Stars in the Universe

“Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed . . . continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life . . .”

--Philippians 2:12-16

I’ve recently moved from a big city to a town of about 4500 people. It’s the smallest community I’ve ever lived in. When you live in a big city, you get used to being a little bit anonymous everywhere you go. It’s unusual to run into someone you know at the grocery store or fast food restaurant or with your car. I always knew that “everybody knows everybody” in small town. I didn’t realize, though, that when you’re new, lots of people know you -- even if you’re not sure who they are.

I’ve been here just long enough for the alarm bell to start ringing a little louder when I have the urge in public to pick my nose or argue with my wife or knock over a liquor store. I might still do all of those things (except for the armed robbery), but now I wonder sometimes “who just saw me do that.”

I know I’m making that sound a little creepy, but there are lots of good things about being part of a smaller community. One of them is this built-in accountability. If you live around people long enough, all your best and worst traits will eventually come out. Your character will be on full display. Whatever you point to in your life as the source of hope, meaning, and purpose will become available for others to judge based on how your choices unfold in front of them.

Does Jesus work? Does Christianity really work? Does it make sense to trust in Christ for our salvation? How about trying hard to follow Him by loving God with all we’ve got -- and loving our neighbors as we’d like to be liked? Does it make any difference at all?

Paul wrote this passage from Philippians 2 to some Christians living in culture that offered every religion you could imagine. He’d seen the temples crammed full with idols to god after god after god. His readers knew exactly what gods their friends and family and neighbors worshiped -- and what that god was supposed to do for them in return. Some people made decisions about what gods to follow based on how well those gods appeared to be blessing their worshipers.

Here’s the problem with marketing Christianity in that culture. The Bible doesn’t promise that we’ll all become fabulously healthy, rich, and problem free. In fact, it suggests we might have just the opposite experience. Following Jesus might bring more trouble into our lives. We might be persecuted. We might be hated (as He was hated). We’re still very likely to get poor or sick or dead.

So what would be the evidence that Jesus is real and living and working in the lives of those who follow Him? If He doesn’t necessarily give us bumper crops or instant healing or perfect relationships, what's the point? Part of the point is that He changes us. He makes us different. He begins to make us like Himself.

Paul had just told his readers earlier in this chapter to work at thinking like Jesus, the God of the universe who emptied Himself to become a servant, to "obey death" for much lesser creatures. With that humility in mind, He said we should continue obeying God, “working out” our salvation (NOT earning it, walking IN it) with the frightening awareness that the God is at work in puny people like us.

Part of the reason it matters how you live, he said, is that you and I are signposts for friends, neighbors, and others who are beginning to suspect that their path through life isn’t really going anywhere. Our lives could be visible evidence that following Jesus is the only path to a life that will truly matter forever.

So, in your community:

• “stop complaining and arguing” -- Who provides for and protects you, after all?
• work toward being blameless -- not perfect, but so committed to doing the right thing for Him that you’re known for it
• work toward being pure -- not having a rep as one who indulges in sin

Then, Paul wrote, you’ll definitely stand out in your warped and broken generation -- not for all your power and fame and money -- but for your peaceful nature, joyful spirit, and commitment to doing good. Then, he said, when you hold out the word of life that is truly life, some people will see that Life alive in you and wonder how they can live it, too.

P.S. If you live in my community and you happen to be reading this, please remember: God is changing me, but He’s not done, yet. I still go my own way at times -- always a mistake. It’s going to take a while. And whatever you heard, I wasn’t picking my nose the other day at McDonald's. Just scratching. Really!

You Don’t Need Anyone

“If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin.” (James 2:8-9)

James wrote these words to poor, mostly Jewish Christians. His readers were living in times that were hard for Jews and getting harder for believers in Jesus. If you read the few paragraphs around this verse, you’ll see what their specific sinful tendency was. If a rich guy happened to show up at their fellowship, they treated him like a rock star. But if it was just another poor shlub, they showed him to a nice cozy spot on the floor. Near the foots.

James didn’t get it. Rich people were the ones giving the Christians all kinds of fits, really hurting in creative ways those who followed Jesus. Why would they roll out the red carpet for those guys? He doesn’t spell it out for us, so we’re left to guess.

It might have been because the churches really needed money. They did this thing where they pooled their resources to help the poor and the sick -- people who needed food, daily care, real help if they were going to make it. If the rich guy threw that gold ring in the plate, it would go a long way toward feeding some needy friends and family members. Or maybe they were just scared. “Don’t make the rich guy angry, or he’ll come after us. Maybe if we treat him nice, he’ll tell his rich friends to give us a break.”

Either way, their favoritism was evidence that they weren’t trusting God. Think about it. Playing favorites, in this sense, is a belief issue. These Christians thought they needed something from the rich guys, so they made their play for it. But who really provides all of our needs? Do we really need anything from anyone? In your life, do you need anything from richer people, your parents, your friends, you boss? Here’s the radical idea: No. All of your needs are met by one source: God. He’s the one who provides. We don’t need anything from anyone; if God wants to give us something good, He’ll find a way to do that. And we can definitely trust Him to take care of all of our needs. So why treat some people better than others?

Oh, good, so now we can treat those rich guys like the jerks they really are, right? Let them sit on the floor for a change. We can ignore them completely. Or, better yet, yell from our church tower, “You tiny-brained wipers of other peoples' bottoms!” (One for the Python lovers.) Um, no, James isn’t telling us to play favorites with poor (or other unpopular) people, either.

Instead, he tells them to love everyone -- rich and poor -- as they love themselves. Because I don’t need anything from anyone, I can focus all my relationship time on giving myself away to others as I’d like them to treat me. If I can relax and trust God to provide for my needs, I can become a way that He uses to provide for the needs of others. Even pig-dogs.

Can you think of any rich/poor, popular/un, ugly/pretty, powerful/nobody people you need to stop trying to please in hopes that they’ll do something good for you? Can you think of any that you could spend some time trying to encourage, help, build up? Don’t fall into the sin of playing favorites. You don’t need that.

What Moses Asked For

I heard a preacher on the radio recently talking about how many funerals Moses must have seen in his lifetime. Think about it. The Bible tells us that he led 600,000 adult men out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, and toward the Promised Land. Counting women and kids, that number probably gets close to 2 million people.

But the vast majority of those people did not make it into the Land. When they had the chance to go in, they believed the report of the 10 spies that it would be impossible to take the land from those who lived there. That means they did not believe the God who had freed them from Egypt, who had parted the Red Sea, who had provided for them in the wilderness. So God announced that every one of them over age 20 would die while wandering in the wilderness for another 40 years. Only the two faithful spies -- Joshua and Caleb -- would make it in, along with all the grown kids, then 19 and under.

As Israel’s leader and God’s man, Moses lived through the full 40 years of wandering. He must have endured somewhere around a million funerals during that time, as all those unfaithful followers of God aged and died in the desert.

It’s no wonder Moses wrote this in the one psalm with his name on it:

“You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning -- though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered. We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan.” (Psalm 90: 5-9)

And though most of us won’t spend our 70 or 80 years wandering in a desert, sometimes our lives feel just as futile. And our days come and go just as quickly. This life is still 100 percent fatal.

Moses couldn’t escape that fact, with a possible average of 68 funerals a day for 40 years -- and every lost one buried outside of the Promised Land. But he could not accept the fact that life was not worth living. With God’s help, he hoped, our few years on this planet could mean something, could really matter. With that in mind, he asked God for at least four things in his psalm:

1) “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (v. 12)
Without God’s wisdom guiding our choices, we’ve got no shot at finding the path to a meaningful life.

2) “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.” (v. 14)
Satisfaction in this brief life comes from understanding that the God of the universe loves us and choosing to find joy in that. We know that His love led to the forgiveness of our sins through Jesus’ death and resurrection. We know that when this quick life is past, as believers in Jesus we’ll be with Him as we were meant to be from the beginning.

3) “May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children.” (v. 16)
Moses longed to be reminded of God’s power and goodness and love. He asked God to reveal his splendorous works to them and their kids. Of course, God’s amazing works are all around us every day. We can ask Him to give us the eyes to notice them happening right in front of us.

4) “. . . establish the work of our hands for us -- yes, establish the work of our hands.” (v. 17)
Finally, Moses begged God to allow them to do something that would matter after this life has ended. We’re promised in the New Testament that we can invest our lives in such a way as to store up worthwhile treasure for eternity.

If you ever feel discouraged about life, why not ask God for these four things, as Moses did. The good God always provides wisdom, the courage to be glad, evidence of His power, and lasting purpose to those who ask and are willing to follow Jesus.

It's Summer, and I Can't Get Up

The sluggard says, "There is a lion in the road, a fierce lion roaming the streets!" As a door turns on its hinges, so a sluggard turns on his bed. The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he is too lazy to bring it back to his mouth. The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who answer discreetly.

—Proverbs 26:13-16

Maybe it’s different for you, but when I was in school -- especially middle school and early high school -- summer could be kind of challenging. I loved the freedom of not having every square inch of my calendar booked every day. I could sleep in. I could watch a little TV. Sometimes, I even had the whole house to myself. Getting dressed? Optional. Yeah, I had to work, but my free time was still way more free than during the school year.

I loved that freedom. But after a few weeks, I started to notice something about myself. With nothing to do, I tended to do nothing much in particular. And the more I did nothing, the more nothing I wanted to do. “Hey, Chris, want to come and help with that thing at church?” “Nah.” “Hey, Chris, everybody’s going over to the place with the deal.” “Eh.”

When I absolutely had to go do something, it was like pulling a tree stump out of the ground to get myself off of the couch. My parents had a hitch attached to their minivan just so they could drag me loose with a tow rope.

I bet you know that feeling, too. When you’re sunk down low in the couch cushions and the remote is out of reach so you just keep watching what’s on even though you hate it. When you seriously think about not getting up to go to the bathroom because it’s just too much trouble. When you become a genius at thinking up good reasons NOT to do things.

The Bible calls this being a “sluggard,” at least in the NIV version. I like the KJV word better because it sounds like what it is: “sloth.” Say it in your head really slow and you can almost feel it.

We don’t think of that experience as particularly evil, but these and other Proverbs by Solomon mock the slothful sluggard as a kind of a fool.

v. 13: “I can’t go anywhere right now; I heard there’s a lion roaming the streets. Much too dangerous. Where are the cheese doodles?”

v. 14: “I really should get up. Maybe if I roll over. Oh, that’s really comfortable. I’ll just lie here for a minute.” Pause. “I really should get up. Maybe if I roll over. Oh, what’ll it hurt to hit the snooze button one more time.”

v. 15: This guy found the motivation to get his hand to the food, but lost it before he could get his hand to his mouth.

v. 16: “Oh, those poor fools out there doing all that stuff, working so hard, getting things done. What’s the point? They just don’t see life as clearly as I do. Now, seriously, where are those cheese doodles? Mom!”

We all need down time once in a while, but it’s no accident sloth is listed as one of the seven deadly sins. Once you slide into it, it’s like quicksand. Getting out and back into a worthwhile frame of mind becomes harder and harder. Some people never fully escape, and their lives slowly crumble away for lack of attention.

The problem with slothiness is that it’s like an anchor that keeps us from leading lives that really matter. A group of Israelites encouraged others not to let sloth keep them from claiming what God had promised them. (Judges 18:9) In His parable about the talents, the man who buried his instead of doing something with it was condemned for his sloth. (Matthew 25:26) And the writer of Hebrews begged his readers to be diligent in continuing to follow Jesus. (Hebrews 6:12)

Enjoy your summer. Sleep in a little. Watch a little TV. Have some cheese doodles. But kick yourself hard in the shin if you suddenly realize all you want to do is nothing much most of the time. The great thing about freedom is what you can do with it -- not what you can NOT do. Make a plan for those extra hours and do something useful or fun or interesting with them. You’ll feel better in the long run. Really.