Category: Fear

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The Freedom to Play in Grace

Anyone who has been around sports knows that a coach has favorites. Right or wrong, he trusts certain players to play. Those players, who perform under the favor of the coach, play without fear. They know that their coach will not remove them from the game no matter the errors they commit. Other players, who are not under the coach’s grace, play in fear. You can see it in their timidity. You can see it in their eyes after committing an error. They look directly at the bench to see if the coach will send in a substitute. When the coach does substitute, the player steps off the court or field in shame, as their chin rests upon their chest. How much better will a player play knowing the coach will not yank him off the field for making mistakes?

My collegiate coach was the epitome of success. By my senior year our cross-country team had won the conference meet seventeen years in a row and twenty-four out of twenty-five years. Oddly enough, his background was basketball, not running. When he began his coaching career, he coached basketball. As much as he loved to play the game, he hated coaching because he despised taking kids out of the game for committing errors. He hated seeing the fear in their eyes. Loving the value of sports, he shifted to running where each runner could excel on his/her own merit. He taught self-discipline and inner motivation. He encouraged us to keep our moral and spiritual lives as disciplined as our running, for he understood the stranglehold that guilt and shame have on people and its debilitating impact on athletes. He wanted us to run in grace, not guilt.  

In a performance-based environment, success is tenuous. Fear, guilt, and shame tend to hold the upper hand and fuel motivation, a fuel like using diesel to a car needing unleaded gas. Fear gnaws at people believing something dangerous will occur or that failure is around the corner. Guilt, real or imagined, captures the emotional aftermath of failing. Shame is the painful feeling of humiliation. All of these are real, and we’ve all experienced them at one time or another. Fear: ask a child who has seen the anger in a parent about to respond to their defiance. Guilt: ask anyone who has ever been pulled over by a cop. Shame: ask anyone who had to make the amusement park “walk of shame.” Fear, guilt, and shame are interwoven into the fabric of this world, and no matter how hard we try, we cannot escape those feelings.

Church is supposed to be a different story. Jesus never motivated out of fear, guilt, or shame, instead he motivated people out of freedom and grace. They had a choice. We always have a choice. The younger brother in Luke 15 was allowed to walk away while the father never shamed him for leaving, or for that matter, for returning home. Zaccheus was never guilted into giving away his wealth but did so in freedom and grace. It wasn’t the fear of Jesus that caused Peter to sink into the sea, but the fear of the waves. Still, the church has used fear, guilt, and shame to motivate members to attend services, to participate in ministries, to keep them on the straight and narrow, and to give their lives to Jesus. Let’s be honest, if you provide too much freedom and grace, what’s the end result? Oh, that question in an of itself is rooted in fear.

The Corinthian church needed motivation to change. It was a mess. A big, dirty mess. It’s not the kind of church you want to bring home to meet the family. The church was imploding from division. They divided over their favorite preacher. They divided over spiritual gifts. Their divisiveness exploited the socio-economic tension, of all places, at the Lord’s Table. At least one family was embroiled in a lawsuit against another family. They saw themselves as wise when they acted foolishly. They prided themselves on embracing a man who was sleeping with his stepmother. Idolatry held the church in its clutches. They demanded their rights while claiming to follow a Savior who gave up his rights. That’s just Paul’s first letter. His second letter may be even worse. Idolatry still had its claws clenched into their lives. They had bailed on promises made to Paul to collect monies to send as aid to the Jerusalem church. They allowed a third party to come between them and their preacher, maligning Paul’s character in the process. What I know about the Corinthian Church is that I wouldn’t want to preach for them, much less be a member of that community. And if you were honest, you wouldn’t either.

Paul could have employed fear, guilt, and shame. He could have. If I was in his shoes, I would have. I would have reached deep into the Jonathan Edwards sermon that we are nothing more than being held in the hands of an angry God, standing on the very fringes of hell’s fire. More fear. More guilt. More shame. More control.

But Paul is not me. He confronts the sin in Corinth head on, but always as a pastor who loves his flock. And here, while he is defending himself against the accusation that he breaks his promises, he appeals to a promise-keeping God who himself creates an environment of gracious freedom by removing the fear, shame, and guilt from the equation. He’s not bringing in a substitute, he’s playing the team he’s called. Here is what Paul says,

Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come (2 Cor. 1:21-22).

Paul tells us that God makes us stand firm. We do not secure ourselves, but God makes us secure and steady in Christ. It’s all on God. At our strongest, we are too weak to play or to fight. To underscore this, Paul gives us three descriptions of God’s power. He does so in very strong, definitive wording that is unmovable.

First power: God anoints us. Anointing was common for healing. More importantly, prophets and kings were anointed as being set apart for service under God. The word used here for anointing is the same word for Christ, carrying with it Messianic overtones. One might say, since we are anointed in Christ we are linked to him for his purpose. All of God’s promises are fulfilled in Christ where we are the recipients.

Second power: God puts his seal of ownership on us. A seal is an official emblem by a lord, governor, or king. By placing his seal on us, likely a reference to the Holy Spirit, we now belong to God. We are now in his possession. Remember the Toy Story moment when Woody checks the bottom of his boot to find Andy’s name? Woody knows he belongs to Andy. More importantly, Andy realizes that Woody belongs to him because his name is on his boot. Essentially, God is looking to see if he has sealed us with his Spirit, and those whom he has belong to him. No one else.  

Third power: Paul uses marketing or banking terminology of earnest money. Suppose you are shopping for a car, and you find it. Your dream car. You want it, but don’t have the money. In a bind, you make arrangements to secure the car with a downpayment. The dealer or owner holds the car until you come back with the complete amount. The downpayment guarantees full payment. Similarly, God giving us his Holy Spirit is only a down payment guaranteeing that when he returns, he will make good on his payment, and we will be filled to the full with his Spirit.

All of this effort by God to anoint us, to seal us, and to giving us a deposit guaranteeing what is to come is the means for us to play in grace. If Paul argues to the dysfunctional Corinthian church that God is creating the freedom to succeed, what does that say about you and me? It’s like we can’t fail.

The summer after I graduated from high school, I worked for a man who owned a gas station about a half a mile from where I lived. His little gas station had a good reputation in the community and for all accounts he was a successful businessman. He was a Korean War vet who ran his business like a min-military unit. He barked orders and made his employees toe the line; mistakes were not tolerated. He had mystery shoppers who came to the station for service just to report back to him. In Oregon self-service pumps were banned and attendants pumped the gas for the customer. We had to wash every windshield and ask to check the oil. The station had to be kept neat and clean, and when it wasn’t he let us know in no uncertain terms his expectations. We kept busy, and if we weren’t busy, we created work to do or looked busy because attendants sitting around was not a look he wanted. When our tills were short, he took it out of our paycheck. I was the recipient of numerous berating’s that summer. I learned a lot from him, I grew to appreciate and respect him, but if truth be known he operated out of fear. His employees, those hired to pump the gas, did not respect the man and often feared losing their jobs at any given moment.

Four years later I spent the summer in Nashville, Tennessee living with my brother to spend more time with Cile. My summer job was working for a small cookie company. The owner discovered his grandmother’s recipe for chocolate chip cookies and began to market them. By the time I was hired they had moved to a small warehouse and made a half-dozen kinds of cookies: chocolate chip, white chocolate, butterscotch, peanut butter, et.al. With convection ovens and industrial mixers, my job was to mix the dough and bake them. The owner of the company expected and anticipated that mistakes would be made. Cookies break and recipes get botched, and the boss would simply say, “I’ve ruined plenty of batches, you know where the garbage can is.” I loved working for this boss and because his work environment was built-in with a freedom to fail, I gave him my best.

As evident from these verses from 2 Corinthians, God is more like the second boss than the first. He has created an environment for us to play with freedom in grace so that we can give him our all without fear of failure. Even when we do fail him.

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)

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Measuring the Depth of Love

Exiting his study off the sanctuary, Reverend Paul Ford mounted the pulpit. Perched high above his congregation, he looked down on them like a vulture eyeing his prey or like a judge about to pronounce sentence on the guilty. His deep, baritone voice boomed and echoed throughout the church like thunder. Lacking compassion, fear reverberated throughout the congregants; even the chandelier shook when he spoke. Seeing the worst in his members, all he seemed to encounter was jealousy, scandals, and backbiting. Unleashing the wrath of God, as he tapped into their greatest fears, he led the church to the edge of hell’s fires declaring, “Death comes unexpectantly!”

“And now he will deal with you. Now the great King of Heaven and Earth will abolish and annihilate this pride! Will crush the hardened wretch of the polluted infinite abomination, and rain on him a deluge of fire and brimstone! And where is their strength, then? Where are the great leviathans who defied God, then? Where is their courage, these proud spirits? Yes . . . Death comes unexpectedly.“*

The irony is clear enough. Reverend Ford preached about arrogant pride never realizing that he himself was struggling with the very same sin. For the Reverend the condescending barriers kept him from his church. He believed that since he only had his people in church for one day, he had to inoculate them against the other six days of exposure to sin. His inoculation, instead of offering himself to them, was to bring the fires of hell closer to them. He preached without tears because his heart was far from the people he ministered to, evident that while the church was worshiping, the Reverend secluded himself to his study. In his haughtiness he looked down on them, not just physically, but spiritually as well. Ultimately, his harsh words, instead of broken tears, reflected the depth of love – or lack thereof – he had for the church.  

Around 1980 a ten-year-old-boy claimed his fifteen minutes of fame by embracing the street preacher persona at school. He dressed in a suit, held a big black Bible, and quoted Scriptures at the top of his lungs. Talk show hosts like Oprah, Larry King, and Salley Jesse Rafael lured him and his parents onto their program and sold tickets to the audience like he was a freak show for their carnival. Raised in North Carolina, and fearful of the public school’s influence on racial integration, evolution, and sex education, the boy began standing outside his school and shouting Scriptures he had memorized to his fellow students. Without offering either exposition or hope, he quoted Scriptures underscoring condemnation and hell’s fires.

Multiple problems arose from this situation. Not only parents allowing their son to be exposed to such national scrutiny, but also adults finding a warped venue of entertainment to generate an audience to fuel the greed for television ratings. More so is the caricature of the preacher who pronounces condemning judgment on his people without first identifying with them or showing any signs of compassion. In short, he shed no tears over the sins of the people he was preaching to.

Jonah was a great prophet, but he was no role model for preachers. He was called to preach to his nation’s enemies, but his national loyalties were stronger than his obedience to God. He ran away, until he could run no farther. God re-sent him to Nineveh. When he finally showed up, he gave a powerfully simple sermon, “You have forty days to repent!” (Jon. 3:4). A short, effective sermon preached over and over that omitted hope mixed with the grace and mercy of God. Still, repent the people of Nineveh did. And when God relented by showing compassion, grace, and mercy, Jonah fumed. He wanted them to burn. He envisioned how it would end. He hoped their nation would fall at the hand of God. He planned their punishment with courtside seats for the event. Jonah lacked tearful compassion, and as God pointed out to him, Jonah cared more about his own selfish needs than he did for the people he was trying to save.  

George Younce was the bass singer and frontman for Southern Gospel’s premier group, The Cathedral Quartet. With a sense of humor and comedic timing, George put the audience at ease. He and the other members of the group created a relaxed atmosphere so that their beautiful singing and harmonies might disable any resistance to the Gospel message communicated to the audience during the concert.  Laughter was at the heart of George, but so were the tears he shed as he confessed, “When the eyes leak, the head won’t swell.”

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Paul wrote a letter between what we know of as 1 & 2 Corinthians. While we do not know the contents of the letter – that letter is lost – we know it addressed the incident which he calls a “painful visit” (2 Cor. 2:1). At that visit he was rejected by the church, and essentially “run out of town.” In Paul’s letter he had to address the situation as it was getting out of hand. The antagonists were amid a hostile take-over of the church, and Paul was on the outs. He wrote them, and he spoke openly, honestly, and harshly to them causing them to grieve (2:2). Unlike others, Paul took no pleasure in writing such a letter. Even more, the words of the letter were expressed through great distress and many tears (v. 4). Paul wept while writing them. Where Paul wanted to brag and find confidence in the church (v. 3), they forced him to take the trail of tears, and as he walked that trail, grief accompanied his journey until he finally heard from Titus. Finally (7:7). Only then did he know that the deep love he had for them was finally reciprocated, showing that love is best expressed through tears, not harsh words.  

Until the mid-1990’s I always pictured Jesus as bringing the hammer to the Pharisees when he delivered the seven woes (Mt. 23). Occurring during the final week of his life, after Jesus was grilled by his adversaries but before his prediction of Jerusalem’s fall, it seemed like a perfect time for Jesus to unload on the Pharisees with both guns blazing. He let them have it, while I always pictured myself standing behind Jesus and not in front of him. I viewed myself as teammates with Jesus and I was always on his side. Always. But in the 1990’s Bruce Marchiano played Jesus in the Visual Bible on Matthew. Bruce brought an emotive side of Jesus as one who smiled and laughed with the people. Watching his portrayal of Jesus made one believe that God really did love humanity, and even found joy in being human. So when Bruce reached the seven woes in Matthew 23, he portrayed Jesus not as one who had a hammer to break the Pharisees, but as a Savior who was broken by pronouncing the woes. As his Jesus begins the first woe, his voice began to crack and its crescendo is felt through the last three woes when he proclaimed them through broken tears. The dams broke and broke hard. Such an interpretation makes sense as Jesus concludes the seven woes with his lament,

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who killed the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (Mt. 23:37).

The first time I watched this scene my pride was broken. I no longer saw myself standing behind Jesus, but in front of him as if the tearful broken heart of Jesus was directed at me.

Out in a field, Reverend Paul Ford was rehearsing his Sunday sermon. Little Pollyanna delivered a message to him from her aunt. Reverend Ford was too busy to be disturbed by this little girl, but Pollyanna was too naïve to realize who she was up against. Wanting to dismiss her, she lured him into a conversation by asking if he was glad that he was a preacher. Glad. Her father was a minister who felt like his congregation tuned him out. Not surprisingly, Ford felt the same way. Coming closer to her, he asked if her father ever solved the dilemma. He did, she replied, when he read a quote from Abraham Lincoln which said, “When you look for the bad in mankind expecting to find it, you surely will.” Intrigued, Ford had taken the bait and Pollyanna reeled him in by bringing attention to the 800 glad passages in the Bible like “Rejoice and be glad,” or “Shout for joy,” or “The joy of the Lord is my strength.” She snatched his heart when she innocently said, quoting her father, “If God took all the time to tell us 800 times to rejoice and be glad, then he must have wanted us to do it.” Pollyanna left the Reverend holding the words in his heart.

The next Sunday as Reverend Ford mounted the pulpit, he chose not to be the voice of God, but he found his own voice in confessional tones. His pride was broken. Convicted, he decided to spend more time on the 800 glad passages and to share those passages in his sermons. His deepest regret was his failure to sit and to spend his time with the church as a fellow struggler against sin, for the true way to inoculate people against sin is to walk and sit with them.

What Reverend Ford finally realized was the depth of love is never measured in the harsh words we speak, but in the broken tears we shed for one another.

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)

* Pollyanna is a 1960 movie by Disney, with Haley Mills as Pollyanna and Karl Malden as the Reverend Paul Ford. This script was lifted from www.insearchofthesinglechristian.blogspot.com from 2011. Accessed 2-19-24.  

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The Dangerously Necessary Journey through the Valley of the Shadow of Death

Sheep are vulnerable. Without protection they’re easy prey for predators. Without guidance they’ll break from the flock and find themselves lost in the wilderness. Without green pastures and quiet waters starvation is imminent. Without oil poured on an open wound infections will set in. Sheep are defenseless.

Valleys are dangerous. Predators hide in the shadows. Narrow paths make for treacherous journeys. Food and water may be scarce. Finding the sheep pinned in offers no escape route if attacked. With the long journey, sometimes you wonder if you’ll ever make it. Valleys are perilous.

Still, shepherds lead their flocks of sheep through the valley of the shadow of death. They must in order to secure greener pastures and fresher water for their flocks.

The valley of the shadow of death is a real place. Faith is challenged. Fears are exposed. Loneliness prevails. Danger is heightened.

We’ve all walked through this valley. You’ve been there and so have I. It’s never our first choice, but it’s an inevitable place to journey. Sickness. Death. Abandonment. Joblessness. Poverty. Backstabbing. Finances. Such a journey tests every fiber of our faith because every fiber of our faith needs testing.

When we find ourselves walking through the valley of the shadow of death, we remember how God’s rod and staff bring comfort. The rod was used to fend off predators, while the staff was used to gently prod and guide the sheep. With its hook at the end of the staff, it could be a rescue device for the sheep. Thus, with the Shepherd’s protective rod and staff present, the sheep will not fear the lurking evil.

When we find ourselves walking through the valley of the shadow of death, we recall how Jesus endured this same valley. As he prayed in the garden, he prayed for the cup he started drinking from to be taken from him (Lk. 22:42). Like sweat drops of blood, the anxiety took hold of Jesus. Instead of removing the cup, God sent an angel to strengthen Jesus (Lk. 22:43-44). While hanging on the cross, Jesus quoted Psalm 22:1, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk. 15:34) to express the status of his faith. Even the Hebrews writer commentary on Jesus is that his suffering helped make him perfect for our eternal salvation (Heb. 5:8-9). So while we’re called to the valley, we walk a road he himself has walked.

When we find ourselves walking through the valley of the shadow of death, we recount the presence, not only of the Shepherd who leads the sheep, but also our fellow sheep who walk with path with us. The Psalmist is clear that the Shepherd leads the sheep. Shepherds have flocks, not a single sheep. Safety thrives in numbers. So we walk this path with the shepherd and with the flock, knowing many other sheep have come this way. We walk paths others have trod. We face the same danger. We endure the same struggles. We are on this journey together.

We are vulnerable and defenseless. The road we walk is often dangerous and perilous. But we are not alone. We have each other. We have those who have gone before us. And we have a Shepherd. And we are going to make it to greener pastures with fresher water.

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)

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The Faith Continuum: Striking the Balance Between Fear & Arrogance

“I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)

Not long ago I watched a video of someone trying to speak into the anxiety we’re experiencing as a society. He discussed the tension between fear and faith. The perspective he offered provided a single choice between two clearly defined actions: fear or faith. With lines drawn we’re given a specific choice, and the biblical narrative accentuates the two decisions: we can either act in faith or fear.  

When the disciples are crossing the Sea of Galilee in the storm and, whether Jesus is sleeping in the boat (Mk. 4:35-41) or walking on the water (Mk. 6:47-52), their reaction is the same, fear instead of faith. When Jesus is arrested, the twelve scattered into the night, choosing fear instead of faith (Mk. 14:40). The fear of the young man present was so strong he’d rather be caught naked than with Jesus (Mk. 14:51). Following the resurrection, and right before Jesus appeared to them, ten of the disciples were hiding behind locked doors in fear of the Jews (Jn. 20:19). If they came after Jesus, they’re coming after the twelve.

We know fear. It paralyzes our faith and keeps us from stepping out of the boat and onto the water. Once walking in faith, it draws our eyes off of Jesus and onto the waves so that we sink. Fear keeps us from making decisions. Doubt and guilt jump on board for fear tells us, “what if the alternative we make is the wrong choice?” So we resort to a “no-decision” believing it’s the safest decision. And in the process, faith is pushed to the corner of our lives where it simply collects dust.

For the longest time I saw fear and faith as the only options. I now feel it’s more complicated. First, while fear stands on one side of faith, arrogance stands on the other. Arrogant pride is often harder to dissect for it comes off as confidence. And the assurance is not in God, but self. It does not point to God but to self. Samson thumbing his nose at God and his parents by violating his Nazarite vow (see Judges 14:3 which should be translated, “she’s the right one in my eyes”). Jesus told the parable of the two men going to the temple to pray, and the prideful one bragged about his piety and measured his spirituality against the guy next to him (Lk. 18:9-14). When the devil tempted Jesus, he quoted from Psalm 91 (ironically, a Psalm that many have posted on FaceBook), tempting Jesus to jump to his “death.” Jesus refused the bait and warned the devil of putting God to the test (Lk. 4:9-11).  Jesus’ challenges us to seek humility, for if not on your own, God will ensure humility (Lk. 18:14).

But the second realization is that faith is all about a continuum, as degrees are present on either side of faith. The father in Mark 9 had a level of faith, but his faith was somewhere between faith and fear. Peter had faith, but when he promised to die with Jesus (Mk. 14:29), his faith was somewhere between faith and arrogance. While we aim for faith, we generally find ourselves fluctuating between fear and faith or faith and arrogance.

So here we stand in faith, which is now feeling like a moving target. And it is. And it’s always felt like a moving target, not because God moves it but we move it. Faith’s “move” occurs because we fluctuate between fear and arrogance. Faith “moves” because of our sinful nature will not allow us to remain steady. So in truth, faith is constant, we are not.

So how do you know where you stand? If you’re even asking this question, you’re probably closer to acting in faith than you think. If you’re pointing the spotlight on others and off of yourself, you’re probably standing closer to faith than you think. If your biblical assurance is mixed with the humble reality of “I could be wrong,” then you’re probably drawn to faith more than you think. If you have a heart to serve your neighbor, then you’re inching your way to faith more than you think. If you speak in confessional tones, then you’re probably nearer to faith than you think. If you make decisions based on the good of others more than what’s good for you, then your edging closer to faith more than you think.

“I do believe,” was the cry of the father. It’s our cry too as we continue to walk in faith without fear or arrogance.

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e. only God is glorified!)