"Not Tolerant, But Good" Exodus 35:6-7

The acceptance of toleration as the only valid religion has permeated our society so completely that we have developed an entire new style of language. It's no-fault language.

A factory in Vermont no longer fires people or even lays them off. Unneeded or unsatisfactory employees are given "Career change opportunities."

General Motors called a plant closing a "Volume-related production schedule adjustment."

Chrysler Motor Company called plant closings a "Career alternative enhancement program."

In many schools, children do not fail anymore, they "achieve a deficiency."

At some hospitals, patients never die. They simply experience, "negative patient-care outcome."

The idea behind this no-fault language is that since no opinion is actually wrong, we want to word things in such a way that nobody takes offense or ends up feeling badly about him or herself.

This has created a difficult environment for the church because despite what the culture teaches, tolerance is not very high on God's list of priorities. That sounds like an awful thing to say, but it is true.

Since the beginning of the last century, it has been considered enlightened to believe that there is no such thing as sin. After a hundred years of wrong thinking about the nature of sin and man, we have come to assume that when people do wrong, even when people do outright evil, that they have been victims of some circumstance outside of themselves. It is assumed that they have been the victims of poverty or too much sugar or bad education or even bad toilet training. It's assumed that people are basically good, so if they do wrong, it must be attributed to some outside factor.

With this social history, it really is not surprising that our non-Christian neighbors are stunned when we talk about sin. They are outraged when we say that abortion is wrong, that adultery and pornography and sexual relationships outside of marriage are immoral, that lying and cheating are unethical, that homosexuality violates God's law.

They immediately assume that if we believe in moral absolutes, if we believe in absolute truth, if we believe in sin, that we hate all the people we consider to be sinners. To the average person, the absence of tolerance simply means hatred. And since by definition to be a Christian means to accept God's law as absolute truth, we are intolerant and therefore we are hate-mongers. But nothing could be further from the truth.

The problem is that unspiritual people cannot understand the truth of God's Word, and so what we actually believe is misunderstood and misrepresented. We are pictured as cold, uncaring, bigoted, hatemongers, who restrict women's rights and bash gays and cram our version of morality down people's throats. We have even been compared to modern day Nazis.

But, I grew up in the church. The cultural stereotype of Christians does not match my experience. Most of the people I have associated with all of my life have been Christian people. And far and away, most of the Christian people I know are caring, compassionate, forgiving, loving, people. Certainly there are some that are not -but those "Christians" who are uncaring and unloving do not accurately reflect the character of God.

God is not especially tolerant, yet He is "compassionate and gracious..., slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin." (Exodus 35:6-7)

We, as followers of Jesus need to be the same as our Father...not especially tolerant...not calling evil good and good evil; yet, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, quick to love and forgive.

Unspiritual people will never understand us, but we need to represent Father accurately regardless of the world's understanding.

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"The Choice (part two)" Galatians 5:22-23, Galatians 6:7-8

If we want qualities like true joy and true love and true kindness and true goodness and true peace –if we want those kinds of qualities in our lives, then we’ve got to sow the right seed. We sow the right seed by choosing to walk in the Spirit instead of the flesh.

In Galatians chapter 6, Paul explained it like this: He said that whatever we sow, we will reap. To think otherwise is to mock God –but God can’t be mocked.

If we are sowing seeds that produce death and destruction, we shouldn’t be surprised when harvest time comes that we find ourselves reaping a harvest of death and destruction. But on the other hand, if we sow according to the Spirit, when harvest time comes we will reap spiritual fruit. The fruit of the Spirit that comes as a natural consequence of following the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). 

Understand that there are natural consequences for our choices. If we sow to the flesh, we will reap a natural (flesh) outcome –if we sow to the Spirit, there will be a spiritual outcome.

We now can choose to walk in the Spirit. We now can choose to sow good seed that produces the spiritual qualities we want and need in our lives.

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"The Choice (part one)" Galatians 5:16

We have a choice. I’m talking now to all of us who have already asked Jesus into our hearts and lives and have claimed Him as our Savior. We can follow God or follow our own path. But we can’t do both. We can do one or the other. And that’s good news.

There was a time when we had no choice –before we came to Jesus, we were slaves to sin –we didn’t have the choice to sin or not to sin, we only had the choice to sin –there was no other option. All have sinned and fallen short. We all were slaves to sin, doing whatever our own best thinking and the physical senses and our flesh demanded. 

But now, as Believers, Jesus has set us free from bondage to sin. We once had no choice –we were slaves to sin. Now, however, we have a choice. We can choose to sin –but we can also choose to not sin. We can now choose to obey God. That’s the part we could not do apart from Christ –but now we can.

Galatians 5:16 says,  ^"So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh."  We can choose to not sin because now, if we are in Christ, we have the Holy Spirit living in us. That’s what the Bible says.

Now the choice I have moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day, in every situation is this: will I listen to the Spirit who is in me speaking to my heart, prompting me, leading, guiding me, helping me to know wrong from right? Or will I listen to the Flesh –my own best thinking, the world’s best thinking, the stuff I perceive with my senses instead of my spirit. Will I trust God, or trust myself? This is the choice.

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Luke 2:7, John 1:14 "No Room" (part two)

And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.  (Luke 2:7)

 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (John 1:14)

This was clearly the most significant event in all of world history –God had become man. God’s plan for redemption and salvation had been put into action. Angels were amazed, but the humans were oblivious.

Christ, the Messiah, had come to Bethlehem, but Bethlehem didn’t even know it. These people who thronged the streets and hawked their wares and filled the inns –these people who had longed for and prayed for God to send the Messiah –these people missed the birth of God. 

They didn’t miss the advent of the Messiah because they were terrible people. Not at all –they were mostly good, devout Jewish people. These other people living in the village of Bethlehem didn’t miss the most important event in all of human history because they were hopelessly evil or wicked or cruel. They missed the birth of Jesus simply because they were too busy to notice.

That brings me to today. I wonder –do I really have to make the application? We sure are busy people aren’t we? We have much to do –don’t we? Here it is already the Christmas season. On top of our jobs we have chores to do, errands to run, places to go and people to see. And somehow we still have to find the time to trim the tree and hang up some decorations, and do some Christmas shopping –and, of course, we have parties to go to, and get-togethers, and pageants, and caroling. And then guests are going to be arriving for the holidays –or else we’ve got to get packed to go home ourselves. We are always busy people, but at Christmastime we are even busier than usual.

And just mentioning these things has gotten some of your minds racing, thinking of all the things that still need to be done around your house. But I want to encourage you to take a moment right now in the middle of this busy season to stop and think of how much love God has shown us through this baby that was born.

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Luke 2:7 "No Room"

And she gave birth to her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in strips of cloth, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.  Luke 2:7

We like to picture the manger scene as a nice sterile place with clean, fresh hay, and clean stalls with pretty little sheep and maybe a friendly cow or two. And that’s alright for our nativity sets we put out to symbolize this scene and remind us of the circumstance of Jesus’ birth –I mean, who wants a dirty, smelly barn sitting out on the coffee table? 

But let’s be realistic. Jesus was born in a real barn with real sheep and real cows and real goats and maybe chickens. Real animals living in real barns don’t stay pretty and clean for very long. 

Jesus was born in the midst of musty hay and sweaty animals and manure and mice and cobwebs, and his mother wrapped him carefully in some rags and laid him carefully in the feeding trough so that the cows wouldn’t accidentally trample him while she rested. 

This is how God entered the world –the King of all Creation, Almighty God became a tiny baby, born to a teenage girl in a barn behind the local inn.

I want to invite you to pause for a moment -in a sense, to pause before the manger and look at that baby and think about God’s extraordinary love. 

God loved the world so much that He sent His only Son that whoever believes on Him will not perish, but have everlasting life. This is love –not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 

This is love –God sent His Son. 

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God Became Man (part two)

A few years ago, it seems like everybody was wearing the little WWJD bracelets. What Would Jesus Do? On the one hand, that’s an ok approach to life –to ask ourselves in any given situation, What would Jesus do?

But, the only way we can really know what Jesus would do is by looking at what He actually did do. And, again, I want to say that I think there are enormous implications for our lives in the way Jesus lived His.

Jesus interacted with sinners all the time. He treated them with dignity and grace. So, how should we treat the neighbor next door with his live in girl-friend? Or the guy at work who is addicted to pornography? Or the mixed up kids with all kinds of garbage going on in their lives? How should we treat people who, in all honesty, are immoral?

How did Jesus treat the woman at the well who had sought intimacy in all the wrong places and had already failed at 5 marriages and was now living with a man who wasn’t her husband? How did Jesus Treat the woman caught in the very act of adultery? How did Jesus treat the woman with a bad reputation who inappropriately wept at His feet and tried to dry the ears away with her hair? He loved them. He forgave them. He restored them. He encouraged them to change their lives.

How did Jesus react when His friend Lazarus died and the sisters were grieving? He cried with them. How did Jesus treat the thieving little weasel, Zaccheus? He had lunch in his home with him. How did Jesus show His disciples the importance of serving each other? He washed their feet. What did Jesus do when the crowds yelled “Crucify Him -and the religious leaders lied about him, and the soldiers brutally tortured Him, and people sneered and mocked as His life’s blood drained away? He looked to heaven and said, “Father, forgive them, they don’t understand what they’re doing.”

All of these things, Jesus did, not as almighty God, not as Ruler, not as Creator, not as Lord of All –all of these things Jesus did, fully human. All of these things, and more, Jesus did to teach us and show us. Jesus died to forgive us –but He lived to show us how to live. And since this is why Jesus came, this is what Christmas is really all about.

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2 Corinthians 3:18 "Why God Became Man"

 When God became man –when Jesus was born –He had more in mind than simply providing forgiveness. If forgiveness was all that God wanted, He probably could have found an easier way than dying a brutal, painful death on the cross –He could have found an easier way than taking our sin and our shame and our guilt and our emotional and spiritual baggage onto and into himself. If our forgiveness was all God wanted, I think God would have done things differently.

When Jesus came, it was to provide salvation for mankind –but let’s not ever limit our view of salvation to having our sins forgiven. Our salvation lies in the relationship with God that was made possible when our sins were forgiven through the death and resurrection of Jesus –but Jesus did more than simply die for our sins and rise again from the dead –Jesus lived. 

He lived a real life. He was born. He lived here among us. He ate food like we eat. He slept when He was tired –and drank water when He was thirsty. He laughed at weddings and cried at funerals. Jesus lived here among us. That means something –there is a reason. God didn’t plan it out that way on a whim.

There is a sense in which Jesus came, not only to be our Savior, but also to be our teacher –our mentor. A good teacher, or a good mentor, not only tells his students what they need to know –a good teacher does whatever it takes to make his students understand. A good teacher shows his students.
Jesus lived a real life among real people. Some of those people, as you remember, loved Jesus a whole lot –others hated Him. Some showered gifts on Him while others plotted to take His life. Sometimes Jesus had plenty to eat –while other times He went hungry. Sometimes Jesus was well rested –at other times He was weary to the bone. If Jesus is our mentor, you see, this stuff all matters a whole lot.

If Jesus lived His life in some kind of secluded bubble –we still wouldn’t know how to act and behave and treat others. But Jesus lived a real life just like ours. So, we actually know how to live the life that God desires –Jesus modeled it –in real life.

  2 Corinthians 3:18   “And all of us have had the veil removed so that we can be mirrors that brightly reflect the glory of the Lord. And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him and reflect his glory even more.”

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