One of the Psalms of Ascent Jews sang as they climbed up the road to Jerusalem for one of the annual festivals was Psalm 128, a song of blessing. This psalm describes what we all want.
Psalm 128 (The Message)
1–2 All you who fear God, how blessed you are!
how happily you walk on his smooth straight road!
You worked hard and deserve all you’ve got coming.
Enjoy the blessing! Revel in the goodness!
3–4 Your wife will bear children as a vine bears grapes,
your household lush as a vineyard,
The children around your table
as fresh and promising as young olive shoots.
Stand in awe of God’s Yes.
Oh, how he blesses the one who fears God!
5–6 Enjoy the good life in Jerusalem
every day of your life.
And enjoy your grandchildren.
Peace to Israel!

We want to be rewarded for all the hard work of our lives. We want a family: husband, wife and children. We want good lives for our children so they grow up and have good careers and get married and give us grandchildren. We want to live in a land that is at peace. We want to be healthy until the day we die peacefully in our sleep.

This is what we want but what is the reality?

Last Sunday some people in Uganda gathered to watch the final match of the World Cup when two suicide bombers blew themselves up, killing at least 76 people. One moment people were enjoying the match, chatting, relaxing and the next they were dead, injured and traumatized.

The earthquake in Haiti was six months ago and I saw an interview with one man whose family survived the collapse of his five story building. “A miracle,” he said at the time. They interviewed him now, six months later, and he is despondent. His wife has since died of a heart attack and he has not been able to rebuild his building which was his source of income.

Three NATO soldiers and five Afghan civilians died in a Taliban suicide attack on a police base in southern Kandahar province. 27 people were killed in a suicide bombing in Iran. Four were killed by a car bomb in Mexico City. 28 are dead from a hotel fire in Iraq.

Rioting continued in Belfast and in the Philippines, Typhoon Conson hit killing nine with ten missing.

These are some of the items in the international news but there is far more suffering that was not reported in the worldwide media. Children died in tragic accidents. Adults in the prime of life died unexpectedly. Con men swindled innocent or not so innocent victims. Children were abused, women were raped. The powerful took advantage of the weak.

And then there is the suffering that was not reported in the news at all. Families around the world were devastated by adultery and divorce. People suffered, waiting to die, in nursing homes and hospitals.

This suffering happens everyday and we are fortunate that the world is so big that this suffering is spread around so that we do not often experience it ourselves.

Where do you see the blessings of Psalm 128 in these items from the news?

People live as though this world holds the treasure that will satisfy, but that belief is shattered all the time. Death and tragedy intrude into our world, violating our sense of how the world should be. People lose jobs when their company goes bankrupt or when the national economy shatters. Parents bury their children. Women who want to have children cannot while those who should not be having children or who do not want to have children become pregnant.

I wonder if there has ever been anyone who has lived a long life without experiencing pain and disappointment. But no matter how long we live, there still comes an end. A man works and works and saves up money for retirement and then on the day of his retirement, he dies. All that he worked for is gone, slipping through his fingers as he is laid in the grave.

There is a woman in the former Soviet republic of Georgia who is reported to be 130 years old, but we will do well to live two thirds of that. No matter how well we live, every one of us will lose at the end when the grave claims us. Death is the ultimate reality that destroys any illusions we might have.

Job had a good life. He was wealthy, influential, with a large family. He had what every person wanted and then he lost it all. His wealth disappeared. His children died. His health deteriorated. All he had left was his wife and friends who lectured him on what he must have done wrong to deserve this punishment.

This is part of what Job had to say:
“Man born of woman
is of few days and full of trouble.
2 He springs up like a flower and withers away;
like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.

This is the conclusion of a man who had no illusions. If Job had any expectation that this world could offer him what he wanted, he lost that and saw this world as it truly is.

The writer of Ecclesiastes had the same wisdom:
Ecclesiastes 1:14 (NIV)
I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
Or as The Message translates this:
Ecclesiastes 1:14 (The Message)
I’ve seen it all and it’s nothing but smoke—smoke, and spitting into the wind.

Job continues:
Man’s days are determined;
you have decreed the number of his months
and have set limits he cannot exceed.
6 So look away from him and let him alone,
till he has put in his time like a hired man.
7 “At least there is hope for a tree:
If it is cut down, it will sprout again,
and its new shoots will not fail.
8 Its roots may grow old in the ground
and its stump die in the soil,
9 yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put forth shoots like a plant.
10 But man dies and is laid low;
he breathes his last and is no more.
11 As water disappears from the sea
or a riverbed becomes parched and dry,
12 so man lies down and does not rise;
till the heavens are no more, men will not awake
or be roused from their sleep.

This is not cynicism or pessimism. This is the reality of our world. You might not like to hear this, but this is truth with a capital T. If you are living for what this world has to offer you, prepare to be disappointed.

The world’s marketing campaign is marvelous. Buy this product and find happiness! Meet the right partner and settle into relational bliss! Get a promotion and find satisfaction! Earn more money and feel secure! Have sexual relationships and be fulfilled! These are empty promises, dead ends. Pursue these and you will smack up against a wall. These promises will not and cannot deliver.

Solomon pursued all these dead end streets and concluded: (Ecclesiastes 2:4–11) (The Message)
4–8 Oh, I did great things:
built houses,
planted vineyards,
designed gardens and parks
and planted a variety of fruit trees in them,
made pools of water
to irrigate the groves of trees.
I bought slaves, male and female,
who had children, giving me even more slaves;
then I acquired large herds and flocks,
larger than any before me in Jerusalem.
I piled up silver and gold,
loot from kings and kingdoms.
I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song,
and—most exquisite of all pleasures—
voluptuous maidens for my bed.
9–10 Oh, how I prospered! I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them behind in the dust. What’s more, I kept a clear head through it all. Everything I wanted I took—I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task—my reward to myself for a hard day’s work!

11 Then I took a good look at everything I’d done, looked at all the sweat and hard work. But when I looked, I saw nothing but smoke. Smoke and spitting into the wind. There was nothing to any of it. Nothing.

At this point you may ask me, “Jack, I thought we were in the middle of a series of sermons titled ‘Water for a Parched Tongue in a Dry Land’? What does this have to do with feeling dry and tired?”

Good question, and the answer is that sometimes when we are feeling dry and tired, it is because we have been looking in the wrong place for meaning, fulfillment and reward. We look in a bucket of sand for the water that will satisfy our thirst and then wonder why it is we are thirsty.

Wasn’t this Solomon’s problem?

He looked for meaning and fulfillment in work and what was the result?
Ecclesiastes 2:17–23 (The Message)
17 I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It’s smoke—and spitting into the wind.
18–19 And I hated everything I’d accomplished and accumulated on this earth. I can’t take it with me—no, I have to leave it to whoever comes after me. Whether they’re worthy or worthless—and who’s to tell?—they’ll take over the earthly results of my intense thinking and hard work. Smoke.
20–23 That’s when I called it quits, gave up on anything that could be hoped for on this earth. What’s the point of working your fingers to the bone if you hand over what you worked for to someone who never lifted a finger for it? Smoke, that’s what it is. A bad business from start to finish. So what do you get from a life of hard labor? Pain and grief from dawn to dusk. Never a decent night’s rest. Nothing but smoke.

In Greek mythology there was an evil king named Sisyphus who dared to conspire against the gods and therefore was punished by Zeus by being assigned the eternal task of rolling a huge rock up a steep hill. Over and over and over again, just as he is about to reach the top, the rock rolls back down and he has to begin again at the bottom of the hill. This is known as a Sisyphean task and isn’t that the futility of work we experience?

You wash the dishes and the next meal or next day or next week (depending on how long you are willing to live with the mess) you have to begin again. You wash clothes only to have to wash them again. You dust only to have to dust again. You straighten out one relational mess only to be confronted with another and many times it is the same relational mess recreated. You work hard to get a job only to have that job disappear and you need to find another job. You gain a customer only to lose another and have to go out and find a new customer. You work hard to learn how to get along with your boss only to have your boss replaced and you have to learn all over again how to get along with this new boss.

It would be one thing if we could fix a problem and move on, making progress step by step, always looking forward, never having to look back. But the difficulty is that problems reoccur. Dysfunctional behavior never takes a vacation. New procedures are created only to find that someone has discovered a way to twist them around to his or her own benefit.

Friends came to fix up a rural school here in Morocco. They paid to fix up the bathrooms and then a year later discovered that the pipes were not installed properly and the toilets back up and run out the door into the courtyard. So now the cement on the floor has to be broken up and pipes replaced. This is how it goes. How can work reward us when the same problems continue to be recreated?

Trying to find meaning in work is only smoke and spitting into the wind.

Solomon looked for meaning and fulfillment in pleasure and what was the result?
Ecclesiastes 2:10–11 (NIV)
I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my work,
and this was the reward for all my labor.
11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.

We pursue pleasure. We crave pleasure. We long for pleasure. But the more you get the more you desire it. Pleasure is like an addictive drug. It is wonderful the first time but becomes less and less satisfying so you have to increase the amount and quality of pleasure to get what you are looking for.

Frederick Buechner wrote that:
Lust is the craving for salt of a man who is dying of thirst.
When pleasure becomes our goal, we can never experience enough pleasure. No matter how good the meal was or how wonderful the massage was, we set out to find that pleasure again, only this time a little better. And lesser meals and lesser massages lose their ability to give us pleasure.

Pleasure cannot satisfy us, cannot quench the deep spiritual thirst we have.

The pursuit of pleasure is smoke and spitting into the wind.

Solomon sought for justice and concluded that this was also a dead end.
Ecclesiastes 4:1–3 (The Message)
Next I turned my attention to all the outrageous violence that takes place on this planet—the tears of the victims, no one to comfort them; the iron grip of oppressors, no one to rescue the victims from them. So I congratulated the dead who are already dead instead of the living who are still alive. But luckier than the dead or the living is the person who has never even been, who has never seen the bad business that takes place on this earth.

Ecclesiastes 5:8 (The Message)
Don’t be too upset when you see the poor kicked around, and justice and right violated all over the place. Exploitation filters down from one petty official to another. There’s no end to it, and nothing can be done about it.

From Cain’s murder of his brother Abel to the present day, injustice has always been here. It hurts us deeply because we know that this is not the way it should be. Children should not be abandoned at birth and when parents come along to love them and take care of them the government should not take the only parents these children have ever known away from them.

The powerful should not take advantage of the weak but that is what happens, over and over again, in each generation. Injustice in our world has been a constant and will be with us up to the second that Jesus returns.

If the pursuit of justice is your goal, you will be overcome by injustice. You will become bitter and cynical, hardened against the perpetual suffering you encounter.

The pursuit of justice is smoke and spitting into the wind.

Solomon has so much wealth that when the Queen of Sheba came for a visit, she left speechless. And what did Solomon think about all his wealth?
Ecclesiastes 5:10, 15-17 (NIV)
10 Whoever loves money never has money enough;
whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.
This too is meaningless.

15 Naked a man comes from his mother’s womb,
and as he comes, so he departs.
He takes nothing from his labor
that he can carry in his hand.
16 This too is a grievous evil:
As a man comes, so he departs,
and what does he gain,
since he toils for the wind?
17 All his days he eats in darkness,
with great frustration, affliction and anger.

Whoever loves money never has money enough and when they do gather more money they are disappointed because it does not satisfy.

Jesus warned a man who was upset his brother was not sharing their inheritance properly:
Luke 12:15 (ESV)
“Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

The lure of wealth is very powerful and despite the clear evidence that it does not satisfy, we continue to lust for it.

The wise person learns from Solomon that the pursuit of wealth is smoke and spitting into the wind.

Earlier this week I was talking about this with a friend who has gone into business after being a pastor and I warned him about the dangers associated with gaining wealth. I talked to him about Solomon’s experience and he told me with a smile, “I’d like to get to the point where Solomon was and learn for myself that it does not satisfy.”

This made me think of a line from Will Rogers, a popular commentator in the US in the first decades of the 1990s. One of his observations was this:
“There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”

There are a lot of us like this, who have to learn for ourselves and cannot learn from what Solomon or anyone else experienced.

In the process we end up looking for meaning in dead end streets and we become tired and dry. We want water and end up with buckets of sand.

It is important to realize that work, pleasure, justice and wealth are not evil.

Work is good. God set the example for us with his work. Jesus said he came to do the work of his father. Paul told the Thessalonians they should work. But work cannot be the end, cannot be the goal. You can’t find meaning in work. Work will always frustrate.

Pleasure is good. God created us as sensual beings in the sensual world he created. He means for us to take pleasure in life, enjoy the world and all that he made. Not to enjoy the pleasure of this world is to be an ungrateful child, dismissing the gift from his or her parents. But if pleasure is your goal, you will be frustrated. We need to enjoy the things of this world without longing for them. That is the key.

Justice is good. God is a god of love and a god of justice. Love and justice are part of God’s character. He cannot not love us and he cannot not be just. God expects us to love each other and he expects us to work for justice, to seek justice. But if justice is the goal of your life, you will be a very unhappy and disappointed person.

Injustice rises up in situation after situation because we humans have a sinful nature that expresses itself over and over again. It is distressing but if we want to see justice as we know it should be, we will have to wait until Jesus returns and ushers us into his kingdom. Until then we work for justice but should not be surprised when it does not arrive or when injustice again raises its ugly head.

Wealth is good. God wants us to prosper and do well. Wealth is not evil. It is the love of money that is evil, not the money itself. Wealth is a gift of God that needs to be used wisely. Wealth can be a great tool used to help build the kingdom of God. Many Christians say they are accumulating wealth to use for God’s kingdom, far fewer use their wealth wisely. Wealth is a gift but a dangerous gift.

We work for these things. It is good to work for them. But if we pursue them, we will never be satisfied. Injustice will always be present. Pleasure will be turned into slavery. Work will become drudgery. Wealth will become a trap.

If you are feeling tired and dry, there may be a number of reasons why that is so. Thus far in this series of sermons we have talked about the need to meditate on the word of God as a way of building up a reservoir to satisfy our thirst. We have talked about the need to give praise to God as a way of receiving the spiritual water we crave. We have talked about the truth that when we are going through the valley of death it is because God, our shepherd, is taking us from one green pasture to another. Periods of dryness are transitional periods.

Many things conspired to make us feel tired and dry; more than one thing will be required to make us feel refreshed. Spending time feeding from the scriptures and meditating on what you read is important. Drinking the joy of giving praise to God is important. Realizing you are on a journey and God is taking you to a good place is important. And so is the point of this sermon, that you need to be careful you are looking for water in the right place.

I have suffered and continue to suffer because of what has happened to the children at the Village of Hope. My dream was taken away. Part of my tiredness and dryness is because I have not handled this well.

When we are distressed about injustice or upset because of problems in our work or frustrated because there is too much hardship and not enough pleasure in our life or tense because the money we want is not coming our way, the focus is on us. It is how we feel, what we do not have. It is our misery, our suffering.

Job was feeling dry and tired. Where did he find water to drink? The answer for Job after all the wisdom of he and his friends was expended was that it was not about himself. It was all about God.
Job 38:4–7 (ESV)
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
5 Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
6 On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
7 when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

For 121 verses God asked Job questions he could not answer, reminding him who was the pre-existing creator God and who was the created being.

The pre-existing creator God is the source of water that refreshes. It is in our relationship with Jesus that we find water that satisfies our deepest thirst.

Are you stuck in the pursuit of something that will not and never will be able to satisfy you? Are you frustrated that this world is not giving you what you want? Are you frustrated that you don’t understand what God is doing or not doing in this world? Is that perhaps part of why you are feeling tired and dry?

I have good news for you. You will not live on this earth forever. A time is coming when you will die a physical death and leave the struggles of this life behind. Because of what Jesus has done for you, when you cling to him he will sustain you in this life and when you die, take you to a better world.

Work to make this world a better place to live. Enjoy the beauty and pleasure of this world. Be grateful for all that God has given you but long for a more intimate relationship with Jesus. Let your life become full of praise for God and you will drink cool, refreshing, life-giving water that will satisfy your deepest thirst.

We see people come and go at RIC and we get used to this. “Pastoring an international church is like pastoring a parade,” I have often said. But there is a difference between someone choosing to leave and someone being forced to leave.

On Monday morning I drove Uchenna to the Casablanca airport for his flight out of the country. He has been a close friend for the past ten years and I have relied on him for his spiritual insights, his strong faith and his friendship.

I am grieving his loss, as I grieved for the parents at the Village of Hope. At least he can take his children with him.

I was talking with a woman last week who told me she finds it difficult to concentrate. She is tired, spiritually tired. I talked with another couple this week who expressed the same sentiments and talked about their anger. The more people I talk with the more I hear this is a common experience.

We are preaching a series of sermons titled: Water for a Parched Tongue in a Dry Land. So many of us are feeling dry and tired it seemed right for us to address this and our hope is that we will receive from God the refreshment we crave.

Psalm 63 is a psalm David wrote when he was in the desert because his son, Absalom, had led a coup against him. David was feeling dry and tired and he was understandingly upset, but where does the story start?

David had at least eight wives and fourteen children. These are the ones named in the Bible but there were more. With all these wives and children there was a lot of intrigue and politics at work. Multiple wives inevitably leads to conflict and in this case, the problem began nine years before this psalm was written.

Absalom was one of David’s favorite sons. Absalom had charisma and good looks, much like his father. David loved him and so did the people of Israel. Absalom had a sister named Tamar and when his half-brother Amnon, another son of David, raped her, Absalom expected justice to be done. When David did nothing, Absalom pulled back and began plotting revenge. Two years later he had a party and invited his brothers. During the banquet Absalom’s servants murdered Ammon and Absalom fled to get away from his father’s angry reaction.

For three years he stayed away under the protection of his maternal grandmother until finally others in the court of David pleaded his case and he was allowed to come back to Jerusalem. He was not, however, permitted to come into the palace of his father.

His anger at his father for not having done what was right when Tamar was raped and now being denied the privilege of being in the royal palace simmered and finally, two years later, he led a coup against his father and David fled into the desert to escape. This is the setting for this psalm. In 2 Samuel 15:23 we read a description of David’s move to the desert:
The whole countryside wept aloud as all the people passed by. The king also crossed the Kidron Valley, and all the people moved on toward the desert.

David made a lot of mistakes in his life and they came back to cause him pain. This time the pain was enormous. The son he continued to love was leading a rebellion against him. He was forced to flee from his palace in Jerusalem. He was at war with his son whom he loved. He was grieving and anxious and as some of us know from our experience in the past several months, that is a terribly exhausting combination. Our circumstances are different but our emotions are not dissimilar so we can learn from his psalm.

The psalm begins with an affirmation:
O God, you are my God,

This is not a psalm full of doubt, wondering where God is. This is an expression of certain faith. It is an expression of the intimate relationship God has established with his people.

Earlier in his life David wrote (Psalm 23)
The Lord is my shepherd

Zak preached from that psalm last week and it is a wonderfully intimate psalm in which David expressed his experience of having been loved by and cared for by his shepherd.

In Genesis 17:7 God made a covenant with Abram in which he said:
I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

God did not make this promise of an intimate relationship only with Abraham. The writer of Hebrews (8:10) spoke about this promise made to the people of Israel when they set out in the desert from Egypt.
This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.

Jesus affirmed this relationship: (Matthew 22:31-32)
have you not read what God said to you, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?

Throughout history God has moved into history to establish intimate relationships with those he calls to him and who respond. We are among the fortunate who have been called and who answered that call.

That the preexisting creator of the universe loves us in this way and reaches out to us is a great mystery but it is a mystery on which we lean and from which we draw great comfort.

In the midst of tiredness and sadness we can call out to God who is in an intimate relationship with us.
O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.

There is a saying in the US that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. How do you make someone thirsty? How do you make yourself thirsty?

When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well she asked for water and Jesus answered: (John 4:13–14)
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

When her conversation began with Jesus she was thirsty but she did not know it. Her life choices had led her from one relationship to another but they had not brought satisfaction or contentment. Only after talking with Jesus did she discover her spiritual thirst she had been trying to satisfy in other ways.

The truth is that everyone in the world is thirsty. We are born to enter into an intimate relationship with God but most of the world seeks everything but the water Jesus offers that will satisfy this thirst.

Longing is not something I can work at. It is a recognition of what I am feeling and this takes some reflection. What am I feeling? What do I want? It may be that when I first ask myself this question I will conclude that what I want is a good vacation or a good movie to watch or a good book to read or an excellent meal. I will come to this later but my true need goes much deeper than this. Ultimately what I am longing for is a closer, more intimate relationship with God. That is the only thing that will satisfy.

When you reflect and discover your true thirst, you will know your longing for God in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Sometimes our world seems more dry than other times, but the truth is that this is always our condition. The world, even when we are relaxing in a plush oasis, is a dry and weary land where there is no water. Nothing will truly satisfy except the water that Jesus spoke of. We deceive ourselves into thinking other things will satisfy our thirst but they will never satisfy our deepest thirst.

In Psalm 1 we learned that the way out of dryness and tiredness is to meditate on the word of God. (Psalm 1:2–3)
his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

In Psalm 63 the lesson is that the solution to our problem of being dry and tired is to give praise to God.
O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.
2 I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
3 Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.

As David fled into the desert with the tears of the people surrounding him, fearing for his life, grieving for the rebellion of his son, he remembered better times.
I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.

David was a man who sinned with all his heart and mind and who also worshiped God with all his heart and mind and now his mind went back to his experiences of worship.

We worship each Sunday here at RIC but there are some Sundays that stand out above others when I had a wonderful sense of the presence of God among us. It is not that God decided to visit us that particular Sunday, God is always present with us, but on those Sundays that come to mind I was particularly open to his presence.

In my ten years in Morocco I remember particularly Palm Sunday weekend in Marrakech in 2001. About four hundred followers of Jesus gathered from all over the world to pray and praise. Graham Kendrick came with four other musicians to lead us in our praise of God. In all my years as a follower of Jesus, that might be the most wonderful experience of worship I have had. I thought I would burst with joy as we sang and gave praise. Everyone was dancing. The violin player left the microphone on the stage and danced through the isles, playing his violin in an expression of praise. Graham Kendrick knelt on the stage playing his guitar in his expression of praise.

These are the memories that come back to me and memories of worship and praise as David played his harp or when others led in worship came back to David. Perhaps he remembered dancing with all his might before the Ark of the Covenant as it was brought up into Jerusalem.

Remembering these experiences in our lives encourages us and helps us to have a different perspective.
I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
3 Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.

The world beats down on us. Our circumstances beat down on us. We are tired and anxious. Remember when you sensed God’s presence in worship and praise and let that encourage you. Because of your experience of God you can realize that the life that is oppressive is not as powerful as the presence of God you experienced.

In those worship experiences when we glimpse just a bit of the heavenly glory of Jesus we realize that this satisfies much more than any of the many other ways we try to satisfy our spiritual thirst. Being loved by God, the joy of worshiping God is far more satisfying than any part of the life we live. We praise because that is what gives us life.

My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

I’ve referred to this, let me talk more directly about it.

In the past week I have been grieving the loss of Uchenna and Dolapo and their sons. I have had difficulty focusing, difficulty concentrating. So what have I done? I played a lot of solitaire on the computer. I finished season seven of a TV show called Monk. When my soul was crying out for a seven-course French meal I fed myself cheap snacks that did not and can not satisfy. They distract but do not satisfy.

Eating a cookie or popcorn does not make me less tired or less anxious. It merely fills the time. But praise to God is like a seven-course French meal that deeply satisfies.

What do you do if you try to cook a seven-course French meal but all you can do is burn toast? What do you do if you sit down and sing a song but it does nothing for you? Psalm 63 is telling us that when we feel tired and dry we should give praise to God but what if we do not have musical skills or even if we do, our singing seems meaningless?

We don’t have to do it ourselves. We are fortunate to live in an age when we don’t have to gather musicians to play for us. All we have to do is turn on the CD player or mp3 player or whatever we have and there are the musicians playing for us. (Just think what Mozart or Bach or Beethoven would have thought of this incredible miracle of technology.)

There is a wonderful series of novels written by Susan Howatch that center around Starbridge Cathedral, a fictional setting in England. In each novel a character is having a crisis and a spiritual director helps put him back together. In one of these books, Ultimate Prizes, Charles, an archdeacon in the Anglican Church, is struggling and his spiritual director advises him to limit his ex tempore prayers, his spontaneous prayers, the way we most often pray, and to lean on the written prayers of others. In this book Charles asks:
“But how can I be sure I’ll even hear any word from God, let alone discern the meaning of any message which comes my way? I fell so deaf – so muddled and confused -“
His spiritual director responds:
“That’s exactly why your life of prayer and devotion is now so crucial. You must do all you can to cultivate your receptivity. Try cutting down the ex tempore prayers to the essential intercessions and concentrate on one or two formal prayers which you can say very slowly, thinking hard on each phrase. The Collects are always helpful and no doubt you have your own favorites prayers which you can use …

I have benefitted from this advice in my walk with God. About five years ago I was spiritually depleted and I began reading each morning The Valley of Vision, prayers of the Puritans. I leaned on those prayers and they helped me refill my spiritual reservoir.

In the same way, you can sit and listen to excellent musicians as they lead you in praise and worship. Lean on their praise and allow them to pull you into praise and worship of God. You don’t have to do it yourself and even if you are musically skilled, it may be good for you to sit back and lean on others for awhile.

6 On my bed I remember you;
I think of you through the watches of the night.

There may be times when you cannot sleep because of the anxiety you feel. So what do you do? This is a great time to put on earphones if you have others in your bedroom and listen to praise music. Let the music inspire you to pray to God. Listen to the words of the songs, pray and allow yourself to relax and fall asleep again.

You have a choice. You can lie in bed and race over and over again in your mind the situation that is making you anxious and preventing you from sleeping. Or you can choose to focus on God, not your situation, and thank him, give him praise, and if you need to, allow others to lead you in prayer with the prayers they have written and in praise with the songs they are singing.

7 Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.

Isn’t that a wonderful image? I sing in the shadow of your wings.

David was fleeing from the army of his son, fearful of the strength of those who supported his son and in this fearful climate he wrote:
7 Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.

You know who else came to my mind when I thought about this? Paul and Silas when they were in Philippi. Those who were economically threatened by the ministry of Paul and Silas complained and had them arrested. They were stripped and beaten. They were severely flogged and then they were placed in a prison cell with their feet fastened in stocks.

Do you understand what this means? They were in pain. They had bloody backs. Bruises, maybe some fractured bones. They were in pain and had no medicine to take to ease their pain. They faced an uncertain future and as they sat in their prison cell, what did they do? (Acts 16:25)
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.

7 Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.

Whatever you are facing, it is not as grim a situation as that of Paul and Silas. Regardless of your circumstances, regardless of the pain you are experiencing, you can sing praise because you sit in the shadow of God’s protection. Lean on the praise of others and allow their praise to become your praise as they lift you up out of your circumstances into the nurturing worship of God.

It may be that you are facing more pain than you have ever thought you would experience. It may be that the continual anxiety and uncertainty is getting to you. David was experiencing the rebellion of his son as well as fearing for his life and the loss of his kingdom. Whatever your experience is, you need to know you cannot take care of it by yourself.

8 My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.

Do you need help? Do you need encouragement? Do you need hope? We sang this morning the Graham Kendrick song, Is Anyone Thirsty? Are you thirsty? Is your soul longing for refreshment? How desperate are you? Are you desperate enough to cling to God?

I have shared before the image of Cosette in Les Miserable clinging to the neck of Jean Valjean as he climbed over the walls of Paris to safety. Jean Valjean did the work of climbing but Cosette had to cling to his neck.

God will do the work of saving you and encouraging you and giving you once again hope but you have to cling to Jesus.

8 My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.

Cling to God and his right hand will uphold you. In this psalm God is viewed as someone who is right handed and it is his strongest hand that holds you and lifts you up.

The first third of the life of Moses was lived in the household of the Pharaoh of Egypt. When Moses was an adult he had a sense that it was his destiny to rescue Israel from the harsh oppression of the Egyptians. But when he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew slave and found out that Pharaoh knew about this, he fled into the desert.

The next third of his life was lived as a sheepherder in the middle of nowhere, quite a fall from being a leader in the advanced civilization of Egypt. This part of his life was marked by a sense of failure and self-doubt. He had been given a chance to lead and had failed. Now he would live out his days watching sheep until he died. That was going to be it.

And then Moses came to the burning bush.
Exodus 3:4–6
God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
And Moses said, “Here I am.”
5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

Moses had settled for mediocrity. He doubted his abilities. God had called him to rescue his people and Moses had failed. He lived now with his failure. He was in the desert and his life was a desert. But in this dry ground he discovered God’s presence and out of that experience came the fulfillment of what God had originally called him to do.

In the pain of his desert experience Moses discovered that he was walking on holy ground because God was present with him.

The ground on which you are walking is holy ground. It may seem dry and lifeless to you, but it is holy. It may seem hopeless to you but it is holy ground. It is holy ground because God is present with you.

Meditate on God’s word. Let his word feed you and sustain you. Give praise to God.    Sing in the safety of his protection. If you need help, let the prayers of others and the praise and worship of others lift you up until you can pray and sing praise on your own.

As God worked with Moses and lifted him up out of his mediocrity and depression, so will God work with you and lift you up out of your anxiety and fear.

Don’t give up. Cling to Jesus. Meditate on his word. Sing praise. Lean on others to help you do this. God will refill your spiritual reservoir with clear, refreshing water. God will bring healing to your pain. God will bring you to life.

I am tired. No matter what I do, I’m tired. I sleep but wake up not feeling refreshed. I have been taking naps which I have rarely done before. And still I am tired. And I am thirsty. I pour a coke with lots of ice and after I drink, I am still thirsty. I am tired and thirsty inside and out.

I thought this was just me but as I have talked with Christian leaders in this country over the past couple weeks I have heard that they too feel tired and dry. If it was just me, I could understand it. But when so many people are feeling this way, there is something significant happening.

I read the book of Acts and see the early church responding with boldness to the threats of the Sanhedrin. Then I look around in my world and I see a lot of people who are intimidated, tired and fearful. What is wrong with us? Are we not as strong in our faith as the early followers of Jesus?

After Peter and John had been threatened by the Sanhedrin, the ruling Jewish elders and teachers, they reported what had happened to the early followers of Jesus and then they prayed: (Acts 4:24–31)
“Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:
“ ‘Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
26 The kings of the earth take their stand
and the rulers gather together
against the Lord
and against his Anointed One.’
27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30 Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

That’s what we want. That is what many of us have prayed for, but that is not what is happening.

I have heard some people say they hope they are kicked out of the country. This way they will not be viewed as quitters; instead they will be viewed as martyrs and then they will be able to rest and escape the tension of living in this country.

Here is what I find myself longing for. I long for the peace and quiet of the meadow. I picture trees lining the side of a running stream, lush green grass, a country path alongside the stream with nothing more than the occasional bicycle passing by. This is a place where you could put a fishing pole in the stream and fall asleep on the softness of the grassy riverbank, hoping no fish bites to disturb your rest. Nearby is a deep pool with a small waterfall. I dive into the cool clear water and come up into the warm sunshine and dry off and lay in a hammock looking up at the blue sky spotted through the green leaves. I want this experience inside and out.

When I discovered that it was not just me but there were others with the same sense of tiredness and dryness, I decided it would be good for us to preach about spiritual refreshment for the next several sermons. So I went through the scriptures looking for passages talking about water and thirsting and being parched and was amazed at how many there are. What we are feeling is not unique to us. It is not the first time in history God’s people have felt this way. It has been a common experience.

So we will look at Psalm 1 today. Zak will preach next week from Psalm 23. Psalms 42, 63 and 69 will follow. Job 14, Isaiah 41, Isaiah 55, Jeremiah 17, John 4 and Revelation 22. We may not get to all these passages. We will feel our way along. If you have other passages you would like us to consider in this series, let me know.

The sermon series title is: Water for a Parched Tongue in a Dry Land.

I want us to focus on the refreshment Jesus offers us. We need to be encouraged. We need to cast off our fear. We need to be emboldened, not by the strength of our will, but by the empowering of the Holy Spirit. We need the water Jesus offers us.

I believe that as we move along in this series the passages we look at will teach us, correct us, encourage us, direct us and I hope that God will bring us the spiritual refreshment we are craving.

The first text we come to is Psalm 1 and this psalm, which serves as an introduction to all the psalms, begins with three negatives. Blessed is the man who does not.
Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.

This opening verse describes three degrees of departure from God. Does not walk, does not stand, does not sit. How do we enter into evil? First we walk by and listen, then we stand and participate and finally we sit down and live in our sinful disobedience.

This makes me think of Lot, the nephew of Abraham. When Abraham and Lot became too wealthy and the herdsmen of Lot were fighting with the herdsmen of Abraham, Abraham called Lot to a mountain overlooking the valley of Jordan and asked him to choose what land he would take. Lot chose the lush, fertile land of the valley in which lay the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Remember that God eventually destroyed these cities because as it is written in Genesis 13:13
Now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord.

Psalm 1 describes the gradual move away from God. See how Lot followed this pattern as Genesis describes where Lot lived. In Genesis 13:12, after Lot chose the plains of the Jordan valley, we read that:
Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom.

After Lot made his choice, Abraham built an altar and worshiped the Lord but Lot pitched his tents near Sodom.

Later there was a battle and Lot and his possessions were captured. Notice where he is now living. (Genesis 14:12)
They also carried off Abram’s nephew Lot and his possessions, since he was living in Sodom.

Lot pitched his tents near Sodom and when the kings captured him he had moved and was now living in Sodom.

Then when angels arrive to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of the great evil in those cities, where is Lot to be found? (Genesis 19:1)
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city.

Lot pitched his tent near Sodom, then lived in Sodom and finally sat as a city elder in the gates of Sodom. Lot walked by Sodom, then stood in Sodom and finally sat in Sodom.

Psalm 1 tells us
Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.

Blessed is the man or woman who does not accept the advice of the world, who does not become party to the sin of the world and who does not take on the values of the world so that he mocks the things of God.

When RIC received the letter from the national leadership of EEAM demanding I step down and RIC sever its relationship with AMEP, I was asked if I took this personally. That was a silly question, of course I took it personally.

And over the past couple weeks I have wanted to do what the world says I should do. I have wanted to justify myself, to show how innocent I am and how guilty others are. I have wanted to pay back the leadership that sent that letter. I have wanted to seek revenge.

My desires are the first step away from God. It is like pitching my tent near Sodom.

Fortunately I have a godly wife and godly co-pastors who have advised me and kept me from following through on my desires and I have not taken the next step of actually doing the things I have desired. The RICEmail and other communications I have sent present a fairly balanced view of the events. I have to admit that I walked by but I did not stand and participate.

The third stage of distancing myself from God comes after I have listened to the advice of the world and after I have taken that advice. Now I sit in the gateway of the world and give approval to the actions of the world and mock those who object to the practices of the world.

When Paul wrote in his letter to the church in Rome about the depravity of the world, he concluded by writing: (Romans 1:32)
Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Blessed is the one who does not walk by the world, taking its advice, who does not stand with the world, putting into practice what the world advises and thirdly who does not sit with the world, approving its actions.

Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

This second verse stands in opposition to the first verse. Rather than walk in the counsel of the wicked, blessed is the one whose delight is in the law of the Lord.

There is a choice here, listen to the world or listen to God’s word and it is a critical choice because what shapes a person’s thinking shapes his or her life.

Abraham regularly built altars to worship God wherever he went. There is no indication that Lot ever build an altar. Abraham’s devotion to God protected him and blessed him. Lot had a terrible finish to his life, living in a cave, fathering children in a drunken stupor, testimony to his continually bad choices which resulted from his lack of devotion to God.

In light of all that God has done for us, Paul wrote in Romans 12, we are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices. And then he goes on:
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

It is by the renewing of our mind that we are to resist the patterns of this world and the way we renew our mind is by delighting in the law of the Lord and meditating on the law day and night.

Reading a verse in the morning and then rushing off to get on with the tasks of the day is not going to be sufficient.

Are you feeling tired and dry? Let me ask you if you have been spending time reading the Bible and meditating on what it says? I have to say that in the midst of the tension I was spending little or no time reading and meditating on the Bible.

Just when I most need its wisdom, I keep my Bible shut – and then I complain that I am feeling tired and dry.

In the world of computers they talk about the concept of GIGO, garbage in, garbage out. If you put bad data into the computer, you will get bad information out of the computer. The same is true with your mind which will reflect whatever you put into it. Psalm 1 offers the clear choice: fill your mind with the world’s advice or meditate on God’s word. What is going to shape your mind?

Paul wrote to Timothy: (1 Timothy 4:16)
Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Meditate on the wisdom of the Old and New Testaments. Use what you read to help you stand against the advice of the world that will pull you away from God and his intention for you. Your life is at stake as well as all those you influence.

Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

A tree planted by streams of water, that’s exactly what I want. That is my longing. When we meditate on the scripture that God has provided for us, our roots go down into the water of the stream that will sustain us.

But notice that the tree yields it fruit in season. For most of the year a fruit tree sits without any fruit. For most of the year you see only leaves. To get the fruit you have to wait. For an apple tree you wait through winter, spring and summer and only in the fall do you get the apples from the tree.

And you can’t plant a tree one day and then come back the next to pick its fruit. It takes two or three years before a tree that has been planted begins to bear fruit, in season.

Instant gratification is not the way of God. We sit down, read the Bible, think about it, maybe journal about what we have read and pray and then expect everything to be fine.

We sit down, put our roots in the water of the Bible and expect instantaneous fruit. That is not how God works. One of the fruit of the Spirit is patience and this is not a fruit we like to wait for.

Sit by the stream and sink your roots in the refreshing waters of the Bible and be patient. It is not a matter of days but weeks and months. If you still feel dry, persevere. Be patient. Over time you will build up a reservoir and out of that reservoir you will bear fruit, in season.

Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.
4 Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

God told Joshua as he was about to enter into the promised land of Canaan: (Joshua 1:8)
Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

Those who meditate on God’s word will be prosperous and successful, but not so the wicked.

They are like chaff. They have no real substance. When wheat is harvested the threshers crush stalks to break apart the wheat kernels. Then the process of winnowing begins as the wheat and chaff are thrown up into the air. Because the chaff weighs very little, it is blown away by the wind and the wheat falls to the ground.

The wicked are like chaff. They have no real substance and will not remain. They may appear to be prosperous and they may appear to be winning the battle, but they will eventually be blown away. Just as we need to be patient to receive the water we need to fill our spiritual reservoirs, so do we need to be patient for God’s judgment. The wicked will not last. In the end they will collapse and perish.

The wicked will not stand in the judgment that is coming. They will be crushed and blown away. As wheat is separated from the chaff, so will the wicked be separated from the righteous.

Why will this happen? Because the Lord watches over the way of the righteous.

You who are tired and confused, fearful and intimidated, God is watching over you. There will be many more lessons coming in the following weeks, but this first lesson is clear. If you want the spiritual refreshment God offers you, sink your roots into the soil be the side of the stream. Meditate on God’s word. Read it and think about it. Let what you have read stay in your thoughts throughout the day. Be patient. Let God refill your reservoir. You will bear fruit, in season.

A man visited his friend who had just started as pastor of a church and realized that the acoustics for worship would be much improved if the piano was moved from the left side of the pulpit to the right. He suggested this but the pastor had talked with the elders and realized they were very resistant to change. A year later the man came back to visit his friend and was surprised to see the piano on the right side of the sanctuary. “How did you get the piano moved? I though the congregation resisted change.” The pastor told his friend that he started out moving the piano 15 centimeters the first Sunday and then continued each week to move the piano a bit more to the right. After a year the piano was on the other side and no one had objected.

We have not had that luxury; our change has been more immediate.

We find ourselves in a strange environment this morning. There is no balcony. There is no high ceiling. We do not have pews. This does not look like a church.

But what does a church look like?

I am certain that the building we have been meeting in does not look very much like the church building you were used to when you came to Morocco. The order of service has most likely not been what you were used to. The style of preaching has most likely been different. Some are used to having communion every Sunday and praying the Lord’s Prayer. Some are used to a service where the worship seems much more spontaneous, without a printed program. Having the songs projected on a screen probably feels a lot more familiar to many of you and new and strange to others. Meeting in this room may feel a lot more familiar to some of you than where we have been meeting.

So whatever a church looks like, it is not one kind of church that we have in mind. Our view of what a church looks like varies depending on the church we came from and with approximately twenty-five countries and forty different denominations among us, that will be quite varied.

On the bulletin cover there are five pictures and the caption asks, “Can you find the church?” Four of the pictures are of church buildings and one is of some followers of Jesus worshipping together. We know the answer to this question; it is the people who make up the church but we often are confused about that.

When Jesus was teaching about church discipline, he said: (Matthew 18:20)
For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.

Many of us were taught this as children: (using our hands) Here is the church; here is the steeple; open the doors and there are the people. We who are gathered here this morning are the church and around the world, wherever followers of Jesus are gathered, that is where the church is. Some meet in buildings, others meet outdoors in the forest, others meet in houses. The church where Annie and I first began dating met in the gymnasium of a school.

Wherever we meet, we get used to that and then resist changing. Think about the first Sunday you came to RIC. Where did you sit? My guess is that where you sat that first Sunday is where you sat every Sunday thereafter, unless a group of people came and took your spot. We are creatures of habit. We create familiarity as much as we can. Look at where you are sitting this morning. For as long as we meet at Assemblee Chretienne you will probably feel the compulsion to sit in the same place.

When we attended Westerly Road Church in Princeton, where Tracy was one of the pastors, I made a point of sitting in a different section of the church each Sunday because I did not want to give in to this compulsion. But it required each week that I take the time to think where I had sat the previous week and consciously choose a new seat.

It takes effort to change, but is change necessary? Why try to change? Is change good for us?

There are variations of this quote floating on the internet: The only difference between a rut and a grave is the dimensions.

This quote suggests that not to change is to die. It suggests that change is necessary and good for us. I thought about this some time ago and think I might have talked about it in a sermon. How would the church be different if our average lifespan doubled. Instead of living to be 80 years old, we lived to be 160 years old and sometimes 200 years old.

I am convinced that if this was the case, the church would not have grown as it has. Our human nature resists change and we try to keep things as they are. When Annie’s grandfather was in his 90s and we visited him in his nursing home, he talked about a time when he was young when he had led the change in the liturgy of the Lutheran Church in the US. The older people in the congregation resisted this change and he, as one of the young leaders in the church, led the successful battle to move along with the change. Then in his 80s there was another suggested change to the Lutheran liturgy and this time he was one of those opposed to the change.

This is how we are. As we age, we hold on to the music, the Bible translation, the church patterns of our younger years. It takes effort to adapt as we age.

Fortunately, for the growth of the church, we move into our 70s and 80s and begin to die and the younger generation takes leadership of the church and moves it into new ways of worship and evangelism. If we lived to be160 or 200, we would be able to resist that change for a much longer time and the church would suffer in the process.

So what should we do? Should we seek change so we can be more effective as followers of Jesus? I think there are some who do that; seek change for the sake of change, and that can be destructive. Sometimes change is just change and not better. How can we make change beneficial?

When I thought about preaching this morning, the text that came to my mind is the account of Jesus and his three closest disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration, where Jesus had a summit meeting with Elijah and Moses. In this account there are four lessons that I think will be helpful to us, that will lead us into change that is good and necessary for us.

Mark 9:2–8
After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. 3 His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. 4 And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.
5 Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 6 (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)
7 Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”
8 Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.

The first lesson is this: Jesus leads us into wonderful spiritual experiences.

Why did Jesus take Peter, James and John with him when he climbed up the mountain? Other times in the Gospels we read that Jesus went off alone but not this time. This time he wanted Peter, James and John to be with him.

When I was in business I most often traveled alone and when I had some free time, I went to museums or local scenes of interest. And when I was sitting at a pig auction in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, or sitting in a warm pool in the evening mist of San Jose, Costa Rica, or eating delicious salmon on the Pacific coast of the state of Washington, I wished that Annie and Elizabeth and Caitlin could be with me. I wanted them to experience the wonderful and interesting things I saw. There were times each of them traveled with me, but not nearly enough. I always regretted that they were not with me.

Why? Because I needed someone to carry extra baggage? No. I wanted them with me because I loved them and wanted them to experience what I was experiencing. I wanted them to share my experience with me.

Jesus knew what was going to happen and he wanted Peter, James and John, his three closest disciples, to be with him and experience with him the wonders of this heavenly summit meeting.

When we are called out by God into adventure and new experiences, it is because God wants us to have the delight of new spiritual experiences – and these are not found in a rut, doing the same thing we have always been doing in the same way we have always done it.

The wonderful picture of this for me comes from J.R.R. Tolkien’s book, The Hobbit. This scene takes place outside the snug, comfortable home of Bilbo Baggins where Bilbo is relaxing and smoking his pipe. Gandalf, the wizard, comes to invite him to an adventure.
“Very pretty ” said Gandalf. “But I have no time to blow smoke rings this morning. I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”

“I should think so — in these parts  We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things  Make you late for dinner  I can’t think what anybody sees in them,” said our Mr. Baggins, and stuck one thumb behind his braces, and blew out another even bigger smoke-ring.

Bilbo Baggins proceeded to set out on this adventure, had nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable experiences that made him late for dinner and even caused him to miss his dinner. But he came back a wiser hobbit, stronger in character, and with a greater understanding of life.

Because Jesus loves us and wants us to grow and develop stronger faith, he is always leading us into new spiritual experiences.

Jesus taught: (Luke 5:37–39)
And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.

Jesus is always bringing new wine and we must set out with him in the change he sets before us so we can adapt and accept the new wine he is bringing.

But notice that Jesus understood our resistance to change. In the next verse he added:
39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’ ”

He might have said, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Human nature has not changed over the centuries. People in the time of Jesus resisted change just as we do. We like how it used to be, how it is, but Jesus invites us out into adventure and new experiences, what will be, and that is where life is to be found.

The second lesson is something I already mentioned at the beginning of the sermon so I don’t need to spend much time on it: Wherever we meet to experience Jesus, that is where the church is.

Peter, James and John experienced the transfiguration of Jesus into his heavenly glory and saw him speaking with Moses and Elijah and in the incredible wonder of that moment Peter said he wanted to build three buildings, to make this spot a church.

What Peter was told was that he did not need to build three buildings to make this a church, it was already a church because Peter, James and John were there with Jesus. It is always the church when we gather to meet with Jesus.

The third lesson is that we experience Jesus when we focus on him, listen to him.

If you are shooting a gun or bow and arrow, it is easiest to hit the target when it is standing still. Far more difficult is to hit a target when it is moving.

Jesus is a moving target. When you want to be with Jesus, you cannot count on him doing the same thing twice. Look at the ways in which he healed people who were blind. One time he touched their eyes and they could see. Another time he spit on their eyes. Another time he spit on the ground, made mud from the dirt and put that on the eyes. Another time he simply spoke without touching.

If you wanted to follow Jesus to learn how to heal people who were blind you would be confused. He looked, had compassion and then acted but his actions did not follow patterns.

We prefer a target that does not move. We want to come in, sit in the same seat we sat in the previous week, have a service that is familiar to us, sing songs we know, hear a sermon in the style we are used to. We want to control our experiences. But following Jesus means we will be stretched out of our comfortable understandings into new experiences we cannot control.

I have had this experience several times. We had friends over and had a wonderful evening, almost magical. So at some later date I invited the same friends, had the same food, trying to recreate that evening and it just did not work.

This has happened to me at RIC when I have led worship and a song we sang or a prayer that we prayed was exceptional with such a strong sense of the presence of God. I tried another time to sing that song or pray that prayer but this time it fell flat.

Our tendency is to try to recreate what has worked in the past rather than step out into something new but that is what we have to do if we want to experience Jesus.

Peter was overcome by the wonder of the experience of Jesus in his heavenly glory and he wanted to lock this experience and put it in a building so he could come back to it whenever he wanted.
Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

What did God think of this idea? Did he say, “Very good Peter. That’s a wonderful idea. Let me help you as I helped Noah with the ark and Solomon with the Temple. Let me give you the dimensions and then we can work on this together.”

No. What God said to Peter was this:
Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”

If you want further experiences like this, don’t build a building and try to freeze this moment in time, don’t try to recreate this moment, follow my son. Jesus does not do the same thing over and over again. His creativity keeps him moving and we need to move with him if we are to stay with him.

It is a highly ironic and very sad commentary that today on Mount Tabor in Israel, where it is believed Jesus met with Moses and Elijah, there is the Church of the Transfiguration. Undoubtedly, when people come to the Church of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, they pray to relive this experience that Peter, James and John had with Jesus, but God does not want us to put our trust and confidence in a building that holds on to the past. Buildings can inhibit our ability to listen to Jesus. People think their building is the church, the church becomes their focus and they lose touch with Jesus. This is the danger.

When Moses led Israel through the wilderness they were afflicted with poisonous snakes. Moses prayed for the people and God directed him to make a bronze serpent and put it up on a pole. Whenever someone was bit and looked up at the bronze snake, they were healed. You can see a picture of this in your bulletin.

There is no further mention of the bronze serpent until we read along in 2 Kings 18:4 and the reform of Hezekiah:
He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it.

What God intended for good became, over time, an idol and the people put their focus on the bronze serpent rather than God. Just as Israel build a calf out of gold while Moses was up on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments, the people of Israel made this bronze serpent an idol and we today can make our church buildings or any other material thing our idol.

God cannot be contained and limited. God cannot be contained in a burning bush or a tabernacle or any building. Jesus is a moving target and we need to move with him if we are to experience him.

When the Holy Spirit calls us out into adventure, however we are called, we need to step out, keeping our focus on Jesus, listening to him. When we do this we will be led into change that is good and necessary for us. This kind of change will not be change for the sake of change. It will be change directed by God who loves us and wants us to grow in faith and character and to have the privilege of working with him as he builds his kingdom.

The fourth lesson is that the goal of change is always to be with Jesus.
Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.

Isn’t that a wonderful verse? If you need to memorize a verse, memorize this one.
Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.

There was no bronze serpent, no building, no denomination, no church politics, just Jesus.

Much has changed over the past three months. What we were used to has passed away and now we are left with uncertainty. With all the deportations some followers of Jesus have become fearful. Who will protect them? Who will protect the church in Morocco? A church building? No! Only Jesus can protect what he is building. If the gates of Hell will not prevail against the growth of the church, why are we so fearful?

Let all the idols that encourage us to put their faith in them pass away and let us be left alone with Jesus. He will protect us and lead us safely to him.

Where will you find peace and security in the midst of uncertainty? Your relationships with important people in this country? Your nationality? Don’t lean on and depend on what will pass away. Push those aside and lean on Jesus.

Change is necessary for our growth as Christians. I had a couple posters when I first became a follower of Jesus. One said, “Growth is the only evidence of life.” The second said, “Behold the turtle, he makes progress only when he sticks out his neck.”

We need to lean into change, to experience the new thing God is doing. Paul wrote to the Philippians (3:13–14)
Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Straining forward, pressing on; this is what we are called to do as followers of Jesus.

We don’t seek change for the sake of change; we strain forward, keeping our focus on Jesus, keeping up with the new thing he is doing as he builds his church.

Our situation has changed. Now it is up to us to embrace it, pray and determine what next steps he wants us to take.

In the meantime, we are still the church. We have a new location but we are still Rabat International Church.

We have some for whom today is their last Sunday at RIC. They are moving from Morocco, maybe going back to what is more familiar, perhaps going to a new unfamiliarity.

I encourage you to keep your focus on Jesus, to make it your goal to be alone with Jesus as you navigate the changes before you.

For those of us who will be at RIC next week and the weeks that follow, we need to do the same. There may be more changes in the future and we too will be best served if we keep our focus on Jesus, put our trust and confidence in him and not in the temporal world.

Jesus will lead us into new spiritual adventures. Jesus will keep us safe. Jesus will be with us.

You have probably noticed that I am a big Paul Simon fan. In my first years as a Christian, a speaker at our church suggested we pick someone famous and pray for them. So over the years, I have prayed for Paul Simon, some years more than others. Whenever he comes out with a new album, I examine the lyrics to try and discover what is going on in his spiritual life. It might be good for you to do the same, pick someone famous and begin to pray for them.

When I was thinking about the text for today in which Paul and Barnabas had a sharp disagreement and wondering what I would use for an introduction to this sermon, this Paul Simon song came to mind:
You’re Kind
You’re kind
You’re so kind
You rescued me when I was blind
And you put me on your pillow
When I was on the wall
You’re kind, so kind, so kind

And you’re good
You’re so good
You introduced me to your neighborhood
Seems like I ain’t never had
so many friends before
That’s because you’re good
You’re so good
Why you don’t treat me like
the other humans do
Is just a mystery to me
It gets me agitated when I think that
You’re gonna love me now indefinitely

So goodbye, goodbye
I’m gonna leave you now
And here’s the reason why

I like to sleep with the window open
And you keep the window closed
So goodbye, goodbye, goodbye

This happens to be one of the discussion points for Annie and me. I like to sleep with the window open, especially when it is cold outside and I remember times when I had to go to the window with Annie’s complaints ringing in my ears, to reduce the tiny little slit of openness that I was allowed to have. Annie might have a different memory at this point but I am the one preaching.

It is very often little things like this that erupt into sharp disagreements.

A couple weeks ago Pastor Zak preached about the conflict in Acts 15 that precedes this sharp disagreement between Paul and Barnabas. Allow me to give some background to this conflict before we get to the sharp disagreement at the end of the chapter.

The early church was composed of Jews who decided that Jesus was the long promised Messiah and became his followers. At Pentecost the circle of the followers of Jesus expanded as Jews from around the known world believed and were baptized. So there were Greek-speaking Jews and Hebrew-speaking Jews which created tensions when the perception was that the widows of the Greek-speaking Jews were not getting their fair share of the food being distributed by the twelve apostles. This dispute was settled when the apostles appointed seven mostly Greek-speaking Jews to oversee the distribution.

The early church grew and there were occasional tensions, but the followers of Jesus were all Jews who kept the Jewish laws. They observed the Sabbath; their sons were circumcised; they kept the dietary laws.

There were significant exceptions to their obedience to the law such as when the Gentile Cornelius and his household believed and were accepted by Peter and later the Jerusalem council. But even Cornelius and his household adhered to the Jewish law. They were followers of Jesus but they followed through the law of Moses by becoming Jews to become followers of Jesus.

But then the Gospel expanded again. (Acts 11:19–21)
Now those who had been scattered by the persecution in connection with Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, telling the message only to Jews. 20 Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. 21 The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.

This was a major step as the Gospel moved away from Jews to Gentiles. To the Jews Jesus was the long promised Messiah, Jesus the Messiah. But now Jesus was presented to the Gentiles not as Jesus the Messiah but as the Lord Jesus. Gentiles did not understand the concept of Messiah but they did understand the concept of lordship so the gospel was translated into their culture so they could more easily understand it.

Then Barnabas brought Saul, not yet called Paul, to Antioch where together they taught and discipled these new believers. After some time, during one of their meetings, (Acts 13:2–3)
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

As they traveled it became clear that Saul was the one God used most powerfully and as Luke writes the history it became not Barnabas and Saul, but Paul and Barnabas. Note also that Saul took on his Greek name, Paul, as he moved into the Gentile world.

Paul and Barnabas returned from their first missionary journey and stayed for a long time in Antioch – perhaps Paul needed time to recover from being stoned and left for dead in Lystra.

At some point Peter visited and stayed in Antioch and here began the conflict of Acts 15. This visit by Peter is not recorded in Acts but in a letter Paul wrote to the Galatians. (Galatians 2:11–14)
When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. 12 Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.
14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

You have to understand that Paul was unique. I don’t know how many men there were (there may have been women but the culture did not allow them to lead) who were capable of understanding the implications of what Jesus had done. Paul was exceptional in that his mind and spirit led him to the full implications of the death and resurrection of Jesus and he was leading the followers of Jesus into this new understanding. Paul created the theology of the emerging church as his mind and spirit led him deeper into the truth of Jesus. Paul was leading and others were some distance behind.

Paul wrote that Peter was fearful. This does not sound like the Peter of the gospels so this may be Paul’s spin of the situation. It could be that Peter and Barnabas did not want to offend the men who came from James in Jerusalem. Maybe it was this that led them to stop eating with the Gentiles. Or maybe it was just that they slipped comfortably into old habits.

But Paul was so far ahead of them theologically and he thought things through so much more clearly he had to pull them to the implications of what Jesus had done in his death and resurrection. So Paul had to, in this case, lead Peter and Barnabas into the truth.

The third leader in this conflict was James, the leader of the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem and the half-brother of Jesus. James led the mostly Jewish followers of Jesus in Jerusalem, including those who had been Pharisees and as you remember, the Pharisees strictly followed the law of Moses and carried this with them when they became Jesus followers.

So you have three leaders of the followers of Jesus in this conflict of Acts 15: Paul who had moved into the Gentile world and taken on his Greek name, James who was firmly in the Jewish camp and Peter who was wavering between the two.

What started the conflict was this: (Acts 15:1)
Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.”

This is what James was teaching in Jerusalem. Yes, Gentiles are accepted into the family of God but they must become Jews in order to do so.

Paul strongly refuted this. In writing to the Galatians who were being exposed to the same teaching he wrote: (Galatians 2:15–16)
“We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ 16 know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.

Peter was trying to be in both camps. He ate with Gentiles when he was in Antioch but when the Jews from Jerusalem came he stopped eating with Gentiles.

This was a huge issue that threatened to split the church wide open – churches have split over far less significant issues.

Paul and Barnabas traveled up to Jerusalem to meet with the Jerusalem council and in this meeting after members of the Jewish camp made their complaint, Peter stood first to speak and revealed that Paul’s rebuke of him had hit home. (Acts 15:10–11)
Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? 11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.

Paul and Barnabas then spoke making their case and finally James spoke. (Acts 15:19)
It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.

The process that was followed is a model for all who seek to resolve theological differences and it is a testimony to the work of God in their lives that James was able to yield and support Paul and Barnabas in their ministry to the Gentile world.

A letter was written to be sent to the Gentile followers of Jesus accompanied by two men to communicate what was in the letter. Everyone shook hands and hugged, the unity of the church was maintained and everyone went home. This was a huge victory for the church.

But then in the least expected place conflict once again erupted. (Acts 15:36-41)
Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the brothers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” 37 Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, 38 but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. 39 They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, 40 but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.

Isn’t that frustrating? It was a masterful display of wise and humble leadership as a potentially divisive conflict was resolved and then from where it was least expected, another conflict erupted that split the leadership.

What was the issue here?

On the first missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas, John, also called Mark, traveled with them as a helper. He was a young man, a cousin of Barnabas, and he sailed with them to the island of Cyprus, the birthplace of Barnabas. They then sailed north to Perga, on the coast of what is today Turkey and then Luke records: (Acts 13:13)
From Paphos, Paul and his companions sailed to Perga in Pamphylia, where John left them to return to Jerusalem.

Why did John Mark leave? Was he homesick? Was he upset that his cousin, Barnabas, who had been the leader, was now being overtaken by Paul? They started out as Barnabas and Saul and now it was Paul and Barnabas. Was he fearful of the dangers they could encounter? For whatever reason, he left and it is this desertion that caused problems for Paul.

The conversation started out fine.
Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the brothers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.”

I imagine they became excited and talked about their route, what churches they would visit, the people they would see, how they would travel. And then came the detail that split them apart.
Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, 38 but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work.

“You want to have Mark come along? Are you kidding? He deserted us when we needed him. No way!”
“But Paul, he was a young man and he’s older now. He has matured and deserves a second chance.”
“What we are doing is far too important to deal with second chances. Remember that I was stoned and left for dead in Lystra. I need someone I can count on, not someone who will run away as soon as it gets difficult.”
“Paul, please, he is my cousin. I know him. I am sure he will not make the same mistake again.”
“No, absolutely not!”

There were family issues involved. It may well be that there were personality differences between Paul and Barnabas. There are personalities that prefer justice and others that prefer mercy. Some personalities do not make exceptions to their rules and others think rules are made to be broken for the sake of relationships. For whatever reason the argument went on and on and became increasingly emotional. I imagine that voices were raised. I imagine that some things were said on both sides they later regretted saying. This is how arguments go.

They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, 40 but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.

They split with Barnabas and Mark heading west and Paul and Silas heading north.

Was their argument worth a split?

I began looking at this argument as an expression of sin but in talking with Tracy and Zak and then reading the commentaries more closely, I came to the conclusion that this was an example of two people with two different perspectives that forced them to part ways.

There are times when we argue our position with all the integrity of mind and spirit we have and disagree with someone else also arguing with integrity of mind and spirit. We come to a point of irreconcilable differences and the only solution is to separate. There are other times when selfish agendas, the lust for power or control or money drive the argument. I am not talking about that. This is specifically about sharp disagreements between people who argue with integrity but cannot agree and separate.

This text offers some healthy ways to do this.
Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, 40 but Paul chose Silas and left

Note first that Barnabas and Paul both continued to work for Jesus.

Barnabas did not sulk. Paul did not campaign to give Barnabas a bad name. Neither one of them went home to lick their wounds. Barnabas took his young cousin and left for Cyprus, the same first destination for he and Paul on their first missionary journey. Paul met Silas in Jerusalem and then Silas was chosen to accompany the letter the council wrote. He had impressed Paul with his ministry in Antioch and so Paul chose him as his companion and they headed north to Turkey.

There will be times when there are irreconcilable differences and it will be necessary to part but separating from each other does not mean we separate ourselves from Jesus. We are still called by Jesus to work with him. Wherever we are, whatever we are doing, this is our key, central calling.

Work to resolve differences. Work hard to reconcile differences, but when you reach an impasse, agree to separate but keep on working with Jesus.

This sharp disagreement and separation must have been upsetting to the followers of Jesus in Antioch. Remember that it was in worship and prayer that the Holy Spirit spoke to them (Acts 13:2)
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

The church in Antioch was personally involved in the sending out of Paul and Barnabas and they still carried the responsibility of supporting and encouraging them.

Luke wrote that
Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, 40 but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.

Who did the brothers commend, Paul and Silas? Also Barnabas and Mark?

Luke is recording Paul’s story so it is likely he is referring to Paul and Silas, but I imagine the fellowship commended both to the grace of the Lord. It does not seem that the church took sides in this argument.

So secondly, when you have friends who separate because of irreconcilable differences, it is your responsibility to bless both groups.

A few years ago a friend in the church told me that if there were a Pentecostal church in Rabat, he would go to that church. I told him that if this happened, I would miss the Pentecostals in our congregation and it would hurt me that they would want to leave RIC and my preaching. But, I told him, if you did leave to start up another church, I would send you out with my blessing. I would want to continue to encourage and support you.

It is all about Jesus! Have you ever heard me say that? It is all about Jesus. It is not about us. So when we have legitimate differences and cannot be reconciled, we continue to focus on Jesus, continue to work for Jesus and give our blessing to both sides that separate.

What was the relationship like between Paul and Barnabas after this?

In II Corinthians 8:18- 24 Paul spoke of Titus being accompanied by a brother most commentators say is Barnabas
who is praised by all the churches for his service to the gospel… [and] who has often proved to us in many ways that he is zealous … Therefore show these men the proof of your love and the reason for our pride in you, so that the churches can see it.

In I Corinthians 9:6 and Galatians 2:13 Paul refers to Barnabas with respect.

In short, although he and Barnabas separated, Paul did not lose his respect for Barnabas. They had a severe difference of opinion but they continued to respect each other.

So thirdly, when you separate with someone else, resist the temptation to justify yourself. Resist the temptation to make yourself look good and the other person look bad. If you have difficulty doing this, chances are that your pride has been involved and you will need to reflect and look for the sin in your behavior.

One last lesson comes from the fact that John Mark was later restored to Paul as a friend and trusted colleague. At the end of his letter to the church in Colosse, Paul wrote (Colossians 4:10–11)
My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. (You have received instructions about him; if he comes to you, welcome him.)

Apparently Mark’s reputation had suffered and he was being restored into ministry as one of those who worked with Paul.

At the end of his life, when Paul wrote to Timothy, he instructed him (2 Timothy 4:11)
Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry.

Paul and Mark were reconciled before the death of Paul. Mark became a trusted colleague and developed as a powerful leader in the church. Mark was led into a ministry that eventually took him to Egypt where he was the first bishop of the church in Alexandria.

So fourthly, in relationships, when someone shuts the door on you, do not shut the door on them.

Sometimes in hotels there are adjoining rooms with interconnecting doors, one on each side of the doorway. This allows you to rent both rooms and go back and forth without having to step out into the public hallway.

Relationships are like this. You each have a door and you pass back and forth in your friendship. When someone becomes upset and shuts and locks their door, you have a choice. If you slam your door and lock it, what happens in the future when the other person decides they want to open their door? They will open the door to the relationship and find a locked door. If you keep your door open, then at any time in the future when they decide to open their door, they will find you ready to enter again into a relationship with them.

This means you need to try to understand why the other person in the relationship has acted as he or she did. Clement of Alexandria, leader of the Jewish school in that town who knew Mark, wrote, “Be kind, for everyone is fighting a great battle.”

If you can understand why it is someone has acted as they have, it helps to keep the door to the relationship open. When you understand why the other person acted as they did, it makes it easier to forgive the other person for what they have done.

Keeping your door open is not easy. There is one person I have known for ten years who has repeatedly hurt me by her actions. It amazes me that she has such power to hurt me, but it is because I will not shut the door that I continue to be vulnerable to her actions and when she does not trust me or believe what I say, I am hurt.

But that is the price we pay to keep open doors in our relationships with others.

How open are the doors in your relationships? I am talking here particularly about relationships with other Christians. When you think of sharp disagreements, does anyone come to your mind? I would encourage you to pray for these people who come to mind. There is a long path ahead and God will be at work in both of you so future reconciliation is always a possibility.

You will both one day be side by side in heaven; it is good to work now toward the unity of mind and spirit you will have on that day.

Everyone loves getting presents. Annie had her birthday last week and I brought her an abundance of flowers to let her know I love her. Presents are a great way to express our love and concern for someone.

The visit last week of Matt Ristuccia, the senior pastor of Westerly Road Church, the church from which Tracy and I came to Morocco, was a wonderful present to us. He spent time with the Troxels and Annie and me, asking how we were doing in the midst of the stress of the past few weeks, encouraging us. And I know he was a great encouragement to many others when he was here.

This is a very stressful time for many of us. It would be one thing if we had to deal with a one-time event that had passed and now we were dealing with the trauma from that event. But for us the suffering and uncertainty is ongoing. The Village of Hope children are still without their parents and there are some concerns about their treatment. The deportations of foreign Christians does not appear to be over. Moroccan Christians are being interrogated, harassed and threatened around the country.

In a period of great stress, we need to know that someone loves us and cares for us.

In Western tradition, Christmas is more associated with gift giving than is Easter. From our Christian perspective, we understand that God gave us the gift of Jesus which we celebrate at Christmas – God became man, Emmanuel, God with us.

That alone would be worth celebrating. God visiting us in the form of a man so we could know him and learn from him. But Easter was the greatest present and so this morning I want to unwrap two Easter presents for us, contained in these eighteen verses from John 20, that let us know how marvelously and wonderfully God loves us and cares for us.

Let’s set the context, although I know you are very familiar with the story. Jesus was crucified on Friday and his disciples were in shock, in panic and in disbelief. How could their leader end up like this? Jesus who was going to change the world with them at his side, was now dead and beginning to rot in his tomb.

On Sunday morning, after the Sabbath, some women went to the tomb to anoint the dead body of Jesus with spices, as was the custom of the time, probably like going to a grave and putting fresh flowers on it today.

They came back with some stunning news that the tomb was empty and Jesus was not to be found. The other Gospels report that the women saw some angels, but not Jesus. They ran back to the disciples and told them,
“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

How do you handle this kind of news? In this case, John and Peter ran to the tomb to see for themselves. John, being younger and faster, arrived there first. It was true; the stone that had blocked the entrance to the tomb had been rolled aside. John looked into the tomb and saw the strips of linen that had been wound around Jesus lying there but did not go in.

And so we come to Easter Present number one.
Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen.

Let’s begin to unwrap this present. The tomb in which Jesus had been laid was probably a tomb carved out of the rock with a shelve carved into the side of the tomb. It was on this shelve that Jesus had been laid.

When Jesus was laid in the tomb, his body had been prepared for burial by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, Pharisees in the Sanhedrin, both were secret admirers and followers of Jesus.

In preparing Jesus for burial, they revealed a great deal of devotion and respect. Joseph brought with him about 75 pounds (34 kilograms) of a mixture of myrrh and aloes which made this a very expensive burial. A piece of cloth was tied around the head of Jesus from the top of his head and under his jaw. This was done to keep the mouth closed.

They then took the body of Jesus with his arms by his side and after soaking rolls of linen cloth in a mixture of myrrh and aloes, wrapped Jesus’ dead body around and around until he was covered from his neck to his feet in this wrap of linen cloth, wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy.

This is how Nicodemus and Joseph left Jesus on Friday, laying on the shelf of the tomb, wrapped up in the linen with a cloth tied around his head.

Now it is Sunday morning and John looks into the tomb to the shelf where Jesus had been laid and he sees the linen cloth that had been wrapped around the body of Jesus but no Jesus. Peter was always the boldest of the disciples – remember that it was he among all of the disciples who dared to get out of the boat and walk on the water to Jesus. So John waited for Peter and after Peter went in to take a closer look, John finally followed him.

What did they see? John writes that Peter saw the strips of linen lying there as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen.

This detail was important to John when he wrote his Gospel. Why did he include it? What did this detail mean to him? John wrote that he saw and believed, and then added this parenthetical comment (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) John believed Jesus was alive but how had this happened? Had he never really died?

Luke wrote in his Gospel that Peter ran to the tomb and: (Luke 24:12)
Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

What was it about the strips of linen and the cloth that made John believe that Jesus was not dead? What was it that made Peter go away wondering to himself what had happened?

Let me ask a question: When was there another time in the experience of John and Peter when they had seen a body come out of a tomb? It was not that long ago, just a few weeks earlier in Bethany, when Jesus had called Lazarus to come out of the tomb after he had been dead for four days. (John 11:43-44)
Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

In this case, an experience which was still fresh in their minds, Lazarus had come out and stood there. He was helpless, his arms imprisoned in the strips of linen wrapped around him. Others had come to him to untie the cloth that was around his head and to unwrap him so he could be free.

But this time something was different. After Lazarus had been set free from his graveclothes, they just lay there in a heap where others had helped to remove them. In this case, there was something about the way the cloth and the strips of linen lay there that puzzled Peter and John.

There is a lot of debate about the detail of John’s description of the cloth and strips of linen with every word examined for its meaning and interpretation. As I understand it, the cloth that was wrapped around the head of Jesus lay on the stone shelf just where Jesus’ head had laid. The strips of linen were laying just where they had been wrapped around the body of Jesus. The cloth was still knotted as it had been when Joseph and Nicodemus had tied it around the head of Jesus. The strips of linen were still layered as they had been when Joseph and Nicodemus had wrapped them around and around the body of Jesus.

It was as if the body of Jesus had just evaporated and the wrappings around him had been left undisturbed.

What did this mean? What they did not see was Jesus. That much is clear. So where was he? Had someone stolen his body? Had he not really died and later, in the coolness of the tomb, regained consciousness?

You can imagine that Peter and John were puzzled. If Jesus had woken up, not having died, he would have struggled quite a bit to squirm his way out of the strips of linen wrapped around his body. Finally when his hands were free, he could have taken off the cloth from around his head.

If thieves had taken the body, they would have had to tear off the graveclothes. Was it possible that the strips of linen had been removed and then carefully arranged to look as if they had not been disturbed?

When Peter and John took a closer look, did they see something that made them even more puzzled? Did they see that where the blood and other fluids had soaked through the linen strips and coagulated, the dried blood and fluids had formed a kind of seal and that seal had not been broken? It used to be that when a letter was sent, a seal was imprinted in wax on the flap of the envelope to prove that the letter had not been opened. In this case, the strips of linen had not been unwrapped and then re-wrapped. They were in the same condition that Joseph and Nicodemus had left them. The seal made with the dried blood and other bodily fluids of Jesus had not been broken.

You can take an egg and blow out the contents of the egg, leaving the egg looking as if it had never been disturbed. But how do you blow a body out of graveclothes that has been tightly wrapped around the body?

Peter and John knew Jesus was no longer in the tomb. They suspected he was alive, but that he had resurrected and lifted up out of his graveclothes, was beyond their comprehension at this point.

When Peter went away wondering, do you think he tried to figure out the difference between the experience they had witnessed with Lazarus and this baffling experience in the tomb?

The difference is the first present of Easter from this passage. John puts this detail in his Gospel because he wants to make absolutely sure we see the reality of the resurrection of Jesus. There is no explanation for what happened to Jesus other than that he died and was resurrected. He lifted right out of his graveclothes with a new resurrection body.

When Lazarus was raised from the dead, he was raised to life, still facing his physical death. Death was still the enemy of Lazarus. Someday he would die and be put in a tomb and his life would be over. But when Jesus resurrected from the dead, he demolished the power of death. He blew open the doors of death and walked into eternal life. He met death and defeated it so it is no longer to be feared. It is no longer the final enemy.

So Paul could write in I Corinthians: (I Corinthians 15:54-56)
“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is our first Easter present this year. Jesus offers us, through his death and resurrection, the hope of eternal life that allows us to live this life without fear of death. We will all die a physical death, but because of Jesus, we have no need to fear that death because we know eternal life with Jesus awaits us. Our physical death is not the end but a glorious beginning.

Some of our Moroccan Christian brothers and sisters when they were threatened with being beaten made this clear to their interrogators, “I am not afraid of being taken to your prison or of being killed.” They made clear that for them, as followers of Jesus, they have a certain hope of a wonderful future and are not afraid of what men can do to them.

Will you take this present that is offered to you? Are you content to watch someone else open this present or would you like it for yourself?

Jesus said, (Revelation 3:20)
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

This is a present meant for you, will you take it this morning? Will you pray this morning to God and offer to him your life, confessing your need of him? It has been perhaps for you many years that Jesus has stood knocking at the door of your life and you have resisted him. This morning, will you accept this Easter gift? Jesus waits at the door for your response.

Jesus said (Matthew 7)
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Pray and he will answer. Surrender your life and your will to God and receive from him new life and the hope of eternal life with him.

That’s our first present this Easter. If that were the only present we received, it would be more than enough. But we are so blessed, there is more.

As we move along in this passage, we come to our second present to unwrap.

When Jesus resurrected, his body was in some way different than it had been. His followers, who saw him after he resurrected from the dead, did not know that it was him – at first. There is complete unanimity about this in the resurrection accounts of the four Gospels. This has given some conspiracists the opportunity to advance theories that Jesus did not rise from the dead but that some pretender passed himself off as Jesus. But this is absurd, because not only would this person have to fool the disciples, he would also have to walk through doors and walls and put on himself the terrible scars of crucifixion.

The truth is that Jesus was changed in appearance and not immediately recognized. In John’s account, after Peter and John had left, puzzled and perplexed, believing but not really understanding, Mary remained in the garden in the area of the tomb. She remained, grieving for Jesus and thinking that his body had been carried away by thieves. In her tears, she looked into the tomb and saw two angels, one at the head and one at the foot of where Jesus had been laid.

One of the angels spoke to her, “Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

With all the astonishing things taking place that morning and with all the intense emotions being experienced by the followers of Jesus, Mary does not seem to be too mystified at the appearance of angels. What normally caused people to tremble in fear and fall to their knees, seemed to be taken by Mary as just one more extraordinary event on an extraordinary day.

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”

She turned around and saw someone she supposed was the gardener and he spoke, using the exact same words as had the angels.
“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

She was sharp enough that morning not to ask the two angels what they had done with Jesus, but she thought she might ask the gardener. This was his garden, surely he must know what had happened to the body.
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

And now we come to our second Easter present.
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

Names are very important to us. I have the same name as my father and grandfather and have books in which they wrote their names that have special meaning to me. I like my name.

When parents pick a name for their child, they reject names because of someone they knew with that name that they did not like. The father may like a name but the mother says, “Absolutely not! I knew a boy with that name and he was a jerk!” And so they go through name after name until they find one they both like. But the truth is that whatever name you give to your child, your child will give meaning to that name, not the other way around. Jack the Ripper, who was a serial killer in England, does not make Jack, the pastor of RIC, less of a person and it does not make Jack, the son of Jimmy and Jennifer, less of a person.

When someone calls out our name, we sit up and pay attention. I can greet the congregation of RIC and that will include you. But when I call out, Conor, Grace, Austin, Hyuna, Emmanuel, Mark, Bobbie, Elizabeth, Marie, James, Anthony, Gloria, Precious, Caleb, Jimmy, Nana, Emily, Maxwell or Peter – each of you with one of those names hears what I say more clearly.

Your name makes you an individual. It separates you from others. When I call out Hyunwoo Jang, Hyunwoo is separated from all others. If I call out Elliot, there may be some confusion as at least Elliot Morrow, Elliot Lamptey and Elliot Jones sit up and pay attention.

When someone knows our name, they begin to know who we are. When someone takes time to learn our name it makes us feel important.

We can see the importance of this by the way prisoners are treated. As part of their punishment, they lose their name and are known only by a number.

In an orphanage, children want to be assured that people working there know their name. The children at the Village of Hope wanted me to know their name. We don’t want to be one of a faceless mass of humanity. We want to be known as individuals. This is especially important to us when someone we respect and look up to knows us by name.

So it is significant that Mary recognized Jesus only when he called her by her name, “Mary.” She did not recognize Jesus by his appearance. She did not recognize Jesus by his voice. She recognized Jesus when he spoke her name.

One of the more preposterous beliefs of Jews and Christians is that God knows us by name. From the outside of Christian faith, this is egotistical thinking. God, the creator of the universe, creator of billions of stars far larger than our own star; this God came to be born as a man on the third planet orbiting this little star, suffered and died for the sake of an individual creature who is less than a speck on this third planet of the little star called the sun?

This is really incredible thinking. And yet it is true. The history of God’s interaction with men and women on this planet is one in which he shows concern for individuals.

When Jesus died on the cross, he died for each one of us, individually, by name. Jesus did not die for mankind in general. He died specifically for you and specifically for me.

When the disciples returned from their first mission trip, they were excited about all they had experienced, but Jesus told them (Luke 10:20)
“However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Many Christians in Morocco are calling their embassy to find if their name is on the list of those who will be denied reentry into Morocco. “Am I on the list?” is the question being asked. But that list is not really so important.

Jesus died for you and me by name and when we accept his gift of salvation, the first Easter present we unwrapped this morning, our name is written in the Book of Life and it is on that list that you want to find your name.

When Jesus taught in his Sermon on the Mount, he said: (Matthew 20)
And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

We are not anonymous creatures in a sea of humanity. How many of us know how many hairs we have on our head? (Easier for some than others) Jesus made the point that God knows us even better than we know ourselves.

Jesus taught in John 10
The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. 3 The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

He calls his own sheep by name. Not, “Come sheep,” but individually by name.

When Moses asked God for a sign, God responded:
“I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”

Jesus called to a tax collector up in a tree trying to catch a glimpse of him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.”

Jesus called to a Pharisee on a trip to Damascus with the mission of persecuting Christians, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

The second Easter present for us this morning is that Jesus knows you by name. When he died on the cross, he died for you. When Jesus said,
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
He invited you to come to receive his rest, his care, his love, his concern.

At our Good Friday service we nailed our names to the cross that we decorated this morning with flowers. Jesus’ sacrifice was made for us because he loved us and loves us by name.

Are you feeling lonely this morning? Discouraged? Worried? Afraid? Anxious? Grief stricken? Jesus calls you by name. Why are you crying? Why are you discouraged? Why are you feeling so alone? Why are you feeling so overwhelmed? Why are you worried?

Come onto me Georgia and Faith and Joshua and Joseph and Katie and Jennifer and Bright and Michael and Kay and Donn and Godwin and Mary and Lisa and Carey and Shinyun and Melissa and Sonya and Carlotta and Blessing and Primrose and Nancy and Nicole.

Come unto me and receive my love and care.

Two Easter presents, both available for you. Both of them have your name written on them. They are yours to open. They are presents given in love.

Allow this Easter to be a blessed one for you. Open the first present and accept God’s free gift of salvation. Allow the fear of death to fade away as you embrace the hope Jesus offers with his resurrection from the dead.

Open the second present and rejoice that your name is written in the book of life. As amazing as it seems, God knows you by name and cares intimately for you. Go to Jesus with your worries and fears and concerns and he will give you peace and rest.

I have been enjoying watching a TV show from the US titled Monk. It is about an obsessive-compulsive detective who brilliantly solves crimes. At the end of one show when the captain of the police thinks his wife is having an affair, he is comforted by a colleague saying, “There’s an old saying: ‘When God closes a door…’”
The captain replies, “When God closes a door, sometimes he breaks your heart.”

In this past couple weeks, cliched sayings have not been of much help. Today is day 13 of the separation of the Village of Hope children from their parents. A diplomat visited the site this week and talked with some of the children. They asked him, “Don’t our mommy and daddy love us anymore?”

A door was closed and I am still waiting for a window to open. It breaks my heart.

In the past couple weeks I have had fantasies of standing like Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh in a power confrontation to have the children of VOH released. I have told God I am willing to be his prophet, all he has to do is tell me and I will go.

I have wanted to pick up the metaphorical sword and fight the battle. But in reading a book for my course of studies, The Open Secret by Lesslie Newbigin, I realized that Jesus has led us into a new way.

In the Old Testament, Moses and Aaron confronted Pharaoh with plague after plague until he finally relented and allowed Israel to leave Egypt. Elijah boldly confronted the prophets of Baal and defeated them. But this is not what Jesus did. Jesus stepped up to his encounter with the Chief Priest and Pilate and those who were expecting a Moses and Aaron or Elijah power encounter were disappointed.

Peter picked up his sword to attack those who were arresting Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus said, (Matthew 26:52–53)
“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. 53 Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?

Jesus had the power to confront the Chief Priest, the Sanhedrin and Pilate and all their soldiers. He could have had an Elijah encounter with them in which the full power of God was displayed in all its wonder, but he chose not to use the power available to him.

Put yourself in the shoes, or perhaps sandals, of the disciples. In the three years the disciples had been with Jesus, the ministry of Jesus kept on growing. The crowds kept getting larger. The miracles kept flowing. Demons kept getting kicked out. This was an increasingly viable ministry. Success was all around them. When Jesus came into the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers, the disciples must have been thrilled to see the power of Jesus increasing. Even greater success was just around the corner. “What great thing will Jesus do tomorrow?” was the question they asked themselves.

Success followed success and then the world turned upside down. Jesus was arrested and he did not resist. Jesus was taken to the Sanhedrin, the ruling Jewish body. (Mark 14:60–66)
Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” 61 But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.
Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”
62 “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
63 The high priest tore his clothes. “Why do we need any more witnesses?” he asked. 64 “You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?”
They all condemned him as worthy of death. 65 Then some began to spit at him; they blindfolded him, struck him with their fists, and said, “Prophesy!” And the guards took him and beat him.

This is not the sign of a successful ministry with a bright future, to have the leader arrested and mocked and beaten.

Jesus was taken to Pilate, the Roman governor, questioned, sentenced to death, flogged, forced to carry his cross through the crowds, crucified and then his battered and lifeless body was taken to a tomb.

The leader of this growing, increasingly powerful, ever more successful ministry was confronted, humiliated, killed and buried.

Where were the disciples in all this?

Peter, earlier that evening, had boldly proclaimed his loyalty (Mark 14:31)
But Peter insisted emphatically, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the others said the same.

The disciples left that meal to go with Jesus, caught up in the wonder and power of his ministry, looking forward to the next confrontation with the Jewish leaders. It was true Jesus seemed upset that night, but he would get over it. He often said things they did not understand.

And then Judas came to betray Jesus and the Temple guard took Jesus away. What did the disciples do? (Matthew 26:56)
Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.

Bold, fearless Peter who stepped out of the boat to walk on water, who declared Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God, this Peter snuck along in the shadows, following Jesus and the Temple Guards, stood with a crowd on the perimeter of where Jesus was being questioned, proceeded to deny that he even knew Jesus, denied him three times and then fled in tears and grief at his own disloyalty to Jesus.

Some women who followed Jesus were at the cross when Jesus was crucified. It appears that John was there at the cross but the other disciples were absent. Where were the disciples the day after Jesus was crucified?

John 20:19
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”

Where were the disciples? Out in the streets protesting the innocence of Jesus and the injustice of his arrest and crucifixion? Were they in the Temple preaching the truth of Jesus? No! They were hiding in a room behind locked doors.

What were the Chief Priest and the other members of the Sanhedrin doing? They went home satisfied. One more threat to their establishment had been taken care of. He had been one of the more troubling problems, but now it had been resolved. Peace and serenity would return. The business in the temple could continue. This upstart from Galilee had been dealt with.

Where was the success of Jesus that so excited the disciples and all the others who followed Jesus? It was scattered and torn, lying among the ashes of failure and defeat.

The Sanhedrin was satisfied. The devil was delighted. He had struck a blow against God himself. God had made a tactical error, sending Jesus to live a human life and the devil exploited this error and killed Jesus.

The devil was the first to realize a mistake had been made. The spiritual battle commenced as Jesus preached to the dead. A day of earth time passed. Another half day of earth time passed. And then out of the ashes of defeat burst the risen Lord Jesus.

About forty days later the disciples were sitting and praying when the Holy Spirit came upon them with power and then they were no longer hiding behind locked doors for fear of the Jews. They went out into the Temple and boldly proclaimed the truth of Jesus. (Acts 2:36)
“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

Imagine the shock and dismay of the Chief Priest when he received word that the followers of Jesus had not dispersed and were now preaching boldly in the Temple courtyard and were healing people just as Jesus had done. They killed Jesus and thought it was over but it appeared Jesus had been cloned and instead of just one man, now there were many doing what Jesus had done.

This is the pattern of the growth of the church. It is when the church is weak and helpless, lying in the ashes of failure and defeat that God brings victory.

This is why, when the church over the centuries of its history has been persecuted, the result has been the growth and expansion of the church. When it looks like all is lost and there is no hope for the future of the church, when people work to exterminate the church, that is when God is about to work and bring resurrection.

The story of Jonah is a wonderful example of this. (Taken from The Open Secret)
Jonah, as a picture of God’s chosen people, is called to go and bear witness in the midst of Nineveh, which represents the world with all its awesome power and wealth.

But Jonah because of his nationalism, and maybe other reasons, runs off in the opposite direction from Nineveh. He boards a ship sailing off into the Mediterranean to evade God’s call and thinks he has succeeded. He goes below deck to sleep – a picture of the church that sleeps in times of peace and prosperity, concerned not with God’s work in the world but only its own comfort.

But God whips up a raging storm and the pagan soldiers pray for deliverance. It is the pagan soldiers who have to wake up Jonah and ask him to pray. When lots are cast Jonah is forced to confess his guilt, that he is running away from God’s call.

Jonah is ready to pay for his sin with his life but the conversion of these pagan soldiers by this improbable follower of God has already begun. They work to save Jonah and themselves and they pray to God. But Jonah must be thrown into the sea. The grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die. The followers of Jesus must suffer. The church must lose its life.

But out of death there is resurrection. A penitent and restored Jonah goes to speak God’s word to the pagan world and his obedience is met by an incredible miracle. Nineveh repents.

Jonah was lying in the belly of the whale, lost and defeated but God brought resurrection. Out of the ashes of Jonah’s life, the sailors gave praise to God and the people of Nineveh were spared.

We see this also in the story of Joseph who was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. From slavery he was unjustly thrown into prison and from prison he was brought out into the court of Pharaoh and given responsibility for distribution of food to the surrounding area that was affected by a famine.

When he was reunited with his brothers and they feared he would seek revenge for what they had done, he told them (Genesis 50:20–21)
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.

Out of the ashes of the misery and defeat of Joseph, God raised him up to be the one who saved his family during the famine. God provided for his people through the resurrection of Joseph from the ashes of slavery and prison.

This was also the lesson Paul learned through all his preaching in the cities of what is today Greece and Turkey. The people who responded to his preaching about Jesus were not the religious or political or business elite. (I Corinthians 1:26–30)
Brothers [and sisters], think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him.

Out of the ashes of failed lives, God builds his church.

Paul learned this lesson himself. In the beginning of his ministry he was a bit arrogant, confident of his debating skills, sure he could overcome the objections of people to his message about Jesus with his many talents. But as he endured beating after beating and as the Holy Spirit worked in his life, Paul was transformed into a man who was more humble, who called himself the greatest of all sinners and who knew the power of God that worked through him.

It is with this depth of experience and spiritual insight that he wrote to the Corinthians in II Corinthians 12:10
That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

When we are weak, then we are strong. When the church is lying in the ashes of defeat, then God works most powerfully.

It is upon this paradox that the church is built.

I don’t know what will happen to the children at VOH. I don’t know if the children will ever be reunited with their parents. I don’t know what will happen in Morocco with the new restrictions on Christians who are working to care for the needy in this country. I don’t know what will happen with the pastors of churches around Morocco.

But this I do know. God is already at work preparing to bring resurrection out of the ashes of defeat.

Some might look at this and conclude Christians have developed a loser theology to turn defeat into eventual victory. The world that looks at success in very human terms sees the power and strength of institutions as evidence of their success. Which religion has more followers? Which religion has the fastest rate of growth? Which religion dominates a region?

Sometimes the Christian church has acted in this way and prided itself on its size and influence. But whenever, in the history of the church, the church has had power, it has abused that power and the church has been a destructive influence in the world. Pick up the sword to fight and the church loses. You can see this in church fights with churches splitting. You can see this in power struggles for leadership in a church or denomination. You can see this in countries that have called themselves Christian countries and tried to enforce their belief on everyone in that country.

This is not a loser’s theology. This is how Jesus blazed the way to victory over death. This is the way God builds his church. In our weakness God makes us strong.

Tracy, Zak and I talked about this sermon when we met on Tuesday and Tracy said, “The way God saved me is also the way the Gospel goes forward.”

How did God save you? Were you at the top of your world when you came to faith in Jesus? Were you at the top of the ladder of success with everything going your way when you decided to begin following Jesus? That is not the story with most of us. Most of us were at a point of need and called out for help. In our weakness we were saved.

Let me make three comments about this understanding of how God works.

First, are we to submit passively to every injustice that comes our way? I don’t think so. I have not been quiet about the injustice of the government in taking the parents of VOH away from their children. Anger is a Biblical response to injustice and we are to channel that anger in constructive ways to work for justice.

But I make a distinction between defensive and offensive responses. I think it is constructive to stand up and make noise when an unjust action is taken. So I will continue to speak to journalists to expose the truth about what has happened. I will continue to urge those in authority around the world to put pressure on the Moroccan government to undo the injustice they have committed.

But I will not encourage actions against the health and welfare of this country. I have encouraged people to bless Morocco and bless the people of Morocco. I want to work for this country but against this unjust action of its leaders. I do not work against the leaders. I pray for the leaders. I pray that they will turn and make just decisions. But for their own good, they need to bring justice to the injustice that has been done.

Secondly, while God does not call us into power confrontations with temporal authorities, he does call us into a deeper, more significant battle. When Jesus sent out his disciples (Luke 9:1–2)
he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

Jesus has invited us into a deeper, more meaningful battle, the battle against supernatural forces of evil. We have power over demonic forces. So we submit to temporal authority and suffer and allow God to work and we participate with Jesus in the spiritual battle against forces of darkness. Most of us have this backwards. We shy away from spiritual battles and engage in temporal ones.

This is a growth area for the church. As God is at work in this world, we need to learn how to work with him in his battle against demonic forces.

Thirdly, when you suffer from a tragedy in your life or when you experience an embarrassing, humiliating failure, that is not the end. Your life is not over with no hope for the future.

Last week I mentioned four things important to remember when you are grieving because of a tragedy in your life.
Do not be rushed to get over your grief.
When you grieve, do not be afraid to express what you are feeling.
When you experience trauma, despite the evidence, God is in control.
And I said I believe, from God’s eternal perspective, the suffering we experience on earth does not seem as bad as it does to us – just as the joys we experience do not seem as great as we think they are.

I want to add a point to that list that I have learned this week. When you are powerless and helpless, it is at this point that any illusion that you can make things work with your own abilities and determination are stripped away. It is at this point that God can work most powerfully in your life.

This should always be a source of hope. I still think of the children of the Village of Hope day and night. This week I sent in our RICEmail a video I received that was taken when the children heard the news from the Moroccan authorities that their parents were being taken away. Their cries are haunting. I don’t understand why this happened but I know God is at work in this situation and he will bring good out of the evil that was done.

I am still grieving. It is still difficult for me to see my grandchildren having such a loving home with wonderful parents when I know the VOH children have been torn away from their parents. I look on Facebook and wonder how people can talk about such trivial things when this suffering continues.

But I am more confident than I was last week that God is at work and that he will bring resurrection from the ashes of VOH. I speculate about how this might happen but I know God is far more creative than I am. So I pray and I wait to see how he will bring good from the ashes of this tragedy.

I said last week that I was not yet able to sing Blessed Be Your Name with the chorus
You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord blessed be your name.

But God has been at work in my life. My faith has been strengthened. I am still grieving but I know God is at work.

There are more tragedies than just the separation of the children from their parents at the Village of Hope. Diagro Gabla received word this week that his mother died. Another friend had to deal with her brother’s alcohol and drug addiction.

This is a broken world in need of healing and redemption and despite the evidence, God is at work bringing life out of death, giving hope to those who despair, building faith where there is doubt.

I encourage you to grab hold of hope. God is at work, redeeming this world with all its tragedy and suffering. You don’t have to sing Blessed Be Your Name with assurance. You can sing this with faith, knowing that in your weakness God will make you strong. It is in this light that we sing

Blessed be your name
when the sun is shining down on me
when the world is all
that it should be
Blessed be your name
and blessed be your name
on the road marked with suffering
Though there is pain in the offering
blessed be your name

Every blessing you’ll pour out
I’ll turn back to praise
And when the darkness closes in, Lord still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be your glorious name.

Village of Hope

The events of this week have affected us, some more than others. I want to say upfront that it is not that those who have been most affected have bigger hearts than those who were less affected. It has to do with how intimately connected you are to the Village of Hope and others who were deported.

This past Sunday at least 200 Christians were killed by Muslims in retaliation for attacks in January when 300 Muslims were killed. I read the stories but it did not cause me any emotional pain. Why? Because I don’t care? Not at all. But I have no close connection to those who suffered.

I have been grieving all this week because my connection to the Village of Hope was much more intimate.

When I came to Morocco in January 2000, I was told that I was on the board of the Village of Hope. I said I was not sure I wanted to be and was kindly told that as pastor I had no choice – I was on the board. I ended up being chairman of the board for the past seven or eight years. Although I resigned from the board a year and a half ago to give more time to our association of churches, I discovered that the paperwork had never been handed into the government and Herman informed me on Sunday that I was still chairman and the police had asked lots of questions about me.

I made my first visit to the Village of Hope in March 2000 and immediately fell in love with that place and with the vision it had to take in abandoned children. There were no buildings at that time, only the old building that had been vandalized and had to be torn down.

Rabat International Church was very much a part of the start of this home for children. Members of the church formed the first board for VOH and Errol and Michelle Muller and their daughters lived here in Rabat and were part of our church community before they moved up to Ain Leuh.

In the early years, RIC made five bus trips per year, up and back on a Saturday, to work at VOH. We moved rocks, tore down old walls, painted and did whatever else we could do to help. In addition, I made trips on my own. So I was at the Village of Hope twelve or more times each year.

I remember when Errol and Michelle took in the first child, Adam. If you have been to the VOH website, he is the boy on the left of Errol as Errol was explaining about having to leave them. Adam was a wizened peanut when he was a baby with his forehead wrinkled as if he was in deep thought. I have always had a special place in my heart for Adam and was looking forward to the next few years when we would be able to sit and talk together.

Amir is a sensitive boy with a bright spirit. He has been able to grow up safely with his sensitive nature but I worry what will happen to him in a more rigid, institutional structure.

Sabah was born prematurely and was so small her mother could not tell if she was holding her in a blanket or not. She has grown into a beautiful little girl.

Rafiq has an impish nature.

Hannan is a very mature little girl who needs special attention as she ages.

I don’t know all of the 33 children well, but I see their smiles and their individual personalities.
When I visited VOH the kids would call out to me, “Ammi Jack. Ammi Jack”. “Uncle Jack. Uncle Jack.”

Errol and Herman have been two of my closest friends over my ten years in Morocco. They have been in an accountability group with me. Annie and I have been on vacation with them and their wives. They have visited us with their children when they have come to Rabat.

The ten years at VOH have not been easy. We have weathered several financial and personnel crises over the years, but through it all, we have been friends.

I know many of you have visited VOH on one of our bus trips or on your own. Two of the families in the church went up with Tracy and his family the weekend before this happened. They painted a room in the infirmary and worshiped with the community on Sunday. We are grieving what happened.

Last Saturday, as part of the national crackdown on Christians in Morocco, the police came to VOH in the afternoon to ask questions. They went into the homes, looking in drawers and closets and interviewing the children. They left at 3 in the morning and came back on Sunday with more questions and interviews. On Monday they came at 3:30, took the children into the dining hall and the parents and staff into a building across the parking lot. The children and parents were informed the parents and staff were leaving. The parents heard their children crying across the parking lot, “Mama! Papa! Is this true?”

The parents and families and staff had just seven hours to say goodbye to the children and pack. Herman’s wife was in Holland at the time and never had the opportunity to say goodbye to her children. Herman was negotiating with the authorities up to the last minute, trying to forestall this action.

He tried to pack but could not think of what to take. He told me when we talked on Tuesday that his suitcase with filled with garbage, nothing of worth. He left behind his wedding album and many other personal affects. At one point his biological daughter called him and told him to get some papers stored downstairs in the garage. As he went down the steps, his eight children followed him, “Daddy, are you leaving? Are you leaving?”

One of the older children asked, “Why couldn’t I have real parents?”

With the tears and cries of the children ringing in their ears, the bus pulled out and they were taken to the airport at Casablanca, kept under police guard and flown out the next day.

The first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning is the children and how they are handling this separation. When I wake up in the middle of the night I think about the children and their parents. They were abandoned at birth, rescued by parents who have loved them and provided them with a safe, loving home. And now the government that gave permission for these Christians to take in these abandoned babies and encouraged them many times to take in even more than they were able to take – this government has caused these children to be abandoned a second time. This action is a shameful act and we are grieving at the pain that is being experienced.

People responded to my report of what had happened with versions of, “God is in control,” and I replied, “I know this is true with my head, but on an emotional level it seems God has taken a vacation.”

I have had difficulty this week in seeing children playing on the street. I have had difficulty seeing parents walking with their children. I have felt guilty talking with my daughters and grandchildren on webcam. I have felt guilty getting under my covers and sleeping in a comfortable bed. I have felt guilty eating. I have felt guilty watching any TV.

How can I have a normal life when there is so much suffering in the lives of people I love and care for? How can anyone have a normal life in the midst of so much suffering?

Annie led me to the Rich Mullins songs we are listening to this morning and they have encouraged me this week. Hold Me Jesus speaks of my condition and my desperate cry for help.
So hold me Jesus,
’cause I’m shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won’t You be my Prince of Peace

Rich Mullins has ministered to me; let him now minister to you.

Psalm 77

When I received the news from Herman on Monday, I was stunned. I was in shock. I could not believe this was happening. I sent out the RICEmail and other emails to let people know what was happening and finally went to bed. I woke up at 3 and could not sleep. I could not pray other than to cry out for the children and parents.

In the morning I did what I have often told others to do and wrote a psalm expressing my emotions.

What were you doing when the children at VOH were ripped from their parents’ arms? Sleeping on the job? Don’t you care what happens to these children? You are capable of parting the sea and raising the dead – can’t you protect little children?

In fact, the empirical evidence suggests you cannot protect little children. All over the world boys and girls are sold into sex trafficking. Boy and girls are abducted, raped, abused and murdered. So what’s the deal?

We pray that our little son or daughter get over a cold or find a new friend. What a joke! Are your powers so limited you can only lift teensy-weensy weights?

I am so angry I could spit nails. I’m angry at you. I’m angry at the government. [angry at some other things I will not mention now] Who is really in control? Not you, apparently!

This morning as I sit here writing this, the boys and girls of VOH are waking, thinking they might have had a nightmare and then realizing this nightmare is their new reality.

The parents and staff are waking up, if they were able to sleep at all, and wondering how they will ever recover from this hole in their heart.

This is a death experience. Evil has won. Evil has triumphed.

[some expression of creative retaliation]

I know you are there but I do not understand what you are doing. This was within your power to stop and you did not stop it.

Why?

I know these psalms are supposed to bring me to trust and confidence in you but I still have a long way to go.

If you cannot protect these children, then end it now. Call it all to a halt and bring us all to account.

And then I did what I tell people not to do – I opened my Bible and came to Psalm 77. I read just a couple verses and then headed off to pray at AMEP. We talked about the events and then I said I wanted to read this psalm, which I had just started to read.

I was amazed at how well it expressed what I was experiencing. In my psalm I accused God of being on vacation but he was not on vacation when he led me to this psalm.

I cried out to God for help;
I cried out to God to hear me.
2 When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
at night I stretched out untiring hands
and my soul refused to be comforted.
3 I remembered you, O God, and I groaned;
I mused, and my spirit grew faint.

The psalmist was grieving as I was grieving. I don’t know why he was grieving but I took comfort in knowing that grief has been the experience of people in every generation. What we are grieving is not a unique event.

In the adult Sunday School this past week Paul Miller spoke about helplessness as being a great place to begin when you pray. I certainly felt that this week. I stretched out my untiring hands and my soul refused to be comforted.

About noon on Tuesday Zak, Elliot and I drove up for a meeting in Tangier. On the way we stopped for lunch and I said I would pray for our meal – but I could not. Praying for a meal is not a formality for me. When I thank God for the food I am about to eat, I recognize my dependance on God for everything I need and I could not bring myself to say I trusted God to provide what I need.

That night we were at a church service in Tangier and the pastor asked me to speak about the Village of Hope and pray for them. I told them some stories of the children and broke down crying and when I prayed I cried and ended with saying I could not trust God right now. So the congregation prayed for me.

Throughout the day on Tuesday I talked with Herman. He asked if I would speak to journalists because he could not keep reliving the horror of what happened. We wept together on the phone. We probably talked together five or six times on Tuesday and we repeatedly wept.

As much as I have grieved, I cannot imagine the pain of the parents and their families and the staff who were taken away.

Wednesday and Thursday I was busy with phone calls, skype, emails, interviews.

And then Friday morning, for the first time, I was able to write in my journal. “You are in control – despite the evidence – you are in control. Help me to have faith to wait and see the final outcome.”

If you were not close to VOH and the grief for you has not been strong, there will be another time in your life when the grief will be strong because the suffering will be close to you. And so let me share a few things I think are important when grieving.

First, do not be rushed to get over your grief. It is OK to spend time reliving the events of whatever tragedy you are dealing with. People around you may want to rush you to get past this stage, but do not let them rush you. Take your time. The greater the tragedy, the longer it will take for you to get over it. The closer you are to the tragedy, the longer it will take for you to get over it. Especially if you are a Christian leader, people want you to stand up and give a positive report. “I suffered and doubted but now I am over that and am giving God glory.”

It is more important that you find healing for the hurt you have suffered than that you give a positive report. It is more important that you model authentic living than giving an uplifting report.

Secondly, when you grieve, do not be afraid to express what you are feeling. Do not try to be nice. Do not try to be a “good Christian”. Express what you are feeling. Write it down. Write a psalm. God does not want you to be nice, he wants you to be real and honest.

Last week Tracy talked about this in his children’s sermon. If you are angry, then expressing your anger is what God wants you to do. Expressing your anger is a far better prayer than giving God superficial praise that you do not, deep down, feel.

God has big shoulders, he can take whatever you give him. God knows the pain you are feeling. God can see where you cannot see so he will accept your anger and continue to love you and care for you.

Thirdly, when you experience trauma it seems that God is out of control or absent or uncaring. But this is not true. Despite the evidence, God is in control. God is the all-powerful preexisting creator of the universe who chose to love us and sacrifice himself for us.

At the cross, it seemed that God had failed. The devil thought he had won. To all the world who watched what happened on Calgary, the ministry of Jesus had failed. It had been a great three years but now it was all over.

But never count God out. Three days later the bonds of death were broken and Jesus rose from the dead. From the ashes he rose up in power to his exalted position.

As Rich Mullins wrote in the song we will be singing,
Where are the nails
that pierced His hands
Well the nails have turned to rust
But behold the Man
He is risen
And He reigns
In the hearts of the children
Rising up in His name
Where are the thorns that drew His blood
Well the thorns have turned to dust
But not so the love
He has given
No it remains
In the hearts of the children
Who will love while the nations rage

In the midst of grief all we can see are the nails and the thorns but God, from his heavenly perspective sees beyond the suffering to the coming triumph.

And fourthly, I believe, from God’s eternal perspective, the suffering we experience on earth does not seem as bad as it does to us – just as the joys we experience do not seem as great as we think they are.

We are locked into a temporal view of events, good, bad and ugly. We see only this life with what it can offer. We have eighty or so years and look forward to the reward of a nice retirement with children and grandchildren and a nice home and exciting vacations and think that is the goal. When any of these do not happen or are taken away from us, we are crushed.

We strain to have a heavenly perspective but what we most clearly see is this world with all its limitations.

A young child suffers a disease and dies and we ask why. The truth is that from our perspective we cannot understand why. Even if God were to tell us why, we would be unable to understand. The limitations of our minds and even imaginations do not allow us to understand all that happens.

So over and over again we have to submit and come to a point where we say, “God, I do not understand but I believe – despite the evidence I believe.”

The writer of psalm 77 expressed his honest emotions:
I cried out to God for help;
I cried out to God to hear me.

My heart mused and my spirit inquired:
7 “Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favor again?
8 Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
Has his promise failed for all time?
9 Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has he in anger withheld his compassion?”

And then he chose to remember all that God has done.
Then I thought, “To this I will appeal:
the years of the right hand of the Most High.”
11 I will remember the deeds of the Lord;
yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.
12 I will meditate on all your works
and consider all your mighty deeds.
13 Your ways, O God, are holy.
What god is so great as our God?
14 You are the God who performs miracles;
you display your power among the peoples.
15 With your mighty arm you redeemed your people,
the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.

And so this morning, in the midst of our grief we choose to remember. We celebrate each Sunday Jesus who gave up the privileges of heaven to be born a man, to live among us, to die for us so we could be forgiven, to break the chains of death so we could have hope in the midst of defeat.

We are going to practice what I am calling defiant praise. Despite the hurt and pain we are going to give praise to God and declare the truths of our faith.

A logical song for us to sing today would be Blessed Be Your Name with the chorus
You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord blessed be your name.

I’m not quite ready to sing that song. Perhaps we will sing it next week. But I will defy my hurt and sing praise to God.

Listen to the words from Isaiah 61:1-3 that Jesus quoted when he announced his ministry.
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor.

Those who mourn and grieve will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. This is the promise for the parents, families and staff of the Village of Hope. This is the promise for the 33 children of VOH. This is the promise for all of God’s children who grieve.

Normally when I look for jokes on a certain topic, I find just a few, ten or twenty at most. But when I looked for jokes on the subject of divorce, I was amazed at how long the lists were. Here is a small sampling:

My husband and I divorced over religious differences. He thought he was God and I didn’t.

Any married man should forget his mistakes, there’s no use in two people remembering the same thing.

“I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They’ve experienced pain and bought jewelry.” – Rita Rudner

The only difference between marriage and prison is that at least prisoners occasionally get to finish a sentence. – Rick Friedling

I just got back from a pleasure trip – I drove my wife to the airport.

My wife and I were happy for twenty years…then we met.

Just think, if it weren’t for marriage, men would go through life thinking they had no faults at all. – Ree Larkin

I think – therefore I’m single – Lizz Winstead

Statistics show that married men live longer than single men, but they are more willing to die. – David S. Goldberg

I still miss my ex-wife….but my aim is getting better.

Marriage is a strange phenomenon that happens to human beings. And the best part is, both the unmarried and the married are unhappy, though for radically opposite reasons, one for not being married, and the other for being married.

So why all these jokes about marriage and divorce?

A couple falls in love, decide to get married, look forward eagerly to that day and enter into their honeymoon. This lasts for a period of time, weeks and months and maybe a year, but then reality steps in. Marriage requires work. Marriage is hard work. Marriages do not prosper all by themselves. Marriages require that we work against our human nature which seeks to put us first and makes satisfying our needs more important than the needs of our spouse.

It is possible to be a giving, caring person at your day job but when you come home you want to relax and that is where our human nature asserts itself. We can be wonderfully sensitive and sacrificially caring for others but when we come home we want to be king or queen of the castle.

As I read through Matthew 19 for this week, I was drawn to Jesus’ teaching on divorce and from this teaching I want to present three lessons.

The first is that marriage is a one flesh relationship created and fed by sex, not to be entered into casually and not to be broken.

Some Pharisees came to [Jesus]  to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

There were two leading schools of thought about divorce at the time of Jesus and the debate centered on Moses’ words in Deuteronomy 24:1-4
If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house…

The debate focused on the phrase, something indecent.

One group followed Rabbi Hillel and said a man could give his wife a “certificate of divorce” for almost any reason, even finding another woman more attractive than his wife. “Something indecent” could refer to anything that displeased him.

The other group followed Rabbi Shammai and believed that a man could divorce his wife only if she had been unfaithful to him. “Something indecent” referred narrowly to adultery.

The Pharisees wanted to trap Jesus by asking him if it was lawful to divorce his wife for any and every reason. If Jesus supported divorce, he would be supporting the Pharisees position and taking sides in the debate which would alienate some of his followers. If he spoke against divorce, he would be speaking against the law of Moses.

Jesus did take a side but he leaped over the debate between the two schools of thought and went back to the root text that underlay the whole issue of marriage.
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

The Pharisees debated how much power a man had in a relationship with his wife. Jesus went back to what happens when a man is united with his wife.

Sexual purity has been a problem in every generation; it is one of the constants throughout the ages. Sometimes there is a social veneer that covers the sexual misconduct of a society, but beneath the surface or out in the open air, sexual activity outside of the covenant of marriage has always been a problem. In a world that does not value and never has valued sexual purity, we need to understand what a “one flesh relationship” is.

And as Jesus went back to the root of what marriage is, so do we need to go back to the root of marriage. God created sex to be both the means by which we have children and a pleasurable act. God created sex to be both procreational and recreational. Sex is a wonderful gift of God but God designed it to be used within the covenant of a marriage relationship because sex serves the purpose of bonding husband and wife together into a one flesh relationship.

Sex is like putting glue on two pieces of paper and sticking them together. When you later try to pull the two pieces of paper apart, both pieces of paper are destroyed. Sex creates a relationship that is not meant to be torn apart.

There is more that takes place in sex than just a physical act. God created sex as a way of bonding two people together physically, emotionally and spiritually.

In the marriage course which finishes up this evening, we have talked about how sex is not icing on the cake of marriage, it is part of the cake itself. Sex is a physical act but it creates intimacy in a relationship that the relationship needs to thrive. Sex feeds intimacy in marriage just as water feeds a plant. Take sex out of a marriage relationship and the marriage will begin to wilt.

The tragedy of our sexually promiscuous cultures is that when people engage in casual sex there is a repeated bonding and ripping that takes place that negatively affects the ability of these people to have intimate, trusting relationships. Sex outside of the covenant of marriage may be momentarily exciting but it is ultimately destructive.

It is for this reason that God said
the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

God is not arbitrary. God does not say ‘not to get divorced’ simply because he needed to have a few more rules. There is deep purpose behind the will of God for our lives and when we submit and obey, we receive deep blessing from him.

I would imagine that many of us in this congregation have suffered at the hand of divorce. It may be that your parents divorced. Although you may have recovered from the pain of that divorce, it is important to realize that the action of your parents scarred you.

It may be that you had a marriage that ended in divorce and it may be that you had valid reasons for getting divorced. I am not here this morning to judge anyone for what they have done. But it is important to recognize the scarring you received in this relationship that ended in divorce.

It may be that you have been sexually active outside of marriage. There are a lot of ways in which we are hurt by sexual misconduct.

To all of you who have been hurt, let me remind you of the grace of God that takes us, sets us on a straight path and cleans us up. It is possible to receive healing for our scars from the past.

God is so creative and so powerful that he can make good come out of evil. If you are happily remarried after a divorce, it is testimony to God’s grace in your life that you are so blessed. If you were sexually active and now you are living a life of purity, God can heal you so you can have in the future a wonderful, intimate marriage relationship. If you suffered from the divorce of your parents, God can heal the hurts of that trauma and make you whole.

If you are struggling in your marriage, let me encourage you to stick it out. I have said in wedding sermons that the institution of marriage is more important than our happiness in the marriage. Work through the difficulties in your marriage for the benefit of society and for your own benefit. Persevere, seek counseling and pray that God will restore your relationship.

I will return in the third lesson from this passage to share the most important reason why you should persevere in your marriage.

A second lesson from this passage is that men love power and do not easily give it up.

Jesus reminded the Pharisees of the one flesh relationship God intended from the beginning.
“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

The Pharisees set out to trap Jesus and he avoided their trap by taking them back to the beginning. And then he came down on the side of Rabbi Shammai and his followers who very strictly interpreted the phrase “something indecent” as meaning only adultery.

This was apparently not a very popular understanding because when Jesus came down on this strict side of an understanding of divorce, the disciples reacted.
The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.

Peter, James, John and the rest – not the Pharisees, but Jesus’ disciples -  responded to Jesus’ teaching by saying, “If a man can’t be married and divorce his wife when she becomes troublesome, then why would any man in his right mind want to get married?”

Men enjoy being in control of their marriage and if the culture gives them permission, they take advantage of it.

Men love reading these verses from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians: (Ephesians 5:22–24)
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Men take these verses and use them to beat their wives into submission. “The Bible says you are supposed to submit to me so do what I say. My decision is the one that counts and my word is final.”

The problem is that men do not see the verse that serves as a heading to these verses: (Ephesians 5:21)
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Submission is mutual, not just between a husband and wife but between all who are in the family of Jesus. Christians are meant to live in mutually submissive relationships with each other. Paul illustrates this principle with wives, husbands, children, slaves and masters. All of these need to submit to one another.

Paul goes on to describe how it is men are supposed to submit to their wives: (Ephesians 5:25)
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

Men who use the Bible to dominate their wives should consider the analogy of the church as the bride of Christ. Christ is the bridegroom of the church who is his bride. Do men want to have Christ treat them the way they treat their wives?

Does Christ force you to do what he wants you to do? When it is time to make a decision, does Christ force his will on you? When you struggle with sin and give in to sin, what does Christ do to you? Does Christ slap you and tell you to get your act together? Afterwards does Christ remind you every day of the bad things you have done? Does Christ demand that you serve him?

When Jesus saw how hopeless you were, how lost you were, he humbled himself and became a man. He died on the cross for you. He sacrificed his privileges and prerogatives so you could have life. When you struggle, Jesus reaches out a hand of forgiveness and pulls you back into an intimate relationship with himself. Jesus works to make you shine in the world as you work to reach your full potential.

Jesus came to serve you and that is how you are supposed to love your wife. You are supposed to care for your wife, consider what she needs to make her more fulfilled in life, encourage her so she more fully uses the talents God has given her. Your job in marriage is to make your wife feel loved and cared for. Your job is to make your wife shine in the world as she reaches her full potential as a woman of God.

As a husband, you are called to give up power, set aside your rights and privileges and serve your wife.

A friend of mine who is a pastor of one of the other churches in Morocco was teaching on marriage and the importance of having your spouse be your best friend. A man who is very active in leadership of the church and whose wife is very active in leadership of the church, said, “How can my wife be my friend when she is supposed to serve me?”

In the King James Version of the Bible Genesis 2:18 reads this way:
And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

The King James Bible was the version read by the church for three hundred years so the language of the King James Bible has been very influential in the culture of Christianity – and not always in a positive direction.

Eve was created to be a help meet for Adam. This became, over time, that Eve was created to be a helpmate for Adam which led to the understanding that Eve was created to serve Adam.

But what it means in the KJV that Eve was created as a help meet for Adam is that she was created as the appropriate help for Adam. Eve was created as an equal partner to complement Adam. Eve provided what Adam lacked in himself.

You’ve probably heard the illustration that Eve was made not from Adam’s feet so that she would be beneath him and not from his head so that she would be above him, but from a rib from his side so that she would be equal to him.

Husbands, you are not called to make authoritarian decisions in a marriage; you are called to love and serve your wife and together, as husband and wife, you make decisions.

Many of the problems in our societies come from the fact that men have been terrible husbands and terrible fathers. When you love your wife as Christ loves the church, your marriage will be transformed, your wife will be transformed, you will be loved by your wife in a way that will transform you, your children will be blessed. Blessing will erupt all around you.

The third lesson is that marriage is one of God’s tools for sanctification. God uses marriage to mold us, change us, make us more holy.

Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

There is debate about what Jesus is referring to when he says, “Not everyone can accept this word.” Is he referring to what he said about marriage or about the disciples’ proposal of celibacy?

But whatever his teaching is referring to, his words do indicate that there are options for us. Not all of us will be married and marriage is not the goal for any of us. If you meet the right person and get married, that is cause for celebration, but getting married does not mean you have arrived at the top of the mountain with nothing more to attain in life.

Everything in this life is going to one day disappear. When you die, you will not take the wealth of this world with you. You will not take the world’s praise and acclaim with you. You will not take your accomplishments with you. And you will not take your marriage with you.

Marriage is a God-created and God-given institution and it is intended to be the means by which we reproduce and a pleasurable act that draws us together in intimacy. This is the temporal purpose of marriage. The eternal purpose of marriage is that through it we are transformed.

Tim Keller from Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, New York City says that marriage is a five ton truck driving over a four ton weight limit bridge. Marriage reveals the stress fractures in the bridge that need to be repaired and this makes it a great tool for our sanctification.

Marriage is not the only tool God uses to sanctify us. God works through other relationships, work situations and small groups. God uses all the events of our lives to work in us and transform us into people of faith and purity. But marriage is one of God’s more powerful tools.

You may have had the experience of being in a small group with someone you did not like and it is painful to stick it out and get to know that person, pray for that person, and be transformed by that person. Many times people decide to leave the small group because of someone they cannot get along with. This is unfortunate because it is in relationships like this that God works to change us.

The advantage of marriage as a tool for sanctification is that it is more difficult to leave a marriage than it is to leave a small group or a church.

In marriage, after the honeymoon is over and there are a couple toddlers demanding your time and energy with a house to keep clean and meals to cook and clothes to wash, the cute habits of your spouse become irritating. You no longer have so much time for each other and you get caught up in the mountain of responsibilities in front of you.

You find yourselves arguing about who should clean up, who should take care of the kids and how money should be spent. If one of you works outside the house, you come home wanting to relax. The person who has been home with the kids wants you to help out so he or she can relax. It becomes a fight to protect your rights and privileges.

I put the picture on the bulletin cover of a photo of a couple arguing with each other with the photo torn in half, separating them from each other. This is a picture of a couple who is either heading for a divorce or are in the process of separating themselves from each other.

And the caption under the photo reads: Caution: God at work.

This is the most important reason it is good for you to persevere in your marriage: God is using your marriage to make you holy. And becoming a holy person is not a painless experience. When there is tension in your marriage, God is using that time to transform you.

When you decide that you cannot abide in your marriage any longer, you are telling God you do not want him to work in your life. To get divorced is to reject God’s refining work in your life.

I must say that there are occasions when I would encourage someone to step out of their marriage. If a spouse is physically abusive, it is time immediately to get away. I do not want what I am saying to be held to absolutely.

But most people get divorced because they do not want to go through the painful process of transformation that God is doing. It is not that God creates the pain we experience, but he helps us in the midst of the pain to grow and be transformed into his holy children and that is what is most important. That is what will last for eternity.

For those of you who are married, let God use your marriage to change you. I know it is not always easy and that some of you are in more difficult relationships than others. But God is at work in you. Persevere and allow God to do his work.

For the men who are married, love your wife. Pray each day that God will increase the love you have for your wife. Encourage her to grow in the use of her gifts and talents. Make her shine in the world. Serve her. Love her like Christ loves you and you will be blessed.

For those of you who are not married, protect the institution of marriage by being sexually pure. Know that God is also at work in you, transforming you into his holy daughter or son. When you have conflict with a friend or roommate, understand that God is using that relationship to transform you. Don’t walk easily out of friendships. Persevere so God’s work in you can continue.

1 Thessalonians 5:23–24
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

If I offered you today the choice to change your life and become again a four or five year old, how many of you would take me up on the offer? It might be your life is particularly difficult and you want a change, but in that case, you might want to change places with a 99 year old who is about to leave this life.

But to become again 4 or 5 years old? You have to get permission to do anything. You lack freedom. You can’t watch what you want to watch. You can’t eat whatever you want to eat whenever you want to eat it. You have to wear what you are told to wear. You can’t buy what you want to buy. You are told when to go to bed. You are dragged along to places you might not want to go and then when you get upset and make a scene because that is the only way you will be listened to, you get spanked.

Adults are always telling children to grow up and act their age. Be responsible. Behave. Be polite. Be nice. If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Button your coat. Tuck in your shirt. Comb your hair. Brush your teeth. Wash your face. Cover your mouth when you cough. Wipe your feet. Wipe your nose. Don’t use your sleeve, use a handkerchief.

So why is it Jesus had this thing about us needing to become like little children? I thought Jesus loved us?

What did Jesus say to us about becoming like little children?
Matthew 18:3-4
I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Mark 10:14
Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

When I read through Matthew 18 to see where I would focus for this sermon, these are the verses that stayed with me. I have heard a lot of people talk about childlike faith, but it intrigued me to think more about what this means.

The first thing I thought about is the kind of people who tend not to have faith. If we look at people who do not have faith, perhaps we can discover the qualities they are missing.

There is a correlation between education, wealth and religious faith. As the level of education increases, faith decreases. As wealth increases, religious faith decreases. Why is this?

Does this mean that as we become more educated we become enlightened and realize we don’t need the primitive superstition of religious belief?

And why is it that when the Gospel is preached it is the poor and oppressed who respond most immediately and most positively? In India it is the lower caste that has most fervently embraced Christian faith. This is true across cultures and across time.

Do you remember how Paul described the new church in Corinth? (1 Corinthians 1:26–28)
Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,

Is the Gospel attractive to the poor because the poor and downtrodden are so desperate that anything that promises a future better than the one they have is something they want?

And then I thought of those in the Gospels whose faith Jesus commended. What can we learn from their faith?

In Matthew 8:5–14 there is the story of a centurion, a Roman military officer, who came to Jesus asking for help for his servant who was paralyzed and in terrible suffering.
Jesus said to him, “I will go and heal him.”
8 The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
10 When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.

The story could have ended with Jesus going to the home of the centurion, laying his hand on the servant and healing him, but the centurion understood that Jesus was more than just a prophet who could heal people. The centurion understood that Jesus was a man of authority who had power over life and death. The centurion may not have been able to clearly articulate it at the time, but he knew, as did the centurion at the cross of Jesus, (Mark 15:39)
Surely this man was the Son of God!

In Matthew 15:21–28 there is the story of a Canaanite woman who came to Jesus crying out that her daughter was suffering from demon-possession.

Amazingly, to us, Jesus ignored her. But she persisted crying out and became an annoyance so the disciples finally got tired of her making so much noise and told Jesus to send her away.

[Jesus] answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”
27 “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
28 Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

Look at all the obstacles this woman pushed through in order that her daughter be delivered from demonic possession. She pushed through the apparent indifference of Jesus. She did not allow her rejection to prevent her from crying out. There was a strong Jewish prejudice against Gentiles like her. She pushed through the rejection; she pushed through the prejudice; she persevered. She did not take no for an answer.

And Jesus told her:
“Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

So what can we learn from those who, on average, have less faith than others and from these two whose faith Jesus commended? How can we become like little children in the way Jesus wants us to be?

Let me suggest three childlike qualities we could all use in our lives.

The first childlike quality is dependence.

Annie is staying with my daughter and her family in Boston for this week before she goes to her artists’ colony, what a friend calls, “Book Camp”. Because of the time zone difference and because of her natural habits, Annie is up early in the morning and takes care of our granddaughter, Lucy, while her parents sleep in.

Lucy just turned two and Annie has a fun time playing with her. But what happens when Lucy is hungry? Does she go to the refrigerator and pull out some cottage cheese and grapes and milk to have with her cereal? Does she go to the cupboard and get her bowl and spoon and cup so she can eat?

She is an amazing little girl, but not that amazing. If she was left alone in the house, she would starve to death. She depends on adults to get the food she needs.

When she gets hungry, she asks for help. She knows she cannot do it herself.

Now it might be that she could be trained and each night her parents would leave cereal out on the table so in the morning she could climb up on the chair and eat her breakfast with her bowl, cup and spoon all laid out for her. And she might be proud and say, “I made breakfast all by myself!” but it would still be true that it was the adults who laid out what she needed so she could eat “by herself”.

If Lucy insisted on doing everything herself, being in control, she would starve. But because she accepts her dependence on her parents and other adults, she thrives.

The reason wealth and education work against faith is because they provide the illusion that we are in charge; we are in control. My car stops working? My car is wrecked in an accident? No problem, I’ll just buy another one. My bank account will protect and take care of me.

Our knowledge of the world has advanced over the years. The scientific world view of people in the time of Jesus was that the world was a flat plate with the heavens above and the underworld below. The writer of Ecclesiastes wrote about the movement of the sun: (Ecclesiastes 1:5)
The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.

It was a full fifteen hundred years after the earthly life of Jesus that Copernicus shook up the world and the church by declaring that the earth revolved around the sun rather than the earth being the center of the universe.

Today we know a lot about the sun. We know how old it is, how much it weighs and when it will die and become a black dwarf star. (Don’t worry too much, it will take another five billion years for that to happen.) We know how far the stars we see at night are from us. We know how fast the light that comes from those stars travels.

Today we know a lot about everything, although the more we discover, the more we understand how much there is yet to learn.

But our faith is in our ability to learn and discover. When we come across a problem, we set our minds to it and overcome the problem.

Primitive people worshiped the sun because they did not understand it. Enlightened and educated people don’t need to revert to belief in God because we have confidence in our ability to uncover the mysteries that surround us.

We do not view ourselves as dependent; we view ourselves as masters of the universe, in charge of our lives.

How does this affect us in our relationship with God?

A few years ago we had a member at RIC who was from India and who worked in Rabat for the Sheik of Abu Dhabi. The Sheik had 700 vehicles in Morocco and when people came and took the cars out and wrecked the cars, Anthony repaired them.

When Anthony came to Morocco, the people he worked for would take his passport and he could not leave Morocco without their permission.  Well, one day Anthony received news that his wife and son were in trouble and risked losing their home. Anthony asked for permission to go back and sort things out but his request was denied.

So Anthony and his friends prayed. We prayed for his wife and son and their situation and the problem was resolved. And once again, Anthony learned that his heavenly father loved him and took care of him and his family.

I realized that rather than pray, I would have taken the first plane and gone back immediately to resolve the problem; Anthony had to sit where he was and pray and depend on God to take care of his wife and son.

I admired Anthony’s faith and realized it was because Anthony was forced to depend on God, to trust him for the difficult situations in his life, that Anthony’s faith had grown.

I realized that my relative wealth encouraged me to take things into my own hands and try to resolve problems without coming to God, without having to trust in God. Praying tends to be something I do after I have taken the action I think needs to be taken.

Anthony’s faith is more childlike than mine and I suffer while he prospers.

The truth is that even those of us with more money and more education are like Lucy coming down to the table in the morning after her parents have set up food for her to eat. She is under the illusion that she has made breakfast. The truth is her parents made it for her and that is why she will not go hungry.

With all of our education and all our wealth, we are still dependent on God for everything that really matters in life. When we approach difficult situations with trust and confidence in God, then he works in our lives and our faith grows.

The second childlike quality we could benefit from is heart-driven perseverance.

When we were in Thailand this past November, visiting our youngest daughter and her family, we drove past a car showroom with a motorized, miniature dune buggy on display, just about the perfect size for our three year old grandson Sam. Sam called out, “Hey Dad, can I have that?”

In a few years Sam will learn that he should not ask for something like that. He will learn that his parents have financial limits and cannot buy expensive toys like the motorized dune buggy. But at this point he simply saw something he liked, knew that his parents were the ones who provided him with things he needed and called out, expressing what was on his heart.

My daughter Elizabeth told me that her daughter, Lucy, “asks us with an implicit trust that we will give her something because she’s asking us. There’s no doubt in her mind – she doesn’t give up asking, but keeps on going. Often she’ll keep asking even when I’ve already said I’m getting it for her.”

This was the childlike quality of the Canaanite woman who kept crying out to Jesus, even though he ignored her, even though the prejudice of Jesus and his disciples was against her. This was the childlike quality of the blind beggar (Mark 10) who kept crying out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” despite the people in the crowd telling him to be quiet. This was the childlike quality in the parable Jesus told (Luke 18) of the widow who kept coming to the judge who did not fear God or care about men. She kept coming to him with her plea “Grant me justice against my adversary,” until, because of her persistence, he gave her the justice she asked for.

A child is not deterred by an initial “No”. A child pushes through whatever obstacles are in the way to ask for what he or she wants.

The first summer I was a Christian, I prayed every day I would win the New Jersey state lottery. And I bought a ticket every day.

As I grew as a Christian, I realized that had been a childish prayer and decided I would not again be so foolish. But what happened is that I stopped praying from my heart. I used my mind as a filter to get rid of prayers that did not qualify as “good prayers”.

This last year when I was reading Paul Miller’s book, The Praying Life, one of the lessons I learned was that I need to trust God that he is at work in my heart. For 39 years the Holy Spirit has been at work in me, transforming me, making me more of a holy person. Today I am much closer to having the mind of Christ than I was 39 years ago. What I prayed from my heart back then is different than what I will pray from my heart today because God has been at work changing my heart to conform to his. I still have a long way to go, but progress has been and is being made.

So I learned that I need to pray what I am feeling and not use my mind to filter my prayers. My prayers need to be more childlike, more immediate. I may still pray prayers that are not the most sanctified. After all, how sanctified was the prayer the psalmist prayed when expressing his anger and bitterness at having been taken into captivity by the
Babylonians? (Psalm 137:8–9)
O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us—
9 he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

But this is the process. We pray from our heart, whatever is on our heart, and then we allow God to work in us, changing our heart where it needs to be changed. When we hide from God and ourselves the true feelings of our heart, we remove that part of ourselves from the work of God in our lives.

And if a prayer remains in my heart, then I need to keep praying it, over and over and over again.

Children are not deterred by an initial “No”; adults get frustrated by a lack of response and stop praying.

Pay attention to what is on your heart when you pray. Express the feelings of your heart when you pray and don’t give up praying until your heart is changed and leads you in another direction.

A third childlike quality that would benefit us is that a child takes things at face value.

A parent is the authority to the child. When a parent tells their child the moon is made of blue cheese, the child believes it to be true. Why? Because the child trusts the parent. Children learn quickly that some adults like to play with their minds and make up stories – I’ve been known to do that from time to time – but it is still true that children will believe someone who is genuine more easily than adults.

One of the problems with us as adults is that we become too confident of our own ability to know what is true and what is not true.

The people who lived in the town where Jesus grew up are an example of this. They watched Jesus as he moved into adolescence. They watched him as he became a man at his bar mitzvah. They watched him as he worked with his father as a carpenter. They watched him as he took over the business when his father, Joseph, died. They knew a lot about Jesus.

So when he came to the synagogue at the outset of his public ministry, they had difficulty seeing him as he was and as he proclaimed himself to be.

Mark 6:1–6
Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. 2 When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed.
“Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! 3 Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.
4 Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.” 5 He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6 And he was amazed at their lack of faith.

Jesus healed people but the people from his hometown could not see Jesus the healer, they could only see Jesus the kid who had grown up to be a man before their eyes. They were not willing to allow Jesus to be more than they knew him to be.

The centurion saw Jesus for who he was. He observed what he did, what he said, how he related to his disciples and the crowds. Maybe he observed how Jesus commanded demons to leave. But he saw Jesus, recognized his authority and had faith Jesus could heal his servant with just a word.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, had childlike faith. When Gabriel came to Mary in Nazareth and told her she would bear a child, Mary asked, (Luke 1:34)
“How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

Mary observed the supernatural. She did not say, “How could this be?” the conditional. She asked, “How will this be?” the future. She took what Gabriel said at face value and then submitted. (Luke 1:38)
“I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.”

As I worked on this sermon this week I struggled a lot because these qualities of having a childlike faith work against most of who I am as an adult.

I have learned how to solve problems. I have learned how to be more efficient with my time. When I come to a dead end, I do not stand there pounding away at the wall day after day, I walk away and look for another way to get what I want. I have learned how to take care of myself. I have learned not to trust what people tell me without taking time to analyze what they say.

As we become adults, the world beats childlike faith out of our systems.

It takes a lot of work to reclaim these qualities of childlike faith and put them back in our lives. It is not a comfortable process. But the rewards are a richer, more intimate relationship with our heavenly father.

As you are setting your course, making plans for what you will do after university, or after this post, or when you return to your home country, or whatever you think will come next, it will be very helpful for you to realize that you are dependant on God for all you have and do.

This is an unstable world. In the middle of the night you can be hit by a 8.8 magnitude earthquake and your life will be forever changed, maybe lost. You can be working for a company and feel as secure as you can be and the next day discover you no longer have a job and all your savings have disappeared, as happened with employees of Enron in the US just ten years ago. You can be working one day and have a heart attack and life ends and the life of your family is changed.

I don’t mean to scare you, but this is reality. We live in a temporary home, our body, and it will not last forever. Wise men and women acknowledge that they live in dependance on God and do not allow their wealth or education to pull them away from the reality of their dependence.

When you come up against a problem or find yourself in a crisis, let your first thought be to pray and ask God for help and then deal with the situation.

When you pray, let your prayers come out of your heart. Don’t judge your prayers. Don’t analyze your feelings. Be open and honest and allow whatever is in your heart to come out in prayer. This is the way to healing and life.

When God speaks to you in whatever way he speaks to you, trust him. It is good to hold what you think he is saying and make sure it was God who was speaking to you, but trust him.

I love the Eugene Peterson translation of Romans 8:15
This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?”

This is what awaits us as we rediscover the childlike qualities God wants us to have.

Let me finish with the G.K. Chesterton quote printed in the bulletin. The part I like best is at the end.

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.

But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

For we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

For much of our lives we heard people telling us to grow up. May we grow down and become young and alive like our heavenly father.