Salvation is Messy, Part Deux

I'm exhausted. I've been dragged from pillar to post while trying to help some new converts in our church. Life would have been lots easier if they had been customized into the Christian subculture already. Nope, these people are as green as they come - no church background whatever.

And baggage? Can you say "fly the friendly skies?"Every day is a new revelation, a continual soap opera of recurring problems from a seedy past. Earlier this month, I wrote "Salvation is messy," and the Lord added His exclamation point.

The intriguing and unknown factor is when "enough" is going to be enough. That is, when are these people going to be capable of standing on their own feet without the pastor (or another church member) coming to rescue them from yet another unforeseen predicament? The answer may only be known in hindsight. Like the experience of rearing our own children, we may not come to an exact point where we can say our job is done - ever.

But as a government official reminded me just a week ago, this experience, and the responsibility that comes with it, is all part of the job. When we ask the Lord for new people in church and souls being saved, He is under no obligation to provide them all shiny and new. New converts are new on the inside but the exterior can remain quite rough.

So what's the preacher to do in cases like this? Do a lot of praying, and then do the best you can. Remember the Lord is keeping watch, and your labor is not in vain.

It only looks that way.

Salvation is Messy

Two people were saved today following our services. I say that with the understanding that only God really knows their hearts and I am making a statement by faith. Their professions seemed genuine enough and quite emphatic. We'll see. After thirty-five years in the ministry, I've been fooled more often than not. There's not a preacher under the sun that doesn't want every profession of faith in Christ to bear real and lasting fruit. I've come to the point that I almost hold my breath to see what will be the outcome of each profession.

But there is another element with these people in particular. They come will baggage. Tons of it. I find myself always having to undo some emergency, some unforeseen problem their past has dumped on us.

Why is it we always seem to find the really messy sinners? Why can't we convert all the nice "clean" sinners? Why do people always seem to come with baggage? The truth is, we all come with baggage. No one is really clean.

Salvation is messy. Sometimes it's more messy than usual because that's the kind of public we are dealing with these days. We who inhabit the pulpit have to be prepared and committed to getting our hands dirty with the kind of people who need salvation most - the profoundly lost.

Sure, it's a messy proposition. But then again, only the profoundly lost are likely to become the profoundly saved. And when you get right down to it, it is the really bad cases who are our greatest trophies of grace, the ones we really wouldn't regret if we could because they represent our greatest victories.

We really don't need "neat" conversions. We need God's people who are willing to get a little messy. Winning the lost is hard work. Changing lives and habits from a sordid past to a life of grace requires hefty amounts of time, patience and money. And the only way to do it is to jump in.

It's time to get our hands a little dirty.

America Turns

I've read tonight about a children's play performed in Missoula, Montana in which the children sang about beheading Sarah Palin, and noting "no one would miss her."
There are turning points in a nation: historical moments when you know life can never go back to being the same. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln was such a moment. So too was Pearl Harbor and the dropping of the atomic bomb. Without question, so was the attack on the World Trade Center. Events of this kind are so large they cannot be ignored. Everyone agrees that life changed on those days.
But other events are not so obvious. It's hard to miss something the size of the atomic bomb, but other events are quite small - and yet their effect is every bit as large.
I suppose hardly anyone will notice a children's play in Montana. I hear Missoula is a lovely place and the mountains are breathtaking. But Missoula is so remote, it could go on forever and most of America would never notice. That's unfortunate because America needs to notice.
The play I read about, thanks to a post from Greta Van Susteren, is something we all should take note of. America has taken another turn and it's not for the better.
In the long and not terribly proud history of American politics, there are lots of examples of politicians saying and doing all sorts of sordid things about their opponents. But I can't recall any time when American children were taught and cheered to sing about beheading a former governor. The real problem is that the people doing the teaching and singing are not politicians who are used to saying and doing just about anything during a campaign and then forgetting all about it the day after. This is the general public.
When the general public begins to teach its children to kill Christians, we have turned a new corner. And let's not fool ourselves. The most irritating thing about Sarah Palin to her enemies is not that she is a Republican, or that she is a conservative. She is a Christian.
That's why this new low in America's relentless march toward the depths of depravity is so significant. The public's attitude toward one prominent Christian is sure to work its way toward the rest of us. "The servant is not greater than his Master." The principle still holds.
Can anyone doubt that we are rapidly coming to the end of life as we know it? Can anyone doubt that the Lord's appearing is right around the bend?

Reflections...

As I sit here on the verge of another year, I cannot help but think of all those we've left behind. At least a couple of times this season, I've had opportunity to remember the notables from American life and culture who passed away in 2010. The thing that really struck was how familiar their faces were to me. They were not players from some another era. They were people I grew up with, people whose names and faces I've known all my life.
And now they are gone.
I've lost a lifetime this past year.
It's times like this that really hit home; times that make a person stop cheering with the clock moves past midnight, and begin to wonder who we will lose in the coming year.
Although none of us wants to admit it - we're too busy celebrating - the thing New Year's really demonstrates is our own mortality. One more new year. One less new year we will live to see.
Yet at the same time, it's also one more year nearer heaven, one more year nearer Christ, one more year nearer His kingdom.
The souls who've gone before us, who surround the rainbow throne of God's immaculate glory, do not have calenders as do we, but they do have events. And the next big one for them, the thing they have to anticipate is the rapture and all that follows. The passing years here mean something altogether different to them than to us. They know life doesn't have to end the way it does here.
Some day there will be no more looking back. It can't come quick enough.

Am I Glad That's Over!

What a year. I am exhausted just thinking about it. 2010 began with our church in some of the lowest lows we've ever known. We finished the year in the best condition yet. Who'da thunk it?
Apparently, God did.
It's not just that the Lord provided for our heavily damaged building and literally saved our church from complete physical destruction. He provided people. We did something beyond all human thought, possibility or comprehension.
We grew. We grew under the worst circumstances. We grew more than we've ever grown in a year before this year.
What caused all this? Quite frankly, I think it is because in the midst of all our troubles we revisited how we were praying, and we learned to pray much more and much better than we have before. The right prayer was not an issue of technique, but of asking the right thing in the right way, and being certain that we were living right all along. And we learned to ask what God wanted us to ask. We prayed with new boldness, new confidence, and we stopped looking at all the rabble around us. That's not much of a secret, but God heard our effectual, fervent prayer and He answered over and over and over again.
It was the worst of years, it was the best of years, and God brought us through. Unforgettable.

On Review ...

When I crossed the barrier from middle age to the Big 6-0 and Semi Senior Status, I couldn't help but begin wondering if maybe, just maybe I was beginning to approach retirement age. For a few fleeting moments my wife and I began to consider what retirement would look like. But a funny thing happened on the way to the rest home. We ran across the personification of the energizer bunny: a missionary who is ready for anything but quitting. Never mind that he's up into his eighties.
When this dear brother began to preach at our church, he detailed how the mission board had "retired" him sixteen years ago. That's sixteen years of continual travel, Bible teaching, preaching and assorted other items of ministry past his "retirement" (a dirty word).
Suddenly, I feel like a teenager.
The ministry is that odd occupation where one never really becomes good at it until his hair is white enough, or so it seems. Yes, I know Spurgeon was about eighteen when he began preaching at New Park Street Chapel, and yes, he was a roaring success from the beginning. But even Spurgeon confessed to still learning how to preach well up into the years of his ministry. And he died before age sixty. Maybe Spurgeon was just ahead of his time.
All I know is that notions of retirement have died. Not that I know how long I'm going to pastor our present church. I really don't know how it's going to work out, or how long the work will take. I would like to bring the church to clear stability and let someone else take it forward.
But then, what would I do? All I can say is that I'm definitely going to do something. Preachers have to preach, and this preacher is not about to quit just when I'm beginning to get the hang of it.
After all, I'm only sixty, and "retirement" is a dirty word.

A Death in the Family

When our dog died last week, I experienced all the feelings of losing a member of the family - because in a very real sense, that is exactly what it was. I still can hardly believe the dog is gone. I find myself yet hearing the tinkle of her collar and looking for her automatically when I come down stairs in the morning. I buried Champ in her collar, wrapped in the pad where she lay when she died. She was the best. I will never own another dog the rest of my life.
Saying goodbye to the family dog after twelve years could not help but generate thoughts about her and bring back questions I've heard from other people who've lost pets. Now, the questions are personal and very close to home. Will we ever see our dog again? Do all dogs go to heaven? I used to answer those questions in the negative and usually I was quite certain. I have a reason now to be a bit more careful and reflective. Maybe I was wrong.
The Bible is very silent about the destiny of animal life in eternity, which, if you think about it, is rather fascinating in itself. I'm sure people in the Bible had pets and that people in the ancient world domesticated animals. I'm sure they had all the same questions when their pets died. So what's the answer?
Frankly, I don't know and I won't know until I get to heaven. The only near answer I have is the one supplied from Romans 8:21: "... the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." If creation itself is redeemed by the death of Christ, perhaps animals go to heaven when they die. There certainly will be room enough. Any place in eternity that can hold more people than we could number can also hold more animals than we could number.
But I don't know. I can't know. I would like to see Champ again. Being reunited, being able to see her bound up to me again with that perpetual smile would be one of the sincerest delights in the sheer joy I will have of being reunited with all my loved ones. I miss them all, and I look forward to seeing them all again.
Why not the dog too?