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True North 

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Trusting Jesus in a Wild World 

This past week was Vacation Bible School at church. This meant that the kids gave us a firsthand example of what they learned. The theme of the week was True North. It’s amazing and encouraging to see these young people living out their Christian faith. 

A compass points north by using an ever-changing magnetic north. It’s always close to the True North Pole, but not the one and only True North on the planet. It’s the point where the earth rotates on its axis.  

This VBS program takes kids on an Alaskan adventure where northern lights glow over majestic mountains, racing rivers, and glistening glaciers. As they trek through the tundra, they explore how easy it is to lose sight of what’s true in our wild world today. Pointing them toward Jesus, showing them that He is a faithful friend we can always trust.  

Jesus is our True North. 

One of the things the kids showed us was how what’s impossible for us alone is possible with the help of others. They were asked to reach from one side of the sanctuary to the other. Of course, it was impossible for them to reach thirty feet by themselves. But when they got together in a line and held hands, they could then touch both walls. 

What’s impossible alone is possible with the help of others. 

This past Sunday was also Pentecost. This commemorates the descending of the Holy Spirit on Jesus’s followers. They were gathered together when they heard a noise from Heaven that sounded like a mighty wind. And the Holy Spirit took control of them.  

The Holy Spirit can be a little harder to understand than God and Jesus. Think of it this way. People we know have physical bodies, but they are more than that. They act in certain ways. They do and say things that are a part of who they are. When thinking about people who have died, we remember them in spirit more than their physical being. Their spirit is who they are. The Holy Spirit is who God is. 

In Matthew 28:16-20, Jesus tells His followers to go to the people of all nations and making disciples. Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to do the things that He has told them. And He will always be with you. 

The Holy Spirit is how He is with us. 

Back to the kids working together to reach across the sanctuary, we all need help as we traverse this wild world every day. The Holy Spirit will help us on the journey to the True North in this wild world. 

Jesus is the Vine, We are the Branches

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Leave the Gardening up to God

This is the final week of the “I Am” statements. Previously we discussed Jesus being the Light of the World, the Bread of Life, the Gate and Good Shepherd, the Resurrection and the Life, and The Way, The Truth and The Life.

As living things, we are either growing or dying. It takes intentional work to grow to our full potential. We need to be nurtured and watered. We need to have the dead parts cut away. We need a good Gardener that knows what will help us produce good fruit.

It’s the time of year when planting and gardening are happening. In the children’s message, Wilma used a small tomato plant as a visual. She spoke about how much she enjoyed tomatoes and all the different things that they could be used for. She also said how disappointed she would be if the plant didn’t produce fruit.

We don’t want to disappoint God by not producing fruit.

I know I’ve witnessed this at home, as Debby has new plants sitting in the kitchen sink being watered until she can get them planted. She’s also cutting straggling limbs from bushes and trimming the rose bush.

One of these examples is that rose bush that Debby was pruning. It was planted by my grandmother years ago. It produces a lot of beautiful flowers because it gets pruned every year.

Another example of the importance of gardening is a tree that we planted a year ago. Things had been dry, and it appeared that I hadn’t been watering it enough. When the other trees began to bud, it appeared to be dying. I amped up the watering schedule and now … it appears that it may survive. I may need to prune some dead branches that will take away from the live ones.

These things will result in better plants and a prettier yard.

In John 15:1-8, Jesus told His disciples, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts away every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit. But he trims clean every branch that does produce fruit, so that it will produce even more fruit.

Just as a branch cannot produce fruit unless it stays joined to the vine, you cannot produce fruit unless you stay joined to me. I am the vine, and you are the branches. If you stay joined to me, and I stay joined to you, then you will produce lots of fruit. But you cannot do anything without me. If you don’t stay joined to me, you will be thrown away. You will be like dry branches that are gathered up and burned in a fire.”

Pruning happens in our lives. We need to have the bad, unproductive things cut away. This can be painful but beneficial. It helps us produce better fruit.

Too often we try to be the gardener in our lives. We need to remember that God is the Gardener.

Jesus is The Way, The Truth and The Life

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We Can Choose to Believe This or Not

Choice is a superpower that too often gets overlooked and under used. We’ve been given free will, but more often than not, we ignore it. Too much of the time we get sucked into the perspective that this is the life I have, and I just have to deal with it.

One of the things about being human is that God has given us the ability to choose. Some may refer to this as the power of choice, but no matter how you define it, we all have free will.

When you look at what the Bible says about free will, you discover that we have the right and the ability to choose the direction we will go and what we will do. This power to choose is not something that should be considered lightly.

The power to choose is the reality there are consequences for your choices.

While many love the freedom that comes with free will and the power of choice, sometimes people don’t always want to own the ramifications that come with it.

With this reality, we need to consider what the consequences might be when making decisions. Especially when these decisions are regarding eternal life.

We can choose to believe that there is no eternal life. This choice can remove some of the pressure in our daily decisions. But what if we are going to live forever? Is this worth taking the risk of spending eternity in hell?

Looking at things from a worldly perspective removes some of the pressure of the consequences.

Looking at things from a Christ-centered perspective changes that.

In John 14:1-6, Jesus is telling His followers to trust in God and in Him. He is going to prepare a place for us, and we know the way to that place. Then from a worldly view, Thomas asks, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Old Thomas sure needed a lot of proof. But don’t we all?

Then Jesus goes on to say,

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

He didn’t say, “I am a way, a truth and a life. You can make it to God and eternity in Heaven in a whole bunch of different ways. Just pick one that works for you.”

There is no other way, no other truth, no other life.

One of the 7 Decisions in Andy Andrews book The Traveler’s Gift is the Certain Decision: I will have a decided heart.

“Truth is truth. If a thousand people believe something foolish, it is still foolish! Truth is never dependent upon consensus of opinion. I have found that is better to be alone and acting upon the truth in my heart than to follow a gaggle of silly geese doomed to mediocrity.”

I like how Andy makes this point in his book.

Things can be true and still not be “THE TRUTH”.

We encounter things every day that may be true, but not the TRUTH. When it comes to life we can choose what we believe and how we will live. These choices will have consequences.

For me … I’m going to believe that Jesus is THE ONLY WAY, THE ONLY TRUTH AND THE ONLY LIFE.

Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life

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We Would Smell Better if We Were Focused on the Right Thing

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been discussing who Jesus is. He is the Light of the World, the Bread of Life, the Gate and Good Shepherd. This week Jesus tells us that He is the Resurrection and the Life. (John 11:25)

Jesus makes this statement to Martha as they are talking about her brother, Lazarus, who died four days earlier. Jesus asks her if she believes her brother will rise from the dead. She says she knows that he will, in the resurrection on the last day.  (John 11:23-24) The Jews believed there would be a resurrection on the last day, but most did not realize that Jesus was the key to this.

Martha was upset that Jesus hadn’t been there sooner to prevent her brother from dying. She wanted Lazarus back now. She didn’t want to wait.

They went to Lazarus’s tomb and Jesus told them to remove the stone. Martha protested. She said,

“Lord, the smell will be awful! He’s been dead four days.”

Jesus replied, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believe, you will see God’s glory?” So they removed the stone. Jesus looked up and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me.I know you always hear me. I say this for the benefit of the crowd standing here so that they will believe that you sent me.” Having said this, Jesus shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” (John 11:39-43)

When Jesus was resurrected He was in His heavenly body. This was not so for the other people that Jesus raised from the dead. They all had to die again. Having to go through the struggles and pain of life a second time doesn’t sound like much fun.

However, there’s another side to this.

I think getting a second chance would make them appreciate life more.

I’m basing this on my own personal experience when I got a second chance. Back in 2012, I fell when a scaffold plank broke. I was unconscious in the hospital for three days with a severe concussion. This may not be the same thing that Lazarus experienced, but I remember nothing from those three days.

I can tell you that this second chance changed my outlook and gave me a new appreciation of life.

If we gave our spiritual lives as much attention as we do our physical lives, the world would be a different place. Just like Martha asked Jesus to raise Lazarus and He did. He will do the same for us.

God gives us free will to choose to be raised. It’s up to us what we do with that choice.

We all start out spiritually dead. We stink in our worldly sins.

Jesus is the Gate and the Good Shepherd

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And Don’t Sheep (We) Need These

We’re continuing with the “I Am” statements of Jesus this week. Today is a combination of two of these. “I am the gate and the good shepherd,” John 10:1-15.

In the Bible, sheep are used to represent people quite often and there’s a good reason for this. Having been around sheep in my childhood and then raising them as an adult … I get it.

Sheep aren’t terribly smart.

David is one of those who wrote about sheep in the Bible. After all, he had some experience with sheep having been a shepherd. He knew that the sheep needed to be penned up at night and protected from wild animals and thieves.

The only way in or out of the pen was through the gate. The shepherd had to open and close it because the sheep couldn’t. The shepherd also kept watch at the gate so thieves wouldn’t open it.

In Psalm 23, David uses this experience to give us an example of how God is our Shepherd. How He leads us down the right paths to good places. When we are in dark valleys, He will protect us.

God has our back like a shepherd.

Jesus is using these same examples when He’s talking with the Pharisees in John 10:1-15. He has just given a blind man sight on the Sabbath and the church leaders are mad at Him, because it was the Sabbath (John 9).

Jesus tells the Pharisees that they are blind and missing what’s most important. He tells them their sight is worse than the blind man’s. They aren’t seeing what’s right in front of them.

He goes on to tell them, “I assure you that whoever doesn’t enter the sheep pen through the gate but climbs over the wall is a thief and an outlaw. The one who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The guard at the gate opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. Whenever he has gathered all of his sheep, he goes before them and they follow him, because they know his voice.” (John 10:1-5)

Jesus spoke again, “I assure you that I am the gate of the sheep. Whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief enters only to steal, kill, and destroy. I came so that they could have life—indeed, so that they could live life to the fullest.”

Shepherds were devoted to protecting their sheep. They would risk their lives. In 1 Samuel 17:33-37 when David offers to go face the giant, Saul tells him he is just a boy. David responds, “Your servant has kept his father’s sheep, and if ever a lion or a bear came and carried off one of the flock, I would go after it, strike it, and rescue the animal from its mouth. If it turned on me, I would grab it at its jaw, strike it, and kill it. Your servant has fought both lions and bears. This uncircumcised Philistine will be just like one of them because he has insulted the army of the living God. The Lord, who rescued me from the power of both lions and bears, will rescue me from the power of this Philistine.”

Jesus is our Gate and Shepherd.

Sheep do stupid things and so do we. So, follow the Good Shepherd.

Jesus is the Bread of Life

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Bread is Important to Sustaining Life

The Guinness World Record for the longest loaf of bread is 3,975 feet long and was baked for 59:30 hours. Starting on July 7th, 2005 at 8:00 PM and finishing on July 10th at 7:30 AM. It takes 9 minutes for a combine to harvest enough wheat to make 70 loaves of bread. France bakes around 6,000 baguettes per year. There are a lot of different kinds of bread. On average, each American consumes approximately 53 pounds of bread annually. Germany consumes the most bread per capita.

Bread is an important part of almost every culture. Breaking bread together and sharing a meal is one of the best ways for fellowship. We are all so busy, but we need to slow down periodically to eat. Sharing a meal is a great opportunity to connect with others.

In John 6:1-15, a large crowd of people was following Jesus because they had previously witnessed Him miraculously healing the sick. He then fed thousands of people with 5 loaves and 2 fish with 12 baskets left over. Another miracle.

This was at the time of the Passover, which involved unleavened bread to commemorate when the Jews left Egypt and didn’t have time to wait for bread to rise. This included removing all yeast from their homes.

Yeast is a microorganism used to make bread rise. A small amount will spread throughout the dough.

Like yeast, sin can spread through our lives.

While the Jews were in the wilderness they received manna daily. This was their daily allotment of bread. They were told to only collect what they needed for each day, but some gathered more than they needed. When they did this, it would spoil and go bad. This was to teach them to depend on God and not be greedy.

We need to trust God to provide and not be greedy.

After Jesus fed the thousands, He could tell that the people wanted Him to be their king and rescue them from their Roman oppression. So, he went away from the crowd, to be alone. (John 6:16-21)

While He was gone his disciples got in boats to cross the lake to Capernaum. He hadn’t shown up yet and the wind came up and blew the boats out into the lake. Then Jesus appeared, walking on the water as they reached the other shore. (John 6:16-21)

The next day the crowd realized that the disciples were gone, and Jesus hadn’t been in the boat when they left. When they couldn’t find Jesus or His disciples they went across to Capernaum looking for them. (John 6:22-24)

When they found Jesus on the other side they had some questions for Him.

“When did You get here?”

He answered them, “I assure you that you are looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate all the food you wanted. Don’t work for the food that doesn’t last but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Human One will give you. God the Father has confirmed him as his agent to give life.” (John 6:25-27)

“What must we do to accomplish what God requires?”

“This is what God requires, that you believe in him whom God sent.” (John 6:29)

“What miracles are You going to perform? What will You do next? Our ancestors were given manna in the wilderness. It is written; He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”

“I assure you, it wasn’t Moses who gave the bread from heaven to you, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. The bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” (John 6:32-33)

“How can we have this bread always?”

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35)

The people wanted Jesus to solve all their problems. They were impatient and didn’t like Jesus’ answers. They were looking for worldly fulfillment.

Belief is more than explanation. It requires faith.

Like yeast can permeate dough, sin can take over our lives.

Don’t let it.

We are given what we need every day if we just look up and pay attention. We need to be careful not to become overly expectant and greedy in our expectations.

Jesus is the bread of life every day.

Jesus is the Light of the World

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And We Need All the Light We Can Get

The number seven is throughout the Bible. John used seven a lot of different times in his Gospel. One of those sevens, is the seven “I Am” statements. These seven statements from Jesus are:

  1. I am the bread of life (John 6:35, 41, 48, 51)
  2. I am the light of the world (John 8:12; 9:5)
  3. I am the door (John 10:7, 9)
  4. I am the good shepherd (John 10:11, 14)
  5. I am the resurrection and the life (John 11:25)
  6. I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6)
  7. I am the vine (John 15:1, 5)

This week we’re going to focus on Jesus being the light of the world.

In John 7:1-2, it is time for the Festival of the Tabernacles. This is a Jewish holiday that lasts for seven days and is a time for giving thanks for the harvest and remembering the Israelites’ journey through the wilderness after leaving Egypt. During the holiday, many Jews build and dwell in temporary, outdoor structures called sukkot, which are meant to remind them of the Israelites’ temporary dwellings during their wilderness journey.

A part of the Festival of the Tabernacles was the celebration of light. So that people outside the temple could celebrate too. This was accomplished by lighting fires in bowls filled with oil on top of tall 30′-40′ poles. These poles would light the whole city.

It serves as a reminder of the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil, and hope over despair. By understanding the history and traditions associated with this festival, we can gain insight into how to navigate our own lives with faith, courage, and perseverance.

Like the number seven, light is also prevalent in the Bible. The Book of John starts out quoting Genesis:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created. Life was in Him, and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness, yet the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man named John who was sent from God. He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. The true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was created through Him, yet the world did not recognize Him.” John 1:1-10

Think of how dark it would have been two thousand years ago before electricity. The world needed light. The fires on the poles gave light, but it was not THE LIGHT. The world today needs THE LIGHT.

A great example of light and how it works is the sun, moon, and earth. The earth revolves around the sun and the moon revolves around the earth. The sun is the source of our natural light. Neither the earth nor the moon creates any light. The moon’s light is a reflection of the sun’s light. A full moon is really bright and lights things up.

Jesus is our “Son” and the source of our spiritual light. When we are full, we can share the light of the Son and brighten people’s dark lives.

Jesus is the LIGHT of the world, and we should reflect that light.

The Greatest Joy

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Mary Finds the Tomb Empty

This past Sunday was Easter. The celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.

In John 20:1-10, Mary Magdalene goes to Jesus’ tomb and finds the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. She assumes someone has stolen the body and ran to tell the disciples. Peter and John go back to the tomb with her. They find the cloth that the body had been wrapped in lying there.

After all they had experienced, they still didn’t understand that Jesus must rise from the dead.

The disciples left, but Mary stayed. She was crying outside the tomb when she saw Jesus. He told her to go tell the others. She went and told them that she had seen the Lord. (John 20:11-18)

After His resurrection, He was seen several different times. On the road to Emaus, in the room with the disciples, then again so Thomas could see and believe, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and to multiple others.

The resurrected Jesus has a physical body. He eats with the disciples. Thomas touches the scars. People recognize Him. Jesus had a perfect body, scars and all.

After all that we know, do we understand who Jesus is?

The evidence is there if we chose to believe.

Our earthly bodies are less than perfect. In addition to our physical flaws, we have a big God-shaped hole, smack dab in the middle. The first step to a perfect, heavenly body is to fill this hole by accepting the gift Jesus gave us when He died on the cross.

Jesus will fill that God-shaped hole, making us whole.

The greatest joy will be our own empty tomb if we have a perfect body for eternity in Heaven. This is a choice. I hope you make the right one.

We All Have Crosses to Bear

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Life is Full of Heavy Crosses

Life is hard. There are all sorts of trials and tribulations that we go through. None of these crosses are as heavy as the one Jesus carried.

These past several weeks we been going through Jesus’ final week, and what a week it was. He went from being celebrated as a king, to being crucified on a cross. He was betrayed by one of His followers. The people who had celebrated Him, turned on Him.

This was a lot to carry, to say the least.

The Roman soldiers mocked and belittled Him. Pretending to salute Him as they dressed Him in a purple robe and placed a crown of thorns on His head. All the while beating and whipping Him. (Mark 15:16-20)

Next, He was made to carry the heavy cross that He was going to be hung on. Some say that it was just the cross bar that he had to carry. It is estimated that it would have weighed 75 – 100 lbs. This He would carry after being beaten and physically exhausted.

He struggled to carry this heavy load up hill to where He knew what was coming. The soldiers then forced a man, Simon from Cyrene, who was passing by to carry the cross for Him. There they hung Him on the cross to die. (Mark 15:21-32) Carrying the weight of the world’s sin as He hung there.

Crucifixion was an excruciatingly painful way to die, physically, mentally, and spiritually. This would have been even more so for Jesus.

He chose to carry this heavy burden for us.

We all have crosses to bear. They won’t be as heavy as the load Jesus carried. But they still can be heavy, whatever those crosses are. It’s important to be willing to carry our crosses.

Like Simon, we are called to help others carry their crosses.

It can seem pointless to carry these crosses. Life shouldn’t be this hard. Why even bother?

But the cross isn’t the end. There’s more after the cross. The tomb is not the end of the story.

Pick up your cross, help others with theirs, and push forward to celebration beyond the tomb.

Jesus’ Blood is On Us

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We Can’t Wash Our Hands of This

We’re getting closer to the cross this week. The past several weeks we’ve been going on this journey with Jesus. Too much of the time we just jump from Palm Sunday to Easter and bypass the ugly part in between. And there is a lot of ugly.

Part of this journey was Jesus being taken to Pontius Pilate by the Jewish leaders. They want to put an end to this Man who is messing up their comfortable lives.

Most of us have heard the story of Jesus being taken to Pilate to be put to death.

Pilate couldn’t find anything that justified Jesus being punished to this degree.  There was a tradition at that time of the governor releasing a prisoner and he offered the crowd the choice of Jesus or a notorious prisoner, Barabbas.

While he was sitting on the judge’s bench, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for today I’ve suffered terribly in a dream because of Him!”

The chief priests and the elders, however, persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to execute Jesus. The governor asked them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?”

“Barabbas!” they answered.

Pilate asked them, “What should I do then with Jesus, who is called Messiah?”

They all answered, “Crucify Him!”

Then he said, “Why? What has He done wrong?”

But they kept shouting, “Crucify Him!” all the more.

When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that a riot was starting instead, he took some water, washed his hands in front of the crowd, and said, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. See to it yourselves!”

All the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” Then he released Barabbas to them. But after having Jesus flogged, he handed Him over to be crucified.

Matthew 27:15-26

It’s interesting that even though Pilate washed his hands of this to absolve himself of this situation, his name is the one name connected to Jesus’ crucifixion more than any other. If he’d known who he was turning his back on … he might have done things differently.

Jesus’ blood was on Pilate.

The Jewish people became so caught up in the moment they asked for Jesus’ blood to be on them and their children. If they’d known what they were asking … they might have done things differently.

Jesus’ blood was on the Jewish people.

And then there’s Barabbas. He was the fortunate benefactor of this situation. The one who was set free. He literally knew what it was like for Jesus to die for him.

Jesus’ blood was certainly on Barabbas.

Just like Pilate, the Jewish people who called for Jesus’ death, and Barabbas, we can get caught up in the world and make the wrong decisions. These bad choices can’t simply be ignored, and they’ll go away.

Just washing our hands doesn’t change it.

Jesus’ blood is on all of us.

It’s up to us to believe in Jesus and accept the gift of His blood.