Atlanta Westside Presbyterian Church
All Too Much
Toxic Sorrow
Guided by Fire
His Hand and His Face
Satan
Busyness
Denominations
Tribalism
Holy Sex
di Walter Henegar
Contrary to popular belief, God does sometimes give us more than we can handle. Two reasons he may do this are: a) so we will share our burdens with others, and b) so we will give up idolatrous cravings that will never satisfy us. Moses was right: The burden of leading the Israelites was too much for him. So, God put his Spirit on 70 elders to share Mose’s burden. And because the Israelites’ craving for meat was effectively idolatrous, God gave them so much meat that it became loathsome to them. In both cases, God’s “too much” became an instrument of grace. By stripping us of the illusions of self-sufficiency and stuff-sufficiency, we are liberated to trust in the all-sufficiency of Jesus.
Complaining is the worst way to deal with real hardships. It’s highly contagious, talks to everyone but God, idealizes the past, minimizes God’s present provision, and abdicates our ability to redeem the situation. In short, it breeds mistrust in God. Believers, however, have rich resources to resist complaining – starting with a better mediator than Moses: Jesus himself – who absorbed the wrath of God that we deserved. Jesus invites us to lament our hardships directly to God as a way of sharing in his sufferings. And the better we understand the death-and-resurrection pattern of Jesus’ life, the more we trust that good things await us, too. Even better, his Holy Spirit empowers us to improve and redeem our hardships in ways that bless others with contagious hope.
God customizes his guidance to fit what he knows that we need. During the Israelites’ 40 years in the wilderness, God guided them with a supernatural manifestation of his presence as a fire-cloud over the tabernacle. Now that the Spirit of God lives within those who believe, he uses multiple means to guide us, including scripture, prayer and providence – all interpreted in community. Whatever the means, God’s goal is to make us both wise and dependent on him. To do that, we must trust his character, understanding that he is both present but not conspicuous, soothing and but not safe, reliable but not predictable. Especially when it seems like our lives are going nowhere fast, he is still hard at work changing us.
Aaron's stunning benediction reminds us that God's heart is to bless us. The blessings from his hand are positive circumstances of provision, protection and peace. The blessing of his face is his gracious presence with us, lit with delight and lifted in attention. Knowing how the two relate is essential to Christian growth, and the Gospel of Jesus is the key. When we seek first the blessing of his face, the blessings of his hand grow sweeter. But when we seek first the blessings of his hand, they fail to satisfy, and we grow distant from him. God’s face beats God’s hand every time.
Satan is the deceiver, the accuser, and the tempter, but Jesus is our teacher, our defender, and our savior.
Busyness is a malaise that affects us all in different ways. Growing in this area of life is a group project that requires multiple sources of wisdom applied in community over a long period of time. At root, we need to see ourselves the way God sees us: as his beloved agents in the world.
Acts 15 doesn't tell us which denomination to join, but it does give us a melody we should hear in every church and denomination. The three main "chords" of this melody answer the questions: What are they guarding? Where do they appeal? and How do they decide? Ultimately every church should guard the unity that Jesus creates in the Gospel; we should submit our interpretations of tradition and experience to scripture; and we should seek to make decisions with humility and an eagerness to sacrifice for the sake of unity.
Tribes can bind us together, but they can also blind us to the beauty of the Gospel. Judges 12 illustrates what happens when the normal human desire to belong warps into sinful self-protection and other-harming tribalism. We use “shibboleths” to actively or passively exclude people from our circle of trust. In today’s polarized climate, tribalism also cuts us off from learning ways that we may be wrong and ways others might be right. Jesus, it turns out, was also a repeated victim of tribalist judgments, but he refused to judge people through a tribalist lens. Christians who have been forgiven of their tribalism have the privilege of reflecting his love by rejecting shibboleths, asking questions and defining terms. Ultimately, anti-tribalist believers reflect more of the beauty of Jesus’ Gospel.
The Bible's view of sexuality is grounded in the Gospel. The heart of sex is a reflection of the permanent, exclusive, covenant that God makes with all who are united to Christ by faith. The revolution of sex is the way the Gospel invariably pulls against parts of the dominant cultural narrative. The power of sex is its ability to either domineer and waste our energy in unfruitful ways – or to deepen the bond of marital love. The weakness of sex is its temporary character in light of eternity and the way its blessings inevitably require sacrifice and "deaths" on the way to resurrection life.
Discipleship Administrator Abrm McQuarters preached this sermon on James 5:7-12.