your-own-blood sort of love, and your mind’s first reaction is “that doesn’t make sense, why would I do that?”.

I care for the poor, I give money and sometimes even volunteer for stuff. I pray for the homeless and addicted, I even stick around for coffee hour after church for a bit of fellowship with other church people… but what does God want of me? Seriously? To have agape, all-in, sacrificial love my neighbour who I don’t even really know, and who wouldn’t do the same for me, why would I do that? I already do more than most people, why would I actually love some random person as myself.

A ”why” person. Like the lawyer in today’s Gospel, who says “yes Master, I hear you… but let’s define our terms so that I can tell you why I’m off the hook”.

Now let’s be clear – there’s no shame in admitting you’re a “why” person, if that’s where you’re at right now. I will confess that I lived most of my Christian life as a why person, including the first 5 years of my ordained ministry. Yes, the law was in my heart, yes, it was even in my mouth on a daily basis… but my mind did a very good job of comforting myself to justify why other people needed to grow, but I had probably come far enough when it comes to being “all in” with love for God and neighbour.

There’s no shame in admitting if that’s where you are. And I say that precisely because admission and confession – giving up that denial – those are the first steps to continuing in that journey of who God is calling you to be: someone who really is all in.

Someone whose mind has been transformed from “why”… to “how”.

You see, a “why” person – and we’re all why people by sinful human nature – uses their mind to decide what is right for them, what is good enough for them, and sets about explaining why they’ve already grown and been transformed enough, why the dead simple, totally straightforward, but breathtakingly hard “all-in” language of God doesn’t mean what it says, or at least doesn’t call them to do any extra.

A ”why” person uses their mind to set their priorities.

What’s the alternative?

But, by grace, we can become “how” people.
You see, a “how” person knows that their mind is not trustworthy for setting priorities.
A “how” person knows that the law is on their heart, but that the transformation and renewal of the mind is still very much a work in progress.

A “how” person says: ‘ok Lord… you’re right, I haven’t gone all in. How can I make that simple command more visible in my life? What’s the next step?”

A “how” person says ‘Lord, it’s hard… I barely know my neighbours… in fact, there are people I worship with each week and I don’t even know their names, and this is a pretty small church! And Lord, I don’t feel like I have much time or energy… but you say I need to love my neighbour as myself, and I don’t, so how I can I do that better? What’s the next step?”

Our homework: some practical obedience!

Friends, put that to the test this week. I will too.
Take your bulletin home, and each day, recite that summary of the law that Jesus gave us, found on the front of your bulletin.

And catch yourself… because, like the lawyer in the Gospel, your mind will naturally go to why you’re not called to do more, why this isn’t asking anything of you.

But switch, consciously, intentionally, from “why” to “how”. Each day, read it, and then pray: Lord, this is your command. How do I make this more visible in my life? What’s the next step?

That’s the sort of obedience to God’s Law that changes a life; that changes a church; that changes a community.

Because, when we offer something to God – especially when we offer it off the top and out of our poverty, rather than offering God what is left over, He takes it and blesses it and opens the windows of heaven to multiply it.

It’s like the person who tithes of their money before all else. Anyone’s rational mind can explain why it makes more sense that you should pay your power bill and pay for the repairs on your car before you give money to the Lord… but anyone who has ever tithed knows that by trusting God and saying “Lord, show me how”, you end up with more than you could have asked for or imagined.

So go all in. Ask God how that should look, for you to love Him first and fully, and to really have agape, sacrificial love for your neighbours – and, lets start that close to home, right here, with getting to know your church family better, taking someone out for coffee, inviting someone over for tea, meeting up for lunch – like tithing, you offer the time and energy in obedience off the top, and God will give it back multiplied.

This is the law of God. It is amazingly simple. It is wonderfully straightforward. But it is also breathtakingly difficult to put into practice.

Say it with me. Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ says. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it; You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.

Now… will you start to explain why… or will you ask God to show you how?

To God be the glory, now and forevermore. Amen.

God Builds a Nation

September 26, 2021 — Leave a comment

The Story chapter 2, Genesis 12-36

Genesis 12:1-3; 15:3-6
Galatians 3:16-18, 27-29
Mark 3:31-35

Last week, we saw that, in God’s unchanging “Upper Story”, a good God created a good creation where people made in His Image enjoyed beautiful, healthy relationships with God the Holy Trinity, with each other, and with all of creation.

But, because no relationship can be forced, there’s the possibility that we can say no. And when we did, what did we find? Sin changes everything.

But as we read Chapter 2 this weekend, we see another aspect of God’s eternal plan revealed to us: what sin changes, only faith overcomes.

Our relationship with God was severed by sin, and there’s no way to get that back – no amount of sewing fig leaves or making sacrifices or doing good deeds can undo what was broken. There’s no way to get it back… except by faith.

We were created to be a family – brothers and sisters, children of God Our Father. But, our relationships with each other were destroyed, utterly broken by blame and jealousy and envy, picking sides and choosing favourites, lying, cheating, and stealing to the point where no one can trust another. And there’s no way to get it back… except by faith: by the faith to actually believe and live as though we are brothers and sisters, children of Our Heavenly Father.

And we were created to be in relationship with creation, to rule over it in the same way that God lovingly rules over all things. But instead, we war against creation, and our bodies bear the consequences as we wear out and return to the dust from which we were made. But there is a way to overcome that broken relationship with creation, to find re-created and restored life beyond the grave. And what’s the only way to get that back? By faith!

Yes, God’s grand story shows us that what sin changes, only faith overcomes.

God Wills to Build a Nation

In Chapter 2 you read the story of Abraham, the one through whom God would build a nation – a holy nation.

But it’s a surprising story, isn’t it? Maybe you’ve been taught (through Sunday School songs about “Father Abraham” and his many sons) to see Abraham as a great and mighty figure, the patriarch over God’s chosen kingdom. But when you actually read it all laid out, it’s not that simple, is it?

We often think of faith as something we choose: the choice to be here this morning, the choice to repent of our sins and see ourselves through God’s eyes, the decision (as the song says) to “follow Jesus” (no turning back, no turning back). But those are all responses. The eternal, unchanging truth that we see in Abraham is that God reaches out; God calls out to each and every one of us first.

God offers us faith; we then decide if we will allow that faith to fill us: if we want to be faith-filled, faith-full.

God calls us.

And the glorious truth we see in Abraham is that God’s purposes, God’s desire, God’s covenant is not conditional. We don’t often stop to think in these terms. But God doesn’t say “if you will follow me I will make you a great nation.” He doesn’t say “if you will follow me, the whole world will be blessed through your line”. He doesn’t say “if you will follow me, I will send my Son to take flesh through your descendants so that sin and death can be defeated.”

No. What does God say? God says, “I will.” God calls Abram and reaches out with the gift of faith, because God has a plan – the same plan from the beginning. Abram just has to choose how he will respond; will he spend his life being fueled and filled by that faith, or will he spend his days running from and fighting against the relationship that God desires?

And God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

There’s not a single person who isn’t made in the Image of God, created to reflect His glory, and share in the life and love of the Trinity. There’s not a single person you know whom God isn’t calling, whom God isn’t offering that gift of faith. The question is whether they, whether we, say “yes, fill me. I want to be full of faith, I will, I choose to be faithful”, or whether we run from that call and go our own way.

God calls Abram, and God’s decision is to use Abram to make for himself a holy people, a nation through whom the rest of humanity can see God’s glory, and be saved from sin by the gift of faith.

Drawn Together for a Purpose

In that we see another big, universal, unchanging truth. God calls us individually, but not for our own sake.

And that’s a hard idea, because sin changed everything. Sin made us individualistic; we were created for relationships with God, others, and creation, to be part of something much bigger. So when God calls each of us, it’s not so we can be glorified individuals. He calls us, and his purpose is to restore those relationships; not just so I can be holy and I can live forever, but that I can be part of a holy people that lives forever in relationship, reflecting the Image of God to each other, and the glory of God back to the source of life and light Himself.

God calls us, he offers the gift of faith, and he’s drawn us together for a purpose.

But it’s the choice, that response, that desire to be filled by faith – to be faith-full – or not, that changes how it plays out.

It’s a fabulous calling… but how did it work out for Abraham and this chosen family?

Scripture tells us Abraham picked up and moved alright, but He didn’t quite trust that God would protect his life, and lied twice, saying his beautiful wife was his sister for fear he’d be killed.
He didn’t quite trust God would do what seemed impossible in his wife’s old age, so he went to bed with his maid. And Sarah gets jealous to the point that the maid and her son are sent out into the desert with nothing but some bread and water.
Issac, the promised child, finally comes, and there begins the story of a dysfunctional family of epic proportions. Mom has a favourite kid, Dad has a favourite kid, and the two play off each other with elaborate hoaxes to trick one into inheriting God’s blessing.
Jacob gets the blessing, but is afraid his brother wants to kill him, so he runs away from all that he inherited – only to fall in love with his first cousin… except then his uncle tricks him, so he ends up marrying not one, but two of his first cousins.
He finally patches things up with his brother, and goes on to have a dozen kids of his own… but what does he do? Well, this child of promise follows in his parents’ footsteps, and picks a favourite son again! How does that play out? As you’d expect!

God made a decision; God made an unbreakable promise; God had a purpose to bless all of humanity through Abraham’s family line.

Did he do that because Abraham was the best choice? Because he was strong and mighty? Because he had built himself a nice empire in a good land? Because he was patient and had good child-raising skills? No, not at all.

Not at all. This family was a total mess. Sure, Abraham wanted to be filled-with-faith, to be faithful, but if you want to see the effects of sin in a human life, look at Abraham, look at Isaac, look at Jacob! Yes, God called Abraham, but we overlook that between Genesis 12 and Genesis 23, God calls Abraham 10 times, because Abraham needs it! And Jacob, who is to become the patriarch of all Israel, just can’t understand God’s grace until God finally wrestles him to the ground and pins him with his hip out of joint. Then he understands God’s grace… only to go and play favourites with his sons, repeating his own parents’ failure.

The point is this: God uses broken people to fulfill His unbreakable promises.

It’s the idea in one of my favourite “motivational” posters: “when God put a calling on your life, He already factored in your stupidity”. It sounds harsh… but read your Bible! It’s true!

Not so different from ourselves.

But… God called them. And he called that family for a purpose, drawing them together for a purpose.

And, because God is unchanging, the same is true for us.

God called a man, took him away from any chance he had for worldly power in his hometown, told him he would have countless offspring and be the great-grandfather of kings… and sent him to live in a tent as a squatter on someone else’s land. God doesn’t call the equipped, he equips the called.

And, seriously, look around. We’re the inheritors of that promise. We, along with our brothers and sisters at the Pentecostal and Roman Catholic churches,are the ones through whom all of Fort Smith is to be blessed and called back into relationship with God.

But look at us. We’re a lot like Abraham! We’re a congregation that’s past childbearing years; most of us are retired, we don’t have influence or worldly power. Every time I hold an event, even yesterday, someone who has been in town for years said they had no idea we were here. Like Abraham’s family, we’re richly, richly blessed, but in the eyes of the world, we’re ‘small, and of little account’.

But God has called us. God made a decision. God has said “you are my son; you are my daughter; I am your Father”.

And he calls us and equips us individually, but not for our own sake. We are children of Abraham’s promise; we have inherited by adoption God’s blessing to Abraham – yes, you are the one through whom God wants to bless the world and draw all people to himself.

…And that sounds ridiculous, but believe me, it’s no more ridiculous than telling an old man in a tent that he’s going to be the father of kings; and whatever you’ve done, however you’ve been unfaithful, you probably haven’t pretended your wife was your sister, slept with your maid because you were impatient with God, and sent your mistress and son to wander in the desert, so believe me, if God can use Abraham, God can use you.

Because the bottom line is this: God’s calling is not dependent on our performance. God offers faith. Our job is to decide if we want that faith to fill us, if we will and desire to be faith-full.

My brothers and sisters – for that’s what we were created to be – sin changes everything. But what sin changes, faith overcomes. And, by faith, it’s through you that God wants to bless the world with eternal life.

May God draw us ever closer, and equip us for the work he’s given us to do. Amen.

A sleepy gardener?

June 13, 2021 — Leave a comment

Mark 4:26-34

How many times do we read in scripture that the good news of the Kingdom of God is like a seed being scattered or a vine or a tree being planted? After sheep and shepherds, those farming analogies are among the most common in God’s Word. They’re familiar, they’re accessible, they’re easy enough to understand – and yet, they teach lessons that it can take a lifetime to put into practice.

Gardening Lessons from Jesus.

“The Kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground”; ok, that part is easy enough to understand. But listen to what comes next: the gardener works hard, waking early and going to bed late, carefully fertilizing the soil and pulling weeds? Or, does the gardener hire some servants to watch the field, scaring away the ravens and squirrels who come to snatch the seeds for a quick snack?

No. Look at what comes next: Seeds are scattered on the ground… and “he sleeps and rises night and day; and the seed sprouts and then it grows, but he doesn’t know how.”

This guy plants his seeds… and then what? He goes to bed! He gets up the next day and then what? He goes about his day, and then goes to bed again. He repeats this, day after day, and then – he doesn’t quite know how – one day, he looks out and, lo and behold, the seeds have turned into plants. And Jesus says “the Kingdom of God is like that”. Alright then! It’s amazing – and there’s a central, but uncomfortableidea here about faith.

The point that Jesus is making here is one that we hear throughout scripture: faith is a gift from God.[1] At the end of the day, faith is not something that we can drum up within ourselves. It isn’t something that we can search out and satisfy, as though if I just learned a few more things or could figure a couple more things out, I would know the answers, I wouldn’t have to trust and believe anymore. No, faith is a gift. We can prepare the soil for planting; once the seed has sprouted, we can water it and tend it, support it if it becomes weak, fertilize it to make it fruitful. But think about it – we can’t make a seed sprout. The best we can do is stay out of the way and let God give the growth.

Gifts make us uncomfortable.

Now, unfortunately for us, we’re raised in a culture that isn’t good at receiving gifts. Children get gifts, and we teach them to say thank you, but as we grow, we’re taught by our families, in our schools, in the workplace, we learn across our society to replace gifts with hard work and earned rewards. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that’s all bad. But, as adults in our part of the world, what free gifts do we receive?

We work hard for the things we get – and even if our work offers us a bonus, it’s something we’ve earned, not a gift, right? Sure, we send cards to one another; we might send some flowers when someone is sick; those who bake might trade their specialities with their friends – dropping off a pie to a friend, who next week brings over a loaf of homemade bread. But, beyond that, I think most of us are well-trained to be uncomfortable with gifts. We say “you shouldn’t have”, and sometimes I think we mean it, because now we have to come up with a way to return the favour!

We like to be self-sufficient. We like to work hard and earn what we have, and sure, we’ll share and be generous out of what we’ve earned, but none of us like the thought of being on the receiving end of someone else’s charity.

The big message, though, is that if God is our Father, if we truly are his children, if you and I really are Jesus’s baby brother or sister, adopted into God’s family and learning the family values to take up our role in the family business, then we really are like kids on Christmas morning – we need to be able to accept the gifts given freely, given with no expectation for anything but love in return, gifts above and beyond what we could ever muster out of our own strength or savings.

That’s the great message in today’s lesson: the gardener knows that the soil had to be prepared; he knows that plants need water and food and light and nurture. But the one thing he can’t give the seed is growth. All that gardener can do is go about his life, go about his days, sleeping and rising, trusting that God will use the soil that was prepared and that, when the time is right, those seeds will sprout, and then that gardener can faithfully tend them as they grow.

Faith, not just belief.

My friends, faith is like that. More often than not, we need to get out of the way; we need to go about our lives as children of God, one step at a time, one day at a time; we need to lie down and rest, and get up and do what need to be done, but let God give the growth he has in store for each of us.

But it’s hard, isn’t it? It’s hard to take life one step at a time, to simply go to sleep when night comes, and get up and go where God leads when the next day dawns.

We like to have a plan; we like to know what the next steps are; we like to know what we have to do to make the next thing happen, because we’re so well trained to want to earn what we have rather than accept it as a gift.

And we’re not alone in that mistake.

Think of Abraham – God told him he would be the father of many nations. Did Abraham believe what God said? Yes! But what did Abraham do next? He looked at his wife, said, wow, she’s old, she’s not going to give me a son, so he took matters into his own hands and had a baby with his servant. Abraham believed God, but he didn’t have faith… he wasn’t yet willing to let God give the growth.

Or what about Peter? He sees Jesus walking on the water and says, “if you’re really God, let me come and join you out there!”. Jesus says, “yes, ok, come out and stand with me”. Sounds great! Peter takes that first step, obeying the Lord’s voice, and then he remembers that people aren’t supposed to float, and what happens? …He starts to sink and needs to be pulled up to keep from drowning. Peter believed, but his own mind, his own limited view of how the world works got in the way of the growth that God was trying to give him.

Or what about the apostles feeding the thousands? The people are out on the countryside, being fed with the words of life from the Lord himself, when they feel their bellies growling. Yes, the Lord is letting the crippled walk, and healing the blind, and opening the ears of the deaf, and casting out illness and depression and madness… the Lord is giving hope and freedom from anxiety and despair, the Lord is changing lives, but we missed our afternoon snack, so what will we ever do? Ye of little faith, right? The one who heals your infirmities and gives strength in your weakness and knows your heart certainly knows that you’re hungry. They’ll trust God in the miracles, but doubt that God knows that they need their daily bread.

It’s one thing to believe. But, like the farmer, who takes his life one moment, one step, one day at a time, trusting that yes, the seeds will sprout, sometimes we just need to get out of the way and let God’s gift of faith take root in your life.

The seeds were planted. There’s no need to sit there, staring anxiously at the dirt, wondering what will happen next. How ridiculous! There’s also no need to anxiously plan what needs to happen next – there’s no weeding to be done, no seedlings to be staked or thinned – sometimes, as incredibly hard as it is, our task is to simply be still, and know that He is God. Don’t try to force his hand, to jump the gun like Abraham, or squash an opportunity with doubts like Peter, because I can guarantee that God’s way is going to be far more spectacular than anything you or I can cook up.

Thank God He’s Persistent!

…that’s hard sometimes. Well, no, let’s be honest: it’s always hard. Being still, waiting on God, it goes against everything that feels right, it goes against all the things that feel productive.

But that’s the only way it can be real faith.

St. Paul says in Romans that “hope that is seen is not real hope”. If I know what is going to happen next, if I can tell you the next three steps that it takes to realize God’s plan for my life, then we must agree that isn’t hope – that’s planning. If I know my action today will result in God’s action tomorrow, that’s not a gift of faith given freely from my gracious Father – that’s a negotiation, and God doesn’t work that way!

But, you know what? God is a very persistent giver of his gifts.

Out behind my greenhouse I have a little vegetable garden. There was a little green rhubarb plant there from when someone had a garden there years ago, one that had survived years of being run over by a lawnmower. Well, it was right in the way of where I wanted to extend my beds. And I picked up two nice red rhubarb plants at Northern, so you know what I did? I ran right over that old green rhubarb plant with the tiller – I didn’t want it, and it was in the way, so I, in my wisdom, plowed it under.

But you know what? (And you can go out behind the Rectory and check!) Right there, between two potato stalks, there’s two rhubarb stalks with big dark green leaves.

God gives the growth – sometimes even after we’ve done our best to tear down and undo what he has planned for our lives.

We need to be still, we need to let God give the growth, and not worry about what that will look like.

We’ve died with Christ, planted in the ground; and we’ll rise with Christ to new life.[2] When does the seed become a plant? The gardener doesn’t know – the faithful gardener just goes to sleep, rises, one day at a time, and waits for the Lord to do the transformation.

But one thing is sure – at some point, without us even knowing, God takes that dry, lifeless, rock-hard shell of a seed and turns it into something tender and green and lively – full of growth, full of potential to grow into something that gives food and shade, and produces thousands more seeds to be scattered across the ground.

I don’t know – you don’t know – when that dry, calloused part of your life might sprout. But the good news is this: if we get our plans, and our excuses, and our doubts out of the way, if you let God give the growth, even the hardest callouses and the deepest wounds will be softened and healed, and His strength – made perfect in our weaknesses – will grow into something glorious, for His glory, and your salvation.[3] Thanks be to God.

[1] Ephesians 2:8-9; 2 Peter 1:1, Philippians 1:29; Acts 3:16, and I’d include the hundreds of Old Testament references to “I have chosen you”.

[2] 2 Corinthians 5:14-17

[3] For it is by faith that we are saved. And faith is a gift from God, that none may boast.

Boast in your Hope.

June 14, 2020 — 1 Comment

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ … and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. Romans 5:1-2.

To say that this has been a rough couple of months might be the understatement of the decade. Our country, our world changed overnight as the virus travelled around the globe, and all the routines, everything we considered “normal” was suddenly replaced by new terms we had never even heard before: social distancing, and self-isolation.

Then, in the weeks that followed, we began to see the economic impacts, as hard-working, self-supporting families turned to food banks, and hard decisions had to be made by people all around us; decisions whose effects will continue to ripple for months and years to come as we recover.

And with that, came the many less visible effects that have spread through every community, as isolation breeds depression, and people who had cleaned up and turned away from a life dependant on a bottle or a puff or a pill bought on the street were tempted to throw all that away to occupy their idle hands.

Many of us have also seen, or at least heard of, the effects of isolation for those whose homes are not happy places, as support structures – and ways to blow off steam – were taken away, and here in Canada, domestic violence help-lines have seen a 300% increase in calls,[1] and that’s not to mention the normal, everyday grief and frustration that slowly simmers into anger as so many simply feel powerless as this invisible virus changes everything we’ve worked and hoped for, and everything from graduations and birthdays to mourning and supporting one another in times of need has changed.

And if that wasn’t enough, anyone who turns on the news knows the pain and deep division that’s coming to the surface now as racial tensions rise, and it seems day after day, even very close to home, video after video emerges to show just how depraved we can be in the way we treat one another.

It’s enough to make you throw your hands up in despair. No wonder the world around us is anxious.

…But then we turn to scripture. Hard as it is, we don’t turn to God’s Word to hear what we want to hear, but to hear what God is saying through the Church. And today, with all that’s happening in our world, what is God saying? “We have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ… and we boast in the hope of sharing in the glory of God.”

Boast in your hope.

Now I must say I’ve read this verse hundreds of times, but never before has that phrase jumped out like it did this week.

One of the marks of a Christian – one who has been forgiven, who has been made right in the eyes of God by believing and following Jesus – is that you boast in your hope.

Think about it: this is totally upside down from the world’s perspective. According to the world, we should boast in what we have, in what we’ve done. In the world, in the workplace, that’s how boasting works: people boast pridefully as they try to prove to others just how good they are. “I’ve done this, I’ve accomplished that; I built this from the ground up; look at my home, look at my car, look at my kids: one’s a teacher, one’s an engineer.”

But, for those following Jesus, that’s not the way. We boast in our hope; and hope, in a biblical sense, isn’t positive thoughts or wishful thinking. Hope, in scripture, is nothing short of the confident expectation that God will keep his promises.

When the world is swirling around us, when everywhere you look is nothing but bad news, those whose lives are built on themselves, on the work they have done, on their own accomplishments, are thrown into anxiety and despair. There’s not much to boast about when businesses are closed, bank accounts are draining, and you’re being asked the hard but serious questions about whether the opportunities you’ve been given and your success would have looked different based on the colour of your parents’ skin.

But, if we want to live as followers of Christ, we’re not to build our identity or our value or our worth in wealth or possessions or positions, we’re not to put our trust in the work of our own hands. The message of the cross is nothing short of radical surrender. The invitation of Jesus is to finally admit that we can’t do it on our own, that we can’t rely on ourselves, because, I can’t hope in my own future if I’m powerless to change the world around me, and the outcome of that, as we’re seeing every day, is anger, frustration, and despair.

Whether we work a trade like Sts. James and John, or work in an office like St. Matthew, or are among the ruling elite like Paul, or work with our hands and care for our families like Tabitha, all the world’s ambitions, hopes, and plans are worthless… all the world’s training in positive thinking and personal empowerment come crashing down when we learn, in times like these, that I really can’t control anything outside of myself, and no amount of worrying can add even a single hour to my life.

But the message of the cross is to surrender; to admit defeat; to stop playing the life-long games of trying to get ahead, and finally acknowledge my life is in God’s hands, I can’t do this on my own, I can’t see the path ahead… so Lord, let me follow you.

And when we finally bring ourselves to give up, everything changes.

My circumstances in this moment no longer matter. My identity, my value, my worth, isn’t found in the things I have done. Paul says I can even boast in my suffering.

Now, who in their right mind boasts in suffering… unless we have full confidence that even being the least of the sons and daughters of God is still better than all the praise or boasting that this world can offer.

It’s that confidence, that sure and certain hope, that the uncertainty, the frustration, the worry, the anger, the fear of today – even the loss of every thing that I have – cannot change my value or my worth as one who has been made right in the eyes of God by surrendering, by giving up the lead, and simply following the One who knows the way because he’s walked it before: Jesus knows poverty, he knows hunger, he knows ridicule and shame, he knows doubt, and he knows what it is to triumph over the sin of this world and to live not for yourself, but as a member of a body knit together by love, sacrifice, and a sure and certain hope in the One who holds the future.

Boast in your hope.

In spite of what’s happening around us, boast in the knowledge that tomorrow, and the day after that, and the days and weeks and years to come are in God’s hands; boast in the fact that your value isn’t in what you have or what you do, but in who you are in the eyes of God.

And does that mean all your anxiety goes away? Does that mean you never worry? Does that mean you won’t have days like I had on Friday morning when you are so darn frustrated that you’re ready to throw things out the window and snap at the next person unlucky enough to cross your path?

No. Not at all. That’ll still happen.

But that anxiety, that frustration, even that pain now carries no weight, because we know who holds tomorrow, and we know where our true worth is found.

And when we snap, or when we find out we were wrong, there’s no longer any need to be ashamed and get defensive. We can own it, and surrender once more, knowing that every time we’re out of line, the answer isn’t forging ahead, but to fall back and follow the Good Shepherd.

A Mission:

This is how we’re to live in difficult times. And, the harvest is plentiful – let’s not kid around, we don’t have to look very far to find someone who is anxious, depressed, frustrated, worried, angry, or fearful.

If we can learn to boast in our hope, even just a little, then two things happen:

We become the labourers in that harvest, like Jesus said. And, as we learn that confident hope, by God’s grace we find what we can never find for ourselves: that anxiety, that stress is replaced by a peace that passes understanding – a perfect peace that really makes no sense in the eyes of the world.

And yes, sometimes that hope sounds ridiculous. Who can blame Sarah for laughing anymore than we would laugh if someone said one of our dear 80-year-old ladies would bear a child. But that’s our task right now: to grin in the face of the impossible and say “God’s got this, I’m not going to worry about it; He’ll work it out, I’ll trust in Him, and follow where He leads, one day at a time”.

That’s hope to boast about. It sounds simple… simple enough that you and me, normal, everyday followers of Jesus, can start living that way today.

So let’s do it – because if there’s one thing the world needs now, it’s hope that the God who loves us will lead us, that his grace is sufficient, and that no matter what we face, he offers his peace; all we have to do is surrender and follow where he leads.