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He Has Nothing to Prove

This coming Sunday is the first Sunday in Lent. The Gospel lesson is the temptation of Jesus in Luke 4:1-13. Jesus could have used, accepted, or displayed power to satisfy his real physical hunger, to have world power right then and there, or to demonstrate suoeriority. Any of thse would have sabotaged his real purpose, to go to Jerusalem and the cross that he knew awaited him. We might endure temptation in order to gain something good; Jesus passed this test in order to move toward even greater pain and suffering, for our sake. He passed the test, at his temptation and at the cross. He has nothing to prove.

What about us? Is there ever a time when we are not tested? Is there ever a time you do not feel you have something to prove?

Frank Conkey

I attended a funeral today for a man I had never met. I have heard much about him, however, in the past weeks at St. Andrew’s, Ajax. He had been minister there years ago. Frank died last week, just one month short of ninety years of age. It was a lovely service. The main speaker had been his friend for seventy years. Much was celebrated by way of his years and excellence in ministry. But what was most telling, moving, and important, was that he was a devoted husband and father. And most important of all–a comment I took away to be a matter for some personal, honest reflection–“He lived what he preached.”

Making Sense of Instructions

Outline of message for Sunday, January 27, 2013, at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Ajax, Ontario
Psalm 19; Luke 4:14-21
Making Sense of Instructions

Following instructions, say, to put together exercise equipment, can take a lot of patience. Most of would recognize, however, that the project would be even more difficult and frustrating without those instructions. Thinking a bit more deeply, we might even see the instructions we encounter as a sign of our interdependece–a good thing. Furthermore, you survive getting through an assemble-at-home project, remembering what the intention of it is.

God’s instructions are meant for our benefit, and for our freedom. When we give attention to God’s intentions, we will see the benefit of his instructions.

The first section of Psalm 19 celebrates that all of nature gives glory to God. His universe even communicates with humanitym and we have a special place in God’s design and plans. In the second half of the Psalm, the heavenly language is experienced more specifically and practically as God’s law. The Psalmist recognizes his life will have order and beauty if he follows thse instructions, recognizing the intentions of God. But since we can never follow God’s law perfectly and be fit for his eternal presence, Jesus has paid the price for our sins.

We now follow God’ s law in response to and in keeping with the new life Christ has made possible. We live a life of discovery, freedom, and with a whole new identity, in Christ.

Better Brokenness

Outline of message, Better Brokenness, from Sunday, January 13, 2013, at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Ajax, Ontario
(Audio of the full message will be posted by St Andrew’s at standrewsajax.ca.)
Scripture: Luke 3:15-22; Acts 8:14-17

Why “Better Brokenness?”

There are many powerful stories that are told of people coming back from being at the lowest of  circumstance0es and coming to new life and faith. It troubles me, however, that for every story about the recovered addict who becomes a wonderful family man, or the runaway teen who finally comes home after descending into prostitution, for every gang member who turns out to be a youth counselor, for every one of thise stories there may be many other stories that do not turn out so well.

At the same time, we are all going to have down times, crises, heartbreak, such things are part of life and it seems to be necessary for us to go through such things to grow. My question is how can we have better brokenness.
To acknowledge our brokenness is simply to say we know we are flawed creatures. But we need to be able to keep specific aspects of that flawed nature from overwhelming us.

The Scripture

Our Scripture passages this morning point to two realities that can point to a better experience with this. When all the people were baptized, Luke says, Jesus himself was baptized. He did not need to be baptized. He showed his identification with us in our brokenness, so that we can rise, whole and complete in him. This is the ultimate answer to our brokenness. Meanwhile we have the gift of the Spirit along with coming into faith in Christ. The Spirit regenerates and gives us power for living in the here and now. We will want to bear these things in mind while observing some things about our brokenness.

Other People

We might feel that there are other people who are responsible for our brokenness. We have to learn not to blame them, or we are just allowing them to continue to hurt us. We need to remember thst those people are broken too, and Jesus baptism, pointing to his death and resurrection, indicated his identification with them, too, and his desire for all to be made whole.

I’m a People.

Besides, I have hurt others and contributed to their brokenness. This reminds me of my need for the Holy Spirit in the present, since he gives me discernment, and directs me to the community of faith for accountability and support, especially when some aspect of human brokenness threatens to take over my life.

People I Care For

The Father had words of praise for the Son when he accepted baptism. How can we not seek to build one another up, and be unstinting in our honest praise of one another? This will point to God’s own love and his desire we be made whole.

Consumer Electronics Show

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas officially opened today. The emphasis is definitely on “officially” since more than a glimpse of what is being flaunted there has been showing up in the news for days.

There are bigger and sharper-than-ever televisions. Mere HD apparently is so day before yesterday. Now it’s OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) HD TV. The South Korean firm LG announced its own Ultra HD, based on a different technology, which is said to provide a screen resolution four times sharper than your current full HD set. And there are of course new doo-dads to go with these TVs. One has something called “my homescreen” that lets you organize all your digital content in one place and help you organize content for each family member. If don’t have a family, this will make you want to get one.

There’s lots more than TVs, naturally. The theme running through all the gizmos and gadgets, they say, is connectivity, with techonology embedded in the technology that feeds into your tablet and smartphone, so that you can control the devices with the tablet or smartphone.

Some of this wizardry is probably very useful. The bulk of it is no doubt entertainment. Nothing wrong with fun. And there is a time for everything, says the Bible (Ecclesiastes 3:1). But it does, in one more way, point to the huge disparity between rich and destitute in the world. While I gawk idolatrously at much of this stuff, Syrian kids are gawking at the sky watching for fighter-bombers, even while they are scavenging for food and scratching the ground with sticks to try to make a shelter from the destructive technology from the sky. Will forgoing your Ultra HD TV help them? No. But it can’t hurt the world around us, and our own well-being, at least to be mindful of our priorities and try to keep things in balance. Furthermore, many of us obtain these things with money we don’t have. And then there is the issue of what kind of content is on those screens, and how much they detract from relating to actual people – although yes, a lot of technology is meant to help us connect with one another.

In the end, the appropriateness of the technology we latch onto can be judged by the quality of life it contributes to. By quality of life I mean that which is measured by standards other than the amount and sophistication of the stuff we have. How about this:
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23 NIV).

Or this:

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (Philippians 4:8).

Bad at Home

I was in my usual coffee shop today. At the table next to me was a couple with a little girl. I guessed she would be three years old. I don’t know exactly what was going on, but the mother was getting increasingly annoyed with the girl. Dad seemed to staying out of it. Anyway, finally the mom blurted out, “Lindsay, you have to learn to behave when we are out,” The girl replied, in a very innocent-sounding voice, “Does that mean it’s OK if I’m bad at home?” Logical question! And not a whole lot different from the way we adults honestly think.