Sermons/Devotional

When God Gives a Time Out. Chapter 3: Be careful where you are going–you may actually get there.

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Be Careful Where You Are Headed – You May Actually Get There.

I am a doer.  When I first met my wife, Wendi, I was in college at the University of Maryland in the Washington D.C. area and I had a seven year plan.  This plan spelled out what I was going to achieve over the next several years.  I planned to complete my undergraduate degree with a 4.0 GPA, while interning in the nation’s capitol.  I was in a Military Intelligence Army reserve unit next to the National Security Agency (NSA) and was looking into some part time work for the NSA. This scenario would have set me up nicely to be accepted into an ivy-league law school to specialize in international law.  After law school the seven years would be completed and after taking stock, I could make a new plan.  To me, relationships were secondary to accomplishing goals.  I let Wendi know that my plan was in place and that where our relationship was going (to marriage or elsewhere) depended on the status of my plan.

time out bookI followed my plan for about a year and a half with quite a bit of success.  My plan changed, however, when God brought me to my first “time out.”  God gave me a sneak peak into what would happen if I actually achieved everything in my plan.  I asked myself, “If my wildest dreams came true, if I become a high level advisor on the national level, or if I am elected to the legislature, then so what?”  Even if I achieved all those goals, they would be gone – forgotten within a generation.  If I achieved my wildest dreams I would have achieved nothingness.  This revelation didn’t come about subtly.  It was driven home by a Bible cult that I had started hanging around with. (I describe this association more in subsequent chapters.)  God knew that I needed a LOUD wake up call.  After a short time of looking at things through an eternal perspective I knew that God was the only thing of any permanence and the only thing worth devoting my life to.  I soon realized that I wanted to devote my life to God but not this cult.  In the cult’s eyes you couldn’t do one without the other.  Rather confused and feeling that I didn’t want to follow my plan or this cult anymore, I left.  I went back home to live with my parents.  For the next couple of months I was in time out. God took away everything I was doing. I no longer had a plan except to abandon my old plan because it was worthless.  I didn’t have a clear grasp of what the Bible really said or what God wanted me to do next.   Away from college and all I had lived for, I spent the subsequent few months pouring over the Bible for myself.  I really focused on the voice of the Father and my relationship with Him grew.  This was my first time out and it felt like the hardest time of my life while I was going through it. But in hindsight, I am so thankful for that time out.  I was so focused on doing, on achieving, on following the American dream that I was actually throwing my life and relationship with the Father away.   God was trying to tell me this truth for some time, but I couldn’t hear him.  I was too busy doing stuff.  I needed a time out and that is exactly what I received. Continue reading →

When God Gives a Time Out. Chapter 2

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Last week I departed from this blog’s usual focus of applying the academic discipline of biblical studies to the church. Instead, I posted devotional material from my out-of-print book (2006), “When God Gives a Time Out.” I shared chapter 1, “An Introduction to Time Outs” and over the next several weeks I will post additional chapters. I pray they will be an encouragement and guide in our current circumstances.

Chapter 2: What Do You Mean “Time Out?”

time out bookI use the term “time out” because God does in concept what we see so many parents literally doing to their children. It all boils down to the fact that the child is not listening. They may be doing something they are not supposed to do or just doing something other than listening. The parent makes the child cease all activity. The child must now sit on the stairs, or in a special chair, with nothing to do except listen.

I will speak about the specific time outs God has given me in subsequent chapters. In general though, a time out is when God so controls the situation that you have no choice but to stop doing a certain thing, or stop doing everything. Something is getting in the way of hearing God’s voice and He is making you sit quietly until you are ready to listen. Are you in a relationship and suddenly circumstances cause you to cease contact with that person? Perhaps it is a time out. Have you ever had a job that kept you real busy and you either can’t do that job for a time or get permanently laid off? Perhaps a time out. Can you remember any period in your life when you were stuck or just unable to do a certain thing? Again, God may have been giving you a time out. This feeling of being stuck reminds me of how my wife would give a time out to our kids when they were toddlers. On occasion, Wendi would tell one of our children to go sit on the stair, but they wouldn’t go. She would then take that child to the stair and hold them very firmly. Of course they would struggle to break free, but they were stuck. Eventually, they calmed down and were ready to listen. God will hold us on the stair until we stop squirming. We want to quickly get out of the time out, but God must talk to us about the situation so that we are better able to deal with it the next time. God can bring you to a place where you are stuck financially. Is He holding you in a time out so that you will listen to Him concerning how you manage your money? God can bring single people to a place where they just can’t seem to get a date. He may be trying to get that single person to listen to what He was to say about relationships. Whether it is a specific area of your life, as in these examples, or your entire life, God gives time outs so that He can lovingly parent you to a place of maturity. Continue reading →

When God Gives a Time Out

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For the next several posts, I will depart from this blog’s usual focus of applying the academic discipline of biblical studies to the church. Instead, I will be sharing devotional material from my out-of-print book (2006), “When God Gives a Time Out.” I pray it will be an encouragement and guide in our current circumstances.

Chapter 1: An Introduction to “Time Outs”

time out book If you are a parent, you have probably experienced what I recently witnessed. At a local store, a young boy was bursting with energy. Every inch of his body was in motion. All this chaotic movement didn’t seem to have a purpose other than expending energy. He jumped on one foot, then the other. Soon he began to shake his head from side to side as if saying, “No.” Perhaps he wanted the outside world to mirror his topsy-turvy condition on the inside. The child then climbed on the front of the carriage for a ride. The mother’s call to calm down fell on senses more focused on doing than listening. Since the ride wasn’t fast enough, the child hopped off the carriage so that he could touch everything. He grabbed at everything in range of his small hands, trying to do what the big people do when they shop. The exasperated mother pulled the child into the center of the aisle to put the distractions out of reach and told him, “Stop touching things without asking first!” But this child had to DO something; there were so many stimuli in this place, and they all called out to be engaged. As the scene reached its climax, the boy cried out, “Look, a plate just like the one we have at home!” He snatched up the plate to see if it was indeed the same. Halfway through the motion, the child remembered that he wasn’t supposed to touch without asking and his attention-divided fingers let go of the plate. The frustrated mother had reached her limit. Mustering all her patience, the mother sternly told the boy to go sit on the bench for a “time out.” The mother cleaned up the broken shards and said something like, “You have to listen to me. You can get hurt and you hurt other people’s things when you can’t calm down and listen to me.”

Continue reading →

A Biblical Theology of Preaching (part 1)

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The last several posts have explored the academic discipline and practice of “Biblical Theology.”  I would like to continue that theme over the next couple months by presenting an example of Biblical Theology that traces a theme throughout scripture. In particular, I will present a Biblical Theology of preaching.

“PREACHING”

A biblical theology of preaching cannot be undertaken without a clarification of terms.  By biblical theology we mean a “theological interpretation of Scripture in and for the church.  It proceeds with historical and literary sensitivity and seeks to analyze and synthesize the Bible’s teaching about God and his relations to the world on its own terms, maintaining sight of the Bible’s overarching narrative and Christocentric focus.”[1]  A biblical theology of preaching, therefore, seeks to understand preaching as it is presented in the contexts of the biblical texts while relating those presentations to the wider canon. This process must be allowed to define preaching on the Bible’s own terms if it is to truly be a biblical theology. Continue reading →

The Overarching Story of the Bible (Part 2).

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In my previous post, I wrote about the meaning-making power of stories and the value in teaching the overarching storyline of the Bible. In the current post, I will suggest a practical way to teach that overarching storyline  that also maintains faithfulness to the Bible’s own presentation. I will also give an example teaching/preaching series on the overarching story of the Bible.

Painting by Gretchen Holesovsky

Although the Christian Bible consists of 66 books written by various authors over many centuries, the biblical writers  shared the assumption that God was directing and fulfilling his plan in human history. Additionally, these writers often pointed to the same set of turning points in salvation history–specific times when God made covenants with his people. For instance, as the Psalmist celebrates God’s redemption of his people and the giving of the Torah, this new relationship fulfills previous promises God made to their patriarch Abraham (Psalm 105:42-45). In Galatians 3, the Apostle Paul explains how Christ fulfills the covenant promises made to both Abraham and Moses. The Bible seems to assume that God’s overarching story has chapters or turning points marked off by covenants. Covenants were an ancient form of agreement that God used to communicate his relationship with his chosen people. Covenants were more than contracts or promises but an all-encompassing bond between God and people. Continue reading →

Sermon Series through 1 Peter

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I recently finished a sermon series through 1 Peter entitled A Living Hope in Times of Turmoil. While there are many ways to divide 1 Peter into preachable, cohesive units that respect the main points the author seems to make, I settled on the outline below.  Scott McKnight’s 1 Peter in the NIV Application Commentary series helped me greatly in my preparation. In my opinion, the NIV Application Commentary series is one of the best series for sermon preparation. Certainly there are more in-depth scholarly commentaries for research purposes, but the NAC arranges it’s material in a way that facilitates text to sermon (one could say the NAC has a knack  for helping in sermon prep). The other commentary I heavily consulted was Paul Achtemeier’s Commentary on 1 Peter in the Hermeneia series.

In the table below, I include the passage and the Title/Application of that passage (which contains a link to the sermon audio at Second Baptist Church, where I gave the sermons,). I hope you find this info helpful in your own study of 1 Peter.

First Peter Sermon series: A Living Hope in Times of Turmoil.

1 Peter 1:1-12 “Praise God for a Living Hope and Salvation.”
1 Peter 1:13-2:3 “Growing in hope and salvation.”
1 Peter 2:4-10 “You are Living Stones built together for God.”
1 Peter 2:11-3:7  “Living a counter-cultural respect.”
1 Peter 3:8-22 ” Follow Christ through the offences.”
1 Peter 4:1-11 “Time’s up-Living for God and loving people with our time on this earth.“
1 Peter 4:12-19  “Suffering is not strange-but it will be.”  (Suffering as a Christian is normal; Christ suffered – but suffering also calls us to God’s judgment upon (ending of) suffering and sin.)
1 Peter 5:1-5  “Shepherd and serve willingly and humbly”
1 Peter 5:6-14 “Let God lift you up and complete you.”

Maundy Thursday and Jesus Washing the Disciples’ feet

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Maundy Thursday is observed the Thursday before Easter Sunday and commemorates Jesus washing the Apostles’ feet and establishing the Lord’s Supper. footwashingJohn’s Gospel is the only Gospel that recounts the footwashing. In this post, I make a couple observations on John 13:1-30.

John 13:1-30 introduces a larger unit often called the “Farewell Discourse,” which covers John 13:31-17:26. As Jesus bids “farewell” to his disciples, he cleanses them through the act of footwashing. The Farewell Discourse concludes with Jesus praying for his followers to continue his mission. The discourse itself features Jesus preparing his followers for his departure by teaching them about their relationship to the Father, to Jesus, to the Spirit, to one another, and to the world.

The description of the footwashing is intertwined with Jesus’ predictions about his betrayal, something that the other Gospels recount with the institution of the “Lord’s Supper.” John’s Gospel places the footwashing at a meal, but does not include the explicit establishment of the Lord’s Supper. However, the act of footwashing symbolizes Jesus’ humble self-sacrificial service through his death on the cross – something also symbolized by the bread and cup of the Lord’s Supper.  In his commentary on John, Craig Keener (2003, 902-914) observes that the interspersing of the footwashing and its significance (13:3-10) with the betrayal (13:2, 10-11) point to Jesus’ impending death. The betrayal of a friend or close associate was a terrible act in all first-century cultures and the act was especially heinous because it took place during a meal. Eating together was a symbol of trust and unity. And yet, Jesus did not make a mistake in choosing Judas (6:70) since he was chosen to fulfill the prophesied role of betrayer, as the quotation of Psalm 41:9 in John 13:18 points out.

Jesus tells his disciples beforehand about this betrayal so that they would not doubt Jesus because of this betrayal. Instead, Jesus’ foretelling would cause them to believe “I am he” (13:19). At the most basic level Jesus was showing that he was a legitimate prophet of God despite Judas’ betrayal; Jesus was still aware and in control of the situation. Telling of the events before hand was one way prophets were shown to be from God (Deut 18:22).

Keener (2003, 914) also states this language of Jesus “choosing” the disciples echoes the language of God choosing Israel as he was creating a covenant community. The choosing of Judas and the crucifixion – they were all a part of God’s plan to draw together a new community/family of God. By introducing the idea of voluntary humble service through footwashing, John emphasizes that the betrayal and death were consciously taken up by Jesus in love and service to God’s people. The humiliation of the cross and its cleansing of sinners were foreshadowed in the act of footwashing.

Jesus’ footwashing also serves as an object lesson in humility. Footwashing was the task usually done by the lowest servant. It was certainly not to be done by a renowned teacher or leader. Jesus says in John 13:14-15  “If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.” Jesus clearly states that one purpose for washing their feet is to give them an example they should follow. Only through humble, Christ-like service could the disciples truly continue Jesus’ ministry and mission.

Ending on a note of application, we church leaders must receive Jesus’ cleansing like anyone else. It is through Christ’s sacrificial death (the Lamb of God) that we are cleansed and adopted as children of God (John 1:12; 29). Christian leaders must be converted and cleansed by Christ. Too many have seized the mantle of leadership without having received Christ’s cleansing. We must also pay close attention to Jesus’ example. Jesus calls us to servant-leadership that is ready to humble oneself in service to the other. This includes doing the tasks no one else wants – the task of the lowest servant like washing the feet. Too many have seized the mantle of Christian leadership without taking up the mantle of service like Christ. Christ-like leadership is servant leadership.

Exegetical Sermon Series on the Book of Acts with a note on “scope”.

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A busy summer that included teaching biblical Greek at Tyndale Theological Seminary in the Netherlands meant no time for blog posting. Since some of my most visited posts are sermon outlines, I have posted an outline and audio links of my current sermon series on Acts below (chapters 1-5). In an exegetical sermon series, it is important to determine the proper “scope” of each passage. As described in the “10 Steps to Interpretation,” the interpreter tries to interpret and communicate the text in units that follow the author’s presentation. Using structural and contextual clues, one attempts to divide larger sections into manageable units to preach—but a unit that follows the author’s presentation as closely as possible.

We naturally follow this practice in other disciplines. Teachers usually assign and teach according to the chapters/sections/paragraphs of a textbook’s author. Following the author’s intentioned breaks and transitions makes it easier to teach and understand the content. The biblical writers did not use modern conventions like chapter divisions (the chapter and verse numbering of modern Bibles are a later addition—yet they can help discern sections as long as the interpreter realizes their later origin), but there are clues to where the author intends a shift or new unit. Through a shift in scene, the introduction of a new argument, a change in genre, a keyword, or other technique, the author signals a change. These signals help mark out the smaller units that can be reasonably treated without doing violence to the author’s intention.

*Note – I would normally treat Acts 1:1-11 as a unit, but I wanted to give some background information to Acts and relate it to the Gospel of Luke, while keeping the sermon to 30 minutes. Likewise, Pentecost was meant to be a unified passage, but the theological and literary implications are too great to be covered in one sermon. The exegetical preacher must balance the scope of a passage with laying bare the meaning of the text in a way that the congregation can process (i.e. taking into account cultural attention spans).

Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1-3. Main point: The Gospel of Christ is based in history and transforms our history. Audio: Transforming History.
Acts 1:4-11 Main point: Jesus gives his followers a clear mission and the resources to accomplish that mission. Audio: A Clear Mission.
Acts 1:12-26 Main point: Times of transition/waiting are times for prayer in which God can direct us how to take the next step. Audio: Praying Through the Transition Process.
Acts 2:1-21 Main point: As promised, Jesus sends the Spirit to empower his people to do supernatural things. Audio: The Promised Spirit.
Acts 2:22-41 Main point: Jesus fulfills scripture, rose from the dead, and gives the Spirit so repent and be baptized in His name. Audio: Jesus-Lord and Christ.
Acts 2:42-47 Main point: We must devote ourselves to Bible, worship, fellowship, prayer, and evangelism. Audio: 5 Essentials to Building a Healthy Church.
Acts 3 Main point: Give Jesus – exalt Jesus. Audio: What I have I Give to You.
Acts 4:1-31 Main point: Dealing with opposition? You are only responsible for you. Obey God, He will empower you. Audio: Dealing with Opposition and Conflict.
Acts 4:32-5:11 Main point: The presence of the Lord, and internal opposition to His way, should not be taken lightly. Audio: Are You Serious?
Acts 5:12-42 Main point: If we are in God’s will, nothing can stop us. Audio: Stopping a Freight Train.

Take Courage in God’s Presence and Plan: An Exposition and Application of Haggai 2.

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Today’s post includes the second installment of a recent sermon series on the book of Haggai. If you are looking for a short, expositional series, then Haggai can be covered in only two weeks. In the actual preaching, I added different illustrations and/or went deeper into certain areas based on the congregation. You can listen to the sermon series at: http://gracefortheway.org/sermons/series/the-book-of-haggai. If you listen and compare the written version below, you will see that any sermon notes or manuscripts are tools to organize a sermon. Just as the Spirit guides in the sermon preparation, the Spirit should guide the proclamation.

Life has so many twists and turns. We really should admit that for the most part we have no idea how things will turn out. Sometimes we are happy-surprised, sometimes we are disappointed-surprised. For instance, when the Star wars prequels came out, everyone was excited to get the back story of Darth Vader. Then right away we were hit with the disappointment that is Jar Jar Binks. Of course there are many more important things in life, which lead to even more profound disappointments: career plans that fall apart, a child who has walked away from the faith, a difficult marriage.  There are many things in life that take an unexpected and discouraging turn – that is the human condition, and the people of God are not immune.

 The people of God in Haggai’s day had to deal with discouragement. As discussed last time, God told the Israelites to rebuild the temple, and they actually started to do it! In Haggai 2 discouragement sets in. Before diving into Haggai 2, let’s quickly review the historical context. Continue reading →

An exposition and application of Haggai 1. Prioritize God and his plan.

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Today’s post includes the basic sermon manuscript from my recent sermon series on the book of Haggai. If you are looking for a short, expositional series, then Haggai can be covered in only two weeks. In the actual preaching, I added different illustrations and/or went deeper into certain areas based on the congregation. You can listen to the sermon series at: http://gracefortheway.org/sermons/series/the-book-of-haggai. If you listen and compare the written version below, you will see that any sermon notes or manuscripts are tools to organize a sermon. Just as the Spirit guides in the sermon preparation, the Spirit should guide the proclamation.

Intro: Valentine’s day was a couple weeks ago. After 21 years of marriage I still haven’t discovered the secret to making one’s spouse feel special and extra-loved on Valentine’s day. But I have discovered several things NOT to do. When your spouse says, “Today is a Valentine’s day, let’s go out tonight and have a nice dinner.” Do not reply, “I already went out for lunch with the guys, but I’ll bring you home leftovers; they’re really good.” It has only taken me 21 years to come to the amazing realization that my wife does not feel valued when I treat her like an afterthought. If you love and value someone, they are a priority.

That concept of love affecting priorities makes sense to most of us. However, we who say we love and value God very often give God what we have left over in time and resources. Sure, we will worship God—as long as nothing else is going on. Sure we will give our time and money to God—if we happen to have any leftover from spending it on other things. God’s children need a constant reminder to prioritize God and His plan; don’t give Him leftovers. This is the message that the prophet Haggai delivered to the Jewish people of his day. Because Haggai is unfamiliar to many, let me give you some historical context. Continue reading →