Develop Discipline

Scripture: Proverbs 12.1; 13.18; Matthew 7.21-29; 1 Timothy 4.7-8


Bart says to Homer: “Dad what religion are we?”

Homer – “You know, the one with all the well-meaning rules that don’t work in real life.
Uh. . .Christianity.”

I think that really is the way a lot of people view the faith, some non-Christians too.
We have lost confidence in the faith to teach us anything of use in our daily lives. As I have said before, we no longer look at Jesus as a person of competence. It doesn’t occur to us often that He has something of use to say to us about how to live our lives.

Christianity has been reduced to:

A bunch of “well-meaning rules that don’t work in real life.”
An easy-pass to forgiveness and a ticket to heaven someday


Is this all there is to Christianity?

Christians through the ages would say no. There is so much more. Believing in Jesus is entry into the Kingdom of God. Participating in the Kingdom transforms us and life around us as far as we have influence. John Wesley described salvation this way as a decision for Jesus that then is worked out in personal piety and social justice. Real power for real life, friends.

G.K. Chesterton once famously wrote, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. Christianity has been largely untried.”

Most people for much of their lives, at least, have been engaging in one of those counterfeit Christianities that have little to do with following Jesus. The wisdom of Christ is available to all but is forced on no one. It must be asked for. It must be pursued. The pursuit of wisdom, which is really the way of discipleship, doesn’t happen by accident and without effort. It takes discipline.

Dallas Willard makes this comment in the study guide to The Divine Conspiracy: Christians of the nineteenth century were used to listening to long, complicated sermons on a Sunday morning. They went home, had dinner, and spent their afternoon talking about the sermon, seeking to apply the wisdom to their lives. This almost never happens today. The twentieth century illusion is that the truth of God can be easily learned in a short snappy sermon.

What is wrong with us? When you go to the dentist or the surgeon, you darn well expect that those professionals spent years of study and preparation learning their craft. It didn’t come easily. When you are in the chair or on the table, you don’t want their training to come easily. Most of us spent considerable effort learning things like Algebra and biology in school. It was difficult but it came with effort. The early Christians expected that the wisdom and mysteries of God would only be theirs with a lifetime dedicated to study and effort at living with the Master.

We complain if the sermon goes a few minutes longer.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about costly discipleship. “Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.”

So how do I become a disciple? By training, not just by trying.

If I was asked to run in a marathon tomorrow, could I do it? I could start it, but I wouldn’t finish. I would collapse from exhaustion. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how hard I pushed, if I coughed up a lung, still I would not be able to do it. Why? Because I hadn’t trained to do it.

Likewise, following Jesus as disciples has only a little to do with trying harder and much more to do with training to be disciplined.

“Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid.” Proverbs 12.1

“He who ignores discipline comes to poverty and shame, but whoever heeds correction is honored.” Proverbs 13.18

The Proverbs tell us that the ways of living life well are yielded to us when we are willing to learn discipline and correction. If we are not, are lives don’t work. We become life-poor. And that’s a shame.

“Have nothing to do with profane myths and old wives’ tales. Train yourself in godliness, for, while physical training is of some value, godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” 1 Timothy 4.7-8

Did you hear that last part? Godliness has promise for the present life and the life to come. How interesting! Do you believe it?

Do you know who Mike Rowe is? Mike Rowe is the host for a program on the Discovery Channel called Dirty Jobs. You think you work at a dirty job? You should check some of the places and jobs Mike Rowe has been on! I read an interview with him this week and he said something interesting.

“My thesis is simple. Thirty years ago I don’t think this show would have worked, because people still knew that our weight was being carried by guys who do this kind of stuff for a living. But we have bought into this notion that working hard is worse than working smart. So why are the people on my show happier than you? What do they know that you don’t? They love being done, and they love knowing when they’re done. Clogged tank? Not anymore. Nice to meet ya. Dead deer in the road? Not anymore. Catch you next time. All day long those little victories spread through the day, week after week. Before you know it you self-actualize. The world makes sense.”

Living in the Kingdom can be difficult because it takes effort and the job never seems to be done. The answer?

Little victories. Little victories come through disciplined habits that change us over time. In fact, that’s the definition of a “spiritual practice,”

“any habit done over time that can help me gain power to live life as Jesus taught and live it.”

Some basic practices: solitude, servanthood, confession, meditation on scripture, celebration.

These and others are the stuff of wise and disciplined training for a Christian. Do these things over and over and “the world will begin to make sense.” John Ortberg suggests some things to keep in mind as we develop discipline:

Wise training respects our unique temperament and gifts.
Wise training will take into account our season of life. (All of life counts.)
Wise training responds to the inevitability of troughs and peaks.
Wise training begins with a clear decision.


It is impossible to recognize, let alone follow, someone you’ve never met. To train as a Christian you must decide to become one. You must meet Jesus. That could happen right now for you. In fact, I can’t think of a better time than right now.


“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like the intelligent man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.” Matthew 7.24-25

Be Good

Scripture: Proverbs 11.17; 3.27; Luke 15.1-10

In 1908 Ernest Shackleton led the Nimrod Expedition to reach the South Pole in Antarctica. It was a journey of unspeakable hardship and inhuman endurance. His team, bone-weary and famished, had to turn back less than one hundred miles from their destination. In his diary Shackleton tells of the moment their food was almost gone, down to a few scraps of hardtack – a bland, dried biscuit. Shackleton distributed it evenly among the men. Some ate it there and then, licking the crumbs off their fingers like starved dogs. Others stored it in their bags for a time when their hunger became madness.

That night, Shackleton awoke to a sound. He opened his eyes and lying still, watched. In the ragged circle of firelight he saw a sight that made his heart sink: his most trusted man opening the sack of the fellow next to him and taking out his food bag.

And then Shackleton saw a sight that made his heart leap: his most trusted man placing his own hardtack into the other man’s bag. He wasn’t stealing bread. He was sacrificing his own. That is goodness.

That kind of goodness doesn’t pop out of just anywhere. That superior deed comes from a good person. What does the Proverbs say a good person is like?

“Those who are kind reward themselves, but the cruel do themselves harm.” Proverbs 11.17

The Living Bible translation reads, “Your own soul is nourished when you are kind; it is destroyed when you are cruel.”

Who hasn’t experienced a sense of accomplishment when doing a kindness for someone? Maybe you mowed their lawn, shoveled their walk, or helped them move. You feel good about yourself. You feel right for once. You can feel yourself getting bigger.

The opposite happens when we are mean to others. When we are mean, we feel mean. We feel petty, small. You feel small because your spirit is shriveling.

The value of the Proverbs is that they describe Life As It Usually Works. If you listen to the Proverbs your life will work pretty well. They are like the Ten Commandments in this regard. Follow the wisdom of the Commandments and the Proverbs and you will avoid great evil and do some good. You won’t be problem free. But you won’t be bad off either.

“Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.” Proverbs 3.27
Here you find an economy of practical goodness. You find boundaries and decriptions on how to act. Our wisdom-poor culture could learn something from this.

The vision of Proverbs, however, is still, for all it practical goodness limited and incomplete. It is incomplete because it is meant to be received in the context of God’s covenant with his people, the fullness of which is found in Jesus Christ, the mediator of a new covenant.

What does that mean for goodness as described by the Proverbs? Proverbs says that it is better for your life to do good than evil.

Jesus says it is not enough to do good; we must be good.

Remember the other week when I said many of the big words of the Faith have lost some of their power in today’s culture through abuse and willful misinterpretation? Goodness is another one of those words that has been lost in translation.

“Goodness has grown dull,” writes Mark Buchanon. Bill Clinton, during the height of the sex scandal involving the intern was judged by a nationwide poll to be “a good leader but not a good man.” What they meant was Clinton was skillful but deceitful; he was a man of ability, just not integrity. Which is bizarre.

Is it possible to be a good leader and not a good man? The Bible says no. Scripture mentions many competent leaders – speech makers, statesmen, military commanders, economists – but denounces and dismisses them all because they lacked goodness.

Our definition of goodness has become slippery and vague, but even if it were clear as a bell and precise as a scale, we face another problem – we look for the good in all the wrong places.

We want to look good.
We want to feel good.
We even want to do good.
God requires we be good.

In the Kingdom of Jesus, the Beloved Son, doing good is not enough. Anybody can do good once in awhile, even an evil person. Hitler’s favorite camera pose was with furry animals and little children. Idi Amin used to cry when he heard sad stories. Stalin was good to his daughters. Even the wicked know how to do good. They just lack the capacity to be good. They lacked tears for their many victims.

The Apostle Peter describes goodness as a characteristic of our being.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” 2Peter 1.3

The Greek word Peter chooses for “goodness” is arête. It is translated as “virtue” and it means “essential, intrinsic goodness.” It has to do primarily with something we are before it is anything we do, or think, or feel. Arete is the character of God within us, living and active.

This is how we explain the paradox Faith. Faith without works is dead, we know. But it is precisely because we place our faith in the goodness of God that faith is alive and produces works. This goodness that is God becomes alive in us through faith. Our good deeds proceed from who we have become in Christ.

There were other words Peter could have used having to do with “goodness put into action”, but he chose arête, this intrinsic goodness that comes from God.

In the story of the Rich Young Ruler, a man runs up to Jesus and says, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus responds, not to the stated question, but to some implied motivation:
“Why do you call me good?”

Matthew records the encounter with a slightly different emphasis. “What good thing must I do to get eternal life?” the young man asks.

“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replies, “There is only One who is good.” (Matthew 19.16-17) Jesus then gives the young man an impossible list of things to do and accomplish. He gives the man rules for behavior, a heap of them. The man walks away sad with defeat. He can’t do it all. Of course he can’t. Apart from God, no one does good, no not one. (Psalm 14.1)

Trying to do good without first being good is doomed to futility.

We must participate in the divine life, as Peter counsels, so we can imitate the good God.

In Luke 15 we read that the Pharisees are letting Jesus have it for eating with known sinners. The Pharisees are all about doing good; feeling good, and above all, looking good. But Jesus turns their vanity mirror sideways.

“Which of you, if you had a hundred sheep and lost one wouldn’t go look for that one sheep?”

See, of first importance is not the pecking order of the lost sheep. (Is he the best or worst sheep, or somewhere in the middle ?) What is of first importance is the character of the Shepherd. Clearly, God, who is the Good Shepherd is very interested in finding his lost children, good and bad. Because God is Good. This is the glory of God, his goodness.

It can be our glory too.

“Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.” 3 John 1.11

We are no longer limited to doing good to only those who “deserve it”. Nor are we limited by our own power. We are vessels of the goodness of God Himself. Goodness for us is no longer an accident or an exception or an event that follows strict criteria, it is the natural outpouring of the love of God through us. It happens all the time.

Fred Mitchell was the former chairman of the China Inland Mission. At his funeral the man who delivered the eulogy said this: “You never caught Fred Mitchell off his guard because he never needed to be on it.”

That’s goodness.

Back to the School of Wisdom

Scripture: Proverbs 4.5-7, Luke 14.25-33

Have you heard of the show Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader? It’s a quiz show hosted by Jeff Foxworthy. The contestants answer general knowledge questions, like any other quiz show, except that the contestants are competing against a fifth-grader. My son and I watched this show together once and enjoyed trying to answer the questions along with the contestants. When we got one right we pumped our fists and felt superior to the contestants on the show. But here’s the thing, it’s okay for my son, who is in the fifth grade, to feel good about getting right answers.

I’m forty-two years old. I have a masters degree. Is this the best I can do, be smarter than a fifth-grader and feel good about it?

Many of you have, of course, heard about the Miss Teen USA Beauty Pageant contestant from South Carolina who asked to answer the question, “Why aren’t more citizens of the United States able to identify their country on a world map?”

Miss South Carolina’s answer started out with “I think this is so because many people do not have maps. . .” and then she started mentioning education in South Africa and Iraq and it just continued to go downhill from there. It was a pretty dumb answer, even by beauty pageant standards. And it got noticed. A video clip was posted on YouTube and has been viewed over thirteen million times! We love to make fun of other people’s stupidity. Never mind that if we had to answer questions like that in front of a millions of people watching on tv, standing in our swimsuits, we probably wouldn’t fare much better.

And that illustrates the fact that though we live in the Information Age, we haven’t necessarily gotten smarter. There is so much information at our fingerprints that anyone, really, can access with minimal effort, its perplexing that we don’t seem to be wiser. In fact, the opposite may be true. Maybe we are dumb and dumber.

What is clear is that information doesn’t equal wisdom. Here’s a word that is hard to define. What is wisdom?

It’s been said that the greatest distance between any two points is the distance between knowing the right thing to do and actually doing it.

For example, I know that my vehicle’s need oil added on a regular basis, and at least a couple times a year they need the oil changed. But I’m too embarrassed to tell you how many times I failed to follow through on that common knowledge – times when I heard the engine wasn’t right, but you know, I just turned the radio up louder.

Wisdom may be defined as “knowledge combined with goodness”. You might also add “knowledge combined with goodness put into action.” And by this standard we can accurately see how wisdom-poor our lives can be at times. I’m not talking about whether we can correctly answer game show trivia or not. I’m talking about more important stuff, the stuff of our daily lives. When we look at our relationships, our attitudes, our decisions, our successes and our failures, we notice cracks, background noise, in our family, our work, and our relationships. No amounting turning up the radio can drown out the roar that cannot be ignored.

Our lives don’t work anymore. And so we quit, or we divorce, or we live in a slow, cold, agony. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Life doesn’t work simply because we’ve forgotten a basic rule of living –pursue wisdom.

“He taught me, and said to me, ‘Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments and live; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Get wisdom; get insight. Do not forsake her, and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight.” Proverbs 4.4-7

Notice the truism. To be wise you have to get wise.

The Bible is about more than information or knowledge. It is meant to communicate through the Holy Spirit’s power, wisdom that changes us into wise people who live life well.

What are known as the wisdom books, Proverbs, Ecceliastes, Song of Songs, are particularly meant to describe a life well lived. Proverbs is direct and practical.

“If you don’t plow you don’t eat.” Proverbs 20.4

“The Lord hates cheating and loves honesty.”

What part of that isn’t clear? And we are in need of wisdom for living..How else to explain all the warning labels and signs that come with our lives these days, gems like:

“Don’t collapse the stroller while baby is still in it.”

“Warning, this coffee is hot.”

“Don’t use this blow dryer underwater.”

We are so informed and still unwise. Where can we find wisdom, this combination of knowing and goodness applied rightly to our lives?

Three streams of wisdom are available to us, all of which we will speak more of in the coming weeks:

The Scriptures - we have to know one book people. That’s it. We don’t have to read a whole library. We don’t have to get advanced degrees. Just one book to read is all God asks so that we can live life well. Does the Bible answer every question we might have? No. But it does have the power to transform us and our living. Is it a hard book sometimes to read? Yes. Is it impossible? No not for anyone. We can do it.

Other People – God’s wisdom comes from heaven but is disseminated , passed along through wise ones in our midst. We learn from each other in community. If you isolate yourself you get dumber. If you learn to live with others in community you get smarter in the School of Life.


The Spirit of Jesus the Teacher - God’s desire is that we will be transformed into good and beautiful persons who are ready to be free in his kingdom. He wants to be able to set us loose in the Universe and be co-laborers and co-creators with Him. God is working hard to help us get wisdom and to apply that goodness and knowledge in our living.


The Apostle Paul tells the Galatians that he is in agony “Until Christ be formed in you.” (Galatinas 4.19)

There is a new life at work in us to form our lives from the inside out.

“Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Ephesians 4.13

Wisdom costs something. It doesn’t happen by accident. Jesus asks are we willing to pay the price?

“For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Or what king, going to meet another king in war, will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes with twenty thousand? So therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14.28-33

Would you consider that Jesus has something to teach you about living this life? Are you willing to do something to pursue this wisdom in your life today?

Use It or Lose It

Scripture: Hebrews 13.1-8, 15-16


In 1959, the leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Krushchev, made an unprecedented visit to the United States. This was right after the death of Stalin, and Krushchev, his successor, has already caused an international stir by giving a speech to the Politburo denouncing many of the atrocities and policies that went on in Stalinist Russia – the mass killings, the assassinations of political enemies both real and imagined, the elimination of anyone Stalin didn’t trust, which was almost everyone.

Krushchev was scheduled to speak at the National Press Club in Washington and it was widely expected that he would deliver a similar speech denouncing Stalin. And he did. After finishing his speech Krushchev opened the floor for questions. Someone called out from the crowd, “Mr Krushchev, you have just given us an account of Stalin’s many crimes against humanity. You were his right hand man during much of that time. What were you doing?”

The question was translated to Krushchev, and when he heard it he exploded with anger.
“Who said that?” he demanded.

No one answered.
“Who said that?” he repeated and glowered at the audience.

Silence.

“Who said that?” he asked again, this time low and quiet, with more menace.

Everyone in the room looked at their shoes.

After a moment, Khrushchev said, “That’s what I was doing.”

“On the Day of Judgment, Jesus will tell his true followers by a single criteria: they translated faith into action.”

Their faith produced works. That’s what faith does.

Mark Buchanon writes that if you’ve ever been to Niagra Falls you might know that a mile upstream from the Falls the Welland River joins the Niagra River and where the two streams meet, a passenger bridge arches across the Welland. Boaters can navigate beneath the bridge and enter the wide flow of the Niagra. But just before they do, they pass under a large sign posted on the bridge’s pylon. It asks them two questions:

Do you have an anchor?
Do you know how to use it?
The Bible asks us, “Do you have faith? Do you know how to use it?”

In the climactic chapter to the book of Hebrews, the great theme of faith is “translated” into “action imperatives” if you will, specific things to do with your belief. Take a look at some of these:

Show hospitality to strangers
Remember and visit those in prison
Tend your marriage and be faithful in it
Watch out so you don’t fall in love with money
Imitate the faith of your leaders
Do good and share what you have

A believer who really believes will do these things. It’s pretty practical. In fact, if things like these are conspicuously absent from your life, well, call the doctor, your faith may be on life support!

When my son is at football practice I listen to his coaches exhorting him and his teammates: “Do you want glory?!!! Then show me your passion!!!”

And I ask myself, am I at a football practice or at a religious rally? It must football because the audience responds with yells and approval. At church, we just clear our throats or yawn. Isn’t it telling of our times that the great words of Scriptures,words like Faith, Hope, Love, have to be redefined for generations that grew up in the church. You can’t just say love anymore, you have to attach an adjective and say “Tough Love” or “Selfless Love” You can’t just say “Faith” anymore and expect people to get the message. You have to say “Faith in Action.” You have to say “beyond belief” and “more than words.”

The only scriptural understanding of faith, the greek word pistis, is faith that “goes public” and changes lives. That’s the only definition for a biblical faith. There is no line in a biblical dictionary for “private faith.”

Remember, Jesus is our High Priest and we are called to hold fast to our confession. Holding fast really means going forth.

“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you might proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” 1 Peter 2.9

We are a kingdom of priests. One of the great truths of the Church that the Protestant Reformation recaptured was the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. It is basically this: this no special class of Christians that are supposed to “minister full-time.” We are all called to full-time ministry. We are the priests of the good confession, Jesus Christ came to seek and to save the lost!

You may feel frustrated and you may feel timid. In this regard we are like kids offering up prayers to God:

Dear God, I bet it’s very hard for you to love all of everybody in the whole world. There are only four people in our family and I can never do it. Nancy

Dear God, please send Dennis Clark to a different summer camp this year. Peter

Dear thank you for the baby brother but what I asked for was a puppy. I never asked for anything before. You can look it up. Joyce
Dear God, I am doing the best I can. Really. Frank

No matter how ineffective we feel sometimes, there is no excuse for living faithfully. We have to go public. We have to believe with more than words.

Pat Conroy’s novel, The Prince of Tides, tells the tangled story, generations long, of the gifted but flawed Wingo family. Tom Wingo recounts the WWII ordeal his father, Henry, endured after his plane plummeted, tail wings aflame, over German soil. Injured and fugitive, Henry takes refuge in a Catholic church. The church’s priest, Father Gunter Kraus, is a good man but timid, and when he discovers Henry in his vestry, bloody and delirious, he’s torn between his compassion and fear. He wants to help, but he’s terrified of the consequences should the Nazis find out he’s harboring an enemy. Tom Wingo says:

My father’s presence had created a moral nightmare for the priest
And it tested the mettle of his character. The priest felt he had been
Given the soul of a rabbit in times that called for lions. . .My father’s
Coming had required the priest in him to rule over the man.”

Which is what the Father’s coming requires also in us. Christ has made us a kingdom of priests to rule and reign with him.

In an age that calls for lions, let the priest in you rule over the man.

Priest

Scripture: Hebrews 4.14-16, 5.1-4, 7-10; 10.11-15


Faith comes from hearing. “It is neither derived from nor exercised by seeing.”
We walk by faith not by sight.

The first Christians, who were all of them, it is important remember, also Jews, certainly understood this message. As Jews they had visual symbols and reminders of their faith, the scrolls of the Torah, the synagogue, the Temple, and the priests and rabbis who walked among them as representatives of the faith. And yet the visible was only holy and only useful to the degree that it pointed to the invisible reality of the invisible God. Remember these first Christians who were first, Jews, were taught that the name of God was so holy it couldn’t be written down in a word and couldn’t be directly spoken. Whisper it and God might vanish, or worse yet, come crashing with a vengeance on a people of unclean lips and uncircumcised hearts.

To understand this message of faith in the letter to the Hebrews we must understand this mysterious connection between visual symbols and invisible reality. We must understand the language of covenant, confession, and priest.

The Hebrews had priests from their earliest existence. Father Abraham gave sacrifice and homage to a priest called Melchizedek, who is invoked in this New Testament as founder of an order, whose completion and perfection is found in Christ.

The purpose of priest is to be a bridge between the people and their God.

“Every high priest chosen from among mortals is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.” Hebrews 5.1

The priest handles the holy things, the visuals of an invisible God. So here begins the mystery than an ordinary human being can be trusted with the divine.

I am a priest. I like to think of myself as a regular guy. Most clergy I know what to viewed by their people as regular, down-to-earth, approachable people. We want to be treated like everyone else, fed the same food, told the same jokes, invited to the same places. And yet, as a priest, I would shun the folksy, regular, ball-cap wearing image, so that I can rightly divide the Word and administer the Holy Sacrament. It is dangerous to deal cavalierly with holy things. It just won’t do.

A priest offers sacrifice for the sins of the people.

Hebrews 5 points out that the priest is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward because he himself is ignorant and wayward. Peter is recognized as the Bishop of the Christian Church. But as a follower of Jesus he is a perfect example of this mysterious relationship between the holy and the human.

Peter had a knack for speaking first and thinking later. He was the kind “who thought that saying something noble or valiant was the same thing as doing something noble or valiant,” writes Mark Buchanan. Peter bandied words like never and always but got stuck in a pattern of maybe and sometimes. He said things such as, No matter what, that really meant, If it suits me at the time. And yet Peter really wanted to get it right.

Peter once asked Jesus, “How many times should I forgive my brother when he sins?”

Peter suggests seven times. He thinks he is being extravagant. He thinks he is being spiritual. Jesus has another number in mind and it’s a lot bigger. Peter and the other disciples can’t understand how any good can come of forgiving the sinner over and over again. But they don’t argue. They simply exclaim, “Increase our faith!”

Our faith has a way of staying theoretical. Or we practice it when it suits us. Part of the problem I am convinced is that we don’t have faith in confession and forgiveness. We’re carrying our sins around with us instead of carrying them to the priest.

As Protestants I think we are missing out on a the great spiritual practice of confession. Many Catholics are also missing out on the practice, because they don’t practice either. The pity is, Protestant or Catholic, we all have the opportunity. We all have a priest to whom we can confess.


“Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” Hebrews 4l.14-15


Jesus is the only priest that has come from heaven. Many priests are going that direction from earth to heaven. Only one has come to us from there. He’s the best priest. He’s what God had in mind for a priest.

And yet through and through, human too; someone who understands the weaknesses we have, the things we are tempted by. Jesus knows what it’s like to live our lives.

So we are urged to “hold fast to our confession.” Not just to our confession of belief, but literally to the practice of confessing our sins. Because to do so restates our faith in the power of forgiveness being greater than the insane and seemingly endless cycle of promise and failure that marks all of us. Do you want to be forgiven seven times? Or do you want to be forgiven 649 times? Or more than that on a bad day?

Jesus our High Priest forgives.
But there’s one more thing, and this thing no other priest, no one else can do for us:

Jesus our Priest was also our Sacrifice. By His death and rising again we are given power to become New People.

“Every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins. . .by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.”

Jesus offering of himself not only covers over our sin, it removes our sin. Jesus breaks the power of sin over us and out of death comes rebirth for all who believe. Not just some, not just really religious, but all who believe. That’s the crux – somehow the death of one man two thousand years ago can change my life completely today.


Priest. It’s a good word. And it’s a good person, a changed person who goes to their High Priest often for forgiveness and power.

Faith Has a Cost

Scripture: Hebrews 11.29 – 12.2; Luke 12.49-56


Faith is a bold move. Faith costs something. It’s more than an easy belief. You might have to suffer loss or pain. But hey, no guts, no glory! If you want to walk on water you have to get out of the boat!

Some years ago in my first parish I invited a missionary to come speak at our church. This missionary was the sister of a friend of mine from seminary. Her name was Joy and she was doing some great work at a medical center in Kenya called Tenwek. Joy did a great job communicating the importance of the Tenwek medical center to that whole area of Kenya. She connected her medical work and the work of the gospel. By the time she was done speaking she had us. The church committed two thousand dollars to build a water tower in an area desperately in need of fresh water. One of the things Joy said to us as we were contemplating our response to her talk was this,

“My grandfather once told me that there is no free lunch. Someone always has to pay. My work continues because people generously give. Maybe you can give to this mission as well.”

I was impressed by her straightforwardness and so was the church. It was obvious that she had faith that God was going to provide for the work. That faith built a water tower and continues to support her mission in Kenya.

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. (Heb. 11.1-2)

In our reading we are given many examples of these “ancients” who trusted that God was going to come through for them, if not now, later. They threw themselves into what needed to be done and they were willing to pay the cost of faith themselves, because they believed it was worth it. It was worth it to leave Egypt, it was worth it to be whipped and stoned and shipwrecked and thrown in jail. It was worth it.

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. (Heb. 11.3)

Mark Buchanan writes, “The bedrock of faith is the conviction that what matters most is more than matter. The material world, the stuff I touch and see and smell, is not the “real world.” The real world is unseen. Things visible are actually made from and sustained by things unseen. . .what matters is more than matter.”

The musician Ray Charles went blind at age seven. Something gathered over his eyes, turned his world grainy and gray, finally closed him in utter darkness. He lived his childhood in rural poverty, in a one-room shack at the edge of a sharecropper’s field. In the movie about him, in a scene from his childhood, he runs into his house and trips over a chair. He starts to wail for his mother. She stands at the stove, right in front of him, and instinctively reaches out to lift him. Then she stops. Backs up. Stands still. Watches.

Ray stops crying. He quiets. He listens. He hears, behind him, the water on the wood stove whistling to a boil. He hears, outside, the wind pass like a hand through the cornstalks. He hears the thud of horse hooves on the road, the creak and clatter of the wagon they pull. Then he hears, in front of him, the thin faint scratch of a grasshopper walking the worn floorboards of his mama’s cottage. He inches over and, attentive now to every sigh and twitch, gathers the tiny insect in his hand. He holds it in his open palm.
“I hear you, too, Mama,” he says. She weeps with pride and sorrow and wonder.

Later he explains to someone, “I hear like you see.”

“That’s faith’s motto: I hear like you see. I trust in God – in what he’s done and is doing and will do – as much, even more, as others trust in what they touch and taste and see.”

I look at this list of Faith Heroes in Hebrews and as much as I’m inspired, I’m also depressed when I compare what they did with what I’ve done –on this hand you have this great cloud of witnesses and over here you have me, a puff of steam, a wisp of smoke.

It reminds me of an old Simpson’s episode where their pastor, Rev. Lovejoy, is going through a faith crisis of his own. Alone one day in the church, he paces up and down the aisle praying aloud as to why he is seemingly unwanted and ineffective. As he is praying the figures in the stained windows begin to talk to him. They are figures of saints and martyrs. They cry out at him in accusation, “I was beheaded!” cries one. “I was whipped and stoned!” cries another. “What have you done?!!” they all cry out to Rev. Lovejoy.

The timid pastor stammers for a second, and says, “Well, last year I had the vestibule carpeted.”

Sometimes I feel like Rev. Lovejoy. My faith seems small. I can’t really point to much where I’ve believed big, you know, and stepped out and paid a price for faith.

But here’s a word of caution. Faith doesn’t usually happen with big heroics. Faith happens quietly, with little things, everyday. Maybe we want the dramatic (so we can be the hero of our own drama) but it’s the behind the scenes stuff that matters most. Are we praying? Are we studying the Word? Are we serving our brothers and sisters? Are we loving the least and the lost?

Jesus said if you are faithful in the little things then I will give you big things to be faithful in. (my paraphrase)


The bible heroes weren’t going for drama, they weren’t trying to be heroes, they were just being faithful. If there has been any faithfulness in the small things of our lives then I know there have been some moments of big faith. I want you to think about one such time.

When in your life have you really trusted God for something? When have you paid the price of faith? When have you stepped out of the boat to walk on water?

Maybe you prayed about that sickness; or you walked through an open door to a new job; or you gave to that need til it hurt a little. You had faith. You heard like other people see.

The scripture counsels us to look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Look at the example he gives. He went to the cross because he was able to see beyond the pain and the shame immediately before him and glimpsed the joy on the other side.

Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.

What does the death of Jesus and the death of so many believers through the years mean to us? Well, people died for this faith that we so casually believe! People literally died because they would not renounce their faith. If they died, we can at least live! We can live strongly in this faith too! We can pay the cost of following Jesus Christ.