Month: December 2013

God With Us

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
I haven’t always been a Christian.  I know what it is like to feel alone and feel like there is no God, as if I were in a deep, dark pit with no way out and no one there to hear.   I resonate with David in Psalm 40 when he said that God “lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”
 
As a Pastor, people have often asked me the question: “where is God?” in reference to their own slimy pit experience.  What I have learned since in my own dark night of the soul is that God was there all the time.  So, in response to that question of where God is, I can say with both confidence and compassion that he is right here, weeping with you; he is right here, walking alongside you; he is right here, sitting beside you; right here with you if you will have the eyes of faith to see.  I know God is here because it is Christmas; God came down and moved into the neighborhood with us in the person of Jesus, Emmanuel, which means God with us.
 
It was not just Mary that was pregnant with Jesus, but history itself was pregnant because the time had fully come for the kingdom of God to break into this world through a child who would save the people from sin, through an infant, Emmanuel, God with us.
 
What I believe we need to know more than anything is that God is with us!  God is so great that he is not somehow trapped in heaven; he can come down; he wants to come down; he did come down, literally becoming one of us – he is Emmanuel, God with us.
 
            God did not come to this earth with a big advertising campaign letting us know of the grand opening, or with a huge and expensive party to draw attention.  Neither did God come through a rich and powerful family.  Instead, in order to fully relate to us, to genuinely be with us, he came in through a lowly stable.  There are many theologians and scholars who are able to articulate this truth for all kinds of curious intellects of how this could take place, that God became man.  Yet, sometimes it simply takes a personal story, a testimony so to speak, to bring clarity.  Bono is the lead singer for the pop/rock band U2.  He tells of a time when he returned to his native Dublin, Ireland for Christmas and, on a whim, decided to sit in a church service.  At some point in the worship, he came upon the great realization, with tears streaming down his face, of what it is all about; he says,
            “The idea that God, if there is a force of Love and Logic in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough.  That it would seek to explain itself by becoming a child born in poverty, in manure and straw, a child, I just thought, ‘wow!’  I saw the genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this…. Love needs to find a form, intimacy needs to be whispered…. Love has to become an action or something concrete.  It would have to happen.  There must be an incarnation.  Love must be made flesh and dwell among us.”
            God has descended to our messy, mixed up, broken world, standing with us in our suffering and shame, plunging head long into our pain and hurt and loneliness.  Paul Louis Metzger has wisely pointed out that a God who is simply nice and decent would take pity and send some help, maybe an angel or a prophet – at least some sage advice for us.  And, we would respect that, maybe even be satisfied with it.  But the good news is that God went far beyond nice and decent.  On this very day God became a naked baby.  He was a fetus, then an unwanted pregnancy, then a slimy, screaming baby – he grew up and ended up a criminal, stripped naked, tortured by those who knew not who he was, and condemned to die.  There is nothing nice and decent about that!  It was done for us. 
 
            Perhaps you are not feeling close to God this holiday season, but rather far from God.  Perhaps this holiday season brings you more sorrow than joy.  Perhaps the weight of a situation that seems beyond your control has caused you immeasurable worry and concern.  Maybe you are wondering where he is.  I will tell you:  he is right here.  And he is waiting for you to respond to his coming, his Advent, his incarnation.  Throughout the New Testament Gospels Jesus is presented as God with us.  He was with the disciples when the storm struck and threatened their lives, and he rebuked the wind and the waves and saved them; Jesus was with his people as they were rejected by others for preaching that the kingdom of God had broken into this world through the Emmanuel.  Jesus is not an idea, not a myth, not a historical figure to be debated, not a nice guy with some pithy wisdom; he is Emmanuel, God with us!  And he is with us to the point that whatever happens to us, happens to him.
 
            Since he is here, since Jesus is Emmanuel, now is the time to recognize him for who he is.  God with us means that God is here!  Since he is present with us, we can and must respond to his presence by admitting that we have made a mess of things through living by the illusion that we are in control of our lives and living as if he weren’t here at all.  But God is here, and he is looking for us all to center our lives on the person of Jesus, and to give up going our own way and instead pursue knowing God in Christ.
 

 

            Maybe you are a person who has gone to church all your life, and like me years ago, are familiar with the baby Jesus and Advent wreaths and Christmas carols and worship services.  Yet, you have not come to the point in your life where you seriously and deliberately responded to the presence of God in Jesus and devoted your life to him so that everything centers on him and not you.  One of the realities of Christmas is that God is calling us all to feel the impact of the baby Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, and to let that joy fill our souls to overflowing.  The Christmas story is a story of invitation.  We are invited into the story of Jesus.  Come and see the angels singing glory to God; come and see the shepherds praising God for what they have seen and heard; come and see Mary and Joseph rejoicing in the birth of Jesus; come and bend down and look into the smelly, lowly manger, and you will see God with us.   You are invited into a new life.

Missed Expectations

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
Many times it is true that our expectations determine our level of emotional and spiritual health.  Unmet expectations that we have can put us in, at best, a funk, and, at worst, into a profound period of disillusionment.  Yet, there is another option when what we expect does not look like it will materialize for us – we go back to see if what we were expecting is really accurate or true, whether it is really from God or not.
 
            In John the Baptist’s case, he was expecting the Messiah, the Deliverer, to come (which was true); he expected that the Messiah would come and execute justice and establish his kingdom on earth (which was also true).  But what John expected to take place immediately that did not materialize in his lifetime was when God’s judgment and wrath was going to take place.  What John did not see is that the Messiah would not come once, but twice – that there would be two Advents of the Christ.
 
            John was experiencing the first coming of Christ, while expecting that this first Advent would be like the second.  Christ willcome again, and shall judge all things.  Yet in this first coming, there would not be judgment, but healing.  Christ came in his first Advent in order to give the blind sight, to make the lame walk, to cure, raise, and preach good news to the powerless of the gracious coming of God.
 
            What, or whom, are we expecting?  Is Jesus the one we anticipate, or are we expecting someone or something else?  And, if Jesus is the One we are expecting, what is it we presume he will do?  Like John, do we suppose that the Messiah will beat up our enemies, have everything go our way, and establish a godly government?  Or are we looking forward to Christ coming and healing that which is broken?
 
            It is quite possible that, even though we might not admit it to another person, we are rather disappointed with Jesus.  He just has not come through for us in ways that we think he should have.  It is not hard to imagine why people would have their doubts.  I have heard my share of wonderings about God from others.  Listening to a woman wonder where God was when she was attacked and raped; hearing the person with chronic pain wonder why God has not answered prayer; remembering with another person a past of abuse and neglect – these and many other scenarios of brokenness are real, and the doubts about God just as real.
 
            John ended up in prison (Matthew 11:1-13).  He did not volunteer for it.  “Okay”, John thought, “I’m in prison – I’ll deal with it.  If Jesus is really the Messiah, he will spring me from the joint!”  But day after day, the deliverance did not come.  Eventually, John was beheaded in prison.  He ended up dying and never seeing his expectation realized.  John’s understanding was that the Messiah, the Deliverer, would come and take charge, beat up the Roman occupation, and establish his firm and strong rule on the earth.  Prison just did not fit the equation; it was not part of the plan. 
 
            If God is so all-powerful and loving, why doesn’t he rescue me?  That is an important question, and one that should not be dismissed by those who have not experienced the terrible evil of this fallen world.  If you are in any way disillusioned this holiday season, you are in good company with John the Baptist.  Yet, at the same time, we all need to examine our expectations.
 
            God often works in ways that we do not expect.  Sometimes we expect God to rescue us from harm, but instead he sends someone to walk alongside us in our time of need.  Sometimes we expect a miracle to be performed, but instead God gives us the ability to face the painful trial in front of us.  Sometimes we expect God to execute his judgment on those who have hurt us, but instead God gives us the grace to forgive.              
 
            If we are honest, at some time or another, we all have been disappointed by a Messiah that did not live up to our expectations.  We want Jesus to come and to come right now.  We want clear and helpful answers to our questions.  We want to be relieved of the burden of waking up every day without knowing what the next step is.  We want the Christian life to be like a simple math equation, where if we do our part, God will do his.  We want to put our hand under the pillow and find the answer there, like a quarter from the tooth fairy – but morning after morning all you feel is the sheet.  There was a particular time in my life some years ago when, every morning in the shower I would ask God to take me home – I was so disillusioned with my life and what was going on that I was just looking for heaven.
 
            I want to put a thought in your head that maybe you have not considered:  missed expectations are a gift.  When we don’t receive what we expect, we discover that God does not always conform to our agenda.  When we experience a missed expectation, we begin to see our own selfish desires.  When we don’t get our expectations met, it causes us to seek and trust God in new and fresh ways.  And, instead of trying to make sense of everything, we are free to discover God, who he really is and what he is really all about.  Every letdown becomes an opportunity to know God, and knowing God is our highest calling in life.
 
            Did God fail to come when you called?  Then maybe God isn’t a divine Santa Claus.  Did God fail to punish, or at least correct, the people who hurt me?  Then just maybe God is not a policeman who exists to give out tickets to lawbreakers.  Did God fail to make all my plans run smoothly?  Then maybe God isn’t some cosmic mechanic who always fixes every problem.  If God isn’t any of those things, then Who is God?
 
            We need to follow the trail of grace that points us to the Savior, Jesus Christ.  Instead of coming and erasing suffering, God is next to us in our pain.  Instead of making us successful and on top of the world, God humbles us and helps us to identify with those on the bottom.  Instead of always making us strong, God teaches us to trust him in our weakness.  Instead of destroying our enemies, God calls us to love and pray for them.  Instead of doing something spectacular, God came in a lowly manger and lived a life of self-sacrificial love.  Instead of taking us home in order to avoid hard circumstances, God asks us to be patient and do the work of reaching all kinds of people with the good news of Jesus.
 

 

            The message of Advent is this:  in the person of Jesus Christ, God is with us.  God is not going to let us simply run on cruise control; he wants us to think deeply about who he is, and what his followers are to be and to do.  So, Jesus was purposely cryptic, speaking in parables and alluding to things without coming outright and saying things plainly.  It is actually important, maybe even necessary, to question God, because God wants us, more than anything, to discover him, know him, and trust him.  Maybe we need to ask the question this year:  what does God want for Christmas?  Blessed is the person who does not fall away on account of Jesus, but who comes to terms with the true and living Christ.  Just as John came as a lowly messenger seeking to prepare the way for the Lord to come, so the person who identifies with Jesus in the lowly manger is the person who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  God wants us to want him above all else – to rely on him and walk with him.  Will you give your life to him this Christmas?

An Ode to Grace

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
            

 

 
            I believe that the greatest motivator in the church, as well as in all of life, is neither guilt and manipulative arm-twisting, nor the shame of past things done or left undone.  To be sure those are powerful motivations.  But nothing in all creation can capture and captivate the heart like grace.  Grace is free, but not cheap; it is unlimited, yet still precious, even more than the most precious of diamonds.  Sin, death, and brokenness permeate this fallen world.  Every organization and institution, every individual and family is profoundly touched in some way by evil.  So enters grace – undeserved mercy where there is no earthly reason to bestow it.  Grace makes absolutely no sense.  Pardoning sinners and systems who have gone their own way and ignored their Creator is the height of God’s redeeming action.  The most wonderful miracle is not some nebulous Christmas miracle of new stuff, but the truly miraculous act of the incarnation in which the Son of God entered humanity, vulnerable, taking the audacious risk of rescuing lost people.
 
            I understand that most people in this world are not Christians; even professing Christians often seem oblivious to the implications of their arm-chair belief.  What is more, perhaps the majority of the earth’s population views any kind of doctrine of grace as rather offensive and unbelievable.  Forgiving sin is typically not at the top of anyone’s Christmas wish list.  Peace on earth hinges not on the ability to get one’s own way or skill in beating up one’s enemies; peace turns on the scandal of forgiveness toward sinners, of grace.
 
            Certainly there is beauty in a newly fallen snow; in a child’s enjoyment of it with a fresh snow angel; in coming in from the cold with the simple pleasure of a steaming cup of hot cocoa.  Yet, there is no beauty that compares to the grace of God coming in an ordinary feeding trough in order to identify with lowly people in need of a Savior.  It is more than an example to follow; of greater implication than feeling good about the holidays in a movie-inspired Christmas spirit – grace is necessary for our deliverance from everything that enslaves us.
 
            People live and die; churches come and go; seasons pass by and the calendar marches on with a seemingly unending string of bad events that makes some wonder if things can truly be different.  However, the faith, hope, and love originating from the grace of God in Christ cannot pass by and leave something untouched any more than a city crippling blizzard.
 
            Yes, being with family helps in having a Merry Christmas; a Christmas bonus aids in making the holiday more special; and, Nativity scenes dotting neighborhood lawns makes us feel good that the Christ is being emphasized in Christmas.  But it is grace, the grace of God that is found in a stable full of manure, brings not only the real meaning of Christmas to us, but the motivating understanding that God did it for me – that grace is given right smack in the middle of all my degrading and misguided attempts to have meaning apart from the Meaning-Maker.
 

 

            Grace.  There is nowhere else to find it, that is, truly find it apart from the Lord Jesus Christ.  My Ode to Grace is this:  that God, the God of the Universe who created all things and sustains the world despite its rejection of Him – this God pursued me with an unrelenting love and saved me from myself.  There is no greater gift than the gift of grace, and no greater present given than one’s only Son.  Let the world rejoice; let earth receive her king.  Even so, come Lord Jesus.

The Incarnation

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
It can be easy for us to be diverted by all the shiny things about the holiday season, and put so much emphasis on the secular aspects of this time of year that we become overstimulated and feel like vomiting.  We need to have an Advent perspective, that is, to anticipate and sense the coming of the King and offer our worship and adoration.  We must come to the quite mundane and simple manger; the dull and unattractive place where God is found.  It is here that we find the hope of the nations, and the true desire of our hearts.
 
God preserved and protected the child Jesus.  His early life retraced the life of ancient Israel.  Like the patriarchs, Jesus went down into Egypt and would eventually go down and face hell for us in his crucifixion.  Like the ancient Israelites, Jesus was brought up out of Egypt and would rise from the dead bringing freedom from sin and death once for all in a New Exodus.  Jesus is our King, the promised One of Israel and of all the nations; Jesus is our salvation, the fulfillment of all that we hope for (Matthew 2:1-18).
 
Jesus is the special God-Man who secures salvation for us.  God preserved Israel from Pharaoh’s wrath, protected Jesus from Herod’s wrath, and His kindness and loyalty extends to us as His covenant people in preserving us from the wrath of the devil who seeks to keep as many people as possible in the realm of darkness.  Our hope is in the Lord Jesus who has conquered the devil; and, he did it by first establishing a beachhead on this earth through his incarnation as the Son of God.
 
After Jesus was born, King Herod went about massacring innocent toddlers in order to ensure the destruction of Jesus.  Behind his atrocity was the devil himself who knew that Jesus was the coming King who would one day bring salvation.  The satanic agenda was set in place.  Reflecting on a vision of Christ’s birth, the Apostle John stated in Revelation 12:  The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.  She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule the all the nations…. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. 
 
            What Satan does is to war against God’s Son and God’s people, whose roots go all the way back to the first prophecy of Christ in Genesis 3:15 after the Fall of man:  And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.  There has been constant enmity since the Fall of humanity, between the serpent and the seed of the woman, with the Israelites in the Old Testament constantly being threatened with extermination and tempted to conform to pagan ways.  Herod was just another in a long line of demonically animated men trying to perpetuate the kingdom of darkness.  We must take this threat seriously because the devil knows that his time is short; a second Advent of Christ will take place and final judgment is coming.
 
            Satan’s most powerful weapon, death, has now lost its sting because of Jesus.  Christmas is a hard time of year for many people, filled with depression instead of joy, grieving over lost loved ones for whom you will not spend another Christmas with.  But there is a reunion coming, the hope of a bodily resurrection in which we will be with Jesus and God’s people forever. 
 
This time of year with all its parties, shopping, and crazy schedules, Christmas is stressful.  Even in the happiest of families, reunions and get-togethers can be difficult as old hurts resurface and adults revert to childish ways.  So, let’s come back to the first Christmas which was the beginning of the end for evil on the earth.  We, as believers in Jesus, are part of God’s victory – we overcome the evil one by the blood of the lamb, admitting that Christ’s incarnation was essential for us. 
 
Just as Jesus made a radical break with his former life in heaven through the incarnation, we, too, must break with our old way of life.  Let’s not just celebrate Christmas, not just endure it, but confess that we need this Advent of Christ because apart from it we are lost.  God will save his people through this child Jesus. 
 

 

The greatest gift of all we can give this year is the gift of the gospel of grace.  People need the Lord Jesus, and all of scripture points to him because he is the only answer to the ills and desires of this world.  What I want for Christmas more than anything is to see Jesus firmly take root in our hearts by faith.