Photo of the Week: July 25, 2018

Posted on July 25, 2018 by Don Merritt

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Mars and the Way we “do” Church

Posted on July 25, 2018 by Don Merritt

We are at the point where our hypothetical first church on Mars, and our metaphorical naked before God intersect. This meeting place is found when we must ask ourselves what role personal preferences should play in community, specifically in the context of the Sunday worship assembly. I’d like to illustrate this intersection with a little story from my past.

Once upon a time, I was brought in to help a floundering congregation back to health. This group had once numbered in the 75-80 range, depending upon who was speaking, but when I came on the scene there were 9 active members. Sadly, those 9 thought they had 25-30 members, the others were just so busy, or struggling with this or that issue…

I observed their Sunday services for a time, got their membership list, interviewed everyone present, and most of the missing on their list. Through other sources, I also was able to speak with several people not on the list. It’s always quite incredible to compare the observations of the ones who remain and the ones who do not.

It was very easy to figure out who was in charge of this congregation, which hadn’t had a “permanent” pastor for a number of years, and I spoke to those individuals about their thoughts on worship, community and what a church should “do” and not do. What I discovered was that a church should be reverent above all. It should reach out to the community in reverence, its services should be reverent, worshipful and silent.

The ones who were not in charge said they were on the verge of leaving unless I could turn the place around, but they didn’t see how that was possible if I went against the ones who were in charge, because anybody who does that is shown the door. In speaking with the ones who were no longer there, they reported that they hadn’t simply left because they were too busy, or had problems, although they might have said that was the reason to avoid an argument. Rather they left because the church was run by a small group of people who insisted that everyone go along with whatever they wanted: Reverence, silence, formality. I came to understand that this had taken all of the joy out of following Jesus Christ and replaced it with a rigid system of duty and obligation that simply did not ring true to the rest of the people. No, they were not going back, for each and every one of them were happy members of other congregations.

In short, the church I was studying had a terrible reputation in the community, and the leading people had no idea that was the case.

Former “interim” pastors gave the same report.

Needless to say, my report was not well received by the leaders.

I’ve told you this story because it happens all too often in our day and age, because we all have opinions and ideas about what worship should and shouldn’t be, and because we all have our personal likes and dislikes. If we seek to impose our preferences on a congregation, the result is nearly always disaster, and we will not be standing naked before God in community, for we will be garbed in the costume of a Pharisee.

You might think that last statement was a tad harsh, and maybe you’re right, but I see it more as passionate. Yes, I am passionate on this subject because when this sort of thing happens, we damage our brother and sister in Christ, we put a stumbling block in their path and we cause them to question their faith and often, to turn their backs entirely on the Body of Christ, and I do not know how to explain that to the Lord when I meet Him face-to-face, do you?

Whew; I finally told you what I think about all of this, what do you think?

Here, let me pose a better question:

If we have gotten to the place where we can really be naked and unashamed before God, will we actually continue to think that our personal preferences about corporate worship have any particular significance, as long as the worship remains faithful to Scripture?

It’s your turn, what say you?

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Come Into the Light

Posted on July 25, 2018 by Don Merritt

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

1 John 1:5-7

Earlier we looked at the introduction to this letter, and here, we enter the first section of the letter which begins at verse 5 and continues through 2:14. This section is given context in verse 5: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. Thus, this section is all about John’s declaration of light versus darkness, and it contains comparisons and contrasts.

Before we take a look at it, keep in mind what John wrote in John 1:4 “In him was life, and that life was the light of men.” All through the Gospel story, John used “light” as signifying the presence of Jesus, contrasted with “darkness” denoting His absence.  Keeping this in mind, let’s take a look at our text. After proclaiming that God is light, John gets down to his explanation claiming that if we claim to be in fellowship with God, but walk in darkness, we lie, and are not in the truth.  This is a rather easy statement to understand, for if we are in darkness, then we aren’t in His presence, and if we aren’t in His presence, we couldn’t possibly be in fellowship: There is no half-way.

The contrast is that if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship… because we are with Him in the light.  If we have this fellowship in the light of His presence and truth, then His blood purifies us from all sin.  The reality of the statement is that we can’t be in fellowship with Him until our sins have been forgiven by His sacrifice on the cross.

Sometimes, we may walk a ways in darkness, and by this I mean that we may stray from time-to-time.  John doesn’t suggest that our errors kick us out of fellowship as we will see a little farther through this text, but that there is a way to return to the light of His presence, by confessing our sins., as we see in the next paragraph:

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

1 John 1:8-10

I think we all would agree that a claim by any one of us to have never sinned would be little short of crazy.  John seems to think it’s worse than that− all have sinned, but take heart, for there is a way out, confess your sins and He will forgive; this is our covenant promise.  There is simply no need for us to wring our hands and carry around a burden of guilt and shame before God, for when we confess our sins (acknowledge them) He will forgive; we have His Word on that.

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Naked Before God: On Mars

Posted on July 24, 2018 by Don Merritt

I have enjoyed our journey together so far, beginning with our hypothetical “first church” on Mars, and then looking at our individual relationships with God through the lens of a metaphor, that of being naked before Him. We have now reached the point where the hypothetical comes together with the metaphorical: Naked Before God on Mars.

You’ll recall that when we began, the general consensus in the group was that the Martian worship assembly should be pretty simple, many expressed the idea that this would be an opportunity to drop some of the baggage of tradition and practices that have resulted in disagreements on Earth. Yet as we went a little further into the discussion we began to see that even in our group of 12 colonists, there were differing expectations about what is actually essential for corporate worship. We finally ended up with the idea that we all make lists of the things we don’t like about worship and then sit down and come up with something that everyone liked, or at least without any of the dis-likes present. In the process of the discussion, I tossed out what we know about the original Sunday worship in the early church, but alas! Some of our favorite traditions weren’t on the list per se, like music for example, and the discussion became even more interesting.

So, we went on a side-trip to examine personal worship and relationship with God. We saw that the metaphor showed us a relationship in which we do not allow anything to come between us and God, in which we set everything else aside and come into His presence in complete humility, in which we hold nothing back from God. Finally, we have discussed taking that personal relationship into the community of the church, and that brings us all the way back to the beginning:

Since we have the opportunity to begin anew in our community, since we will have none of the pressures of the past to deal with, and since we have given everything to God personally, and are prepared to relate with Him in open humility, what should our worship as the first congregation on Mars look like?

Several have shared their thoughts, and now it’s your turn…

I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

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The Word of Life

Posted on July 24, 2018 by Don Merritt

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.

1 John 1:1-4

John has a way of telling the story of Jesus from a lofty, heavenly viewpoint, and this is surely one of those instances.  His Gospel begins in a similar way, (see John 1:1-4) it provides a perfect parallel passage in fact.  Of course, in Revelation, John’s vantage point is so lofty that most misread it entirely. Here in this short letter, John is setting forth two basic and wonderful facts:  First, that Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed One of God.  Second, He is setting forth the fact that he, himself, is an eyewitness of Jesus, and Apostle who lived and walked with Jesus for over three years, consequently he is able to give eyewitness testimony about Him.

In verse one, John is letting us know that he saw this Jesus with his own eyes, touched Him with his own hands, heard Him with his own ears, and that now he (John) is proclaiming as the Word of Life, the Word that was with God and that was in fact God from the very beginning, a beginning that predates time itself.

I hate to be crass after such lofty statements, but to put it in the simplest possible modern American terms, John is saying something like:  Hey!  I’m about to tell you something important; listen up. Hey dummy, I know what the heck I’m talking about here!

Back to lofty: In verse two, John takes a step further, as he did in John 1:2.  This Word of Life really appeared, and John saw Him, John was there.  This eternal life that came from the Father Himself John is now going to proclaim to us. John will proclaim this great news of the Word of Life so that we may have fellowship with John and with Jesus, the Son, as well as with the Father. And in doing so, our entry into fellowship will make John’s joy complete.

Fellowship is an interesting word, from the Greek word koinōnia meaning “association, community, communion, joint participation, intercourse; the share which one has in anything, participation.” This participation is not only in relationship, but in purpose, for we really cannot separate the Person of Christ from the purpose of the Father.  John’s joy will be complete, because by the proclamation of the Word of Life, we will be in relationship and purpose with John, our fellow believers, and with the Lord Himself.

Well dear reader, this is the introduction, I can’t wait to get to the proclamation itself, but that will have to wait until next time…

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TLP Living: July 23, 2018

Posted on July 23, 2018 by Don Merritt

There are times in this life…

… when things don’t go exactly as planned.

I’ve been on an unscheduled hiatus from blogging for the past few days; sorry about that. It was one of those really irritating periods when I would try to write something only to discover that I simply couldn’t concentrate on… anything.

That happens sometimes.

The docs told me awhile back that it is caused by the fact that I was hit in the head a couple times more than strictly necessary when I was young. Apparently, that catches up with you when you get older.

Oh, no… that wasn’t always caused by my big mouth, most of it had to do with sports.

I was never diagnosed with a concussion− nope, not even once. But then, you wouldn’t want that; someone else would get your playing time. You fake it.

Yeah Coach, I’m okay, no problem.

How many fingers am I holding up?

Two?

Close enough. Get back in there.

Whew, that was a close one!

I hear they do it differently now, but I’m a bit skeptical. I’m guessing the guys still fake it, and their teammates still cover for them and that unless they are unsteady on their feet, they still get away with it, but of course, I could be wrong about that. I hope I am, anyway.

Saturday afternoon my wife asked me what the sermon would be on so she could get a kids’ lesson ready; she usually uses the same texts for the kids as I do for the adults, you see.

“It’s the next passage after last week”, was my answer: I had no idea what that was.

I wasn’t sure what it was when I went up to give it, either. I tapped the Bible on my kindle, it opened up where I left off last week and then I did the Sermon. I have no clue what I said, even though I am pretty sure I am fine today, but I was told that it was “amazing” and “really good”.

I suppose you are wondering why I am telling you all of this…

It’s really simple actually, for you see, God always has our back, He is always with us. Even when we aren’t functioning at our best, He is there.

I trust Him, and you can too.

This is the first day of a new work week, and we can’t yet say how the week will turn out. Yet there is one thing I am sure of, just as sure as I am that the sun will rise in the east. That is that God is with us and if we will do our best to serve His purpose, He will have our backs. He will see us through the trials and tribulations that come our way, He will sustain us when we are weak, and He will give us the strength to get though the day and the week, and this life if we will trust Him.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but as for me, I think that is a really good thing.

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TLP Inspiration: July 23, 2018

Posted on July 23, 2018 by Don Merritt

Misty Mornings

There’s something about a misty morning that grabs the imagination, don’t you agree?  The day is stretched out ahead of you, but it’s hard to see exactly where it will lead; will it be a good one, or will it be rough sledding?

It’s almost a metaphor for life.

What are those shapes ahead?  Where is this road; where does it go?  It looks straight and level, but is there a curve lurking that I don’t expect?

Misty mornings make a routine day seem a little mysterious; a little adventurous.  That might seem scary to some, but to me it’s more of an adventure than anything else; exciting!

Our days can be unpredictable, that’s for sure, but our destination is not. Our walk with Jesus Christ will lead us through some rough terrain, but it leads us to a glorious home.

Even though I walk
    through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

 You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.

– Psalm 23:4-6

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Sunday Sermon Notes: July 22, 2018

Posted on July 22, 2018 by Don Merritt

Title: Very Strange

Text: Mark 3:20-35

Parallel Texts: Matthew 12:22-37, 46-50; Luke 11:14-23; 8:19-21

After Jesus appoints the Twelve, things start to become strange; something isn’t quite right in this story.

Jesus and the disciples are in a house, and the crowd pushes in, there are so many people, Jesus and His party can’t finish their meal. Jesus’ Mother and brothers hear He is there and set out to “take charge” of Him, for they are sure He’s crazy. His family might have something in common with my family… but this isn’t the picture most of us expect to hear at this point; Jesus out of His mind? Why right now, He’s a rock star! (figuratively speaking)

But wait, there’s more!

And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”

Mark 3:22

You know, these guys really should have thought about what they said before they said it…

So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house. Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”

Mark 3:23-29

This is a masterpiece, a classic of rhetorical discourse, a thing of utter beauty.

Borrowing from this paragraph, Abraham Lincoln crafted his most important speech, the one that lost him the senate in 1858, but won him the White House in 1860. Lincoln isn’t the only one who has ripped this little bit or oratory off in the centuries since.  Not only did Jesus annihilate their accusation, not only did He crush their credibility with those they spewed this foolishness to, He showed them that they would spend their future in very warm climes.

He also has taught us that we should avoid attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to the work of the devil. Mark makes this clear in the next verse, pointing out that these guys had claimed Jesus was possessed by an impure spirit.

There is one more odd thing in this story. Remember, Jesus’ family was on their way to “take charge” of Him… well they’ve arrived. They send someone inside to tell Jesus they were outside, and Jesus doesn’t come running:

“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.

Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

Mark 3:33-35

This is a tough few verses, but we should understand this concept. I don’t think it would be fair to say that Jesus didn’t love His earthly family; Jesus loves everyone and died for all of us, so great is His love. Yet at that moment, well-meaning as His family was, they were working against God’s will. In Christ, we are God’s sons and daughters, we are Jesus’ brothers and sisters, members of the family. Outside of this context, we place ourselves in opposition to Him; not good.

We know that this changed, and His family came to become His followers, so this isn’t like what He told those teachers of the Law earlier, but it is something we should be aware of and guard against.

Well, for me anyway, this has been an odd passage, as though there is more going on that would have met the eye on that occasion.

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Naked Before God: “But I’ve been hurt by church!”

Posted on July 20, 2018 by Don Merritt

It wouldn’t be an easy thing to do; to be “naked before God in community” if we’ve been hurt by church in some way. Sadly, such damage is more common then many would like to think about.

An unpleasant scene, an unkind remark, a slight, an insulting comment, an affair, a come-on… even worse, a child abuse memory. Of course, there are many more possibilities, any one of which may make such openness almost impossible for some of us. Take heart however, with God, all things are possible.

To be fair, any time you bring a group of people together, there will be mistakes made including ill-tempered comments, gaffes, misunderstandings and so on, including jokes that miss the mark. The larger the group, the more likely that there will be someone who is just a really nasty person who is simply miserable to be around, but in cases like that, we need to keep in mind that these people need Jesus too; maybe more than most.

I’ve seen quite a lot in my years of church leadership, some it if has been simply amazing, while there has also been situations that required the leadership to step in and remove a person from the situation to protect the flock from harm. Believe me when I tell you that such occasions were not fun. Yes, I’ve also seen some times when the unkind remarks were made by people in leadership who should really know better.

Yeah, I’ve seen quite a bit.

Yet by far and away, these unpleasant episodes were the exception, not the rule. Overwhelmingly, people I have met in church are wonderful people who do their best to follow Christ, often in very tough circumstances. Yes, we all make our share of mistakes, but when we do, we correct them as quickly as possible and try very hard to learn from them.

Not too long ago, I ran a series here on Forgiveness, perhaps you remember it. When the disciples asked Him how many times they should forgive their brother… seven times? Jesus told then that no, they should forgive their brother seven times seventy times… as many times as it takes is how I read that one. The reason for this is that if we do not forgive those who hurt us, even those who hurt us badly, then we have to carry the weight of that hurt around with us, and it will interfere with all of our relationships with others as well as our relationship with God; it just isn’t worth it.

I’ve said several times now, that the whole idea of naked before God isn’t so much a state of being as it is a state of our relationship with God, and that state of relationship will never be entirely “naked” if we are harboring a lot of pain and anger from unforgiveness.

Just imagine that heavy load being taken off of you!

I fully understand that it won’t always be easy to trust “church” after being hurt in church but consider this: You don’t really need to trust “church”, you only need to trust God. Consequently, as in every other eventuality, it is our relationship with God that require our highest priority. At a certain point in that relationship, everything else will be taken care of… and you can take that to the bank.

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The Finale

Posted on July 20, 2018 by Don Merritt

Who is wise? Let them realize these things.
    Who is discerning? Let them understand.
The ways of the Lord are right;
    the righteous walk in them,
    but the rebellious stumble in them.

Hosea 14:9

This final verse really seems to sum up the entire message of Hosea’s prophecy and I don’t believe that I am exaggerating when I say that it is every bit as relevant today as it was so many centuries ago when Hosea first penned them.

I can almost imagine what the people of Hosea’s day might have said in response:

He just wants to control me. He just wants to have power over me. He just wants my money…

And so, the ways of the Lord caused them to stumble and fall. It wasn’t because the Lord wanted anyone to stumble, but because those who heard it refused to take it to heart.

Nothing has changed since then, has it?

We hear these kinds of comments quite a lot these days, even from Christians. That church wants to control me. That church wants power over me. That church just wants my money.

I suppose it would depend on what church happens to be that church, and I must admit that there are bad apples in most any group of fallible humans, but isn’t it about time we all grew up? Look at those statements again:

They (that church) just want− my control, my power, my money.

Here’s a question for all of us to consider: In Hosea’s story, when does Israel come to repentance?

Have you considered it…? OK, here’s the answer: Not until after they had been humbled.

Israel’s downfall came from pride and arrogance, and quite honestly that’s the genesis of our downfalls as well. Look again:

my control, my power, my money

How did I get to be so important that everyone wants to control me, to have power over me and to take my money? Here’s how Paul put it in Romans 12:3…

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

To follow the righteous ways of God is to be set free from arrogance and pride which lead to idolatry and total chaos in our lives, so that we can not only live in freedom from fear and anger, but to enrich our relationships with both Man and God.

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