Hearing the Music

Duty and Grace Post Election

How are you doing? It is the first Friday post election after all. Like the pre-election, the post election editorializing has ranged from Nirvana to Netherworld, from ecstasy to agony. As we have said in various ways throughout this cycle, and would say again here, it is not that politics are unimportant, but they are not the most important. And whoever sits in the white house, senate, congress or city hall, their hearts are all in the hands of THE KING. So humility for the winners. Grace for those who feel they have lost. And confidence for all in the King of Kings.

Even as we start with the election, we move quickly to our lives. After all, the day to day hasn't changed. As we woke up Wednesday and head into this weekend, there are still leaves to be cleaned up, laundry to be done, work left unfinished and relationships to attend to. How do we do this as God's people in ways that bring honor to our Lord?  

This is the heart of what we have been talking about in our Adult Institute class on sanctification. How do we live lives of holiness that reflect the new nature that we have been given by grace? Sometimes we stumble a bit when we think about the call to holiness in a community of grace. Isn't the pursuit of holiness antithetical to a reception of grace? Do we try or do we trust? And the answer is.... Yes! John Owen puts it this way:

Let us consider what regard we ought to have to our own duty and to the grace of God. Some would separate these things as inconsistent, If holiness be our duty, they would say, there is no room for grace; and if it be the result of grace there is no place for duty. But our duty and God’s grace are nowhere opposed in the matter of sanctification; for one absolutely supposes the other. We cannot perform our duty without the grace of God; nor does God give his grace for any other purpose than that we may perform our duty.               

You have been made new to live as a new creation in the midst of a world that desperately needs beacons of light. People, both inside the church and without, are constantly finding that the cisterns they are trusting in are broken. They are thirsty, longing to know where to find living water. This is why Paul charges Timothy to "preach the word". In the midst of culture that doesn't flock to Biblical truth, we are to live as to point to Christ.

Continuing Discipleship

Malcolm Gladwell, early in his book Talking to Strangers, tells a story of how Cuba duped the CIA, feeding false information to the US with a couple dozen double agents. Interestingly, over the course of the years while they were being duped, CIA agents would have opportunity to administer lie detector tests to the Cuban double agents. On a number of occasions the Cubans failed the polygraphs and the Cuban scheme could have been found out, but the American agents were so sure of their own tradecraft that they dismissed the lie detector results that contradicted their own beliefs. Pride, they say, goes before a fall.

In contrast to the cocksure agents consider Dr. J.I. Packer. Dr. Packer passed away about a month ago at the age of 93. Over the years he has helped many to know God better through his teaching, preaching and writing. But far from arrogance and pride, listen to these words, from one of his last books, Weakness is the Way:

“When the world tells us, as it does, that everyone has a right to a life that is easy, comfortable, and relatively pain-free, a life that enables us to discover, display, and deploy all the strengths that are latent within us, the world twists the truth right out of shape. That was not the quality of life to which Christ’s call led him, nor was it Paul’s calling, nor is it what we are called to in the twenty-first century. For all Christians, the likelihood is rather that as our discipleship continues, God will make us increasingly weakness-conscious and pain-aware, so that we may learn with Paul that when we are conscious of being weak, then—and only then—may we become truly strong in the Lord. And should we want it any other way?” 

Let me repeat his thought, “as our discipleship continues, God will make us increasingly weakness-conscious and pain-aware”. This, of course, is not an end in itself, but rather it is the path to knowing God. It is the path to understanding and appreciating His strength. God chooses the weak things of this world to shame the strong and the foolish things to expose those who think themselves wise (cf. 1 Cor. 1:18-30), it is only when we are weak that we truly are strong (2 Cor. 12:9,10) therefore Paul says that he will boast only in his weakness (2 Cor. 11:30). These are hard lessons to learn. May God help us along the way.

One way that he helps us is through his word. This week we will continue meeting outside on our grounds. Bring a chair to set up with your church family or stay in or near your car, either way, we gather together as God’s people to worship and to be fed from his word. Going forward we plan to continue these outdoor services along with our online worship guides for as long as we can into the fall (see Session Summary update in bulletin). In the word this week we will look at an intense story from the life of Elisha found in 2 Kings 6:24-7:20. It is a story in which the strong and mighty are eclipsed by the unclean and unnamed, as God’s word through the prophet once again brings life. I can’t wait to unfold it with you!

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Loving Discipline

This Sunday we are going to be following the story of Naaman in 2 Kings 5. It’s a fantastic story. There are so many angles, details and little plots that happen throughout it, we will not be able to cover it all. Since that is true I wanted to cover one of the characters we won’t spend much time with for a minute. Gehazi.

Gehazi is Elisha’s servant. We know him from different stories throughout Elisha’s story arc (2 Kings 4, 5, 6 & 8 are all places he makes appearances in some form or fashion). He shows great compassion during the Shunammite woman’s story in 2 Kings 4. He plays his role in Naaman’s miraculous conversion as the servant who passed on Elisha’s message when Naaman and his entourage showed up at their door (2 Kings 5:10). Yet he also has his moments that make us scratch our heads, like at the end of 2 Kings. When you read through the whole narrative, and I would highly recommend you do so before we worship together on Sunday, you will notice that the end of the story seems pretty dark. Just as Naaman begins the story with leprosy, Gehazi ends the story with leprosy. What happened?

Gehazi can’t look past himself. When Naaman offers Elisha a payment or gift for his role in his healing, Elisha refuses. He wants God to get all the glory. Naaman insists but Elisha continues to say no. Gehazi doesn’t like this, he thinks they deserve some of that money. He thinks it would be helpful for the work they are doing. Or perhaps he wants a little bonus for the role he played. What his motivations were we won’t know this side of the Jordan. So Gehazi takes matters into his own hands, he tricks Naaman and gets some money and goods out of him.

He is disciplined by God, through Elisha for his betrayal of what Elisha said and what God truly wanted. For God to be glorified alone. This discipline seems sad. It seems to be a dark ending for this servant of Elisha and of Yahweh. Yet we know that this is not the end of Gehazi’s story, he returns in 2 Kings, pointing to the fact that he is disciplined, but not isolated, not outside of God’s love, favor, mercy and grace.

So it is with our discipline. It’s hard to walk through seasons of discipline. Personally I try and shy away from it. When I know I have wronged somebody, and ultimately God, I pretend as if nothing happened. Why? More times than not its because I’m scared. I’m scared of what people will think or do to me. Will they include me in their social gatherings? Will they share information with me? In other words, will I still feel like I am in the in crowd? And these all translate to God as well. 

The message of the Gospel is that King Jesus loves us enough to discipline us AND to keep us close to him. In fact that is exactly what his discipline communicates. I love you, and I want the best for you, and I hope that you see how this discipline will lead you back to me! As Jack Miller used to say, “Cheer up! You’re a worse sinner than you ever dared imagine, and you’re more loved than you ever dared hope.” 

Friends, that is what King Jesus says to his children. Through discipline we experience that love, that mercy and that grace.

_{Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash}