A Sad Story…

Barbara was stunned. The bloated body they pulled out of the river had been violently stabbed to death. There was no mistaking that this was her husband (she knew it by the clothes he wore). Only a short time ago, having devoted themselves to God’s work, she and Roger had left America together to serve the Lord in a strange, new place. But now she was bereaved. Barbara had every reason to feel sorry for herself.

Barbara Youderian was married to one of the five missionaries who were killed by headhunters in 1956; Jim Elliot, Peter Fleming, Ed McCully, Nate Saint, and Roger Youderian. Without any warning, five young widows were left alone in the jungles of Ecuador to process what had just happened to the men they loved, and their future without them. That included Barbara. She was stunned.  

A Similar Situation…

Self-pity grows best in a climate like that one. When a person who’s committed to doing the Lord’s will receives (what seems to be) unfair treatment in spite of it, self-pity can flourish. When the very things we expect to bring reward, end up feeling like punishment, it’s hard not to sulk. Author Jon Bloom writes, “Self-pity is our sinful, selfish response to something not going the way we think it should”. And since the Christian life and ministry rarely (if ever?) go the way we “think it should”, feeling sorry for yourself can happen fast.

Jesus is branded in Scripture as a “man of sorrows” and by theologians as a “Suffering Servant”. Even though His life was marked from beginning to end with undying love & perfect obedience, much of what He got in return was disapproval, mockery, & abuse. It’s the true servants of God who have more occasion for self-pity than, perhaps, anyone else alive. One of the great victories of the Christian sojourn therefore, is to learn how to properly manage our feelings when God’s plan reveals an unexpected twist. 

“If you suffer for doing what’s right, and endure it patiently, God is pleased with you” (I Peter 2:20).

A Sinful Response…

Problems are never fixed by self-pity, they’re only made worse. Merriam-Webster defines the term as a “self-indulgent dwelling on one’s own sorrows or misfortunes”. It’s like poison to the soul, but we drink it anyway, totally unaware of the suicide we’re attempting. And serving the Lord can make a person thirsty for it, so be careful. The more self-pity you swallow, the more it swallows you. The Prophet Jonah drank his fair share, and barely survived to tell the tale. It wasn’t the fish that nearly killed him, as much as it was his bad attitude.

As risky as it is to be faithful to Jesus in a hostile world, it’s we ourselves that we should be most careful of. It’s quite often a poor outlook that slays a servant of God rather than the danger of the work itself. Much of what we call “burnout” has self-pity as its underlying cause. Dwelling on our own misfortune is exhausting, self-defeating work, and it’s been the ruin of many. Oswald Chambers cautions against too much introspection, because it “awakens self-pity. And self-pity” he says, “is satanic”.

A Special Honor…

Barbara Youderian kept a diary. On the very night that she learned of her husband’s murder, she wrote to explain the peace she felt: “I want to be free of self-pity. It is a tool of Satan to rot away a life…I am sure that this (situation) is the perfect will of God…the Lord has closed (my) heart to grief & hysteria, and filled in with His perfect peace”…

Doing God’s will can seem very unfair at times, and the devil will remind you of it every chance he gets. I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t face this battle every once in a while; I’m sure Barbara did. But she also knew that serving the Lord, no matter how difficult it was, or how high the price, was an honor above all honors. She understood that fact when she went to Ecuador with her husband, and even more so when she came home alone.   

No one is more pitiful than the Christian who pities themselves for having to serve the Lord. Nobody on earth should pity you for having such a high privilege…Nobody.

…Not even yourself.  

For a recent church promotion, we needed to come up with a tagline for our church. Being that this would be used in advertising it needed to be a simple phrase that not only accurately presented who we are as a church so that visitors are given a correct representation, but also clearly depicts the vision and mission of who we as a church strive to be. There are all kinds of common catchy slogans out there. Church websites are full of terminology designed to be engaging, encouraging, and inspiring. What could be said in a short memorable phrase to highlight what it is that marks Believers’ Church – Duluth as different from the many other churches out there? We chose “Real Life Christianity that Matters”.

Real Life

We can live out our Christianity in a way that looks great to all of those around us. To do so we just need to make sure we can convincingly play pretend for the duration it takes to fulfill our religious obligations. Just be sure to put on the right Christian veneer, say the correct Christian phrases, and do something that will positively attract the attention of those around you. The problem is to live as Christ has directed requires the power that is available only through Him. It cannot be faked forever. Knowing this we can be tempted to relegate contact with the Christian community to just a few short hours and surface-level interactions. Never long enough for the real us to be seen and always in carefully controlled spiritual settings so the real us never comes out.

That may sound extreme, but that is the inauthentic and fake Christianity that our world often offers. We have always endeavored to be a church that is unsatisfied with that kind of Christianity. We do not want to be a church that offers some sort of staged, canned, version of Christianity, but instead real people in real life. Real Christianity must be all-encompassing. It doesn’t simply engage on the step through the church doors only to be disengaged on the step out.

Simply put, if our Christianity does not impact all areas of our life it is not real Christianity.  

Being real necessitates an uncomfortable level of authenticity with one another. I am to know your weakness you are to know mine. We are to be involved in one another’s lives to such a degree that we know the good, the bad, and the ugly. It won’t always look perfect, but would you rather possess fake perfection or authentic relationships? We will see each other succeed and we will see each other fail. It is in the church where it is safe to be real with each other and allow our imperfections and sin to be seen because it is in the church that we know the solution for those failures.

Being authentic should never excuse our own sin, laziness, or half-hearted efforts. God desires to take the “real” us and turn us into something unrecognizable. Let Him do that work in you. It is when we take it unto ourselves pretending that God has already done that work that we can present a plastic version of ourselves. Instead, let’s let our Christianity be in “real life.”

Christianity that Matters

I recently heard a pastor speaking about how in a way, the great epics and fantasies of our modern culture put our Christianity to shame. In these fictional stories, there are great quests with huge implications. They either slay the giant or they are killed. The heroes either endure necessary agony to the end or all of the land will suffer. They are on a mission and the completion of that mission is “do or die”. What they are doing matters to them, to their kingdom and the world. Those are the stories that we entertain ourselves with. Then we come to the church, the place where the mission of God is to be clearly displayed and we are disappointed.

We have a King who has commissioned us. We have a King who gives us a purpose. No mission (real or fictional) is more dire than the mission of Christ. I think many people look at the modern-day church and see it as a joke, and many times rightfully so. Our world is familiar with a kind of Christianity with no passion, no urgency, no zeal. They are familiar with apathetic Christians who go to church, but their faith doesn’t matter to them. It doesn’t compel them. Real faith matters. It should persuade us. Christ and his purpose matter most. If that is not the Christ you know and if that is not the mission you have been given, it is not real Christianity.  

Real Life Christianity that Matters

That is the version of Christianity that we offer as a church because it is the type of Christianity we see Jesus offer in scripture. It won’t always be pretty, but it will be real. Its scope will go beyond that of Sunday morning service, and involve itself in all of our life. It’s that kind of Christianity that matters. It’s that kind of Christianity that gives us something to live for. A passion worth dying for. I hope it describes who we are as a church but the fact is we have room to grow. Let’s be a church that strives to be real together, to allow Christ access to all of our lives, and then to live as though this is what matters most because that is the reality.

The devil is a busy one. He doesn’t have a lot of time to spend on any particular individual. If a quick conversation with a naïve woman (Gen. 3:1-5) or an evening spent inside of a betrayer (Luke 22:3) isn’t enough to get the job done, he’ll move along to more fruitful fields. He didn’t even give Jesus (of all people) more than 40 days of his time. He’s got heaps of work to do. That’s why he’s got a reputation for fleeing those who resist him.

That doesn’t mean, however, that there won’t be any harmful ‘side-effects’ to deal with after he leaves. His interactions, as brief as they might be, have long lasting side-effects (as was the case with Eve and with Judas both). Even if you survive the attack, he’ll always do what he can to get the most “bang for his buck”. No one targeted by the spiritual forces of evil in this dark world should expect to recover immediately.   

YOU’VE HEARD OF JOB…

Take, for example, Job. Blameless & upright indeed. A man who feared God, shunned evil, and experienced his fair share of spiritual conflict. And, as is often the case with us, the spiritual part of his warfare was momentary in comparison to what came next. His memoir is a lengthy 42 chapters, yet, the devil appears only as a brief cameo in the first two.

The devil wants you to curse God and die. And since he doesn’t have much time, he aims for efficiency

What follows is chapter upon chapter upon chapter of tense dialogue between a righteous man (desperately holding fast to his integrity) and the “voices” of those closest to him. Friendly voices which, by that point in his life, Job had grown to trust. If anyone could get his attention in a situation like that, it’d be them. Those men were nearer to him than anybody else; even his own wife.

Yet, his greatest challenge was in realizing that those familiar voices were WRONG! As much as he’d trusted them in the past, he’d better be careful now, for they were no longer speaking the complete truth. These “voices” had as much potential to destroy Job as the devil himself did. Should he listen to them, he would ultimately lose the battle, even after having survived the initial assaults of Satan.

It isn’t the devil himself that defeats most people, it’s usually the “voices” they listen to after he’s done with the attack.  

YOU’VE HEARD THESE VOICES…

We all have voices in our head. It’s a psychological phenomenon called “internal dialogue”. Not to be confused with auditory hallucinations, our “inner voice” is a normal part of our brain function. Most everybody experiences this to some degree. And like Job’s buddies, the voices in our head talk whether you invite them to or not. They’re always quick with accusations and opinions when things take an ugly turn. And they’re never as loyal as you might believe. They’ll let you think they’re always your allies, but if you listen carefully to what they say, you’ll discern that they sometimes sound like the enemy.

It’s unlikely that you’ve got any friends named Bildad, Eliphaz, or Zophar, but we all have “inner voices” which are nearly impossible to ignore. When something sends you into a spiritual tizzy, these guys will come out of nowhere with all kinds of ungodly opinions & half-accurate counsel. They always speak the loudest when we’re at our lowest, and it’s hard to know whether we should believe them or not. They’re so articulate, so believable, and so very dear to us.

It isn’t the devil himself that defeats most people… it’s usually the “voices” they listen to after he’s done with the attack

We need to be careful. Some of us allow our “inner dialogue” too much of a “voice”. They don’t always know what they’re talking about, and the longer we let them speak, the more convincing they become. Like Job, we need to know how and when to answer them. We need to put an end to their ranting. Had he not done that, Job would not have survived his ordeal. Neither will you.

YOU’VE HEARD THE WARNING…

You may never find yourself covered in boils, and you probably won’t lose your camels to the Chaldeans, but one thing is certain: The devil wants you to curse God and die. And since he doesn’t have much time, he he aims for efficiency. He’ll do just enough to unleash the voices in your head. If a slight offense is enough to trigger that conversation, he’ll leave it at that. If it takes a little more, he’ll probably give it a shot. But if he can’t remove you from God’s service with an all-out spiritual attack, he’s always happy to watch you do it yourself after you’ve talked it over with your so-called “friends”.  

Job has much to teach us, not only about how to remain blameless & upright when the devil intrudes, but how to make sense of the voices in your head after he flees. His biography is a prototype for the spiritual warfare you and I are in for.

Hold fast to your integrity.

A placebo is anything that seems to be a real medical treatment but isn’t. It could be a pill, a shot, or any other type of fake treatment. What all placebos have in common is that they do not contain an active substance meant to affect health. They have no therapeutic effect but are sometimes used as a control in testing new drugs or are designed merely to calm and appease someone’s desire for treatment. 

Although there is no chemical reason for placebo treatment to be effective there is seemingly irrefutable evidence that these counterfeits do produce some positive results. The cause of this improvement cannot be placed on the substance itself, but on the human body’s incredible ability to heal itself. A disease that the human body is incapable of improving will never be affected by a placebo. 

The Real Disease

Sin is a disease that has spread throughout the world and through the ages. It’s a disease that if left untreated leads only to pain, hopelessness, and eventual death. The body has no ability to cure this disease on its own. There have been many attempts, but none successful. That means that no placebo will do the trick. It is a problem that requires the real thing. Real faith in the real Jesus saves, nothing else does. The problem is that people have settled for a false treatment of their own creation. They pacify their desperate need for a savior with a counterfeit solution. Many in our culture accept a placebo version of Christianity that has no real power and provides no real answers.

Acts 16:30-31 “What must I do to be saved?” So they said,

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved”

Placebos seem innocent enough. A sugar pill causes no real harm, but a counterfeit treatment will do more harm than good if it pacifies the patient with a false solution rather than leave them searching for the true cure. This is doubly true in the spiritual realm. Placebo Christianity can only placate, it can never cure. 

The Religious Placebo

The Bible has a lot to say about what real faith entails. This is because there are so many false variations out there intent on pacifying us with a false version of Christianity that has been created by our culture or our own minds, not the word of God. People feel secure because of the religious games that they play. They alleviate their guilty conscience by saying the right words. They appease the unshakeable knowledge that something is not right by trying to fulfill religious obligations. 

We know that going to church doesn’t save us. No amount of service or tithing to the church fixes anything. Nothing that we do on our own power provides any kind of salvation. But how often do you allow those things to be seen as the solution when it is only acting as a placebo in your life? But sin isn’t cured by the placebo of adherence to an empty and lifeless religion, it is only cured by Christ.

The Real Medicine 

Why is it that we are prone to turn to placebos when Christ is readily holding out the real thing? Placebos are pleasant and agreeable. They are usually low cost and painless. Medicine can be costly, hard to swallow, and accompanied by all kinds of difficult side effects. Real faith, that can cost you everything. It will undoubtedly have side effects that come along with it. There will be trials, persecution, hard work, and discipline. The fact is if there are no side effects, it’s likely you haven’t taken the real treatment. The only treatment that provides a real cure is prescribed by Gods word and it comes with guaranteed side effects such as love (John 13:35) obedience (John 14:15) good works (James 2:17)

Placebos are cheap and easy but they don’t work. The danger with placebos is that they can look like the real thing. So much so that we trick ourselves into settling for a “cure” that is no cure at all. Don’t settle for anything less than the real thing. 

Good grief, we’re doing it all over again. It’s the same thing we did only 12 months ago (and 12 months before that, and again 12 months before that), so I guess it shouldn’t really surprise me. But lately, it just feels less appropriate than usual.

If memory serves me, it was indeed about this time last year that we were all wishing one another a “Happy New Year”. Nonetheless, for a great number of people across the globe, 2020 ended up being, perhaps, the most difficult, frustrating, and (quite frankly) sad year of their entire life. And yet, in denial of its impotence, we’re offering each other the same tired expression once again this year.

The Year in Review

The facts are hard to ignore: One single virus was responsible for nearly 2 million funerals worldwide. The atmosphere of our own country was polluted with such political drama, citizens from coast to coast are still gasping for cleaner air. Racial tensions and riots burned through what was left of the thin thread that barely held a number of cities and communities together.

We were isolated from each other, and then fed a continual narrative of death & division. Lies & lawsuits are now the norm. Law enforcement has become criminal. The world is a morgue.

A year that was supposed to be ‘happy’ has left most of us feeling hopeless…

The New Normal

A lot of people are saying that we’ll never go back to the way things used to be. “This is the new normal” they say; “It’ll never be the same again” they say. Nothing can undo what’s been done, not even a vaccination.

Far from “happy”, the last 12 months have at least proven to be transitional. Everything from the governing color in the oval office to the way we celebrate holidays is different now. Very different.

And here we are, only 365 days later, with very limited options. Two really. We can either stay with the mission of Christ Almighty, or we can sit around and lament the things we’ve lost in 2020.

Which one will it be?

Happy, or Hopeless?

Unexpected changes seem to upset some people more than others.

If we’re prudent, we’ll allow the events of the last year call into question our ability to cope with transition at all. Your attitude and management of life alterations can either reveal spiritual soundness or spiritual instability. And history shows that it’s Christ’s disciples who prove themselves most adept at embracing transitional situations.

Certainly the most stark example comes from the original Disciples themselves as they transitioned from a life lived under the Law of Moses, to one lived by grace, apart from the Law. A hard transition for everybody, but only the Disciples of Christ survived it. A fact that can be largely attributed to their preparation. The sacrificial investments they’d made and the training they’d received paid off when it was most needed.

Others, however, didn’t fare so well. Why? Because unlike the Disciples who’d been following Christ with pure intentions, the Pharisees, for example, had been following Him with impure ones. In them, Jesus only stirred up latent feelings of jealousy, anger, and hatred. They demanded that their lives remain undisturbed, and couldn’t tolerate what God was forcing them to face, so, instead of making the change, they cracked under the pressure and got buried in sin.

Not everyone comes through times of transition with greater spiritual soundness than when it began. And whether we like it or not, both of these groups find their counterpart in Believers’ Church.

Who Are You?

It’s time to evaluate yourself. Was 2020 a success for you, or a failure? Are you strengthening or weakening? Did you transition well, beloved disciple, or did you falter? Have you made good use of the things you’ve learned, dear student? Have you put to wise use all the training you’ve received thus far, good soldier?

If we’ve learned anything in 2020, it’s that we have no clue as to what’s coming next. We may anticipate a better year than last, and we may wish for a ‘happy’ one like always, but we mustn’t let ourselves forget, “A man’s heart plans his way, but the LORD determines his steps” (Pr.16:9). God has already decided what 2021 is going to look like for you and me. Our only job is to be ready for it.

The question is not whether tomorrow will bring blessing or adversity, but whether we’re prepared to accept either one. And if we can assume anything, it’s that the coming year will include much of both. We’ll have to wait and see.

Happy New Year…  

American’s have been in “pursuit of happiness” ever since 1776. Christians have been tracking it even longer. From the Garden of Eden to the Shores of America (and every place in between), mankind has always been dominated by a concern to be happy.

Everybody Wants To Be Happy…

Blaise Pascal (1600’s; French Mathematician) recognized this universal hunger for happiness long before American’s declared their intent to pursue it: “All men seek happiness” he wrote, “This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves”.

Whether a person goes to war, like Josiah did (II Chr.35:20-23), stays home from it like King David (II Sam 11:1), or hangs himself like Judas Iscariot (Mt.27:5), the desire is the same. Adam thought he could find happiness in a wife; Eve thought she could find it in a fruit. The entire human race has been chasing happiness since the beginning, and we’re still in hot pursuit of it, even now. Pursuing happiness is one thing; finding it is another.

In 1987, Irish rock band U2 released a song that would eventually become one of the “greatest tracks of all time”. In it, front man Bono speaks for most of us when he sings, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”.  

Only Some People Want To Be Holy…

Unlike happiness, holiness isn’t as popular among earthlings. Isn’t it noteworthy that Blaise Pascal never said the same thing about holiness that he did about happiness? That’s because, on the whole, people concern themselves far more with being happy than they do with being holy. Judas, for example, sacrificed his very life to be happy, but wouldn’t pay 30 pieces of silver when it came to being holy.

Would it help to know that your happiness has everything to do with your holiness? John Phillips wrote, “Happiness and holiness always go hand in hand, and the reason we see so little genuine happiness among men is because there’s so little holiness”.

As citizens of an otherworldly Kingdom, however, pursuing holiness is what’s expected of us. Our King, in fact, told us to “Be holy, as I am holy”. We’re missing the mark entirely if we let ourselves pursue happiness apart from holiness. God withholds joy from those with no interest in being like Him.

Pursuing Either, Finding Neither…

While some never find happiness in spite of their reckless pursuit of it, there are others who have given up the chase altogether. They’re more interested in holiness. Some Christians are in such hot pursuit of piety that they just don’t care anymore whether they’re happy or not. They pursue sanctity with all the vim & vigor as the world pursues happiness. Only, instead of pursuing happiness to the neglect of holiness, they pursue holiness at the expense of happiness.

Asceticism finds its way into the church just as easily as Hedonism does. They just come in through different doors. But they’re equally capable of leaving their victims feeling hopeless.

Maybe that’s why Bono’s been singing the same thing for the last 33 years.

Following Jesus, Finding Both…

It hardly matters whether we’re pursuing happiness at the expense of holiness, or vice versa, the problem is always the same: We’re focused on ourselves rather than on the One who holds the keys to our deepest desires. Jesus’ followers won’t get what they want out of life by pursing them, but by following Him. All other pursuits (including happiness or holiness) are going to tire you out eventually. Only those who exhaust themselves in the pursuit of Jesus Himself will truly know what it means to rest.

Once we stop following Christ to pursue something else, we’re bound to get lost. And we’ll end up with neither happiness nor holiness. Those who faithfully pursue Him, however, will one day be rewarded with both, according to His promise: “Happy and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection!” (Rev.20:6).

Have You Still Not Found What You’re Looking For?

So what, exactly, are you looking for? Are you pursuing happiness to the neglect of holiness, or holiness at the expense of happiness? Some people will spend their whole lives chasing these things. Others will die in their pursuit of them. But everybody, without exception wants something out of life, and that includes you.