A Christ-follower with a limp: February 2020

Sunday, February 23, 2020

Drama Free Zone

“I’ve always been under the impression that it would be such a bummer to be in a peaceful place like Hawaii or the tropics and be stressed about catching waves.” Shaun White

If there’s any place that should be a peaceful place of peace, shouldn’t it be a church? Too often that’s not the case. Yet, we’re committed that Grace Church must be such a place. So, let me say this as kindly as possible – if you’re a negaholic, Grace is not the place for you.

The Bible teaches that God’s people must be the most positive. Being a peace-lover is supremely biblical! We don’t have meltdowns because we know this world is all temporary. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

Under the inspiration of the Spirit, Paul penned those words. They’re life-changing. Yet, if anyone suffered or had reason to be negative, critical, depressed or down in the dumps, it was the Apostle Paul. Read 2 Corinthians 11. It’s a Big Wow chapter!

It’s understandable why those who don’t know Christ are addicted to negativity. For them, this world is all there is. It’s save the earth, save the country, save the whales, save the roaches. (Okay, I don’t think there’s a “save the roaches” group, but it’s probably because no one has thought of it yet.) Yet, it’s sinful when a Christian is habitually negative.

Bad news garners media ratings. Good news doesn’t. Recently, a six-year-old was abducted down south. Within 20 minutes the same media report was repeated. Think about it. There are 1.3 million children in Wisconsin. None of them were abducted. Many of them can’t spell “abduction.” There are 74 million children in the U.S. None of them were abducted.

Is it tragic for this one child? Yes, but there’s more danger in driving than being abducted. 3,250 people are killed each day in a car accident.

Our culture is addicted to bad news. Sadly, Christians and churches aren’t immune. If you complain about something on social media, more will read it and comment on it (usually, agreeing with you). Controversy sells. If you’re negative, you’ll have a bigger audience. Yet, if it’s a sin to complain (Phil. 2:14), why is it a habit for too many Christians?

We’ve forgotten that we’re the people of the resurrection – new life! When Jesus rose from the dead, He brought forgiveness, reconciliation, peace, humility, kindness, and grace. We’re not to wait to get Home to begin enjoying it. It’s all the stuff we long for and truly want.

Here’s what I propose – Let’s make Grace Church a Drama Free Zone. It doesn’t mean that people with burdens or heartaches are unwelcome. It doesn’t mean we don’t seek to improve or strive for excellence. It doesn’t mean we ignore real problems. It does mean though that we leave the petty, trivial and negativity outside.

Every Sunday we have folk who enter our doors and this is their small island of peace in their very storm-filled world. Some have families where there’s constant bickering. Some are seeking to hold their marriage together. Some carry the scars of grief. Some are battered and bruised from a divorce. Many will go to a tension and even hostile filled workplace on Monday. Some struggle with addiction. Others work to keep suicidal thoughts at bay or other emotional issues like depression or anxiety. Most of us have at least one sin habit that constantly trips us up (Hebrews 12:1). More have a medical report causing them concern. Others are worried about financial issues. The list of burdens and heartaches truly is endless.

Will you partner with me to help make our church an oasis of godly peace? That it will be a safe place to relax and not have to watch your six. A place of love, grace, encouragement, and acceptance, not because we’re perfect BUT because we have such an awesome Heavenly Father…and someday we will all be perfect!

If you find that more negative thoughts go through your mind than godly ones – then by His grace – obey His Word and change! I loved it when I visited Karyn Borucki in ICU and asked her for her favorite verse. She’s in a hospital bed in ICU but her favorite Bible verse is Philippians 4:8. It was awesome! I felt like I was on holy ground!

If you find more negative things come of out of your mouth than godly and encouraging words, change and determine to obey Ephesians 4:29.

Negativity quenches the Spirit. It hurts our church and harms you. It’s ruining your life. Studies show that while positive thinking too quickly wears off, negative thinking sticks with us for weeks. It damages relationships. If you continually think and communicate the worst, you repel people. They dodge you like you’re a skunk.

It will even make you sick. Negative thinking drives up our stress levels, leads to heart attacks and other health problems, including dementia.

Sadly, some don’t want to grow or change. They refuse to repent of the sin of their attitude or tongue. They seem to derive some weird satisfaction in stirring things up and spreading bad news. They’re complainers and gossips. They can always tell you what’s wrong and how bad it is.

If that’s you, if you like to pull others aside and whisper in corners or spread doom and gloom, let me say this is as kindly as I can – please find another church. If you refuse to repent, stop going to church. It’d be better for you to go to an online church so a physical church doesn’t have to worry about your malware.

At Grace we are committed to being a spiritual clinic. We want to keep the spiritually healthy healthy and help the bruised and hurting to heal. We’re committed to being a place of godly peace, a place where we’re loved because of our Father’s infinite love. We can’t be what God desires us to be if someone though is a carrier of the sinful virus of negativity.

Can we help you spiritually? Can we help you know Jesus better? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or, call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address.

Sunday, February 16, 2020

Life in the Neighborhood

“We make our friends; we make our enemies;

but God makes our next door neighbor.” G. K. Chesterton

Even today there’s something about leaping into a pile of freshly raked pine needles or using a garbage can lid for a shield in a pinecone battle that still has a special place in my heart. Every great neighborhood needs a Hoot, a Jack and a Corky…unless Corky steals your swing from you on YOUR swing set. How was I to know that a swift punch in the nose would cause a gusher? Today someone would call the police, back then we just put ice on it until it finally stopped bleeding.

Mr. Clonts was always puttering around his yard and loved his prize roses, but always had time for the neighborhood kids. We’d pull up in his driveway and like we were valued customers, he’d pump air into our bike’s tires and grease the chains. He’d make sure that our bikes were safe and fast. He was never too busy and there never was a bad time to drop by.

One Christmas I was given some tools and made a stool for the Clontses. Mrs. Clonts made over it and talked about it for years. You’d have thought I’d given her a million dollars. I still remember when they told us that they were moving. I was maybe seven but it was a very, very sad day for me.

Then, there was Dr. and Mrs. Harris who lived next door. The grass in their lawn was like a soft carpet, surrounded by daffodils. Back then, what I lacked in coordination I made up for in daring. Falling from the top of their swing set in their back yard, I cracked the skin on my knee wide open. I still remember Dr. Harris carrying me home in his arms so that my parents could rush me to the hospital for some needed stitches.

Penny Merriman was always fun but as a kid, her Mom scared me. You never got past the front stoop. A couple of houses down from her were the Redwines – their house was always open. Essentially, it was an ongoing playhouse for kids. After my Mom died, they saw the pain of a ten-year-old, taking me with their family to the newly opened Disney World.

My home in the 1960’s was barely inside the Atlanta City limits. The world was changing. All too soon neighborhoods devolved into suburbia. Even back then, socializing was limited – primarily with those who lived a few houses adjacent to yours. Wonderfully, in recent years there’s been an increasing emphasis on healthy neighboring.

Did you know that is supremely biblical? When Jesus was asked, “What’s the greatest commandment?” He replied: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Love your neighbor – that’s it! How simple, yet how difficult. It’s easy to love the nice ones but every neighborhood has at least one of “those” neighbors. Jesus didn’t qualify it and tell us to only love the nice ones.

The early church rocked their world because they loved their neighbors. While it’s true that they loved the world and loved people across town, but it all started with the neighbor next door. Yet, you can’t love those you don’t know. Even in a small town community like ours, it’s easy for relationships with our neighbors to be little more than a smile and wave.

This morning we’re starting a several week series: Meet the Neighbors – The Great Commandment starts next door. In our time crammed and privacy valued culture, this sermon series is going to mess with your world. It’s going to be uncomfortable for all of us. Yet, to fail to see and apply this is to miss God’s will and best for our lives and for our church.

One of the best examples of neighboring in recent years has been the late Fred Rogers and his program, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. He emulated several of the lessons that we all need to learn about neighboring.

Love your neighbor and love yourself. Despite his background as a Presbyterian minister, Mr. Rogers didn’t try to push a specific agenda on his viewers. Instead, he was a glorious example of someone who could be open to hearing other people’s opinions without diverting from his own values. This characteristic is surely something the world could benefit from practicing today. Listening to the other “side” doesn’t mean you have to surrender what you believe, it simply makes your world more diverse.

Be a good listener. Mr. Rogers didn’t preach good listening skills in the typical sense, which to many could mean just being quiet so someone else can share information or speak their peace. Instead, he encouraged truly paying attention to what another person is saying. Listening with not only your ears, but your eyes, heart, and soul. Words mean very little if we’re not open to understanding the feelings and thoughts behind them.

We respond best when there’s an attempt to understand. Mr. Rogers was all about making heartfelt attempts to understand a differing opinion before uttering a response. He felt that the very act of learning what someone’s feelings are grounded in can make others react with an increased sense of care and rationale. In today’s world of social media retorts and arguments, there’s never been a better time to learn and practice this.

Treat everyone with respect. This lesson might feel like a no-brainer, the kind of thing any child learns in kindergarten. But Rogers didn’t only say the words, he illustrated the point visually. During a time when black people weren’t allowed to swim in the same pools as white folks, the Pittsburgh, PA native wanted to make a point against segregation. He invited series regular Officer Clemmons, played by African-American actor Francois Scarborough Clemmons, to cool his feet alongside him in a kiddie pool during a segment.

Love your neighbor as yourself is an outcome of understanding that every person you meet is made in the likeness of God. Then, every person you meet is loved by God and Jesus died for them. When we get a firm handle on those two truths, loving our neighbors becomes very simple.

Sunday, February 9, 2020

Love for a Lifetime

“When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.” C.S. Lewis

Last weekend Ben and I were in Charlotte and had the opportunity to visit the Billy Graham Museum. Billy and Ruth Graham are buried on the grounds, as is the soloist who regularly sang the crusades, George Beverly Shea, and crusade song leader, Cliff Barrows and his wife, Billie. It was very moving and tastefully done.

Yet, I felt disappointed. I had thought that it was Billy Graham’s recent home, but instead, it was his childhood home. The home where he spent most of his married life and eventually died is in the small mountain town of Montreat about a hundred miles from Charlotte.

The Grahams initially lived in a house across the street from Ruth’s parents. That changed when tourists began peeking through their windows. Ruth told of seeing young daughter Ruth, known as Bunny, once running up to tourists with a cup to collect fees. That was when Ruth decided that the family had to move to a place more private.

Billy Graham died in 2018. But Ruth, the love of his life, died ten years earlier in 2007. In that decade before they were reunited in heaven, every day as Billy made his way down the hallway from their bedroom, he’d stop at her picture, plant a kiss on the tip of his finger and touch it to her picture.

The day before her Homegoing, he released a statement through the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association stating: “Ruth is my soul mate and best friend, and I cannot imagine living a single day without her by my side. I am more and more in love with her today than when we first met over 65 years ago as students at Wheaton College.”

Marriage has fallen out of style in our culture. A couple that’s been married for more than ten years is increasingly rare. Yet, what is tragically, very, very rare – even among believers – is a healthy, fulfilling marriage.

This morning we’re finishing our series on Hosea, Relentless Love. We’re not sure how long Hosea and Gomer were married after Hosea bought her back out of prostitution and slavery. It’s believed that his prophetic ministry lasted nearly forty years. From the timeline, it appears that their marriage, after its rebirth, was long and healthy.

Sexual sin does not have to be the death blow for a future healthy marriage. The genealogy of Jesus found in Matthew 1 with its taint of shame demonstrates that. The more deadly disease for a healthy marriage is the preaching target of most of the book of Hosea – spiritual adultery.

If like the nation of Israel, Jesus Christ is not the Lord of your life and your greatest love and priority, it’s impossible to have a truly healthy marriage. It is only when our relationship with God is in sync that our other relationships will be in sync.

Jane and I will have been married 37 years this coming July. It’s shocking to me how frustrating and annoying she can be to me…if I’m not walking with the Lord. Yet, it’s even more amazing to me how beautiful my bride is to me when my life is in sync with my Savior. And though Jane is a much more naturally gracious and kind person than I will ever be, I have no doubt that this is true for her as well.

Yet, too many couples who say that they believe the Bible settle for status quo. They’re not lovers as God intended, they’re little more than roommates. God’s design is for us to be soulmates. That comes from first being greatly forgiven and then being a great forgiver.

Most marriages don’t explode. They erode slowly over time until it all of it either comes crashing down or decays into some comatose existence. It’s not right and it’s not God’s plan. There are many sources of marital decay. Here though are three of the more common ones.

Ingratitude. When something is new, it’s fresh and special. Over time we become familiar and take it for granted. Think of your marriage as a brand new car. When you first drive it off the lot, you’re nearly intoxicated with that new car smell. But after the last payment has been made and it has dents and scratches, you’re just glad that it still starts.

Can I get in your personal space for a moment? It’s heartbreaking how most couples talk to and about each other. Some have a kinder and more gracious tone with the cashier at the drive-through at the local fast food joint than they do with the one they share their bed with. No one owes us anything. Our spouse is not our personal servant. Anything they do for us is a gift. When we are grateful for every little thing, it changes everything.

Busyness. Someone pointed out that human beings are the only species who run faster when we’ve lost our way. It’s idiocy that we find our worth in how busy we are. Think about it. The common answer when asked, “How are you?” Busy! We’re not machines. God created us to be human beings, not human doings. When we sprint past our spouse as we watch TV or our brains are locked into social media, it’s an intimacy killer.

This may sound crazy but you must fight to be unbusy. Most of us could and need to eradicate chunks of busyness from our lives. We must make room for margin and white space. A masterpiece can’t be mass-produced on a production line and neither can a beautiful marriage.

Stubbornness. Too often couples will say something like, “If they’d change, I’d change.” It makes you want to scream, “Are you three?”
If you want to begin to solve the core problems in your marriage, suspect the sinner that you know the best. Something shocking and wonderful happens when we repent of sin and choose a new life direction – our spouse must change too. For example, if you refuse to return fire, they run out of ammunition. It’s living out Romans 12:17, “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.”

While I can’t control you, I can always control ME. God doesn’t want to be our co-pilot. He must be in the driver’s seat. After nearly five decades of walking with Jesus, it still amazes me that when I let Him be the Lord of my life, His love, joy, and peace that flood my soul. Having an amazing marriage always begins with first embracing God’s amazing grace!

Monday, February 3, 2020

Winning is everything?

“Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.”

Vince Lombardi

By the end of tonight’s Super Bowl, someone is going to win and someone is going to lose. Few though will remember the losing team. It’s a winner takes all world. That’s even though the 2^nd place team made it all the way to “The Game of Games” but they just didn’t win the final prize.

Our culture is addicted to success, yet very few are ultimately successful. Consider sports. While everyone makes the team in grade school, fewer make it even in high school. Your abilities have to be in the top percentile to make it to a college team and those percentages dramatically drop to make it in professional sports. That analogy holds true in every field and category of life. Few will make it to team lead or branch manager and even fewer to VP, President, or CEO, particularly of a large corporation.

Yet, it doesn’t matter where you work or what you do, if you’re a homemaker or a retiree, we tend to be addicted to success. It can be things as innocuous as tic-tac-toe, receiving public recognition for a job well done, or even how many likes your post on social media receives.

Executive Coach, Katy Trost, developed 7 markers to use to evaluate yourself on whether you’re addicted to success: *You find purpose in achievement. *The expectations you have for yourself are way higher than average. *You ask yourself what else is there to life? *You measure your self-worth through your achievements. *You’re at the peak of your professional life but don’t feel fulfilled. *You’re very results-driven but you don’t feel content. *You’re constantly tense.

Recently, I finished, When Pride Still Matters – A Life of Vince Lombardi. It’s a must read for every Packer fan. The candor of the author, David Maraniss, was refreshing.

Growing up in poverty in an Italian family in Brooklyn, Lombardi wasn’t a fantastic player. Where he truly began to shine and showed his genius was in coaching. It’s why he’s been lionized by fans and former players.

Yet, Lombardi was far from successful as a husband and father. When his famous book, Run to Daylight, came out in 1963, it was jokingly suggested it be called “SHUT UP, MARIE!”

Though he and his wife, Marie, began madly in love, she couldn’t compete with Lombardi’s greater love – football. They’re constant fights and bickering were legendary. It was a miserable marriage with Marie ultimately succumbing to alcoholism

When Marie announced her desire to marry Lombardi, her status-conscious stockbroker father didn’t like the idea of his daughter marrying the son of an Italian butcher from Brooklyn, a prejudice Lombardi faced much of his life. Yet, he and Marie nonetheless wed on August 31, 1940.

But even on their honeymoon, Lombardi was preoccupied with football and cut it short to be able to get back to his assistant coaching job.

His two children never lived up to his expectations and suffered throughout their adulthood because of it. His players were more like his sons than his own son, Vince Jr.

It’s very easy to be seduced by success. Nearly all of us struggle with it at some level. True success, God’s standard of success, is centered on obedience to and glorification of God (Rom. 13:14; Gal. 5:16). Success is first obedience to God, empowered by His Spirit, motivated by love for God, and directed toward the advancement of the kingdom of God.

The Bible teaches that success begins in our closest circle of relationships – our spouse and our children. Those relationships are so important, failing in either of those spheres is a disqualification for vocational ministry.

Please understand, one can be a successful Christ-honoring spouse without having a successful marriage. The same is true of parenting. We are to be obedient to the Lord and live out godliness in our area of responsibility, even if our spouse or children do not.

For example, John Wesley was faithful to the Lord and greatly used by God though he had a miserable marriage. Many a parent has sought to honor the Lord yet had a child who rebelled and later repudiated everything their parents had sought to instill in them about God and in the home. Often we forget that the very first father with rebellious children was God.

What is success? What is true winning? It’s boils down to living for an Audience of One. Every Christian can be successful because every Christian can choose to do that. It’s choosing by God’s grace to live out Colossians 3:17; “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

To live for an audience of one means that I have to stop thinking about what’s good for me and how to make myself look better in the eyes of others, or how I can get ahead in this world. Instead I must focus on living for and pleasing God. It means waking up every morning and dedicating the day, the schedule, the pain and problems, the hopes and dreams of my life to God. It means going to bed at night thanking God for everything that has happened and asking Him to shape the day to come. It means setting godly priorities for my life and committing my marriage, my family, my job, my free time, my rest and my reflection all to God. It means seeking to truly live for God alone.

On one occasion when he was asked why he was not offended by a vicious attack from a fellow Member of Parliament, Winston Churchill replied, “If I respected him, I would care about his opinion. But I don’t, so I don’t.” In the same way, we who live before the Audience of One can say to the world: “I have only one audience. Before you I have nothing to prove, nothing to gain, nothing to lose.” Winning is everything and the only thing if you win where it matters…with your Heavenly Father!