I remember a saying from back in the day, “Christians are servants, not doormats.” How much should you put up with from a world increasingly disrespectful of faith? What’s your personal limit? Men’s Ministry tomorrow at 8:00a, join us for food, fellowship, and discussion. Officers will meet for prayer at 7:00a.
You can help with Sanctuary seating by not leaving gaps, especially in the first 5 rows. Two people sitting on the end of an otherwise empty row are usually enough to discourage someone else from sitting down. Of course, if you need to be there, please do so. But if not, please move toward the center of the row for others. If we have to go to two services we will. Until then, we’ll do our best to squeeze in. Thank you.
Here’s an important idea I’m going to call “causal disconnect” until I can come up with a better name. Most of the time we tend to think we know the future, and we say: “If I follow course ‘A’ then ‘B’ will happen.” We all do this — we have a basic level of confidence predicting outcomes based on actions. We say things like, “Oh, I would never talk to her about that, she’ll just get upset” or “you know how that’s going to turn out.” Notice it’s often the counsel of despair and hopelessness. But the real problem is this: God himself as a “present help” hardly ever appears in this kind of calculus. If you prayed before you spoke to her; would that change the outcome? Do we really know the future? Doesn’t Scripture say that God alone knows the end from the beginning? Those questions invite hope and possibility grounded in the belief that God is alive.
Here it is from another angle. When I was a deacon in my 20s, we used to encourage the people we supported from the deacons’ fund to get jobs, even if the job couldn’t cover all household expenses. I remember once we had a capable tradesman delivering pizzas. You might think, “Well, of course. Any supplemental income helps the bottom line.” But that wasn’t why we did it (here’s the “causal disconnect”): we asked that man to work because God had made him to work (Gen. 2:15), and we believed, or were trying to learn to believe, that in honoring God he would show us a path through that family’s current crisis. We had disconnected financial viability from work, and connected it instead to the honor of God.
This is the simple calculus of Mt. 6, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things [financial viability/stability] will be added to you.” It’s a God-centered equation.
You may be thinking, “I know plenty of people who are clever, worked hard, and now they’re rich. Don’t tell me hard work and financial viability are not connected.” Certainly. Just not for the people of God, in whom God is cultivating faith. Think of Hag. 1:6 “You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.” Oddly enough, it’s believers who suffer all this, because God is frustrating them intentionally so they will turn to him. Causal relationships that work fine in the world (work = money), may or may not work for us, depending on what God is doing with us. But regardless, the mission is to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.
I think the takeaway is to look out on the practical, natural world and see the presence and hand of a supernatural God. Don’t cave in to the world’s purposes for the activities of life: worship, family, work, rest, vacation, recreation, relationships…why does God have you in all those things? What’s he doing? What if vacation isn’t about feeling rested, but about building strength for his kingdom; what if work isn’t for money but for building a believing haven/home in the midst of an unbelieving world; what if you’re married not to have your desires satisfied, but to learn to serve and build the next generation of worshipers. Disconnect yourself from ordinary causes. On that frontier, life begins.