Becoming A Perfect Man - Easier Said Than Done

James talks a lot about talking. The Proverbs also talk a lot about talking and even about talking a lot.

This last week, a friend of mine and I were memorizing James 3:2 - We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault at what he says, he is a perfect man able to keep his whole body in check.

Like most people, my first thought was, "I know! If I could just keep a reign on what I said, I would be much better off!" We know the truth that controlling what we say is a very difficult task to master. Even when we think we are doing well, just wait ten minutes until the crowd changes and you say exactly what you were vowing you wouldn't say. We all do it.

But after a while, I got to thinking about this verse some more, and I started weaseling my way through it. I began to think, well, if all you have to do is never be at fault at what you say, then I guess my thought life is of no regard. Of course, I reasoned, if you think about good things, good things are bound to come out. But the self-justification wasn't aimed at how to improve, it was aimed at how to get by. I was thinking to myself, well if I think these terrible things, but then always say the right thing, then maybe I'm a perfect man. Maybe it's as easy as just saying it, and you don't have to do anything about it.

But then the words of Jesus come ringing in. In Matthew 12:34, Jesus reminds us that from the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. You see the words that come out of my mouth are truly a reflection of what is really inside my heart. And the truly sobering fact is that though I'm thinking I'm saying the right things, the truth of the matter is that my words sound just as self-justifying as they truly are in my heart. Love does not hide, nor does it cover over insincerity.

There is hope, however. There is one who though he was curse, he held his tongue. He only spoke what he heard the Father say. His words are truth and life. Jesus the Word of God has come to dwell in us to not only make us innocent before the law, but perfect - men and women able to keep our whole body in check.

Afraid to Worship

A friend of mine and I have been regularly listening to sermons from Fellowship Memphis via the extremely convenient app.

[A quick side note: I was listening to one of these sermons while building my back fence in the snow this weekend. I think the sermon was downloading and stopped for a while when I was too far from the wifi connection of my house. Several minutes went by with nothing, and I forgot I even had the earbuds in. Then, as I was putting up one of the last slats, somebody started talking to me. Startled, I looked around, through the fence, behind me. I ducked and look up, there was no one! Oh yeah, it's Brian Loritz. He is talking to me on the sermon. Right.]

This week I was challenged to think about Courageous Discipleship. One of the main points here is the relationship between fear and worship. I know that I have often been told that there is connection between fear and worship. Pastors will say that when the Bible says "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" they tell me it means something like reverence or respect. The same way you fear your Father.

I'm sure that's true, but I heard it in a little bit different way this time around. What I heard was, "You worship what you fear." It struck me, because I can see how it's true. I can see how our respect is given to those things which we consider powerful. I suggest this revision, though, "Your fears reveal what you worship."

Take the fear of the dark. The fear of the dark happens because you are unsure of what will happen to you. It reveals that you value, that you worship, your own life. You are afraid to die or to be injured. It's a perfectly natural fear - but Jesus has even conquered this idol for us. He has conquered death.

Or take a concern or worry about what others think of you. It may be that you worship them, or at least their opinion of you. Your fears about what they may say indicate that you respect their opinion. You worship their words over the words that proceed from the very mouth of God.

Or take my fear. My fear that I will not succeed in the roles in which I operate. This betrays that I value success. I value winning. I also value and worship my own abilities and am afraid to let God come in, use His strength and show Himself off to be great.

May we be afraid of the Lord. May we fear the Lord, and allow that to lead us to worship Him. What will He think? What will He do if I do this? What will He say of me?

Awaken the Poor

I have often thought myself to be a disciplined man. I grew up under a strongly self-disciplined father who could and would lose weight on command, lower his blood pressure when needed, and reign in his diet like it was his job. Speaking of jobs, he is the hardest worker I know and is diligent with every moment.

So, when I came to passages in Proverbs about sluggards, I usually kept reading until I found something about the wise man or working man or disciplined man. But not today. The Lord had a different message in store.

Psalm 24:30 – 34

I went past the field of a sluggard,

    past the vineyard of someone who has no sense;

thorns had come up everywhere,

    the ground was covered with weeds,

    and the stone wall was in ruins.

I applied my heart to what I observed

    and learned a lesson from what I saw:

A little sleep, a little slumber,

    a little folding of the hands to rest—

and poverty will come on you like a thief

and scarcity like an armed man.

Immediately when I started reading this, houses in my neighborhood started flashing through my mind as if I were driving past them. I could see the thorns that have grown up around the house. I can see the ground covered with weeds. One house in four in my neighborhood are overcome with weeds, thorns, and are boarded up. I’ve seen brick walls torn down, windows shattered, and trees lying on roofs unattended.

But what follows, is maybe not what you expected. I don’t look at those things and then condemn the owners for their negligence and sluggishness. Instead, it struck me for the first time that poverty is a tool of the enemy that is waiting to strike. Those that slumber for a moment, who fail in their vigilance for a second will fall to poverty in a moment.

The answer, at least from this passage, seems to be a wake-up call. A literal call to wake up the poor. Awake! Awake! Arise my neighbors! Arise and sleep no more. No longer let the silent weeds grow up around us. Don’t ignore the broken windows. Awaken us, O God. Awaken us to see the devastation that has taken place, and put us in the vigilant place of prayer and action. Come and awaken our sleepy eyes. Let us see the Dawn of Your Justice rise in our neighborhood.

3 Tough Messages

The proverbs are rich with turns of phrase and rhyming of ideas. Often I look for threads of a theme between the proverbs in the same chapter, but often find that it is limited to only a few verses in a small neighborhood of one another.

There are a few themes, however, that run the course of Proverbs, and are worth taking to heart. The clearest theme, probably, is the idea that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The respectful reverence of the one who created us puts us in our place and its only in that place that we can begin to grasp wisdom. The next might be to get wisdom because it is of great value. We hear lady wisdom calling out to us, and are admonished over and over again to get wisdom and not sell it.

In addition to the clear themes about wisdom, there is one that is as pervasive, but less obvious. It is the theme of faith. Faith is what is required, I think, to demonstrate true wisdom. Or maybe, it's that true wisdom really is an expression of faith. After all, wisdom is an application of knowledge, and often times it's simply an expression of confidence that the same thing that happened in the past will happen again. That's faith. Certainly our faith can carry us to things that we haven't seen before, but so does wisdom. Wisdom tells you that if your dad was right about 90% of what you have experienced, you can probably trust him for another 10% of things, or at least 5%.

In Proverbs 19, there are three people whom we are told to respond to in different ways. Each of these requires faith. We are met with a poor man, our son, and a hot-tempered man.

In verse 17 we are told, "He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward him for what he has done." We meet the poor man. The thing about poor men is that they are needy. They need something from us. Usually money, or food, or a job. But the interesting thing here, is that if we give to the poor, we can trust that we are lending to the LORD. In other words, we are believing that the LORD will repay us for what we gave, and that with interest! It requires faith to be kind to the poor.

In verse 18, we find our son. Here we are admonished, "Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death." We have someone for whom we are responsible for training, not doing what they are supposed to. A difficult conversation is coming. Possibly even punishment. We are smart creatures, and we know that if we have to administer discipline we probably won't be liked very much. Nevertheless, this verse says that if we don't discipline we are letting him carry on toward his death. We didn't warn him that his disobedience will lead to his destruction. So, by adding faith to this verse, we convince ourselves that having tough conversations early, and being willing to enforce discipline will bring hope to our sons.

Lastly, in verse 19, we meet the hot-tempered man. The sage tells us, "A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty; if you rescue him, you will have to do it again." I don't exactly remember this story, but it's written in the footnotes of my Bible. When we were on our honeymoon, we saw this drunk at the airport. He was throwing trash on the ground, and shoving items around that were bumping into people. He of course had no idea what a scene he was making. You could feel everyone around him was annoyed and bothered by his actions. His friend with him, though, was kindly apologizing for each incident. Then when it was time to fill out the customs forms and get everything prepared the friend was filling it out for him. But one thing was certain, this wasn't the first time, and it wasn't going to be the last. Faith here, requires that we believe that in rescuing a hot-tempered man does him no good. Sometimes we really have to discern that some need to feel the consequences of their actions that they may change. Cecil, a co-worker of mine, put it like this, "Hunger pains are some of the world's strongest motivators. Feeding people can be the worst thing you can do for some people."

Cecil's point is that if you continue to provide relief to people that can change and work, then you are keeping them from developing the skills they need to be independent. Paul the Apostle said practically the same thing. The tough part here is between these three verses. We must be discerning for verses 18 and 19, and yet kind in verse 17. May God grant us the faith to discern the correct course of action, and yet be kind to all along the way.

Losing Myself

Humility. The art of losing one's self (thanks, Hillsong).

C.S. Lewis (I'm told by John Piper and Brian Loritz) says that humility is not a beautiful woman saying she's ugly or a smart man saying he's dumb. Humility is a person who is more concerned about others than either his shortcomings or his strengths.

The most challenging part of this word for me is the fact that humility leads to confrontation in love. We often avoid confrontation either out of indifference or out of self-preservation - we still want them to like us. Humility says that I value this person more than I value my reputation. Therefore, I must be willing to confront them on this issue.

May the prayers of the Litany of Humility draw us into the heart of the one who thought only of the Father's will and the joy set before him.

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.

From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being extolled, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being honored, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being praised, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being preferred to others, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being approved, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being despised, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of suffering rebukes, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being calumniated, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being ridiculed, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being wronged, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being suspected, Deliver me, Jesus.

That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be praised and I unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

To a Friend Who's Closer Than a Brother

This was a poem I wrote for David Montague a few years ago. I consider it still to be true, and the depths of what it means to create friendship:

To a Friend Who's Closer Than a Brother

In this world there seems to be
A closer friend than family.
Somehow they earn our deepest trust
Which never fades and never rusts.

But o how few are faithful friends
Who stick with us until the end
For seldom will a person die
Or for a good man give his life

So now I ask, "what is a friend?"
"And how do deep friendships begin?"
For me, I think, it goes like this:
Those men with words and works amiss
Are quickly stricken from that list.
But those whose tears and clinched fists
Fight with prayer against injustice
In my heart as a friend persist

But something dearer strikes the bond
Such simple things make us grow fond.
God's glue (it's called) takes many forms
From Gatorades to cleaning dorms.

It binds our hearts as we bind signs
To big gorillas for all to pine
"'Marry me, Anna.' What does it mean?"
As we, through love, let God's love beam.

Again I ask, "What is a friend?"
"And how do deep friendships begin?"
For now I know what there must be:
It isn't just proximity
In place or age or family.
But we must have ONE Bethany
Who calls our hearts that we may speed
Together toward our God and King.

The Precious Gifts of Marriage and Singleness

Christian parents are often heard at the Rehearsal Dinner of their children's wedding saying something to the effect of, "We have been praying for this moment for a long time." Most of us in this American society appreciate and recognize the gift of marriage. After all, a prudent wife is from the Lord.

But what about the gift of singleness? Do we really believe that God gives singleness as a gift (1 Cor. 7:7, Mt. 19:11)? If we do, are we believing and adding faith to this facts, and trusting that the singleness he gives us is a good gift? Are we honoring singleness as truly better than marriage?

These were the topics of today's sermon at Christ Community Church. If you want the notes for the outline of the sermon, let me know in the comments, and I will be glad to send you a copy.