Advent Conspiracy Devotional: Thursday, December 2nd

Scripture: Matthew 15:8-9

 ⁸ “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.   ⁹ They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.

Reflection: Sometimes I think it would be easier if there was a simple set of rules from God; do this and don’t do that.  Keep these commandments and you get to go to heaven, mess up and well . . . Of course there was a time when that was the case – and only one person every lived up to the call of the law, and that was Jesus Christ.  The same Jesus, who lived in perfection so that he would be the perfect sacrifice to atone for you and I. 

            Jesus did this, not so that we could have another chance at following the rules.  The rules are not the end goal with God.  Jesus wants our hearts.  Jesus tells the disciples & all that will listen that even following the rules is worthless unless that rule following comes from the heart. 

If the heart is focused on God following God’s rule will be a natural and organic outcome of the heart’s leading.

Question: Are you worshiping God with your heart or are you just following the rules?

What is competing with God for your hearts attention?

Bible Mad Libs and fun with verbs

This is a lectionary post, kind of.  Yesterday, one of the lectionary Psalms - I don't remember which one, and it doesn't actually matter for the point I am making - began with the phrase: 'Rejoice in the Lord'.  
And as I was thinking about the lectionary post I never got to all day, that phrase kept bouncing around in my head.  And it hit me, have you ever rejoiced in the Lord?  Hopefully you can think of at least one time or another - a mountaintop experience, if you will - where you have done something that might constitute 'rejoicing in the Lord'.  But the Psalm wasn't talking about a mountaintop experience, it was talking about a way of being in the world and a regular or normal activity. Lets look at that a little more.
First, what does it mean?  Rejoicing is literally to 'take joy or to delight', but the root of the word (I know, I know you are nodding off already, but stay with me) is re - or to or again, and joice or joy.  To have joy or to have joy again.  And I think this is really important in the context of rejoicing in the Lord.  When we rejoice in the Lord we are simply remembering, holding onto or sharing in the joy that we have in and through Jesus Christ and that Holy Spirit.  
We have joy - and the ability to rejoice - because of the presence of God in our lives.  Joy is a lot like happiness, but where happiness is entirely based on circumstances joy can only come through relationship.  I believe real joy only comes through a relationship with God or relationships where God is a part.  God is at the center of all of our joy, God gives us joy and God wants us to rejoice in Him - or to share in that joy and share it with others.  
That all sounds great, but lets get to the Mad Lib section of the post.  Fill in the blank with a verb, ______ in the Lord.  
What are you putting in there?  Trust, maybe.  Hope, maybe.  Rest (barely a verb, but okay), maybe.  But where does rejoicing come in to the equation?  What if we took out the restriction that it had to be a verb, does that make it any easier?  
I don't know what word you think of first when you think about your relationship with God.  To be honest, I am not even sure off the top of my head, what word I would use.  But I think you are probably like me and so I am going to take some guesses.  
When I think of my relationship with God, I sometimes think of responsibility, what I need to do.   I think about rules I am to follow or the things that I am supposed to live up to.  
This is not what God desires for us, and we are missing the point if that is how we view our relationship with God.  God desires a relationship with us and sent his son to live among us so that we might 'have life and have it to the full'.  That is something worth celebrating.  That is something worth rejoicing in and in fact that is the very source of all of our joy!  
So, sometime between now and Christmas - a time when we are supposed to be preparing for the coming of our joy as God draws near to us - make a conscious effort to rejoice in the Lord and see how it effects your life and how it (maybe) changes your perspective.  
Let us rejoice!

Advent Conspiracy Devotional: Wednesday, December 1st

Scripture: Daniel 3:28
Then Nebuchadnezzar said, “Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God.

Reflection: We are blessed to live in a country that values religious freedom.  Most of us can have no real idea of what it is like to have to pay a price for choosing to worship. 

            Most of us can’t imagine choosing to come together to worship God, when simply doing so could bring about our death.  Most of us can’t imagine refusing to worship what was culturally, socially or governmentally mandated. 

            But the Bible is full of stories of those, like Shadrach & friends; like Daniel; like Stephen and others that refused to abandon true worship of the one true and living God for the false and created idols of culture, government or superstition.  These stories should be a shining witness to us of the commitment God asks from us and of the lengths God goes to honor that kind of worship. 

Question:  What do you have to give, risk or sacrifice to worship?

What would you be willing to risk or sacrifice to worship God?

Advent Conspiracy Devotional: Tuesday, November 30th

Scripture: Job 1:20
At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship

Reflection: Immediately preceding the above scripture passage Job witnesses the death of his family – the latest in a string of incredible misfortune. 

            Job’s response to all of his ‘bad luck’, grief and trouble is not at all what we might expect from him.  We would expect anger, frustration and utter grief.  Instead Job’s first response to all of this is to fall before God and worship.  What?

            Job had a critical understanding of the nature of worship that we so often miss.  Worship is not a response to be reserved for when we have received something good or great in comparison to the rest of our lives.  But rather, the very fact that we are alive at all is cause for us to respond to God in worship. 

            We are to worship God for the life that we have been given.  We are to worship for the gifts, abilities and materiel possessions we have been made stewards over.  We are to worship even – or maybe especially – in difficult times because God will never leave us or forsake us. 

Question:  In what times or circumstances to you find it easy to worship?  When do you find it hard to worship?

Advent Conspiracy Devotional: Monday, November 29th

Scripture: Hebrews 1:6
And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.”

Reflection:  I think when we examine our lives and how we spend our time, we might realize that we idolize a lot of things that don’t deserve our worship: people, things, lifestyles.  And make no mistake, when we idolize something, making it an object of worship is exactly what we are doing – it is the very meaning of the word. 

            So as we begin to think about ‘worshipping fully’ this Advent and Christmas season, I think it is critical to begin with finding something or someone worthy of our worship.  When Jesus was born, angels sang heavenly anthems of praise to God, celestial fireworks were set off and ancient prophecies were fulfilled. 

            Beginning with his divine conception and his unique and celebrated birth to his miraculous healings and world altering teaching, Jesus every moment was a model of perfection and truly deserving of our praise. 

            Simply put, God is the only thing worthy of our worship and Jesus Christ is the tangible, visible connection to the God who deserves our worship.

Question: Who or what do you worship?

What idols do you have in your life?

Advent Conspiracy Devotional: Sunday, November 28th

Today is the First Day of Advent.  Each day during Advent I will post a short devotion including a scripture, a reflection and a question (or two).  These are taken from a devotional put together for Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church's participation in the Advent Conspiracy this year.  Because this is the first day, I am also including the introduction to the devotional.  I hope these devotions help draw you closer to the God that chose to come near to us.  

Advent means ‘coming’ and it is designed and intended to be a time of preparation for the coming of Christ.  It is about preparation, but not about putting up the tree, decorating the house or getting all the gifts on the list (not that there is anything wrong with those things – there isn’t!)

Instead, Advent is about preparing our hearts, minds and lives to celebrate and remember the miracle of Christ coming near to us. A common and important aspect of our discipleship and relationship with God is regular time in prayer, study and devotion.

This booklet is intended to be a tool to use in that setting to help us be more fully prepared as we come together to worship and celebrate God coming near to us. 

As our focus for the season is the ‘Advent Conspiracy’ each of the included devotions will focus on at least one of the four main themes of the ‘conspiracy’: Worship Fully; Spend Less; Give More; Love All.

A final word of reminder, the ‘Advent Conspiracy’ isn’t about taking the joy out of Christmas, not giving gifts or anything like that.  Instead it is simply a matter of recognizing where our real joy comes from, celebrating the ‘best gift’ while sharing that gift in all we do this Advent and Christmas. 

            The point of the conspiracy, and this booklet is to draw you into a deeper relationship with the God who choose to draw near to you and in so doing invite others into that same relationship by the way we live our lives. 

Scripture: Romans 12:1 -
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

Reflection:  There are several definitions of the word worship and the word itself can be either an noun or a verb.  It can be a church service you participate in or an act that you perform.  It can be a state of mind or the attitude that you take toward a person or an object. 

            But however we define it, it is important that we think about what we worship and how we worship.   We so often think about worship as something we do for an hour or two on Sunday mornings or maybe we think of it as the way we feel about something or someone. 

            The verse from Romans above gives us a different view or understanding of what worship is.  God calls us to live as an act of worship.  God calls us to respond to God’s love, grace and peace – demonstrated in the person of Jesus Christ drawing near to us.  We are called to ‘offer our bodies’ – to live our lives in response to the life Jesus lived for us. 

Question:   What does worship look like in your life? 

If you judged based on how you live your life, what would be the object of your worship – what are you living your life in response to?  

Remember me???

So, apologies that I have been absent from the blog for the last week or so.  A combination of being away for the Philadelphia Marathon, being away for Thanksgiving and the preparation for those two along with lots of other little things meant I have been unable to update for a while.
But, there is good news - if you like reading this blog, that is.  There will be at least one post for every day of advent!  Let me explain.  
Our church is joining with other churches around the world in participating in the 'Advent Conspiracy' this Advent.  To get a better idea of what the Advent Conspiracy is all about check out the website: adventconspiracy.org  
So, as part of our Advent preparations we have put together a daily Advent devotional, with each days scripture, thought and question focused on one of the four main pillars of the Advent Conspiracy.  
So each day I will post that day's devotion.  I will also post the messages I give, starting today, that are also each tied to one of the four themes of the Advent Conspiracy.  As much as I am able I will also be uploading regular lectionary thoughts and miscellaneous other thoughts on the 'normal' schedule of once a day during the week. 
So, anyway below is the message I gave today at Good Shepherd.   The message introduces the Advent Conspiracy and the first theme, Worship Fully.  I have included the Scripture passages as well as my opening prayer.  Thanks for your thoughts and your time.

Philippians 2:12-15 (NIV)

¹² Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³ for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

¹⁴ Do everything without grumbling or arguing, ¹⁵ so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.”^[a] Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky

Matthew 24:36-44 (NIV)

³⁶ “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,^[a]but only the Father. ³⁷ As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. ³⁸ For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; ³⁹ and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. ⁴⁰ Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. ⁴¹ Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

⁴² “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. ⁴³ But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁴ So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

Prayer: Dear Lord, come and dwell with us know.  Open our minds to the fullness of your blessing and working in our lives and empower us to respond in full.  Guide our hearts as we seek to know your will, direct our actions as we work to follow your call on our lives.  Draw us into worship of you in everything that we do.  Hide me behind your cross, so you are what is seen and speak through me, so you are what’s heard.  Amen.

If you have been with us the last couple of weeks you know that today we begin the season of Advent – a time of anticipation of the coming of our Lord and Savior – Jesus Christ.  You also know, hopefully, that this advent we are participating in something called the ‘advent conspiracy’

Advent conspiracy is designed to ‘restore the scandal of Christmas’ by focusing on four themes

Worship Fully                     Spend Less

Give more                          Love all

I want to spend a little bit of time thinking about what worship is and what worship isn’t.

Last night many of us spent some time here ‘greening our church’ – getting the church ready for the season of Advent and the celebration of Christmas. 

Now, I am running out of ‘firsts’ to participate in, but I loved being a part of everyone coming together.  I also loved how we closed the night with a few minutes of worship together.

Part of me wants to tell all of you that those few minutes that we sat and stood in these chairs were the only moments of ‘real’ worship last night, that the rest of the night together wasn’t worship – but it was – the problem is that for many of us this hour each week encompasses our complete definition or understanding of worship

I believe that is a very flawed and incomplete understanding

Our society – and most of us, really – like things to fit into neat, easily discernable categories.  We like to be able to define people and things in a 10 second sound bite and we don’t like when the lines between one thing and another get crossed or blurred. 

Blurred or crossed lines cause confusion and  nobody likes that

We deal with this just about all the time in our house, and it made me realize that this need or desire to neatly categorize all of our experiences is not something we develop – but it seems to be innate.

In North Carolina Charlie and Jack went to day care at our church.

Every morning – or just about – Charlie would ask if we were going to church, real church or school

School was Monday, Tuesday and Friday

Church was Wednesday and Thursday – days when we were regularly at the church after or outside of school,

And real church was Sunday          

These are the definitions and delineations that Charlie came up with on his own, but in many ways I think they are indicative of how we look at not just our faith, our ‘spiritual life’ and our worship, but really our whole lives

We separate our lives into categories or boxes that can be easily labeled

Work                     Play                              School

Friends                   Family              Church

Now, of course, many of those boxes have sub-categories, and church is no exception

Fellowship                                      Sunday school

Mission                                          Worship

But worship is not intended to be a small box sitting inside of another box in your life

Pastor and author Rob Bell, in a talk called, ‘everything is Spiritual’ – Highlights that there is no word for ‘spiritual’ in the Hebrew language – In Jesus eyes and understanding there is no separation from the spiritual world and the rest of the world we live in. 

They aren’t separate, parallel streams of our lives.  They aren’t even interconnected parts of our lives.  We only have one life, and everything in it is spiritual even if we don’t recognize it.

But we do try to separate them.  Eugene Peterson, in his book, ‘Tell it slant’ – says that we have a tendency to be ‘bilingual’, in that we have one language for talking about our faith or spiritual lives and a different vocabulary for the rest of our lives. 

He stresses the importance of the language we use, and how language – all of it – is a gift from God and how we should nurture all of our language to convey God’s blessing to those we encounter everyday

So, worship then, is not intended to be separate from the rest of our lives, it is not supposed to be merely or only something we do, but rather an integral part of who we are.

A few moments ago, we lit the first candle on our advent wreath.  The first candle is often called the candle of prophecy, but it is also often called the hope candle.

And that is an appropriate place to begin the season of Advent and our Christmas preparations. 

Because, as followers of Christ, we are people of HOPE.  People that respond to Jesus Christ’s fulfillment of our hope in him by responding in Worship.

Worship is intended to be at the very heart – the center of all that we do, and in fact all that we are. 

Worship is not simply – or just – an hour on Sunday morning or a service once a week. 

It is more than prayers and scripture and singing

It is bigger than the people in this room, this building we are in or even our denomination

Those definitions and parameters of worship are ones that we have put forth,  but Scripture gives a fuller and different image of what worship is:

Exodus 8:1 -Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what the LORD says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.

The Israelites were freed so that they could worship God.  We have been freed so that we can worship as well.  Don’t you think that is for more than just 1 hour a week

Deuteronomy is full of rules about when and where and how to worship.  There were lots of rules because there were only certain ways to get to the point of connection with God

Christmas is our celebration and recognition of Jesus coming to us and opening up the lines of relationship with and commitment to God so that all of us would be able to be reconciled to God – and then to worship God in all that we do, every day. 

Worshiping God isn’t about a weekly service and gathering for songs, prayers, scripture readings and teaching – that is a part of it, but

Worshiping God is about a state of mind or a way of being in and interacting with the world

Worship is about acknowledging who God really is and who we are in relation to God.  (i.e. we are the created and owe to our creator everything)

This completely changes the scope of what it means to worship because this understanding – this perspective – is something that we need to take with us everywhere we go, everyday

We need to worship God in all that we do, all day, everyday

That means allowing this perspective – this acknowledgement of God – to permeate every box, every category and sub-category of our lives

John 4:23-24 (The Message) 23But the time is coming—it has, in fact, come—when what you're called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter.23-24It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration."

In the passage from Matthew the understanding that we are to acknowledge and worship God at all times in all places is again reinforced

Also in this passage we get a simple explanation of what that ‘all the time, everywhere’ worship should consist of:

It doesn’t matter who you are or where you go to church or where you work – but do you stand before God in truth and as their honest selves – acknowledging who God is and what God has done for you – and thank God for that

Finally from Romans 12:1 - Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is true worship.

This is what we are called to do - offer our bodies and in fact our lives to God, today and every day.  Listen to the verse again, this time from the Message translation:

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. 

Worshipping God means placing God at the center of all that you are and all that you do, acknowledging God at all times (not just on Sunday mornings)

This Christmas, this Advent season of preparation, bring the light of the world into your life and into the lives of all of those around you – this is what the Philippians passage is talking about. 

Shine like a star in this often dark and dreary world by worshiping and sharing Jesus Christ, the light of the world with all those in your world.  Today.  Every day.  All Day.