What Disturbs You?

Many of you reading this today are glad it’s not snowing.  Again.  It seems like this winter has been never ending – plenty of snow and plenty of Arctic blasts.  We woke up to about 7 or 8 inches of snow yesterday.  The heavy, wet snow that’s great for building snowmen and snow forts but is horrible for shoveling and plowing.  Working at different times throughout the day yesterday, it took me 5 hours to clear my driveway with the plow blade on my lawn tractor! 

In Western PA this winter, it’s not been hard to let the weather bother and frustrate us and get us down.  Days like yesterday make it easy to complain. 

If we’re honest with ourselves, there are lots of things that frustrate us and bother us and lead us to complain. Sometimes it snows a lot.  Sometimes it’s bitter cold for days at a time.  Cars break down and need to be fixed (I just had to call my mechanic because my old ’97 Explorer is having some trouble).  Influenza and strep throat and stomach bugs are rampant around here this winter, and have been in our house since Christmas it seems.  Money is tight for many of us.  Relationships are strained.  We could go on and on listing all the things that frustrate us and lead us to complain.

It’s natural to be frustrated when things don’t go our way.  And for many people, it’s natural to complain.  See my postfrom earlier this week about my own tendency to do that.  Everyday frustrations become a problem when we let those frustrations dominate our thoughts and feelings and when we let those things disturb us to the point that they become all consuming and the only thing we talk about. 

What disturbs you?

In one of today’s readings from For the Love of God Biblereading plan, we see that the Apostle Paul was greatly disturbed and troubled by something in Romans 9.  Check out what he says in v.v. 1-5: 

“I speak the truth in Christ--I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit-- I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.”

In case you don’t get the gist of this, here’s what Paul is saying.  He carries a huge sorrow and burden in his heart for people that don’t know Jesus.  This is more than just your garden variety being bummed out.  The deeper meaning here is that this an affliction that tortures his soul and keeps him awake at night.  He’s really disturbed by the fact that there are people – and in this case, his own fellow Jews – that haven’t yet experienced the transforming power of the death and resurrection of Jesus. 

In fact Paul’s grief over those who are lost is so deep that he wishes that he could be cut off from Christ himself so that these objects of God’s affection and love in Christ would be awakened to the reality of God’s affection and love for them in Christ.  If you’re at all familiar with the life, ministry and letters of Paul, you know that this is no small thing.  For Paul, to be cut off from Christ would mean that he would be cut off from God and would spend eternity apart from him! 

I don’t know about you, but as a Christian, this is a huge wake up call for me.  Of all the things that disturb me and unsettle my soul, I’ve got to say that the salvation of other people isn’t nearly high enough on the list.  I mean I love people and I try to share the Gospel whenever and wherever I can, but the thought of people spending eternity apart from Christ doesn’t disturb me and unsettle me nearly as much as it should.

Burk Parsons of Ligonier Ministriesand a pastor in Florida has become one of my favorite follows on Twitter and his blog has really challenged and inspired me in my own life and leadership.  A few days ago, he Tweeted this question: “If God granted all your prayers, would your neighbors know him or would you just have more stuff?”

Just settle on that and chew on that for some time.  I’ve really got nothing to add, other than that I’m still picking myself up off the floor since I’ve read that. 

What disturbs you?  The minor frustrations of life or the reality of those in your life who are missing out on the Kingdom of God?

Confessions of a Curmudgeon

cur·mud·geon

noun \(ˌ)kər-ˈmə-jən\

: a person (especially an old man) who is easily annoyed or angered and who often complains

My awesome wife Jessie has occasionally pointed out to me - rightly so - that she doesn't have to guess what I'll be like when I'm 80.  My tendency is to be a curmudgeon.  And I'm only 39.  

This morning on my Facebook page I shared this thought from Ed Stetzer, a great man of God whom I greatly admire and read with great interest: "In my view, Christians have increasingly become gullible and prone to accept stories, some from credible sources and others from not very credible ones, which cast us in the role of the martyr when it is not warranted. Too often, Christians are in a state of perpetual grievance, where each passing day brings another new controversy about which we must act or Christianity in America will crumble."

I followed up with this thought:
"Think before you post. More importantly, Google or research before you post. Let the world know what Christians are for once in awhile, instead of what we're always against. We look ridiculous when we rant and rave about myths."

I realized after I posted this that in trying to encourage others not to be curmudgeonly that I did quite a fine job of sounding like a curmudgeon myself.  I could blame the limitations of social media, or I could be truthful and admit that it's my default position.  As the comments piled up, I confessed this.  My default position towards much of what I see in culture is one of anger and outrage instead of compassion.  This was as much about me as it was anybody else.  

On Sunday evening, we had a house full of people over to watch the Super Bowl - mostly the staff and leadership team of the church I pastor.  I watched the game in seclusion from the recliner in my bedroom with the door closed.  But to my credit, it's not because I've gone full blown curmudgeon.  It was because I had the flu - complete with fever and chills and a hacking cough.  Wife's orders.  Watching football alone is no fun, so I sat with Facebook and Twitter open on my laptop as I watched.  (By the way, how did we ever watch our favorite sporting events without social media?)

I didn't pay much attention to the commercials, as I'd use that time to check out all the updates on Twitter (I don't tweet at all, but I do follow Pittsburgh sports writers and national church leaders - weird combo I know, but that's how I roll on Twitter).  

Finally, the halftime show came.  I knew of Bruno Mars but I wasn't familiar with any of his music really.  I listen to sports talk radio about 70% of the time in the car, and the other 30% of the time is usually country music.  Sometimes rock on WDVE (yinzers will know what that is) or Christian music on KLOV.  Very rarely do I listen to pop stations, unless my kids are in the car.  

I was a little more familiar with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, as they rose to prominence when I was more inclined to listen to music than talk radio.  

People were raving about the half-time show on Facebook and Twitter.  I caught the first couple minutes of Bruno's first song and was disgusted.  I was ready to go full on curmudgeon on Facebook.  And then I stopped.  God reminded me of something I need to work on.  I've been convicted lately that in all my speech and writing - whether face to face; when I'm preaching on Sunday mornings or on social media - that I want to be more known for what I'm for than for what I'm against.  This is a constant struggle for this curmudgeon.

I was really hit by this today as I read through Mark 7, which is one of today's readings from the daily Bible reading plan For the Love of God.  In v.5 it says, "So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with 'unclean' hands?"

Another complaint - among many - about the ways of Jesus by the ones who thought they had it all together.  Jesus seized on their complaint, and made it another great adventure in missing the point as He always did with the Pharisees.  Being righteous and living a life that pleases God is a matter of the heart:

14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.' " 17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 "Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? 19 For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.") 20 He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' 21 For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' "  

In other words, Jesus was saying, "Why do you worry so much about what's wrong with everybody else instead of concentrating on what's wrong with your own heart and what's right and good with me?"  That's me!  That's what a curmudgeonly heart needs to hear and live and to be freed from.

So what's the solution for a curmudgeon like me?  How do we experience the transformation that's needed to move from a default position of anger and outrage about everything we don't like to a default position of compassion?  We look at Jesus.  Always.  Above everything else.

As Mark 7 continues, we see the compassion of Jesus.  We see the compassion of Jesus towards two people who are totally on the outside looking in.  We see Jesus interacting with these people and bringing miraculous healing to their lives because of his compassion.

Compassion, from the root word pathos, means to suffer with.  When Jesus saw the brokenness of his culture - expressed in many different ways - he entered into the brokenness with the ones who were broken.  He saved his anger and outrage for those who lived in arrogant self-righteousness and he poured out his compassion on those that didn't even know that they were broken.  

If I want to be like Jesus, and I really do (see another of today's readings from Romans 7 for more on this inward struggle) this is who I've got to learn to be.  This is who I've got to allow Him to make me.  I've got to become a person who is far more concerned about what's right and good with Jesus than I am about what's wrong with everybody else.