What is it about preachers that makes us have the worst attitudes about sports?
I played basketball with two preachers every Monday night for years as a high school student. It was a church event where several of the men and teenagers gathered at a local school to play on Monday night. Both preachers had bad attitudes, but both influenced me differently.
The first preacher allowed his son to run wild during the games, calling too many and unnecessary fouls, being too aggressive, and ruining the experience for many. But he could also bring it himself! I remember one time when he thought another player had called a light foul against him. On the next possession, as that player brought the ball up the court, the preacher charged him, slammed into him, knocked him down, and said, "That's a foul!"
Usually this preacher would leave the games in a bit of a sulk and disregarded how his attitude sat with the rest of the group.
The other preacher could be just as bad. He was a bit of a rules-lawyer and liked to appeal to his previous experience for why he was right--he had made the equivalent of the all-state team while in high school. He was intense and played hard, sometimes going over the edge with a hot temper.
But at the end of the night, he would seek out those he might have offended to make amends. He even called some the next day just to apologize for the way his attitude might have affected them.
His basketball demeanor didn't influence any of us positively, but his after-game humility sure did.
It was this minister, not the first one, who influenced me to become a minister.
Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.
This is a video introduction to my sermon for Sunday.
I've been thinking a lot the last couple weeks about the forms of Christianity that we teach in the church. Perhaps I've given something away even in my description because if the emphasis in "church" is on "teaching" then the form we use primarily is information transmission. This doesn't mean we don't connect with people and other things aren't done; just that we view the primary reason for gathering is to transmit information about the bible.
The idea is, if you know more about the bible, you should be a better Christian. But the result is often very different from this.
I've been thinking through these ideas with others on Facebook and Twitter. Why is it that we seem to treat our Christianity as a checklist rather than a relationship--with Christ and others? Why do we view our relationship with God not as a true relationship but as a list of things we must do or a set of requirements we need to fulfill?
Why do we wait for others to take the initiative? Why don't we really connect with each other away from the church building?
Jesus said, "I did not come to be served, but to serve" (Matt. 20:28). We are called to be followers of Jesus. A follower, well, follows! So we should be doing the same things Jesus did.
If Jesus did not seek to be served BY others, why do many of us? Why do we criticize the minister or someone else for not visiting us when we never bothered to pick up the phone or make an appointment to spend time with someone else?
Jesus served others. He added value to the lives of others. The best question we can ask ourselves is not how we can fill a building with people, or how we can get others to do what we want them to do, or how we can make sure the minister "does his job."
The best question we can ask ourselves, to be a true follower of Jesus, is:
Who can I love right now? And how?
That's what it means to follow Jesus.
Jael was the hero in Judges 4, not Barak, because she acted in simple obedience out of her faith. Barak got hung up by a false view of God--he believed, idolatrously, that God's presence was available to him in the person of Deborah. And it cost him.
In this sermon, I identified four false views of God we have today:
1. The "Santa Claus" god who exists to give us everything we want. This god hangs us up because if we don't get what we think we deserve, we start to question his goodness.
2. The "he-didn't-really-mean-what-he-said-he-just-wants-to-know-if-you-are-willing" god. This god offers hard teachings but doesn't really mean them. This god usually is behind the biblical teaching about money. When Jesus told a rich guy to go sell everything he had and then come follow him, he didn't really mean it, he just wanted to know if the man would be willing to do so. This view of god hangs up because it removes the hard questions of discipleship from our lives.
3. The "we're-right-and-no-one-else-is" god. This god allows us to feel prideful that we've read the bible correctly and no one else has. This view of god also hangs us up because it gives us a false assurance that our faith is about knowledge of spiritual things, and the church building, and the correct worship, rather than Jesus.
4. The god of tradition. This view of god is deadly because it keeps us rooted in the past rather than looking at how we should serve God in the present and in the future.
This is why Jesus contrasted tradition (and all false views of god) with true faith in the living God in Mark 7. He showed us that faith is internal belief and simple action that is driven by that faith.
This was exemplified by Jael, who knew what she needed to do for God and did it.
Sermon: Actionable Faith (Judges 4)
Contentment is found in Christ alone. As Paul teaches (by example), "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.... I can do all this through him who gives me strength" (Phil. 4:11, 13).
Too often we try to find contentment in other things. This morning, as I reflected on the rain outside, it occurred to me that we look for substitutes to make us happy. We try to find happiness in the success of sports team, the sunny weather, or how someone treated us.
We will only truly be content when we find the peace that Christ gives us in a relationship with him.
As Sisera escaped, the narrative focused on an alliance that had been made between the king of Canaan and the family of Heber. This was convenient for Sisera because it gave him an out--he could run for protection and run he did (he "fled on foot"; 4:15, 17). He made his way directly to Heber's house where he was met by Jael, Heber's wife. He demanded aid from Jael and appeared to receive it, although not in the form he demanded: when he asked for a drink of water to quench his thirst he was given milk, which made him sleepy. But before he fell asleep he made another demand of Jael: she was to keep watch for him and if anyone came by asking if a man was inside her tent, she was to tell them no.
Wait a minute--no man inside the tent! What did Sisera consider himself to be? While it's obvious he told Jael to say this for his protection, it is humorous (and a bit ironic) that he undermined his own manhood and "invulnerability" by hiding under a rug and demanding Jael lie for him.
But the final irony came while he was asleep. Jael grabbed a tent peg and drove it through his skull, killing him. The she went out to meet Barak to turn over the dead Sisera.
This is intended to be both ironic and something that showed the glory of God--that God ensured his will was done despite the human alliances made by his enemies.
The hero of the story is Jael--an unlikely hero. This unlikely hero--a woman, a non-Israelite--did the work of God (4:23)! The true hero should have been Barak, or perhaps even Deborah, but it was a non-Israelite who served God in the unlikeliest of ways. This teaches us that no matter how small or insignificant we think we are, God can do great things through us if we are willing to follow him as he leads us. In fact, there is no "small" or "insignificant" with God--he is ready to use anyone who loves him, anyone who is ready to do his work. All you need to do is make yourself available to be led by God.
Will you be a hero for God?
Barak is called by Deborah and told he will win the battle. We can assume he's some kind of military leader within Israel, or at least an experienced, but for some reason is reluctant to go into battle. He will go only if Deborah accompanies him.
Barak is often criticized because of this: he wasn't a real man, he wasn't committed to following God, etc. But what if we viewed Barak with a little less criticism? If someone delivered a message from God for and to you, wouldn't you feel better if that messenger of God accompanied you? Barak may have viewed Deborah as a good luck charm of sorts--God would be with him because God was with Deborah.
It may also be that he was unfaithful. But I wonder if, when we view him as unfaithful, we're reading ourselves into his story?
The real problem for Barak is that, inadvertently or not, his actions demonstrate that he does not fully trust God as God. The word of God is delivered to him but he wants the broker of God's word, the middle-woman, to accompany him, wrongly believing that the fulfillment of God's word (prophecy) will be delivered through the presence of Deborah, not on the strength of God's word itself. As a result, God will still deliver his people but Barak will not get the glory from this military victory.
The narrative of Judges is clear that even though Barak advances, it is God who does the work of routing Sisera's army (4:15). As a result of God's work, all of Sisera's fighters were killed. But Sisera was able to escape, which leads to the revealing of the real deliverer--the non-Israelite, Jael.
Here's what we can learn from Barak: When we follow God, and specifically when we do what he calls us to do, he gives us all the resources we need to serve him. There's no magic charm, magic prayer, magic person, or even magic book that guarantees God's presence with us. His promise is all we need.
May we trust God more.
This is the first of three posts each looking at a major character in Judges 4.
Remember the context:
The context for this story is the Israelite oppression under the Canaanites. The LORD "sold them" (4:2) into the hands of the king of Canaan because of the "evil" they did in the eyes of LORD. This evil occurred after the death of Ehud, which plays into the pattern created at least in the early part of Judges: the people commit evil before God; God turns them over to foreign rulers; they are oppressed and cry out for help; God hears their cries and send a judge to deliver them; they have peace in their land; they turn back to evil after the judge dies.
As expected, because of their oppression, and apparently also because of Sisera's nine hundred iron-fitted chariots, the people cried out to the LORD for help.
God hears their cries and answers (all this is inferred) by speaking through Deborah to Barak. Deborah is not the judge or deliverer in this story. Nowhere is God described as "raising up" a judge (see 2:16; 3:9, 15). She is a prophet who is described as "leading" Israel at that time. Since she was leading while Israel was under oppression she probably acted more like a judge as we would understand one--she decided disputes among the Israelites.
Yet she also received the word from the Lord that called Barak to be a deliverer for God's people and she was tasked with the responsibility of passing this on to Barak. He will deliver God's people by defeating Sisera in battle. Specifically, God will "give" Sisera into Barak's hands.
Interestingly, it is Deborah calling all the shots in this story even though Barak was called as the deliverer: she calls him, she delivers the message to him that he will be God's deliverer, she tells him he won't get the glory (because of his hesitation), then she orders him to go to battle ("Go! This is the day the LORD has given Sisera into your hands!")
Deborah is a leader. Even though she is never labeled in Judges as the deliverer in this story, by functioning as a prophet who brought God's word and as a leader who called and empowered the deliverer (even though the glory went to someone else), she is the example of what it means to stand for God in chaotic times:
Listen for the voice of God and when you hear his voice, act upon what he says.
A casual Christian has an interest in Jesus but is not dedicated to him. Casual Christians focus more on themselves than Jesus. Casual Christians will not make hard decisions, usually involving how they spend their money, to better follow Jesus. Instead, they reason that Jesus just wants to know they'd be willing to do it.
You might be a casual Christian depending on how you answer these questions:
1. Do you attend worship because you think you're commanded to or because you want to worship God and remember Jesus?
2. Do you read the bible for information or for transformation?
3. Do you act upon what you learn or do you file it away as a nice insight to do something with "later"?
4. Do you pray?
5. Do you view spiritual growth in terms of becoming a better bible reader or church attender or in terms of conforming your life more and more to the image of Jesus?
6. Do you spend time with other Jesus-followers?
One thing that has caught my attention as I've been reading through Judges for my May sermon series is how casual the Israelites were with their devotion to God. In fact, it's hard to say there was any devotion.
Judges presents a very cyclical relationship between the Israelites and God. (This cycle is described in detail in Judges 2.)
The cycle begins with Israel committing evil in God's eyes. God turns them over to foreign rulers who oppress them long enough that they cry out to God for deliverance. God hears their cries, raises up a judge, and delivers them. There is peace in their land for as long as the judge is alive, but after the judge dies they revert back to committing evil in God's eyes, which leads to them being turned over again!
This cycle is particularly noticeable in the story of Deborah, Barak, and Jael (Judges 4). It begins by noting that the Israelites "again" did evil in God's eyes "now that Ehud [the previous judge] was dead" (4:1). I get the sense that they almost couldn't wait for the judge to die so they could go back to their evil ways!
But I wonder where our church might find itself located in this cycle? Are we more casual with our Christianity and faith than we would like to be? I doubt that Israel made a conscious decision to be as evil as they could be. It was probably more like a slow movement away from God.
Samson reminded us how easy it is, even for someone who had been set apart by God, to live your life apart from God. This cycle, which occurs several times in Judges, also reminds us that we are on a journey, moving towards God or away from him. It's important we remember this so we can pay attention to our lives, to the movement of God in our lives, and to our response to God.
May the book of Judges remind you to not be casual with your Christianity.
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