The Preacher’s Blog

Summer is in full-swing with church families traveling and vacationing from Tennessee to Maine to Florida. But in spite of that our Sunday morning worship to God was filled with many joyful hearts and humble spirits (I could see it and feel it).

And, joy of joys, we had a deacons/elders/ministers meeting that lasted only 1 1/2 hours!!! Way to go fellows and thanks!

This coming Sunday (July 27th) our mission team will give a report on their recent efforts on the Indian Reservation. I know it will be informative and “entertaining” (how can it not be with Lynn and Bryan’s “slap-stick” routine?!)

John

The blogs concerning the USA Today article on the “new infidelity” generated some great feedback. I want to “cut and paste” the comment by “Doug the old” and put it here since it sums up a lot of what we were discussing. If you didn’t read them, please go back and do so.

It is, of course, vital that we study and speak of God’s standard for spiritual life, for the work and worship of the church, for our individual lives lived in various relationships in this world. I’m asking myself if those standards are or have ever been the reality in my life. The only answer I can come up with is yes and no. There are some prohibitions in Scripture that I have never violated, e.g., I have never been drunk…never murdered anyone, etc. However most of the Biblical instructions, whether stated positively (do this) or negatively (don’t do that), have found me lacking. Some of them seem to find me coming up short regularly. I make progress, at times. But I confess that sometimes I feel like I haven’t made any significant progress. So how does God view me…and how is the church to view me? I have not given up the standard, even when I fail miserably and by my own (no one else forced me) choice (which leaves me wondering, again, at times, whether I can be regarded as a Christian). After some form of sinning, if someone were to ask me, “Why did you do that?” how would I answer? I would answer, “Because I’m an idiot.” So, am I fooling myself to console myself that somewhere deep down in me there is that part of me which really wants God’s will done in my life? And is that truth about me enough to allow God to view me as His? When David committed his grievous, inexcusable sin with Bathsheba and followed it up with the, even worse, evil plot to murder Uriah and the other soldiers with him, what does God do with him? What do we think God should have done with him? What would we have done with him? God forgives him upon his confession of sin, keeps him on the throne, allows him to marry Bathsheba and produces a son through that union who carries forward the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants culminating in the birth of the Savior of us all. Yes, there were ramifications of David’s sin choices. Yes, enemies of God were given cause to blaspheme. Yes, people near and dear to David lost their lives. But was this enough? God, Who only and always did and does right thought so. If I had been Uriah’s father, how would I have felt about this?

How we deal with people who have failed to meet the standard (and that includes all of us on one point or on another) depends on at least two things: 1) our own growth in Christ-likeness, and 2) what we can determine about their attitude in the matter at hand. The humbled penitent will properly be treated differently than the proud indifferent. In the case of a broken marriage, the church has the challenge of working for the souls of two people. If we deal as Christ does, we do our best not to allow anyone to suffer alone (neither the “innocent” person nor the “guilty one). If both of these folks are seeking God’s will after the sin has occurred, then there is a basis for proceeding. We must recognize that there are things undone by marital infidelity that can never be put back together as before. Also there are things that humans who want to help simply may not know, ever, in this life. And if either, or both marriage partners are simply trying to manipulate things in order to dump a marriage partner, they may fool the church, but God will not be fooled.

One more thing, I hope we’d consider…our own pain over sin, whether done to us or done by us, can be a horrible thing with which to live. David saw a truth about sin, that I need to come to grips with when he said to God, “Against You, You only, have I sinned.” As long as I make my own pain over sin supreme (as understandable as that is), it seems to me that it will be difficult to gain ground. As our pain gives way to the truth that the sin is primarily against God…and then to be able to see the harm that the sinner is inflicting upon themselves…helps us leave behind the place where we are constantly licking our own wounds, and begin to think along lines of the spiritual welfare of others again.

Great thoughts and encouragement, even in the face of the reality of failure.

John

When Gary Chapman’s five year old granddaughter came to visit them one weekend, she asked Grandma Karolyn if she could have some stickers from the special “sticker” drawer. Grandma Karolyn always gave the stickers out in threes and of course told her granddaughter that she could pick out three.

And hour or two later, Gary and Karolyn began to see stickers all over the house. Their granddaughter had taken the entire sheet of stickers and placed them randomly throughout the house. Immediately Grandma Karolyn confronted her granddaughter with the violation and began to scold her. As she stood in silence Grandma Karolyn rebuked her with, “You disobeyed grandmother!”

The tears began to stream down her granddaughter’s face and she remorsefully cried, “I need somebody to forgive me.”

As I read that I began to wonder how many times a day or how many times a week I need someone to forgive me. It is a fact of life that we are a people who are in constant need of forgiveness - from God and from each other. We violate His commands, transgress His ways and grieve His Holy Spirit. We mistreat one another, speak unkind words, act selfishly, harbor ill-will, gossip and commit a whole host of other fleshly deeds.

So why is it so difficult to own up to that, admit it and seek forgiveness? Why indeed? Especially since believers are a fellowship that was formed out of God’s forgiveness and sustained by His continued forgiveness. The Apostle John reminded his brethren of that truth in I John 1: 8-9 where he said:

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

It is an oversimplification of the heresy the Apostle John was addressing, but there were believers who bought into the doctrine that their spirit remained undefiled and uncontaminated by the sins their body committed. The body could engage in deeds of the flesh and the spirit would still be untouched with nothing to confess and no sin to admit. Hmmm, I wonder how many practice a form of that heresy when they (we) refuse to come clean about our transgressions? (By the way, the body does affect the spirit; read I Peter 2: 11…)

The fellowship of believers is to be filled with humble confessors. We are to be a community of the forgiven who practice a remorseful repentance (II Cor. 7: 9-10). Nothing less should characterize our lives and it should be standard procedure to utter these three redemptive phrases:

• “I am sorry”
• “I was wrong”
• “Will you forgive me?”

What a fellowship and what a world this would be if we related to one another with that kind of humility.

John

It’s hard to believe that Nancy and I are celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary TODAY! 30 years ago around 1:00 pm we said our “I Do’s” in Williamstown, West Virginia and then traveled thirty minutes down the road to Cambridge, Ohio.

Nancy reminds me that when I parked the car in the Holiday Inn parking lot, I was so hyper that I parked the car almost on a diagonal. Of course, we didn’t notice until the next morning (ha).

A lot of life and history has transpired since that fantastic day: 5 children and two grandchildren later with only a few gray hairs to mark the occasion. We’ve lived in Ohio, New York, Pennsylvannia, Missouri, Ohio, Maryland and finally back to Ohio - all in that order. We’re on our second dog (Mikey) and in our second house (that we’ve owned). We’ve worked with eight churches and made a lot of friends. It’s been quite an adventure and through it all, that blond-haired New Yorker named Nancy Rose has endured and enjoyed (most of it) with this ole’ farm-boy.

Here’s to you sweetheart - I love you and eagerly anticipate another 30!

John

The third comment that caught my attention in the USA Today article (July 1, 2008) was this:

Ed Diener, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois-Urban-Champaign and a leader in the field of happiness research, says people are more in search of thrills today and may think they’re unhappy when things are just OK. “People misunderstand happiness now more and more,” says Diener… “We used to think happiness was a kind of contentment and life satisfaction. Now we’ve come to define it as a really high-arousal kind of excitement. ‘How are you?’ ‘Great!’ ‘Super!’ - these words are very extreme, but they’re the normal answer now.” 

And how does that “misunderstanding” of happiness, lack of contentment, and high-arousal need affect marriage? Here’s the last two paragraphs in the article that highlight the impact this cultural shift has had on our relationships:

Although some experts claim they can “affair-proof” marriages, Snyder, co-author of the 2007 book Getting Past the Affair, says one fact cannot be ignored: “Marriage, on the excitement dimension, cannot compete with an affair. Couples need to come to grips with the reality that the passion and excitement of romance and courtship and the honeymoon is not going to last.”

So what are we do if, as the experts tell us, it’s inevitable that there’s a 50-50 chance of infidelity and that all marriages will grow boring and tired - in comparison to an affair?

DON’T BELIEVE IT! 

I refuse to accept the conclusion the “experts” draw to be normative for my life and for my marriage with Nancy. And isn’t that three-fourths the battle - what you believe. “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘move from here to there,’ and it will move and nothing will be impossible to you” (Matt. 17: 20).

But, sadly, we’ve bought into the whole “happiness” philosophy being all about me and my pleasure and fulfillment and we’ve bought into the notion that marriage is doomed to become a fate-worse-than-death - the longer we stay married - rubbish!

As disciples of Christ we live by a different standard; a standard not determined by the lowest common denominator of our human culture. We are counter-culture radicals who adhere to a standard of righteousness that is not of this earth and as a result won’t find itself experiencing the affects that lead to infidelity - new or old!

My friends, I fear we forget this one basic truth - in Christ we are new creatures and not of this world. These statistics (from this article and others like it) should concern us and give us pause for self-examination, but in the end it should motivate us to look intently and with great determination to the true source of happiness and marital bliss - Jesus Christ, the crucified One.

John  

We had a great time of worship yesterday (July 6th)! Our mission team was back from the Indian Reservation in Arizona and we fellowshiped together at our luncheon afterward. It’s always interesting and fun to hear all the “tales” the mission team shares and to see how excited they are from serving others, but the best part is hearing how much God worked through situations and personalities. I overheard several team members expressing the same sentiment:

We went there with one goal in mind, but realized the Lord had another purpose in His mind.

To hear and to watch one of our elders (Tim) speak of the children from the Reservation with tears in his eyes made church redemptive yesterday. As I mentioned in my sermon, part of experiencing the “joy of the Lord” is ”giving portions to those who do not have.” (Nehemiah 8: 9-10) Hopefully, those children and some of the adults there received “portions” of the ”joy of the Lord” that was in the hearts of our brothers and sisters.

Thanks for going and for giving of His joy!

John 

Here’s the second ascertain from the USA Today article (July 1, 2008) that I found interesting:

Some researchers say there’s a 50-50 chance today that one partner will have an affair during a marriage; that includes non-physical relationships…”The big thing that made marriages vulnerable in the past was that we expected so little, and today the big problem is we expect so much,” says Stephanie Coontz, director of research at the non-profit Council on Contemporary Families…Those expectations focus on the spouse as best friend or soul mate, which adds to the pressure on spouses and makes marriages more vulnerable, experts say. “We expect one person to give us what an entire community used to - family life and stability and economic support and be a trusted confident and passionate lover and experience adventure with the same person,” says Esther Perel, a couples and family therapist in New York City.

Two questions:

1. What do you think of the statistic that 1 out of every 2 marriages will experience infidelity?
2. Do you think it is a true statement that we are expecting from one person (our spouse) what previous generations got from a whole community?

John 

That’s the title of the front-page article in the Tuesday edition (July 1, 2008) of USA Today. There were so many interesting points made in the article that I want to spend the next couple of blogs commenting on them. Here’s the first one:

Many psychologists and family experts say that infidelity today is not just about sex but about trust, betrayal and marital disloyalty, even if adultery is not part of the picture.

Too bad these ”experts” didn’t study Jesus. It could have saved them a lot of research dollars and effort to find out that adultery is not simply the “act”:

…But I [Jesus] say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matt. 5: 28).

It’s always been a heart issue. That was the thing Jesus railed against the Pharisees throughout His ministry. They believed that as long as they didn’t commit the act, then they weren’t guilty. But Jesus struck at the heart of the matter when He highlighted the number of divorces they were “legitimately” granted under Moses’ command (Matt. 19: 7). They thought that as long as they “gave her a certificate of divorce,” they had satisfied the letter of the law. But Jesus revealed that adultery was in their heart when they desired someone other than their present spouse. And it was that emotional infidelity that lead to divorce. Interesting, that’s exactly what the “experts” also concluded from their research:

Such outside emotional connections have been called “emotional affairs” - and growing numbers of married people are in such relationships, says Ronald Potter-Efron, a clinical psycho-therapist in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. 

When will we learn what God has already revealed for our lives - that from the heart flow the issues of life (Prov. 4: 23).

John 

Several people have asked how our “vacation” went. It went great! We (Nancy, Melissa, Stephanie, great-grandma Marie, David, Beka, Davie Jr. and myself) traveled to Norman, Oklahoma last week for our oldest daughter’s wedding. Jenny married a wonderful, young man named Jeff.

The wedding went off without a hitch or glitch and all I had to do was walk the bride down the aisle and “give her away.” The reception was a lot of fun; I made everyone cry with my selection for the “father/daughter” dance (I consider it pay-back for all the times these girls have made me cry!).

Nancy and I are finding it harder and harder to believe that our family is expanding at a rate that will soon rival the population of China (ha). Pray for us!

All in all, we’re glad to be home and back into a “normal” routine.

John

In the Apostle Paul’s second letter to Timothy, he describes a condition we wouldn’t hesitate to attribute to our nation’s present moral status: lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, unholy, ungrateful, unloving, irreconcilable, treacherous, without self-control, malicious gossips, brutal, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (II Timothy 3: 1-4).

Unfortunately, Paul was not describing a secular, materialistic nation - he was describing people within the church:

…holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; avoid such men as these (II Tim. 3: 5)

If we believe our nation has gone off the deep-end morally and spiritually, we had better examine our own house first! We, who are to be the salt and light that continually exerts a positive, leavening influence on a crooked and perverse generation, may find ourselves no better than the believers the Apostle Paul described - unsavory and dim. Before we can expect our nation to behave with any righteous or ethical standards, they will need to see that behavior within us FIRST.

As far back as the Pilgrims, Christians in this nation were admonished to be the foremost examples of repentance and contrition. In a letter written by John Robinson to the Mayflower occupants before they left England, he instructed them that, “we are daily to renew our repentance with our God, especially for our sins known and generally for our unknown trespasses…”

Our nation knows nothing of that kind of spirit unless they see it in us. You and I must ever prostrate ourselves before God in humble repentance and brokenness over the same sins we judge our nation guilty of.

As we prepare to celebrate our national independence and remember all that went into achieving it, may we also remember that our primary allegiance is to a Savior who bought and purified us with His blood so that we would live sensibly, righteously and godly in this present age (Tit. 2: 12-14). The future of our nation depends on it!

John