Paul's Unselfish Prayer

Last week I preached from Colossians 4, focusing on the prayer life of Epaphras that Paul describes in verses 12 and 13. What I didn't have room for in the sermon was the incredible unselfishness of Paul's request in verses three and four.

It always challenges me to remember that Paul is in prison when he writes this letter. And rather than asking for prayer that the doors of the prison be opened, instead he asks for prayer for continued opened doors for ministry!

The take-away for me is this: no matter how hard or difficult my life-situation gets, I should first ask and look for opportunities to advance the Kingdom of God through my circumstances. This passage doesn't teach us to ignore our desires (see Acts 12:5 and 12 where we might assume the believers were praying for Peter's safe release). But it does show us a priority in our prayers– first for God's Kingdom and Will, second for our desires.

The next time we face a difficult situation and our first instinct is to pray for relief, may we first pray and look for opportunities to share Christ through the circumstance. Amen.

A Lesson from Psalm 73

In this psalm, the author is expressing his frustration at the state of affairs in our world. The fact is, ungodly people are often "successful" as the world defines success (money, power, comfort, etc.). He is not saying that these things are wrong in-and-of themselves. There are plenty of examples of Godly people who have money and success⎯this does not make them wicked or ungodly. It's not about the stuff⎯it's about our attitude toward the stuff.

My wife and I have often talked about how it almost makes us sick sometimes to see ungodly people get all the "good things" in life. It seems unfair. That's what the psalmist is talking about⎯this is what he asks God about. The answer he finds is in his attitude⎯in the understanding that all the "stuff" the world uses to define success (money, power, comfort, etc.) is not what truly makes one successful in God's sight. Once we realize and accept this fact, it helps us deal with our unfair world.

This is the lesson of the psalm: that our perspective should be the same as God's, not the people of this world. The lesson of the psalm is not that we should feel bad about having nice things, or about having the time to spend with our families. Again, it's not about the stuff⎯it's about our attitudes, our perspective.

Do we hold our stuff "loosely"⎯knowing that God has blessed us, but that our stuff doesn't make us who we are? Are we generous with our stuff? Do we place a higher priority on Godly things like family, church, love, etc.? This is the attitude God wants from us. The amount of stuff or success we have in life isn't all that important to God. It's what we do with it.

Genesis and Human Work

It's interesting that we usually associate the "work" that Adam (and all humans after him) have to do with the curse of the Fall in Genesis 3:17-19.

Genesis 3:17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

But today I was reading earlier in Genesis and noted this verse:

Genesis 2:15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

So mankind was tasked to work even before the Fall. Adam was a gardener. It was at the Fall that the ground was "cursed" and our work became a source of pain and toil. But work, as such, did not originate with the Fall.

A commentator I was reading said it this way, "Work is basic to humans, and we generally are happier when we have tasks to perform." I think this is probably right. While work is often hard and sometimes we hate it, at the same time, it's often fulfilling. When we don't have any work to do, we get bored, lazy, and idle.

The Apostle Paul says it this way:

1 Thessalonians 4:11 Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

So, in the final analysis, work is good for us. It's God-given and God-ordained. Sin in the world has made work hard and often the object of our scorn, but we should not avoid it. Rather we should make the best of it and use it for His glory ("to win the respect of outsiders").

1 Thessalonians 4

This week, my D-group guys have been reading a chapter per day of 1 Thessalonians. When we arrived at chapter four, a question was asked concerning what happens to people immediately when they die. I spent some time on the answer, so I thought I'd use it as a blog post. Enjoy!

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There are, of course, many different views and interpretations of how the end of this world will come about. There are also several views as to what happens to us immediately when we die. Without getting into a discussion concerning the book of Revelation, a period of Tribulation, and the Millennium mentioned in Revelation 20, I just want to give some general points that (probably) most Christians can agree on.

My own understanding is that, when a person dies, the body is buried-- but the spirit (who we really are; our soul) goes to either "Paradise" or "Hell" -- the destination dependent on whether the person was a Christ-follower or not. The names for the places are less important-- you could call them whatever you want-- the important thing is, there is a "place" in some spiritual, metaphysical sense where our spirits dwell. Our spirits dwell in one or the other of these places from the time of bodily death until the return of Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:8 says that to be absent from the body is to be with the Lord.)

When Christ returns, as this 1 Thessalonians passage talks about, the bodies of the dead will rise up and be reunited with our spirits (see 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 where Paul tells us that we will have real, resurrection bodies). After the dead rise, anyone who is still alive at the time of Christ's return will then also rise to meet Christ. At that time (or pretty soon thereafter), their earthly bodies will be transformed into glorious, heavenly bodies.

The final destiny of Christians is Heaven, or more specifically, the "new heaven and new earth" spoken of in Revelation 21. God will destroy this universe and give us a new home (see 2 Peter 3:11-13). The final destination of sinners will be the "lake of fire" or "second death" spoken of in Revelation 20:14-15.

This comes up in 1 Thessalonians because the Christians in Thessalonica were hoping that Jesus might return in their lifetime. And so when their friends and family began to die off, they started to get worried. "Are they going to miss out on Christ's return?" So Paul writes to them to say, in verses 13-14, "We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep [dead], that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep." He's comforting them with the knowledge that their loved ones will not "miss out" on eternity just because they died before the second coming of Jesus Christ.

We can have this hope as well for all Christians who have gone to be with the Lord. Their spirits (now with Christ) will return with Him (as 1 Thessalonians 4:14 states) and be reunited with their bodies (raised imperishable; glorious). Then the Christians who are still alive will be "caught up" with Christ and have their earthly bodies transformed "in the twinkling of an eye" to a glorious, imperishable body. Finally, all humans will face judgement and, based on their acceptance or rejection of Jesus, will spend eternity either in the Lake of Fire or on the New Earth. Amen.

Psalm 73 Reading Challenge

On Sunday, March 15, I challenged the congregation at Eastpointe to read Psalm 73 each morning this week. The goal is to see if our experience of life is affected in any way by having our perspective aligned with eternal priorities rather than earthly ones.

I hope you choose to take up the challenge. If you do, please share your experience this week by commenting on this blog post, commenting on my Facebook page, or emailing me directly.

I hope to hear from you soon!

Teasers

March 15, 2009 sermon teaser:

"Life is hard, God is good, don't get the two confused."

Also, a brand new post is coming next week!

Stay tuned for more details.

(Hey, the TV and radio stations succeed with "teasers" so I thought I'd give it a try!)

No Lack in Desire; Only Lack in Discipline

As one can easily see, I have not posted to this blog in over six months.  It seems to be difficult to consistently come here and write.  Hopefully I'll do a better job in 2009; it is a desire of mine to write more.  I wonder if anyone is out there reading?

Maybe if you wrote a comment to this post letting me know you are reading, that would encourage me to write my thoughts.  Also, any random questions you might have floating around in your head you'd like to ask-- please ask away.  That'll help me find the motivation to write.

In closing, I began reading "The Everlasting Man" by G.K. Chesterton the other day.  I am not too terribly far into it yet.  But I find it to be a very engaging book.  I want to share with you a quote from the Introduction that I found inspiring...

"When the world goes wrong, it proves rather that the Church is right.  The Church is justified, not because her children do not sin, but because they do."

Our job as Christians is not to show the world how to be perfect; rather it is to show them that, in fact, we are not perfect-- yet still we are accepted by God.