Not Home Yet

Whenever you are doing a study on faith, the life of Abraham always seems to come to the forefront.  As a matter of fact, in Hebrews 11, Abraham occupies 12 verses of the chapter when most of the examples are limited to one or two verses each. 

Abraham’s faith was something unusual.  God called him to get up and go without telling him where he would be going, and in faith, Abraham obeyed.

By faith, Abraham wandered around in the wilderness most of his life waiting for God to give him the inheritance that He had promised.

Although his flesh got the better of him on a couple of occasions, for the most part, he lived his life by faith, even when the outward circumstances seemed to indicate that God had forgotten about His promises.

I am constantly challenged by verse 13, where it tells of all of those faithful ones in the past who died before the promise was fulfilled.  It says that they died in faith, not having received the promises, but in spite of that fact, their reaction to those promises was monumental.

First, they saw them afar off.  They had a vision of what God could do and would do based on His Word.

Second, they were persuaded of them.  Their faith gave them hope despite the outward appearances.

Third, they embraced them.  They brought all of their resources and personal resolve to bear upon the vision.

And finally, they recognized their place in the process.  They were pilgrims, moving from one country to a better country.  They didn’t allow themselves to get too attached to any particular acre of sand.   They knew that God was leading them to a place of victory and blessing.

Their faithful pursuit of God’s promised blessing didn’t go unnoticed.  Verse 16 is one of the most awesome verses in all of Scripture. It says, “…wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city.”

Wow! To know that God is proud of us!  What an honor!

The story is told of a faithful missionary who had served many years in a very remote part of Africa, and was finally coming home to America.  As the ship that he was on pulled into port, the missionary noticed on the pier a large contingent of people, replete with a marching band and several Welcome Home banners.   The missionary’s heart jumped for joy as he saw the wonderful welcome and acknowledgement of all of his years of service. 

However, when the gangplank was lowered, a rich political dignitary and his traveling party moved in front of the missionary and was warmly greeted with kisses and hugs and handshakes.  By the time the missionary was able to disembark, the crowd had dispersed and there was no one there to welcome the missionary home.  It had all been intended for the politician.

Heart-broken, the missionary took the long walk to the street corner to catch a cab.  As he walked, he cried out to God, “After all that I’ve done in service to You, now I come home and there is no one here to greet me.  Father, how could you let this happen?”

In a moment of quiet desperation, the missionary heard the voice of the Lord saying, “But, my child, you’re not home yet.”

Those that live by faith know that the real welcome home will come on the day when we stand before the Lord and hear Him say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.  Enter into the joys of the Lord.”

Looking For Something More

 

We’ve been looking at Hebrews 11 and the fruit of faith as it is exhibited in the lives of those that follow after God.  Last night, I saw yet another example of the spiritual emptiness of pursuing the things that the flesh desires.  I had gotten in late and sat down to let my mind relax before I went to bed and flipped on the TV.  Jay Leno was interviewing Jimmy Connors, the world-famous tennis star from the 70’s and 80’s.  Apparently he has written an autobiography that is pretty in-depth about his life before, during, and after his tennis career.  After the usual small talk, Leno mentioned that Connors had had a pretty significant gambling problem throughout his playing days.  Connors agreed, mentioned that it had been in his family for years, and gave a couple of extreme examples of the negative impact that it had on him.  Then came one of those moments that people need to hear more often; a moment in which the blinders come off and the false advertising of the flesh is swept away.

Connors said, “I was looking for something more.  I thought tennis would give me everything, you know, that feeling of the excitement and the thrill of winning and of playing on wide open stages all around the world.  But it wasn’t, it just didn’t satisfy.  I was missing something because tennis didn’t fill my whole day.”

I’ve heard similar laments from the rich and famous, such as Joe Namath and Tom Brady, men who according to the world’s standards have it all, but the emptiness that they express proves the premise of our study in Hebrews 11, that the physical world, experienced by our five senses are only half of the real world and anyone whose focus ignores the spiritual half will end up lonely, empty, and lost.

It confirms a conclusion I drew years ago about why so many people are convinced that Elvis isn’t dead.  Elvis had everything that this world associates with happiness; fame, talent, popularity, wealth, beautiful women, success, and yet he drank and drugged himself to death because he found no peace and satisfaction in any of it.  Many people would rather deceive themselves into believing that he is living on a spaceship with JFK and Marilyn Monroe than to accept that the things that they believe will make them happy are truly just empty promises without a relationship with Jesus Christ.

In contrast, I remember walking down a street in Cebu City, the Philippines, in 1999 and seeing the impoverished conditions of so many of the people there.  They had created for themselves little booths along the sides of the street where, by day, they sold pot holders that they had woven from scraps of material they had scavenged from a nearby factory.  When the sun went down, they simply pulled their wares off of the table and laid down on a matt inside the booth and slept for the night. 

What jumped out at me was the smiles on their faces and the joy in their hearts.  They were laughing and singing and talking as they passed the day.  I mentioned to the Filipino pastor that was with us, “I am amazed at how joyful they are in spite of their poverty.”

He said, “Oh, no, Pastor, this is not poverty.  They make enough each day to supply their needs for that day, so they are satisfied.  Their joy does not come from what they own.  It comes from Who they know.”

Not a bad lesson for American Christians to learn.

Sadly, Jimmy Connors never mentioned finding a solution for his gambling problem.  Based on what I heard in the interview, it is unlikely that he has come to know Christ.  Maybe he needs to move to Cebu for a while and sell pot-holders.  I have a friend that could set him up with a booth and tell him where to find that something, no, Someone, who could fill that emptiness.

Real Faith

Real Faith

Hebrews 11:1

What is faith?  It’s a good question in the face of all the tragedy that we see around us. Many find events like the Moore tornado hard to rationalize with their understanding of a loving God.  Others see the stories of miraculous deliverance as sure evidence of His existence.  So how do we discern what is real faith from pie-in-the-sky, Pollyanna optimism with no real basis in fact?

One of our basic problems when looking at the big issues of life like this  is the tendency to define words in a way that suits us best.  We can define faith in any number of ways that might support one argument or another, but as with all things really important, if we want a reliable definition, we need to go to the Scriptures.

Mark Twain said, “Faith is believing in something you really know isn’t true.”  Wow! What a fatalistic and cynical outlook.  Sadly, many people look at faith as simply avoiding the real life issues that they face.  But Scripture has another perspective.

We all know Hebrews 11 as the Faith Chapter.  In its verses we see example after example of people who allowed their faith to determine their actions and attitude, and as a result, they experienced the unusual blessing of God on their lives.  Over the next several weeks, we will look at this chapter and try to identify the characteristics displayed in the lives of these ‘heroes of faith’ that can be applied to make a difference in our lives today.

In verse one, the writer of Hebrews gives us that simple definition of faith that we need in order to put things in perspective.  “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for…”  In order to understand this part of the definition, we really need to understand the meaning of the word ‘hope’.  In modern times, we have diminished this word to mean ‘an uncertain, anxious wishfulness for a desirable outcome.’  But in the Scriptures it has a very different meaning.  Hope as used here and at 60 other places in the New Testament means ‘a confident expectation of a promised end, a peaceful assurance of the reality of things not yet visible.’ 

Our human nature demands to experience things with our five senses in order to confirm their truth, to handle, to sniff, to examine something in order to confirm that it is what it claims to be.  Faith on the other hand acknowledges that there is another realm, outside of the physical, material world, that is just as real, but separate from our five senses.  That other realm is the spiritual side of reality that is spoken of and clearly described in Scripture.  We are told that “God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”  Faith gives equal standing to that which God has promised in His Word to that which our five senses can experience.  It accepts the evidence presented in the Scriptures and in our hearts by the Holy Spirit as a legitimate reason for confident assurance.

And when we then choose to act, as those heroes listed in Hebrews 11 did,  not based on the circumstances that our senses observe, but upon the confident assurance that God’s Word and His Spirit grants to us, we open the door for God’s power to work in miraculous ways.

Let’s covenant together that we are going to begin to allow our faith to determine our actions, so that we can see God change our world.

Resembling Him

Resembling Him

Text: Romans 8:29; Col. 3:10

 The older I get, the more I resemble my father. Not just in appearance, but in mannerisms and thought processes as well. And the older I get, the less that this development bothers me. I can remember, as a teenager, thinking that my father was really out of touch with real life. He always thought I should mow the grass before I went to play baseball, because, for some reason, he suspected that if I didn’t, I wouldn’t get around to it later. He would leave the house on Sunday afternoon right in the middle of the football game, just to go back to the church and study a little bit before the evening service. I couldn’t understand that then, but now, I can’t remember when I last watched an entire professional football game. His love for the Word of God and his love for reading have always amazed me, but now in my advancing years, I am learning their importance in the life of someone who truly wants to make a difference for the Lord. As I have grown, I have come to appreciate the fruits of a life that is fully committed to the Savior and so I have begun to recognize the value of following in my father’s footsteps. The devotionals over the past several weeks were drawn from my writings a few years ago during a 50-day Spiritual Journey that was called On My Way Out.  It dealt with living victoriously while on our journey here below.  Hopefully, we have seen the desirability of living the victorious Christian life. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy and peace, things that all of us long for in our lives. We have spoken of the keys to achieving and maintaining the level of spiritual maturity that nurtures these fruits. We are now to the place where we should be able to distinguish between those things that will fertilize and those things that will stunt our spiritual growth. I want to leave you with a few words from Max Lucado’s book, Just Like Jesus.

“You aren’t stuck with today’s personality. You aren’t condemned to grumpydom. You are changeable. Even if you’ve worried each day of your life, you needn’t worry the rest of your life. So what if you were born with a sour outlook, you don’t have to die with one. God will change you. And He will change you to be just like Jesus. Can you think of a better offer? Jesus felt no guilt; God wants you to feel no guilt. Jesus had no bad habits; God wants to do away with yours. Jesus had no fears; God wants the same for you. Jesus had no anxiety about death; you needn’t either. God’s desire, his plan, his ultimate goal is to make you into the image of Christ. God loves you just the way you are, but he refuses to leave you there. He wants you to be just like Jesus.”

 

I hope that is your desire, your plan, your ultimate goal as well.

 

1. How have you grown spiritually from this daily devotional?

2. What is God asking you to do with what you have learned?

 

Does your life bear a family resemblance to your heavenly Father?

Boston Barrabas

Today, I’d like to take a break from our devotional series to speak to an issue that has been on my mind for the last few days.  The question of “How should we, as Christians, respond to those who want to destroy us?”  It’s an age-old question.  It’s been around since the beginning.  The problem is that the American church has lived in relative peace and comfort for so long that we have lost sight of the fact that our freedoms, rights and privileges, granted to us by the Constitution and so richly enjoyed for the past two and a half centuries, are not the norm in Christian history or even in the world as a whole today.  As a result, we often echo the sentiments of the American mainstream in response to tragedies such as the Boston Marathon bombings rather than reflect the heart of those redeemed by Christ’s blood and filled with His Spirit.

Let me give you an example.  On the night of the second suspect’s capture, Fox News commentator, Bill O’Reilly commented, “Hell likely has a new resident…” His comments elicited a long string of Facebook posts and Tweets rejoicing in the death of the first bomber and looking forward to retribution against the second bomber.  Many would call these reactions “righteous indignation,” but I was troubled by the tone of the public outcry.

As I listened to the news coverage of the life of the 19-year-old, Dzhokar Tsarnaev, I tried to think of how Christ would have seen him.  As I thought about it, one image kept flashing through my mind.  An image of another murderous terrorist, convicted in the court of public opinion and awaiting the execution of his death sentence.  His name was Barabbas.  He was no less guilty.  He had shown no remorse for his crimes.  He stood as a symbol of racial and religious radicalism gone bad.  Not much difference in my mind between these two.

My point is not that we should resist the process of justice that almost assuredly will end with the rightful execution of this young man.  My point is, as Christians, our reaction to him, to his crimes, and to his future and to his eternal destiny, should reflect the compassionate heart of Christ and not the cold, vengeful hatred of the flesh.

The most powerful characteristic of the testimony of the early church was their loving, compassionate response to those who persecuted them, those who, out of religious zeal sought to exterminate them from the earth.  I would hope that we, as the 21^st Century embodiment of Christ, could show that spirit in the face of today’s world events.

Here is my newest poem, I hope you like it.

 

The Price

Just to think of how God loves us, it’s a miracle I know

How He came so far from heaven just to find me here below,

And to think of how He found me bound by willful sin and vice

Yet He looked beyond my choices and He gladly paid the price.

Jesus faced the degradation of a life of poverty

And the weakness and the burdens of a body’s frailty

He endured the separation from His Father and His throne

So that death & hell & judgment would not claim me as their own.

Promise-keeper, ever-faithful was by those He loved betrayed

Seized by soldiers in the garden, His disciples ran away

Greedy Judas, for the silver, carried out the Council’s plot

And when warming by the fire, Peter said, “I know Him not.”

Beaten, spat upon and tortured, mocked by those he came to save

Willingly He bore the sentence, and surrendered to the grave

Merrily they cheered His suffering, partaking in the devil’s coup,

Yet He pled, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.

As He hung there, bleeding, dying, pouring out His precious blood

Few there were who knew the meaning of that sacred, crimson flood

Lamb of God, abused and tortured, was for me the sacrifice

That obtained my soul’s salvation for I could not pay the price.

My dear Savior from God’s throne room saw what no one else could see

Looking through time’s darkened portal, He could view eternity

For the joy that was set before Him, for God’s glory up above

He despised the shame and gladly paid the awful price of love.

One day in that blest forever, We will sit around His throne

With the saints of all the ages, when we’ve all been gathered home.

And we’ll ask to see the nail scars, as we live in paradise

And rejoice throughout the ages that He was willing to pay the price.

Pastor Marty Hughes

A Marine Goes Home

 

Today, I have been thinking about the way that our experiences shape us.  The subject was amplified yesterday with the graveside service for Bud Ziemann.  Many of you have come to our church since Brother Bud has been in the nursing home and therefore, you may not have met him.  He was a fascinating character.

For most of my time here as Pastor, Brother Bud would come and sit near the back, seemingly a very quite person.  But once you got to know Brother Bud, he was anything but quiet.  He had a story to tell, no, a million stories to tell. 

It didn’t take long for him to tell you about being a U.S. Marine, serving in WWII, hitting the beaches at Iwo Jima, and struggling with the fact that he was the only one in his company who made it out alive.  He was born and raised in California, and when he got home from the war, he spent time raising race horses and racing motorcycles.  He raced for Harley-Davidson and won the Daytona race in the late 40’s, early 50’s.

He would talk about the many times he had barely escaped death, from wrecks to accidentally driving off the bluff on his tractor, and he would always say, I’m not sure why God kept me alive, but I know He has a reason.

He talked about working for Lockheed Aircraft out in California and some of the experiences that he had there.

He talked about the love of his life, his late wife, Lu, and how much he missed her.  When she passed away, she left behind a dustmop of a dog that became an extension of Bud himself.  He would carry her around on the tractor with him and talk to her just like a real person.  A few years ago, when that dog passed away, it hit him hard.

By the time I met Bud, he was 85 years old, still as tough as nails, and he could still fit in his Marine uniform.  He was one of those men, who had maintained his strength into his later years.  He still split wood for the fireplace, and talked about driving a bulldozer all week long.  But it was evident that Bud struggled with the effects of aging.  He used to tell me, “Preacher, I’m just trying to make it to 90.”  Well, he did, and he made it three years past it as well.

The reason that Bud’s story has been bouncing around in my thoughts today is that as I watched him struggle with the advancing years, I saw him trying to deal with what his identity was now, instead of what it had been in the past. 

At the graveside, his long-time friend, Wayne McDaniel had his wife share the testimony that Bud’s wife, Lu, had told her about the most pivotal moment in Bud’s long life.  Lu said that she had come home one day from work and when she looked at Bud, she could see a strange glow about him.  She asked him what had happened and he told her that the Baptist preacher had come by that day and had “saved him.”  That Baptist preacher, Dan Maxwell, came back the next day to follow up and before he was finished, Lu had received Christ as well.  Thus started their long association with Independent Baptist Church, and thus was settled the issue of Bud’s identity forever.

You see, Bud relished his days as a Marine.  He gloried in his victories as a motorcycle racer.  He enjoyed his accomplishments in every field of endeavor that he put his hand to.  But in reality, the only identity that really mattered on Friday night when Bud went to be with the Lord was that he was a blood-bought sinner whose name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  All of the excitement, the joys, the triumphs of his life as a Marine, a horse-trainer, a motorcycle jockey, and an airplane builder, did not earn him a second in heaven.  The simple fact that on that day when Dan Maxwell knocked on his door, he humbly called upon the Lord to save him, was all that mattered.

Today, Bud is wearing a robe adorned with Christ’s righteousness and he is enjoying the presence of God and the reunion with his dear wife and others who have gone before.  I wonder how many of his fellow Marines, he’s found time to talk to.