Showing posts with label grace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grace. Show all posts

St. Nicholas, Gifts and Christmas

Posted by Randy | Labels: , , , , , , | Posted On Sunday, December 12, 2010 at 6:16 AM

In the Centuries following Jesus’ death Christianity was outlawed in the Roman Empire.

Late in the third century a man named Nicholas was born, who went on to become at a very young age the Bishop of Myra, while Christianity was still outlawed. This Bishop of Myra, Nicholas, later was recognized as a saint and called Saint Nicholas. He was known for his generosity to people in need, his love for children, and his concern for sailors and ships.

One of the most famous stories about Nicholas demonstrates his great love for children. The story says a poor man had three daughters. He was too poor to offer a dowry, which likely meant the girls would never marry and would probably be sold into slavery. Mysteriously, on three different occasions, a bag of gold appeared in their home, providing the needed dowries.

It is said Nicholas tossed the dowry through an open window or down the chimney and landed in stockings left by the fire to dry. This led to the custom of children hanging stockings to eagerly await a gift from St. Nicholas.

Through this story and many more, Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, and later, St. Nicholas, became known as a very generous, loving person, especially known as a gift-giver who had special concern for children, especially those who had little.

Within a few hundred years the story of St. Nicholas merged with the Christmas story, and it became common to give simple and needed gifts at Christmas, especially to children.

Genuine gift-giving should never be out of compulsion or to see what we get in return. Giving gifts is a way of expressing love and gratitude. Giving gifts at Christmas isn’t simply about what we get, but reminds us of what God has already done for us in Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 2:8-9 (NLT2): “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.” 

Salvation is a gift from God – something we can’t earn or cause or bring about ourselves. It is a gift, given out of sheer undeserved grace that tells us so much about God. True gifts are always like that – they tell us more about the giver than the one who receives it. As St. Nicholas gave to needy children, it said everything about his true character and concerns.

Yet, God doesn’t give us a gift just to sit around and admire – He gives us this gift of grace in Jesus Christ to transform our lives, so that He can use us to transform the lives of others.

God’s Christmas is about giving a gift that no one deserves, but He gives anyway, so that we, too, can give that same gift to others. And they don’t deserve it anymore than we do. Yet, when we fail to give this gift, we’ve missed the point of the gift in the first place. The gift is always given to encourage others to give.

2 Corinthians 5:17-20 (NLT2): “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!’”

Meeting People on Their Terms and Turf

Posted by Randy | Labels: , , , , , , , , | Posted On Friday, October 23, 2009 at 12:01 AM

Acts is an amazing and extremely relevant book for anyone seeking to follow Jesus Christ. Every chapter is jam-packed with information about how the early church dealt with issues that are just as real today.

For instance, in our reading today in Acts 17-18, we read of Paul's encounter with the Greek philosophers in Athens. These were men who sat around all day pondering the meaning of life and the universe. They were intrigued by Paul's message about a foreign god. These men were searching for answers and meaning in life, but they hadn't found it yet. Acts 17:21 says that everyone in Athens "...seemed to spend all their time discussing the latest ideas."

That statement sounds so much like 21st Century America to me. While there are many Christians in our land, there are many others who are searching for answers in all the latest fads and philosophies. Maybe they were exposed to a strange form of Christianity, and assumed that was the norm for all of Christianity. Maybe they're just rebels and want to figure it out for themselves. I'm sure you can think of more reasons why some folks seem to be intent on trying the religion or spirituality du jour.

Not much has changed in 2000 years! So, Paul's approach to the Athenians may give us some insight into trying to reach folks today who still haven't made a decision to follow Jesus Christ. And the first thing Paul didn't do was antagonize or belittle the Athenians' beliefs. He took them seriously, rather than just dismissing them as wrong. He complemented them and affirmed them, knowing that God cared about these men as much as He cared about anyone else.

If becoming a Christian were about having all the right facts, then showing the Athenians how they were wrong might have made sense. But becoming a Christian is about developing a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It starts and ends with relationship, and that also gives us a great insight into how we share our faith with others - through relationships. We don't win friends and influence enemies by pounding them over the head with a Bible or telling them they're going to Hell because they don't believe in Jesus Christ. We influence people as we share the love of Christ with them, as we demonstrate we care about them. Jesus died for those far from him, just as he died for me and you. We're all saved by grace, through faith, so none of us can brag about how good we are or how much better we are than anyone else (Ephesians 2:8-9).

When we show love and respect to someone who believes differently than we do, who perhaps is caught up in the latest spiritual fad, we gain the privilege of being heard. As trust grows, we can go deeper and deeper in our conversations. As the relationship grows, we can share our own experiences and understandings of the Christian faith in honest, straightforward ways. We can have genuine conversations where the love of Christ works in us and through us. I've always heard that loving people into heaven is almost always more effective than scaring them out of hell. Jesus always had time for the sinners - what bugged him were the religious elites who thought they knew it all.

I've been a pastor for over twenty years now, but the more I know, the more I know I don't know. The longer I walk this journey the more the Holy Spirit tries to push that unholy pride out of me. I really am no better than the person far from God, but I am saved by the grace of God - and that makes all the difference in the world. Paul was no better than the Athenians, but he loved them through Jesus Christ, and he tried to meet them at their point of interest and need. Then he walked them along, with integrity and respect. Some laughed at him, "...but others said, 'We want to hear more about this later.'" (17:32) And Verse 34 says, "...some joined him and became believers."

Paul met the Athenians on their terms, on their turf, and some eventually chose to become followers of Jesus Christ. That model is just as relevant today as it was 2000 years ago. Who do you know that needs the love of Christ in their life? How can you love that person and meet them at their point of interest and need? It may take months, even years, but I know that God honors all our efforts, and no relationship with a Christ follower by a person seeking the truth ever comes back void.


Standing Up for the Gift of Grace, by Faith

Posted by Randy | Labels: , , , , , , , , , | Posted On Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 12:01 AM

Chapters 15 and 16 of Acts are filled with powerful stories, including the beginnings of Paul's second missionary journey, and there's no way I can do them all justice. So, I'm going to focus on the first Jerusalem council, found in Acts 15, because a very important decision was made here by the early church that has huge implications for us today.

In Acts 10-11, Peter had his first encounter with Gentiles, and discovered that when they placed their faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit came to live in them, just as He was doing in Jews who were placing their faith in Christ. This event showed that God had much bigger plans than the salvation of a relatively small race - He was setting in motion the salvation of the world!

Now, in Acts 15, we read that some Jewish Christians were trying to force these new Gentile Christians to first become Jews through the rite of circumcision. There was an act they had to do to become a follower of Christ. But Paul and Barnabas strongly disagreed with this teaching. So, the church in Antioch of Syria decided to send Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem to consult with the apostles and elders of the church, at what has been called the first Jerusalem council.

There's more to this story, but it's interesting to note a pattern that begins here that would carry on for a few centuries in the early church. A controversy arises that threatens to split the church. Because there is no written Scripture, as we have today, or least none that was yet accepted as what we would call New Testament Scripture, how did the early church make decisions? By councils - gatherings of church leaders who prayerfully sought the leading and guidance of the Holy Spirit. And it's also interesting to note that these controversies - some of which would be labeled heresies - caused the church to get clear about what it believed and what it didn't. The doctrines of the church aren't heavy handed rules but are more like foul lines in baseball that help Christ followers know what's in bounds and what's out of bounds. Otherwise, well-meaning Christ followers can drift into all sorts of dangerous beliefs. Doctrines are important, and they were often settled or determined in response to a controversy or heresy, such as the one we see here in Acts 15.

Back to our story, when Paul and Barnabas arrive in Jerusalem, they discover the same controversy has been brewing there as well (15:5). "So the apostles and elders met together to resolve this issue." (15:6, NLT) After lots of discussion, Peter shared the conclusion they had reached:

"God knows people's hearts, and he confirmed that he accepts Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he cleansed their hearts through faith. So why are you now challenging God by burdening the Gentile believers with a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear? We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus." (15:8-11)

This became the crucial distinction for the Christian faith, and yet a battle that continues to be fought today. How often do we find ourselves believing we have to follow certain rules, do certain actions, meet certain standards, in order to measure up and be saved? The Bible often calls these "works." How many people have said, "Let me clean up my act first, and then I'll commit my life to Christ." But what they're saying is actually this, "There are certain things (works) I must do first (such as circumcision in the First Century church), before I will be acceptable to God." But Peter called grace "undeserved." We don't deserve it; we can't earn it; we can't be good enough to gain it. We can only receive it, by faith, with gratitude.

This was a battle Paul would fight over and over again with Jewish Christians in many of his writings. He tried to spell it out very clearly in his letter to the Ephesians: "God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can't take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it." (2:8-9) We are not saved by works. We are saved by grace, through faith. This became, in fact, the rallying cry of the Protestant Reformation nearly five hundred years ago.

This decision by the first Jerusalem council would set the foundation for a Christian faith that would never be first and foremost about rules, works and meeting certain criteria, but about a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. We can't earn it, and we certainly don't deserve it. But, we can accept it gratefully, and then seek to serve Christ as an expression of our gratitude, rather than as a condition to earn our salvation.

This misunderstanding is still with us today in many circles, with many folks in our churches closer to the beliefs of the Jewish faith than the Christian faith. Which is why it is such Good News - no one has to measure up to receive this "undeserved" gift of grace - in fact, no one can measure up! We're all in the same boat, so none of us is in a position to brag or boast. We are all saved by grace, through faith!

Works = Conformity = Fear: Why I Need Grace

Posted by Randy | Labels: , , | Posted On Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at 7:33 AM

This morning I'm doing my Life Journal reading, and I'm finding all kinds of great stuff. I see things in Deuteronomy 16-18 and Psalm 38 that speak to me. But it's when I'm reading in Galatians 2 that God really opens my eyes.

Paul is talking about a confrontation he had with Peter. Peter had learned from God in a vision in Acts 10 that the old ways of the Law no longer applied to Christ followers. In fact, all those things had become "works," ways to earn God's favor, and they were no longer needed because of Christ. Peter now knew he was free to have fellowship with Gentiles, the old food laws no longer applied, and he would ultimately determine that Gentiles didn't have to become Jews first (being circumcised, followed the rules of the Law, etc.) in order to become followers of Christ.

Peter comes to Antioch, Paul tells us, and at first was really demonstrating a faith and trust in Christ's plan. But, when some Jewish Christians joined him, he reverted to older ways, setting aside many of the freedoms Christ had won for him and all his followers. Under the pressure of conformity, fear reared its head in his life, as it had the night he betrayed Jesus, and he allowed the old ways of Law and works to regain a hold on him.

Paul writes in Galatians 2:18 (NLT): "...I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down." As I read this, I felt like I have often been in Peter's place, rebuilding the old system of law that God's grace through Jesus Christ had already torn down in my life. The culture around us is built on "law," or "works," so that people are applauded by their "doing" even more than "being" who they are. This isn't all bad in our culture, but when this cultural norm bleeds over into our who we are, we find it easy to conform. A lifestyle built on how well we do is easy to understand: do good and be rewarded; do bad and suffer for it. But since we can't be "good" all the time, the danger is that we allow this cultural lifestyle to begin to dictate who we are. The adjectives and adverbs that describe how we are living, over time, become the nouns that indicate who we are. We become trapped in this and start feeling the need to do things to build ourselves up in our eyes and the eyes of those around us. This leads to cultural conformity and peer pressure. And I've discovered over the years I can easily fall back into this just as Peter did.

What I get out of this story is that whenever I feel pressure to conform, whenever fear begins narrowing my options and choices, I better be careful. There's a high likelihood that I'm rebuilding "the old system of law" that Christ has already torn down in my life. And what I've discovered is that, in our culture, this is typical, the norm, for us to feel a natural (sin-generated) pull toward this conformity and, ultimately, fear.

This is why grace is the answer! God's grace accepts me - I'm empowered to be me, not the cultural norm. Grace enables me to fight conforming to the patterns and culture of this world and, instead, be transformed into a new person (Romans 12:2). When I live in God's grace and love, His perfect love pushes out the fear (1 John 4:18) so that we don't have to "conform" but we can live freely as the individuals God created us to be, for whom Jesus died in order to free us, and for whom the Holy Spirit empowers us to become.

The "take away" for me in this reading is that when I feel the pressure to conform, the fear of not fitting in or doing what everyone wants or expects me to do, I'd better take a step back and see if I'm not rebuilding "the old system of law" in my life that Christ helped me tear down. The truth is, this is going to be a life-long struggle for me, and it's why I need to spend time in God's Word each day, to remind me of this grace that sets me free! I hope you're discovering the power of this grace in your life, too!
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