Alarms

OK ... it is Tuesday morning in a hotel in Atlanta.  Lee and I are on an anniversary trip and are seeing 2 Atlanta Braves games.  And here I am ... sitting on the patio of an ice cream shop, after being evacuated from the hotel at 7am (6am Central).  A fire alarm sounded because of a fire system leak in the parking deck.  So everyone is now out on the street.  Here is one observation about alarms.

When a fire alarm sounds, most of us follow the other lemmings to a place of perceived safety.  We have been trained this way since grade school.  So the walking slow, exiting the building, and following the stream of humanity comes pretty natural.  Here is the irony.  Other alarms are happening all around us, and we don't seem to perceive them.

The prophet Haggai sounds an alarm.  The temple is not completed, and is in disrepair.  The people are in a season of false prosperity, yet they can't seem to get ahead.  Haggai 1:6 says, "Your wages disappear, as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes."  Haggai goes on to describe the people as "spinning their wheels" but getting nowhere economically, physically, spiritually.  The alarm from Haggai is, like most alarms from prophets, ignored.

Last week we celebrated the graduating seniors, and we sent them out with some advice.  At the 2nd service Sunday, I gave these amazing young people some advice I hope we all will take.  Because the world around us is sounding alarms.  Most of us see something wrong, but we wander through each day like those evacuating the hotel alarm here ... doing the rote thing we have been taught, but not thinking there might be another way.  It there a way to break the societal chain of brokenness we see all around us?  Is there a way to stop spinning our wheels in emptiness and lostness?  Yes!  So I will tell you what I told those seniors.

1. Worship Passionately - Make worship both a priority and a lifestyle.  Listen to and follow God's word.  Give God the best place in your life.

2. Love Extravagantly - With love, we are either all-in or not-in.  We teach our children to love or not love by the way we love or fail to love.  The greatest commandment is ... "Love God with your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."  God's love and our love is expressed in how we love. God is an all-in kind of love and an all-in kind of relationship.

3. Witness Boldly - I saw a video of an altar in Africa.  It was filled with people ... all of them.  The world is an altar where we express who God is to us.  We witness at work, at play and in all of life.

Sunday, come to the altar, hearing the alarm sounding.  Come to the altar actively, willing to lay down burdens and allow God to break down walls.  Worship, Love and Witness as if lives depend on it.  Because they do!

Blessing

Several overreaching and eternal concepts permeate the pages of Scripture.  These include love, redemption, salvation, presence, and power, all manifested in God.  But there is an attribute, also Godly, that God passes on to us.  This attribute allows God to show Himself to the world through God's people, the Church.  That attribute is "blessing."

In Genesis 12, God tells Abraham, "All people on earth will be blessed through you."  God sends David as Israel's greatest king to bless the nation of Israel through his leadership.  God sends the prophets to inform, warn, and guide His people as a blessing.  God sends Jesus into the world as "God with us" as a blessing.  God sends the 12 apostles to teach and act as part of God's blessing to the nations.  God sends His Spirit at Pentecost to indwell and bless His Church so that they will go out into all nations to bless the world.  That responsibility (and true blessing) is now sent to us, so that we can, as the body of Christ, go out and bless the world.  We stand on the shoulders of God's great messengers, as we interpret God's character and salvation to all we see.  It is an awesome and beautiful responsibility!

Sunday, we will send our seniors into a broken world.  Their call and responsibility is to become a blessing that fulfills God's plan and purpose.  One of these young ladies, Anna Grace Blalock, has been raised-up in our congregation and has been a blessing to all of us.  This week we will shed tears of joy, hope, and love, as we sing Anna Grace into the next step of her young life.  And we, as the verse from Numbers 6:24-26 perfectly conveys a blessing God has sent us, calling us to pass it along, will say, "The Lord bless and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you; the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace."  Go with our blessing to be a blessing!  AMEN 

Joy in the House

Paul said, "Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say rejoice (Phil. 4:4)!"  This seems clear, but it also seems difficult.  Paul had been through lots of joyless circumstances.  Shipwrecked, snake bitten, stoned, dragged through the streets, and dealing with difficult people are just a few of these circumstances.  As I write this blog, I just heard of the death of a friend.  Last week my son had a close friend take his own life.  But there it is ... crystal clear ... "Rejoice in the Lord, ALWAYS!"  It seems impossible.  How can Paul say this!

Here is Paul's recipe in Philippians 4:

1. Let everyone observe you being considerate in all you do (v.5).  Being kind doesn't just make others joyful ... it makes YOU joyful.

2. Don't worry (v. 6)!  Worry is like the old song ... "Worry is a rocking chair, it goes back and forth and it goes nowhere." 

3. Pray about everything (v. 6)!  Cast your cares upon a God who listens and has done/is doing great things on your behalf.

4. Experience God's peace (v. 7).  God gives us peace, but we need to consider 1,2,3 above, and then let God's peace enter our minds and our attitudes.

5. Get your mind in the right place (v. 8).  How do we do this when all we see and hear points to the "rat hole" of negativity swirling all around us?  Paul says, stop focusing on the rat hole.  Instead, focus on what is at the top of the rat hole ... light.  "Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable.  Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise (v. 8)."

This week is Pentecost.  Amid the rat hole of uncertainty, waiting, and open persecution of early believers, God does something that infuses the early Church with something that is fire, light, fresh wind, and truth.  God sends His Spirit into the believers gathered in a little room.  Acts 2 tells the story of the Church bursting out of that room, filled with the Spirit and the Good News of the Gospel.  Sunday we will sing these words ... "There's joy in the house of the Lord, there's joy in the house of the Lord today, we won't be quiet.  We shout out your praise."  Come, see and sing!  AMEN