Following Jesus Son of God …

Yeah, so what!  You’re not perfect either.

So I cringed when I realized our missionary speaker was going to preach this morning.  I mean, nothing against missionaries or anything, but have you heard them preach?  All you can hope for is that they will weave plenty of interesting anecdotes into the message and not preach long.  Oh, Lord. . .let’s see How do I word this?  God, please bless this your servant this morning, and while we are on the topic, please help him to end on time.  Nothing worse than long and boring.

Okay, so moving past the humor even if you didn’t recognize it as such.

What a God-honoring job our missionary speaker did this morning.  Attaboy, Mike.

An honest, thoughtful approach to the word of God results in the Spirit of God speaking to his people.  It’s not rocket science.  You don’t have to be Mr. Personality.  Just bow before God and do your best to let God speak through you.  Don’t spin the words for your favorite cause or agenda.  Don’t try to be witty and intelligent.  Don’t be cute.  Just let the words course through your life and as much as is possible, accurately proclaim those words.

It doesn’t happen near enough in our pulpits, not nearly often enough.  And it doesn’t seem to matter fundamental, liberal and in-between.  A barrage of Bible verse does not mean you are communicating God’s word.  The best moral cause doesn’t merit displacing God’s message to his people as honestly read and learned from the pages of Holy Scripture.

Not enough bowing before God going on; not enough humility.  Not enough courage; not enough faith.

Not enough listening to God before speaking for him.

Too much of us.

But we were blessed this morning with a message from God.  And from a missionary for goodness sake!

Thanks, Mike.

Do you know who said that?

Lots of people, but specifically I am speaking of the one and only lion fighting, bear ‘rastling, David shepherd-boy king (1 Samuel 17.34-35). In my read-through-the-Bible time, I found this the other morning.

(Psalms 56:3 ESV) When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.

The great warrior king was afraid at times. Don’t breeze over this too quickly.

We have somewhere to go when we are afraid, a place of trust in God, our refuge and strength.

Beginning lyrics to a new song:

When I am afraid, I run to you for refuge,

When I am alone, I find a Friend,

When I disappoint you, I fall down in confession,

When I am so weak, I am so strong.

Maybe if you are ancient like me, you will remember the Old Spice “slap-in-the-face” commercial. I believe someone comes up to the guy and slaps some Old Spice aftershave on him, and he replies, “Thanks, I needed that.”

(Proverbs 27:5 NKJV) Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed.

(Proverbs 27:6 NKJV) Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

So why don’t we slap each other more?  Why aren’t we more “faithful” in our relationships?

I think it is because we don’t love each other the way we should. We would rather be nice than loving. It is easier and there isn’t near the mess to clean up. We don’t understand the benefits of honesty with each other.

And we are sometimes afraid that the other person may pick the rock up and throw it back at our glass house, or the pot may be calling the kettle black.

So let’s just play it safe and clean and stay out of each other’s lives.

Whoa, dude. I oughta’ slap you for that!

I don’t know what your workplace is like.

I have a pretty good job most of the time. It doesn’t pay a lot, but we keep the bills paid. This is the second time I have worked for this company. The first time I was a good employee. When I returned to them 12 years ago, I determined that I would be an excellent employee. I have lived up to this most of the time.

And, no, I’m not talking about the kiss-the-boss’s-butt, suck-up, work to be noticed attitude. Yuk!

But I continue to be surprised at the opposition from coworkers if a person tries to excel on the job, go the extra mile, give all you’ve got, 110 percent and other appropriate cliches. . .

The guys I work with are pretty decent. We normally get along pretty well. But I sometimes I am actually ridiculed for doing my job well. To some being paid hourly means to do as little as possible in that hour and still hold your job.

I actually enjoy working hard and performing at the highest level I can and trying to improve.

I actually had a truck driver complain to me because we had filled in an area between two stockpiles and this had blocked his way.

The Problem: He had to put his cheeseburger down to back the truck out.

Dang!

He was doing pretty well up to that point, the guest speaker I mean.

He had for a number of weeks filled in admirably, making a real effort to communicate God’s message from the Bible.  Nothing spectacular, but it doesn’t have to be, just let God speak.

Until the “Is Adam in heaven?” message.

Why do we do this?

He began by stating that biblically we could not know or prove whether Adam was in heaven or not.  So why in the world would we spend our time that Sunday morning examining the issue?

This behavior and reasoning comes from our intellect-based or knowledge-based paradigm of the Bible, an approach to the Bible that satisfies and tickles our intellectual curiosity without our having to give over control to God.

God gives us the words to live so we can follow Jesus now.

That’s what I thought as I sat there at the rescue mission looking at all the hungry men, women and children.  Maybe not where they wanted to be but I was awed at God’s provision.

Jesus was feeding them.  Maybe not the miracle of loaves and fishes, but still something to cause me to bow before and praise my Father in heaven.

A good solid meal provided by the mission but ultimately, providentially provided by God himself.

That’s how I saw it Tuesday evening.  A gracious and loving Provider giving daily bread to his human creation.

And I must worship you, O my God!

Okay so I ate a few sour grapes, but, hey, folks, if you can’t genuinely compliment someone without forwarding your agenda and inserting your dig, then sit on it.

I mean “The music service was good today” as in it wasn’t good last week and the week before and the week before. . . You get the point. We are so full of ourselves.If you can’t compliment someone, then don’t say anything.

Look at how selfish and manipulative this is. I will only compliment you to bring you in line with what I want.Many people are just great if you “play ball” but make your life hell when you refuse to be manipulated.Sorry, must have flashed back to when I was still a pastor. My bad. Said all that out loud.

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