U. S. Open – Success – Failure and Jesus

U. S. Open – Success – Failure and Jesus.  I want to talk today about handling success and failure.  I know some people say there is never failure.  If my goal is to win a game and I lose, is that not failure?  What is it?  A learning experience?  I would rather confess that I failed to reach my goal and I can learn from my experience.

After watching the last part of the final round of the U.S. Open golf championship, I began to reflect on success and failure.  Jordan Spieth at the very young age of 21, won his first U.S. Open.  He won the Master’s in April of this year and his two major victories has catapulted him to a very high level of success.

Dustin Johnson missed a four foot putt to force a playoff and finished a disappointing second.  One succeeded and another failed at their goal on Sunday.  Personally, it gave me the opportunity to work on Monday.  If Dustin makes his putt, I am glued to the tube to see who would win an 18 hole playoff!

 Back to the issue at hand.  It is hard to imagine Jordan’s success at such a young age.  How is he going to handle the media and the sponsors, who will be grabbing for his attention?  How will Dustin Johnson handle his defeat?  These are questions we all face in life.  We have wins and losses on many levels.

I think the real answer lies in our values and character development.  With success, I need to have the humility in knowing that what I have to win has come from my Creator, my circle of influence and the hard work put in to do the job.  With failure, I need to have the resolve to try again.  I need to trust in my Creator, what I have learned from others and the commitment to work towards my goals.

Failures can actually work out to be better than success!  Failures face us with the tough questions about ourselves, our purpose and our future plans.  A good example of this is the narratives in the Bible.  It doesn’t hide the failures of some of the most prominent figures.  It also demonstrates how God can work in failure to produce amazing results.  This is why the Bible is a message of hope for all people.  God takes our successes and our failures and shapes us into the people we were created to be!

When we begin with worship, we will be able to handle success and failure!  Value God, others and do the work in front of you and trust God for the results!

Pastor Fred

 

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Jesus Love and a Safe Place

Do you ever feel like running away from yourself?  The harsh reality is, we will never escape ourselves.  Unless you believe in annihilation of the soul or reincarnation, you are stuck with you!

The Bible seems to draw a pretty clear picture of us taking ourselves into the next life.  I wonder if God is going to refine those areas about myself that I don’t like?  I know that in this life God is transforming us into His image as we walk in faith and obedience to His will.  It just feels like there is so much more that needs to be done!

Next month will be 44 years of being a Christian.  Wow!  I am still me!  I hope the Spirit continues to shape me.  I find being present among the people that love me helps me to be me.  Sometimes it is just someone saying that they like me and love me as I am that changes my whole attitude about myself.  I had this happen this past week.  That someone, gave me words of love and acceptance and did not realize how liberating it was for me!

Maybe what a big part of church should be about is people feeling safe to be themselves with the knowledge that they will be loved and not shamed.  In that atmosphere of love and acceptance, we can share our struggles with ourselves and find peace within.  It seems that the people who were really hurting and seeking love, found what they were looking for when they met Jesus.  He not only ministered to their needs, but validated them as people.  He would have done the same for us if we were open to him.

Jesus wants to make every Christian community a safe place to be ourselves.  When we are ourselves and present before God and one another, He can orchestrate a beautiful harmony of love that the world so desperately needs.

Pastor Fred

 

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Jesus Movement and Public Television

Jesus Movement and Public Television

Watched a great program the other night on Public Television.  It was a history of Peter, Paul and Mary.  I had to chuckle because a few days earlier on one of my walks, I was singing a couple of their songs.  It is easy to sing when you walk in the canyon and nobody else is around!  I always felt they were one of the groups that reflected pop culture and also gave a voice to the dynamic social changes of the sixties.  It is amazing how music can take you back to previous times in our lives.

In the program a lot of attention was given to the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam war.  The message that seemed to leak out throughout the program was the need for love and peace.  If people would just love each other and put down their weapons, we would not have to deal with these social and political ills.

Sounds great! Sign me up!

Before I met Jesus, I thought the answer was in the progressive movement of the sixties. Not only that, but you can smoke a joint while you give peace a chance!  Do I think most of the progressives had their hearts in the right place?  Yes.  Do I think that the social progressives are naïve to reality of evil?  Yes.

Would Jesus have marched for civil rights of minorities?  He would have affirmed that all people are equal in the sight of His Father.  Would he have marched to end the war?  Not sure.  I don’t think he would put a bumper sticker on his donkey that states that war is not the answer. I do think he would equally say that war will not bring about the kingdom of God.  Ask your Jewish friends if war was the answer to Nazism.

We are in a war!  The struggle is not against flesh and blood according to the Apostle Paul. We are in a battle against spiritual forces of darkness that want to destroy all that is righteous, holy and good.

When I became a follower of Jesus, I realized that there is a movement that far transcends the progressive movement of the sixties.  That movement is a Jesus movement that spans the globe.  It resists sterile religious structures as well as confronts the evil of this age.  In China right now this movement is growing at a rapid pace.  Even here in America, there is a movement growing outside of established religion that may radically transform the body of Christ.

My prayer for the Christian community that I pastor is that we will let the Spirit of God lead us into a Kingdom life that will be truly reflective of Christ’s love and peace.  As Bob Dylan said many years ago, “The answer is blowing in the wind.”  What he did not understand is that the wind is the Spirit of God as He blows new life into lost souls.  We can overcome by the Spirit and the Word!

Pastor Fred

 

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Temple or Tabernacle?

Temple or Tabernacle?  This week I will be covering the seventh chapter of the book of Acts. The whole chapter is dedicated to Stephen’s speech before the high Jewish council known as the Sanhedrin. One of the chief responsibilities of this council was the managing of the temple in Jerusalem. This temple was rebuilt after the exiles came back from Babylon in the sixth century before Christ. It was the center of Judaism in Israel.  For several hundred years this institution preserved the religious life for the people of God. This temple was built after the pattern of Solomon’s temple which was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.The new temple never measured up to the old temple.

In John’s Gospel, when Jesus cleanses the temple, he claims his authority by claiming to destroy this temple and raise it in three days. John comments that Jesus was referring to his own body. In essence, Jesus embodies God’s presence and with his death and resurrection, the temple and it’s institution will not be necessary for the people to live in God’s presence.

In Stephen’s speech, he is reacting to the charge that he is preaching that Jesus will destroy the Jerusalem temple and it’s customs. Stephen draws from the Scriptures in the Old Testament concerning the Tabernacle and the Temple. His point throughout his speech is that God is present everywhere and that the Tabernacle, which was moved throughout the land, best represents the religion of Israel.

I believe he is saying that this “Jesus movement” is in line with the biblical tradition of God’s presence as moving and dynamic among the people. Jesus is God’s tabernacle in the flesh. This is in line with the narrative of John’s words of incarnation in chapter one of his Gospel.

What does all this have to do with my initial question? I think Stephen’s speech and the biblical tradition of the Tabernacle remind us that

God is wanting us to be a movement of His Spirit and not a preserving institution. Too often God has raised up “Stephens” in the church and her leaders have accused them of destroying the church.

Read your history and look at the lives of Martin Luther, John Wesley, the Ana-Baptists, and other more modern radicals and you will see what I mean! I am presently sitting in a “church office” and am honored to be a pastor of a local Christian community. This wineskin that we call the church is only a structure that hopefully facilitates the true tabernacle, which is Christ’s body, the church.

We are not “preserves” to be contained in jars of institutional structures, but are to be like “salt” that is poured out into the world to help heal and enhance this lost and suffering world! I confess my own struggle in being more like salt than preserves in a jar of religious structures.

We need more Stephens in this world!

God bless, Pastor Fred.

 

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