Today was a very good day. This morning I got up, not thinking very much about God. I began to catch up on reading my Business Week magazines as I haven’t read them in a while. As I read the magazine from this past September 11th, I found an article in there about one of the companies that had the most people die in the world trade center attack and that prompted me to go to the internet to sort of relive those moments. And I came to a very chilling audio clip of a man who was trapped on the 105th floor of the North Tower. He was on a call with 911 pleading with them to send help right away. He knew that he was in danger, but he did not know that those would be the last 4 minutes and 54 seconds of his life as the North Tower would come crashing down. There’s something about a dying man’s last words that are chilling. At this point all masks are torn off, and we can glimpse into the heart of the real man. What I heard was terror. Absolute terror at the prospect of dying. He said that he was not ready to die. He said “we’re young men, and we’re not ready to die”. Towards the end of the call his voice was noticeably becoming more desperate, more frantic. His voice had a really eerie tone to it as of one who is terrified to the core of their soul. He knew that he was in a predicament over which he had no control. It was in God’s hands and he did not know him. He said “Tell God to send the wind from the west”. He was suffocating in the smoke. He continued to plead to the lady on the line for help, but deep down he must have known that his pleading was futile. The lady asked for the name of another person that was in his office. He spelled the name out exhaustingly, frighteningly. Then we hear what sounds like an explosion in the background, and the caller screams at the top of his voice, “Oh God, Oh!…” The call is terminated…

This call, to me, was a gift of God this morning, because it brought me face to face with death. This morning I looked death in the eye, and I could begin to feel the fear and terror that that man on the 105th floor of the north tower felt. Death became very real to me, and I knew that death would be my destiny at some point. And what are we to do? Death is an enemy, and one that we cannot overcome by any earthly means. I kneeled down at my couch and trembled before the Lord. “Lord, you are awesome, and your wrath is terrifying, and who can stand up to you? But your word says that Jesus died on the cross and bore your wrath for us…for us…” I broke down into tears, and I sobbed for a few minutes as I was hit in the face like a ton of bricks with the love of God. All of the sudden the fear left and was replaced with a love so unimaginable, so overflowing, so transforming and uplifting, that I was filled with joy and awe and with love toward God that despite the great wrath of God, we have been given a Savior so that if we trust in him, our eternal destiny becomes life rather than death.

Afterwords I went for a walk around the condo community. I came back and read some more on the internet. I came across an article about another man trapped in the South Tower on the 81st floor, just above the impact zone. Only his story was different. He was a believer in the Lord. He saw the plane coming from his office window, he ducked under his desk with the bible he read that morning lying on top. The plane crashed through part of his office. Everything around him came crashing down, he was trapped in a pile of rubble. He prayed to God to take over. He asked God to see his wife and kids again. Just then he saw a light. It turned out to be the flashlight of another office worker. The office worker told the trapped man that he would have to bust down the drywall in order to be saved. With unnatural strength the trapped man broke free of the pile of rubble and began to punch the wall. He broke a hole in the wall and with the other man’s help was able to get out of the office. They began a decent through the stairwell that happened to be the only exit out of the building as the others were severed by the plane. They reached the ground safely and just a few minutes after they left the tower it collapsed.

Lord thank you for the stories you gave me this morning. Thank you for bringing me face to face with death and demonstrating your love and victory in the midst of it. I love you and may your name be praised amongst all the nations, in Jesus name, Amen.

Caleb

Today when I worked out, I saw this HOT girl. She looked East African. Very attractive. Usually I’m pretty shy, but I thought for her I’d break out of my shyness and say something. But since lust is something that I struggle with, I made a point to not try to stare at her or think of her in a lustful way. I prayed to God that he would guard my heart against lust and that he might provide a way for me to speak to her. So I was hoping that we would “coincidentally” sit next to each other on one of the machines, and then that would be natural enough for me to try to strike up a conversation. Well that didn’t happen. But once I saw her at the drinking fountain and so I realized that I was thirsty, I decided to go get a drink. I politely waited for her to finish her drink hoping that she would make eye contact with me as she turned away from the fountain. When she finished drinking, she turned the opposite way of me, and for a second I thought “Oh well, worth a try”, but as she was turning away, she realized that I was behind her and looked at me. I muttered a “how’z it going” and smiled. And she muttered something similar and smiled back. So there you go. Not much can be said at this point except that I wasn’t completely shut down, which means there is hope. J I hope that I will see her again and that I would have the opportunity to actually talk to her and get to know her name and a little bit of her story.

Anyhow, when it comes to situations like this, it makes me realize how much I long to have a female companion. I definitely desire marriage, though thus far, I haven’t come anywhere close. And so I don’t understand what God is doing, and I get frustrated and perhaps even a little angry. Yet, I cannot fault God. I know that to do so would be foolish. God knows far better what’s best for me and what will bring him the most glory. The difficult part is trusting that. Especially when I see a HOT girl. J Because it seems like my singleness is being brought right up to my face. It’s like I’m hearing there’s a hot girl, and no you can’t be with her. Why? Maybe she’s out of my league? Maybe she’s not Christian? Maybe God wants to keep me single? Whatever the reason, I don’t want to accept it. I want to make something happen, but I haven’t done that yet. I am resolved to follow Christ, no matter how hard the road is. Perhaps there is something that God has planned for me in this season of singleness that would make sense out of my singleness. Right now, it doesn’t really make much sense to me. But though I remain single till the day I die, yet I will trust in him.

Preached by Pastor Caleb Mayberry @ Harambee Church on August 30^th, 2009

Intro

Upon finding out that the Ninevites were not going to be judged, we see Jonah’s deep hatred for the Ninevites is revealed when he complains to God.  In the final chapter we will see how Jonah’s and our anger is rooted in pride and self-righteousness and how this blinds us to our own dependency on grace and renders our hearts incapable of compassion.  Moreover we see that character of God is in stark contrast to the anger and pouting of Jonah.  We see that God actually desires grace and mercy over that of judgment and it is from his gracious character that God seeks to teach Jonah about compassion.

From the Head…

I want to make three key points from the text in Jonah Chapter 4. First, that man’s hate and anger is rooted in pride and self-righteousness.  Second, that our pride blinds us to our own dependency on grace and renders our hearts incapable of compassion.  And Third, that God’s grace is dispensed liberally to even the ones we hate.

1.     Our pride and self-righteousness is revealed in hatred and anger.

Verse 1 states that it displeased Jonah exceedingly, or it also has the idea that what God did was exceedingly evil.  In other words, Jonah felt God did not do the right thing.  Jonah believed in his anger that he was more advanced in his view of righteousness than God.  Is this not pride?  Is Jonah not thinking more highly of himself than he ought?    

Questions for reflection: Who are you angry at and why?  Are you better than them?  Are we quicker to anger than God? The Bible says that God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  How do you measure up?

2.     Our pride blinds us to our own dependency on grace and renders our hearts incapable of compassion

Pride, self-righteousness, and anger are a barrier to mission because it goes counter to the gospel.  Jonah has just been blatantly disobedient to a direct command that he heard from God.  Disobedience to God’s word was what got Adam and Eve kicked out of the garden and stained humanity with sin.  And so Jonah is just as guilty as Adam and any other sinner that has come after him.  But instead of Jonah perishing in the belly of the fish and being cast forever away from the presence of God, God graciously hears Jonah’s plea for mercy and gives him another chance.  However Jonah’s heart was still very wicked.  Though he demonstrated some measure of faith in obeying God’s command the second time, his heart was clearly not in alignment with God’s.  Jonah still felt that his people were superior to the Ninevites and that they deserved nothing but judgment.  Because of Jonah’s pride that fueled his hate and anger, he was unable to have compassion because somehow he believed that he deserved God’s grace where the Ninevites did not.  Once we start to pick and choose who deserves or doesn’t deserve God’s grace, then we’ve absolutely misunderstood the gospel, because the good news is that Christ died for the UN-deserving!  God gives grace to the UN-deserving.  This is the definition of grace, unmerited favor.  No one deserves it, yet God in his love generously bestows it.

3.     God’s grace is dispensed liberally to even those we hate

We see in this chapter a glimpse into God’s compassionate heart.  God pitied the City of Nineveh.  He called it a great city, for there were many people and many resources, but they were wasting it all in opposition to God.  And so God announced judgment upon them, but he did so in a way that demonstrated that his ultimate purpose was not judgment but of their salvation.  God cared about the Ninevites.  God had been personally working on the Ninevite people to prepare them for this time of salvation.  Even though they were evil.  Even though they were enemies of Israel, God’s chosen people.  Even though years later they would return to their evil ways.  God still loved them and he purposed to choose them at that time for salvation rather than judgment regardless of whether we think God is right in doing so. 

…to the Heart

But not only is God gracious to save those we hate, God is also gracious to expose us of our own hate and lack of compassion.  God not only was working on a plan to save 120,000 people from destruction, but he was also, in the mean time, working to reveal the hatred and sin in the heart of Jonah.  Why did God choose Jonah?  Was Jonah the only man that could do the job?  Not at all.  God could have sent anyone down there to call out against the city, but he chose Jonah.  Why?  Because God wanted more of Jonah’s heart.  God knew that Jonah was harboring some serious pride and hate that God wanted to deal with.  Hate and pride are very destructive.  And just as God did not desire the destruction of the Ninevites, he also didn’t want Jonah to be destroyed in his hatred and pride.  So God chose Jonah for the task, at least in part, as an exercise in sanctifying his heart.  God cares not only about obedience, but he cares about the attitude from which we obey.  God loves us enough to put us in situations that test where our hearts are at with God.  He did this with Jonah and he is doing it with us today.  What situations has God put you in to reveal sin in your heart?  Where have you been too quick to judge?  Who do you find difficult to forgive?  How is God showing you his compassion and to whom are you in turn expressing it to?  Our hearts matter to God, so we need to repent of our sinful attitudes and turn to Jesus and acknowledge that we are sinners in desperate need of God’s grace.  I think in our humility God will give us hearts to love even those we hate.

Wow…some folks are considering boycotting Whole Foods because the CEO stated that health care is not an intrinsic right.  Really?  Does that make any sense at all?  Whole Foods is about providing high quality organic and whole foods that benefit the general health and well-being of the community.  The CEO’s views about health care policy do not change the mission of Whole Foods.  Or do people spend their paycheck at Whole Foods to support social policies in addition to expensive food?

I love to hear the best communciators, the most fiery preachers,  and the most elogquent orators.  I’ve been amazed by the new knowledge that I’ve learned in the scriptures.   I’ve even often been convicted of sin through the many sermons that I’ve listened to.  And yet, if I’m honest with myself, I’d rather listen to sermons than go knock on the door of my neighbor to get to know him, because it’s much easier.  Listening to sermons takes no effort.  It’s a pleasurable way of passing the time.  It’s like my “Christian” movie of choice.  They’re interesting, funny, emotionally stirring, and yet just like movies, often forgettable, and almost never actionable.   Not that the sermons are bad at all, only my ears and heart are. 

I know there are things that God has gifted me in.  I want to teach, preach, and write more, and for me listening to sermons has been one of the ways in which I’d prefer to seek entertainment rather than exercise the gifts God has given me.  It’s so easy to justify listening to sermons or reading up on Christian topics because we think if we’re doing something related to Christianity, then we must be doing the will of God.  But we must examine our hearts to see if our desire is nothing more than the thirst for entertainment cloaked in acceptable Christian themes.  Does not God judge us according to our deeds?  Or will we receive our heavenly rewards on the basis of how many theologically sound sermons we listened to or watched?  Let us be honest and confess our sins of entertainment-driven procrastination.  Let us grab hold of Jesus’ promise to build his kingdom through his church and boldly assume the role that he’s given us in his body to accomplish the work that he’s prepared before hand for us to do.

Is the good life about achieving something?  Does the good life come when I’ve achieved a certain level of income?  Does the good life come when I’ve achieved a certain level of popularity?  Or maybe the good life comes when I attain a certain amount of comfort in my life?  Or maybe the good life is when I’ve been able to reach an enlightened state of self-actualization and self-mastery? 

What constitutes the good life?  Everyone seems to want it.  But I’m not sure that many of us know how to get it.  Most people tend to think of the good life as something that you achieve or something that you get to.  The problem with this approach is that it will necessarily always fall short.  Firstly, experience tells us that we are not naturally as disciplined as we need to be to attain all that we would hope for.  And secondly, our thirst for achievement is never quenched.  We might say that we’ll be satisfied with place to stay, food to eat, clothes to wear, some good family and friends, and at little pain and drama as possible, but inevitably there remains this “one last thing” that we need to get in order to finally feel like we’ve made it.  Just a little more money, or a little more power, a little more notoriety, a little nicer house, or a better girlfriend.  We say, just that little more and I will be content.  But we know this to be false.  Experience tells us that by and large we have not been satisfied.  We know that the last car we bought did not give us lasting satisfaction, so what makes us think that the next shiny new car will be any different? 

Thus far, I’ve mentioned only primarily the material.  For some, they recognize clearly that the material can never fully satisfy and so the good life does not consist in the material.  And this, in my opinion, is a right judgment.  However, often the counter approach is self-mastery or self-actualization.  If I can just gain enough control over my passions and thinking and achieve an “enlightened” state, only then will I have the good life.  However, this thinking is also fraught with trouble, as what human being ever experienced complete self-mastery or self-actualization?  If our idea of the good life is based solely on reaching this spiritual nirvana of self-mastery or self-actualization, then we shall never have the good life, because we will always be discontent in our failure to achieve perfection.

So then if it’s not about the material or spiritual achievement, then what could the good life be about?  To answer the question, I must first say that there is an element of truth to the “achievement” approach.  The very idea of achievement implies that there is a “good” to be attained.  If there were no good to be attained, then there would be no point in trying to achieve anything.  So the fact that there is a good to be attained is important to understanding what the good life is.  Most people’s definition of good tends toward the direction of perfection, both materially and spiritually.  Materially in the sense that I have everything thing I need to have perfect happiness, pleasure, and comfort.  Spiritually in the sense that I am in perfect control of all my thoughts and actions and that I always act in accordance with what I think to be the right way to act or respond.  Attaining perfection is by and large what people are after, religious and non-religious.  Perfection is a good thing, and so we believe that the good life is about attaining those things.  The critical problem that this approach faces, which I mentioned briefly earlier is our inability to attain this.  And perhaps even more damning of this approach is the idea that even if it were possible to attain perfection, it still wouldn’t be satisfying.  And what good is a good life that’s not satisfying? 

The breakthrough occurs when one recognizes that the good life is not about achieving, but about receiving.  Good is rightly connected to perfection.  You cannot separate the good from perfection.  So we need someone outside of us to bridge the gap between us and perfection, lest we be completely separated from the good by our inability to attain perfection.  This someone outside of us is Jesus the Christ.  God sent his son Jesus to do what we could not do, namely achieve complete self-mastery and perfection.  And God in his grace allows us to receive the perfection (aka righteousness) by belief and trust in Him.   

But not only is our inability to attain perfection addressed, but our insatiability is also addressed in Jesus the Christ.  The reason is this: perfection by our own means can never fully satisfy, because we are not what is greatest and grand in the universe.  Though the good is inextricable from perfection, the good does not consist solely of perfection.  There is a quality or attribute of perfection that is needed in order to truly satisfy, namely divinity.  Divine perfection, which can only be found in God through Christ, is that which can truly satisfy.  We receive the righteousness and perfection that make up part of the good life, but moreover we receive the ability to glory in God as the author of perfection.  God is greatest and grandest in the universe, and our own perfection can never replace that.  Thus the good life cannot be attained, but must be received, for to attain is to glory in self, but to receive is to glory in the giver.  And what we receive is not just power and perfection, but a personal relationship with God, who is the ultimate good.  Self-mastery is ultimately self-defeating, because the best it could possibly do is achieve a humanly perfection, while there yet exists a divine perfection which remains unattainable.  Though we cannot become like God in the sense of possessing his exact divine perfection, we can become like God in the sense of rejoicing in all his perfect goodness.  And it is in this relationship of love and rejoicing in our Creator that we receive the good life. 

The past year and a half of work have been fairly stressful as I’ve had two back-to-back projects that have had some pretty tight deadlines with many moving parts.  What I’m beginning to realize is that perhaps God actually wants me to have a lot on my plate.  I’d rather not, but maybe this is a way that God is testing me, to see whose strength I will lean on.  As I prepare to go to bed, I don’t know how I will get the things done that I need to get done.  But I still have a job.  And thus far God has enabled me to get the key things done.  Yet it’s still difficult for me to trust that he will do it again.  Because this time it really is too much for me to handle.  And maybe that’s the point.  It is too much for me to handle.  That’s why I need to lean on God.  And so, I will aim to go to bed at a normal time, wake up early, and maximize the time I have tomorrow morning to finish what I need to finish for work, as the bulk of the afternoon will need to be used to address some family issues.

Apparently the number of professing Christians in the U.S. continues to decline.  The percentage of Americans who claim no religion at all has now risen to 15%.  It’s probably safe to assume that this number is even greater in larger urban populations outside the bible belt, like the greater Seattle area that I live in. 

Quite frankly, this news does not surprise me.  In general it seems that God is not really relevant to that many people in everyday life.  As a Christian involved in leadership at my church and as a person out in the corporate workforce there is a stark contrast between those two contexts.  The topic of God just doesn’t come up much at work.  You might say that this is expected because people are focusing on work.  But I don’t think that’s the case.  Plenty of other non-work related topics come up during the day and are discussed at varying lengths, but on the whole, religion is not touched upon that often.  This, I think is largely the result of a cultural norm that’s developed that declares religion as a taboo topic.  Religion is not meant to be publicly discussed, but to be minimized and kept to oneself.  Which is interesting, because even if I grant that religion is a personal thing, it does not then follow that we should discourage it’s public discourse.  Public discourse if full of discussion of “personal” items.  One need only look to the tabloids and entertainment shows on television.  People enjoy discussing things that are personal to ourselves or personal about other people.  We are persons after all!

But religion is put into another catogory.  Personal, and undiscussable.  Why?  I believe it’s because religions, at least some, make absolute truth claims that can impinge upon each others freedom.  Religion, and in particular, Christianity makes certain claims that just don’t sit well with today’s American.  By and large Americans today want to live life in the best way we see fit.  And the best way that we see fit is often at odds with what Christianity teaches.  And thus, there is a push back against religion and perhaps against Christianity in particular, because it cramps our style.  It restricts our freedom.  And so we have rationalized God out of any relevant discussions in our lives, for to let him in is too dangerous to the authority of our own self-rule.

So then how are believers in Christ to respond in these times?  Do we adhere to the cultural norms and shy away from bringing issues of faith into the public discourse?  Or is there a way that we can lovingly push back against the prevailing culture and seek to demonstrate the relevancy of faith in public discourse.  Ultimately if people aren’t thinking through these things, then God is dead to us.  If Christians are content to keep their faith “personal”, then what we’ll have is a dying church, a fading light and an increasing irrelevancy of God.    Scripture calls Christians the light of this world.  But I’m afraid many of us would rather remain underground for fear of what others might think of us.

The weight of the world’s sin was placed on the shoulders of Christ Jesus.  All the rape, all the murder, all the hate, all the greed, all the lust, all the fear, all the oppression, all the pride, all the selfishness, all of it’s weight was placed upon the back of Christ on the cross.  The shame, the guilt, and righteous judgment were all placed on Jesus.  But there was no deceit ever found in him.  Jesus didn’t have to bear my sin.  He chose to.  He chose to suffer unlike any other man to ever live in order that we might have life!  Jesus clearly is the hero of the story of humanity.  There are no other heroes in comparison to Christ.  What we are incapable of bearing, God has chosen to bear it for us, out of his great love for us.

Thank you Jesus,

-Caleb