March, 2017

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Unveiled

Thursday, March 30th, 2017

If you are as old as me and remember the music from your childhood, you would remember what was called “The Summer of Love.” The flower people of “Make Love Not War” fame were/are well known. “If you’re going to San Francisco be sure to wear some flowers in your hair” was just one of the songs. “Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now.” “What the world needs now is love sweet love.” I never cared to wear flowers in my hair (and certainly couldn’t now if I wanted to), but I sort of agree with those last two. The tragedy is those folks were looking for love in all the wrong places. One man, Chuck Smith, saw that and from a store front reached out to the burned out and disenchanted people. So began Calvary Chapel.

John makes it abundantly clear that love is the ultimate mark a Christ-follower can have. No matter how many FISH symbols we are wearing; no matter how many “Christian” T-shirts one wears; no matter how many crosses one wears, those are all symbols. The greatest distinguishing mark of a Christ-follower is love.

My sermon this week is called “The Look of Love.” After I started working on this, I actually decided to make it a Part 1 of a 3-Part series leading up to Resurrection Sunday.

  • The Look of Love
  • The Act of Love
  • The Future of Love

Please keep me/us in mind this weekend as you pray. Thanks.

And for those who may be interested:

Yeah. That’s my new steed. That’s the day I brought it home from the store. I’ve been given the okay to start riding outside. But first a few times around the block inside on my trainer.

Restart

Sunday, March 26th, 2017

I wore this T-shirt today (Sunday). Someone from the church picked it up for me since they know I absolutely love this movie. (And yes, I wear T-shirts to preach in on Sunday morning. I serve a church where wearing a tie usually means a funeral or a wedding).

Unless I miss my guess most of us have had a time or two or three where we have wished we could turn back the clock or travel back in time for a “do over.” I’m reminded of a song Jo likes to listen-“Dear Younger Me” by MercyMe. Well, as we all know we can’t hop in our DeLorean and travel back in time and change the course of history…our history. Sadly, we can’t get a “do over.”

But, in reality, life isn’t about “do overs.” Life is about what is ahead. Jo and I have been talking a lot lately about forgetting the past and looking ahead. We can’t change it but we can make a difference in the days to come. Craig Groeschel, in his new book Divine Direction says:

It’s not too late to change the story that you’ll tell one day. You can start something new. No matter how desperate, uncertain, afraid, or stuck you may feel right now, your story isn’t over. Page 28

At the end of Back to the Future 3, Marty and Jennifer are talking to Doc who has come back to 1985 in a train. When Jennifer shows Doc the picture and says something about their future, Doc says, “Nobody’s future has been written yet. So make it a good one…both of you.” He is both right and wrong. Our future is known by God. He orders our steps according to Proverbs. But since none of us know our future, we need to make it the best one we can. And to quote Craig again:

There is no better time to start writing your future story than right now. Page 46

That’s pretty good and solid advice. Taking a DeLorean seems easier. Just change it before it happens. But that is not going to happen. So start today and make it a good one…following the Father’s plan and steps.

LawBreaking

Thursday, March 23rd, 2017

My sermon for Sunday is entitled Breaking the Law.  I sort of wonder how many of you did what my secretary did: start singing the song by that title. She said her husband definitely would. For those not familiar with it, think Judas Priest. Yeah…I know…heathen. 🙂

My sermon Sunday is about a subject not too many like to talk about these days: SIN. I mean, we have a whole genre of “feel good, be happy” TV evangelists whose whole gig is not to stir the waters but to make the audience feel good.  One of them has made the public comment that he does not talk about sin. Say what?

I have a T-shirt from a ministry I support (Hole in My Heart). The saying is, “All fall short.” “All are loved.” We all sin. No exceptions. John is clear in his letter about the widespread effect of sin. But his point is that a follower of Christ does not keep on sinning just because he can. There needs to be a change. Check out I John 3: 4-10 for the Scripture and you will see what I will be preaching on Sunday.  I’d appreciate your prayers for me and the church Sunday. Thanks.

One more thing…and this comes in the form of shameless promotion. Please check out my daughter, Tami’s, blog for a way to help her accomplish a goal she has for this Fall. You can go here to see that blog. Thanks.

 

Spiders

Sunday, March 19th, 2017

I gotta admit: spiders are not my new best friends. I don’t freak out when I see them, not do I lovingly say, “Oh, hello Mr. Spider. Welcome to my world! I’m going to let you live because I believe that all creatures great and small ought to live.”

Nope…that’s not me. I don’t know what it is like where you live but there are certain times of the year when spiders seem to be prolific. Their webs are a nuisance. Walking through them and getting that sticky stuff on my face is enough to make me convulse. And I despise seeing their webs visible on my outside mirror and elsewhere, telling me they found a home. When that happens I do what I can to find them and get rid of them.

I recently read a quote from a blog entitled 5 Pastoral Proverbs that Stuck by Jared Wilson. The #5 proverb was

You don’t just wipe away the web; you’ve got to crush the spider

Jared accredits it to Steven Taylor, one of his pastors when he was a kid. His point is important. You don’t just wipe away the effects of sin; you’ve got to be extreme, go to the source of temptation.

That’s good advice. We once had carpet in our house that had pet smell, and even stains from the previous owners. We took out the part of the carpet we thought was the source and had tile put down (Kitchen). Nope. After vainly fighting the stain issue, we finally had to rip up the carpet and pad. That was the only way to get rid of both the smell and the stain.

We need to cut the “heart” out of sin by going to its source. Then crushing it that spider.

HOPE

Thursday, March 16th, 2017

I’m pretty sure you have heard the saying,

“We can live 40 days without food, eight days without water, four minutes without air, but only a few seconds without hope.”

There is some truth to that statement. If you have ever met someone who was in a truly helpless situation then you know how despairing it can be.

We often quote the phrase “Faith, Hope and Love, but the greatest of these is love.” Of the trio, faith and love are given most of the press and discussion. Hope is like the forgotten sister. In reality though, hope stands tall and is vital to all who want to follow Jesus and keep a right perspective on this life and the life to come.

After two faltering weeks on “Black hats/White hats” I decided to scrap that sermon and move on to the next one. This sermon is, as you probably guessed, on Hope and is taken from I John 2:28- 3:3.  We have a hope here and now. But we also have a hope for eternity. C.S. Lewis once said,

Hope is one of the theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is to do.

Thanks for praying for me for this Sunday. It is appreciated more than you know.

 

Messy

Sunday, March 12th, 2017

Well…I did it again.

NO…I DIDN’T HAVE ANOTHER BICYCLE ACCIDENT!

Saturday night I told Jo not to be surprised if I scrapped the sermon for something else. I felt God nudging me about it while I was studying. In fact, I almost went back to the office Saturday evening. I didn’t. But Sunday morning, in spite of the Daylight Savings Time shift, I was up and in my office and cranked out a sermon to preach.

I called it Messy Grace. It was a follow up to last week’s sermon when I opened up about my wilderness journey. I needed to  bring some closure to that sermon and “felt led” to address the issue of messy grace.

Sometimes grace is messy. Sometimes grace is rubbing shoulders with people who are not like us. Jud Wilhite, a pastor in LasVegas and the author of Stripped tells the story of a lady who said she was leaving the church because she didn’t like the type of people who were showing up and “you never know what you might get from those type of people.” I suspect God was more grieved over her comment than “those type of people” attending church.

Grace was extended to me by my family this past week. The people of OVCF extended grace to me by their texts, emails, comments, and phone calls. I’d like to close with this picture of a wall hanging Jo and I bought shortly after Christmas. Little did I know how much it would be appropriate to us.

Black/White

Thursday, March 9th, 2017

You know the old adage: “if at first you don’t succeed, try try again.”

I told you about the events of this past Sunday here. I shelved my prepared sermon for a talk from the heart, largely brought on by my bicycle accident. My wife puts it this way: “it is the 2nd accident in 3 months in which I could have lost you.” Well…that sort of puts things into perspective doesn’t it? So two days will now go down in infamy for me:

November 7 when some car decided to play bumper cars with me. I lost. He left the scene without slowing down or stopping. I came out of that one sore and bruised but alive and walking.

February 17 is the other date. (Must be the 7s are a problem). I am the only one who can take “credit” for this one. My mind has still blacked out the how and the why and even some of the where. Maybe that is good. But this one ended up being much more serious an accident and I would say it is by God’s grace that I am doing as well as I am and recovering. It could have been a whole lot worse.

Anyway, I’m planning on preaching last week’s prepared sermon this week. You can see a preview if you would like by going here. I’m not going to repeat it all. What I will repeat is my request for prayer: for continued healing of body, mind, and heart, and for the sermon-its presentation and reception. Thanks.

 

Interrupted

Tuesday, March 7th, 2017

If you saw the last post, it was a description of Sunday’s sermon: Black/white.

Well…it was supposed to be. Until that Sunday morning when God interrupts the thought-process and says, “I want you to go in a different direction.”

So “Black Hats/White Hats” was held over until this coming Sunday. God had other ideas. I want you to know I’m not really into that. I prepare for a reason. I study for a reason. I practice on Sunday morning to an empty auditorium for a reason. I am a firm believer that if people come on Sunday morning to hear “me speak” (to hear a word from God as He has taught me), they need to hear something worth listening to. Half-baked, half-prepared sermons which use the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as an excuse for not studying and preparing tell the people they don’t matter and the pastor doesn’t care.  That’s not me. So when I no sooner begin my sermon and I sense the Holy Spirit prompting me to put it all aside and talk from the heart, I don’t jump up and down like Horshack on Kotter saying, “Ooh ooh ooh.”

That is what happened though this Sunday. I no sooner made two comments:

“Along with the fake there will always be a real.”

“Underneath it all we need to see that Looks can be deceiving.”

At that point I told the people to put their Bibles and notes away. I confessed to them that for the past 9 months or so I have been wearing a mask. I wore a mask so when they asked, “How you doing?” my stock answer was, “I’m fine.” Problem is Bill wasn’t fine. Bill was running on fumes.  He was empty.

It took two bicycle accidents to get my attention. The first didn’t work because it wasn’t my fault and I was able to move on too quickly from it. But this second one was a doozy. I’ve written about it here. I’m healing physically, but spiritually is taking longer. If you would like to listen to the podcast of Sunday’s talk, you can link here.

Your continued prayers are very much needed. Priorities need realigned. Relationships need mended and realigned as well. Thanks ahead of time.

Black/White

Thursday, March 2nd, 2017

After a two week hiatus caused by this, I plan to be back in the pulpit this Sunday. I have to admit that I am a tad bit excited.

Growing up and watching TV, it was easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys…for the most part. The good guys wore white hats; the bad guys wore black ones. For every Roy Rogers and Lone Ranger there was a Billy the Kid or Jesse James.

The Bible shows clearly there is an epic battle going on between the forces of evil and forces of good. From its earliest pages, the Evil One and all who function in his kingdom have constantly opposed God’s plan. For every Abel there is a Cain. For every Tabernacle there is a Tower of Babel. For every Joseph there is a Judas. For every Job there is a Peter.

My Scripture this Sunday is I John 2:18-27. It has been called  The antichrists vs the Christians. I’m calling it the black hats vs the white hats. Another way to put it is the fake vs the genuine.

I’m looking forward to preaching this Sunday after that two-week hiatus. I’m not really sure about my physical stamina nor how my voice will hold up (I picked up a cold in the hospital and with broken ribs it is hard to cough hard). So…some prayers about that would also be much appreciated.  Thanks. And thanks to all for your kind words during my healing. Please keep the prayers coming!

Released!

Wednesday, March 1st, 2017

Needless to say, after this post, I’ve been waiting for this day.

WEDNESDAY

MARCH 1

1:20 P.M.

After having the 22 staples removed, a series of x-rays to check on healing, a chat with the doctor, a visit to the therapist (physical smarty pants), I was released to go my own way! I will check back in at the end of the month, but for the most part I am free and clear. The only restrictions are physical pain and movement. I’m allowed to return to the Y (but I have to be smart obviously). No incline bench presses. No shrugs. No…no…no.  I have to be smart he says and I hear the peanut gallery (composed of my wife) saying, “No. No. No.”  🙂

It felt good to be released. To be able to drive my Frontier to the office without being chauffeured. To experience that sense of well-being which comes from something new.

There have been several “something news” which have come as a result of this accident. I’d like to share some of them with you in a future post or two. But time has run out for me on this one. I have a bike to ride.

OOOPS JUST KIDDING.  🙂

And here, for your viewing pleasure, is the xray of the repair. I think it is safe to say no airport security line will be safe for me.