Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people. (Acts 6:8).
Stephen’s task, along with other men, was to serve tables and care for the overlooked Hellenistic widows in the daily distribution of food. Wisdom and the Holy Spirit were needed to discern this grave inequality that left a particular group underserved. The apostles did not want to neglect the ministry of the word and prayer, so they chose a group to care for the widows. However, Stephen, who was tasked to serve tables, performs signs and wonders and suddenly finds himself serving a sermon (Acts 7). Stephen is on trial before some of the men of the synagogue. They are stirring up the people, the elders, and the scribes and even bringing up false witnesses against him. Sound familiar? Stephen is a threat to those in power. The word of God was spreading. The number of disciples was exponentially increasing. Even priests were becoming obedient to the faith! In a world obsessed with acquiring and misusing power, they are afraid of Stephen’s grace. Stephen, full of grace and power… We may want to jump quickly to the word “power” and say “yeah, give me some of that!” But wait… Grace. The undeserved and unmerited favor of God. Grace. The gift and divine influence on our hearts. Grace. The one that cares more about the person than the rules and laws. Grace. The force that withholds retribution and revenge. Grace. The grounding that helps you stand in the face of those that oppose you. They were unable to cope with Stephen’s grace, unable to cope against the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking (v.10). Grace was the power that helped Stephen stand in truth. Grace offered him grit for his resistance. We need this great grace! We need God’s Spirit to fill us with grace. May we champion truth but not at the expense of grace. May we embody grace while not neglecting truth. God is gracious to us and He also hopes to be gracious through us. May the Holy Spirit send forth God’s grace to all the places in our hearts, our relationships, and our service where it is greatly needed. Where do you need God’s grace in your life? Whom can you surprise with grace today? Matthew 4:12-22
As you read the above passage, you will discover that it hearkens back to a familiar passage from Isaiah, most commonly read during the Christmas season. Isaiah’s prophecy proclaims that a great light would dawn, not only on the people of Israel, but on “Galilee of the Gentiles.” As Matthew tells the story of Jesus’s early public ministry, he notes that Jesus’ move from Nazareth (where He had presumably spent several years as a carpenter in the family business) to Capernaum fulfilled this prophecy (Matt. 4:12-17). The context of this move happens just after Jesus experienced His temptation in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-11) and had just found out that His cousin and forerunner John has been arrested. John’s arrest and death is a sad story in which we see Jesus reacting to it and grieving. Jesus picks up on and begins to proclaim the exact message which we know John was preaching: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matt. 3:2, 4:17). He also begins to call disciples to Him. In this passage, Jesus calls the brothers Andrew and Simon Peter and the brothers James and John. John 1:35-42 gives us the added, and intriguing detail that Andrew and Simon had been John’s disciples first. In the middle of a season that asks us where we see new signs of God at work, I think it’s very interesting that this passage reminds us that the new is not completely discontinuous from the old. Jesus moves to a new place to do a new thing – and it fulfills an old prophecy. Jesus begins doing the new thing – and He does not reject the message or the disciples of His cousin the prophet, but folds them into what He is doing, connecting them to the story of salvation history that has been going on since the very beginning. As you look for manifestations of God’s glory during this season, remember that some of them may surprise you because you would never have thought to look for God in a new place – and some of them may surprise you because you never would have thought to look for God in an old place. The great hymn of the church, “Now Thank We All Our God” (copy and paste on your browser: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCKRHp2Yuzs) beautifully ties together God’s presence in the past with hope for the future as it reminds us” “Now thank we all our God, with heart, and hands, and voices, Who wondrous things hath done, in Whom His world rejoices; who from our mother's arms hath blessed us on our way with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.” Listen to the hymn and think about the way Jesus has manifested His glory in your life and the lives of those you know and love. Ponder where his glory might lead you to follow. As you reflect on this passage, ask yourself two questions. First, where do you see God doing something new and unexpected? And second, where do you see God doing something continuous? Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
In my lifetime, I have attended dozens of weddings and I’ve also officiated many weddings during my 25+ years as a pastor. At every wedding, there is a passage of Scripture, usually chosen by the bride and groom. When I preside over a wedding, I encourage the couple to choose a passage that reflects the biblical truth that speaks to them personally. They almost always choose one of three passages. 1 Corinthians 13, “The Love Chapter,” is a favorite, especially for those who want a more traditional ambiance at their wedding. Colossians 3:12-17 is a frequent choice because of its practical exhortations and affirmation that love “binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col. 3:14). The third very popular biblical passage for weddings is Ecclesiastes 4:9-12. Brides and grooms understandably love the opening affirmation of this passage: “Two are better than one” (Eccl. 4:9). In a nutshell, this explains one main reason they’re getting married. They believe their lives will be better together. Moreover, they like the thought that “if they fall, one will lift up the other,” because they know that difficult times will come (v. 10). Brides and grooms are especially fond of this affirmation: “If two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone?” (v.11) I’m not sure, however, that keeping warm is what they’re looking forward to most of all. Christian couples see in the final line of Eccl. 4:9-12 a veiled reference to the role of Christ in a marriage: “A threefold cord is not quickly broken” (v. 12). The original saying referred to the simple fact that you need at least three braided strands to make a rope. Such a triple-strand cord will, of course, be much stronger than a single strand. So, though the author of Ecclesiastes was not thinking specifically about Christ in a marriage, the application of this imagery to Christian marriage works quite well. Couples for whom Christ is essential and welcome will have strong marriages, marriages that can sustain the challenges and hardships that husbands and wives routinely face. Yet, we should understand that Eccl. 4:9-12 is relevant not only to marriage relationships, but also to a wide variety of relationships, including relationships among friends, co-workers, roommates, neighbors, small group members, siblings, relatives, and so forth. Though you would be advised to reserve the lying together part for family life, the other benefits of relationships in this passage are more widely relevant. I think, for example, what my family and I experienced in early 2016 when I resigned from my pastoral position in a previous church. I was unemployed for more than two years. This was, of course, devastating to my sense of self. Yet my brothers in Christ from the church hung in there with me. When my family finances were pretty much non-existent, folks brought help in the form of money, food, and even some pretty amazing presents. One family relative helped me with a pastoral position opening, which finally helped me get a job. If my family had attempted to go through this time of life alone, it would have been so much worse than what we experienced. No matter where you are in life, no matter what you’re going through right now, whether you’re in a time of plenty or a time of want, whether you’re rejoicing or sorrowing, remember this: Two are better than one. If you want to thrive, or even just to survive, you need other people. And, yes, you also need the “third strand” in your life, in every part of life, not just in marriage. Christ is with you at all times, to strengthen you, guide you, protect you, heal you, and encourage you. The more you live each day in relationship with Christ and His people, the more you will never have to do it alone. Lord Jesus, thank You for the truth that two are better than one. Thank you for creating us to be in relationship with others. Thank you for being in relationship with us. We are already in March. The year has been filled with many different emotions; from mass shootings, to global catastrophes in earthquakes, snowstorms, and we have so much more of the year to go. Let’s be mindful of what we fill our minds with as God works in this season of our church.
Do we get caught up in the negative media and feel discouraged? Can we overcome the darkness we face with the light God gives us? Matthew 5 tells us we are the light of the world and we are not to keep it hidden, but to shine before others and glorify the Lord. We have been entrusted to bring light in the midst of darkness and share the hope we have in Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5 tells us that if we are in Christ, we are a new creation, and a new thing has come out of the old. We can expect that God will do and is doing a new work today. As we approach Easter, let’s remember that we are no longer our old selves, but awaiting the return of Jesus after His victory at the cross. It was a dark day, but light came through, and salvation was given to all who call on Jesus, that is the hope we proclaim. As more things will occur outside of our control this year: Let’s ask ourselves how we can continue to be the light of the world, not being afraid of the dark, and standing up in the name of Jesus. Let’s be the new creations that don’t live in conformity to the world’s standards, but live in accordance to God’s heavenly standard. Let’s look to the hope and victory that He gives us, and live with the love and joy that is only found in Christ. 1 Kings 19:15-16, 21
We cannot do ministry alone. In the Old Testament, we see that Moses didn’t do it alone by implementing a succession plan as he was nearing death. The Lord appointed Joshua as Moses’s successor and Moses publicly endorsed Joshua’s leadership. Also, during the last months of his life, Moses shared some of his leadership tasks with Joshua, thus preparing the younger man for his future leadership. There is a similar story in the books of 1 and 2 Kings. Here, the main characters are the prophet Elijah and a younger prophet-in-training named Elisha. After Elijah led a miraculous, victorious battle with the prophets of Baal, his life was threatened by the evil queen Jezebel (1 Kings 18:20-19:3). So, Elijah escaped into the wilderness where he asked the Lord to take his life. But God had other plans for Elijah: plans that began with his making a 40-day trek to “Horeb, the mount of God” (19:8). There, while hiding in a cave, God was revealed to Elijah in “a sound of sheer silence” (19:12). The Lord gave Elijah new instructions, which involved anointing several future leaders, including “Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place” (19:16). Elijah was to identify and authorize his prophetic replacement. Elijah traveled to where Elisha was plowing a field and “threw his mantle over him” as a sign of the authority being invested in Elisha (1 Kings 19:19). Elisha, in response, said goodbye to his family, offered his farm equipment and animals in sacrifice to God, and “set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant” (19:21). Though Elijah had momentarily given his prophetic mantle to Elisha, the older prophet wasn’t done with his own prophetic career, however. With Elisha accompanying him as his servant, Elijah continued to prophesy for several years until, finally, he was taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire (2 Kings 2:11). After this, Elisha took up the mantle of Elijah full-time, both literally and figuratively, as he began his prophetic service. Unfortunately, we know little about the relationship between Elijah and Elisha. We do know that Elisha was persistently loyal to Elijah, following him all the way to Elijah’s last moment on earth. Reading between the lines, it’s easy to imagine many of the ways Elijah influenced Elisha. What we see here, only from a distance, is a relationship we might describe as mentoring. Not only did Elijah teach Elisha many things, but also and perhaps even more importantly, the two men shared life together. They walked together for years before Elisha assumed Elijah’s role as God’s chief prophet. The example of Elijah reaffirms what we learned from the life of Moses. Part of not doing it alone is recognizing that our time of leadership will come to an end. We need to invest our lives in those who will carry on after us. Moses did this with Joshua. Elijah did this with Elisha. But mentoring is not limited to relationships in which one person prepares another for a specific job. We can also experience what might be called “life mentoring,” where two people come together to discover how to live more fully and fruitfully as disciples of Jesus. As we think about what it means for us to not do life and leadership alone, we ought to consider seriously our own need for mentoring relationships. When we are younger, we can benefit greatly from a relationship with a more mature mentor who comes alongside us, sharing life with us, asking thoughtful questions of us, and helping us become the person God intends for us to be. When we are older, we need to be open to the possibility that God wants us to mentor others, often someone who is younger than we are. When we offer to walk alongside another person, that is a great gift for that person, to be sure. It is also a gift to those who will benefit from the mentee’s life and leadership. Plus, scientific research shows that mentoring others is a gift to the mentor, contributing to brain health and a sense of purpose that is essential for flourishing in later life. Allow me to suggest that you reflect upon your own life in light of the relationship between Elijah and Elisha. If you’re in an “Elisha time of life,” do you have an Elijah? Are you being mentored by someone? If you’re in an “Elijah season of life,” do you have at least one Elisha? Are you mentoring someone? An essential part of not doing it alone is developing mentoring relationships marked by open sharing of life, learning, and leadership. Ask God about what you might do in this area. Do whatever God places on your heart. Lord Jesus, thank You the mentors in my life. Help me to know, Lord, what I should do when it comes to mentoring. I also pray for my church, that we will be a place in which mentoring happens consistently. May we learn to come alongside others for the sake of learning and growth. To You be all the glory. Amen. 1 Peter 2:4-5
Last week, I wrote about our attitudes toward God’s construction project. Today, I want to look at the project itself. What is God building and why? First, God is building “a spiritual house.” What is this “a spiritual house”? Given the context, it seems clear that “house” is a metaphor. But does “spiritual” suggest that it describes something non-physical and invisible? Not likely, given the context. The elements of God’s “spiritual house” are visible, physical beings, including Jesus Himself and all His followers. Moreover, the creation narrative, the incarnation, and the resurrection all emphasize that physical reality matters to God. So, a more likely reading is that God is building an embodied structure (what we might call an institution) that is inhabited by the Spirit and is one in which God will ultimately fully dwell (Revelation 21:2-3). So, what might that imply for our view of the local church? For one, it challenges me to love and care for the institution of the local church, and not just the abstract ideal of the “true invisible church.” The local church, as a community and as an institution, is redeemed but still fallen, just as we are as individual believers. In the same way that we are committed to the sanctification of the individual, we should be committed to the sanctification of our local church community and institution, knowing that God alone will complete that work in the end. Second, God’s building is meant to house a functioning, holy priesthood. And that priesthood is not intended, in the first instance, for a select few within the church. Instead, it is a description of God's role for all human beings. Humanity is meant to be God’s personal, embodied representative to creation. Made in the image of God, people are meant to convey God’s care to the world, and to convey the world’s cares back to God. Human beings, male and female, are meant to respond to the summons to fulfill God’s mission in the world, and to offer their service back to God with praise and thanksgiving. Central to that priestly work is the notion of sacrifice. So, what might today’s text mean that we are to offer “spiritual sacrifices”? Does the adjective “spiritual” mean something mystical and ethereal? Again, I don’t think so. The Apostle Paul, using much the same imagery and language as the Apostle Peter, says that we are “to offer (our) bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God” (Romans 12:1). Eugene Peterson provides a helpful paraphrase for Paul’s words, “Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering” (Romans 12:1 MSG). All of life and work are included in what constitutes “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.” And that means, among many other things, that the local church needs to make a liturgical space where the fruits of our life and labors can be brought to God on a regular basis. But in what sense is the offering of our lives and work to be sacrificial? Sacrifices are costly, even a matter of life and death. Jesus taught, “Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24). There are many ways each of us can live this out in our leadership and work. We carry the burdens of our team; we make painful decisions for the good of others; we give up our prerogatives so that others may flourish. I want to focus for a moment on how this plays out in the context of the local church. Are we willing to sacrifice for the flourishing of our local church, the relational community, and the institution which embodies it? And why should the local church be that important to us? The answer for me lies in God’s intention for the local congregation to be a “living sacrifice” that models Christ’s sacrifice to the watching world. As Lesslie Newbigin once wrote, “local congregations are the hermeneutic of the gospel.” Each of our local communities is intended to be a demonstration of the gospel coming alive in practice. Unlike Jesus, we do that imperfectly, of course. Nevertheless, in our weakness and in our struggles, we are to be signs of God’s coming Kingdom. The local church should be “precious” to us, because we are “being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Lord Jesus, we are grateful to be part of God’s house of which You are the Foundation and in which the Spirit dwells. Help us to be willing participants in the living structure that You are creating. Give grace to each of our local communities to be living sacrifices that point to Your great sacrifice on behalf of all. We ask in Your Name, Amen. 1 Peter 2:4-5
As you come to Him, the living Stone – rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to Him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Yesterday, while in the office, I saw a pictorial history of the building of the church building on our Cerritos campus. There were pictures of different stages of the building as it went up. Praise God for the beautiful facility that He has blessed us with. As I reflected on the pictures, the building of the church became instructive as a metaphor for my relationship with God and the church. God too is involved in a construction project with me. Admittedly, it is a peculiar project. Instead of working with inanimate objects like wood and stone, God is constructing a building that is alive, made of human beings. Strangely, we are not only construction materials but participants in the construction process. As today’s text says, God is constructing a house made of “living stones.” Today, I want to focus on our attitude toward the project, or perhaps more accurately, towards the construction material and the process of construction. There are three words in our text that form a continuum of how we feel about God’s project: “rejected,” “chosen,” and “precious.” God’s construction project begins with the foundation or “cornerstone” (1 Peter 2:6), which is Jesus Christ Himself. How we deal with Jesus is essential to our participation in God’s construction project. If we reject Him, we cannot take part in it at all. But it is important to note that Jesus is not the whole building. He is “the living Stone,” but there are other “living stones” which are essential to God’s building. We are called not only into a relationship with Jesus but into a relationship with His followers in a community of faith. We cannot claim to “accept Jesus” and at the same time reject those He has called to Himself. As the Apostle John wrote long ago, “For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen” (1 John 4:20b). So, we must choose and not reject the community of faith to which God has called us. Practically, that means becoming part of a local church where we can learn the ways of Jesus—which centrally includes being built into a living community of faith. We are both construction materials and construction participants in this work. God the Spirit is at work not only in us individually, but also with us in our relationships with one another. Learning to love brothers and sisters who are quite different from us is hard and messy work. Loving Jesus who is sinless is a lot easier than loving your brother or sister who is not. No wonder Jesus’ final commandment to His disciples is: “Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12). Being part of a local faith community is costly work for each of us, but one which Jesus says is worth our very lives. And when all other hope fails, it is worth remembering that God is building something in the church that will not only endure into eternity, but where He will ultimately dwell in His fullness (Ephesians 1:23). The construction pictorial of the Cerritos sanctuary hints at God’s goal – something exceptionally functional and beautiful. Finally, it is one thing to “choose” something and another to find it “precious.” We love our building project. I am sure at certain points, we got excited about the potential result. Of course, as in any constructions, there are times we get frustrated and even angry when things go wrong. But there is no mistake about how deeply we cared for the work, for the materials, and for the process. In the builder’s eyes, the project and all its aspects are “precious.” I find that challenging as I think about my attitude towards my local church. How do you feel about your local church? What might God be calling you to work on in your relationships in your local community of faith? Lord Jesus, we are grateful that You are the living cornerstone of God’s building project. Everything in God’s house is intended to be aligned with You and the way of life You taught and embodied. Help us to live faithfully before You. Give us grace to love and live with one another as You have loved us. Intercession is praying on behalf of someone else to God the Father, through Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus closed the gap between us and God when He died on the cross. Because of Jesus’ mediation, we can intercede in prayer on behalf of other Christians or for the lost, asking God to grant their requests according to His will.
James 5:16 instructs us to “pray for one another”. 1 Tim 2:1 says, “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people.” The passage goes on to says that this “pleases God.” These prayers may involve praying in a general way for such things as the church or the government, or offering up more specific prayers based on your knowledge of a specific person’s need. Think of intercession as coming between two sides to settle differences like a lawyer. So, when we pray for someone, we are coming between God and the person and presenting and pleading the person’s case to God. We may have lists of needs to pray for and probably have an outcome we are asking God for, but there should be room for the Holy Spirit to show us how to pray and lead us to know the will of God. Romans 8:26 says, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for; but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.” The Spirit’s communication transcends our words and gets to the true thoughts and intentions of our hearts. If we are listening to the influence of His Spirit, then our prayers will never be self-centered or have the wrong motivation behind them; instead they will pertain to building up His kingdom. Richard Trench, Anglican archbishop and poet said, “Prayer is the means in which God gets His will done on earth, not the means in which man gets his will done in heaven.” Intercessory prayer seeks God’s glory, not our own. Our intercession can move the hand of God. He is anxious to answer our prayers! In Matt.7:11, we see this promise: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?”. Whether the need is big or small, it is not beyond what He is capable of providing. He is the Great Provider, Jehovah-Jireh. When you see a need that someone has, ask God to fill it for them. James 4:2 says, we “have not because we ask not.” Intercession enhances our own spiritual growth. Praying for others causes us to become more like Christ, who spent many hours praying to His Father for others. We cannot pray for the Lord to strengthen others without ourselves being strengthened. We cannot ask for God to soften someone else’s heart without our own heart being softened also. We grow closer and closer to God each time we pray for someone else. When we intercede, it helps us to focus on someone other than ourselves. Praying for others forces us to take our minds off of ourselves. Jesus was selfless, always preferring others above Himself, always praying for another person’s needs. As we see how God intervenes in the lives of those we have prayed for, it gives us the chance to thank and praise Him for all His goodness. It is so exciting to see the ways in which God answers the prayers we have prayed for others. There are millions in the world who do not know God. The lost people should be our first priority in intercessory prayer … the lost we know and those we don’t. We should pray for those who ask us to pray and for our “enemies” like Jesus instructs us in Matthew 5:44. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “In intercessory prayer the face that may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed into the face of one for whom Christ died, the face of a pardoned sinner.” The Lord urges us to pray because He knows the power of prayer. He knows what prayer can do, not only for the ones for whom we have prayed but for us as well. We need to pray, not to impress God but because it increases our faith. Intercession helps us to see with spiritual eyes, the needs of others and to lift our voices to God’s throne in behalf of others. “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). Happy new year both Western and Lunar! There is a phrase I often hear during this time of year saying, “New Year, New Me”. We often approach the new year as an opportunity to make new resolution or new goals to become better versions of ourselves. As FECC, we adopt a similar mindset. We enter 2023 with new members in our board of directors and our board of deacons and we bring to God our hopes for growth within our church. We look to see how God will bring about a “New Year, New Church”.
And this is why we have adopted this theme of Renovaré. We look to see renewal in our church as God brings about fresh things to our community. Our theme verse in Isaiah says to forget the former things and do not dwell on the past. And it also invites us to see and perceive the new things God is doing. Seeing what God is doing is critical, but what keeps us from perceiving as we should? Here are three things that perhaps can keep us from seeing. 1. We are not looking. As individuals and as a community, we can be familiar and comfortable with our routines and be oblivious to what God is doing. We stay to what has worked and we do not actively see and look for what God is doing. 2. We are looking backwards. God is ahead of us making a way but we might be focused on looking at our past successes and how God showed up in our history. Isaiah says to forget the former things. While we thank God for His work in the past, we need to turn our eyes to the present and the future and see what God is doing now. 3. We are looking too narrowly. God might be doing a new thing completely different from what our expectations. We often times confine God to work in a particular context or a particular form. If we are to see what God is doing, we need to be open to notice God in perhaps some unexpected locations or means. As we embark on this journey into 2023 and follow God’s direction for us, my prayer is that we would have eyes to see. Let us ask God to give us clear eyes to see and may we be empowered by God to faithfully follow Him in the direction he reveals! Romans 12:1-8
In the letter to the Romans, Paul has two main aims. The first, in chapters 1-11, his aim is to explain God’s ultimate plan for the salvation of both Jews and Gentiles. The second begins here with one of the significant “Therefore’s” that always signals Paul is changing gears. From chapter 12 until the end of the letter in chapter 16, Paul is interested in the “So what?” that derives from the first 11 chapters. If God has transformed the world, if everything is cosmically different because of what Christ has done, if old divisions are healed and nothing can separate us from the love of Christ – what does that mean in our daily life? In today’s passage, there are two answers to the above question. The first (vv. 1-2) is that God’s transformation is not magic. We have free will, and He does not transform us automatically. We have to be willing to be transformed. We have to offer all of ourselves – bodies (v. 1) and minds (v. 2) – for grace to work on. In many Christian traditions, what happens in Romans 12:1-2 is what we know as sanctification. In the moment of justification, God counts us as righteous because of Christ, but in all the moments afterwards we need to submit to the hard work of actually becoming righteous. In Romans 12:3-8 Paul makes an application of this theme, and it’s the second answer to what Christ’s transformation of the cosmos means for our daily life. As we daily become sanctified, undergoing our own personal transformation and offering ourselves to Christ every single day, we will learn that each of us has a calling and that no calling within the body of Christ should be given pride over any other calling. This can sometimes be a hard passage for a pastor like me to hear, but I think it’s a necessary passage. I am called to a ministry of preaching the Word, administering the sacraments, and loving and serving God’s people and I need to fulfill that calling. But I can’t be everywhere, and neither can any other pastor. Nor do I have every gift. For the body of Christ to function as it should, everyone needs to exercise those gifts – in and out of the church building – so that the world is taught, healed, cheered, and ministered to. Since we’ve entered the pandemic, many of us have discovered exactly how essential it is that people exercise their gifts outside of the church building. Making technology function correctly. Teaching children remotely. Laboring in hospitals to help the sick. Calling those in power to account as we seek to quell the suffering. Exhorting others to carry on. We stand at a crossroads in society today—not the first or the only crossroads that Christians have ever come to, but the crossroads that has been given to us. From Tolkien’s “The Fellowship of the Rings” we get the following exchange: “I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” Are you willing to be transformed? Lord, we are so grateful that You have saved us and that nothing can separate us from your love. Now empower us to minister in our callings to help heal the world in this moment. Amen. |
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