Worth Repeating - February 7, 2017

John 8: 10, 11 Jesus . . . asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Jesus doesn’t say, “Go, it isn’t sin anymore”; he says, “Go, and sin no more.”*

A woman, supposedly caught in the act of adultery, was dragged out before Jesus and the crowd so that the Pharisees could trick Jesus. The Law of Moses, they said, commands us to stone such women. Now, they wanted to know, what did Jesus have to say about it? If he said, “Go ahead and stone her,” they could accuse him of usurping authority. If he stood up for her, it would appear that he was denying the authority of the Law. The Pharisees failed to realize that they were dealing with the world’s leading expert on the Law of Moses.

The Law of Moses clearly states that death is the penalty for adultery – for both the woman and the man, and it doesn’t specify the method of execution. I’m no lawyer but it seems to me that before a man or a woman could be convicted of adultery, there would have to be evidence in the form of the other party involved. So, where was their proof that this woman was guilty?

Jesus didn’t answer them right away; he bent down and started writing on the ground with his finger. We can only speculate about what he was writing – or drawing. I suspect he was just giving the tricksters time to think about how stupid they were. When that didn’t work, he suggested that anyone who was without sin should cast the first stone. It seems to me that they just fell into their own trap. Neither they nor Jesus was authorized by civil law to put anyone to death.

After her accusers had all slinked away in defeat, Jesus tells the woman to leave her life of sin. He did not placate her or downplay the seriousness of her offense; it was sin and she needed to stop. Jesus’ job was to call her to repentance, not to pass judgment in a legal sense. His forgiveness did not free her from the physical and legal consequences of her sinful lifestyle, only from the spiritual penalty.

Jesus views our sin the same way. And it is the same attitude we should display towards others. We must not condemn, but, with “delicacy and dignity,”* offer the call to repentance - not condone or make excuses for sinful behavior. As someone has said, “We need to call sin, ‘sin.’ Not with vindictiveness, but with tears.”*

A winner rebukes and forgives; a loser is too timid to rebuke and
too petty to forgive.*

Worth Repeating - February 6, 2017

Matthew 11: 28-30 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 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. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Part of Jesus’ call to his disciples was simply for them to “be with him.”*

Jesus’ listeners were familiar with how the rabbis spoke of the “yoke of the law,” which was heavy and burdensome. When he informed them that his yoke will fit, it may have sounded to them like they were trading one slavemaster for another.  But he promises that he won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on us. Why do we think that in order to qualify for this promise, God is going to expect some big sacrifice from us – when all he wants us to do is come? Didn’t he say that his yoke is easy?

We all know how good it feels to rest after a hard day’s work. But a night of rest provides only temporary relief when our souls are weary. The word translated as “rest” in these verses implies “an inward holiday – not a cessation of activity, but a whole new energy and motive.”* That sounds like the vacation we’ve all been looking for!

Come and rest!

Submission and obedience are the secrets of the blessed life.*

Worth Repeating - February 5, 2017

Matthew 7: 1, 2 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

“Minding our own business” is not a Christian virtue if it means ignoring evil things going on in our midst.*

In our culture, “judgmental” seems to be one of the worst things we can call another person. As Christians, we tend to choose one extreme or the other in the exercise of judgment. We are the judgmental hypocrites that the world thinks we are; or we act as if we believe that Jesus preached “a universal acceptance of any life-style or teaching.”* If we take Jesus’ words to mean that Christians are called to “unconditional approval,”* then we leave ourselves with no ability – or authority – to make evaluations of whether any behavior is acceptable to God.* But as Christians, we can’t not form an opinion of conduct that is clearly evil.*

We need to learn the difference between discernment and judgment. When we make assessments (judgments) about a tree based on its fruits, we aren’t deciding the fate of the tree; we are just evaluating the quality and quantity of its output. In John 12: 47, Jesus says, “I did not come to judge the world, but to save it.” While Jesus didn’t judge, he certainly didn’t hesitate to use discernment. We might say that he made “judgment calls.”

In order to avoid becoming judgmental and self-righteous, remember these points:

• Recognizing and confronting sin in another person does not release us from our responsibility to love them. 
• “We can judge the fruit of a man, but we can rarely judge [his] motives with accuracy.”* There is no such thing as a good reason to commit sin but we should be sensitive to the circumstances that have led to the wrong behavior. 

In Jesus’ time, the rabbis taught that God had two measures by which he judged people. One was a measure of justice and the other was a measure of mercy. Which measure would you want him to use with you?*

It is not merciful to be nonjudgmental.*

Worth Repeating - February 4, 2017

Matthew 9: 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Jesus was merciful to people regardless of who they were, what they’d done, or whether they liked him.*

Love is something you do. Jesus demonstrated love over and over. He told us how to love and what love looks like. Paul wrote about love in I Corinthians chapter 13 and gave us some insights not only on what love is, but what love isn’t. Not one word about feelings. This is good for me because I’m all about the doing and not so much about the feeling.

But if love is something you do, then compassion is its feeling twin. Jesus loved but he also felt. He looked at the crowds that followed him and he didn’t just see their selfishness, their lives all messed up because of their own bad choices, their lack of purpose. He felt their pain and their hopelessness. We might say that his heart broke for them, but the Jews considered the bowels to be the “seat of sympathy and the tender passions”* so they might say that Jesus felt for them in his gut. Pity is a shallow, anemic emotion compared to what Jesus feels.

When Jesus looks out over the crowd, he isn’t overwhelmed by the volume of desperation he sees; he feels compassion for each hurting soul on an individual basis. He knows their stories and their excuses; he knows what it takes to make them whole again. Do you feel overwhelmed by the size of the suffering crowd? Do what Jesus did – have compassion on them, one soul at a time. Learn their stories and help them write a happy ending to their stories by showing them Jesus.

We often think we could lay down our life in a dramatic way to show our love for others. But God often calls us to lay down our lives little by little - in small coins instead of one large payment - but it is laying down our lives nonetheless.*

Worth Repeating - February 3, 2017

Isaiah 61: 1, 2 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 captive and release from darkness for the prisoners.

God is always about blessing people who bless the poor.*

I have always been in awe – and a little envious – of people who knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. My husband decided in high school what career he wanted. He pursued his degrees and went on to be successful in his field. I ended up in a job that would have been exactly what I would have chosen for myself if I had known it existed, so I can’t complain.

Isaiah exudes confidence in the rightness of his path. He knows that the Lord has anointed him to preach good news to the poor; and has sent him to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captive and release from darkness for the prisoners. When he goes to work every day, he knows that he is on a mission from God.

In Luke chapter four, we read about Jesus’ return to his hometown of Nazareth. While there, he popped into the synagogue, as he usually did, and he stood up and read this passage from Isaiah. Then he rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. Luke says that the eyes of everyone were “fastened on him.” “What’s he going to do now?” they must be thinking. Drum roll, please! Jesus announces, “Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

The ministry that Isaiah was so confident he had been called to perform has now been adopted by Jesus as the agenda for his mission.* Suddenly, I’m seeing Isaiah’s anointed career in a new light. No matter what we do to put food on the table, all Christians are called to this same purpose. Like Isaiah, like Jesus, we are called to preach the good news. Our ministry is to the poor, the broken-hearted, the oppressed and the prisoners. And who hasn’t fallen into one or more of those categories in their life? That means we can’t overlook anyone if we aim to fulfill our mission.

May the Spirit of the Sovereign Lord be upon you!

Jesus took the message to the people, and his discipline of proclamation calls for imitation.*

Worth Repeating - February 2, 2017

Isaiah 29: 13 The Lord says, “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.”

Some of the things we think are important are just part of a church culture we’ve constructed around the faith, similar to what the Pharisees did.*

Genuine worship comes in two styles: private and public. It is probably true that even the most judgmental among us have no problem worshipping God at home, in our own way, on our own schedule; but public, corporate worship seems to bring out the passive-aggressive in us!

●Ushers and servers must wear ties. ●Women can’t take up the offering. ●Communion must be served before the sermon. ●Communion must be served after the sermon. ●You must sing an “Invitation Hymn” after every sermon.● No running in the church! ●You must sing, “Now I Belong to Jesus” after every baptism.

The people who live by these rules attend church services faithfully. They go through the motions of worship but they are robbed of their joy if any of their rules are broken. I shouldn’t sound so critical because I have my personal preferences, too, and when I don’t get my way, sometimes it interferes with my worship. We are a sad bunch of Christians if this is what we think worship is all about!

Read the gospels and see what Jesus said we should and shouldn’t do in a worship service. Having trouble finding it? Turn to the Book of Acts and read the list of rules that Peter proclaimed on the Day of Pentecost. . . Well, seriously, you should read the Book of Acts and what you will find are some suggested activities as practiced by the early church. You won’t find an “order of worship” as often seen in our Sunday bulletins. No mention of “Sunday School.” I don’t think you will read about pews, choir robes or that the sermon has to have three points. But you will read about sincere worship, unity and joy.

Several statements found on his lips in the Gospels suggest that Jesus was most concerned about pure worship, not misguided tradition.*

Worth Repeating - February 1, 2017

Exodus 3: 11; 4: 1, 10–13 But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? . . . What if they do not believe or listen to me? . . . O lord, I have never been eloquent. . . . I am slow of speech and tongue.” The Lord said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? . . . Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

Service to which God calls must not be refused because of a sense of unworthiness or inadequacy.*

Like Moses, we make excuses for why we can’t go where God has called us. We have other obligations. We can’t afford it. And the big one: fear. Do we really think that his work relies on what we are able to do on our own? Does God have to negotiate and make deals with us to get us to do his will?

Did Moses forget who he was talking to? Was he really so inadequate? Was he just being modest? Or perhaps he was trying to get out of obeying. To be fair to Moses, what had he done in the past 40 years to prepare himself for the very important (and dangerous) job of leading the Israelites out of Egypt? Was there any difference between herding Hebrews in the wilderness and herding sheep in the desert?

After 25 years in a career that I loved, I found myself unemployed. My husband still had a steady income so God continued to provide for all of my physical needs, but I wasn’t used to feeling so purposeless. When I thought of Moses and his 40 years of preparation in the desert, I wondered if he, too, felt purposeless as he tended his sheep. I began to pray that I would be a good shepherd during my “40 years in the desert” as God prepares me for my next ministry. After all, the sheep were Moses’ ministry until God called him back to Egypt.

Sometimes the Lord calls us to do tasks that are far beyond our “giftedness” – jobs that will stretch our faith and force us to use some unfamiliar spiritual muscles.*