In July, I attended the North American Christian Convention (NACC). The NACC is an annual gathering of Christians (primarily from the movement of independent Christian churches/churches of Christ of which Westwood is a part) from all across North America and the world. It is a gathering for preaching, teaching, retooling for ministers and leaders, connecting with old and new friends, and challenging the church to live out its mission.

Christine and I both attended our first NACC in 1973, just a few months before we were married. Our daughter grew up going to the NACC, and still attends on occasion, especially when it meets in a location within driving distance of her home, as happened this summer and last summer. This summer it met in Cincinnati where she lives, so she attended several sessions with me.

The NACC has been a rich blessing to our family and to me personally. Each convention offers new blessings. This fall, I hope to bring some of the blessings from this year’s NACC to our congregation through a series of messages based on this year’s theme.

The theme this year was “Unleashed — The Church Turning the World Upside Down.” This theme was developed through a series of messages to the adult convention based on the book of Acts. The theme comes from the promise by Jesus in Acts 1 that his followers would have the Holy Spirit poured out on them — that the church would be immersed in the Holy Spirit. That promise was fulfilled in Acts 2. How does the church live when the Spirit is unleashed? Through these messages, we will find how we can emulate the powerful ministry of the church in the book of Acts. Here are the themes we will examine:

• We become a kaleidoscope that attracts the whole world to the church’s welcoming beauty and diversity (Acts 1:8; 10:1-48).
• We see innumerable souls won for the kingdom of God (Acts 2:41-47; 4:4).
• We see pandemonium ensue as others take notice of the excitement and commotion of God’s church working in their midst (Acts 4:13-22).
• We are shaken by the power of God’s Spirit and preach fearlessly and without restraint (Acts 4:23-31).
• We demonstrate lavishness when we see the needs of those around us and give sacrificially (Acts 4:32-37).
• We display a hazardous faith (Acts 5:17-42).
• We are open to the kinetic power of the gospel (Acts 13:41-52).
• We take hold of the unequivocal calling to go into the whole world (Acts 20:22-24).

I am praying that these messages will challenge my life and our congregation to let the Spirit be unleashed in our lives.

How Would Someone Sum Up Your Life?

If someone who knows you well were to write a summary of your life in just a few sentences, what would they say? Would the things he or she says mention the things you are most passionate about? Would those few sentences reflect your walk with God? Would it be positive or negative?

As I have studied David’s life this summer and shared messages with you from what the Bible tells us about him, I have found some remarkable sentences in the account of his life in 1 and 2 Samuel that summarize his life. These sentences sum up the various events of David’s life and point to Godly characteristics that we can learn from. These sentences reveal to us the life of “a man after God’s own heart” and show us how to live with a heart for God.

Here is a sampling organized around some of the main events of David’s life:

David’s anointing to be king of Israel:

• Man looks at the outward appearance (literally ‘the face’), but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). From the time that he was anointed, the Lord knew that David had a heart for God, and God chose him to be king because of his heart. What does God see when he looks at your heart?
• “The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David” (1 Samuel 16:13). David did not live by his own power, but by the power of God. Just as the Spirit came upon David at his anointing, so he comes into our lives we accept Christ and are baptized. Do you choose to live by the power of God’s Spirit within you?

David’s slaying of Goliath:

• “I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied (1 Samuel 17:45). David could slay Goliath because he was more than a boy with a slingshot; he was a warrior fighting in the name of the Lord Almighty. People today may choose to defy the Lord as Goliath did, but my question for you is: Do you live in the name of the Lord Almighty?

David’s moving the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem:

• When David danced before the Lord, only to be criticized by his wife, he said, “I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes” (2 Samuel 6:21, 22). David worshiped the Lord freely and extravagantly, without inhibitions. Do you celebrate freely before the Lord when you come to worship?

David’s desiring to build a Temple:

• David desired a Temple, but when God told him “no,” he “went in and sat before the Lord.” (2 Samuel 7:18). After receiving what had to be one of the great disappointments of his life, David went in and sat and talked with the Lord. In his prayer, David asks the Lord, “Who am I...that you have brought me this far?” He goes on to acknowledge the greatness of God. When you have a heart for God, you acknowledge his greatness even when he does not give you the things you desire. Do you recognize that God always knows best?

David’s kindness to Jonathan’s son

• After David settled in Jerusalem as king, he asked, “Is there no one still alive from the house of Saul to whom I can shown God’s kindness?” (2 Samuel 9:3). Saul had made himself David’s enemy, but David had a great friendship with Saul’s son Jonathan, so he sought to demonstrate kindness (the word is actually “grace”) to anyone left from Saul’s family — and he did so with Jonathan’s son. Do you extend God’s kindness, his grace, to others, even those with whom you disagree?

David’s repentance for adultery and murder:

• When confronted for his sins, David responded to Nathan, the prophet, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:13). He was the king, but he acknowledged his sin. We all sin, and we know we do. Do you acknowledge your sin to God and receive his mercy?
• When David’s infant son died, he said, “Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Samuel 12:23), In some way, David had come to understand that, through our faith and the mercy of God, we live beyond the grave. He lived for the day that he would see his child again. Do you live for eternity?

These are just some of the lessons David can teach us. The New Testament tells us that “God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do’” (Acts 13:22). We too can live with hearts for God. I hope you are learning these lessons from the life of David.

Worship With a Heart For God

The central piece to the life of the church today is the weekly worship service. More people come into church by first attending worship than through any other means. We put a lot of time and energy into our worship – as well we should – but do we really lead people in worshiping with a heart for God?

A study of the life of David, the second king of Israel, led me to consider this question this summer. It is a question well worth pondering.

David had faced this question, because he became king at a time in Israel’s history in which they had neglected the proper worship of God for over twenty years. We know this because the Ark of the Covenant, the place where God’s glory rested and therefore the centerpiece of their worship, had been left in the home of a priest named Abinadab for all those years (you can read that story in 1 Samuel 4-6 and 7:1-2).

When David became king he realized that this centerpiece of their worship was missing, so he determined to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem where he had established his capital. In the account of his bringing the Ark to Jerusalem, as told in 2 Samuel 6, I find three ways in which we can worship God. Each has relevance for today’s worship practices.

(1) We can worship God with complacence. This is the worship largely promoted by the church. I know; I know. You say, our church does not worship complacently, but observe the experience of David.

David took 30,000 people with him to the home of Abinadab, 10 miles from Jerusalem, to retrieve the Ark. They put the Ark on a new ox cart to transport it. Everyone was celebrating and singing and playing instruments and worshiping. David knew that in order to worship God properly, they needed the Ark of the Covenant in their midst, but Abinadab must have been aghast at the complacency of the celebration. They were taking it all too lightly. This was the Ark of God, after all.

Do we forget who the God is that we worship? Do we become too casual and too complacent in our worship, forgetting that we worship a holy God in all of his glory? Do we simply worship God so that he will improve us a little bit, and design our worship services to make people feel better instead of to pour ourselves out before the Most Holy God?

(2) We can worship God with anger. This is the worship most common in our culture. Nearly one-third of people in our culture believe God is an authoritarian, angry God.

The worship mood of the celebrating crowd moving the Ark to Jerusalem suddenly changed. As they marched along with the Ark of the Covenant on the ox cart something happened. Perhaps the wheel of the cart hit a rock and was jolted. The Ark became unsteady and began to fall. Uzzah, walking alongside the cart, reached out and steadied the Ark. That’s all he did. He probably reacted without even thinking about it but he Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah and struck him dead because he touched the Ark. They named the place, “Outbreak against Uzzah.” They had failed to follow God’s instructions for moving the Ark, and, even though his intentions were right, Uzzah lost his life, and David got angry. The celebration ended. The plans were scrapped. They left the Ark at the home they were passing by.

Many people in our culture have become angry at God for all the evil that is present in our world, but they will not turn to him. How do we explain a loving God to people who are angry at him? Like Israel, when we neglect the proper worship of a Most Holy God, we will only know anger. As Eugene Peterson says, ““Sometimes I think that all religious sites should be posted with signs reading, "’Beware the God.’"

(3) We can worship God with extravagance. This is worship as God intended.

Three months later David returned to retrieve the Ark. In the interim, he had learned how to properly move the Ark, and he observed those regulations. They made sacrifices as they moved toward Jerusalem. When Michal, David’s wife, criticized him for his display of exuberance, he said he would celebrate before the Lord, becoming even more undignified than he had in order to honor the Lord.

That is the kind of celebration we need to bring before the Lord. Call for people to worship by giving all of themselves to the Lord. Remember that we worship the Most Holy God, and pour yourself out before him.

(This post is based on a sermon preached on July 17. To listen to the sermon, go to this page and choose the sermon for July 17.)

Saul’s Death and Christ’s Death

When my brother-in-law, Jerry, died last month, he was buried in the veterans’ cemetery in Johnson City, TN, the same place where my mother was buried a little less than four years ago. My sister, Karen, her daughter, Amy, her daughter-in-law, Kristen, our daughter, Nancy, and I returned to the cemetery later in the day after the burial had been completed. All of the markers in the cemetery are identical crosses, but the cemetery allows the crosses to be personalized with something about the person, besides the facts of name and dates. We walked through the cemetery and noticed some of the things written on some of the grave markers. My sister recognized some of those who had died more recently because she works at the VA Hospital and they had been patients in her department, but all the rest of us were reading things about people we had not known.

Words on grave markers give only a very slight glimpse into a person’s life, but may well sum up the essence of that person’s life.

During the course of David being pursued by King Saul, Saul died by his own hand after battling the Philistines. His grave marker could well have contained words that he himself spoke to David after David spared his life for the second time. 1 Samuel 26:21 records those words for us as part of a promise to David to not harm him. He said, “I have played the fool and have committed a serious error.”

Sometime later, the Philistines defeated Saul’s army in battle. His three sons, including Jonathan, were killed, and Saul would take his own life by falling on his sword (1 Samuel 31:1-6). He had long before that stopped following the Lord, and played the fool to the very end. The heads of Saul and his sons were cut off by the Philistines and carried throughout the land to announce the Philistine victory, and their bodies were publicly displayed hanging on the walls of a city. Israel had been conquered by the Philistines. Saul’s tragic death had drastic consequences for his nation.

Chuck Swindoll compares Saul’s death with the death of Christ — the great Son of David:

• Saul’s death seemed to destroy hope for his nation, while Christ’s death offers hope to all.
• Saul’s death brought victory to his enemies, while Christ’s death brings defeat to even death itself.
• Saul’s death opened the way for David to become king, while Christ’s death opened the way to salvation for everyone who accepts him.

All of us know that we will one day die. Many choose a death like Saul’s — one without hope. They choose to die the fool.

This week our congregation and Lisa McCullum’s family mourn Lisa’s death, but we also rejoice because she had chosen to accept the redeeming death of the great Son of David. Her joy at knowing Christ touched us all. May we choose to face life and death as she did, with the hope of Christ.

How Is Your Church’s Heart?

In the late 1930s, Carl Sandburg finished a four-volume masterpiece, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and The War Years. As Sandberg sought for an appropriate title of the seventy-fifth chapter, covering the events immediately following Lincoln’s assassination, he settled on a quaint line from an old woodsman’s proverb, “A tree is best measured when it’s down.” Sandberg felt that you cannot adequately measure the significance of a person’s life until he is “down.”

I have found that old woodsman’s proverb also describes with some precision the life of King David of Israel. As such his life teaches us many valuable lessons on how to live and how we should lead the church.

David is the only person in all of scripture to be called “a man after God’s own heart.” He demonstrated great strength of character by depending on God, but he also demonstrated great weakness when he fell to temptation and sinned against God. He wrote about it all in the Psalms. He could write about both because he always found his way back to God; he got his heart back in the right place.

David was born and raised in a world in which, as one writer put it, “the people were on a long drift from God.” That is certainly true today, so perhaps there are some things we can learn from David about keeping our hearts and the heart of our churches right with God.

Samuel had been the prophet and judge for a long time when the people of Israel asked God for a king. Saul was chosen as the first king, but he would disobey God, so Samuel told him that God would replace him as king with “a man after his own heart.” 1 Samuel 16:1-13 tells the story of the selection and anointing of David as the king who would replace Saul. That story gives us three reasons, as stated by Charles Swindoll, why we need to let the Lord look at our hearts and at the heart of our churches.

(1) Man Panics; God Provides. After God rejected Saul as king, he sent Samuel to Bethlehem to anoint a new king. He asked God, “How can I go? If Saul hears about it, he will kill me.” Have you or your church ever felt panic like that? Perhaps you have lost your job or faced a serious illness. Perhaps your church has lost a significant leader or is facing a pastoral change at a critical time in the church’s life.

God sent Samuel to Bethlehem and showed him that he had already selected the next king. He has nothing to fear. God provides the next job, the food and support we need to survive, the strength to make it through our health struggles, the next pastor or leader for our churches. We need a heart for God because he provides.

(2) – Man Looks; God Sees. Samuel began his consideration of the next king by examining Jesse’s oldest son, Eliab. Eliab looked like a man you would choose to be king. On that day, Samuel looked at seven of Jesse’s eight sons, but none of them were God’s choice, because God sees something we do not see: God looks into our hearts. Literally the text says, “Man looks at the face, but the Lord looks at the heart.” We still need to learn this lesson. If there is one thing we should learn about how to look at people it is to look at them not by face or stature or any feature of their outward appearance, but to look at their heart. Only God can really do that, so we have to learn to listen to God to give us that kind of discernment.

(3) – Man Forgets; God Remembers. While Samuel was looking at Jesse’s seven other sons, Jesse had forgotten about his eighth son, the youngest. Samuel had to ask Jesse if he had any other sons. Can’t you hear Jesse’s response: He is just the youngest. He is only a boy. He is only a shepherd. What could you want with him? Forgotten, shoved aside. Worthless. How often do we do that with people? God, though, remembered that David was out watching the sheep. He was chosen and anointed as king because of his character. I have often been surprised at the people God can use, because he remembers when we forget.

So, how is your heart? How is the heart of your church? Do you work at letting God develop within you and your church a heart that trusts in him?

When You Are Hiding In a Cave….

 

David had perhaps the most difficult path to becoming king of Israel of any king in history. He did not seek the throne; rather the throne sought him. Samuel anointed him to replace Saul as king, and David remained true to his anointing, but it could not have been easy.

We have already seen in 1 Samuel 18-21 that David lost his position in Saul’s army, his wife, his mentor, Samuel, his friend, Jonathan, and his dignity and self respect. When 1 Samuel 22 opens, David is fleeing from Saul and he “escaped to the cave of Adullam.” He had no security, he had no food, he had no one to talk to, he had no promise to cling to, and he had no hope that anything would ever change. He was in a dark cave, away from everything and everybody he loved. Everybody except God. The only people with him were 400 people who themselves were “in distress or in debt or discontent.”

That would not be the last cave in which he would hide from Saul. We get a glimpse at how he felt about these experiences in Psalm 142, which is a record of David crying out to God while in the cave.

I cry aloud to the LORD;
I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy.
I pour out my complaint before him;
before him I tell my trouble.
When my spirit grows faint within me,
it is you who know my way.
In the path where I walk
men have hidden a snare for me.
Look to my right and see;
no one is concerned for me.
I have no refuge;
no one cares for my life.
I cry to you, O LORD;
I say, "You are my refuge,
my portion in the land of the living."
Listen to my cry,
for I am in desperate need;
rescue me from those who pursue me,
for they are too strong for me.
Set me free from my prison,
that I may praise your name.
Then the righteous will gather about me
because of your goodness to me.

What does David do while he hides in the cave? He cries out to God; he pours out his complaint to the Lord. He recognizes that God is his refuge. He would continue for quite some time to flee from Saul, but in the cave he renewed his commitment to trust in God no matter how difficult his circumstances.

None of us are hiding in a cave with 400 distraught people, but at some time, we have all felt we were alone, with no one to help us, no promise to cling to, and no hope for the future. If you have faced such circumstances in the past, you will likely face them again in the future. There is only one person who can really help at such times. We should learn from David to cry out to the Lord, make our complaint to him. As he was for David, the Lord will always be there for us.

Unbroken

In her bestselling book Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand tells the amazing story of Louis Zamperini, 1936 Olympic distance runner and bombardier in the military during World War II and prisoner-of-war. His is a story of endurance and redemption that both reinforces and informs the mission God has given to the church as a body and to individual believers.

Zamperini was a prankster as a boy and through his teen years. Some of his pranks were harmful or illegal, yet he continually survived them. Then in high school he became a track athlete and became one of the best 5,000 meter runners in history and then one of the best mile-runners in history. He went to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. When he returned home, he trained for the 1940 Olympics, only to have them cancelled due to war.

From the story of those early years of Zamperini’s life, we learn our first lesson for the church: Young people who appear to be growing up to be a nuisance can develop into worthwhile individuals. We always need to realize this in the church because we are called to help people make the most out of their lives.

With his Olympic dream gone, Zamperini ended up in the army, serving as a bombardier in the Pacific. On May 27, 1943, Zamperini's bomber left Oahu in search of survivors from a downed plane. About 800 miles from the base, one of the engines cut out and the bomber plunged into the ocean. Zamperini and another soldier would stay afloat on a tiny life raft for 47 days—a world record for survival at sea. After confronting sharks, starvation, and dementia, their real battle would begin. Zamperini spent the next two years as a Japanese POW in the notorious Sugamo Prison. In particular, a guard named Watanabe (nicknamed "the Bird") ensured that Louis endured constant physical torture and verbal humiliation—all in an attempt to shatter the spirit of the American soldiers.

Zamperini would survive his prisoner-of-war ordeal, and leave us another lesson: Survival is possible even in the most extreme circumstances. Of all people, those of us who follow Christ should understand that people can overcome. It is, in fact, our responsibility in the church to nurture people through their difficulties in order to help them survive. At the same time, we need always to remember to trust God in our own difficulties.

In 1944, after Louis had been declared dead, he returned to America to a rush of publicity. Unfortunately, his life quickly descended into a new self-made prison of alcoholism and bitterness. In particular, Louis now endured constant nightmares about his past and an obsessive drive to murder "the Bird." But the walls of addiction and hatred started to crumble in 1949 when Louis attended a Billy Graham crusade and heard the gospel and trusted Christ.

After receiving Christ, in the words of Laura Hildenbrand:

When [Louie] thought of his history, what resonated with him now was not all that he had suffered but the divine love that he believed had intervened to save him. He was not the worthless, broken, forsaken man that the Bird had striven to make him. In a single, silent moment, his rage, his fear, his humiliation and helplessness, had fallen away. That morning, he believed, he was a new creation.

Zamperini’s conversion leaves us another lesson: No matter how much suffering a person has endured, he or she still needs Christ. Zamperini’s suffering, as it does for many people, led him into his own destructive cycle until rescued by Christ. We need to watch for the suffering in people’s lives that shouts to us of their need for Christ, and share Christ with them.

Then there is one more lesson that we can learn from Louis Zamperini’s story. It grows out of the consequences of his conversion. Up until his conversion, he became obsessed with finding a way to return to Japan and murder his nemesis, “The Bird.’ After his conversion, Christ took away the bitterness and desire for revenge. Louis Zamperini not only received forgiveness, he was able to forgive his greatest tormentor. The lesson? If Christ forgave us, we need to forgive like that. The church should be in the business of teaching people to forgive others.

Zamperini has followed Christ in the long years since his conversion. He survived all the people who were part of his story, many of whom also followed Christ, people with whom he will share eternity. I recommend Unbroken. I especially recommend the lessons it teaches us about following Christ and serving in the church.