March 2019 – BradRiley.Org

March 29, 2019

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

“Lord, where are you going?” Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now,

but you will follow later.”

John 13:36 NRSV

I know it’s a weak metaphor, but I love the Wizard of Oz. When Dorothy is told that to get home she needs to find the Wizard in Emerald City, and that the only way to find him is to follow the yellow brick road – I see a modern parallel to Jesus and his disciples.

In John 8:21 Jesus tells those who are questioning him, “Where I am going, you cannot follow”. However, in speaking to his disciples in John 13, on the last night before the cross, Jesus tells them that while they can’t follow him then, they will follow later. Then in chapter 14, Jesus tells them they know they way:

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” (emphasis added)

John 14:1-4 NKJV

Thomas then says in verse five what they were all thinking when he asked Jesus, “How can we know the way?” That’s a great question for each of us to ask this Lenten season. The Lenten spiritual practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving are all guides to help us find the way of Jesus.

‘And where I go you know, and the way you know.’

The way of Jesus is the way to eternal life. To use my earlier metaphor, it’s the yellow brick road that leads to all the answers we need to get home. After all, that is where Jesus was going – home to Heaven, and that’s where we want to go too.

Jesus is the way, the truth and the life (vs. 6). The cross is the way home. No one gets home, literally or spiritually without dying. For those who will follow Jesus, there awaits a cross at the end of our yellow brick road. Or, perhaps, we should say the cross it at the start of our yellow brick road. We must die to ourselves before we can even begin the journey home.

‘For those who will follow Jesus, there awaits a cross at the end of our yellow brick road.’

I like to contemplate the cross of Christ on each Friday of Lent. Jesus said His disciples could follow him – later, after He conquered death for them in His resurrection. So too, He conquers death for all who will believe and follow. What the cross turned to ash Jesus made beautiful. Are you following?

Shalom for a Holy Lent,

Pastor Brad

March 27, 2019

Beauty of the Ashes: Get Back In the Ring

Get Back in the Ring

And not only that, but we^* also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,

Romans 5:3

Muhammad Ali soaks up George Foreman's punches on the ropes in Zaire in the Rumble in the Jungle I have an autographed picture of Muhammed Ali in my office at home. No, I never actually met him, but my nephew Jason did. He lived near the legendary boxer in Michigan and saw him in a restaurant one night. Jason knew I was a huge fan when I was growing up, so he got it and surprised me.

A lot of my uncles couldn’t understand why I was so crazy about Ali. They couldn’t stand him. There was a lot of hype about boxing in those days. Ali’s personality drove the hype, for sure. They called him a bragger and a loud mouth, and they were right. He was both of those things. However, I would always respond to them in my youthful wisdom, “It’s not bragging if you can back it up”, and he always did. He was the most amazing boxer ever in my, and in many others’ opinions.

One of the things I remember Ali bragging about most was his ability to not get hit. In his inimitable way, he made up limericks about it to taunt his opponents before a fight. “I’m gonna float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Your hands can’t hit, what your eyes can’t see. Ali!”

Of course, we know Ali did get hit and he got hit a lot. In fact, his Parkinson’s disease was attributed in part to his many hits to the head. As a fighter, he fought longer than many others and in his later years he took some pretty hard beatings, but he never quit, no matter how tough the beatings got. In fact, he boasted in his beatings. Like when he took the beatings from George Foreman and called them his ‘Rope-a-Dope’ tactic in their ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ fight.

St. Paul said he boasted in his sufferings too. I know, it’s a stretch to compare Muhammed Ali and the Apostle Paul in the same analogy, but I wanted to get your attention. Boasting isn’t a good thing; it’s arrogant. However, scripture says it’s okay to boast in the Lord about what He is accomplishing in your life – especially in your sufferings. In fact, it really isn’t boasting at all, if you’re giving God the glory…it’s a testimony.

In his hymn, ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’ hymn writer Isaac Watts said, “Forbid it Lord that I should boast, save in the death of Christ my God.” No matter what our sufferings, Paul wants us to know that they will produce endurance in our lives, if we sacrifice them all to the God’s glory. He alone can sustain us through any amount of suffering. And what’s more, God builds our character through our sufferings ultimately leading us to recognize our hope for deliverance is in Him alone.

And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Romans 5:3-5

As you reach the midway point in your Lenten journey, stop and think about the fasting and self-denial you’ve offered to the Lord to this point. Hopefully, you’ve felt tempted but are staying strong in your resolve. Granted these are small things in the big sufferings of life, but we learn in small ways how to let God lead in big ways.

“…it really isn’t boasting at all, if you’re giving God the glory.”

The real purpose of Lent isn’t to punish ourselves and find new ways to suffer, but to grow closer to God in our dependence for everything, even the little things. Jesus said that real sustenance for life depends not on bread but on everything that comes from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4).

“…but we learn in small ways how to let God lead in big ways”

If you feel like you’ve failed in your fast don’t beat yourself up, give it to God. Sacrifice it to his cross and ask him for strength to do better. Get back in the ring and take a few more punches. Your suffering won’t be in vain. Remember, our God turns ashes into beauty.

Shalom for a Holy Lent,

Pastor Brad

March 22, 2019

The Beauty of the Ashes: Search Me O God

Search Me O God

O God, you know my foolishness,
and my faults are not hidden from you.

Psalm 69:6

abraham-lincoln-quotes There are many wise sayings attributed to Abraham Lincoln. One of the most common is this:

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

That’s true, but there’s one person you can’t fool, any of the time – Jesus Christ. By the very definition of being God, knows everything we’ve ever done, said or thought. Yet sometimes we act as if we can fool Jesus by not admitting our sinfulness to him. How foolish we are.

God knew everything we would ever do, say or think before the world was created, so why do we act like we can hide anything from Him? When we realize that Jesus Christ, our Creator God, loves us in spite of all our foolishness and sins, we can finally become who He created us to be.

Real joy comes from being who God made us to be. Yes, even with all our faults and failures. The Father doesn’t want us to pretend we’re perfect. He doesn’t want us to try and please Him in our own power, trying to be someone we can’t be on our own. He wants us to give Him all of ourselves; all our sins, all our foolishness, all our hurts, hang ups and bad habits, and then let Him remake us into the beauty of His image; the image He bestowed within humanity in creation. When we realize this, confession becomes something, we long for, not something from which we run and hide.

‘Real joy comes from being who God made us to be.’

One of the reasons I love the season of Lent is that it offers us time to concentrate on becoming who we were made to be. Through increased times of prayer and fasting we place ourselves under the light of God’s loving microscope. We ask him to search our hearts as it says in the Psalms…

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!

Psalm 139:23-24

On this second Friday of Lent, why not spend some time in confession. Ask the Lord to search you out, to show you all your foolish ways. Stop trying to fool the One who knows you better than you know yourself. Prayerfully read and meditate on Psalms 139 and 51. Allow the Holy Spirit to check your spirit, to lead you in confessing everything He shows you. Ask Him to burn away all the sin and shame He reveals to you, then watch as He brings beauty out of your ashes.

Shalom for a Holy Lent,

Pastor Brad

March 20, 2019

Beauty of the Ashes: Re-Presenting God

Re-presenting God

For, as it is written, ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.’

Romans 2:24

I wonder how often any of us think about how well we represent God to the world around us. I know I’m guilty of getting busy and just living my life of faith without really thinking about how God is perceived by others through me. Yet, that is exactly what St. Paul says was wrong with the Jewish leaders of his day.

The leaders of God’s people in Paul’s day were guilty of boasting about their relationship with God – they were after all, the ‘chosen’ people. Of all the people in the world, God chose the Jews for a relationship through which He would manifest Himself and the Messiah to the world. However, they missed the point of the relationship; it wasn’t just to save them, but everyone else too, that the world may know God through the holy lives of those who believe in Him.

If Lent is a season for an increase in prayer and fasting, and it is, then maybe we need to ask the question – to pray and fast for what? That we grow closer to God? Certainly. But to what end? St. John gives us the answer in what he heard Jesus pray on the last night before the cross.

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (emphasis added)

John 17:20-21 ESV

As Christians, we are not only to represent God to the world, but to ‘re-present’ Him by living as one in Him. The problem in our world isn’t much different than in St. Paul’s days. To many of the people of God are living faith for themselves and their own salvation and not that the world may know. When we, the church, lie, cheat and steal, or live in ways that mirror the culture around us, we’re not re-presenting God to them. In fact, we’re causing His Holy Name to be blasphemed, just as Paul said of the Jewish leaders.

“As Christians, we are not only to represent God to the world, but to ‘re-present’ Him by living as one in Him.”

As you journey through this Lenten season, take some time to examine your conscience during your times of fasting and praying. Are you trying to live a life that differs from the world? Are you trying to grow deeper in relationship with Jesus? Sure, it’s hard. Temptation is all around us. But as Jesus said in John 16:33, “But take heart, I have overcome the world!”

As you examine your life, if you see a lot of ashes from the many things you’ve done wrong…remember, God will bring beauty from the ashes.

“Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”

1 John 4:4

Shalom for a Holy Lent,

Pastor Brad

image credit: http://www.ccwired.org/sermons/re-presenting-god-part-3/

March 16, 2019

The Beauty of the Ashes: A Change of Position

Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee,

and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

Psalm 95:6

Repentance is a major theme of the season of Lent. One of the best ways for me to show Praying-on-Knees my repentance before God is to change my position. Yes, I mean literally change my position before Him. As we come to the first Friday of week one, the Psalmist reminds us of our proper place before the Lord – on our knees. It seems there are very few times in our modern world that we actually kneel down before the Lord God. Oh, for sure we have neat phrases like, “we’re never stronger than when we’re on our knees,” and “the only way to really rise up is to bow down,” but do we really believe it?

Lent offers us a chance to reset the position of our hearts before God, to remind ourselves that life really isn’t all about us and what happens to us. On Fridays, in remembrance of the day Jesus died, I like to spend some time on my knees contemplating the greatest act of love the world ever knew – the self-sacrifice of our God for love of His creation.

Lent offers us a chance to reset the position of our hearts before God

How can we possibly say thank you to our Father for such an incredible act of love? Well, the truth is we can’t ever fully thank God for his great sacrifice, but we can try. In fact, trying to thank God for His sending Christ to reconcile us to himself is really the heart of Lent. All our prayers, fasting, and works of mercy should be offered up as a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to the one who died for us.

I want to encourage you to spend some time on your knees physically this first weekend of Lent, if you can. I find that the more I involve my whole body in an act of worship and devotion, it becomes a more humbling experience and I hear my Father’s voice even better. My heart is drawn even more into the Father’s heart… “for He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture” …and as the psalmist continues, “Oh, that today we would hearken to His voice!” (Ps. 95:7-8)

“God had brought me to my knees and made me acknowledge my own nothingness, and out of that knowledge I had been reborn. I was no longer the centre of my life and therefore I could see God in everything.”

Bede Griffiths

This weekend, try listening for the Father’s voice from a new position, like on your knees. You might be surprised how much better you can hear.

Shalom for a Holy Lent,

Pastor Brad

March 13, 2019

The Beauty of the Ashes: Rainy Days and Mondays

Remember your word to your servant, because you have given me hope.

This is my comfort in my trouble, that your promise gives me life.

Psalm 119:49-50

“Hangin around, nothin to do but frown, rainy days and Mondays always get me down.” Back in 1971, Karen Carpenter sang these words to the top of the Pop Music charts. While I don’t know what she was feeling when she wrote those words, they sure connected with a lot of people, including me. In the lyrics to the song, she alludes to the fact that the feeling has come and gone before, and there’s no need to talk it out. Actually, I think we need to talk it out if we’re feeling the blues, and the first person we need to start talking it out with is God.

I guess everyone sings the Blues sometimes, but there’s a quality of life found in the Christian faith that transcends those rainy day blues. As I write this it’s raining outside. I have to confess, I love rainy days. Kinda crazy, I know, but I just like the way the rain smells fresh and the watered ground seems to come to life. That’s what God’s Word does for our souls; it’s like fresh rain on dry and thirsty land.

“That’s what God’s Word does for our souls;

it’s like fresh rain on dry and thirsty land.”

The Psalmist prays for God to remember his word to his servant. He knows that God speaks words of life and promise that bring hope and comfort. In fact, he says God’s words are life itself. Pretty cool isn’t it? The God who spoke creation into existence with His words of life, spoke words long ago in the scriptures that still bring life today as we read and remember them.

I always think of the season of Lent as a time of refreshing Spring showers from God, watering the garden of my soul. Gardens tend to get weeds in them after the long winter of neglect and so do our souls if we don’t tend them properly.

The beauty of the Christian life is that the Living God invites us into communion with the Himself. We don’t have to let our souls and spirits get dry and thirsty – we don’t have to get the blues, but if we do, we have the promises of God’s word to bring us hope and comfort.

Karen Carpenter also wrote in those lyrics that, “Funny, but it seems that it’s the only thing to do, run and find the one who loves me”. I hope she meant that the “one” was God, although she may have meant some one she was in love with or her brother Richard. However, like the psalmist, we can know that when rainy days or Mondays or anything starts to get us down we can run to God, the God who made us, who loves us, and who promises to bring beauty from ashes…

“…to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.”

Isaiah 61:3

Shalom for a Holy Lent,

Pastor Brad

March 8, 2019

Broken Bones

“…let the bones you have broken rejoice.” Psalm 51:8

I was walking backward into Tommy’s yard while reading the graffiti that was painted on the boxcars that sat on the train tracks beside his back yard. I don’t remember now what the graffiti said because what happened next…well, it was “lights out, Alice!” Tommy’s baseball bat landed squarely across my nose as I turned around to tell the boys of what I had just read on the graffiti.

I was in the second grade, about 7 years old. Some of the neighborhood gang was playing baseball in Tommy’s back yard, which when I think about it was not a very bright idea, considering if one of them ever really got a hold of the ball in a good hit it would probably have knocked out a neighbor’s window, or worse yet – a neighbor. Actually, that’s exactly what happened, only I was the neighbor who got knocked out.

The next thing I remembered was being picked up off the ground with an intense pain in my head and no breath in my lungs; it seemed to have been knocked clean out of me. I remember trying to gasp for breath and not getting any. I quickly turned and ran home (about one block away) and of course, my breath did return after a few huge gasps.

Once home, my mother quickly drove me to the hospital. I remember the extreme look of concern on her face. I’m sure like any mother, when she heard what happened she was afraid I’d have some kind of permanent brain damage from such a blow to the head.

The Doctor said it was a really clean break; the bone was broken perfectly on both sides. How about that? I’d been saved from a life of a crooked nose. If Tommy had hit the ball as squarely as he hit my nose, he would have definitely knocked out a window somewhere over the home run fence. All I could think of was how hard that bat hit me, and how hard Tommy must have swung it.

As we read Psalm 51 in our Ash Wednesday service the other night, I thought about my broken nose all those years ago when we came to verse eight; “…let the bones You have broken rejoice.” That’s the only bone I’ve ever broken, and technically I think the nose is mostly cartilage, not bone. The idea that we can rejoice in our broken bones, the brokenness of our lives, is a key to understanding the spirit of many Psalms, as well as life in general.

God allows brokenness to occur that we should be humbled by the fragile nature of our lives, and to realize that He is our salvation, the source of all healing – all good things. Verse eight starts out, “You shall make me hear joy and gladness…” As we begin this Lenten season with days of fasting and self-denial, I want to encourage you to see the joy God wants to show you in your brokenness. If we allow the trials of life to humble us, rather than harden us, we’ll be able to see God’s love and forgiveness mending our broken bones (lives).

Fridays and Wednesdays are traditional days of fasting for Christians in remembrance of Christ’s crucifixion. But for today, let your broken bones rejoice and be glad. Know that while God isn’t the cause of the brokenness in our lives, He loves us and wants to draw us closer through it all, if we let Him.

Shalom, for a Holy Lent,

Pastor Brad

March 7, 2019