Our Lord has taken all the work out of prayer

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“Your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask Him.” –Matthew 6:8.

Who wouldn’t like to lose weight without dieting?  And, yes, we’d like to get healthy and have our muscles toned up while we sleep.  Half the people I know would like to get a college degree without going to class or studying.

Forget it. Not going to happen.

In the same way, spiritual disciplines require purposeful effort from us.  Whether we are fasting and enduring great tribulation for Jesus’ sake, or doing something as simple as studying our Sunday School lesson and offering grace before meals, conscious effort is required, and that means a strong focus on the Savior.

Prayer is hard work, we are told.

I respond that this is a half-truth.  Overcoming our human tendency to “do it by myself” (like a petulant four-year-old) and our sinful insistence on hanging onto a sinful but enjoyable habit, those may indeed require discipline and effort.  Making myself turn off the television or lay aside an enjoyable book to open God’s word and read and meditate and pray does require some effort from me.

But is prayer itself–talking with the Heavenly Father–actually work?  Is it hard to talk to the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ who loved us and gave Himself for us our needs?  Is it work to praise Him for His wondrous works?

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Word-wrangling. Dangerous work!

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Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers.  (Second Timothy 2:14)

Many of us pastors have trouble staying out of the ditches and onto the road.

A scholar friend says, “Truth is a ridge on either side of which are vast chasms to be avoided at all cost.”  One side is called liberalism, the other legalism.  Rigid fundamentalism on the right, worldly compromise on the left.  In between is the road.  The way.  It’s narrow.

Truth always is.

It’s one thing to love word-study and to delight in finding a particular word in Scripture that yields a well-spring of insights and applications, but a far different thing to fight over the meaning of some obscure Greek word.

First Timothy 6:4 warns God’s leaders about “word-battles” or “word-wrangling.” The idea is “constant striving” and “chronic disagreement.” The Greek word is disparatribai, a double compound word which means “constant contention, incessant wrangling or strife.”

Then, in Second Timothy 2:14 Paul uses a different word, logomachia, which we are told means “fighting with words.”  The NASB translators made it “word-wrangling,” which I like.

The image of wrangling suggests a cowboy roping a dogie, jumping off his horse, and wrestling the animal to the ground.

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We actually know what Satan is up to

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We are not ignorant of his devices. (II Corinthians 2:11)

We actually know a good bit about Satan. More than we think, I expect. His history, his driving force, and his game plan are spelled out all through Scripture. We are left with tons of unanswered questions, but we know enough to understand how he works and what to do about him.

His devices. We know his maneuvers, his designs, his schemings, his wiles, and how resourceful he is. (Those are all different ways the Greek for “devices” is translated in various versions.)

Look at it this way. Satan is no fool. He has been studying human nature from the early days of the human race. He knows human psychology to a degree that any university in the land can only imagine. If they gave doctorates to serpents, he would have degrees out the kazoo. He is one smart dude.

He knows you.

The question before us, today, though, class, is this: do you know him? Do you pay attention to how he works?

There are two extremes to avoid: going to seed on Satan and seeing him in every thing, everywhere, is one extreme; and completely ignoring him is the other. There’s a balance somewhere in the middle where God’s people should take our stand.

If you are trying to do right, to live for God, to resist the encroaching infiltration of the world, then you are in his crosshairs. He has targeted you.

You’d better learn how he works and how to resist him.

Please note that I am not recommending that any of us specialize on the devil.

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The hazardous art of predicting the future

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“And it happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a certain slave-girl having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortunetelling….” (Acts 16:16)

Some culture writers and half-serious columnists do it for fun, giving their forecasts on life in the future.  Some, like meteorologists, work at it seriously to protect lives. If the hurricane in the Caribbean is headed our way we need to know it.

But then, there are those strange individuals who believe they are endowed with supernatural gifts of prophecy and fortune-telling. (There was a young woman possessed with such power in Acts 16.  Its origin was satanic.)

If you have such a gift, I have a word for you.

Give it back.

An article from Newsweek of January 1, 2000, reported on a prediction from 98 years earlier.  In the 1902 Atlantic Monthly, economist John Bates Clark had written a piece called “Looking Back on the 20th Century.”  Mr. Clark had projected himself into  the year 2000 and concluded we would be seeing….

–strawberries the size of apples and oranges growing in Philadelphia.

–Moving sidewalks through pneumatic tubes in order to transport people

–No more slums

–War and poverty eliminated.

–A near “pot-hole free expressway of progress” for all of mankind

–Wealth evenly distributed

According to Mr. Clark, “Humanity has it made in the shade” by the start of the 21st century.

Well, he got the strawberries thing right. And airports have the moving sidewalks.  However, far from being free of war, the 20th century gave us two of the worst conflicts in the history of mankind resulting in the deaths of hundreds of millions.  (He also missed entirely any mention of air travel, being one year short of the Wright Brothers’ invention.)

War and poverty are alive and well in the year 2024, to our sadness and shame.

Here’s a question for those who would like to turn this into a parlor game.  What did Mr. Clark miss? What did he overlook which made his predictions so much rosier than the reality?

He missed “the elephant in the living room.”

He missed the dark side of human nature.  The sinful, selfish nature of fallen man.

What the Bible calls sin.

Mankind has such capabilities and potential. However, he is always hampered by a dysfunctionality about himself: he is his own worst enemy.

Take wars, for instance.  During the late 1960s when the U.S. was deeply involved in war in Southeast Asia, at the funeral for one of our soldiers, I heard the preacher say, “We do not know where wars come from.”  I wondered if he had never read God’s word.

What is the source of the wars and the fights among you? Don’t they come from the cravings that are at war within you? You desire and do not have.  You murder and covet and cannot obtain.  You fight and war (James 4:1-2).

Make a list of mankind’s ills and in one way or the other, they all go back to the lusts and cravings of the human heart. It wants what it wants and refuses to take ‘no’ for an answer. If using others to get what it wants is required, the human heart will find a way.

We were talking about the business of foretelling the future.

God’s preachers must be careful not to get into the act.  We know no more about the future than anyone else.  We have not solved the prophecy riddle, sad to say, and a thousand certainties preached in past generations by prophetic know-it-alls have been proven false.  To our shame, that does not impede this generation of self-appointed experts on prophecy from announcing their findings.

I’m not saying we should not be teaching Ezekiel 38-39 or the books of Daniel or Revelation. Only that humility is called for when approaching these teachings that have perplexed the Lord’s people from the beginning.

A little historical perspective is in order.

If past generations were mistaken about the identity of the Antichrist (Hitler, Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, the head of the European Common Market, Henry Kissinger, FDR, Guru Maharaj Ji, and Saddam Hussein have all received nominations!), it’s almost a lead-pipe certainty that you and I haven’t figured it out either.

In his final epistle to Timothy, the Apostle Paul said, “Reject foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they breed quarrels” (2 Timothy 2:23).  And this: “The Lord’s servant must not quarrel, but must be gentle to everyone, able to teach, and patient, instructing his opponents with gentleness…” (2:24).

Humility is always in order.  Gentleness in teaching will not elicit a chorus of ‘amens’ from the back pews and will not get you invited to deliver that oration at the next conference of pulpiteers.  Kindness in your manner probably will not drive your audience to their feet as they call out their approval of that rousing sermon.  But it will please your Father and it will instruct the Christlike.

What it will not do is tickle the fancies of the sensual and carnal.

But you can live with that.

What it will do is stand the test of time.

“Preach the Word.”

Never hesitate to say “I don’t know” when asked questions outside your understanding.  Because you do not know a thousand things about what God is doing in this world.  What you and I do know beyond any doubt is this:  Trusting our Lord is always best and right and wise.

Trust and obey. For there’s no other way. 

Broken Pastor, Broken Church

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This is our account of the most difficult three years in our lives, as we pastored a divided church in North Carolina. The article ran in the Winter 2001 issue of “Leadership Journal,” a publication of Christianity Today.  At the conclusion, check out the postscripts.

How could I lead a congregation that was as hurt as I was?

My calendar for the summer and beyond was blank. I usually planned my preaching schedule for a full year, but beyond the second Sunday in June–nothing. I had no ideas. I sensed no leading from the Spirit. But it was only January, so I decided to try again in a couple of months. Again, nothing. By then, I suspected the Lord was up to something.

A member of my church had told me the year before, “Don’t die in this town.” I knew what she meant. She didn’t envision Columbus as the peak of my ministry. Columbus was a county-seat town with three universities nearby, and, for Mississippi, cosmopolitan. I felt Columbus, First Baptist, and I were a good match. The church grew. We were comfortable together. My family was settled. Our sons and daughter had completed most of their schooling, and after twelve years, they called Columbus home. My wife, Margaret, and I had weathered a few squalls, but life was good–a little quiet, perhaps even stagnant, but good.

And suddenly I could hear the clock ticking. Did God have something more for me?

First Baptist Church of Charlotte, North Carolina, called in March. I ended my ministry at Columbus the second Sunday of June and began in Charlotte one month later.

After I’d been in Charlotte about a month, the man who chaired their search committee phoned. “I have some people I want you to talk with,” he told me. He picked me up and drove me to the impressive home of one of our members. In the living room were a dozen men, all leaders in the church and in the city. Another man appeared in charge.

“We want to offer you some guidance in pastoring the church,” he said. “There are several issues we feel are important, and we want you to know where we stand.” He outlined their position on the battle between conservatives and moderates for control of our denomination and on the role of women in the church. He wanted women elected as deacons, one item in a full slate of changes he wanted made at the church.

Charlotte’s web

I was beginning to see what I had been told: a handful of very strong lay people had called the shots for more than two decades, and this was part of their plan.

My immediate predecessor had run afoul of this little group and after three tough years had moved to another church of his own accord. The pastor before him had stayed over 20 years.

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Should we encourage the pastor? Yes, let’s!

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You are a member of the Lord’s church and you support your pastor, right?  Okay. I have a suggestion.

Write him a letter.

Handwrite it. Make it two pages, no more. Make it positive and uplifting.

And when you do, I can tell you several things that are true of that letter once it arrives at the pastor’s desk….

—It will be a rarity. He gets very little first class mail these days. Everything is done by computers.

—He will keep the letter for a long time.

—It will bless him (and possibly his family) for years to come, particularly when they come across it years from now.

Case in point. While perusing my journal of the 1990s, I ran across a letter from Christy dated July 15, 1997. Here is what this young lady–perhaps a high school senior–wrote to her preacher.

Dear Brother Joe,

I’ve been saying for some time that I was going to write my pastor a letter of encouragement. So here you go. Do you feel encouraged yet?

You really do a good job in passing on God’s Word to us. Would you like to hear some good news?

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Christians have no one to blame but themselves

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The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves…. (from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.  Act I, Scene 3.)

We did it and we are to blame.

Christians are forever complaining about the increasing secularization of America.  To listen to them in the year 2024 one would think the “old days”–say, seventy-five years back–were the golden time of perennial revival.

The only problem is I lived through those days of the ’50s and 60s.   I can tell you the preachers were constantly railing against the decline in religion, the weakening of the churches, the surrendering to the world.

There has never been a golden age of faith in this country or any other that I have heard of.  Men have always loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.  The narrow way is always trod by the few while “broad is the way that leads to destruction.”

Don’t be overly impressed–or too discouraged–by statistics and percentages showing the swings of church attendance, the number of Christians in Congress, and such.

The greatest mistake of the past generations of Christians in this country was trying to Christianize the culture without evangelizing the people.  We put prayer in the schools, made the church the social life of the community, instituted blue laws so that no liquor could be sold on Sundays, and basically shut down secular life on the Lord’s Day.  We protected the morality of the cities and towns.  The citizens were no more Christian than previously, but we were making them behave like it.

It is indeed true that we managed to keep drugs out of our communities, kept a lot of bad movies from being aired in our small Bible-belt towns, and relegated bad sin to the back streets.  But we were forcing Christian behavior on a world of lost people.

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They criticized the pastor. So he resigned.

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“Christ also suffered for us…when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him who judges righteously….” (I Peter 2:21-25).

Quotes on enduring criticism abound.  Go online and pull up a chair.  Here are a few we found in a few minutes….

–The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment.(Elbert Hubbard)    -You can’t let praise or criticism get to you.  It’s a sign of weakness to get caught up in either one. (John Wooden)   –A critic is a legless man who teaches running. (Channing Pollock)    –You are a glorious shining sword and criticism is the whetstone.  Do not run from the whetstone or you will become dull and useless. Stay sharp.  (Duane Alan Hahn)

Pastor and church leaders:  You do not want to live and work where there is an absence of criticism.

You think you do. But you don’t. Consider…

Only in the harshest of dictatorships is there no criticism.  But in a free society–like ours–criticism abounds.  If the society is indeed free, much of the criticism is fair, just, and well deserved.  And, just as certain, some will be unfair, unjust and undeserved. A leader who survives has to develop discernment in order to know what to ignore and what to treasure and learn from.

A friend texted: “Joe, write something about criticism!  Some good pastors are resigning because not everyone in the church likes them!”

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Hypocrisy: Why the Lord despises it so much

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“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” (Matthew 23:13,14,15,23,25,27,29).  “Woe to you, blind guides!” (Matthew 23:16,24,26).  “You serpents, you brood of vipers!” (Matthew 23:33).

The Lord has this thing about hypocrites.

He doesn’t care for them much.

You and I have learned something God hasn’t managed to do: to accommodate ourselves to those who say one thing and do another.

Take the beer company of St Louis, for instance. We read this and it sounds normal to us. It took a secular writer to point out the hypocrisy in their moralizing.

“We are not yet satisfied with the league’s handling of behaviors that so clearly go against our own company culture and moral code.” –Anheuser Busch, responding to recent scandals in the National Football League (TIME magazine, September 29, 2014)

Humor writer Ian Frazier nails the famous beer company for its duplicitous moralizing in the same issue of TIME magazine.

In recent weeks the NFL has been under attack for its mishandling of the serious misbehavior of players who, among other things, knocked out a wife in the elevator and was caught on tape doing it, and beat a four-year-old child leaving whelps and open wounds on his skin.

The famous beer company, known for its massive advertising throughout every sporting event available, takes the NFL to task for its pitiful reaction.  Such behavior is against Anheuser-Busch’s moral code and culture.

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What most pastors cannot do in their preaching

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“One can’t believe impossible things,” said Alice to the White Queen. “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” –From Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

I write this mostly tongue in cheek.  But not completely.

It seems to require superhuman strength to keep our latest accomplishments out of our sermons.

That’s what this is about.

If a pastor jogs or works out, he will probably work that into a sermon at least monthly.  “As I was jogging yesterday morning, I’d just completed my third mile….”

If a pastor’s child excels in athletics or the band or academics, he will find a way to mention that in a sermon.  It’s what a proud dad does.  “My wife and I are so proud of Jayson who has just received ‘student of the month’ award for the third time.  We were telling our daughter who is working on a Master’s at Johns Hopkins…”

If the pastor once took a course in Greek and can find his way around a Greek lexicon, look for him to mention that in a sermon, “When I was studying Greek” or “My Greek Bible says….”  I suspect that if a real Greek scholar ever entered the service and challenged us, we would be petrified.

If a pastor reads through the Bible annually–or has just done it the first time–not saying so in a sermon is asking more than he is able to give.  I can hear him say, “As you know, I read through the Bible annually–and have done so for the last 13 years.”

If the pastor is an avid golfer or a die-hard for some university’s football team, expect it to show up in sermons from time to time.  He can no more keep that a secret than he can his commitment to Jesus Christ.  “Well, I did it! I hit a hole in one last Tuesday.”  He waits for the congregation to applaud.  Half the people turn to the other half as if to say, “What does that mean?”

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