"Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” – Jesus (Mark 9:50)
Pastor Paul Dirks holds a special place in my heart. Pastor Paul was the Sr. Pastor of Bethel Grace Baptist Church all through the 1990s into the early years of the new millennium. He was my pastor, and I had the privilege of serving under him on the church staff for several years.
On one occasion we were having a celebration at Bethel Grace. I don’t remember what we were celebrating that night. What remains crystal clear is a conversation he had with a guest as I listened in.
“When life takes a difficult turn, Christians often remind others with a shrug, ‘His ways are not our ways’—communicating the mysteries of divine providence by which He orchestrates events in ways that surprise us. The mysterious depth of divine providence is of course, a precious biblical truth. But the passage in which we find ‘His ways are not our ways’ comes from Isaiah 55. And in this context, it means something quite different. It is not a statement of the surprise of God’s mysterious providence but of the surprise of God’s compassionate heart.” (Dane Ortlund, Gentle & Lowly)
6 “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; 7 let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. 8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55
“The Son of Man did come not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)
What an amazing statement that is. The Lord Jesus is the one at the top of the org chart. He is the King of the cosmic Hill. He is the Lord of all. There is no one higher. And no one came lower.
He served His people in the most stunning of ways. By enduring crucifixion. By emptying the cup of wrath. By putting away sin. By providing atonement. By conquering death. By removing its sting. By giving robes of righteousness. By loving sinners in desperate need of grace.
We serve the God who continues to serve His people with tender care.
Why is it that discouragement comes so easily? How is it that we keep getting demoralized? Why do we get drained of confidence that we will actually grow in God? We hear this talk about transformation at church. But the struggle with sin continues week in and week out. Sometimes, we feel defeated. We come to think that Christ-likeness in this life is just a dream.
I wonder how many of us can identify with these kind of thoughts and desires:
What a difference between ‘losing heart’ and ‘taking heart.’ Losing heart comes when we think things are out of control and there is nothing good in sight. Taking heart happens when we have living hope and confidence in good things to come.
Joyful and Triumphant. That’s the title of a sermon series I am preaching from Matthew’s Gospel this Christmas. That language is drawn from a hymn that I think most of us are familiar with. Perhaps you know the lyrics of it by heart.
O come, all ye faithful Joyful and triumphant O come ye, o come, ye to Bethlehem Come and behold Him Born the King of Angels! O come let us adore Him O come let us adore Him O come let us adore Him Christ the Lord!
I realize that some may read this series title and think, “Joyful and Triumphant? Really?! Now? In December of 2020?”
“Jeff, maybe you did not know that is the Christmas the Grinch was finally able to steal! Here we are in another stay at home order in the state of California. This three-week ‘decree’ began Sunday, December 6. Those three weeks takes us to December 27. That’s two days after Christmas!”
“We are supposed to be staying at home. No gatherings. No restaurants. No Christmas parties. No nothing. If we do venture out, we are to be masked up at all times. And we are supposed to be joyful and triumphant? Now? When small business owners are hearing the death knell of their livelihood? When it seems like discouragement and depression are spreading as rapidly as the coronavirus? When hospital workers are at wits end? When families are grieving the loss of loved ones?”
“Joyful and triumphant in the midst of this?”
Yes. The church of the risen Lord can have a sincere sense of joy. The citizens of the Kingdom of God can have true triumph in their hearts. Even now. Even amidst this hardship. Here is some encouragement along these lines.
“God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Letter to fiancée Maria von Wedemeyer From prison, December 13, 1943
This has been a difficult December.
This week my heart has been burdened hearing the struggles of small business owners. Many are wondering if and how their livelihood will survive the current lockdowns. Frankly, I’ve been frustrated with the extent of these measures, especially seeing some civil authorities breach the orders they require of everyone else. Meanwhile, my heart has been gripped and sobered by reports coming out of LA hospitals. Our church supports a chaplain to the hospitals of LA County. Chaplain Chuck has called for prayer as he describes the daily plight being faced by ICU patients, doctors, nurses and support staff. I’ve heard other hospital workers make similar appeals. Many of us are also trying to wrap our hearts and minds around a Christmas season with much smaller family gatherings. The tension in all this is real.
This week I’ve been walking at night listening to a book called God is in the Manger. It’s a compilation of Christmas reflections written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. They are drawn from letters and journal entries written during his time in a series of Nazi prison camps. They express his heart as he awaited trial, separated from family, for opposing Hitler. The amazing thing is, with all the trappings of Christmas celebration stripped away, he found the innermost glory of Christmas shining all the more.
Christmas did not evade him. It was not cancelled for him in the Tegel Prison Camp or even the Buchenwald Concentration Camp. By the grace of God, he had the sense of being drawn into the love of Christ all the more. Other prisoners later testified to his uncommon peace and joy.
“I think we are going to have an exceptionally good Christmas. The very fact that every outward circumstance precludes our making provision for it will show whether we can be content with what is truly essential. I used to be very fond of thinking up and buying presents, but now that we have nothing to give, the gift God gave us in the birth of Christ will seem all the more glorious.” Bonhoeffer, December 1, 1943.
Our circumstances are not the ones experienced by faithful Christians in Nazi Germany. But as things are painfully pared back, I pray the gift of God in Christ shines all the more. No Grinch can take away the heart of Christmas. Jesus lives. His Spirit is alive in us.
God was in the manger. God was on the cross. God was in the grave. God has risen from death. God is enthroned in heaven. God is in our hearts. God will see us through.
This morning I woke up to a fog bank covering our neck of the woods in Long Beach. I checked the cameras on surfline to find the same in Huntington Beach. Later in the morning the fog burned off and I made it to the south side of the pier just in time. The sun was shining. The waves were small but playful enough for some saltwater therapy, a.k.a., surfing. There was barely a whisper of breeze, and this part of the Pacific Ocean was like sheet glass with clouds of whitewater rolling in. What amazed me was how the water was remarkably clear. It was a beautiful turquoise color and I could see straight to the bottom of the ocean floor, even to the ridges in the sand. Perfect clarity. Then, just about when the time on the parking meter was expiring, another bank of fog rolled in (pictured) and I got out of the water. My surfing session was perfectly timed with the sunshine. Kind providence was providing kindly.
What can we say about 2020 that has not been said already? For many, the complexity of life and the issues at hand seem as challenging as ever. Above all, I am praying to see the grace and power and mercy and goodness and righteousness and truth of the Living God with ever increasing clarity. I see these things most vividly reading the Scripture and looking upon Christ and reading the doctrine He prompted His disciples to record. I see the hints of these things out in the midst of the amazing things His hand has made. I see these things drawing close to people praising Him together. Someday, I will see Him face to face. Lord, help me to see you clearly and walk in your ways.
“Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Salt Is Good 