Stranger in a strange land (with apologies to Heinlein)

I find myself in a very strange place just now. First, let me give you some background on my situation. Through a combination of forces including my sometimes overly forceful personality, poor choices and bad breaks, I find myself almost completely destitute. Yet I am very hopeful and I have a great deal of faith that things are about to turn around. So now I wonder, do I have any right to be optimistic or do I just not see the financial shark rapidly closing in from below me?

Little things mean so much in circumstances like ours. For instance, I recently started attending again at the church where I was an associate pastor in 2000 - 2002. Last Sunday, they asked for prayer requests and I put mine in for increased sales since we are almost broke. This week I did not get any sales commissions. However, I got a mentor from SCORE who was in the insurance business for over 30 years and he advised me to get a part-time job until I can build my clientele.

The very next day I called my boss at the guard company where I had been working until September 30 when we lost that contract. He had told me to check back with him for a letter of reference. He told me he was on his way back to the office from signing the contract on a new job that paid $11 per hour instead of the $8.25 I had been making before. He asked if I was interested and told me he still had not done my separation paperwork after the other contract. I asked him when he would be in the office so I could pick up some new shirts. So now I have an even easier part-time job, with more hours (36 instead of 32) and better pay.

On the insurance front, my boss has teamed us up with some ladies who are cold calling to get appointments for us. This removes one of the major headaches of insurance sales and allows me to have something resembling a life. My caller is getting more and more confident and setting more and better appointments for me. I went on one of those appointments on Wednesday with my boss and she is very confident that we are going to close that sale on Monday. I also went to drop-off some info at a local union hall and was invited to call again after the election to write some health business on the secretary of the head man there.

Then there is the money issue. God just keeps working it out somehow. For instance, I was distraught because I did not know where I was going to get the money to pay our phone bills. We have two. Our landline includes the internet service I must have for business and my wife and middle son must have for college. The other bill is our cellular phone service which is vital to my business and our communication and coordination as a family. The landline is about $70 each month and the cellular is a bit over $100. I double checked my checking account and found that I had about $180. I also found that, due to a credit we had from a previous service change, the cellular bill was only a little over $30.

So God worked it out for me to pay the phone bills and have a little left over! Praise God! Jehovah jireh, our Lord provider has come through again! I am becoming increasingly confident that everything is going to be okay. Maybe I'm naive, but I know one thing. I serve a great God and He is able and willing to take care of me if I will only ask.

Just a dollar or two to help me keep writing would be appreciated!

What Did You Expect? (Sermon)

What Did You Expect? (Acts 3: 1-10)

One day I was reading from a book of American folk stories and I came across an interesting story about an old woman who lived in the mountains. She had a nice cabin near the top of a mountain and she really appreciated it except for one thing. The view from her door was obstructed by a neighboring peak that was bare and brown. The woman knew that beyond that peak lay a beautiful green valley and she longed to be able to see the lush valley rather than the old bare peak. Then, one day, she was listening to a circuit rider who preached the words of Christ when He said that anyone with so much faith as a grain of mustard seed could say to a mountain “Be thou removed” and it would come to pass. The woman knew now what she must do. That night she prayed that the mountain would remove itself from her view. The next morning she arose to find the mountain still in its place and said, “It’s just as I expected.”

What do we expect when we pray? Do we really expect a miracle? If so, then why are we usually amazed when one does occur? We’ve heard two drastically different approaches to directive prayer this morning. The old woman admits that she didn’t expect anything to happen, while Peter unflinchingly expected nothing less than a total and instantaneous healing of a horribly crippled man. Which end of the spectrum are we closest to?

I’d like to look at this issue today from several aspects. First, we will look at the attitude of the communicator. Secondly, we will look at the language used in effective covenant prayer. And last, we will consider what will happen when we get what we ask for.

When we consider the language used in the two prayers, we are somewhat hamstrung for the old woman’s exact words are not recorded. Therefore, we must concentrate on the words Peter used to heal the lame man. Consider this, there are many times in the Bible when certain words were chosen very carefully to convey specific meanings. This is why Revelation 22: 18 & 19 leaves us with a warning lest we should add or subtract. This is not to say that I believe that any modern translation or version of the scripture is to be valued over any other. I believe that the Holy Spirit faithfully guides those who intend to accurately translate God’s word, lest any passage should be corrupted. But, specific words have specific meanings and they were chosen with care.

Peter was a simple man, an uneducated man. He was a man with no use for tricks of the tongue or subtleties. He said what he meant and he meant what he said. First, he explained to the beggar that he and John had no money to give. This is probably something the beggar heard thousands of times a day, since he had positioned himself at such prime spot for begging. A major gate near the temple would see thousands passing through it almost any day. So this beggar would be able to ask alms from all of those people. But this was a major city where the maimed and infirm and crippled were more commonplace than in the outlying areas. Much as it is today, these types of people flocked to the cities where they perceived the begging prospects would be better than in the villages. Consequently, the people of the cities would be constantly bombarded by those seeking relief from their crushing poverty. So it would not be uncommon for anyone in a city to deny a request for alms. It would be commonplace. No explanation would be expected or offered. But Peter had something in mind when he was asked. It can be simply stated in one word: Jesus!

Peter knew full well that Jesus had told the disciples that they would see him in people who came to them with needs. So when he looked at the beggar, Peter saw Jesus asking him if he would help someone less fortunate. And then he acted for Jesus, to bring glory and honor to Jesus, to feed his master’s sheep as he had agreed he would. This is the first point to remember about effective covenant prayer. It begins and ends with Jesus as its focus, seeking to bring glory to Him and only to Him. This was Peter’s aim. I think we can safely say that the old woman’s motives had little if anything to do with honoring the Christ. Her desire was purely selfish. She wanted the mountain to move so she would have a better view. What she was hoping for was not anything that would actually help anyone. She only hoped to improve upon the value of her real estate. And then Peter spoke.

Peter did not hesitate. He did not equivocate. He didn’t beat about the bush. He simply invoked the name of Jesus of Nazareth and commanded the beggar to walk. Peter could have gone into a two-hour sermon about the misfortunes of life and how Jesus can overturn them all. He could have asked the beggar a thousand questions to satisfy his human hunger to know how the poor man had come to this sorry state. He didn’t do any of these things. He didn’t whoop and holler and shake his hand in the air while he prayed for the beggar. He didn’t ask for anyone else to come forth that felt they had a need. He just lifted the man up and said, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!” He didn’t ask the man if he believed in Jesus. He didn’t ask if he’d like to join his church or buy a commemorative figurine or a brick for the new foundation. He didn’t ask how the man had been living and if he’d promise to do right from now on. He just told that lame man to walk. And this is the second point to remember about effective covenant prayer. It is direct prayer addressing a valid need!

Peter was direct in this prayer. He was so direct that it doesn’t really sound like a prayer, but it was. He didn’t worry about whether the man deserved to be healed. He didn’t waffle around the issue and try to sandbag by saying things like, “Father, if it be thy will.” Why would it not be God’s will to help His children? Peter didn’t worry about the fact that the man was destitute and therefore unable to give a gift of gratitude to his church. He didn’t worry about anything but the fact that one of his master’s sheep was laying there crippled and he knew that the name of Jesus had more than enough power to fix the problem. How many of you know that this miracle is also a parable? I don’t mean that it’s a story about something that never happened that was told just to explain a point. This story is the point. It’s the whole point. It’s the reason we are sent into the world to bring Jesus to others. They can’t do it for themselves. The enemy has them down in total bondage. They are crippled in ways that we can’t even imagine much less see. But Jesus can heal them! The catch is that we need to do our part. But in order to do that, we need to use the language of confidence. We are told in the Bible that we will command angels. That promise is for now, not for Armegeddon! It also says that by His stripes we ARE healed. Not were. Not will be. Not someday if we say our prayers, eat all of our vegetables and always wear clean underwear. Now! Today! This very minute! We ARE healed! We need to EXPECT what we pray for to happen! And don’t stand around dusting the foyer with your jaw when it does happen! Just claim it and move on! By the way, the claiming part takes two forms. And this brings us to the last point. When you get what you prayed for, remember where the answer came from!

This is quite possibly the reason that so few of us are effective prayer warriors over a long period of time. How many times have you heard people talk with one another about something wonderful that happens to someone they both know and one of them will say to the other something like, “I’m so happy this finally happened. I’ve been praying for them for so long now.” Why do we feel that we get to take the credit when God answers our prayers? That would be like a father giving one of his sons a new pair of shoes the child needs and the other son telling his brother, “I’m sure glad Dad gave you those. I’ve been asking him to buy them for you.” We should be giving glory and honor to our Father in heaven when we receive His blessings. We should still give Him the glory when others receive the things we’ve asked God to give them. When we start pointing out how instrumental we were in their blessing, then we’re doing two things wrong. We’re taking the focus off of God’s role as the provider, and we’re seeking the acclaim of man by pointing out in a roundabout way that they probably wouldn’t have been blessed if we hadn’t prayed. We’re kind of quietly singing our own round of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”.

For recipients of God’s goodness, there is only one proper course of action. The beggar went with them into the temple courts “walking and jumping and praising God”. How often do we act like this man? How often do we claim God’s gifts by identifying them as such to the whole world? By shouting from the rooftops? More often we call up Sister Gertrude to mumble about how good God is and would she pass along our thanks to the rest of the prayer chain. Walking and jumping and praising God! This guy intended to stick out! In public! In church of all places! When was the last time we stood out to bring honor and glory to our God? I think we do it so seldom because we’re so dumbfounded when prayer works. I really think we’re shocked into silence because positive answers to prayer are not what we expected.

So the question remains “What did you expect?” When we go through trials in our lives and we pray for answers or help from God, are we ready to receive what we didn’t really expect to get? And when the help arrives do we recognize that it’s from God if we didn’t really believe that would happen? There are problems that need to be dealt with that impact our ability to recognize or discern God’s benevolence. I’m not going to go into all of those today. That’s a topic for another sermon. The point is that we need to stay connected enough to God that we recognize His care for us, in all its many forms. The Bible tells us that all good gifts are from God. He is Jehovah Jireh, the Lord provider, isn’t he? He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. That brings up an interesting story.

There was a church that was very spiritually successful and it was growing by leaps and bounds. The Head Pastor was a man who was very plain spoken and loved his flock dearly. One day there was a board meeting to decide how the church could continue due to the fact that there was a need at that point for a great sum of money to continue their ministries. The board members went to prayer and the pastor simply said, “Lord, we know that you own the cattle on a thousand hills. We would greatly appreciate if you would sell some of them to help us meet this need.” At that moment there was a light knock at the door and the secretary stuck her head in and beckoned for the pastor. He excused himself and went out to find a man standing there with a check in his hand. He explained that he had driven a herd of cattle to the stockyards near that church and they had brought such a great price that he had asked God what to do with the amount that was beyond what he had calculated they would bring. He had been directed to that church and the check met that church’s need, to the penny.

How often have you heard such stories and marveled at the power of prayer or the benevolence of God? How many more times must you hear such stories before you realize that all Christians are given this tool to meet needs in their lives and the lives of others? We are kids of the kingdom. We are joint heirs with Jesus. Heirs of the one and only God and King of the Universe is what we are! So why do we bow and scrape like beggars at His gates, surviving on crumbs and spare change? Jesus said, “You have not because you ask not!” So why don’t we ask? We say, “We’re not worthy.” You’re right! But that’s what grace is all about! Don’t you remember what the Bible says about that? God commended his love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, He sent Jesus Christ, his one and only Son, to die for us, to purchase us with his precious blood, to give us a share in his birthright.

So why are we surprised when our prayers are answered? Why do we marvel so at stories like the one about the well-favored cattleman or the cripple at the gate? Don’t we know Jesus said we would do even greater miracles than he himself had done? It all comes back to that one question. What did you expect?